Page 24 of Dauntless

“Something like that, yeah.”

A note in his voice caught my attention.“You don’t sound so sure.”

“No, I wasn’t, for a while.”His arms tightened around me for a moment.“But I think I’m getting there now.”

I brushed my fingertips against his knuckles and waited for him to tell me more.

He let out a soft breath that ruffled the hair beside my ear.“When I was at uni, I thought for a while that maybe I wouldn’t come back here.Now that I’m back, I know it was the right choice, that I’d never feel as at home anywhere else.But when you’re in your early twenties and suddenly surrounded by clubs and nightlife and parties and people who introduce you to new worlds and new ideas, well, life on Dauntless is a hard sell even with views like this.”

“Why’d you come back?”

He was silent for long enough that I knew the story wasn’t going to be a light one.He drew a breath and exhaled slowly.“My dad died.”

I gripped his forearms.“I’m sorry.”

He hummed.“He was the skipper of a fishing boat that went down in a storm.He drowned, and so did two of his crew.It was the school holidays.I wasn’t here, but my little sister Amy was.I came back for her.I think I had some sort of crazy idea that I could take her back to the mainland with me, somehow juggle a fifteen-year-old kid and uni, but of course that never would have worked.And Dauntless is home.I don’t regret staying.”

“Because it’s beautiful here and you have saltwater in your veins.”

He pressed a kiss to the side of my head.“Yeah.”

Justyeah, as though it was the simplest thing in the world and there was nothing that could shake it.Joe was as stalwart as the lighthouse he looked after, standing tall and solid and strong through every storm.He was a fixed point in a world that spun too fast.Dauntlesswas.Not much had changed here in the past two centuries, and there was something comforting about that, even for an outsider like me.I wondered what it would feel like to have that solid, unchangeable sense of home, that internal compass always pointing steadily north.I’d spent enough time on Dauntless to know that it was a lot of things—frustrating, impossible, ridiculous, even dangerous—but, if the incident with the chickens had showed me anything, it was that the one thing everyone here shared was a sense of community.And there weren’t too many places like that over on the mainland anymore—at least not in the cities.The day I’d broken up with Kyle, I’d been sitting in the gutter with all my stuff, tears streaming down my face because I was a mess, waiting for Dad to drive down from Maitland and collect me, and not a single person had noticed me.Well, apart from the woman who’d stood on my hand, and she’d just told me to get out of her fucking way.Nobody had given a shit about my broken heart, but here?Here people still cared about each other.I wished that the rest of us hadn’t forgotten how to do that.

Dauntless was something special, and so was the guy with his arms wrapped around me.

We watched the ocean together as the night crept slowly on towards dawn.

Chapter 7

RED JOE

On Saturday, I left Eddie sleeping while I did my morning rounds.I climbed to the lantern room and stepped out onto the catwalk.Today was cold but no worse than yesterday.The bite of winter was in the air, but it was a long way from the bitter cold that would settle over the island in another few weeks.It didn’t snow on Dauntless, but winter often brought frosts that glazed the windows and cracked like glass underfoot.

Out on the horizon, a freighter passed.Closer to the island, a fishing boat rounded the point.I recognised the silhouette against the dawn light—John Corporal’s boat.

I climbed down the winding stairs again, whistling for Hiccup when I reached the yard, and headed back to the cottage.

The chill called for porridge for breakfast, so I rummaged in the pantry for the rolled oats.

Hiccup nosed her way out the kitchen door, barking.A few moments later she returned, followed by Young Harry Barnes.Young Harry Barnes, the biggest gossip on the island, was a barrel-shaped man in his sixties, with ruddy cheeks and a bushy white beard that made him look like a more weathered version of Santa.

“Morning, Red Joe,” he said, stepping inside the kitchen and setting a canvas bag on the table.“Not too early for you, is it?”

“Not at all,” I said.

Young Harry took a carton of eggs from his canvas bag.“I came by Katrina Finch’s house, and she sent me up with these.That’s a dozen this week, since I told her you’ve a guest.”

“Thank you.”I tugged open the drawer under the bench, where I kept a tin for the egg money.Dug around and pulled out a five dollar note.

Young Harry tucked the note into the pocket of his baggy pants.“Well, I’ll see she gets it.I’m no delivery boy though, Red Joe.I’m here for my pills.”

“Right, of course.”I took the porridge off the stovetop before it boiled over.“Just a second.”

The medical chest wasn’t just for emergencies.I was also the island’s de facto pharmacist.It wasn’t practical for the island’s residents to travel to the mainland every time they needed a regular prescription filled, so their prescriptions were authorised by the doctors at the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and I was given the authority to dispense them.Short Clarry was pushing to open the island up to tourists and to outside businesses too.If anything ever came of it, I hoped we’d get a doctor, or at least a medical clinic staffed by a registered nurse.

I thumbed through the keys at my belt until I found the one for the medical chest.I opened it and saw Henry Jessup’s plastic-wrapped diary still sitting on top.I set it aside and pulled out the logbook.Then I checked Young Harry’s prescription—antibiotics—and took the pills from the chest.I checked again that the name of the drug and the number on the side matched the entry in the logbook, and had Young Harry sign the logbook with me.

Young Harry tucked the packet into his pants.

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