“Thanks,” Skye muttered briefly, realizing he was all too right. The crisp beige business suit in which she had begun the day was sadly soaked and drying badly. The natural waves in her blond hair were nonexistent as it was still plastered around her face. She also felt literally covered by sand. “You don’t look much like Casanova yourself, you know,” she retorted, starting after him.
She didn’t get very far. Even half hopping and half stepping gingerly, her ankle buckled after the third step. She heard his chuckle.
“Never mind!” he told her. “You stay there. I’ll find something for you to do.”
“No!” Skye protested. “Just slow down and I’ll be able to make it.”
He was silent for a moment and then smiled slowly. “You don’t want to be left alone, do you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Skye huffed indignantly. “I simply intend to prove that I can—”
“That you can what?” he demanded. “Slow me down?” He started walking back to her, pausing just feet away.
“No!” Skye began, but before she could continue, he had none too graciously pushed her onto the log. As she gasped for breath to sputter a furious and stunned protest, he knelt before her on one knee and gently probed her injured ankle, carefully persistent despite the moan that escaped her. “At least it is only a sprain,” he murmured, setting her foot down and rising. His eyes lit upon her heels, cast in the sand a few feet away. Skye was surprised at the vehemence with which he suddenly attacked the shoes. “Stinking heels!” he hissed disgustedly, hurtling both out to the surf.
“What the hell did you do that for?” Skye protested. “Now I have nothing.”
“Nothing is better than those ridiculous shoes,” he told her. “All I need is your other ankle going—then you will be utterly useless.”
“So far,” Skye said, her eyes narrowing and her tone dangerously level, “I think we've both proved ourselves to be equally useless.” He ignored her comment and stood. “I’ll be back shortly.”
“I told you,” Skye said stubbornly, “I’m going with you.”
The glimmer of a smile sparkled again in his eyes. “Lady, I believe you must be afraid of the dark.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Skye reassured him acidly. “I haven’t been afraid of the dark since I was two! And,” she informed him, rising carefully to prove that she could stand and hobble, “I do wish you’d quit addressing me that way in that tone of voice. I happen to have a name and I do far prefer that I be addressed by it.”
“So sorry!" he mocked lightly. “What is your name then?”
“Skye. Skye Delaney.”
Kyle stretched out a large sun-browned hand. “So very glad to meet you, Ms. Delaney.”
Accepting his hand, even slowly with reservation, turned out to be a mistake. As soon as he had her slender fingers entrapped in his larger ones, he stooped, butted her midriff with his shoulder, and used his grip on her hand for leverage to cast her like a burlap bag of potatoes over his shoulder.
“What the—” The rest of her words were cut off as her chin smacked into his back with his first long stride. Enraged, Skye balanced herself with her elbows against his back before trying to demand an explanation again. “What do you think you’re doing now?” she grated.
“You insist upon coming with me. If you walk, it will be tomorrow morning before we get anywhere, so if you’re coming, you’re coming my way.”
It made a little sense, she admitted grudgingly, her chin cupped in her hands and her elbows still braced to ease some of the jouncing of her torso with each of his distance-eating strides. “Marvelous!” she grated through clenched teeth. “What a wonderful day. Not only am I stranded God knows where after a plane crash that almost kills me, I get to be stranded with a damned Neanderthal!”
“A Neanderthal!” Kyle protested, laughing. The sound rumbled pleasantly—too pleasantly—from his chest, “Then watch your step, lady, or I’ll handle all our disputes with the old Neanderthal standby—a club!”
“Oh, do shut up!” Skye snapped. She gouged her elbows into his back, which only served to start him chuckling again, and a second later he leaped over some unseen obstruction, smacking her chin back into his muscles.
“Hey!”
“Oh, I am so sorry!”
“Like hell!” Skye muttered. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“To see what we can find to rig up some kind of a structure. I like the rain just fine but not to sleep in. And some type of material to plan for a distress signal, and”—he paused, his tone going quietly serious—“water. Our biggest worry if we’re here for any amount of time is going to be fresh water. We really need to hope that a fair supply of that rain has been contained in something somewhere because I don’t think we’re going to find any lakes or streams. Your cheese and crackers will make a nice snack for tonight—and thanks to the rum we can get nice and plastered if we wish—but we also need to see what might be edible…”
He kept on talking, but Skye stopped really listening to his quiet murmurings. Just hours ago her biggest worry had been her meeting in Buenos Aires. She never gave any thought to creature comforts. A glass of water was something you asked a waiter to pour when you’d had enough wine. Rain was just something that happened like sunshine, snow, or sleet…
It was amazing how fast and how completely life could change.
CHAPTER TWO
The fire burned cheerily, a single glow of orange warmth against an eternity of black. Not even the stars were out.
“Not bad,” Skye commented.
Kyle shrugged, still watching the flames. “I was a Boy Scout once,” he said dryly. His gaze turned to the rather shabby-looking structure he had concocted of shorn upper tree trunks and fronds from the numerous palms abounding on the island. The work of building, with only his pocket knife and her scissors for cutting utensils and vines and fronds for binding the notched inserts, had been rough, but the structure was now sturdy, set into the sand a fair distance from the water to allow plenty of room for rising tides.
“It won’t make Better Homes and Gardens,” Skye said, and chuckled softly, “but we will stay dry.”
“Glad you approve, woman,” Kyle retorted amiably. He finally turned his gaze to Skye, who was seated Indian fashion by the fire. A smile quirked his lips. A pin-up queen? No, she wasn’t tall enough, but dry now, with waves of that rich honey-blond hair spilling around her face, those enticing, almond-shaped topaz eyes alight in the blaze, she wasn’t a bit less appealing. She might be small, but her tiny frame packed a wallop. Although he hadn't pondered it at the time, from carrying her around he had become aware that she was exceedingly well-shaped, with fullness just where it was desirable.
“What are you smirking at?” she demanded.
“Nothing," he said quickly, his smile fading. He had suddenly felt the shaft of pure desire riddling him. A primitive desire—there was nothing but the night and them. He clenched his jaw with a twinge of pain and also a wry, inward grimace. The locale was getting to him. It was wild, exotic, and heathen—making him feel wild, exotic, and heathen. They could have been alone at the end of the earth and the one-on-one situation would have been no stronger. He wondered what his luscious co-survivor would think of his chauvinism if he responded to instinct and pulled her into his arms…
Not much. She didn’t seem highly enamored of him to begin with. And yet she was due for a few cruel surprises if they were to survive. As curt as he had been with her so far for inexplicable reasons, he was, in his way, still trying to shield her.
And he wasn’t a barbarian. They hadn’t left civilization that far behind. One didn't accost a woman simply because she had the ill fate to be stranded with you. He still didn’t know her marital status, and yet her name sounded familiar. He should have checked up on his passenger when he decided to take the flight himself, he reminded himself. But then he had been too obsessed with his own thoughts, his own desire to reach home and the freedom he was finally receiv
ing. He wondered vaguely what she would think of his marital status.
He turned then to the girl with a grin covering his thoughts. Woman, he corrected himself. She was far too assured and quick witted to be considered anything less, even if the tip of her head did barely reach his chin.
“Hey, duchess,” he teased briskly, a dry note adding a trace of seriousness. “I did the macho bit with the fire and the building. How about getting dinner together?”
Skye leveled a narrow eye in his direction and compressed her lips but struggled to her feet. Her ankle was beginning to feel better, but she still favored her left foot carefully. “If you’ll recall,” she reminded him coolly, “I did weave the fronds!”
“Mmmmm, I recall. And after you drum up the food, I’ll put my own cheese on the crackers. And if you’re real nice, I’ll crack a coconut for you.”
The look she gave him just might have frozen water. He could well imagine that she could be a little demon in a business deal… He lowered his head as he felt a full smile creeping into his lips. Despite the gravity of their situation, he couldn’t help but appreciate a little of the humor. A person as independent as she probably never asked advice, but plunged right in with her own decisions. She was obviously wealthy enough to have anything done rather than ask for help, but here she was now, at his mercy, so to speak.
He would have been less than male not to enjoy the roles they were being forced to play. Chalk one up to men’s lib! he thought with a chuckle that turned to a frown. He couldn’t understand his relentless teasing of her—he didn’t have a thing against her personally. And he was actually all for females carrying their intelligence and skill as far as they could take it in the business world.
Pensively, Kyle took her place by the fire. Did she know who he was? he wondered. Either she didn’t, or she didn’t care, or she was one fine actress. It wasn’t that he lacked personal confidence, he had a bundle of assurance, but he was a practical man and the number of women who managed to seek him out had often amazed him— even when the women were fully aware that there would be limits to what he could give.
He was a bit of a cynic—his associations had made him so, Yet he still wasn’t prone to judge or condemn on short acquaintanceship.
A box of crackers suddenly landed in his lap. “Think you can manage to spread your own cheese?” Skye asked dryly, sinking back down beside him. “What are we drinking?”
“I don’t know about you, but I could use a good belt of that rum.” Skye handed him the bottle she had opened earlier. He smiled. “You forgot the cups, my dear.”
“Sorry, lost my head,” Skye returned acidly, scrambling to her feet to return to their makeshift hut and retrieve the “cups”— gourds Kyle had fashioned from a split coconut. “Anything else, dear?”
“Yeah, a steak, about two inches thick and medium rare.”
“I guess you’ll just have to hit the bananas or coconuts.”
“Yeah, for tonight, I suppose,” Kyle replied, stuffing his mouth with a cracker. “You don’t happen to be an ace fisherman, do you?”
“Afraid not,” Skye answered. “Do you?”
“I guess I’ll be finding out,” he replied lightly. “Tell me about your business, Ms. Delaney.”
Skye shrugged. “There isn’t much to tell. I’m a jewelry designer. I started with clothing, and I still work some in that field, mostly evening wear. But my main line now is jewelry.”
Kyle was suddenly aware of who she was, of why the name had been familiar. She had been written up in at least a dozen articles. She wasn’t just a designer, but the queen of contemporary fashion. Some of her jewelry was designed specifically for some of her glamorous outfits.
And he knew now that she wasn’t married. She had also been unlucky enough to hit the covers of a number of the gossip rags. If memory served him correctly, a tabloid cover had announced her four-year romance with a Broadway producer as still one of the hottest items in a jet-set society where long-term relationships were almost nonexistent.
“So,” Kyle said, crunching into another cracker, “were you in Sydney on business?”
“Yes—and no,” Skye replied, wondering why she had supplied the last as she was assailed by a stab of pain, “My sister-in-law lives in Sydney,” she explained hastily, hoping that would end his questioning.
“What about your brother?”
"My brother is dead,” Skye said quickly, almost negligently. What was the matter with her, she wondered. It was just still so hard. She couldn’t say those words yet in a calm, controlled voice without a catch constricting her voice, without tears forming in her eyes. She wasn’t about to cry in front of this stranger. I sound flip, she thought with a wince, but when she continued, the sound was still flip to her own ears. “I travel to Sydney frequently to buy gold, so I'm able to see Virginia often while I’m on business.”
Kyle was silent for several seconds, his expression completely bland. Then he spoke, his tone condemning. “Truckload of empathy, aren’t you?”
Skye stared at him blankly, stunned that anyone so hostile and callous could actually exist. Empathy! Surely anyone human would have understood that she brushed off the subject because it was just too painful. Suddenly she was so furious that she forced herself to a great calm to prevent herself from doing damage to one or the other of them. With infinite precision she set her gourd in the sand and rose. “I sincerely doubt that you know or understand the meaning of the word ‘empathy,’ Kyle. At any rate you may take your opinion of me and my emotions and go to hell. I didn’t ask to be here, and I’ll be damned if I’ll sit and listen to abuse from a man I don’t know, who doesn’t know a single thing about me.”
Her tone had been level, quiet. When she finished speaking, she turned and walked to the shore and sat so that the warm surf just trickled over the torn nylon on her toes.
She was shaking, but her emotion was that of impotent rage. At least I won’t sink into self-pity at this rate! she told herself. Never in her existence had she come across anyone as strange and blatantly brutal. Of course, she reflected, had she ever met anyone like him in a social or business situation, she wouldn’t have endured him this far. She would have closed a door in his damned face.
Trying to calm down, she tried to assuage herself with the reminder that he was extremely competent, intelligent, and amazingly resourceful. Not only had he managed the hut and the fire, secured an ample supply of fresh fruits, and created a cistern out of a hollowed log to collect the remaining caches of rain water, he had also arranged an SOS pattern on the beach—visible, one hoped, to any low-flying pilots—which could be lighted as long as it stayed dry.
Skye gritted her teeth and muttered to the sea, “I suppose under the circumstances, it’s better to be stranded with a knowledgeable bastard than an incompetent charmer!”
But damn, he seemed to have a talent for zeroing in and drawing blood from her scars.
Kyle swallowed a deep draught of the rum, wincing as it burned down his throat. The stuff was one-oh-one proof, liquid fire, but he was glad of the searing sensation. He needed the jolt, he thought with self-disgust. Why the hell was he being so cruel? Skye was doing damned well—she didn’t complain, she didn’t become hysterical, she followed his directions with quick-witted compliance. He liked her, he realized, and he admired her. Why then the cutting comments?
He turned to watch the rigid set of her spine as she sat by the dark water and became doubly ashamed. She was small, but strong. There was some saying… it wasn't the size of the man in the fight, but the size of the fight in the man? Well, she was a woman, but the saying seemed to fit. Skye had fight, and he was sure drawing it out of her.
He started to rise, then decided against it. In the morning she would probably be in a better frame of mind to accept an apology.
He stared back into the fire, sipping the rum and allowing the potent brew to work its relaxing magic over frayed nerves and tired muscles.
Skye stared at the water awhile
longer, then withdrew her toes as the slight chill in the night air made her shiver. She took a brief moment to be thankful that their crash landing had taken place in a warm climate, then stood and walked to the shelter of the hut, ignoring the bowed auburn head of her companion as she walked by the fire. She hoped she would be so exhausted that she would sleep.
Her sand bed left a lot to be desired, but she determinedly curled into a little ball in the far side of the shelter, crumpling the now empty canvas bag into a pseudo-pillow. She felt as if she stayed awake for a miserable eternity, staring out at nothing. Occasionally she heard the crackle of the fire, or a rustle as the breeze drifted lightly through the nearby foliage. But she didn’t hear a single movement by Kyle. Eventually the monotonous and constant wash of the surf lulled her into an uneasy sleep.
She should have expected to dream. In fact, in the absurd way that dreams went, she knew in the dream that she was dreaming.
She was afraid of the dark.
Oh, the childhood fear she had outgrown. This had come when she was an adult, and it wasn’t so much a fear of the dark, but a fear of the memory nightmare that the dark brought like a diabolical, lunging shadow land.
Steven. Steven with his quiet ways and easy, accepting manner. Steven who never raised his voice, and handled the worst with brave serenity.
Only once had he ever broken, toward the end, delirious after a treatment. She had been with him while Virginia slept. He had cried out loud to her in agony, and she had not been able to do anything. He didn’t feel her hand in his; he couldn’t hear her voice. He just kept calling her. “Skye… it’s so dark, so dark, so dark and cold. Skye, oh, please, Skye, where are you? It’s so horribly dark and cold… please, please, make the darkness go away… please, Skye…”
In the morning he had been lucid again. He had placed his hands on those of the wife and sister he loved to say there would be no more treatments.
Night, Sea, And Stars Page 3