The Trouble With Paradise Read online

  She wanted to hear it again. But most of all, she didn’t want him to shift away from her, to go back to camp, to stop talking to her, smiling at her in that way he had that made her feel so special.

  She was tempted to say it all out loud but didn’t want to scare him, this man who claimed not to be scared of anything. She knew, given the life he’d led and all the things he’d seen and done, he truly believed himself fearless.

  But she also knew, on some core level, in a way he wasn’t ready to admit, she did scare him.

  Big-time.

  He had a three-day growth of beard on his tanned, rugged face, and she was fairly certain he hadn’t bothered to do much more than finger comb his hair in days. He wore those black board shorts and that was it. He looked very . . . island. Exotic.

  Primal.

  Maybe he’d deny being scared, but her? Terrified, especially given that she was the one who was going to get hurt in this deal. Because this thing they had going on, as wonderful, as incredible, as amazing as it was, couldn’t last.

  She didn’t fit into his world, which wasn’t going to make it any easier when they were rescued. But when that day came, she’d lift her chin and smile, and watch him walk away. It would hurt, but hey, the pain would remind her that she was living life, right? “So how does a sailboat vanish anyway?” she asked, desperate to have a conversation rather than continue thinking too much.

  “It couldn’t have sunk in the shallow water.”

  “And it couldn’t have sailed away.”

  “No.”

  The silence filled up with their racing thoughts she’d hoped to avoid. “So. Guess we should ration the rest of the condoms. Or are we back to the no more sex thing, which if you’ve noticed, hasn’t worked so well this far.”

  She hadn’t meant to ask, but she’d never been all that good at controlling herself.

  He sighed.

  At the sound, she got to her feet. “I should get back.”

  He pushed to his feet. “Dorie—”

  “No, really. They’ll worry about me.”

  “I’ll walk you. I’ll feel better if you stay in sight.”

  “Of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really? Because you strike me as the kind of man who craves his freedom.”

  “I do value my freedom. Greatly, but—”

  “I know you don’t need anyone in your life. You don’t have to worry. I knew that when we—” She looked at the spot where they’d made love. “I know.”

  “My life isn’t suited for a relationship,” he said slowly. “I had another year on the Sun Song—”

  “But that’s over now.”

  “And because of it, I’m jobless. Homeless. I have no idea what will happen.”

  “I know that, too.” She forced a smile. “It’s okay, Christian. I’m okay.”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he didn’t say anything else.

  She was still smiling, mostly because her muscles were stuck. Tired of it, and tired of herself, she reached for her sandals.

  “Dorie?”

  She shoved one foot into the shoe.

  “Stick close. Oui?”

  Damn, she wanted to say no, but close worked for her. Far too much. “Oui.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Afternoon of Day Three—

  So how does a girl get

  voted off the island?

  Dorie watched Ethan stab at the fire with a large stick. His mouth was carved into a tight grimace. “A chef without food to cook,” he muttered.

  “Don’t forget a sailing crew without a sailboat.”

  “That, too.” The afternoon sun was beating down, and his face was streaked with perspiration. His hair stood straight up in spots, and not so straight up in others.

  Under normal circumstances, Dorie would think he was a man on the very edge of his sanity, but these weren’t normal circumstances, and she had the feeling that they all were looking a little crazy.

  But which of them looked crazy enough to kill? She eyed each and every one of them, slowly and carefully. Cadence was sitting on a rock, a stack of coconuts in front of her. In her usual frenetic, unable-to-relax fashion, she was cracking them open and cutting out the meat.

  Brandy sat on a rock as well, painting Andy’s toenails.

  “You have polish remover, right?” he asked warily.

  “Right. Want a flower on your big toes?”

  “How about a baseball?”

  Christian came into the clearing, shirtless, damp with perspiration, dragging a large log for the fire.

  Denny was still stalking back and forth along the beach, every few feet stopping to stare in disbelief at the spot where his boat had been.

  Dorie shook her head. She’d have figured they’d have discussed the boat vanishing in detail, and they damn well should have, but no one brought it up. “It didn’t just sail away.”

  Everyone looked at her.

  “Well, even I know that much,” she said.

  “The boat’s lost,” Ethan said. “Story over.”

  “Yeah, but how do you lose a sailboat?” Brandy countered.

  Ethan laughed harshly and went back to poking the fire. “It’s Bobby’s ghost, haunting us.”

  “Why?” Cadence asked softly. “Because someone did this to him?”

  Finally. Maybe they’d all been in shock from what they’d been through, and things were just now sinking in. But it was time to deal with it. Past time.

  “I think someone pushed him,” Cadence said. “One of us.” Her voice wobbled, and her eyes were wide. She was losing it.

  Dorie moved to her side and took her hand. “Honey—”

  “No, it’s true. I heard you and Brandy talking about it, about the blood in the boat, and now the boat’s gone so there’s no proof.” Cadence pointed at all of them. “I’ve been thinking about it, trying to be logical, and you know what logic says? That it could have been any one of us, because we each had motivation!”

  The silence became heavy, like a two-ton elephant standing on the beach between all of them, chewing on a secret.

  “Whoever’s responsible,” Cadence continued, “Bobby is going to haunt you until you admit it!”

  “Cadence,” Dorie said softly, nervous. She didn’t know how smart it was to stir that pot with no exit plan.

  Cadence turned on her. “It could have been any of us, Dorie. Isn’t that driving you crazy? Any of us!”

  “Stop.” This from Denny, who came toward her, crouching at her side to take her hand. “The situation sucks, but—”

  “Yes, it sucks! He worked for you, and you talked to him like he was nothing but a stupid kid—”

  “He was lazy as shit, yes. But not stupid.”

  “Then why, on our first day out, when he hoisted a sail wrong, did you say ‘I’m going kill you, Bobby’?” She gulped hard. “I heard you.”

  He looked around him, clearly blown away by the accusation. “That’s just a figure of speech.”

  “Bad choice of words?” she asked. “Is that it?”

  “Christ, yes. You don’t really think I could have—”

  “I don’t know what I think.”

  Denny took a step back, obviously hurt to the core.

  Cadence shook her head again. “It’s not just you. Ethan called him”—she closed her eyes—“a ‘fucking moron.’ A couple of times.”

  Ethan choked, but Cadence went on. “And then Bobby retaliated by using Ethan’s toothbrush to clean their toilet. When Ethan found out, he told Bobby he was going to kill him.”

  Ethan was looking like all his brains were leaking out his ears. “How do you even know this?”

  Cadence shrugged. “I have good hearing. And there’s more.” She looked at Andy. “Bobby owed you a lot of money, and he wasn’t going to pay you. You were really mad.”

  “Well, yes,” Andy said. “But I never—”

  “That first night on the boat, after all those drinks we all shared. You said you