He scanned the beach, then caught sight of her sitting on the sand a hundred yards away. Cursing softly, Trey kicked off his shoes and jogged toward her. She didn’t see him approach and when he called her name, Sophie jumped as if startled. Shading her eyes from the sun, she stared up at him.

“Jesus, Sophie, didn’t you hear me calling you?” He squatted down in front of her and peered into her face. “When I got back to camp and couldn’t find you, I was worried.”

“Where am I going to go?” Sophie asked.

“I don’t know. I thought you might have taken a swim in the lagoon and drowned. Or been bitten by some poisonous spider and were now lying under a tree, dying. Don’t scare me like that.”

“There are no poisonous spiders on this island,” she said. “Or in all of French Polynesia. I told you, the only thing that might kill me would be a centipede bite. Or a shark attack.”

“Well, there you go. I did have good reason to be worried.”

“There’s more chance I’d be killed by a falling coconut than a shark,” she said with a shrug.

He plopped down in front of her. “Really?”

Sophie nodded. “There are a lot of people killed by coconuts,” she said.

Trey reached out and grabbed her hands. “What are you doing out here?”

“Just sitting. I was curious what the beach was like on this side of the motu. This is nicer than the lagoon side, don’t you think? I mean for your resort.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Was that really what she was thinking about? He tried to calm his anger at her, knowing that he ought to be happy she was fine. But as he stared at her beautiful face, Trey realized he wasn’t really angry at her at all. She was a grown woman and could take responsibility for her own safety. He was angry at himself, for caring so much, for being frightened at the possibility of losing her.

“We’re going to get some bad weather,” she murmured. “There’s a squall coming in.”

Trey glanced back over his shoulder to see a wall of slate-gray clouds building on the southern horizon. “How long?”

“A few hours at least. We may have to secure the plane.”

“Why?”

“If the wind is high it will pick it up and flip it over. I saw some old pilings on the west side of the lagoon. We can pull it over to that spot and tie it down properly.”

“How high would the wind need to get to flip it over?”

“High. At Faaa, we just put it in the hangar.” She looked at him, a frown wrinkling her brow. “If the plane gets wrecked on this island, Madigan Air is out of business.”

Trey reached out and took her hand. “If it gets wrecked on this island, I’ll buy you a new plane,” he promised. He straightened, then pulled Sophie to her feet. She bent down and picked up her sandals and then wandered over to the water’s edge. Trey watched her, wondering at her subdued mood. Was she having regrets about what had happened between them? Just an hour ago, he’d never felt closer to a woman, but now, she seemed a million miles away.

“Come on, let’s go,” he said, holding out his hand.

She turned to face him, and took a step. An instant later, he saw a look of pain cross her face. “Oww!” she cried, as she hopped on one foot.

“What is it?”

Sophie looked down at the sand, then groaned. “Jellyfish.”

“They can be poisonous, can’t they?” he asked, a current of fear shooting through him.

“Just box jellyfish,” she replied, wincing as she hopped on one foot.

Trey stepped to her side and she wrapped her arm around his for balance. “How do we know what kind that is?” He pointed to the nearly transparent corpse lying in the sand.

“Help me rinse off my foot,” she said.

He scooped her up and carried her into deeper water, wading in up to his thighs so she could dip her foot in. “How do you know if it was a box jellyfish?”

She sighed impatiently. “Well, if I die, then we’ll know,” Sophie said in a wry tone.

“Don’t kid about that,” Trey warned.

She winced. “I think I can stand. You can put me down.”

“I’m going to carry you back to camp.” He set her on her feet and then turned his back to her. “Hop up.”

“You don’t have to do this,” she said.

“Don’t argue, Sophie. Just do as I say.”

He waited. He didn’t want to care so much, but Trey couldn’t help himself. What if something went wrong? What if the jellyfish was poisonous and there was nothing he could do to help her? They were stuck in the middle of nowhere, helpless and completely vulnerable. What had seemed like a fun time could turn deadly serious in a heartbeat.

She barely weighed more than the backpack he’d carried during his Outward Bound trip. Driven by adrenaline, they made it back to the cottage in less than fifteen minutes. He set Sophie down on the front steps, then bent to examine her foot. An angry red welt ran the length of it, from her ankle to her little toe.

“What should we do?” he asked.

“There’s not much you can do,” Sophie replied. “There’s a gel that I have at home that stops the sting…but that’s at home.” She leaned back, bracing her hands behind her. “You could always pee on it,” she suggested. “That’s supposed to work when you don’t have anything to relieve the sting.”

“You want me to pee on your foot?” Trey shook his head. “No, I’m not going to do that. I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“There’s a limit to how kinky I go and that’s beyond my limit. There has to be something else.”

“This isn’t sexual,” Sophie said. “It’s medical. I need something acidic and that’s all we have.”

“No, it isn’t,” Trey said. He took the steps two at a time and returned a few moments later with a bottle of red wine. “We have this.”

Trey made quick work of the cork, then dumped the wine over her foot, the liquid running down the steps and into the sandy ground. He took a quick swig for himself, then handed her the bottle and she did the same. “Is it feeling better?”

Sophie wrinkled her nose. “I think so.”

“How about you? Do you feel all right?”

She nodded. “I don’t think it was poisonous. Really, you don’t have to worry.”

He sat down on the steps and stared at her foot, trying to control his frustration. Why was she taking this so lightly? Didn’t she realize how serious it could have been? It would kill him if anything had happened to her and he wasn’t able to help. Trey took another gulp of the wine, hoping that it would calm his nerves. “From now on, we stick together. You don’t go anywhere without me. Understand?”

“I’m not a child. You don’t have to talk to me like I am.” Her chin was set at a stubborn angle and she looked at him through narrowed eyes. The sweet, funny Sophie he’d known was suddenly replaced by a obstinate, dismissive, fiercely independent woman.

He wanted to lash out at her, to scold her for her part in this all. She’d made him care about her, made him want to protect her. And now he’d been forced to face the fact that he did care-more than he wanted to.

He leaned closer and pressed a kiss to the soft skin above her knee. “You have to be more careful,” he murmured, hoping to defuse the situation.

Sophie ran her fingers through his hair, brushing it away from his eyes, her lips pressed into a pout. “Don’t order me around. You have no right.”

“I’m sorry. So, what can I do to make you feel better?”

“Can I have more wine?” she asked.

He held the bottle out over her foot, but she grabbed it before he could pour and took a long swig. Sophie pointed to her sole. “Can you see any stingers? If you take the blade of the knife, you should be able to scrape them off.”

Trey held her foot up to the light and shook his head. “I don’t think so. But you probably shouldn’t walk on it for a while. I’m going to get a fire going and then we’ll figure out what to do about the plane.”

THE RAIN BEGAN SHORTLY AFTER they returned from the beach. Within seconds, a few droplets had turned into a deluge, with water running off the tin roof in sheets. Trey had jogged to the other side of the lagoon and pulled the plane over to the submerged pilings. Relieved, Sophie had thought her worries were over.

But when Trey returned to the cottage, he’d informed her that the wood pilings were so rotted, it was impossible to tie it down securely. In the end, he had done what he could, but wasn’t confident that the plane would stay where it was.

Sophie rested her back against the weather wall of the cottage, freshly picked flowers from the vines scattered around her as she wove them into a wreath. They’d finished the first bottle of wine and Trey had opened a second. He occupied himself with tearing the canvas tarp into strips, intent on fashioning a hammock by weaving and knotting the canvas together.

She watched him surreptitiously, wondering at the argument they’d had earlier. She thought she knew him, enough to assume that he didn’t have a quick temper. But his anger over her trip to the beach and the jellyfish seemed completely out of character. After all, what right did he have to chastise her like that? She wasn’t a child. And it wasn’t her fault the jellyfish had picked that place to die.

Perhaps this was a character flaw coming to the surface, she mused. Though Trey might appear to be easygoing, he showed a possessive streak that she didn’t care for at all. Had she even been considering him as boyfriend material, that characteristic alone would have disqualified him in an instant.

Sophie grabbed the wine bottle and took another sip. Either she was getting drunk or her foot was feeling much better. Or maybe it was both. A tiny hiccup slipped out and she covered her mouth with her fingertips.

She glanced over at Trey. His back was braced against the porch railing, his long legs crossed in front of him. The pareu barely hid his assets and Sophie allowed her gaze to drift.