X Marks the Spot

By Iris Forester

Cassie hadn't intended to fall in love on this cruise; in fact, she hadn't intended to go on a cruise, period. Yet here she was, exploring Greek islands on possibly the most run-down cruise ship ever to ply the Aegean. Still, Cassie can find the brighter side to anything, which irritates Devon, apparently the only other passenger her own age on board, to no end.

But when Devon and Cassie find themselves marooned alone on an uninhabited island they have no one to turn to but each other. And the Fates have still more challenges in store for them: smugglers, the possibility of pirate treasure, abandonment— will their love survive?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Shorts
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781094435008

Iris Forester

Iris Forester is never happier than when she’s tossed everything aside to follow one of the story threads that cross her path. She shares her home place with eagles, ravens and owls — but also makes time every year to spend in New York City. When she’s not writing, Iris works with paint, clay, and various difficult creatures.

Book preview

1

J ust stop here! Cassie told the cab driver, pointing to the sidewalk. She had seen a sign which read: Port of Piraeus , so she knew she had arrived, even if no water was visible right this minute. When the driver abruptly veered across two lanes of traffic and came to a stop in the curb lane, Cassie breathed a giant sigh of relief. She was still in one piece!

She grabbed her suitcase, without waiting for his help, and hauled it up onto the sidewalk, her heart still pounding from the death-defying ride. The cab driver glared at her, but she resolutely gazed in the opposite direction. She had already paid for the cab with a credit card back at the hotel, and if he was looking for a tip, he was out of luck. She spotted the blue sparkle of water in the distance between two buildings and began walking toward it, holding her head high.

Her sense of relief began to crumble, however, as she grasped just how enormous the Port of Piraeus was. This had been Athens’ main seaport for over 2,500 years, and she thought it must have grown larger during every one of those years.

Terminal B, her pass read — but all she could see were endless buildings. In a few hundred yards, the street bent, and she found six lanes of traffic blocking her from the bay. She still had an hour before her appointed embarkation window to board the Diamond of the Seas, but that hour could go fast if she got lost.

As she stood facing the distant water, realizing there were no crosswalks, someone startled her by tapping on her shoulder. Standing too near her, as people here all seemed to do, was a soulful-looking young man brandishing a set of car keys.

Which ship? he asked her, in heavily-accented English. All the guidebooks warned against patronizing rogue taxis, but that advice was for people who weren’t in danger of missing their cruise. Sometimes you had to take risks in life. Maybe this driver would be less suicidal than the other one.

Diamond of the Seas, she answered.

He nodded, making some sort of circle motion with his hand. Other side of port, he said. I drive you. Twenty euros.

Cassie sighed. Ignorance was expensive, but what could she do? She pointed to his wristwatch. How many minutes? she asked.

The young guy shrugged with elaborate insouciance. Ten, maybe fifteen? If very bad, maybe twenty? He didn’t wait for her answer but reached for her suitcase. She gripped it more tightly.

Where’s your car? she asked.

He pointed to a dusty little Fiat, shoe-horned into a too-small parking place. Cassie looked at him and raised one eyebrow. He caught her meaning and made a slick brushing movement with both hands, maybe to show how easily he could get out of the parking spot.

No problem! No problem! he said, favoring her with a toothy smile. He was at least twenty years younger than she was, so he most likely didn’t have any nefarious designs on her person.

You have to take risks, Cassie reminded herself.

Okay, fine, she said, but kept her suitcase with her as she squeezed into the back seat.

This time, at least, the gods rewarded her courage. Or maybe her foolhardiness. The young man proved to be a precise, careful driver, and in less than fifteen minutes, he pulled into a parking lot. Looming in front of them, blocking the sunlight, was a ship so huge it looked like a floating city. Cassie stared up at its bulk, awed and appalled. She had seen countless photos of it, of course, after winning the free cruise, but the pictures hadn’t prepared her for the physical enormity.

She pressed thirty euros into the hand of her young rescuer — she would never have been able to walk around the whole bay in less than an hour — and was favored with an even toothier smile before he zipped away in his dusty chariot. A small knot of people stood inside the terminal of the Diamond of the Seas; Cassie squared her shoulders and headed toward them. For better or worse, this would be an experience like no other.

The promise of luxury that had saturated all the cruise publicity was not yet in evidence, however. A growing throng of passengers were being prevented from boarding because of some mishap with the passenger list. A sweaty man in a white uniform, with ink stains on his Diamond of the Seas logo, was on his cell phone. He looked stressed, and with his free hand he was waving a tablet to punctuate whatever he was saying into the phone.

Cassie eyed her fellow passengers curiously, thinking, Who are these people? Who would actually pay for this strange form of travel? They were older than she was, mostly, but of course she’d expected that. She was joining the ranks of the retired at the age of forty-eight, and a young-looking forty-eight at that. Her reddish-brown hair, cut short in a style that took care of itself, had no hint of grey, and her body was still flexible and wiry. The years of rock climbing and teaching high school dance classes would pay dividends for a long time to come — if she stayed active. This thought gave Cassie a sense of satisfaction. She might be middle-aged, but she didn’t look it.

The other people who were clustered around the terminal counter seemed anxious. One elderly woman with a fluff of white hair was fidgeting repeatedly with her bracelets, clasping and unclasping them. Cassie wondered if she would become that sort of person in another thirty years. No, she told herself, I don’t have to. In hopes of calming the woman’s nerves, Cassie began chatting with her.

The woman’s name was Susan and she said that her husband and his brother had talked her into coming on this cruise. She gestured toward a man standing with two other passengers and poring over a brochure of some sort. I just don’t know how it’s going to go. I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye with my sister-in-law.

Cassie’s reflex of encouraging people, honed over years of teaching social studies and dance at a Seattle high school, now surfaced. The ship is so huge, and there’s so many things to do on it, I bet you won’t have to worry about getting on each other’s nerves, she told Susan. She was rewarded by a tentative nod.

You’re probably right, the older woman said, and she and Cassie smiled at each other.

If this boarding snafu is an example of how things are managed on board, I wouldn’t place too much faith in any of the publicized entertainments, a man nearby commented sourly.

Cassie and Susan both turned to him. Cassie felt momentarily irritated by his eavesdropping, but then she reflected that, in a way, they were all one unified group. Stuck here together, part of the four-thousand-some passengers who’d be spending the next twelve days together.

If her teaching career had taught her to encourage people, it had also created a reflex to remind complainers of their own personal resources.

I think you can find fun anywhere, if you have the right mindset, she said to him, adding a little frosting of friendliness so he wouldn’t feel attacked.

The man seemed to suddenly focus on her. Like Cassie, he was younger than most of the other passengers. Without staring at him too directly, she decided he was within a couple years of her own age. He had a straight nose and well-balanced face that reminded her of the classic Greek statues she’d been admiring in Athens, and his short, curly hair added to the impression. His expression, too, had a sort of classic haughtiness, and Cassie mused for a second about how it would be if one of the Greek gods materialized in twenty-first-century Athens.

Just then, the stressed-out cruise manager called for everyone’s attention, and Cassie forgot all about the man. She didn’t notice his gaze lingering on her.

2

Eventually the passenger list was unscrambled, and two more white-uniformed crew members came down the ramp. They undid a small barricade and, one by one, they checked in the passengers. Each person was handed a key card and a packet of information, and then ushered up into the giant ship — but when it was Cassie’s turn to check in, there was a small flurry of confusion.

Her ticket had been purchased by the company that sponsored the sweepstakes she had won — a corporate entity that owned shopping malls. Apparently, that meant her name didn’t show up in the field for purchaser, and the balcony cabin promised as part of her prize did not exist. Or, rather, it had already been assigned to some other passenger who had a real name.

Two of the staff members pored over a multi-page chart on the manager’s tablet, while Cassie tried not to look back at how many impatient people were accumulating behind her. Finally, one of the staff guys pointed to the screen and spoke to the manager. This gentleman, still looking harried, informed Cassie that they had an ocean view room open for her, and before she could ask what that meant, she was issued her keycard and information packet. Unwilling to hold up the line any longer, Cassie hustled up the ramp with her wheeled suitcase and entered the portal into the city-sized vessel.

As she had feared, the ocean view turned out to be a porthole. Even worse, the porthole was situated above the head of the bed, so in order to look out, Cassie had to kneel on her pillow. Even then, she was a little too low to see out properly — but when she kicked the pillow aside and tried standing on the bed, she had to bend over in an awkward position in order not to hit the ceiling.

The cabin pictured on her sweepstakes brochure — which she still had in her purse! — showed a roomy

Reviews for X Marks the Spot

[carolyn · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This is mislabeled under Christian fiction. Be forewarned that there is foul language and sex. The writing itself isn’t great either.