He blinked, the rejection clearly new and foreign territory for him.

“I’m so sorry-”

“No. No problem. It’s okay, I understand.” And with a baffled smile, he moved off.

“Don’t feel too bad, honey,” Brandy said, moving in close. “In his world, women throw panties and phone numbers at him, nightly. They wait outside his locker room to have him autograph their boobs and to tuck their hotel keys into his pants. They blow him in those hotels, they don’t blow him off. So really, you’ve done him a favor by giving him this experience.”

It didn’t feel like a favor. “It’s all my tongue’s fault.” “Hey, a tongue knows what it knows.”

Was that even possible? Because Christian wasn’t what she wanted… or at least not what she wanted to want.

First night on deserted island-

Where’s Jeff Probst when you need him?

As the day turned into the dreaded night and they weren’t rescued, Denny announced that they’d scout out the other side of the island first thing in the morning, by whatever means they could.

In the meantime, faced with impending dark and the resulting helplessness, they got a rip-roaring fire going, then sat around it, eating a feast of leftovers from the boat, prepared by Ethan.

He hoisted a bottle of vodka and took the first swig. “To Bobby,” he toasted somberly, and passed the bottle around.

They each toasted to their fallen ship hand, while Dorie looked around at all their faces, trying to see who felt the most panic at being trapped here overnight.

But if someone was jumpy-not to mention guilty as hell-they kept it close to their vest.

She eyed the thick, lush rain forest that seemed to rise straight upward in the falling night, covering the volcanic peaks, stretching so high into the dusk sky that she had to tip her head way back to see it all. From inside that dark jungle came a steady stream of sounds that upped her nerve factor, though Andy assured her most of the strange, eerie calls came from birds.

Most.

But not all.

The thought would have brought more terror to her gut if there’d been any more room for it, but on the fright scale, she was just about maxed out, something not helped by the low fog that rolled in, upping the creep factor. The wet grayness moved with shocking speed, slipping over the craggy cliffs, like that from a smoke machine on a horror movie set.

“Oh, God, another storm.” Cadence held her hands out as the first drops of rain fell.

“It’ll only last a few minutes,” Christian assured her. “The clouds snag on the mountains. The trees on the top trap the moisture until it’s too heavy, and it all drops.”

“A self-watering forest,” Cadence murmured, still looking unnerved.

“It’ll be over as soon as the cloud passes overhead.”

Sure enough, less than three minutes later, when the cloud had passed, so had the rainfall, leaving the sky clear again. It might have all been just a part of the adventure and romance of the cruise, if the Sun Song hadn’t been on its side in the shallow water, permanently grounded. Oh, and if Bobby hadn’t been missing.

After eating, Christian and Denny used material from the Sun Song’s wrecked sails to add strength to the frond overhang they’d erected, and as darkness fell, Dorie was grateful for the protection, meager as it might be. Cadence worked on the inside of the shelter like a woman possessed, smoothing out the sand floor until Denny made her sit down and relax because she was making him dizzy.

“I need to keep busy,” Cadence whispered, and shivered even though it wasn’t cold.

Worried about her, Dorie pulled her back to the bonfire, where she sat next to her new friend and stared at the flames. Gazing at the red glow, Dorie tried to put things in perspective. So they were shipwrecked, so what. This was the new millennium. There were no uncharted waters. They’d be found in no time. Besides, big picture? She was a Shop-Mart salesclerk who’d managed to get herself halfway around the world and was getting an up-front and personal experience on a South Pacific island.

And, bonus, she was living her life.

“Truth or dare,” Brandy said, plunking down next to them. “I pick dare. Someone dare me to go skinny-dipping in the waves. I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“How about a PG version?” Dorie asked, not wanting to get naked.

Brandy sighed. “Fine. Truth.”

Cadence looked at her. “Truth? Why aren’t you freaked out about being here?”

“Hell. Skinny-dipping would have been much more fun.” Brandy tipped her head up to the sky, which was becoming littered with stars as night took over. “Maybe I’m enjoying the break from my life.”

“You think of this as a break?”

Brandy laughed, but it was mirthless. “Believe me, Cadence, when I tell you there are far worse things than being stuck on a gorgeous deserted island for a few days.” Brandy nudged Dorie. “Truth or dare?”

She wasn’t ready for truth. “Dare.”

“Go kiss one of our resident studs.”

“Did I say dare? I meant truth.”

Brandy smiled. “Okay, then. If we were playing the X-rated version of truth or dare, which stud would you have kissed?”

Oh, God. There was only one. Giving herself away, she glanced at Christian and found his gaze on her, intense and hot enough to singe her skin. Matching heat flooded her from the inside out. “Uhm…”

A scraping sound in the sand had her glancing down, where she discovered that not three inches from her sandals crawled-

“Alligator,” she cried out.

The crew came running at her shriek of terror, Christian at the head of the pack.

Dorie didn’t move, just stared down at the foot-long, dinosaur-looking creature strutting past all of them as if it was king, holding a still squirming frog in his mouth.

“Iguana,” Christian said.

The thing had wide beady eyes with a vertical pupil that gave it an alienlike expression, not to mention the prickly spiked ridges over each eye that almost made it look like it was wearing glasses. Its teeth were disarmingly plentiful, gripping its prize.

“He’s got his dinner,” Ethan noted.

Dorie did her best not to lose hers. “That poor frog is still alive!”

“Not for long.” Ethan offered the bottle of vodka. “Here, this might help.” He also had the last bag of chips. “Anyone?”

Brandy took the alcohol.

Cadence wanted to share.

Dorie went for the chips, and wished they were chocolate.

Denny went back to brooding on the Sun Song, and Christian and Andy tended to the fire.

Ethan stayed with the women. “Pass the vodka.”

Dorie offered to pass the chips around as well, but Brandy shook her head. “I might as well lose a few pounds while I’m here, because if we don’t get rescued in a timely fashion, I’m going to get fired. Being fit will help me get a job somewhere else.”

“If I don’t get back soon,” Cadence said, “I won’t finish a painting I’m doing on spec for a customer, and I’ll lose my rent money for the month.”

“If I don’t get back…” Dorie paused. If she didn’t get back, what would happen?

Nothing.

Nothing would happen, and nothing would change.

Not such a great thought. “I think I have changes to make,” she said softly. “Serious changes.” She realized they were all looking at her. “It’s that whole waiting for life to happen thing. I need to stop doing that, and make it happen.”

“Well, you could always go kiss a stud…” Brandy took a big swig of vodka. “In the name of the game.”

Dorie’s gaze locked on Andy and Christian. Andy stood on the far side of the fire, staring in the flames. Christian moved from the pit, walking toward the water’s edge.

“Actually,” she murmured. “You might be on to something.”

“She is?” Cadence asked, shocked.

Brandy smiled. “You go, girl.”

“Wait.” Ethan snagged the bottle from Brandy and offered it to Dorie. “You might need a shot of this first.”

Dorie took a swallow, choked, then handed it off. She stood, grabbed her purse, and started walking.

“Which one is she going after?” Ethan whispered.

“Not sure,” Cadence whispered back. “But she has her purse and the box of condoms.”

“A box?” Brandy asked.

Dorie kept walking, past the fire.

She heard Cadence’s surprised intake of breath, or maybe that was her own. But she was no longer unsure of her next move. There was really only one thing to be done, probably there’d always only been one thing. Actually, one man.

And she headed directly toward him.

SIXTEEN

As Dorie approached Christian, he looked up, his face streaked with sand, sweat, and a barely banked misery that pretty much ripped her heart right out of her chest. “What is it?” she asked.

He lifted a hat, which he’d clearly just pulled from the water, an Astros baseball cap.

“Bobby’s,” she gasped.

He hung the hat off the closest palm tree and shoved his fingers through his hair.

“Christian?”

Swiping an arm over his forehead, he waited for her to talk.

She swallowed hard. For whatever reason, she’d had some misguided idea that she could approach this tall, dark, and attitude-ridden man, and seize the day. Her day. Now she simply wanted to give him some comfort, but was suddenly at a loss. She glanced back at Cadence and Brandy, who waved her on. Right.

She could do this.

“Can we walk?” It was a procrastination strategy, but he shrugged and grabbed his flashlight. They headed up the beach, Christian not saying a word, Dorie’s heart hammering so loudly in her ears that she couldn’t have spoken to save her life. The long, dark beach curved around, and within a few minutes they could no longer see the glow from the campfire, could see nothing but the dark outline of the island jutting up to the heavens on their right and the glimmer of the faint starlight on the waves on their left.