The Bride's Rescuer

by Charlotte Douglas

  He sprang to his feet at her approach, but she’d had her fill of rudeness for one morning. She attempted to climb the stairs past him.

  “Miss Stevens, please.” The desperation in his eyes stopped her.

  “What is it now? Want to search me for more matches?” Ignoring how attractive he looked, she centered all her fury and frustration in her voice.

  Standing above him on the steps with her eyes level with his, she could read the silent appeal in them, as well as the pleading gesture of his hands spread wide.

  “Forgive me, please. I meant you no harm, but I had to extinguish the fire as quickly as possible.”

  Her anger dissolved into smothering depression, and her voice lost its snap and turned thick and heavy. “What harm would it have done for that ship to see the flames and come take me away from here?”

  She sank onto the stairs with her elbows on her knees and her chin tucked in her hands. The dragging weight of her body mirrored the heaviness of her spirit. She dredged up the energy to speak again. “I have a home, friends, a business I want to return to.”

  She had made the plea so many times, it sounded like a litany. She tried to will her tears away, but they slid down her cheeks, and she tasted their saltiness.

  Cameron settled onto the step beside her, placed his arm around her shoulders, and drew her toward him. The gentle man beside her had no correlation to the angry being who had pushed her away from the fire only moments before. Was the illness Mrs. Givens had referred to a split personality?

  “Please don’t cry.” His voice caressed her with its warmth.

  “I’m not crying.” She swiped her tears with the back of her hand and pulled away from him.

  “Tell me,” he said, “are you anxious to return because of the man you were to marry?”

  His question stunned her. The last person she wanted to see was Darren Walker, but if Cameron could keep his secrets, so could she. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  An engaging smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “My situation here is strange, I admit. However, no stranger than yours. How many women go sailing alone dressed in a wedding gown?”

  Embarrassed, she gazed silently past him toward the gulf.

  “Did you sail before or after the wedding?”

  “Why should you care?” she asked hotly.

  He shrugged with infuriating nonchalance.

  “If I answer,” she said, “will you let me leave?”

  His smile vanished. “You may leave when Captain Biggins comes to take you home.”

  “But Captain Biggins won’t be here for weeks! And why is it okay for him to take me off the island, but no one else? What are you trying to hide?”

  Cameron stared at her as if he hadn’t heard. He spoke in a strangely detached voice, as if talking to himself. “Your eyes are the color of the gulf on a sunny day, and when you’re angry, they flash like sunlight on the water.”

  Her anger turned to alarm. The man was crazy. “You’re avoiding my question. Why is it that Biggins—”

  “You asked what I’m trying to hide. The answer is obvious.”

  “Not to me—”

  “I am hiding myself.”

  “Why?”

  His face shifted into hard lines. “That’s none of your affair. More to the point, I’ve spent years guarding the location of my hideaway. Biggins is the only person on earth who knows where I am.”

  “You must trust him a great deal.”

  “As long as he keeps my secret, Biggins is a very wealthy man. If he divulges my presence here, his money stops. It is as simple as that.”

  She started to ask again why he was hiding but bit back the words. Knowing too much might be dangerous. He’d just indirectly informed her that when she left Solitaire, the number of people who knew his whereabouts would double. If he allowed her to leave. Her doubts on that score were multiplying by the minute.

  She had no intention of waiting for Captain Biggins. She had promised earlier she would reach the mainland if she had to swim, and she meant it. She refused to spend another night on Solitaire.

  Everything about her mysterious host was odd, and at the same time, somehow compelling, drawing her to him. She’d just escaped one disastrous relationship and didn’t need—or want—another. The more distance she could place between her and Solitaire’s enigmatic owner, the better off she’d be.

  She jumped to her feet and started up the stairs, but Cameron grasped her hand, holding her fast. His expression softened again, and his lip curved in a rueful smile. “Don’t go.”

  “I must dress.”

  “But you haven’t forgiven me for treating you so roughly on the beach. I am sorry.”

  Did Cameron think he could behave like a jerk, then make everything all right by apologizing? “I’ll forgive you, but only when you free me from this island prison you’ve built for yourself.”

  She wrenched her hand from his grasp, lifted her gown to her knees, raced into the house and up the stairs to her room.

  Still warm from Mrs. Givens’s iron, the skirt and blouse she’d worn the day before when she’d plunged into the bay lay across the bed. She considered them with a sigh. She had to get off the island, if for no other reason than to find clothes that fit and a decent pair of shoes.

  “Excuse me.”

  She turned at Cameron’s voice and saw him standing at the open door. “What do you want?”

  “Noah found a backpack washed onto the beach yesterday. These were in it, and I believe they’re from the wreckage of your boat. Mrs. Givens took the liberty of laundering them.”

  Cameron offered her the bundle in his arms. Folded neatly were the extra set of clothes she’d kept on board the boat. Denim shorts, a T-shirt, bra and panties, and a pair of sneakers.

  She took the clothes from him. “Thank you.”

  “If there’s anything else you need, we’ll do our best to provide it for you.”

  “What is this, a four-star prison?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her voice.

  His expression hardened, and he turned and left. She was instantly sorry she had insulted him when he was only trying to be kind. However, she couldn’t allow herself to be taken in by his seductive charm. Whatever else the attractive Cameron Alexander was, he was also her jailer.

  She washed the sand from her body and dressed in the skirt and blouse. She brushed the grit from her hair, smoothing her tangled curls, and stepped out onto the veranda as she braided her hair.

  Down the beach, Noah scooped great shovels of sand onto a mound beside the gaping hole in which he stood, looking like a gravedigger as he bent to his task.

  The sight sobered her and strengthened her resolve to leave that day. She began to form her plan.

  WHEN CELIA ENTERED THE kitchen for breakfast, Mrs. Givens was examining a length of leaf-green fabric.

  “We must make you some clothes, m’dear. Can’t have you wearing my castoffs forever.”

  “Forever?” Celia stopped pouring coffee and looked at the woman.

  “It’s just a figure of speech,” the housekeeper replied a bit too quickly, “although I suppose at your young age several weeks seem like a lifetime.”

  Her explanation sounded sensible enough, but Celia couldn’t shake her uneasy feeling about the island and its inhabitants. For all their protestations of wanting to be left alone, their concerted refusal to let her leave frightened her.

  More resolved to escape than ever, she finished filling her cup and helped herself to a generous serving of thick oatmeal and toast. She’d need nourishment to carry out her plan.

  “Mrs. Givens, would you have time to pack me a lunch? I think I’ll wander the beach and collect shells today.” She spooned marmalade onto the toast, trying to act unruffled while her heart pounded at her lies.

  “Happy to, m’dear. Captain Biggins brought a nice salted ham on his last visit, and I have some biscuits I made for Mr. Alexander’s breakfast.”

  “Coul
d you put a bottle of water in with that, and some tea? The heat makes me thirsty.”

  “Whatever you want, you just let me know. I’m happy to oblige.”

  Mrs. Givens beamed at her, and she wondered if the woman’s happiness came from Celia’s apparent reconciliation to her fate.

  “You’re a sweetheart.” Celia smiled at the woman, who unknowingly was preparing food for her escape.

  Her smile disappeared when Cameron entered the room. He looked past her as if she wasn’t there. He had combed his tousled hair, shaved the stubble from his face, and put on fresh clothes. As he stood in the doorway, dressed in fitted pants tucked into gleaming boots and a soft white shirt open at the collar, he reminded her of a cover model for the paperback historical romances she had trouble keeping in stock on her bookstore shelves. Regret that she hadn’t met him under different circumstances washed through her.

  “Please bring my breakfast to the study,” he ordered the housekeeper, “and see that I’m not disturbed this morning. I want to bring my journals up to date.”

  Before Mrs. Givens could reply, he was gone. Celia took a last bite of toast, then cleared her dishes from the table.

  “I’ll have your basket packed in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” the housekeeper promised.

  Celia descended the veranda stairs from the kitchen and headed toward the outbuildings where the privy stood.

  Get me out of here she prayed, and I will never take hot running water and flushing toilets for granted ever again.

  Before entering, she carefully checked the small structure for spiders and snakes.

  When she exited the outbuilding, she glanced beyond the garden. Cameron’s sailboat lay tied to the pier.

  So far, so good.

  She returned to the kitchen, collected the basket Mrs. Givens had filled with enough food for two, and crept past the study and up the stairs to her room. There she removed Mrs. Givens’s skirt and blouse, pulled on her shorts and T-shirt, and tied her sneakers. From the veranda, she could see Noah, still excavating sand on the beach.

  She retrieved her basket and hurried downstairs, past the closed doors that sheltered Cameron, and out the front door.

  Mrs. Givens was belting out a hymn in the kitchen as she worked. Celia darted through the garden and onto the pier. The tide was in, the boat rode high in the water, and she climbed easily on board and cast off the lines.

  She shoved the sailboat away from the dock, raised the mainsail, and guided the boat north. The sails captured the wind, and the boat skimmed along the water between Solitaire and a key to the east, out of sight of the house and of Noah on the beach. When another key blocked Solitaire from view, she sailed west into the open waters of the gulf.

  Both Cameron and Mrs. Givens had said Key West was the closest town, but she couldn’t be certain. Without instruments or a radio, she feared that if she headed south, she’d steer too far west and end up in Cuba or head across the gulf toward the Yucatán peninsula.

  Even if Solitaire was at the southernmost tip of the state, a day’s sailing north along the coast should bring her at least as far as Everglades City, where she could hire a fishing guide to return Cameron’s boat, and, more important, rent a car to drive home.

  She panicked for a moment when she realized she had no money or credit cards, then breathed easier as she remembered her bank had branches all over the state, and with her memorized account number, she could withdraw the funds she’d need. She threw back her head, drinking in the sunshine, salt air, and the taste of freedom. After a harrowing few days, everything was going to work out all right.

  If Cameron should attempt to come after her in the skiff she had noticed along the shore, he’d probably head south, thinking she’d struck out for Key West. By the time he realized she’d traveled in the opposite direction, she’d be on Interstate 75, halfway home to Clearwater.

  She continued north, maintaining a course parallel to the shoreline that marked the western edge of the Everglades, but keeping far enough out to avoid sandbars. After raising the jib, she settled back in the stern, guiding the tiller with one hand, while she raided Mrs. Givens’s picnic basket with the other for a ripe, sweet mango. Running before the wind, the sloop sliced through the aquamarine waters. If the breeze held, she should reach civilization near sundown.

  Her only companions were the gulls that swooped to land on the deck, hoping for a crumb from her basket, the frigate birds circling on the air currents high above and a trio of porpoises that played in the boat’s wake. The sky seemed bluer, the water clearer, and the fish and birds more bountiful than she had ever seen them. She attributed her increased awareness of the beauty of nature to her earlier brush with death and today’s heady taste of freedom.

  Surrounded by glorious peacefulness, she thought back to the reason she’d sailed off into the gulf a few days before. She’d needed time and space to decide what to do about Darren.

  As soon as she returned home, she would contact the police and tell them of Mrs. Seffner’s accusations. In the meantime, she could only pray Darren wouldn’t be waiting on her doorstep, demanding an explanation.

  Or, worse yet, prepared to exact revenge for his embarrassment and his loss of her inheritance. She could recall now flashes of temper that he’d managed to keep under control during their engagement. Would her run from the church have pushed him over the edge to violence?

  Suddenly the joy vanished from the day. She was sailing from one problem straight into the arms of another.

  Thinking of arms, she recalled Cameron Alexander and the excitement his touch had sent coursing through her when she’d stumbled against him on the dock yesterday. Darren had never affected her that way. She’d been attracted to Darren because he’d seemed safe and predictable.

  Cameron Alexander was neither.

  No matter. Both men would be history soon enough, with Cameron hidden away on Solitaire, and Darren, she hoped, out of her life for good. With her rotten track record with men, maybe she should become an old maid, devoting her life to her bookstore, wearing long black dresses, her hair in a bun and gold-rimmed reading glasses. She’d adopt an aloof, overweight cat to complete her image.

  The wind changed, snatching the sail and threatening to capsize the boat. Maybe she should just pay attention to her sailing.

  The sun dropped closer to the horizon. She had finished the food in the basket and drunk the tea and water, but she had yet to see any signs of civilization. What she did see filled her with apprehension. The sky had turned a sickly green and filled with ominous cumulus thunderheads. A storm was brewing. October was part of the peak hurricane season in Florida. Celia hadn’t heard a weather forecast in days, and for all she knew, the clouds bearing down on her now could be a tropical storm.

  Or a hurricane.

  She cut her course closer to shore, hoping to catch a glimpse of a fishing camp where she could take shelter.

  “Damn you, Cameron Alexander,” she yelled into the growing wind, “if you’d taken me to Key West as I asked you, I’d be in a car on my way home now instead of stranded in a storm.”

  The longer she searched for a place to ride out the storm, the greater her anger grew.

  “You needn’t have stayed in Key West,” she shouted above the snap of the sails. “You could’ve just dropped me off and gone on your way. How much trouble would that have been, you golden-eyed, muscle-bound—”

  A ferocious downdraft of wind caught the sails, heeled the boat to its side, and jerked the words from her mouth as she pitched into the turbulent water.

  CAMERON STRUGGLED TO concentrate on his journals. He hadn’t brought them up to date since before the storm that had washed Celia Stevens onto his beach. He couldn’t erase her lovely face from his mind or deny his admiration for her pluck and courage. Women he had known in London would have taken to their beds for months after experiencing what she’d been through. But she had raised her chin and stiffened her back and refused to admit defeat. Would she resign hersel
f to circumstances before Captain Biggins arrived or continue to fight him every step of the way?

  The door to his study flew open and banged against the wall. Mrs. Givens stood on the threshold as if the hounds of hell were at her heels.

  “What is it?” he said. “Have I been discovered? Are the authorities here?”

  “It’s the girl.” Her face glowed red above her apron, and he feared for her health.

  “Sit down and catch your breath.” He went to her, took her arm, and led her to the leather armchair by the window. “Now, what about the girl?”

  “She’s gone.” Mrs. Givens gasped for air.

  “Gone? Where could she go?” Had the long years of exile affected his housekeeper’s mind? “It’s impossible for her to leave the island.”

  “Indeed it is possible, sir. She stole your boat.”

  “What?” Anger washed over him along with the embarrassing realization that he’d underestimated Celia Stevens.

  “I looked up from my baking and saw the sail moving out across the bay. I ran down to the pier, thinking I could call her back, but by the time I reached the water, she’d disappeared behind the next key.” The housekeeper panted for air, fanning her heated face with her apron.

  Disaster had stalked him once more, but perhaps he could yet triumph. He would need sail power to catch up with her. “Tell Noah to bring the extra canvas. I’ll rig a sail for the skiff and follow her to Key West.”

  But Mrs. Givens didn’t move. She sat, gasping for breath and shaking her head. “No, no.”

  “No! Do you want her to get away?” Anger and frustration erupted as he thundered at the woman.

  “She’s not headed for Key West. She went north.”

  He grinned at Celia’s resourcefulness. “She hoped to throw us off her trail.”

  He raced to the veranda, bellowed at Noah to meet him at the shed, and sprinted across the garden to the outbuilding. Together they gathered tackle, canvas and lines and carried them to the dock to rig the skiff.