Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
“T HAT WAS A cheap shot.” Eve was both hot and cold. Her blood was simmering with a mix of anxiety and sexual frustration. Rain was beginning in earnest, soaking her clothes enough to chill her skin as the wind cut across the top of the island. Her ankle hurt. A lot.
She resented the hell out of this man whom she had tried to avoid by taking that stupid trail and wound up injured and stranded and alone. Now she was stuck with him and he thought he could throw old lies in her face?
“I will make my own way down thanks.” She would crawl if she had to.
He swore under his breath and ducked again, moving so fast he had her over his shoulder before she could finish her cry of protest.
She didn’t bother struggling, though. She passionately hated relying on him, but this was a more efficient way of traveling, especially down the knotty, zigzag path through the rainforest.
Plus, there was a part of her that thrived on the feel of his strong body shifting and flexing under hers. She reveled in the excuse to pin her arms around his chest, hugging herself into his strength while pressing her face into the smell of his skin beneath his shirt.
They didn’t speak until they were on the beach. Which was empty. Very, very empty.
She pulled open the Velcro pocket of her shorts and took out her phone. There was no signal here, either. The entire island was out of range.
With a huff of despair, she limped her way into the loo, thankful for that small mercy.
When she came out waving her hands, drying the disinfecting lotion, Dom was at the door of the shack, scowling at the locked knob.
“Got a hairpin? I can’t kick it in. It opens out.”
“What about the window?” The wooden awning was secured with two dead bolts on either side, neither of which was locked.
She slipped each free and Dom lifted the awning, propping it with the dangling sticks. The sliding order window was small, but it slid open when she reached up to touch it.
“Look at us with our teamwork,” she said with a sunny smile of triumph.
It faded as she glimpsed his humorless expression.
He linked his hands and bent to offer a stirrup. “Knee,” he said. “See if you can unlock the door from the inside.”
Oh, this was going to be even more graceful than being slung over his shoulder.
She took hold of the window ledge and set the knee of her injured foot into his hands.
In another show of his supreme strength, he boosted her high enough she dove headfirst through the opening where she knocked a few caddies of condiments and utensils to the floor.
She caught at the counter on the far side as she dragged her feet in, then under, herself. There wasn’t much room to step, though.
“Good news. We can get roaring drunk,” she told him through the window as she picked her way over crates of alcohol and around the racks of sarongs and towels to reach out and flick the lock.
He opened the door from the outside and peered in. “Radio?”
She looked around. “No.”
Another curse, one with more resignation than heat.
“He has to come back for it at some point,” she said.
Dom made a noise of agreement and took the well-used plastic milk crate from inside the door. He set it as a step, then reached for the nearest box of bottles. “I’ll throw some of this underneath so we can both fit in there.”
There was only a small strip of floor between the counters and the cupboards that lined the walls. The back of the shack held a sink, a stove and a deep fryer that was covered and thankfully empty, despite the lingering funk of grease. The front counter serviced the window. Beneath it was a small refrigerator stocked with bottled water and a few unopened jars of pickles, but little else. The cupboards over the window held canned and dry goods. The ones at the back were full of cooking implements.
Eve stowed what she could of the things she’d knocked over and stacked the sarongs and beach towels onto the shelf by the window, since they would only blow away or fill with sand if they were left outside.
When the last rack and box of alcohol was removed, she hitched to sit on the counter beside the sink, instantly feeling claustrophobic when Dom stepped inside.
He set a six-pack of premade Bloody Mary cocktails on the ledge by the window.
“It looked like the only thing with nutritional value.” His shirt and hair were soaked. His nipples were sharp points beneath his shirt.
Not that she noticed .
She handed him a towel. He ran it over his face and hair, then his bare arms.
He’d secured the door open, but it rattled in the growing wind as did the awning. She made herself look at those things, then above where the rain had become a steady drum on the roof.
“Power?” he asked, flicking a switch by the door.
Nothing happened.
“He must have taken the generator with him.” He released another tired curse and gave his damp face a final swipe before tossing the towel onto the pile of clean ones. “Why the hell didn’t you come straight back to the beach when you left Logan?”
“Really?” Just like that, her temper was back at explosive. “You want to make this my fault? I didn’t want to see you,” she spelled out belligerently. “Okay? You were standing at the lookout with your girlfriend and I was sick of men, given what Logan had done—”
“What did Logan do?” he asked in a tone that was so lethal, her scalp prickled.
“He said something to my brother that I didn’t like,” she grumbled. “Why didn’t you tell someone you thought I was missing and ask them to find me?”
He muttered something about this being an unproductive conversation and closed both window and door, leaving the awning open to provide light and a view of the heavy surf as it crashed onto shore.
“Is there anything to eat?” He started to open a cupboard.
“Potato chips and candy bars, crackers and caviar, pickles and olives, canned pineapple and beets. When that runs out, each other.”
She regretted her sarcasm as soon as she said it. She heard his thick voice asking, “Do you want my mouth here?” She remembered his tone perfectly because she’d been replaying it for four years. Her body flushed with heat and her cheeks stung.
He stared right at her, smug as he reached for a Bloody Mary, opened it with a pop, then drained half of it in a few healthy swallows, never taking his eyes off her.
God, she hated him.
But when he offered her a can of her own, she took it and opened it, taking a big gulp of the tangy, vodka-laced drink to wet her dry throat.
“You really didn’t know who I was in Budapest?” he asked in a voice thick with suspicion. He leaned his hips beside her against the back counter so he stared at the water, but she felt his attention on her as though she was under an interrogation light.
“No,” she choked. “I would never—Did you know who I was?”
“Hell, no.” His profile was carved from granite. “Did you tell anyone? Your brothers?”
“Gawd, no. I’m dreading having to explain this.” She started to sip, then had to ask, “Did you? Tell anyone?”
“No,” he scoffed, sounding as though he’d rather have a bullet dug from his chest with a rusty knife and no anesthetic.
His repulsion was as insulting now as it had been then, making her reach for hostility to hide the fact she was so deeply stung.
“And by the way, my father did not leave your uncle to die . Your father and his brother were horrible to Dad while they were all at Harvard. Dad didn’t have any love for either of them and didn’t even want to be at that party with your uncle. Which is why he was leaving when your uncle asked for a lift. Dad thought he was drunk so he said his car was full. Yes, it was spiteful, but he didn’t know your uncle was diabetic and needed his medication. It eats at him to this day that he brushed him off instead of taking him to where he might have got help. But there were dozens of other people there who also could have helped him. It wasn’t Dad’s fault.”
“Yet he had no qualms about keeping up the pressure on my father after that, pushing him into an early grave. Then he came after me while I was burying him.”
“Look.” She put up a hand. “I was sorry to hear about your father. That must have been a difficult time for you.”
“You think?” He snapped his head around to pin her with his hard stare, making her heart stutter and thrum in her chest. “Did you set them on me? Your brothers?”
“ No . I was trying to forget we’d ever met!”
“I’m sure,” he said facetiously. He took a pull off his can and returned his attention to the surf and the falling rain.
“I don’t have a say in the business one way or another,” she said with a surge of resentment. “My brother is being a sexist jerk about it, if you want the truth. But think about it. Your father accused mine of murder . Dad has had to deal with that for decades. So yes, it was tasteless of him to go after WBE when your father died, but he felt justified. He said your grandfather did the same to him when Nonno Aldo died.”
Dom drained his can and set the empty can in the sink, making her stiffen as the air stirred beside her hip before he resumed his stance against the counter, ankles crossed and arms folded, glaring at the foam washing up the beach.
“How has this feud persisted this long anyway?” she muttered. “My grandmother didn’t want to marry your grandfather. Maybe Michael Blackwood should have got over that instead of dedicating his life to making my family suffer?”
“He was insulted that she preferred a war criminal .”
“Oh, please. Nonno Aldo could be accused of being a profiteer. Maybe. But people do what they have to when times are tough. Your great-grandparents were bootleggers trying to survive the Depression, same as mine. Don’t throw stones at Nonno because he sold olive oil and cheese on the black market during the war.”
He snorted, unmoved.
“And so what if my grandmother preferred someone else? She fell in love . Your family didn’t have to steal—yes, I said ‘steal,’” she stressed as he shot her a warning side-eye. “They pulled some questionable stunts, cutting the Winslows out of all their shared assets. That was profiteering from a war they instigated. Maybe, once they stole everything, they could have let up? There was no reason our fathers should have been involved, let alone our generation.” She pointed between them.
For a few moments, there was only the buffeting wind and the rattle of the awning and the heavy patter of rain on the roof. The light was fading, making the shack seem colder than it really was.
“My father and his brother were twins,” Dom said flatly. “Dad never got over losing him. He needed someone to blame. To hate.” He picked up another can to shake it, but didn’t open it, only set it aside with a grimace of discontent.
Something in the dourness clouding his face made her wonder what sort of father that had made Thomas Blackwood.
“Let’s look at your ankle,” Dom said abruptly.
“Why?”
“I want to play doctor,” he claimed with a fake smile.
She knew he was taunting her, but she couldn’t help her reaction of both tension and, deep in her belly, anticipation.
The ice pack, which was the instant, disposable kind that she’d snapped to activate when she’d realized her ankle was sprained, had long lost its cooling properties. Now it was purely for decoration so she tried to bring her ankle into her lap.
Dom turned toward her and caught her leg behind the knee, burning her bare skin with his hot palm.
She reflexively tried to jerk away.
“Would you stop?” He scowled at her.
“I can do it myself.”
“I’ve removed one of these before,” he assured her and started rolling down the rim of the condom.
“Can you not ?” She brushed at his hand.
“What?” he asked with tested patience. “I’m trying to help.”
“You’re getting your kicks by taunting me. I don’t like it.”
“Just let me see what we’re dealing with.”
She tsked as she let him work the condom down and off. He let it fall with the ice pack then gently cradled her calf and heel while he carefully tested her range of movement. His thumb lightly explored the faint blue swelling.
“Hurt?”
Only in her chest where an ache of yearning pulsed.
“Not too much,” she said huskily, wishing she could cure herself of this intense reaction to his clinical touch.
“Keep it elevated.” He propped her foot on the edge of the front counter. “Is there a first aid kit? We should wrap it.”
“I didn’t see one. Stop!” she ordered as he started to remove his shirt. “Use a sarong.”
“These sleeves are stretchy. I was going to cut one off.” He shrugged and shook out a pink-and-blue sarong before tearing it in half lengthwise.
Eve silently promised to pay for whatever they used while they were here, then succumbed in silence while Dom took up her leg again. He began winding the strip of cotton from the base of her toes toward her ankle. Perhaps he had played doctor a time or two. He seemed to know what he was doing, keeping the fabric taut and neat despite the tricky bend around her heel.
He was being very matter-of-fact about it, too, which made the tendrils of arousal that wound through her all the more agonizing. When he tucked the tail in and set her foot back on the counter, she was both relieved and swimming in renewed awareness.
“I’m trying to defuse the sexual tension when I say those things.” His golden eyes seemed to visibly spark as he met her gaze. The air between them crackled. “It doesn’t work.”
He felt it, too? That actually made hers worse. She swallowed a protest that would have been a lie while a wicked swirling sensation in her stomach pooled and slid like quicksilver. She stared stubbornly past him, out the window.
He picked up another can, put it down.
“Are you trying to ration our food? How long do you think we’ll be here?” she asked with alarm.
“I’m trying not to get drunk enough to make a pass at you,” he said through his teeth.
She clenched her hands around the edge of the counter, aware of how her outstretched leg left her thighs open.
“You don’t even like me.”
“Yes, I know that, Evie. But this —” he waved at his crotch “—isn’t listening.”