Stranded! by Pepper Pace Page A

was afraid to.

"Oceans-"

She looked at him. "We shouldn't have done that." He stopped walking at the water's edge and watched her as she immersed herself to her waist. He could see her reaching between her legs, washing away any evidence of his semen. Oceans kept at it, dipping her fingers into her sore canal where they continually scooped away the slick fluid. She glanced over at Marshall knowing that she had made him feel guilty, and that had not been her intent. It hadn't been him. She should have known that it would lead to this. He was a man and he was a good one. Yet, it was up to her to set the boundaries of what would happen within her body. Damnit...

After a long time, she finally walked back to the beach. Marshall hesitantly placed his arm around her shoulder and together they headed back to camp.

***

Things were more tense than they had ever been between them. That night, instead of meeting in front of the fire on the beach, Oceans climbed into her repaired hammock and fell into a restless sleep. Sleep for Marshall did not come as easy. He had violated an unspoken promise to her.

The next morning while they ate their simple breakfast of leftover bammie spread with mashed fruit, Marshall cleared his throat. Oceans tensed. She didn't want to talk about it, argue, or disagree. She just wanted to wait. He clamped his mouth closed, seeing her reaction and quickly finished his meal, then he went about repairing the lobster trap. Oceans looked over at his back as he hunched over his work.

Marshall wove the pieces of vine through the base that Oceans had carefully created. It normally collected enough small fish to be used as bait in order to attract more lobsters—well as long as the struggling lobsters didn't destroy the trap. He sighed forlornly. He missed his best friend...worse is that he couldn't stand not knowing if she hated him. Then he felt her hands on his back, gliding along the sun bronzed flesh. He shivered at her touch and squinted up at her.

Oceans sat down beside him. "I'm not angry with you. I'm just scared." He nodded. She was scared because of something he'd caused.

"When is your period due?"

"In a few days."

His stomach dropped. He had paid attention in health class, and had needed to know these things due to 'close calls' that he had avoided in the past—Marshall understood that a woman could only get pregnant during ovulation. Ovulation is what happened right before a woman's period. Days, she had said. He gathered her in his arms and didn't make false promises. She needed not to be pregnant. He needed for her to trust him again.

Ocean's period did not come.

Weeks later Marshall was leaning against the fallen log which amounted to their second home. It is where they ate their meals, where they'd made love, where they relaxed. Now he watched her with reverence. She was poking at the fire with a long stick in deep thought. They both were. She was carrying his baby. That made this woman his world. The three of them were the sun, the moon and the stars and there was nothing else in the universe but that.

She looked at him and hid a grimace. She could see the look of acceptance on his face. He already saw a baby in their future. She knew that there wouldn't be. With a sigh she went over to him and lay against his strong body. Marshall's arm went around her protectively.

"Oceans, by your calculations you're three weeks late. Have you ever been this late before?" He was staring down at her as she lay cuddled in his arms and she was staring at the fire. It was dusk and they didn't need the warmth, but they took great strides to keep at least the embers burning.

She shook her head slowly. "I've been late but never like this, a few days is normal, but for me, not more than a week." Even the first month that she'd had a cycle on the Island hadn't been this late, and that had been after a traumatic event.

"I'm sorry." He said for what seemed like the hundredth time. And for the hundredth time