Christian stepped closer to the water, so that it lapped at his feet as he watched the boat come into the cove. “Denny.”
“On it.” Denny turned to Andy. “Stay where you are, back from the water. If I tell you, take the women into the rain forest, behind the waterfall-”
“What?”
“Just listen to me. If we tell you to run, do it.”
Dorie’s heart began pounding hard and heavy and fast. Why would they have to run from anyone with a boat? “Could they be… bad guys?”
The answer was all over the crew’s faces. Oh, God. They were worried about modern-day raiders who crept up on unsuspecting boats-or in this case, shipwrecked passengers-and took whatever they wanted.
Pirates.
Did they still rape and pillage? Dorie held hands with Brandy and Cadence and watched as the boat moved in closer, then closer still, but wasn’t able to make out how many people were on board.
Or if they were smiling.
Not that that mattered. Pirates smiled. Or they did in the movies. “Friend or foe?” she whispered.
Cadence had finally gone still, the happiness faded from her face. “This never occurred to me.”
“It occurred to me.” Brandy patted the back pocket of her Daisy Dukes. “But don’t worry. I’m armed.”
Dorie wouldn’t worry.
Much.
Christian stood shoulder to shoulder with Denny as the boat came in closer toward them. That was the good news.
He just hoped there wasn’t any bad news.
“A fifty-eight-foot Hatteras,” Denny noted, eyeing the boat. “Nice.”
About half a million dollars worth of nice. On it stood two men, watching them as carefully as they were being watched.
“Two of ’em,” Ethan said quietly, coming up on Denny’s left.
“I see.”
“Might be more below.”
Christian tried to get a read on the men, but the sun was in the wrong position, casting their faces in shadows. He’d been out on these waters a damned long time, a lifetime it seemed, and for much of that, it’d been the friendliest place on earth.
But they’d run into trouble before. They’d been held up three times actually, always out in the middle of nowhere, once while on an island such as this one. He glanced at Denny, who nodded.
Christian drew a deep breath, and then, as he had on that other island, reached into his pocket for the knife he’d tucked there, knowing damned well the women behind him could see exactly what he was doing.
It wouldn’t be a stretch for their overworked nerves and adrenaline to focus on his weapon. Except for one interesting fact-plenty of them seemed to be armed in some manner or another as well. Funny, that. On the surface they were a group of people brought together to a closeness only achieved by sharing near death.
But he knew the truth, that beneath that surface closeness, they were all perfect strangers. Well, not all perfect strangers, because he’d let Dorie in a lot more than he’d ever intended. He couldn’t claim not to know her, or that she didn’t know him. Risking a glance at her, he found her eyes wide on his.
She’d seen the knife. “It’s going to be okay,” he told her, told all of them.
Denny glanced at him in surprise. Yeah, yeah, so he wasn’t exactly known for his gentle bedside manner. That was usually Denny’s area of expertise, babysitting the passengers. Just another example of how far Dorie had wormed her way into his heart. So much so that he’d been awake all last night trying to figure out how to make a go of this thing with her. A real relationship. A long-lasting one. He’d come up with nothing. But he didn’t want to think about that now, not with his heart pumping and adrenaline flowing as the boat came closer.
Normally, he had only himself to think about, worry about. That had changed, and wasn’t that just the crux of his problem. For the first time in far too long, he had something to lose.
Someone, to be exact.
TWENTY-THREE
Dorie’s gaze stuck on Christian’s back, and the knife he held there, so that she nearly missed the huge, beautiful sailing yacht come closer. One of the men on board waved to them as conflicting emotions battered her.
Why did Christian have a knife?
“Ahoy!” one of the men on the boat called out.
Denny lifted a hand in greeting.
“Can I be of any service to you?” the man asked through cupped hands.
He had a British accent, Dorie noted. He wore baggy white linen pants and a matching white shirt with some sort of saint’s medallion at the base of his throat, held there by a thin piece of leather. He had a thin tattoo around each wrist, a diamond in one ear, and a smile on his face. He was dark from the sun, with melting dark eyes and darker hair, sun kissed on the ends, which curled to his collar. He could be a drug runner-a successful one. Or just a successful man.
He took them all in, including the fact that there was no boat anywhere near them, and raised his hands as if to say what happened?
“We limped in after the storm,” Denny called out. “And lost our boat.”
“Ah.” The man handed his helm over to the man standing at his right, and hopped down into the water without regard to his clearly expensive pants. Water splashed up to his knees as he stepped onto the shore, holding out his hand to Denny. “Michael Phillips.”
“Denny McDonald,” Denny said, and the two shook hands.
“So you’re in a bit of a bind,” Michael said in that expensive British voice.
“You could say so.”
Ethan and Christian were behind him, tense and very watchful.
“Men,” Brandy whispered in Dorie’s ear. “They’re playing the who has the biggest dick game.” The Vegas dancer stepped closer. “How did you happen on us?” she asked.
Michael turned his head and looked at her. “I didn’t just happen on you.”
Denny and Ethan went very, very still.
Christian didn’t move either, and Dorie could almost see him mentally wielding the knife she knew he held.
“I own this island.” Michael studied each of them in turn. “We saw smoke from your fire yesterday and figured a boat had stopped for some beach fun. When we saw the smoke again today, I decided to come check it out.”
“You own the island,” Brandy said in a holy shit voice.
He smiled. “Along with a very exclusive getaway on the north side. You didn’t see that, apparently.”
“No,” Denny muttered. “We didn’t.”
“We tried,” Ethan said, “but we couldn’t get over there.”
“Which is what makes it exclusive. We don’t usually have more than a single guest at a time, for privacy’s sake.”
Uh-oh.Dorie knew what that meant. Either he was catering to the rich and famous, or he was a drug runner. God, she hoped it was the rich and famous.
“So you’re stranded,” Michael said calmly. “Stuck here.”
“The guy’s a genius,” Denny muttered, and Dorie wondered if he was put out because he was no longer the only captain on the island, or if it was because he was the only captain on the island without a boat.
Michael didn’t seem concerned with either possibility, or with the fact that the men still hadn’t relaxed. He walked up the beach like he did indeed own the place, and smiled at the women. “Are there any injuries?”
Their matching smiles faded in unison as they remembered.
Bobby.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice low with obvious concern as he took in each and every one of them. “Who’s hurt?”
“Not hurt,” Denny said. “Missing. We lost one of our crew.”
“In the storm?”
They all looked at each other, and Dorie was right there with them. What to say now? Yes, in the storm, but one of us might have assisted that loss? The ramifications of saying anything close to that hit her like a one-two punch. The authorities would be called, and each of them who’d been on the Sun Song, including herself, would be held for questioning.