Rachel Gibson - Lola Carlyle Reveals All

She removed her gaze from him and stuck her feet into the cold water. “You go. Baby and I will stay here and wait for you.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded and lathered her feet with the soap. “Baby needs a rest.”

Max chuckled and once again knelt beside her. He placed his hand beneath her chin and raised her face to his. “Okay, if Baby needs a rest,” he said against her lips, and she wasn’t so certain he was talking about the dog. As natural as if she’d known him forever, she leaned into him and opened her mouth beneath his. His tongue gently made love to hers, and the kiss was soft and sweet and turned her insides all warm. She dropped the soap to the ground and raised her hand to the stubble on his cheek. She ran her fingers through his thick short hair, but he pulled back, and the kiss ended before she was ready.

“Behave,” he said, and stood.

He took the canteen, a box of Chex Party Mix, an apple, and a bag of Ritz crackers. Lola was left with a wheel of Camembert, an apple, a box of wafer-thin crackers, and a hunger that suddenly had nothing to do with food.

The sun overhead had yet to reach midday, but it warmed Lola’s back and arms. She finished washing her feet and legs, then she dug around in her Louis Vuitton bag and pulled out a small compact. She stared into the small mirror and gazed at her reflection, one-quarter of her face at a time. She looked like hell and searched in her bag again until she found her essentials. A pair of tweezers, a small bottle of Estee Lauder face lotion, mascara, blusher, and a tube of pink lip gloss. As she plucked several stray hairs from the perfect arch of her brows, she told herself that she wasn’t primping for Max.

That’s what she told herself, but she wasn’t very convincing. Not when just the simple thought of his kisses sent tingles down her spine and brought warmth to her cheeks, as if she were sixteen again and had a crush on Taylor Joe McGraw, captain of the basketball team.

Taylor Joe hadn’t known she was alive, but Max did. He let her know each time he looked at her.

From about the age of fourteen she’d noticed boys and, as she got older, men, looking at her. But Max was different. What she saw in his eyes was deeper. Darker, like the pull of something sinful and forbidden, and Lola had always had a weakness for sinful things.

She brushed mascara on her lashes until they looked long and feathery, then applied her blusher and lip gloss. Once she finished with her cosmetics, she put them away and looked out across the blue hole at the pines and tall grasses. A bug flew in front of her face and she swiped it away. She was certain today was Tuesday, but so much had happened since Saturday night, it felt as if a month had passed.

Baby barked at two dragonflies and would have fallen in the water if she hadn’t grabbed him. She quickly glanced up at the sun overhead. It seemed to her that an hour had passed, and still no Max. She got up and moved their things from the buggy shore and found a nice place behind dense shrubbery and directly beneath a scrub pine. She spread her pashmina on the ground and she and Baby sat and ate crackers and cheese.

For the first time in several days, she was alone with only her dog. And without Max by her side, promising he’d make sure she returned home, she began to envision a life stuck on this island. A steady diet of reptiles and fish. The three of them growing old and crazy, Max looking as bad as Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Her looking like Ginger on Gilligan’s Island.

Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she had to battle back the panic that threatened to pull her under. She hadn’t even been missing a week yet. If anyone was looking for her, and she was sure her family was, she figured she had at least a few more days before a search would be scaled back. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Forcing the panic to the recesses of her mind.

When her nerves somewhat settled, she wondered what was taking Max so long. Her mind raced from one distressing scenario to another. She worried that he’d broken his leg or fallen off a cliff. She should have gone with him. What if he needed her?

Wait, she thought to herself, this was Max. A man who could take care of himself and anyone else he’d happened to commandeer. If he broke his leg, he’d just whittle himself a splint and get on with things.

She picked up Baby and scratched his chest. She’d known Max for such a short period of time, how had she come to know him so well? How had he become so important to her life? She’d never needed a man before. Wanted, yes. Needed, no.

If for some reason Max weren’t on the island, she and Baby could figure out how to build a fire and roast an iguana. So why did the thought of losing him give her palpitations? Why did it feel as if he were so important to her existence?

She looked down into her dog’s watery eyes and the answer shone back at her. Stockholm syndrome. Both she and Baby suffered from a bad case of it.

The brush behind her rustled and she looked over her shoulder. Baby let out three barks, then Max appeared through the foliage. “That’s not much of a watchdog,” he said as he stepped from the brush and moved to stand in front of her. A strange little glow warmed her next to her heart and traveled to the pit of her stomach.

As she looked up at him, she was almost embarrassed at how glad she was to see him. He reached for the bottom of his shirt and pulled it over his head, and the little glow spread across her flesh and tightened her breasts. He wiped the perspiration from his temples and rubbed the T-shirt across his chest. The fine black hair curled, and she stared, fascinated by a bead of sweat that slid down his belly to the waistband of his jeans.

“Did you find a beacon?” she asked, and looked away. She did not believe in love at first sight. Or second sight, or even after a few days. Especially if two of those days had been spent in fear of the object of her infatuation. Her sudden attraction to Max was illogical. It made no sense at all. But she supposed Stockholm syndrome did not make sense.

“No.”

That one word brought her gaze back to his. “What do we do now?”

“We build a huge fire. Somebody ought to see the smoke,” he answered. “On the west side there are quite a few birds’ nests,” he said, and let his eyes travel to her lips. “A few hundred probably.”

“What?” While she’d been worried sick about him, envisioning disaster, he’d been bird-watching? “While Baby and I have been sitting here, you were off counting birds?”

He lifted his gaze once more. “That’s not what I said.”

“Don’t you think that’s just a little bit inconsiderate?”

One brow lifted up his forehead. “What?”

She set Baby on the ground and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Did it even occur to you that Baby and I might be worried that something bad had happened to you?”

“No.” He tossed his shirt on the duffel bag, then knelt in front of her, one thick forearm resting across his thigh. The tree overhead shaded his face and bare shoulders. He wasn’t wearing a bandage around his ribs today, and the fading black and blue bruises were visible on his tan skin. “I don’t think your dog worries about much beyond his next meal.”

“That’s not true,” she defended Baby as he hopped up on the duffel, made three tight circles on Max’s shirt, then settled in for a nap. “He’s sensitive.”

Max shook his head. “You know what I think?”

“No.”

“I don’t think Baby was worried one little bit.”

“He was.”

“I think you were worried.”

She shrugged. “Well, there are a lot of bad things that could have happened to you.”

Smile lines appeared in the corners of his eyes. “Like what?”

“You could have tripped and broken your leg or fallen off a cliff.”

“Now, why would I do that?”

“You wouldn’t mean to,” she sighed, “but it could happen.”

“No, it couldn’t.” He brushed a lock of hair from her cheek and pushed it behind her ear. “Do you know what else I think? I think I like the idea of Lola Carlyle worrying about me.” He slid his knuckle along her jaw to her chin and she held her breath. “You look real pretty.”

Her voice sounded a little breathy when she confessed, “I plucked my eyebrows.”

“I didn’t notice your eyebrows.”

“And put on some lip gloss.”

His thumb brushed her bottom lip, then he dropped his hand to his side. “Now, that I noticed.” He sat and leaned his back against the tree, and she felt the acute absence of his touch. He brought his feet close to his behind and hung his wrist over his knee. The thin branch of a lignum vitae tree brushed his cheek, and he pushed away the thick green leaves and tiny purple flowers. “There’s a lot about you that I notice.”

“Like what?”

The vine hit his cheek again, and he pulled the fish knife from his boot and hacked it off. Then his eyes met hers once more as he returned the knife to his boot. He slid his gaze from the top of her head, paused a moment to examine the buttons closing her dress, then continued down her legs to her toes.

“That first night, I thought your toes were as sexy as hell.” He took a hold of her ankle and set her foot on the ground before him. “I couldn’t see shit for shinola, but I noticed your red polish.” He glanced up at her, then loosely wound the lignum vitae around her ankle as if she were a Polynesian dancer. The tips of his fingers brushed her bare skin, and she felt it at the back of her knee. “And when I was tying you up with your skirt, I noticed your pink panties.” He smiled and pulled off a few leaves as he twined the thin branch around itself. “I have a real fond memory of that.”

Lola did her best to suppress her reaction to his touch and to the sight of him, Max Zamora, snake eater, tying purple flowers around her ankle. But no matter how unwanted or confusing, the sudden butterflies in her stomach and the answering flutter next to her heart refused to go away or be ignored. “Funny, but my memories of that night aren’t so fond.”