He didn’t move for a moment, both of them enjoying the intense connection.

  “I can’t believe I haven’t sneaked into your cabin and taken advantage of you this week.”

  “I can’t either.”

  “You thought I would?”

  “I thought you might try.”

  “I was stupid. Stupid and stubborn, waiting for you to come to me.”

  “Shh,” she said, flexing her internal muscles, squeezing him in the way she remembered he loved.

  He groaned. Oh, yeah, he liked it all right.

  “God, this is amazing,” he said as he drew out of her and then slid back in. And then did it again.

  The water moved with them, silky smooth, cool, erotic. Every time he thrust into her, a gush of water hit her in all the right places, and her clit almost throbbed as the intensity increased.

  He could have sped up, thrust himself into her with mindless passion, but instead he went slow and easy. Deep thrusts followed by short, teasing ones. Light caresses on her throat followed by tweaks on her nipples. She was never quite sure what he would do next, she only knew he would make it feel so damn good.

  And he did, loving her, exploring her, making her come and then finally coming himself. Until they were pruned and chilly but still so happy and sated neither of them moved to get out of the pool.

  Eventually, though, when she saw that the sun was no longer visible through the opening in the tree canopy above them, she let out a little sigh. “I suppose we should start getting back.”

  He groaned, but nodded. “Yeah. They’re probably ready to send out search parties.”

  “It wouldn’t do to have them find us like this,” she said with a giggle as she ran her hand down his hard, wet chest. And lower, to his half-erect cock, which thickened the moment her fingers brushed against it.

  When he hissed, she pulled her hand away, aware that it would take very little—a kiss, a caress—to get him to forget about the others and the boat. But someone had to be sensible here.

  They returned to the shore and pulled their clothes on over their wet bodies. Neither spoke, and despite the warmth of the day, goose bumps rose on Heather’s arms. Already, the truth of what they’d just done was flooding her mind with doubts and fears.

  Was this the end? Or the beginning? Had they just started something that couldn’t be finished in a way that would satisfy them both?

  She greatly feared they had. She wanted love. True, once-in-a-lifetime love like her parents had had. And she was already sure she was in love with Nate. She had been for almost a year, even during the long months when he’d been out of her life. When they’d been sniping at each other, when he’d been a jerk and she wanted to push him overboard, she’d still been in love with him.

  He wanted sex. Passion, excitement, fun. He wanted her body, and could make her feel things it should be illegal to feel, but had made it clear that commitment, marriage—all that stuff—was not the least bit interesting to him.

  One of them was going to get hurt at the end of this. And she strongly suspected it was going to be her.

  So she had to try to protect herself, starting now.

  “Nate... I don’t expect anything,” she said.

  He flashed that smile that had made her gasp when she’d first seen him last year in a Vegas casino. “Not even a few dozen more orgasms tonight?”

  She shook her head slowly, refusing to be teased out of her mood. “I mean, you made yourself clear at your house the other day. I realize you don’t believe in all the things I believe in.”

  “Santa? The Easter Bunny?”

  “I’m talking about love. Lifelong commitment.”

  He tensed.

  “You don’t believe in those things, and I understand that. I’m not going to make you feel badly about it. But I do want those things. And as much as I enjoy having sex with you, we have to stop.” She waved toward the pool. “Let’s call that one our last hurrah and let it go.”

  He gritted his teeth. “Is it always gonna be like this with you? Will you always say no-no-yes-yes-no?”

  “I’m sorry, you’re absolutely right. I guess my attraction to you always manages to get in the way of my best intentions.” She didn’t want to be that woman, some kind of tease, and hoped he understood. “I hate wishy-washy people. But the truth is, when we’re together and you’re touching me, you make me forget everything I know to be in my own self-interest.”

  Sweeping an angry hand through his hair, he kicked the bag containing their scavenged treasures. “Jesus, Heather, for once can you just admit we have the kind of chemistry most people don’t ever experience, and allow for the possibility that we can enjoy that and not feel like shit afterward?”

  She heard his anger, his hurt, and part of her softened.

  He was right again. He’d pegged her. She did resist, emotionally, anyway, until she couldn’t help it and gave in to her deepest desires. And afterward, well, she didn’t exactly regret having made love with Nate, but she was always left with a hint of wistful sadness. She always knew that, as much pleasure as he gave her, he wasn’t going to give her what she really wanted.

  “Yes, we have chemistry. Yes, it’s amazing.” She bent down, tucking the feather and the coin back into the bag, and added in a soft whisper, “But no, it’s not enough for me.”

  “But it was enough last year in Vegas?”

  She drew in a slow breath, hating to even talk about the painful days that followed her trip. Nate, however, deserved to hear the truth. True, he’d changed—but so had she.

  “My father died, Nathan.”

  He frowned as he helped her to her feet. “When?”

  “The day after I got home from Las Vegas.”

  “What?”

  “The emergency that I wrote about in my note—I got a call that he’d been taken to the hospital. He had a heart attack. They were planning to do surgery the next morning, but he had another attack during the night. They couldn’t revive him.”

  Nate took a few steps away from her and leaned against a tree, staring at her. “You lost your dad...the next day?”

  She nodded.

  He put a hand up to his eyes, and shook his head. “And I abandoned you. Didn’t even try to reach you.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, walking to him, cupping his face in her palm. He covered it with his own, lacing their fingers together. “You couldn’t have known. And frankly, for a long time, I was much too numb to worry about whether you were going to call me.”

  “I’m so damn sorry, Heather.”

  Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them away. She hadn’t brought this up in a bid for sympathy, but only to make him understand why she wasn’t the same girl he’d met last year.

  “My dad was the best man I’ve ever known. He and my mom had a wonderful marriage for thirty years. They adored each other. So I’m sure you can understand why I was so upset about this wedding.”

  “Of course I can,” he said, kissing her fingers. The gesture was sweet and tender, something the old Nate would do. “My mom died ten years ago, and the first time my dad remarried it broke my heart. Especially when it fell apart a year later and the old man was hurt all over again.”

  Aware of his assumptions about her mother, she said, “I understand things between my mom and your dad better now than I did before this trip.”

  “Oh?”

  “After the scene on deck this morning, my mom finally started talking, being honest about her feelings. She told me the story of how she and Jerry met. I’d never heard it before.”

  “Dare I ask?” he said with a hard laugh, as if worried they’d met at a strip club or something. Considering she and Nate had met at a craps table in Vegas, she didn’t believe he had much room to judge.

  “Actually, no. They met in a grief therapy group.”

  He considered that and then slowly nodded. “My dad’s twin sister died last year. She was his only relative other than me.”

  Her mother hadn’t told her that. Knowing he’d lost not only a sibling but a twin made her heart twist for the older man, whom she’d begun to understand a little better. No matter what her opinion of him before, the fact that he’d raised a son as wonderful as Nate—the real Nate—said a lot in his favor.

  “I’d been worried that my mom hadn’t allowed herself to grieve. I knew nothing about the group. Mom has always been the type to keep a smile on her face and weep silently into her pillow, so she didn’t let me see her pain.”

  “Yeah, I can believe that. She seems like a happy person.”

  “She is. Anyway, she also made me realize something.”

  “Which was?”

  “She told me that she and Dad had talked over the years about how they loved each other too much to ever want the other to be alone, should the worst happen.”

  And the worst had most definitely happened.

  “If they’d had a bad marriage, she wouldn’t have considered the possibility that there could be someone else out there for her. But because she’d had a lifetime of love, she completely believed in it and wanted it again.”

  His brow furrowed as he dwelled on her words. Then, slowly, he said, “I’ve read statistics about that. How people who had happy marriages are more likely to remarry after losing a spouse than those who didn’t.”

  “It makes sense to me. My mom did admit that she and your dad got engaged quickly. But I’ll be honest, Nate. I believe my mom is totally in love with your dad. And I think he feels the same way.”

  He was silent for a moment. Heather lowered her hand to her side and stepped away, waiting for him to say something. She steeled herself, fearing his reaction would be negative. Nate might have softened in the past few days, but that angry man who’d fought with his father on the day of the engagement party was still in there somewhere.

  Finally, he let out a sigh. “I think you might be right.”

  She smiled.

  “He hasn’t been this happy—and at ease with someone—in years. His last two marriages were superficial from the start. He—and his checkbook—always seemed to be on display. Trophies somebody had captured.” He smiled crookedly. “Your mom looks at him like he’s Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Prince Charming all rolled into one.”

  Yes, that was how Amy looked at him. It had taken Heather a while to see that, but now her eyes were open.

  As for Jerry? Well, he looked at her mother the way her father had. Which was really all Heather needed to know.

  “So you’re actually okay with this?” she asked.

  Another hesitation, and then he nodded. “I guess I am. I’m sorry for the things I assumed about your mother.” He swiped a hand through his hair. “Now I really feel like a jerk.”

  “It’s okay. You were protecting your father,” she said, relief flooding through her. Heather was never going to get over her father’s death, nor did she believe her mother ever would, but she was ready to admit that Amy and Jerry deserved their shot at happiness. And the fact that Nate had also come around was a very good thing.

  “So,” she said, knowing the hard part was still to come, “back to the reason I started this conversation.”

  “I think I get it.”

  She was sure he did. But she said it, anyway.

  “Losing my father so suddenly really hit home to me, and I realized how fragile and brief life can be. And having seen how happy my parents were together, it made me realize how very much I want that kind of relationship for myself.”

  Her heart was thudding, and she drew in a steadying breath, not wanting to be emotional about this, wanting him to understand on a purely logical level. Even if she could never be purely logical when it came to Nate.

  “I’m twenty-six years old,” she continued. “I’ve played the field, I’ve dated, I’ve had flings. Now I want more. And the last thing I need to do is get my heart any more tangled up with somebody who doesn’t even believe in the thing I’m chasing.”

  Love.

  Nate had told her he didn’t believe in it and didn’t want it. She didn’t think he’d have said those words in Vegas, and she had to wonder just how horrible this past ten months had been for him to have changed so much. But it didn’t really matter. Whatever had happened, he had changed.

  Maybe he would come around...eventually. She suspected he would, that it was his jaded bitterness talking right now. In a year, he could be back to being that same flirtatious, always-smiling, sexy charmer she’d met, ready to open up his mind and his heart to every possibility.

  But she wasn’t going to wait around to find out. Her own heart wouldn’t allow her to. Because she was already in love with him. If he never changed, if he never loved her back, she would be even more crushed. So saying goodbye was her only option.

  “Do you understand?” she asked.

  He said nothing, but she saw his jaw clench. Logically, yes, he probably understood. But he wasn’t happy about it.

  Well, who said they got to be happy?

  “I get it, Heather,” he told her, his voice low. He cleared his throat, adding, “I wish I could say the words you want to hear right now. If it matters, what we have isn’t just about sex.”

  “I know,” she admitted, meaning it. Nate did have feelings for her, she knew that down to her bones.

  He just didn’t want to.

  “Shall we return to the beach?” she asked, blinking away tears.

  “Yeah, I guess we should,” he agreed.

  They picked their way back through the jungle in silence. The afternoon had grown late, it was darker and more shadowy now, their footing was a little less sure. Nate walked a bit ahead of her, holding rough branches and vines out of her way. Heather appreciated the gesture, knowing it was instinctive for him. Everything about him was good, protective, loving. God, she could kill that pop-singing bitch for crushing those innate parts of him beneath her stiletto heels.

  Finally they reached the beach and turned to head south. To her shock, Nate reached for her hand, lacing his fingers with hers. He squeezed lightly, but said nothing. The gesture spoke for itself, even if she couldn’t quite interpret it.

  He let go before they got within sight of anybody else.

  It wasn’t until they were almost all the way back to the area where they’d had the party that Heather even realized something was wrong. Nate had apparently been equally distracted, because they were within a few feet of the table where Amy and Jerry had been sitting before he said, “Where the hell is everybody?”

  “I have no idea.” She looked up and down the beach, then toward the treeline. There should be voices, laughter, drinking, music, even yells about the fact that she and Nate were so late returning.

  Nothing. It was eerily quiet, except for the steady, inexorable rhythm of the waves softly hitting the shore. The table was still there, as were a few chairs. Some duffel bags and a big cooler were nearby, too, but there wasn’t a single person in sight or in earshot.

  Suddenly, Nate ran toward the water. “Son of a bitch!”

  She jerked her head, wondering what he’d seen. And then she saw it, too.

  It was a boat, already far out at sea. Even from here, though, she recognized the graceful lines.

  It was the AnnaLucia. Their yacht.

  Steaming steadily away from the island.

  6

  NATE SUSPECTED THAT his father wouldn’t be happy if he killed his future stepmother, but right now that was exactly what he wanted to do. And he doubted he’d have to do it alone. Because as they read the note that had been left on the table, addressed to them both, Heather looked ready to commit murder, too.

  “Are you kidding me?” she asked, blinking and shaking the sheet of paper. Or maybe it was just that her hand was shaking—with fury. “They’ve abandoned us?”

  “Your mother’s idea of the Trouble T-shirt, I suspect,” he said, reading the note again.

  Dear Heather and Nathan—

  Hope you had a good time on the scavenger hunt. Your super prize is that you get to spend a few more hours on this lovely island. Surprise—we’re leaving you here!

  Jerry and I have discussed it, and we have come to realize that the tension between you two is a major obstacle for us. Neither of us wants you to be miserable, and if you can’t work out your differences, we honestly don’t know what the future will hold. We love you both so much, and don’t want our happiness to be the cause of your unhappiness.

  Please, for our sakes, and for your own, try to find some common ground and make friends.

  Love, Mom

  PS: We’ll be back in the morning. Don’t worry, we left you plenty of provisions. Have fun!

  They were stranded, just him and Heather, here on this deserted island in the middle of the Caribbean. Civilization was far away, not a single person to interrupt them, distract them, get between them.

  Suddenly, Nate’s mood began to brighten.

  It was crazy. It was manipulative. It was pretty damn pushy. But he was starting to like this whole idea.

  “I retract every nice thing I just said about them. Talk about traitors!”

  “Well, to be fair, they didn’t know you just said a bunch of nice things about them.”

  Nor did they know he and Heather were a lot friendlier than anybody could have guessed.

  “Oh, my God, everyone must have been in on this,” Heather said, lifting a hand to her mouth, visibly embarrassed.

  “Yeah.”

  “They probably all just waited until we disappeared into the jungle, then started heading back to the boat.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Can you imagine how they must be laughing now? ‘Let’s abandon the troublemakers overnight.’”

  Tears appeared in those beautiful green eyes, and he realized she was genuinely upset. Nate put a hand on her shoulder and took the note away. “We’ll be fine.”

  “How could my mother do this?”

  “You tell me. She’s your mother.”

  “She’s always been whimsical, overly romantic, but this... God, for all she knows, you could be a crazy rapist.”