Her Hunk

I'll risk everything to save her... 
 
Hunter 
She's sexy as hell, and everything I'm looking for. 
She's prim and proper, and she intimidates the f*ck out of me. 
I let her go once, but I won't make that same mistake twice. 
Especially, now that she's in danger. 
I'm falling for Eleanor, and I'll do everything to protect her... 
 
Eleanor 
Hunter was the perfect distraction. 
A night with him was supposed to be filled with pleasure. 
Hunter with his crystal green eyes, and his sex-pack abs. 
I thought I would never see him again. 
But then he saved my life. 
Now, if we can get out of this alive. 
I can tell him who I really am... 

Chapter One

Eleanor

“Why now? Why fucking now?”

The gold and red carpet felt rough beneath my feet, making them sting as I ran down the narrow hallway. There was nothing like the corridors of the lower levels of a cruise ship to make me regret that extra serving of cheesecake. I had removed the heels that I had so carefully chosen for the night after I started running and they were dangling from my fingers now. No way in hell I was going to let them go. The terrifying-looking goomba behind me might be getting closer, but I wasn’t about to drop those shoes. That didn’t mean that I was going to twist my ankle on them and go out like one of those simpering blondes in a 50’s horror movie though, so I would just keep holding them from their straps and contemplate all of the ways that I could use them as a weapon if the need came along. As I ran, my heart pumped fear through my veins, causing the blood to rush in my ears and blur all sound around me. I tried to listen for the sound of the man chasing me, but I couldn’t hear it. Was it possible that I had actually gotten away from him?

I knew those three months I spent cruising would have some actual real-world benefit at some point. Using my extensive knowledge of the layout of most ships in this cruise line wasn’t exactly the benefit I was hoping for, but at that moment, I would take it.

There was no one else in the seemingly endless hallway, but I couldn't decide if that was helping me or if it was making my frantic run more terrifying. If there was someone else there, they might help me, or could act as a deterrent for the man chasing me, even if they didn’t realize that they were doing anything. I could just pause sort of near them and hope that their presence would spook the man and make him go away. Kind of like those tiny home security system signs that people stick in their front yards even if they don’t actually have an active system. Of course, considering the luck that I was having that night, I would run right into the protective arms of the man’s partner.

I finally came to a curve in the hallway and took a moment to orient myself as I followed it. I wasn’t sure how long I had been running and was starting to lose track of how far I had gone and where in the enormous cruise ship my haphazard course had brought me. Had I run past the hairdresser three floors up, or four? Were there more levels of interior rooms below me or had I gotten all the way down to the bottom of the guest portion of the ship? The thought of being this far down always unnerved me. Even though I knew in the logical part of my mind that it wasn’t the case, whenever I roamed this far into the lowest passenger levels I felt like I was going underwater. There was a reason that I had always avoided the submarine rides onshore. And at amusement parks. Or sticking my head under the surface to rinse my hair in the bath.

I had been in the nightclub on one of the high decks when I started running. A bartender that had been trying really hard to flirt with me but was a bit too “cucu-kachoo, Mrs. Robinson” for my taste had just handed my drink to me across the glowing surface of a serpentine black bar that was reminding me of my younger days in a way that I wasn’t sure I appreciated when I glanced over my shoulder and saw the men step into the room. Even through the flashing strobe lights in the dark club I recognized them and my heart sank. The cruelness in their expressions sent chills through me and I knew instantly that Virgil had sent them. I dropped the drink from my hand and started to run, not looking back over my shoulder even as the people around me shouted their protest at the sound of the glass shattering and me forcing my way through the undulating bodies crowding the dancefloor. I had hoped that whoever these men were, they wouldn’t be able to keep up with me in the chaotic lights and dancing masses.

I heard shouting behind me as I burst out of the club and started toward the stairs. The men had obviously seen my escape and weren’t thwarted by any of the people trying to ride out the last gasps of the night locked in a messy tangle of anonymity and hormones. I ducked into the first stairwell and leaned against the wall for a second to pry the shoes from my feet. They were not sprint-friendly and the experiences that I had had in the past with men much like these told me that I wasn’t going to be slowing down again soon. From there I took the stairwells, corridors, and decks in a seemingly nonsensical pattern that had me weaving and backtracking my way through the massive cruise liner without consideration for who might see me or what anyone might think of me. At that point, it didn’t matter to me what I needed to do or who I needed to use to get away. I wasn’t above flinging myself on a stranger for a diversionary make-out session, or taking a tremendously-overdressed dip in the zero-entry pool if I needed to.

Why did it have to be a ship? Why did I have to be stranded out in the middle of the fucking ocean where I couldn’t just disappear into a store or hop out a window and get away?

I saw the door to another stairwell ahead of me and quickened my steps to try to get to it faster. I paused just outside it and leaned close to the door, trying to listen for any indication that they might have chosen that stairwell in their pursuit of me. It was quiet. It seemed that I might have actually confused them enough to get away. At least for now. Satisfied that I was safe for the moment, I pressed the brushed silver bar to open the door and slipped inside. The dizzying flights of steps spiraled up through the decks and then rippled down deeper into the ship, confirming that I hadn’t actually found myself in the bowels of the levels. I let my eyes follow both paths, trying to determine which would be a better choice. The last time I had gone through one of the stairwells I had gone down, so I decided this time I would go up, hoping that I wasn’t just backtracking myself right into their path. The move would make me end up right back to where I had been, but maybe I was going to run out of bad luck for the week.

I started up the steps as fast as I could. Even though I was clinging to the handrail like any good responsible stairwell-user, my feet tangled beneath me and I stumbled onto the stairs ahead of me.

Perfect. I was a dumb blonde from a 50’s horror movie.

Muttering a few creative obscenities, I pushed myself up and continued down the stairs. I ran past three decks before choosing the door that led out of the stairwell. I had taken only a few steps when a massive figure stepped out from a small alcove and reached out for me. I screamed and tried to escape the man's grip, but he turned me around and covered my mouth with one strong hand. Despite my thrashing, he seemed to have no trouble controlling me, and I eventually gave up, not having any energy left in me to fight against his strength. He picked me up off the floor and pulled me backwards into the alcove with him. I felt his mouth come to my ear and the heat of his breath burning on my skin.

"Be quiet," the man hissed.

The voice sounded distantly familiar, but I couldn’t place it. In my life, a familiar voice wasn’t something so completely out of the ordinary and many of the voices that were so familiar didn’t belong to people I would particularly enjoy meeting in a desolate hallway, so it didn’t give me any sense of confidence. I screamed harder against the man’s hand, but his grip tightened.

"Shut up," he demanded into my ear. "Unless you want those guys to find you, I suggest that you quiet down. You’re going to be lucky if every person on this deck hasn’t heard you by now."

I stilled at his words. His grip loosened and he lowered me to my feet again.

"If I take my hand away, are you going to scream again?" he asked.

I shook my head compliantly.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure, you motherfu-"

The man pressed his hand against my mouth harder to force me silent.

"That wasn't very convincing, Eleanor. Now, I’m going to let you try that again. Are you going to scream if I take my hand away?"

I shook my head and the man drew his hand slowly away from my mouth. When I didn’t make any noise, he slowly withdrew his arms from my body until I was free of his grip.

"How do you know my name?" I asked, turning to look at him.

As soon as I saw him, my stomach dropped a little further.

Well, shit.

“Hi, Eleanor,” Hunter said.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

I knew that my voice sounded a little icier than it probably should have, but I hadn’t been prepared to see the young, gorgeous man in front of me again, and the circumstances being what they were, I wasn’t feeling exactly friendly.

“I’m assuming the same thing that you are,” he said, appropriately defensive in response to my bitchiness. “Noah and Snow sent me on this cruise as a thank-you celebration after their wedding. Though…” he hesitated, scrutinizing me, “I admit that I don’t really understand why they would send you. I was under the impression that it was just me, Snow’s friends Robin and Fawn, and a couple of Noah’s relatives. I didn’t realize that you and Noah were so close. I know that I’m certainly not that close with my third-grade teacher.”

I forced myself to withhold the grimace that tried to contort my face. That split-second lie had come right on back and bit me in the ass. Of course, that meant that I was going to have to come up with another one. That’s how lies work. They are like potato chips. There’s never just one. You always end up reaching into the bag and coming up with another. Sometimes you have to slather a little dip on it. Since I didn’t really know how to talk myself out of what I had already told him or how to explain in a few seconds what was actually happening, I went for the dip.

“We spent a lot of time together when he was younger,” I said. “I was his teacher, but I was also his babysitter. And my husband was his Cub Scout leader.”

Too far?

Hunter narrowed his eyes at me from behind the glasses that I still hated. This man was in serious need of contacts. His eyes were a gorgeous crystalline green and framed by lashes so long and full they looked like they had come packaged and emblazoned with the name of some celebrity du jour. They didn’t belong behind glasses, particularly not the thick black-rimmed ones that he was wearing.

“Interesting,” he finally said. “I don’t really see Noah as the Cub Scout type.”

“Oh, he was,” I said, swept up in the lie now so that I couldn’t even stop myself even though I knew that I was rapidly falling down a very steep slope. “Making fires. Hiking the trails. Making s’mores. The whole thing.”

“I thought that s’mores were more of a Girl Scout thing.”

I fell silent. I didn’t know where to go from there. I had reached as far as that particular lie would take me.

“S’mores,” I said, nodding.

“Uh-huh,” Hunter said, nodding back at me.

At that moment, we both heard a stairwell door close and he leaned around the entrance to the alcove to look in the direction of the sound. He suddenly stepped back in, grabbed me by my waist again, and spun me around so that my back pressed to the wall and his mouth crushed down on mine. I was so shocked that I couldn’t even kiss him back. We had been in this position before and it hadn’t ended well for me. I was just getting to a point when I started accepting the kiss when he pulled back and stepped up to the entrance to the alcove again to look both directions. I could hear footsteps running in the opposite direction and I knew exactly what he had just done.

“That actually works?” I asked, knowing that he had just utilized my planned technique of making out with a stranger to divert the attention of the men chasing me.

Of course, Hunter wasn’t a complete stranger. Maybe it only worked when there was some history. Albeit brief, uncomfortable history, but history nonetheless.

“Apparently,” Hunter said. “Now, do you want to explain to me why you are running from three men who look like they should be manning the back door of a skid row strip club?”

I sighed, my shoulders falling slightly.

Dammit. I’ve been caught.

“I think that they were sent by my ex-husband to find me.”

“Why exactly would your husband want to send people like that after you when you are on a cruise after a wedding?” Hunter asked.

“ Ex- husband,” I said. “ Ex,” I emphasized again. “Like majorly big-old ex.”

“He was your husband just a minute ago when you were talking about the Cub Scouts.”

I glared at him.

“Ex,” I said again.

“Ex-husband,” Hunter relented. “That makes it a little bit clearer why he would be sending someone after you.”

I glared at him through narrowed eyes.

“Thank you so much for that vote of confidence.”

“So, what did you do?”

"I have some information on him that he is pretty adamant about ensuring stays with me rather than finding its way into the wrong hands.”

“Whose hands would those be?”

“FBI. CIA. NSA. The whole alphabet soup would be interested, probably.”

“Government agencies aside, it seems that he is determined to get his hands on you again, and the men he hired to make sure that he does look like they take their jobs very seriously. We need to get you safe. Once we reach the next port, you are getting off this ship."

I wanted to protest. Being told what to do was something that I had been more than happy to leave behind when I finally got up the nerve to leave Virgil, and I wasn’t about to let a younger man I barely even knew step into the role of doing it again. Even if that younger man was beyond gorgeous and had a restrained nerdiness about him that I wanted to peel away piece by piece. At the same time, however, I knew that he was right. As much as I had been looking forward to this cruise, if Virgil knew that I was on it and was determined that this was going to be the time when he got me under his control again, I needed to get off of the ship.

Hunter leaned forward to look both ways down the hallway again and then stepped out of the alcove. He started down the hallway, but I hesitated. My shoes were still lying in the middle of the carpet where I had dropped them when he grabbed me, all plans of using them as a weapon gone in the moment of terror. I stared at them, questioning my next move. Those stilettos had been a shopping coup for me. The limited-edition pair were impractical for virtually everything and several degrees less than comfortable, but they had been the envy of all of the other trophy wives during the days when that was my station in life. They were absolutely nothing like the plain, red, boring, pumps that Virgil had always insisted I wear, especially around others, which was one of the primary reasons that I had chosen them. He had been furious, but even after I had endured his wrath because of them, they still made me happy when I looked at them. They represented me, and I wasn’t going to lose myself again.

I dipped down and scooped my shoes up before following Hunter down the hallway. We moved at a good clip and I stayed as close as I could without actually pressing against him. Whatever had brought him down into that hallway to find me, his presence made me feel safer, and even though I didn't know what he could possibly do to help me, especially considering I was still reaching into the chip bag and not telling him the complete truth about who I was or really why my ex-husband wanted to find me, I was resigned to the fact that he may be my last hope of getting away. If I had known that this was going to be the way that this would all play out, maybe I would have done things differently. Maybe I wouldn’t have approached him across the dancefloor. Maybe I wouldn’t have even gone to the wedding at all. I could have dressed up in my purple satin dress and perched on my davenport to watch a live stream. That way I still would have been able to show Noah that I love him and was thinking about him, but wouldn’t have put myself, or now Hunter, in this type of danger.

Chapter Two

Eleanor

The weekend before….

“I still don’t think that I feel comfortable with this, Auntie,” Noah said.

I straightened the purple satin shawl that I wore over my shoulders and glanced out of the corner of my eye at the huge gilded mirror hanging on the wall. I cringed slightly at my reflection. The salesperson at the formalwear shop had assured me that this dress was nothing short of elegance in purple satin, but somehow the effect was almost painfully nuptial. I had been going for sophisticated, and dare I say, sexy, aunt-of-the-groom and had somehow ended up looking completely mother-of-the-bride. Considering there was no actual MOB in attendance at the wedding, I had spent the entire ceremony feeling as though the people behind me were trying to figure out why I was on the wrong side of the ceremony. When I had first arrived at the ceremony I was pleased to see that Noah and his new bride hadn’t gone for the tacky “Pick a Seat, Not a Side” signs that had become so popular at weddings and that be-tuxedoed ushers were escorting guests down the aisle to ensure that they were sitting in appropriate places. The moment that the young man whose name I couldn’t recall but who looked at me as though we had some long, deep connection, took my arm and started steering me toward Noah’s side of the ceremony, however, was the moment that I decided that getting mixed up in the guests might not be such a bad thing.

As I looked around the ceremony in the brief moments before the traditional music silenced everyone in attendance like the most skilled elementary school teacher in existence, I realized that I recognized approximately three people, two of whom were Noah and his father, my brother. He had asked me to sit in the front row of the chairs with him, but I had respectfully refused. I loved Noah and had spent more years of his life with him than his mother had, but the reality was I was not his mother. I didn’t want to pretend to be, even if it was only the seat that was chosen for me that made it look as though I was trying to take on that role. No, if there was anything that my privileged upbringing had given me, beyond the memory of my own wedding that was attended primarily by people I didn’t know, it was a sense of propriety and etiquette. I might have spent my childhood barefoot eating hotdogs I roasted myself on sticks that I had plucked right off the ground, but that didn’t change that I knew exactly what material and color my shoes should be for any given outfit and occasion, and which fork I should use no matter what obscure course I was eating.

It was that etiquette that ensured I never flaunted my wealth except for my clothing and the occasional piece of jewelry I wore if I was feeling particularly fancy, and that kept me sitting in the third row at the wedding, wanting to be close enough to the ceremony that I could see every tear and hear every word, but not wanting to take a position that I didn’t belong in.

Sitting in that third row meant that I was intermingling with the non-family guests, and that, for the first time in my life, gave me anonymity. I looked around me and realized that no one seemed to know who I was. They didn’t recognize me. Not as Noah’s aunt. Not as my father’s daughter. Not as my brother’s sister. Not as Virgil’s ex-wife, and that was the big one. It was something that I never really had the opportunity to experience. I was accustomed to being one of those women who acquires a different middle name depending on the circumstances. I might have been born Eleanor Elizabeth, but I became Eleanor Oh-You’re-Josiah’s-Sister, or Eleanor This-Is-Stefan’s-Youngest-Daughter, as if I wasn’t the only one, or Eleanor Our-Gracious-Hostess, or the occasional, painful Eleanor Benjamin’s-Sister-I’m-So-Sorry. Or the one that I dreaded the most: Eleanor Virgil’s-Wife-You-Know-Yeah-That-Virgil.

That all fell away as I sat there amongst the pastel-and-jewel-toned revelers. Suddenly I was just another of them, another person come to wish the couple good luck and congratulate them on taking the ultimate of terrifying, yet potentially exquisite, adventures of their lives together. That’s when I knew that I didn’t want it any other way. I didn’t want anyone there to know who I was. Not Auntie. Not wealthy. Not anything. Just Eleanor. For once, I was going to experience what it was like to not have expectations hanging over me, or to see that look in the eyes of a person who I was meeting. That look that said their perception of me changed completely the instant that they knew about my family’s money. There were a few different variations of that look. They could either look at me with the disgust that seemed inbred in people, making them automatically assume that I was arrogant, entitled, out of touch, or any other of an assortment of less than flattering adjectives that meant I was somehow less of a human being than they were because I was born into a wealthy family. Or they might get a little glint in their eye that told me that they were no longer seeing my face, but one of those giant money symbols that popped up in Scrooge McDuck’s eyes when he looked at his vault.

When I looked back on it, that was the look that I saw in Virgil’s eyes when we first met. In my youthful starry-eyed stupidity, I thought that I was seeing love at first sight. Instead, what I was really experiencing was greed at first what-did-you-say-your-name-was-again. Not that Virgil was completely destitute. If he was, we wouldn’t have met at the oppressively boring party held by a particularly vacuous daughter of one of my father’s clients. I later found out that he wasn’t there as an invited guest, but by that time, I was already in too deep.

I didn’t want to make that mistake again. I didn’t want to see either one of those looks. I had sunk away into normalcy when I was at the ceremony, and I wanted to keep that rolling. I tried to adjust the shawl again so that I looked a touch less matronly, but gave up when I saw the stream of guests starting around the corner.

“Why?” I asked, turning toward Noah.

“Because you’re my Auntie and I wanted to introduce you to everyone.”

He had the same slightly pouty look that he always got when he was a little boy and I had to withhold a laugh. He was a grown man on his wedding day and I had to remember that. Fishing a butterscotch out of my pocket and hiding in his fort with him until he was over whatever was bothering him wasn’t going to work this time.

“You can still introduce me to whoever you want to, Honey. You just don’t have to tell them who I am.”

“But…”

“You better hurry if you are going to get those pictures before your big introduction,” I said, cutting off his next statement. “I’m going to head on in and browse around a little. Something smells delicious in there and I want to get my hands on it before the other guests.”

I gave him a wink and shuffled off toward the entrance to the reception. A warm, sugary smell was wafting through the air toward me, making my stomach rumble. I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, determined that I was going to fit into the sheath, but the combination of control top pantyhose and sitting through the ceremony had created enough wiggle room in the dress that I knew I was going to be able to sneak in a few of the treats that Noah had told me he created for the wedding as a surprise for his beloved bride. I was one of the few people who knew of his passion for baking and had supported him in it since he was young. In fact, I was proud to say that I had taught him the hummingbird cake recipe that had become his Thanksgiving tradition. My brother wasn’t as thrilled about his only son’s ambitions and had always hoped that he would just put it behind him and go into one of the several industries through which our family had built its wealth and power. Noah had done both, letting his father funnel him into the Royal and Company Advertising Agency while still fostering his love of baking on the side. It was that love that had brought him to Snow, though the agency would have as well.

I sighed as I stepped into the beautifully decorated reception and looked around for a moment. I wished that I had even a hint of what the two of them felt that day. Even in the days when I was swept away by Virgil, the days when I really thought that we were in love and that we were going to have a wonderful life ahead of us, we never looked at each other the way that Snow and Noah did. There was something there, something so powerful and pure it went beyond anything that I had ever experienced. It was easy to feel as though you were in love with a person when you only ever knew their surface or when the love that you gave them was only a show for others who might be looking in. The way that they looked at each other was different. It was as though they were looking into each other, not past the faults and issues that they knew were there, but at them. They stared right into the darkest parts of each other, pulled close to the mistakes and problems of each other’s pasts, and told those parts, without hesitation, without fear, “I love you”.

I continued to pity myself and lament the years that I had spent with Virgil as I made my way around the room, eating whatever I could get my fingers on, as Snow and Noah made their grand entrance and he swept her onto the dancefloor, and even as we dispersed to our tables to sip coffee and wine and eat even more desserts. I had avoided sitting down since my seat was at Noah’s family table and was hovering close enough to the bar that I could confidently say that my decorum and etiquette were at serious risk, when thoughts of fairy tale romance left, quickly to be replaced by something much more fiery – and much more fun to contemplate.

Across the nearly-empty dancefloor I saw a man standing by one of the dessert tables, one hand grasping a drink and the other holding a pick carefully between his fingers, staring at the empty end of it and then the piece of chocolate-dipped fruit on the floor. He looked back and forth between them again as if he was trying to understand what happened and why the fruit would have betrayed him in such a way. There was an awkwardness about him, that sense that he wasn’t fully comfortable in his own skin and wasn’t sure how to properly take up space in the world. But even from the distance and through the glasses that were sliding somewhat precariously down his nose, I could see that this man was gorgeous. Young and gorgeous, and I immediately had the feeling that that was exactly what I needed.

The last time that a man touched me had been so long ago I didn’t even want to think about it.

To be honest, I didn’t really want to think about him touching me, either.

I had spent too much time thinking about Virgil, what he thought of me, and what I was supposed to do to keep harmony between us, even when it became abundantly and excruciatingly obvious that that was completely in vain. Now I had broken free and I wanted to know what it was like to do something just for the sake of my own enjoyment, just so that I could know what it was like to have carefree, unfettered, non-manipulated fun.

I waved away the bartender who was approaching me with the quintessential white towel tucked in the side of his belt, as though it was just waiting for the opportunity to wipe the counter aimlessly while I spilled out my troubles.

Did people do that at weddings? Probably those with the “Pick a Seat” signs.

As I crossed the dancefloor that was starting to fill again, I caught the man’s eyes. I gave him a small smile, but he just looked back at me as if he wasn’t sure what that expression meant. He had gone back to looking between the pick in his hand and the fruit on the floor when I approached. I used the tip of my shoe to ease the strawberry under the edge of the tablecloth, trying to ignore the little voice inside of me that was horrified that I would do such a thing and instead listen to the child I used to be who would have likely scrambled under the table myself just to get away from all of the pomp and circumstance.

When the strawberry disappeared, I leaned forward toward the man.

“It’ll be our little secret,” I said in a whisper loud enough to be heard over the music that had suddenly filled the room, but that I hoped still had a sultry conspiratorial note to it.

“Alright,” he said.

He seemed like he was about to say something else when out of the corner of my eye I saw Noah and Snow approaching. She had bustled her dress and looked like she was gliding along as she held her new husband’s arm tenderly.

“Well, it seems the two of you have met,” Noah said as he stopped by my side.

“Not formally,” I said, flashing another smile.

“Eleanor, this is Hunter. He’s been a dear friend of Snow’s for many years, has become one of mine, and is one of the most valuable people at Royal and Company.”

That explained the glasses and the sense of need for organization and a to-do list that seemed to hover around him.

“Hello, Hunter,” I said, extending a hand to him.

He took it and gave a hearty pump worthy of any chess club president.

That cinched it. He has absolutely no idea who I am.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hunter,” Noah said, the hint of a laugh obvious in his voice. “This is Eleanor, my a—”

“Elementary school teacher,” I said in a rush of words.

“What?” Hunter, Snow, and Noah all said at the same time, looking at me.

“Elementary school teacher,” I repeated, a little slower this time. “Third grade.” It was the first thing that had popped into my head, a lingering thought from the ceremony. I nodded emphatically, hoping that it would convince Noah and Snow to go along with me, and Hunter to believe what I was telling him. “He was my star student. Best coloring in class.”

I reached out and patted Noah’s back, seeming to break him out of the stunned silence that had fallen over him. His eyes snapped from me back to Hunter and he started nodding as I was.

“Yep,” he said. “Eleanor the Teacher. Taught me everything I know about…coloring.”

“You didn’t know how to color in the third grade?” Hunter asked.

“Oh, he did,” I said. “It was just nuances. You know…outlining…shading…choosing the Macaroni and Cheese Crayola over the generic orange. Details.”

“Of course,” Hunter said, staring at the three of us as if he thought that he had fallen into some sort of alternate reality.

The song changed and Snow turned to Noah.

“I love this song,” she said.

“Then we should be dancing to it,” he said. He looked between me and Hunter. “Why don’t the two of you join us?”

I was surprised when Hunter put down the jewel-topped pick and offered his hand to me. I rested my hand in his, feeling a spark as soon as our skin touched. He guided me out to the dancefloor and turned me gracefully so that I settled into his arms. Our bodies moved together effortlessly, the music itself seeming to transport us away. Hunter wouldn’t make eye contact with me, but occasionally his gaze flickered past mine. His dance moves were measured and precise, but somewhat creaky as though he had been trained in these dances, but it was some time in the past and he hadn’t had much chance to use it.

The music changed and Hunter started to pull away from me, but I tightened my hand over his.

“Another one?” I asked.

He looked at me, for the first time letting our eyes lock together for more than a moment, and nodded. The attraction that I had immediately felt for the man grew the longer we danced and by the time that Snow and Noah cut the cake, I was nearly breathless with need for him. This wasn’t something that I had ever experienced, and I was relishing every second of it.

The new couple had swept out of the reception under a flurry of flower petals and bubbles when I turned to Hunter.

“Are you staying in the hotel tonight?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“No.”

“Well, I have a suite,” I told him. “Could I interest you in a nightcap? Toast Snow and Noah?”

Hunter nodded.

“Sure,” he said. “They asked me to take the guest book, though, so I’ll have to wait until everyone has kind of made their way out.”

I smiled.

“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ll just open up a bottle of champagne. Maybe I’ll order a little snack from room service. The sugar rush was a bit much for me.”

I slipped him a key to my suite, enjoying the tremble in my belly as I did so, and swept out of the room. As soon as I got into my suite, I rushed into the bathroom to freshen up. After a fast bath, I changed into a slinky nightgown that could almost pass as a dress and shook my hair down. I refreshed my makeup and was just pouring glasses of champagne when I heard the door open. I turned toward the door and saw Hunter step in. His eyes locked on me and I saw a flash in their green depths. Without thinking, I crossed the room to him and wrapped my arms around his neck, bringing my mouth to his.

Hunter seemed to welcome the kiss. His hands came to my waist, settling on my lower back and pressing me up against him. Our mouths played across each other for a few moments before I started to guide him back toward the sofa in the center of the room. I could have brought him to the bedroom but it was up a narrow winding staircase at the far end of the suite and, frankly, I didn’t have the patience to go that far. I wanted him right then, and it didn’t matter where we were.

When we reached the sofa I toppled backwards, pulling him down with me. His weight pressed down on me and I lifted my leg to hook over his hip, drawing him closer. One hand came to my thigh, moving my nightgown out of the way so that his fingertips could press into my skin. Suddenly his mouth broke away from mine and he pulled back. Hunter looked down at me, his eyes flickering over my face. I could see questions in his gaze and my hands tightened on his back, knowing what he was thinking. It didn’t matter though. He pushed back away from me, jumping to his feet.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, starting to the door.

I swung my legs around and sat up, my cheeks burning as I tried to cover myself.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Hunter glanced back at me, but then shook his head and rushed out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him.

When I was over the humiliating shock enough that I was able to move, I got up and walked over to the table where I was pouring the glasses of champagne when Hunter arrived. I downed both glasses in quick succession before grabbing the bottle and carrying it off to the bedroom so that I could tuck myself into bed and nurse the rejection.

I was still feeling the fog of the bottle of champagne and the good cry that came from a truly simpering romantic movie the next morning when I dragged myself out of bed. I would have loved to have called down to the front desk to arrange for a late checkout and continued to sleep, but when my alarm went off I remembered that I didn’t have the time for that. I needed to get up, pack, and call for my car so that I could get to the cruise ship on time. I had arranged for a celebratory cruise for several people from the wedding as a special gift for Noah and Snow, and I couldn’t really be a good hostess from a hungover stupor in a hotel bed, no matter how luxurious that bed might be.

I dressed in my pink linen travel suit, topped it with a large-brimmed hat and huge dark sunglasses that thankfully looked sophisticated as they did their level best to conceal dark bags and worn skin that even the best of makeup couldn’t combat, and headed down to the lobby. My driver was already waiting for me and I breezed past the desk and into the idling car, waiting until the door was closed behind me to sag back against the seat and reach for one of the chilled sodas I kept tucked in a cooler. I pressed the can against my chest, hoping the cold would perk me up a bit, then popped open the can and guzzled down the almost painfully bubbly, sweet drink.

Feeling slightly refreshed, I looked out the window as the car pulled away from the hotel and toward the marina. I intended to arrive to the boat early so that I could ensure that all of the cabins were properly prepared for the guests, but it would be a long enough drive that it would give me more time than I wanted to contemplate what had happened after the wedding. If I had my way, I would just erase that memory from my mind and continue on with my life without ever having to think about it again.

I must have drifted off into a mercifully dreamless sleep at some point during the drive because suddenly I felt the car stop and heard the driver close his door. I scrambled to sit upright, wiping my face and straightening my hair. Dylan might have been driving me for longer than Hunter had been alive and seen me at virtually all stages of my life, but that didn’t mean that he needed to witness me drooling on myself in the backseat because I was still riding a little bit of a buzz and a whole lot of self-loathing.

The sun was absurdly bright as I stepped out the car and looked at the ship. Seeing it gave me a bit of a boost. This was exactly what I needed. Some time away and the chance to have fun while also hosting some of the people who meant the most to Noah and Snow. I knew that my brother wasn’t going to be there. I had extended an invitation to him, but he was far too busy with all of his work to take time out just to take a cruise to celebrate his son’s wedding. It wasn’t intentional neglect. He wouldn’t purposely hurt Noah. He was just so far invested in the empire that our father had handed down to him, afraid every day that he would somehow lose it and our only remaining link to the man we both loved so much, that it was sometimes hard for him to think of anything else.

I took a breath and started toward the ship. I would get in touch with the director and ensure that all of the arrangements that I had made for my guests had been handled, then I would settle into my cabin, take in a show, and be ready for a formal dinner that evening. The water surged as I stepped onto the boat and I pressed my hand to my suddenly swimming head as the deck swayed beneath my feet.

Maybe I would dine in for the evening.

Chapter Three

Gavin

“It’s about time,” I muttered to myself.

I could finally see the cruise ship in the distance and let out a long sigh of relief, but also of dread knowing that even though I saw the ship ahead my work for the night was far from over. In fact, seeing the ship was just the signal that the real effort was about to start, and it wasn’t going to be fun. It felt like I had been traveling through the open water aimlessly trying to follow the convoluted directions that had been given to me. At this point I couldn’t tell if the instructions were really that horrible, or if the cruise liner was just that far off schedule. Either way, I was already exhausted and didn’t feel like going through with this anymore. Now that the moon was high and illuminating the top of the water, and I could see the imposing silhouette of the ship against the sky, it was a relief and I felt a little boost of motivation to get this over with and collect my pay. Now all I had to do was wait.

The boat drifted slightly closer to the ship and I killed the engine so that anyone who might be on the deck wouldn’t hear it and alert any of the crew to my presence. That was really the last thing that I needed. I hadn’t come up with a story to explain why I was there, and if the situation arose that I was going to have to, I didn’t really see myself coming up with anything particularly convincing. My eyes scanned the rail as I looked for any indication that the time for action had come. The ship seemed surprisingly calm. I hadn’t ever been on a cruise, but when I imagined it, what came to mind was images of couples strolling together along the decks, singles on the prowl hoping to land that night’s conquest, and possibly the occasional child screaming, confirming to the others that they wanted to stay childless for the rest of their lives. What I was looking at, though, was a ship that seemed largely empty. The hulking vessel seemed quiet and still. There were lights glowing in the windows so I knew that it hadn’t been abandoned, but I didn’t see or hear any of the signs of a lively cruise that I had anticipated.

Suddenly I saw two dark figures appear at the rail of one of the lower decks. I tightened my grip on the wheel and straightened, keeping my eyes locked on the people who were moving swiftly along the side of the ship as if at once trying to get away from something and trying to figure out what they were going to do next. The figures paused and they seemed locked in an argument for a brief moment before the larger of the two reached down and released one of the lifeboats from the side of the ship. Another shadowy form appeared several yards away and started running toward them, confirming to me that their speed was because they were trying to escape pursuit. I couldn’t tell who it was that might have been chasing them. They looked pretty frantic to get away, but for all I knew they could have smuggled the pistachios and a couple tiny bottles of liquor out of a room refrigerator and be trying to duck security.

I watched as the larger of the first two figures released the other side of the lifeboat so that it fell into the water below, then scooped the smaller figure up and tossed it over the rail into the water. The scream that I heard told him that the person flailing down toward the water was a woman and she was less than pleased about how this course of events was unfolding.

That was most certainly not the action of someone who didn’t want to pony up for their cabin snacks.

The larger person jumped down after her and they both scrambled to get into the lifeboat as the third figure leaned over the rail above them, shouting something indiscernible. The lifeboat started moving and I realized that it was moving directly toward me. A few moments later it bumped into my boat and I heard the soft metallic clang as the two people clambered up the ladder hanging from the side. I ran to the other end of the boat and watched as a small woman caught her foot on the top of the ladder and stumbled onto the deck. A man followed seconds later, catching her before she fell.

"What the fuck just happened?!" I asked, dumbfounded. “Who the hell are you?”

"We need to get away from this ship. Now!" the man demanded.

I shook my head looking, between the two. This wasn’t happening. I didn’t have time for this shit. I had somebody to find and I wasn’t going to be able to do it if I was playing Junior Coast Guard with these two. The longer that I looked at them, though, the more I knew that I couldn’t just pitch them off of the deck into the cold water and go about my business. The woman's wet clothing clung to her and her hair stuck wildly over her face and her arms. She was barefoot and her makeup was running, but by the look on her face I was sure it was more than just the unintended swim that had caused her to be so disheveled. Despite all of that, it was evident that she was one of those women who only got better with age and now that she had tipped the calendar over into her forties, she had a confident, well-polished beauty about her. At least, she would when she wasn’t dripping saltwater onto the ground around her. She was obviously going through something difficult and I had the immediate human compulsion to help her in any way that I could. I’d figure out what to do about the job later.

I turned back to the angry-looking man who accompanied her. He had looked much larger than the woman when he tossed her over the rail into the water, but now that I was seeing him this close, I realized that he was an average-sized man. Glasses had somehow miraculously remained perched on his nose during the ordeal and he glared at me through them with an intensity that looked as though he somehow thought that I was responsible for the other man who had been chasing them on the cruise ship.

"Who are you?" I asked again. "What are you doing on my boat?"

I heard the muttering of voices that were dulled by the wind around us and looked back up at the ship. I saw that several more people had gathered at the railing, one with a large light that they were trying to set up so that they could shine it down on the water, and a shot of panic went through me. I couldn't risk someone seeing me and possibly being able to recognize me later.

"I'm Hunter," the man in glasses said as if it were some kind of password that would instantly make me willing to help him. "Now get us out of here."

I didn't move and Hunter took two long strides toward me, shoving past me toward the wheel.

"Get the fuck out of my way," he said, "I'll do it myself."

I followed, grabbing at Hunter's shirt as he started the engine again and forced the boat in a sharp turn away from the ship. The turn went smoothly, but I had the distinct impression that he was not well-versed in the ways of steering a ship. Considering we were far away from shore and the only other vessel that I had seen capable of providing us with any type of assistance should he capsize us or destroy the equipment was the very ship that he had just escaped from, this didn’t bode well for any of us aboard.

"What do you think you're doing?" I asked, stepping up to him.

Hunter reared back to shove me away from him and accelerated the boat even faster. I grabbed at him again and he turned to me, reaching out and grabbing me by the front of my shirt with a ferocity that I wouldn’t have expected to come from someone who looked like him. This man should be in an office somewhere or hunched behind a desk in a library, not jumping into the ocean off of a cruise ship and playing Pirates of the Caribbean stealing other people’s boats.

"This woman is about two minutes away from becoming the topic of a Dateline Special Edition about mysterious disappearances at sea. If you don’t cooperate with this, they’re going to be rolling credits on you, too, and some struggling actor who looks nothing like you is going to be playing your corpse. If you don’t want that to happen, I suggest you get off of me and let me get us away from that ship."

I felt like someone had punched me in the chest. I turned away from Hunter and toward the woman, who was now sitting on the deck, her knees pulled up and her head rested against them. I crossed to her and crouched down beside her.

"What's your name?" I asked.

She looked up at me.

"Eleanor," she said softly, her voice sounding weak and exhausted.

Shit. Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

I drew in a breath. I didn't know what to do. I had no idea who the man now driving my boat was or why he was here, but I did know who this terrified woman was – and that she was the one I was after.

Chapter Four

Hunter

I looked back over my shoulder to see how far we had gotten from the cruise ship, but what caught my attention was the man who had been driving the ship now crouched down talking to Eleanor. She looked tiny and vulnerable curled against the side of the boat, her eyes darting around her as though she would rather jump overboard and take her chances in the water again than continue to listen to the two of them argue. It was a look that I would never have expected to see on this woman’s face. There was something about her that had struck me as strong and powerful from the first moment that I encountered her at Noah and Snow’s wedding, and it was disconcerting to see her suddenly looking so fragile. I could see the sheer terror in her expression and the thought of what must have happened to her during her marriage to not only instill that fear in her, but also to make it linger even after the marriage ended made my stomach turn.

My mind wandered to that first night at the wedding and how our encounter had gone downhill so drastically and so rapidly. Then my thoughts went to earlier that evening when I grabbed her and kissed her to distract the men who were chasing her. It had been an impulse, something that I hadn’t though all the way through before I did it. I had no idea why those men would be pursuing her the way that they were and what type of danger they might pose to her, and I wanted to do anything that I could to protect her, even for the next few seconds. Of course, that had meant getting us into much the same uncomfortable situation that we had been the last time that we saw each other, and as soon as our lips touched I felt a flicker of regret at my decision. I couldn’t deny the attraction that I felt for Eleanor, but the same reservations that I had had at the wedding were there and I couldn’t put them behind me. Whatever was happening with her, I wanted to help her, but that had to be it.

Suddenly the boat lurched, startling me out of my thoughts. The engine fell silent and I felt my heart sink into my stomach.

That can’t be good. Boats aren’t supposed to just turn themselves off on a whim.

The other man appeared beside me and shoved me out of the way unceremoniously. Unfortunately, that wasn’t something that I was entirely unfamiliar with. High school had not been particularly kind to me. Being less than athletic and needing glasses just to breathe had not endeared me to the football players or even the slackers. I was kind of an island in and of myself. Working out and trading out my hand-me-downs for clothing that actually fit in the years after graduation had helped give me some confidence, but most of the time I still felt like that skinny, outcast nerd navigating the hallways like I was running the gauntlet just to get to chemistry class. The way that this man was treating me was bringing those memories back with a vengeance and I suddenly felt like I could commiserate more with Eleanor. I wondered who was still living inside of that beautiful, polished shell and how that person was still affecting her.

"What did you do?" he demanded angrily as he flipped switches, trying to get the engine to turn over so that we could continue on away from the ship.

"I didn't do anything," I shouted back. "It's your boat. What did you do to it? Did you forget to put gas in it?"

"I didn't fucking forget to put gas in it," the other man growled, the anger in his voice sounding as though the very suggestion that he might have forgotten to do something like put gas in his boat was an affront to his masculinity. "You don't know how to drive a boat and you probably flooded the engine."

"How do you know I don't know how to drive a boat?" I asked defensively. “You just automatically assume?”

"I’m not assuming anything. I just watched your attempt."

The man performed a few more maneuvers on the control panel and finally I heard the rumble of the engine starting to turn. As if the other man's fury had reached beyond the boat and into the sky itself, there was a tremendous clap of thunder the moment the engine roared back to life and a sheet of rain came pouring into the boat. I shouted a few creative obscenities toward the foreboding black clouds that had rapidly blotted out the moon and stars, positive that this was all just to test me. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be proving, but in that moment, I didn’t feel as though I was doing a very good job of it. A blinding bolt of lightning sliced through the sky followed by another, even louder crash of thunder and I heard Eleanor scream behind me.

The ocean started to toss the boat around angrily and I suddenly felt like a bathtub toy. A wave washed up over the side of the boat, soaking me in cold water.

"Help me!"

I turned toward the man's voice and saw him struggling to tie down supply boxes with thick ropes and secure the doors to the small cabin in the middle of the boat. I rushed toward him, knowing that the friction between us from the moment that Eleanor and I stepped onto the boat didn't change the fact that this man was the only way that either of us was going to have even a chance at escaping the cruise ship. Though I was still shaky on why exactly we needed to escape in the first place. I rushed toward him and together we lashed the supplies to the deck and ensured that the cabin was secure. The rain stung on my skin and blurred my vision as I made my way back toward the front of the boat. The vessel tossed violently beneath my feet and for a moment I was positive that it would capsize under the power of one of the tremendous waves that pounded down on us.

Worst carnival fun house ever.

"Hunter!"

Eleanor's shrill voice was barely audible over the roar of the waves and the wind, but I turned to see her clinging to the ladder that we had used to climb up into the boat. I ran as fast as the shifting of the boat and the slickness of the rain-soaked deck beneath my feet allowed. I could see Eleanor's hands slipping and hear her desperate cries as I got closer. I dove forward, channeling every bit of my ill-advised three weeks of Little League to slide on my belly until I reached the edge and could grab her.

"Climb!" I shouted down at her. "I've got you, but you're going to have to help me here."

Eleanor's feet finally gained purchase on the ladder again and I was able to pull her up toward me. She grasped at my back, climbing over me toward the deck. As she brought her leg up, I felt myself slipping. The sky split overhead with a bolt of lightning that lit up the sky like daylight, and the boat tilted to such a drastic angle that I felt my body toppling headfirst toward the water. The white-topped sea lapped up toward me, ready to accept me into its black depths.

Moby Dick didn’t do this shit justice. Where the fuck is the giant whale that’s supposed to teach me about myself?

Just as I was confident that I was going to end up being the saddest article to ever grace the front page of The Apple, I felt strong hands grab me, dragging me back onto the deck of the ship by my pants and the back of my shirt. The man captaining the boat pushed me aside so that I slid into the corner and then slammed the small hatch that opened onto the ladder, securing it closed with a metal handle. When it was closed, I saw the man crawl toward me as if not sure enough of his feet to stand.

"Are you alright?" he yelled through the sound of the storm around us.

I nodded.

"Thank you," I called back, hesitating when I realized I still didn't know the man's name.

"Gavin," the man shouted back.

"Thank you, Gavin," I said.

This wasn’t exactly the moment for handshakes, so I gave a nod of acknowledgement. Gavin nodded back and turned toward Eleanor. I watched as he checked her hands carefully and then started guiding her toward the cabin. The door on the side where we were hadn't been locked closed and Gavin yanked it open, ushering Eleanor inside and then turning to me.

"Go in," he shouted.

"I'll stay out here with you," I shouted back.

"No," Gavin protested. "It's too dangerous. The waves are getting higher and the storm is only going to get worse. I have to try to keep the boat on course."

"I can help you."

We locked eyes and finally I saw Gavin nod at me again through the rain.

"Eleanor," Gavin said into the cabin, "you stay in here. Stay away from the windows and doors as much as you can."

Gavin closed the door and rushed back to the wheel with me at his heels. We lashed ourselves to the boat with the safety harnesses attached on either side of the wheel, and then latched ourselves to each other. We fought against the waves, gasping for breath as the wind swept water into our faces.

"Are we on the right course?" I shouted, fully acknowledging to myself that I really had no idea what the right course was or where we should be headed now that we were getting away from the cruise ship.

"I don't know," Gavin replied. "I think so, but I can't tell. We won't really know until the storm quiets down."

The sea had other plans, however, and a towering wave rose up beside us and crashed onto the ship with a terrifying impact. I felt myself leave my feet and the safety harness strained against the wood of the boat as I fell. I reached out for Gavin, but my hand only grasped water. I couldn't see anything in front of me and the only sound that came to my ears was the deafening roar of the wave rushing around me. I tried to look up to see how deep we were, but there was only darkness. I couldn’t fight any more. The strength in my muscles gave out and I relinquished myself to the storm.

Chapter Five

Eleanor

I was lying in the berth of the cabin, my arms draped over my head as I tried to resist the feelings of seasickness and terror coursing through my body. As accustomed as I was to cruising, I had never been on a ship during weather like this and I was not responding well to the behavior of the water. This was not nearly as much fun as lounging by the pool or watching the gaudy shows at night. I wished that there was a cruise director I could complain to, but at that moment the only one controlling what was happening was a little bit more powerful than the captain of the cruise, so I didn’t think that putting in a formal complaint would be a very good idea. The sound of the storm outside was deafening and I reached for a pillow to hold around my ears to try to muffle it. I felt like I should be crying, but the tears wouldn’t come. It was as if I had cried so much over so many things that my body was simply unwilling to go through the motions any more. It was in protest.

The rocking of the ship was so intense that I felt like it would toss me onto the floor at any moment. This couldn’t be the only storm that had ever been like this and I didn’t see any sign of a seatbelt to hold me in place on the bed. I didn’t understand how anyone could get any kind of rest in this place if they spent more than a couple of hours aboard. Almost as suddenly as the storm had come on, though, it began to calm down. The shaking of the boat slowed and then nearly stilled. I wanted to get up to find out if the men had gotten through the storm safely, but I couldn’t bring myself to climb out of my place. It was almost as though I was positive that if my feet hit the floor of the cabin, I was going to find out that it was all just a cruel trick of the storm and it was going to start up again. Without even removing the pillow that I had used to muffle the deafening noise of the storm, I let my eyes close, and soon fell asleep.

I felt like I was no longer in control of my body. Awareness seemed to wash over me for a few moments at a time, but never close enough that I could actually latch onto it and let it drag me up into full consciousness. I woke suddenly, gasping for breath, feeling like the water had seeped into the cabin and risen up over the berth to swallow me. My hands clawed at the pillow and I desperately breathed in the salty air, relieved that it had only been my imagination that made me feel like I was drowning. As soon as my lungs filled, the darkness took over again and I fell back to sleep, my pillow on the floor now so that it couldn’t try to smother me again.

The next time I awoke, I could hear what sounded like screaming. I felt too afraid to move. The boat tossed violently and I realized that the brief moment of quiet before I first fell asleep was just the eye of the storm. It wasn’t over. In fact, now it seemed even more intense than it had been before. Now the wind was whipping around the cabin with a terrifying ferocity. The wind beating against the fiberglass was sharp and loud, combining with the screams until all the noise combined into a chaotic dissonance that reverberated through my mind. I wanted to investigate the screaming, but I couldn't force my body to budge. As the darkness started to dim the edges of my mind again, I briefly wondered whether there was truly a scream at all or if it was just the harshness of the wind.

I didn’t know how much time had passed when a sudden jolt woke me from a deep, dreamless sleep. The boat was finally calm, and relief poured over me as I realized that the storm had truly passed this time and we were, at least in terms of being sucked down into the waves, safe. I didn't want to move. Outside, the world was deadly silent, and I wasn't ready to face the potential array of horrifying scenes that might be awaiting me outside of the cabin. I was very aware that neither of the men had come into the cabin during the night, which meant that unless there was some hidden Batman-style cabin somewhere else on the boat, they had weathered the storm out on the deck. With as aggressive as the wind and sea had felt from within the protection of the cabin, I couldn’t imagine what it had been like to actually be outside, exposed to it all, and was afraid that they might not have gotten through it.

The boat stopped moving and once again I could hear the individual waves breaking against the hull. They were far calmer now, almost like they were trying to soothe the boat after the assault. The analogy sent an all-too familiar shudder through me and I forced the thought out of my mind. After lying awake for a few minutes, curiosity finally overpowered my fear and I carefully moved off of the berth and started toward the cabin door. I paused again when I reached the door, hesitating to step out onto the deck. I didn't know what I was going to find there; or what I might not find. My hand trembled as I reached for the handle and pushed the door open. Ahead of me I saw the back corner of the boat crushed and tattered, pieces of the wood drifting away with the water.

"Oh, shit."

As soon as I heard Gavin cursing, I felt a sense of relief wash over me. It wasn’t the most delightful of early-morning greetings, but spewing profanity required being alive, so I was willing to go with it. I climbed up the rest of the way out of the cabin and rushed toward the sound of his voice. He was on the other side of the boat, crouched beside Hunter where he lay slumped on the deck. I ran toward them and dropped to my knees beside the prone man, my heart pounding in my chest.

"What's wrong with him?" I asked frantically. "Is he…"

"He's not dead," Gavin said, taking his fingers away from Hunter's neck where he had had them pressed to his pulse point. "I woke up and found him like this. He must have blacked out, but he's alive."

"Where are we?" I asked.

I straightened and looked out over the edge of the boat. The small vessel was stopped a few yards away from a sandy beach. Branches and leaves scattered across the pale sand told me that the storm had hit here was well, but I was grateful to see dry land. I wouldn’t be planning another cruise any time soon.

Gavin was unlatching Hunter from the harness that held him in place and didn't look up.

"My navigation system is destroyed. I can't tell where we are."

"Apparently, we’re at the beach," I said, too tired to laugh at my own bad joke.

I glanced down and watched Gavin straighten Hunter out so that he was lying on his back rather than being curled partially on his side. Water dribbled from the corner of his mouth and he made a gurgling sound in his throat before choking and gasping for breath. Gavin lifted him up by his shoulders and Hunter coughed out more water before finally drawing in a deep breath.

"Are you alright?" I asked, leaning down to look at him.

Hunter's eyes lifted to mine and he stared at me for a few seconds, but I couldn't decipher the emotion in the look. Without answering me, he pushed himself up off of the deck and stood shakily, gripping the side of the boat for stability. He gazed out over the side just as I had, his eyes locked on the beach.

“Oh, shit,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “That seems to be the general consensus about our current situation.”

I heard a grinding sound and looked up to see Gavin trying to start the boat again. He shook his head, tried again, and then kicked the wall.

Well, good. I’m glad to see that he utilizes only the most advanced mechanical techniques.

"The engine's shot. No engine. No navigation system. No communication." He gestured toward the destroyed portion of their boat. "The boat is destroyed. What in the sweet fuck are we supposed to do now?"

"This island isn’t too far away from the course of the cruise ship. It can’t be. We haven’t been sailing for that long. It’s probably one of the ones that the ships stop on. If we go around to the other side, I’m sure we'll find other people and they can help us," Hunter said.

Despite some shakiness in his voice, he sounded strong and in control, and I felt myself wanting to trust him even though the thought of giving my trust to anyone right now after being so relentlessly pursued by anonymous killers was terrifying. Hunter made his way to the hatch on the back of the boat and forced it open. I watched him climb down and realized that the sandbar where we had crashed was high enough that his head was still visible as he made his way toward the water in front of us. I followed, making my way gingerly down the ladder and into the inches of water. The sand sank and slipped beneath my feet, and for the first time I realized that I no longer had my shoes.

"Oh, dammit!" I exclaimed. "I lost my shoes."

"That is really at the bottom of our priority list right now, Eleanor, and besides, I really don't think that five-inch spikes are best option for wading through the ocean, or all that appropriate for a woman…”

He hesitated, but I knew exactly what was on the tip of his tongue.

A woman your age.

Right that instant the attraction that I had felt for Hunter from the first moment that I saw him faded a bit. There was nothing like feeling like a man thought your hoo-ha was as dried up as the floral sachet tucked in your lingerie drawer to take the edge off of your sex drive.

I shot him a glare and continued along the sand. I wasn't aware that I was approaching the edge until it gave out from under my feet and I slipped all the way into the water. Panic rushed through me again and I shot upwards, screaming as I broke through the surface, positive that this was going to be the moment that my life ended. After everything that I had gone through, death was going to come at the cold hands of the bitter bitch of the ocean.

"Swim!" Hunter shouted. “Stop flailing and swim!”

I could hear his voice and knew that I should be following his instructions, but I was paralyzed. My old fear of water, the very one that I had ironically overcome with repeated cruises, had rushed back in all its glory and I felt like I couldn’t get myself under control. The water pressed around me and I felt like I couldn't stay above the surface. Something was dragging me down, pulling me away from the air and threatening to pull me into the depths.

I knew it. I fucking knew it. Myth, my ass. My obituary was going to read ‘Death by Sea Monster’

I felt like I couldn't fight anymore. I had been fighting for so long, and for so long it seemed that the harder I fought to climb up out of the darkness, the harder the fall when I couldn't fight any longer. Before now, though, I was the only one that could be hurt. This time I had pulled two men who had absolutely nothing to do with this down with me. I had a flicker of feeling as though I was trading them for myself and I didn’t like that thought.

I felt the sand beneath my feet again and realized that I had gotten toward the surface. I collected all of the strength and energy within me and pushed against it to force myself up. As I got closer to the surface, I felt a strong arm grab my waist and pull me up. We broke the surface and I turned to see Hunter holding me, paddling us both toward the strip of pale beach ahead. I heard a splash and turned to see Gavin coming up out of the water, apparently having leapt off of the side of the boat.

Well, good. Now we’re even.

Hunter released me as we came to within a few feet of the shore and I crawled forward for a few feet. My mind went to the image of slim, beautiful women in movies strolling out of the ocean and compared myself in that moment to them. I felt like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I stood and walked until the sand was dry against my skin before dropping down to sit. I turned and watched Hunter coming out of the water, my breath catching in my throat as my eyes fell on the section of chiseled chest and stomach I could see through the tear in his shirt.

Oh, he was definitely being wasted on the advertising industry.

Chapter Six

Gavin

I climbed to the top of the rocky ridge, muttering as I went as if that would somehow convince the jagged edges to smooth out, or at least for the steep incline to have the decency to lessen for me. When I finally reached the top, I pushed aside the palm fronds that crossed my path, and discovered that I most certainly had not reached the top and that the trees had been concealing an even more treacherous path ahead of me. At the back of my mind I had been expecting to see a hotel in the distance, or at least the rope fences and small wooden signs that companies used to gently guide tourist exploration of the islands so that they could feel as though they were being wild and adventurous but didn’t become insurance liabilities. Instead I saw only more thick, untouched jungle.

Dammit all to hell. This is not what I signed up for.

I had been exploring the island since moments after we had first arrived, and so far, I had found no signs of human life. Hunter’s assumption that this island was one of the trail of little day stops on the cruise line tours had given me some hope. I figured he must be right. That storm couldn’t have jostled us so far away from the cruise ship that we would end up on an island that was totally uninhabited. There had to be at least a juice bar or tiki torch somewhere. But, no. Nothing. I had stalked my way through the jungle and along the rocks for what felt like hours and I hadn’t found anything but just more jungle and rocks.

Concerned that I would get myself lost if I tried to venture any further without something to mark my way, I turned around and started back toward the beach. I had the strange compulsion to thank the palm fronds as I walked away from them, thinking it was almost as if they had tried to protect me by shielding the view of how much further the ridge rose ahead.

Holy shit, I’m losing my mind already.

I was nearly back to the sand when I noticed that Hunter was back on the deck of the boat, moving toward the cabin. I ran toward it, shouting Hunter's name as I went.

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

Who did this man think he was climbing onto my boat uninvited not once, but twice? He was the reason we were stuck on this --- I can’t believe these words are even coming out of my mouth --- desert island, and now he was poking around on my boat trying to find…. what the hell did he think that he was going to find? Did he somehow know who I was and what I had been doing floating around in the dark water near the cruise ship?

Hunter stepped back away from the cabin door and glared down at me as if I had no right to be asking him about his actions. The fire in the look surprised me. My first impression of him had been that he was nothing but a nerdy little guy whose greatest concern was probably color coordinating his pens with his belt. Between the struggle with the storm and the way that he was looking at me now, though, I was wondering if there was actually more to him than just that.

"If you haven't noticed,” he snapped at me, “there is no one else on this island. Not a tourist. Not a researcher. No one. We have quite literally gotten ourselves stranded on a deserted island, and with a trashed boat and no communication system, we are essentially screwed for the foreseeable future."

"What does that have to do with you rummaging through my boat?" I asked as I crossed the water again and was climbing onto the deck to face Hunter.

"I was hoping to find some supplies that we could salvage to help us get through however long we are going to be here."

I forced my mind to calm and my heart to stop racing.

He didn’t know.

My papers were hidden far enough in the recesses of the cabin that no one would be able to find them without my help, and if Hunter knew about them, he would have already confronted me. All he was trying to do was find the things that we would need to help us through this situation. I gave a short nod.

"I'm sorry. You're right. Go ahead."

Hunter ducked into the cabin and reappeared a moment later with a large black trunk on his shoulder.

"What's in here?" Hunter asked.

"Clothes," I told him.

"That's it?" Hunter asked.

He sounded suspicious, but not as though he actually knew what was hiding in the cabin. It was more likely that he could feel the heft of the bag and didn’t believe that it was twenty pounds of underwear and socks.

"A couple of knives. Some cash."

"Well, I don't think that we are going to be hailing a cab out of here anytime soon, so the cash is probably useless. The knives could be helpful, though."

Hunter hoisted the trunk off of his shoulder and handed it over to me. I took it and carried it over to the side of the boat so I could toss it down into the water. The boat had created enough of a temporary tide pool near the sandbar that I wasn't concerned that the trunk would float away, and I knew that the water wasn’t going to seep through. I returned to the cabin and we spent the next several minutes tossing the cases and trunks that we could salvage down into the water. When we were finished, we both jumped down and started dragging the cargo up onto the sand. I was getting strangely accustomed to flinging myself off of the boat and I figured that could be just one more skill I would be able to add to the “special talents” section of my resume if I survived getting off this damn island.

The first crate that we opened was from the galley, and I spread the supplies out on the sand to evaluate them. Unfortunately, the crate that these had been stored in wasn’t watertight and many of the containers weren’t designed with an afternoon swim in mind, either. The food inside had been ruined, but we had basic cooking tools. Suddenly I was reminded of the fact that I hadn't eaten anything since well before I pulled up beside the cruise ship the night before and my stomach rumbled angrily.

"We should try to find some food," I said as Hunter came up beside me and pulled the first trunk up to open it. "It might take a while to prepare anything worth eating." I pulled my kit out of the crate and spread it out, pulling out my flint and feeling a shimmer of hope as I realized it was still intact. "I can get the fire started if you and Eleanor can go see what you can find in the jungle. I saw some fruit trees back there."

I could see Hunter bristle slightly, but then he nodded and stalked off toward where Eleanor stood in the sand, staring out over the water. She turned to him as Hunter approached and I saw them start off toward the trees together. I contemplated them as I watched them, wondering what had led up to them running along the deck of the boat together and tossing themselves down into the water. They didn’t seem like the type of people who would have any real reason to know each other, yet there was a somewhat tenuous connection between them that told me that they hadn’t just met when they were on the ship.

Could he be one of her little boy toys?

That didn’t strike me as being likely. Hunter didn’t seem exactly like boy toy material. Even with the anger and aggression that he had shown, there was still an aura of awkward, nerdy shyness around him that made him seem like the opposite of what I would imagine an exorbitantly wealthy divorcee would look for in a younger man she wanted to string along purely for entertainment purposes. And now that I thought about it, I hadn’t ever heard mention of her having any such relationships. They might be common among women of her age and means, and Eleanor was definitely beautiful enough to have plenty of willing participants, but it seemed that she hadn’t gone that direction since her divorce.

Could they actually have a relationship going?

That seemed pretty unlikely as well. While Eleanor and Hunter seemed to know each other on some level, there wasn’t enough between them to suggest that they had that level of connection. I thought that I had seen a spark of attraction between them, and there was definitely concern in Eleanor’s eyes when she thought that the younger man had been killed in the storm, but I wouldn’t jump so far as to say that she looked like she was in love with him. Besides, I was fairly certain that if there was such a relationship happening, I would have been told about it when I got my instructions for this job. Having a man around always made things like this more difficult, and I would think that I would have been told so that I could prepare my approach differently.

They had disappeared into the jungle and I turned back to the flint in my hand. It wasn’t going to just create a fire spontaneously. I got up and started gathering rocks from the edge of the beach. I formed a circle in the sand and filled it with dried palm fronds and wood. It took only one try for me to use the flint to spark the pit into a blazing fire.

Good to know that some of my skills are still intact.

The thought brought uncomfortable feelings into the back of my mind. It had been awhile since I had done a job. After the last one had gone the way that it did, I had taken some time off, sinking back into anonymity for a bit so that I could shake off of the heat and the guilt. Anonymity had its perks, but it also had its drawbacks, a very distinct one of which was a distinct lack of income coming in, which is what had brought me to this boat and the water just off the cruise ship. There was money to be had, but I had to finish the job first, and that was going to be decidedly more difficult from an island in the middle of nowhere with a witness who now had the fairly intimate knowledge of me that came with staring a watery death in the face.

This left me in an uncomfortable position. I needed to finish what I came here to do in order to get paid and be able to keep on surviving for the next few months, which I had become rather fond of doing, but I had also just helped these two get through the storm and was now stuck on an island with them. They had both seen my face and I had been stupid enough in the moments of fearing for my life to actually tell them my real name. I was definitely a bit rusty, but that wasn’t going to excuse me. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, but I was going to need to make a decision quickly, because this situation was only going to get more complicated the longer that we were here, and from the looks of the empty horizon, beached and completely destroyed boat, and untouched sand, that just might prove to be far longer than I would have liked to think about.

Chapter Seven

Hunter

I reached down toward Eleanor and helped her up the steep path. I looked down at her feet as she climbed up and took her place beside me on the more level ground. Dark, damp dirt was already streaked across her pale skin and stood in stark contrast to her pristine, bright red pedicure. Something about the color was both surprising and a bit exciting to me. Despite the way that she had acted toward me during and after the reception, I had expected something tamer. There was something about her that seemed delicate and feminine, like someone who would paint her toenails pink, not fire engine red. That was a main motivating factor in rejecting her at the wedding. It wasn’t that I wasn’t attracted to her. It was more that behind all of the forwardness and seduction, I could see that that wasn’t really her. She was looking for something that night, and I didn’t feel like I was the person who was going to be able to give it to her.

I had been taken completely by surprise when she had pursued me after the wedding. I wasn’t used to that type of attention. Women usually looked at me and didn’t seem to see beyond my glasses and a personal style that I would readily admit was about ten miles short of stylish but that worked for a daily life of working at Royal and Company and then moonlighting at my brother’s fledgling event rental company trying to help him get the business off the ground. It wasn’t that they treated me with disdain or ignored me, rather than they saw someone completely tame and unintimidating. I didn’t strike them as the type to try to hit on them, and they were absolutely right. Socializing had never been my strong point, even with friends such as Snow, and now that I was inching my way on toward thirty, I didn’t see many opportunities for me to get better at it.

Eleanor was different. There had been a spark in her that I hadn't anticipated. She looked at me as though she saw something more than what anyone else saw when they looked at me. But she was also an intriguing duality. There the soft tenderness and fear that I had seen in her when we were running through the hallway of the cruise ship and when she was curled on the deck of the boat after we escaped from the ship, but there was also strength and vibrancy that rose up out of her every now and then, glimmering through before disappearing again. It was as though something within her was beginning to come to the surface again, cracking through the muted, hardened shell that usually surrounded her. She was proving herself to be more surprising and intriguing than I had thought when walking away from her at the reception, and every moment I seemed to be finding out more about her. The thought of this woman teaching Noah when he was a child struck me as odd. I didn’t know if it was harder for me to imagine Noah when he was younger or this woman standing in front of a class of children trying to teach them to write in script and do long division.

"Do your feet hurt?" I asked.

Eleanor looked down at her feet for a moment as if she had forgotten that she was wandering through the jungle barefoot, and then shook her head. She looked back up with the first hint of a smile that I had seen on her soft-looking lips since I walked away from her after the wedding.

"No," she said. "They probably feel better than they would if I was trying to walk around in those heels out here." She gave a short laugh and shook her head again, looking back down at her feet. "I was barefoot all the time before I married Virgil. I used to love being outside."

The sudden openness threw me off, but I found myself wanting to know more about her and what had led her into this situation.

“I would think that a Cub Scout leader would have wanted to spend time outside,” I said, remembering what she had told me about her husband. “Didn’t he go on camping trips and stuff?”

Eleanor looked momentarily confused and then jumped slightly as if remembering the same thing I had.

“Yes,” she said, a bit too emphatically. “Yes, he did. He loved camping. Sometimes he camped in our yard just to be outside.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, starting to question what she was telling me.

“But you didn’t ever go with him?”

“Well,” she said, “you know. I wasn’t a Cub Scout. I didn’t have all the…. certifications and…badges.” She gestured up and down her body as if to indicate what she was wearing. “No uniform.”

I nodded.

"What exactly happened with your husband?" I asked.

Despite the fact that I was trying to keep the tone of my voice as casual as possible, the smile melted from Eleanor's face and the grey veil of lingering fear settled over her eyes again. She seemed to withdraw even though she didn't move and her eyes bounced between her feet and me and back again.

“Ex-husband,” she muttered.

“Ex-husband,” I said.

She looked up at me, meeting my eyes almost too intensely.

"It was a terrible marriage that took me way too long to get out of," she told me matter-of-factly.

"Why would you marry someone who hurt you?" I asked. “Why would you stay married to him?”

Eleanor sighed as if it was a question that she had asked herself many times. That was a sigh that I had heard come out of my mother throughout my childhood. My father had never been physically abusive toward her, but their marriage hadn’t been a terribly happy one, and there were plenty of times when I saw an expression on her face that said that she would rather he just hit her than to speak to her the way that he did, or to flaunt his countless affairs so blatantly. I knew that she didn’t want to be married to him and I often blamed myself and my brother for her continued misery, thinking that if it wasn’t for us, she wouldn’t have felt like she was obligated to stay with him. It wasn’t until I was nearly an adult that I learned that it had actually been financial pressures that had kept her tied to him. She had given up her education and the possibility of a career to be a wife and mother, and by the time that she decided she really was finished with the relationship, she was so completely dependent on him that she didn’t see any escape. It took years for her to finally find her way out. For the first time, I wondered if there could be similar pressures for Eleanor.

"When we first met, he treated me like a princess,” she told me. “He was so attentive all the time, like all he wanted was to spend time with me and make me happy. I guess that's what men like that do. They convince you that you are the center of their world so that they can get you under their control. It didn't take long after the wedding for me to find out who I had actually married, and within a year I was already in so deep…"

Her voice trailed off and she looked away. I didn't push her any further. We spent the next few silent minutes gathering as much fruit as we could carry and started back down to the beach. As we stepped out onto the sand, I could see her eyes lock on something ahead of us. I turned and saw that she was staring at Gavin, who had removed his shirt and was standing in a shallow tide pool using a spear he had apparently taken out of his luggage to fish. I could see the fascination and even a flicker of attraction in Eleanor's eyes and felt defensiveness well inside me. I felt like the snap decision that I had made in the cruise ship to run from those men with her had put me in the position of being her protector, and I felt uncomfortable with not only Gavin’s unusual presence in the water, but with the way that Eleanor seemed almost fascinated by him. It wasn’t a reaction that I would have expected to have, and I did what I could to shake it away. It really wasn’t my place to judge Gavin or question anything about him. We were the ones who had flung ourselves off of a moving water vessel and pulled a Black Beard with his boat. They weren’t exactly ranking high on the “not suspicious” meter.

As we settled in around the fire to watch Gavin cook the fish he had caught, there was a sense of tension and unease that made the space around us feel heavy.

"What do you do, Gavin?" I finally asked.

I was just trying to break the silence even though I didn't actually care about the answer. He could have told me that he was trained in the ancient art of grilling pork chops while doing stunts on a tightrope and I likely would have had the same reaction as I would have had to any other answer.

The other man hesitated and I looked up at him.

"Um," Gavin said. "I captain private charters on my boat and I fish.”

"What type of charters?" Eleanor asked, her voice sounding soft and tired.

Gavin looked at her and I noticed that he seemed to be searching for the right answer.

"Anything that the client wants," he answered.

Before I could ask another question, Gavin pulled the fish from the fire and started dividing it up. We fell silent as we ate and I found my mind drifting to the meals served on the cruise ship. Elaborate, delectable, and never-ending, the meals were the thing that I was looking forward to most about the vacation, and what I had been enjoying the most when my trip was cut short by the need to rescue Eleanor. I knew that the food probably wasn’t what should be on my mind at that moment, but as a single man who had never mastered the culinary art of anything beyond a microwave or delivery menu, it was a major sticking point with me. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Eleanor was constantly shifting positions and trying to pull the scrap of her dress down to cover herself more as she sat there. It was a bit of a contrast from the way that she had behaved when we were alone together in that hotel room, but I suppose it was a lesson in context. Gavin seemed to notice the same thing and leaned slightly toward her.

"That trunk over there has some clothes in it," he told her. "They’re all mine, but you might be able to find something that would work for you if you wanted to change. There might even be a bar of soap in the kit that you can use. There's a little pool with a waterfall up near the ridge that would make a good bathtub."

Eleanor’s face lit up.

"Thank you," she said and she ran toward the trunk like it was Christmas morning.

She rummaged through and pulled out a light blue button-up shirt. Carrying that, a bar of soap, and what looked like a small hand towel, I watched her make her way up the ridge. Though we had already explored that area together some when we were gathering the fruit that was piled, untouched, in the sand beside the firepit, I still didn't feel comfortable with her being completely on her own. I waited for a few moments and then followed her. When I reached the top of the ridge I listened for the sound of water, following it toward an edge that looked down over a crystalline pool constantly refreshed by a picturesque waterfall. Eleanor had her back to me in the water and was rubbing the bar of soap between her hands. She reached to rest the soap to the rocks on the edge of the water, and the movement angled her body enough that I was able to see the swell of her breast. Her head tilted back as she began smoothing her hands along her skin with the soft while bubbles that had formed on her hands.

I could feel my body reacting to the sight. I knew that I should turn away, but Eleanor turned slightly and I watched her hands glaze over her breasts and then up her slender neck and into her hair. It was intoxicating and I couldn't take my eyes off of her. I stood in place until I saw her move toward the edge of the pool and climb out, reaching down for the towel to dry herself. I rushed back down to the beach, grabbed one of the blankets that we had found in the cabin and carried it off to a different section of the beach so that I could create my own camp. I needed to keep my mind clear if I was going to keep us alive and find a way off of this island.

Chapter Eight

Eleanor

The men were already awake when I woke the next morning. I felt like I had been sleeping for days. It was as if my body had fought to stay asleep so that I didn’t have to completely come to terms with what was going on. Though after the turmoil of my escape and the storm, I had craved the controlled protection of a manmade shelter, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to brave the water again to get to the crashed boat. I knew that I was going to have to get to that place at some point if we were going to spend more than a couple of days on this island, but right then I just couldn’t stand the thought of feeling the sand disappear beneath my feet again. Instead, I dug out a shallow trench in the sand, lined it with a blanket, and tucked myself in to sleep, my only reassurance the gorgeous weather and cool, salty breeze that helped to ease the fear of being so exposed.

Tilting my head back, I glanced up at the shimmering blue sky above me. Deep in the recesses of my mind I could remember the summer days that I had spent with my father and brothers in the woods. In those days, it had seemed like I was barely ever inside. Those were far simpler times. Though my family had never been lacking money, during my childhood, I hadn’t been really aware of our wealth. I knew that their main home was extremely large and had a staff to help us, and that we had several other homes in different spots that we liked to visit for vacation, but it had never really occurred to me that that was any different than other people. My parents weren’t like the stiff, stilted rich people we encountered in town or at the parties that my parents would throw. I couldn’t stand the guests at those parties. I never understood why my parents would invite people like them to our house. They were cold, pretentious, and boring, a total contrast to both my mother and my father. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized they had invited them because they were our social circle. In fact, we were the wealthiest of them, our fortune built on the backs of businesses that many of those guests ran, but didn’t own.

I figured out later that much of the unpleasantness of those people was likely inspired by envy that they were never able to achieve the level of success that my family had, and I was always grateful that my family hadn’t let our money change us. If it had, I wouldn’t have been able to find my refuge in the outdoor leisure and camping trips that we frequently took. I far preferred nature to buildings and animals to people, and though I had strayed far from those adventurous trips as I got older, what I had learned remained tightly held in my mind as a lingering reminder of who I had been.

Given the position of the sun in the sky, it was clear that I had slept through the morning. It seemed to be about noon and I could only assume that the men had been awake for several hours. They had managed to move around me asleep on the beach without waking me, which was somewhat disturbing. I would have liked to think that I had a more developed system of self-preservation than to be able to sink so deeply into sleep that I wouldn’t be woken even by men going through the motions of trying to create livable surroundings for us. Apparently, however, I needed the sleep so much that my mind and my body had completely shut down, unwilling to sacrifice even a minute of rest to be aware of what was happening around me.

I stretched and turned to watch the men on the boat, occasionally exchanging a few words that were too low for me to hear over the breaking of the waves on the shore.

"Good morning," I finally called out.

Both men turned to look at me and Hunter waved.

"Come over here," he called to her. "We have some things we want to show you."

I walked across the sandbar and stared at the water. In the light of morning it didn’t seem as intimidating. I could see to the bottom. No sea monsters. But I still wasn’t willing to just wander into it. A thought popped into my mind and I went to work. A few moments later I knelt on a large trunk and used a long, thick branch from one of the trees to push myself toward the beach, feeling proud of myself for coming up with it. It was something that my father would have thought of immediately, and I hoped that somehow, he was able to see me and that he was proud. When I got to the side of the boat, Hunter climbed partway down the ladder to meet me. He secured the trunk and branch to the ladder with a rope so that we could use it to go the other direction and reached down a hand for me.

"Come with me," Hunter said.

I climbed up the ladder onto the boat and walked with Hunter over to where Gavin was standing. He pointed at the beach.

"We put that together this morning," he told me.

In the sand across the water in front of me was a large collection of seashells arranged to spell out "HELP" against the backdrop of the beach. The creation was fairly impressive, but I worried about it being seen by people who might be passing by the island in the air.

"Do you think it's big enough for a plane or helicopter to see?" I asked.

"Between that and our fire, we’re about as visible as we can get given the materials that we have," Hunter told me.

The men gathered a few more supplies from the boat, including planks of wood that they had broken off of the deck, and we cross the water to gather by the fire. Despite the muggy heat of the island, this was becoming our central location, as if it were the kitchen of the giant new home that was this island. Somehow, though, I doubted that I was going to find the cappuccino machine and panini maker here that I would have found in my own kitchen, and I didn’t think that a white-coated chef was going to climb down from one of the banana trees to whip up a nice island bird-egg quiche for me for brunch. I might have once loved camping, but it had been many decades since I had roughed it, and I was now very much accustomed to the comforts my life had afforded me. It wasn’t something that I loved to admit to myself, and it had precisely been what I asked Noah not to tell anybody, but right about then as I started to feel the coffee deprivation settle in, I was realizing that I might be in far over my head. I was right with what I told Hunter. I didn’t have any of the Cub Scout badges.

"What do we do now?" I asked when we had gotten back and were sitting around the fire waiting for our breakfast to cook. "Just wait?"

“Wait for what?” Hunter asked.

“Rescue? To be absorbed by a tribe from another island? For another storm to come and wipe us out?”

"We really should do some more exploring around the island to find out as much about it as we can," Gavin said, choosing to ignore me.

"And then we need to start thinking about a shelter,” Hunter added.

The word made my chest constrict painfully.

"A shelter?" I asked, slightly louder than I had intended. "We only need a shelter if we’re planning on being here for a while, and I, for one, am not."

“Do you have some kind of recovery team on the way that we should know about?” Gavin asked. “Because if you do, I’m going to forego trying to make a meal out of these fish and wait for something a little more substantial.”

"The chances of us getting off of this island in the next 24 hours are slim to none," Hunter said a bit more gently than Gavin’s harsh tone. "Which means that we need somewhere to sleep."

"I’ll sleep in the cabin," I said.

Now that I had rigged my own transportation across the water I didn’t mind the thought of curling up on the berth again to get some sleep without the sand.

"That's fine for tonight," Gavin said, "but what if no one finds us for a few days and another storm hits? That boat is already in such bad condition that another wave could completely splinter it and there would be nothing to protect you from being drawn out to sea with the wreckage."

The words sent a chill down my spine. The only thing that sounded more terrifying to me than just being pulled down into the water while I was trying to swim was becoming part of sea monster snack mix.

"After lunch, we’ll look around some and see if we can find anything that would be helpful in building a shelter," Hunter suggested. "Eleanor, do you want us to go together?"

I straightened my spine and lifted my chin slightly, trying to look as dignified and in-control as I could with my two-day old makeup caked in streams down my face and my hair sticking out from my head at odd angles.

"No," I said with all of the confidence that I could muster. "I can do it on my own."

I stalked off toward the jungle, fighting the tears that stung in my eyes and immediately regretting my decision to shun Hunter’s help with literally no intention other than to try to sound like I wasn’t terrified when the truth was that despite telling myself that I was going to be strong, I felt more scared and vulnerable than I did even when we first arrived on the island. All of the pain and fear that Virgil had caused me over the years was building up in me again, bubbling up from the place where I had stored it with the hope of never having to deal with it ever again. In the years that I had devoted to him, Virgil had methodically chipped away at my strength, my confidence, even my belief in my own ability to make decisions and handle what came my way. I had never been like that. He had taken the person my father had raised me to be and destroyed her, dissolving that woman through years of mistreatment.

I had lost count of the times that I cried in private, sequestered away in one of the many anonymous rooms in the gigantic house that we had shared and that had always seemed ridiculous. There was no need for us to have that big of a house. It wasn’t like we had any children to indulge with all of the space, and when I did have the opportunity to have Noah over when he was young, Virgil had ensured that the time we spent together was limited to only three of the rooms. I knew that it was for show. He loved impressing people he thought were important and who fueled his hunger for money and power. I hated what it represented, but all too soon I felt like I didn’t have any way out. There was nothing that I could do to stop him.

When I had finally gotten the courage to walk away from him, I had promised myself that I would never feel that way again. After months of preparation and convincing myself that I was not only capable of being without him and defying his commands, but that all of the risk that I would face was worth it, I had taken the evidence that I had gathered against him and used it as leverage to escape. Signing the divorce papers had been like signing the declaration of my freedom. I took only the bare essentials when I left, knowing that anything that I owned was readily replaceable and not important enough to lay my life on the line for, because as I dragged what few necessary and sentimental belongings out of the house after Virgil left in a rage I knew that if he had shown back up and witnessed my leaving, I likely wouldn’t survive. Despite that, I left that house feeling like I had finally reclaimed my life for good.

Now, though, I was forced to feel that old familiar fear and helplessness again. In my marriage, I had been at Virgil’s mercy. Now I was at the mercy of the island and the men with whom I was forced to share it. I hated feeling like I didn't know what was happening or what I was supposed to do next, but what I hated even more was that both of these men seemed to have assumed that I was helpless. Suddenly, I felt like the sense of freedom and power I had gotten when I finalized the divorce was all an illusion. I thought that I was getting away from the looks of pity and the disdain that I had been so accustomed to getting, and the ever-present feeling of oppression that came from being told daily that I wasn’t capable of doing anything. At least when I had been married to Virgil I had usually been able to anticipate the challenges and even how he was going to react to me. Most of the time I knew what was going to infuriate him, how he was going to be able to twist and manipulate the situation into somehow being my fault, and then whether I should expect him to be angry, aggressive, or even violent. While this didn't make it any more pleasant to contend with him, at least it made it a little easier for me to tap into my coping mechanisms to deal with whatever came my way. I had melted into the world around me, becoming the wallpaper in Virgil's life. Unobtrusive, elegant, and the perfect way to tie in the details of the rest of the room. That was what he expected me to be. He expected me to be quiet and appealing, seamlessly fitting in with whatever situation I was in and enhancing his position in the world without regard to my own thoughts or needs. In his mind, I had neither.

I had been prepared then. I hated every moment of it, but at least I knew those fears. Those were evils I was familiar with and I could combat in my own mind. Now I was in a world filled with fears and challenges that I couldn’t escape just by going inside myself and pretending that I was somewhere else or that it was all just a game, a test of how much I had learned about him and how much better I could do next time. This island was a new nightmare and I didn’t know what was around the next corner. The evidence that I had against Virgil hadn’t intimidated him for long and now I was forced to run from men hell-bent on ensuring that I never breathed a word of what I knew to any of the laundry list of people, both legitimate and not, who wanted to get their hands on Virgil. I was on an unsettled island with no means of communication or escape. We had only the food we could scavenge and the shelter we were yet to build, both of which were things that Hunter and Gavin apparently felt I was wholly unable to handle.

I was starting to feel that same cold wash of abandonment and loneliness that had settled into me over the months of my early marriage and on into the first years when part of me was still hoping that things would change, when I had watched the life I had known and the one I had always planned for myself slip away. Maybe I should have just ignored everything that I knew about Virgil; maybe I should have just done as he asked and burned the documents that I eventually used to release myself from his clutches. It was something that I had gone over many times in my mind. I had clung to those pieces of evidence as the magic key that got me out of my marriage, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that I wasn’t protecting myself with these documents and transcripts. Instead, I was putting myself into even more danger by holding onto them. I wanted to believe deep inside that holding onto them was out of spite. I wanted to know that I had that dirt on him and that somehow there was power in it, but if that was really the case, I would have handed them over to the authorities, or even to his rivals who would have been just as interested in them as the government.

Burning them would have taken that potential power away from me, but it also would have assuaged Virgil and bought me the actual freedom from him that I had thought about and dreamed of during those long, dark nights alone in the cavernous house. I should have just given up the thought that I would ever be able to use the information that I had on him to earn myself some sort of justice for everything that he had put me through. At least then I could have put it behind me, moving forward with a life that wouldn’t be riddled with constant threat lurking around every corner.

Chapter Nine

Hunter

We had found absolutely no evidence of other people on the island the first time that we had gone searching, or during any of the times that we had gone scavenging for food, so I didn't know why I thought that it would be any different when I ventured out on my own. Somehow in my mind, however, I had convinced myself that it would be different this time, as if heading out by myself would somehow magically make crates of food and clothing appear in the trees or people show up so that they could help us. As I pushed my way through the thick jungle, I just knew that any moment I was going to find an elusive resort tucked up close to the beach on the other side, or at least a small hut where an eccentric rich old man lived. The further I walked and the more of the same trees, rocks, and sky I saw, however, the less I really believed it and the more I knew that I was just repeating it in my mind so that I wouldn’t lose hope. That wasn’t going terribly well for me and I could feel the nervousness and panic starting to settle into my belly.

I wasn’t cut out for this. I wasn’t made for outdoor life, especially outdoor life that didn’t involve a comfort station and a group of people who actually knew what they were doing. I might have been able to carry armloads of fruit out of the jungle and had helped Gavin create the help sign out of shells and rocks, but I didn’t think that that really qualified me as a wilderness man. The truth was that I had never even been to an island before. I had never even been on a cruise until I climbed aboard the post-wedding celebration cruise that had brought me here. The lack of knowledge of the landscape, plants, and animals made me feel like I was at a distinct disadvantage. I was accustomed to at least having research to back me up in unfamiliar situations. I might not fully have the grasp of what was happening or what I was supposed to be doing, but I would have facts and figures in my mind that could at least give me a sense of stability and control.

It was that attention to detail and mastery of research and calculations that had landed me the job with Mr. Royal at the agency. Even though he had advertised for an assistant, the somewhat rambling description of the job position had revealed that he needed something much more than just a person who could take notes and run memos for him. That was more the domain of Cindy, his secretary. Instead, the brilliant but somewhat scattered older man was looking for someone who would be able to understand what he was saying even if he didn’t say all of the words that he needed to, decipher his thoughts and actions, and overall act as a sieve for what went from him out of his office and through to the rest of the agency. I looked over figures before they went to the accountant. I read through memos before I had them distributed. I screened mail that came in as well as went out. Most of the people throughout the agency didn’t have any idea of the scope of everything that I handled for Mr. Royal, and I was perfectly fine with that. All that mattered was that the things got done and the agency ran smoothly.

It was that thought that still made me feel guilty when I thought about everything that had happened with Mr. Royal and Lucille. Their brief marriage hadn’t been as shocking to me as it had been to many of the other people in the agency. It was just another of the impulsive flights of fancy that I had come to know in Mr. Royal, and one that I often thought that I should have been able to catch before it happened. I should have been able to distract his dirty old man mind enough to convince him that gorgeous young twenty-somethings don’t just fall head over heels in love with men old enough to be their grandfathers and covered with enough liver spots to be considered kin to a Dalmatian. Mr. Royal was one of the most endearing and likable people I had ever encountered, but he was never going to grace the front of People as the World’s Sexiest Geriatric. If I had been able to just keep him away from Lucille, we never would have been subjected to the misery of having the icy woman take over the agency while her new husband traveled the world. I still wasn’t sure that Snow had gotten over the doughnut debacle yet.

Thoughts of Snow and how she had reacted, not at all gracefully, to the sudden and non-forewarned disappearance of her beloved morning coffee and doughnuts in the office breakroom, filled my mind. If I had been able to detect that something might be happening and stop Mr. Royal from marrying Lucille on a whim and a hopeful Viagra prescription, I wouldn’t have had to convince Snow to take the several months’ worth of vacation that she had accumulated over her time working at Royal and Company so that she could get away from Lucille and avoid any more conflict. Of course, that would mean that she wouldn’t have met Noah until he had come to take over the company, and likely wouldn’t have pursued a relationship with him. While that might not have been the best course of events for her, it would mean that I wouldn’t be here fighting off Godzilla mosquitos and hoping that the bacon cheeseburger tree I drew when I was eight had sprung into existence and was just around the bend. I considered Snow a dear friend, but right then I wasn’t above choosing my own selfish needs over the possibility that she might not have gotten to marry Noah when she did.

If that had happened, though, I also would have never met Eleanor.

I was surprised by the thought that suddenly flickered through my mind. Why would I have thought that?

I turned around and was planning on following a widely curved path in the opposite direction back toward the beach when I heard the muffled sound of crying coming from somewhere ahead of me. I crept forward carefully and pushed aside the large frond of a palm ahead of me. As if the strange and unexpected thought of her had led me toward her, Eleanor was sitting on a moss-covered rock, her head in her hands as she sobbed. I quietly approached and crouched down in front of her, resting a hand on her back.

"Eleanor?" I said gently. "Are you alright?"

I always hated that question. Why did people ask that when they saw other people crying? It wasn’t like sitting there sobbing was a normal reaction to everything just going perfectly well in life. And yet, when people saw someone else crying, the first thing that always came to mind was “are you alright?”

I half expected her to string together some colorful and illustrative curses that ensured I knew exactly what she felt about me and the fact that this was largely, likely entirely, my fault, and that I sounded like a blithering idiot checking in on her when she was clearly not alright. Instead, Eleanor looked up at me and tried to brush the tears from her face.

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

"No," I said, settling down beside her. "Don't say you're sorry. You’re allowed to feel whatever you want to feel right now. I just want you know that I'm here if you want to talk about it."

"Those men who were on the boat," Eleanor started, but then hesitated as if she wasn’t completely sure that she wanted to keep going with that train of thought.

"Yes?" I said, trying to gently guide her forward.

I had been thinking about what she said about her ex-husband since she mentioned him on the cruise ship, and now she finally seemed as though she was willing to tell me what was really going on.

"They're never going to stop, are they?" she asked. "They are just going to keep coming after me until they finally get me, aren't they?"

Despite the hot, heavy air around us, Eleanor was visibly shaking and her arms were wrapped tightly around her body. I shook my head and slid closer to her so that I could meet her gaze again.

"They can come," I said, "but they won't get you." Eleanor started to look away and I reached out to tuck a finger under her chin and lift her face to look at me again. "They won't get you. I won't let them."

What had started as me just trying to comfort and reassure her had become a vow, a promise to her that I meant with everything in me. Eleanor didn't look away this time. I felt warmth building within me and tension filling the space between us. Led by the same compulsion that I had tried to ignore after the wedding, I reached up and ran my fingertips along the curve of her jaw, briefly allowing them to brush across her lips. I leaned forward toward her, longing to taste those soft, full lips again. For a moment Eleanor leaned toward me as well, but then she pulled back suddenly, looking away and pushing back so far on the rock that she nearly toppled off. The moment between us shattered and I felt embarrassment mixed with frustration wash over me. I couldn’t understand Eleanor’s sudden resistance. She had been ready, willing, and eager when we were at the hotel, and I had been the one to have second thoughts. Now she was pulling away from me, looking at me like she was horrified by my advances.

"You should probably go back down to the beach," I said, my voice gruff with humiliation and confusion as I climbed to my feet.

Without looking back at her, I continued through the trees and toward the soft rush of water that I heard in the distance. I wanted to rinse off and try to regain some feeling of normalcy even in surroundings that were anything but normal. Wandering through the jungle trying desperately to come up with a viable plan for what we were going to do was bad enough when I felt like I had some sort of connection with Eleanor, even if it was just the type of connection that we had to maintain because of everything that we had gone through together already. Now I felt like that tenuous link had not just dissolved, but had burst into flames and pushed us irreparably apart. I was not only embarrassed by the rejection and frustrated by the situation we had found ourselves in and my inability to figure out how to resolve it, but now I felt totally isolated and alone. I was walking those same damn high school hallways again, albeit with a few extra bugs this time, and I hated every instant of it. I started peeling off my shirt before reaching the edge of the outcropping, but I stopped before jumping off into the water when I saw Gavin already waist deep in the pool below.

Of course. I can’t even take a bath without something going wrong.

Yanking my shirt back down over my head, I stalked through the trees and back toward the beach. I didn’t want to be near either one of the others anymore. I was done with summer camp. I might not know what I was doing or how I was going to get out of this alive, but that didn’t mean that I needed to pretend that this was a bonding opportunity. I needed some time to myself and then I’d help them build a shelter, find supplies, and do what needed to be done, but that was all. Eleanor had made it expressly clear that she had just been toying with me and any guilt that I had felt walking away from her was gone now. Someone had to have noticed that we were missing and be looking for us, and once they came, we’d go about our lives and try not to think about this ever again.

Chapter Ten

Eleanor

Worst. Vacation. Ever.

I picked my way across the hot, coarse sand, knowing that I probably looked like a really pissed off flamingo, but not really caring anymore.

“What are you doing?” Gavin asked from where he was standing in the shallow water watching fish and taunting them with a spear. “You look like a pissed off flamingo.”

Exactly.

“If you haven’t noticed, you are walking around in your boots and I’m barefoot. If you’d like to try digging your feet down into the sand you, too, might discover the delightful little chunks that seem to have been turned into glass by the blazing hot SUN.”

I flailed and kicked at the sand as I screamed the final word, letting out some of my frustration, but still feeling plenty, all bottled up ready to explode whenever it found the right time.

“You’re just like all the others,” Gavin muttered.

I tilted my head at him and took a step closer.

“Excuse me?” I asked. I took another step. “Excuse me? What did you say?” He shook his head and I took a couple more steps, losing some of the impact of my anger as I stumbled through a dip. “No, no, no. That’s not how this works. You don’t get to mutter things at me under your breath and have me not ask you what you said. If you’re going to say something, you’re going to say it to me.”

“Why?” Gavin demanded, turning to stare at me. “Because you’re so entitled that you think that everyone should do exactly what you say, exactly when you say it?”

“Entitled?” I repeated, stunned.

Of course, it hadn’t been the first time that I had had someone say that about me, but it was the way Gavin said it, spitting it at me like it was the worst possible thing that he could think of to say.

“Yes,” he said, facing me now. “What I said was that you are just like all the others, and that is exactly what I meant. All of you rich bitches are exactly the same. You think that everyone either worships you or fears you because your money, and that the more ancestors you have who had money, the more important you think you are. Anyone else is just put here to do your bidding.”

“That’s not true,” I said, tears stinging in my eyes as I looked around, desperately searching for Hunter. “That’s not who I am.”

“Of course, it is,” Gavin said. “You don’t think that I can see the money dripping off of you? You don’t think that I can hear it in every word that you say to both me and Hunter? You might have gotten him all starry-eyed so he doesn’t realize what he’s dealing with, but you’re not fooling me. Whoever you are, you’ve got serious money behind you, and whoever you are pretending to be, there’s a reason. I’ve been working my ass off trying to figure out what we’re going to do here, and all you can do is bitch. It could be a hell of a lot worse. Why don’t you just appreciate your surroundings a little bit.”

“Appreciate them?” I asked, still trying to process the nastiness that he was spewing at me. “I’m not sure what it is that you’re experiencing, but apparently it has stopped you from noticing that we are not in a revival of the Blue-Fucking-Lagoon.”

“That’s a great movie.”

The voice behind me made me jump and I turned around to see Hunter standing on the top of a rock that jutted out into the ocean. A wave crashed at the base of the rock, sending a spray of white foam up to his feet and I felt my knees go a little weak.

“What?” I asked, his words not fully going through my mind.

“Blue Lagoon,” he said. “It’s a great movie. I used to watch it all the time when I was little.”

Oh, dear lord. How old was he?

“A little racy for an evening family movie, don’t you think?” I finally asked.

Oh, shit. How old was I?

Hunter shrugged as he started down the rock toward the beach.

“I don’t honestly remember anybody watching it with me. We had a VHS of it that had been recorded off of the TV and it was one of about three that I could reach where they were kept, so I just kind of watched them in rotation.”

“He probably didn’t even realize that it was racy,” Gavin said and I looked over to see that he was back to stabbing at the water to catch more fish to toss up onto the sand. I hated to see them flopping around the way that they did, but I hated being hungry more, so I was going to deal with it. “Maybe he thought that one of those birds that they show was the stork and that’s how they got the baby.”

“You seem to be going pretty deep into that movie to make fun of someone for watching it,” I snapped.

Hunter was walking toward me and I hoped that he hadn’t been standing on the rock long enough to hear what Gavin had been saying. I had already spilled enough about Virgil when we were in the jungle. I couldn’t let him find out more.

I was thinking about that as he came up, his eyes seeming to purposely avoid me. My heart clenched and I felt a flicker of blended, uncomfortable emotion wash over me. I wish that I understood why I had pulled away from him in the jungle. He had been right there, looking at me with the expression in his eyes that I had been hoping to see the night of the wedding. As soon as that thought went through my mind, I realized that that wasn’t the case, and that that had been exactly why I had pulled away. The night of the wedding all that mattered to me was that Hunter was young, gorgeous, and sexy. He seemed like the perfect man to take care of the stress that I had been feeling and get me on to my new life. He was going to be my sampler, my training wheels, and I just wanted to see the same attraction and desire in his eyes that I was feeling. When we were sitting together in the jungle, however, I saw something much more. There was emotion in his eyes that I didn’t know if I was ready to face. I didn’t even know if I was able to feel that way again. He didn’t know me, and I was doing everything that I could to make sure that he never did. The last thing I needed was to not only admit the deeper attraction that was pricking at the back of my mind, but to see the same in him and have to admit that I had done something wrong.

“Do you think that we could wrap up the theater review and someone could actually help me with this shelter?” Gavin asked.

He had climbed up out of the water and tossed his spear onto the sand. He would come back for the fish after they had stopped twitching, which was exactly how I preferred them. After this she would never be able to look at a sushi bar the same way.

“I still think that it’s ridiculous that you’re going to all this trouble to build a shelter,” I said. “We’re not going to be here long. They’ll have noticed that Hunter and I are missing from the ship and come looking for us.”

“And miraculously find us on an island that has nothing on it and is who knows how far away from the ship’s route?”

“He’s right,” Hunter said.

“What?” I asked, swinging my head to look at him.

“He’s right,” Hunter replied. “I thought that it was going to be better if I went off on my own, but I’ve been thinking more about it, and I don’t think that it would be a good idea for us to fracture. As much as none of us really relish the idea, we need to rely on each other right now. The reality is that we really don’t know how long we’re going to be here. Of course, we would hope that the people on the ship would have noticed by now that we aren’t there anymore, but that doesn’t mean that they would know how to come find us. And to be completely honest, they might not have noticed. I assure you that those men who were chasing us didn’t go to the head of security and tell him what happened. The people with the wedding on the cruise might notice that we weren’t at the activities, but it’s entirely possible that they would just think that we decided to have more relaxing vacations and were just not going. It could be quite a while before they’re able to retrace their steps, figure out when we went overboard, and then find us.”

“So, we’re just screwed is what you’re trying to tell me?” I asked.

“No,” Hunter said, his tone telling me that he was trying to keep me calm. I wondered if he had seen the flail. “What I’m telling you is that all of us hope that we’re going to get off this island soon, but we can’t let that hope keep us from doing what we need to do in order to stay safe until that time comes. If there’s going to be more bad weather, the last thing that we need is to be just out in the open. We might not be able to build a resort, but we can put together something that will at least protect us a little bit.”

I stayed silent as I stared at him. I knew that there was really nothing that I was going to be able to say that would make any impact at all. It seemed I was the only one who had any intention of believing that we were going to be off the island before they even had a chance to build a shelter, and they were refusing to make any concessions for the optimism that I was quickly starting to believe was delusion. I started away from him, not really knowing where I was going to go, but not wanting to be on the beach with the men any longer. When I reached the edge of the trees, I turned and looked back over my shoulder at them. They were standing in the sand seemingly locked in an intense conversation, and then they broke apart, Hunter stalking toward the trees and Gavin heading for the boxes of supplies that were stacked high enough on the sand that they wouldn’t be caught up by the waves when the high tide rolled in. I was afraid that Hunter was going to disappear again, but instead he reached out and grabbed onto one of the nearby trees.

“These are what you should be using,” he said forcefully.

Gavin scoffed.

“Are you kidding me?” he said. “Do you see how that thing is bending? And under even your strength. That would never be able to support a shelter. We need something far stronger and more stable.”

“It’s bending, which means that it can be curved,” Hunter said, his voice tense as if he were trying to force himself past Gavin’s crack. He bent the tree to demonstrate what he meant. “And what is the strongest structure in the world?”

“The United States military. USA! USA!”

“Charming. No, the geodesic dome.”

There was silence and I knew that Gavin was just as in the dark about that one as I was. I knew that I had heard the term before, but it wasn’t one of those bits of information that I kept filed under “ready to use facts” in my mind. Hunter stared at Gavin and I could almost hear his brain starting to fizz with frustration.

“Geodesic dome,” Hunter repeated. He gave a deep sigh and closed his eyes. “The big spiky ball at EPCOT.”

“Oh, yeah,” Gavin said. “I remember reading about that.”

“Great. Then you know that it is the strongest structure that can be built. Far stronger than any other shape. If we build the shelter as a dome rather than as a square, it has much more of a chance of withstanding a storm or other influences.”

“Other influences?” Gavin asked, putting a voice to the worry that had just flashed through my mind.

“Well, we haven’t encountered any of the wildlife here other than fish, but I would venture to say that with an island this large and with this variety of flora, there are going to be animals. Just because we haven’t seen them yet doesn’t mean we won’t. In fact, chances are the animals that do inhabit the island have been watching us and trying to understand our patterns, and when they are more comfortable, they will make themselves known.”

Fabulous. Something else to be afraid of on this shore excursion of the damned. Somehow, I doubt that he’s talking about the squirrels and deer from my old camping trips.

“I don’t care what shape you think it should be. We just need to start building. Start cutting whatever trees you want.”

I leaned against the nearest tree and watched as Hunter stomped over to the supplies and grabbed at one of the boxes. His hand hit a box next to it, sending it toppling to the ground where the lid popped open. Several items fell out, including a large stash of condoms that spread across the sand, their multicolored foil packets glinting in the sun. Everything went silent, at least in my mind, as I stared at the condoms. I swallowed hard, my mind immediately running wild with thoughts of how I could put those to use.

Hunter cleared his throat, seemingly thrown off by the appearance of the condoms out in the open on the sand. I looked up at Gavin and saw him roll his eyes. He stalked over to the box and scooped everything back into it, bringing along with the stack of foil packets a liberal amount of the beach.

“They’re condoms, Hunter,” he said mockingly. “Don’t you know what those are?”

“You just carry a supply box full of condoms around with you on your boat?” I asked.

He looked at me and I saw an angry look in his eyes.

“I use my boat for more than work. Sometimes I have some company with me and I don’t know their names much less where they’ve been, so I’m not going to risk anything, if you know what I mean.” The words made my skin crawl and it worsened when he looked at Hunter with a vicious sneer. “Don’t worry, Hunter. Go grab a banana and I’ll teach you how to use them.” He looked him up and down. “You might want to go ahead and cut it in half for accuracy.”

I braced myself for Hunter to lash out at Gavin, but he didn’t. Instead, he calmly picked up a knife, turned around, and walked deeper into the jungle toward more of the bendy trees that he had chosen. For a few moments, he cut at them aggressively, tossing the stalks that he chopped down to the side to create pile. As the pile grew, sweat started to bead on his forehead and his shirt seemed to stick to him. He set his knife on the ground and peeled off his shirt. I had to withhold a gasp when it revealed a smooth, chiseled chest, rippling stomach, and tight waist.

So that’s what was hiding behind that suit.

Hunter went back to his work and I watched as his muscles tensed, contracting and releasing with the movement of his cutting. He paused for a second to comb his fingers back through his hair and I felt my body respond with a rush of arousal. He was nothing short of delicious and the fact that he seemed to be the complete opposite of Gavin in how he thought of women made him even more attractive. I had to drag myself away from staring at him so that he didn’t catch me, and headed further into the jungle. I suddenly felt the need for a bath.

The water rushing over the rocks and down into the small, blue pool at the bottom deadened any other sound of the island and sent up a cool spray that was refreshing as it touched my skin. I quickly slipped out of my clothes and stepped down into the pool. My skin was hot from the sun and had been sent to searing by the sight of Hunter without his shirt, and the water sliding up over it brought cooling, relaxing relief. I dipped my head back into the water, rubbing my scalp with my fingers to loosen the sweat and dirt that I felt had collected there. The feeling of my own touch was suggestion enough to my mind for the arousal that I was already feeling to spiral upwards.

I encouraged it, slowly running my hands along my body to clean my skin and increase the feeling of need that was growing between my thighs. Finally, I made my way across the pool to where the waterfall tumbled in. The floor of the pool rose up at this point, leaving piles of rocks that rose up out of the water on either side. I sat on one of the lower rocks so that the level of water was up to my breasts and leaned back against the rock behind me. The water running down into the pool agitated the surface, causing it to bubble and dance across my skin. I closed my eyes and sighed, letting my hand run across my breasts in time with the bubbling. As I touched, my legs opened slowly, as if naturally drawn apart by the promise of the touch of the water. I slid down slightly further on the rock so that I could tilt my hips, opening myself to the rush of the water, and immediately felt a surge of pleasure flow through me.

Biting down on my lip to contain the moan I felt forming in my throat, I arched slightly into the flowing water. The sensation intensified and I cupped my breast, squeezing it and letting my fingertip and thumb pluck my nipple. The combination rocketed between my thighs and I felt my clit become more sensitive as it emerged, seeking more of the stimulation. Images of Hunter filled my mind and played against my closed eyes. I thought of his incredible body, the hidden sexiness that I would have never expected to discover. Even when I had him in the hotel room with me, his body stretched out across mine, I hadn’t known that that was what was waiting for me just on the other side of his shy, nerdy exterior. His reaction to the condoms brought the thought to my mind that while he might not be as inexperienced as Gavin taunted him about, it might not have been too far off.

Somehow that idea was unbearably sexy. I imagined what it would be like to get through that outer shell and show him everything I knew that that body was capable of doing. I imagined undressing him, finding more of the muscles and smooth, velvety skin. If it was anything like the rest of his body, I knew that the cock waiting for me would be long, thick, and incredibly hard. My mouth watered as I thought of wrapping my hand around his shaft and feeling the skin move over the tight muscle beneath. I imagined running the soft head across my lips and tasting his fluids, then taking him in to suck him nearly to the brink of his control.

The feeling of the water was becoming deliciously intense as my mind wandered to Hunter touching me. I imagined that it was his hand cupping at my breast and kneading into the flesh, his mouth coming down to suck the other nipple. My hand slid down my body as I thought of his mouth trailing along my skin and settling between my thighs so that he could taste me the way that I had tasted him. My fingers pressed past my entrance as I imagined that hard cock sinking deep within me. I could feel how hot and wet my walls were, reflecting how much I wanted him. I lifted my hips higher into the swirl of the water as I pumped my fingers inside of me, mimicking the thrusts that I so craved.

It took only seconds to feel the pressure building through my body and the dizzying heat rush across my face and chest. Suddenly I felt my climax crash around me and I forced my fingers as far inside of my body as I could, pressing against the furthest wall as I cried out in response to the powerful contractions that flowed in waves across me. I rode the feeling, giving myself over to it and the thought of Hunter crying out as he came within me, until it slowed and then gently withdrew my fingers and slipped off of the rock to rinse and cool off again beneath the stream of the waterfall.

****

Hunter

The sound of Eleanor whimpering and gasping as her hand moved beneath the water was too much for me to handle and I pumped my hand harder. My cock was like a rock in my palm, swollen until it felt like it was going to burst. This was the last thing that I expected to find when I went into the jungle for a break to wash the sweat away from my face. I had intended to just rinse off and go back to work on the shelter, but when I came over the slight hill and saw Eleanor down in the water, her face expressing pure ecstasy, all thoughts of anything else that I might be doing completely left my mind.

She was incredibly gorgeous, even sexier now with her hair wild and wet, her skin lightly touched by the sun, than she had been all dolled up on the cruise ship. The movements of her body caused her breasts to surge upward, occasionally breaking the surface of the water so that I could see them fully, her hand grasping one as the other remained between her thighs. She arched slightly and I saw her fingers inside of her body, and there was nothing that I could do to control myself. My erection was already nearly painful it was so hard and I had to have relief.

I watched Eleanor enjoying herself in the water and let my hand stroke my cock at the fast, intense speed that I would have used if it was plunged deep inside her. Her sounds told me that she was getting closer and closer to her climax, and the more those sweet little sounds filled the air, the more intense the feelings of my own pleasure became until I felt that I was only seconds away from orgasm. I held off until she screamed out and then let myself go, feeling the hard throb of my own blinding climax and then the heat as I spilled out onto the ground. My hand slowed, stroking gently as my cock twitched and pulsed in my palm. I gasped for breath, not wanting to make any sound. I didn’t want her to know that I was there, and yet all I wanted to do was get down in the water with her.

Even if I was, though, I wondered if I would ever be able to cause those sounds to flow out of her and create the powerful feelings that she had just given herself, and that thought alone was enough to pull me away from her and head for the narrow creek trickling through the trees so I could rinse off and go back to the shelter.

Chapter Eleven

Gavin

It was our fourth day on the island and our shelter was coming along better than I had hoped it would, which, to be honest, wasn’t really saying much. I hadn’t thought that either of these people were going to be terribly effective at gathering the materials that were available on the island and converting them into any type of structure that was going to actually provide us with any protection. Eleanor had pretty much fallen right into step with what I anticipated, roaming around the island and doing nothing to help us with any of the preparations we were trying to make. In the time that we had been working, however, Hunter had surprised me. The man seemed distinctly more withdrawn than he had since they climbed onto my boat, but he was willingly going along with the project, working harder and with greater strength than I ever would have expected him to have. Though I was grateful for the benefit that the harder work offered the shelter construction, it didn’t escape me that this could make my job all the more difficult when it finally came time to finish it.

I turned my attention back to the shelter and surveyed what we had accomplished. We already had the basic shape of three rooms framed out with the stiff, sturdy stalks from palm trees and bamboo and were now concentrating on adding a roof that could protect us from the storm that seemed to be hovering just on the edge of happening, grumbling on the horizon like a really pissed off woman. As soon as I had noticed the clouds rolling in, I pushed the construction work into high gear, not wanting to get caught in another storm without anything to protect us. I knew that once we started seeing the wisps of black and red along the sky, heavy rain was soon to follow, and just as I had told Eleanor, when severe weather struck, we weren’t going to be able to rely on the boat to provide us with any form of shelter. Its structural integrity wasn’t enough for us to trust it, which meant that it was just us and the island.

I took the knife from between my teeth and started sawing through the thick stalk of bamboo in front of me, trying to decrease its integrity enough that he could snap it. The fibrous plant was giving its survival the old college try, but I wasn’t going to let it defeat me. I had already taken down a few dozen of its brothers, and I was going to get this one, too.

Oh, dear lord, I was starting to snap. I had inhabited the island with anthropomorphized bamboo. I don’t care how much money this job was worth, if the plants started talking back to me, I was leaving Eleanor behind and swimming to the next closest island.

"What are you doing?" Eleanor asked as she walked up behind me.

I turned around and noticed that she was wearing another of my shirts and a pair of running shorts rolled several times at the waist to keep them up. She was going through what little wardrobe I had on the boat with me fast and we hadn’t yet come up with a feasible solution for washing clothing unless we were going to get primal with it and start pounding my polyester blends and well-worn cotton on the rocks at the edge of the tidal pool.

"I'm cutting poles for the shelter,” I told her, not even trying to disguise the disdain I felt for her.

"What shelter?" she asked, her voice annoyingly high and innocent as if she had just wandered out of a five-star resort and really did have no idea what I was talking about.

I let out an exasperated sigh and started cutting through the pole again.

"We already had this discussion. A few times. We have to build a shelter if we’re going to get through our time on this island, however long that might be. That storm is going to be nasty and it’s going to get here soon.”

"I know what you’ve said,” Eleanor said, some of the sweetness gone, “I’m not as stupid as you would like to think that I am. But we haven't even planned anything. We haven't talked about where this shelter is going to be, much less how we should build it."

I was officially at a loss. Where in the living hell was this woman’s mind that she hadn’t noticed the work that Hunter and I had done already? She had spent the last two nights sleeping in the cabin of the boat, despite my greatest efforts at warning her not to because we didn’t know when the storm would hit, but that meant that she crossed onto the beach directly across from the shelter every morning. How could she not have noticed it?

"There doesn't need to be a 'we'," I said, finally snapping the stalk and tossing it aside. "Hunter and I can do it ourselves."

"Why should I listen to you?"

"What?" I asked.

"You're just going to take over everything and we're expected to just go along with it?"

"I was the only one who was doing anything until Hunter joined me, and I seem to be the only one who has any idea what we should do, so if you want to get through this, your only choice is to listen to me."

"That is not my only choice," Eleanor said, his voice raising higher. "I am more than capable of handling things myself.”

She sounded nothing short of indignant, but I could hear the tremble of emotion in her voice. I knew that there was much more to that statement than it held at face-value and my mind immediately flickered to my assignment. Who was this woman and what made her so damn important that I would be hired to come after her?

"Oh, so you've been marooned before? I'm sorry if I don't immediately have the utmost trust in Auntie Mame. I have extensive survivalist training and have spent weeks in the wild on my own."

“You have no idea what I’ve had to survive,” she growled at me. “They don’t make convenient little tools for what I went through.”

I could feel the anger coursing through me, tingling in my fingers and roaring in my ears. This bitch was becoming more trouble than I might be willing to deal with.

“Somehow I doubt that your privileged lily-white world has given you any of the experiences that I’ve had or offered you any of the skills that you’re going to need to get through this. It just so happens that I do have some of those skills, so you have the choice of either actually letting go of your desperate desire to control everyone around you and helping, or you can move your ass out of my way and be on your own. At this point you could tumble down one of the cliffs for all I care.”

Eleanor glared at me with fire in her eyes for a few long seconds before she spoke again.

“It’s going to start raining soon. Why don’t you put your dick away so you can actually get something done around here?"

I was stunned by her words. I wouldn't have expected that from her. Of course, I didn’t know her beyond the simple dossier that I was given when I was hired, but that had been enough to form my image of her. I knew what these wealthy women, women who had never known anything but power and privilege and walking on the backs of people who they saw as beneath them, were really like. It was this perception that made me capable of doing the things that I did. It was difficult for me to truly feel remorse when I felt like the people I was sent after had created this situation for themselves and likely deserved whatever was waiting for them. I didn’t know who Eleanor was or what she had done to cause so much anger toward her, but I wasn’t in the business of judgment. I didn’t have the luxury of assuming that there was good in everyone. In fact, it served me well to believe that people generally got what they had coming to them, and that in the greater scheme of life, the wealthier and more powerful the person, the more room they had in their lives to deserve what I facilitated. I had gone into this job with a picture of a polished, attractive middle-aged woman and the assumption that she was just like every other rich person I had ever encountered. Now that I was seeing her with the gloss of privilege washed away, however, I was seeing strength and edge that took me aback.

Just then, Hunter walked up, looking between us as if he could feel the tension that was still lingering there. Silently calling a truce so that we could do exactly what Eleanor had suggested and actually get something done, Eleanor and I followed him down to the beach where we sat down in the sand to plan out the rest of our shelter. Hunter and I showed her what we had already accomplished and we worked together to plan out the rest of what we would add to it. I had to stop myself from laughing when Eleanor asked in all seriousness if we were going to find a way to create a bathroom in our shelter.

An hour later, I was back to cutting the bamboo stalks, piling them carefully beside me so that Hunter and Eleanor could carry them over to the skeleton of our shelter. We had broken down the nets from the boat so that we could use the ropes to lash together the stalks, and though only a small portion of the shelter was finished, it finally seemed as though they were finally working with some semblance of cooperation.

"Ow! Motherfucker!"

Hunter's voice broke through the concentrated rhythm that I had fallen into over the last several hours of work and I nearly dropped my knife. I turned and rushed toward the direction of the shouts.

"What's going on?" Eleanor asked, running to catch up with me from the site of the shelter where we had been working.

"I don't know," I answered.

I could still hear Hunter muttering and groaning, and grisly thoughts crept into my mind. There were many dangers in the jungle, and I was afraid that we had been pushing ourselves too hard to get the shelter finished, putting us at risk. Finally, we found Hunter leaned against the wall just inside the mouth of a small cave. He was gripping his leg and I could see the faintest tinge of worry creeping over Hunter’s features.

"What is it?" I asked, crouching down beside him.

"Snake," Hunter said through gritted teeth. "I found another little creek a few yards away and was getting some water. Apparently, he didn't appreciate the company."

He groaned again and closed his eyes, arching slightly as if the pain was intensifying with each moment. I reached out and rested my hand on Hunter's to pull it away from the wound. Hunter relinquished his grip on the bite and I looked down at his leg. Narrow rivulets of blood trickled from the deep punctures and the wound was already beginning to swell. All of the conflict that had occurred among the three of us went to the back of my mind and I felt myself going into action.

"Are you going to suck out the venom?" Eleanor asked.

I have expected her to get the vapors. I gave a short, mirthless laugh and shook my head.

"You've been watching too many cowboy movies," I said. "Snake venom moves through the body so quickly it is next to impossible to actually suck it out of a bite. Doing that could actually introduce bacteria into the punctures that would make Hunter more vulnerable to infection."

While I was talking to Eleanor, I hadn't realized that Hunter's eyes had closed again and he was starting to shake. The shivering ramped up in intensity enough that I could feel it, and when I turned my attention back to Hunter, I could see that his face was soaked with sweat. Waves of concern washed over me and I silently cursed myself for not knowing where we were. At least if I had some idea of where the island was located geographically, I would have a better idea as to what species the snake might have been, and how dire the situation truly was. I turned to Eleanor, trying to keep my voice as calm as I could so that the situation didn't become any scarier.

"Eleanor, I need you to go back down to the beach and bring up blankets, clothes, and as many kitchen supplies as you can. Please bring the black case that is in my clothes trunk, too."

Eleanor nodded and started away from us. I patted Hunter’s leg.

"It's going to be alright," I said.

The words seemed to comfort Hunter. His shaking had abated slightly and even though his eyes were still closed, it seemed that he was feeling less afraid. A few minutes later, Eleanor made it back to the cave carrying as much as she could. She laid everything out on the ground and started back toward the shelter to gather what she hadn't been able to bring with her on the first trip.

I took a flask that we had salvaged from the boat's galley and splashed some of the rum onto the snakebite, hoping that it would kill as many germs as possible. I dressed the wound and then created a pallet on the floor of the cave. Before resting him onto the blankets, I held the flask to Hunter's lips. He took a few sips and then lowered himself down, resting his head on the clothes that I had fashioned into a pillow. I busied myself with moving the rest of the supplies into the cave and setting them up as best I could, knowing that Hunter would have to stay put for at least the next twenty-four hours. He wasn’t going to be able to get back to the beach or help with the shelter until he recovered from the bite, and from what I was seeing, there was a lingering worry in my mind that he might not get through it at all.

Chapter Twelve

Eleanor

"You're awake."

Hunter had been sleeping for nearly two days and seeing his eyes open when I stepped into the cave filled me with an incredible sense of relief. I dropped the fruit I was carrying into the basket I had woven from dried leaves and rushed to Hunter’s side, crouching down beside him and looking into his face.

Hunter gave me a weak smile from his pallet.

"I think I am," he said. He tried to sit up and groaned, lowering himself back down. "I'm not sure that I want to be, though."

I laughed and reached over reflexively to take his hand. I had meant the gesture as a sign of celebration and support, but something passed between us when our palms touched, and he lifted his eyes to look at me. My heart started trembling in my chest and I felt like I couldn't get control over the words trying to come from my mouth. It wasn’t until that moment that I had thought about the cold distance that had been between us since I had turned away from his kiss in the jungle. I realized then that we hadn’t spoken and had barely shared the same space since then, but now that chill had thawed and I felt something simmering between us. I wished that I could understand what had happened when we were there together, everything so seemingly perfect except for the harsh memories that were coursing through my mind. I had wanted him. My body craved his touch and my mouth watered at the thought of tasting his kiss again. Yet I had pulled away when he moved in.

What had that left him thinking and feeling?

I knew that it had to be that moment that had caused him to withdraw so much and what was causing me to question what I was feeling now.

"You’ve been cramped up in here for a while," I finally managed to say. "Maybe you'd like to get down to the water, wash up a bit and change your clothes."

Hunter nodded.

"That sounds amazing.” He looked around the cave. "Where's Gavin? I’m feeling a little shaky and I’m not sure that I can get down to the water myself."

I looked around as well even though I knew that the other man wasn’t there. I hadn’t seen him that morning.

"I don't know. Maybe he went back to work on the shelter. He was fairly certain that the storm was going to hit yesterday, but it didn’t, so I think that he’s getting more anxious the longer that he has to anticipate it."

Hunter let out a sigh and nodded.

“Alright,” he said. “I guess I’ll just have to try to make it.”

He started to climb to his feet and I reached forward to grab his arm.

“I can help you,” I offered.

Hunter looked at me and I felt the spark again. I had taken his glasses off when he fell asleep so now I was gazing directly into the indescribably sexy green pools without the glare of the lenses blocking my view. We stared at each other for several long seconds, the heat between us evident even though neither of us said anything. I took hold of his hand with one of mine and gripped his elbow with the other. I could feel his muscles trembling as he started walking and I knew that is muscles were feeling the strain from the time that they had been unused. After a few steps, however, he seemed to find his strength again and was walking with greater stability. I didn’t let him go, not wanting to trust too much in his tired body and cause him to fall and hurt himself again. With Gavin missing, I was fairly certain that I wasn’t going to be able to haul Hunter back into the cave and figure out how to nurse him back to health for a second time. We made our way carefully toward the pool and as soon as we approached it I felt my face heat up, the memories of the time that I had spent in that water thinking about Hunter still fresh in my mind.

“Um,” I said, looking around when we got to the edge of the water. “I’ll turn around so you can get undressed. Just get in the water and let me know.”

I turned around even though that was the absolute last thing that I wanted to do in that moment and waited while I heard the soft thud of his pants hitting the ground and then the light splash of him step down into the water. I couldn’t help but imagine what it would look like for that spectacular body to dip beneath the surface, but I didn’t turn around until I heard him call for me.

I didn’t bother to take off the gym shorts and shirt that I was wearing. It was hot enough that they would dry when I got out, and even if they didn’t, I had done what passed as laundry on the island and would be able to change into yet another set of gym shorts and shirt that I had snagged from Gavin’s supplies. I didn’t love that I was wearing his clothes, but I would rather deal with that than live in the same dress that I had arrived in or try my hand at weaving leaves into an Eve wardrobe. I walked down into the water with him carrying one of the coconut halves that I had emptied out and put by the side of the pool. I filled it with water and used it to rinse Hunter’s back. I wanted to resist touching him, but I couldn’t. I poured another shell of water over him and reached out to gently run my hand across his skin. His muscles were firm and perfectly formed beneath my palm and I heard him let out a sigh when I touched him.

I stepped slightly closer to him and whispered for him to tilt his head back. When he did, I poured water over his hair and reached up to tousle it with my fingers. Hunter moaned slightly and I bit down on my lower lip to control the surge of desire that rushed through me. I continued this way, helping him bathe away the dirt, sweat, and tightness of lying in the cave for two days.

“Does the bite still hurt?” I asked.

Hunter shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Not really. A little achy, maybe, but nothing like it was.”

“That’s good,” I said.

I was nearly against him now, my wet clothes the only thing that was keeping me from being able to feel the warmth of his skin on my breasts. I ran my hands over his shoulders and along his arms, savoring the smoothness and the feeling of the muscles just beneath. This man was young. Too young. But I couldn’t resist him. I ran my hands around to the front of his body and over the top of his chest so that they just grazed his collarbones.

“Turn around,” I whispered in his ear.

He complied with my request and turned. The water was low enough that it hovered just beneath the delectable deep V of muscles over his hips. When he shifted, the water moved, revealing the hint of coarse, curly hair at the bottom of the V. I flattened my hands on his chest and let out a long breath, comparing the rhythm of our hearts as I felt his against my palm and mine against my ribcage. I was so invested in Hunter that I didn’t even notice that the sky had darkened and the pressure of the air around us had gotten more intense until it felt like the jungle itself was closing in around us. In an instant, though, the sky opened up and a deluge of hot, steaming rain cam streaming down on us.

I let out a cry of surprise and jumped back from Hunter.

“Get back to the cave!” he commanded and I did as he said, fighting against the resistance of the water to get back to the bank.

The ground was already slick as I ran back toward the cave and I nearly lost my footing. As I started to stumble, I felt Hunter grab onto my arm and lift me so that I didn’t fall. Above us, a bolt of lightning sliced through the sky and the jungle rumbled with a massive crash of thunder. It reminded me of the night that we had escaped from the cruise ship, but this storm seemed to have come on faster and far more vicious than even the storm on the water. I was thankful when I got beyond the mouth of the cave and into the dryness beyond. I went as far inside the cave as I could see with the light from outside.

Hunter ran in after me and I noticed that he had gotten back into his pants.

I guess running through the jungle naked wasn’t nearly as appealing as National Geographic would make it seem. Even Tarzan made himself a fancy loin cloth.

“Oh, no, what animal was that?”

“What?”

I looked up at Hunter, not realizing that I had spoken out loud. I shook my head.

“Oh, um, I was just thinking about Tarzan.”

“You were thinking about Tarzan?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“He was human.”

“What?”

“You asked what kind of animal he was.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Not him. I was thinking about his loin cloth. It was obviously made out of fur. So, which of his little animal friends and family did he kill off to turn into his wardrobe?”

Hunter stared back at me and blinked a few times as if he was trying to process what I was saying in the context of something that actually mattered.

“I ---” he started, but then stopped.

“Never mind,” I said, trying to brush some of the water off of my skin.

“Have you ever wondered why people run out of the water when it starts raining?” he asked. “It seems kind of silly. Like ‘oh no, we need to stop swimming, we’re going to get wet!’”

I laughed.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily the rain,” I said. A bolt of lightning lit up the cave and I pointed at the entrance. “It’s that.”

I was walking toward the pile of supplies that I had built just inside the cave when a clap of thunder crashed overhead, so loud it felt like the Earth was going to split. I gasped and jumped toward Hunter. He reached out and caught me, drawing me close to him so that I was pressed to his chest. I lifted my eyes to look at him and found him staring back at me, his eyes darker. Suddenly I didn’t care about the storm around us anymore. All that mattered was the feeling of his arms around me and his chest against mine. Without thinking, I rose up onto my toes and touched my mouth to his. He tasted warm and delicious and I parted my lips slightly to seek more of it.

Hunter’s hands pressed to the small of my back and he tilted his head to deepen the kiss. I looped my arms around his neck and pulled myself up closer to him, not wanting any space between our bodies. As we kissed, I started to walk backwards, drawing him with me. I was easing myself down to my knees, trying to bring him down so that we could lie on the pallet that he had rested on as he recovered from the bite, when I felt him ease me away from him again. My stomach sank. This couldn’t be happening again. We had already gone through this and then back around in circles. With the storm raging outside, I didn’t have anywhere to hide and I certainly didn’t have any champagne to drown my embarrassment in.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound anywhere near as shrill as I thought that I might.

“Nothing,” Hunter said. “It’s not that anything’s wrong, it’s just that…”

He hesitated and I tilted my head to look into his face better.

“What?” I asked. “What is it?”

“What Gavin said.”

I shook my head.

“Don’t let him bother you,” I said. “There’s no point in giving him any more puff than he already has. He doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about.”

“That’s just the thing,” he said. “He wasn’t too far off.”

I felt my mouth fall open, the surprise at his words palpable. My arms slipped from around his neck and he took a step back.

“Exactly,” he said, starting to walk around me toward the back of the cave.

“No,” I said, grabbing his wrist and gently pulling him back toward me so that he didn’t walk away. “Not ‘exactly’. Talk to me.”

Hunter turned back to look at me and I could see the strain in his expression. This was obviously something that bothered him.

“What is it that you want to hear? That I’m completely inexperienced with women and he humiliated me?”

“Is that why you stopped me after the wedding?” I asked.

My voice sounded weaker and more vulnerable than I would have wanted it to, but I couldn’t help it. I needed to understand what had happened between us, even if that meant putting myself in a position that I shouldn’t be in, that I didn’t want to be in.

Hunter looked at me quizzically, as if he couldn’t understand why I would even ask that.

“What else would it be?” he asked.

“The fact that I’m so much older than you,” I admitted.

Hunter scoffed and stepped up closer to me.

“I don’t care how old you are,” he said. “You’re gorgeous. I noticed that the first moment I saw you.”

“Then what?”

“You are so beautiful and so confident. I’m intimidated.”

“There’s no reason to be intimidated.”

“That’s easy for you to say. I doubt you’ve ever had trouble attracting people.”

“Hunter, you are beyond sexy. I haven’t been able to control myself since I saw you at the wedding.”

“You’re the only one.”

“So, you’ve never…”

I hesitated, not really knowing how to word the question in such a way that I would get the information that I wanted without embarrassing him any further.

Because this is just one of those casual questions that everybody asks all the time.

“Once,” Hunter admitted without me even having to complete my thought. “And my confidence about whether that one time even happened is a little bit shady.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was in college. The one time that I decided to go to a party. I had heard about how much fun they were and that that was all I needed to get settled in and start having a good time in college rather than spending all of my time studying.”

“And?”

“Well, I quickly learned why people like me don’t generally go to those parties.”

“People like you?” I asked.

“Nerds,” he said without hesitation.

The word wasn’t an insult or even an evaluation of him. It was just how he perceived himself within the context of the rest of the world.

“You’re not a nerd,” I said, trying to comfort and reassure him even though he didn’t seem entirely bothered by the idea that he wasn’t one of the cool kids.

Hunter looked at me with an expression that said that he wasn’t buying it.

“Is that some of your guidance counselor bullshit coming through?” he asked.

Guidance counselor? Oh, yeah. Third grade teacher and guidance counselor. Damn. I needed to get it together.

“It’s just that I don’t think you should be talking about yourself like that.”

“I was a math and science double major, involved heavily in the chess and astronomy clubs, and the most hotly sought-after Dungeon Master on campus. Among the 12 of us who openly knew what that meant.”

“Dungeon Master?” I asked somewhat hesitantly.

Somehow, I don’t think that this story is going to segue into him wearing leather and strapping people to walls.

“Dungeons and Dragons.”

Sigh.

“Today’s episode was brought to us by squares,” I said.

Hunter gave a short laugh.

“Tell me about it. So, I agreed to go to this party with my lab partner.”

“Was your lab partner a blond girl who wore way too much white and pink, and seemed to think that visiting the dining hall was a formal occasion that warranted the wearing of pearls around her neck and diamonds in her ears?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

Bitches never change.

“Was this party a sorority party?”

“Yeah.”

Yep.

“Were you some kind of entry into a contest?”

Hunter gave a deep sigh.

“Yeah.”

Great to know that there are some traditions that just won’t fucking die.

“What happened?”

“I’m not entirely sure. I know that they gave me something to drink. A lot of somethings to drink. I loosened my tie. I might have ended up on a table dancing.”

I had a sudden flash of his dancing from the wedding.

“What kind of dancing?”

“Viennese waltz.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, and to his credit, Hunter did, too.

“Sexy.”

“Apparently so because the next thing I knew I was waking up the next morning naked except for my glasses and one sock with the girlfriend of one of the fraternity members in bed with me.”

“That’s some seriously 80’s teen movie stuff,” I said before it occurred to me that those movies came out when he was a toddler.

“Well, I probably don’t have to tell you that things didn’t go terribly well for me after that.”

“And you haven’t dated anyone since?”

“I don’t think that that really counts as dating,” he pointed out.

“Probably not.”

“I’ve dated a couple of women,” he said. “But it never went beyond a few friendly dinners. Maybe a show. I have a hard time attracting women and those who I do aren’t exactly brimming with romance and sexuality. Either that or I just don’t inspire it in them.”

“You keep saying that you have a hard time attracting women. I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true. They just seem to kind of look through me. Either I’m the perfect friend material, or I’m wallpaper. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground.”

“There’s middle ground for me,” I told him. “You are much more than friend material.” I took a step toward him. “And you are definitely not wallpaper.” I closed the space between us and ran my hands down his arms, giving a little moan of appreciation at the feeling of his muscles. “Though I wouldn’t object to having you around to look at.” I got on my toes to draw myself up to whisper in his ear again. “Let me show you what that girl at the party couldn’t.” I brushed my mouth across his neck. “We don’t have to rush. We have plenty of time.”

Without waiting for a response, I rested my mouth to his, rediscovering the kiss from when we were standing in the pool. He accepted it immediately, his mouth opening beneath mine and his tongue slipping past my lips to massage against mine. As our bodies responded to one another, drawing closer until we were pressed together, my wet clothing cooling some of the heat that we were creating, I again started lowering us to the ground. He came with me this time, allowing me to ease him to the floor of the cave and stretch him back against the blankets. Outside the rain was pelting the jungle, filling the cave with the music of the individual droplets hitting the leaves, rocks, ground, and water. It buffered us from the rest of the world, enhancing the space of privacy and luxurious pleasure that we were creating together.

I wanted to introduce him to everything that he had been missing for so many years. I wanted to indulge his body and show him all that it was capable of receiving, and of giving. For so long sex had been an obligation, something that I did because it was another thing that was expected of me as a wife. This wasn’t about obligation or what either of us required from the other. Instead, this was about listening to our bodies and giving them exactly what they wanted, discovering pleasures within each other and within ourselves that were as wild and natural as the beautiful, if frightening, island around us.

With Hunter stretched across the pallet, I stood and looked down at him. I ensured that he was watching me as I undressed carefully, gradually revealing myself to him. I didn’t know how far the night would take us, but I wanted nothing between us and nothing to stop us from whatever exploration we desired. There were no limitations tonight. There was nothing that was going to stop us.

When I was finally completely naked, I knelt down and reached for the button on the front of Hunter’s pants. I released it and eased his zipper down slowly, wanting to continue to build the delicious tension that had been burning between us. Finally, they were open and I grasped the sides to start pulling them down. Hunter lifted his hips to make it easier for me to remove them completely and drop them to the side. There was nothing left concealing him now and I was able to let my eyes travel along his body, taking him in in all of his exquisitely crafted beauty. I forced my gaze to move slowly, scanning every inch of him, rather than rushing to what I had been waiting so long to see. When I had paid the proper respects to the curves of his shoulders, the deep cut of his chest, the plane of his belly, and the tantalizing trail of dark hair from his navel, it was finally time to see the erection that had been straining toward me through his pants as we kissed.

It was even more incredible than I had envisioned when I was in the water. Long, perfectly straight, and deeply veined, it was so hard and thick that it looked as though my fingers wouldn’t touch when I wrapped my hand around it. I was very willing to try. I leaned forward and touched a soft kiss to his lips, then brought my mouth to the side of his neck. I could feel him trembling slightly as I kissed my way down his neck and onto his collarbone. I brushed my lips along each bone and then pressed them into the soft dip between them. The rhythm of his pulse was there, telling me that I was coaxing him forward, bringing his arousal higher with every touch of my lips.

Taking my time, I kissed my way over to one of his shoulders and then down his arm, following the curve of each of his muscles until I reached his hand. I lifted his arm and turned his hand over so that it rested in my palm. I kissed his palm and then slipped each finger into my mouth in turn, sucking my way down them and then drawing my tongue up the inside of his arm until I reached his shoulder again. I continued this exploration over the other arm and down his body, lavishing his nipples, the taut muscles of his chest, the ripples of his stomach, and the muscular V at his hips with the attention that I had been wanting to give him since the first moment that I saw him. I wanted to go further, but I forced myself to stop. There was still more that I wanted him to feel. Knowing that he was so inexperienced made me feel as though I had been given not a tremendous obligation, but a privilege. I got to be the one who awakened him to the delicious capabilities of his body and to welcome the blissful attention that I would teach him to give.

Swinging one leg over his hips, I positioned myself so that I looked down into Hunter’s eyes. He gazed up at me, his eyes slumbering slightly. I knew that I was bringing him to an edge and I wanted to urge him further. I flattened my hands on his chest and ran them up to his shoulders and then down both arms so that my body gradually lowered down toward his. My hands reaching his and intertwining our fingers, I allowed my breasts to brush his chest. The sensation traveled through my sensitive, hardened nipples and I lowered myself just enough that my breasts crushed lightly against his chest. My angle allowed me to feel his surging erection against my thigh and I nestled back against it so that it nudged my wet, waiting petals.

Holding my hips in place, I brought my mouth back to his. Hunter kissed me with both tenderness and passion. His hands ran along my back softly, then slid up to my shoulders and squeezed as though reassuring himself that I was truly there. After a few moments of just enjoying the feeling and taste of his mouth on mine, I pulled away from the kiss and eased myself down Hunter’s body so that I knelt between his thighs. Resting a hand on the inside of both legs, I pressed them apart so that I could gain greater access. Finally indulging the fantasy that I had been harboring, I wrapped my hand around the base of his erection and finally felt the warmth of his skin against my palm. I could feel the blood continuing to flow into his shaft, making it even harder. My other hand cupped his balls, gently massaging them. They hung away from his body with the intensity of his arousal and I manipulated them carefully while stroking my other hand along his shaft.

Slick fluid had gathered at the tip of his cock and I swirled my palm over it to allow my hand to move more easily along his skin. My hand ran along his erection in long strokes, twisting slightly when I reached the head to stimulate the tight bundles of nerves under the head. I looked at Hunter’s face and saw that his eyes were closed, his expression one of concentration and pleasure. He was racing toward climax, drawing closer to the oblivion that I wanted to give to him, when a screaming wind from outside broke the peaceful, transcendent bliss between us.

I snapped my eyes to the entrance to the cave just in time to see a large tree sail past, the roots torn up from the ground. The effect was violent enough that I could feel the sting of water against my face and Hunter sat up sharply. He reached out and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me back with him deeper into the cave as he dragged the pallet along behind us. We huddled together against the far wall of the chamber, bracing ourselves against the most intense moments of the storm. When it finally ended, the adrenaline slid from my body and I felt exhaustion take over. Hunter seemed to feel the same, and though I longed for more of the exploration, I allowed him to draw me down onto the blankets with him and curl around me. His hand trailed lazily along the center of my stomach and brushed along the bottom swells of my breasts.

I hadn’t even realized that I had fallen asleep in Hunter’s arms until I felt him shift behind me. I opened my eyes slowly and saw the glow of morning sunlight outside of the cavern. Despite its beauty, I didn’t want to get up. I rolled over and nuzzled closer to Hunter again. He leaned down and kissed the top of my head.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Better than I have in a long time.”

“Me, too,” he said. He sighed and I saw him look toward the entrance to the cave. “Do you think that Gavin made it into the cabin of the boat before the storm hit?” he asked. “He might be an ass, but I wouldn’t want to think that he was out there in all of that by himself.”

Those words brought me back to harsh reality. The fantasy of the night before had kept me from thinking about the storm when I first woke, but now I felt worry sink heavily into my belly, making me feel sick. I could remember weathering storms when younger and camped with my father, but none had been as intense as that one. Even so, some of them caused truly horrific damage.

I got up and scrambled into the clothing I was wearing the night before. It was still damp and I shivered as the cold fabric touched my skin. Hunter stepped into a pair of pants that had been in the pile of blankets and clothes we were using for his bed. We stepped out of the cave and I immediately noticed the ground was strewn with pieces of branches, leaves, and other remnants of the island that the storm had thrown around. I took a deep breath and looked back at Hunter. He was staring around like I had, shaking his head.

“Where could he be?” he asked. “I would have thought that he would come back to the cave as soon as the weather cleared up if he hadn’t been able to make it when the raining started, even if it was just to gloat that he had been right about the storm.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope that he’s alright.”

I still didn’t trust Gavin, but just like Hunter had said, that didn’t mean that I wanted something horrible to have happened to him. I was going through enough. The last thing that I needed was a storm-battered body to deal with when I couldn’t get off of this stupid island.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Hunter said. “Remember, he’s trained in wilderness survival.”

There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice and I couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory of Gavin’s bravado about his training and how it would help them to get through this time on the island. As funny as it seemed, however, it did make me wonder what kind of experience this man had that had allowed him to spring into action the way that he had. I wanted to think that it all came from some kind of exclusive military training that had taught him to paint himself camouflage, roll around in the woods, and survive off of tree bark and moth wings, but in the back of my mind I knew that that wasn’t the case. There was something about Gavin that put me on edge and made me wary of him. He had helped us from the beginning, but there had always been an underlying sense of obligation, as though there was another reason that he was there with us, and now that he was missing I was starting to question everything about him.

We started down the makeshift path toward the waterfall and pool. Some of the clothing that had been at the front of the cave was now strewn across the ground and Hunter leaned down to scoop it up.

"Just bring them with us," I told him. "I can hang them up to dry at the shelter."

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I felt my face drop and saw the expression on Hunter's face change. He scrambled away from the edge of the water where he had paused to rinse his feet and we started running through the jungle toward the beach. I wasn't paying as close attention to where I was stepping as I usually did and the brush bit painfully into the bottoms of my feet, but I didn't stop. We needed to get to the shelter and find out how much damage the storm had caused, and if all of the work that we had put into the structure had been destroyed. The moment that I got to the beach I felt like everything inside of me emptied and I was completely deflated.

The once pristine sand was now scattered with the branches, fronds, and ropes that had once been the shelter we had poured ourselves into building. Pieces of tattered fabric and broken pieces of the ship moved in the lazy waves that slid up the sand and then back, gradually pulling the destroyed remnants of their supplies back into the sea. I stepped out onto the beach and felt emotion catch in my chest. Fighting tears, I rushed toward the site where the shelter had been. It hunkered at the edge of the jungle in a heap of broken bamboo and torn leaves. I could see the crates of supplies that we had positioned inside tipped over, the contents that hadn't been tossed onto the beach spilled on what had been the floor.

From the moment that I noticed the storm coming, I had been trying to deny it. I had been trying to keep memories forced down as far within me as I could possibly get them, not wanting to face them. I had struggled through the sound of the rain and the angry rumble of the thunder. Now, though, I couldn’t keep them away any longer. Brutal memories, moments that I had never wanted to see or think of again, sliced through my mind and forced themselves onto the backs of my eyelids as I squeezed my eyes closed so hard that I saw spots of light bursting in the darkness.

"Fuck!" I screamed, picking up one of the fronds that had been a part of the roof and throwing it as far as I could into the jungle. "Motherfucking storm!" I kicked at another piece of the rubble and spun around so that I could scream at a different portion of the beach. “Son of a bitching cocksucking, assblasting piece of shit! Motherless whore! Fuck-stick shitheaded bat-brained dick splinter! Donkey-fucking three fingered cunt kicking blueballed limp dicked fuck monkey!”

It felt amazing and I wanted to scream more, but I felt like I had used up all of my profanity creativity and couldn’t think of any other words to use.

"Eleanor," Hunter's voice said from behind me.

"No!" I shouted, whipping around to face him. "Don't you dare tell me to calm down. Are you seeing the same thing that I’m seeing?" I demanded.

I gestured frantically around us at the beach.

"Yes," Hunter said, taking a cautious step toward me and holding up a hand as if to calm me.

Either that, or to act as a defensive tool in the event that I chose to fling part of the shelter at him.

"Then you can see that everything we went through was for shit. It meant absolutely nothing."

"It didn't mean nothing, Eleanor," Hunter said, approaching me. "We knew that that storm was going to come. We had to have shelter. We couldn't just sit around. We had to do something to help us handle being here, or even just to occupy our time."

It was meant to be a comforting statement, but something about Hunter's words pushed me into even deeper fury.

"To occupy our time?" I shouted. "Is this fun for you? Is this some sort of warped tropical vacation?" I kicked at the bamboo and palm fronds spread across the ground. "Well, let me tell you something. This is not a fucking vacation. There is no five-star hotel hiding on the other side of the rocks and we don't get to dress for dinner in the banquet hall. In fact, we barely get to fucking dress at all."

I gestured toward Hunter who was wearing nothing but his pants, and then at myself and the wet castoffs I wore. His jaw set as he stared at me. This was ruining everything that we had experienced together and I was disgusted with myself for causing that, but I couldn’t stop the anger that was coursing through me. It was all too much. The night before I had been able to convince myself that everything was alright, but now it was like I was being punished, pushed back down to the ground where I should have always stayed.

"This isn't our fault. We didn’t choose for this to happen.”

"Yes, it is," she said. "It is my fault and I hate myself for it."

"Why do you think that it's your fault?" Hunter asked. "You couldn't control the storm that made us crash here anymore than you could control the storm that happened last night."

"But if it wasn't for me we wouldn't have been in that boat trying to get away from the ship so the storm wouldn't have mattered." I started to stomp away from the shelter and then whipped back around to face him again. "No. You know what? This isn't my fault. Everything that I do nowadays might turn to absolute shit because somewhere along the line I apparently lost all of my ability to function, but this isn't on me. This," she gestured wildly around herself, "this is Virgil's fault. This is all fucking Virgil's fault. If he hadn't been such a raging sleazeball this wouldn't have happened."

I was fairly sure I could have come up with something better to call him if I had taken the time to really think about it, but at that moment that seemed like the most appropriate term. It didn’t have the flair of my previous tirade, but it would do.

"He's not here," Hunter said. "He can't hurt you anymore."

"Yes, he can!" I replied. "Can't you see that? He's always here. He's always around. As soon as he found out that I knew about everything that he had done, I signed my death warrant." I felt at once like I was being dramatic and like I was telling the truth for the first time in as long as I could remember. "He cheated people out of millions of dollars. He ran drugs. I wouldn't be surprised if there was blood on his hands. Do you really think that he isn't capable of making sure that I don’t go unpunished for humiliating him with our divorce and then holding the evidence that I have over his head? He sent men after me. The cruise ship wasn’t the first time that it happened. They’ve found me in the grocery store. They’ve found me while I was jogging. They accosted me while I was fucking trying on shoes for the wedding. I had to hobble over to a group of salespeople wearing two different heights of heels just so that I wasn’t sitting alone with them.”

“Have they ever said anything to you?” Hunter asked.

I nodded, feeling as though I had gotten myself onto a slippery slope. I had already revealed more than I ever intended to and now I could just feel him scrutinizing me and everything that I had ever told him, but I was already on my way now. I couldn’t go back and pretend that I hadn’t opened my mouth and let all of this fall out.

“They say that Virgil just wants to talk to me, but when was the last time you needed to send multiple very large, very scary men after a woman just because you wanted to have a conversation with her?" I shook my head and clawed my hands back through my hair to get it out of my face. They caught on tangles that pulled at my scalp and frustrated me even further. As soon as I got off this damn island I was spending three days in the shower and using ten bottles of shampoo. "I guarantee you that he wouldn't mind if I had just tipped off of that ship and never came back up. He only wants to see me so that he can have the fun of getting rid of me himself. He just wants me to disappear so that I won't be any trouble for him anymore. He'll do whatever it takes and send whoever it takes to make sure that it happens."

“Well,” Hunter said, his eyes looking slightly lighter, “maybe that’s what happened.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling confused.

“Those guys who were chasing us on the cruise ship saw us jump off into the water. Gavin’s boat was too far away for them to actually get a good look at us climbing on. To them, we did just tip off of the boat and disappear.”

I stepped back and let out a long sigh.

I never thought that I was going to reach a point in my life when I should feel relieved that I was stranded on an uninhabited, storm-battered island because the alternative was worse. That’s a somber realization.

"Come on," Hunter said, reaching for my hand. "Let’s take a break from the shelter for a bit. Come talk to me.”

Chapter Thirteen

Hunter

Eleanor seemed reluctant to take my hand, but she finally did and I started leading her further down the beach. After the rather flailing but truly impressive display of temper and fury that she had shown, I felt like she needed to get away from the visual of the tattered shelter for a few minutes. I understood what she was feeling. We had put an incredible amount of work into that structure, and as primitive and lacking in amenities as it was, it was supposed to be something that we could rely on for as long as this nightmare of a detour continued. Seeing it ripped apart by a storm wasn’t just upsetting because the work was gone. Part of me imagined what it would have been like had we been in that shelter when the storm hit. We really thought that it would have provided us some level of protection. Now that we had seen the aftermath, though, we knew that it was a far more likely scenario that we would have ended up palm tree shish-kabobs and would likely never have been found. It felt like just another reminder of what couldn’t be trusted.

I tried to get us far enough from what remained of our shelter that we weren't walking through the pieces of it that the storm had thrown across the sand, but no matter how far we walked there wasn't a stretch of the sand that wasn't studded with pieces of bamboo, palm fronds, and other debris. It was surprising in a way, looking like there were more pieces of it once it was blown apart than there had been when it was actually solid. We walked along in silence until we got to the edge of the water and stood letting the cool foam wash up over our feet.

"How much do you really know about what your husband did?" I asked.

Oh, what the grimy-living-holy fuck was that? Where did that question come from? I had absolutely no intention of continuing on with that train of conversation and yet…there it was.

"Ex-husband," Eleanor said with bitterness in her voice.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Your ex-husband."

She shook her head and stared out over the waves. Her hand didn't grip mine tightly, but I continued to hold it, not wanting the connection between us to end. I couldn’t get the thoughts of our night together out of my mind. I could still feel her skin against my palms and her breath on my neck. I could still hear the whimpering, cooing sounds that I had made tumble from her lips just from the light touch of my hand on her breasts. I craved more of her, but I could also feel my heart drawing toward her as much as my body was. Every time that she mentioned her ex-husband and everything that he had put her through, I got angrier, filled with a primal need to protect her.

I wondered if she could feel that energy coming off of me, but by the way that she held herself, I doubted it. She seemed smaller and withdrawn, the age more apparent around her eyes. I knew that she was self-conscious about them. So much of how she presented herself seemed focused around concealed the years that made themselves visible in the corners of her eyes, but I preferred her this way. Each of those lines meant something. They carried with them the testament of all that she had survived and all that had persevered even through the suffering that she had endured. I wondered which of those lines had been there, even in their earliest incarnations, when she met Virgil. Which of them had formed from the days that she had spent smiling and laughing before he darkened her life? Those were the lines that were the most precious. They were the ones that proved that no matter what he put her through, she was still, at her very essence, her.

"I'm not sure," she finally said. "Obviously I don't know the full extent of everything. I'm sure that if I did I wouldn’t be standing here with you.” She gave a short laugh even though I wasn’t exactly sure what she found funny about that. “I know just enough that it is dangerous to him."

"What do you mean?"

Eleanor looked up at me and stared into my eyes for several long seconds as if she was trying to find something in them.

"When I met him, I was completely starry-eyed. His confidence and the power that he seemed to have absolutely won me over. I hate even admitting that about myself." She looked back over the ocean. "I wasn't always this person. I used to be so much stronger. I never would have wanted someone to have power like that over me.”

She had expressed the same sentiment to me before, but this time it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself.

"I like the person you are," I said.

Eleanor gave another short, emotionless laugh.

"You don't even know me," she said. She glanced up at me and then away again. "I don't even know me anymore. I told you that I used to spend a lot of time outside."

"Yes,” I said. “But you didn’t have the right uniform so you weren’t allowed to go on Cub Scout campouts.”

She looked at me with a glimmer of a question in her eyes and then they widened and she nodded.

"Right. Well, before all that, I would go camping with my father and my brothers. We did it every summer. We never really knew when we were going to go. My father was not exactly a planner. He would just get up one morning and come into our rooms fully dressed in his camping gear and tell us it was time to go. We'd be on the road right after breakfast."

"Do you still camp with them?"

I knew that she was going to say that she didn't. It was obvious that she had separated herself from that part of her long ago. I just didn't want her to stop talking.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "We stopped when I was a teenager."

"Why?"

Her head dropped and I saw a tear forming in the corner of her eye. I wanted to brush it away, but I worried the touch would break the stream of thought that she was now following. It seemed like something that she had had coiled tightly inside of her was starting to loosen and I wanted to give her the opportunity to let out whatever she needed to.

"There was a storm," she said weakly, as if she was unsure of whether she even wanted to say the words. "The weather was supposed to be clear the whole weekend. We were out on the lake in the little canoe that my father loved. The clouds came in so fast. We barely had time to react. It was like it went from day to night in seconds. By the time that we headed back to shore the rain was already making it almost impossible for us to see. My brother stood up to try to grab a flashlight from our kit." She drew in a shuddering breath and I tightened my grip on her hand. "He went over the edge. We could see his face bobbing in the water in the flashes of lightning. I could see his mouth open. I knew he was screaming, but the thunder and the rain on the water was so loud that I couldn't hear him. We didn't find him until the next day."

"I'm so sorry," I said, not sure what else to say.

Now it was painfully clear why she had been so afraid when the storms came. I wished that I had known the story before so that I could have comforted her.

"We tried to keep up our trips after that, but it was just too hard. They got shorter and then we missed a year. They just tapered off. My father put all of his camping stuff in storage and we just never talked about it again. Storms have been really hard for me ever since."

"I'm glad that I was with you last night, then," I said.

She looked at me with a blend of emotion in her eyes and I immediately felt a pang of guilt. She turned away from me, dropping my hand and walking a few steps in the opposite direction. Her head was down as if she felt bad about the way that she had weathered the storm the night before rather than spending it afraid and sad as she imagined was her usual response.

"Eleanor," I said, starting toward her.

"Is there something that you wanted to talk to me about?" she asked, turning to face me.

I didn’t know what to say. Something had shifted in her tone and I felt like she had put everything away in a neat little file cabinet, closed the drawer, and walked away, not ready to see or think about it.

“I just wanted to make you feel better,” I said, feeling like the sentiment fell flat. “I want you to know that I’m here to help you and protect you if we face any danger here.”

"I feel like I was already in some pretty serious danger literally running for my life through a cruise ship."

"I know and I'm sorry that I didn't find you faster, but the point is that I did find you. I found you and I got you off of the ship safely."

"You threw me off of the side of the ship."

"I didn't throw you. I helped you jump."

I absolutely threw her.

"And now we are on quite literally a deserted island with absolutely no way of getting off."

"I know. There’s not really anything that I can do about that. I wish that there was. That wasn’t really what I thought was going to happen when I got us off the ship.”

“Really?” Eleanor asked. “What exactly was going through your head when you scooped me up and tossed me into the ocean? How did that situation play out in your mind?”

“I didn’t honestly have any plan beyond that. It was a bit of a split-second decision. I hadn’t really thought anything through.”

“Good to know that I’m in such analytical and quick-thinking hands.”

I smiled at her, relieved to hear some of the levity in her voice. Eleanor let out a sigh and looked around. It was almost like she was seeing the damage from the storm for the first time, as if her mind had erased her reaction and was allowing her to re-evaluate. This time it seemed that she was seeing the carnage from a more practical and logical place rather than one fueled by emotion, and that was a place where I was comfortable camping out for a while.

“So, what do we do now?” she asked.

I looked around with her, trying to let my eyes follow the same path that hers did so that I could see what she had and hopefully get some of the same perspective.

“I don’t know,” I finally said. “There’s so much to do, I don’t even know where to start.”

Eleanor let out a long sigh.

“I thought Noah said that you were some kind of organizational wonder,” she muttered, more under her breath than to me.

“What?” I said.

She looked at me as if surprised either that I had heard her, or that I was actually going to call her out for it.

“Hmmm?” she said with mock innocence.

“Did you say something about Noah?” I asked.

She stumbled and stuttered for a few moments and then nodded.

“Yes,” she said shortly. “It’s just that he has told me that you work for him at the advertising agency and that you are really good at your job.”

I narrowed my eyes at her.

“He told you that?” I asked, the comment striking me as strange. “I didn’t realize that you kept in touch that closely. How often do you talk to him?”

Eleanor’s eyes widened slightly.

“Pretty often,” she said with another slow nod. “I guess that you never get over being someone’s guidance counselor.”

“Third grade teacher,” I corrected, tilting my head at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Third grade teacher,” I repeated. “I thought that you said that you were Noah’s third grade teacher.”

“Yes,” she said again, the voice almost exploding out of her. “Third grade teacher. Guidance counselor. Mid-term soccer coach and spring jubilee coordinator and costume designer. That was a tight year for the school budget. We all kind of chipped in and did our best.”

"We need to find Gavin," I said, trying to give myself time to process what she had said. That was a lot. "He's been gone for too long. He could have gotten hurt in the storm."

Chapter Fourteen

Gavin

I nearly sobbed in relief when I felt the bottom of the tiny raft hit something nearly solid beneath me and realized that it was sand. The last few hours had been nothing short of terrifying and I was done with being in the water. In fact, I was at the point when I was drafting the insurance claim for my boat in my head and was planning a move to somewhere fully landlocked so that I never had to see a body of water bigger than a mudpuddle ever again.

Not even a fucking swimming pool. I might even tear all of the bathtubs out of my house.

I was done with water. Fully and completely done. The fact that I had just washed up on the beach of what looked like an even smaller and more desolate island than the one that I had left, though, didn’t bode well for my decision to impose a life-long ban on any large quantities of water. Heading out in the raft hadn’t been something that I had thought through very extensively. With Hunter unconscious and Eleanor reaching what seemed like a mental breaking point, I had been the one that was left to try to keep gathering supplies and ensuring that we were going to actually get through this Gilligan’s Island shit as unscathed as possible. I was prowling around in what was left of the boat looking for anything else that I could salvage from its pathetic skeleton when I found the emergency raft still stuffed in its lockbox on the side. I felt like an absolute, unequivocal idiot when I pulled it out, examining it to confirm that there were no tears or other issues in the material that would compromise its seaworthiness, as it were. How could I have possibly forgotten that this thing was in the boat? With all of the flailing and Eleanor’s MacGyver-ing of a vessel to get her across the tidal pool, I never once thought about the equipment that was actually put on the boat to get me through situations like this.

As soon as I saw the raft, though, I knew that I had to leave. Something about the shriveled green raft made the fog disappear from my mind and I was able to look at the situation clearly. I had let my instincts and training take over far too much during our days on the island. I had been hired for a specific job, and when the Universe seemed to be giving me a gift of making that job far easier than it might have otherwise been, I decided not to accept it and instead go completely against it. I wasn’t necessarily supposed to kill Eleanor. That hadn’t been in my job description. By the wording of the description and the objectives, however, I couldn’t imagine that my client would have frowned too hard when discovering that Eleanor had been tumbled around in the spin cycle from hell and spat out on an island to wither away. In fact, if I could convince them that the ocean had teamed up with me to do the kidnapping and that eliminating my client’s need to handle the unpleasant dirty work that often came after such a kidnapping personally, I might even be able to secure myself a bonus. That would go toward the acres of very dry, very high land that I intended on finding and never leaving.

I was aggravated at myself for even allowing the situation to get to me the way that it had. It was like the time that I was forced to take away from my work had somehow melted the portion of my brain that ensured I made the right decisions and handled each job properly. I was suddenly soft and sympathetic, and those were not descriptions that were useful in my line of work. As soon as I had realized that the sopping, terrified woman that had clawed her way aboard my boat during the storm was Eleanor, I should have pitched Hunter’s ass back out into the waves, tossed her into storage below deck, and hightailed it to the mainland so that I could collect my paycheck and go about my life. Instead I had not only gotten them through the storm, but I had actually helped them survive on the island.

I was feeling far too much camaraderie with these people and that had to stop. I didn’t know what she had done or why she was so much of a problem, but there was a stack of cash waiting for me when I brought Eleanor in, and that was all that needed to matter to me right then. Finding the raft had been an omen. It was time to dislodge myself from what was happening on the island and let the situation unfold however it was going to. When I found a way to communicate with the outside world, I would get in touch with my client, let them know what happened, and do my best to direct them to the island. What happened to Eleanor and Hunter from there was their issue. They could use their skulls as accent points for the turrets of sandcastles for all I cared. By the time they got the moat dug, I would be paid and well on my way to the anonymity I got to enjoy after finishing a job.

Of course, that meant that I was going to have to figure out where the hell I was and how I was going to get in touch with anyone. The distance between the islands had taken far longer than I would have wanted it to, but the reality was that it likely wasn’t very far. I had wrestled the tiny-ass float across the waves as much as I had ridden it, and I was well beyond the point of believing that it would get me anywhere else. Unless I had somehow done exactly as we had hoped when finding the first island and stumbled on a cruise line stopping point, I was going to have to figure out my own way to get rescued. Since I didn’t hear any tinkling steel drum music or see any half-naked women limbo dancing their way toward me with tropical drinks, I was pretty well certain that the first option was out. That meant that I was either going to have to find my way to another island, or hope to get rescued.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

****

Snow

“What cruise line did you say that your Aunt Eleanor chose for the bridal party?” I asked, drying my hair as I walked into the lounge area of the hotel room.

I was staring down at my phone in my hand and when I looked up I saw that Noah was sitting in a white lounge chair beside the open door to the balcony, his naked body bathed in the morning sunlight streaming into the room. I couldn’t help the smile that came to my lips. My husband was gorgeous.

My husband.

That thought was still surprising to me and I had to remind myself that it was true every time that it almost came out of my mouth. Of course, the massive ring that still felt heavy on my hand helped make it as real, but it was the sight of this beautiful man, the man who I loved more than I ever could have even begun to imagine that I would love somebody, smiling back at me, that made me really feel like a wife.

“I thought that we agreed that we weren’t going to use our phones during our honeymoon,” he said with a mild hint of chastising in his voice.

“I know,” I said, “but going totally off-grid for three weeks doesn’t seem realistic when you have a company to run.”

“There are people who are doing all of that for me,” Noah said, swinging his legs down from where they were draped over the side of the chair so that he could stand up. “Remember? Mr. Royal said that he would be happy to take over for me for the next couple of months so that we could just enjoy our marriage.”

“Do you think that’s weird?” I asked, my shoulders sagging slightly under the thought that we might be taking advantage of the darling, trusting elderly man who had given me my career and then almost destroyed it forever by marrying the blast from the past bitch who had made it her life’s goal to ruin me throughout our youth. “I mean, you took over his company. Like straight took it out from under him. He went from owning the company and running it on his own to being an occasional contributor to the newsletter.”

“It wasn’t like it was a hostile takeover that involved months in court and a military coup,” Noah said, walking toward me. I could feel my mouth watering as my eyes traveled over his body. “He had been planning on selling the company to my father for a long time. Mr. Royal was ready to retire. All the nastiness with Lucille was just a hiccup.”

“That was one hell of a hiccup,” I said, shuddering just to hear the woman’s name. “I still get a little twitchy when I smell smoke.”

Noah nodded and reached out to wrap his arms around my waist, pulling me closer to him.

“I know,” he said. “It makes it a lot more difficult to create a romantic honeymoon suite when I’m not allowed to light candles. Those little battery-operated things just don’t have the same effect.”

“But they have a realistic glow and flicker,” I said, bringing my arms up to loop around his neck.

Noah grinned as he shook his head and leaned forward to kiss me. I sighed into the taste of his mouth and the feeling of his lips on mine. I was never going to get tired of that kiss.

“So, the future safety of the advertising industry and our company in it aside, what’s so important on your phone?”

The question brought me slightly out of the joyful stupor that I generally went into when he touched me and I stepped back away from him so that I could bring my phone back in front of me and read the screen again. It had gone dark and I poked at it with my finger, muttering at it as the article that I had been reading jumped in response to my touch and I lost my place. When I found it again, I turned it toward Noah.

“This says that two people went missing off of a cruise. It doesn’t say who they are, but the ship was about where I thought that their cruise would be.”

“When was this?” Noah asked.

“They noticed that they were missing about three days ago, but they think that they could have been missing for longer than that.”

“Don’t you think that if my aunt went missing on the cruise that she bought for our friends as a wedding gift to us, that someone would have thought that it would be important that they get in touch with me? Just a little heads up?”

I knew he was right. I was just being overly worried. I had never been one to trust cruise ships after the string of “people who went missing on cruise ships and never showed back up because they are probably abstract sculptures gradually becoming coral at the bottom of the ocean” specials shown during Shark Week. The fact that three of the biggest and supposedly most popular ships that sailed the big blue sea had experienced massive power failures that resulted in days of being giant floating tins full of seasick people with no reliable food refrigeration or bathroom facilities in the last year hadn’t given me much more reassurance. It was that particular dis-ease with cruises that had convinced Noah to let us bow out of the wedding celebration cruise and just head directly to our honeymoon villa. Part of me had felt like rejecting the offer from Noah’s favorite relative hadn’t exactly been a fantastic way to get started in my life as part of his family, but now that I was seeing that more passengers had just vaporized from the decks of a ship, I was feeling better about my decision.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sure that I would have heard from Robin by now, if for no other reason than to gossip about what all of our friends are doing on the ship.”

“Does being on a ship make a difference to their behavior?”

I nodded.

“Of course,” I said. “International waters. No drinking age. No jurisdiction. Nobody needs to know.”

“That’s a bit of a disquieting thought considering who we sent out there,” Noah said.

“You’re telling me.”

“Wait,” Noah said. “Didn’t you make Robin swear that he wasn’t going to bother you during our honeymoon?”

“No,” I said. “ You made Robin swear that he wasn’t going to bother me during our honeymoon. I only went along with it for the sake of marital harmony.”

“So, he wouldn’t have gotten in touch with you.”

“I have a feeling that people disappearing from the cruise that he’s on, especially if it just happened to be your aunt and one of our closest friends, would take any promises of communication restraint off the table.”

“So, we’re good?” Noah said. “No worries?”

“No worries,” I said.

“Good,” Noah said, taking the phone from my hand and tossing it to the chair that he had recently vacated. “Then I think that you are wearing just a bit too much clothing.”

I looked down at the robe that I had thrown on after my shower and back up at him.

“Oh, really?” I asked.

He nodded, biting his bottom lip as he untied the belt at my waist and let it fall away, then pushed the sides of the robe open. I felt the soft warm breeze from outside touching my skin and a tingle of arousal rushed through my body, settling between my legs where I felt my core starting to get hot and wet. Noah’s fingertips brushed over my nipples, causing them to harden beneath the gentle stimulation, and I moaned lightly. In one movement, he pushed the robe the rest of the way off so that I was as naked as he was, and tightened his arm around my waist again, yanking me up against him so that I could feel the hard pressure of his growing erection against my belly.

We hadn’t spent much time out of our honeymoon suite since arriving here two days after our wedding, but I really didn’t care. An island was an island. There wasn’t anything out there that I couldn’t see in the water globe that Robin had brought back for me after his vacation to Hawaii, though I’m sure that view would lack the fine black ash that settled over the tiny little tiki village when the globe was turned over and that I had always found just a touch distasteful. Alright, so there probably was a lot beyond the grounds of the resort that I would really enjoy seeing, but nothing had caught my attention nearly as much as my naked, ever-ready husband and the massive bed in our suite.

And the shower. And the floor. And the bar.

I wrapped my hand around his thick, hard shaft and gave it a few encouraging strokes. He tipped his head back and groaned, and I leaned forward to run my tongue along the side of his neck. In an instant, he had me in his arms and was carrying me toward the glass doors to the balcony. The sun felt warmer on my skin as he carried me out onto the balcony and then settled me to my feet beside the railing.

“Noah!” I gasped. “There are people—”

He silenced me with another deep, intense kiss and ran his hand down my body to tuck it in between my thighs. His fingers found my clit and the sensation rocked through me. I parted my legs a little more to make it easier for him to touch me and kissed him with the same growing intensity of the feelings he was creating within me. I reached down and ran my fingers up his cock again and felt him rest his hand to my shoulder to ease me down to my knees. I felt the railing on my back as I knelt in front of him and wrapped my hand around the base of his shaft to hold it in place. Cupping my other hand around Noah’s balls so I could feel them hanging and swirling in my palm, I opened my mouth and guided his thick, delicious erection in. My lips closed around it and I felt Noah’s hand come to the back of my head, gently guiding me into the rhythm and depth that would give him the pleasure that he sought.

After a few moments, I opened my eyes and looked up at him. I noticed that he was staring off of the side of the balcony, seeming to enhance the experience that I was giving him by taking in the beauty that surrounded us. Suddenly he lifted his hand and gave a wave, a wide smile on his face. I withdrew him from my mouth.

“Did you just wave at someone?” I hissed.

He looked down at me and nodded.

“Our very friendly neighbors,” he said. “Come see.”

Before I could protest, Noah reached down and grabbed me by my upper arms and pulled me to my feet. He whipped me around so that I faced away from him, my breasts crushing to the railing so that my nipples were just covered. I gasped as I felt him pull my hips back slightly so that he could push into me. His mouth came to the side of my neck and he nibbled at my skin before whispering into my ear.

“Wave hello to our neighbors,” he said.

I looked down and saw a few people scattered across the sand. Two of them glanced over their shoulders at us and I smiled, waving down at them. Though I knew that they couldn’t see anything through the intricate scrolling of the railing, the thought that they were looking at me standing on the balcony, Noah’s cock deep inside me, sent a thrill through by body and sent my arousal spiraling even higher. I wrapped one hand around the top of the railing and brought the other down between my thighs, letting my fingertips play across my tight, wet clit as Noah’s thrusting grew harder and more intense. It was all too much for me. I threw my head back against Noah’s shoulder and bit my lip against the scream that tried to come out as my body crashed into an orgasm that made my knees weak and my head swim.

The powerful contractions of my walls around him pushed Noah to the edge and I felt him push me forward so that he could grab onto my hips and pound into me at an almost furious pace. My breasts bounced against the railing and I felt sweat trickling between our bodies before Noah leaned down and bit into my back to muffle the growl that came from his chest as his cock hardened and I felt him pour into me.

“See?” he muttered against my skin. “Very friendly neighbors.”

Chapter Fifteen

Eleanor

“I seriously don’t understand where he could have gone,” I said, walking out onto the beach and scanning the ocean as if I was just going to see Gavin pop up on the surface like a cork and bob his way back to shore.

“Well, we haven’t scoured the entire island,” Hunter pointed out. “There’s still a lot of the jungle that we haven’t gotten to, and the rock formations over on that end of the beach could lead to another water source. Like I said earlier, there could be wildlife on the island that-”

I held up my hand, shaking my head.

“Please don’t say it again. I am just not in that place where I can deal with thoughts of animal-eaten people spread out across the island.”

“It wouldn’t really be people,” he pointed out. “Just one person.”

“That makes it so much better.”

“We should check the boat. I know that he said that nobody should be on the boat when the weather got bad, but if he might have changed his mind when things got really serious, or he might have already been on there and not been able to do anything about it. Something could have fallen on him and knocked him unconscious.”

I nodded and we rushed toward the boat. My raft had been destroyed and the water was much higher around the boat than it had been. I looked at it for a few moments, hoping that somehow my glare would make it recede. Of course, it didn’t. In fact, it seemed to swell just a little bit higher as if in mockery of me.

“You’ve been on this island for a week now,” Hunter pointed out. “I think that that qualifies you as roughing it. You can wade through the water.”

“Maybe you should be the Cub Scout leader,” I said, glaring at him sideways.

“Nah,” Hunter said. “I never could light a fire with nothing but rocks and sticks.”

“Well, then you are fired. All of the three-year-olds can do that.”

“Those are some very young Cub Scouts.”

“Start ‘em young. That’s what Virgil always used to say.”

That one wasn’t entirely a lie. He really did used to say that. Well, except for the “’em” part, and he most certainly wasn’t talking about Cub Scouts.

I hadn’t realized it, but as we were talking, Hunter had guided me into the water and suddenly we were most of the way to the boat. The water was up to my chest and I started to flail, screaming as I felt my legs buckle and slipped down beneath the surface. Hunter grabbed me by my arm and yanked me up.

“Stand up,” he said. “Stand up!”

I got my feet under me and realized that the sand was still solid beneath my feet, and the water was only to my shoulders at its highest point. We took the final few steps to the boat and Hunter guided me up onto the ladder ahead of him. I scrambled up onto it and turned to glare at him.

“That was a mean trick,” I sputtered at him.

“It wasn’t a trick,” he said. “I just figured if I could distract you I might be able to get you to the boat without you realizing that you were in the water it might not be as traumatizing for you.”

“Well that worked out exceptionally well, didn’t it?”

“If you had held off noticing for just a few more minutes it would have been fine.”

“I don’t think that leading someone into water that is up to their chests when they don’t realize that they are doing it is a very helpful thing to do.”

“It would have been if you hadn’t noticed.”

“I noticed,” I hissed.

“Apparently.”

Turning away from him and the futile conversation that we were having, I looked around the boat. It was definitely the worse for wear since the storm, but it was still lodged in place and I had another flash of the sea creature that I just knew had a hold on the broken vessel and just wasn’t going to let go.

I was going to need to go back to therapy.

“Do you want to look in the cabin?” I asked.

“Sure,” Hunter said, walking past me toward the door that was now barely hanging by one hinge.

I was so grateful that he agreed to that. I wasn’t fond of Gavin, but just as I hadn’t wanted to think about him being torn apart by the storm or shredded into little survivalist pieces by strange island monsters, I didn’t really relish the idea of being the one to find him floating around in the cabin. As Hunter walked past me I noticed the way his pants cupped to his ass and memories from the night before created a surge of desire within me.

Oh, this is so not the time.

Hunter pulled the rest of the door open and took a peek inside. When he pulled his head back and shook it at me, I let out a sigh of relief.

“OK, good. He’s not dead in the boat.”

“But that still doesn’t tell us where he actually is.”

“True.”

I turned slowly and looked around the boat. Suddenly something caught my eye and I crossed the deck. There was a narrow metal box hanging on the side of the boat and the top was open, revealing nothing but a single life jacket inside. I immediately knew what it was.

“Holy shit,” I muttered.

“What is it?” Hunter asked, coming toward me.

I wanted to kick the box, but in my current shoeless state, that wouldn’t have been a good idea. I didn’t know if I would be able to fashion a splint for myself out of twigs and dried banana leaves.

“It’s an emergency kit,” I said, gesturing toward the box. “Well, it used to be. This box had a life raft in it.”

“A life raft?” Hunter asked, coming to my side and looking down into the box.

“The son of a bitch left us,” I said. “When you were unconscious he told me that he was going to come get some supplies, but he didn’t come back. Turns out he just jumped ship.”

Hunter looked at me with a pursed face.

“That’s probably not the best choice of words.”

I looked at him.

“How could he do this to us? How could he find a life raft and just leave by himself?”

“Does that really surprise you?” Hunter asked. “He hasn’t exactly been the most civil to us throughout this experience.”

“He saved your life when the snake bit you.”

“I don’t think that that necessarily counts as civil. I think that that is more along the lines of human.”

“Where do you think he went?” I asked.

“Well, it depends on when he left. If he left long enough before the storm, there’s a chance that he might have gotten somewhere, but even before the storm hit here, it would have been out in the water. Something as flimsy as a life raft wouldn’t have been able to withstand the kind of water conditions that would have been out there. In that case, he probably went to the bottom of the ocean.”

“So, what do we do?” I asked.

“I don’t think that there’s much that we can do,” Hunter admitted. “Him leaving doesn’t really change anything. We’re still here and we still don’t know how we are going to get away, which means that we still need to figure out how we are going to survive here. That’s our first priority.”

“Stay alive.”

“Yes.”

“Good priority. Where do we start?”

“I guess we clean up. We’ll find the supplies and salvage what we can, clean up the debris from the shelter, and then…”

“Rebuild the damn shelter.”

“Rebuild the shelter.”

“Fantastic. I suppose we’re going to try the geodesic dome this time?”

“Gavin isn’t here to tell me no, so unless you are going to stop me for some reason, I still think that that’s the way to do it.”

“I’m sorry that he was so awful to you,” I said, realizing that I hadn’t said that to him yet.

“You have no reason to say that you’re sorry,” he said. “You didn’t do anything.”

“I still feel like I should apologize for him. There was no need for him to treat you like that. And I did plenty. I haven’t exactly been helpful since we got here.”

“You’ve been dealing with a lot,” Hunter said. “You did what you could.”

“Complained and asked stupid questions?”

Hunter laughed, but shook his head.

“You did more than that.”

I felt heat shook between my legs, settling into my core as I thought about exactly what I had done the night before. We stared at each other for a few long seconds before he stepped up to close the space between us. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me up against him, staring at me for a moment longer before leaning down to touch his mouth to mine. It was soft at first, almost hesitant as if he was trying to remember the way that we had kissed the night before, and I rose up slightly on my toes to encourage him. This seemed to give him greater confidence and he deepened the kiss, holding me tightly against him.

I was starting to reach up to bury my fingers in his hair when the deck beneath our feet lurched. I gasped and clung to Hunter’s shoulders.

“What the hell was that?”

The deck lurched again and I heard an ominous cracking sound.

“We need to get off the boat,” he said.

“What?”

There was another crack and I felt the wood of the deck drop several inches.

“Get off the boat!” Hunter demanded.

He pushed me gently toward the ladder and I followed his guidance, scrambling down the rungs and back into the water. Hunter followed behind and he was barely off of the bottom rung of the ladder when I heard a series of loud, deep cracking sounds and the boat seemed to collapse in on itself. He reached out and curled around me, turning his back to the boat until the majority of the sound deadened and then guiding me to swim toward the beach. I splashed my way through the pool and up onto the sand. As soon as I was a decent distance away, I turned and watched as the boat split and pulled away from the sandbar that had been holding it since we crashed onto it.

The waves, still choppy from the storm, grabbed onto the pieces and started dragging them out into the water. It seemed like it happened in an instant, but I didn’t truly know how long I was standing there watching as the pieces disappeared. Soon all that was left was a few bits of debris floating on top.

“I guess I’m not sleeping in the cabin tonight,” I said. I whipped around to face Hunter. “Now what the hell are we supposed to do?”

“Exactly what we said. We clean up. We rebuild. It’s not like that boat was a viable transportation method.”

He walked up further onto the beach and started scooping debris up and tossing it to the side. I watched him as he moved along the sand and noticed that different piles were forming. He was dividing the debris that he was finding and weeding out the supplies, separating them into a pile of items that had been destroyed by the storm and those that could still be used. There had been a hint of anger in his voice when he said that last sentence and I tried to understand what he was feeling, what had changed so drastically. I watched him toss an armful of broken branches toward the pile of tattered shelter remains and saw his jaw twitch, then saw him pick up an empty supply box. He glared at it for a few seconds and then threw it toward the pile of supplies he didn’t think that he could salvage.

Oh, no. Gavin. That’s what was bothering him.

I climbed up the sand toward him and reached for Hunter. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and I felt the electricity between us as my fingertips touched the sun-warmed skin of his back. He shrugged me away, but I grasped his upper arm anyway, turning him around to face me.

“The only reason that I care where Gavin is or what happened to him is because I’m angry that he found a way to get off of here and he just left us. It’s not him that I care about. That’s not what matters to me.”

I saw his eyes scan my body and knew that he was looking at the clothing that I was wearing. I didn’t think of them as anything but the clothes that I had grabbed from the supply chest. It barely occurred to me that they were Gavin’s, that he had once worn them. I tucked my finger beneath Hunter’s chin and tilted his head up, kissing him, then took a step back away from him. I took hold of the hem of the shirt and pulled it off over my head, letting it slip from my fingers onto the sand. Hunter swallowed as his eyes traveled down my body and onto my breasts.

When I could see that I had his full attention, I tucked my thumbs into the waistband of the shorts and eased them down so that I could kick them off.

“Go ahead,” I said softly. “Touch me.”

Hunter stepped forward and lifted one hand to stroke his fingertips along my collarbones the way that I had trailed kisses along his, the night before. He brought them down, tracing the swell of the side of my breast. That soft touch was intoxicating, but I didn’t push him to go any faster. His fingers curved beneath my breast and then up the center of my chest, applying light pressure so that I could feel his touch against the bone. When they reached the soft spot between my collarbones again, he repeated the slow exploration along my other breast. It was barely a touch, yet it had an impact on me that was indescribable. I felt my breath getting shallower, gasping from me raggedly as my skin started to tingle under his fingertips and radiate across me.

He finished the circuit and then ran his fingertips down the center of my chest again, following the bone down until it reached my belly and continuing on to stroke down my stomach and dip into my navel. Hunter brought his fingers across my lower belly from hipbone to hipbone and then rested both hands on my hips. I felt him guiding me down as he lowered to his knees on the sand. He pressed his hand to my chest, guiding me back to lie down the way that I had stretched him out on the pallet. I drew in a shuddering breath trying to quiet my shaking as he continued to explore me slowly and carefully. He touched me with the same patience and reverence that I had touched him and I offered my body to him, not wanting to rush him or to push him to go any further than he was ready to go.

Hunter came down to lie on his side beside me, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off of his body. He leaned down and kissed me again, then ran his fingertips down the center of my body again, gliding closer to the apex of my thighs, but hesitating, seeming unsure of going any further. Finally, I rested my hand over his, easing it down toward my core. Before I brought it fully down, I looked up into his eyes. If I had seen any hesitation there, any questions, I would have stopped him, but I didn’t. Instead his eyes were like embers, the middles glowing intrigue, desire crackling at the edges.

I eased his hand down further and parted my thighs to open myself to him. We both gasped as his hand slipped between my legs and his fingers touched the warm wetness of my body. I guided him, easing his fingers through my folds so that he could become acquainted with the curves and dips of my body. Our hands moved together as I taught him how to touch me, showing him where to brush his fingertips and how hard to push to bring my desire up higher and higher. I felt him pulling his hand out from beneath mine and I felt a glimmer of worry, but then I saw him adjust his position so that he was propped up and leaning over me slightly.

Hunter reached up and brushed strands of my hair away from my shoulders. He ran his fingertips along each of my nipples briefly, and then he rose up over me slightly higher and blew a stream of cool air along my skin. My eyes closed and I shivered at the delicious, unusual sensation of his breath dancing across my chest and over the taut peaks of my nipples. He brought himself down further and continued to blow air lightly over my skin. I could feel my muscles trembling in response and the arousal of my entire body reaching an exquisite level that I had never experienced. I wanted to open my thighs, to invite him to touch me, but something held me back. Something told me that I needed to remain just as I was, allowing him to do as he pleased.

The touch of his fingertips was replaced by his mouth and Hunter kissed the valley between my breasts before following the trial that was still tingling with the touch of his fingers. As he made his way down my body, I felt the first waves of high tide touch my toes. The incredible contrast between the cold water and his hot breath sent a shiver of pleasure through me, seeming to cause my mind to sharpen its focus on Hunter’s touch. His hand returned to my thighs. I thought he was going to press them apart, but he didn’t. Instead, he ran his fingers in a feathery touch along as deep in my inner thighs as he could reach. He ran them all the way to my knees and then back to my hips, resuming the progress of tracing his fingers back and forth across my hipbones.

The longer he touched me, the more my desire grew. Though he seemed to be purposely avoiding touching me as I so desperately wanted him to, the way that he was exploring my body felt incredibly intimate, the warmth of his fingers seeming to partner with the cool of the waves that crept ever higher on my body, until I trembled against the sand. The waves were sliding along my legs now, licking at my thighs so that tiny, frothy bubbles slipped between them and danced on my clit. Beside me Hunter brought his mouth down to run across the side of my neck, his lips open just enough that I could feel the heat of his breath. He kissed down to my shoulder and the tip of his tongue traced the bone.

His fingertips seemed to count my ribs as they traveled down my side, then dipped into my waist. The waves were washing up higher now and I could feel the water sweeping over my hips. The pull of the waves rushing back into the ocean dragged the sand out from beneath me, creating another delicious sensation. It pulled me closer to the ocean and onto flatter sand, causing me to lay back completely. As if the position lifting my breasts up toward him was an invitation, Hunter dipped his head down and I felt the tip of his tongue rush across one nipple. He repeated this on the other side and I felt myself shaking harder, unexpected pressure building throughout my body.

Hunter opened his mouth over my breast, drawing it in so that his tongue stroked along the bottom curve and the gentle pressure tantalized my nipple. Just at that moment, a larger wave crashed over me, bringing with it a sudden orgasm that made me cry out and arch against the sand. I grasped at Hunter beside me, digging my fingers into his thigh as I rode out the throbbing spasms of pleasure that coursed through me. When they ended, I lay breathless against the sand, letting the surging and waning waves cool my skin and relax my twitching, trembling muscles.

Finally, I felt like I could open my eyes and I looked up at him. I gave a tremulous smile at the look of surprised awe in his eyes and reached my arms up for him. Hunter folded down into them, easing his body up and over so that he stretched over me. I relished the feeling of his weight pressing down on me and his mouth capturing mine for a long, languid kiss. I could have laid there for the rest of the day just enjoying the feeling of his heartbeat against my chest and his tongue sliding against mine, but all too soon the tide got too high and we had to move to prevent the waves from washing up over our heads.

I was still processing the incredible, unexpected climax when we stood and made our way back up the sand toward the piles of debris that Hunter had created. The sun warmed my bare skin and I felt strangely comfortable though I was walking completely naked along the beach. I knew that I was going to need to put clothes on again at some point if only to protect myself from the plants and bugs in the jungle, but I wasn’t in any hurry to cover myself and lose the awakening, delirious feeling that I had found. It was as though Hunter had opened something within me, connecting me to the natural essence within me, and I was ready to discover more of that wild.

Hunter and I exchanged smiles and went about gathering the debris that he hadn’t gotten to before I stripped down. I was gradually piecing together the collection of knives and tools that we had been using when I glanced back toward Hunter and saw him carrying a metal box tucked under his arm as he stared down at the sand. He was walking slowly, methodically, as though he were scouring the beach for something specific. As I watched, he suddenly dipped down and scooped something out of the sand. He shook it off and dropped it into the box and then kicked at the sand around him before moving on another two steps and repeating the scouring process. I was fascinated by the progress, unsure of what he was trying to find. He dipped down again and picked something else up. As he shook the sand off of it, I saw the sunlight glint off of it and realized that he was holding the foil packet of one of the condoms that had tumbled out of the supply box when he was getting a knife to work on the shelter before the storm.

My heart fluttered in my chest, and I looked away before he had a chance to notice me watching him, for some reason not wanting Hunter to know that I had seen him.

Talk about searching for hidden treasure.

I went back to gathering up the tools and setting them in a pile, intending to put them in the first box that I found cast onto the beach. Even though my body was still humming from the climax he had just given me, my mind was racing with thoughts of how much more we could discover together with those little treasures he was so carefully stocking away.

Chapter Sixteen

Gavin

I tore my shirt into long strips and wound one of them around the gash in my arm, using my teeth to help me tighten it. My arm ached and I could feel the blood pumping into it, trying to force itself against the pressure of the bandage. I opened and closed my hand a few times, trying to release the tension and ease the discomfort in the injury.

“I told them that the fucking storm was coming,” I muttered to myself because, frankly, there was no one else around for me to mutter to. “I told them. But did they care? Did they listen to me? Of course not. They are so wrapped up in making goo goo eyes at each other and not just fucking and getting it over with, or getting bit by fucking snakes and sprawling out in a cave to actually get ready for it.”

I tried to think of a few more ways that I could spit out some profanity, but I seemed to have lost the groove and just gave a defeated sigh and finished the knot of my bandage by tucking the ends underneath. The last thing I needed right then was to get the ends caught on one of the fallen trees and dislocate my shoulder. The storm had battered this island and I wondered how the other two had fared. If they had stayed in the cave, they might have gotten through it alright, but if they had tried to use the half-finished shelter they were likely pinned to the jungle floor with palm shards at this point. I spent a few seconds contemplating this, trying to determine if I really cared either way.

Of course, it hadn’t been the storm that had caused the injury that I was now hoping that I could keep from getting infected for however long I was going to be here. Open wounds in hot, humid weather were never a pleasant prospect. No, that had been my realization that in my haste to hop into the life raft and make my way to this island I hadn’t through to bring any food with me and that I needed to scavenge some. The other island had been abundant in fruit trees and the shallow tide pools near the shore made it easy to catch fish. This island, however, seemed little more than a tangle of trees and what few fish I had seen flitting around the water were not as simple to catch when I was without my spear. This had brought me up into the branches of one of the trees having a distinct difference of opinion with a large rat. I thought that it would make a tasty lunch and it thought that that wasn’t something that it was interested in doing.

I had perched on the edge of the branch, planning to drop down on the rat with the large stick that I held, but as soon as I started to shift my weight, the branch had given way under me and I fell down through the rest of the branches and into the undergrowth, catching my arm on the sharply pointed edge of one of the plants beneath. If I hadn’t actually seen it happen, I would have thought that I had been bitten by the plant because the wound was so deep and so painful.

Now I was sitting on the beach among the rest of the casualties of the storm, staring out over the grey ocean as it sloshed around, seeming to still be getting over the drama of the storm. I was trying to remember why I had gotten into this line of work, trying to remind myself why I hadn’t just gone into the meat packing business like the rest of my family, but right at that moment I wasn’t able to remember. It seemed like I had been doing this for my entire existence. As long as I could remember, this is what I had done, this is what had defined me as a person and had influenced not only my position in the world around me, but also how I perceived everything and everyone I encountered. It was difficult to form any type of relationships with the people I met when in the back of my mind there was always the possibility that the next week I could get assigned to snatching one of them and serving them up to people they had wronged. I made it a point to never seek out details about what happened to those people after I had given them over and cashed my check. It wasn’t like there was anything that I could do about it. What was done would have already been done and there was nothing that could fix it. Especially considering alerting any authorities to what had happened would have just sacrificed myself.

This meant that I went about my life fairly isolated. I had gotten to the point that I eschewed using the internet because I didn’t want to stumble on news stories about one of the people I had been assigned by a client. This kept me from much of the communication and social interaction that everyone else had, only pushing me further into the lone wolf lifestyle. While this served my purposes and I was not one to long for a large passel of friends, and most definitely not a wife, there were times like this when I did wish that I had someone in my life who might notice that I had left on my boat and just not come back. At least then I could have a little glimmer of confidence that there might be someone looking for me.

As soon as that thought went through my mind, it occurred to me that there was someone who was going to notice my seeming disappearance, if it hadn’t already been noticed. My client. Though there was a little bit of wiggle room when it came to when I was supposed to deliver Eleanor, considering it had been pretty difficult to pinpoint exactly when I would be able to connect with the cruise ship and how long it would take me to get ahold of her and get her back to the mainland and the meeting point, the days were drifting by and soon my client was going to notice that I hadn’t shown up with my human cargo.

This was a client that had been hard for me to really wrap my head around. It wasn’t that I always knew why my clients wanted me to kidnap a particular person. In fact, I rarely got the whole story unless I was working for one of those particular type of wealthy man who got most of his personal joy from sitting around in his study sipping scotch older than my parents and waxing philosophical about how the person had unforgivably damaged their perfect lives. I usually had the opportunity to get a few little details about them, however, and could use those details to mask whatever personal feelings did manage to bubble up through the hard shell that I had formed over the years. When it came to Eleanor, I didn’t have that.

This was my first job since coming back after the long months that I hadn’t been able to work and I was eager to take whatever came to me. When I met with this client, though, I immediately felt like something was a little off. I couldn’t identify a reason why Eleanor would be a target to this person. Just like any wealthy woman, I knew that she had to have some jewel-encrusted skeletons dangling in her walk-in closet, and that those were probably enough to piss someone off enough to justify hiring me, but not understanding the background had a strange effect on me. It prevented me from being able to give myself an out when thinking about what might happen to her, but rather than making me sympathize with her or have any level of concern for her, it seemed to have the opposite effect. When I looked at her, I felt irrational disdain. The fact that it wasn’t immediately clear why she had a bullseye on her back meant that she was one of the slimy, reprehensible human beings who were able to hide their misdeeds behind calm, beautiful exteriors, allowing them to move through their lives and weave through the people they encountered without anyone ever knowing what they had done.

Soon enough the fact that I hadn’t shown up would become troublesome and I didn’t know what the reaction would be. I couldn’t imagine that someone willing to hire a person to capture an enemy by whatever means necessary would have a tremendous amount of patience or goodwill when disappointed.

Feeling as though I had spent enough time wallowing in my own misery, I stood and headed toward the tree line. The pressing need for shelter wasn’t any different here than it had been on the first island. The only difference was that I was the only person who would be working on this shelter and wouldn’t have to listen to anyone else try to convince me that building a big dome was going to be worth the effort that it would take. I roamed slowly along the trees, trying to choose the one that would be best to be the basis for my shelter. I had dragged the life raft up onto the beach with me and intended to use it to create a roof for the shelter, not at all interested in having another drop of rain hit me. That, though, meant that I needed to find a place that would have enough room to fit the raft without the branches being too far apart so the raft either fell down on top of me while I was in the shelter, or flew away the second that any wind hit.

I had made my way all the way to the end of the beach and found a craggy rock formation. I scrambled up it and used the vantage point to look out over the water and what of the island I could see. The trees were too thick to see much, but I could see that the rocks continued along the shore until I couldn’t see any further. This gave me some hope that I would find another waterfall or pool that I could use for fresh water and maybe some fruit trees. Abandoning my plan to build a shelter in the trees, I decided that I would make my way around the island on the rocks, using any caves or dips in the rocks that I found to protect me if the need came. Staying on the rocks would keep me at a distance from the dangers that might be amongst the trees and gave me some hope of being visible if there was a boat or helicopter sweeping past. Hoping for the best, but fully expecting that I was going to end up in the mouth of a volcano because that was just the way that this entire experience was unfolding for me, I started along the jagged rocks, constantly looking back toward the water, hoping that somewhere out there, someone was looking for me, even if that meant not knowing exactly what was going to happen when they found me.

****

Noah

“You what? ”

I heard Snow shouting from the living room and I rushed from the shower toward her, wondering what had happened. She was standing in the middle of the room, one hand cupped over her mouth and the other gripping her phone to her ear.

“What is it?” I asked, crossing to her as I tossed the towel I had been using to dry my hair onto a chair.

She turned and looked at me, her bright blue eyes wide, making the bold contrast between them and her shock of silky black hair even more noticeable. She took her hand from her mouth and reached out with it, grasping my shirt.

“You call me back the second that you know anything, do you understand me?” she demanded. She waited a few seconds and rolled her eyes. “Yes, that means that the telephone ban is lifted until further notice.”

She ended the call and dropped her phone to the sofa beside her before turning to me.

“Who was that?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Robin,” she answered, her voice sounding tremulous with fear. “Those people missing from the cruise ship?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding to encourage her to keep going.

“It was Eleanor and Hunter.”

I felt my heart drop into my stomach and something felt like it exploded in my brain. I shook my head, trying to clear my mind enough to speak. I couldn’t possibly have just heard what I thought I did. That couldn’t be what she said.

“What?” I asked.

“Eleanor and Hunter,” Snow repeated. “They haven’t been seen in several days. They didn’t attend any of the activities that Eleanor had planned and she missed her night at the Captain’s table. Finally, Robin started to worry and he went to the crew. They tried to get in touch with both of them, but their phones went directly to voicemail, so they eventually accessed their cabins and realized that neither of them had been used in days.”

“It took that fucking long for them to realize that?” I shouted. “When did that happen?”

“Three days ago.”

“Three days?” I exploded, knowing that my voice was far too loud but not caring. “He’s known that my aunt had disappeared off of a cruise ship for three days and he didn’t bother to call you? The news outlets know that people are missing, but we didn’t get informed?”

“He didn’t want to disturb us.”

“Well, I’m pretty fucking disturbed.”

“I can’t believe he didn’t call. I know that I told him not to, but this…”

“He thought that he was doing the right thing,” I said, trying to comfort her even though it was the last thing that I really wanted to be doing.

The thought that Eleanor and Hunter had disappeared off of the ship was already upsetting enough. I didn’t need her going through the additional stress of feeling like her best friend had betrayed her.

“What are we supposed to do now?” she asked. “Why haven’t the authorities contacted us?”

“Technically they don’t have to,” I told her. “I’m not the next of kin.”

“Who is?” she asked. “Your father?”

I shrugged.

“Maybe. But if he was, he would have called me.”

Suddenly I could feel the color drain from my face.

“What is it?” Snow asked.

“Virgil,” I said. “They called Virgil.”

“Who’s Virgil?”

“Her ex-husband.”

“Ex?” Snow asked. “If he’s an ex, he wouldn’t be her next of kin.”

“Virgil is anything that he wants to be when it comes to Eleanor. At least he was until she finally got up the nerve to divorce him.”

“The nerve?” Snow asked. “What do you mean?”

This was the one thing about my family that I hadn’t told her about in the little more than a year that we had been together. It was a dark blot in their history that I didn’t want to think about much less give any more attention to by sharing it with my wife. Now, though, he realized that by ignoring it, he might have made the situation even worse than it already was.

“Eleanor’s marriage to Virgil was not exactly the picture of domestic bliss. I was only seven when she married him, but I remember what it was like before he came around and the way that things changed after they got married. She and I have always been really close. I don’t even remember my mother, so she was the closest thing that I had when I was little. We were together almost every day. She and my father had always been close, too, so the whole family would have outings or eat together. Go on vacation together, the very rare occasions when we could pry Dad away from his work long enough to take them. Once she married Virgil, though, things changed. She still came around, but not nearly as often, and when she did, there was something different about her.”

“That must have been really hard for you.”

“It was. I was too young to really understand it and it broke my heart to see what it did to my father. Part of what made it easy for her to understand me was that she had lost her mother, too. My grandfather and her brothers were all she had. They were all each other had. Then her other brother died. It was suddenly just the three of them. Having her pull away from him made my father feel like his world was falling apart.”

“You and Eleanor don’t seem like you had a falling out.”

“We didn’t,” I insisted. “There was never any fighting. Never any animosity. Virgil just kept her from us and when she was away, the way he treated her chipped away at the woman that we knew until she seemed like she was just a shadow of the Auntie I had always known and loved so much. When I got old enough, I started going to her house to check on her. Virgil hated that. He hated any time that she was with anyone but him, but I wouldn’t let him stop me. That’s how I found out what he was involved with.”

I suddenly felt like my legs couldn’t hold me up anymore. I sat down and reached for a cup of coffee that had been sitting and cooling on the breakfast tray. I swallowed it down before continuing, telling Snow about the criminal activity that Eleanor told me Virgil was involved in. She had been so scared, terrified that the people who were part of the shady business were going to turn their sites on her. Of course, they had, but that only came after she had used the documents that she had scanned and the other evidence she had spent years gathering to convince him to finally give her a divorce.

“Why didn’t you go to the police?” Snow asked.

“I should have,” I said. “I should have, but I didn’t. She begged me not to. She said that she just wanted to be away from him, that she didn’t care if anyone ever found out what he was doing. I told her that he deserved to pay for his crimes, not to mention the way that he had treated her, and she said that one day she would make sure that he did, but she didn’t want to do it yet. She didn’t want to leave one horrible situation only to dive right into trials and paparazzi and everything that would come from such a high-profile case.”

“Virgil,” Snow said under her breath as if the word was reminding her of something. “Virgil.” I knew what she was thinking, but I let her get to it herself. Her eyes rose to me when she did. “Virgil McIntire? The crime boss?”

“That makes him sound much cooler than he actually is,” I said, “but, yes. She was married to Virgil McIntire the white-collar criminal of the century. The one good thing that he ever did for her was keep her so cloistered in the house and away from anybody but the legitimate clients that he hosted that her name and picture didn’t make it into the media.”

“I don’t understand,” Snow said. “If your father and Eleanor were so close, why didn’t he do anything to save her? Why did he let Virgil treat her that way?”

“For a long time, I don’t think that he knew. I really don’t. I think that he loved his sister so much and wanted so much to think that she had a wonderful life with this husband who would take care of her and not use her for her money that he just closed himself off to the possibility that anything else might be happening. He listened to what she said and chose to believe it. I was too young to know that I should have said something to him about the worries that I had, and by the time that I was old enough to make a difference, Eleanor was so deeply entangled that we couldn’t just swoop in and save her.”

“Why not?”

I sighed. Now I had another reason for not wanting to talk about this to her.

How exactly was I supposed to talk about this without making her uncomfortable?

“Money makes things hard, Snow.”

She bristled.

Well, that wasn’t it.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Eleanor and Virgil had a lot of financial interests together. They purchased real estate and investments together. They owned businesses. He came into the marriage with some money, but nothing compared to what she is worth. He convinced her that he wasn’t in the relationship for the money, but just as soon as he could he had her buying businesses, houses, and other things up and putting them in both of their names or even just his name. Early in their marriage everything was completely legitimate and they even donated to several charities through a fund that Eleanor had created in the name of the brother she lost. As the years went on, though, the things that Virgil put her money into got tangled up with his criminal activity. If she had just walked away from him without his cooperation, it would have been all too easy for the links between the legitimate purchases and the criminal ones, and what the money from her foundation had supported, to be uncovered, destroying her. I had to help her go about getting out of that web carefully. That way she had her money firmly in her control and his eventual collapse would have no bearing on her or her foundation. When we finally did, she was able to use all the evidence to secure the divorce.” I gave a short, mirthless laugh. “I didn’t even know she had all of that.”

“So why does it matter if they called him about her disappearance?” Snow asked. “If she has all of that evidence against him, doesn’t that mean that he doesn’t want to get involved?”

“That’s just the problem. I think he is absolutely involved. He’s been trying to get to her since just shortly after their divorce was final. He thinks that now that she got the divorce she should destroy the evidence, but she isn’t willing to do that. She told me that he’s been trying to get to her and she’s had a couple of run-ins with his hired men. They got to her on that cruise ship. I just know that they did. And since they called Virgil as her next of kin it means that none of us knew. They couldn’t release her name in the media.”

“And they wouldn’t even confirm it to Robin or the rest. He’s only making assumptions.”

“I think that it’s a pretty good assumption.”

“So, what do we do now?”

“We have to find them.”

“But how are we supposed to do that? They don’t have their phones, they don’t have anything.”

“Why Hunter?” Snow suddenly asked. “I don’t understand why they would disappear together.”

“They looked pretty chummy at the wedding,” I said. “Maybe they were spending time together on the cruise. Or maybe he saw something accidentally and they knew that they had to take him, too, or he would tell somebody and stop them before they could get Eleanor to Virgil.”

Tears had started to stream down Snow’s cheeks and I reached up to brush them away. I took hold of both of her wrists and looked into her eyes, doing everything that I could to stay calm so that she didn’t get any more upset than she already was.

“We are going to find them,” I told her. “Everything is going to be alright, I promise.”

“How?” she asked, her voice shaking.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But we’re going to figure it out. We just need to find out where they took them.”

She nodded and I leaned forward to kiss her forehead, catching a glimpse of the resort beyond the balcony doors as I did.

This was not in the brochure.

Chapter Seventeen

Eleanor

We worked on the new shelter until the sun had gone far enough under the horizon that we couldn’t see well enough anymore and then walked out onto the beach together. Cool air was rushing in from the ocean, bathing us in its bracing saltiness, and I filled my lungs with it. Over the last two days I had gotten accustomed to being so close to the ocean 24 hours a day and would like to think that the sea monster and I had come to a mutual agreement. I agreed that it could remain imaginary if it agreed that it wouldn’t spit the remains of the boat at me while I was walking on the beach.

We had gone back to the cave and taken up the blankets and clothes that were left there, bringing them down to let them dry on the beach. The sun was so hot that they dried within an hour and I went to work shredding one of the most threadbare blankets so I could fashion some makeshift clothing for myself. After my encounter with Hunter on the beach I never wanted to put Gavin’s clothes on again. Instead, I wrapped a length of fabric around my hips to create a skirt and another around my breasts.

All the rage on this year’s runways from Paris to Milan – Jungle Boogie Chic.

“Do you think that they are looking for us?” I said as my eyes scanned the dark, unbroken line of the horizon in the distance. “Or do you think that they think that we just went overboard and there’s no point.”

I looked at Hunter and he reached his hand out to me.

“Come with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

I took his hand much more willingly than I had the first time that he guided me down the beach and followed him as he made his way toward the rocks at the far end of the sand. They were the ones that he had come down when Gavin and I were on the beach, after Hunter had disappeared after our conversation in the jungle. I hadn’t been onto those rocks, sticking primarily to the jungle and the water rather than exploring these frightening-looking jags. I followed him anyway, though, and let him lead me up the easiest path onto the top of the rocks. The bottoms of my feet had gotten tougher in the time that we had been on the island and I had even waved away Hunter’s offer for me to wear his shoes, feeling more comfortable staying the way that I had been since arriving on the island. I was used to it now and part of me worried that if I changed anything I would throw off the balance of my understanding with the beach and the jungle and put myself in more danger.

I was coming to a lot of understandings with inanimate objects and legendary creatures these days.

When we got to the top of the rocks Hunter led me all the way across a small plateau and up onto another ridge so that we got to a high point above the island. He sat down and I came with him, setting onto the rock with my legs hanging over. From that position, it looked as though we were soaring over the ground. Higher than most of the trees, this vantage point let us see far out into the ocean and across the jungle and concealed both the damage from the storm and the dangers that existed within the trees, illuminating the incredible beauty of the space around us.

“It’s gorgeous,” I whispered.

“I know,” Hunter said. “But that’s not what I wanted to show you.”

“What then?”

He smiled and pointed up. I followed his finger and gasped at the sight of a billion stars sprinkled across the deep blue sky like flour thrown across a marble cutting board. There were so many of them that in areas it looked as though they were blending together in pools and I had trouble identifying the constellations.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Hunter asked.

I nodded, not taking my eyes away from the stars.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I came up here after we talked. I needed some time to myself and when I saw the stars that first night, I couldn’t tear myself away from them. It let me think.”

“What did you think about?” I asked.

“You.”

I straightened my head and looked at Hunter. He was gazing back at me with more in his eyes than his words could have ever said.

We slid closer to each other until our bodies pressed to one another, thigh to thigh, and I leaned against him, allowing my head to tilt so that it tenderly rested against his for just a moment. When I straightened, he mirrored the movement, tilting his head against mine. I felt trembling in my belly as I looked up at him and our eyes met. There was so much electricity building in the ocean-scented air between us I felt as though I could feel the seconds disappearing around us. Finally, it felt as though something between us broke and Hunter smiled and leaned in to kiss me. I moved forward too, ready to feel the softness of his lips again, wanting to taste more of him and to discover what was waiting for me next, to show him more.

What began as a soft, introductory kiss quickly changed. Instead, it was as though that all of the desire that we both had built up sparked and flamed out of us in the same moment. Our mouths parted and I gazed for a moment into Hunter’s mesmerizing eyes. Hunter wrapped his arm around me and pressed his hand to my lower back, drawing me closer across the rocks. I was extremely aware of the edge of the ridge and the steep distance between us and the beach, but the adrenaline only intensified what I was feeling. I pulled myself up onto his lap, cupping the back of his neck with both hands and drawing him toward me to crush our mouths together again. Hunter’s fingers immediately came to my hips and dug into my skin as he dove fully into the explosive moment that was happening between us. He was urgent and full of need, demanding in the passion of the kiss, yet there was still something unsure and questioning about the way that he moved. He was still nervous, still uneasy about this unknown frontier. He couldn’t analyze this. He couldn’t research it or do calculations. This went beyond his mind, to his heart and his body, and I wanted him to learn to listen to them, to trust them. I felt his tongue glide out to tease across my lips and I opened my mouth to welcome him.

Hunter’s tongue plunged into my mouth as if he was seeking everything that he had been missing. I could taste the remnants of salt on his lips from the breeze that sent a veil of mist over us when we were on the beach. The longer we kissed, the more I discovered until I found something richer and sweeter, something that was purely Hunter. His scent filled my lungs, his tongue filled my mouth, and I lost myself in the blistering fantasy of his hard, straining cock finally filling my body.

Hunter slid a hand down my side and along my thigh making heat sizzle through my chest and tingle along my spine. I raked my fingertips down his bare chest, luxuriating in the feeling of the powerful muscles, chiseled from the work that he had told me that he did with his brother, and then flattened my hands, eagerly seeking out the warm skin of his stomach and back. I broke our kiss again and moved off of his lap. Standing, I stepped back from the edge of the rocks and offered him my hand. Hunter took it and allowed me to lead him back toward the plateau. I turned toward him and Hunter scooped me into his arms, gathering me close so that we could kiss hungrily again. I scratched my nails up and down his ribs and waist, dragging groans of pleasure from him and making my core throb with anticipation. Hunter's hands moved down to roam over my body, finding the ties of the fabric and releasing them without hesitation. I stepped out of the fabric and then pressed up close to Hunter, giving his hands full access to my body. They settled onto my ass and squeezed and I hummed into his mouth. Hunter’s grip tightened and he lifted me off of my feet so that I straddled his waist. I squeezed my legs tightly around him and could feel the hard bulge of his erection nudge into my hot core.

“Show me,” he said. “Show me what I’ve been missing.”

His demanding growl sent a shiver of desire into my heart and body. I pressed myself to him more tightly, lifting up only enough to roll my hips, increasing the connection between us and furthering the tightness of his cock against me.

“Yes,” I gasped.

Hunter bent his knees carefully until he was on the ground and could lay me back on the castoff fabric on the rocks. He gazed down at me for a few moments and his sparkling green eyes glinted as he stood so he could step out of his shoes and pants. His body was sculpted, even more delectable than it had been in the crashing of the storm or the teasing of the tide. My fingers twitched with anticipation and I reached up to trace my fingers along the trail of hair that led through the V of his hip muscles and toward his cock. It stood hard and thick above me and my body shook with need and the desire to touch him.

Hunter lowered himself back down beside me and brushed his lips against mine. He moved to my neck as his hand slid up my body, his palm settling over my breast so that he could tenderly stroke my nipple with his thumb. I gasped as his thigh nudged my legs apart and brushed against my wet core. His mouth found my neck again and then moved down. His lips danced along my breasts before he drew my nipple into his mouth. Hunter flicked his tongue over the sensitive, taut peak and then traced it in slow, languid circles. His pace had slowed and he paid equal attention to both breasts, passing back and forth between them for several long moments. I writhed and whimpered, remembering the powerful effect that his mouth had had on me on the beach.

This time Hunter’s hand slid down my thigh towards my molten center, promising a deeper, more exquisite experience to come. His fingers felt like magic as they found my clit, tracing it softly like a delicate, precious pearl.

“You’re so wet,” Hunter whispered.

The words sounded brazen and erotic falling from his lips and they pushed me further into my arousal. I reached out to find the length of his cock, wanting nothing more than to feel it, to hold it, to explore all that it could do. I gripped it firmly, running my hand along its stiff, hot length. His fingers circled the tip of her clit awakening my muscles and causing them to tighten in anticipation of more attention. I sat up to give myself better leverage and run my hand along his erection in fuller, longer strokes. Hunter leaned forward and our mouths caught so that they played and tangled as we gave ourselves over to each other.

After a few moments, the pleasure that he was giving me became too much and I dropped back away from him. My hand falls away from his erection and I closed my eyes so that I could focus completely on the sensation of his hand swirling through my core. Almost immediately Hunter pushed away.

"What are you doing?" I asked breathlessly.

I opened my eyes to look at him, not wanting the feeling of cold, empty fulfillment that crept in when his hand left my body to continue any longer.

“Looking at you. Thinking.”

I smiled and he kissed me again.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked when our mouths parted.

“Something that I have wanted to do since I saw you under the waterfall.”

I gasped at the realization that he had been watching me, but he didn’t react. Instead, Hunter lowered himself to his knees in front of me and tucked his hands under my legs. He gripped the backs of my thighs and pressed my knees apart to open me fully. I moaned at the deliciously vulnerable feeling the position gave me.

As rushed and urgent as Hunter had been, he was now torturously slow and controlled. I felt him dip his head down and gently blow a stream of air along my hot, wet core. The contrast in temperature between his breath and my waiting body was a more erotic mirroring of the way that the water of the waves had teased me and I arched my back to present myself to him.

One of Hunter's hands slid up my thigh and onto my belly so that he could hold me in. I could feel his breath growing closer to my body and I knew exactly what he had been thinking. He leaned forward and just the tip of his tongue glided up through my folds. His forwardness was so unexpected and his touch so concentrated that the sensation was almost unbearable and I felt myself melting into his touch.

Hunter drew another long, deep lick through me, and then focused the tip of his tongue on my taut clit. He glided his tongue around the edge of the pearl that he had coaxed forward, before flicking his tongue across it directly again. The deliberate, feathery pattern started me toward climax. I felt delicious, tight pleasure building throughout my belly, thighs, and hips, and let my eyes drift closed again so that I could luxuriate in the feeling. I hoped I wouldn’t finish too soon, not wanting to lose any of the delirious pleasure. Hunter's other hand left my thigh and slid toward my center and two fingers slipped inside of me and I lost all control.

I cried out and surged up. Hunter hovered over me so that I could wrap around him. I clung to him, gasping into his neck as I rode the final waves of my climax.

“Hunter,” I panted, “that was amazing."

Hunter kissed along the side of my neck and into the curve of my shoulder, and I could feel him smile against my skin. The tongue that had just brought me tumbling into oblivion slipped out and glazed across my skin. I felt safe and protected in his arms, as if all of the danger that we had faced together no longer existed, but I didn’t want to fall asleep yet. I didn’t want to let this be the end. I needed to continue, to push him beyond this place and into everything that I knew he was capable of.

I turned Hunter around and pushed him down onto his back. His thick, impossibly hard cock rose up and I accepted it eagerly. Wrapping my hand firmly around the base, I stroked his erection a few times until his eyes closed and I felt his hand clench on my thigh. I didn’t want the chance that his desire was lessening, and I reached forward to run my other hand down his body, appreciating every exceptional cultivated inch. I wanted to please him as much as he had just pleased me, and I dipped my mouth down to run the tip of his cock over my lips as I had fantasized about in the water. I indulged myself in the smooth, silky feeling of his soft, spongy head and the salty-sweet taste of the fluid that dripped from the slit onto my tongue. Hunter drew in a shuddering breath and I grinned.

I opened my mouth and brought Hunter's cock in to glide against my tongue and settle at the back, nestling at the entrance to my throat. As I explored every ridge and vein, I sought to memorize the feeling of him, wanting to be able to call back this very moment whenever I longed for him, which I knew would be far more frequently than I wanted to admit to myself in that moment. I sucked him deep, allowing him to dip into my throat as I reveled in the rumbling, primal sound of his groan.

Hunter's back arched up off of the rocks and he let out an even deeper growl. His hand cupped the back of my head and I felt him hesitate. I paused, wanting him to guide me, to direct me into the pace that he wanted so that he could achieve the exact pleasure that he desired. I wanted to empower him, to show him the strength and beauty of his body, and the way that he could give and receive such exceptional delights. He seemed to understand and began to direct my head so that my mouth slid up and down his cock in a smooth rhythm that I knew he wouldn’t be able to handle for very long.

Just as I expected, it was only seconds before he pushed back on my shoulder to stop me and guide me away from his body.

"Are you alright?” I asked.

He sat up and I leaned out of the way as he clambered to his feet. He crossed the plateau and I watched as he ducked behind a large boulder near the edge. A second later he reappeared, the metal box from the beach tucked under his arm. He brought it over and set it on the ground beside me, flipping the top open to reveal the collection of condoms inside. Hunter reached in and grabbed one of them. He met my eyes and I smiled at him encouragingly. He glanced down at his cock and then back at me. I reached out and plucked the packet from his fingers, peeling it open and slipping the condom from inside. I sat up and nestled the condom on the tip of his cock, then gradually rolled it down to the base of his shaft.

When it was in place, I released him and lay back. Hunter positioned himself so that he was in between my legs and reached for my hips, pulling me toward him. I gasped as he tilted my hips up so the tip of his cock nuzzled my core. With only a brief moment of hesitation, Hunter sank inside me, his eyes closing as he savored the feeling. He held himself still, getting accustomed to the experience, then eased forward more. My body welcomed him, but I suddenly felt my heart surge and break at the same time.

I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to let the emotions and thoughts of all that I was hiding from Hunter take over. I just wanted this, all of what he was offering me and all that I could give him. Hunter’s hips rolled against me so that he sank deeper until finally he was settled as far as he could. When my body had opened fully to him, he sat back on his knees and held my hips. The position gave him greater control and leverage so he could increase his speed and intensity.

The fresh, salty air around us began to fill with Hunter’s deep, unbridled groans and I could see that he was losing control. I reached up and ran my hands down his body, giving in completely to the pure sensual pleasure of his muscles. His thrusts became harder and faster, pushing me into my own spiral, and soon I was gasping for breath, crying out as my body clamped down on him and I tumbled into an orgasm even more powerful than what he had already achieved in me on the beach.

As my body pulled his deeper into me with my intense spasms, Hunter let out a strangled cry. I felt his cock give a hard pulse and then cascade of throbbing within me. He remained poised over me as the most powerful rush of his climax flowed over him and then he fell forward, swallowing hard as his body began to relax. I wrapped my hand around the nape of his neck, stroking it tenderly with my thumb as I held him to me. I cherished the delicious weight of him, making me feel blissfully encapsulated, distanced from everything else, able, if only for the time, to pretend that this world could truly be mine.

Chapter Eighteen

Gavin

Two days had passed since I had crashed on the second island and I was starting to greatly regret leaving the raft behind and starting on my quest across the rocks. This is not what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I didn’t spend all of those years in the military, beating myself into the ground to accomplish the Special Forces standings and learn about what I was supposed to do if I ended up in this type of circumstance only to end up here because I had fallen into this career path. If I hadn’t been discharged…

I forced my mind out of that train of thought and focused instead on the rocks ahead of me.

The endless fucking rocks that never fucking ended because apparently the whole fucking shore was made of fucking rocks.

Fortunately, I had managed to find a few narrow trickles of water that cracked through the rocks, but the meager food that I had been able to scrounge hadn’t been enough to make me feel not like shit and the sun beating down on me wasn’t helping circumstances. I sat in the shadow of a large boulder and took the shirt that I had dipped into the water of the last creek out of the waistband of my pants to press it to the back of my neck. It cooled me enough that I didn’t feel like I was going to die right then and I closed my eyes, resting my head against the boulder. Just as it always did when I had too much time in the quiet to myself, my mind wandered back to my military training and to the excruciating training exercises that we had gone through, then to the night that it all changed and the morning I stood in front of my commander, facing the discharge that had been my greatest nightmare.

I opened my eyes, letting the glint of the sunlight bouncing off of the minerals in the rocks around me to dissolve the image in my mind. There wasn’t anything more for me to do but keep going, so I peeled myself up off of the rocks and continued on. I figured at some point I would either loop back around to the beach or die, and either way I would have finished something.

I combed my hair back off of my forehead and used my hand to block the sun out of my eyes so I could look around. Like I did what felt like a thousand times a day, I scanned the horizon for ships, didn’t see any, looked up to the sky to look for planes, didn’t see any, and looked down at the jungle for predators who might want to have me for a snack. I didn’t see any of those, either, and I kept walking. It could have been minutes or it could have been hours, the whole time thing had become pretty arbitrary since my entire life had become trying to survive on the second island that I had ended up on in the course of a week. That was a personal life accomplishment that I wasn’t really thrilled that I had managed. The next time I looked up, however, I noticed something different ahead of me.

It was such a shock after seeing essentially the same thing over and over again for two days that I stopped in place and just stared ahead of me. I closed my eyes tightly, wondering if it was possible to see a mirage on an island like this. I knew that a desert island wasn’t exactly the same thing as a desert, but maybe there were enough similarities that when a person got tired and overheated enough they could have the fun of some hallucinations to usher them on into the death a little more gently. Of course, two days of scarce eating wasn’t really enough for me to be at that point, but that explanation seemed far more viable than the other possibility. I squeezed my eyelids down until I saw lights bursting against the backs of them and then opened my eyes to check what I thought that I had seen.

Yep. There it was.

You have got to be kidding me.

****

Virgil

“What do you mean she’s missing?”

I gripped the windowsill so hard that I felt like my knuckles were going to break. I kept my eyes trained through the panes at the darkness ahead of me, knowing that if I turned around I was going to strangle the men who were standing behind me. There were chairs in my office, but I hadn’t invited them to sit and they wouldn’t dare do something that I hadn’t offered them. They would stand just as they were, hovering close to the door, on into Armageddon if I required it of them, and at that moment I felt like that was an entirely possible situation.

“I’m sorry, sir,” one of the men said.

“I don’t want to hear that you’re sorry,” I growled. “I want to know what happened.”

“We tried to get her.”

At that point, I whipped around to face them, not really caring if I did end up throttling either one of them.

“What do you mean you tried?” I demanded. “You’ve tried a dozen times. I can understand some of those failures. Getting her out of the mall after the fuss that she put up would have brought far too much attention. But this? This is absurd. You were on a cruise ship. Floating around in the middle of the ocean. She literally couldn’t get anywhere.”

“She jumped off.”

The man I only knew as Blue and didn’t care to know any more about said the words as if he thought it was his only chance to say them. I blinked a few times as what he said sank in.

“She what?” I asked, my voice lower now.

“She jumped off of the cruise ship. We chased her and the man that she was running with up onto one of the decks. I thought that we were going to be able to get her, but they jumped.”

“They jumped?” I repeated.

I knew that I was aggravating him, but I didn’t care. I bought and sold him. He would stand there and say what I wanted to to him and he would take it. He really had no choice.

“The two of them jumped,” he said. “They jumped down into the water and swam to another boat.”

“What boat?” I asked.

“There was a smaller boat,” the other man, the one I referred to as Green, told me, taking his turn in trying to explain their epic failure. “It was a few yards away from the cruise ship and they got onboard.”

That didn’t make any sense. Other vessels weren’t allowed to get near commercial cruise ships. It was illegal and could cause serious problems for whoever had allowed their boat to wander too close to the path of the liner.

“What did it look like?” I asked.

“Just a small boat,” Green said. “Large enough for a cabin, but not as big as commercial boats.”

“So not a tour boat or a fishing vessel?”

“No.”

I tried to process what they were telling me had happened. It sounded absolutely preposterous. Yet, the call that I had gotten from the cruise security team had mentioned that there had been an accident and I needed to meet the ship at the next port. Could the men be telling me the truth? Could Eleanor have actually evaded them yet again by throwing herself down into the ocean? I knew her well enough to know that she didn’t like the water and only went on cruises because she knew that the decks, particularly the luxury decks where she always reserved her cabins, were well above the surface of the water. They had mentioned that a man was running with her. Who could that be, and why did he jump with her?

“You have to find her,” I said. “I don’t care what you have to do. You find out what happened to that boat and where she is now. I’m supposed to meet the cruise ship in two days and when I do, I want to make sure that she really is missing, if you understand what I mean. We don’t need her talking to the authorities finding out what possessed her to throw herself off of a perfectly good cruise ship.”

Both men nodded solemnly and I dismissed them, sinking down into my desk chair and clawing my hands through my hair. How could this have gone so wrong? I had no choice but to find her. With any luck, she never made it out of that boat, but if she did, I needed to make sure that she never had the opportunity to tell her story.

****

Gavin

“Please let someone live there. Please let someone live there. Please let someone live there. Please let someone live there.”

I still hadn’t encountered anyone to listen to me, but I had been talking to the jungle for two days now and it had been a pretty good listener so I figured I would just keep going. I had climbed down off of the rocks and was now moving as fast as I could through the trees in the direction of the shack that I had seen from the ridge. I couldn’t believe it when I had seen it and now that I was down on the ground it was concealed by the trees, making me worry that I really had imagined it, or that I was going in the wrong direction and wouldn’t actually be able to get to it.

A vine hanging from a tree tried to grab me and I swatted at it, quickly realizing when it moved out of the way that it wasn’t a vine but a massive snake dangling down in hopes of scooping a snack from the jungle floor.

“Oh, shit.” I said, ducking out of the way and starting at a faster clip through the trees. “Please let somebody live there. Please let somebody live there.”

I was nearly to a clearing ahead of me when a figure jumped out in front of me. I almost swung at it before I realized that it was a man so wrinkled it was entirely possible that the jungle sun had turned him into a raisin.

Almost not alive, but I’ll take it.

“Are you alright, son?” the man asked as I leaned over and rested my hands on my knees to draw in a few calming breaths.

I shook my head. I had actually intended on nodding, but apparently my mind had decided to mutiny and just go ahead with whatever it thought.

“Lost,” I managed to say.

“Well, I would say so,” he said. “I didn’t think that we had any neighbors around these parts.”

“We?” I asked.

“Of course. Me and the Mrs. Come on. I’ll introduce you. You look like you could use a cup of tea.”

Tea?

I straightened up and followed the crinkly man through the trees toward the clearing ahead. When we stepped out from the cover of the trees I immediately knew that I had seen what I thought that I had. The shack looked much larger when I was standing a few yards from it than it had from the vantage point of the rocky ledge and I noticed signs that the man and his wife had been there for some time scattered across the clearing around it. There were baskets woven from leaves that were far more complex than the ones we had managed on the other island, stacks of cut stalks, and piles of fruit. A firepit to one side had a spit over it that held two large fish and a chunk of something that I could only assume was meat of some kind.

We were a few steps away from the shack when a tiny woman who looked even older than the man came out holding another basket filled with what looked like loaves of bread.

Here I was thinking I was a badass survivalist getting through the few days on the two islands and these two ancient people are just going about their lives, making baskets and baking bread and shit.

“Well, hello,” the woman said with a cheery smile. “Who do we have here?”

The old man looked at me, his face scrunched up as he searched his brain for the name that I hadn’t given him.

“I’m Gavin,” I said, walking toward her with my hand extended.

“Hello, Gavin,” she said, shaking my hand with the gusto of a woman who was no stranger to hard work, but the softness in her eyes of a grandmother that should be baking apple pie. “I’m Sophie, and this old coot who was so rude to not introduce himself is Edwin.”

“It’s nice to meet both of you.” I didn’t think that I had ever said anything more sincere.

“Can I get you some tea?”

Again, with the tea.

“That would be nice. Thank you.”

I followed her around the side of the house toward another firepit. A pot was settled in the glowing embers and she reached for the leaf-wrapped handle. She poured boiling water into a worn cup and tucked a linen-wrapped teabag into it before handing it to me.

“Here you go, sweetie. Drink this. It will make you feel much better.”

The smell coming from the cup was strongly floral and I could only imagine that this was not tea that she had picked up at the grocery store on the way out on her tropical vacation.

“Thank you,” I said.

“So, what brings you to our neck of the jungle?” Edwin asked, laughing at his own joke.

I rapidly went through the story in my head, trying to figure out how I could trim it and present it so that it wasn’t as offensive as it would be if I told them the truth.

“I was on my boat and got caught in a storm. I crashed on an island a little ways from here and then I used a safety raft to get here. Did you get stranded here, too?”

The two stared at me for a few seconds before shaking their heads slowly.

“Nope,” Edwin said. “No, can’t say we did. We’ve been homesteading this place for a little bit now. It was kind of a dream of ours as young folks.”

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Oh. Well…” Edwin sighed and looked into the distance as if trying to calculate. Apparently, time had gotten out of his grasp, too. “Seems to me like it’s been about…. oh…. forty years.”

Holy shit.

I tried to withhold my grimace.

“I guess you don’t have a boat?” I asked.

“No. That’s one thing we don’t have,” Sophie said. “We just never saw need of it.”

My head dropped and I rubbed my fingers into my forehead.

“How am I going to get out of here?” I asked, not really intended on saying it loud enough for them to hear me.

As nice as they seemed, I really didn’t relish the thought of becoming their tribal neighbor.

“Why don’t you just use the phone?”

My eyes snapped up to look over my hand at Edwin.

“The phone?” I asked.

Was this a coconut shells and vines situation?

“Sure,” Sophie said. “You go right ahead.” She gestured toward the shack. “Oh, wait. I’m going to have to come with you.”

I let her go in front of me and I fell into step behind her, letting her guide me to the front door of the house. As soon as I stepped inside I knew that I was not dealing with people quite as crazy as I thought. In front of me I saw a long table set up with various pieces of equipment, including a satellite telephone.

“Now, you’re going to have to give me just a minute to get the juices going. When it’s ready, keep in mind that it’s not going to sound super clear.”

“Get the juices going?” I asked.

“Here you go, Sugar Dumpling,” Edwin said.

I looked up and saw the elderly man dragging what looked like and old bicycle out of a room to the back of the house. He brought it up to the side of the table and attached a cable on it to a generator sitting on the floor.

“Thank you, Sweetie Lump,” Sophie said, walking toward the bicycle.

What the hell is going on here, Coconut Pants?

Edwin took Sophie’s hand carefully and helped her up onto the bike. She grasped the handlebars and positioned her feet on the pedals. Her pedaling was slow and labored at first, and I had my doubts that she had the strength to really get going, but then she seemed to get into a rhythm.

“Um,” I started, “what’s happening?”

“I haven’t fueled up the generator in a bit,” Sophie said as though that completely explained everything.

“Are you alright?” I asked. “Do you want me to do that for you?”

Sophie waved me away and made a few little sounds that reminded me of a chicken.

“Don’t be silly. This is what keeps me young. Gets the joints going.”

Perfect.

I had downed the entire cup of tea by the time that she was finished on the bike and I was questioning what she had put in it. I could have sworn I was feeling a bit of a buzz. Edwin picked up the receiver on the phone and held it out toward me, then pulled it back to hold it against his chest.

“Is it long distance?” he asked.

He stared at me for a few awkward, stony-faced seconds and then dissolved into a cascade of tobacco-laced giggles.

“Oh, you,” Sophie said, whacking her husband playfully in the center of the chest.

Edwin handed me the phone and gathered Sophie into his arms for a decidedly sloppy kiss. I couldn’t decide if that was adorable or sickening, so I turned away from them and dialed the number, drawing in a breath as I prepared to explain to my client what was happening.

Chapter Nineteen

Eleanor

The next morning, I woke with the heat of Hunter's body molded around mine. It enveloped me with the warmth and sweet, musky scent that still lingered from the night before. He stretched and kissed my cheek.

"Good morning," he murmured against my skin.

His voice was smooth and contented, seemingly changed by the fulfillment of the desire and tension that had built up between us. As much as I enjoyed knowing how much I had satisfied him, I found myself wanting to coax it back into the husky arousal and deep, grumbling pleasure that it held the night before. As if he could hear my thoughts, Hunter rolled me onto my back. He leaned forward and ran his tongue along the side of my breast. I felt his teeth nip into my skin and I made a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a giggle. Hunter pushed back away from me and stood, walking across the plateau where we had slept the rest of the night.

He went to the same boulder where he had hidden the supply box full of condoms and returned with a basket of fruit. The leaves were barely holding together under the weight of the fruit, but Hunter was holding it together in an effort to preserve my feelings. As he got closer I noticed that there was a knife tucked into the basket with the fruit.

“You planned this, didn’t you?” I asked.

He winked at me and lowered to his knees in front of me. He pressed one hand to the middle of my chest and eased me back from the reclining position that I was in to lying down again.

I rested my head on my bent arm so that I could watch Hunter as he took the knife out of the basket and selected one of the pieces of fruit. He cupped the fruit in his palm and sliced it open with the knife, revealing the juicy salmon-colored interior. Using the tip of his knife, he flicked out the large black seeds and then made small slits along the flesh. He put the knife back into the basket and pushed the basket aside. Setting one half of the fruit aside, he brought the other half up and squeezed it so that a stream of juice ran down onto my chest. I gasped at the unexpected feeling and Hunter dove forward, catching the dripping juice with his mouth.

He bathed me with his tongue, lapping the sweet nectar from my skin. Gathering some of it onto his lips, he lifted his head to kiss me, sharing some of the bright flavor with me. I kissed him eagerly and took my arm out from under my head to rest fully on the rocks again. Arching my back, I presented my breasts to Hunter, aching for more attention.

Hunter obliged, crushing the fruit against one of my breasts. The soft texture of the flesh stimulated my nipple and I parted my thighs, bending my knees up so that I could draw my body closer to him. He suckled the juice and bits of fruit from my breast, feeding some of it to me with another passionate kiss. I rocked my hips, but he didn’t touch me the way that I expected him to. Instead, he pressed his hand to the center of my chest and brought it down until it reached my hips. He applied guiding pressure to my hipbone to flip me over onto my belly. His hand traveled down my back and onto my thigh and he swept my leg up so it bent beside me, lifting my hips slightly. He brushed my hair over my shoulder and I felt the cool juice touch between my hipbones and trail down my spine, pooling at the small of my back. Hunter’s tongue followed it, licking it off of my spine and then sucking up the small pool like a shot. His hand tucked beneath my hips and lifted them up higher so that he could press the fruit against my core.

The soft, cool flesh stimulated me and I felt my body responding passionately, bucking back toward him and lifting my hips higher. An instant later I felt the fruit leave and his tongue delve between my thighs and into the heat of my core. Hunter’s tongue was nearly frantic, a stark contrast to the slow patience of the night before as he explored the fantasy that he had held within him and carefully played it out. Even hours later my body was still sensitive from that powerful encounter and within seconds of his focused, determined ministrations, I felt myself rushing headlong toward orgasm. Just before I tumbled over the edge, though, Hunter pulled away and I heard the tearing sound of him opening another condom. An instant later he took his position behind me again and plunged his engorged cock into me, pressing me down against the rocks as he fucked me with blinding intensity.

At that angle, every intense thrust slammed into my g-spot and it was only seconds before I exploded, crashing into tremors that made me scream out into the stillness of the morning. I looked back over my shoulder and saw Hunter pull his hips back so that he could grip the base of his cock and rub the tip through my spasming folds, occasionally nudging at my humming clit. I groaned and arched back to press toward him as he continued to tease me. Finally, he positioned the head of his erection against my opening and grabbed hold of my hips, pulling them back hard so he could plunge into me again.

Without withdrawing from me, Hunter guided me up onto my knees so that my legs were wide and my chest was pressed to the ground. This new position created an even more overwhelming sensation that was nearly too much for me. Hunter leaned forward and ran his tongue along my spine again, causing his body to envelope me. This created an exquisite balance between rough, almost dominating control and tender, gentle nurturing.

Hunter thrust into me at a fast, intense pace. Each stroke seemed to get harder in response to the sounds spilling from my lips getting louder and higher. He slipped his hand under my belly so that he could circle the pad of his thumb against my clit. I fought to hold back as the sensations became even more incredible, wanting for us to come together, to further meld our existence in one exceptional, exquisite moment. Hunter let out deep, guttural grunts with each thrust until he pushed forward suddenly to impale me one final time.

The almost painful, blissfully pleasurable sensation sent me plummeting over the brink and I screamed out his name, immediately sending him into his own climax. The pulses of his cock were frantic and I could feel the rush of his orgasm into the condom, pushing me into another powerful wave. He finally rested down on top of me and wrapped his arms around my chest, cupping my breasts with his hands. He lay there for a few sweet moments before pulling out and walking away to dispose of the condom. When he came back I had sat up and I tilted my face toward him for a kiss.

“Good morning,” I said, realizing that I hadn’t offered him the greeting.

He smiled and took my hands, helping me to my feet before giving me another kiss.

“What do you say we go down to the water and take a bath before we get started on the shelter again?”

“That sounds wonderful,” I said.

As much as I didn’t want to wash away his touch, the thought of the cool water in the already-hot day sounded delightful. Even working on the shelter again sounded delightful since I knew that I would be doing it with Hunter. Somehow working alongside him didn’t have the same feeling of miserable work that it had when we were contending with Gavin. The thought of the other man sent pinpricks of anger through the veil of delicious, humming afterglow and I quickly pushed it away. This was beyond anything that I could have dreamed of and I didn’t want to give anything the power to take it away.

****

Gavin

The conversation with my client had gone less than well and I was still feeling the sting of the shouting in my ear when I woke up the next morning. I was curled in on myself in a hammock that Sophie had apparently woven and I struggled to get out as it swung and twisted on the trees where it hung. I would have preferred to just sleep on the ground, but Sophie and Edwin had insisted that no guest of theirs was going to go without the best accommodations. I hadn’t bothered to point out that I wasn’t so much a guest of theirs as a hostage of the island. My aged hosts had fed me until I couldn’t eat another bite and provided me with a constant flow of the tea, so I wasn’t going to argue with them.

I finally fought myself out of the grip of the hammock and got to my feet. I headed toward the house and found Sophie and Edwin already moving around the clearing, hanging wet laundry on a clothesline and stirring a fragrant stew that hung over the fire. They looked as though they had been awake for hours and I wondered how long they had let me sleep.

“There you are,” Sophie said in her cheery voice. “You sure must have been exhausted. I haven’t seen anyone sleep like that since my nursing days.”

“I was,” I agreed.

“Well, I’m glad you’re up. You have some company,” she said as she gestured behind me.

I felt my heart sink a little and turned around. My client was standing on the other side of the clearing, glaring at me through a vicious, tight-lipped smile. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her hair pulled back into a severe bun, and she looked even angrier than she had sounded when I spoke to her the night before.

“Did you sleep well, Gavin?” she asked.

“I did,” I said, not wanting to offend Sophie and Edwin.

“Good,” she said.

Yeah, because after seeing that face I might never sleep again. I had seen a lot in my military career, but the deadness in this woman’s eyes rivaled it.

“Thank you very much for your hospitality,” I said to the pair and then started across the clearing. “Come on, Lucille, we should get going.”

I didn’t pause to hear her response. I stalked through the trees and toward the rock ridge, knowing that helicopter was the only way that she would have been able to get to the island so quickly. She fell into step behind me and I could hear her stomping through the undergrowth as Sophie and Edwin called goodbye to me. I actually wished that I could have spent a little more time with them, given them a more complete goodbye, but I didn’t want Lucille to say anything about why I was actually there. Whatever Sophie and Edwin thought of me, I felt the strange need to preserve it. They were the first people I had met who I didn’t feel had a preconceived notion of me and even though I wouldn’t see them again, I liked the idea of there being at least two people in the world who actually looked at me kindly.

Lucille had the decency to wait until we were several yards into the trees before she started growling at me. Maybe “decency” was giving her too much credit. More likely she was too busy trying to fight her way through the undergrowth in shoes that were almost as absurd as the ones that Eleanor had been gripping when she climbed onto my boat.

“I’ll have you know that I don’t appreciate being ordered around by someone who I have hired for a job,” she said. “You are my subordinate and I expect you to treat me with respect.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just didn’t think that it was a good idea for us to linger around there with them. You want to get this done, we need to get going.”

“Speaking of which,” Lucille said. “You told me that you would explain what was going on when I got here. I’m here. Now tell me why the hell I am paying you a tremendous amount of money to bring Eleanor McIntire to me, and not only did you not do that, but you could have and you just walked away from her.”

“It wasn’t exactly like that,” I said.

“So, what was it like?”

We had nearly made it to the base of the rocks and I kept myself focused on them, telling myself that all I needed to do was get to them. Get to the rocks, get in the helicopter, and this nightmare would almost be over.

“They got up onto my boat before I even had a chance to figure out who they were.”

“They?” Lucille asked, her voice high with her growing anger and frustration.

“There was a man with her. They jumped off of the cruise ship and swam to my boat.”

“What man? Who was he?”

“I don’t know who he is other than his name is Hunter.”

I heard Lucille draw in a breath behind me, the type of breath that told me it was a surprising revelation and she knew exactly who Hunter was.

“Hunter,” she whispered.

“You know him?” I asked.

“That doesn’t really concern you, does it?”

I gritted my teeth and tried to increase my pace.

“By the time that I figured out who she was, she was already on my boat and there wasn’t a lot that I could do. People up on the ship were going to see us if I stayed around any longer.”

“You said that they jumped from the ship. Why would they do that?”

“All they said was that there was somebody after her.”

There were a few seconds of uncomfortable silence and I could almost feel Lucille’s mind working behind me.

“You didn’t tell anybody that I had hired you, did you?” she accused.

“I am more than capable of following instructions. You said not to mention it to anyone, so I didn’t mention it to anyone.”

Not that I had anybody in particular that I would tell.

“Then who could she possibly be running from?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t tell me. They weren’t on the boat very long when a storm came and we were too busy trying not to get killed to discuss our personal backstories. After that we crashed on the island. That’s where they still are.”

“You left her?” Lucille asked, her voice sounding genuinely horrified. “You had her on an island that she couldn’t escape, and you just left her? What the hell do you think that I hired you for? You were supposed to deliver her up to me, not just let her wriggle away from you.”

“I don’t think leaving her on an island that she can’t get off of and very well might end up getting herself killed on is letting her wriggle away from me.”

We were climbing up the rocks now and she paused long enough to get up to the helicopter. A man was sitting in the cockpit, staring through the windshield as if our approach hadn’t affected him.

“Where is she now?”

“Like I said, she’s still on the island. Both of them are.”

“Where is it?”

“Not far from here. It took a few hours on the raft.”

“Fine. The helicopter will get us there much faster than that.”

“You sure are splashing out a lot of money to get your hands on this woman,” I said.

Lucille glared at me, her hands planted on her straight hips.

“I had a very good prenuptial agreement and my lawyer ensured that it was upheld after my divorce. At least most of it.”

There was vitriol in her voice and I wondered if I had stumbled on the reason that she was after Eleanor.

“Is that it?” I asked. “Did Eleanor have something to do with your marriage ending?”

Lucille scoffed, her hands falling away from her hips as she looked away and then glared back at me as if the entire concept was so preposterous she couldn’t even believe I would suggest it.

“Are you serious?” she asked. “That old biddy?”

“She’s barely middle-aged,” I pointed out, feeling suddenly uncomfortable about the way that Lucille was talking about Eleanor. “Besides, if it didn’t have to do with your marriage, what could it be? She seems like a fairly run-of-the-mill rich lady. Obnoxious and pretty well useless in anything even slightly outside of her comfort zone, though she did make a valiant attempt at some baskets and fruit-picking, but nothing that I would think would warrant this kind of treatment.”

“Well, you really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about do you?” Lucille snapped. “And who do you think you are, anyway? You have no right to ask me questions about my motivations. You don’t need to know why I want you to do it, you just need to know that I want you to do it, and then to do it. You are being paid, very well, I’ll point out, to get her and bring her to me. Not to know my personal business and not to know what happens after you hand her over.”

“You’ve already given me half my pay,” I pointed out, “and like you said, even that’s a handsome amount. Your deposit is enough to keep me going for months, so you don’t really have any leverage. I do. I know which island she’s on. So, let’s level here. You tell me what it is about Eleanor that has pissed you off so much, and I’ll make sure you get to her. Then you pay me and we’ll go about the rest of our lives as if this wonderful little relationship that we have going here never happened. How does that sound?”

I told myself that I wasn’t going to do this. This time was going to be different. Mouthing off at my client is what had landed me unable to work for months and I wasn’t really looking to have that happen again. I wasn’t lying when I said that the money she had already given me would carry me through for quite some time, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t want to get the rest of it. Something about Lucille got under my skin, however. I had dealt with some of the lowest, slimiest people I could imagine, and yet few of them had even come close to creating the repellant feelings in me that this woman did. I just couldn’t take any more of it.

Lucille drew in a breath and let it out slowly. I had a sudden flash that it was like someone who had been through extensive anger management therapy. She cocked one hip and tilted her head at me, shaking it slightly. There was the hint of a smile on her lips and it seemed to hold more amusement than I’d ever seen in her.

“I think you’re going to be disappointed,” she said. “It’s really not that interesting a story.”

“Then why are you so determined not to tell me?”

“Fine. It’s not really Eleanor who I’m concerned with. I don’t even know the woman. The only reason I would even be able to tell you who she was if I ran into her in a dark alley is because I met her once during an extremely awkward and uncomfortable cocktail party at my now-ex-husband’s house. Of course, that was before I found out that her brother was the man who was going to snatch my then-husband’s company out from under me and hand it over to her nephew.”

“So, is that it? They took your ex’s business so you’re pissed at her family?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “That would be ridiculous. If there was anyone in that situation who I would want revenge against, it would be my ex. No, I’m after Eleanor because of Snow.”

“Snow?”

Is this some sort of reverse global warming activism that I don’t understand? Was Eleanor a bad environmentalist? A good environmentalist?

“Yes. Snow Whitman. Well, not Whitman anymore. She has been the bane of my existence from the time that we were in school together all the way through thwarting my career at every turn and up until she had me ousted from my position running the advertising agency and then marrying the man who took my place.”

“She married Eleanor’s nephew?” I asked, making sure that I had gotten all of the strings of the web in place.

“Yes. She just keeps finding new and creative ways to destroy my life.”

“Let me get this straight. You hired me to kidnap a woman because she is the aunt of the husband of a woman who you think got married as some sort of plot to ruin your life?”

“If it wasn’t for Snow, I would be married, wealthy beyond my wildest dreams, with the career that I have always deserved. She has done nothing but make me suffer for most of my life. So now it’s time to make her suffer.”

The deadness was evident in her eyes again and was now creeping into her voice.

“By kidnapping her husband’s aunt?” I asked.

“Don’t you see?” she asked. “Eleanor is the most important person in Noah’s life. Other than Snow, now. I get to Eleanor, I get to Noah. I get to Noah, I get to Snow. If something should happen to Eleanor, it would devastate Noah, and he couldn’t possibly make his spoiled, self-centered wife happy if he’s not thinking about her every moment. They’ll get divorced, she’ll be out on her ass both in her personal and professional life, and I will finally have my revenge.”

I was sickened by what Lucille had just said. Eleanor had done literally nothing to her, but Lucille was willing to put her through hell just to get to a woman who she was brutally envious of. Lucille was climbing into the helicopter, but I stayed where I was standing. She looked out and me and held out her hands in a questioning gesture.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked. “Get in so we can leave.”

“No,” I told her.

“What do you mean ‘no’?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

“I know that’s not a word you’ve heard very much, except from your husband and, of course, this woman Snow, but when I say ‘no’ that means I’m not going to do what you want me to do. I’m not going to be a part of this.”

“You are already a part of this,” Lucille said. “You can’t get out of it.”

“I’m not going to be a part of it anymore. What you’re doing is disgusting.”

“Seriously?” Lucille scoffed. “You’re judging me? How do you think I was able to hire you? Where do you think I got your name? Does ‘Asher Roux’ sound familiar to you?” I felt all the muscles in my body tense at the sound of that name. I had never wanted to hear it again. “That’s right,” she said with a sneer. “He told me everything that you’ve done, and from the sound of it, you don’t have place calling other people disgusting. Now get your ass into this helicopter and show me the island. Earn the money that I know you so desperately need.”

That was enough. I stepped back from the helicopter and shook my head.

“You go on without me,” I said. “I’m not involved in this anymore.” I took a few steps away from her and then turned back. “And I’m not your subordinate. You have to be in a position of respect to have someone below you.”

The sound of Lucille’s indignant gasp in my ears, I climbed back down the rocks and into the trees, setting back toward Edwin and Sophie’s house.

Chapter Twenty

Hunter

I woke up with a smile on my face for the second time in the same day. Eleanor was beside me where we had laid down beside the river on a bed of soft ferns, stretched out on her belly with her head rested on her folded arms. Her back rose and fell gently with deep, even breaths and the sun filtering through the leaves above her dappled her naked body with points of light.

I could definitely get used to this.

I reached over and ran my fingertips down her spine. Her skin was so soft, delicately golden now after all the time that we had spent in the sun. She cooed at my touch and turned her head toward me. Her eyes were just starting to flutter open when I heard a sound behind me. I went still. Eleanor’s eyes snapped open, staring over my shoulder. She had heard it, too. I strained for the sound again and heard it, the distinct sound of footsteps coming through the undergrowth.

“What is that?” Eleanor whispered.

“Maybe it’s an animal,” I whispered back.

Eleanor shook her head as she pulled herself up to sit.

“No,” she said. “That’s no animal. Listen to the rhythm. It’s only walking on two feet.”

The sound was getting louder and I felt my body tensing up defensively. The sound paused for a brief moment and then I heard it again, this time layered as if it was the same sound repeating several times over.

“More than one,” I said.

I got to my feet, reaching for the pair of pants that I had brought to the river with me, and just as I turned, I saw a dark figure step through the trees toward us. Behind me I heard Eleanor gasp and felt her hand grab at my back.

“Virgil.”

My ears burned with the sound of the name and I could feel my eyes boring into the man that was walking toward me now, flanked on either side by two other men. It took me only a few seconds to recognize them as the men who had chased Eleanor through the cruise ship that night. I reached behind me, touching my hand to Eleanor’s hip to try to push her behind me so that they couldn’t see her. I knew by the look on Virgil’s face, however, that my attempts were futile.

“Hello, Eleanor,” he said, the edge of his voice slimy and insincere. In an instant, the fake smile that he had been wearing melted away, replaced by a look of hatred so pointed I felt it cutting through the air. “Look at you,” he spat toward us. “I always knew that you were a slut. Out here in the middle of nowhere fucking a guy young enough to be your son. You should be disgusted with yourself.”

I lunged toward Virgil, but Eleanor grabbed me to stop me, yanking me back toward her as she shouted my name. Virgil’s mocking laugh reverberated around the jungle and I felt it rolling along my skin like putrid oil.

“That’s right,” he said. “Defend her. Protect the gleaming virtue of the Hamptons harlot. It’s really no wonder why you were such an epic failure as a wife. It’s so clear now. You couldn’t cook. You never lifted a finger to clean the house so I had to double up on the housekeeping staff. You were always so incredibly humiliating when were in front of anyone, I couldn’t bring you anywhere. And in the bedroom, you were like a cold, rancid fish. It makes sense now. You couldn’t actually be at home doing the things that you were supposed to be doing because you were too busy out strolling the schoolyards for playmates to make you feel like you aren’t well past your prime.”

“You know none of that is true,” Eleanor said from behind me. She pressed against my back, only leaning her head around his side enough that she could speak without revealing all of her body to him. “You know that I did absolutely everything that I could possibly do for you and for our marriage. The cook only came when we were entertaining. I prepared every other meal that you ate in that house. You wouldn’t allow me to clean. You told me that it was embarrassing to think that the wife of a man of your stature would lift her finger to clean.”

I felt my mind spinning. Something about what they were saying wasn’t adding up. It wasn’t making sense.

Cook? Housekeeping staff?

“So, what’s your excuse now?” Virgil asked. “What brings you out to this island with this child?”

“I’m not a child,” I seethed at him.

“Oh, really?” Virgil asked. “Why don’t you think of it this way. If the little squeaky toy that you’ve been playing with had been a real woman and actually been able to give me a baby to follow in my footsteps he would be a teenager right now. High school. We’d be looking at colleges and thinking about internships at my office.”

“Do you actually have an office?” I asked, not allowing the taunts about our ages to get to me. “From what I hear, actually working isn’t something that you are too fond of.”

Virgil’s eyes darkened and I knew that it had occurred to him that Eleanor may have shared with me what he had done. Though she had still only been sparse with the details and I had only the most basic of information to build on, I knew that he was a white-collar criminal who had done enough that the entire government was interested in getting their hands on any evidence that they could that would let them finally bring him down.

“And who are you?” Virgil snapped.

“My name is Hunter,” I said.

A flash of recognition went across his face.

“Hunter,” he said. “I know who you are. You’re Noah’s paper jockey. That must be so fulfilling. Spending all day every day licking the shoes of a man who is so far above you, so far beyond anything that you could ever even hope to achieve. I bet your parents are just so proud.”

I felt like my blood was boiling, the heat searing my skin and making my heart pound so hard that I couldn’t get it under control. This man was the reprehensible waste of breath who had put Eleanor through so much and somehow, he had found us, confirming that it had been him who had sent the men on the ship.

“How did you find us?” I asked.

Behind me I could feel Eleanor bending down to take up the pieces of fabric that she had brought with us to the river so that she could tie them on as clothing.

“When you have power like I do, nothing is beyond your reach,” Virgil said. “But it wouldn’t have been so easy if it hadn’t been for the incompetence of ship security. It’s incredible how quickly someone can forget the name of a crime boss. They called me as her next of kin and alerted me to the fact that she was missing. From there, my men pinpointed where you had made your little swan dive into the ocean. A few very good friends of mine were willing to do some hacking for me and found records of a satellite call that came from this area and then images of your precious HELP sign. That really is adorable, by the way.”

“Satellite call?” I asked. “No one made a satellite call. Does this place look like it has a phone?”

“Don’t give me that,” Virgil spat. “The call was made and it just so happens that one of the investments that Eleanor gifted me during our marriage served me beautifully. By some strange coincidence one of their copters had been chartered for a last-minute flight right into the heart of where that call came from.”

“Copter?” I asked, confused.

“Airborne Tours,” Eleanor murmured from behind me. “It’s a company that gives tours of historical and natural points of interests by helicopter.”

She sounded gutted, as though the words that she was saying to me weren’t really being said, but rattling around inside the shell of what she once was. A terrifying thought settled into my stomach and I took a barely perceptible step back so that I was pressed more closely to Eleanor. I could feel that she had managed to get the fabric in place and I reached back to give her hand a squeeze. I waited until Virgil started talking again, not caring what he was saying, before I turned my head just enough that she would be able to hear me.

“Run.”

I broke off from her the instant the word was out of my mouth and started running away from the river, taking a sharp diagonal path. I was relieved that she didn’t question me or hesitate, but shot off from the river bank the same moment that I had, having the forethought to go in the opposite direction. I hated the thought of her being alone in the jungle, vulnerable to the men, but I knew that running together would have slowed us down and actually made it easier for them to find us. Instead, going in opposite directions, using the knowledge of the island that we had built up over the days that we had spent there to weave through the trees, would create confusing paths that would be extremely difficult to follow.

Behind me I could hear the infuriated shouts of Virgil and the men, and I kept running, occasionally taking a path that would loop me back slightly to throw them off if they did happen to catch sight of me. My heart was pounding in my chest, each beat like a silent prayer that Eleanor was alright. Finally, I turned and started running in a direct path toward the beach. I shot out onto the sand and whipped around, trying to see any sign of movement in the trees.

“Come on,” I muttered. “Come on. Where are you, Eleanor?”

****

Eleanor

Why again? Why fucking again?

The rough undergrowth of the jungle stung at the bottoms of my feet, the occasional rock or sharp branch pressing up into my skin until I was sure that I was going to be hemorrhaging by the time that I made it to the beach. This was just ridiculous. For nearly the entire time that we were married I tried to convince Virgil to take up running with me. ‘ We should train for a marathon, Honey. It would be such an amazing bonding experience. ’ ‘ Just a few loops around the block, Sweetheart. The neighbors aren’t going to care. ’ ‘ Let’s run up to the hill and watch the sunrise together. It will be such a romantic start to our day. ’ ‘ Side-by-side treadmills. We could get side-by-side treadmills and run together during your nightly news.’ I even went so far as to buy us coordinating jogging suits embroidered with our names and cute little headbands to match. But no. Virgil flat-out refused and told me that a woman of my station should never be seen sweating or doing something physical like running. It diminished my standing.

Yet, here I was. The last two times that I had had any interaction with Virgil he had me running like I was running across the border. I could hear the men chasing behind me and I knew that somewhere in the jungle Hunter was running, too. I wished that he was back by my side like he had been in the cruise ship, but I knew that it was better this way. It gave a better chance that at least one of us would survive and be able to lead the authorities to recover the other one.

Damn. I go to the dark place fast. Something else to talk to my therapist about.

As I ran I had the sudden and somewhat stunning realization that I was perfectly comfortable. Though it was painful and I would have really preferred to have been wearing shoes and actual clothing, I felt at ease running through the jungle, zipping past the trees and ducking the vines that hung low enough that they would have clotheslined me just a few days before. It was as though my father and my brother were right there with me, directing me. I could hear Virgil’s voice following me, but I refused to let it slow me down. He had done that for far too long. Now I had the strength of Hunter and the life of freedom that I had found behind me and I wasn’t about to sacrifice that without a fight.

I finally saw the thinning of the tree line ahead of me and could hear the crash of the waves. I pushed myself faster and soon felt the sand of the beach on my feet.

“Eleanor!”

I turned toward the sound of my name and saw Hunter running at me. I rushed toward him and jumped into his arms, wrapping myself around him as much as I could and clinging to him out of desperate relief. He pressed a series of hard, fast kisses to my neck, cheek, and mouth before setting me to my feet. His eyes frantically searched the sky above us and then length of the beach.

“What?” I asked. “What is it?”

“What don’t you hear?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Virgil said that someone scheduled a helicopter to come this way. Do you hear a helicopter?”

“No,” I said.

“So, he didn’t use the helicopter.”

I felt like what he was saying wasn’t completely sinking in, like the words were bouncing off of my brain and going right back toward him without making any sense.

“What?” I finally asked.

“He said that the helicopter company served him well with a last-minute charter, but neither of us heard a helicopter. He wasn’t talking about himself. Someone else made that charter, which means that someone else is coming.”

“Of course, they are. Because you’re not really stranded on an island until two separate entities are coming after you.”

Just then we heard the sound of the two men and Virgil crashing through the trees toward the beach. Hunter grabbed my hand and we ran down the beach toward the rocks where we had spent the night before. We scrambled up them and Hunter pulled me across the plateau toward the boulder where he had hidden the supply box and the basket of fruit. I thought that we were going to crouch down behind the rocks, but he pulled me around a corner and I saw a small, low gap. Hunter put his hand to my back and pushed me toward it. I didn’t pause to question him but let him guide me through the gap into a tight, low-ceilinged cavern. He came in after me and we huddled together on the cool rock floor.

“I found this when I was up here by myself,” he said to me in a low whisper. “I didn’t explore any further than this, but I can only assume that it is part of a network of caverns that connects to the one that we stayed in during the storm.”

“You are really smart,” I said, feeling like I needed to validate him.

“Not really,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, you are. I never would have been able to design the shelter that you did. It never would have occurred to me that there could be caverns here.”

“You really have to stop being so hard on yourself,” he said. “You are an incredible woman.” I looked away, but he caught my face gently in his hand and turned it back toward him. “Listen to me. You are exceptional. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“Hunter,” I started.

I couldn’t keep going like this. I needed to tell him the truth. Before it had been only lust that had brought me into his arms and compelled me to find satisfaction and deliverance in his touch. Now, though, there was so much more at stake. I knew that it wasn’t just desire or even the sexual bond that we had formed that made me want to draw closer to him in the cavern and feel him hold me close.

“Wait,” he said, then made a hushing sound to quiet me. He looked toward the patch of sunlight we could see through the entrance to the cavern. “Do you hear that?”

I listened and in the distance heard a faint sound. It grew louder and I realized that it was the sound of helicopter blades chopping through the air. Hunter and I exchanged glances and I felt fear swelling inside me.

Who was that? Who else could possibly want me?

“What do we do?” I asked.

As the sound of the blades grew louder, Hunter looked around the small space.

“You stay here,” he said. “I’m going to check for tunnels. Don’t move until I get back.”

He gave me another kiss and disappeared into the darkness behind me. I curled up around myself, pulling my knees close to my chest and wrapping my arms around them so I could bury my face. I could feel myself rocking, reverting to the coping mechanisms I had used for years to deal with everything that was happening around me during my marriage to Virgil. This was it. After everything that I had gone through with him, all of the pain and anxiety and fear. All of the questions and concerns. All of the nights that I just knew were going to be my last. Virgil was finally going to have what he wanted and I was never going to leave the island. I was going to spend the rest of eternity a missing person headline.

Hunter still hadn’t come back by the time that the helicopter was so loud that I knew it had gotten to the island. I squeezed closer in on myself, bracing myself for whatever was coming. The harder that I had tried to prepare myself, to protect myself, however, the more that I thought of all that I had gone through, all that I had suffered, and all that I had overcome. Virgil didn’t deserve my fear. He had had control over my life for long enough and he wasn’t worth even another breath of it.

I uncoiled myself and got to my feet, starting in the crouched over way that I had to move through the cavern toward the entrance. I was only a few steps away when a silhouette darkened the bright entrance.

Chapter Twenty-One

Hunter

The cavern grew narrower as it moved toward the back and I briefly thought that I wasn’t going to be able to get through even if there was a tunnel. I had moved beyond the area that was touched by the sunlight from outside and had to put my hands out to either side to feel along the walls to guide me. My arms were getting shorter and shorter, my elbows bending to accommodate the smaller section and I was about to give up when I felt the wall dip slightly and the space began to get larger. The tunnel turned and suddenly I was in another chamber. The ground beneath my feet was heading downward and I could feel the air getting cooler. Somewhere in the distance there was the sound of trickling water. I must have found the spring that fed into the small creeks that meandered through the jungle above. I walked cautiously, knowing that at any minute I could wander into a subterranean pool or fall off a ledge into a deeper section of the cavern.

As I traveled through I tried to orient myself. I tuned my mind into the image of the island that I had been gradually forming during our time there, using it like a map to try to figure out where I was in relation to the rocks and the beach so that I could then determine which direction I should go in order to find the cave that we had made our temporary home during the storm. Not for the first time since we had crashed on the island I wished that I had my phone. The flashlight feature would have been a lifesaver. Of course, that would have required charging and if I had the capability of charging an electronic device it was likely that we wouldn’t be in anywhere near the predicament that we currently found ourselves.

Fire.

The thought popped into my mind as quickly as I had dismissed the idea of my phone. If I could start a fire, I could use that as light to get me through the rest of the cavern.

Didn’t I emphasize to Eleanor that I couldn’t ever be a Cub Scout because I wasn’t able to make a fire?

I didn’t really have a choice. Well, I did. The choice was either bumble my way through the cavern blind and hope that I didn’t kill myself, or channel my inner survivalist and figure out how to start a fire. In the dark. Without sticks.

Awesome.

I knew that Eleanor needed me, which meant that I had to figure this out. I thought as quickly as I could, trying to come up with anything that would help me accomplish this. An idea came to me and I touched my pocket. Feeling the object inside gave me the first glimmer of hope that I had had since Virgil had shown up. I reached in and withdrew the small knife. Sitting down as carefully as I could, I grabbed onto the leg of my pants and pulled the fabric away from my skin. I pierced through it with the tip of the blade and took a breath before slicing through with one fast motion. The cave gods seemed to be with me at that moment because I was able to cut through the fabric without performing a self-amputation, and I repeated the process twice more until I held a square of my pants in my hand. I rolled the fabric up and tucked it in between my teeth for safekeeping.

First step done.

Feeling around me, I searched for rocks that I thought might be suitable. Since I couldn’t see them, I really couldn’t accurately determine if any of the rocks that were around me had the silica content that I knew was necessary to spark. I just had to guess and hope. I set the fabric from my pants on the ground in front of me. I wrapped my hand around a rock, felt its shape and texture, and then struck it against the blade of my knife. Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing.

Discarding the rock, I tried another. No success.

“Come on,” I muttered. “Just one spark. I just need a spark.”

I grabbed a third rock and hit it against the blade as hard as I could. There was a tiny flicker of light and I gasped in surprised happiness. I braced myself.

“Alright,” I said. “That’s it. Let’s do it again.”

I struck the blade again, but nothing happened.

“Don’t be like that,” I said. “We did it once.”

I struck the blade again and there was another spark, larger this time. It jumped and landed on the fabric. Before I could second-guess myself, I did it again and sent another spark onto the fabric. Both started to smolder, finally catching and creating a small flame. I tied the end of the fabric into a large knot to prevent it from burning out too quickly and rapidly removed the belt from my pants. Wincing as the flame licked at my fingers, I wrapped the belt around the knot, creating another barrier to prevent further burnout. I cut another few pieces of fabric from my pants to keep in reserves, picked up my torch, and stood, holding the flame up to spread its light as far through the cavern as I could.

It was larger than I would have expected, but I didn’t see any immediate hazards and I quickly made my way across the open floor toward the tunnel at the other side. If my memory of the layout of the island was correct, this one should lead me back through and to the cave deeper in the jungle. I wanted to check it first just to make sure, but if I was right, that would mean we had our own built-in fortress to protect us from the invaders.

I wish my brother was here. This is the best game of War I’ve ever played.

****

Eleanor

“Hello.”

The voice coming at me from the entrance wasn’t Virgil’s and it didn’t sound deep or scary enough to be one of the two men. The silhouette moved back enough that I could see the person’s face in the sunlight and I saw young, familiar eyes and a smile that was a touch too sparkly for the circumstances.

“Did you find her?”

I sagged at the sound of Snow’s voice and scrambled toward the entrance, pushing past Robin and out onto the rocks. As soon as I was on my feet Snow stumbled around the boulder in front of me and grabbed me into a tight embrace. Noah came right behind her and I gathered him in with us. Behind me I felt Robin throw his arms around all of us, completing the group hug.

“Auntie,” Noah gasped. “I’m so glad you’re alright. Where’s Hunter?”

I pointed into the cavern. He went further into there,” I told him. “He’s trying to figure out if we can go through there to get to the middle of the island.”

“I did figure it out.”

A glow of light formed in the darkness inside the cavern and an instant later Hunter was climbing out of the low entrance holding a very treacherous looking torch and wearing half a pair of pants.

“What happened to you?”

“I think that I qualify as a Cub Scout now,” he told me with a grin, indicating his torch. “Let’s go.”

He ducked back into the entrance and I followed with the other three coming after me. Once we were inside we scrambled our way to the back of the chamber and through a tunnel into a larger chamber.

“Put that thing out, please,” Noah said.

He reached into his pocket and withdrew his phone, turning on the flashlight. It was the first sign of technology that I had seen since smashing into the island and though I would have expected that I would want to grasp it to my chest like a baby and hold it until someone pried it out of my fingers, I actually recoiled slightly. I preferred the glow of Hunter’s torch and felt a hint of disappointment when he dropped the torch to the ground and scooped rocks over it to extinguish the flame.

“How did you find us?” I asked.

Robin straightened up, a wider grin spreading across his face.

“I figured it out,” he said proudly.

“GPS,” Snow said.

“GPS?” I asked.

“Robin pointed out that Hunter doesn’t go anywhere without his watch.”

I saw Hunter grasp at his wrist, rubbing the empty section of skin.

“I don’t have my watch,” he said as if it was the first time since we had gotten onto the island that he noticed. “It must have fallen off during the storm.”

“What watch?” I asked.

“Hunter has the most complicated watch in all of existence,” Robin said. “He never takes it off. It does everything except tell time.”

“It does tell time,” Hunter said.

“Yeah, but it also has a calculator, a calendar, a phone, the internet. Lord only knows what else.”

“GPS apparently,” I said.

“Yes,” Robin said, pointing at me. “It has GPS.”

“And a solar charger,” Hunter said. “I can’t believe I didn’t even think about it.”

“Wherever that watch ended up, it stayed charged enough that we were able to track it.”

“How did you do that?” Hunter asked.

Snow looked at Noah, who looked at Robin, who shrugged.

“I have some connections. It’s not always money that gets you your way.”

“I’m sure it’s not,” I said. “But how did you find me?”

“I got a helicopter charter,” Noah said. “When we got over the island, we noticed the HELP sign and then we saw men running from the beach into the jungle. Then Robin noticed the sun glinting off of something on these rocks so we landed and came up here. It was that supply box.”

He pointed to the side and I saw the box full of condoms sitting on the rock. The top was mercifully closed. Now was not the time to explain that development to my nephew. I felt a small sense of relief.

“They’re the ones who got the helicopter charter,” I said to Hunter.

“What are you talking about?” Noah asked.

“Virgil,” I said, turning to him. “Those men that you saw running off of the beach. It was Virgil and his goonies. They were chasing me on the cruise ship. That’s why we jumped off and ended up here.”

“How did you end up here?” Snow asked.

I explained how we got onto Gavin’s boat and the storm that caused us to crash on the island.

“Where is he now?” Noah asked.

“We don’t know,” I told him. “He took a life raft from his boat before it sank and left.” I gasped and looked at Hunter. “The satellite call.”

“The what?” Snow asked.

“Virgil said that a satellite call was made from this area and that’s how he found us. Gavin must have made that call.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Noah said. “We need to get the two of you off this island.”

“The helicopter is on the beach,” Snow said. “We can be gone in a minute.”

We streamed out of the cavern and scrambled down the rocks toward the helicopter. My eyes darted across the beach looking for Virgil and the other men to come running back toward us. We were nearly to the helicopter when I noticed that the cockpit was empty.

“Where’s the pilot?” I asked.

“What?” Snow said, rushing toward it. She whipped around to face us as we followed her. “Where the hell did he go?”

“Virgil must have taken him,” I said.

“Shit,” Noah said. “We can’t get off the island without him.”

“So, what are we supposed to do?”

We all exchanged glances. This wasn’t over.

Twenty minutes later we finally walked out of a tight tunnel and into the cavern where Hunter and I had weathered the storm. My stomach trembled at the thought of how we had gotten through that night and I felt a sinking feeling that that was all falling apart around me. We paused in the middle of the cavern and I felt Hunter’s hand take mine. It was at once reassuring and heartbreaking. I wanted so much to give myself over to it, but the fact that I hadn’t been able to finish my thought earlier was harsh in my mind.

“What do we do now?” Robin asked.

Noah held a finger up to his lips and we all strained for sound. In the distance, I heard a shouting voice and knew that Virgil wasn’t far.

“Dammit,” I said. “We ran to him.”

“He doesn’t know that,” Hunter said. “He has no idea this cavern is here. We’re safe as long as we stay here.”

“We can’t stay here,” Snow said. “We have to find the pilot. If nothing else but to stop Virgil from hurting him, but if we don’t find him, we’re not leaving. That helicopter isn’t moving without a pilot.”

As if the words were a queue, the sound of a helicopter swirled through the air. We looked at each other and ran out of the cavern. I looked up and saw another copter coming toward the island. It didn’t take long to realize that it wasn’t the same one that we had left sitting on the beach.

What the hell is happening right now?

****

Hunter

The second helicopter was coming ominously low and I grabbed onto Eleanor to pull her back into the cavern. The others followed us and we were just inside, Eleanor curled against my chest so I could hold her protectively, when the sound of the blades became deafening and I saw pieces of trees and plants flying through the air in front of the entrance.

The damn thing had landed in the jungle.

We ran out of the cavern again and saw the aircraft a few hundred yards away, the once beautiful jungle tattered and broken around it. Eleanor stayed close to my side, her body trembling. The door to the helicopter opened and a familiar, lithe formed stepped out. I felt my stomach turn and I looked at Snow. Her eyes were locked on the door and she, too, had noticed who was stalking toward us.

“What the hell is she doing here?” she growled.

“Who is that?” Eleanor asked.

“Lucille Verne,” Snow said.

“Lucille Royal. We might have gotten divorced, but he’s not taking the power that name holds away from me. Hello, Snow,” Lucille said as she approached. “You know, they say that things always balance out. I didn’t really believe that, but now I’m starting to see it. I set out just to find precious Eleanor over there. Imagine my surprise to find out that you were already here waiting for me. And your darling husband, too.” She turned and sneered at Noah. “How are you Noah?”

“What are you doing here, Lucille?” he asked. “You know that you aren’t allowed anywhere near either of us.”

Lucille scoffed.

“What? The protective order? Do you really think that a piece of paper and a glaring old judge is going to affect me at all? I’m disappointed in you, Snow. You really underestimate me. I thought that you knew well enough by now that I will do what I want, when I want, and I won’t stop until I get what I want, no matter what it takes.”

“Like burning down my house?” Snow asked.

“It was barely singed,” Lucille spat. “Sweet, beloved little Snow got rescued by the fire department before any real damage was done.”

“So, what now? What are you doing here?”

Lucille reached into her pocket and withdrew a gun.

I didn’t even have a second to think. I tightened my hold on Eleanor and dragged her back toward the cavern. The sound of a bullet cut through the air and I pulled her so hard she nearly lost her footing. I could hear footsteps behind me and I hoped that the rest of the group had gotten out of the way.

“Shitballs! Bitch is packing! NRA! NRA! Gun control! Gun control!”

Robin was fine.

Eleanor and I pressed against the wall waiting for Noah’s flashlight and then we ran the rest of the way through the cavern and back up to the rocks.

“Get down,” I shouted. “Get down off the rocks. She’s going to be chasing us and we don’t want to be up here when she stumbles her way through there.”

We ran down toward the shelter that Eleanor and I had built. She glared at me when we got there and ducked under the branches.

“Do you want to explain to me what’s happening?” she demanded. “Who is that woman?”

“Remember when I told you about Mr. Royal’s wife?” Noah said. Eleanor nodded. “That’s her.”

“So, what does she want with me?”

“Me,” Snow said. “She wants me.”

Before I could ask what that had to do with Eleanor, I saw Lucille coming down the beach toward us and from behind me I heard what could only be Virgil and the men crashing through the trees and undergrowth onto the sand.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Eleanor

I’m done. I’m so fucking done.

I climbed out of Hunter’s arms and scrambled out of the shelter. I could feel his fingers grasping at me and hear the rest of the group protest, but I didn’t care. Everyone has their breaking point, and I had reached mine.

Lucille seemed shocked when she saw me walking down the sand toward her, not hesitating, not cowering from her. She lifted her gun, but I didn’t flinch.

“Get Snow out here,” she demanded.

I shook my head.

“No,” I said.

“Get her out here, now.”

“No,” I said again. “You said that you came here for me. I’m here. What are you going to do now?”

“I know what I’m going to do,” Virgil’s voice growled from behind me.

I turned and saw him coming toward me, his eyes the familiar fiery embers, but now I wasn’t afraid. There wasn’t any more than he could do to me. I had found the person that I had been before he destroyed me and she wasn’t going to let him hurt her again. He lunged toward me, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Hunter run past me and jump onto Virgil, tackling him to the ground. They grappled in the sand, sending up grains that stung on my skin. I backed up and felt myself hit a person behind me and something hard and cold digging into my back.

“You should have cooperated with me,” Lucille hissed into my ear. “I was just going to hold on to you for a little while so that Noah and Snow could worry about you, then send a simple ransom note.”

“For what?” I asked. “Money? All of this is worth a little bit of money to you?”

“Oh, it wouldn’t have been a little bit, but that’s not the point. I want Snow to feel the same desperation that I have always felt. I’ve always been a step behind. No matter what I did. No matter how hard I worked, I was always behind her. She could make anyone do anything, even when she didn’t deserve it, and I wanted, for the rest of her life, to have that feeling in the back of her mind.”

“You’re sick.”

“You have no idea,” Lucille said.

She started to drag me backwards, but I wasn’t having any of it. I clenched my fist and rammed my elbow backwards into her gut. Lucille let out a grunt and doubled over enough that I was able to get out of her arms. She was straightening and lifting her arm to point the gun at me again when I heard the sound of another engine coming toward us. Lucille and I both looked up just as Snow and Noah rushed up beside me. We watched as a small seaplane approached and came down to skid across the waves toward the shore.

“We’re going to have to start a fucking airport,” I muttered.

Who now? Who else wanted to line up to try to kill me?”

The plane stopped and the doors flung open. I saw a man jump out of one and start running toward me, and then another man climb slowly out and start up the sand at a slightly creaking pace. Behind me I heard a grunt and turned to see Noah now caught in a rabid fight with one of the men that Virgil had brought with him. The other was holding the pilot from the helicopter, while Hunter and Virgil continued to throttle each other in the sand.

This was going spectacularly.

I turned back and saw the face of the first man running up the sand.

“Gavin!” I gasped.

Lucille’s eyes lifted in response to the name and I saw her turn to face him.

****

Gavin

I could hear Edwin’s ragged breath behind me, but I was only faintly worried that the run up the beach was going to be too much for the old man. After forty years on the other island and the stories that he had regaled me with over another pot of the potent tea, I had my doubts that something as simple as a Baywatching it into the middle of a fight was going to do anything to wipe him out.

It turns out that you have to be very specific with Edwin and Sophie. They hadn’t been lying when they told me that they didn’t have a boat. They didn’t. Sophie said they had spent too much time floating around in boats before they moved to the island and she didn’t have any interest in keeping one around, especially considering how bad the storms were around here. One of those storms could just suck a boat right on down into the ocean.

Didn’t I know it.

What they hadn’t told me was that they kept a seaplane tucked up in the jungle so they could make their yearly supply runs to the mainland and for emergencies. Such as when somebody gets stranded on a nearby island and needs them to get him back to another island to kick a couple of people’s asses and save a woman who he didn’t particularly like but didn’t deserve to get taken out by a psychopath. As you do.

So, Edwin and I had piled into the plane and set off on a somewhat tilty flight back to this island. Now I was running up the beach toward Lucille, my eyes locked on the gun that she was holding in her hand. Behind her I could see Hunter wrestling a man and noticed several other people who hadn’t been there before swarming the beach. A huge man was holding another, but seemed distracted by my approach and loosened his arms, resulting in the man he was holding getting out of his grip and punching him, knocking him out cold in one hit.

What the hell was going on here?

Lucille’s eyes cut into me across the sand and I had to force myself to slow down as I approached.

“Put down the gun,” I demanded.

Lucille lifted her arm, directing the barrel at me.

“No,” she said.

“Lucille, I’ve done a lot of things and I’m sure that there are plenty of others that I’m going to do, but please don’t tempt me. I’d like to think that I’m above hitting a woman.”

There was a creaking sound, a loud Carol Burnette-style Tarzan yell, and something came swinging out of the tree line. I saw a man kick Lucille in the back, flattening her to her belly on the sand. The man jumped down from the vine that he had been swinging on to land beside her and glared down at Lucille with his hands planted on his hips.

“I’m not,” he said.

“Me, either.”

A dark-haired woman around Hunter’s age leapt into the air and landed over Lucille, pinning her to the ground. The man who had kicked her flung himself over the woman. Edwin had made it up to us and toppled over forward, stretching himself across the man’s back.

“Does that count as a geodesic dome?” Eleanor asked.

I looked over my shoulder and saw the man that Hunter had been fighting lying flat on his face. He wasn’t moving, but I could see his back rising and falling with breaths so I knew that he wasn’t dead. Hunter stepped up beside Eleanor and wrapped an arm around her waist, cuddling her close.

“I’ll count it.”

“We need to get her somewhere secure until we can turn her over to the police,” I said.

“You can’t do that,” Lucille said, her voice strained by the weight of the people still laying on her. “If you hand me over to the police, then you’re going down, too.”

“Gavin?” Eleanor said.

I turned to look at her and Hunter and saw them staring back at me with questions in their eyes. There was nothing that I could say. I wanted to. I wanted to defend myself, but I knew that I couldn’t. What Lucille said was right. Making sure that she got what she deserved meant having to tell them what I had done, but right then it seemed worth it. Just as I had told Lucille, I didn’t want to be a part of this anymore. Any of it. It was time that I put this part of my career behind me, and if that meant answering for what I had done, then that was what I was going to have to do.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know you. It was just a job.”

“So, we made it easy for you,” Hunter spat.

I shook my head.

“No,” I said. “I didn’t realize who Eleanor was when you climbed up on my boat. By the time that I did…”

I trailed off. There was really nothing that I could say to justify what I had done. I looked at Eleanor and saw tears trickling down her cheeks. Right then I knew that I had been completely wrong about her, and that it wasn’t that I couldn’t like her, it was that I wouldn’t allow myself to. Now I was seeing her without the perceptions that had colored me for so long, but it was too late. The damage had already been done.

“What do we do with her?” Hunter asked, gesturing at Lucille. “And with them?”

His jaw was set firmly and I could see that he was just trying to get through this, ignoring the reality of what he had just learned. I looked behind me and saw the three men still lying on the ground. One was starting to groan, but none was looking like they were ready to jump up and start fighting again any time soon. That didn’t mean, however, that they wouldn’t be eventually. We needed to make sure that they were somewhere where they wouldn’t be a danger to us until we could get the police to the island.

“Help me move them,” I said. I dangled upside down to look at the people piled on top of Lucille. “You just stay right there. We’ll be back for her.”

****

Eleanor

He came back.

That’s all I could think about as I helped drag Virgil’s two cronies up the rocks toward the small cavern.

He came back.

I knew that Gavin had been hired by Lucille to kidnap me and that as soon as he had the opportunity to, he abandoned Hunter and me on the island to fend for ourselves, but somehow that didn’t impact me as much as the simple fact that he had come back. He didn’t have to. He had found Edwin on the other island and had the technology that he needed to get back to the mainland and just put all of it behind him. But he hadn’t. Instead, he chose to come back to the island for us. That meant far more.

I knew what it was like to be put into a situation that seemed impossible. It occurred to me that I knew nothing about Gavin, and had put no effort into knowing anything about Gavin. I didn’t know what had happened to him in his past or what he could have been going through that would have brought him to this place in his life, yet I had judged the living hell out of him. If there was anything that I should understand, it would be the feeling of desperation knowing that your past was still completely controlling your life. I felt a sense of sympathy toward Gavin and it made my heart ache to think about what was going to happen to him when the police came for Lucille and Virgil.

We tucked the men into the cavern and started back down the rocks for Lucille and Virgil. The pile climbed off of Lucille and she immediately jumped to her feet, ready to run. Noah and Hunter grabbed onto her arms and Gavin scooped her legs up to keep control of her as they carried her up toward the cavern. The men were piled in the small space in such a way that she wouldn’t be able to climb over or around them to get to the entrance to the tunnels and even if she did, we had taken away all of her electronics, meaning that she would be trying to get through the cavern in the dark. The plan was to shove Virgil into the front of the space, effectively sandwiching her in. It had its functional benefits, but I preferred to think that it was just a little bit of torture to carry her over until she got to jail.

I watched as the men fought the wiggling Lucille up to the top of the ridge. Suddenly she kicked and Gavin lost control of one of her legs. Her flailing caused them to drop her and Lucille scrambled away from them. I rushed across the sand, ready to help, but within five steps Lucille and her shoes lost their footing and she tumbled over the edge of the rocks into the water below. There was a moment of tense silence and then I heard a scream of anger that told me she survived the fall.

A laugh had just bubbled out of my mouth when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I heard a gasp and turned to see Virgil get to his feet. He launched for the helicopter pilot and grabbed him, scooping Lucille’s cast-aside gun into his hand and pressing it to the man’s temple. He started dragging the pilot toward the helicopter and I knew that if he got to it, he would be gone. I rushed toward him, the sand shooting up behind my feet as I dug them down as hard as I could. Virgil caught sight of me and I saw him turn, the gun pointed at my chest.

“Auntie!”

I heard Noah’s scream at the same time that I heard the explosion of the gun. I felt a hot pain and my body fell to the ground without my control. Virgil shoved the pilot into the helicopter and the blades started spinning, causing air to press down on me and make it harder to breathe. The last thing I saw was them rise into the sky and Virgil reach across the pilot to grab the controls, stalling the blades and causing the copter to tumble down toward the waves. I laughed as the darkness closed in around me.

The sea monster and I are finally friends.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Hunter

Three weeks later…

I looked up at the sound of the rapping on my door, realizing that though I had been reading through the pages stacked on my desk in front of me for at least two hours, nothing had really sunk in. I dropped the page I was holding, took off my glasses, and rubbed into my eyes with my fingers.

“Yeah?” I said.

The door opened and I opened my eyes. Snow was peering around the door at me, her body out of the room.

“She’s awake.”

I got to my feet and ran across my office, joining her and Noah in the hallway. We rushed through the Royal and Company office building in silence and jumped into the back of Noah’s limo. He was ordering the driver to go before the door was even closed behind me. Within minutes we were pulling into the parking lot of the small exclusive hospital where Eleanor had been in a coma since we got off the island. The nurse sitting at the front desk ushered us through the front door and we ran down the hallway and rode the elevator up to her private suite. I tried to ignore the surroundings. That wasn’t what I wanted to be thinking about. Not right now.

The door to Eleanor’s suite was closed and Noah knocked on it lightly as we approached. A stern-faced nurse opened the door and glared out at us.

“Mrs. McIntire shouldn’t be disturbed right now,” she said.

“It’s not ‘Mrs.,’” Eleanor’s voice called from inside the suite, “and they are not disturbing me. Let them in.”

“You really aren’t in the condition to---” the nurse started.

“Let them in,” Eleanor ordered, shutting her down.

Huffing and puffing as if to make absolutely sure that we were aware of her disgust, the nurse stepped out of the way and opened the door wide enough for us to go inside. It wasn’t the first time that I had been in the suite. In fact, I had spent the first several days that she was in it sitting by her bedside. It still had the same effect on me that it had the first time I saw it. Lavishly appointed in rich hues and heavy dark wooden furniture, the first room of the suite looked much more like a luxurious hotel than it did a hospital. This funneled into a short hallway that led past a bathroom bigger and nicer than the one that I had in my own apartment, and then into the actual treatment room.

Though it had some of the features that I would expect to see in a hospital room, it was still wearing a hotel costume and I had the same uncomfortable feeling that I had each of the other times that I walked into the room. It seemed excessive, unnecessary. Yet at the same time, I was happy that she was comfortable and being given the care that she needed during the fragile days that she had just persevered through.

Eleanor was sitting up in a reclining position on the large bed, her back propped up what looked like a dozen plush pillows. She was wearing a light pink satin robe rather than the classic hospital gown, her hair was brushed smooth over her shoulders, and she was wearing fresh makeup. Despite all of this, however, she looked distinctly tired and smaller than she had on the island. Noah and Snow both rushed to the sides of the bed, taking turns leaning over to kiss Eleanor on her cheeks and squeeze her hands.

“It’s so good to see you awake,” Snow murmured to her.

“I love you,” Noah whispered, giving her another kiss.

I hovered near the door, not knowing what to do. When Snow told me that Eleanor had finally woken up, I hadn’t hesitated for even a second. Not a single thought crossed my mind that I shouldn’t be there with her. Now that I was standing here looking at her, though, I didn’t know how to act or what to say. Everything was rushing back to me and I was having a difficult time coping with it all. I was starting to back out of the room when I heard her voice.

“Hunter?”

I looked up and saw Noah and Snow exchange glances.

“Are you hungry?” Noah asked Eleanor. “We’re going to go to the café and grab a celebratory snack. It’s time to get your strength back up. We can’t have you just lying around in bed all the time.”

Snow gave a tense laugh that had the one of someone trying to inject levity into a situation that was already far gone. They gave more kisses to Eleanor and scurried out of the room. As she passed, Snow patted me on the arm, a silent show of solidarity. She had seen me struggling over the last three weeks, and though she didn’t know the full extent of how Eleanor had affected me, I knew that our years of friendship had allowed her to empathize with me and want for this all to be resolved.

When they were gone I turned back to stare at Eleanor. She looked back at me hopefully, but I stayed in my place.

“Are you going to come over here?” she asked.

I approached her reluctantly and sat down in one of the heavily cushioned chairs beside her bed.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, my voice somewhat flat.

She nodded.

“Good,” she said. “As good as I can, considering.”

“Good,” I said, nodding. “The doctor said that the wound wasn’t that bad.”

Eleanor shook her head.

“It went through cleanly,” she said. “Apparently like many things, Virgil was nowhere near as good a shot as he thought that he was.”

“Good to hear.”

I’m just going to go ahead and try to find four or five more ways that I can use ‘good’ in this travesty of a conversation.

“What happened to Virgil?” she asked.

“The helicopter wasn’t high enough for the crash to be dangerous. It more landed and fell over. He dragged himself up onto the beach and we put him in the cavern with the other guys.”

“Where is he now?”

“The police came and we told them what happened. Noah went to your safe deposit box and got all of the evidence and turned it over. He’s going to trial and I’m sure he’s going to be away for a very long time.”

“And Lucille?”

“They fished her out of the water and rung her out. She’s fine. In jail, but fine.”

There was a moment of hesitation before she spoke again.

“What about Gavin?”

“He mysteriously disappeared off of the island again.”

“He did?”

She sounded slightly more hopeful.

“Yep. A couple days later the police received a certified letter from him detailing everything that he knew about her.”

Eleanor smiled and reached for my hand, but I pulled it away.

“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t, Eleanor.”

I stood up, needing to be further away from her, and her smiled melted.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, though the look in her eyes told me that she already knew what was going through my mind.

“You lied to me,” I said. “How could you not tell me that you’re Noah’s aunt? You made up so much about yourself.”

Her cheeks reddened and she looked away slightly before looking back at me.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, Hunter. You have to believe that I had my reasons.”

“What reasons could you possibly have?” I asked.

“At Snow and Noah’s wedding, I didn’t want anybody to know who I was. I spent too much time being in the shadow of my family and then my husband.”

“Ex-husband.”

She nodded.

“No one ever saw me. Just me. I wanted to know what it was like to just be someone else. For one night, I didn’t want anybody to think about my family, my marriage, the dissolution thereof, or my money.”

“Your money?” I asked, upset just by the word itself. “Is that really what you think of me? That I would only be interested in your money?”

“It’s not you, Hunter,” Eleanor said. “I told Noah not to tell anyone who I was before I even saw you. I had no idea that I was going to meet someone as incredible as you.”

“And then when you did?” She hesitated and I scoffed, taking another step away from her. “You still lied because all you wanted was a one-night stand.”

“Yes.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Well, what do you want me to say?” she asked. “That’s exactly what was on my mind that night. I just wanted one night of attention from someone. Was I really supposed to think that I could find a connection with someone? Especially someone like you? Someone 15 years younger than me, no attachments, no crime boss ex hanging over his head or government agencies breathing down his neck? I was really supposed to think that you had any kind of real attraction to me and would be interested in any kind of real relationship with me?”

“You didn’t even give me a chance.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You tried to seduce me. That’s not the same thing.”

“And you walked away, just like I would have expected.”

“I walked away because I knew exactly who you were.”

Eleanor looked stunned.

“What?” she asked breathlessly.

“I might not have known that you were Noah’s aunt, but I knew who you are. A bored woman looking for someone to make her feel good about herself. A woman who would latch onto any man who gave her attention and use him up, then move on.”

“That’s not true,” Eleanor said, sounding weaker now.

“Yes, it is. You didn’t care who I was. You didn’t care anything about me. And that’s whatever. You had your reasons, even if I think that they are completely asinine. But then what? How about when we were on the cruise? How about when we were running from those guys? You couldn’t tell me the truth?”

“While we were running through the cruise ship?” Eleanor asked incredulously. “You wanted me to pause and give you the story of my life while I was in the midst of running from it?”

“How about when we were on the island? How could you keep lying to me even then? With all of the time that we spent together, with everything that we went through together, how could you just keep lying to me like that?”

“I tried to tell you,” Eleanor said. “I tried so many times.”

“But you didn’t. You just kept adding onto the lie. Even when you knew how much danger we were actually in, you couldn’t be honest with me.”

“I’m sorry, Hunter. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if there’s anything that I can say, but—”

“There isn’t,” I said. Emotion was building in my chest and I could feel it starting to sting in the backs of my eyes. I had to get out of here. “I’m so glad that you’re alright,” I told her, letting my voice soften from the pitch that it had risen to during the conversation. “Watching you get shot was one of the worst moments of my life. Maybe the worst. But every time that I look at you, all I can think is that I could never have done that to you. I could never lie to you like that, because I care about you. And if you cared about me, you wouldn’t have been able to, either.”

I started out of the room, then turned and walked back to her side. I leaned down and touched a kiss to her cheekbone.

“Goodbye, Eleanor.”

Noah and Snow were walking back into the room as I left, but I didn’t stop to say anything to them. I needed to get back to the office, lose myself in my work, and forget.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Eleanor

One month later…

“How are you feeling, Auntie?”

Noah came into my living room and settled a vase of flowers onto the small marble table beside the sofa, taking away the slightly dried bouquet that Snow had brought a few days before. I looked at them, wanting the pale yellow and white blooms to make me smile, but they didn’t. I was perched on the wide windowsill of the bay window, staring out at a morning that was finally beginning to look like fall. Usually I found a bit of almost perverse pleasure in sitting like this, knowing that it was something that Virgil never would have let me do, but I didn’t get the same feeling from it anymore. I still loved the seat and the way that it made me feel almost like I was floating out above the grounds of my house, only now I didn’t get the self-satisfaction from it. Thoughts of what Virgil would think and how he would have reacted were gone. They had faded since I left the island, as if the confrontation of me running toward him and then watching him fall into the water, knowing that everything was over for him, had allowed me to leave the final remnants of his hold on me behind.

“Just as fine as I was feeling yesterday,” I told him. “Are you staying for supper?”

He came up and kissed me on my cheek.

“Are you trying in your oh-so-subtle way to tell me that I’m coming over here too often?” he asked.

I shook my head and turned so that my legs dangled over the edge of the wide windowsill, reminding me for a brief, fleeting moment of when my legs dangled over the rocks, the waves crashing below.

“Of course, not,” I said. “You know you’re welcome here any time. You still have your room upstairs.”

After my divorce from Virgil I had moved back into the home that was gifted to me by my father before meeting him, before heading to college, when I couldn’t have imagined that I was going to be married so soon. Even after Virgil insisted that we move into a much more lavish house, I still thought of this one as my home and during the long business trips that he sometimes took, I would leave the house we shared and instead stay here, feeling surrounded by memories and comforted by the feelings of the past. This was where Noah and I spent much of our favorite times together and even when he had grown up, I never changed the bedroom that I kept for him on the top floor.

“I know, Auntie,” Noah said. “But I don’t think that my wife would appreciate me using it.”

I shrugged.

“Wives are like that.”

Noah chuckled and sat down on the arm of the sofa.

“How is your chest?”

“It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“I’m glad.” We fell silent and I could see Noah tilting his head down trying to catch my eyes. “What is it, Auntie? What are you thinking about?”

“The island,” I told him.

Noah sighed and stood, his head dropping back in exasperation as he turned away from me.

“We’ve talked about this. You’ve got to stop torturing yourself. You need to go back to the therapist.”

“It didn’t do me any good. Besides, I don’t like her.”

“Why?”

“She doesn’t believe in sea monsters.”

“ You don’t believe in sea monsters.”

“I believe in the possibility of sea monsters, and I think that’s enough. Besides, it’s not what you think.”

“Then what is it?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the time that I spent there and how beautiful it was. I don’t want to think that I’m never going to go back.”

Noah nodded.

“It was beautiful. But there’s nothing there, Auntie. You can’t just go back and hang out in the shelter that you and Hunter made. No matter what he told you, that was not a geodesic dome. It didn’t have any of the little triangles it needed.”

He made a few shapes with his hands to indicate the triangles and then let them fall to his side, seeming to see the darkened expression on my face.

“He isn’t the same, either,” he said. “He hasn’t been. He’s been showing up late. He’s left early a few times. Gotten memos wrong. Not doing half of what he used to. I’m actually thinking about firing him.”

“You aren’t thinking about firing him.”

“No, but it sounded good.”

I sighed. Thinking about Hunter still made my heart ache in a deep, reverberating way that I couldn’t even put words to.

“I need you to help me with something,” I said.

Noah nodded, crossing the room to perch on the arm again.

“Anything,” he said.

****

Hunter

Six months later…

“Did you get the invitation?”

I winced at the strange sound of Edwin’s voice coming through the phone. Behind him I could hear Sophie’s rhythmic breathing and wondered which of their devices she was powering up on her bicycle. I had only gotten to have a quick visit to their island the week after leaving with Noah and Snow to return to the mainland, but the elderly couple had left quite an impression on me.

“I did,” I said, reaching across my desk to pick up the thick cream-colored invitation that I had received in the mail a few days before.

“So….” he asked, the word drawn out so it filled the space of three or four.

“I don’t know, Edwin. It’s far away and I don’t really have any vacation time.”

“That’s a big old untruth you’re trying to tell me right there. I talked to Noah. I know what’s what. Now I was calling to be formal and extend my gracious invitation to my party, but if you’re going to be like that then I’m changing it over to a demand. I’m going to pull the ‘I saved your hiney on the beach’ card if you don’t cooperate. Don’t make me do it.”

“You didn’t really save my hiney,” I said.

“Who laid on top of that crazy Lucille woman to make sure that she didn’t get up and take everybody out?”

“Robin and Snow.”

“And?”

“And you.”

“Damn right. Those other two were little lightweight nothings. They were just laying the foundation. I was the real bulk of that operation.”

I didn’t want to point out to him that Snow probably outweighed him herself, so I just made an affirmative sound.

“So, it’s settled then. Snow and Noah are coming, too, so I’m sure that you can just hitch a ride with them.”

The fact that the elderly man thought of the journey that we would need to take to get to the island, which would probably include both a helicopter and a boat in addition to a car, was the equivalent of a spontaneous road trip just made him more endearing. I laughed, promised him that I would do just that, sent my best to Sophie, and hung up.

As soon as I did, the quiet of the office closed in around me. I ran my fingers across the engraved words of the invitation. It wasn’t exceptionally clear about what event was being held, and it did mean having to return to the island and contend with the emotions that even the thought of that place still caused me. But it also promised a chance to visit with Edwin and Sophie, and some time away from the exceptionally busy time Noah, Snow, and I had been having at work. For some reason, every company in the area was clamoring to have their advertising campaigns designed by the people who survived being shipwrecked and stranded, or rescued said shipwrecked and stranded, and who had been instrumental in bringing down two criminals. There were some prospective clients who I was fairly certain had just made up their companies so that they could come to the office and talk to us.

I tossed the invitation back across the desk and went back to the projects in front of me. If I was going to go back to the island in two weeks, I was going to need to actually make sure that things were getting done at the office so it didn’t fall apart when all three of us were gone.

And pack a backpack of supplies. You never know.

The journey back to the island wasn’t nearly as long as I thought it was going to be. It’s amazing how being on the brink of death in a storm or worrying that the woman you love is going to die from a gunshot wound can stretch out a trip. The thought made me feel suddenly solemn.

Love.

It wasn’t something that I wanted to admit to myself or to anyone else. I had meant everything that I had said to Eleanor the last time I saw her. Though I regretted the fact that I had chosen that particular moment, while she was still sitting in the hospital recovering, to tell her what I thought of her dishonesty and how much she had hurt me, in that moment I couldn’t hold back. Seeing her in the starkness of reality outside of the fantasy world that we had created on the island had been too much for me. All of the adrenaline and denial that had fueled me during the long weeks of waiting draining out of me, leaving the hurt and disappointment raw within me. Part of me wished that I had handled it differently, but I didn’t know what I could have done differently.

Soon I realized that we were approaching the island and I noticed bright lights glowing from the beach. I leaned closer to the window and pushed my glasses up higher, helping me to focus better on the lights. They were in the same place where we had built the help sign, only now more had been added.

“Don’t help,” I read. “What is that supposed to mean?”

I noticed Noah and Snow exchange glances, but neither of them answered. We lowered down toward a floating helicopter pad and settled into place. When we stepped out of the helicopter, I noticed a small boat fashioned out of what looked like wooden crates. A man stood in the boat holding a large stick. He helped Snow into the boat, and Noah and I followed.

“This is interesting,” Snow said, looking down at the sides of the boat.

It’s like the raft that Eleanor used to get from the boat to the beach.

When we reached the sand, I noticed a trail outlined with lights weaving into the trees. We walked toward it and followed it into the jungle. Memories fell over me like rain as I walked through the trees, remembering each sight, sound, smell, and taste from each step when I had taken them before. We were approaching the hill that led to the waterfall and cavern when I noticed the path beneath my feet become smoother and more defined.

“Snow! Noah! Hunter!” I heard Edwin’s voice coming over the hill and soon the old man appeared in front of us. “It’s so good to see you.”

He was wearing what looked like a tux that he brought with him 40 years before when he moved onto the other island and his scattered white hairs were artfully positioned across his head. He walked toward us with his arms open and gave a round of enthusiastic hugs.

“It’s good to see you, too, Edwin,” I told him. “Where’s Sophie gotten herself to?”

“Oh, she’s at the party trying to rustle up a conga line. When I left it was just her, but I have faith in that woman.”

He turned and started back up the path.

“So, you still didn’t tell me what you’re celebrating tonight,” I said.

“I’m not celebrating anything,” Edwin said. “It’s not my party.”

“Not your party?” I asked. “Then who…”

We got to the hill and I stopped still. Ahead of me was the section of the jungle that had been destroyed by Lucille’s helicopter. Instead of tattered, broken trees and torn ground, however, a building stretched in front of me. It looked like it was built from the remnants of the trees and other materials designed to look like them, and was built into the natural shape of the land so that it seemed to be growing out of the island itself. The only exception was the large dome in the center of the roof.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Come find out,” Edwin said.

I followed him along the continuation of the path and toward the building. A curved wooden door took up the majority of the front of the building and as I approached I noticed that there were words carved into it.

“Hunter’s Retreat,” I whispered.

Music surged up from inside the building and Noah stepped up beside me.

“I think we should go inside now.”

He opened the door and I stepped into what looked like a round lobby and realized that the dome on the roof created the ceiling of this portion of the building. People mingled around the room, stopping at stands for food and drinks. I looked closer and saw that each of these stands looked familiar. They were pieces of furniture that I had hauled around to different events with my brother. I glanced up toward where the music was coming from and saw him behind the table, smiling as he watched Sophie dance past. Robin had latched onto her and now danced by me wearing something that looked distinctly like a leaf skirt over his clothes.

“Philip?” I said as I approached him.

“Hey, Hunter!” He looked around, gesturing at the elaborate setup that I knew he had had a major hand in creating. “Pretty nice digs, huh?”

“What’s going on here?”

He nodded toward something behind me and I turned around to see Eleanor standing at the door, her body draped elegantly in an outfit that looked stunningly like a real version of the clothing that she had tied together when we were stranded here.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Eleanor

My heart trembled as I looked at Hunter. All of the light and sound of the party around us disappeared and all I could focus on was him. I walked toward him, wanting to step into his arms, but he didn’t offer them.

“I heard that he was the best event rental and coordinator in the business,” I said. “I had to have him here for my opening celebration.”

“Opening celebration?” Hunter asked.

“Do you like it?” I asked, gesturing around us.

“What is this, Eleanor?”

“The night that you brought me up on the rocks to see the stars everything was so beautiful that I felt like I never wanted to leave. I wanted to be here on this island forever. To be with you forever. I found myself missing it so much that I did some research into it. I found out that it was owned by a family who had never even come to it. They had bought it up with some other land and largely forgot about it until I got in touch with them. So, I bought it from them and built this.”

“You called it Hunter’s Retreat.”

I nodded.

“When I was designing it, all I could think about were the things that you said when we were planning the shelter, both before and after the storm. I used as much as I could to create this.”

“Is there somewhere where we can talk?” he asked me.

I nodded again and gestured across the lobby toward the short hallway that led to my office. My heart lifted as we headed toward it. He wanted to talk to me alone. It was up a short set of stairs that allowed me to look out of the full wall of windows on one side at the waterfall a brief distance away. As soon as I had closed the door behind us, I started toward Hunter, wanting to close the space between us.

“What are you playing at, Eleanor?”

I fell back a step, stung by his words. I shook my head, already feeling tears starting to form in my eyes.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I’m not…”

“You said that you didn’t want to tell me who you were when we met because you didn’t want me to know about your money and form my opinions about you.”

“That’s true.”

“Please let me finish,” he said. “You didn’t want me to make any assumptions about you as a person, but you also didn’t want to give me the opportunity to take advantage of you because of your money. You thought that if I knew that you were who you are that all I would be able to see was dollar signs and then there would be a constant imbalance between us. But then you turn around and do this.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You can’t buy me, Eleanor. You lied to me about who you are and your money. You can’t turn around and try to use those things to make it all better.”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Without another word, Hunter turned around and walked out of the office. The door closed behind him and I felt my knees buckle beneath me. I sat hard in the chair behind me, drawing in ragged breaths. This resort had been all that I thought about for months. It had been in every breath, in every beat of my heart. I wanted to show Hunter that I had listened to him, that I heard what he had said. He had been so overlooked throughout his life and so few people had taken the time to appreciate him and understand how amazing he really was. I could see the ache for that validation within him, and that is what I had wanted to give him.

But he had thrown it away. He had cast it to my feet, accusing me of the very thing that I had so desperately wanted to escape. Suddenly the sadness within me started to melt away. It drained out of me gradually, leaving my body as if it was sliding first from my mind, and then from my heart, dripping from my fingertips and sinking into the floor beneath me. In its place was frustration first, and then seething anger.

****

Hunter

I wanted to leave. I wanted to get off the island and go back to my real life. This is why I didn’t want to come here, but so much worse than I could have even planned for. I had wanted to burrow myself into reality and let all of this become one of those memories that faded into such abstract thought that eventually I would question if it had really happened.

Then I saw Eleanor.

Seeing her had been a stark shock of what reality really was for me now. In that moment, I knew that there was no way I was ever going to be able to put her behind me. I was never going to be able to see her as a distant, abstract memory. She was always going to be at the front of my mind, right there with me even as I went through each day without her.

I felt gutted as I rushed down the stairs from her office and back down into the party. The revelry around me felt out of place and I wanted to get out of it as fast as I could. As I made my way across the room toward the door, however, I felt a hand grasp my arm. I turned around and saw Snow looking at me imploringly.

“Please don’t go,” she said. “I don’t know what just happened up there. I don’t know what’s happening with all this at all. But I know that it means an incredible amount to Eleanor and to Noah. If you can’t stay here for her, please stay for him.” I pulled out of her hand and started toward the door again. “And you really don’t have a way to get off the island without us.” I stopped and felt my shoulders drop. “Feels pretty familiar, huh?”

Shit.

I turned back around slowly and gave Snow a tight-lipped smile. She walked up to me and wrapped her arm around my shoulders, giving me a little squeeze.

“Thank you, Hunter,” she said in a singsong voice that almost made me not want to poke her between the eyes.

Almost.

I wriggled out of her hold and started across the room toward my brother and the well-stocked bar that was set up beside him. Before I could get to him, though, Philip stepped away from his table and disappeared through a door at the back of the room. I sighed and grabbed a drink from the bar before dropping down into a chair at one of the tables set up around the open floor in the center of the room. I looked up and saw that the domed ceiling was glass, allowing me to see the stars overhead. My heart clenched.

“I have no idea what I’m drinking.”

I brought my attention down from the glass dome and saw Edwin settle into the chair beside me. He was holding a coconut filled with pink fluid and dotted with what looked like chunks of various fruits.

“I don’t either.”

He took a sip and nodded.

“Tastes good.”

I followed his gaze onto the dancefloor and saw that Sophie had built up more of a gathering for her conga line. She glanced over at her husband and slithered the line toward the table. I laughed as she performed a conga drive-by, snatching the drink from Edwin’s hand and leaning down to press a kiss to the top of his head.

“That woman,” he said, shaking his head.

“You really love her, don’t you?” I asked.

“So much that we had to move into international waters because it just might be illegal otherwise.”

I smiled at the sentiment.

“She’s certainly unique.”

Edwin nodded.

“Potentially another reason why we had to move into international waters.”

I laughed and slid the drink I hadn’t yet sipped across the table toward him.

“Well, after forty years together, at least you know all about her past.”

“Sixty-five years and ppppffffffff.”

I jumped slightly at the sound that he made by biting his bottom lip and blowing hard through his teeth.

“What?” I asked.

“I said ‘ppppffffffff,” he repeated. “You said that I know everything about Sophie’s past and I say a big old resounding ppppffffffff on that.”

“You don’t?”

“Of course not. What’s the point in that? Do I sometimes wonder how she made the ten thousand dollars that she brought home from Vegas the summer I had the ague that let us invest in our first company? Sure, I do. But when you’ve got the ague and your wife gallivants off, but then comes back, you don’t question the money that she brings with her. Or the glitter on her ass. Or the forged birth certificate in her luggage.”

“But doesn’t it bother you that she lied to you?”

Edwin looked at me for a quiet moment and for the first time I really saw the years in his eyes.

“Son, sometimes a person lies to you because they are really lying to themselves. You have to ask yourself if what they lied about really matters. Then you have to decide which is more important, the lie or the person.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Eleanor

I was reaching for the handle on my door, ready to stalk down into that party and confront Hunter, when it flung open and he rushed in, nearly knocking me over with his body.

“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out for me, but I stepped back away from him.

“I’m not trying to buy you,” I snapped at him. “I did something horrible. I know that. I admit that. I’ve said I’m sorry for lying to you, and I’ll say it again. I’m sorry. But that doesn’t mean that I’m trying to buy you. I thought about you and the time that we spent on this island every single day, and I kept coming back to two things. One was the peace that I found here, the happiness that I found with you. The other was how Lucille destroyed this area. When I found out that the damage was so much worse when they came and took the helicopter out, it broke my heart. I hated to think about it. I didn’t want to imagine this place forever scarred by her. It needed to be a place of beauty again. So, I created this. I took what you said, what you taught me. I took what you made me feel when we were here together and I designed a resort, a retreat where people could come and experience the tiniest taste of the pleasure that we had here. There are two suites. That’s it. Two. Guests won’t be allowed to damage the island in any way. They will come here only to enjoy it.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Hunter said.

“Apparently it’s not enough for you.”

I pushed past him and out of the office. There was a party downstairs that I was hosting, and even if the reason for the celebration was crumbling around me, I had to be there for the people who had been there for me.

I had just stepped out of the office when Hunter reached through the door and pulled me back inside. I gasped in surprise as he closed the door and pressed me back against it in one smooth movement. His eyes burned into mine for a few moments before his mouth crushed down over mine and his tongue forced its way past my lips. In that instant, everything crashed around me and I lost myself in the overwhelming blend of desire and love that filled me. Our tongues tangled as I pressed into Hunter’s kiss, sweeping my arms up around his neck and using it for leverage so that I could lift my back away from the door. This allowed me to touch my body to his, bringing me close to him again and revealing to me with unquestionable power that he wanted me as much as I did him. Hunter pushed me back against the door with the pressure of his chest, flattening me so that I felt like he was enveloping me. I accepted it hungrily, welcoming his possession of me.

My mouth was swollen and hot with the power of his kiss when Hunter stepped back just enough to allow us to undress one another. Our hands clawed at each other with abandon, pulling away clothing until we both achieved the bare warmth that we sought from one another, reconnecting us to the blissful wild the island instilled in us. We moved with even greater urgency and desire than we had, but now we didn't slow down. The luxury of time, privacy, and proximity were no longer with us and now we both felt as though we were reaching toward one another through the endless days and painful, aching nights that had separated us. Hunter reached down and wrapped his hands around the backs of my thighs so that he could scoop me up. My legs embraced his hips and I rocked mine against his, seeking release from the pressure already building in my core. He turned us around and carried me toward my desk. It had been custom designed and crafted from wood and stones sourced from the island, acrylic panels displaying pieces of debris from the crash and the storm found when combing the beach before we started construction. It was one of my favorite things that I had helped create for the resort.

Hunter set me down on the edge of the desk and drew my legs from around his waist. He slid his hands up the tender insides of my thighs and pressed my legs apart. I rested the tips of my toes on the two chairs I had positioned in front of the desk, allowing my knees to fall open. The air brushed against me and I felt my body ready for Hunter with a slick rush of hot fluids. Hunter groaned as he leaned down and drew his tongue through my folds one long, unhesitant time. I gasped, reaching down to bury my fingers in his hair as I arched into the sensation. He lifted his head and looked up at me, making a hushing sound.

I nodded breathlessly. I didn’t want to draw the attention of anyone outside of the office by letting them hear me.

“I’m going to have to get used to not being able to be as loud as I want to,” I whispered.

Hunter grinned and got to his feet.

“I’ll help you.”

He captured my mouth and thrust his tongue in against mine to muffle any sounds that I might make and further the connection between us. He pulled me closer to him as we kissed and pressed one hand onto my lower back to hold me against him. I didn’t want to wait much longer. I pulled away from him and lay back, reaching to open the top drawer and withdraw a condom from the stash that I had optimistically tucked there. I tore it open with my teeth and slipped it into my mouth as I sat up. I reached forward and wrapped my hand around his cock to hold it in place and dipped my head down, using my lips and tongue to roll the condom into place.

I sucked his intoxicating erection for a few more seconds and then took my mouth from him, running my tongue up the center of his belly and chest until I could kiss him again. Hunter held tightly to my hips and sank into me, and I had to bite into his shoulder to stop myself from crying out.

There was nothing gradual or slow about his pace. Kissing me with breathtaking passion, Hunter thrust into me fast and hard. The transcendence of the rhythm our bodies created together had me whimpering into his mouth and digging my fingernails into his shoulders, back, and waist. Suddenly he pushed me backwards so that I stretched out on the top of the desk. Hunter planted his hands on either side of my head to give himself more leverage and I lifted my legs, bending my knees up to rest my toes on the edge of the desk. The effect buried him more deeply within me and I felt my body responding to his in an almost involuntary, primal way, lifting my hips in tiny pulses to meet every one of his thrusts. I was feeling the delicious pressure building through my hips, thighs, and belly, and could hear Hunter grunting in time with his deep, intense thrusts, filling my office with the sound of our mutual, euphoric pleasure. He pulled me up to a sitting position in front of him again, grasping the back of my head to look into my eyes as he plunged inside me one final time, going as deeply as my body would allow, and growled as his cock throbbed within me.

The feeling of his thick cock pulsing wildly within me, spilling out the powerful pleasure that we had created for one another, was enough to cause me to lose all control. I grabbed him close to me and kissed him deeply to muffle the cry that bubbled up my throat as all of the pressure within me shattered and my walls clenched around Hunter’s cock still buried within me. I clung to him, holding him as close to further enhance the waves rushing through me. Our breath synchronized and our hearts seemed to beat to one another in time. He nuzzled me with the tip of his nose, touching his lips to mine in a gentle, tender kiss that reached a place within me that had been waiting what felt like my entire life to be found.

After a few minutes, we knew that we couldn’t hide in the office forever and needed to try to sneak back down to the party. We climbed reluctantly down from the desk and got dressed. I was tying my top back into place when I noticed Hunter looking at the desk strangely.

“What?” I asked.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at one of the acrylic panels.

From the angle where he was standing I could see that it was difficult to decipher the larger piece of debris proudly displayed on the side of the desk. I guided him around so that he could look at it directly.

“I found it when I was going over the beach while I was designing the resort,” I told him. “It’s my shoe.”

The party carried on through the night and the pink streaks of early morning sunlight were visible through the glass dome in the ceiling by the time that Snow and Noah went to one of the suites, Philip, Robin, and a few of the other workers went to crash in the other, and the rest of the guests left. Sophie and Edwin had been the last to dance their way out of the resort and I could still hear their seaplane humming in the distance when I turned to Hunter.

“Are you tired?” I asked.

“I don’t want to sleep,” he said. “I don’t want to miss even a second. Besides, both of the suites are taken.”

“Not ours,” I said.

“Ours?” Hunter asked, his eyes brows raising.

“Mmmm-hmmm,” I said. “Do you really think that I would design a resort without having somewhere for us to stay in it whenever we wanted?”

I stood and reached for his hands to pull him to his feet, planning to bring him to the room, accessible only by a concealed entrance, that I had had carefully built into the cavern where we spent of the night of the storm. Instead, Hunter pulled me to him so that I sat down in his lap. I giggled and he kissed the tip of my nose.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I cocked my head at him.

“For what?”

“For hurting you. For pushing you away. For caring more about what you hadn’t told me than what you had.”

“I told you a lot of things,” I said.

Hunter laughed and nodded.

“Yes, you did,” he said. “By the way…. I’m having trouble figuring out what my next career move should be. Can I make an appointment with you tomorrow afternoon, or are you only a guidance counselor on Tuesdays?”

I swatted him playfully in the chest and he grabbed me, turning me so that he dipped me back over his lap and kissed me.

“I love you, Eleanor McIntire,” he said.

“I love you, too,” I said.

He looked at me quizzically.

“What’s wrong?” he said, straightening me up again.

“I really hate that name,” I told him. “I need to look into changing it.”

“Well,” he said, looking at me with a sparkle in those hypnotic green eyes. “I happen to know a way to go about that.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Eleanor

One year later…

“I’m not really sure that I’m comfortable with this, Auntie.”

I looked at Noah and laughed, shaking my head.

“The last time that I heard that at a wedding it started all this,” I said, gesturing around at the people who were scurrying around trying to finish the final preparations.

“Well, at least that was at a proper wedding.”

“What happened to you?” I asked, looking at him quizzically. “What happened to the nephew who I know who never fit in with all of the expectations, turned your back on the family business to be a baker, and married someone in a station beneath you?”

“Someone at a station beneath me at the company that I took over ,” he pointed out. “See? I didn’t completely turn my back on the family business.”

He was arguing with me, but I could hear the levity in his voice and knew that he knew he had been caught.

“Alright,” I said, wrapping my arm around his waist to give him a hug. “You are a good boy.”

“I know.”

I smiled and watched as two men rushed past me with white chairs to set up at the ceremony site. I looked up at the sky, monitoring the clouds that had started forming on the edges of the horizon that morning and were gradually creeping in.

“This is what Hunter and I want,” I told Noah. “He doesn’t like all of the fuss and formality of big weddings. It makes him uncomfortable.”

“But you love all that fuss and formality,” Noah pointed out. “I’ve seen you turn your nose up at an entire marriage because the bridesmaids’ shoes weren’t dyed at the same time and one of them came out a slightly different shade.”

“That’s not necessarily a wedding requirement,” I pointed out. “That’s just tacky. Besides, I went through enough of that with my first wedding. I guess falling in love with Hunter changed me.”

“I hope not too much.”

“You hope not what too much?”

I turned and saw Hunter approaching us. He leaned down to kiss me before shooting a grin toward Noah.

“We were just talking about how much you’ve changed my life,” I said.

“Oh, really?” Hunter asked, wrapping his arms around my waist and sweeping me up against him. “Want to tell me?”

I hugged him back, but shook my head.

“I think that I’ve told you enough,” I said with a laugh. “I wouldn’t want you to get full of yourself.”

Hunter leaned down and kissed the soft spot beneath my ear.

“I’d like you to be full of me,” he whispered.

I gave a gasp of mock horror and then giggled, and Noah shook his head.

“I don’t think that that was something that I wanted to hear,” he said. “So, I’m really glad I didn’t. And on that note, I’m going to go find Snow. The last time I saw her she was wandering through the trees with Robin reminiscing about when we met. I think that she is considering purchasing controlling interest in the Enchanted Woods.”

“Is Fawn selling?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Noah said. “But I think that I, too, changed my partner a bit. She has learned the ways of the takeover.”

“I don’t think that she’d do that to Fawn,” I said.

“I do,” Hunter said with a laugh. “You two didn’t see Snow kick down Lucille’s door when she fired her. That woman is capable of anything.”

“That’s true,” Noah said. “I don’t think that she’d hurt Fawn, though.”

“Maybe she’s going to team up to open a new location.” I said.

Noah looked at me and sighed.

“I don’t know if that’s better or worse.”

He walked away shaking his head and I laughed, cuddling closer to Hunter.

“So what else needs to be done?” I asked.

“The ceremony is almost set up,” he said. “The reception still has a bit to go, but they have some time.”

“And our honeymoon suite?” I asked with a lilt in my voice that came from my excitement at what we had planned for our first night together as husband and wife.

Hunter nuzzled the tip of my nose with his and smiled.

“That’s coming along nicely as well.”

“Good.” I looked up at the sky. “Now we just have to wait and see if it’s going to rain.”

“Well, if it does, it would be appropriate,” Noah said. “Rain has done us well.”

I grinned at him.

“Maybe we should have sent it an invitation.” I kissed him one more time. “I’ve got to go get ready. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Standing at the altar,” he said.

I smiled, letting out a murmur of happiness at the thought. Everything was coming together perfectly. Virgil was finally gone from my life. Lucille wouldn’t be bothering Snow any longer. The island resort was more successful than I ever could have dreamed. Above all, Hunter and I were together, happy, and would soon be married. Everything was settling into place and giving me a glimpse at the type of life that I had dreamed of having for so long.

“Walk me to the tent?” I asked.

“Of course.”

He took my hand and we started toward the large white tent closer to the entrance to the woods where I would be getting ready for the wedding. As we went we passed by the ceremony site, a perfect clearing flanked with wide-stretching branches that dappled the ground with light and filled the air with the scent of autumn leaves, and I noticed one of the workers using a rubber mallet to sink what looked like a small sign into the ground a few feet away from the head of the aisle.

“What is that?” I asked, trying to stop so that I could read it.

“Nothing,” Hunter said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and steering me away.

Not in time, though. I had read it. “Pick a Seat, Not a Side.”

Dammit all to hell.

It turned out that I didn’t need to send the rain a formal invitation to the wedding. It came anyway. I was sitting at the edge of the chair in front of the vanity set up in the tent, ensuring that my makeup was in place, when I heard the first tell-tale drops hitting the fabric roof. I turned and looked out of one of the small clear plastic windows in the side of the tent and saw streaks of water streaming down. I should have been upset. All of the bridal instincts in me were saying to freak out and start flailing just for the sake of showing my disdain for the fact that my perfect wedding day was being ruined. But all I could do was smile.

Fortunately, all around me my bridal party was picking up the slack for me. High pitched voices were squealing and I heard one of the very few friends that I had managed to hang on to throughout my young adulthood and marriage to Virgil starting to hyperventilate. I stood and rushed toward her, gathering the skirt of my gown up to keep from tripping on it. That was one thing that I was not about to compromise on. I might be getting married out in the woods, but I wasn’t giving up the chance to wear a gown. It might be silver and be a more fitted style than my original vanilla fluff cupcake supreme style that I had worn when I was twenty and marrying Virgil, but I felt sexy and beautiful, and most certainly looked like a bride rather than a mother-of.

“It’s alright, Vera,” I said, reaching out to take hold of the woman’s shoulders to try to calm her down. “It’s going to be fine.”

“But it’s raining, ” she wailed.

I nodded.

“I know,” I said. “I hear it. But that’s OK. It’s just rain. Just water.”

“But your wedding!”

“My wedding is going to go on no matter what. It doesn’t matter what kind of weather is happening. I am marrying Hunter today even if there is spontaneous eclipse and earthquake and I have to roll down the aisle to the light of cell phones. I’m getting married. And I’m going to be happy. A little bit of water isn’t going to stop me.” There was a rush of wind from outside and the rain started pelting the walls of the tent. “A lot of water isn’t going to stop me.”

Vera nodded.

“OK.”

“OK. Now, how long until the ceremony starts?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“See? Plenty of time. I bet that by the time the ceremony starts, the rain will have passed us by and we’ll just get to enjoy all of the wonderful smells and cool air. Let’s just go have some champagne and toast my last few minutes as a single woman.”

That seemed to perk Vera up and we headed for the lounge area that had been set up with plush white couches and ottomans at the other side of the tent. I settled onto one of the couches and accepted a crystal flute of champagne from the attendant, happy for the blend of my style and Hunter’s style that we had achieved when planning our wedding.

By the time that I was finished sipping the champagne and had enjoyed a few last-minute hugs and congratulations from the women in the tent with me, I knew that I had been absolutely right about the rain not being as bad as it was once the ceremony started.

It was twice as bad.

“What do you want to do?” Sarah, the wedding coordinator, asked as she approached, gripping her walkie talkie in her hand like it gave her life.

“Where are the guests?” I asked.

“We herded them into the lounge tent,” she said.

I sighed. Well, this was all going straight to hell. The lounge tent had been designed as a mid-point between the ceremony itself and the reception, but now it had become a gathering vessel for my soggy wedding guests, who were undoubtedly imbibing in some of the drinks that were stored there.

“And Hunter?”

“Standing at the end of the aisle with an umbrella”

That’s all I needed to hear.

“Bring me out there,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Look, nothing is going right already. It’s all kind of fallen apart.” I had a fucking ‘Pick a Seat’ sign. “Why not just go with it?”

“But your dress,” Vera said, starting to fall apart behind me again. “And your shoes.”

“It’s a dress and shoes,” I said, remembering the shoes that I had tried so desperately to cling to when I was first on the island with Hunter and Gavin. “It’s going to be fine. You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to, but my wedding started five minutes ago and I’m not going to wait around anymore. I’m going to walk out there and marry the gorgeous man who is waiting for me.”

I reached out and grabbed the bouquet from the table beside the entrance to the tent. Straightening my shoulders, I stepped out of the tent and into the pouring rain. It streamed down on me and I laughed into it as I hopped into the decorated cart that would whisk me to the path near the ceremony site. The rain was still thundering around me when the cart stopped and I stepped down onto the soft leaves at the head of the path. Hunter was standing at the end of the aisle, the chairs empty on either side, talking to the officiant from under the umbrella he held. As I started down the aisle toward him, the officiant nudged him and Hunter turned to me.

I heard his laugh above the sound of the rain and he tossed his umbrella aside. The rain pelted down on him as he ran down the aisle toward me. We met in the middle and I reached out to wipe away the rain that gathered on the lenses of his glasses. I had gotten accustomed to his glasses and now I loved them as much as I love him. They were a part of him, something that made Hunter the man I adored above anything and everything that I had ever known. He smiled at me through the rain and I knew that our wedding couldn’t be more perfect.

I heard voices as we started back up the aisle and I looked behind us to see our wedding party running down the aisle, speeding around us so that they could take their positions at the altar crafted from fallen branches, ivy, and flowers. Hunter and I laughed and paused to allow them to settle before going the rest of the way. I thought of my father as I walked, wishing that he could be there with me. There was another flash across the aisle and I saw my brother, Noah’s father, drop down to sit in the front row on my side of the seating.

At least he knows what he’s supposed to do.

Seeing him brought tears to my eyes and I concentrated on the feeling of my arm through Hunter’s to get me through the rest of the walk to the aisle. I could feel my other brother there with me, walking along beside me. Hunter and I had gone back to the lake the day before, leaving a wreath of the flowers that my brother would have worn as a boutonniere. It made me feel closer to him, connected even through the years, so I didn’t feel as though I was embarking on this new chapter of my life without him.

By the time that we got to the altar, many of our guests had rushed out of the tent to fill the seats and watch our ceremony. The rain continued to pour throughout and I could taste the drops on his lips as we exchanged the kiss that sealed our marriage. As we started our way toward the lounge tent, however, the drops slowed and the skies cleared, suddenly brightening into the rich glowing sunlight of late afternoon.

After the sun went down I sat on a log looking into the dancing flames of a campfire. Many of my guests stood around the edge of the fire, allowing the heat from the flames to dry their clothes. Those who built the campfire had had the foresight to cover the pit and the surrounding area with large, waterproof tents early in the day to protect it so the ground was dry and the fire was raging, creating the perfect backdrop for our reception. I could hear the music streaming from the dancefloor several yards away and the air was rich with the smell of roasting marshmallows and melting chocolate.

This was so far beyond anything that I would have imagined for my wedding, but that is precisely what made it exactly what I wanted. My first wedding had been everything that I had always dreamed of. The dress. The flowers. The elaborate parties. The lavish meal. Diamonds dripping from my guests. I had everything that I could have wanted, except for the groom. That wedding had been all that I had dreamed of, but had given me the marriage from hell. Maybe having a wedding that had only glimpses of what I would usually have planned would give me what really mattered…a marriage that would give me joy and fulfillment, and allow me to do the same for my husband. It was that intention that caused me to stop thinking about the strict traditions and etiquette rules, and instead plan a wedding that emulated Hunter and me and that our guests would actually enjoy.

Instead of sneaking out to the parking lot to drink liquor. With the groom. Damn. Red flags.

“Marshmallow?”

I looked beside me and saw Hunter settling onto the log holding a stick. A glowing marshmallow was impaled on the end and I was fairly confident that it was going to burst back into full flames any second. Thank goodness we had gone for metal sticks rather than being authentic to my childhood campouts. I reached up and peeled off some of the molten marshmallow, quickly sucking it off of my fingers to soothe the stinging of it burning into my skin.

“Thank you, Mr.” I said.

“You’re welcome, Mrs.” he replied, smiling at me.

I never thought that I was going to be a “Mrs.” again. For a long time, it wasn’t something that I thought that I would ever want again. Now, though, it was all that I could need. Rather than being a label, a collar that kept me tied down, it was a sense of fulfillment. I watched with amusement as he struggled to pull off some of the marshmallow and get it into his mouth without it sticking to all of his other fingers and his clothes. He finally conquered the treat and I saw his eyes flicker quickly to the edge of the woods and then back to me.

“Did you notice?” he asked.

“What?” I asked.

He repeated the flicker with his eyes and I followed it, noticing a figure lingering in the trees just barely outside of the circle of light from the fire. It stepped forward and I could tell that it was a man just before I noticed that it was Gavin. He met my eyes and nodded, and I nodded back before he sank backwards into the darkness of the woods. I didn’t know where he was going, but I knew that it would be a long time before I saw him again, if I ever did. Though I hadn’t noticed him at the ceremony, it warmed my heart to know that he had been there. After everything that we had gone through together, even the worst, darkest moments, it felt like he needed to be there, as if to prove that everything was going to be alright.

Before he could say anything else, I noticed Noah and Snow walking up to us. We stood to talk to them.

“I think it’s about time that I get these two ladies home,” Noah said, gesturing toward Snow.

She looked down briefly and ran the hand that wasn’t holding Noah’s over her round belly. Though she was smiling I could see the exhaustion in her eyes and knew that she had had enough of the day. She was only a few weeks away from delivery and I knew that she needed her rest.

“Thank you for all everything,” I said, opening my arms to her.

“Of course,” Snow said, accepting my hug warmly. “Congratulations.”

We stepped away from each other and Noah scooped me into his arms.

“Love you, Auntie.”

“Love you, too, Honey.”

He gave me a tight squeeze and kissed my cheek.

“Be happy.”

I stepped out of his arms with a contented sigh.

Be happy.

“I will,” I promised him. I wrapped an arm around Hunter’s waist and leaned over to rest my head on his chest. “I will.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Hunter

The final guest had left and the crew had gone back to scurrying around the woods removing all signs of the wedding so that by the time that they drove away it would look as though we had never been there. I was watching the carts driving toward the reception area when I heard footsteps coming up behind me. I turned and saw Eleanor walking toward me from the tent where she had gotten ready for the wedding. She had taken off of her gown and was now wearing a light pink dress with matching cardigan. Her hair had been brushed down from the style that she had been wearing during the ceremony and she had pulled it up into a ponytail at the back of her head to match the softer, more casual makeup that had replaced what had melted off in the rain during the ceremony. Though she had been a spectacularly beautiful bride, I felt myself drawn even more to her now. This was the woman I had fallen in love with.

I reached out and pulled her into my arms, giving her what felt like the millionth kiss of the night. I could have given her a million more.

“I’m going to have to find a new dry cleaner after leaving that gown with them,” she said.

“You should have just kept it the way that it was,” I told her.

“I should,” she agreed. “I could dry it out and put it in a shadow box to display in our house. Dirt streaks and all.”

“Are you ready to go to our luxurious honeymoon suite?”

She grinned and nodded, and we climbed into the decorated cart that she had used to get to the ceremony. It brought us deeper into the woods, past what had been the ceremony site and the reception, and through the thicker areas of trees until we reached the bank of a sparkling river. It was far wider than the one that we had enjoyed on the island, but the nearby waterfall was familiar enough that I couldn’t wait to revisit some of my favorite memories from those days we spent stranded together. I knew the water would be colder here, especially in the fall air, but that just meant that we would need to keep each other warm.

The “honeymoon suite” was meant to be a surprise for her and I had been working on it for weeks when she stumbled on the sketches and I had to reveal the plans to her. In a way, I was glad that she did, because she was able to bring my idea and connect me with the people to bring those visions into reality, along with a few extra little details that I never would have considered. Now as the treehouse came into view, I knew that there was no other place that I would want to be that night.

Built based on the same plans from our shelter on the island, the treehouse had been crafted out of more stable materials and offered features that we didn’t have, including a door, but it was still incredibly similar to the shelter that, even in the short time that we had spent there, I had come to think of as my first home with Eleanor. This created a nostalgic feeling as we approached and climbed up the rustic ladder to get to the small platform that led to the door to the shelter. I opened the door and then turned and swept my new wife into my arms to carry her over the threshold.

“You’re only supposed to do that in our first house,” she told me.

“I don’t care,” I said. “I’ll carry you over the threshold at every place we sleep until our honeymoon is over. And then again at our new house.”

Eleanor laughed and nodded.

“Sounds good to me.”

I carried Eleanor across the room and tossed her onto the bed that had been built on the far side of the treehouse. It looked dry despite the roof being made out of palm fronds, which meant that the same team that had gone to the extent to cover the campfire area had come here and protected the shelter during the rain. Eleanor pushed back to lay her head on the pillows piled at the head of the bed within the draped mosquito netting, but I grabbed her by her knees and pulled her back down the bed until she was at the very edge. Kneeling on the floor at the end of the bed, I pushed her thighs apart and pressed them up so one leg draped over my shoulder as I pushed the other down to hold it open against the bed. I dipped my head forward and Eleanor cried out as my tongue slid through her hot, wet folds and focused the tip on the swollen bud at the top. She gasped, writhing against the bed as my mouth played across her, increasing the arousal that I could already taste.

I took my hand away from the leg that I had been holding to the mattress and flattened it on her stomach. I could feel her hands moving just above mine and I looked up to see her unbuttoning her sweater and peeling it away. I paused my attention long enough to allow her to slip the skirt of her dress under her hips, and then I leaned around her to unzip her dress. In an instant she was beautifully, delectably bare and she lay back again, obviously eager for more of the worshipful attention that I wanted to give her. I rested my hand back to where it had been before sliding it up to grasp her breast. My palm encompassed it and squeezed, pulling down slightly as if drawing her deeper into my mouth. I looked up again to see Eleanor bite down on her bottom lip to muffle her sounds and I lifted my head away from her.

"No. Let me hear you," I whispered. “I want to hear you like I used to on the island.”

I ran my hand down her stomach again to roll my thumb across the sensitive peak of her clit and delved my tongue into her. In an instant, I felt her crashing into a climax that tore a scream from her. I took my mouth away from her and pressed my fingers into her body to replace my tongue. I groaned at the feeling of her walls contracting around them and massaged gently, continuing the waves of pleasure for her until I felt her relax. I withdrew my hand.

"Move up a little," I told her and Eleanor crawled backwards resting back as she had been when she first got onto the bed.

I walked around to the side of the bed and gazed down at her, wanting to take every inch of her in, to remember her exactly this way as I undressed, remembering the way that she had stood over me just like this, undressing torturously slowly, in the cavern during the storm on the island. A moment later I was poised over her, my hips settling between her thighs. Her eyes locked firmly on mine, Eleanor opened her legs further and I plunged into her, filling her and moaning at the indulgence of the feeling of her wet, hot body closing around me for the first time without a condom between us. Eleanor drew her legs up and looped her arms around my neck, bracing herself as I pumped into her hard and fast, unable to control myself in the pure ecstasy of Eleanor. I closed my eyes and groaned, pressing up on my arms so that my upper body remained hovered over her.

I bent my elbows slightly to duck my head toward her and touched my mouth to her neck, my tongue roving the soft dip of her throat. Eleanor tilted her hips up to meet my thrusts, whimpering with each deep stroke.

I slammed into her, appreciating the way she lifted her hips with each stroke as if trying to drive me deeper into her. Her body was delectable, both familiar and exquisitely new, comfortable and yet thrilling to discover. I took her arms from around my neck and rolled, bringing Eleanor along with me so that she landed straddling my hips. The position made it easy to watch her face as she rode me, my hands holding her waist firmly so that I could guide and control her rhythm. The sweet little cupcakes of her breasts bounced with each impaling thrust and I reached up to hold one. Eleanor's sounds increased at my touch and I rolled my palm over her nipple to intensify the feeling.

When her movements slowed, I sat up and lifted her off of me.

"Get on your knees," I told her.

She rose up onto her knees and I got behind her, positioning my knees on either side of her feet. I ran my hand down her back while slipping the other around her hip. In one smooth movement, I pulled her hips backwards toward me and pressed her upper body forward so that she landed on her hands, letting out a little cry of surprise and then moaning with pleasure. I entered her again, savoring the tighter grip and different angle afforded by this position.

Eleanor threw her head back as I rocked her back and forth along my engorged cock, pounding so intensely her moans rose to sharp, short cries each time my hips met hers and I had to bite down into my bottom lip to slow down the dizzying pleasure that was building through me. I didn’t want it to end too quickly. I wanted more of her, and wanted to give her more of myself. I reached forward with my other hand and removed the tie that held her hair behind her head. I tossed it aside and dug my hand into her thick, glossy hair. She shook it back so that it tumbled onto her back, seeming to tempt me with it.

I wound her hair around my hand to grip it and groaned as I pulled back on it. Eleanor gasped and arched back against me, forcing me harder into her. Pulling slightly harder, but not enough that I felt like I might be hurting her, I guided her backwards so she raised off of her hands and sat upright on her knees, molding her body back against mine so that I could feel all of her gentle curves against my sweaty skin.

Releasing her hair, I grasped her breast and wrapped my other hand around her waist to stroke her clit. Eleanor's cries surrounded me and her arm came up to wrap tightly around my neck again as if to hold me closer. I turned my head to lick her neck, briefly biting down onto her earlobe. I sat still on my knees and she rocked harder and faster against me. I tightened my arm around her ribcage to hold her firmly to my chest so I could start to pump my hips to meet hers.

Her sounds became frantic and suddenly Eleanor screamed, clamping down on me. The sensation of the hard, powerful contractions rippling through her pushed me over the edge and I roared as a mind-blowing orgasm rocketed through me. I thrust into her one final, hard time and felt myself pouring into her, filling her. When the most intense feelings subsided, I sat back on my heels and brought her down to sit on my lap. Still buried inside her, I kissed along the side of her neck as Eleanor rolled her hips slightly, nestling harder against me as we both rode out our climaxes.

I ran my hands along her thighs and her sweat-damp belly, enjoying the soft slickness of her skin and the feeling of her labored breath. I felt like I could have stayed that way forever, the cool air from outside bringing down the sizzling heat of our skin as we fully melded together. Soon, though, I lowered her to the bed and settled beside her, curling her around me so that our legs tangled and my arms held her tightly against me. We needed to get some sleep. The rest of our honeymoon started in the morning and I didn’t want to miss a single moment of it. We had both missed too much to ever miss anything else.

THE END