Adrift Read online

  Adrift

  A Serendipity Adventure Romance

  by

  Anna Lowe

  (Book 4)

  Adrift

  Copyright 2016 by Anna Lowe

  [email protected]

  Editing by Lisa A. Hollett

  Cover art by KoBus Designs

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental.

  A heartfelt thanks to star beta readers Beth, Kaila, and Rochelle for their valuable feedback and support!

  Serendipity Adventure Romances

  Off the Charts (the Prequel)

  Uncharted (Book 1)

  Entangled (Book 2)

  Windswept (Book 3)

  Adrift (Book 4)

  Travel Romance

  Island Fantasies

  Veiled Fantasies

  visit www.annalowebooks.com

  Free books

  Get your free e-books now!

  Sign up for my newsletter at annalowebooks.com to get three free books!

  Desert Wolf: Friend or Foe (Book 1.1 in the Twin Moon Ranch series)

  Off the Charts (the prequel to the Serendipity Adventure series)

  Perfection (the prequel to the Blue Moon Saloon series)

  Contents

  Serendipity Adventure Romances

  Free books

  Adrift

  On location in Grenada

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  A note from the author

  Sneak Peek: Island Fantasies

  Sneak Peek II

  Free books

  Other books by Anna Lowe

  Adrift

  Meredith Whitman isn’t in the Caribbean looking for trouble, especially not in the form of the Russian Mafia. All she wants is to contemplate enough fiery sunsets to forget the tragedies of her past. Still, trouble is what she gets — along with a second chance at true love.

  Toussaint “Tuss” Anderson is a man on a mission that doesn’t exactly involve rescuing damsels in distress. But when bullets start to fly, he finds himself face to face with the one woman he can’t get out of his mind. Now he’s in the line of fire, too, and pitted against a ruthless foe. Can he outfox a deadly criminal? And can he do it without sacrificing his life – or his love-struck heart?

  On location in Grenada

  Adrift is set on Grenada, a small island in the southern Caribbean known for its spices and potent rum. Being just outside the hurricane belt, this beautiful island is a congregation point for sailors from all over the world. Most come to relax between sailing seasons or to work on their boats in the company of good friends. That’s what Meredith Whitman expected when she set sail for the Spice Island – although relaxation is not exactly what she gets. Not until the end of her adventure, at least. Read on!

  Chapter One

  Before we start... Be sure to sign up for my newsletter – you’ll get three free stories right away, and you’ll be the first to hear about new releases, special deals, and exclusive bonus content.

  * * *

  It was a picture-perfect tropical morning, and a fresh Caribbean breeze blew through the open windows of the taxivan, keeping Meredith cool. Reggae music played from the speakers, and every passenger bounced his or her head merrily with the tune. Low-hanging vines slapped the windshield then scratched over the roof of the van, and the faint scent of nutmeg tickled her nose.

  “Don’t worry. Be happy.” The driver winked at her in the rearview mirror.

  Meredith grinned back. She’d barely been in Grenada a week and she already loved the place. Just driving the winding roads of this island was an adventure, especially after all the time she’d spent at sea. And a morning excursion into town was just what she needed to take her mind off being alone.

  “Grenada, the Spice Island.” A man in the row behind her leaned over the seat back and spoke much too close to her ear. His breath was garlicky; his accent, French.

  She leaned away while nodding politely. Of course she knew where she was. She’d spent days charting her sailboat’s progress toward this island in the southern Caribbean. After nine long days from Bonaire, hard on the wind, she’d finally made her first Caribbean landfall.

  “Beautiful, is it not?” the Frenchman said.

  One of those questions she never knew how to answer. Yes? No? Not?

  “Beautiful,” she murmured then did a double take. It was the same guy who’d hit on her — ceaselessly, obnoxiously — at a sailor’s potluck a few nights ago. One of those guys who boasted about himself for half an hour, asked exactly one question about her, and boomeranged right back to talking about himself.

  She faced forward again. Maybe he’d get the hint she wasn’t interested.

  Or maybe not. The Frenchman came closer still, making her seat creak under his weight.

  “The island is even more beautiful from the air. I am a pilot, you see.”

  He paused, giving her ample time to gush in praise and wonder. Had he already forgotten they’d met? Okay, he had been fairly drunk at the time. But really, was she going to have to listen to all his pickup lines again?

  She craned her neck for a last peek at Serendipity, suddenly wishing she’d stayed aboard her sailboat today. Wishing she had the balls to shoot back her own replies.

  He might be a pilot, but she was a sailor, and she’d come a damn long way in that little boat. Maybe not as far as her cousins Seth and Tobin, who’d sailed their grandfather’s boat all the way from New England to the Caribbean, but still. She’d never tried anything quite as daring before. Four hundred miles against the wind from Bonaire to Grenada was a feat to be proud of, especially in a thirty-two-foot boat.

  She caught one last glance of her floating home bobbing quietly at anchor before the thick foliage hid it from view. A view that filled her with pride and a tiny bit of trepidation because she’d sailed those four hundred miles with her sister and her sister’s boyfriend. The next four hundred, she’d be sailing alone since Mia and Ryan had headed back to their jobs in the US. Meredith had another couple of months playing beach bum in the Caribbean before going back to her regular job. Which would have been absolutely perfect if she had someone to share the time with. Someone like the man she’d met back on Bonaire. He’d been not only intriguing but polite and smart and gorgeous, too, yet modest at the same time. Oh, and funny. Insightful. As good at listening as he was at talking.

  In other words, totally unlike the man hitting on her now.

  “I am Pierre. A pilot for the French Coast Guard.”

  “Hi, Pierre,” she said, leaving the rest unsaid. I’m a sailor who’d really like to be left alone.

  She really ought to develop some better brush-off lines now that she didn’t have the buffer of her sister’s hunky boyfriend to chase sharks like Pierre away. She could picture it now — Ryan scowling in warning, all alpha male, while her sister leaned in to put Pierre in his place.

  Nice that you’re a pilot. But, guess what? My sister here is a doctor. She saves lives.

  Proud as she was of her profession, though, Meredith knew she didn’t fit the stereotype.

  A doctor? Funny, I had you pegged as a social worker. That’s what one sailor had recently said.

  Or a kindergarten teacher. She heard that a lot, to
o.

  I kind of pictured you as a gardener, a neighbor had once told her.

  No, she wasn’t the arrogant ER type. And yes, she memorized every patient’s name — and the names of all the staff she worked with, from anesthesiologists to X-ray technicians and the janitors who kept the ward clean. Everyone deserved her respect. Every last one.

  Somehow, she doubted she could explain that to Pierre.

  “This island looks so peaceful, so innocent,” the Frenchman went on. Then he dropped his voice to a grittier tone. “Beneath the surface, however, is a world of drugs. Smuggling. Intrigue.”

  Meredith rolled her eyes. Grenada had the same problems as most Caribbean islands, but it had its charms, too. Why dwell on the shady side as long as she steered clear of it? She’d seen enough of the dark side of the drug trade back in New York, where half the patients in her trauma ward came in with gunshots or overdoses. That was one reason for her Caribbean sojourn: to escape all that. To take stock. Maybe chart a new course for the future, too. As a doctor, she could find a job just about anywhere. She could look for a quiet country clinic in Vermont, for example, or a joint practice somewhere out west.

  The problem was narrowing it all down. Shaking off the feeling of being rudderless and adrift she’d had for years, ever since—

  She closed her eyes. Look to the future, not the past.

  “That is why we are here, to combat such crimes.” Pierre patted his own chest.

  That part of his introduction, she hadn’t heard before.

  “We? Who?” she asked, happy to distract herself from her own thoughts.

  “The French Coast Guard in Martinique has established a new partnership with the government of Grenada. We have based a branch of our drug-detection operations here.”

  “So you were the plane that buzzed us when we sailed in a week ago?” The asshole who buzzed Serendipity, she’d nearly said. It hadn’t been Serendipity’s first sighting of a drug-detection plane, but it was the closest. The plane had flown so low, she’d yelled, thinking it might clip the mast.

  Pierre tilted his head modestly. “It could have been. So you are a sailor? What is your name?”

  Wow. He really didn’t remember meeting her. Was she really that forgettable?

  “Meredith.” She scratched her ear and checked her watch.

  “Meredith,” he echoed, giving her name a French intonation. “It means of the sea… Meredith of the sea.”

  Actually, it was Welsh and meant great lord, but she doubted Pierre cared. He was already back to his favorite subject — himself.

  “Every day we fly a circuit of the island, and then conduct a grid-by-grid patrol. The moment we see suspicious activity, we have license to intervene.” He said the words with a license-to-kill intonation while puffing out his chest.

  Pierre made a chopping motion and went on — and on and on. The driver gave Meredith a sympathetic glance in the rearview mirror and turned the radio up to a dull roar. The man shook his head, making his long dreadlocks bounce, and sang, “Don’t worry. Be happy.”

  Meredith hummed the tune while focusing on scenery that was so much more interesting than Pierre’s soliloquy. Barefoot children waved from the porch of a cinderblock home. An old man walked bent under thick stalks of sugarcane, and brilliantly colored birds flitted in and out of the thick forest barely held back by the road. Grenada was so different from the low, scruffy landscape of Bonaire. On this tall, tangled island, lush greens turned to dreamy mountain blues whenever the view opened to a valley running up from the coast. Views Meredith wished she could share with someone, but she had no one. Not the kind of someone she wished for, at least.

  The pilot went on about himself, the reggae tunes rolled cheerily along, and the van bounced around several more turns before cruising into Grenada’s capital, St. George’s. The driver pulled into an open square, and everyone piled out.

  “Going to the market?” Pierre asked.

  “Um…uh…” Meredith hid her shopping list and scratched her head for some excuse. “No, the post office,” she blurted. “But I think they’re going to the market.” She pointed to two blond backpackers studying a map.

  Pierre’s eyes widened, and he rushed their way, replaying his lecture to his new audience. “Grenada, the Spice Island…”

  Meredith scurried away. She really did make a detour to the post office, sending the letter she’d shed tears over last night. The same letter she wrote every year, to the same person, and in the same vein.

  Dear Mrs. Santos…

  Of course, she’d cried. How could she not? But the thing was, the tears didn’t well from as deep a place in her soul as they used to. Part of her would always grieve for the man she’d once loved, but her heart was ready to move on.

  One of these days, Mia had commented, you’ll finally let Marco’s ghost go.

  Meredith bit her lip. The truth was, she had. She’d been working on it for years, and something her grandfather said before he died helped her make the final step.

  Life can be beautiful, sweetheart. Make sure you let that joy in.

  She was ready. So, so ready to live and love. But damn, agreeing with that sentiment and living it were two entirely different things. She was badly out of practice, it seemed.

  She pinched her lips together as she slid the letter into the mailbox, then hurried down the street. The sun was shining, the sky a startlingly clear blue, and the temperature just right. She really was in the Caribbean, living the adventure of her life. That was a good start, right?

  Okay, so it would all hit her again in another week. The twelfth anniversary of the worst day in her life was drawing nearer, and she already knew no amount of Caribbean sunshine or good cheer would chase away the clouds on that particular horizon. But she wasn’t going to spend the whole week moping or working herself to the bone just to take her mind off the slowly approaching date. It would come and go like it always did, and she’d be fine. She was going to enjoy herself, damn it. Live life to the fullest and appreciate each and every day.

  She gave her shopping list a resolute snap and headed for the harborside market. Tilting her head to the sun as she walked, she forced herself to hum a Bob Marley tune.

  Every little thing gonna be all right…

  Even before she turned the last corner, the rich scents and sounds of the market enveloped her.

  “Bananas!”

  “Plantains!”

  “Pineapple!”

  “Cinnamon!”

  Vendors shouted advertisements for their wares, but the goods practically sold themselves with their sweet, fresh scents. The colors shouted out, too, and Meredith reached for her camera to snap a few shots of the bustling scene. A toothless old woman, wrinkled by the tropical sun, piled oranges onto a scale. A tall man rolled a wheelbarrow full of tubers, and the sweat on his dark skin glistened under the noon sun. Sunlight danced off the rippling water in the harbor, and the red roofs of the colonial port town led her eye up to the stone fort protecting it. The only thing giving the era away was the jaunty tune playing from speakers overhead and an out-of-place Mercedes parked on the far side of the marketplace.

  “Beautiful,” she whispered, taking it all in.

  “The best melon, the best guava, the best oranges right here,” a man called, beckoning her.

  Twenty minutes later, she’d filled her bag with “the best” bananas from one vendor, “the best” sugar from another, and “the best” guavas from a third. Shopping took longer that way, but she had time, and everyone could profit a little from her business.

  She picked up a pomegranate at another stall, ignoring the squeal of tires behind her. Let the tourists rush. She had time.

  “The best pomegranate,” the vendor assured her. “Best price, too—”

  A scream pierced the air, and they both wheeled around.

  “Stop! Stop!” a man yelled.

  “Watch out!” Someone waved frantically at a car that hurtled closer.

  The rear
window of the car rolled down, and a long metal tube jutted out. Meredith froze.

  A rifle. Holy shit, a rifle.

  Her feet seemed to have sprouted roots, because she couldn’t do anything but gape.

  Rat-a-tat-tat! The rifle opened fire, and the whole marketplace erupted into screams.

  Rat-a-tat-tat! it blazed, and the sound tore through her ears.

  The car swung into a turn, and the muzzle of the rifle pointed directly at her.

  “Get down!” someone shouted.

  Her jaw swung open, but her limbs refused to move.

  “Get down!” a man yelled as bullets tore through the air. One pinged off a stone column. The next whistled by her ear.

  “Wha—” Meredith went sprawling as someone tackled her to the ground. “Ow!” Her shoulder smashed into cobblestones.

  “Stay down!” the man barked, pinning her to the ground as bullets whizzed an inch above her head.

  She couldn’t see anything other than the overturned table of fruit, but she could hear the car tires squeal on. Someone a few steps away grunted and fell.

  “Alexei!” a woman screamed.

  A cloud of cinnamon hung in the air as another stall flipped in the mayhem, but the smell of burning rubber was stronger still.

  “Police! Call the police,” someone yelled as the roar of the car engine receded down the road.

  The panicked screams continued, and the man shielding her body shifted his weight to look up. She rolled, trying to untangle her limbs from his. Even as her brain tried to hurry the process along, her body longed to stretch the moment out in a completely inappropriate way.

  The man panted like he’d just finished an Olympic sprint — and won. His breath tickled her ear the way the evening breeze might. No hint of garlic, no trace of panic. She caught a glimpse of a mocha-skinned man with brilliant white teeth who was familiar in a hazy kind of in-your-dreams way.