The Islanders Read Online Free PDF Page A

getting chilly. Some high cirrus clouds to the south. You want the barometer reading?”
    â€œCirrus? Are you sure they’re cirrus clouds?” Nina asked mockingly.
    Claire pulled her hands up into the loose sleeves of her baggy sweater and decided to let the remark pass. “So, where have you been?”
    â€œI was supposed to be reading some novel to your boyfriend, Benjamin.”
    â€œDon’t call him my boyfriend. We just go out sometimes. What do you mean supposed to be reading?”
    Nina gave her a meaningful look. “Reality suddenly got more interesting than fiction.”
    Claire inhaled the crisp air deeply. “Are you going to explain, or am I supposed to guess?”
    â€œThink good old days.”
    Claire sighed.
    â€œNow think bad old days,” Nina said.
    â€œNina, you just keep getting stranger. Or are you just getting more droll?”
    â€œBoth. Thanks. That’s a cool thing to say.” Nina met her gaze for just a second. “Lucas is back.”
    Claire felt her heart miss several beats. She reached for the nearest railing and gripped it tightly. “Are you sure?”
    â€œZoey and Jake said it was him, up at his mom and dad’s house, hanging around the deck, looking Lucas-like.”
    â€œJake saw him?” Claire asked sharply. “What did he do?”
    â€œNothing. Yet,” Nina said. “But he was definitely wired. It was a very tense scene. Jake took off right after I showed up. Zoey was halfway thinking we should go and warn Lucas. Benjamin talked her out of it, though. He said he didn’t think Jake would really do anything.”
    â€œWarn Lucas?” Claire bit her lip. “I don’t waste a lot of sympathy on Lucas Cabral.”
    â€œHe used to be your one true love,” Nina said provocatively.
    â€œThat was a long time ago.”
    â€œTwo years.”
    â€œI didn’t think he’d have the nerve to come back to the island,” Claire said. She looked toward the south, toward the few wan lights at the base of the ridge. One of those lights must be the Cabral house. One of those lights might be his window. He might be gazing out at this very moment, searching for her with his coolly penetrating gaze. She turned away.
    Nina shrugged as well as she could while still gripping the ladder. “Where else is he going to go? I guess he’s done his time, as they say. Paid his dues. Made his amends to society.”
    Claire rubbed her right wrist. A bump on the head and a broken wrist, that’s all she’d gotten from Lucas Cabral. The wrist still ached when the weather grew cold and damp.
    Wade McRoyan, Jake’s brother, had died.
    Claire shivered, suddenly penetrated by the cool breeze. Something deep inside her had awakened at the mention of Lucas’s name. Anger, an urgent, demanding anger. And fear? No. Why should she be afraid?
    â€œI wonder if he’ll be going to school,” Nina said.
    â€œI doubt he’ll stay on the island for long,” Claire replied. “I doubt he’ll feel very welcome here.”
    Â 
Claire Geiger
    I had just turned fifteen. Sweet fifteen? Maybe. I don’t know if I was ever sweet anything. I guess I wouldn’t have been in the car if I were all that sweet.
    And I was in the car, that much I can be sure of. And I guess I’d been drinking, too, just like Wade and Lucas. Beer that Wade had somehow gotten hold of. We had driven down Coast Road, past the end of the paved part onto the rutted dirt road that winds back into the woods, with trees closing in all around and deer leaping into our headlights to stare.
    We were feeling pretty cool. Lucas and I grabbed a couple of the beers and went deeper into the woods, intoxicated as much by each other as by the alcohol. We were massively in love. I’d have done anything for him, and I believe he’d have died for me if I’d asked him.
    Wade stayed by the car, kicking back and