A little later than I was hoping, but goodness, have I been busy! I'm back from orientation and psyched for college. Wooo!

Enjoy!

CHAPTER STATS

Word Count (excluding A/N): 1220

Date Updated: 6-6-13

Current Review Count: 754

"And then he just left," Chelsea finished, leaning her chin in her hands on the counter at Mirabelle's.

Julia shook her head, turning the story over in her mind for the twentieth time since it had happened almost a week ago. "It just doesn't make sense, Chels."

"You're telling me," the farmer rolled her eyes. "He yelled something to me from the boat when he was kind of far away."

"What did he say?" Julia asked, surprised at this new piece of information. Chelsea had told her the story of last Thursday dozens of times in the last six days, but this had never come up.

She shrugged lamely. "I couldn't hear him over the waves."

"Well, does it really even matter what he said?" Julia asked, smiling. "He tried to talk to you! He wasn't avoiding you, Chels."

"How do you figure that?" Chelsea asked, sitting up straight. She pulled her bandana off her head and worked it nervously in her hands. "He ran onto the boat even when he clearly saw me."

"But think about this for a second. If Vaughn was really avoiding you, would he go out of his way to yell something from the boat? Hell, I wouldn't expect him to yell from the boat even if he wasn't avoiding you."

Chelsea blinked. "That's actually… totally true."

"Could you maybe see his facial expression? Partially lip-read what he was saying?" Julia probed. She wanted to know what the cowboy had said almost as much as Chelsea did.

Chelsea closed her eyes and exhaled, trying to put herself back on the edge of the dock. "It was short. Maybe one or two words."

"Yeah? What else?" Julia pressed, leaning in.

Chelsea hesitated, her eyes opening again. "I don't know. I feel like it had a W in it."

"W?" Julia repeated. "One or two words, with a W… 'Wait'?"

Chelsea shook her head. "Longer than that."

Julia and Chelsea spent the next five minutes making W sounds and occasionally throwing out a word that may have been partially possible, but Chelsea shot them all down.

"What about…" Julia hesitated, "'week'?"

"'Week'?" Chelsea repeated, trying to place it in her memory of Vaughn's mouth. "That… actually could work. As the second word," she paused again, then, suddenly, she cried, "'Next week'!"

"'Next week'," Julia smiled. "Well, there you go. He was probably being hassled by that jerk of a ticket guy or something and had to get on the boat."

"That actually makes perfect sense," Chelsea said, her face breaking out into a huge smile. "He wasn't avoiding me after all! Julia, he might still actually like me!"

"Chelsea," Julia shook her head, smiling. "Of course he still likes you. Tomorrow he'll tell you himself."

Ooo

Tomorrow arrived and he didn't tell her himself.

"What do you mean, 'storms'?" Chelsea asked Mirabelle as she felt her stomach grip tightly.

"Sorry, Chels," the homely woman shrugged, offering a sympathetic smile. "Vaughn won't be here this week. His company called on his behalf early this morning."

"He didn't call himself?" Julia asked, overhearing this part of the conversation. "That's weird. He usually calls if he's going to be late or not make it."

"I don't know, Darlin'," Mirabelle shrugged again, picking up a bag of feed. "I've got to go feed the chickens. You two stay out of trouble."

Chelsea felt like she was sinking. She'd been up half the night working out all the different ways that she would greet Vaughn. She even considered just running up and kissing him—but that was a very short-lived consideration.

It didn't matter now, though. She had another full week to agonize over the whole situation.

Ooo

Chelsea brushed her hair back from her face, trying to ignore the strands that stuck to her skin from the sweat. The early summer air was thin and hot.

She found it strange that there were supposed to be awful storms going around, and yet there wasn't a cloud in the sky above Sunny Island.

Sighing, she set down her watering can and fell back onto the ground. Her legs were sore from the last week's worth of farming, but somehow it seemed to be paying off—her crops looked like they'd be ready for harvesting the next day, and they actually looked healthy.

She was finally figuring out how this farming business worked.

Her stomach let out a loud growl and she realized she hadn't eaten all day. Since she knew her crops weren't going to be ready for a while because of the late start she'd had on the season, she'd been gathering and shipping herbs and flowers, saving up enough money for something inexpensive from the Diner every day. She'd felt bad taking free food from Mirabelle and Julia all this time.

Readjusting the bandana on her head, Chelsea pulled herself up and started down the path into town as the sun cast its golden rays onto the island.

Ooo

"I can't believe it!"

"Neither can I. Are you sure?"

"Aboslutely positive!"

Chelsea sat on a stool at the Diner, trying not to totally inhale her noodles. She liked coming to the Diner in the evenings because so many people were always there and there was so much gossip to eavesdrop on. She wasn't one to participate, but she'd be lying if she said she didn't like to hear what scandalous occurrences were supposedly going on.

"Did you hear about that ship?"

"Which ship?"

Chelsea sighed. And here she had almost forgotten about her situation with Vaughn.

"The one that went down off the coast of the island this morning."

Chelsea gasped and started choking on some of the noodles in her mouth. She coughed and dropped her fork, drawing some attention to her as it rattled loudly.

Denny and Lanna hurried over to her. "Are you alright, Chelsea?"

She took a moment to cough her way back into normalcy and nodded slowly. "I… I think so."

"Good," Lanna said, smiling. "You almost died!"

Chelsea ignored her and looked between her two friends. "What was that you were saying about a boat going down?"

Denny blinked, confused at the farmer's sudden intensity. "You mean the passenger ferry?"

Chelsea felt her jaw go slack.

"Apparently a passenger ship went out early this morning before the official weather report came in. It hit a bad storm out on the waters before it could reach the island. It went down."

"Who was on it?" Chelsea asked, her mouth going dry.

"Not very many people. Apparently most everyone already knew about the storms. But there was the crew and maybe a dozen others."

"Have they found any of them?"

"Almost all of the crew has been recovered," Lanna piped in. "In fact, I think they're still just looking for a couple passengers."

Chelsea just blinked. That was all she could do.

"Are you alright, Chelsea?" Denny asked, his eyebrows knitting together in concern. "You look pale."

"I'm fine," Chelsea said, standing up abruptly. Her voice was tight. "I just remembered—I have to, uh, water my crops."

She hurried past them and wove her way out into the warm night. All she could think about was that Vaughn had better show up on the dock next week or—

Well, she didn't know what she'd do.

Well jeez. Isn't this just perfect? Pffft storms. Review and let me know what you think will happen next chapter!