Shipwrecked with Mr Wrong

by Nikki Logan

  She was going to hurt him. Badly.

  She nudged his sleeping form heavily with her bare foot. The snoring rapidly stopped on a surprised snort.

  ‘Did you just kick me?’ Gritty eyes peeled open to blink at her in confusion.

  ‘No. I nudged you with my foot. Come on. It’s my turn to sleep. Go take a mid-morning swim or something.’

  He sat up, watching her warily. ‘You aren’t coming back in here with me?’

  Taking the bull by its horns was every bit as perilous as it sounded. She stood as tall as the tent allowed and looked down on him.

  ‘I … no, Rob. I’m not.’

  ‘You’re not?’

  ‘I don’t want to and I have a right to express what I want.’ Ugh. She wanted to slap herself at the petulance she heard in her own voice.

  ‘You don’t want to?’

  Okay, he was sleep deprived but did he really have to repeat everything she said? She nudged him with her foot again.

  ‘No, I don’t.’ He stretched up towards her. Her hands flew up. ‘And before you say “Oh, really?” and hit me with that killer look, I’m willing to acknowledge that you could quite easily change my mind and have me stripping off my clothes—’ she ignored the flames that burst into life in his eyes ‘—but the fact remains, I don’t want to.’

  She looked warily at him as he digested this. Silent seconds ticked by. She sank down next to him on the mattress. Defeated.

  ‘I leave tomorrow,’ he said quietly. Simply.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And you don’t want to?’ ‘We had to stop some time.’

  Suspicion narrowed his gaze. ‘Let’s stop tomorrow.’

  ‘No, Rob. I’m stopping today. We’re done.’

  He looked calm but the clench in his jaw gave him away. He reached a hand out towards her. She scrambled backwards.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ After everything they’d shared, she didn’t want to hurt him with her vehemence. Her chest sucked back into itself. ‘Please. If you touch me, I’ll cave. And I don’t want to cave. I’m asking you to respect the fact that I can’t do this any more.’

  Her voice cracked on the final words. Damn.

  His eyes clouded over and then he dropped them to look at her tightly clenched hands where she rested them on the mattress. Grief washed through her.

  ‘Rob …’

  ‘So, that’s it then. Game over.’

  ‘It had to come to an end sooner or later.’

  ‘Who says?’ She hadn’t seen him this angry since the day on the beach. It mobilised her. Anger was only going to open the door to things she’d rather not release.

  ‘I do, Rob. By all means carry on by yourself but it’s not going to be quite the same, is it?’ Her words were sarcastic and blunt but she had to make sure he understood.

  It’s over.

  He stood and pushed past her to exit the tent. His lithe golden body tormented her with its closeness. He snatched his shorts as he went.

  Her heart pounded heavily in the silence and she sat for a moment, regrouping. If she stayed in the tent she could just let him go; he wouldn’t come back in. He was as good as his word. But she felt the hurt radiating from him and wanted to—needed to—explain further. She scrabbled out after him and then cannoned into steel as she met him coming straight back in, now partially clothed. His hands automatically snaked around her to stop her falling.

  ‘Do you understand that this doesn’t come along every day, Honor?’ He pulled her hard up against his body to reinforce their physical compatibility. Then he motioned back and forth between their foreheads ‘Or this?’

  His voice took on a husky edge as he repeated the action from her heart to his and back again. ‘Or this. Is it so easy for you to just throw that away?’

  She melted at the feel of his hot body against hers. Hotter than usual, given his extreme anger. ‘I don’t want this or this—’ she touched her head and then her heart, panic rising as he held her fast ‘—and without those it’s not fair of me to want you physically. It’s not right.’

  ‘But you do want me?’ He almost shook her and then thrust her away from him on a curse and turned his back. Tears sprang into her eyes.

  ‘Of course I want you. It’s been amazing. A gift.’ He bent to pull his shoes on and she watched the ripple of his powerful muscles. She knew, with certainty, that she’d never see his like again, much less have it for her own. She reached out to touch the middle of his back, tears threatening. She caught herself just in time. ‘But I can’t give you more than that. I don’t have anything left to give.’

  He turned back to her and pulled her into his arms, crushing her head against his shoulder and tangling his hand in her hair. ‘Goddammit, Honor. If that’s all I can have, I’ll take it.’

  His raw hurt tore through her. ‘You don’t mean that, Rob. You deserve so much more.’ She pushed away and moved out of his reach. The absence of his warmth left her chilled.

  ‘According to you, I deserve some party princess without a thought between her ears. Is that all you think I’m worthy of? Or is it a couple of quick rolls in the lagoon but nothing more?’

  She looked at him in horror. ‘Rob, no.’ A pained snarl marred his face. ‘Help me understand, Honor. I’m trying to find the line in the sand. Because right now this is sounding disturbingly familiar. Never quite good enough. Never quite shiny enough. Sufficient for a good time but not for a lifetime—am I getting close?’

  She reached towards him, desperate to ease the pain that flared uncontrolled in his face.

  ‘You don’t deserve me.’ Her voice was hoarse, knowing that she’d caused him all this pain. His beautiful energy and passion and verve didn’t need to be dragged down by a woman with a lifetime of baggage. He deserved so much more.

  She didn’t see her mistake until his face drained of colour and his breath left him in a rush. ‘No, Honor, that’s become abundantly clear.’

  ‘Oh, Rob, no … ‘ She stepped towards him. He stopped her with a hand that wasn’t quite steady.

  ‘Don’t. You’ve tried to tell me. Several times. I thought I knew better. Thought this was going to be different. That you were worth the effort.’

  She didn’t miss his use of the past tense.

  ‘Dad would have such a field day over this one. Maybe that’s all the Dalton men are good for. Hard sex in empty relationships.’

  ‘You don’t believe that.’ Her voice was a whisper. The misery of what she was doing overtook her.

  ‘I’m an archaeologist, Honor. I believe in what I see in front of me. And right now everything is pointing one way.’

  ‘I can’t be the woman you want, Rob. I don’t have it in me.’

  I don’t know how to be that woman.

  His eyes were glacial and then he blinked, and when he opened them again they were dead and flat.

  ‘No. You can’t, can you? Because that would require you to pull your head out of this miserable wallow you’ve made for yourself. Nobody has lost as much as Honor. Nobody hurts quite like Honor. You’ve hidden yourself away here for years, sacrificing to the shrine of lost love, closing yourself off to the people who could help you, rather than have to get on with life in the real world.’ He barrelled onwards over her shocked gasp. ‘And then I come along and—God forbid—try and get inside your cold hard shell and force you to feel something. Only there’s nothing left to feel, as it turns out, because the scars encasing your heart are worse than the ones on your neck.’

  Honor couldn’t see him through the tears welling in her eyes but she heard his jaw slam shut at the end of his tirade. Her chest heaved in the silence. When she spoke, it was a tight, arctic croak. ‘Are you done?’

  His answer was complete silence. She fought the anger that threatened to explode. ‘I’m sorry that I can’t be what you want. You’ve set a standard for me that I can’t possibly meet. I was far from perfect even before the accident and I know I’m worse now. You were right—this island is how I rememb
er my family. It’s the one place that I can be where I feel in control of my life. It’s predictable and safe and there’s no one here to hurt me. Until you came.’

  She heard him hiss through her tears. She wiped at her eyes savagely.

  ‘You crashed into my island and forced your way into my life. You’ve cracked my ribcage open and spread it wide to examine my heart like some sick autopsy. Only I’m not dead— I’m alive. God knows why I got to live but it’s agony, Rob. Don’t you get that? Living hurts too much.’

  ‘Then do something with that life, Honor. Make it worth saving. Right now it’s wasted on you. It’s almost an insult to the people you lost.’

  She stumbled away from him. An age seemed to pass before she felt his hands curl around her and turn her into the warmth of his body. The tidal gates opened.

  Rob thought his heart had already broken until he watched Honor’s do it in front of him. There was no word for the pain he felt for her. As though his heart had torn clean away from his flesh. Misery and regret thickened his blood.

  It hurts too much.

  ‘Shh …’ He pulled her into his chest and wrapped her in his arms. He stroked the damp hair from her face, gently and reassuringly. It sickened him that he’d done this. It didn’t matter that he was just as hurt. Wasn’t that his job—to take her pain for her? Always? He’d done the one thing he’d told himself he would never do. Hurt this woman.

  He’d pushed too hard. She wasn’t ready.

  ‘It’s okay, Honor. It’s okay.’ He wanted to call her baby, sweetheart, beautiful, but he knew he no longer had the right. Instead, he rocked her slightly where they stood and wished things were different. Sadness washed through him, but his voice, when he finally spoke, was firm and clear. ‘I’ll go. This time tomorrow I’ll be gone and everything will go back to how it was.’ He kissed the top of her head, over and over, stroking all the while.

  Her voice was tiny, muffled by his chest. ‘No. It won’t.’

  No. It won’t.He gently rocked on the spot and closed his eyes against the pain of lying to her. ‘Yes, it will. You’ll see.’

  ‘I’ll sleep on the boat tonight.’ He kissed her sweat-damp head and spoke against her scalp. ‘Then tomorrow I’ll go.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘THERE ya go, love.’

  Mark, the boatman, passed the last of the supplies from The Journeyman onto the reef, where Honor received them absently. The waters were rougher today and waves splashed relentlessly onto the reef where she stood.

  ‘Thanks, Mark.’ She didn’t know his last name, she realised. Even after four years, he was still just Mark-the-Boatman. She’d never asked. In truth, she’d never even wondered. He was simply the guy who got her here and brought her food and got her home again eight months later, just before monsoon season hit.

  He didn’t need a second name.

  ‘Hey, Mark?’ Honor looked at him from the reef, conscious of how fragile and pale she probably looked to him. It was how she felt. ‘How’s your family?’ A tiny voice whispered that he might not even have a family. She didn’t care. It seemed worse never to have asked before.

  The burly boat-operator paused in the midst of what he was doing and looked at her with surprise. ‘They’re good, love. My little one starts school after the holidays.’

  She waited for the sickening lurch, the inevitable immediate image of Justin as he might have looked on his first day of school. It didn’t come; or, if it did, it fled again, realising there was no more room at the Inn of Self-Pity.

  ‘Congratulations.’

  She surprised herself by meaning it. She turned away, ignoring the furrow creasing Mark-the-Boatman’s brow. Further along the reef, Mark’s Malay deckhand worked with Rob repairing the damage to The Player’s hull. He stood on deck monitoring the air that fed down beneath the surface where Rob welded over the hull. The young deckie’s thick curls blew around his face in the stiff breeze coming off the icy ocean. Behind him, she could see billowing, grey soldiers amassing on the horizon. The choppy water around the boat flickered iridescent orange from the underwater welding and a large shadow moved gently within the glow.

  Rob.

  Honor knew she’d have to get used to not saying his name. Not thinking it. As soon as his repairs were finished, The Journeyman would be heading back to Cocos, shepherding The Player safely back to dock. Then he’d get his permanent repairs and set course to the south and his home in Perth.

  She guessed she had about ten minutes left before she never saw him again. Unable to bear the wait, she turned and pulled the first of the three buoyancy sacks filled with replacement supplies over her good shoulder.

  ‘Ms Brier?’ Mark called as she turned. ‘There’s a letter from Parks Australia in one of the sacks—came in on yesterday’s Q-Star flight. It looked important so I just shoved it in one of the bags as we left. Hope that’s okay?’

  What? She rarely got mail at home, let alone out here.

  ‘That’s fine, Mark. Thanks for letting me know.’

  She slipped gently into the lagoon, turned and dragged the buoyancy sack into the water behind her, towing it slowly back to shore. Intentionally taking her time. The coward part of her hoped that she’d get to land and see the two boats heading out to sea, to avoid the inevitable awkward farewell with Rob. After everything they’d said yesterday, what more was there to cover? It had been hard enough watching him swim out to The Player to spend their last night together apart.

  Her breathing came heavily and not from fighting the choppy lagoon waters. Her pulse had been racing ever since she’d seen The Journeyman plough towards them around the far edge of the island earlier that hour. An anxiety she was too frightened to name crouched in her stomach, pushing on her diaphragm and robbing her of air.

  Loss. She easily picked out her old adversary from amongst the confusion and despair. That, at least, she knew she could deal with, but she also knew with nauseating certainty how she was going to feel tomorrow, and the next day.

  And the next.

  She’d been on this train a long, long time.

  As she pulled herself upright and out onto the shore, she realised that she was tired of feeling that way. Sorrow was exhausting. She hadn’t noticed until just then how light she’d felt these past few days. It wasn’t until the old familiar weight settled back in that she realised she’d been living without it for days. Since Rob crashed into her life.

  Honor lugged the sack up the shore to the high-tide line and quickly opened it to check the contents. Two things caught her eye from amongst the goodies within. A box of hot cocoa sachets—she closed her eyes and prayed thanks to the chocolate gods for that one—and a folded envelope. Her letter.

  She shook the sea water off her hands and flapped them in the air to dry before pulling the envelope out to examine it. Mark was right; it was from her work. A frown creased her forehead. There wasn’t a problem with her research …?

  ‘Honor?’

  She spun around, crumpling the unopened letter in her hands as Rob emerged from the surf. Beyond him, she could see Mark’s deckie loading the welding gear back onto The Journeyman.

  Here it comes … She forced a tight smile to her face. ‘All done?’

  He looked out to the horizon. ‘I don’t like how this weather’s looking. I don’t want to leave—’

  ‘I’ve weathered storms here before, Rob. You’d be surprised how much shelter the pisonia trees provide. Besides, this isn’t a big one.’ Nature made a liar of her as a strong gust blew dried seaweed along the beach and yanked strands from the ponytail high on her head.

  Tropical or not, the zephyr blew in straight off the ocean and had cooled as it travelled. It hit Honor’s wet skin and birthed goose bumps wherever it touched. She shivered in response.

  ‘I’ll get these in as quick as I can, though, just to be sure.’

  He nodded and looked up the beach towards camp. He looked every bit as uncomfortable as she felt. She took the plunge just as he s
wung his head back around. They both spoke at once.

  He smiled and it was like the sun breaking through the grey clouds. It tore another shred off her heart. ‘You first.’

  She shuffled her weight to the other foot. ‘I was just going to say … goodbye.’ Her voice was much steadier than she felt. Years of faking it were paying off.

  ‘You’ll be okay?’

  He wasn’t just talking about the storm. ‘Yes. Thank you, for everything.’ For ten days of lightness. For letting me have you. She willed him to understand. He didn’t let her down.

  His eyes bled down into hers. ‘You’re so welcome.’

  Another gust tugged at her body. She crossed her arms across chilled flesh.

  ‘Goodbye, Honor.’ He stepped in towards her and wrapped his arms around her before she could protest. Before she could beg him not to. Her folded arms trapped her like a straitjacket against the steel of his chest. He dipped his mouth to meet hers.

  She twisted her face away, not willing to risk a final kiss. He didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink. He just stood still and waited, as enduring and patient as the shipwreck he was leaving behind.

  Her will faltered, as he must have known it would, and she relaxed in his grasp, the letter almost fluttering from her trembling fingers. His lips met hers halfway in a gentle kiss that caused a painful ache behind her sternum. It was like their first kiss. Soft and tender, full of promise. Only this one was full of sadness.

  An ending.

  Grief robbed all the strength from her and she sagged in his arms. He took her weight as his kiss deepened. She felt his body stir against hers, couldn’t help responding, but at the last second she dragged her wits back around her and pushed away.

  Not cruelly, but finally.

  She struggled for composure, to keep the tears at bay. It took a monumental effort to wipe the grief from her face and leave it blank. She knew that he’d blame himself for whatever he saw there and she wanted him to see … nothing.