Furious by Jeffrey Higgins (top 10 novels to read TXT) 📕

Wind gusted over the transom and our deck leveled, but we slowed too much. The sail leech luffed, and the canvas flapped like bedsheets on a clothesline, and I worried about making an accidental jibe. I let the boom out and the sails filled again. Our speed increased as we ran away from the wind. I smiled, proud of my adjustments, and pictured my father watching me handle the tiller between buoys in Boston Harbor.

I manned the helm for hours, all by myself, my confidence growing. Brad slept all morning, and I checked on him after lunch. He looked unconscious, drooling on the pillow and snoring. He needed his rest, so I tiptoed out of the cabin.

At about four o’clock, he emerged from below, his hair tussled, and the shape of his pillow imprinted on his cheek.

“How long was I out?” he asked, his voice hoarse and groggy.

“Nine hours.”

“Wow. I must have been drained. I can’t seem to shake this flu. My entire body hurts.”

“I’m concerned about you.”

“Any problems sailing?”

“None. The wind intensified, and we were heeling too much, so I turned away from it and righted the boat.”

“You changed course?” he asked.

“A little, to prevent us from capsizing.”

Brad leaned over the instruments, bumping me with his body. I glared at him as he read the map.

“We’re forty degrees off course,” he said, his voice sharp and full of criticism.

“You told me to steer away from the wind to reduce our heel.”

“When did you change course?”

“This morning.”

“What time?”

“I don’t know . . . around seven o’clock.”

“Jesus Christ, Dagny,” Brad said, his eyes searching the horizon. “You’ve been sailing forty degrees off course for eight hours.”

“Don’t yell at me.”

“We’re making twelve knots, which means you sailed over a hundred miles in the wrong direction.”

“I was scared we’d capsize.”

“We weren’t going to capsize.”

“This is supposed to be a vacation, and you said we weren’t in a hurry, so what’s the problem?”

“The problem is, we’re too close to the equator.”

I put my hands on my hips. He was challenging my decision, second guessing the actions I took while he slept. My confidence wavered.

“And?”

“The currents and the winds reverse at the equator. Things become unpredictable,” he said.

“I didn’t know. I was afraid.”

Brad glowered, and the veins in his forehead bulged. He turned the yacht to starboard, trimmed the sails, and set the autopilot.

I was wrong and did not have a reason to be angry, but I resented him for leaving me in charge, and then criticizing my choices.

“I’m sorry, but you know I haven’t sailed in decades. At least I kept us afloat and didn’t run into anything, and that’s as much as I should be required to do.”

“Just don’t change course without checking with me.”

“If you’re awake.”

Brad stared straight ahead, ready to explode.

I cringed, but his anger remained hidden behind his mask. I descended into the salon, feeling his stare burn into my back. I plopped down on the couch and closed my eyes. Two more weeks to the Maldives.

Shit.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Brad’s muscles rippled under his tee shirt as he held the wheel.

The storm had pushed us south, and my mistake had driven us farther off course. Now, we floated on the equator where the wind had disappeared. The ocean flattened like a parking lot, and we swayed on the surface as the current pushed us away from Malé.  With no breeze, the relentless sun beat down on us and transformed the deck into a griddle.

I sipped coffee and ate our last banana, the end of our fresh fruit. I savored the final bite, brown and mushy. I threw the peel off the stern, and my eyes followed it as it flew through the air and landed in our foamy wake.

A large, gray dorsal fin broke the surface thirty feet behind us, and I jumped when my brain registered what my eyes had seen.

“What the hell is that?” I screamed.

Brad flinched and spilled his coffee. He jerked his head around. “That’s a shark.”

“No kidding. Why the hell is it following us?” I asked.

My fingernail found its way into my mouth.

“Maybe it’s waiting for something to fall overboard or maybe it’s just curious. Propeller sounds and electrical fields attract sharks.”

“Electric fields?”

“All the electronics onboard emit some energy. Even the human body gives off bioelectric fields. I’ve heard stories about sharks attacking small electric engines.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Only if you’re in the water. Relax, you’re safe. A shark can’t hurt you here.”

“Didn’t a great white eat the boat in the movie, Jaws?”

“That’s happened for real. Sometimes sharks attack boats, usually after they’re hooked on fishing lines or when people harass them, but we’re on a yacht. Even Jaws couldn’t sink us.”

The dorsal fin turned to port and dipped below the surface. I jumped to my feet, ran to the side, and leaned over the gunwale. A black shadow, at least twenty feet long, swam alongside us. It stayed five or six feet below the surface and its image blurred in the refracted light. The tail moved in lazy strokes, outpacing us.

Brad put his hand on my shoulder, and I jumped.

“Don’t get close to the edge. Sharks can launch themselves out of the water.”

I gawked at him like he was nuts. “What kind is it?”

“I think it’s a great white.”

“Like Jaws. See, it’s dangerous.”

“That was a movie. Sharks don’t feed on people, well . . . not often.”

“I didn’t know great white sharks inhabited the Indian Ocean.”

“The most common man-eaters in the Indian Ocean are whitetips, but tigers, bulls, and great whites hunt these waters too. Western Australia has the highest concentration of great whites in the world, and it’s not too far from here.”

“You think it swam from Australia?”

“Great whites are predators. They move with the seasons and follow prey. Their migratory patterns usually keep them close to shore, but females sometimes go deep.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, but I read somewhere that females are different. For the past decade we’ve had a great white problem off Cape Cod. Conservation laws caused