Night, Sea, And Stars

by Heather Graham

  “Oh, I think I understand,” Skye said acidly, hating the fact that his lips against her bare skin had started her shivering again and praying that he hadn’t seen the instant reaction. “I believe you’re threatening me.”

  He shrugged. “Not really. I don’t like threats—not to give, not to receive. I’m simply telling you what is, and what will be.”

  “Is that all?” she lifted her chin and demanded.

  “That’s it. Sweet and clear, I believe.”

  “Quite clear,” Skye said crisply. “So I’ll remind you that you started that little fiasco that I played a little too far! You keep your distance, and I’ll keep mine ” This time she watched him for a reaction, then smiled stiffly. “Good night, Kyle.”

  He gestured toward the remains of the shelter, inclined his head slightly, and smiled as coldly in return. “Good night, Ms. Delaney.”

  It was probably ridiculous to crawl into the roofless shelter, but Skye thought with a sigh that human beings were creatures of habit, and in a single night they had formed the habit of that being the place to sleep. Skye curled up with her back to Kyle, miserably aware that sleep would be a long time coming in her state of tumult and confusion. Everything she had said to Kyle was reasonable; he should have granted her the truth of the situation! And yet he had his point. Maybe it was the primitive circumstance of the island where all that was essential was elemental. She had never felt more of a purely physical need in her life, had never been so stimulated, so set afire with sensual longing. Even now she could feel the burning deep within her… And although he had instigated the kiss, she had not protested. She could still feel the surging warmth of his arousal. She had allowed him to believe that their love making would continue in a natural course… because she had wanted it go as far as possible before turning back.

  Her fingers clenched into the sand as she teetered mentally between shame and indignant defiance.

  Hours later, although her eyes were tightly shut, she remained awake. She felt Kyle’s presence as he stared down at her and she could see him fully in her mind—long, muscular legs spread firmly in the sand, powerful hands on his hips, so much bronzed and sinewed flesh visible with only his cutoffs for covering, his roughly hewn face, more rugged than ever with the scratchy growth of beard, a thick wealth of auburn hair on both head and broad chest

  Icy eyes, arrogant, hard, occasionally tender…

  Skye began to pray that a plane or boat would make it the next day. She needed rescue from more than the island.

  She heard a grunt from him, then a rustle as he turned.

  Moments later she realized what he had done. Before curling his length into the sand for sleep, he made sure that the fire would blaze brightly until dawn brought new illumination, Skye carefully opened her eyes. A glow of orange warmth was all around her.

  She finally slept, aware of his easy breathing just feet away.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A rescue boat or plane did not appear the next day.

  Or the next or the next or the next or the next.

  Skye and Kyle worked into an uneasy pattern of keeping a polite distance. Uncomfortable in his cold, remote, and aloof presence, Skye took to roaming the island daily—after curtly checking with Kyle on weather conditions. The skies, however, remained clear, and she was free to stay away from their encampment.

  The island, despite all, did hold a spell of enchantment over her. Her life, even when she traveled, tended to revolve around pavement and concrete. The profusion of plants and birds, earth, sea, and sky, fascinated her. She was amazed by the teeming life on the small island, at the richness of the inner soil—rich, as Kyle had told her, because the lava of a onetime active volcano had made it so, thousands and thousands of years ago. Figs, bananas, and coconuts abounded, and huge fronds that still dipped low with water from the storm.

  There was a deep gully filled with rainwater now too. Kyle had told her that at one time it might have actually been a freshwater stream. It was well shaded, and it seemed the water would remain. As long as the rains came, they would be okay. It was ironic, but the storm she had feared might take her life had provided instead substance to maintain it.

  Skye had learned after the first day that Kyle kept busy in her absence. He mumbled many mornings that he was off to search for the elusive captain’s log, but he still spent plenty of time around camp. As the week passed, the hut was repaired and enlarged and thatch walls added. A terrible-looking but sturdy table greeted her return one day, tree trunk stools the next. He had made a curious-looking hatchet out of driftwood and metal debris from the plane, and with that primitive tool, his pocket knife, and her nail file he seemed to be able to fashion all kinds of crude things by whittling and notching.

  He had also perfected his tree-branch fishing spear. There were also crabs and scallops from the shell-strewn beach to supplement their diet. A night didn’t pass when they weren’t satisfactorily filled. Still, conversation between them was practically nonexistent. Guiltily aware that he was carrying the bulk of their survival, Skye could still not offer verbal assistance. Instead, she silently began taking on the task of collecting fruit daily on her rambling excursions and collecting water from the gully in huge palm husks to keep filled the hollowed log they had dragged to their encampment. It was heavy work, but it was good; it forced her to keep her muscles working and her mind at least partially occupied. It tired her for the long nights, for the disturbing time she was forced to spend with Kyle.

  Theirs was indeed a strange partnership, one that did little to alleviate the terrible depression as the days passed with no sign of help on the horizon. Skye was learning to close her eyes to many miseries—such as wondering what microscopic creatures might be swimming in the water she drank and what might be flying in the trees when the darkness shielded them. She learned to ignore the small crabs on the beach, the jellyfish that occasionally washed up. Or to try to ignore them. Her nerves were fraying badly, especially when she tried to brush her teeth with bark. About other things she came slowly not to care. Her hair was filthy and tangled. Saltwater left it a mass of mats, freshwater alone couldn’t help. Three nights ago she had become so frustrated trying to untangle it with her small plastic comb that she had broken several teeth out of it. Absurdly furious with the comb, she had broken that. Her nose to spite her face, she mourned belatedly. Kyle’s look had signified just that, but his expression had also strangely denoted compassion. He had started to speak, but then said nothing…

  If Kyle were ever to know how she spent the majority of her time away, his reaction would be a condemning frown. Basically she sat on the other side of the island and clenched her eyes against the tears of reality. Skye Delaney, bright, fashionable, intellectual, cool lady exec of the fashion industry, reduced to a barefoot waif who crawled around mangroves and coconuts with tattered hair.

  Damn, what she wouldn’t give for a cup of coffee, a toothbrush, and the excitement of looking out her penthouse window to the streets of New York far below.

  Times Square in five-o’clock traffic would be heaven.

  Increasingly, though, she thought of Kyle. Perhaps the island would be more bearable if the tension between them could ease, but she knew intuitively that it could never ease. It was a sexual tension, more apparent each time they accidentally brushed a hand, each time they actually looked at one another.

  But Skye knew she was right. She clung to the hope that they would soon be off the island, their paths parting forever. No matter how comfortable it might seem in the heat of passion beneath the stars, a relationship between them could only lead to unhappiness and disaster. She didn’t like to admit her fear, but she was afraid. He was a little too much to handle, on top of everything else. Too male, too strong, too competent…

  And it was too easy to lean on him, too easy to depend on him. Too easy to want him, too easy to need him.

  Sighing, and afraid to let her thoughts wander any farther, Skye was plagued by visions of his virile
naked body rising from the sea. She left her perch on the far side of the island and began to make her way back across, a clutch of figs bundled into the crook of her elbow. If she kept up her self-inflicted mind torture, she told herself sternly, bracing herself for the evening ahead, she would have to move herself to her own side of the island.

  But she didn’t think she could do that. As bad as things were, he was there. She could watch him, feel his strength near her.

  Skye had just scrambled through the trees to reach the stretch of high grass that fringed the beach when she froze and blinked hastily, wondering desperately if the heat of the sun was causing her to hallucinate. But opening her eyes a second time, she fell to the earth with the delirious joy.

  Not one, but two boats lurked beneath the dazzling glimmer of the sun on the horizon. Skye dropped the figs and scrambled to her feet, ready to race across the high grass and scream from the beach. Where the hell was Kyle? she wondered bitterly. He should have already seen the boats; he should be waving madly, lighting a high fire. She began to run.

  Kyle had already seen the boats. Ducked low beneath a dune that afforded a shield of scruffy grass, he watched the proceedings with dismay.

  Humanity had found their island, but he didn’t dare reach out. His first sight of the crane on the larger of the two ships had made him tense, creating an uncanny sense of danger. Now, as he watched, he railed against his helplessness and sickly prayed that the gun-wielding men aboard the drag-running boats would not see fit to investigate curiously the debris and thatch workings on the beach.

  A thumping sound, a fleet padding that sent vibrations through the sand, worked its way into his consciousness. With blinding dismay Kyle realized that Skye had seen the boats and was racing for the beach to alert the ships to inhabitants on the island.

  “God!” he groaned aloud through clenched teeth, his facial muscles stretched taut with the danger. Tensing into a crouch, he dug his toes hard into the sand and waited, waited until her fleetly flying form was just a foot away. In that second she glanced at him, her face playing a spectrum of split-second emotions. What the hell was the matter with him? her glance asked, before it dismissed him for a fool. Help was out there, and she was going to get it.

  He unleashed the tension and energy that was wound in him as tightly as a coil and pounced, hurling himself over her, bringing them both rolling behind the dune. Skye fought against him frantically, gasping to draw breath from the fall. Her eyes, glitteringly feline and furious, accused him of insanity before she could speak. “What are you doing?” she shouted. It was all she could get out. His weight secured her against the sand as his broad hand effectively silenced her mouth.

  “Shut up!" Kyle hissed. “Those men would just as soon kill you as look at you.”

  Tears sprang into Skye’s eyes. She had no earthly idea of what was going on, and she was ragingly, frustratingly helpless. Help drifted out on the ocean within shouting distance and here she was, powerless against the sinewed strength of a chauvinistic, muscle-bound autocrat turned maniac. Twisting desperately, she managed to sink her teeth into the flesh of a long, callused finger.

  “Damn you!” he hissed. His head came beside hers, his ragged, commanding whisper seared her ear. “Listen to me, duchess, listen good, because I don’t want to have to knock you into silence. Those people are drug runners. A nice quick look will assure you they are toting a fair amount of hardware. I’d like to stay alive myself, Ms. Delaney, and even if I shielded your body from a bullet for you, they’d have another one waiting. So just sit tight and shut your trap.”

  Skye still didn’t understand what was going on, but she had little choice to do other than he said. His arms were still around her; his weight still held her prone. Seemingly assured that she was no longer going to shout out, he released her mouth, then finally gestured that she might twist and watch the proceedings as he did.

  The men aboard the boats did indeed seem to be heavily armed. Skye watched as the crane lifted bale after bale from the larger boat to the smaller one, where they disappeared below the decks. A trickle of unease filtered through her as she realized that if she could see them, they could see the beach. Inadvertently she edged closer to Kyle, torn between fear and fascination. She wouldn’t have had any idea of what was being transferred from boat to boat. How did he know it was drugs?

  She didn’t ponder the question any longer; her breath suddenly seemed to leave her body in a gush.

  Two of the ten or so men aboard the two vessels were suddenly pointing at the beach. They appeared to argue for a few moments, then one, a heavyset, florid man, stalked angrily away. The other continued to stare at the beach. Finally he shrugged and went back to work.

  Skye had no idea of how much time passed, but eventually the rendezvous between the two boats ended. Kyle held her tensely still until both boats disappeared over the navy line of their visible horizon.

  He stood, looking off into the distance, then down to where Skye lay on the sand, back braced by her elbows.

  "I don’t think I really understand what just happened,” Skye charged him, miserably aware that they were completely alone again. “Why couldn’t we have asked for help? We could have explained that we didn’t care what they were doing…”

  Kyle glared down at her incredulously. “Don’t you listen to me? Or don't you understand what I’m saying? Those were drug runners.”

  “So! I don’t give a damn—”

  “Oh, Lord, give me strength!" Kyle exclaimed in exasperation, looking heavenward as if he expected a sign. Shaking his head with impatient exasperation, he looked back down at her. “That wasn’t a little pot party, Skye. There were tons in that black-market transfer—probably a nice shipment of cocaine too. People caught doing that go to jail for half a century. And you want to run up to them and say you promise you won’t speak if they’ll just deposit you in some small, friendly port?”

  “Quit patronizing me!” Skye stormed. “If you take the time to explain something, I understand it. I’m sorry. We have muggings in New York, a murder here and there, and a lot of embezzlement. But I’ve never seen a high-seas drug ring in action before! If I didn’t recognize it right off, you’ll have to forgive me!”

  Suddenly the disappointment of the situation hit her. For seconds there she had believed that she would be off the island within the hour.

  They were right back to square one.

  No, below square one. The Coke bottle had meant hope before. Now it only meant that their island was known by twentieth-century pirates.

  “We’re never going to get out of here, are we?” she demanded desolately. "And now we’re always going to have to be watching…”

  “Don’t be absurd.” Kyle sighed, his eyes gentling at the bleak awareness in her delicate face. He reached a hand to her and pulled her up, smiling. “We will get out of here, we are in the known world! You have friends who will search forever.”

  Yes, surely Ted would search forever. And she had friends, close friends. Lucy Grant, her personal assistant and secretary, would move heaven and earth before she would accept the fact that Skye was gone for good. Harry Dunbart, the corporate lawyer who had stuck by her during everything, would also keep planes flying in search until hell froze over.

  And Kyle also had people who would never accept his loss. Then there was the feet that Executive Charters had never lost a flight. Skye finally, slowly, returned Kyle’s smile. “Yes, I guess eventually we will be found. I can’t imagine Executive Charters allowing their eccentric employer to simply disappear.” Trying harder, Skye made her smile ruefully cheerful. “I got excited and dropped the figs. I guess I’ll go back and find them.” She was rubbing the back of her neck absently. “I wish you could learn to just tap me on the shoulder if something is wrong,” she teased him. “I think I have bruises from head to toe.”

  Pleased and achingly relieved that Skye seemed to have fully grasped the situation and taken it in stride—and equally pleased that she seemed
willing again to form a bond of bantering friendship between them—Kyle reached out and kneaded her neck between his thumbs and forefingers, quelling tension with a strong and firm touch. “Forget the figs. We have enough fruit by the hut to last a week. Let’s head on down. I have a present for you.”

  “A present?” Skye couldn’t prevent the wistful curl to her lips— an action that amazed her. They were following Murphy’s Law— everything that could possibly go wrong seemed to be doing so, yet at the moment she didn’t seem to care. She had narrowly escaped death in the crash, flirted with pneumonia during the storm, almost embraced a host of cutthroat criminals.

  And it just didn't matter because Kyle was smiling tenderly and he must care for her very much, no matter how blunt his behavior was at times, because at every turn he had sheltered her.

  And now he was offering her a present. Such a little thing in ordinary life—gift giving was a common practice. But here, with the sea, sky, sand, and just the two of them, it was everything.

  “What is it?” Skye asked, feeling like a child with a large box that must not be opened before Christmas.

  “A surprise,” he returned with a subtle grin. Maybe relief was making her giddy, perhaps that combined with the end of their cold stalemate, but suddenly she clutched her stomach and half doubled over, overcome with laughter.

  “What on earth amuses you, lady?” he growled, his brows joining suspiciously.

  “Oh, Lord, I am sorry!” Skye managed through chuckles. “I was just looking at you and thinking… I mean, the owner of a multimillion-dollar corporation in those truly ragged cutoffs and growing a beard that would put a hippie to shame.”

  Kyle’s hand left its comfortable grip on her neck with a teasingly punishing squeeze to move self-consciously to his own chin, where he ruefully rubbed a thick growth of auburn stubble.