The Trouble With Paradise

THIRTEEN

Still in shock, Dorie stood in the salon, flanked on either side by Brandy and Cadence. They were holding hands as they watched the crew take them toward a shadow of an island that kept rising and falling through the misty waves.

A crew minus Bobby, though Dorie seemed to be the only one to notice, which disturbed her. So did the way she kept looking at everyone, wondering if they’d been the one up on deck with Bobby.

“I don’t see any hotels,” Brandy noted, staring at the vertical mountainsides so steep they looked like they were exploding directly out of the sea.

“It looks pretty lush,” Cadence said. “Maybe the hotels are hidden behind all that tropical rain forest.”

She’d always wanted to see the rain forests, Dorie reminded herself. Now seemed like as good a time as any… except for, oh yeah, the missing crew member!

She glanced out the window-glassless now-to where Christian worked in silence next to Ethan. He might have hurt Bobby, but she didn’t think so. Even only knowing him for a few days, she felt the temper and grief pouring off him in waves.

No one was that good of an actor. But was she willing to bet her life on it? Because really, all she knew about him was that he was a doctor. Oh, and that he kissed like heaven on earth. Let’s not forget that part.

But little else.

Only… that wasn’t actually true either. She’d watched him treat each of the guests with care and great attention, no matter his personal feelings. Plus, frustrated or not over whatever debt he owed, he seemed to take his oath as a doctor, to heal, to save lives, very seriously.

Which meant she could trust him. It also meant that until there was more information, he was the only one she could trust. She wished that came with some comfort, but it didn’t.

Cadence and Brandy decided to sit, and pulled her down next to them. But sitting had her sucking in a breath because of the splinter. It was beginning to seriously hurt, maybe even getting infected as she’d been warned.

“Hon?” Brandy leaned in close and frowned in her face. “You okay? You getting seasick? You look green.”

“Oh boy, you really do,” Cadence agreed.

Brandy pulled out her flask. “The handy-dandy fix-all.”

“It’s barely morning.”

“Yes, but somewhere in the world it’s Happy Hour.”

Dorie managed to smile. “I’m good.” And good was relative, right? After all, compared to Bobby, wherever he was, she was exceptionally good.

Don’t think about it now.

“Hold on to your seats, ladies,” Brandy said just as a wave hit them, and everyone gasped as they rose and fell, momentarily losing sight of the island.

“Whew,” Brandy said, somehow managing to still look gorgeous despite all they’d been through. Her short blonde hair was no longer perfectly spiky around her head, and she’d lost her gel or whatever magical hair product she’d been using, but it didn’t matter, the short strands framed her face, making her look softer, sweeter. “Maybe there’ll be some hot natives,” she said, ever hopeful.

Okay, maybe not sweet exactly.

“I’d be fine with a hot shower,” Cadence said. “This sea salt spray is hell on my fair skin.”

Dorie would be happy just to see Bobby’s scowl again. But because that thought nearly choked her, she forced another. The island got bigger as they drifted closer, but as the dawn lightened, she could see that her fears were true, that the island was indeed one big, craggy, rough, inhospitable rock. A volcano, hopefully a very, very dormant volcano, draped by that lush rain forest.

She glanced behind her to see if anyone else had noticed this unwelcome turn of events and found her gaze locked on Christian’s.

He stood on the deck next to Denny, working hard to aim the boat into the channel, but he locked his stormy eyes on hers and didn’t look away.

The boat hit another swell and next to her, Cadence gasped. Dorie tightened her grip on her hand. Only yesterday such a swell would have terrified her, too, but now she knew there were other things to fear.

Lots of other things.

Such as Christian, and the odd hold he seemed to have over her emotions.

He hadn’t replaced his shirt, and still wore only those black board shorts, long to his knees and loose, hanging dangerously low on his hips. He wasn’t muscle-bound like Andy, but long and lean and hard in a way that suggested food had never been all that important to him.

Lucky bastard.

She had the feeling that maybe nothing was all that important to him, and hadn’t been for a long time.

“So where do you think Bobby is?” Brandy asked in a low voice. “I haven’t seen him since he brought me a nightcap last night.”

Dorie tore her gaze off Christian. “Bobby brought you a nightcap?”

“Sure did. And let’s just say, the boy isn’t quite the underachiever we thought.”

Dorie stared at her as this sank in. “You mean, you two… hooked up?”

“Well, not quite. Denny interrupted us, needing the extra hands on deck. Damn greedy man. Just a few minutes more, and-”

“The captain,” Dorie said, thoughts racing. “Denny called for Bobby during the night?”

“I don’t remember that,” Cadence said.

Brandy paused. “Why would you? You weren’t there.”

“No, but I was with Denny.”

Now Dorie stared at Cadence. “You were with Denny? Doing what?”

Cadence blushed. “Uh… stuff.”

“You slept with him?”

“Not slept with.” Cadence squirmed. “Not yet…”

Dorie blinked. “So did everyone have some sort of Love Boat connection last night?”

“Not me.” Andy plopped down next to her, sounding just a little bit baffled at the situation. “I didn’t.”

A loud crash interrupted this conversation, accompanied by a shuddering scraping sound as Christian and Ethan drove the bow of the boat onto the island’s shore.

They’d arrived.

However, exactly where they’d arrived was another question entirely.

The water was only a couple of inches deep for what seemed like half a mile out. As the sun made an appearance, the palm trees cast mini islands of shade on the wind-rippled sand-sea. Where the sand ended began dense tropical growth, covering the surrounding rocks in sensuous greens. The sounds of the place were scary and somehow soothing at the same time-the rustle of wind through the trees, the songs of birds that couldn’t yet be seen, the gentle wash of the shallow surf.

“Safe and sound,” Cadence murmured.

Brandy nodded, clearly relieved.

Safe and sound? Dorie could only hope so.

Day One on deserted island without an outlet for the hair straightener.

“We’re all going to die of malaria,” Cadence said when they stood on firm ground, staring around at their rain forest surroundings.

“I got the shot,” Brandy said. “No malaria for me.”

“I got the shot, too, but it’s only 98 percent effective, so two out of a hundred of us are going to get it.”

“Not a half-full glass kinda gal, are you?” Brandy said.

Dorie pulled the bug spray from her purse to ease her mind. “Here. Let’s spray ourselves.”

“Deserted.” Andy still seemed in shock as he stood on the beach absorbing both Dorie’s bug spray and their situation. “Who’da thought?”

“No worries.” This from Denny. “We’ll set up a day camp, and start a fire for the smoke.”

Cadence moved close to Brandy and Dorie. “I want my money back.” She held out her arms and closed her eyes as Dorie sprayed her.

“We didn’t pay.” Brandy shook her head, not wanting bug spray. “Don’t waste it on me, hon. I never get bit. I’m not sweet enough.”

“Well, then I want this week of my life back.” Cadence waved her arms to dry them, looking to be an inch from meltdown. “Did you know I can’t even watch Survivor? They use leaves for toilet paper. Leaves, people.”

Dorie checked her cell phone for reception, of which there was none, and eyed the high volcanic mountain peaks with frustration. “At least there are lots of leaves.”

“Where’s Bobby?” This was Brandy’s sixth time asking. Dorie knew this because she’d been counting.

Cadence studied the boat, listing to its side, half in the sand, half in the shallow water where they’d beached it. “What if-”

“Look.” Andy gestured with his chin. “Ethan and Denny are back on board. He’s probably with them.”

Dorie’s heart sank, and she opened her mouth to tell them the truth, but Cadence covered her mouth to hide a sob. Dorie hugged her tight, remaining silent about her suspicions on what had happened to Bobby so she didn’t freak her out even more. Keeping silent didn’t feel good either.

The sun continued to rise, bringing with it a heat index so high the air shimmered with individual heat waves, thick and salty and humid. They sat on the beach. Or the girls sat. Andy wandered around, while the crew worked on the boat. Or that was their offered spiel anyway. Dorie knew the truth was they were working on finding out what had happened to Bobby.

With nothing to do, they talked, mostly about men. They ate, thanks to Ethan bringing them some goodies from the galley. And they sunbathed.

Correction. Brandy sunbathed, Cadence covered up her pale complexion the best she could and gathered sea-shells because she couldn’t sit still. “It is gorgeous here,” she said, coming back from the water with a handful of shells and rocks. “Wherever here is.”

“The sun is amazing,” Brandy said, pulling her bathing suit strap to the side to study her tan lines.

“You should cover up, too,” Cadence told her. “You don’t want skin cancer.”

“I’m going to die young anyway.” When Dorie and Cadence just stared at her, she waved off their concern. “It’s just one of those things. I’ve never seen myself growing old and sitting in the rocker, you know? I am going out young, with a bang.”

Which is what Dorie wanted to do. Not the going out young part, but the bang part. Living life…

“Let’s make a nice camp,” Cadence said.

“Jesus, girl.” Brandy patted the sand next to her. “Sit. I’ll braid your hair.”

After she’d done that, she eyed Dorie’s wild mop. “Honey.”

“I’ll tame it.” It seemed incongruous to be worried about her hair, but one could only stay freaked out for so long, so she dug around in her purse for her anti-frizz, which had cost a bazillion dollars but rarely worked. In high hopes that this would be the time for a miracle, she smoothed it on and then corralled her hair into a ponytail. “Better?”

Brandy rolled her lips inward.

Dorie sighed. “Never mind. It’s hopeless.”

“Here.” Brandy moved behind her and pulled out the ponytail. “Just last month we used a bunch of poodles in our show, and I did their hairdos.”

“So I’m going to look like a poodle?”

“You already do. But I’m going to fix that.” She worked the tangled strands with her fingers, pulling so tight Dorie closed her eyes in self-defense.

“You have great hair,” Brandy said.

“I thought I had poodle hair.”

Brandy put more product in. “But it’s healthy poodle hair. There.”

When Dorie opened her eyes she found Christian standing in front of her, watching the whole spectacle.

“What do you think, Doc?” Brandy asked.

He considered. “Maybe a little more of that stuff.”

Dorie rolled her eyes and watched Cadence, who’d started gathering fallen palm tree fronds for who knew what. With a sigh, Brandy went after her.

“You okay?” Christian asked now that they were alone.

“Define okay. If you mean alive, then yeah. I’m okay.”

“Dorie-”

“Did you find Bobby on the boat?”

His eyes flickered grief. “No.”

She closed her eyes. “Do you know where we are?”

“If we’d stayed on course we’d still be in Fiji.”

“Okay. But we didn’t stay on course.”

“No. We were hundreds of miles off course when we last had a working compass.”

Hundreds of miles.

“We could be in the Cook Islands,” he told her in his blunt honest way. “Or the Samoas. No telling, really.”

“So what now?”

“We stay calm.”

“Yeah. Working on that.” But she’d ended up on an island with a group of strangers including a baseball stud, a hyperactive artist, a stripper-er, dancer, a laid-back captain, an unflappable chef, the gorgeous grumpy doctor standing in front of her, and oh, a missing attitude-ridden boat hand.

“We stay very calm,” Christian said again, as if sensing her impending breakdown. “I need to speak to you a moment.”

Heart pounding, she let him take her hand and pull her away, beneath the shade of a palm tree whose fronds hung down around them, secluding them as if they were on their own island.

They were alone, at least for the moment. No more need for pretense. Knowing it, some of her rigid control drained, and with that came a flood of anxiety and despair. Touching her eyelids, she let out a sound and shook her head. “I’m beginning to lose it.”

“I know,” he said, and shocked the hell out of her when he pulled her close. She was certain he meant the embrace to offer comfort, not anything sensual, and it was soothing, but after about ten seconds, it was also disturbingly erotic as all the misplaced adrenaline rushing through her began to mistake the comfort for something else entirely.

“Goddamn,” she heard him mutter against her hair, assuring her she wasn’t alone in this realization, and then he tipped up her chin and covered her mouth with his, no warning, no asking, though if he’d asked, she’d probably have said pretty please. Pretty please keep on kissing me…

He did.

With one of those wildly sexy murmurs low in his throat, he hauled her tighter up against him and swept his tongue to hers.

Please keep touching me…

He did that, too, one hand tunneling into her “poodle” hair to palm her head, the other sliding low on her spine, then lower still, cupping her bottom-ouch, splinter!-before gliding up again, fisting in the material of her top, then slipping beneath to touch the bare skin of her back.

Oh yes, definitely keep doing that-

But then it slowly penetrated through her brain that someone was calling for Christian, and with what sounded like a very French curse, he pulled free.

“Christian, goddamnit. Where the hell are you?”

It was Denny. With a grim smile, Christian looked down at Dorie’s mouth, sweeping his thumb over her wet lower lip before turning and ducking under the palm fronds, walking away without a word.

“Yeah, okay,” she said. “I’ll just…” She lifted her hands. “Hang in there.”