“We can’t just wait here, doing nothing, forever.”
She didn’t see why they couldn’t do exactly that. “Your men are well-trained and methodical. Eventually, they will find us.”
“Yes, but how long will it take?”
“Someone will come, Alex.”
He only looked at her, that distant look of his, the one that told her she was getting nowhere with him on this subject. And she did understand his impatience.
Because she understood him.
He’d done all he could to prepare, to be ready to signal any boat or aircraft that might come close enough to spot them. He was growing tired of waiting for something to happen. Time chafed at him. He wanted action, a swift resolution to what he viewed as their plight.
She gave up arguing with him and bargained instead. “Wait a few more days at least. Please, Alex.”
He blew out a hard breath. “Three days. All right,” he agreed. “Then I’m going to try it.”
“Three full days. Then on the fourth day, if you really feel you must...”
He glowered. “That’s four damn days.”
“Alex. Please.”
“I don’t understand this. My men should have found us by now. And not only my men. Your father will have mobilized an army of searchers. And my family will have done the same.”
“We have no idea how far the storm pushed us after we lost radio contact, or how far we drifted overnight. And there are more than a thousand islands off Croatia. You’ve got to give them a little time.”
“Four more days is too long.”
“Think of it this way. In four days, it will still be less than a week that we’ve been marooned here. And it’s not four days. It’s three days.”
“Not the way I count it.”
She asked again, “Wait till the fourth day? Please?”
Finally, reluctantly, he gave in. “All right. The fourth day. And then I’m going.”
The next day passed. And the one after that. Alex remained kind and attentive. But she could feel his distraction, his focus on the world out there beyond the small paradise they had made on the island together. He was so certain they should have been rescued by now and unwilling to just let it go and enjoy himself in the time they had left here. Instead, he prowled the island, his gaze on the horizon. He scanned the sky, willing their rescuers to hurry up and find them.
Lili went with him in the mornings of those two days. But in the afternoons, she stayed at the stone house. She performed the simple chores required to keep the place in order. And she had found a box of tattered paperbacks under the bed. Some were in Italian, which she could read with effort, but most were in English. There were detective novels and some Westerns, a couple of juicy romances and several self-help books. When she finished her few housekeeping duties, she would grab a book and stretch out on the bed.
It was lovely and relaxing, life on the island. Plus, there were the nights. Every night, she and Alex made slow, beautiful love and then she slept curled up close against him. When they were in bed, she kept him busy enough that he wasted none of his energy worrying about when rescue would finally come. She gave him no chance to indulge his impatience for the time to pass, for the day to come when he could finally take action and row out to the open sea.
The next day dawned, the third day after they’d made their agreement, the final day before he would insist he was taking the raft and rowing out to search for another island nearby. Lili tried not to think about tomorrow, about all the dangerous things that might happen in a raft out on the open water, about the fight they would have when she insisted that if he was going, so was she.
But by then, worry had started to drag on her. She sent more than one beseeching prayer heavenward, that rescue would come that day or early the next. Soon. Before Alex had a chance to take the raft out to sea.
That night, they made love for hours. Lili never wanted to stop. It almost seemed to her that if she could only keep kissing him, keep touching him, keep holding him deep within her, the morning would never come. He would never have to take the raft out. They could make the night last forever.
But eventually, sleep claimed her. One moment she was resting with her head on his shoulder, planning to lift up on an elbow and start kissing him again—and the next moment her heavy eyelids were lowering of their own accord.
“Sleep,” he whispered. She felt his lips against her forehead, the lovely roughness of his beard.
She gave in. She let her eyes drift shut.
* * *
She woke suddenly.
It was still dark. They’d left the bedroom window open. She turned her head on the pillow. Outside, it seemed to her that the sky was paling, that dawn must be near.
The goat was crying, “Maa, maa, maa....”
“Alex?” She reached for him, but he wasn’t there. His side of the bed was still warm. She sat up and squinted through the dimness toward the open door to the dressing room and the bathroom beyond. He was probably in there.
The goat kept on crying. “Maa, maa...”
And then she heard it: scuffling. And grunting sounds. The sounds were coming from outside. She got up, went to the window, looked out.
But all she saw was the deserted side yard. The grunting and scuffling were coming from around by the back door.
And judging by the fact that Alex hadn’t sprinted in from the other room to investigate the odd noises, he was probably out there making those noises. Or helping to make them. Because it sounded to her like a fight was going on out there.
“Maa, maa, maa...” The little goat kept crying.
Pausing only to scoop up the old nightgown and pull it on, Lili grabbed the survival kit flashlight from the table by the bed and raced out to the kitchen. The shutters were open in there, too. She could see that the back door was slightly ajar. And she could hear the scuffling and grunting continuing from outside.
She needed a weapon of some sort. The flashlight was thin and lightweight. It wouldn’t do. Frantically, she tried to decide what to use.
“Maa, maa, maa!”
Someone grunted really loudly and something heavy fell against the side of the house.
A kitchen knife? Oh, she really didn’t like the idea of having to stab anybody. So she hefted the big iron frying pan she used for cooking fish and she raced for the door, slowing when she got there, easing through it, trying not to make a sound.
Outside, it seemed lighter. To the east, the gleam on the horizon told her the sun was coming up.
“Maa, maa, maa!” The little goat came racing toward her from around the corner of the house. She backed up against the wall by the door and peeked around to where the grunting was coming from.
She saw two men fighting. One of them, the big one, was naked. That would be Alex. She dropped the flashlight, lifted the frying pan high with both hands and waded in to bop the other smaller man on the head.
But then Alex said, “Lili, put that pan down. Can’t you see, I’ve got him?” She paused, peering closer and saw that Alex had the other guy’s hand wrenched up behind his back and one powerful arm locked around his neck.
“Ugh, gnuh, aggh,” said the other man, trying to break free of Alex’s grip.
“Stop struggling,” Alex said to the other man. And then he must have wrenched the man’s hand farther up his back, because the man let out a groan of real pain.
Lili lowered the frying pan. “Alex, you’re hurting him....”
Alex sent her a look. Even through the gloom of very early morning, she read that look. “I’m doing the best I can here, Lili.” He said something else to the stranger in his grip. Lili didn’t understand the words that time, but she recognized the language: Croatian.
The man grunted and nodded.
Alex said something else.
The man nodded again. Alex must have loosened his hold around the poor fellow’s throat because the man managed to croak out, “All right.”
Alex asked, “You speak
English?”
“Damn right.”
“You have a name?”
The man said, “I’m Jack Spanner. And this is my bloody house.”
* * *
The next few minutes were a bit awkward.
Alex was reluctant to let go of Jack, who was clearly unhappy about being jumped at the back door of his own home. They stood outside as the sun rose, Alex, without a stitch on, holding Jack’s arm behind his back—but a bit more gently now.
Lili said, “Alex, surely you can see that Jack has a right to be annoyed.”
Alex grunted. “That’s what I’m worried about.”
She suggested, “If you let go of him, I’m sure he’ll behave. Won’t you, Jack?”
Before Jack could reply, Alex grunted again. “Why should I believe him, whatever he says?”
Jack said. “You attacked me.”
“I heard you creeping around out here. What did you expect?”
“It’s my bloody house!”
Lili explained, “Our boat capsized in a storm. We drifted here on a life raft six days ago. We’re sorry we broke into your house, but we didn’t really have much choice.”
Jack said, “I saw the bonfire you laid on the beach. And your names, too, written in driftwood and stones. Lili and Alex...”
“Yes. Um. Ahem. That’s us. Lovely to meet you, Jack,” Lili said. Alex said nothing. He still held Jack from behind.
Jack asked cautiously, “Just the two of you, then?”
“And the goat,” she said, trying to lighten the mood a little.
Jack was not amused. “That’s Bianka, one of Marina’s goats—where are the others?”
“Well, if there were other goats, they’re gone now.”
“And what about the chickens? Have you slaughtered the chickens? And what in bloody hell have you done with Marina?”
“We haven’t seen any chickens.” Lili thought of the envelope with Jack’s name on it that still waited on the kitchen table. Apparently, it did not hold good news for Jack. “Just the one goat. And no other people, until you. The house was locked up tight when we got here.” She sent her naked husband a hopeful glance. “Alex, perhaps if we could all go inside?”
Finally, after a brief negotiation during which Alex implied dire harm to Jack should he try to make more trouble and Jack insisted that he was not the one making the trouble in the first place, Alex released Jack and the three of them went inside.
Alex went straight to the envelope propped against the blue pitcher. “I think this is for you.”
Jack glared. “You been reading my private mail?”
“No. That envelope was propped against that blue pitcher when we got here. Neither of us has opened it.”
Still frowning, Jack took it, folded back the flap and removed a single sheet of paper.
Alex asked Lili, “Get me my pants?”
She had a contrary urge to tell him to go get them himself, but then she realized he was only being cautious. He didn’t yet want to let the newcomer out of his sight. “More than happy to, darling,” she answered sweetly. She popped back into the bedroom, grabbed his cargoes off the floor and brought them back to him.
By that time, Jack had wadded up the sheet of paper in a white-knuckled fist and lowered himself to a chair. “She’s left me,” he said in a desolate whisper. “Says she’s had enough of being alone. She took the chickens and the goats and went back to her father’s farm on the mainland.”
“Maa, maa, maa.” The white goat had eased her nose in the unlatched door. Alex strode over there, pushed the intruding nose back out and shut the door.
“Except for Bianka.” Jack held up the fisted paper. “Marina says here she couldn’t catch her.”
“Rough break, man,” said Alex.
“She has a cell phone,” Jack complained. “She could have called me and told me what she was planning. But no. She leaves me a note—and she refuses to answer the phone when I call. I was afraid something had happened to her.”
Lili begged to differ. “Not that afraid,” she chided. “Your Marina has been gone for a week at least. And there’s no fuel to run the generator, so it’s possible her cell was dead and she couldn’t call you—not until she got off the island, anyway. And by then, I’ll venture a guess, she had decided she wouldn’t call you.”
“It’s that mother of hers,” Jack muttered darkly. “Always popping over to see how her baby girl is doing, filling Marina’s head with lies about me.”
“At least her mother came to check on her.”
Jack’s shoulders slumped. “You’ve a point, I must admit it. I only thought she was giving me a big dose of the silent treatment.”
“You should have come back sooner,” Lili scolded.
“Give the poor man a break,” said Alex.
“The poor man? Marina’s the one who suffered, left here on her own for Lord knows how long with only chickens and goats for company—go after her,” she urged, making shooing motions at Jack with both hands. “Get her back. And next time, don’t be gone for so long.”
Both men rolled their eyes. Jack said, “I’m a fisherman. I have to work. That means I’m off for days on the boat. Marina knew that when she married me. She said she loved her time alone.”
Lili suggested the obvious. “Perhaps it was more time alone than she had bargained for. Make some changes. It can’t be that difficult.”
Now both men groaned. Alex said, “It’s just like a woman. They marry a man and then set about trying to make him into someone else.”
She couldn’t resist reminding them both, “Some men could use a little improving—some men could use a lot.” And then before either man could argue with her further, she turned, went into the bedroom and quietly shut the door.
* * *
Alex stared after her. “Lili’s a woman of definite opinions. Always has been.”
“Aren’t they all?” Jack set the rumpled letter on the table and smoothed it with his palms. “And she may have a point or two,” he admitted grudgingly. “I get working trying to fill my tanks, I lose track of the days....”
“You’re not Croatian by birth, are you?”
Jack shook his head. “Came on holiday, decided to stay. I was born a fisherman, though. Bought me boat eight years ago now.”
“Sorry we took over your house—and about that scrap we got into. You know how it goes.”
Jack agreed. “A man can’t be too careful.” Alex offered his hand. Jack took it. “No harm done. Glad the place was here when you needed it.”
Alex dropped into the other chair. “You came in your fishing boat, then?”
Jack nodded. “She’s in the western cove. Be happy to take you to Korčula.” Korčula was one of the larger of the southern islands off Croatia. It was also the second most populated, after the northern island of Krk. Jack went on, “Korčula’s not far and I have to return there anyway to pick up my crew. From there, you can catch a ferry to the mainland.”
How strange, Alex found himself thinking. All the days of waiting and wondering, worrying no one would ever come for them.
And then, just like that, they were rescued. Now he wouldn’t have to fight with Lili over whether she was going with him when he took the raft out. He wouldn’t have to risk going out there himself into the deep waters beyond the cove.
They would return home now. Everything would go back to the way it had been before.
He remembered what he had promised himself when he’d allowed himself to let down his guard with Lili. That when they were rescued, when they were safely home, he would withdraw again and reclaim his solitary life as it had been before.
Already, he missed what he and Lili had found here. He hated to lose it.
And why should you lose it? He could almost hear Lili lecturing him now.
She would insist that they didn’t have to lose anything. He almost smiled thinking of the things that Lili would say when he tried to withdraw from her, of the arguments she would lay out
for why they should continue as they had been here on the island, where they had only each other. Where he had finally been forced to realize what a truly fine woman she was.
Where she had said she loved him and then set about proving it in a thousand different ways.
Where they had been happy.
Together.
Happy. Imagine that. He was not supposed to be happy. He’d convinced himself that he couldn’t be happy ever. Not after what had happened, not after the evil he had caused.
But the clear fact was, he had been happy here with Lili. And the idea of turning his back on her now, of pushing her away and then keeping her at a distance, of sleeping without her curled close to his side...
It all felt alien to him now. Pointless. As though he wasn’t the same man he had been just a week ago. And the things that had seemed so real to that other man, that man he had been just a week ago...they had no meaning to him now.
Jack said, “You still with me, mate?”
Alex shook himself. “Right here. Sorry. Just thinking. I wonder...”
“Spit it out.”
“All I really need is to make a call and we can be picked up right here on the island. You wouldn’t happen to have a working cell on you, would you?”
“Course I do.” Jack reached in his pocket and pulled out a phone. “I never go anywhere without me phone.”
Chapter Twelve
A few minutes later, Lili emerged from the bedroom, fully dressed. By then, Alex had already made the call that would bring rescue.
The helicopter from the Princess Royale, piloted by one of Alex’s best men, would be touching down near the stone house within the hour. As it happened, the search had moved into the area. Alex’s men would no doubt have spotted the driftwood messages and come for them that day or the next day at the latest.
Lili was just grateful that Jack had appeared before Alex insisted on going off on the raft. In this case, timing was everything. They could have been lost all over again, and just before they would have been found.
She didn’t remind Alex of that. She had a feeling, from the sheepish look in his eyes, that he already knew it.
The Prince She Had to Marry Page 15