The Trouble With Paradise (15 page)

Dark had fallen hours ago, which didn’t lessen the sense of helplessness. But with the loss of sight, her other senses kicked in.

And so did the memories.

She tried like crazy not to think about that big old smackeroo she’d given Christian, but holy crap, it’d been a helluva kiss.

The mother of all kisses.

She looked over at Andy, who sat there big and strong, worried, looking a little worse for wear because of it, and felt a stabbing sense of guilt even though she hadn’t once been able to have a decent conversation with him without her tongue swelling. The fact was, he’d expressed an interest in her and she’d led him to believe she shared that interest.

She’d
wanted
to share an interest, but she hadn’t been able to keep her mind—or her lips—off Christian.

The wind whipped through, bringing the rain with it, but they were all already as wet as they could get.

Just outside the door sat the life raft; Christian was going to prepare it as soon as he found Bobby.

The implications of that made her feel sick, so she went back to thinking about the kiss. The wow kiss. She covered her burning cheeks and glanced at Andy again.

A little rumpled, a little unnerved, he turned to her and smiled, concern in his eyes along with his affection for her.

She’d definitely lost her mind.

But she had to set aside the thought because she had a more pressing one—drowning. She was having some trouble getting past the mind-numbing certainty that each breath could very well be her last. She really wanted to close her eyes and pretend she wasn’t here. Wanted to go to sleep until the nightmare ended. Wanted to bury her head in the sand and be a coward.

After all, that’s what she did, she let life go by.

She was damn good at it.

How else to explain being nearly thirty and having nothing to show for it but a box of sketch pads? Why had she put off her hopes and dreams in order to play it safe?

“Think the water’s cold?” Cadence asked in a small voice.

Dorie forced a smile. “Nah. The South Pacific waters are notoriously warm.”

At that, they all turned their heads and looked out the window at the churning ocean. Though the rain and wind had begun to let up, everything was still black; the water, the sky, the spray in the air . . .

Despite her reassuring words to Cadence, Dorie shivered, because it all looked cold as hell. “I think it’s getting better out there.”

Cadence gulped. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Andy slid his arm around her. “Keep your eye on the horizon, remember?”

“Hard to do when the horizon keeps bouncing up and down like a Mexican jumping bean.”

“I wonder exactly where we are?” Brandy frowned out at the darkness.

Dorie opened her purse and pulled out a map of the South Pacific.

“You carry a map in your purse.” Brandy shook her head. “You really needed this vacation, didn’t you?”

“You have no idea.” She spread open the map, and they all stared at the multiple groups of islands off the coast of Australia, which were really hundreds of individual islands.

“So . . . we’re near here?” Brandy put her finger on Fiji.

“Not necessarily.” Andy shook his head. “I heard the captain say we’re
way
off course.”

Again they all took in the myriad of islands.

“We could be anywhere,” Cadence said quietly.

True. Dorie’s finger ran over the clusters: Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia . . . “Maybe we’re close to Tahiti.” She tried to sound cheerful. “I always wanted to see Tahiti. We’ll probably land somewhere really cool and laugh this whole thing off.”

“Yeah, like Bora Bora.” Cadence’s voice sounded weak and uncertain. “I heard Bora Bora is exciting.”

The boat creaked and let out a loud, seemingly human groan as the ocean rock and rolled beneath them.

“It’s going to fall apart,” Brandy whispered.

“Oh, no. No falling apart. I’m not ready to die.” Andy drawled this in a normal tone, as if by doing so he could make everything right again. “I have lots of baseball left in me, and next year, a contract renewal.”

“Money isn’t going to matter to you if you’re dead,” Cadence pointed out.

“Money always matters.” This from Brandy, of course.

“It’s not the money,” Andy told them. “It’s the security of knowing I can play for at least five more years.”

Dorie understood. She’d always appreciated security. A regular paycheck. But now, out here, floating in what seemed like a mortally wounded sailing yacht, Shop-Mart and any dubious security it offered her seemed very, very far away.

But not her dreams. She touched her lips, the ones that had kissed Christian. Yep, her dreams were right here with her, unfortunately going down with the ship.

From just outside, she could hear Denny yelling, shouting directions to Ethan. She pictured them out there, in the wild elements, fighting the losing battle against the equipment they had left, trying to keep them safe. “We need to help them.”

“I tried,” Andy said. “They want us to stay here, it’s safer.”

Dorie had a feeling “safer” was all relative at this point. “Then let’s help Christian look for Bobby.”

“He’s fine,” Andy said. “He’s probably sleeping.”

“But what if he’s not?” Dorie stood up, gripping the table for balance.

“Honey, Christian told us to stay here,” Brandy reminded her. “It’s too dangerous to do anything else. The boat could pitch and you could fall and hit your head.”

“I’m not going to hit my head.” She fought her way to the door, then turned back to find them all staring at her. Yeah, she was surprised, too. She rarely took charge. Okay, she never took charge. There’d always been others to do that. But she was done letting others take over. “No, stay,” she said when Andy began to rise. That’s what fear did to a person, made them bossy, apparently. “I’ll just go downstairs and make sure Christian doesn’t need any help. Maybe Bobby hurt himself or something.”

Andy shook his head. He still looked green, and more than a little shaky, but he stood. “Not alone, you’re not.”

Telling him he would only be a hindrance wasn’t the way to make him stay. “You have to be here for Cadence and Brandy.”

“It’s dark—”

“I have a flashlight. Besides, Christian’s down there, I’ll be fine.”

And with that, she turned and made her way to the stairs. Taking charge felt good, she decided. It overrode her fear.

She hopped down from the stairs and—

Landed in water. It splashed over her ankles, halfway up her calves, and damn it, it was colder than she’d imagined it could be.

But not even that mattered in the face of the bigger picture—they were taking on water, and lots of it. Too much. “Bobby?” she yelled.
“Bobby!”

Nothing except the whistle of the wind and the creaking and groaning of the boat. Well that, and her own panicked breathing, not to mention the thundering of her heart in her ears. She fought her way down the hallway,
fought
being the key word. The water made movement difficult, as did all the debris floating in it. Halfway, she thought she heard someone behind her, and whipped around.

No one.

Oh, God, she was really losing it. “Bobby?” She turned the corner toward the crew’s quarters, where it was even darker, and became grateful for her flashlight, meager as it was.

She nearly had a coronary as she whirled again. “My God.” She sagged back against the wall and stared at Christian, highlighted by her flashlight. “You scared me.”

“How did you get down here?” He was drenched. “Which part of
stay on deck
didn’t you understand?”

He was wearing the frown she’d rarely seen him without—until the kiss, that is. He definitely hadn’t been frowning when she’d kissed him.

Or when he’d kissed her.

Had he thought about it? How good it’d been? Make that amazing. Off-the-charts amazing.

“Damn it, Dorie. You’re not safe down here.”

He definitely wasn’t thinking about the kiss.

“What?”
he asked in disbelief, making her realize she’d spoken out loud.

“Um, nothing.”

“You’re thinking about the kiss,
now
?”

“Yeah, and that I have the brain capacity left to do so baffles even me, trust me.”

He continued to look at her as if she’d lost her mind, and she had to admit, she clearly had. “It’s just that with you my tongue doesn’t swell.”

“You hit your head?”

“I wondered about that, too, but no. I know, it sounds crazy, but my tongue swells whenever I’m around a cute guy. Which is why it swelled with Andy, making it hard to talk to him—”

“But not with me, apparently, since you manage to talk, a lot.” He fought through the water to come closer.

“No. Not with you—”

That was all she got out before he hauled her up against him and covered her mouth with his, probably just to shut her up; as a quieting technique, it worked for her. He made the most of the next few seconds, kissing her so thoroughly that when he let go and stared into her face, she staggered back and might have fallen on her poor beleaguered butt if he hadn’t held her steady.

“So I’m guessing,” she whispered, “we’re
both
thinking about the kiss, and—”

“And we can both get over it.”

He needed to get over it? “
Can
you? Get over it?”

“
Oui.
Absolutely.”

“How?” she asked, wondering if there was some secret.

Before he could answer, the boat pitched and rolled. Just as she lost her grip and would have gone flying, he snagged her close again. She slid up against that warm body for longer than necessary, and she was able to ascertain that, oh boy, no matter what he said, he wasn’t yet over it.

“Working on it,” he said grimly, reading her mind.

“Do you have to?”

“Yes.
Jesus.
Now stop...” He waved a hand, searching for the right words. “Distracting me.”

She
was distracting. She’d never been accused of that before, and it made her grin from ear to ear.

“No,” he said. “Don’t do that.” He pointed to the stairs. “Go. Get up there.”

“I’m helping you look for Bobby.”

“No.”

“But if we have to get into the raft”—please God, don’t let them have to get into the raft—“he’s going to get left behind. We can’t leave him behind.”

“No one’s getting left behind. Just go back up.”

“What if I saw him go overboard?”

“You said you saw two men hugging.”

“Or fighting,” she reminded him.

“And then they vanished,” he said. “You said they vanished.”

“Yes.”

“But two men aren’t missing.”

Only one. “What if one tossed the other over?”

His jaw tightened. “Go up.”

She shook her head and followed him down the hall, where he looked in every room. “I should have called my mom more often. I’m a bad daughter, Christian.”

He made a low, rough sound. “I don’t believe that.”

“I wish I’d told her I loved her before I came on this cruise. Instead I got annoyed because she told me to find a rich husband while I was here.”

He let out a short laugh that told her he understood, and checked another room.

“Do you have regrets? Do you get annoyed at your mother, too?”

“Used to.”

Used to.
Didn’t tell her much. She yearned to know more about this enigmatic, charismatic man she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about. “Are you close?” she asked breathlessly, trying to keep up.

With a sigh, he slowed, and reached for her hand. They splashed through the water that was up to their calves as he towed her by the hand, his grip ruthless as if he was afraid to let go. She appreciated the diligence. She didn’t want him to let go.

“My mother’s been gone a long time,” he said.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Like I said, a long time ago.”

“Did your father raise you? In . . . France?” she guessed.

“No. My mother was French. After she was gone, I left France to go live with my father, who was an Irish medic with an international charity organization. We stayed in Ireland, Africa, India . . . wherever his job took him.”

“Wow. So you’ve been helping people all your life.”

“You make it sound like a hero thing.”

“It is.”

“No.” He shook his head. “My father gave his life to it, at the cost of anything personal. That’s not heroic, that’s obsessive.”

“He had you. That was personal, right?”

“I was more a responsibility than a son.”

“And yet you became a doctor.”

“Because going away to college was my escape from poverty. Just like being here is paying off that debt.” He tried to open the door to the room Bobby shared with Ethan, but couldn’t.

“Debt?”

“Now who’s thinking out loud. Forget it, okay?
Bobby?
” He banged on the door.

“What debt are you paying off?”

He sighed again. “It’s expensive to become a doctor. My father helped me get the loans I needed. Now I’m helping him.”

“Which is why you’re here.”

“For one more year. Then I’m free to go back to France. Now that you have my entire life’s story, will you get your pretty ass back to the others?”

He thought her ass was pretty. Apparently she wasn’t suitably terrified because that warmed her more than it should. Although, in truth, his talking about his life warmed her more than his nice ass comment.

The man
was
human, and she’d just gotten proof. Looking into his chiseled, rigid features, she felt like she could finally begin to understand both his discipline and the walls he kept around himself. “What if you need help with Bobby?”