“Katrina …” He breathed her name as the splendor of her kiss racked through his body. And he clutched her shoulders, drawing her up, hard against his chest, and then beneath him. His hands cupped her breast, her breast filled his mouth. She moved deliriously beneath him, and in a frenzy his hands molded her body, his mouth tasted all of it. In moments she was whimpering, a wildcat, twisting, arching, a fury of sensuality, longing to be a part of him.
“Hmmm,” he groaned delightedly, holding her still to watch her face as he moved over her.
“Are you sure you weren’t into the drug cabinets?”
She heatedly clasped his neck, bringing his lips to hers. “You are the drug, my love. Your hands, your touch, your eyes, your—”
“My what?”
“Come here, I’ll whisper. Oh!”
He was inside her, shuddering, remembering. Loving her now more than he ever could have before. Whispering her name. Relishing the sound of his own on her lips.
Knowing that love was real, and that it was theirs.
Mike rose first; Katrina tried to snuggle beneath the covers.
“Up!” he told her, tapping her bottom.
“Stop!” she moaned.
“We have to get back to the dinner. To the children, remember, Mrs. Denver?”
She tried to rise and failed. His arms came around her to support her, and she cast him a baleful glance.
“When you take revenge, you take revenge!”
“Complaining?”
“No!” she laughed. “No, never.”
“I can always carry you. Thank God you’re so light.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! What would the children think?” She groaned. “Oh! And Frank is there too! He’s going to taunt me to death!”
Mike shook his head. “He’s a great guy,” he said a little huskily. “Very special.” He caught Katrina’s hand suddenly. “Katrina, you don’t have to lose them, you know. You’re marrying me—not giving up anything, none of the love that came with a past life.”
She touched his cheek, warmed by the care in his eyes. “I know. Maybe it just took me a while to understand it.”
He smiled and released her. Back in the lab he picked up her dress and threw it at her.
“Come on! I have to make the announcement before you chicken out on me.”
Katrina stumbled into her dress. “I won’t chicken out!”
He cocked his head to the side and grinned at her. “Keep ’em hungry!” he teased. “Works every time.”
“Oh, do shut up! And let’s go!”
Dinner was nice. Jason was ecstatic. Toni was a little stunned, but she handled it all well.
And Frank didn’t tease her at all. He broke out a bottle of wine, and wore a self-satisfied smirk all night as if he had planned the entire thing himself.
The next afternoon Mike took Katrina over to an out-of-the-way place in Largo.
Katrina wanted at least a month to plan for a wedding. “It really is so sudden! And—”
“And what?”
“I can’t help it. I’m very traditional. I want organ music, flowers, and wonderfully solemn vows, blessed by God. I want the Denvers there—Frank and Ted and Nancy, and—oh, Mike! I hope they really understand. They mean so much to me. It wasn’t just James, you see. I grew up spending half my time in their house. Either I was there, or James was at my house. Oh! And speaking of my mother”—Katrina suddenly laughed—“she’s going to want to take charge. I’m not going to let her, of course.”
“Your poor mother!” he sympathised, but then he shook his head. “Such a whirl of energy—and she gave you such a lovely temper!”
“I haven’t got a bad temper.”
“I have endured a few slaps that say differently.”
“You deserved a lot more than slapped cheeks!”
After a long lunch they strolled along the dock. Rock Cay was a small dot in the southern distance.
“It’s going to be hard to leave.” Katrina sighed, leaning against him.
He frowned, resting his chin on the top of her head. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. Where are we going?”
“Wherever you get sent next,” Katrina murmured, and he whirled her around to face him.
“You mean you were ready to pick up and go—anywhere?”
Katrina blushed, staring out at the horizon. “Well, of course, you’re in the Navy.”
She was startled when he swung her back around, hugging her fiercely. “Kat … I can’t tell you how damn good it feels to hear that. But we’re not going anywhere.”
“We’re not?”
“Oh, on a honeymoon, yeah. But we’re going to stay on Rock Cay. I’m retiring.”
“Mike!” she gasped. “No! That’s your life, your career! I can’t ask you to—to give it up.”
“I don’t intend to give up what I do, any more than I expect you to stay out of the reefs. I thought I’d start up a small private practice. On Largo, or Islamorada. Just for a few days a week. Because I never intend to quit with the 44DFS project. And I’ve a few other—”
“Bless us and save us!” Katrina prayed vehemently. “Go on.”
“Go on? That’s it. We’ll just leave the lab where it is. What do you think?”
She chuckled. “I don’t know what I think about the lab, but, oh, Mike! If you’re serious, I’m thrilled.”
“I am serious. Jason won’t have to change schools, and Toni will be in Miami. It’s perfect. And you won’t have to leave Frank and your business.” He hesitated just a second, stroking the length of her hair. “Katrina, I went to see Nancy Denver this morning.”
“You—did?”
“I told her that I wanted her to know that I loved you very much, and that I love her grandson too. And that I hoped that I wouldn’t change anything, that she’d be every bit as welcome on Rock Cay as she has always been.”
“Oh, Mike! What did she say?”
“That she loves you too. That she hopes we’ll be very happy.”
“Oh, Mike.” Tears stung her eyes, tears of happiness and pain. “It was his island, really. James’s. His dream. His Eden. And it killed him.”
Mike wrapped his arms around her tightly. “The island didn’t kill him, Katrina. Life is something which we have to live with faith. You have to really believe sometimes. Damn, Katrina, I was the one in the service! Yet Margo was the one who was killed. There’s no justice to it. I stayed sane by believing that there was a greater world beyond ours, that she was beyond all pain. And by believing that I could make a change in this one.”
Katrina turned and hugged him very tightly. “You’re a dreamer!” she accused him softly. “But you do make it a better world!”
“If I can have you in it, then that’s all I really want.”
Stan had let Mike know that Al Stradford was going in to Islamorada to the bar.
Mike followed him over.
He waited until he was seated alone at a booth, idly sipping at a whiskey. Then he slipped across from him.
Al glared at him warily. “What are you after, Taylor? You managed to get things your way—so what more do you want?”
“Actually, I want to thank you. Then warn you.”
“You are crazier than a Cheshire cat!” Al accused him. He watched him for a moment, certain that Mike meant to lash out at him any second.
“Settle down, Stradford,” Mike said, smiling. “If I’d wanted another brawl, I’d have said so.”
Al watched him for several seconds, then decided that he was telling the truth. “Want a drink?”
“Yeah. I’ll take a beer.”
Al kept watching him as they signaled for the waitress.
“What is it?” Al suddenly exploded. “Come on, Taylor, you’ve already proven you could beat me.”
Mike laughed. “Is that it, Al? Hey, life is always like the rungs of a ladder. So I can beat you. Maybe the next guy will be able to beat me.”
“Oh, yeah?” Al arched
a brow as he lifted his glass to Mike. “Not you, Taylor. You’re always the damn hero. And nobody likes a damn hero time after time.”
Mike made an impatient gesture. “I’m not a hero, Al.”
“No? You pulled me out of a sinking ship.”
“Damn it, anyone would have done that, Al!” He shook his head. “Is that it? You’ve spent all these years working behind my back to sabotage projects because I pulled you out of a ship? Hell—maybe I should have let you drown!”
Al hesitated, then shrugged, apparently having decided it didn’t matter much anymore what he said. “All right, maybe that started it. But if I came to the admiral with one idea, damned if you didn’t give him another one. A better one. If I saw a woman I liked, she was already sleeping with you. When bombs were exploding around us, you just kept working without missing a stroke, and I thought I’d die of fright every damn time. Every damn place I wanted to be, Taylor, you’d reached it already. Everything I wanted to be—you already were.”
Mike shook his head. “Al, you ass! I’ve been so scared I was afraid I’d run away with someone’s wound half sewn up. And I’ve been on the admiral’s black list, and I’ve been turned down half a dozen times on what I thought were brilliant ideas.”
Al hadn’t seemed to have heard. “Even the girl the other night. What was it with you, Taylor? She was out with me—so you just had to have her instead.”
Mike shook his head, then drained the beer the waitress had brought him. “That’s what I came to thank you for. I’m marrying her, Al.”
That caught Stradford’s attention.
“You—you’re getting married again?”
“Yeah. And it’s thanks to the fact that you arranged to see that she wound up stuck on the island with 44DFS.”
“That’s a crock! You can’t prove it!” But he had been caught off guard, and his voice lacked conviction.
“No, I can’t prove it. But I know it. You called and told her we’d canceled, and you told the Marines she was gone.”
“I—yeah, I did it,” Al rasped out wearily. “You can’t prove it, though. What—what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to retire.”
It seemed that Al held his breath for a long, long time.
“And you’re going to let me off? Just like that.”
Mike stood, grimacing down at him. “Maybe. We’ll see. I expect you to do something yourself, Stradford. Let your conscience be your guide.”
Mike left him, squaring his shoulders, his smile just a little bit bitter.
Katrina was there when he returned to the island, waiting for him on the beach. The wind rippled her hair; her feet were bare. He beached the launch, then came to her, wrapping his arms around her, feeling long silken tendrils of her hair blow and weave about him like a delicate web.
She kissed him lightly, slipped an arm around his waist, and started for the trail.
He pulled her back. “Wait a minute, Katrina. I have to tell you something.”
She paused, smiling a little hesitantly at his tone.
“What?”
He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Katrina, I found out who called you about the project. It was Al Stradford. He wanted the project blown.”
Katrina stared at him searchingly. “Can you prove it?”
“No.”
“But?”
“I just talked to him.”
Again, her beautiful sea eyes searched his. “And?”
“It’s difficult; he’s a good doctor, and a good scientist. I’m hoping that he’ll turn himself in, and that the Navy will go easy on him.”
She touched his hair. “Let’s wait and see, shall we?”
He nodded.
A secret smile was on her lips as she took his arm again and they walked back to the house.
Jason and Harry were playing a game of backgammon in the living room. They could hear Toni humming in the kitchen.
Mike had barely closed the door when the phone started ringing. Toni answered it, then came around the kitchen door.
“Oh, Dad! You are back.”
“Was it for me?”
“Yes, and it was rather peculiar. It was Captain Stradford. He said he wanted to volunteer his services for the 44DFS project. For whatever you may need.”
Katrina and Mike stared at each other, then grinned.
Jason shook his head and stared up at Toni.
“Grown-ups are strange!” he concluded.
Katrina dragged Mike with her and plopped down beside Jason, hugging him so he squirmed.
“Hey! You’re the one who wanted a mad scientist for a stepdad, huh?”
And Jason had to smile. “Yeah, I guess that I did!”
Epilogue
“MOM! MOM! COME QUICK!”
Katrina started slightly. Usually, she would have been attuned to the urgency in Jason’s voice and responded instantly to his call. Somewhere in her subconscious, though, she knew that it was a cry of laughter and excitement, not of fear. And today …
Something about today had cast her so deeply into her own thoughts that she remained where she was, cocooned in a dream world.
It might have been the wind; it might have been the lulling dip of the palm fronds, or the slow ripples moving across the surface of the pond. There was a scent of wild orchids in the air today too.
She was remembering their wedding. Her parents had been there, as well as Jason, Toni, Frank, the Denvers, Harry, and what seemed like half of the Second Fleet. A score of Navy men and a few scattered Marines all had come to give their best. The admiral had been there, as had Stan, smiling away as if he had planned the entire thing himself.
There had been a honeymoon, in Switzerland. They were accustomed to sun and sand and the beach, so snowcapped mountains and cozy fires were a romantic change.
But still …
For Katrina the best time had been here. Here by the pool, with the sun beating down on them, with Mike swearing that he had fallen in love the second he had seen her, a wild thing, bursting from the shade of the palms and the tangle of the subtropical jungle like a goddess set to do battle….
“Mom!”
This time Jason’s shriek did penetrate the fog of her thoughts. She catapulted to her feet, spinning like a dancer on her bare toes for a moment as she tried to locate his position.
South … she was certain that the cry had come from the south, by the second inland pool.
She ran, led by instinct. Past a patch of crotons, wild hibiscus, and bitter cherry. She found the path, which was shaded by a line of palm trees. It was almost dusk, and the sun was casting patterns of red and orange and primitive pink.
“Jason!”
He was there, and Harry was there.
Jason looked up at her, smiling. “Mike’s at it again, Mom!”
And he was. The pool was surrounded by fog, by a light, powdery, pink fog that seemed to create a magic realm, beautiful and surreal.
“Oh, no!” she breathed.
And Mike, in cutoffs, bending over the little pellet on the ground that created the fog, laughed.
“Jason,” Harry said, “I think that the experiment is over. What say we run over to the main island for an ice cream cone?”
“Mom, Mike, can I?”
Katrina nodded, in a daze. “Yes!”
She thought she saw Harry give Mike a wink, then he and Jason disappeared through the trees.
She wasn’t wearing her teal maillot today. She was wearing a two-piece, which was held together by thin spaghetti strings. With her hands on her hips she walked around the pool, ready to lash into her husband. Long before she came to him, she saw that he was grinning. That his silver eyes gleamed like the stars, that he was very lazily stretching out on the sand—waiting for her, expecting her!
“Michael Taylor! You promised—no experiments out of doors!”
He shrugged, patting the clean white expanse of sand beside him. “Come talk to me, I’ll try to explain.”
; “No,” she murmured warily, but the magical pink fog was all around her. It made the setting sun even more beautiful; it touched the air with a hint of dampness that made the brush of it against her feel like silk.
She came to him, falling to her knees in the sand. Her hand stretched out, cupping the contours of his cheek. Then she was leaning toward him, desperately hungry for his lips, for the taste of him.
In seconds she was beside him, touching him, stroking him, feeling the ripple of muscle beneath her fingers, luxuriating in the quickening of his breath, and her own. She felt his hands, coursing along her spine, finding strings to pull, then savoring the naked flesh that was revealed. His kisses moved over her breasts until she was on fire, certain that she was the flame that created the glow all around him. She was lost in sensation, swirling on clouds.
The sun streaked over them, crimson, magic, real and unreal. The breeze around them was cool, a shimmering embrace against the rampant heat of their bodies. They were moving in time, in rhythm. The sun made a last, mercurial streak against the sky; it was a pinnacle of beauty and pleasure, a soaring streak of splendor across the sky. And then it began slowly, slowly to ease into shades of softest pink and yellow, drifting, drifting with them as they came, gently and tenderly, back to earth.
Curled against his chest, content and sated, Katrina wrinkled her nose against the damp tendrils of hair on his chest.
“You’re definitely a madman, a devil!” she accused him.
“Hmm.” He kissed her forehead. “Madly in love with my wife. But”—he moved away from her slightly, meeting her aqua eyes, which were shimmering like the sea—“I’ve a confession to make. The fog—the pink fog. It wasn’t 44DFS. It was just a colored steam pellet.”
“Well, my love”—she drew a pattern against his flesh, following the triangle of hair down his chest, to his waist and below, causing his breath to quicken all over again—“I’ve a confession too. I knew that it wasn’t 44DFS.”
“You did?”
“Certainly. You’d never break a promise.”
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