The warm untroubled water with its sparkling shards of blue was nothing like the angry tempest of the previous night. So deceptively calm that it was hard to believe it belonged to the same ocean that had come close to taking all of their lives.

Twenty feet from the beach, Lola stood and walked through the waves to the shore. The gentle swells splashed the backs of her thighs and she plucked up Baby and carried him the rest of the way. The sand was still saturated from the storm, and when she set him down, he ran off to investigate a downed palm tree.

Lola didn’t know if the island was inhabited or if she was simply trading one disaster for another, but it felt so good to finally be standing on solid ground that at the moment she didn’t care.

She was cold and wet, and she felt like falling to the earth and kissing the beach. Instead, she sank to her knees on the moist sand and lifted her face to the sun. Last night she’d prayed for a rescue ship, and it hadn’t come. Maybe this was God giving her another way off the Dora Mae. Another chance at being rescued.

With the sun touching her face and cool morning air in her lungs, a rush of emotion squeezed her chest. She was alive. Several times last night she thought she would not live to see morning. Several times she would have become hysterical and lost it completely if not for Max. If not for the touch of his hand in hers and the reassuring sound of his voice within the dark cabin.

After everything, she and Baby were still alive when they could have easily drowned. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Now that it was all over, she sent God a quick thank-you and felt warm inside, like she might be having a religious experience. Not that she’d ever had one, but growing up she’d seen plenty. If not a religious experience, then just a wonderful moment to appreciate being alive. Of feeling her wet dress cling to her skin and the gritty sand in her shoes and between her toes.

Max ripped open the plastic bag and dropped her purse by her side. “Let’s go, Lola,” he ordered, ruining her moment.

“Can’t we just sit for a few and appreciate being on land again?”

“Nope.” He opened the duffel and handed her the pashmina. “We’re burnin‘ daylight.”

“Who are you? John Wayne?” She squeezed as much water from her dress as she could, then wrapped herself in the cashmere shawl. “And you have to cut off Baby’s water wings before we go anywhere,” she added, rising to her feet.

“His what?”

“The Styrofoam.”

“Come here, B. D.,” Max called to the little dog hiking his leg on the palm tree. At the sound of Max’s voice, Baby hurried to stand at his boots.

“How did you do that?” She reached for her dog and held him while Max cut the Styrofoam from his sides. “He never comes when I first call him.”

“He knows I’m alpha dog,” Max answered. The top of his bent head almost touched her nose. His thick black hair was finger-combed and smelled of him, a combination of soap and sea and Max. He glanced up as far as her mouth and his hands stilled. For one brief moment, she saw the yearning in his beautiful blue eyes. She thought he would lean forward and kiss her, and she raised her hand to run her fingers through his hair. Instead, he looked away and she returned her hand to her side. She was left feeling disappointed and a bit confused. After everything they’d gone through together the night before, her feelings for him had deepened. She respected his strength, not only his physical ability that made her feel as if he could take care of her and Baby, but his strength of character. There was a core of honor in Max. He would never abandon his responsibility or betray a trust. He would never use her to boost his own ego or sell naked photographs of her.

She didn’t love him, but there were many admirable qualities in him. No, she didn’t love him, but when he looked at her as if he wanted to consume her for lunch, her stomach got a bit squishy and her mind wandered to the shape of his butt in his jeans.

Baby yelped and Lola turned her attention to her dog. “Be a good boy, now,” she said as Max pulled off the rest of the tape. “You are a very brave dog,” she congratulated Baby once the wings were gone.

Max muttered something in Spanish as he shoved the plastic bag and Styrofoam into the duffel. By the tone of his voice, Lola thought it best not to ask him to translate, and the three of them set out toward the dense tree line.

“Which way are we headed?” she asked as she shifted Baby to one arm and hung her purse on her shoulder.

“Up,” was his informative answer, and she followed him in between two palms. Within a few moments they were swallowed by the vegetation and were forced to walk single file. Thick ferns brushed Lola’s ankles, and Max stopped several times, his hand outstretched to her.

Baby jumped from her arms and chased after a hissing iguana. They called at him to come back, but for once he didn’t listen to the alpha dog, and Max was forced to chase after him. When he finally caught Baby and brought him back, he opened Lola’s bag and shoved him inside.

“I thought he knew you were alpha dog,” she reminded him as he zipped it halfway.

Max’s brows smashed together over his blue eyes and he gave Baby a very hard stare. “Your dog has a real bad hearing problem.”

Lola didn’t even try to hide her smile. “Or maybe you’re not top dog.”

“Honey, there is no question about who is top dog around here.”

“Uh-huh. Maybe I’m top dog.”

He rocked back on his heels and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “I know you’d like to think you are, but you don’t have the right equipment to be top dog.”

She didn’t suppose he was talking about the equipment in the duffel bag. He was so delusional and male, she laughed. “What equipment is that?”

“I think we both know.” His gaze slipped down the buttons of her dress, over her breasts, to the bunch of cherries covering her crotch. “Or maybe you need me to show you,” he said, and lines appeared in the corners of his teasing blue eyes.

“I’ll pass.”

He shrugged as if to say, Suit yourself, then they climbed upward, past bushy lignum vitae trees with their tiny purple flowers, and Lola wondered what he would do if she placed her hand in the back pocket of his jeans and let him pull her along. Tropical birds sang and called to each other overhead, and when they came to a small stream, he crossed first.

“Stay there,” he said, and set the duffel bag on the other side. Then he came back for Lola and straddled the stream, with a foot on each side of the bank. She could have crossed the stream on her own, but when he reached for her hand, she took it as she had last night and all morning. Their palms touched and little tingles traveled up her wrist. As she stepped over the stream, she looked up into his eyes. And there it was again. The heated flicker of desire. The dark hunger in his light-blue eyes that he couldn’t hide. The craving that stirred passion deep in her stomach.

He dropped his gaze as he dropped her hand. “Is your dog getting heavy?”

Baby weighed somewhere between five and six pounds, but after a while, he made her shoulder ache. “A little.”

Max took the purse from her and placed the strap over his head and one shoulder. He reached for the duffel and started out again. Lola wished she had a camera to take a picture of Max carrying a purse with Baby’s head sticking out of it, the dog’s spiked collar making him look very tough. Max Zamora, carrying the dog he’d once threaten to drop-kick into the Atlantic. Somewhere beneath that hard, well-developed exterior, Max was a pussycat.

Baby chose that moment to let out a bark. He struggled to jump out of the purse.

Max placed a restraining hand on the dog. “If you make me chase you again, B. D., I’m going let that iguana eat you.”

Well, maybe not a pussycat, but he wasn’t quite the bad guy he wanted everyone to believe he was.

It took them another ten minutes or so to reach the highest part of the island, a breathtaking plateau heavy with Caribbean pines and rich foliage. They moved toward its edge and gazed over the side. The back of the island was less hospitable than the front, with jagged cliffs and vertical slopes. Pines and palms, but no Club Med. No reclusive rock star taking a break on his private island, just miles of ocean and endless sky.

They fought their way through low bushes to the middle of the plateau and discovered a blue hole. The freshwater spring was surrounded by pines and tall grasses. The hole was approximately fifty feet across, and a slight breeze rippled the water.

Max set the purse and duffel bag on the ground and Baby crawled out to stretch his legs. Then Max knelt on a rock jutting out from the shore, cupped his hands, and drank. “Damn, that’s cold,” he said as Lola sat beside him. She reached in the duffel bag and pulled out a canteen they’d filled earlier with drinking water from the tap.

“Any thoughts on what to do now?” she asked him. The back of her dress and the bodice was still damp, and she let the pashmina fall to her waist, hoping the slight breeze might help it to dry.

“Explore a bit more, then build a huge bonfire. After the storm last night, there should be rescue planes in the air.”

“What about a beacon?” Lola asked. “I saw it on that movie with Anne Heche and Harrison Ford. They were stranded on an island and looked for some sort of beacon so they could break it. Then, supposedly, someone would come to fix it and they’d be rescued.”

“A navigation beacon?”

“Yeah, I think that was it.” She slipped off her shoes and stared down at her dirty feet. She took a thin bar of soap from her purse and scooted to the edge of the rock.

“It would have to be on the highest point and free of vegetation.” He stood and looked around, his hands on his hips. His spread fingers pointed to his crotch. “Over there, maybe,” he said, and pointed to the west.