The Rock Star's Wedding

by Demelza Carlton

  "Romance Island Resort? Are you receiving, over?" the radio blared.

  Xan dived for the radio, fumbling for the microphone. "Romance Island Resort receiving," she said breathlessly. "Um, over."

  "Satellite tracking shows your island as the hardest hit. Do you need medical assistance, over?"

  Xan glanced at Jason, then down at herself. "Uh, no. We're fine. The cyclone shelter held up through the storm. We're not sure about the buildings on the rest of the island, though. We haven't been outside yet. I'll get started on the damage report. Over."

  "No hurry, Romance Island Resort. Let us know if you need emergency assistance. Oh, and happy new year. Over and out."

  Happy new year? Was that what day it was?

  Xan found herself grabbed from behind and spun around, before Jason planted a smacking kiss on her lips.

  "Happy new year! We survived a cyclone! How's that for an awesome new year?" He released her before she could gather her wits enough to push him away. This time, he didn't apologise.

  "We should go outside and see what's left of the hotel," Xan said, striding toward the nearest exit.

  Jason ducked under the bar to get something out of the fridge. "Nah, it can wait until after breakfast. It's not going to get any better if it waits half an hour or so. And you can't tell me you don't want coffee."

  Once again, the rock star was right.

  The radio erupted in more chatter, so Xan turned the volume down before joining Jason in the kitchen. "Unless you're offering to make pancakes, I'll take care of my own breakfast," she said.

  Jason grimaced. "I don't know how to cook pancakes. If I order the ingredients from the mainland, want to come over to my villa for breakfast one day, so you can laugh at me while I make a mess?"

  Xan laughed. "Tempting, but no." She dug out the yoghurt, then hunted through the cupboards for a bowl and a spoon. She served herself a generous portion, figuring that she deserved it this morning. Xan clicked the lid back onto the tub and bent to put it back into the fridge.

  Something tapped on the door. A pause, then a series of louder taps, like someone was knocking on it. But they were the only people on the island, weren't they?

  Jason laughed. "Sounds like someone's at the door. What's the bet that it's a tree branch that – "

  "Hello?" a man's voice called. "I heard you on the radio, but when I hailed you, you didn't respond."

  Xan and Jason exchanged glances. They weren't alone on the island any more. How had this man arrived, though?

  "Look, we were planning to head for Broome, but with the storm system offshore, we moored up near one of the oil platforms for a while. I got a voicemail message from someone called Sebastian, saying you needed repairs to your satellite dish. I figured while we were in the neighbourhood, I might as well stop in. We're a bit low on fuel and supplies, though, so if it takes more than a day or two, we might have to head round to Broome and come back."

  "Who's we?" Xan called through the door.

  "I'm Joe Fisher. I fixed your dish back at Easter, when we were staying at the pearl farm. My wife and son are still on the boat. We tied up at your jetty, so I could come ashore to find you."

  The name sounded familiar, though Xan would have to go to her office to check. Instead, she opened the door, yoghurt bowl in hand, and found herself face to face with a bloke who could've been Jason's older brother. Ten years older and definitely leaner, Joe Fisher wore a t-shirt and shorts, with thongs on his feet.

  "What sort of supplies?" she asked.

  Joe stared at her bowl. "I know my wife wouldn't say no to yoghurt." He looked past Xan to where Jason was toasting bread in the electric frying pan. "Or fresh bread. Me, I'd kill for an iced coffee."

  "We're not due a fresh milk order for another fortnight," Xan said with relief. "There was bread in the freezer, though. This is the last tub of yoghurt, but there's still a bit left."

  "I'll tell her," Joe said, heading up the path. "How about I send her up here, while I go see what I can do for your dish?"

  If they still had a satellite dish. Xan didn't even know that for sure. She took a deep breath, then followed the bloke's scraping steps to the jetty.

  Palm fronds and seaweed carpeted the paths. A dead rat floated in a puddle between two palm leaves, which Xan stepped over, hoping Joe hadn't noticed. A section of tortured roof sheeting, contorted into a flattened cylinder instead of its usual flat expanse, curled around a palm tree that was now nothing but a severed trunk.

  When Xan dared to raise her eyes to the hotel proper, she saw where the roofing sheets had come from. Two more were loose, but still attached. She'd need to get a tarpaulin up there before any more rain got in. There were guest rooms beneath the breach – ones that were probably now filled with water and storm debris.

  The lobby looked mostly intact, protected by the storm shutters on all sides. The cyclone had woven leaves and seagrass through the shutters, but Xan was sure a clean up crew could take care of that. She rounded the main building, crossing her fingers as she hoped the jetty would be undamaged. Joe had said he'd tied a boat up there, but if the boat wasn't any bigger than the overgrown dinghy she and Jason had slept in last night, then maybe...

  Xan lifted her eyes, taking in the lines of what was clearly a luxury yacht. Or was it a yacht – didn't it need a sail to qualify? This sleek vessel didn't have a sail, though it had several storeys. It was longer than she expected, too – the back deck looked like some of the dive boats she'd worked on. Elaborate calligraphy identified the craft as the Siren – a fitting name for such a beautiful temptation. You could live on a boat like that for the rest of your life, sailing the world and only coming into port for food and fuel.

  If she ever had as much money as Jason, she wouldn't buy an island. She'd buy a boat like this. A ship meant freedom. It was a line from some Disney movie, she was sure of it, but that didn't make it any less true.

  "She's a beauty, isn't she?" Joe asked, like he knew what she was thinking.

  Xan nodded fervently, then turned back to the boat as movement caught her eye. A woman – the wife Joe had mentioned, presumably – leaped lightly onto the jetty and glided toward them, clutching a white bundle to her chest. She trod the jetty like a model might saunter along a catwalk, but there was something otherworldly about her that set alarm bells off in Xan's head.

  Venus rising from the foam, was the first thought that came to mind. Like a goddess among mortals.

  "This is my wife, Vanessa, and our son, John," Joe said.

  Venus indeed, Xan thought, as she smiled and introduced herself to the woman.

  Vanessa stared at Xan's breakfast even more intently than her husband had. "Is that yoghurt? I haven't seen any in months. I would pay quite a bit for whatever you have on hand."

  Xan itched to ask her if they'd run out of ambrosia, too, but she managed to swallow the urge. Instead, she said, "Sure. Seeing as your husband's giving us a quote on our repairs, that makes him staff, so that would include staff meal privileges. We don't have a chef on the island at the moment, because the resort's closed for the holidays, but you're welcome to what we have." Xan led the way back to the cyclone shelter, where she found Jason chomping on some charred toast. "This is Vanessa," she told him. "I said she can help herself to breakfast."

  Jason's eyes fixed on Vanessa. "Anything you want," he said. "I'll make you toast, coffee..."

  Coffee. Xan stayed long enough to make herself a cup, then left them to it. Surely Jason couldn't get himself into too much trouble with a married woman whose husband was just outside?

  THIRTY

  Xan found Joe crouched at the base of the satellite dish. "I think I found your problem," he said. "I might even have the parts you need in the hold."

  Now that sounded like some sort of miracle. If the wife was Venus, did that make this man Vulcan, the smith, in a much more modern guise? He didn't look particularly godly, even if he did have a nice backside.

  "It's like you knew you'd be payi
ng us a visit," Xan said, watching him to see his reaction.

  "Nah, not really. I did some upgrades on the system on our island, when I finished up with yours at Easter. Ours is pretty much a smaller version of yours now. I keep spares on hand, just in case. So not that much of a coincidence." He laughed. "I'll have to hope we didn't take any damage from the storm, otherwise I'll be waiting weeks for replacements to arrive for ours."

  If he owned an island like this one, no wonder they could afford the yacht. "Which island is yours?" Xan asked.

  More laughter. "Oh, it's not really ours. We just lease a bit of it, with a bunch of other fishing families. Our operation's based down at the Abrolhos, near Geraldton. Bit of tourism, a lot of fishing, and a bit of pearling, too. At least, that's my wife's latest project. It'll be years before we get any pearls out of her oysters, but she's got the patience for it."

  "You should talk to Baz and the other guys at the pearl farm on the mainland here," Xan suggested. "They've been farming pearls longer than almost anyone else."

  "So she said – she came up here at Easter, too, and took a good look around then." Joe straightened. "Want me to take a look at your generator, too, while I'm here? It'll be quicker than getting an electrician out from the mainland, and we can fire your system up properly to check if I missed anything."

  "Sure." It would be weeks before Xan could bring a contractor from the mainland, and if he really was the same bloke who'd repaired the dish when Jason decided to jump out of a helicopter onto it, no wonder the IT guys had called him again this time. A miracle worker, indeed.

  She followed him to the power plant, where he estimated it would take him a couple of hours to have the hotel up and running as usual. They agreed on price – no need to haggle, seeing as he suggested they waive the normal callout fee in lieu of breakfast – and Xan was torn between watching him work and taking her empty cup back to the kitchen to wash it...and see how Jason was going.

  "Can you tell my wife how long I'll be?" Joe asked.

  That decided matters. Xan headed back to the shelter. She found Vanessa seated on a deck chair on the veranda, breastfeeding her baby as she stared out across the lagoon.

  "Where's Jason?" Xan asked.

  "Inside, washing up," Vanessa said. She lifted her arm to point at the water. "Do you know you have a rather large shark in your lagoon?"

  Xan glimpsed the fin before it sank under a mess of palm fronds. She swore. "It must've swum in during the storm. I'll have to get the maintenance guys to fish it out when they get back." That might be another week, during which she couldn't swim in the lagoon. Damn, damn, damn.

  "He's too big to fish out. You'll get in trouble with the Department of Fisheries boys if you catch him. And the longer he stays, the more of your reef he'll eat. Right now, he's crunching through your shark nursery like they're a bowl of chips."

  "Oh no!" All those baby black-tipped reef sharks. What if the monster shark started going after some of their older residents, like the Queensland groper?

  "If I have time, I'll go for a swim and see if I can persuade him to leave," Vanessa said.

  Xan stared. Who persuaded a shark to do anything? Only Venus, maybe.

  "It's no big deal. Sharks are instinctive predators. If he finds another predator in this lagoon he can't hold his own against, he'll head somewhere else."

  Xan had dived with sharks before, and while she usually wore her shark shield, she knew the drill if you were ever caught in the water unprotected with a shark: make yourself look bigger and scarier, and don't back down. If you did, and they took a nibble of your thigh while you swam away, you could bleed out before you made it back to the boat. But to go into the water deliberately, to take on a shark? Not even Jay Felix was that crazy.

  "Do I have time?" Vanessa asked.

  "Joe said to tell you he'd be a couple of hours," Xan said.

  Vanessa nodded, glancing down at the baby, who'd fallen asleep while nursing. Not bothering to do up her top, she simply pressed the child to her chest and headed inside the shelter.

  She placed the baby in the boat-bed that Xan and Jason had shared. Vanessa removed her shirt completely, then shimmied out of her shorts before she tied her bikini top properly over her breasts. Well, sort of. The stringy top covered her nipples, but left plenty of flesh still exposed. The perfect breasts of the goddess of love, all right. Xan looked away, embarrassed, but Jason just kept staring at her.

  "Are they real?" he breathed.

  Vanessa's eyes flashed dangerously. "Watch him for me," she ordered.

  Xan opened her mouth to protest.

  "Yes, ma'am," Jason replied, drying his hands on a teatowel. He took up his post at the stern of the boat, where he could see the sleeping child.

  Xan waited until the woman left before she hissed, "You can't ask a woman if her boobs are real!"

  Jason shrugged. "The only women I've seen with boobs that big had implants. You can tell when they bounce, or if they don't. Either hers are real or she has a cosmetic surgeon so good you can't tell the difference."

  "Of course they're real!" Xan said. "She's a breastfeeding mother. They get bigger when they're full of milk."

  "So yours will look like that, too, when you have kids?" Jason asked.

  Xan's mouth opened, but no sound came out. She wasn't sure whether to laugh or tear him a new one. "If I ever have kids, then yes, I imagine so. But seeing as I haven't met anyone I'd like to have kids with, who might actually make a good father, it's not bloody likely, is it?"

  "Do you want kids, Xan?"

  Maybe. She'd never really thought about it. Definitely not with Jerome. If anything, she'd be worried that he'd turn paedophile properly. If she had kids, she wasn't letting Jerome within ten miles of them. She had her answer then, didn't she? Jerome could rot in hell before she'd ever forgive him, let alone trust him again. She was staying here in Australia, taking that citizenship, and building a life in the sun.

  "Do you?" she blurted out.

  Jason's face lit with a beaming smile. "Fuck, yeah. I'll never be as good a dad as mine was for me, but I'd still fucking try. I could watch them play and learn and discover shit all day. Maybe even teach them to swim in the lagoon. Wouldn't this be an awesome place for a kid to grow up?"

  With sharks and cyclones and Jason's irresponsible tendencies to do stupid things, like rooftop golf? Not that he'd be playing golf up there for a bit, with the cyclone damage and all. Still, the island was dangerous. "Older kids, maybe, but not a baby," Xan said.

  "He's spent all his life on a boat, she said." Jason nodded toward the sleeping baby. "All two months of it. They've been out at Cocos, then here, and they're headed south next to where they have a fishing shack. No life in the suburbs, just going to an ordinary school, for him. I want my kids to have a life like that."

  "You don't have kids. Or a wife who'd consider having them with you," Xan reminded him.

  Jason's face fell, and Xan's heart twisted. An apology for her cruelty floated on her lips.

  Jason raised his head and met her gaze. "Not yet, but I will," he said. "Call it a new year's resolution, if you like. I'm going to sign a new recording contract, and after that, I'm going to look for a woman who'll want me forever. Who I'll want forever. With kids and all that comes with that." His eyes dared her to disagree. "What's your new year's resolution?"

  She toyed with the idea of saying she didn't believe in such things, but that would be a lie. "I'm going to break it off with Jerome for good, even if I have to beat it through his thick head, so he goes back to the UK and leaves me alone," she found herself saying. "And I'm going to become an Australian citizen because I like living here."

  "I'd drink to that," Jason replied. "But, you know, I'm watching the baby. Here's to a good new year, Xan. You deserve it."

  "After the disastrous year you've had, so do you," she said. She meant it, too.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Xan stood with Jason on the jetty to wave goodbye to the Fishers, or whoev
er they were. Even if she received Joe's invoice for the work, she'd still wonder. Their arrival seemed too fortuitous to be coincidence. Like something out of a romance novel. Did that make the baby Cupid, then? Or one of Venus' other kids? Xan couldn't remember if Vulcan had any children. She'd have to look it up on their newly-restored internet access.

  Right after she went for a swim in the lagoon. Vanessa had assured her the tiger shark was gone, though not before he'd gorged himself on their fish.

  The damage report was better than Xan had expected, but it still wasn't good. Villa Maxima had taken the brunt of the cyclone, given its elevated position on the north-east corner of the island. Fallen palm trees had smashed through the storm shutters and the windows all along the north side, and most of the roof was gone. The staff accommodation had come out almost intact, with just a bit of flooding in the lowest lying rooms. The hotel roof and the rooms below the breach were on the list, too. Both jetties had survived the storm without damage, though the swimming platform from the Penguin Jetty was now floating at the southern end of the lagoon.

  Trees were down all over the place, with so much stuff floating in the lagoon that it was hard to see the surface. A particularly big frangipani had gone through the shutters at The Jungle, so the pub looked like it had hosted a bad brawl, with the furniture thrown everywhere and wind-blown debris covering everything.

  With power restored and both of their houses intact, both she and Jason would be sleeping on their own tonight, instead of in the cyclone shelter.

  "I should put the boat back where I got it," he said, as if reading her mind.

  "I'll return the beds to Housekeeping," Xan replied. "Look, about last night..."

  "Two people taking shelter in a storm, sharing the available resources," Jason said smoothly. "We shared a boat, Xan. Not a bed. Even if we had, I don't talk about that sort of stuff. You know that."

  She did. Despite his troublesome reputation, she knew she could trust his discretion. The man could keep a secret. "Good," she said. "I don't want the staff thinking..."