Free When Tomorrow Ends by Cyndi Raye Page A

off of her. How would they be able to spend the whole day together like this, they hadn’t left the property yet! “Maggie, I’m not coming out of this water until you put the skirt back on. It will dry on the ride to the beach.”
     
    Maggie laughed out loud as he back-stroked through the water. “Ah Jake. You can look up now, it’s safe.”
     
    When he got on board, he kept his eyes off Maggie and started the boat. He’d steer clear of her for now until he could get control of the emotions that flowed through him like a freight train on a downhill ride.
     
    “It’s going to be a long two weeks like this,” he complained.
     

Chapter 8
     
    By the time the boat pulled up to disembark, Jake thought he had everything under control. Maggie kept her skirt on and he began to wonder if going to a beach would be a disaster for them. This was a different type of beach, he told himself and he grabbed the thermal cooler before helping her out of the boat.
     
    “Where are we?” Maggie asked as she gazed around the desolate area.
     
    “This is Geiger Key’s abandoned beach. I thought it would be fun to explore. Did you want to put on your walking shoes?”
     
    Maggie nodded and placed a hand on his shoulder to slip her shoes on, then balanced herself as she pulled her hair back and dropped the floppy hat over her head. She titled her head to him. “I’m sorry for teasing you. Forgive me?”
     
    Jake slipped an arm around her waist and dropped a kiss on her cheek. “There’s nothing to forgive baby,” he told her.
     
    She smiled up at him. “I like when you call me baby.” She reached up and touched his cheek.
     
    “I like when you do that,” he admitted before he grabbed her hand and placed a kiss in the palm. “Let’s go explore.” He held on to her hand and carried the cooler with the other.
     
    As they walked down a path, the pavement came to an abrupt stop. A barricade blocked their path to the beach area. A large ominous sign stood beside it. Maggie giggled and pointed. “Clothing optional beyond this point,” it read.
     
    “I forgot about that part,” Jake mentioned. “Do you still want to venture across?”
     
    “Of course. I watched a video on line about how someone made a natural structure out of the things he found along the beach.”
     
    Rock and driftwood cluttered the natural beach as they walked along the rocky shore. Lean-to’s made out of the driftwood seemed natural and yet it was hard to tell if man had something to do with the shapes along the paths. “This used to be the highway,” Jake told her. “Notice those telephone poles that stick out of the ground near the water?”
     
    “I do. It seems odd they are so close to shore.”
     
    He nodded. “It’s because to the left of those poles was the highway at one time until Mother Nature decided it shouldn’t be there any longer. It’s all washed away now.”
     
    They walked hand in hand until Maggie saw the leaning wire fence that looked as if it were about to fall over in some areas. “What are those flip flops doing hanging on the fence?”
     
    Jake shrugged. “Not sure. Looks like someone collects lost shoes to hang on the fence. Everything on the other side of that crumbled fence belongs to the Navy. We won’t be able to explore over there.”
     
    She ran a hand over a small plaque someone attached to the fence with faded letters printed on. “Wall of lost souls. Lost souls of paradise,” Maggie read out loud, then grabbed Jake’s hand to wander along another path that led to more rocks and sand.
     
    Jake pointed to an abandoned metal boat that sat along the washed up shore. Maggie ran over to the beat up boat. “It looks like an old canoe.” A small child’s shoe sat in the bottom, faded and weathered.
     
    “It’s called a chug. Refugees who tried to make their way over from Cuba were in this boat at one time.” They stood there at the rusty boat and noticed how prehistoric it looked.
     
    “I