Annabelle didn’t really want to sleep and take a chance on having bad dreams about Genevieve, but she had to admit the cozy little bed and the slight rocking of the boat was powerfully soothing. She kept herself awake by thinking of Matt in the very next room, probably wanting to come in here and keep her company. He wouldn’t, of course. He had more common decency than any man she’d ever laid eyes on.

But Matt had sex on his mind—she wasn’t blind to that fact. They’d passed some time last night playing gin rummy, and Lincoln had tarred and feathered the both of them. All during the game, Matt had been watching her with that certain look in his eye. Annabelle knew that look. On some men it gave her the willies, but on Matt it gave her tingly feelings.

Despite all her efforts to stay awake, she must have dozed off sometime after three, because the next time she looked at the small digital clock beside the bed, it was after five. She’d had no dreams that she could remember, no nightmares and no messages that would help lead her to Genevieve.

She’d showered before going to bed, bumping around in the tiny space and nearly tripping over the ledge when she climbed out. This morning all she had to do was dress, wash her face, brush her teeth, and comb her hair. She’d left all her makeup at home, just bringing lotion. A search and rescue wasn’t the place for makeup, and it wasn’t like she was trying to attract a man.

Well, she’d attracted one anyway. He didn’t seem to care that she wasn’t wearing lipstick or mascara. To a woman of forty-one who thought she needed a little help to look pretty, his interest in her plain old self felt nice.

Once she was ready, she peeked out the door. The tiny galley was empty. Beyond that, she heard a twin set of snores. Lincoln and Matt were still sawing logs.

Antsy as she was to get under way, she thought maybe they needed a little more sleep. The three of them had stayed up until one in the morning playing cards, as if nobody had wanted to face bad dreams. A few more minutes of peaceful rest would be good for Lincoln, who was a growing boy, and Matt needed to be alert to steer the boat.

But she desperately needed her morning coffee. Within three minutes she had it perking in the galley. Soon afterward she poured herself a full mug, tiptoed between the two bench seats where Matt and Lincoln slept, opened the cabin door, and climbed the steps to the small deck in the back of the boat. The stern of the boat, she reminded herself, wanting to get the words right.

Not another soul was about in the gray mist, and the cool, damp air smelled fishy. Annabelle leaned against a little cupboard that Matt had called a hatch and stared down the line of docked boats as she sipped her coffee. It was Kona coffee because she’d insisted on bringing her own, not trusting Matt to provide a good brand. She firmly believed that anything in this life could be faced if a person had a strong cup of coffee before starting the day.

She’d finished half a cup when a noise made her turn. Matt came up the steps, a steaming mug in one hand, a long box of store-bought sugar doughnuts in the other. “Morning.” His voice was still roughened with sleep. He’d dressed for the day in a polo shirt and slacks, but he hadn’t shaved. His stubble made him look more like a seaman than ever.

“Morning.” Annabelle cleared the huskiness from her throat. Hers had nothing to do with the time of day and everything to do with how glad she was to see Matt. He’d slept wrong on his hair, giving him a cowlick, which only added to the tenderness she felt for him.

He held up the doughnuts. “Seeing how picky you are about coffee, you probably don’t want these, but you might as well know I have a weakness for preservative-filled junk. You’re welcome to share.”

She wondered why it mattered whether she knew his habits. The only reason she could think of was that he intended to keep on with her after they found Genevieve. Unfortunately, nice man or not, he could be trouble. A man

coming off a divorce wasn’t a good bet. Either he wouldn’t want to get serious or he would, but it would be too soon. And Lincoln was already getting stuck on him, which was dangerous.

He hesitated. “Maybe you wanted to be alone out here. I should have thought of that, instead of barging in on your privacy.” He turned to go.

“No, wait. I’d like some company.”

He glanced back at her. “You’re sure? Because I can take my evil doughnuts and disappear. Poof.”

There was something to be said for a man who could make a body smile even in the midst of heartache. “I’d even like one of your evil doughnuts.”

The sparkle returned to his eyes as he swung around and came back toward her. “Each one shortens your life by twenty-three minutes. They’ve done studies.” He held out the box and flipped it open with his thumb.

It was a snappy gesture, and she was a sucker for those. She’d first noticed Genevieve’s father because of the smooth way he’d vaulted a fence. “You sound like Lincoln. He makes up studies all the time.” She picked a doughnut from the box.

“You think I made that up?” He pretended to look hurt. “I’ll have you know I’m a font of useful information, a waterfall of statistics, a roaring river of—”

“Baloney?”

He grinned. “That would be the delicate way to put it. And I already know you don’t like swearing, so we’ll leave it at that.” He set the box on the hatch and plucked out a doughnut for himself. When he bit into it, powdered sugar drifted onto his navy polo. “Messy, too.”

“That’s okay.” But she leaned over when she took a bite of hers, so the sugar would fall to the deck instead of on her pink shirt. She hadn’t brought a lot of clothes, thinking that packing too many would seem like they would be out here for days. She wanted to be back home by nightfall, with Genevieve.

“Damn, but this really is good coffee. Oops. I mean, golly gee, but this is one fine cup of coffee, Mizz Terrence.”

She licked the sugar from her mouth. “The doughnuts are fair to middlin’. And they’re perfect with the coffee. But you’re making me out to be a fussbudget, and I’m not.”

“Aw, I’m just teasing you a little.” He gazed at her mouth, then brought his attention back up to her eyes. “I think it’s great that you’re setting such a good example for Lincoln. He’s one smart kid. A world-class gin rummy player, too.”

She wondered if telling him how Lincoln won would help or hurt. Finally she decided it might help. “I can tell you how he wins.”

“He cheats? Because if he does, he’s damned—doggone—good at it.”

“I guess you could call it cheating. If he really concentrates, he knows what cards everybody has and what’s coming up in the deck.”

Matt stopped chewing his bite of doughnut and gave her a long look. Then he finished chewing, swallowed, and took a sip of his coffee. “He told you this?”

She nodded. “A long time ago, when he was six. He thought everybody could do that, and he finally asked why Genevieve and I would make such dumb plays and let him win all the time. After I told him that it was kind of unusual, what he could do, he kept quiet about it. You know how kids hate to be different from their friends.”

“Wow. Well, after last night, I can’t dispute it. I’ve never taken such a shellacking in my life.”

“I told you that for a reason. When we head out today, I want you to take us in the direction Lincoln says. He can find her.” She held her breath and waited.

Matt gazed at her silently for several seconds. “Okay,” he said at last.

She sighed in relief. “Thank you, Matt. I know you don’t hold with such things, but where I come from, it’s natural as can be. And Lincoln has the gift.”

“If I hadn’t played cards with him, I might give you more of an argument, but anything’s worth a try.” He paused. “Where are you from, Annabelle?”

“Tennessee.”

“Whereabouts?”

“You wouldn’t have heard of it.”

“And you don’t want to tell me, do you?”

Annabelle looked into his eyes. Then she glanced down the line of boats. “I guess it doesn’t matter. I used to think that if I closed that door once and for all, nothing bad was going to happen to my children. Stay in the Hollow, and all kinds of bad things could happen to them. But Genevieve is missing, so keeping a lock on the past didn’t guarantee anything.”

“I just…I’d like to get to know you better.”

She felt more than saw that he’d moved closer to her. “I’d like to get to know you better, too, but I can’t.” She met his gaze. “Lincoln’s never had a daddy. You can see he’s hungry for one. If we started seeing each other, he’d start making plans for you, plans that might never come true. I won’t put him through that kind of misery.”

Matt studied her for a moment longer. Then he stared into his coffee mug and swirled the contents. “I can see your point. This is all new territory for me. All I know is that some carefree young thing like Celeste is fine for a night or two, but I don’t intend to make a career of twenty-something women. Logically, most of the single women my age are going to have kids. And you’re absolutely right that kids shouldn’t be pawns in the whole dating game.” He glanced up at her. “Any suggestions?”

She didn’t want to make suggestions. She didn’t want him to move on and find some other lucky woman, but she wasn’t free to take a chance on him. “You could look for a person who doesn’t have kids. Put an ad in the personals.”

Matt groaned.

“I have customers who do it.” And she could probably find Matt a bushel basket full of dates in one week of doing nails. But there were limits to this helping business.

“Okay, but aside from being phobic about the personal ad thing, I like kids and wish I’d had some. If I date women without any, that probably means I’ll never even have step-kids. At least now I have a shot at that.”

“Then make sure you don’t meet the kids or get involved with them at all until after you’re convinced that you and this person are right for each other.”

“Meaning it’s too late for you and me?”

The cabin door opened. “Hey, like, where is everybody?” A head of red, white, and blue hair appeared. “I woke up and I was all, They’ve left me all by myself on this boat, abandoned like that kid in Home Alone, and—hey, dude, are those doughnuts? Cool.” He leaped the rest of the way up the steps and snagged one out of the open box. “Totally my favorite. I know Mom didn’t buy these, so thanks, Matt. You’re awesome.” Then he shoved half of it in his mouth.

Annabelle glanced over her son’s shoulder at Matt. “I think that answers your question.”

* * *

Genevieve stood by the edge of the surf and used a shell to scoop water and wash off the sand sticking to her. Her heart rate was nearly back to normal, but she still got cold chills whenever she remembered looking over Jack’s shoulder and seeing that dark fin coming toward them.

But even taking the shark into consideration, she was having a heck of a good time being marooned. She was also beginning to figure out why. The very skills that branded her a hillbilly back in Honolulu were exactly the skills she needed to survive out here. For the first time in eleven years, she could be herself, all of herself and not just the more civilized parts. What a relief.

Even better, Jack didn’t think less of her for her backwoods raising. He seemed to get a charge out of it. Maybe that was another reason the sex between them had been so outstanding. She wasn’t afraid of forgetting herself and revealing her roots. Jack already knew about her, so she had nothing to hide.

She wondered if she had the courage to stop covering up her background once she got back to Honolulu. Mama would advise against it and tell her she’d never attract the right man if she reverted to countrified ways. But Genevieve was thinking that if she felt free enough to have great sex with a man, he might not care whether her voice twanged when she talked.

Maybe she should ask Jack his opinion. Then again, maybe not. She was a little worried that all the sex they’d had was giving Jack ideas about a relationship when they got home. But it would never work. During the night she’d asked him about his horoscope sign and sure enough, he was a Taurus. Besides being a genius who would make a very forgetful husband, he was the wrong sign for her. She’d find his steadiness boring and he’d find her wild imagination irritating.

She appreciated his steady tendencies at the moment, though. He’d found his glasses and stationed himself right beside her to keep an eye out for Jaws.

“I don’t think he’d leap out of the water to get us,” she said, although she didn’t mind having Jack nearby as a precaution.

“I’m not taking any chances. And we’re not going back in that water.”

“That’s hunky-dory with me. But it means we can’t have fish for breakfast.”

“Fish?” He frowned at her. “We don’t have anything to fish with.”

She splashed a shell full of water over her breasts. “We have my curling iron. I’ll bet if I waded out in the water with it sprung open and moved really fast, I could snap it shut on a fish.” That was the kind of thing she never would have thought about if she hadn’t grown up in the Hollow.

“Eeww.”

She laughed and scooped up another shell’s worth of water. “I can tell you never caught crawdads down by the crick.”

“Fortunately not. Gross.”

“You’d sing a different tune if you were starving to death.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I like my food unrecognizable. I was thrilled when they came out with square hamburgers, because they don’t look like anything that ever used to be alive.”

“Well, don’t worry, because I’m not going wading in shark-infested waters with nothing but a curling iron to protect me.” She washed off her thigh. “You know, I’ll bet it was all that churning around in the water that got him interested. I didn’t think of that.”

“I just didn’t think, period. No blood to the brain.”

She glanced at him and couldn’t help smiling. “I liked your pirate imitation.”

“You did, huh?” He shot her a quick look before going back on sentry duty with a cute little grin on his face. “I liked your little maneuver, too.”

“It didn’t turn out too bad. Except for the shark.”

“Next time we’ll have to try a private swimming pool.”

She started to agree with him, but then she realized what he’d said. In order for them to have sex in a private swimming pool, they’d have to keep dating once they got home.

Besides the obvious problem of continuing a doomed relationship, she hated to take this magic time and try to transfer it to real life. Having sex in somebody’s swimming pool wouldn’t come close to what had happened out there in the ocean. Even the shark coming along had added to the thrill. She could say that now that they hadn’t been chomped.

He cleared his throat. “Then again, maybe not.”

She looked over at him. His jaw had tightened up and a cord stood out in his neck. He looked…dashing. Then she remembered how he usually presented himself in the offices of Rainbow Systems, with his mismatched clothes and distracted look. “Jack, I just don’t know if it’s a good idea to think beyond—”

“Exactly.” He gazed out to sea. “Forget I said anything. I lost my head.”

Now the mood was ruined, but she was afraid to say anything encouraging about what might happen after they were rescued. She didn’t want him to get his hopes up.

“You know, I’ve been thinking that they may not even be looking for us way over here,” Jack said.

She was more than willing to change the subject. “Why not?”

“Because Brogan was scheduled to go to Maui, so unless somebody was tracking us on radar for some reason, they’d have no idea that he abandoned the flight plan and headed off in the opposite direction. He sure as hell didn’t announce it on the radio before he smashed the devil out of it.”

“You might be right.” She’d gotten rid of most of the sand. “I’m pretty much cleaned off. Want me to be on lookout duty while you wash the sand off?”

He brushed at his arms. “I’m fine.”

“Jack, you still have a ton of sand on your arms, and your back, not to mention your butt. You should—”

“Just don’t mention my butt from now on, and I promise not to mention yours, okay?”

Stung, she stepped back a pace. “You’re mad at me.”

He turned, his expression fierce, a lot like the pirate he’d pretended to be earlier. “You’re damned right I am. First you make it seem like—” He stopped and stared at her. Gradually the anger left his eyes. “Ah, don’t look like that, Gen.”

She swallowed, surprised that she’d be so bothered that he was upset with her. “What…what were you going to say?”

He shrugged. “It’s not important. This is my problem, not yours.” Leaning down, he picked up the beach towel she’d tossed aside when she’d jumped into the water with him. “Come on. Let’s go back to the hut and split the last energy bar. Then we’ll figure out our next move.”

She held her ground. “First I want to get something straight. What’s happened between us meant something to me. I wasn’t just playing around because you were the only guy available.”

He looked at her, his face expressionless.

“Okay, Jack. Do you honestly think that’s why I had sex with you, because you were convenient?”

When he didn’t say anything, she marched right over and gave him a good punch on the arm.

“Ow!”

“Serves you right, if that’s what you think of me, that I would have slipped those condoms on whoever’s noodle was handy!” She pulled back her arm to punch him again.

“No, you don’t.” He caught her wrist. “I’m not going to stand here and let you beat up on me. I have a feeling you could do a pretty good job.”

“Then take back what you said!”

“But I didn’t say anything!”

True, he hadn’t. “Then take back what you were thinking!”

His mouth twitched, like he was trying not to laugh. “First I’d have to find out what you thought I thought.”

“You know good and well. You’re making me madder than a treed polecat, standing there smirking!”

“Smirking? I don’t smirk.”

“Oh, yes, you do so smirk! You’re a first-class smirker!” She wound up with her free arm.

He looped the towel around his neck and grabbed her other wrist before she could land a blow. There was a pirate’s gleam in his eye. “I’ll tell you what I’m thinking right now. You brought up the subject of condoms, and I’m thinking that there are two left. No matter why you had sex with me, I can see that once we leave this island, that will be the end of Gen giving Jack a little nooky. So I say let’s use up the supply.”

“Oh, that’s so romantic.”

“Isn’t it?”

“See? Now that’s a smirk if I ever saw one. And I’m not going to cooperate, so there.”

“I think you are.” With one quick lunge, he lifted her over his shoulder, her head hanging down and her bare bottom pointing up at the sky.

She struggled and kicked, but she was careful not to kick him anywhere that she’d do damage. The more she struggled and wiggled against him, the more she liked his idea. But she didn’t want him to know that yet. “You put me down, Jackson the Smirker Farley!”

“The name is Jack, and I’ve always wanted to do this.” He started to move.

“Jack!” She pretended horror, when in fact she was delighted. No man had ever tried such a John Wayne trick with her, not even in the hills of Tennessee. Her head buzzed from being held upside down, but a much stronger reaction was developing right where she was draped over his shoulder.

“Yell all you want. Nobody’s around to hear you, so I’m in charge.”

“You’re going to force me to have sex with you?” She was in a perfect position to watch his cute hiney in action as he trudged up the beach to the hideaway, and seeing those muscles bunch was a very arousing spectacle.

“It won’t be forced and you know it.”

He had a point. “Then could we…pretend it’s forced?”

His laugh was breathless. “Sure. One ravishing coming up.” Then he yelped.

“What’s wrong?”

“This sand is sharp, that’s what. Ouch! Ouch, ouch, ouch.”

“Ravishers don’t say ouch, Jack.” She hated anybody being in pain. “Maybe you should forget this idea and put me down before you hurt yourself.”

“Nope.” Panting, he ducked through the opening of the hideaway.

She appreciated that, because otherwise he could have knocked her cold, which would have interfered with her enjoyment of the ravishing. He set her on her feet, and while she was still feeling dizzy from hanging over his shoulder, he caught both wrists in his long fingers. Holding her one-handed, he flipped open her suitcase and grabbed the curling iron cord.

“What on God’s green earth are you doing?”

“Restraining the prisoner.” His eyes glittered as he wound the cord around her wrists and tied it. “Much better than using it to catch fish,” he said as he clipped the curling iron securely to a piece of driftwood embedded in the wall of the hideaway. “If you pull on that, you might make the whole shelter give way, so I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

Her heart pounded with excitement. “Don’t you think you’re carrying this a little far?”

He leaned down and cupped her chin in one hand. “You tell me.” Then he kissed her hard, thrusting his tongue possessively into her mouth.

With her hands bound and the possibility of bringing the whole hideaway down on their heads if she moved, she could do nothing but stand there and let him kiss her. Well, she could do one other thing. She could moan. Which she did.

Breathing heavily, he lifted his mouth from hers. “Just as I thought. You love it.”