Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong (11 page)

Rob looked at her hard, as though it was an impossible question to answer. ‘She’s my mother. Of course I love her.’

‘But do you like her?’

He looked out to sea. ‘Not always.’

Honor watched him steadily, glancing briefly at the nest markers to make sure she wasn’t missing anything. She still had a job to do tonight.

‘She and I don’t agree on a lot of things. I’ve not really … progressed … the way she might have wished.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning I took a job with the government, in a museum, working on mouldy old shipwrecks. I suspect she had grander hopes for me.’

Honor knew that a job in that field was not exactly pedestrian. How sad his parents couldn’t acknowledge his talents. ‘And your father?’

‘Oh, I
know
he had grander hopes for me, or at least he thinks they’re grander. I can’t imagine anything worse than being a serial flatterer six days a week.’

‘Sounds like they’re a well-matched pair.’

‘On the surface I guess they are, or they
were; there’s not much love lost between them these days. Mum carries on like a besieged villager, stoically tolerating occupying forces. It’s no fun to be around when they’re at a peak.’

‘Have you ever asked them?’

‘No. That would require us to have an actual meaningful conversation. With words.’

‘It can’t really be that bad?’

‘Some days …’ He leaned his back against her legs, looking out to sea. It was only a small touch but it was so natural and it carried such intimacy it stole her breath. And not in a good way. She burned to move but his steady weight held her captive. She said the first thing that came to her mind.

‘So your dad’s a player, too, huh?’

She felt him tense against her legs and immediately regretted the words.

‘Depends on your definition. We’re different people.’ There was tightness in his voice. She got the sense that she’d just hit the nail very firmly on the head.

‘What’s he like? Does he look like you?’

‘People say so. But there ends the similarity.’

Honor sat quietly. If he wanted to go on, he would.

He did. ‘He brought me up in his image. Had definite plans for my future—plans that looked a lot like his. He wasn’t happy when I
picked archaeology to study at uni instead of commerce.’

‘But he accepted it?’

‘He ignored it.’

‘You prevailed …’

‘Only because I’ve made a real effort over the years to appease him.’ ‘How?’

‘I made sure that we had plenty of common ground. I took my studies and career underground while, outwardly, I lived the life he wanted for me. Sport, networking, women. Lots of women.’ He smiled. ‘It was enough. It meant I could do what I wanted to do and he was content, too.’

‘Didn’t you get tired of living like that?’

‘Hey, it wasn’t all bad. That kind of lifestyle is very entertaining, but … not sure I could live like that for ever. Could you?’

Honor straightened in the chair, made uneasy by the sudden shift in the conversation back to her and the intensity of his questing gaze.

Deflect, deflect, deflect …

Sex. That was safer territory. She didn’t want to know anything more about his childhood and the hurts and failures he’d experienced. It only led in one direction. And she wasn’t going there.

‘You’re talking about all the women.’

‘Partly. I’m not sorry about the experiences I’ve had … But it wears thin after a while.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I’m surprised that you’re still single. I would have thought you were quite the catch. Wealthy family, good looking, bright.’

He turned his head back towards her, his eyes bleak. ‘In that order?’

She shrugged. ‘For them, maybe.’ ‘And what about for you?’ She hesitated. Her spine grew rigid, her voice tight. ‘My order would be a little different.’

‘What would you value highest?’
Passion. Intelligence. Integrity.
Charisma … if she was being honest. ‘We’re not talking about me.’

‘I’ve never found any … permanent interest amongst those women. They weren’t what I was looking for.’ He glanced down, his smile pasted on. ‘And … uh … my attempts to broaden my horizon haven’t been particularly successful.’

Honor could believe it. Women like herself would give a man like Rob the widest possible berth out of sheer self-preservation. Demigods and bookworms weren’t the most natural fit. A tiny part of her felt sorry for him. But only tiny. ‘Does that surprise you—with the lifestyle you lead?’

‘I didn’t understand it, then. But when I look at how you perceive me—and I consider you to be the best of women—I begin to see the flaws in my approach.’

The best of women.

The words hit her like a bullet. She’d been downright unfriendly towards him several times in the few days they’d known each other, yet he still rated her so highly. Shame and awkwardness and a trembling heat she couldn’t name washed over her. Even in the moonlight, she could see the appealing stain of colour in his cheeks and she knew he’d said more than he meant to. The knowledge slid between her ribs like a seductive blade.

‘Rob.’

He looked at her. ‘Your turn.’ But as she opened her mouth to refuse, her eyes drifted past his shoulder, where a small patch of sand high in the dunes began to ripple.

A hatching!
She really hadn’t expected one tonight, but it was happening! Not in one of her survey sites, which meant she could just relax and enjoy it. Probably the first laying of the season. Rob twisted in his spot to follow her gaze.

The sand seemed to bubble and boil well outside the marker squares. Parts caved in while other parts erupted and the surface
looked, for a moment, as though it were breathing.

‘It’s alive!’ Rob cried.

‘It is.’ She laughed and leapt to her feet as dozens of tiny black creatures erupted from the nest and scrabbled over the edge in the moonlight. Ten … twenty … fifty tiny, rubbery reptiles raced each other down the dune and across the beach.

Four frigatebirds, smart enough to stay up late on the night of a full moon, immediately swooped in and began picking off individuals. Honor knew their excited squawks would draw their brethren. Many. And soon.

Rob’s hands clenched at his sides and his body twitched visibly to get in there.

‘No, Rob. It’s nature.’ She turned her eyes back to the seething nest. It was a spectacular sight.

‘I can’t keep track of them, there’s so many.’

‘Pick one as it emerges from the nest and then follow it to shore. It helps keep it in perspective.’

The hatchlings were virtually identical, so picking one was more of a token act, but Honor fancied she saw one lighter than the rest and chose that one to focus on. It scrabbled over the edge of the sandy nest and weaved its way down the beach, darting left, darting right. It
would be there by now if it had just taken a straight course to the ocean.

Immediately, she had a flashback—Nate teaching three-year-old Justin how to weave with a soccer ball. He’d scampered as directionless around their back yard, too, trying to keep the ball on track. A lump immediately grew in her throat even as she smiled at the memory. Her heart reached out to her tiny turtle as it finally hit the surf and was gone. It was on its own now.

‘No!’

Her head whipped around at Rob’s outraged cry.

‘My guy’s going the wrong way! And there’s a whole bunch going with him.’

Honor had to smile. Ironic, that the turtle he picked would turn out to be hyper-energetic and completely devoid of good sense.

‘I’m going in.’ He kicked off his shoes.

Her hand held him back. Stronger than she felt. ‘I have to observe the non-intervention policy—’

He shrugged off her grip, scrambled to his feet and shot forwards. ‘I don’t.’

‘Rob!’ Honor’s whispered reprimand had no impact. She angled the UV spotlight his way to help him pick his way along the beach between the kamikaze reptiles. They blindly sprinted—faster than a newborn should ever
be able to move—down the sand towards the water’s edge. Survival instinct drove them on. He moved like a morris dancer up the beach— side-stepping a tiny scrabbling turtle one moment, stopping and letting one run over his bare foot the next, then deftly leaping over another group. He danced his way to the far side of the dune where six baby turtles had paused just inside the tree line. He picked up the leader and turned it around, towards the ocean. It hit the sand running. The others wheeled around and followed, finally shooting into the water and disappearing under its dark surface.

Rob loped towards her up the beach that was now empty except for the snacking frigatebirds. He was moonlit, puffing slightly, had a crooked grin on his handsome face and his eyes locked hard onto hers.

Her heart swelled and she adored him in that moment for flouting the golden rule so spectacularly. For the first time in a very long time she didn’t think, she just acted. She launched out of her folding chair and crashed into him, sliding her arms around his neck in a fierce hug. He caught her with warm, surprised hands.

‘Thank you,’ she breathed in his ear.

He laughed and wrapped his arms around
her waist, lifting her easily off the sand. Her legs scrabbled like a hatchling.

‘Grateful?’ He swung her side to side and she tightened her hold to hang on. She hadn’t done this since she was a child, but the way her body pressed hard against his, she felt anything but childlike.

‘Yes!’

‘How grateful?’ He leaned back and looked down at her seriously.

She frowned, confused. ‘What?’

‘One kiss,’ he said simply. Intensely.

All her delight with him evaporated. ‘Did you plan this, Dalton?’

He rolled his eyes but didn’t let go. ‘Yes, Honor. I came here earlier and whispered through the sand to the turtles in their eggs. We planned this whole thing. You got us.’

‘So you’re just an opportunist, then?’

‘You bet. One kiss—that’s my price.’

‘For what?’

‘For saving six hatchlings and possibly the entire species.’ He was joking, but she had just thrown herself into his arms in gratitude. It made it hard to pretend now that she didn’t value what he’d done.

‘You don’t want to kiss me.’ Honor knew the impact her scars had on people. She wasn’t hung-up about it but she was also a realist.

‘Correction—I’ve wanted to kiss you from
the moment I saw you.’ Sincerity was live in his eyes but still she doubted. Maybe a kiss wasn’t such a big deal where he came from— just a bit of fun? He couldn’t know that she’d only been kissed by two men in her whole life—her first kiss when she was fourteen and then her husband. Rob would make three.

If she was entertaining the suggestion.

She swallowed. Her heart thumped an SOS in her chest but her body wasn’t listening. How good would it be to give in to her yearning, to taste him just for a moment? She imagined how his lips would feel against hers but, more than anything, she wanted to nibble her way along that spectacular jaw line. She could almost reach it from here …

In her dreams. This was just a bit of fun for Rob, gentle flirting. He was probably bored. And the best way to handle a flirt? Call them on it.

‘Fine—one kiss.’

His pupils flared and he bent his head towards her.

‘One
small
kiss.’

‘One small kiss—’ he nodded ‘—for each turtle?’

A crazy part of her was enjoying the verbal foreplay. He was waking nerve endings she hadn’t used in a long, long time. ‘Turtles hatched or turtles saved?’

He smiled, caught out. ‘Okay, saved.’

Six small kisses.
Just kisses. Every part of her wanted to say yes and that alone rang alarm bells. He was perfection in deck shoes, funny and gentle, and all of this probably meant nothing to him. Just a bit of casual sport. It was what he did, after all.

He played.

‘Deal.’

If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. ‘Where would you like the first one?’

A wild streak she’d virtually forgotten she had surged forward. She stood straighter and looked at him fearlessly. ‘Cheek.’

He smiled, leaned in excruciatingly slowly and brushed gentle lips across one flushed cheek. They were cool and soft against her flaming skin. He smelled of sea-salt and moonlight. She could survive this …

‘Next?’

‘Other cheek. That’s two.’

‘Thank you, I can count.’ He leaned to her other side and moved his mouth slightly against her other cheek. Lingering. The scent of warm man eddied around her. It was like a natural stimulant.

‘Three and four?’

Honor took a deep breath. Only two chaste kisses and her heart was ready to beat right out of its cavity. She closed her eyes and every
other sense kicked into overdrive. She felt him lean in, the air around her humming at his approach. His lips touched one eyelid and then the other. Soft, slow and delightful.

She’d felt his smile against her first eyelid but, when they fluttered open, he wasn’t smiling any more. And he’d shifted closer, almost touching her chest with his.

Mustn’t lean forward …
She’d never felt such a burning desire to close a gap in her life. She raised her hands up to his chest to stop herself from doing precisely that but feeling the hard heat of his chest through his shirt only reminded her how long it had been since she’d felt a man’s heartbeat under her fingers. Her lips.

Five.

He didn’t need to say it. Wordless, she tipped her head sideways, exposing the long length of her neck. The good side. She pointed to a spot just next to where her pulse beat its ancient tattoo.

He leaned in closer and held her steady with one large hand on each arm. Then he slowly moved towards the place she’d identified. Honor let her heavy eyelids close again, breathless with anticipation, then felt him pull away. Disappointment ached in her throat. When she opened her eyes, his were glittering with desire and something else.

Speculation.

Before she could react, he twisted and narrowed the space between them and then pressed his mouth against the other side of her neck. Right on the leathery patchwork of her scars.

Shock stiffened her body and sensation assaulted her. She pushed away instinctively, but he held fast. Surgery had done nothing to reduce sensation where the grafts had been applied. If anything, the still-healing skin was hyper-sensitive. Electric currents shot out from the warmth of his mouth as he lazily kissed his way over her damaged skin. A lifetime of emotions surged through her—panic, desire, confusion, sorrow—but when his tongue got in on the act, her legs gave way completely. He supported her when she sagged and then carefully pulled back, watching her closely.