The Castaway Bride

by Kandy Shepherd

Her eyes narrowed. “I told them ‘nothing doing’ all the way.”

  She was surprised when he laughed. “Good for you,” he said. “But what about you two?”

  Cristy flushed. “What do you mean?”

  “Yeah,” said Matt. “What are you getting at?”

  Danny shrugged his shoulders with great exaggeration. “I just thought you two had something going between you. The chemistry is kinda obvious.”

  “No,” denied Cristy at the same time Matt did, but she was stunned at the pain his denial caused her.

  So she hadn’t misread that coldness in his eyes. Or was he, like herself, just wanting to put Danny off the track? If so, he was doing a great job—no one hearing him would get a hint of the passion that had flared between them.

  Despite her pain, throughout lunch she found herself reluctantly enjoying Danny’s company. Danny seemed full of remorse for his misdoings. Without a doubt he was a player—but he was charming, humorous and a good conversationalist. Which was as well, because Matt hardly spoke a word.

  By the time they got to coffee she had virtually lapsed into silence herself. Matt had been less than encouraging and she still found herself constrained with him, the easy camaraderie that they had shared on the island exchanged for an awkward nervousness.

  The sexual tension between them seemed to have dissipated, too. He was being careful not to look at her; she still got a shock every time she snuck a glance at him, expecting long hair and a sexy growth of beard.

  Was this all there was to be for them? Miriam and Howard were taking the afternoon jet boat to Hibiscus Island and flying back to Sydney. Should she go with her friends?

  Matt refused her offer to pay for her lunch. But he didn’t exactly get down on his knees and beg her to stay. She got up awkwardly and pushed back her chair.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Nice lunch. Though it wasn’t quite the same without a tin plate and only one fork between us.”

  Her attempt at humor fell flat.

  Matt got up too. He cleared his throat. “I have to work with the emergency team all afternoon. Could we get together for a drink this evening?”

  Too little, too late. Trying to revive the spark between them was a humiliating no-no. She wouldn’t go there again.

  She glanced at her watch. “I… uh… I’m thinking of flying to Sydney this afternoon.”

  Matt’s face darkened. “With Howard?”

  “And Miriam,” she said. “You didn’t give me a chance to tell you. They’re in love. Always have been. And I’m thrilled for them.”

  And I’m so darn unhappy for myself that I seem to have lost you. If I ever had you, that is. If I ever knew you at all.

  Tears began to sting her eyes and she blinked down hard on them. Her island romance had just been a fling to him. It had meant nothing. How dumb had she been to think anything else. To have dreamed of something more.

  She had to get away from Matt’s shuttered gaze and Danny’s too-interested one. “I’ll… let you know what I decide to do,” she said, forcing a smile from lips that had started to quiver. “Th… thanks again for lunch.”

  She walked as calmly as she could away from Matt and his brother. She refused to give into tears. She would not break down. Not at least until she got to the privacy of her room.

  But she didn’t cry then, either. Instead she raided the mini bar for the endlessly satisfying comfort of chocolate, kicked off her stilettos and flung herself on the bed. She grabbed the remote control and aimlessly surfed from one channel to the other while she munched, until she paused at a news bulletin.

  One minute the news focused on a trouble spot in the Middle East, next it moved to Queensland, Australia for an update on the kidnapped bride.

  Cristy sat mesmerized by the screen. There she was stumbling away from the helicopter with Matt behind her. He was as she remembered him, as sexy as sin in his black T-shirt and undershorts. And she—ohmigod—how different she looked in the torn remnants of her wedding dress, her breasts practically falling out of the top, her hair tangled and tumbling wildly around her shoulders, her face bare of makeup but glowing with the contentment of a well-pleasured woman.

  Someone off-camera flung the beach towel around her. Then the camera cut to her impromptu press conference. “Matt Slade… he’s one of the good guys…” she heard herself say.

  Then the tears did come as she remembered how wonderful he’d been to her on that island paradise, kind and funny and sexy and protective. A man who would fight battles for her. But that Matt seemed to have disappeared, to be replaced by an urbane businessman who didn’t want to acknowledge anything that had happened between them.

  Maybe he regretted the time on the island. She sniffed hard. Well she didn’t regret it one bit. Especially that wild sex that had woken her to the difference between love and lust. She’d remember it—and him—for the rest of her life.

  A knock came at the door and her hand flew to her face. Matt!

  Surely it would be him, come to say what he hadn’t been able to say in that impersonal hotel lobby or in front of Danny. With her fingers, she wiped beneath her eyes in case her mascara had run and quickly smoothed back her hair.

  She took a deep breath as she opened the door, praying that this time she’d channel the strength to say the words that would make things right.

  But the door opened to a maid. “Your laundry, ma’am,” the girl said, handing her a plastic dry cleaner bag.

  Nauseous with disappointment Cristy took it from her and shut the door. She leaned back against the door to support herself. Then, curious as to its contents, she opened the bag. Inside was what was left of her wedding dress, washed and pressed, and neatly on a hanger.

  She laughed out loud, remembering her gown’s former glory. Then, impulsively, she tore it off the hanger, stripped off her red dress and her bra and slipped into the ragged wedding dress. Fumbling with nervous fingers she did up the buttons at the back, not caring if she missed a few in her haste.

  She stood in front of the mirror and pulled at the tie in her hair, releasing it to fall over her shoulders. She fluffed it up with her hands so it looked wild and messy. Then, going into the bathroom, she wiped off her carefully applied make up until a pile of crumpled, soiled tissues sat on the marble bench top and she was barefaced.

  If she’d found Matt’s business attire unfamiliar and intimidating, maybe he had felt the same about what she’d been wearing. She’d take one last chance. She’d go to him, dressed like this. Find his room. No. She’d better put on a robe in case anyone else saw her. Then when she saw him she’d take it off. Take it off and—

  Another knock came at the door. More laundry? Room service?

  But she opened the door to find Matt—her Matt—wearing faded old jeans and no shoes and a black T-shirt that molded to his amazing body and looking impossibly handsome and familiar and wildly, heart-stoppingly sexy.

  Her pulse started to race and her knees felt suddenly unable to support her. She clutched for the doorway but he took her hand in his.

  He didn’t say a word, just took the other hand, pulled her hard to him and kissed her, his mouth hard and hungry and possessive.

  Fervently, she kissed him back opening her mouth to his, welcoming his tongue, pressing her breasts to his chest, her hips to his, desperately hoping that he could sense how much she wanted him, how much she loved him. Her heart sang with a wild happiness that he had come to her.

  He tore away from the kiss. “Cristy, I love you and I’m sorry I was such a bastard to you downstairs.” His words came out in a rush.

  Her heart pounding erratically, Cristy looked at him, astounded. Had she heard him right?

  He groaned. “Don’t make it hard for me, I’ve been trying to tell you that since before we were rescued from the island.”

  “That you love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I was trying to tell you.”

  “You were?”

  “Only I couldn’t find t
he courage to say the words.”

  “You couldn’t find the courage?”

  She shook her head. “I… I’ve never said them before.”

  “You have never told a man you loved him?”

  “Never.”

  “I had never told a woman.”

  “But you just told me.”

  “Yes. The first time I’ve ever said those words. I swear it.”

  She smiled a slow smile. “I like that.”

  “But you haven’t said it.”

  Cristy frowned until she understood what he meant. Color warmed her cheeks. She looked into his eyes.

  “I love you, Matt,” she said, slowly and distinctly. And then again. “I love you, I love you, I love you!”

  He picked her up and whirled her around the room until she was giddy and laughing and begging him to stop.

  “You looked so different in that posh red dress,” he said, his hands caressing her bare shoulders and down her back. “I didn’t feel I knew you at all. Couldn’t say anything that I wanted to say. I’m glad you put this thing back on. You… you look like you again, now.”

  She shivered with pleasure at his touch. “I didn’t know you, either, Mr. Taipan Slade International.”

  “I should have told you the truth about me from the beginning. Right when you accused me of being a boat thief.”

  She put a finger to his lips to still him. “Would it have made a difference? I don’t think so. I would have fallen in love with you anyway.”

  He caught her hand and kissed each finger one by one. “Cristy, I can’t tell you what it means to me—to have your love, your loyalty. I… I’m not very good at putting my feelings into words.”

  “You’re doing just fine,” she said, her voice warm and encouraging with love.

  He kissed her again and she relaxed against him, marveling at the joy that swept through her.

  “You taste of chocolate,” he murmured.

  “I raided the mini-bar,” she admitted.

  “Didn’t you have enough chocolate on the island?”

  “I didn’t have enough of anything on the island,” she replied, letting her hand stray to the waistband of his jeans.

  He kissed his way down to the top of her bodice and the swell of her breast, “Don’t tempt me.”

  “What do you mean ‘don’t tempt me’?” she asked breathlessly, her nipples tightening and tingling at his touch.

  “We need to talk more,” he said as he kissed his way up her throat to that special spot that turned her on. “Like we should have back on the island.”

  “If… if you say so,” she said in an unsteady voice, knowing he was right but unable to think of anything else but the pleasure his kisses were giving her and the desire that was starting to make her melt.

  She nuzzled into the smooth skin under his ear, then nibbled on his earlobe. She could feel his heartbeat accelerate. “Sure you want to talk?” she murmured into his neck.

  “I… uh…” His breath was ragged. His hand slid down to her breast.

  His mouth, his hands felt so good. She wanted more. But she pulled away from him. He was right. More of that and they’d never talk about the things they should have made clear before this. She sucked in a steadying breath. “Start by telling me the name of the island. Our island, the one we were shipwrecked on.”

  Startled, he stopped kissing her throat. “I haven’t named it yet.”

  “You get to name it?”

  “Sure. I own that island. Now it’s just a number on an ordinance survey.” He smiled into her face and her heart did a somersault at the warmth in his eyes. “But I’m going to call it Crystal Island.”

  “Crystal Island?” She stared at him. “Because of the clearness of the water?”

  “Stop fishing for compliments. I’m naming it after you, of course.”

  “You… you’re naming an island after me?”

  She was so knocked out by his words, she didn’t really know what to say in reply. “So… I guess… I’ll be famous when you build a resort there.”

  Matt shook his head. “I’ve decided I’m not going to build on the island. That’ll keep the bird-watching lobby happy, but will also let us keep it just for us.”

  “Just for us?”

  Her heart thrilled as she remembered the exquisite waterfall, the rainforest estuary, the turquoise waters and the ramshackle little hut where she’d found love.

  “Just our own private paradise,” she breathed, fiercely glad she wouldn’t have to share that special place with anyone else.

  “Not ours. Yours. I’m going to give it to you.”

  “You’re… going… to give me an island?” Her tone was disbelieving.

  “For a wedding present.”

  The words hung in the air between them for a long moment. “A wedding present?” she breathed.

  Matt slammed his hand against his forehead. “I didn’t mean to say that. Not so soon. You’ve only just escaped from one wedding. I didn’t think—”

  Cristy put up her hand to his cheek. “Think what, Matt?”

  “Think you’d want to talk about getting married yet.”

  Cristy smiled, a slow, warm, tender smile.

  “Try me,” she said.

  “It’s not too soon?”

  “It’s not too soon.”

  Matt looked very serious. “Cristy, will you marry me, be my wife?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Of course I will,” she said, kissing him, knowing now how very, very right her mom had been.

  This overwhelming feeling of rightness, of certainty, of wholehearted commitment—this was how you should feel when you agreed to marry a man. How lucky she was to have been granted a second chance to get it right.

  She broke away from the kiss. “But… but I thought you didn’t believe in marriage?”

  “You made me change my mind,” he said, stroking the hair away from her face. “And you were right. I’m not my father and I won’t make the same mistakes he did. You… you won’t run away from the wedding?”

  “I’ll be there at the altar beside you. You can count on it.”

  “And you’re happy to stay in Australia? You can go home and visit whenever you like.”

  “Wherever in the world you are is where I want to be,” she said. “And I still have a job in Sydney.”

  He kissed her again and she pressed close to him, reveling in the closeness, knowing it was for a lifetime, rejoicing in the fate that had brought them together. She lifted her head to look at him. “Did I ever thank you for rescuing me?” she asked.

  Matt looked startled for a moment, then he smiled and his eyes were warm with love. “No, it was you who rescued me,” he said, drawing her close again.

  # # #

  About the author

  Kandy Shepherd left a fast-paced career as a magazine editor to write award-winning romantic fiction. Kandy lives in a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her husband, daughter and a menagerie of four-legged friends. She believes in love-at-first-sight and real-life romance—they worked for her!

  Author note

  Dear Reader

  The Castaway Bride was written before my romantic comedies Love is a Four-legged Word and Home Is Where the Bark Is were published by Berkley Sensation. But I always loved Matt and Cristy and their romantic and passionate adventures on that beautiful island. I am delighted to be able to share their story with you.

  For more about me and my books, please visit me!

  My website: http://www.kandyshepherd.com

  My blog: http://writingtails.wordpress.com

  Facebook: http://facebook.com/KandyShepherd

 

 

 
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