Jill Shalvis - The Trouble With Paradise

“Wait,” Denny said to Andy, eyes locked on Christian. “Did you find him yet?”

“Damn it, this can’t wait!” Andy pointed to the east, where the sky had lightened from purple to pink, where the horizon didn’t just fall off the earth but hit a distinct black outline.

The outline of an island.

Denny stared at it. “Thank fucking Christ.”

“Is it Fiji?” Cadence asked.

“I doubt it,” Andy said. “Maybe it’s Bora Bora.”

Denny turned to Ethan and Christian. “We’ll limp in.”

They had little choice because without the sails or their equipment-all in complete shreds and tatters-they could do nothing but.

“Ethan!” Denny called out, on a mission now. “Starboard-”

“On it.”

Christian leapt to help, directing the Sun Song to where it could be drawn in toward the island by the tide.

“Windward shore approach,” Denny yelled.

Andy shifted closer, followed by the others. “What does that mean?”

“The windward shore is where the wind is blowing from,” Christian explained.

“The waves’ll be smaller because of the reduced fetch,” Denny called, standing at the half gone helm.

Everyone turned to Christian for translation.

“Fetch is the distance of water that the wind is blowing over.”

“Leeward shore harbor!” Denny called.

Again everyone looked at Christian.

“Jesus, Denny.” He rubbed his forehead before meeting everyone’s gaze, trying to tamp down his own impatience. “The entrance is narrow. It might be difficult to enter. Especially the way we’re crawling in.”

“Oh, God,” Cadence whispered, gripping Brandy and Dorie tight. “Can this get any worse?”

“Yes,” Dorie said, her eyes on Christian. “Trust me. It can.”

Christian tried to reassure her with his eyes but she turned away. With no idea what that meant, he worked the boat with Ethan.

“I hope the island has a big restaurant,” Andy said. “I’m starving.”

“You won’t starve if we’re in the American Samoas,” Brandy said. “None of us will. Half the canned tuna sold in American supermarkets comes from the Samoa Islands.” She lifted a shoulder. “I watch a lot of the Discovery Channel.”

“Don’t worry,” Denny shouted down to them from the damaged helm, his gaze locked on the outline of the island. “We’ve made it this far, we’re not going to do anything less than cross the finish line.” He gestured Christian close. “Obviously we have no idea where we are but I think-hope-some Cook island just saved our ass.”

The Cook Islands spread across 750,000 square miles. Christian wasn’t sure how that translated to saving their asses, but not drowning was excellent. “About Bobby.”

“It’s going to be fine. In an hour this will all be a distant memory.”

“I don’t think so.” Christian glanced back at Dorie. She was with the others, in a tight group, but looking right at him. Her eyes were huge and unwavering.

“We’re still in serious trouble.”

“Are you kidding?” Denny laughed. “Bullet dodged. Lawsuits avoided. By noon we could be in a bar, checking out the local ladies…” But when Christian just looked at him, his smile slowly faded. “Don’t tell me. Ah, Christ, I don’t want to know.”

“You’ve got that right.”

Dorie was still looking at him, waiting for him to do something about poor Bobby. Bobby, who was not on this boat. Bobby, who’d bled all over his bathroom, and who might have not have left this boat by choice. “Denny.”

“Later. Over that beer.”

“This can’t wait.”

“Denny?” Brandy called. “Is this island inhabited?”

Everyone shifted closer for his answer, dripping wet, exhausted, and just about as far from carefree vacationers as they could get, looking more like drowned rats instead.

And they were all within listening range.

Panicking range.

“I’m banking on a lux hotel,” Denny said, charm intact. “Five star.”

Christian stared at him. There was no way to know that, and in fact, with the hundreds and hundreds of islands in the South Pacific, a huge number of them uninhabitable or even uncharted, the percentages were against them. They were more likely to find wild boars than a five-star hotel. “You can’t promise-”

With a laugh that didn’t ring true, Denny slapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s just get there.”

Christian glanced at Dorie, who was still snuggled up to Andy. The guy was cupping her head close to his chest in his big home run hitting hand. Over her wild hair, Andy met Christian’s eyes, his cool and assessing.

Had she told him about Bobby? Christian doubted it. But Andy had known Bobby before the cruise. They’d been friends, which meant one of two things. Either Andy was about to be completely devastated, or…

Or he’d had something to do with him going overboard.

Ethan and Bobby had known each other, too. They’d worked together all season, long enough for Ethan to be perpetually annoyed and frustrated at Bobby’s lackadaisical work ethic.

Ethan hated lackadaisical.

But Jesus, hated enough to kill? It was hard to imagine.

“Did you see Bobby?” Ethan asked him.

“Later,” Denny said, looking at Christian. “We’ll get to Bobby later.”

Which left Christian to wonder about the third man who’d known Bobby.

“Let’s just get to land,” Denny said. “Where I promise to make up this whole nightmare to each of you. We’ll get a fancy hotel and meet in the bar for drinks on the house. But for now, since we’re not going rafting, if everyone could go belowdecks while we bring her in, or even to your rooms-”

“Denny,” Christian said softly, thinking of Bobby’s room, and what would be found there, “the salon would be better than belowdecks.”

“Perfect,” Denny said without missing a beat. “Everyone to the salon as we bring this baby in. Andy? Could you get the women into the salon?”

“Sure.” Andy guided the women inside. Christian saw Dorie go up on tiptoe, brushing her mouth to Andy’s ear to say something. He responded, probably drawling in that soft accent he had, and shaking his head, tried to hold her back.

Dorie broke free, patting Andy gently on the arm, a comforting gesture that had always irritated Christian whenever it’d been done to him. But suddenly he wanted Dorie to pat his arm in that same sweet, caring, comforting manner.

Clearly, he was losing it.

Then he sucked in a breath because she walked right up to him, eyes bright, looking at him with that blazing inner strength and determination he couldn’t help but admire, even when it doubled his worry.

“What can I do?” she whispered.

“Stay safe. That’s your only job.”

“I want to help, Christian.”

“You can help by keeping a low profile.”

“You don’t want me to say anything about Bobby.” Her eyes telegraphed her emotions on that very clearly. She was wondering why he didn’t want her to tell.

“I didn’t hurt him, Dorie. You know that.”

“Actually, all I know is that I didn’t hurt him. And that you don’t want me to tell anyone that we suspect he’s overboard.”

“That’s right. Because the very last thing we need right now is something new to panic about, when there’s nothing, nothing we can do for him right now.” He reached for her, but she backed up a step.

“Stay away,” she said very quietly, though her voice quivered.

He stared at her, shaken to the core. “Jesus, Dorie. You can’t really think I’d-”

“I’m going to save what I think for the police.” Hugging herself, she lifted her chin to nosebleed heights. “Who I plan to call as soon as we touch land. If he fell on his own, then hopefully he’s still out there, alive, waiting for rescue.”

But if he hadn’t fallen on his own… Neither voiced the thought that surely he was long dead by now. Christian glanced at the island, which was looming large now that they were close. Tall mountains jutted up into the shifting, changing sky. The mountains were covered in lush green jungle, and rocks.

Lots of rocks.

And unfortunately for all of them, not a single dwelling in sight, much less a five-star hotel. In fact, there was nothing at all.

The place looked completely deserted.

Still in shock, Dorie stood in the salon, flanked on either side by Brandy and Cadence. They were holding hands as they watched the crew take them toward a shadow of an island that kept rising and falling through the misty waves.

A crew minus Bobby, though Dorie seemed to be the only one to notice, which disturbed her. So did the way she kept looking at everyone, wondering if they’d been the one up on deck with Bobby.

“I don’t see any hotels,” Brandy noted, staring at the vertical mountainsides so steep they looked like they were exploding directly out of the sea.

“It looks pretty lush,” Cadence said. “Maybe the hotels are hidden behind all that tropical rain forest.”

She’d always wanted to see the rain forests, Dorie reminded herself. Now seemed like as good a time as any… except for, oh yeah, the missing crew member!

She glanced out the window-glassless now-to where Christian worked in silence next to Ethan. He might have hurt Bobby, but she didn’t think so. Even only knowing him for a few days, she felt the temper and grief pouring off him in waves.

No one was that good of an actor. But was she willing to bet her life on it? Because really, all she knew about him was that he was a doctor. Oh, and that he kissed like heaven on earth. Let’s not forget that part.

But little else.

Only… that wasn’t actually true either. She’d watched him treat each of the guests with care and great attention, no matter his personal feelings. Plus, frustrated or not over whatever debt he owed, he seemed to take his oath as a doctor, to heal, to save lives, very seriously.

Which meant she could trust him. It also meant that until there was more information, he was the only one she could trust. She wished that came with some comfort, but it didn’t.

Cadence and Brandy decided to sit, and pulled her down next to them. But sitting had her sucking in a breath because of the splinter. It was beginning to seriously hurt, maybe even getting infected as she’d been warned.

“Hon?” Brandy leaned in close and frowned in her face. “You okay? You getting seasick? You look green.”

“Oh boy, you really do,” Cadence agreed.

Brandy pulled out her flask. “The handy-dandy fix-all.”

“It’s barely morning.”

“Yes, but somewhere in the world it’s Happy Hour.”

Dorie managed to smile. “I’m good.” And good was relative, right? After all, compared to Bobby, wherever he was, she was exceptionally good.

Don’t think about it now.

“Hold on to your seats, ladies,” Brandy said just as a wave hit them, and everyone gasped as they rose and fell, momentarily losing sight of the island.

“Whew,” Brandy said, somehow managing to still look gorgeous despite all they’d been through. Her short blonde hair was no longer perfectly spiky around her head, and she’d lost her gel or whatever magical hair product she’d been using, but it didn’t matter, the short strands framed her face, making her look softer, sweeter. “Maybe there’ll be some hot natives,” she said, ever hopeful.

Okay, maybe not sweet exactly.

“I’d be fine with a hot shower,” Cadence said. “This sea salt spray is hell on my fair skin.”

Dorie would be happy just to see Bobby’s scowl again. But because that thought nearly choked her, she forced another. The island got bigger as they drifted closer, but as the dawn lightened, she could see that her fears were true, that the island was indeed one big, craggy, rough, inhospitable rock. A volcano, hopefully a very, very dormant volcano, draped by that lush rain forest.

She glanced behind her to see if anyone else had noticed this unwelcome turn of events and found her gaze locked on Christian’s.

He stood on the deck next to Denny, working hard to aim the boat into the channel, but he locked his stormy eyes on hers and didn’t look away.

The boat hit another swell and next to her, Cadence gasped. Dorie tightened her grip on her hand. Only yesterday such a swell would have terrified her, too, but now she knew there were other things to fear.

Lots of other things.

Such as Christian, and the odd hold he seemed to have over her emotions.

He hadn’t replaced his shirt, and still wore only those black board shorts, long to his knees and loose, hanging dangerously low on his hips. He wasn’t muscle-bound like Andy, but long and lean and hard in a way that suggested food had never been all that important to him.

Lucky bastard.

She had the feeling that maybe nothing was all that important to him, and hadn’t been for a long time.