Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong (2 page)

‘I’m coming in. If you want to stop me, knock yourself out. I’m not going to sea until I’ve made repairs.’ He crossed his arms, causing his sea-soaked T-shirt to mould to his broad chest. Honor retreated one pace. She couldn’t stop him, not if it truly wasn’t safe, but she’d never had cause to bring someone unauthorised onto the island in her many seasons on Pulu Keeling. She wasn’t certain what the procedure was.

‘So, are you sending me back out to drown or can I come ashore?’

She sucked in a breath at his choice of
phrase and grabbed at the buoyancy sack to steady herself. He couldn’t know …

Her voice cracked slightly. ‘Suit yourself.’

‘Where can I enter the lagoon?’

‘You can’t.’ She fought to sound normal. ‘You’ll have to moor where you are.’

He scanned the lagoon. ‘Are you serious? What about the south side of the island?’

‘Everyone swims into Pulu Keeling. It’s an atoll, completely surrounded by coral reef. Why else would I be hauling all this stuff in by hand?’

Piles of technical equipment mounded in every spare inch of his boat. Honor wouldn’t risk leaving it all in a vessel with a damaged hull in the unpredictable weather of the Keeling Islands, and she knew he’d feel no different.

‘It’s not too late to change your mind, head for Cocos.’ Her tone was hopelessly optimistic.

‘No. I’ll come ashore. I have no choice.’

Neither do I, apparently.

They hardly spoke as they stripped
The Player
and Honor knew from his grumpy movements that she wasn’t the only one less than pleased with the circumstances they’d found themselves in. Then the sheer hard work of towing load after load of expensive
equipment across the lagoon literally took her breath away, making conversation impossible.

He passed items to her one by one and she stacked each one along with her buoyancy sack into
The Player
‘s inflatable dinghy, which bobbed in the protected lagoon. Some pieces were heavier than others, but she managed every one without complaint. Pretty Boy sealed the cabin, dropped the weather shields, started the engine one final time and motored a few metres away from the reef where he could safely drop anchor.

Honor waited while he added his spare anchor to the first he’d dropped and then he dived headlong into the frigid depths and swam towards her. The razor edge of the dropoff threatened, but on his second attempt those powerful arms pushed him up and over into the lagoon, guiding the inflatable from behind towards the beach. The water was warmer and gentler on the island side of the reef-break, and teemed with brightly coloured fish enjoying the protection the coral band afforded. They darted, kamikaze-like, around the giant two-legged predator who’d appeared in their midst nudging the dinghy to shore.

Honor’s weary muscles pressed her along, closer to the island, and then she stood in the calf-deep splash waiting for him, breathing deeply. They couldn’t drag the inflatable far
onto the shingle beach; the rocks threatened to shred it in moments. It rested instead on the fine-ground sand closer to the waterline.

Her unwanted guest emerged from the small surf, his saturated clothes glued to every muscled plane. ‘I’ve got it. Take a break.’

Nothing he could have said would have moved her sooner. She dropped the tow rope and bent for one of the parcels in the little boat, trying to disguise her puffing. ‘I’m fine. What is all this stuff, anyway?’

‘Recovery gear, mostly. Photographic equipment, sonar, GPS.’

That stopped her in her tracks.

‘You’re a raider?’ She intentionally used the derogatory term for a salvager. She watched him closely for a reaction.

Lord, what will I do if he is?
They were a long way from the Cocos cluster’s five-strong police presence.

His face tightened. ‘I’m a maritime archaeologist.’

‘What’s the difference?’

One dark brow shot up. ‘The difference is,’ he grumbled as they lugged gear from the inflatable up above the high water mark, ‘one is sanctioned by the Australian Government, in accordance with the Historic Shipwrecks Act. The other is naked theft.’

‘You’re a shipwreck hunter?’

He smiled, bright and glorious. ‘I’m a shipwreck
finder.’

She studied him, her eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t look like an archaeologist.’ And he really, really didn’t. He looked like something from an underwear commercial.

‘You don’t look like a dugong.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Nothing.’ He grinned and thrust out a sandy hand. ‘Robert Dalton. Rob, to my friends.’

She took it, nodding her greeting. ‘Robert.’ His smile twisted slightly. ‘I’m Honor Brier.’

‘And what are you doing all the way out here, Honor Brier? Pretty much the last place I expected to see a woman.’

‘Because of an old Malay myth that says women can’t be on this island?’

‘No. Because it’s supposed to be uninhabited.’

‘I live here eight months of the year. I oversee the turtle nesting and audit the booby colonies.’

He didn’t so much as smile at the word this time; she had to give him a bonus point for fast learning. He dumped the final box on the dune top.

‘You live here for eight months? On an island with no fresh water and no services?’ And no people. He didn’t need to say it; he
wasn’t the first one to point that out to her. She shrugged.

He looked at her as if she was a little bit crazy; with no clue how close to the truth that was. ‘What do you do?’

She spoke more slowly, wondering if he’d spent so long in the looks queue at birth they might have been out of stock over in the brains department. She grabbed her side of the inflatable. ‘I supervise the nesting and audit …’

‘The boobies, I know. I meant what else do you do, to pass the time?’ He stepped to the edge of the dinghy. ‘One, two three … lift.’

They shuffled up the sand, carrying the empty inflatable over the many rocks littering the shore above the high-tide mark.

‘Nothing else—that’s it. It’s my job.’

He stared at her. ‘Alone?’

‘Yep.’ Until now.

He whistled. ‘Who’d you tick off?’

Her mouth dropped open. ‘No one! I choose to come here—I love it.’ And it was the closest point on the planet to—

She caught herself before even thinking about them in this jerk’s presence and dumped her side of the inflatable.

He cringed as it bounced on the rocks. ‘Hey, hey—’

Adonis or not, he’d be repairing a puncture, too, if he didn’t watch what he said. ‘Your stuff
should be fine here until tomorrow. There are no storms forecast … tonight.’ She threw the dismissal over her shoulder, marched to where the second buoyancy sack waited by the water’s edge, hauled it over her shoulder and staggered up the beach with as much dignity as she could on the caving sand.

She turned back and saw him looking at the thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment sitting exposed on her shore. Then he grimaced and followed her as she turned up an almost unrecognisable track between the thick coconut palms fringing the dunes.

Honor shifted from foot to foot. She’d never intended anyone to see her little campsite and now a complete stranger stood in the midst of her ‘stuff'.

Two seasons ago she’d lined the little track leading from the beach with seashells so it formed a sweet pathway to camp. She’d splashed out on a designer fly-sheet for the tent—one with Van Gogh’s
Sunflowers
screen-printed on it—and although it did look rather odd in the middle of the tropical wilderness, the touch of whimsy pleased her. She’d even thought about planting some ground cover to help bind the fine white sand that found its way into everything, but decided against it. Pulu Keeling may well have been Australia’s
smallest National Park, but it was still protected by the same regulations and restrictions afforded to the biggest mainland parks. Making a homely garden was a big conservation no-no.

So she just lived with the sand. Everywhere.

Rob gazed about him with a kind of fascination as he trailed her up from the shore. This island was her home-away-from-home, her sanctuary, and he’d been rudely dismissive of it, as though it wasn’t a rare piece of paradise with lush trees, crystalline waters and masses of wildlife.

Don’t you dare say one word. Not a word.

‘This looks pretty comfortable,’ he said in total defiance of her thought projection.

Suspicion stained the compliment. ‘Everything I need is here.’

It was true. Tent, field equipment, first aid, emergency flares, books, laptop, batteries, radio, fuelled-up generator, provisions and a mountain of ten-litre water tubs full of fresh water. Each in its designated place and each swum in across the lagoon at the beginning of every monitoring season. And swum back out empty at the end.

When he reached the edge of the campsite, he turned back to admire the view she’d been staring at for four years. Coconut trees bowed
towards each other and formed a perfect picture frame for the sparkling ocean beyond the lagoon. The thirty-foot pisonia forest overhead offered protection from the worst of the weather and shade from the blazing equatorial sun.

He was silhouetted against the bright day outside the trees and Honor fought to ignore how solid and fit he looked with her lagoon as a backdrop, the wet T-shirt still clinging to his muscular back. His legs were long, contoured and as tanned as the rest of him. He was tall and lean with surfer’s shoulders. All of him was toned—sculpted but not muscle-bound. She imagined the kind of precise gym-work that went into keeping him in such balanced shape and assumed there were two personal trainers on standby somewhere awaiting his return to the mainland.

Female, no doubt.

He shifted his weight and stretched out a crick in that broad back and Honor wondered if she’d ever feel the same about her view again—or her island.

She frowned. Where had that come from? Not her brain, certainly. One man spending five minutes on Pulu Keeling was not going to undo the wonder and beauty of her safe haven for ever. It was the disturbance. It had thrown her normal rhythm.

She watched him soak up the view, his hands on his hips, body not quite relaxed. For a man who looked as if he was born in the surf, he didn’t seem particularly comfortable standing in front of one of the most beautiful beaches on the planet.

What’s he waiting for—a bellhop?

Her lips tightened. ‘Well, come on in.’

He swung around and moved out of the deep shade into the dappled light of her campsite, sliding his sunglasses up onto his damp dark hair. Honor’s heart tripped over itself, and she glanced away lest she be caught staring.

His eyes were the same vivid blue as her view.

She scurried towards her tent, willing the heart that had lurched into a frantic flutter to settle. Had everything shrunk the moment he stepped into camp? She grabbed a long-sleeved cotton shirt and hastily slipped it on over her swimsuit.

‘Eight months …’ she heard him mutter.

Her chin lifted. ‘How long do you think it will take you to make repairs?’ The question was ruder than she’d intended. It practically screamed,
Get off my island!

He didn’t miss the tone; his lips thinned and those amazing eyes darkened. ‘No idea. I’ll have to assess the damage.’

‘What can I do to help?’ She’d meant it to be conciliatory.

‘In a hurry to have me gone, Honor?’

Shame bit as those all-knowing eyes saw exactly which way her mind was going. ‘No. It’s just … I’m not set up for visitors.’ It was true, yet not entirely the truth.

‘I’ll do my best to stay out of your way.’ His nostrils flared briefly.

Robert Dalton had a decent poker face, an admirable life skill. The aggravated pulse high in his jaw was the only other sign that she’d ticked him off. Her own face was an open book.

‘It’s okay.’ She reached for her trusty logbook. ‘I have work to do, anyway. Make yourself at home.’

It half killed her to say it.

His smile couldn’t have been less genuine. Was it so unthinkable that a person could feel at home in her little base? Even a person whose sunglasses probably cost more than her whole camp set-up? Not waiting for his answer, she snatched up her binoculars and marched towards the trees.

Rob watched her go and then looked around again. Making himself at home felt plain wrong. This camp, with its sweet little homely touches, was so private and feminine. He felt every bit the intruder. He sighed and
headed back to the beach, peeling his adhesive T-shirt from his body as he went and looking around for a sun-bleached bush to drape it on. He turned back out to the horizon and waded into the water, heading for the boat that he’d bought with the first money he’d ever earned himself.

Minutes later, under the full glare of the equatorial sun, he yanked his dive mask down harder than necessary and snapped it into place, then readied himself on the edge of
The Player.

What’s her problem, anyway?
His just being here obviously irritated the heck out of her. Everything he did she took exception to and he’d been here all of one hour. That had to be some kind of record. Not that she’d been entirely rude. She’d been a sport about hauling all his gear onshore, and she’d tried to make nice towards the end.

Although it obviously didn’t come as second nature to her.

Rob smiled. Honor Brier certainly was different to the women he knew. They liked having him around, they even sought him out. Actively. He wasn’t used to feeling plain unwelcome or to a woman being so … transparent and open. Honor had no interest in playing up to him or in putting on an act. She wanted him gone and was being perfectly upfront about it. It made a refreshing change from the gratuitous fawning he endured back home. Not to say it didn’t sting a bit, this feeling of not being quite good enough. But it was undeniably honest.

And unexpectedly welcome.

Robert Dalton Senior would have bawled him out for an hour for valuing character over charisma. His father’s idea of the perfect relationship was one in which everyone revolved around him like planets orbiting a star. And God knew he’d tried to raise his son in his image.