by Selena Kitt
Then, his worst nightmare. While he'd been concentrating on saving the girl, some sturdy ropes amidst the yacht's flotsam—the ones he'd had seen floating amidst the railings and would have cleared had there been time—had gotten wrapped around his boat's outboard motor.
He lurched toward the back of the boat, unsheathing his diver's knife from his belt and went quickly to work on the ropes. They were thick but he managed to cut through them, working to disentangle the line. With a sigh of relief, he cleared the rope, watching it sink down into the water.
Now, he had to get them out of there.
"What the—"
Something was pulling his boat by the stern, bubbles bursting from below the yacht's waterline as she began to sink even more quickly. A trough in the waves revealed a sturdy steel cable leading from some now underwater part of the yacht to a connecting point on his motor.
There was no time.
Already, his little boat was on the verge of taking on water at the stern.
With a defeated snarl, Daniel unfastened the quick release mechanisms and the motor tore off the boat, plunging into the depths of the rolling sea, along with the vanishing yacht.
"Di-did you j-j-just sink our m-m-motor?" The woman stared at him, aghast. "What the f-f-fuck?"
"Had to." He sheathed his knife, assessing their worsening predicament. "Don't worry. I've got a plan B."
"Does B stand for b-b-bonehead?" She snorted, pulling the blanket tighter around her thin shoulders.
He raised his eyebrows. "No, it stands for badass."
"I doubt that." The woman rolled her eyes, letting out a little groan when the skies finally opened up and it began to rain.
"Just relax." Daniel knew his boat inside and out. He had a solution to almost everything on here. He began to erect the tent-like rubber covering that went over the bow-end of the boat. She watched him warily, teeth chattering again.
"You want to come out of the rain?" He gestured to her as he slipped under the cover and sat down. The rain pattered on the surface and ran off—except for the dip on top that would capture water for drinking. He had bottles of it stored on board too, but you could never be too careful.
"Come on." He gestured again, gentling his tone. "You're okay."
She snorted again at that, but she inched toward him, stopping once to have a sneezing fit before settling next to him out of the rain.
"We're all right," he assured her again. "I promise."
"I suppose if you call barely escaping a sinking ship in the middle of nowhere only to be rescued by some scruffy-looking Neanderthal 'all right'…" She wrung the ends of her hair out like a rag, water dripping from her fingers. Her eyes met his, flashing with anger. "Then yeah, I guess I'm 'all right'."
He shook his head at her but didn't say anything, looking out over the water. The sky was almost as dark as night now. The clouds roiled above them, a tumultuous reflection of the sea. A streak of lighting crackled so close he could smell the ozone, followed by a jolt of thunder that shook his chest.
The woman let out a shriek, shrinking deeper into the alcove, pressing against his side.
"I'll keep you safe and dry until we can get to land," he said softly, putting an arm around her trembling shoulders, hoping to lighten the situation up with a little levity. "All right, princess?"
"I'm not a princess…" She slid away from him, wrapping the blanket more tightly around her thin shoulders. "But I am an heiress."
"Ah—that explains the yacht." He turned his gaze toward the sea, where the storm was raging in earnest now.
"Right." She continued to wring the ends of her wet hair. "I'm sure my father would offer you a generous reward if you return me to him—unharmed."
He had to work to hide a smile at her emphasis on the last word and its implications.
"Don't worry, princess." He started to climb out from under the enclosure. He had a lot to do yet to batten down all the hatches. He didn't know how long this storm was going to last, but they had to be prepared. Besides, out there in the wind and rain, he wouldn't have to listen to her talk. "I already have plenty of incentive to get you off my hands as fast as possible."
"Hey!" The look on her face was priceless.
He hid a grin as he headed out into the storm to make sure they'd get out of this alive.
Chapter 2
There was no point trying to navigate without a motor. Daniel tried to explain this to his contrary new boat mate—who said her name was Darcy Haverford, heiress to the Gold Circle Casinos fortune—but she simply refused to listen to him. Darcy blamed him for cutting the motor loose and setting them adrift in the middle of the ocean. He had to bite his tongue through her tirades to keep from reminding her that he was in this predicament because of her, not the other way around.
When Darcy Haverford wasn't sleeping, she was complaining.
He did his best to keep her as warm and dry as possible. She'd refused to take off her sundress, so he set up a small, battery-powered heater to keep her from shivering to death. They had the necessities. Some food—protein bars, which had a shelf life until the end of time—and water. You would've thought it was cockroach-filled gruel or moldy bread and toilet water, the way Darcy turned her nose up at it. His tongue was starting to bleed from all the biting he was having to do. On the second day, she was hungry enough to nibble at the end of one of the protein bars, but she complained the whole time.
While Darcy complained about the little things, Daniel concerned himself with the big ones. He'd only been planning a quick trip out to the yacht to look for survivors, and while he'd packed the boat with many of life's necessities, he only had one radio and GPS—and they were back on the island.
He had to judge the best he could, from the storm's path and the direction and speed of the wind, where they were heading. The storm was taking them away from his island—but there was a small cluster of islands to the north, less inhabitable, but at least it was land. His greatest hope, wind and currents being what they were, was that the boat would drift close to them, because the South Pacific was a bad place to get lost.
In the end, it was Darcy who sighted land.
Daniel hadn't slept much in the forty-eight hours they'd been drifting. There was surprisingly a lot to do and he was the only one willing to do it. By the second morning, he was exhausted, and he decided to take a nap under the tent for an hour or so while Darcy went out to sun herself. The storm had blown over some time in the night. The day had dawned bright and warm and Darcy had crawled out to curl up at the stern, like a lazy cat in the sun.
Daniel watched her with one eye half-open, pondering the circumstances that had landed her here in his boat. He had heard of her father. He was well-known, quite rich, and owned a great deal of property in Reno, Vegas and San Francisco, among other places. Darcy said they'd been sailing up the coast of Chile, heading toward California. It had been a bright, sunny day, the last she remembered. She didn't even know it was storming, she said. It must have come out of nowhere. None of the weather outfits had predicted it, he knew, that much was true.
Honestly, he was surprised she'd made it out at all. Darcy said she'd taken a handful of pills—when Daniel asked her what they were, she couldn't remember, which told him all he needed to know—and had gone to sleep. When she woke, she found herself under her bunk, the ship rolling heavily. She must have fallen out of bed and rolled under, although she couldn't remember it happening.
When she'd finally made her way topside, with the ship pitching and rolling, she was horrified to find the crew, passengers and lifeboats all gone and the ship taking on water.
"They really left me," she'd told him, sounding incredulous, as if someone had told her the impossible—the sky was green, the grass was blue. "Maybe they thought I went overboard—but they couldn't have looked under the bed? It was my father's ship. You'd think they would have looked a little harder for his only daughter!"
"Maybe someone wanted you to drown," he'd remarked—one of
the instances he'd been unable to hold his tongue. She hadn't said anything. Just gave him a look that would have turned most men to ice. He'd chuckled at that. "I can't blame them for not looking too hard."
"You're the fool who came out to rescue me," she'd snapped, crossing her arms and glowering at him.
"That I am," he'd admitted ruefully. "But I didn't know I was rescuing you, did I?"
She'd given him a haughty stare before pulling a blanket around her and turning toward the boat wall, a dismissal, once again going to sleep. She did a lot of sleeping, this one. Lazy little kitty.
He kept an eye on her—as much of a pain in the ass as she'd turned out to be, it wouldn't serve to have her going overboard—until he found himself drifting off into the deepest sleep he'd managed since he met the hellcat who'd so recently upended his entire world.
* * *
He was having a very pleasant dream when he felt her straddling him, her weight a delightful surprise, her hands on his shoulders, shaking him. His island girl had come to visit earlier than he'd expected.
Without even opening his eyes, he grabbed her hips and shifted his so she could feel the heat of his erection through his boxers. Then he slipped one big hand up her back, making a fist in her hair to pull her mouth down to his. She tasted both sweet and salty, like she'd been swimming in the sea, and he liked the way she squirmed in his arms as he rolled her onto her back beneath him.
That's when she bit his lip and, when he broke the kiss, pushed at him, crying out, "What the hell?"
Daniel opened his eyes to see Darcy trapped beneath him and he scrambled off her, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His lip was bleeding.
"Jesus. Sorry," he croaked. "I was dreaming… I thought…"
"No, you weren't thinking." She crawled out from under the tent. "Or if you were, you were obviously only thinking with one particular part of your anatomy and it sure as hell wasn't your brain."
"Okay, I said I was sorry," he apologized again, sitting up under the tent, seeing the light had changed considerably. It had to be going on noon. "What in the hell were you doing, anyway, climbing on top of me like that?"
"I was trying to wake your ass up." Darcy pointed one of her perfectly manicured nails starboard. "So you could see that."
"Is it a ship?" he asked hopefully, ducking his head out to see what she was pointing at. It wasn't a ship—but it was land. Ho!
"That's land, right?" She leaned on the edge of the boat, shading her eyes with one hand and squinting. "It's not a mirage? I'm really seeing it."
"Yep." Daniel grinned, relieved to see the current was taking them more or less in the island's direction. They were going to have to row a little in order not to be carried right by it, but they would make it to shore.
"Come on, princess, time to get to work." The RHIB was a little too wide for one person to man both oars easily. "Grab an oar."
"I've never rowed a boat in my life." She looked at the oar he handed her, aghast, as if it were some kind of personal insult in the form of a paddle.
Her response made Daniel want to smack her ass with that paddle. He stood there for a moment, actually imagining it before he bit his tongue again—he could still taste the blood from her assault on his lip—and managed to keep his cool.
"Well…" Daniel settled himself beside her, fitting his oar into the lock. "We could always let the current take us past the island. I suppose that's an option. That would mean drifting around on thousands of square miles of ocean. In a month or two, if we're really lucky, there might be another island. Of course, that would mean paddling again."
She glared daggers at him, but she flounced down into a sitting position, fumbling to fit her oar into the lock. Finally, she got it in place and began to row half-heartedly, completely out of rhythm.
"Hey." Daniel leaned over and nudged her with his bare, brown shoulder. "Match my rhythm."
"How?" She pouted, but she studied him pulling on the oar. He saw her gaze lingering over the flex of his biceps, the tautness of his forearms.
"Nice and easy," he instructed. "Slow and steady. You can do it."
She made a face but grabbed her oar in both hands, trying to match him. Of course, she didn't have his strength, but she began to catch on to his rhythm.
"That's it," he murmured, nodding his encouragement, even giving her the flash of a smile. "Pull…"
Darcy gave a little grunt with the effort.
"Pull…" He met her eyes, nodding.
"Like this?" Darcy bit her lip and pulled hard on her oar.
"Yes, pull…" he encouraged softly. "Just like that…"
They were sitting together, hip-to-hip, both of them working hard against the ocean's relentless resistance.
"Good job, princess," he teased. "May make a sailor out of you yet."
She turned her head to look askance at him with those glittering green eyes and asked casually, "How's your lip?"
He laughed. "I don't go down that easy, princess."
"Neither do I." It was the first time he'd seen her smile.
Together, they rowed toward shore.
* * *
As soon as the hull scraped sand, Daniel jumped out and pushed the boat up onto the beach, securing the bowline around a rock. Darcy let him help her out and she stood barefoot on the sand, putting her hand up to visor her eyes from the sun, surveying inland.
"My God." She turned her head to shake it at him in disbelief. "It's Gilligan's Island. We're stuck here forever."
"Don't worry, Ginger," he soothed. "I'll make us a radio out of two coconuts and some palm leaves."
"Somehow I doubt that, Professor." She dropped her hands to her side, looking despondent. "I think we are royally screwed."
"First rule of being shipwrecked—"
"Don't talk about being shipwrecked?" Darcy sat down in the sand, wrapping her arms around her knees, looking out at the ocean.
"No—don't give up." Daniel started unloading the boat as Darcy dug her painted toes into the sand.
"How do you know these rules?" She rested her cheek on her knees, watching him as he sorted their supplies on land. "Have you been shipwrecked before?"
"Once. Back in 2005."
"And now you're shipwrecked again." She lifted her head, looking at him with accusing eyes. "I think you must be bad luck, Daniel."
"Right." He smiled, shaking his head. "All kinds of bad luck. Just think, if I hadn't come along when I did, you'd have drowned. Then you wouldn't be shipwrecked."
"You should've let me drown." She turned her head to rest her chin on her knees.
"Hey." He stopped sorting supplies to come sit next to her on the sand. "What did I just say? What's the first rule of being shipwrecked?"
"Don't give up." She didn't shrug him off when he put an arm around her shoulders. In fact, she leaned into him. "What if I want to give up?"
"I won't let you." His arm tightened around her. "You hear me? As long as I'm around, there will be no giving up. Got it?"
She turned her face away from him and he saw her wiping away tears she didn't want him to see. He pretended he didn't.
"Now," he said, standing and looking down at her, hands on his hips. "If you thought rowing was hard, you're in for a surprise. Ever built a lean-to?"
"A what-who?" She looked at him like he was talking a foreign language and he laughed, holding out his hand to help her up.
"Time to start not giving up."
Darcy complained while Daniel set to work trying to make the place habitable. He hauled the RHIB up on shore just to the point where the palm trees and foliage started, and made it the starting point for the lean-to.
Looking about, he saw there was an abundance of coconuts on the island. Smashing one open with a machete from the boat's survival gear, he offered it to Darcy, full of coconut water. She drank it, eyes brightening at its sweetness. He hoped they could find a natural fresh water supply on the island, but for now, the water on the boat and coconut water would hol
d them.
"Good?" he asked, watching Darcy scrape coconut meat out with her fingernail to taste it.
"So much better than protein bars," she agreed happily. Another smile. She was another woman when she smiled.
Not that she did that too often.
Psychologically, he knew it was important for them to have a purpose—something to do. Daniel busied himself with survival—he knew the responsibility for getting them out of this situation was on him, since he was clearly the only one who had the expertise.
For Darcy, complaining was something to do. So was sitting around brooding. Both things she was apparently quite good at it. Better than anyone he'd ever met, in fact.
Darcy complained that her dress had been ruined by salt water. She complained that the rocks and sand were uncomfortable. She complained that it was too hot. When Daniel paused to suggest she go sit under a palm tree, she complained about the 'giant bugs'. So far, he hadn't seen any bugs.
He sighed and went back to work. They had water and food, but they needed shelter. If they stayed long enough, he would erect a lean-to, but for tonight, they would simply use the waterproof roof from the RHIB, which Daniel set up to provide them both with some shade. This actually was a rather pleasant place to rest, once he'd pulled the sleeping bag he'd stowed on the RHIB and spread it over the sand.
Finding a familiar place, Darcy crawled inside and took a nap.
Once he'd finished organizing their supplies, he crawled in beside her to relax for a few minutes. He thought she was still sleeping—her eyes were closed, her breathing deep and even—and she looked so peaceful, he didn't want to disturb her.
But then her eyes opened to look up at him. "You're pretty good at this shipwrecked thing. Were you a Boy Scout or something?"
"Something like that." He smiled. "Navy Seal, actually. Frogman."
"Frogman?" She snorted a laugh. "Should I call you Kermit?"
"It's Daniel, actually."
"Well, Daniel…" She pushed herself to sitting. "I really hope you know what you're doing—because I have no idea."
"You're not doing so bad, Darcy. In fact, you're doing just fine."
