My Pirate Lover by Lexie Stewart Page A

him. There was little point in exploring the island. They’d seen it all from where they stood.
    “I’ll be honest with you, Josie,” said Lance. “If I must be marooned on this island, I’d rather be here with you than Joe.”
    “Oh, yeah,” agreed Josephine brightly, “this is my ideal romantic getaway. We can starve together, dehydrate together, get cabin fever together…”
    Her sarcasm was wasted on Lance. He was staring at her.
    “Why did you do it, Josie?” he asked quietly.
    “To get the Lightning Circle and save Katie, of course,” replied Josephine, but in her heart of hearts, she knew that wasn’t the only reason.
    #
    “There’s so much I want to tell you,” said Lance.
    “Then you’d better tell me now,” said Josephine, eyeing the pitiful raft he’d made. It was hardly a raft at all, just three logs tied together and a crooked branch for an oar.
    Lance chuckled but his eyes remained grim.
    Such a nice chuckle. Such nice eyes. Josephine tried to swallow the lump in her throat.
    “Josephine, I don’t want you to think badly of me, so I’m going to tell you something that might surprise you. I have no proof but my word.” Lance took a deep breath to make his announcement but Josephine spoke first.
    “You’re going to destroy the Lightning Circles.”
    Lance stared at her. “How did you know?”
    “Curry told me. You’re going to destroy them so people like Bloody can’t plunder the future for weapons.“ Josephine smiled. “And you were pretending to be a big, bad pirate!”
    Lance touched her smile with his fingers, his sea-grey eyes deep with unspoken emotion.
    “I will come back for you, lass,” he said. “I promise.”
    “That’s what I said to Katie,” said Josephine, her smile fading.
    “And you’ll hold true to that promise just as I’ll hold true to mine.”
    Josephine shook her head.
    “Come now, me bonny lass!” said Lance. “I’ve gotton out of worse trouble than this!”
    “Really?”
    “Well…no, actually. But you said it yourself, there’s a first time for everything.”
    Lance went to his raft, stopped, turned around and ran back.
    “Can I kiss you?” he said. “I don’t want to die, never having kissed you.”
    Josephine smiled but when Lance moved in on her she put her fingers to his lips.
    “You can kiss me the next time you see me.”
    Denied the honour of her lips, Lance kissed her fingers instead.
    “Till we meet again, lass” he said and then got on his raft and rowed away.
    Lance and Josephine waved to each other until their arms grew tired, then they just stared until they vanished from sight.
    #
    Josephine had nothing to do. No books, no T.V and no one for company, just her own troubled thoughts.
    She gathered wood for the fire Lance had built for her then sat watching her toes wriggling in the sand.
    When a starless night fell, she thought that the world had been erased.
    She fretted over the fire, believing that if it went out, that would mean Lance was dead. She stayed up half the night feeding it wood and occasionally talking to it.
    When she finally fell asleep, she dreamt that Captain Bloody was holding a feast in her childhood home. There were ten roasted pigs on the table, each with an apple in its mouth.
    One of the pigs had Lance’s face. Another one had her own face.
    She had a second dream in which she was running across the island chased by snakes.
    There were monkeys in the trees and one of them looked like Martin Slackson. He threw coconuts at her and called her a silly girl.
    Morning came, the fire was still burning and Josephine was hungry. She fashioned a spear from a branch and after spearing the sharpened end into the sand a few times for practice she waded out into the water and waited for a fish to swim past.
    She was so focused on her task that her first reaction to the boat was to feel annoyed at the distraction. Her second reaction was to throw down the spear and wave her arms around while yelling, “Here I