I gather up my purse and camera bag and search the boat for anything that may be useful. I throw the straps of my bags over my shoulder and grab a couple life vests just in case. Gabe is working rapidly behind me to secure his boat to the post.
“Here.” He shoves a heavy bag into my arms. “I sure hope you know how to swim.”
He dives off the edge of the boat and turns to tread water. “Toss me life vests and the bags, then jump in.”
I do what he says after securing my cards and camera in my reserve zip-sealed bags, and then I kick off my useless sandals and jump in after him. The water is bracingly cold. We use the life vests to keep the bags afloat and relatively dry, though I’m sure dry is just wishful thinking at this point. I try not to get left behind as he powers through the waves toward the cabin. By the time we make it to the beach, the wind is so forceful that the trees are whipping around us in a frenzy. I’m completely rethinking my determination to keep my job. Who needs work?
The cabin—if it can be called that—is located a little way in the dense growth of foliage. I tiptoe through hoping that there aren’t any kinds of poisonous snakes or bugs lying in wait. The tin roof and paneled sides don’t look like much, but it’s better than nothing. The single window on the face of the cabin is boarded up. Gabe bounds up the steps and peers through the cracks between the boards. When that doesn’t offer any insight, he rips off the lowermost board. Seemingly satisfied with that, he then bangs on the door.
“Do you really think someone is staying in there? It looks deserted.”
He shoots me a look. “No, but if there are any animals calling this place home, I’d rather they vacated it before we come in.”
Good point.
Gabe tests the door and finds it open and in good time, too, because the sky chooses that moment to open up. After a dip in the ocean, a rain shower is just icing on the cake. I don’t even make it through the doorway before any remaining dry parts of me are soaked to the bone and in a white dress no less.
The inside of the cabin is marginally better. It’s damp and smells like rotting wood, but most of the windows are already boarded up and it provides some protection from the elements. Not that it matters now, considering I’m dripping wet. The wind bangs the door shut behind me and I jump a foot in the air, landing on something sharp. I shriek and hop on one foot.
“Shit, fuck, damn.”
Gabe whirls from his inspection of the house. “What? What happened?”
“Damn, fuck, shit,” is all I can say.
“Here.” He offers me an arm. I’m nearly shocked silent by his graciousness as he leads me to a wobbly looking chair on the far side of the room. “Sit down so I can look at that. The last thing you need is for it to get infected.”
I sink into the chair. “Thanks.”
He grunts in response. He grabs the bag of supplies he’d given to me, rifles through it, and pulls out a small medical kit. I divest myself of my purse and drop it by my camera bag. Gabe crouches by my feet with a handful of gauze, and a packet of what I assume is antibacterial cream and a small bottle of water.
“I’d like to clean it more than this, but I don’t want to run out of medicine. If we’re lucky, the squall will blow over by tomorrow and you’ll just need to get it checked out when we get back.”
“That’s fine.” I wince as he rinses the blood from a deep gash in the sole of my foot. “What the hell did I step on?”
Gabe applies the cream over my wound with surprisingly gentle hands. For such a big man, he has the softest touch. “Looked like a rock or something.”
“That’s a relief.” Based on the looks of our shelter it could have been much worse. As thunder rumbles, I mentally knock on wood. The last thing we need is for it to get worse.
“You’ll be fine. No stilettos for a while though.”
“If you were a girl, those would be fighting words,” I tease.
He gives me a crooked smile as he wraps the gauze around my foot and I’m not going to lie, it makes my heart skip a beat. “What’s a princess without her glass slipper?”
I roll my eyes, but I feel my own responding smile pull at the corners of my lips. He finishes the bandage with a strip of tape and sets my foot down.
I glance around the room, noting the island-style furniture. It doesn’t look to be in terrible shape, just worn and unused. By the smell of it, it’s musty and damp as well. While he investigates the contents of the bags he’d brought, I take a look around the cabin. There’s a small kitchenette, various tables coated in dust, broken knickknacks, a small non-working bathroom, and an empty room off the living room. This must have been someone’s home before the big developments came in and turned the island into a tourist attraction.
A crack of lightning jolts me out of my thoughts and I jump.
“Easy there, princess. Do me a favor and check out the window.”
I hobble over to one of the windows and peer through the boards. The growing cloud cover, coupled with the waning sunlight, makes the roiling ocean look especially treacherous. His boat rocks precariously, and I send up a fervent plea that it doesn’t detach during the night.
“Yeah, there’s no way you can get me to go out in that mess.” I turn away from the window, rubbing my arms against the chill, and telling myself that there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just a little rain and noise.
“I dunno.” He gives me a pointed look. “I’ve got five hundred dollars that may convince you otherwise.”
Hysterical laughter bubbles in my throat, but I choke it down. “I’m so sorry for dragging you out here in this weather. I honestly thought we had plenty of time before the storm was supposed to come in.”
“It’s fine. We’ll just bunk here for tonight, and when the weather blows over, we’ll head back to the other side of the island.”
I shoot the musty couches a dubious glance. “Sleep here?”
He smirks at the disbelieving tone in my voice. “Don’t worry, I’ve got three or four emergency blankets in here.”
My stomach growls. “You wouldn’t happen to have any emergency snacks in there, would you? I skipped lunch while I was trying to find a captain crazy enough to take me out.”
“Just for that,” he digs through his pack, “I shouldn’t even let you have any of this. Then again, it’s on your dime, so…” He tosses a bag of peanuts and a beef jerky.
“I really am sorry. I’m sure you had something better planned for a Saturday night than getting stranded with some annoying tourist.”
“Well, now that you mention it…”
Gabriel
Howling wind forces its way through the cracks in the beat-up old cabin. With no supplies, there’s little I can do but hope that whatever is holding this place together manages to keep through the night. I didn’t think that the weather was supposed to be bad, but that didn’t mean that it still wouldn’t flood, or that trees wouldn’t fall, or that a hundred other things that could go wrong wouldn’t happen.
I munch on my own pack of peanuts and jerky and pretend they are the steak I should be having. If I’d known I would be roughing it, I would have packed more food than medical supplies, though I’m glad I’d thought to bring my emergency bag, just in case.
While Chloe’s distracted, I take the moment to study her. After a dip in the ocean and a dash through the woods, she doesn’t look quite so perfect and put together. And I’ll admit the sight of her in a skintight, near see-through dress isn’t hard on the eyes. I don’t want or need the complication of attraction to this woman, no matter how good she looks soaking wet.
Not wanting to be any more of an asshole than I already had been, I search through the pack for the blankets I’d mentioned and hand one to her. She accepts it with a grateful smile and takes it with her to the other room, ostensibly to shuck her soaked dress. I note my own clammy shorts and hurry to do the same. I lay the clothes over the back of the chair to dry. I wrap the towel around my briefs and hope my near nakedness doesn’
t offend her.
She walks out of the room with her own blanket wrapped toga style around her, and I resolve to ignore the fact that I know just how little is underneath.
An awkward, unsure silence descends between us. I glance away from my study of her as I finish off the bag of nuts. I dump the trash back into the pack and take another look at the water outside. The boat is still securely fastened to the poles, so I settle onto the remaining couch. My six-foot frame is going to be spilling over the edge, but it was better than nothing.
“This is probably a good thing,” Chloe says out of nowhere.
“How do you figure?”
“Shit job, shit pay. Who needs it?”
“What is it that you do?”
“I’m a freelance photographer for several corporations. I go where they need me to be and take photos for their advertising materials.”
“Doesn’t sound that bad. They sent you here.”
She laughs hollowly and points to the dilapidated interior. “And that has turned out so well.”
I smile. “Well, don’t get me wrong, but normally this place is pretty great. Paid vacations to exotic locales don’t sound like such a bad job to me.”
“It’s not that,” she says finally.
Nothing about her is what I expected and I find myself wanting to know more. “Then what is it?”
“I just didn’t think this was where my life would end up.”
She turns to look out the window again, her body an enticing silhouette. The impromptu swim and rain shower had long since washed away the polish of makeup and mousse. The result is charming and vulnerable, stirring the protective side of me. “I don’t think anyone ever ends up where they imagine, princess.”
“You’re probably right, but that’s too depressing to fathom.”
Now that she mentions it, I couldn’t help but agree with her. My own life sure as hell didn’t turn out as planned.
“What did you want to do before this?”
The couch groans as she stretches out over her own blanket and I do my very best not to watch the thin material of the blanket as it rides up her tanned legs. Unbidden, I picture them bare and spread out before me and I begin to wonder what she’d taste like. The very thought is a temptation I’m not sure I want to indulge. She collects her mane of hair and twists it around her hand, leaving one shoulder bare. I stifle a groan, shifting in my seat and forcing myself to focus on what she’s saying.
“Well, when I graduated high school and went to college, the only thing I ever wanted to do was become a photographer.”
“Like I said, it doesn’t seem like you’re doing that bad.”
“No, I know. I’m grateful to have a job, but it’s just that. A job. I always imagined that when I settled on a career, it would be doing something that I loved, something worthwhile. Otherwise, what’s the point? The money won’t matter when I die. No one will care about the pictures I’ve taken. Who cares about another billionaire’s summer house?”
I couldn’t argue with her there. “What did you want to do?”
“Take real, meaningful photos. Like you see in National Geographic. Art that tells a story.”
“So why don’t you?”
“Have to pay the bills somehow. The things you love rarely make you enough money to support yourself. Then again, that’s the tradeoff, I guess. Love or money.”
I make a noncommittal sound and fall silent. I’d been in her shoes. I knew what it was like to work for years and feel like it was all for nothing.
“What about you?” she asks.
“What about me?” I want to cross my arms but resist, wondering if she’d pick up on my discomfort.
“How did you wind up a charter boat captain?”
“Not an exciting story, I promise you.”
“Well, we have all night and there’s nothing else to do in here. We might as well get to know each other. It’ll be a good story to tell our grandkids one day.”
I shift on the chair so that I can see her directly. “What do you want to know?”
“Are you always such an enormous dick?”
She grins and we both laugh, easing the somewhat awkward tension that had been building. If we’re going to spend the next eight hours stuck in a room together, we might as well make the best of it. I can’t deny that there’s a part of me that is enjoying it. There’s something about her direct, no-nonsense attitude that I like.
I place a hand over my heart. “That wounds me.”
“I’m serious.” She contradicts that statement by laughing through the cover of her hands.
“I don’t know how to answer that. Not always?” I can’t help but join in as her laughter begins again. “You just caught me at a bad time, is all. Not to mention that I just quit smoking so everything has me on edge.”
There’s a pause and for a moment I think she may write me off completely. I’m surprised to find myself holding my breath. Does she feel the charge between us, too?
“Fine, you’re forgiven,” she says and I take a deep breath in relief. “How long’s it been?”
Too goddamned long. The sound of her laugh and the peeks I get of her skin could drive a man crazy. “About a month.”
“Well good for you.”
“Thanks.”
“So why boating?”
I can’t remember the last time I’d opened up to a woman this way. Or the last time I even wanted to. There was something disarming about her forthright nature. The wind and rain whorled around us, making our little hideaway feel cozy despite our odd circumstances.
“I’ve been on the water in some form or another all my life.”
“Oh yeah?” When she answers, she actually looks at me, eyes wide, like she genuinely cares about my response.
I find myself responding before I even consider the words. “I spent eight years in the Navy, got my degree, did the nine-to-five gig for a while, but that’s not my style. Like you said, what’s the point if you don’t love it? I love being out here, making my own hours, being responsible for my own work, the freedom. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
She sighs. “You’re lucky then.”
“I like to think so.”
“Do you have any family out here?”
The question hits me right in the stomach. “No,” I manage to respond. “It was just where I ended up.”
Thankfully, she doesn’t notice my uneasiness. “That must be nice. Back where I’m from, my whole family essentially lives in a four-block radius. They’re always in each other’s business and someone’s always fighting with someone else. They all say that they hate each other, but in reality, they love each other more than anything.”
“Did you grow up with a ton of brothers and sisters?”
“Just two brothers. Sam is older. Liam is younger.”
“Oh, I bet that was fun.”
“Says you. Men.” She shakes her head, a small smile dancing on her lips. “You always stick together.”
“If we didn’t, women would take over the world.”
We share a laugh, and I have a moment to enjoy the way her eyes light up, before a loud crack sounds through the growing darkness and a loud crash caves in part of our impromptu shelter.
Chapter Three
Chloe
Our conversation comes to a screeching halt at the loud sound, and I immediately throw my hands up over my head. Gabe is across the room before I can blink, covering my body with his. His warmth surrounds me like a six-foot man-made cocoon.
“Are you okay?” He eases back just enough to see my face and for the first time, I get a real good look at him up close. His eyes are framed by thick, long lashes that dust the tops of his cheeks when he blinks. His cheekbones are perfectly sculpted and lead to the fullest, most kissable lips I’ve ever seen.
That thought stops me dead in my tracks, halting any further perusal. I move to sit up and he backs out of my space. I immediately regret my action and the lack of heat.
�
��I’m fine. I think.” I peer over him to survey the damage. A large branch has fallen through the corner of the cabin, the gaping hole now letting in the wind and rain, soaking my legs again. I squirm off the couch to get away from the flood of water pouring through the opening.
“That rain is just going to get worse. If you can grab our stuff, I’ll move this couch into the side room and we can both bunk in there.”
“Hopefully, there won’t be any more surprises.” I move to do what he suggested, grabbing our bags and blankets, and taking them into the empty bedroom. At least we’ll be out of the rain there and relatively warm.
Gabe follows, hefting the couch through the narrow doorway and into the bedroom. He sets it down with a loud thump and arranges the extra blanket to cover the cushions.
“Why don’t you sleep on the couch? I’ll take the floor.”
“Thanks, but there’s no way I’m going to strand you out here and then make you sleep on the floor with God only knows what. Come and sit up here with me. I’m not going to be able to sleep during this anyway.” I shudder at the mere thought of the storm raging around us and try to wipe it from my mind. Easier said than done. I try to concentrate on the dull throb of my foot instead.
Gabe shrugs, his powerful muscles bunching with the movement. The couch dips under his weight and the fresh, clean scent of him fills my nose. It’s been so long since I was this close to a man that the sudden weight of attraction in my stomach catches me off guard. My eyes flutter to find him watching me and I cough, cheeks flooding with heat. He’s not a small guy and the piece of furniture was barely big enough for me, so I can easily feel the heat coming off him.
I clear my throat again. “How long do you think we’ll be stuck out here? I’m not the biggest fan of rain. Especially if it involves wind or thunder.”
“The last I checked it was supposed to clear up by early morning. With any luck, we’ll be able to sleep straight through it.”