Wayne Stinnett [Stinnett - Reckless Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 3)

Copyright 2017

Published by DOWN ISLAND PRESS, LLC, 2017

Saint Helena Island, SC

Copyright 2017 by Wayne Stinnett

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Cover Photo by Niknikon

Graphics by Wicked Good Book Covers

Edited by Tammi at Larks & Katydids

Final Proofreading by Donna Rich

Interior Design by Colleen Sheehan, WDR Book Designs

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Most of the locations herein are also fictional, or are used fictitiously.

Contents: Reckless Charity

M any thanks, first and always, to my wife, Greta. Your unerring support and dedication has been the backbone of my success in whatever I try.

My beta reading team always provides great feedback and advice. These folks dont look for typos and grammatical errors, thats the editors job. Instead, they look for plot holes and dead ends. Writing takes a long time and often the writer will include something that either doesnt go anywhere or doesnt match up with previous works in the series. My beta readers go over the manuscript more than once, looking for just these mistakes. What takes months to write, only takes hours to read and they find all the little problems, even suggesting subtle changes for a better read. Such was the case when I wrote the scene with the bomb. John Trainor saw that what Id written was similar to a quote from Shakespeare, so I rewrote the scene using the quote, which gives Victor more depth. Much gratitude is owed to Mike Ramsey, Katy McKnight, Dr. John Trainor, Marcus Lowe, Dana Vihlen, Karl Schulte, Debbie Kocol, Dave Parsons, Ron Ramey, Gary Cox, and Charles Hofbauer.

Trying to capture a feeling in words is not easy. Sailing is an experience that encompasses many emotions. In these books, I try to let Charity describe her feelings and love of the sea just enough to make her real in the eyes of those of you who live the cruising lifestyle, but not so much that it detracts from the story. I hope that I found the balance.

To my brother, Mike. Only sixteen months apart in age, we were competitors in everything. Backyard football, chess, swimming; anything that two boys could do, we did it together, constantly driving the other to do better. Later, we stood back-to-back in quite a few scrapes. His birthday was just a few weeks ago and hes now joined me in the late-fifties club. Take a look around, bro. Were miles ahead of the pack.

You dont have to be someone special to achieve something amazing. Youve just got to have a dream, believe in it and work hard.

- Jessica Watson , - Youngest person to sail around the world, alone and unassisted.

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The Charity Styles Caribbean Thriller Series

Merciless Charity

Ruthless Charity

Reckless Charity

The Jesse McDermitt Caribbean Adventure Series

Fallen Out

Fallen Palm

Fallen Hunter

Fallen Pride

Fallen Mangrove

Fallen King

Fallen Honor

Fallen Tide

Fallen Angel

Fallen Hero

The Gaspars Revenge Ships Store is now open. There you can purchase all kinds of swag related to my books.

WWW.GASPARS-REVENGE.COM

T iny waves lapped gently at the coarse, yellow-white sand. They seemed more like the tiny ripples youd see in a small pond, after tossing a pebble. Just a few yards from the beach, the water of the bay turned a deep blue as the bottom quickly dropped away. Further up the shore, toward the foot of the long, rocky point that protected the bay, several good-sized fishing boats were beached, unloading their catch.

Around three sides of the bay, craggy volcanic rock rose right out of the water in most places. Aside from this quarter-mile-long shore, there were only a handful of other sand beaches in the bay, all very small. Magens Bay, the largest bay on the island of Saint Thomas, and Magens Beach, arguably one of its largest beaches, were rarely crowdedeven in the height of tourist season, which hadnt yet begun.

This was to a certain degree due to its exposure to the sometimes treacherous North Atlantic. Magens Bay was a cruising destination, popular for its panoramic views and quiet tranquility. Most of the tourists stayed on the south side of the island, to be close to the nightlife of Charlotte Amalie. Though they were only a few miles apart, mountains separated Magens Bay from the more popular anchorages to the south.

Normally, the bay would have had at least two dozen cruisers, mostly sailboats, anchored just off the north end of the beach, where the fishermen were unloading. But three days ago a late-season hurricane had passed within two hundred miles of the Virgin Islands, so the bay was empty. The fishermen had only returned to work the day before.

Moving Wind Dancer was a waste of time , Charity thought as she gazed out over the water. The storm had never come any closer than two hundred miles, and its forward speed had been enough that it didnt kick up large waves on Saint Thomas. Still, moving Wind Dancer had been the prudent thing to do. Living on a boat, you didnt mess around with hurricanes.

One comes this way, you go that way, a salty old sailor had told her, just before weighing anchor and heading south out of the path of Hurricane Ike.

So shed moved the Dancer to a slip at Yacht Haven Grande , a large marina on the more protected south side of the island.

Charity had come to Saint Thomas to unwind, work on her tan, and be aloneand for the last two days, shed been forced to ride her bike for miles to find a secluded beach.

Starting early this morning, shed ridden the three miles from the marina to check on the anchorage in Magens Bay. Not a long ride on her folding bike, but the route across the island wound its way through the higher mountains. The pass on Hull Bay Road, roughly the halfway point of the ride, was nearly a thousand feet above sea level.

Charity spread a towel on the deserted beach and dropped her pack next to it. She took a long pull from a water bottle as she slowly looked around. Aside from the fishermen several hundred yards away, the beach and the bay were completely devoid of people. She pulled off her tee-shirt and shorts, then stretched out on the towel wearing the yellow bikini shed bought in Aruba several months before. The towel was already warm from the sand, and the sun felt hot on her skin. Occasionally, a puff of a breeze out of the north would rustle the coconut palms and cause her exposed flesh to prickle.