The Castaway Bride (11 page)

With a shocked exclamation, she clutched them to her breast. “I’d never sell them! I’ll keep them forever. And once we get off this island, I’m going to find out all I can about Seth. I feel… I feel some kind of bond with him.”

This time Matt couldn’t resist laughing. “Why? Because you both ran away from something you couldn’t face?”

Cristy’s eyes went wide with shock and then narrowed in anger.

“Hey! No fair. You know I didn’t mean that at all. And while we’re talking about running away—what were you doing coasting around all by yourself on your boat?”

Her words struck too close to home. Way too close. How did a light-hearted conversation about an old guy and his birds turn into this?

Matt flung up his hands in mock surrender. “So maybe we’re all running away from something. I’m glad you like the story of old Seth. Maybe you’ll find more of his stuff here to weep over. But don’t expect me to get all sentimental. I’m just not that kind of guy.”

Cristy looked at him for a long moment. “Are you telling me—or warning me?”

Matt felt as though she’d seen into his soul. Past the barriers he’d so painfully put up against love and commitment, starting from the day he realized his mother didn’t care about him to the day he’d found out about Danny and Julia.

He wasn’t going to let Cristy in. He’d rather suffer again the accident on the building site that had broken his nose than expose himself to the hurt and disillusionment that loving a woman could bring.

He looked straight back into her face, stilling his own to show no emotion. “Take it whatever way you please,” he said.

Her eyes clouded over. Betraying eyes, he reminded himself again. This was a woman who had run out on her bridegroom on her wedding day. That damn ring was there, flashing like a beacon every time she moved, to remind him of that. Heaven knows what other treachery she could be capable of.

But hell, she was lovely. Her mouth was full and pouting and her face flushed pink across her cheekbones. At the hurt confusion in her eyes, an unfamiliar emotion twisted deep inside him.

Something about this woman made him behave like a crazy man. He wanted to kiss her again, to kiss her and pleasure her and possess her and to tell her how she made him feel. He wanted to pull that ring off her finger and hurl it into the sea.

There was nothing rational in his reactions to her. But he would not give in to the impulse—he couldn’t take that risk. He did not want complication in his life. And that’s all this runaway bride was—an unnecessary complication. Delectable as she was, he had to gird himself against her appeal before he found himself saying things, doing things, he should not.

He spoke more abruptly than he’d intended. “Did you find anything else in the kitchen?”

She looked warily at him. As if she’d guessed at the conflict surging through him. “Some baked beans, would you believe.”

He forced himself to speak calmly. “And a can opener?”

She shook her head. “Just a few spoons and some enamel plates.”

“Another job for the Swiss army knife.” Matt looked at the kerosene camper’s stove on the bench. “If there’s any kerosene we can heat them up. Otherwise—cold from the can.”

“Hey, I never asked for gourmet. So long as there’s chocolate for dessert.”

“There’s plenty of that in the panic bag,” he said.

Just don’t think about the condoms
, he urged himself. Don’t imagine what it would be like to use those condoms making love to her. Especially when all you were wearing was a flimsy sheet that would do nothing to hide the evidence of your arousal.

How was he going to get through sleeping the night in a hut this size, never much further than an arm’s length away from her? If there wasn’t a storm brewing he’d bunk down outside and take his chances with the wildlife. That would be safer than being in here.

As if on cue, the wind started up, noisy through the trees and branches that knocked against the roof. The birds exploded in a cacophony of raucous song, heralding the change of weather.

Cristy started nervously. “So there really will be a storm?”

Matt nodded. “Though I doubt it will be as bad as was forecast. Do you want to come outside and watch it? A storm in these parts can be dramatic, palm trees bending in the wind, the surf up.”

“No thanks,” she said, “I’ve had more than enough drama for the day.” She yawned and he noticed dark shadows around her eyes. “I’ll be ready for bed once we’ve downed our beans.”

T
here was no twilight in the tropics—night fell almost instantly. It was the darkest dark Cristy had ever experienced. Thank heaven for the kerosene lamp that glowed softly in the corner, its flickering light not quite illuminating the gloomy corners of the room.

She looked over to Matt who stood, his back toward her, staring pensively out of the small, multi-paned window. As if he could see anything in the storm. The intricately inked eagle across his upper back seemed poised for flight. She had a strong feeling that Matt just wanted to avoid any further confrontation with her. The underlying meaning to his words before their makeshift dinner couldn’t have clearer.
Back off
.

The rain lashed at the window, heavy tropical rain with huge drops. She’d been caught in it as she’d dashed out to retrieve her laundry and the drops were so big they had hurt on her bare skin. They’d been warm, too, and the rain hadn’t done anything to cool things down. In fact it had made the night air seem heavy and oppressive.

The space between her and Matt seemed thick with tension, almost as if the storm had invaded the interior of the hut. The two canvas beds—just low-slung camping stretchers—loomed before her, now the focus of the room.

They were set as far apart as they could be, but in the cramped confines of the hut that was only a matter of a few feet or so. She’d made them up with the sheets that remained from their toga wardrobe. There would be no need for a blanket on this steamy night.

“Matt?” She had to speak loudly to be heard over the sound of the rain drumming on the tin roof and the wind stirring up the trees outside.

He turned and, although his face was only half in the light, she was stunned by the brooding look in his eyes.

His jaw was already shadowed with growth, giving him a dark mysterious look—just like the pirate she’d imagined him to be. The crooked slant of his nose saved him from being
too
handsome and she wondered how he’d broken it. A fight? A football game? She realized again how very little she knew about this man. And how much she longed to discover.

She looked down to the rough-hewn floorboards, unable to meet his eyes. “I’m, uh, going to bed now. Okay?”

Darn! Why did the simple words “going to bed” have such a sexual undercurrent?

His voice sounded husky. “In that case, so will I. Everything all right?”

She looked up to find him observing her through narrowed eyes and she was very aware of the flimsy coverage her makeshift sarong afforded her. Did her nipples show through the virtually threadbare white fabric?

She had to clear her throat to answer. “Fine. As fine as can be, I guess. At least there aren’t any noisy guests next door with their television turned up full blast.”

“Or a band playing in the foyer,” he replied very seriously.

She found herself pleating the fabric of her sarong between her fingers, not even realizing she was doing so.

“Which bed do you want?” she asked. Her voice sounded high and squeaky to her ears.

“The one you don’t want,” he replied, shifting from foot to foot.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll take this one.” She moved tentatively toward the bed nearest to her. “You know, I haven’t slept in a canvas bed like this since I was fourteen. We had to sleep in tents when we first moved to the commune. It took a while for my dad to build the house. Of course he had help. It was a commune, that was… that was the idea…” She realized she was gabbling and her voice trailed to a halt.

Quickly, she climbed under the sheet, praying as she did so that her sarong covered her adequately. “Well, uh, goodnight Matt. I won’t say ‘don’t let the bedbugs bite’ because for all I know there really could be bedbugs around. You know, along with the spiders and the frogs…”

“Goodnight Cristy,” Matt said. Then he paused. “By the way, what’s Cristy short for? Christine?”

Why did he have to ask that at this time of all times? “No. It’s… it’s short for Crystal.”

She gave a short, nervous laugh as she always did when it came to explaining her name. “Crystal Sky, actually. And I’ve got a sister named Sunny Sky. My brothers are River and Leaf. It’s a hippie thing.”

Was that sound from him a muffled laugh? It wouldn’t be the first she’d heard when she’d recited the family names.

But he didn’t seem to be laughing at her. Rather, he looked very serious as he towered above where she lay on the hard, itchy, uncomfortable bed, the sheet clutched to her chin.

He smiled and her stomach clenched at how darkly handsome he was, even wrapped in his loincloth sheet. He looked like one of those exotic deities always portrayed being pleasured by a harem of exquisite handmaidens.

“Crystal Sky,” he said gravely, trying out the sound of it. “I like it, it suits you.”

“Th… thanks. I’ve always hated it.” She’d been Cristy since the day she’d escaped the commune to go to college.

“Don’t,” he said. “It’s nice.”

She nodded.

“How did your brothers like their names?”

“These days they answer to Richard and Steve.”

“That figures. And your parents?”

“Dad has always refused to answer to anything but Ron, but Mom switched from Janet to Heavenly Lotus Blossom.”

Matt laughed. “Now you’re having me on.”

“I’m not. Trust me. My parents are seriously eccentric.”

“The more I hear about them, the more I like them. But I’m with your brothers on the names they’ve chosen.”

He stepped around the beds to where the lamp glowed in a corner of the room. Every movement he made was sensuous, the muscles rippling beneath the tan of his skin. The dark hair on his chest tapered to a vee that pointed to his makeshift loincloth and emphasized the power of his body. Her heart skipped a beat. She wanted him in the bed with her so badly it hurt.

He turned down the wick of the lamp and the light was extinguished. The dark was so intense it shocked her. There was no moonlight, the clouds blanketed even the smallest of stars.

Matt bumped her bed as he moved past on his way to his. “Sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said, in a voice that sounded quite unlike her own.

But she wasn’t okay.

She was scared.

Scared of the dark. Scared of being shipwrecked thousands of miles from home, in a foreign country, facing an uncertain future. Scared not of Matt, but of the feelings he aroused in her, feelings that she didn’t know how to stop from overwhelming her.

She heard the rustle of the sheets as Matt climbed into his makeshift bed. Had he taken off the sheet wrapped around his hips? Was he now lying there completely naked, just kissing distance away from her?

Her heart accelerated with a kick-start that made her catch her breath. The sharp intake came out like a sob.

She sensed, rather than saw, Matt rise on his bed and rest on his elbow. “Are you sure you’re all right, Cristy?”

His breathing was ragged, way too unsteady for a man on the edge of sleep. She could hear it even above the sound of the rain drumming on the iron roof.

“Yes. No. Not really. It’s the storm—the… the force of it.”

But it was the force of her attraction to him that was worrying her—attraction she now had to acknowledge went way beyond lust.

His hand reached out for hers and clasped it, strong and warm and comforting. “You’ll be okay. I’m here to fight the baddies. And we might even be rescued tomorrow.”

She squeezed his hand back, suppressing a shudder of longing for him to use it to stroke and caress her rather than comfort her. It was best he thought she was frightened of the storm. He’d run a mile—or swim it—if she confessed her real fears.
Back off.

Desire for him burned through her body, tensing her nipples and gathering between her legs. She shifted uncomfortably in the bed. How could she ever go to sleep with him naked—or nearly so—beside her and his hand warm in her hand?

No way could she make love with him on her wedding night. She couldn’t live with herself if she did. But she wanted to. How she wanted to. And while tonight was her wedding night, tomorrow—as had been so famously said before—was another day.

She wriggled in her scratchy bed. Why had she even mentioned bed bugs? Or thought about the frogs, spiders and maybe even snakes that were hopping, sliding and slithering around the outside of the hut.

Would sleep ever come?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Cristy
awoke to brilliant sunshine pouring through the window and onto her face. She stretched, rubbed her eyes, and then looked over to Matt’s bed. It was empty, the sheets rumpled and twisted as though he had spent a restless night. She was stunned by the disappointment that swept over her at his absence.

Then the door was kicked open and Matt walked in. Wearing his body-molding black undershorts and T-shirt again, and with his hair damp around his face, he looked as sexy as sin. Her heart started a furious pounding and the wanting began all over again.

“Mangoes for breakfast,” he announced with a flourish, holding out with two hands one of Seth’s enamel bowls piled high with the lush, golden fruits.

“Wow! Where did you find those?” Cristy sat up quickly in bed. “Did Seth have a garden?”

The glazed look on Matt’s face puzzled her but then the direction of his eyes made her look sharply downward. And her heart lurch in dismay. The halter tie of her makeshift sarong had come undone during the night and her breasts were completely bared to his gaze.

Matt clenched the dish of mangoes so hard his knuckles showed pale. He groaned. “Cristy. I told you—”

She felt too paralyzed by the blaze of hunger in his eyes to do anything, say anything. All she could do was stare at him, knowing her own eyes echoed the message in his.