The Bride's Rescuer
Charlotte Douglas
IN SAVING CELIAUnconscious and wearing a torn wedding dress, Celia Stevens washed up on the shores of Solitaire and threw Cameron Alexander's peaceful seclusion into complete chaos. Not only did her presence force him to reexamine his reasons for hiding out, but within days the walls around Cameron's hardened heart slowly began to crumble….HE'D SAVED HIMSELFCelia sensed her enigmatic captor had a dangerous past, one she'd be better off not learning. And yet, it was Cameron's tough exterior as well as his tortured soul that made Celia long to spend a lifetime wrapped in his arms. But just as a future together looked possible, the evil that Cameron had feared for six years reared its ugly head, threatening the dreams they had dared to dream….
“I love you, Celia. Marry me.”
With happiness coursing through her, Celia sat up and stared at him. “You’re serious?”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
Cameron’s response stunned her into silence. She wanted nothing more than to remain on Solitaire with him, but she wondered why he’d undergone yet another change of heart.
He grasped her shoulders, then slid his hands down the length of her arms. She responded to his touch with a shiver of pleasure, an echo of what they’d just shared.
“If you remain on Solitaire,” he said, “it must be because you love me. I couldn’t bear having you here if you didn’t return my love.”
She lifted her lips to his once more, then after a long moment pulled away. “I do love you, Cameron, and I will marry you.”
He pulled her down beside him, sculpting his body to hers like nesting spoons. “Sleep well, Celia. We have much to do tomorrow.”
In the warm shelter of his arms she fell instantly asleep.
Had she known what the future held for her, she wouldn’t have slept at all.
Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,
Deck the halls with romance and suspense as we bring you four new stories that will wrap you up tighter than a present under your Christmas tree!
First we begin with the continuing series by Rita Herron, NIGHTHAWK ISLAND, where medical experiments on an island off the coast of Georgia lead to some dangerous results. Cole Hunter does not know who he is, and the only memories he has are of Megan Wells’s dead husband. And why does he have these intimate Memories of Megan?
Next, Susan Kearney finishes her trilogy THE CROWN AFFAIR, which features the Zared royalty and the treachery they must confront in order to save their homeland. In book three, a prickly, pretty P.I. must pose as a prince’s wife in order to help his majesty uncover a deadly plot. However, will she be able to elude his Royal Pursuit of her heart?
In Charlotte Douglas’s The Bride’s Rescuer, a recluse saves a woman who washes up on his lonely island, clothed only in a tattered wedding dress. Cameron Alexander hasn’t seen a woman in over six years, and Celia Stevens is definitely a woman, with secrets of her own. But whose secrets are more deadly? And also join Jean Barrett for another tale with the Hawke Family Detective Agency in the Christmastime cross-country journey titled Official Escort.
Best wishes to all of our loyal readers for a “breathtaking” holiday season!
Sincerely,
Denise O'Sullivan
Associate Senior Editor
Harlequin Intrigue
The Bride’s Rescuer
Charlotte Douglas
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charlotte Douglas has loved a good story since she learned to read at the age of three. After years of teaching that love of books to her students, she now enjoys creating stories of her own. Often her books are set in one of her three favorite places: Montana, where she and her husband spent their honeymoon; the mountains of North Carolina, where they’re building a summer home; or Florida, near the Gulf of Mexico on Florida’s west coast, where she’s lived most of her life.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Cameron Alexander—A compellingly handsome and enigmatic British exile, the owner of Solitaire Island.
Celia Stevens—Flees from marriage with one dangerous man only to end up in potentially greater peril.
Mrs. Givens—Cameron’s devoted housekeeper, who has raised him from an infant.
Noah—Cameron’s handyman, another exile with secrets of his own.
Darren Walker—Celia’s fiancé with a deadly past.
Jack Utley—A hired killer.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Prologue
Celia Stevens stood before the cheval mirror in the bride’s parlor of the Chapel by the Sea, smoothing the satin skirt of her Vera Wang gown and adjusting her flowing veil with a trembling hand.
She’d bought the dress on impulse, the first one she’d tried on. But that whim had turned out okay, she assured herself. She’d purchased her bookstore, Sand Castles, on impulse too, and the business was headed for success. Another impulse had compelled her to agree with Darren, her fiancé, to move up the date of their wedding to October, not waiting for the June ceremony she’d always dreamed of. She’d been spontaneous all her life, rushing headlong into one experience after another, and so far everything had turned out fine.
So why was she feeling today as if her luck was about to run out?
“Are you okay?” Tracey Morris, her best friend and maid of honor, hovered behind her, and Celia could read the concern in Tracey’s brown eyes in the reflecting glass.
“Sure,” Celia said with a bravado she didn’t feel. She couldn’t meet her own gaze in the mirror. The trepidations she was experiencing were the normal prewedding jitters, that’s all. “It’s my wedding day. The happiest day of my life.”
“Is it?”
Celia whirled and faced her friend. “Of course.”
She didn’t sound convincing, even to herself, and she could tell Tracey wasn’t buying her declaration. “I’m marrying a man who loves me, who’s thoughtful, kind—”
“Who gives you goose bumps and makes you hear bells ring and see fireworks when he walks into a room?” Tracey prodded.
“That’s the stuff of fairy tales,” Celia insisted. “We’re mature adults—”
“Hogwash,” Tracey muttered loudly. “This is marriage we’re talking about, not a business contract. Do you love him, Cel?”
“There’re all kinds of love. I care about Darren. Just not in the Hollywood head-over-heels fashion you seem to think so important.”
Celia sank into the nearest chair, heedless of wrinkling the bridal satin. She’d had this same conversation with Tracey many times before, and each time she’d begged her friend not to broach the subject again. She couldn’t blame Tracey, however, for her skepticism. Celia had misgivings of her own. Ever since her parents had died in that horrendous car crash, she’d been alone. When Darren Walker had entered her life and offered marriage and a family, Celia, sick and tired of solitude, had leaped at his proposal. A home, a husband, and the prospect of children promised to fill the void left by her parents’ deaths.
Now that the hour of her wedding was almost upon her, however, her confidence that she’d made the right decision was wavering. Tracey’s probing questions only fed Celia’s uncertainty. But she’d come too far to back out now. The wedding gifts had been opened, the church was filled with relatives and friends, the yacht club decorated for the reception, and in just ten minutes, Darren would be waiting for her at the altar.
“You’ve always been my best friend.” With a rueful smile, Tracey shook her head and held out the skirt of her gown. “For no one else would I wear this bilious shade of pink.” Her expression sobered. “But I think you’re making a terrible mistake. It’s not too late to call it off.”
For an instant, Celia almost agreed, but Darren was such a sweet man, she couldn’t desert him. She wouldn’t leave him standing at the altar like some pathetic character in a television sitcom.
“I’m marrying Darren,” she declared, as much to shore up her own courage as to assure Tracey.
With a resigned shake of her head, Tracey headed toward the door. “Our bouquets are in the refrigerator in the church kitchen. When I bring them back, it’s show time.”
Her friend slipped out the door, and Celia clasped her hands in her lap to cease their trembling. Was she doing the right thing? She’d had niggling doubts from the day she’d accepted Darren’s proposal, but she’d always managed to shove them aside by considering the positive aspects of marriage to him. He was handsome, wealthy, well-mannered, well-educated…she ran through his attributes like a mantra, hoping to staunch the panic welling within her.
With a start, she realized she was no longer alone in the room. A middle-aged woman with elegantly coifed graying hair stood just inside the parlor door. From the cut of her designer suit and the jewels on her fingers, Celia guessed her to be one of Darren’s guests.
Celia rose to her feet. “If you’re looking for the sanctuary—”
“I’m looking for you,” the woman said. “You are Celia Stevens, aren’t you?”
Celia nodded. “Who are you?”
“My name’s not important. Time is running out. You can’t marry that man.”
“Darren?”
The woman grimaced. “Is that what he’s calling himself these days?”
“What do you mean?”
The woman moved closer. “When he married my daughter, his name was David Weller.”
Celia felt as if she’d entered a twilight zone. The woman seemed too self-possessed, too rational to be crazy. “Darren’s never been married.”
At least that’s what he’d told her, and he’d never given her reason to doubt him. Or had he?
Celia’s thoughts whirled in confusion.
The woman nodded grimly. “Of course, that’s what he told you.” She slipped an expensive handbag from beneath her arm, opened it, and extracted a newspaper clipping. “See for yourself.”
Celia took the paper from the woman and walked toward the window. The late afternoon sunlight fell on the newsprint, a photograph of a bride and groom with the heading, “Seffner-Weller Wedding.” The groom staring back at her was Darren Walker. Or his double.
“There must be some mistake,” Celia said, feeling as if the floor had dropped out from under her.
“There is,” the woman insisted, “and you’re making it.”
Confused, Celia shook her head and sagged onto the sofa. “This can’t be Darren.”
“It is. I watched him entering the pastor’s study. It’s the same man, all right.”
“Why did your daughter divorce him?”
“She didn’t.”
Celia’s eyes widened and her stomach lurched. “You mean Darren is still married?”
Terrible pain and sudden tears filled the woman’s eyes. “He’s a widower.”
Relief flooded through her. At least Darren wasn’t a bigamist. “I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as you’ll be if you go through with this. He murdered my daughter.”
Her nausea returned, and Celia rubbed her eyes with her fists. “You must be mistaken. If he’s a murderer, he’d be in jail.”
“He’s a clever murderer, and an even better con man.”
“Look, Mrs. Seffner, I’m sorry for your loss, but—”
“Listen to me, girl. If my own daughter had listened, she’d still be alive today. Did you sign a pre-nuptial agreement?”
Celia shook her head. “It seemed pointless. Darren has more money than I—”
“My daughter’s money, left to her by her paternal grandfather. David—Darren refused to sign the agreement I insisted upon, and my poor daughter was too besotted to care. Just weeks after the wedding, she died in a boating accident on the lake near their home. David found her. Her death was suspicious, but no one’s been able to prove he did it—yet.”
“How long has it been?”
“Six months. David disappeared after the funeral. I’ve been searching for him ever since.”
Celia reeled with shock. Darren had entered her life only five months ago, just a short time after her parents’ death. She had thought his willingness to help settle her parents’ affairs had been kindness, but in looking back, she recognized his intense interest in their estate.
And her inheritance.
The newspaper clipping was testament to his untruthfulness. Why hadn’t he told her of his previous marriage? What else hadn’t he told her?
The woman stepped forward and tipped Celia’s chin until their eyes met. “I know your mother’s gone, so I’m begging you in her name, don’t go through with this wedding. Take time to investigate what I’ve told you.”
She smoothed a strand of hair from Celia’s face in a gesture that reminded her so much of her own mother, she had to fight back tears. The stranger then pivoted on her expensive high heels and left the room.
In the solitude, Celia’s doubts swelled and multiplied. Snippets of formerly harmless conversations with Darren replayed in her memory, laden now with sinister implications. He had no family, he’d told her. And he’d been vague about his work. Investments, he’d called it. Nothing exciting. Nothing she’d want to hear about. He’d traveled in his work, never really settling down, so there was no place he called home. And most of his close friends and business associates were traveling out of the country and would be unable to attend the wedding. She had swallowed his explanations and excuses whole, never dreaming they might not be the truth.
Suddenly, she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She hurried to the parlor door and into the corridor. Running as if the devil himself were after her, bridal gown lifted to her knees and her veil trailing in the wind, she raced from the church, sprinted through the filled parking lot, and dodged traffic as she crossed the main road that bisected the beach community. Avoiding the clubhouse at the yacht club, she followed the pathway to the marina at its rear and thundered down the dock toward the farthest slip.
Her father’s sailboat, a classic 32-foot Morgan, was moored in its usual spot. With shaking hands, Celia disengaged the lines, tossed them onboard, and leaped onto the deck. Within minutes, she had the auxiliary engines started and was moving the boat into the channel.
Suddenly the voice of the harbormaster, a man she’d known since she was a child, sounded over the public address system. “Celia, return to port. There’s a storm brewing.”
She’d weathered storms in the Morgan before. Returning to port meant facing Darren, a man with possible homicidal tendencies, and over fifty curious wedding guests. Returning also meant dealing with the ominous accusations of the strange woman, Mrs. Seffner. And worst of all, returning meant admitting to herself that she’d almost married a man she didn’t love.
A storm, the harbormaster had warned. Maybe that was just what she needed. A big wind to blow all her troubles away.
As soon as Celia reached the channel, she raised the sails and headed west into the Gulf of Mexico and the gathering storm.
Chapter One
“Is she dead?”
The deep drawling voice invaded Celia’s consciousness, and dead ricocheted in her mind like a frightened bird in a too-small cage. She couldn’t be dead. A dead person felt nothing. Her ribs ached. Her head pounded. Her arms and legs throbbed. Her skin burned from the scorching sun, but she shivered in the cool breeze.
The coolness of a shadow fell across her, blocking the sun’s assault, and strong, gentle fingers probing her neck for a pulse pressed her cheek deeper into hot sand. She winced as breaking waves of saltwater stung her lacerated ankles.
All around her a peculiar blackness vibrated with shifting lights, shapeless moats of brightness and color that ebbed and flowed like the water at her feet. Weariness seeped through her, making her eyelids too heavy to open. She wanted to cover her ears to block the relentless roar of the surf, but her hands refused to respond. Exhausted, she settled deeper into the soft, hot sand and drifted back into darkness.
“You gonna have to pry her hands off that board.” The voice roused her once more, and awe tinged the words, uttered in a thick and lazy Southern drawl. “Hanging on to it’s probably the only thing saved her.”
“Dear God, why did you send her here?” A second deep, rich voice, this one with a cultured British accent, rang with torment, and gentle fingers traced the curve of her jaw and cupped her face. “Careful with her hands, Noah.”
Someone loosened her fingers from an object she hadn’t known they clasped, and she cried out in pain. The second man wrapped her in a garment—his shirt?—and her shivering eased. Strong arms lifted her from the sand and cradled her against a warm, hard body. The heat from his skin warmed her, and her shivering ceased.
“Rest easy, miss. We’ll take good care of you.”
The tenderness in the masculine British voice soothed her more than his words. The comforting rhythm of his heartbeats thudded where her cheek rested on his bare chest, and she relaxed in his embrace and opened her eyes. She focused slowly on a strong, tanned jaw, generous mouth, classic nose and wide amber eyes combined in a face so handsome it took her breath away.
Her sudden intake of air drew his attention, and her rescuer glanced down at her. His remarkable tawny eyes filled with tenderness.
Before she could ask his name, he called to the other man, the one he’d called Noah.
“I’m taking her to Mrs. Givens,” the Englishman stated. “She’ll care for her, but I want this woman kept out of my sight. Lock her in her room if she has to.”
Celia struggled to reconcile the strangeness of his words with the tenderness she had seen in his expression. Maybe a blow to the head had addled her brains. Why would he want her locked away? She was in no shape to be a threat to anyone.
“You gonna be fine, miss.” A wide smile broke across the ebony face of the man who walked beside them. Cool currents of air wafted across her sunburned skin, and the gently rocking motion of the Englishman’s gait as he carried her from the beach lulled her back into unconsciousness.
CELIA SURFACED SLOWLY from the depths of darkness and glanced around her. She lay in a soft bed, alone in a strange room. Her fingers skimmed smooth, fresh sheets that smelled of lemons and sunshine. Above arched a high ceiling with open beams, and beyond the foot of the bed, French doors opened onto a covered veranda.
A warm breeze laden with the pungent tang of saltwater wafted through the sparsely furnished room and rippled white muslin curtains tied back from the doors. Another fragrance moved on the air, the heavy scent of oleander from the branches in a cloisonné vase on the dresser. The uneasy quiet, like a palpable presence, gathered in the room, hovering and threatening in the dim twilight.
What had her impulsiveness landed her in this time? She’d run away from her marriage, wrecked her boat in a storm, and ended up in a place she couldn’t identify. Couldn’t she do anything right?
The sounds of footsteps and swishing skirts broke the eerie stillness, the feeling of an intangible threat retreated, and the door beside her bed opened. A short, stout woman with gray curls, wearing a lavender cotton dress covered by a white apron, bustled into the room with a tray of food. She smiled, and lights danced in her deep green eyes.
“Ah, feeling better, are we? I’m Mrs. Givens, the housekeeper. Let me help you up.”
Mrs. Givens slipped a plump arm beneath Celia’s shoulders and braced extra pillows behind her.
“Where am I?” Celia asked in confusion.
“On an island, m’dear, off the southwest Florida coast.”
“My boat?”
“You’ve been shipwrecked. We found you only half alive on the beach among the wreckage.”
Dark, savage recollections of a terrible storm converged upon Celia, filling her with an unfamiliar dread. She closed her mind against the memories, too frightened to confront them. “What day is this?”
“Out here away from everything, I lose track of time.” Mrs. Givens scrunched her pleasant features into a thoughtful grimace and counted on her fingers. “Today’s Monday.”
Monday.
Two days since the violent storm had broken her sailboat into pieces, pitching her into a horrifying maelstrom of green water and sickly swirling clouds. She tossed the bedcovers back and swung her legs over the side. Someone had removed her clothes and dressed her in a white granny gown. Had it been the handsome Englishman or Mrs. Givens? Celia felt strangely vulnerable without her own garments. “Where are my clothes?”
“The storm ripped them to shreds.” Mrs. Givens tapped a plump finger against her lips. “From what little was left, it looked like a wedding gown.”
Celia ignored the curiosity in the woman’s voice. After coming so close to dying, she wanted to appreciate being alive. She didn’t want to think about weddings or Darren Walker. Not yet. “I’m Celia Stevens.”
She had survived the shipwreck, and now she was alone, God knew where, among strangers. She had to get home. Her friends would be worried about her, especially after she’d run away from her wedding at the eleventh hour. But she couldn’t travel in a granny gown.
“Could you lend me some clothes? Then maybe one of the men who found me could take me to the mainland.”
Mrs. Givens sputtered in her haste to reply. “Good heavens, no! The nearest town is Key West.”
Key West.
The words left her breathless. Somehow the storm had flung her hundreds of miles south in the Gulf. Now she faced a long drive home in a rental car. At least the trip would give her time to think of how to deal with the catastrophe she’d left behind her. “Key West will do fine.”
“Mr. Alexander—”
“The Englishman?” The handsome but enigmatic man who’d ordered her locked in her room?
Mrs. Givens nodded. “Cameron Alexander hasn’t been to Key West in over six years. He’ll not be going there now.”
“Why not?”
The housekeeper turned away, staring out through the veranda doors toward the Gulf of Mexico where the last rays of the setting sun shone. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded flat, emotionless. “You might say he’s ill.”
Strange. He hadn’t looked ill—virile, attractive, and uncomfortable at the sight of an unexpected visitor, but not ill. He’d seemed extraordinarily kind—until his comment about locking her in her room. “What about the other man—the African-American? Can he take me?”
“Noah? Impossible.”
“Why?” Impatience welled within her. She had to get home. She’d made her decision not to marry Darren, but in the process, she’d also made a mess of things. She had presents to return, letters of apology to write, and an inquiry to the police about the true identity of Darren Walker.
“Time enough to worry about such things later,” Mrs. Givens said. “You just finish your supper. You have everything here you require, so there’s no need for you to leave this room. I’ll bring your breakfast in the morning.”
Mrs. Givens’s reluctance to discuss her plight not only annoyed Celia, it alarmed her. The little woman seemed to be hiding something. Even so, Celia wished the woman would stay. Her company might keep the shadows and loneliness at bay.
“Mr. Alexander’s room,” the housekeeper said, “is next to yours, but he prefers not to be disturbed. Rest well, and don’t worry. You’re perfectly safe here.”
Her instructions to remain in the room had been so pointed, Celia expected to be locked in, but when she tried the door to the hall after Mrs. Givens left, it opened freely.
Frustration had robbed her of her appetite, and she ignored the supper tray the housekeeper had left on the dresser. She would wait until everyone was asleep, then search for a telephone.
The darkness gathered with irritating slowness. Feeling hemmed in, almost a prisoner, she crossed the room onto the veranda, where broad fronds of cabbage palms crackled like stiff paper against the weathered, second-story balustrade. Beyond the house, a narrow path wound through a sea grape hedge toward dunes fringed with sea oats. Moonlight cut a silver swath across calm gulf waters. Directly below, a rectangle of light from a downstairs window fell on the ground. Abruptly the light disappeared. Mrs. Givens must have gone to bed.
The silence of the room oppressed Celia. The oil lamp on the dresser indicated the house lacked electricity. She could do without power. What she needed was a telephone. Or maybe a generator and a short-wave radio. She’d search the house for a way to contact the mainland, to rent a boat, if necessary. A charter would be the quickest way to return to home and to work. And attending to her bookstore and its clients would be the best way to put her disastrous engagement behind her.
She doused the light on the dresser, crossed to the door, and laid her ear against the smooth pine panel. When she heard nothing, she opened the door and eased herself into the hallway.
Her bare feet made no sound on the stairs that descended to the lower hallway. Her head still throbbed, and vertigo made her unsteady, but she was determined to find a way to call for help.
In the dimness of the moonlight, the first room on the right appeared to be a study where the faint odor of leather, saddle soap and pipe tobacco hung in the air. In the darkness, she fumbled across the surface of the large desk, then searched the bookshelves, but she found nothing except books, papers and a humidor.
Celia returned to the hallway. Behind the door to the next room, Mrs. Givens’s loud snores rattled. Celia tiptoed through the outer doors across a dogtrot to the kitchen. A massive woodstove, where embers lay banked for the night, dominated the room. Celia shook her head in sympathy. Without electricity and the convenience of modern appliances, the housekeeper had her work cut out for her.
Celia sneaked back into the main house and peered into the dining room, filled with the wicker and rattan furniture she’d expected in a Florida island house. But so far, no sign of a phone or any other means of communication.
Only one room remained, and her hopes of finding a means to call for help dwindled. She was treading softly toward the front room when dizziness engulfed her. She steadied herself against the paneling of the hallway, but her legs weakened, and for a moment, she feared she would faint. Her head throbbed from the blow she’d received when she capsized. Common sense told her to return to bed, but the need to find a radio or a phone kept her searching.
The door of the front room stood slightly ajar, and inside, a lamp burned low on the mantelpiece, illuminating a life-sized portrait of a woman and boy. The woman, elegantly beautiful in a long formal gown, stood with her hand on the shoulder of a small boy with plump, rosy cheeks and a mischievous smile. The warm light and friendly expression of the child beckoned, and Celia entered the room.
A camel-backed sofa, flanked by deep chairs, faced the fireplace, whose black, gaping maw devoured a profusion of potted ferns and bromeliads. She shuddered at the image and stepped around the sofa for a better look at the portrait, wondering if the pair were related to the present occupants.
Someone muttered incoherently behind her. Startled, she jumped and clasped her chest to prevent her heart from pounding through her breastbone. Whirling around, she discovered a man stretched out asleep upon the sofa. Her fear turned to surprise when she recognized Cameron Alexander, and surprise dissolved into a surge of relief. She would shake him awake and beg him to take her to the mainland.
But her vision blurred, her head throbbed, and the pain and dizziness returned. She slid weakly onto a chair beside the sofa. When the vertigo passed, she focused slowly on the man before her. With sun-burnished hair the color of a lion’s mane, he lay on his back. His unbuttoned shirt fell open, revealing the tanned muscles of a powerful chest, rising and falling in a hypnotic rhythm.
The strong lines of his sun-bronzed face, handsome, square-jawed and high-cheekboned, were softened by a lock of hair that fell over his forehead. A frown drew down the corners of his wide mouth, and a deep vertical line creased his forehead between his eyebrows, as if he dreamed unpleasant dreams.
His fitted pants accentuated muscular thighs, and his boots seemed more suitable for riding than boating. He had flung one arm over his head, and the other hung to the floor, where an empty brandy snifter rested in his curled fingers.
He didn’t dress like a boater, no jeans or shorts or T-shirt, but, living on the island, he had to have a boat.
She rose, gripped the firm muscles of his shoulder, and shook him gently.
Instantly, his hand flew up and seized her wrist. In the same moment, his lids sprang open, and his eyes gleamed golden and wild. The dreaming frown intensified, and he stared at her so fiercely, she shivered in the warm air.
“What are you doing here?” His voice rumbled like distant thunder.
She pried his fingers from her wrist, realizing she couldn’t have freed herself if he hadn’t allowed it, and took a step back. “Looking for a way to contact the mainland to charter a boat. Do you have a radio?”
“No.” In contrast to his harsh tone, his eyes flickered with sympathy.
“Can you take me to the mainland?”
“The closest town is Key West.” He snarled the words, but his hands clenched and unclenched as if he fought some inner battle.
Instinctively, she retreated a few steps. “Will you take me there?”
He shook his head, as if to clear the sympathetic look from his eyes. “I haven’t been to Key West in six years.”
“But you said Key West is the closest town—”
“It is.”
His gaze shifted past her to the portrait above the mantel, and when he spoke again, he seemed to be speaking to himself. “I haven’t set foot there in six years and I have no intention of returning now.”
Giddiness struck her once more, and she comprehended his words with difficulty.
“I have to go home—” The pain in her head stabbed and swelled, the room spun wildly, her knees buckled, and the floor came up to meet her.
CAMERON ALEXANDER scooped the slender figure into his arms for the second time that day and placed her on the sofa. He had sworn to avoid her, to closet himself away until she left the island, but she’d found him.
He should awaken Mrs. Givens and leave the girl to her, but his resolve to keep away weakened as he feasted on the sight of her. His hands tingled with longing to bury themselves in the halo of her auburn hair with its highlights bleached by the sun. Golden lashes brushed her cheeks, hiding her sea-blue eyes, but the wide-eyed stare she had bestowed on him when he first gathered her off the beach remained etched in his mind.
He had seen no woman other than Mrs. Givens in over six years, but if he saw hundreds a day, the one before him would still captivate him. Fleetingly, he wished he’d met her years ago in the drawing room of a respectable London home, before his marriage, before his trouble. He’d believed he’d lost everything before he came to the island, but he hadn’t calculated losing someone he had yet to meet. He’d had no way to predict a storm would wash such a woman onto his beach.
Poised and elegant, even in distress, yet poignantly vulnerable, Celia Stevens called forth all his protective instincts. A groan escaped his lips. He yearned to safeguard her, yet the most prudent thing he could do was place as much distance between himself and the woman before him as possible.
Had the Devil sent this vision to torment him? Worse yet, had God Almighty sent her as punishment for his grievous sins, a sight to conjure up memories of the horror he had spent so many years trying to forget?
He could not break his exile to take her away. He must avoid her, so there would never be another disaster.
Another death.
But even as he pledged to stay away, he could not refrain from staring at his gift from the sea.
CELIA OPENED HER EYES and gazed at the strange, lamplit ceiling in confusion. A glass clinked, and she looked toward the sideboard where the handsome stranger stood, filling a snifter with brandy from a crystal decanter.
“Feeling better?” The soft glow from the lamp bathed Cameron’s face in golden light, and a concerned look replaced his earlier fierce expression.
She pulled herself up to a sitting position and curled into the corner of the sofa with her knees tucked beneath her, uncomfortably aware she wore only a thin cotton nightgown.
He handed her a snifter of brandy, folded his tall frame onto a chair beside her, raised his glass in a salute, and downed his drink in a great gulp. “Drink, Miss Stevens. The brandy will revive you, bring the color back to your cheeks.”
She sipped the smooth cognac, and a flash of heat seared down her throat. “I’ve never been this giddy. When my boat broke up at sea, I banged my head somehow.”
He leaned toward her and parted her hair with gentle fingers. “You have an angry knot there, but the skin isn’t broken. Your dizziness should soon pass.”
He smoothed her hair back with the palm of his hand in a gesture both comforting and disturbing.
“You never answered my question.” Her throat burned from the brandy, and her voice came out a whisper.
“What question?” The edge returned to his tone, and his strange-colored eyes drilled into hers.
“Will you take me to Key West—or at least to the mainland?”
A wariness touched his eyes, and he appeared to withdraw inward. “No, I cannot.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
As her strength returned, her anger grew. If he was the man of leisure he appeared, why couldn’t he take a few hours to sail her to the mainland?
“Captain Biggins brings supplies to the island.” He leaned back in his chair and rolled his glass between the palms of his strong, square hands. “He was here only a few days ago, but he will return in twelve weeks.”
Dizziness and brandy made concentration difficult. “What’s Captain Biggins got to do with me?”
Cameron refused to meet her eyes. “He will be happy to take you to Key West, and I will gladly pay your passage.”
“But twelve weeks—that’s three months! I can’t stay here that long. I have a business to run, my home to look after, friends who are worried about me.”
His mouth settled into a grim, intractable line. “You have no choice but to wait for Captain Biggins.”
A brandied fog enveloped her brain. “But I—”
“You are different from this afternoon when I carried you in from the beach.” His expression softened.
She was not too drunk to notice his change of subject.
“When you ordered me locked in my room?” She smiled to lessen the mockery of her words. He’d be more inclined to help if she didn’t antagonize him.
When he returned her smile, a strange fluttering developed beneath her ribs, and she swallowed a generous swig of brandy to hide her confusion.
“So I did. It appears Mrs. Givens ignored my instructions.” Her host looked at his glass as if surprised to find it empty, then gazed at her again, tenderness gleaming in his amber eyes. “You were so weak and battered, we feared you might not survive. You have a resilient spirit.”
His wide mouth curved upward in another smile, and warmth radiated from her forehead to her bare toes.
Cameron took her empty glass, refilled it, and handed it back. Her fingers brushed his when she took the glass, and his skin tingled with warmth where she touched him. He had reacted that way toward Clarissa at first, and disaster had followed. If he learned more about this Celia, he might find her less enchanting. “Was there anyone else with you when the storm destroyed your ship?”
She shook her head. “I usually sail alone. That’s when I do most of my thinking.”
He felt himself drowning in the whirlpools of blue that stared up at him, while she traced the rim of her snifter with a slender index finger tipped with a pale pink nail.
“And what do you think about?” he asked.
A rosy blush suffused her skin above the lace-trimmed collar of her gown, and a delicate blue vein pulsed at her throat. “Problem-solving, mostly.”
Like a sneak attack, a desire to protect her from all dilemmas surged through him. “What kind of problems?”
She lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes in a determined squint. “Nothing that can’t be solved by returning home immediately.”
An illogical stab of jealousy pierced him. “Is there someone waiting for you?”
Her blush deepened. “My parents are dead, and I have no other family.”
“No one who misses you?”
Celia bit back her reply. Would she endanger herself by admitting no one would miss her if she didn’t return immediately? Her friends would think she was hiding out, ashamed to show her face until the scandal of running away from her wedding had died down. At first, her clients would believe she was on her honeymoon, as scheduled.
“There are those who’ll search for me if I don’t return home soon,” she lied.
“Where do you live?” Cameron’s golden gaze seemed to penetrate her deception.
She hesitated, but could think of no reason why her residence should be a secret. “Clearwater Beach.”
“Clearwater Beach?”
“It’s in the center of the state on the Gulf Coast.”
His eyebrows arched in surprise. “You’re a long way from home.”
“Judging from your accent, so are you.”
His eyes glittered with irony. Or was it madness? He was like no one she had ever met.
Marooned with a madman jumped unbidden into her mind.
It sounded like the title of a B-horror flick. She giggled as hysteria closed in. To calm herself, she chugged the remaining brandy in her glass.
He must have seen her distress, because he set down his glass. “You must be exhausted. You should be in bed.”
That statement seemed reasonable enough. Except for his refusal to take her to the mainland, he didn’t act crazy. If she hadn’t drunk so much brandy, she could think straight. God, what was happening to her? And why hadn’t she kept a clear head to deal with it?
Before she could protest, Cameron swept her off the sofa and into his arms. The hard warmth of his body pressed through the thin fabric of her gown, and involuntarily her arms reached up to twine around his neck.
Who was crazy now?
Her dizziness returned, probably a combination of the knock on her head with too much brandy. She didn’t resist when he tucked her head into the hollow of his throat where his pulse pounded and carried her into the hallway and up the stairs.
Brandy coursed like fire through her veins. In a state close to dreaming, nearer to drunkenness, she nestled deeper into Cameron’s embrace. Before she drifted into unconsciousness, a scene from Gone with the Wind flashed through her mind of Rhett carrying Scarlett up a wide stairway.
Home, she reminded herself, she had to get home.
“I’ll worry about that tomorrow.” Her voice slurred, and the last thing she remembered was giggling at her own cleverness.
AS HE CARRIED HER UP THE stairs, Cameron sensed her breath against his throat and the softness of her body in his arms. She smelled of Mrs. Givens’s frangipani soap and sunshine and an intoxicating fragrance uniquely her own. He brushed his face against her hair, clasping her to him with one arm and opening her door with the other.
Before placing her on the bed, he folded the coverlet at the foot, reluctant to draw it over her and hide the sight before him. He knelt beside the bed, drank in the details of her unconscious figure, and resisted the urge to trace a finger over her high cheekbone, down the slender column of her throat, and across her delicate shoulder.
She would stay until the supply boat arrived. Even if friends or family came searching for her, they’d not find her among the Ten Thousand Islands of Florida’s southeast coast. He’d barely found the place himself the first time, even with detailed maps and the competent guidance of Captain Biggins.
Twelve weeks would give him time to convince her to keep his secrets. And for him to learn if he could trust her.
She moaned slightly in her sleep, and he drew back, fearful of waking her.
When he gazed at her again, her image wavered before him, the flawless contours of her face dissolved into Clarissa’s features, and blood ran in rivers across the bed.
He buried his face in his hands, forcing the waking nightmare away, and when he looked once more, she slept peacefully, whole and unharmed. He drew the covers over her, then straightened and left.
In his own room, the imagined sound of her breathing tortured him as he paced like a caged animal. The horns of a cruel dilemma impaled him. He could not take her off the island and risk discovery, yet for her own sake, he dared not let her stay.
Dawn light illuminated the veranda outside his door before he closed his eyes to sleep.
WHEN CELIA AWOKE, sunlight streamed through the French doors of the upstairs bedroom. The pain in her head had receded to a dull ache, throbbing both from her injury and her host’s generosity with his brandy. Her encounter with Cameron Alexander the night before seemed like a dream. She’d been sound asleep when he tucked her into bed, so she remembered nothing after he’d carried her up the stairs.
The problem of getting off the island still faced her.
Using the basin and pitcher of water on the dresser, she washed her face, then inspected the garments Mrs. Givens must have left for her. The clothes were not only too big, which she expected, considering the plumpness of their owner, but lacked any sense of style. In addition to the skirt and blouse, she found a shapeless chemise, a slip and a pair of ruffled drawers.
She shrugged off the nightgown, stepped into the strange panties and pulled the drawstring on the voluminous drawers taut, noting the tiny, even hand-stitching. Mrs. Givens apparently made all her clothes since Cameron Alexander probably wouldn’t let his housekeeper leave the island to shop. How did one order underwear from a charter boat captain?
Celia shook her head at her dilemma. The sooner she returned to the mainland, the sooner she could end this crazy nightmare.
She rejected the too large chemise and heavy slip—the Florida climate was too hot for either—and slipped on the gathered skirt, which hung just above her ankles. She pulled on the blouse, roomy enough for two, tied the shirttail into a knot at her waist, and rolled the long sleeves above her elbows.
After plaiting her hair into a loose French braid, she hurried down to the kitchen, determined to find Cameron and force or cajole him—whichever it took—to take her to Key West.
Chapter Two
The house looked bigger in the morning light. Double doors at each end of the hallways and in every room opened to the cooling winds, and the broad, encircling roof of the veranda shaded every window. From the dogtrot, Celia noted the house was built on stilts to allow breezes and high water to circulate beneath, just like many of the homes on her own Clearwater Beach.
When she entered the kitchen, Mrs. Givens looked up from her baking. The housekeeper’s mouth dropped as her gaze traveled upward from Celia’s bare feet and ankles, exposed by the skirt, to the strip of midriff where she’d tied the blouse above her waistline, to her cleavage where she’d folded back the high-necked blouse for coolness.
The older woman’s cheeks glowed pink, probably from the heat of the open hearth, and her tongue tripped on her words. “Very pretty you are, m’dear, and looking less like flotsam every day.”
“Thanks for lending me these clothes.”
“Well, now, you couldn’t have worn that wedding gown, even if it was still in one piece, could you? Not in this heat.”
Curiosity glimmered in the older woman’s eyes, but Celia wasn’t ready to discuss her hasty flight from the church. Mrs. Seffner’s visit and her accusations against Darren seemed like a distant nightmare, one Celia wished she could forget. She wondered how Darren had taken being jilted at the altar. Had he slunk away in disgrace? Expressed concern and organized a search? Or, if he was really the murderer Mrs. Seffner believed him to be, would he attempt to track Celia down for vengeance? The possibility made her shiver in the warm air.
“Sit yourself down,” Mrs. Givens said. “Your breakfast is ready.”
Celia settled at one end of a large wooden table whose battered, well-scrubbed surface smelled of lemons. Mrs. Givens poured steaming coffee from an enamel pot, filled Celia’s plate with scrambled eggs, grits and sliced mangoes, and moved a basket of hot rolls and a pot of honey within her reach.
Celia discovered her appetite had returned. Besides, she’d need her strength to find a way off the island. While she ate, she gazed through the open doorway of the kitchen. The island apparently was a narrow key with the Gulf of Mexico beyond the dunes to the west, and to the south and east, a bay, dotted with islands, stretched off toward the dark green mass of the mainland.
The house would have only a tenuous anchorage on the slender strip of land during a violent storm like the one that had wrecked the Morgan. Her hands trembled at the memory, and a suffocating sense of panic squeezed the air from her throat. She gulped coffee, and the scalding liquid doused the terrifying recollections of the storm and eased her breathing.
“What’s this island called?” she asked, anxious to push her memories of the storm aside.
“It isn’t named on any map, but Mr. Alexander calls it Solitaire.”
Celia shuddered. The name evoked haunting images of a place withdrawn from society, forgotten by the world, almost as if suspended in time, like a place of legend. Its disquieting stillness made the name an apt one.
“I’d hoped after six years of Solitaire, he’d be ready to return to England.” Sadness clouded Mrs. Givens’s green eyes as she added eggs and butter to a bowl and began mixing with a wooden spoon. “But the longer he’s here, the more determined he is to stay. I’m afraid his exile might last forever.”
Celia pictured the golden stranger with the classically handsome face and a body like a Greek god. Who was this Cameron Alexander? She needed to know more about him if she was to persuade him to help end her own exile.
“What did he do in England?”
Mrs. Givens’s head snapped up, and her green eyes narrowed. “Do? What do you mean?”
“What kind of work did he do?” Whatever it was, Celia mused, he must have been successful to have purchased his own island worth millions in the Florida real estate market.
Mrs. Givens laughed with a nervous twittering sound. “He was a gentleman landowner with farms, mines and such.”
His work didn’t sound ominous enough to make him run away to a deserted island. Maybe the illness Mrs. Givens had mentioned had caused his early retirement. “Why did he leave all that behind?”
The housekeeper ceased her stirring and set the mixing bowl down with a heavy thud. Pain contorted her face. “I am never to speak a word about that. And you mustn’t ask. Mr. Alexander has sworn me not to speak of it.”
“You hinted yesterday that he’s ill.” The night before Cameron had appeared strong and healthy, suffering only from the effects of too much brandy and his peculiar insistence that she remain on the island.
“Aye, so I did. Suffice it to say his illness is one of the heart, and let it go at that. I’ve said too much already.”
An illness of the heart? Of the head, more likely, if he believed he could hold her hostage for three months. Celia gauged the set of the housekeeper’s mouth and decided further questions would be futile.
An illness of the heart. Had an ill-fated love affair broken his grasp on reality? It must have been a grand passion to keep him on his island called Solitaire, isolated from the world and its conveniences and pleasures.
She finished her breakfast and left Mrs. Givens to her baking. She would find Cameron Alexander and demand he take her to the mainland, even if she had to bribe him with more money than she could afford.
She stepped off the veranda and headed toward the beach. Cabbage palms provided the house’s only shade, and the tropical sun beat mercilessly on the tin roof. In the dazzling white heat of late morning, not even a condensation trail from a Miami-bound jet marred the perfection of the bright sky. The name Solitaire fit the isolated place.
As she walked north, she discovered a huge pile of driftwood, palm fronds and flotsam someone had cleared from the beach and stacked to be burned. She recalled seeing a box of matches on a kitchen shelf. If Cameron refused to take her to Key West, she’d watch for a passing boat and light a bonfire to signal it. Pleasure boats and fishing crafts filled the Florida waters. Surely one of them would respond to the blaze and pluck her off the island.
A hand touched her shoulder, and she jumped. She’d heard no one approach, but the dark figure of Noah stood beside her, outlined by the sun.
“Howdy, miss. I saw you standing all by yourself. This place seems powerful lonesome when you first come here. I remember.”
For a moment she could see her own unhappiness reflected in the man’s soft brown eyes.
“Thought you might like somebody to talk to, and I’d be mighty proud to show you my garden.”
“You’re right. I was feeling lonesome.”
Glad for his company, she walked down the beach beside him. When they reached the path leading back to the house, Cameron was nowhere in sight, but Mrs. Givens was hanging linens out to dry on a line stretched between two palms behind the kitchen.
Abruptly the house appeared to waver and fade, blending into the surrounding foliage until it seemed to disappear. Celia blinked in disbelief, then squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head to dispel what must have been another touch of vertigo. When she looked again, the house stood solidly before her, its cypress clapboards bleached the pale gray of driftwood by the sun. Lush vines of magenta bougainvillea twined around its stilts and along the balustrades, softening its strong lines. It seemed such a natural part of the island, the illusion that it had disappeared must have been a trick of sunlight and heat, like a mirage in the desert.
Cameron Alexander had chosen his exile well. From a distant boat, the house would be indistinguishable among the lush vegetation of the key.
She followed Noah around the house to the island’s eastern side, where he pointed with pride to his garden, heavy with vegetables, pineapples and papayas. Orange trees with dark, shining leaves and golden globes of fruit and mango and avocado trees formed a wind break along the garden’s northern border. On the south side, a small outbuilding provided shelter for a cow and nesting hens.
A sea breeze rustled the palms, gulls cried overhead, and bay water lapped against a labyrinth of mangrove roots that ringed the eastern shore. Under other circumstances, Solitaire could be paradise.
“Noah, would you take me to Key West? It can’t be that long a trip, and I’d pay you well for your trouble.”
Fear gleamed in the man’s eyes. “Not me. I don’t dare go near the place.”
“Why?”
“I just can’t, that’s all.”
He avoided looking her in the eye, and she realized, like Cameron, Noah had secrets of his own. He was a huge, powerful man. She wouldn’t risk angering him by asking personal questions. “I must return to my business as soon as possible. Do you think I can talk Mr. Alexander into taking me?”
Noah shook his head. “Uh-uh. Won’t nothing make Mr. Alex go where they’s people.”
Frustration engulfed her. Her shop stood closed and empty on a street thronged with tourists, but no one would miss her. Her customers would think she was on her honeymoon. With her parents dead, she had no other close relatives, no one to alert the Coast Guard to search for her when she didn’t return home. Tracey knew Celia had often taken the sailboat out for days at a time. Her friend wouldn’t be worried yet, especially since she knew Celia would be embarrassed about skipping out on her own wedding. Tracey would probably guess she was lying low until the brouhaha blew over.
“Won’t do much good,” Noah said, “but you can try asking Mr. Alex.”
“But I can’t find him! Where can he hide on an island?”
Noah pointed to a break in the mangroves where a dock stretched out into the bay. Beyond it, a white sail flashed on the water as a boat tacked toward the island. Celia squared her shoulders and headed toward the dock for a showdown with her mysterious host.
CAMERON TURNED HIS sailboat north toward the island, where his thoughts had been drawn all morning, no matter how hard he had tried to escape them. Always before, his excursions among the hundreds of small islands helped scour away the painful memories of his past, renewing his spirit and his strength. But everything had changed with the storm that brought Celia Stevens to his beach. What little peace he had wrested from his exile seemed lost to him forever.
She haunted him everywhere he looked. The gulf waters sparkled and shone like her eyes. Her melodic voice murmured in the breeze. The swaying of tall palms mimicked her movements, and the sea oats fringing the dunes glistened as bright as her hair. His conversation with her had been brief, but long enough to recognize the intelligence behind her beautiful face. Damn her! The woman had no obvious faults, gave him no ammunition to resist her.
And resist he must—for twelve long weeks until Captain Biggins and the supply boat arrived to take her away. And then only after he’d sworn her to secrecy about his whereabouts, not only for his own safety but for hers.
He toyed briefly with the idea of sending Noah to take her to Key West, but he could not place the man who had served him so faithfully in such peril. If Noah was arrested, his spirit would wither and die. God knew, Cameron would take her there himself, if he dared, but the risk of discovery was too great.
And what about the risk to her?
He grappled with his conscience as he adjusted the lines of the sail. Celia Stevens was much safer on the island with Mrs. Givens and Noah to protect her than alone on the open sea with him.
And how would he survive twelve weeks with her reminding him of all he had lost? He steered the boat onto the nearest sandbar, dropped anchor and dove overboard fully clothed in a futile attempt to drown the anguish that consumed him.
CELIA WALKED DOWN THE sandy path toward the dock. With his strange reclusiveness, Cameron might turn and sail away again if he saw her, so she stepped off the path and into the covering shade of the mangroves to await his arrival.
The sloop, its white sail shimmering in the sun like the wing of a giant gull, glided across the smooth green waters of the bay. The boat tacked, and the sail shifted to its port side, exposing Cameron at the tiller. With his bare feet propped against one side of the boat, his hair blowing in the wind, and the look of pleasure illuminating the handsome planes of his face, thrown back to catch the full blast of the blazing sun, he erased the image of an unhappy recluse with an unsound mind that she’d carried with her all morning.
The ripple of muscles beneath his tanned skin, revealed by his shirt flapping open in the breeze and slacks rolled to his knees, projected a vibrancy and power that made him seem one with the elements of wind and water surrounding him. Her confidence ebbed when she considered coercing the dynamic being before her into doing anything he didn’t want to do.
As the boat neared the dock, Cameron lowered the sail, and the craft slid silently toward the shore. He tossed a line around a piling with the easy grace of long experience, pulled the boat alongside the dock, and levered himself on strong arms with corded muscles up onto the pier, where he tied the boat fast.
She stepped out of the mangroves and onto the dock behind him. He straightened from tying up the lines, and, at over six feet tall, would tower above her. His height made him appear even more threatening, but she gathered her courage and called to him. “Mr. Alexander, I need to talk with you.”
He turned at her call, and his voice rolled like thunder up the pier. “You should know better than to sneak up on a man like that.”
Undaunted, she stepped forward. The hot, weathered wood seared her bare feet. If he thought he could bully her, he was in for a surprise. She straightened her shoulders, thrust her chin high, and walked toward the giant who stood glaring at her with topaz eyes.
“I instructed Mrs. Givens to tell you that I wanted to be left alone.” The bitterness in his voice lashed out at her, and she hesitated.
Where was the gentle man who had carried her to her bed the night before? Was this alter personality a sign of his mental instability?
She came within a few feet of him, close enough to read his expression and block his exit from the dock, but not so close she had to crane her neck to look up at him. To crack the barrier his anger erected, she smiled her sweetest smile, but his stony grimace didn’t waver.
She changed tactics and attempted to appear businesslike. “Mrs. Givens told me you want to be left alone. That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
His expression didn’t change, nor did he speak. He stood like a colossus with his bare feet planted squarely upon the pier and his balled fists upon his hips while the sun beat down on him.
A trickle of perspiration slid between her breasts. She wouldn’t allow him to intimidate her. She had too much at stake. “I must return home immediately, and I’d be very grateful if you’d take me as far as Key West in your boat.”
“No.” He didn’t bellow this time, but spoke in a soft, low voice. His cool, intractable tone disturbed her more than his yelling had.
“Why not? It’s a reasonable request.” She hoped her voice didn’t reveal the trembling she felt inside.
His hard frown turned to an icy look. “I’m sorry, but I owe you no explanation. I said no, and no is what I mean.”
He took a step toward her, but she held her ground. “If you really want to be left alone, you’d jump at the chance to be rid of me as soon as possible.”
She waited, but received no response. His strange, golden eyes weren’t focused on her face but at the thin fabric of her blouse, pulled taut over her bare breasts. His strange expression drew a blush to her face and sent a tremor through her stomach. His face flushed beneath his tan, and he jerked his gaze to a point past her shoulder.
She trembled at his reaction. Cameron might be crazy, but he was a man, after all, one who hadn’t seen a woman other than Mrs. Givens in years. All the more reason to leave his island as quickly as possible.
“While I appreciate your hospitality,” she said, striving to maintain her reasonable tone, “I don’t want to intrude on it for twelve weeks. A quick trip to Key West would solve both our problems.”
“Miss Stevens.” His soft, controlled voice projected menace and power. “I will say this only once more, so be convinced that I mean it. I will not take you to Key West.”
She dreaded staying on the island more than she feared his anger. “Then tell Noah to take me.”
“You can travel there on the supply boat in twelve weeks.”
“As I said, I can’t wait—”
“I’m sorry, but you have no choice.” His face assumed the intractable expression she recognized from the previous night.
Her temper snapped out of control. “You are the most arrogant, pigheaded, selfish—”
“Selfish?” His coolness irritated her. “I’m offering to house, clothe and feed you for several months. I call that hospitality, not selfishness.”
“Call it what you like, but you’re not doing me any favors.” Tears of anger welled in her eyes, and she dashed them away with the back of her hand, furious she’d allowed him to witness her distress, and even more furious when it failed to move him.
His expression remained unchanged. “That’s all I have to say. Now stand aside and let me pass.”
When she stepped quickly from his path, a splinter from the rough wood of the pier drove deep into the instep of her right foot. “Ow!”
Her yell reverberated across the water, frightening an anhinga from his mangrove perch. When she lifted her foot and extracted the offending sliver, the movement overbalanced her, and she tumbled backward into the bay and plunged underwater. Panic surged within her, fueled by memories of her shipwreck that she longed to forget, but her terror was short-lived. Her feet struck bottom, and she gained a footing in the chest-high water. Muck squished between her toes as she coughed, sputtered, and pushed her streaming hair back from her face.
Cameron peered over the dockside with a fleeting expression that might have been a smile. He reached out his hands to her, and she grabbed them. Knotting the powerful muscles of his arms, he lifted her easily out of the water onto the pier. The soles of her feet were slippery with muck, and she slid against him. His arms closed around her like a vice, driving the breath from her lungs.
A shock like an electric current raced the length of her body where she molded against him, and when she tried to pull away, his embrace tightened. She pressed her hands against the broad expanse of his bare chest and pushed. The heated look in his eyes disoriented her.
What was wrong with her? Just because he had given her the shirt off his back, just because he’d rescued her with such gentleness didn’t give her a reason to respond to him—especially when he refused to take her home.
She shook her head to dispel the giddiness, spraying droplets like a wet dog. When Cameron released her, water dripped from her clothing and pooled around her on the dock.
Like a man enchanted, he stared, as if looking at her was somehow painful. For a moment, time stopped as she faced him on the dock, drinking in the sight of him while his gaze swept over her. Then he turned and marched off the pier, abruptly breaking the spell.
A moment later, a door slammed and her host disappeared into the house. Now more than ever she wanted to flee Solitaire, before he—or her response to him—drew her into a situation she couldn’t control.
THAT NIGHT, CLAD ONCE again in one of Mrs. Givens’s voluminous nightgowns, Celia leaned against the veranda railing outside her room, watching the rain move in torrents across the dark beach. Mrs. Givens had taken away her drenched clothes to wash the bay water from them, but they wouldn’t dry soon in this rain. Thunderclouds obscured the waning moon, and water beat upon the tin roof above her, drowning out the rumble of the surf.
A blinding bolt of lightning split the sky, striking so close to the house that flash and thunder occurred simultaneously. She jumped back from the railing, throwing her arms over her face in a useless gesture of protection. With the boom reverberating in her ears, her throat tightened and her heart pounded. The storm that had demolished her boat flashed back at her. Images of murky water and towering waves crowded against her consciousness, and her breath came in tortured, painful gasps.
Post-traumatic stress syndrome.
That had to be it. Every time the thunder boomed, she relived the horror of her boat breaking up beneath her and the whirlpool pulling her under. She’d encountered storms before, had even capsized in them, but nothing had ever approached the pulsing terror that had grabbed her from the deck and dragged her down into the gray-green depths, charged with the lightning that had crackled all around her.
She closed her eyes, pushed the memories away, and grasped the balustrade so tightly her nails dug crescents into the wood. Thunder crashed again, and the house shuddered from the force of its concussion.
To ward off the panic attack that threatened to engulf her, she imagined herself in Sand Castles, her bookstore with its wide, sunny windows overlooking the traffic-thronged street and flooding the broad aisles with light. She could almost smell the inky tang of new books, the fragrance of freshly brewed tea, and the spicy, chocolate aroma rising from the basket of homemade cookies she kept beside the teapot for her customers. The soft murmur of customers’ voices, the rustle of turning pages, the clunk of books returned to the shelves, and the click of keys on the cash register echoed in her memory.
The familiar images calmed her. Slowly her breathing eased, and the rhythm of her heart steadied. The panic had gone, but at her own beckoning, she’d called up a homesickness as sharp as an injury.
Gradually the force of the storm passed over the island and out to sea, leaving a silence broken only by the irregular beat of water, dripping like tears from the eaves onto the papery surface of palm fronds. The air, cooled and washed by the rain, caught the folds of her gown, puffing it out like a spinnaker.
She peered down the beach where rain obscured the piles of debris. Even if a boat were to pass the island, the driftwood and palm branches would be too wet tonight to burn as signal beacons. She’d hidden beneath her mattress the matches she’d taken from the kitchen when Mrs. Givens’s back was turned. The debris would eventually dry, and she’d have her chance.
She tensed at the sound of movements in the room next to hers. A pool of light spread across the veranda, and the French doors of the room next to hers swung open. For a moment, she feared Cameron himself would step onto the porch beside her.
Then his shadow fell across the veranda floor as he removed his clothes. The lamplight projected an undistorted image of his powerful shoulders, narrow waist and lean hips upon the weathered boards, faithful even to the bulges of his muscled torso when he removed his shirt. The shadow bent to blow out the lamp, and bedsprings creaked as he climbed into bed. Her pulse quickened at the intimacy of the sound.
She shivered when the rain-laden breeze struck her. Had the cool air or the memory of his body against hers caused the tremor? She hadn’t reacted that way to Darren, who had professed to love her. Why did her rebellious body respond only to a man whose mind was surely disturbed?
At her first chance, she’d light her signal fire, and if that didn’t bring help, she’d steal the sloop and sail to Key West by herself. One thing was certain. She couldn’t remain much longer on this small island with Cameron Alexander, or she might succumb to the growing excitement that quivered in the depths of her whenever she thought of him—a peril worse than shipwreck.
She pulled the rocking chair from her room onto the veranda and, hugging her knees to her chest, she rocked herself to sleep.
DAYLIGHT WAS GATHERING, and the rising sun tinged the gulf’s soft swells an iridescent pink and gold, like the inside of a conch shell she’d found on the beach the day before. Seabirds searched for their breakfast, and their shrill cries and the gentle beat of their wings filled the cool morning air.
She stood and stretched, easing muscles cramped from a night spent curled in the rocker in the open air. The doors to Cameron’s room remained open, but no sound came from inside. As she turned toward her own room, a flash of movement on the beach drew her attention.
Bathed in the delicate glow of the sun’s first rays, Cameron, his muscles etched like Italian marble against the blue of the morning sky, strode naked across the beach toward the breakers. He moved with grace and power, and once he reached the combers crashing onto the shore, dived like a gilded arrow into the waves, slicing through them with powerful strokes of his well-muscled arms. His tawny hair fanned around him like seaweed as he swam toward the distant horizon.
Fascinated by the work of art in the flesh before her, she stood awestruck, hypnotized, watching him cut his way through the water, farther and farther from shore.
A glimpse of white on the horizon beyond him caught her eye. Moving slowly northward, so far away it looked like a child’s toy, sailed a cruise ship.
Rescuers!
She didn’t understand her strong reactions to her mysterious host and felt the need to get away from him as strongly as she wanted to go home.
She darted back into her room and rummaged under the mattress for the stolen matches. With the precious sticks clutched in her fist, she dashed headlong down the stairs, through the wide front doors, and out toward the beach.
She raced between the dunes and headed north along the shoreline. She had to ignite the signal fire before the ship passed from view, but deep sand sucked at her feet, slowing her progress.
When she reached the stack of debris, she cast about for a hard surface on which to strike a match. Shaking with excitement until she could barely grasp the matchstick, she grabbed a large shell with a corrugated surface and dragged the match across it.
Nothing happened.
In a panic, she drew the match again and again across the shell’s rough surface, but it didn’t flare.
Dear God, make it burn, so I can go home.
She threw the match down in disgust and tried another. The second flared instantly, and she touched it to the dried palm fronds stacked with the flotsam and jetsam. Still slightly damp from the earlier rain, they smoldered slowly, producing little heat or smoke. She pulled one of the fronds from the pile and fanned, coaxing the smoldering leaves into flames.
With an explosive burst, the dry palm branches on the bottom of the pile caught fire, and flames licked along the driftwood and other debris. She peered toward the horizon, tracking the cruise liner, and fanned harder, encouraging the flames to burn brighter.
Out of nowhere, strong hands tugged her aside. She stumbled and fell to her knees on the beach. Sand flew like dust devils, obscuring her view.
She scrambled to her feet and wiped sand from her eyes. Cameron, barefoot and clad only in jeans unbuttoned at the waist, stood where she had been, using a board as a shovel to douse the last embers of the fire with sand.
“No!” The word tore from her throat, and she grabbed his arm. “Let it burn. That boat must see it.”
He pushed her aside once again and continued heaping sand on the debris.
She thrust herself between him and the fire, trying to block the sand from her precious flames. “You have no right to stop me!”
“Stay out of the way!”
She ignored his warning and dug at the sand he had heaped upon the debris, but her efforts were useless against the power of the man. For every handful of sand she uncovered, he shoveled piles more onto the fire and her as well.
When he’d smothered every spark, he dropped the board and dusted his hands. Water glistened in his tawny hair, and anger gleamed in his eyes.
When he turned to her, he did not meet her gaze, but cast his glance at a point behind her. “You must impress this fact into that very pretty head of yours, Miss Stevens. You will leave this island when I say, and not before.”
He snatched the remaining matches from her clenched fist. She grabbed instinctively to retrieve them, but his dark expression stopped her. He turned and tramped back toward the house, leaving her shivering with disappointment and the first rumblings of fear as she stood on the beach with her nightgown billowing in the wind.
She was no longer a guest on Solitaire, but a prisoner.
Chapter Three
Celia stood like a sentinel, staring toward the northwest until the last sight of the cruise liner disappeared over the horizon. Her hope vanished with it, and she headed back toward the house. Deep sand pulled at her feet, as if the earth itself tried to chain her to the island.
When she reached the path through the dunes, she met Noah loping toward the shore with a shovel across his shoulder.
“Morning, miss.” He smiled, but his deep, dark eyes held their usual sadness, and she wondered if he was as much a prisoner in this place as she was.
“You’re out early,” she said. “Digging for coquina?”
“No, ma’am, though some good coquina stew would taste mighty fine. Mr. Alex wants me to bury that pile of trash on the north beach. Don’t want it calling attention to the place, he says.”
“Right.” Her smile froze as Noah passed her on the path.
When she reached the house, Cameron lounged on his elbows on the wide stairs that led to the veranda. He had pulled on a shirt, but his chest and feet remained bare, and his hair had begun to dry into a wild, disarrayed mass. On another man, the effect would have been scruffiness. On Cameron, Celia thought with a sigh, his disheveled appearance made him all the more attractive, like a sexy male model in a Calvin Klein ad.
He sprang to his feet at her approach, but she’d had her fill of rudeness for one morning. She attempted to climb the stairs past him.
“Miss Stevens, please.” The desperation in his eyes stopped her.
“What is it now? Want to search me for more matches?” Ignoring how attractive he looked, she centered all her fury and frustration in her voice.
Standing above him on the steps with her eyes level with his, she could read the silent appeal in them, as well as the pleading gesture of his hands spread wide.
“Forgive me, please. I meant you no harm, but I had to extinguish the fire as quickly as possible.”
Her anger dissolved into smothering depression, and her voice lost its snap and turned thick and heavy. “What harm would it have done for that ship to see the flames and come take me away from here?”
She sank onto the stairs with her elbows on her knees and her chin tucked in her hands. The dragging weight of her body mirrored the heaviness of her spirit. She dredged up the energy to speak again. “I have a home, friends, a business I want to return to.”
She had made the plea so many times, it sounded like a litany. She tried to will her tears away, but they slid down her cheeks, and she tasted their saltiness.
Cameron settled onto the step beside her, placed his arm around her shoulders, and drew her toward him. The gentle man beside her had no correlation to the angry being who had pushed her away from the fire only moments before. Was the illness Mrs. Givens had referred to a split personality?
“Please don’t cry.” His voice caressed her with its warmth.
“I’m not crying.” She swiped her tears with the back of her hand and pulled away from him.
“Tell me,” he said, “are you anxious to return because of the man you were to marry?”
His question stunned her. The last person she wanted to see was Darren Walker, but if Cameron could keep his secrets, so could she. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
An engaging smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “My situation here is strange, I admit. However, no stranger than yours. How many women go sailing alone dressed in a wedding gown?”
Embarrassed, she gazed silently past him toward the gulf.
“Did you sail before or after the wedding?”
“Why should you care?” she asked hotly.
He shrugged with infuriating nonchalance.
“If I answer,” she said, “will you let me leave?”
His smile vanished. “You may leave when Captain Biggins comes to take you home.”
“But Captain Biggins won’t be here for weeks! And why is it okay for him to take me off the island, but no one else? What are you trying to hide?”
Cameron stared at her as if he hadn’t heard. He spoke in a strangely detached voice, as if talking to himself. “Your eyes are the color of the gulf on a sunny day, and when you’re angry, they flash like sunlight on the water.”
Her anger turned to alarm. The man was crazy. “You’re avoiding my question. Why is it that Biggins—”
“You asked what I’m trying to hide. The answer is obvious.”
“Not to me—”
“I am hiding myself.”
“Why?”
His face shifted into hard lines. “That’s none of your affair. More to the point, I’ve spent years guarding the location of my hideaway. Biggins is the only person on earth who knows where I am.”
“You must trust him a great deal.”
“As long as he keeps my secret, Biggins is a very wealthy man. If he divulges my presence here, his money stops. It is as simple as that.”
She started to ask again why he was hiding but bit back the words. Knowing too much might be dangerous. He’d just indirectly informed her that when she left Solitaire, the number of people who knew his whereabouts would double. If he allowed her to leave. Her doubts on that score were multiplying by the minute.
She had no intention of waiting for Captain Biggins. She had promised earlier she would reach the mainland if she had to swim, and she meant it. She refused to spend another night on Solitaire.
Everything about her mysterious host was odd, and at the same time, somehow compelling, drawing her to him. She’d just escaped one disastrous relationship and didn’t need—or want—another. The more distance she could place between her and Solitaire’s enigmatic owner, the better off she’d be.
She jumped to her feet and started up the stairs, but Cameron grasped her hand, holding her fast. His expression softened again, and his lip curved in a rueful smile. “Don’t go.”
“I must dress.”
“But you haven’t forgiven me for treating you so roughly on the beach. I am sorry.”
Did Cameron think he could behave like a jerk, then make everything all right by apologizing? “I’ll forgive you, but only when you free me from this island prison you’ve built for yourself.”
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