The Bride's Rescuer

When he turned to her, he did not meet her gaze, but cast his glance at a point behind her. “You must impress this fact into that very pretty head of yours, Miss Stevens. You will leave this island when I say, and not before.”

He snatched the remaining matches from her clenched fist. She grabbed instinctively to retrieve them, but his dark expression stopped her. He turned and tramped back toward the house, leaving her shivering with disappointment and the first rumblings of fear as she stood on the beach with her nightgown billowing in the wind.

She was no longer a guest on Solitaire, but a prisoner.

Chapter Three

Celia stood like a sentinel, staring toward the northwest until the last sight of the cruise liner disappeared over the horizon. Her hope vanished with it, and she headed back toward the house. Deep sand pulled at her feet, as if the earth itself tried to chain her to the island.

When she reached the path through the dunes, she met Noah loping toward the shore with a shovel across his shoulder.

“Morning, miss.” He smiled, but his deep, dark eyes held their usual sadness, and she wondered if he was as much a prisoner in this place as she was.

“You’re out early,” she said. “Digging for coquina?”

“No, ma’am, though some good coquina stew would taste mighty fine. Mr. Alex wants me to bury that pile of trash on the north beach. Don’t want it calling attention to the place, he says.”

“Right.” Her smile froze as Noah passed her on the path.

When she reached the house, Cameron lounged on his elbows on the wide stairs that led to the veranda. He had pulled on a shirt, but his chest and feet remained bare, and his hair had begun to dry into a wild, disarrayed mass. On another man, the effect would have been scruffiness. On Cameron, Celia thought with a sigh, his disheveled appearance made him all the more attractive, like a sexy male model in a Calvin Klein ad.

He sprang to his feet at her approach, but she’d had her fill of rudeness for one morning. She attempted to climb the stairs past him.

“Miss Stevens, please.” The desperation in his eyes stopped her.

“What is it now? Want to search me for more matches?” Ignoring how attractive he looked, she centered all her fury and frustration in her voice.

Standing above him on the steps with her eyes level with his, she could read the silent appeal in them, as well as the pleading gesture of his hands spread wide.

“Forgive me, please. I meant you no harm, but I had to extinguish the fire as quickly as possible.”

Her anger dissolved into smothering depression, and her voice lost its snap and turned thick and heavy. “What harm would it have done for that ship to see the flames and come take me away from here?”

She sank onto the stairs with her elbows on her knees and her chin tucked in her hands. The dragging weight of her body mirrored the heaviness of her spirit. She dredged up the energy to speak again. “I have a home, friends, a business I want to return to.”

She had made the plea so many times, it sounded like a litany. She tried to will her tears away, but they slid down her cheeks, and she tasted their saltiness.

Cameron settled onto the step beside her, placed his arm around her shoulders, and drew her toward him. The gentle man beside her had no correlation to the angry being who had pushed her away from the fire only moments before. Was the illness Mrs. Givens had referred to a split personality?

“Please don’t cry.” His voice caressed her with its warmth.

“I’m not crying.” She swiped her tears with the back of her hand and pulled away from him.

“Tell me,” he said, “are you anxious to return because of the man you were to marry?”

His question stunned her. The last person she wanted to see was Darren Walker, but if Cameron could keep his secrets, so could she. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

An engaging smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “My situation here is strange, I admit. However, no stranger than yours. How many women go sailing alone dressed in a wedding gown?”

Embarrassed, she gazed silently past him toward the gulf.

“Did you sail before or after the wedding?”

“Why should you care?” she asked hotly.

He shrugged with infuriating nonchalance.

“If I answer,” she said, “will you let me leave?”

His smile vanished. “You may leave when Captain Biggins comes to take you home.”

“But Captain Biggins won’t be here for weeks! And why is it okay for him to take me off the island, but no one else? What are you trying to hide?”

Cameron stared at her as if he hadn’t heard. He spoke in a strangely detached voice, as if talking to himself. “Your eyes are the color of the gulf on a sunny day, and when you’re angry, they flash like sunlight on the water.”

Her anger turned to alarm. The man was crazy. “You’re avoiding my question. Why is it that Biggins—”

“You asked what I’m trying to hide. The answer is obvious.”

“Not to me—”

“I am hiding myself.”

“Why?”

His face shifted into hard lines. “That’s none of your affair. More to the point, I’ve spent years guarding the location of my hideaway. Biggins is the only person on earth who knows where I am.”

“You must trust him a great deal.”

“As long as he keeps my secret, Biggins is a very wealthy man. If he divulges my presence here, his money stops. It is as simple as that.”

She started to ask again why he was hiding but bit back the words. Knowing too much might be dangerous. He’d just indirectly informed her that when she left Solitaire, the number of people who knew his whereabouts would double. If he allowed her to leave. Her doubts on that score were multiplying by the minute.

She had no intention of waiting for Captain Biggins. She had promised earlier she would reach the mainland if she had to swim, and she meant it. She refused to spend another night on Solitaire.

Everything about her mysterious host was odd, and at the same time, somehow compelling, drawing her to him. She’d just escaped one disastrous relationship and didn’t need—or want—another. The more distance she could place between her and Solitaire’s enigmatic owner, the better off she’d be.

She jumped to her feet and started up the stairs, but Cameron grasped her hand, holding her fast. His expression softened again, and his lip curved in a rueful smile. “Don’t go.”

“I must dress.”

“But you haven’t forgiven me for treating you so roughly on the beach. I am sorry.”

Did Cameron think he could behave like a jerk, then make everything all right by apologizing? “I’ll forgive you, but only when you free me from this island prison you’ve built for yourself.”