Some might have considered blowing up that yacht a bit excessive. Max wasn’t one of them. Even though he doubted the four men were capable of dislodging the Dora Mae and making her operable, he wasn’t willing to leave them any options. And he wasn’t taking any chances that he or Lola had left anything behind that could be traced directly back to them. The Dora Mae had had to die. And damn, but there was very little in this world that could compare to a good explosion.

He turned on the radio and listened for any sort of traffic. He wasn’t surprised when he didn’t hear anything. But just because he didn’t hear other vessels didn’t mean they weren’t out there. He tuned the radio to the Coast Guard channel and reached for the microphone. “What’s your middle name?” he asked, unwilling to announce to the Coast Guard or anyone else that he and Lola were in a stolen go-fast.

Lola’s teeth chattered when she answered, “Faith.”

“Coast Guard Florida Keys Group, Coast Guard Florida Keys Group, this is the vessel Faith. Copy? Over.” He waited a half minute before he repeated. Still, nothing. By the light of the LCD screen, he read their position and determined the storm had blown them ninety nautical miles southeast of the Florida Keys. Sixty miles south of their previous position aboard the Dora Mae.

“Where are we?” Lola asked between her tightly clamped teeth. “Are we close to Florida?”

“About eighty miles,” he answered, too tired to calculate precisely the difference between miles and nautical miles. When he finally got home, he planned to sleep for at least three days.

“Do you want some of my-my blanket?”

“No, it shouldn’t be long now.” The three engines on the boat would have allowed them to travel at speeds more than fifty knots, but without much protection from the wind, Max kept it at twenty-six. The sky overhead was perfectly clear and crammed with stars.

“Ma-Max?”

“Yes.” He looked over at her. At her reaching a hand from beneath the blanket to pick the mud from her forehead. At the stands of her hair bouncing about her face and catching the moon’s pale reflection. The golden light of the helm touched her lips and poured into her mouth like honey when she spoke.

“I really thought we-we were going to die,” she said just over the sound out the engines.

“I told you I’d make sure you got home.”

“I know.”

Baby stuck his head from the hole in the blanket, looked around, then ducked back inside where it was safe and warm against Lola’s breasts and belly.

That lucky dog didn’t know how good he had it. Max knew, and he wished he didn’t. Even now, with the cold and the wind biting his toes and cheeks, the memory of her smooth skin warmed the pit of his belly. It would have been so much better if they parted without him knowing how good it felt to make love to her. It would have been better if he could spend his life, like every other man in the world, wondering what it was like to hold her face in his hands while kissing her mouth.

Now that he knew, it was going to be a hell of a lot harder to let it go. To let her go. Now that he knew that beneath her sweet, cover-model curves resided a woman of courage and determination. The kind of courage and grit he admired.

As the boat sped toward the Florida coast, with each mile he put behind him, the closer they got to the moment he would hand her over to the Coast Guard. His responsibility over, he knew he should start putting distance between himself and her. She did not belong to him, but when she laid her head on his shoulder, he couldn’t quite bring himself to push her away. He kept one hand on the wheel, and with his other he raised the microphone to his mouth.

“Coast Guard Florida Keys Group, Coast Guard Florida Keys Group, this is the vessel Faith. Copy? Over.” Still nothing.

“Max, when we’re rescued, please don’t leave me.”

He couldn’t promise her that.

“Max?” She leaned her head back and looked up at him.

For the first time, he didn’t make a promise he knew he couldn’t keep. He was saved an explanation by the crackle of the radio, then the smooth flat voice of a coastie.

“Faith, Coast Guard. Roger, Skipper; please state your traffic, over.”

Max paused and looked down into Lola Carlyle’s beautiful face. Then he raised the microphone and took the first step toward home and his life away from her.

Chapter 11

Lola arrived at the Florida Lower Keys Medical Center sometime around two in the morning. It was the first time in days that she knew the exact hour. She was assigned a private room so she could be observed through the night. Her arms and legs felt too heavy to lift, and she wondered why she didn’t feel like jumping up and down. She’d waited for this moment since Saturday night. She’d been through hell, fought to survive, and all she felt was numb. This time, more than just the tips of her finger and toes tingled with little feeling.

Overwhelming lethargy had started soon after she and Max had sped from the island, and it had only gotten worse with each passing hour. She’d figured it probably had something to do with her adrenaline rush eating up the last bit of her energy. That, and she’d only had one decent meal in the last several days.

She wasn’t sure how long they’d been aboard the drug runners’ boat, but once she and Max and Baby had boarded the Coast Guard cutter, she’d been examined by the onboard EMT, and he’d determined that she suffered from dehydration, mild hypothermia, and exhaustion. The exhaustion part she could have diagnosed herself. That one was a no-brainer, but the hypothermia and dehydration surprised her. Especially the dehydration, since her bra and panties were still wet from her swim in the ocean.

While she’d been given an IV and forced to lay flat on her back in the sick bay, Max had been somewhere on the bridge, chatting it up with the commanding officer. She’d been alone, but at least she’d still had Baby with her then.

By the time they reached the Key West Coast Guard Station, she’d felt worse instead of better. She was so exhausted she couldn’t think straight. An ambulance had been waiting for her, and she’d been place on a gurney, still wearing the blanket Max had given her.

Someone had taken Baby from her arms, and she argued to keep him with her, but to no avail. She’d been assured that he would receive food and water and excellent medical attention at the local animal shelter.

Max could have done something to keep Baby with her. He could have intimidated them with just a scowl, but he was nowhere to be seen. Lola was horribly weak and disoriented, and as she’d watched everything being done to and around her, she couldn’t quite connect the events.

Her gaze fell on military and medical personnel, but nothing was in the least familiar. She looked past the bright lights shining down and bouncing around the station. She controlled nothing that was happening to her, and she looked for Max. Sure that if she could just find him, he would make everything okay. But she didn’t see him anywhere.

Finally, as Lola was being loaded into the ambulance, she caught a last glimpse of Max. Standing on the edge of a pool of light, he lifted his hand in an abbreviated wave before he climbed into a waiting car. Tinted windows swallowed him up and then he was gone. Unexpected panic knotted her stomach, and she reminded herself that she was okay now. She was safe, and she didn’t have to depend on Max. She didn’t need him anymore.

So, why did it feel as if she did? Even now, as she lay in a warm hospital bed snug as a bug, why did she think she needed him so badly?

“How do you feel?” a nurse in a mauve and turquoise splattered smock asked as she took Lola’s pulse.

Confused, she thought. “Tired.” She scratched at her neck. “And eaten alive.”

“I’ll get you some calamine,” the nurse told her as she let go of her wrist.

Shortly after Lola’s arrival at the medical center, her family had been notified and she’d been told her parents were on their way to Florida. “I can go when my parents get here, right?”

“You’ll have to ask the doctor about that.” She wrote something down on Lola’s chart. “The kitchen is closed, but we keep some snacks in the refrigerator down the hall. If you’re hungry, we have pudding and juices and sodas.”

The confusion and the hunger eating her stomach reminded her that all she’d eaten that day was some cheese and crackers. Her hands and feet were cold and she felt hollow, as if she were collapsing. These sensations were not new to her, they were old and familiar, but for the first time in a long time, she heard the familiar urging loud and clear. The seductive voice that told her if she didn’t eat tonight, she’d lose three more pounds by tomorrow. “I’m actually starving, so I’ll take anything you’ve got.”

“I’ll see what I can scrounge up for you.” The nurse smiled and turned for the door.

“Is there anyone waiting to see me?” Lola asked, stopping her.

The nurse stuck her head out and looked up and down the hall. “No. A sheriff was here earlier, but it looks like he left.”

Lola knew about the sheriff. He wanted to ask her questions about the past several days, but she’d put him off until morning. At first he’d been persistent, but he’d finally relented. She figured it must have been because she looked as bad as she felt, but frankly, she didn’t care why. She really was tired, but more than her exhaustion, she wanted to talk to Max before she said anything. “Have you seen a tall man with black hair and a black eye?”

“No. I think I’d remember someone like that,” the nurse said, and her white rubber clogs squeaked on the linoleum as she left the room.