Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong

chapter SEVEN



SHE was fast running out of excuses—and island—but tonight was a perfectly legitimate reason. It was work and, conveniently, it was one more way to keep a comfortable distance between them. She sat on her camp chair, perched on a flat vegetated spot about five metres back from the edge of the sandy turtle nesting site, her logbook ready in her lap. The sun hung low in the sky, just minutes away from sinking into the dark blue ocean.

She switched on her ultraviolet lamp, invisible to the turtles and not likely to frighten them away. Not that she would need it much tonight; it was a full moon, making for prime hatching conditions. Although she’d be lucky to get a hatching in any of the marked nests so soon.

The damage to the dunes told her female green turtles were still visiting nightly. Some of the fluorescent ties marking the survey nests had snapped. If a turtle dug her nest out over the top of another, the first clutch of eggs was usually destroyed. Honor looked along the beach philosophically. It was such a small stretch of beach and dozens of females had laid already, more than once, so some losses to friendly fire were inevitable.

The first time she’d had to stand back and let nature take its course was the hardest. It was on a mainland project and many rare cockatoo nests had burned in a bushfire that went through while she was in the area surveying.

‘If people knew what happened in nature, they’d shut it down.’

Nate’s words still resonated, all these years later.

Honor sighed. She didn’t let herself think casually of her husband, or Justin. She remembered them, every minute, but tried not to think about them. Now she’d done nothing but think of them all afternoon and evening.

It didn’t feel as bad as she thought it would. It still ached but it didn’t suck all the air from her body as it once had. She turned her head for the millionth time and stared to the north.

At least they were together.

Tingling senses warned her a split second before she heard the crunching of leaves behind her and she stiffened. He’d come for her.

‘Hi, stranger.’

Honor kept her eyes firmly glued to the nest markers as Rob squatted on the sand nearby. Not that she needed to look at him; she could practically feel every move he made through the highly charged place where her energy met his. Her pulse picked up.

She nodded in reply, glanced quickly at him and then back to the nests, not trusting herself to speak. That quick glance had told her all she needed to know. First—a day apart had done nothing to reduce the simmering tension between them. Second—he was still worried about her, judging by the cautious glance he returned.

Third—he’d shaved. That smooth jaw line called to her more than ever.

‘You haven’t been avoiding me, have you?’ Was that hurt in his voice?

‘I’ve been busy.’

His silence told her he knew she was lying. She squirmed under his steady regard.

‘Any luck?’

The turtles. Good. Safe. ‘Nothing yet, but they’ll come.’

‘Honor...about yesterday...’

She stopped him with a raised hand. ‘Don’t, Rob. You’re sorry you asked me and I’m sorry that I put you through all that. Can we just leave it at that? Two very sorry people?’

‘Some are more sorry than others.’ He smiled and she recognised it instantly as that other smile of his, the fake one. But his intense stare was genuine.

She turned away on a blush, lest he read her mind. It was wrong to be surprised that he not only had read Orwell but could also joke with it, but she was. She hadn’t pegged him as the literary type. Then she realised she’d started having trouble pegging him as any particular type. He still stared at her intently and, for a frightening heartbeat, she wondered if he could read her mind.

She sidestepped the awkward silence. ‘How long have you been a diver?’

He sat up straighter and considered. ‘Since I could swim. I was always the one who freaked the other kids out by sitting on the bottom of the pool for too long. I found it so tranquil. Private.’

That was at odds with his adult life. ‘I wouldn’t have picked you as someone who likes tranquillity.’

‘There are lots of things you don’t know about me.’

Hadn’t she just been thinking that very thing? ‘You quote the classics, can’t stomach the sight of blood and are kind to animals. Anything else I need to know?’

He looked surprised. Perhaps he thought she hadn’t been paying attention. ‘I make a mean lasagne.’

Her laugh was fast and loud. Birds flapped off their roosts and then settled again and their activity drew her gaze. When she looked back at him, he was staring at her openly. Curiously.

‘What?’

‘You’re such a mystery. Yesterday I would have put good money on you never speaking to me again. Now you’re laughing at my jokes.’

Honor knew that deserved an honest answer. She sighed. ‘Rob... Something like yesterday has never happened to me. Never. Even when they died, I didn’t really have a chance to just fall apart. I was even stuck in hospital up north for their funeral.’

Pity showed on his face before he schooled it.

‘It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It had to be conducted quickly because of how...’ She swallowed hard. ‘I was still in hospital in Darwin recovering from surgery and they were flown home to Perth. Anyway, to tell the truth, I didn’t want to go. I didn’t think it would make any difference to how I felt.’

‘So, that decision finally caught up with you?’

She dipped her head. He understood her very well for a stranger.

‘Right. I’m still quite shaky inside and out, but I think it was also very necessary, and overdue. This is not to say that I’m not mortified it happened in front of you, but...I guess it wouldn’t have happened without you.’

‘That’s what I—’

Her hand on his folded knees cut him off. ‘In a good way.’ His leg felt strong and cool under her hand. When he glanced down at it, she tucked it back into her lap. ‘Better out than in, as my mum used to say.’

‘Used to? Is she not still alive?’

She let the pause drag out too long. ‘Things were difficult between us after the accident. She lives in Broome now.’ She glanced to the east, back towards Australia. As though Tanya Brier might sense it. She’d put her life on hold for six months to nurse her only child back to full health, and she’d been repaid by...

‘Look, can we talk about something other than my mother?’

Rob blinked. ‘I’ll trade you.’

‘Mothers?’ She couldn’t help the eyebrow lift.

He laughed and she thought maybe he’d take her up on that. ‘Hard luck stories.’

‘What makes you think mine’s a hard luck story?’

‘Educated guess.’

Honor knew she wasn’t getting out of this without airing some kind of dirty laundry. The piper wanted payment. She sighed. ‘You first.’

‘Chelsea Dalton.’ He said her name after a moment, as if it was a fashion label. ‘Beautiful. Sexy.’

You knew you’d been on an island too long when a snort like the one she let rip then wasn’t embarrassing. ‘You can’t call your own mother sexy.’

‘Obviously not to me.’ He settled onto the sand at her feet.

Don’t get too comfortable. She had no intention of making this a long conversation.

Rob went on. ‘But I can see the effect she has on other people. The effect she must have had on my dad.’

Despite her better judgement, interest prickled. ‘Had—past tense?’

‘I’m not sure when it wore off,’ he said as a shadow crossed his face, even in the moonlight. ‘Just one day in the middle of my teens it was gone. That look in his eyes.’

‘What does she do for a living?’

‘Oh, Chelsea doesn’t work.’ His mouth twisted self-deprecatingly. ‘At least not in the conventional sense; she’s made rather a career out of freeloading.’

Honor sucked in a breath at the harshness in his voice. She, of all people, knew how complicated relationships with mothers could be, and the guilt that came with that. ‘Do you love her?’

Rob looked at her hard, as though it was an impossible question to answer. ‘She’s my mother. Of course I love her.’

‘But do you like her?’

He looked out to sea. ‘Not always.’

Honor watched him steadily, glancing briefly at the nest markers to make sure she wasn’t missing anything. She still had a job to do tonight.

‘She and I don’t agree on a lot of things. I’ve not really...progressed...the way she might have wished.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning I took a job with the government, in a museum, working on mouldy old shipwrecks. I suspect she had grander hopes for me.’

Honor knew that a job in that field was not exactly pedestrian. How sad his parents couldn’t acknowledge his talents. ‘And your father?’

‘Oh, I know he had grander hopes for me, or at least he thinks they’re grander. I can’t imagine anything worse than being a serial flatterer six days a week.’

‘Sounds like they’re a well-matched pair.’

‘On the surface I guess they are, or they were; there’s not much love lost between them these days. Mum carries on like a besieged villager, stoically tolerating occupying forces. It’s no fun to be around when they’re at a peak.’

‘Have you ever asked them?’

‘No. That would require us to have an actual meaningful conversation. With words.’

‘It can’t really be that bad?’

‘Some days...’ He leaned his back against her legs, looking out to sea. It was only a small touch but it was so natural and it carried such intimacy it stole her breath. And not in a good way. She burned to move but his steady weight held her captive. She said the first thing that came to her mind.

‘So your dad’s a player, too, huh?’

She felt him tense against her legs and immediately regretted the words.

‘Depends on your definition. We’re different people.’ There was tightness in his voice. She got the sense that she’d just hit the nail very firmly on the head.

‘What’s he like? Does he look like you?’

‘People say so. But there ends the similarity.’

Honor sat quietly. If he wanted to go on, he would.

He did. ‘He brought me up in his image. Had definite plans for my future—plans that looked a lot like his. He wasn’t happy when I picked archaeology to study at uni instead of commerce.’

‘But he accepted it?’

‘He ignored it.’

‘You prevailed...’

‘Only because I’ve made a real effort over the years to appease him.’

‘How?’

‘I made sure that we had plenty of common ground. I took my studies and career underground while, outwardly, I lived the life he wanted for me. Sport, networking, women. Lots of women.’ He smiled. ‘It was enough. It meant I could do what I wanted to do and he was content, too.’

‘Didn’t you get tired of living like that?’

‘Hey, it wasn’t all bad. That kind of lifestyle is very entertaining, but...not sure I could live like that for ever. Could you?’

Honor straightened in the chair, made uneasy by the sudden shift in the conversation back to her and the intensity of his questing gaze.

Deflect, deflect, deflect...

Sex. That was safer territory. She didn’t want to know anything more about his childhood and the hurts and failures he’d experienced. It only led in one direction. And she wasn’t going there.

‘You’re talking about all the women.’

‘Partly. I’m not sorry about the experiences I’ve had... But it wears thin after a while.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I’m surprised that you’re still single. I would have thought you were quite the catch. Wealthy family, good looking, bright.’

He turned his head back towards her, his eyes bleak. ‘In that order?’

She shrugged. ‘For them, maybe.’

‘And what about for you?’

She hesitated. Her spine grew rigid, her voice tight. ‘My order would be a little different.’

‘What would you value highest?’

Passion. Intelligence. Integrity. Charisma...if she was being honest. ‘We’re not talking about me.’

‘I’ve never found any...permanent interest amongst those women. They weren’t what I was looking for.’ He glanced down, his smile pasted on. ‘And...uh...my attempts to broaden my horizon haven’t been particularly successful.’

Honor could believe it. Women like herself would give a man like Rob the widest possible berth out of sheer self-preservation. Demi-gods and bookworms weren’t the most natural fit. A tiny part of her felt sorry for him. But only tiny. ‘Does that surprise you—with the lifestyle you lead?’

‘I didn’t understand it, then. But when I look at how you perceive me—and I consider you to be the best of women—I begin to see the flaws in my approach.’

The best of women.

The words hit her like a bullet. She’d been downright unfriendly towards him several times in the few days they’d known each other, yet he still rated her so highly. Shame and awkwardness and a trembling heat she couldn’t name washed over her. Even in the moonlight, she could see the appealing stain of colour in his cheeks and she knew he’d said more than he meant to. The knowledge slid between her ribs like a seductive blade.

‘Rob...’

He looked at her. ‘Your turn.’ But as she opened her mouth to refuse, her eyes drifted past his shoulder, where a small patch of sand high in the dunes began to ripple.

A hatching! She really hadn’t expected one tonight, but it was happening! Not in one of her survey sites, which meant she could just relax and enjoy it. Probably the first laying of the season. Rob twisted in his spot to follow her gaze.

The sand seemed to bubble and boil well outside the marker squares. Parts caved in while other parts erupted and the surface looked, for a moment, as though it were breathing.

‘It’s alive!’ Rob cried.

‘It is.’ She laughed and leapt to her feet as dozens of tiny black creatures erupted from the nest and scrabbled over the edge in the moonlight. Ten...twenty...fifty tiny, rubbery reptiles raced each other down the dune and across the beach.

Four frigatebirds, smart enough to stay up late on the night of a full moon, immediately swooped in and began picking off individuals. Honor knew their excited squawks would draw their brethren. Many. And soon.

Rob’s hands clenched at his sides and his body twitched visibly to get in there.

‘No, Rob. It’s nature.’ She turned her eyes back to the seething nest. It was a spectacular sight.

‘I can’t keep track of them, there’s so many.’

‘Pick one as it emerges from the nest and then follow it to shore. It helps keep it in perspective.’

The hatchlings were virtually identical, so picking one was more of a token act, but Honor fancied she saw one lighter than the rest and chose that one to focus on. It scrabbled over the edge of the sandy nest and weaved its way down the beach, darting left, darting right. It would be there by now if it had just taken a straight course to the ocean.

Immediately, she had a flashback—Nate teaching three-year-old Justin how to weave with a soccer ball. He’d scampered as directionless around their back yard, too, trying to keep the ball on track. A lump immediately grew in her throat even as she smiled at the memory. Her heart reached out to her tiny turtle as it finally hit the surf and was gone. It was on its own now.

‘No!’

Her head whipped around at Rob’s outraged cry.

‘My guy’s going the wrong way! And there’s a whole bunch going with him.’

Honor had to smile. Ironic, that the turtle he picked would turn out to be hyper-energetic and completely devoid of good sense.

‘I’m going in.’ He kicked off his shoes.

Her hand held him back. Stronger than she felt. ‘I have to observe the non-intervention policy—’

He shrugged off her grip, scrambled to his feet and shot forwards. ‘I don’t.’

‘Rob!’ Honor’s whispered reprimand had no impact. She angled the UV spotlight his way to help him pick his way along the beach between the kamikaze reptiles. They blindly sprinted—faster than a newborn should ever be able to move—down the sand towards the water’s edge. Survival instinct drove them on. He moved like a morris dancer up the beach—side-stepping a tiny scrabbling turtle one moment, stopping and letting one run over his bare foot the next, then deftly leaping over another group. He danced his way to the far side of the dune where six baby turtles had paused just inside the tree line. He picked up the leader and turned it around, towards the ocean. It hit the sand running. The others wheeled around and followed, finally shooting into the water and disappearing under its dark surface.

Rob loped towards her up the beach that was now empty except for the snacking frigatebirds. He was moonlit, puffing slightly, had a crooked grin on his handsome face and his eyes locked hard onto hers.

Her heart swelled and she adored him in that moment for flouting the golden rule so spectacularly. For the first time in a very long time she didn’t think, she just acted. She launched out of her folding chair and crashed into him, sliding her arms around his neck in a fierce hug. He caught her with warm, surprised hands.

‘Thank you,’ she breathed in his ear.

He laughed and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her easily off the sand. Her legs scrabbled like a hatchling.

‘Grateful?’ He swung her side to side and she tightened her hold to hang on. She hadn’t done this since she was a child, but the way her body pressed hard against his, she felt anything but childlike.

‘Yes!’

‘How grateful?’ He leaned back and looked down at her seriously.

She frowned, confused. ‘What?’

‘One kiss,’ he said simply. Intensely.

All her delight with him evaporated. ‘Did you plan this, Dalton?’

He rolled his eyes but didn’t let go. ‘Yes, Honor. I came here earlier and whispered through the sand to the turtles in their eggs. We planned this whole thing. You got us.’

‘So you’re just an opportunist, then?’

‘You bet. One kiss—that’s my price.’

‘For what?’

‘For saving six hatchlings and possibly the entire species.’ He was joking, but she had just thrown herself into his arms in gratitude. It made it hard to pretend now that she didn’t value what he’d done.

‘You don’t want to kiss me.’ Honor knew the impact her scars had on people. She wasn’t hung-up about it but she was also a realist.

‘Correction—I’ve wanted to kiss you from the moment I saw you.’ Sincerity was live in his eyes but still she doubted. Maybe a kiss wasn’t such a big deal where he came from—just a bit of fun? He couldn’t know that she’d only been kissed by two men in her whole life—her first kiss when she was fourteen and then her husband. Rob would make three.

If she was entertaining the suggestion.

She swallowed. Her heart thumped an SOS in her chest but her body wasn’t listening. How good would it be to give in to her yearning, to taste him just for a moment? She imagined how his lips would feel against hers but, more than anything, she wanted to nibble her way along that spectacular jaw line. She could almost reach it from here...

In her dreams. This was just a bit of fun for Rob, gentle flirting. He was probably bored. And the best way to handle a flirt? Call them on it.

‘Fine—one kiss.’

His pupils flared and he bent his head towards her.

‘One small kiss.’

‘One small kiss—’ he nodded ‘—for each turtle?’

A crazy part of her was enjoying the verbal foreplay. He was waking nerve endings she hadn’t used in a long, long time. ‘Turtles hatched or turtles saved?’

He smiled, caught out. ‘Okay, saved.’

Six small kisses. Just kisses. Every part of her wanted to say yes and that alone rang alarm bells. He was perfection in deck shoes, funny and gentle, and all of this probably meant nothing to him. Just a bit of casual sport. It was what he did, after all.

He played.

‘Deal.’

If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. ‘Where would you like the first one?’

A wild streak she’d virtually forgotten she had surged forward. She stood straighter and looked at him fearlessly. ‘Cheek.’

He smiled, leaned in excruciatingly slowly and brushed gentle lips across one flushed cheek. They were cool and soft against her flaming skin. He smelled of sea-salt and moonlight. She could survive this...

‘Next?’

‘Other cheek. That’s two.’

‘Thank you, I can count.’ He leaned to her other side and moved his mouth slightly against her other cheek. Lingering. The scent of warm man eddied around her. It was like a natural stimulant.

‘Three and four?’

Honor took a deep breath. Only two chaste kisses and her heart was ready to beat right out of its cavity. She closed her eyes and every other sense kicked into overdrive. She felt him lean in, the air around her humming at his approach. His lips touched one eyelid and then the other. Soft, slow and delightful.

She’d felt his smile against her first eyelid but, when they fluttered open, he wasn’t smiling any more. And he’d shifted closer, almost touching her chest with his.

Mustn’t lean forward... She’d never felt such a burning desire to close a gap in her life. She raised her hands up to his chest to stop herself from doing precisely that but feeling the hard heat of his chest through his shirt only reminded her how long it had been since she’d felt a man’s heartbeat under her fingers. Her lips.

Five.

He didn’t need to say it. Wordless, she tipped her head sideways, exposing the long length of her neck. The good side. She pointed to a spot just next to where her pulse beat its ancient tattoo.

He leaned in closer and held her steady with one large hand on each arm. Then he slowly moved towards the place she’d identified. Honor let her heavy eyelids close again, breathless with anticipation, then felt him pull away. Disappointment ached in her throat. When she opened her eyes, his were glittering with desire and something else.

Speculation.

Before she could react, he twisted and narrowed the space between them and then pressed his mouth against the other side of her neck. Right on the leathery patchwork of her scars.

Shock stiffened her body and sensation assaulted her. She pushed away instinctively, but he held fast. Surgery had done nothing to reduce sensation where the grafts had been applied. If anything, the still-healing skin was hyper-sensitive. Electric currents shot out from the warmth of his mouth as he lazily kissed his way over her damaged skin. A lifetime of emotions surged through her—panic, desire, confusion, sorrow—but when his tongue got in on the act, her legs gave way completely. He supported her when she sagged and then carefully pulled back, watching her closely.

Tears trembled on her lashes and she struggled to blink them away in a futile attempt to disguise her confusion. Her heart hammered wildly. Even the ache she perpetually lived with ached.

To have the sensitive, awful skin touched at all by another person, let alone kissed so tenderly...it just about broke her heart anew. She swallowed back the bitter salt of tears.

Rob watched her cautiously. He didn’t look repulsed, her foggy logic whispered. He wasn’t making excuses or avoiding eye contact. He looked focused and present and...disturbingly sexy.

Honor felt exactly like he looked. Smoky-eyed and just the tiniest bit wary. Did he realise just what an intimate thing that kiss had been? Maybe, judging by the uncertainty in his expression.

First vulnerable, now uncertain. Maybe he was more human than she’d thought? Human and so very, very close.

That was enough to nudge her over the sensual precipice. She stretched up on her toes to press her mouth firmly against his. A small kiss, just lips meeting lips. But she’d done it. Not him.

And that made it a big kiss.

Rob’s hands slid up to frame her face, holding her steady while his lips grazed repeatedly over hers. A hint of coffee mixed with mint. It was a heady combination. Both of their chests heaved and Honor trembled at the taste and feel of a man’s breath on her face. Nice breath.

Rob’s breath.

He tested her lips with his tongue and she caved in immediately, admitting him and slipping her own tongue into blazing heaven. It was stupidly, hideously, leg-crossingly erotic. And it was only a kiss.

No wonder he was such a success with women. The man made out like a god.

Ding, ding, ding.

Alarm bells clanged. Sanity returned and Honor realised she’d been pressing her body against his still-healing stomach wounds. She tore herself away and retreated a few feet. Her breath came heavily and it pleased her to see that he was just as affected.

Expert in the art he might be, but even super-lover could clearly feel the attraction surging between them. How easy would it be to just let the energy draw her back into his arms? How tempting was it to give herself the physical pleasure, at least, and keep her heart bound up tight for her boys? Her lost boys.

She ignored the violent tingles still buzzing across her damaged skin and fought hard to find her voice. Her voice croaked out one word.

‘Six!’