by Ginna Gray
Chapter Seven
Meghan blinked slowly. Then his words soaked in.
"What? Why you miserable...sneaky...no-good—" She was so incensed she could not think of anything vile enough to call him, so she hauled off and kicked his shin.
"Ow! That hurt!"
It hurt her foot as well, but she'd sooner have died than admit it. "Good. I hope it did. Serves you right."
"For what? All I did was make a suggestion."
"You can take your disgusting suggestion and stick it in your ear. I'm not interested." Assuming a pugnacious stance, she planted both fists on her hips. "And don't get any ideas about using force, either. Just try it and I'll rip out your spleen."
"Now there's a delightful image," Rhys said with droll unconcern. "If you don't want to get some sleep then don't. You can sit up all night if you want to. Me, I've had a hard day. I'm ready for some shut-eye."
"S-sleep? You mean—?"
"I was simply suggesting that we turn in for the night. It's been a tough twenty-four hours, and there's no way of knowing what tomorrow will bring. I think it's time to get some rest." He gestured toward the other end of the hut. "I gathered some pine needles from farther up the mountain slope before the storm broke. Enough to cover the sand, anyway. You'll have to use your purse for a pillow, I'm afraid."
Meghan noted the two mattress-size mounds of pine needles he had spread on the sand floor on either side of the hut, and embarrassed color flooded her face. She felt like an idiot. A good three feet separated the two pallets.
"When we have time, we'll weave a couple of sleeping mats," Rhys continued in the same matter-of-fact tone.
He started to unfasten his pants, but stopped with his hands on the top button and shot her a challenging look. "Before you set up a squawk you might as well know, I'm not sleeping in my clothes. If you want to go ahead and turn in, I'll douse the torch first, but one way or the other I'm shucking these jeans."
"I'll go to bed," Meghan gasped and shot across the small hut like a cat with its tail on fire. She flung herself down onto the pine needles, flounced over on her side, drew her knees up into a fetal position and turned her back on Rhys.
Wide-eyed, she lay rigid and stared at the shiny palm leaves just inches from her nose and the drop of rainwater that trickled down one stem. Her heart pounded like a kettledrum. Meghan bit her lip and closed her eyes.
"You need anything before I put out the torch?"
"No. No, I'm fine." Her voice came out so high-pitched it was almost a squeak.
The pine torch flickered when Rhys picked it up. He thrust the flame into the sand and instantly the interior of the hut plunged into darkness. Meghan could not even see her hand in front of her face until lightning flashed again, and then she jumped as the eerie blue glow momentarily filled the tiny space.
Behind her she heard the rustle of clothing. A few seconds of silence followed, then the slight whisper and crackle of pine needles and a long sigh as Rhys stretched out.
Meghan swallowed hard and blinked in the pitch darkness.
"Good night," Rhys said.
"Goo—" She cleared her throat. "Good night."
Rain drummed on the roof. Wind tore through the palm trees, slapping the broad leaves together like wet wash flapping on a line. Outside, the world was a frenzy of sound and motion. Lightning flashed. Thunder roiled. Trees swayed. Agitated waves crashed on the sand.
Inside the hut the silence was deafening. Meghan stared through the darkness, sure that Rhys could hear her heart thudding.
"Rhys?" she said finally.
"Mmm?"
"I... I'm sorry for... you know.. .what I said. And for kicking you. I thought—"
"I know what you thought. Look, just forget it, okay? I guess I don't blame you for being edgy."
"Thank you."
"Mmm."
Meghan sighed. Her nerves were still too raw to allow her to relax, but she felt a smidgen better for getting that off her chest. Five seconds later, just as her deep-breathing exercises were beginning to ease her tense muscles ever so slightly, Rhys's voice floated through the darkness again.
"For the record, Slugger, just so you'll know. ..when you and I do make love, there won't be any need for force."
* * *
The first thing Meghan saw when she opened her eyes the next morning was a bilious chartreuse lizard on a darker green leaf, just an inch from the end of her nose. She blinked, and one of the lizard's protruding eyes rolled to follow the motion. Then a tiny forked tongue slithered out.
That got her attention. Meghan let out a squawk and scuttled away from the loathsome creature on her heels and hands like a crab, her eyes wide. The lizard tilted his head, did three rapid pushups and darted out of sight through the palm leaves that made up the wall.
Sitting in the middle of the sand floor, her heart pounding, Meghan cast a bewildered look around. For a moment she could not recall where she was.
Then it all came rushing back and her shoulders slumped. Oh, Lord. It was true. All of it was true. She had hoped it had been just a bad dream.
She cut her eyes at the empty pallet of pine needles where Rhys had slept and her mouth turned down at the corners. "Of all the people in the world to be marooned with," she muttered, getting to her feet. "Wouldn't you just know I'd end up with Rhys Morgan."
She glared at the pallet again. When they made love, he had said. When they made love. Not if, or should we ever, but when! The arrogant... presumptuous...
She made a frustrated sound and aimed a kick at his bed that sent sand and pine needles flying. When donkeys fly!
Meghan had taken umbrage at the remark, of course. For all the good it had done her. Rhys had simply tuned her out, turned over on his side and gone to sleep, leaving her to rant at his bare back in the dark.
She had finally decided that he had just made the comment to rattle her, maybe even to take her mind off of their situation. Certainly Rhys had never shown any real interest in her before, sexually or otherwise. Well... unless you counted that sizzling kiss he'd given her.
Which she most certainly did not. She had figured out that had simply been the result of stress. Some weird form of hysteria. After all, they had just been kidnapped.
Wrinkling her nose, she put her clothes back on and returned Rhys's robe to the garment bag. Meghan was not particularly anxious to encounter Rhys again, but hunger and a full bladder drove her from the hut.
Stepping through the small door, she straightened and blinked against the bright sunlight. The tropical storm had blown itself out during the night. The beach was strewn with palm leaves, coconuts, seaweed, driftwood and other flotsam, but the sky was azure blue, without a cloud in sight. Meghan looked around, but there was no sign of Rhys.
She experienced a niggle of unease but did not stop to analyze it, heading instead for the woods beyond the beach as fast as her legs would carry her.
When she returned a short while later, Rhys still was not there. Shading her eyes with one hand, Meghan looked ail around. "Rhys? Rhys, where are you?"
She waited, but he did not answer. "Rhys? Rhee-eese."
A few birds squawked and flew out of the trees, but otherwise there was only the soft swish of the surf... and silence.
Meghan's heart began to beat faster. She looked up and down the beach. Maybe he'd gone beyond that point a little way down the beach and couldn't hear her calling, she told herself and set out in that direction.
"Rhys? Rhys, where are you?" she yelled through her cupped hands. The wind tossed the words right back in her face but she continued to call anyway.
There was no sign of him on the stretch of beach beyond the point and no footprints in the sand to indicate that he had been there. The uneasy feeling in the pit of Meghan's stomach solidified into a hard knot.
Biting her lip, she hurried back the way she had come, calling every step of the way. By the time she reached the hut, her insides were quivering and her voice had taken on the shrill of budding
hysteria.
"Rhys, answer me! Rhys! Oh, Lord, Rhys, where are you?" Frantic, she turned in a circle, unconscious little moans spilling from her throat. "Rhee—eeese! Rheee— eeeese/"
He burst out of the woods and tore down the slope behind the hut at a dead run. "Meghan! Hold on! I'm coming!"
Meghan gave a cry and ran to meet him.
"Oh, Rhys!" Sobbing, she flung herself against his chest from three feet away.
Rhys grunted and staggered back a step, but he wrapped, his arms around her and held her tight as she burrowed against him. "What is it? What's wrong?" he demanded, casting a sharp look around over the top of her head.
For a while all Meghan could do was cling to him and sob against his bare chest. The silky mat of hair tickled her nose and got in her mouth, but she barely noticed. Oblivious to the hot fears streaking down his chest, Rhys cupped the back of her head and rubbed it gently, but he remained tense and alert, his gaze sweeping the beach in both directions.
"C'mon, Meghan, talk to me. Did you have an accident? Are you hurt? Did something frighten you? You've got to tell me what's wrong, if you want me to help."
She sniffed and rocked her face against his chest. "Y-you weren't...h-here. I...I...thought you were...were gone. That I was all alo... alone."
"That's it?" He grabbed her shoulders and held her away from him at arm's length and scowled. "You thought I was gone? How the hell could I be gone? We're stranded here with no boat and no means of communication. Remember?"
Meghan sucked in a hitching breath. Her mouth worked pathetically and her chin wobbled, but she managed a sullen look of chagrin. "Well... you could have b-built a raft."
"In the middle of the night? During a thunderstorm?"
"Or if... if Quincy had refused to pay ray r-ransom, Virgil could have come back just for you."
"Is that what you think? That I would leave you here alone? Thanks a lot."
Meghan shrugged one shoulder. "You might not have had any choice."
"Oh, I would have had a choice, all right. If nothing else, I would have put up a fight those yahoos would never have forgotten and made enough noise to wake the dead. I sure as hell wouldn't have left you sleeping and tiptoed meekly out with them, just to save my own hide. Your opinion of me really stinks, you know that?"
His tone brought her chin up. "I'm sorry," she said in a stiff voice. "I panicked for a minute, is all."
"Panicked is right. Dammit, woman! You scared the living hell out of me. I nearly had a heart attack when I heard you screaming my name that way."
"I've said I'm sorry. What more do you want?"
One of Rhys's eyebrows shot skyward. "Now there's a question."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Never mind. The time's not yet right for that discussion."
He studied her, and after a moment his expression softened. He cupped her face with one hand and wiped a track of tears from her cheek with his thumb. "I suppose I shouldn't have gotten mad. It's kinda nice to know that you want my company.''
Meghan jerked free of his touch. "Don't let it go to your head. I'm just frightened of being stranded on my own, is all. I would welcome the company of Attila the Hun rather than endure that."
"Is that right? Funny, it was my name you were screaming."
"Of course it was. You're the only other person on the island." She looked beyond him at the woods. "Where were you, anyway?"
"I was doing a little exploring. I wanted to get the lay of the land, see what resources we have available to us, that sort of thing. I don't know about you, but I'm already a little sick of bologna sandwiches, so I picked some bananas and berries for our breakfast."
"Fruit? You've got fresh fruit?" Meghan's eyes lit up. "Where is it?"
"Back up the trail. I dropped everything and came running when I heard your screams. I'll go get it."
Rhys emerged from the woods a short while later carrying a stalk of bananas over one shoulder and his handkerchief, the four corners tied together, filled with some sort of dark berries. Meghan devoured two bananas without stopping, but she eyed the other fruit askance when he spread them out on a palm leaf.
"I've never seen berries like those. Are you sure they're safe? I mean, they could be poison, for all we know."
"They're safe." To prove it, Rhys grinned and popped a handful into his mouth. "Taste great, too. Try some."
"No, thank you."
"Hey, you can't afford to be squeamish, Slugger. Actually, we're lucky. This place is teeming with all kinds of edible plant life, but most of them you've probably never seen before. Trust me, they could turn out to be our salvation if we're here for any length of time."
"We won't be. Someone will come for us. If not today, then tomorrow or the next day," Meghan stated emphatically, peeling another banana. She took a bite and eyed him as she chewed. "Anyway, how do you know so much about what's edible and what's not? For that matter, where did you learn how to build a shelter with no tools? And how to start a fire?"
"I was a marine, remember? I was with a unit trained in jungle survival."
"Oh. I see."
Though she had known from the first time they met that Rhys had been in the military, she had never really pictured him as a rough, tough marine. In her mind he was a polished sophisticate. Even eight years ago when he'd been a struggling college student, to her naive eighteen-year-old eyes he had seemed a suave man of the world. His rise to international stardom these past eight years had merely reinforced that image.
Now, looking at him with his face shadowed with beard stubble, a jagged cut healing at the corner of his Up, his hair uncombed, barefoot and bare chested, Meghan realized that the urbane polish had been a veneer. He looked tough and hard as nails, even a little savage.
The thought sent a prickle down her spine, and she shivered and quickly looked away.
"By the way, white I was exploring, I found that waterfall and pool Scratch mentioned."
Meghan's unease was instantly forgotten. "You did? Oh, that's wonderful. I feel so grubby, I'd give everything I own for a bath."
"Yeah, I know the feeling." Rhys shot her a guilty grin. "I confess, I had a shower while I was up there. As soon as you're through eating, I'll show you the way."
"Great." Meghan gobbled down the rest of her banana and scrambled to her feet, then wrinkled her nose as she dusted the sand off her dress. It looked as though it had been worn for two days and slept in, which, of course, it had. "I only wish I had something else to put on."
"Hold on a sec." Rhys disappeared into the hut and returned a moment later with one of his white tuxedo shirts. "Here, you can wear this. It should belong enough to protect your modesty."
Meghan wanted to refuse. It was imperative, now more than ever, since they were trapped alone together in this impossible situation, that she keep her distance from Rhys. Yet, the thought of having a bath, then donning the same soiled clothing, was so repugnant it made her skin crawl. Without quite meeting his eyes, she accepted the shirt with a cool "thank you," then uttered a quick "just a second" and stepped inside the hut.
Rhys's eyebrows rose when she emerged with her purse. "Going somewhere?"
"For your information, I always carry a toothbrush in my purse. Along with other personal items, which I thought might come in handy. Now, if you don't mind, could we go? I'm anxious to take a bath."
He studied her haughty expression with what looked suspiciously like amusement, but Meghan could not be certain. "Sure. This way."
Rhys led her up the slope and into the trees. There the sand gave way to a loamy soil and the air was cooler, pungent with the smells of pine and flowers and ripe fruit, and the thick layer of humus that covered the forest floor. A hundred yards or so into the trees, Meghan began to hear the sound of running water.
"Are there any animals on this island?" She addressed the question to Rhys's bare back. The possibility had only just occurred to her. As she struggled to keep pace with Ins long stride, she peered anxi
ously into the forest on either side of them.
"A few. What do you think made this trail we're following?"
A cold sensation skittered down Meghan's spine. "If you don't mind, I'd rather not think about it."
Rhys chuckled and glanced over his shoulder. "Don't worry, Slugger. From the tracks I've come across, they're all fairly small critters. Squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, maybe a few weasels and foxes. Nothing too ferocious."