Author - LAMFan (LAMFan11937@yahoo.com)
Rating - PG-13, so far
Summary - Shipwrecked newlyweds wash up on an island in the Caribbean.
Category - General GL
Disclaimer - Guiding Light and all of its characters, settings, etc. belong to P&G. I'm just borrowing them because TPTB aren't putting them to good use.
June 1996...
Waves pounded against the sand as a man in his early thirties sprinted barefoot through the trees toward the shoreline. Wind whipping his chestnut hair in front of his face, the man emerged to the open beach. Taking in a deep breath of the hot summer air, he paused and hastily pulled off his jacket, loosening his tie and undoing the top few buttons of his shirt. He wasn't exactly dressed for the atmosphere, but he had needed to get away. If he'd stayed where he had been less than ten minutes earlier he was sure he would have exploded. He spread his jacket out on the sand and threw himself down on top of it. He sat Indian style, watching the tide pull in and out for a few moments. The man had had to put up with a lot in his life, but the pressure had only gotten worse over the last couple of years and it looked as though it might have finally brought him to the breaking point. He didn't know how much more he could take.
He breathed deeply again. The storm had come and gone but he could smell, still, the last departing vestiges of Mother Nature at her most destructive. Though it had dwindled down to nothing more than a mere tropical storm by the time it had reached the mainland a day earlier, officials had originally classified it as a hurricane, and the small islands off the coast were hit much harder.
No sooner did he close his eyes for his quasi-meditation did he hear it. A soft, pained groan emanated a short distance from where he was sitting. The man shot to his feet and glanced around. His eyes caught something off to his right, near a group of rocks. He moved toward it, slowly at first, then faster, the "something" becoming the vague shape of Lucy Cooper Spaulding's unfamiliar body as his vision focused and he edged closer. By the time he reached her, Lucy had already pushed herself up and was leaning against one of the larger rocks. Blood spotted her clothing. Her face and hands were scraped up nicely, and she appeared to have a rather nasty gash above her eyebrow.
"Are you alright?" the man asked, placing his hand beneath the stranger's chin as he crouched beside her and lifted her head up so that he could look into her eyes.
Lucy pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and struggled to speak. "Alan-Michael," she muttered, leaning her head back against the rock and closing her eyes. "My husband..."
As Lucy stopped to catch her breath, the man's eyes scanned her body quickly for any apparent wounds of a seemingly serious nature. His head shot up suddenly when he heard a desperate cry. A few yards away, Alan-Michael Spaulding stumbled along the shoreline clumsily as he called his wife's name.
Pushing himself up, the man told Lucy to wait where she was as he jogged toward her husband, who had fallen on his knees into the sand. "She's right here, come on," the man said as he threw Alan-Michael's arm around his neck for support and put his own arm around Alan-Michael's waist to help him over to his wife's location. The man lowered Alan-Michael to the ground carefully, propping him up against a boulder next to Lucy. Ignoring his injuries, Alan-Michael learned toward Lucy and took her into his arms. After a moment, he pulled back and cupped her face in his hands, kissing her deeply.
The man grabbed his jacket from the ground, shaking it off and handing it to Lucy, who covered Alan-Michael with it. "Did you get caught in the storm?" the man asked, Lucy noticing for the first time the same inflection to his voice that Jenna Bradshaw possessed.
Alan-Michael nodded his head. "We were on my family's yacht and we just sailed right into it. I thought we could head straight through, but it really tossed us around."
"Quite," the man commented, looking Alan-Michael's battered body once over. The man pulled out a cell phone from his back pocket and walked a few steps away from the reunited newlyweds, dialing a number.
"Yes, it's me... I need you to get down here to the beach with a doctor and a couple of men immediately," he said with urgency to whoever was on the other end of the line. "I've found an injured couple on the west side of the grounds and the man appears to be hurt rather badly..."
As their rescuer wrapped up his call, Alan-Michael leaned his forehead gently against Lucy's. Her fingers dived into his curls and she pulled his head toward hers, bringing her lips to his brow for a tender kiss. "Are you alright?" she asked, concerned, as she checked him over.
"I am now," he told her, taking her hands in his own.
The man flipped his cell phone closed and turned back towards his new American acquaintances. "No need to worry. Help will arrive shortly." He kneeled down in front of Alan-Michael. "We'll get you back to the palace right away, where you can receive the proper medical attention, then we'll get you both cleaned up, all right?"
"Palace? Uh, where are we, exactly?" Lucy asked.
"Ah, yes. Where are my manners?... Welcome to San Cristobel," the man said with a smile as he stood and extended his arm for a handshake. "Prince Edmund Winslow, at your service."