“Better than nothing,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
More than anything, he wanted to get her to safety, but instead, he put the gun and cartridge back in the kit. “We can’t. Not yet.”
“Why?” she asked, not bothering to hide her disappointment.
Before he thought to stop himself, he pushed a strand of wet hair from her cheek. Her skin was still cool but warming up. “No one will be looking for us for a few hours. We need to wait until we’re somewhat sure there’s a rescue party in the vicinity.”
She blushed beneath his touch, and her throat worked as she swallowed hard. “You know how this type of crowd operates. When do you think that might happen?”
Slowly, he pulled his hand back. What was he thinking? Was he trying to comfort her or seduce her? He mentally admonished himself and refocused back on the task at hand—survival and rescue. “When we don’t arrive back at the dock, they’ll wait a while. Best guess is late tonight or more likely, tomorrow morning.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” she replied, exasperation overriding the optimism of a few moments ago.
“I wish I were,” he said, the guilt growing.
Next to him, Holly got up, dusted the sand off as best she could, and yanked her shirt over her head, leaving nothing but a pink, satin bra to cover her perfect breasts.
…
Striding up the small beach, Holly hung her shirt on a branch. They only had a few hours of sun left. She hoped it would be enough to dry the saturated cotton. Sliding off her shorts, she hung them up next, leaving herself wearing only her undergarments and sneakers.
“You should dry your clothes,” she said, turning around. “It’s going…” The words died on her lips when her eyes met Kane’s.
She knew that expression.
Desire.
A flush of heat washed over her in response.
Not good. This is by-the-book Kane, she reminded herself. What you’re feeling is the last of the adrenaline. Nothing more. Save the sexy for someone who you actually like. Someone like Bravo.
She snapped her fingers, for herself as much as for Kane. “Hey, up here,” she said, motioning for him to look at her face and not her half-covered breasts.
“Um. Sorry. I wasn’t expecting you to strip,” he said as a blush lit up his face.
“I’m not naked,” she countered, though she was starting to feel that way despite the material that covered her. “It’s a bra and panty set. I wore less on my last beach vacation and didn’t get this reaction.”
“I doubt that,” Kane muttered.
Not helping, but she smiled before she could stop herself. Refusing to give in to modesty, she sat next to Kane and flipped open the cooler. “Drink?”
“Why not?”
“You should get out of those clothes,” she said, pouring the combination of dark rum and ginger beer into the single plastic cup that had made it into the cooler.
He hesitated as if mulling over the idea then rose, taking the damp blankets with him as he followed her lead of walking up the beach to the nearest tree. A minute later, he tromped back through the sand. “Want to explore?”
Shielding her eyes from the sun, she looked up. His thighs were muscular. Stomach flat. A swirl of damp hair defined a path from his chest to the waistband of his dark gray boxer briefs.
Her pulse pounded in her veins, and she found herself staring at the outline under the thick, gray material.
“Hey. Up here.” Kane snapped his fingers.
Dammit. She took a swig of the drink to hide her rising blush. “So, what next?” she asked, handing him the glass and ignoring his smart-ass attitude.
He took a sip and handed it back. “The top three needs for survival. Shelter first. Water if we can find it. Then food.”
Made sense and sounded like something she’d heard on a reality show. “We have food,” she said, tapping the cooler.
“It’s not much.”
“Do you think we’ll be here that long?” Overnight would be bad enough. Much longer and they’d lose the window to find the necklace.
“No, but we need to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”
An agent’s mantra, and under the circumstances, appropriate.
He offered her a hand, and she took it, letting him help her to her feet. A part of her wanted to hold on, but she released him instead. “Where to?”
“For now, we follow the shore. We might find something we can use.”
“Sounds good,” she replied, as he set off along the water’s edge. Drink still in hand, she let the water wash over her feet as Kane dodged the waves. “You might want to let your shoes dry out,” he said as a bigger wave went all the way to her knees before receding.
As terrified as she was of drowning, she liked the sound of the waves and the feel of the water as it swirled around her ankles. Still, she angled up the beach to join her partner. “How do you know so much?” she asked.
“About what?”
“Survival. Were you a Boy Scout?” It wouldn’t surprise her if he was—he seemed like that kind of guy.
“Classes.”
“HRS?” They’d learned a lot at the academy, but for her specialty the focus had been on escaping an ambush—not how to camp with no tent and almost no supplies.
“Some, yes,” he replied.
“When you were a kid?” she pressed, ignoring his short, almost curt, answers.
“Yes.”
“Where?” Didn’t he realize that not answering made her only want to know more?
“Were you raised in the circus?” he asked, attention darting to the treeline and then back to the shore. Searching. Watching. “That’s the rumor.”
Holly stopped. “Excuse me?”
Kane waited, arms crossed. “Were you in the circus? That’s the chatter. That you were raised doing acrobatics and crap. Is it true?”
“We don’t talk about our pasts unless offered,” she snapped. It was an unspoken rule at HRS. No one asked about an agent’s history. Family. Schooling. Travel. Love. Nothing. Information could be offered, but to pry was beyond rude.
“I know,” he replied, foot tapping as if waiting for her to connect the dots.
She realized that’s exactly what she’d been doing. “Sorry.”
She handed him the drink, and he took it, finishing it off as they continued to follow the beach.
“My dad made me take outdoor survival classes when I was thirteen,” he said, surprising her. “He said it would make me more of a man.”
“More of a man?”
“I went shopping with my sister and her friends. Once,” Kane said. “I tried to explain that I did it because I liked being around the girls, but he sent me anyway.”
“Sounds like a peach of a human being,” Holly said, surprised to find herself angry at someone she’d never met.
“That was the general consensus,” he said.
She didn’t miss the subtext of the unspoken sentence telling her that his father was anything but that. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. After all, I know how to build a shelter, so that’s something. Maybe not as useful as walking a tightrope…” He let the words die and flashed her a wicked smile.
“Smartass,” she said, giving him a shove. He stumbled backwards, and she caught a glimpse of something behind him. Something linear and manmade.
“There,” she said, pointing past him to the edge of the tree line. “What’s that? A house maybe?”
“Too small.” Kane peered through the trees. He pushed branches aside. “Wait here while I check it out.”
Not likely, and she followed him into the woods, staying a few feet behind him as he pushed through the foliage. They entered a small clearing. In the center stood a shack. “I think it’s abandoned,” she said, her voice low as they stood outside the weathered door.
“Not abandoned, empty,” he replied. “There are still windows. The place may be a piece of crap, but someone takes care of it.
” He eyed the worn, mismatched boards that made up the walls and the rusted roof. “Kind of.”
“Well, let’s hope they left some supplies. Maybe a radio.”
“It’s probably a meth lab,” Kane said, testing the doorknob. It turned, unlocked. He hesitated.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked.
“This time, stay put. If it is a meth lab—or something dangerous—one of us needs to stay safe.”
It made sense, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. “Fine.”
He gave a short nod of approval. “Step back into the trees.”
She did as he asked, then peered around the trunk, watching as he opened the door and crossed the threshold, disappearing into the building.
Chapter Six
“It’s a bar,” Kane yelled from the dark interior of the shack.
Holly frowned. A bar? What was a bar doing on an island in the middle of nowhere? He had to be wrong.
She trotted to the door and stepped inside.
Kane stood behind a wide wooden counter. In nothing but his tight shorts, he looked more like a male stripper than an HRS field agent, and she found herself wishing she had a few dollar bills she could tuck into the waistband of his briefs.
Focus. She spun a slow circle. On the walls hung fish nets, glass buoys, and a wooden sign with the name, The Boatyard, burned into it. A scattering of chairs and a single table were spread out over the small, twenty-by-twenty area. A few empty liquor bottles littered the floor.
“Maybe,” she said once she faced him again.
“And then there’s this. The final clue,” he said with a flourish and a told-you-so tone, as he held up a bottle of dark rum like they’d been drinking on the boat.
“Fine. It’s the proverbial nail in the coffin,” she teased, trying both not to smile and to sound unimpressed at the same time. “Find any food?”
“No. No radio, either.”
She knocked a wooden-backed chair out of her way as she crossed the floor, then took a seat on a bar stool. “Who would set up a business out here?”
“Not a real bar,” Kane said. “My guess is that the local teens hang out here.”
“And drink rum?”
“Weren’t you ever rebellious?”
For her, rebellion had meant attending a traditional high school. “Not really. And don’t you think this place looks a little too nice to be a hang-out for kids?”
“It was probably already here and might have been a real bar at some point. I’ve seen them in weirder places.” He opened the bottle and took a swig. “And I used to be one of those teens. We all had money, sailboats, and not enough supervision. If I’d known about a place like this, I’d have been here as much as possible.”
More information about his past? She wanted him to elaborate, but to dig would make herself subject for scrutiny. Confirming that she had, indeed, been raised in the circus would just give him more ammunition. It gave most guys more ammunition. Or a reason to run for the hills.
Instead, she swiped the bottle from his hand and took a drink. The rum burned her throat, and the heat it left in its wake went all the way to her head.
She took another drink. Getting a little tipsy wasn’t a bad idea under the circumstances. “Now what?” she asked once she could speak.
“We wait for rescue,” he said, taking the bottle back.
“Tomorrow. If we’re lucky.”
“No, definitely. I just realized—we have Bravo.”
She’d all but forgotten about the other agent. He would be wondering where they were, and it was doubtful that he’d believe Enzo’s story. Of course, by the time they were missed, it would be too late, which meant she likely had to spend the night with Kane. Probably pressed together to keep warm.
The thought made her heart pound and her mouth go dry, and she wasn’t sure who worried her more—herself or Kane. Focus. “Okay, you’re the one trained in survival. What next?”
“We should stop drinking,” he said. Capping the bottle, he put it back under the bar. “It might be the south in the summer, but we’re right off the water, and it’s going to get chilly. Getting hammered, or even tipsy, isn’t going to keep us any warmer.”
She nodded in agreement, already feeling the effects of the alcohol. “How do we keep warm? Our clothes are wet.”
“I said chilly. Not freezing. We’ll be warm enough as long as we stay close to each other.”
He said the phrase like it meant nothing, but she’d seen the desire earlier. It was going to be a long night.
But this is Kane, she reminded herself. He isn’t that kind of guy. He isn’t Bravo.
Kane was the guy a girl took home to meet her mother.
Heaven help them all, her mother would love Kane. He was hot. A goody-two shoes. And saved her daughter from drowning.
Oh, yeah, Mama Milano would take one glance at Kane and start planning a wedding. A giant, gaudy wedding that probably involved the entire big-top.
There was no way Madam Sarah was ever meeting him. Holly would never hear the end of it.
Nope. Not going to happen.
“What isn’t going to happen?” Kane asked.
Holly clapped a hand over her mouth. Did she say that out loud?
Damned rum.
“Nothing.” She needed to take a walk before she said something she shouldn’t—or leaned over the bar and kissed her partner to see what happened next.
Knock it off. She stood, the bar stool tipping over and falling with a clatter.
“Do I need to cut you off?” Kane asked, eyebrows arched.
“I can handle my liquor, thank you,” she replied, regretting that last swig.
He came around the bar, picked up the chair, and nodded for her to sit.
Yeah, her mother would love him.
“It’s been a long day,” he said. “Wait here. I’ll get our gear, and we’ll get settled.”
She nodded, then breathed a sigh of relief when he disappeared out the door. A few minutes away from Kane was what she needed.
Shutting her eyes, she took a deep breath, wishing she had some water. Perhaps the ice in the cooler had melted.
A crunching outside the window at the back of the shack made her sit upright. “Kane?” she whispered, but knew it wasn’t him. He was getting their supplies.
Maybe it was help.
Then why hadn’t they made themselves known?
The crunching traveled from the back to the sides of the building. Someone, or something, was approaching the front door.
What if Kane was wrong? Maybe it was a drug dealer.
Or a bear.
Holly slid off the barstool and picked it up. Person or animal, she was going to defend herself.
…
Hands full, Kane took his time heading back to the cabin, stepping over branches and avoiding the rising waters. The beach would be lost to high tide soon, or he’d suggest they try to start a fire in the sand. They could try to start one in the cabin, but he didn’t want to take a chance on burning down their sanctuary.
Stay close together. He hadn’t meant it to be anything more than suggesting they use body heat to stay warm, but her shocked expression told him that she’d heard a different proposition.
Idiot.
Using the broken branches as an indication of the path he needed to follow back, he headed inland to the shack. As he entered the clearing, he noticed the door was open. He could hear Holly inside, talking.
To whom?
He set the clothes and cooler down, hiding both behind a tree. Skirting the small clearing, he made his way to the side of the structure and worked his way to the door, staying low and out of sight. Slowly, he peeked around the corner.
The combination of sunset and trees dappled the inside of the structure. He blinked. Holly was kneeling on the floor, a mound of yellow fur in front of her, four legs waving in the air.
Was that a dog? It barked, giving him confirmation.
Kane stepped into the do
orway, and Holly looked up. “Can you believe this? Someone abandoned him here.”
The dog trotted over, head down and submissive. A yellow lab from the looks of it. Fifty pounds at the most. Kane held out his hand. The dog sniffed him then licked his knuckles, shaking in a full-body tail wag.
Kane rubbed his ears, and the dog dropped to the ground, exposing his belly. “Good boy. Good boy,” he murmured, checking for a non-existent collar.
“How long do you think Mr. Wiggles has been here?” Holly asked.
“Mr. Wiggles? Won’t all the other dogs make fun of him?”
“Did you see that tail wag?”
It could be worse, he supposed. She might have called the poor dog something with “pants” in it, or “boots.” Danielle had done that with her cats, Miss Sassy Pants and Sir Fuzzy Boots.
He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not making fun of you, I swear. But Mr. Wiggles? You realize this is a male dog, right?”
“That’s why I put the ‘Mr.’ in front of it.”
“Can’t argue with that logic.” Mr. Wiggles it was. He rubbed the dog’s belly. “He hasn’t been here long. A few days at the most. There isn’t any water…” They both knew the rest without him needing to spell it out.
“He could have died.”
All righteous anger and fire, Holly crossed her arms and glared at no one in particular. He hadn’t seen that in her before, and he liked seeing this side of her—the side that cared.
He understood the fury and couldn’t blame her. No animal deserved to be abandoned, but leaving it on a tiny island with no food or water was beyond cruel. It was torture. If they found the owner, someone was getting a punch in the mouth.
For now, Mr. Wiggles needed water. Retrieving their gear while Holly cooed over the canine, he opened the cooler, took out the remaining food, and patted the outside of the plastic. “Come on. Come here.”
Mr. Wiggles belly-crawled to him, as if waiting for admonishment. What had the owner done to him? Kane added a few kicks to the payback if he found out who did this.
Mr. Wiggles drank the melted ice water. Kane held up the crackers and cheese. “Do you mind?”
Holly smiled, her eyes crinkling. “Of course not.”
She took a few of the crackers and fed Mr. Wiggles. A few minutes later, the food was gone.
Undercover With the Enemy Page 7
