24. Tyler
I woke with a jolt, and it took a couple of beats to work out where I was. My neck creaked as I adjusted my shoulder away from a lump protruding from the ground I’d slept on. Indiana was still curled against me, her rhythmic breathing and relaxed expression made her look peaceful. It was a side to Indiana that I hadn’t witnessed before. I liked it.
Beyond the cave, the first light of dawn crept across the sky with hints of gold and orange that brushed the blackness of night away. My arm was beneath Indiana’s neck, and I wriggled my fingers, trying to work out the numbness.
She stirred, and her body tensed before she sat up abruptly.
“It’s okay.” I rested my hand on her bare back.
She squinted at me, and the scar on her forehead seemed much more red in this golden dawn hue. She smacked her lips together. “Don’t tell me it’s morning already?”
“Okay. I won’t tell you.”
Groaning, she pushed off me to stand, and as she strolled out of the cave, she plucked her bikini bottoms from between the cheeks of her gloriously toned butt.
It was a spectacular way to start the day.
Every muscle ached as I stood, and my back was so stiff from a night on the unforgiving ground I had to force my spine straight. I stepped into the open air. “I miss my pillow.”
She turned to me with a cheeky smile.
“What?”
“Officer Fancy Pants, you and your luxuries.”
“A good pillow isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity.”
Frowning, she turned her gaze to our view.
Below our cliff edge, the steep rock cut away like the land had abruptly shifted sometime during millennia, dropping the section that had been up here to seventy feet below. Dense vegetation covered that section, and amongst that field of green somewhere, were the bodies of the two men who had attacked us. The fall probably broke every bone in their bodies, but if by some miracle they survived that, I doubted they would have lasted the night.
I still couldn’t believe Clark had jumped, but it showed how terrified he was of the asshole he worked for. I’d thought Chui was an evil bastard, but we have been looking for a man who was much, much worse. I’d looked evil in the face before and that had scared me right into my core. I’d survived that then. I would survive this now.
Wewould survive this.
The first rays of sunshine pierced the horizon, casting away the shadows below, and I studied the tiny, uninhabited island. There wasn’t a single sign of life. No buildings, or boats. I couldn’t even see a plane. I groaned.
“Don’t see the swanky resort you were hoping for?” Indiana cocked her eyebrow at me.
“Yeah, something like that. I was hoping there would at least be a boat we could signal.”
She shook her head. “We’re on the wrong side of the shipping lanes. Most boats have no reason to come out this far. So, if you’re hoping for a rescue, then you better pray harder.”
“I don’t believe in praying,” I murmured.
“Huh. Me neither. Gave up on that crap when Mom was murdered.”
My jaw dropped. “Oh fuck, Indy. I didn’t know she was murdered. I’m so sorry.”
Her fingers brushed over the scar on her forehead, and I knew the scar was somehow connected to what happened to her mother.
She saw me watching and dropped her hand. “So, detective, what do we do now?”
“Ha. That’s the first time you’ve called me detective.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m kinda hoping you have some skills that will get us out of this mess.”
I returned to the limited collection of items I’d removed from Clark’s tactical vest and squatted. Indiana fetched the two water bottles then stood at my side, giving me a marvelous view of her long legs and the nasty scars on her thigh.
Were those inflicted at the same time as the one on her forehead?
She handed the bottle to me, and after I took a large sip, I pointed at the gear. “There’s no phone.”
“So?” she frowned.
“They must have had some way to communicate with the chopper.” I turned toward the cliff edge. “Maybe the other guy had a phone.”
“Ah, man. You’re going to make me climb down that cliff, aren’t you?” Despite her words, her expression was upbeat.
“Look at it this way.” I dusted my hands on my legs. “We get to spend more quality time together.”
“Is that what you call it?” Her light brown eyes shimmered in the golden dawn. “More like torture.”
After everything we’d been through, she still looked stunning.
I dragged my gaze from her to look over the edge, searching the jagged descent for a climbing route. The drop was steep, and the terrain was unforgiving. We would be lucky to make it down there by nightfall.
“We better get moving.”
She huffed. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”
“You weren’t complaining last night.” I wriggled my eyebrows.
Her lips fought a smile. “I thought it was a dream.”
I clutched her hand and pulled her against me. “It wasn’t a dream.”
Her incredible eyes widened, and the sassy Indiana Smith seemed lost for words. Her lips parted, and I stole her next comment with a kiss.
As our lips pressed together, she released tiny mewling noises as her hand curled over my back. This was another side to Indiana, and I fucking loved this one, too.
All too soon, the ticking clock in my head made me end our kiss. “Now stop mucking around.”
She blinked at me. “If that’s what you call mucking around, I’m not going anywhere.”
I burst out laughing. “Careful, Indy, I could really get to like you.”
A ghost of a smile played on her lips. “Too late for me, detective.”
My breath hitched, and the urge to bend her over that rock again gripped me. Last night had been so unexpected and incredible. And hot! An image of her glorious ass pressing toward me in the moonlight flashed across my mind. My groin pulsed.
Damn!If I’m not careful, I won’t be able to stop myself from taking her again.
She brushed her hand over her chest, drawing my attention to her stunning cleavage.
Clenching my fists before I stripped her naked and crushed her glorious tits to my bare chest again, I said, “Then let’s get us off this damn island before we do something crazy.”
“I like crazy.” She spoke like she was choosing an ice cream flavor. Indiana had no idea how fucking sexy she was, and that made her even hotter.
Draping my arm around her neck, I kissed her forehead and then led her back to the items on the ground.
I put the knife, cable ties, and hard drive into my pockets, and Indiana put the gaffer tape over her wrist like a bangle and shoved the flashlight into the bikini string on her hip, Lara Croft style. My cock throbbed. My brain swirled.
Focus, Kingsley. Your dick can wait.
We needed to get off this island before we died of dehydration or the asshole in the chopper came back.
We grabbed our half-empty water bottles and climbed up out of the alcove.
“Stay here,” I said, then I ran into the bushes to get my scuba booties that I’d removed yesterday.
After I returned to her, I tugged on my booties and then searched along the edge for an obvious climbing route. There wasn’t one, but we had no choice. We had to find those bodies. I had to believe that Briggs had a phone, and I fucking prayed that the phone still worked.
I led the way. The soft crunch of dead leaves beneath our booties was the only noise. It was a vast relief from the constant beeping yesterday.
We strode along the top edge to a gap between two massive gum trees. Using the trees for support, I stepped off the edge and started our descent. We inched our way down the rocky cliff, grabbing handholds of gnarled branches and exposed roots. Loose gravel beneath our feet threatened to crumble beneath us with each step. The slope was fucking steep. One wrong move, and we were as dead as the bodies we were trying to find.
After what seemed like forever, I wondered if we should have gone a different way, but we were too far down to go back up.
My decision to do this was reckless. This climb was madness, but I couldn’t see any other option.
If that bastard didn’t have a working comms device, then we really were fucked.
A rock shifted beneath my foot, twisting my ankle. I lunged for a spindly tree for support, but the damn thing snapped in half. Clawing at the remaining stub, I only just managed to get my footing.
“Fucking hell.” I pointed at the loose rock. “Careful, that rock is wobbly.”
Indiana and her long legs made every step look easier than mine did. Each time I pointed out a problem step, she handled it like the elevation was flat. Just like everything she seemed to do.
I didn’t know how she was still standing. I was starving, and every muscle ached.
My legs were trembling so much that the climb was becoming even more dangerous. Maybe she was too stubborn to ask me to stop. That sounded like something she would do.
I stepped onto a boulder as big as a dumpster, helped her down to my side, and said, “Let’s take a break.”
“Okay, sure.” A trickle of sweat dribbled from her neck and vanished into the valley of her breasts.
Hot damn, this woman was driving me crazy.
We sat on the rock with our legs dangling over the side and stared into the field of green and brown covering the valley below. If there was a shoreline down there, I couldn’t see it. As we drank from our diminishing water supply, I tried not to think about what would happen once we emptied these bottles.
Thankfully, the dense canopy overhead protected us from the searing sunshine, but the never-ending bushes around us trapped the humidity, and every breath was like inhaling a wet rag.
Everything was against us, but when the warmth of Indiana’s leg pressed against mine, I had an unprecedented notion that we would be okay.
I brushed my fingers over the angry scar on her leg. “Does this scar have anything to do with your mother’s murder?”
She closed her eyes and nodded.
I draped my hand over her thigh, but the scar was so long it still showed. “Tell me what happened?”
She opened her eyes, and pain flickered across her expression. “I was eleven years old when Mom was murdered.”
I released my breath. “Shit! Your mom must have been so young.”
She wiped sweat from her brow, leaving a smudge of dirt in its place. “Thirty-four.”
I shook my head. No words could make up for that horror.
“Mom, Dad, and I lived on Rhino.”
“How did you go to school?” I asked.
“I didn’t. Mom home-schooled me. But despite Mom’s best efforts, the only things I wanted to learn involved marine salvage.”
“No wonder you’re so good at it.” I turned my hand over and she clutched her palm to mine.
“We spent most of our days salvaging boats that had sunk in storms or cyclones, but in our spare time, we searched for treasure. Dad met Mom when he went to the library to search for details on an ancient ship. Mom had been studying in the library, and she helped him.”
I grinned. “Love at first sight, huh?”
Her stunning eyes drilled into me. “Yeah. Seven months after they met, Dad proposed to Mom on Rhino.”
“Wow, that’s a whirlwind.”
She shrugged. “When you know, you know.”
Her eyelashes lowered.
“So, what happened?”
She sipped her water. “It took them twelve years, but Mom and Dad finally found the ancient shipwreck that had brought them together.”
“Oh wow, that must have been amazing.”
“Yeah, it was. It was a perfect day on the ocean, but very still and hot, and I refused to wear a wetsuit.” She rolled her gaze to me. “You may not know this about me, but I can be stubborn.”
“No?” I feigned shock.
She giggled but then seemed to catch herself, and her expression turned serious. “We dove down to the wreck together, and stupid me, I straddled the ancient cannon. That’s how I got these cuts.”
That’s it?
I frowned. “What about the scar on your forehead?”
She swallowed so hard I imagined she was trying to shift a lump in her throat. “Because the wounds on my legs were so bad, we had to cut our dive short. Back on Rhino, Mom was trying to stop the bleeding on my leg when a couple of men snuck onboard.”
“What did they want?”
“Treasure,” she said matter of fact.
“What treasure?”
“From the ancient wreck. We found gold coins and a few other valuable pieces down there.”
“So they’d been following you?”
“No.” She scowled. “Stupid Dad had bragged about finding the wreck at the tavern the night before. The two men who attacked us overheard him talking about it to the barman.”
“So Smithy knew who the attackers were?”
She shook her head, but something crossed her gaze that I couldn’t interpret.
“What did they do?”
“They demanded the gold, but Dad refused.” She lowered her eyes to the scars on her leg and trailed a finger along the jagged line. “Damn fool.”
I swept her hand into mine and our fingers entwined. “He couldn’t have known what would happen.”
She shook her head. “Mom and I had our hands tied behind our backs and they beat up Dad in front of us. They whipped his bare back. It was fucking awful. But Dad refused to give them the stupid gold even when they pulled his tooth out.”
“Jesus. That’s cold and brutal.”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t stop screaming, even though Dad told me to, so the asshole with a big red beard slapped me.”
“Fucking bastard!”
“I flew sideways and hit my head on a bolt on the crane.”
I cupped her cheek. “That must have been terrifying.”
“Yeah, but Dad still wouldn’t give up the gold. So the ugly redhead picked me up and tossed me overboard.”
“Asshole!” I jerked back. “Then what happened?”
“My arms were tied behind my back, and I tried to swim, but couldn’t. A short time later, Mom plunged into the water beside me. Dad told me afterward that they had thrown Mom into the water, too.” Her eyes grew distant. “I’ll never forget the look on Mom’s face when she saw me. She tried to use her knees to push me up.”
“Did your dad save you?”
Nodding, she cleared her throat. “Dad had to choose between saving me or saving Mom.”
“Oh fuck.” The enormity of that decision was like a massive boulder on my chest.
“He chose me.” Her chin trembled. “Mom drowned before Dad could get her back onto Rhino.”
A tear spilled over her cheek.
I pulled her against my chest and crushed her body to mine. I wanted to say more, to offer comfort or rage on her behalf, but the words tangled in my throat.
She sucked in a wobbly breath. “I can still see their faces.”
I rubbed my hand over her bare back. “The police never found the killers, did they? That’s why you hate us.”
She eased back with her chin dimpling and tears swimming in her eyes. “I grew up without a mom, and I was angry about that. But I was wrong.”
“Not all cops are bad. Sometimes we?—”
“It wasn’t their fault.” Her swimming tears made her amber irises look like pure honey. “Just before Dad died, he told me that he’d killed those two men.”
I blinked at her.
“I didn’t know. I swear. All this time, I’ve been searching for those bastards and hating cops like you because Mom’s killers were never found.” She clenched her fists. “He could have told me. I would have still loved him, you know. His actions were justified.”
I swallowed a swell of emotions. Indiana and I had both spent years chasing ghosts from our pasts.
“I didn’t think Dad and I had any secrets between us.” She ran her knuckle beneath her eye.
I thumbed a tear from her cheek. “I didn’t know him for very long, but I’m sure his guilt would have crushed him.”
“It did. That’s why he drank. To drown out his memories.”
I nodded. I knew exactly what it was like to want to drown memories.
I pulled her to my chest again, and as she wrapped her arms around me, her hot tears dripped onto my shoulder.
She sucked in a massive shaky breath and pulled back from me. “Sorry.”
I squeezed her hand. “There’s no need to be sorry. What you went through was horrendous for anyone, let alone a kid.”
My thoughts jerked to Wesley and what he’d witnessed. I searched the vegetation around us, expecting Wesley’s ghost to be glaring at me from amongst the field of green.
“Thank you for telling me. That means the world to me.”
She shrugged, and I had the feeling she wanted to elaborate on her apology.
She didn’t need to apologize for anything. Her actions were driven by what she saw and the lies she’d been told.
It was so similar to Wesley’s reasoning that my heart skidded to a stop.
Indiana drank the last of her water, then looked at the bottle like its emptiness surprised her. It was the trigger I needed.
If we don’t find water, we could die on this fucking island.
“Come on, let’s keep moving.” I helped her to stand, and she wrapped her arms around me.
I squeezed her to my body, feeling her warmth. Feeling her vulnerability. Something so raw wrapped around my heart and I knew I would do anything for this amazing woman.
It was a long, fabulous moment before she eased back with a tiny grin wobbling across her lips. “You were right.”
“Oh, in what way?”
“I didn’t know you.”
I wanted to say it was impossible to really know anyone, but I yanked that thought back. Instead, I said, “I’m right about good coffee, too. When we get back, I’m going to make you one of my special brews.”
She cocked her head in a sassy smile. “Are you asking me on another date?”
“Yes, Captain Bossy Boots, I am.” I kissed her cheek and smacked her butt. “Let’s go.”
The angle from the giant rock was so steep we had to work together and brace ourselves on the sturdy trunk of a massive tree. Each step down the craggy cliff was a test in precision and balance. As the sun arced overhead and cast spears of light through the foliage, the raw scent of earth became more pungent. It was a long time before the tang of the salty ocean finally mingled in the air.
I straddled a massive fallen tree, and on the other side, loose stones shifted beneath my feet.
“Careful.” I reached for her.
“We’re nearly there,” Indiana said as I helped her over the log.
“Thank Christ, I was beginning to think we were climbing into hell.”
“We’ve already seen hell.” Her expression was etched in both ferocity and vulnerability.
I nodded. “That’s true. It’s all heaven and lattes from here.”
She scrunched her nose. “You’re obsessed with coffee.”
“Yep.”
I had to duck down to squeeze beneath a low-hanging branch.
“Tyler.” Her tone was hesitant, and I braced for what she was going to ask. “I’m sorry I accused you of being a bad cop. I was wrong to do that.”
Relief washed through me. “Thanks. I guess I was wrong about you, too.”
“In what way?”
“I thought you were a hard ass, but really, you’re a big softie.”
She slapped my back. “Hey, I’m not soft.”
A laugh escaped my lips. “No, you’re not. Thank you for telling me about your scars.”
We exchanged a look, which was a whole conversation in a heartbeat.
I wriggled around a boulder, and she placed her hand over the scar on my back. “Can you tell me how you got this?”
I tensed. “It’s a bullet wound.”
“I can see that. You have one on your chest, too. Were both of them from the same time?”
I nodded. “Nearly killed me.”
“I bet. You got lucky.”
Huh. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t have put myself in that situation.
“So, tell me what happened?”
“It was just a situation that went bad.”
“Really? That’s it?”
The weight of my secret was a brick in my belly. I turned to her. “I can’t elaborate.”
“Yeah, you can.” Her tone elevated.
A warm breeze slapped me in the face like Wesley’s ghost, warning me to shut the fuck up.
I paused next to a coconut palm.
Maybe I should make up a story. No, I would never lie to her. But she’s going to hate my reason.
“I can’t talk about some aspects of my job.”
The weight of her disappointment hung between us. She crossed her arms defensively over her chest. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Yes. Absolutely, and you need to trust me. I can’t tell you, for your own safety.”
Indiana’s glare rivaled the glare Nikki Bolton gave me just before she slit Ebony’s throat.
“Well, that’s just great.” Indiana shoved past me and jumped down a steep incline.
I called after her, “Indy, I’m sorry.”
“Save it, Kingsley.” Her long hair danced behind her as she marched down the hill like a machine.
“Damn it!” I scrambled after her.
The ground crumbled beneath my scuba booties, and I had no idea how she was moving so fast.
“Fuck off, Kingsley.” She cut through the thick underbrush like a machete.
The urge to spill every truth to her festered inside me, but fear clamped my throat. Fear and guilt over my fucked-up mistake.
Indiana’s retreating figure became a blur of olive skin and long legs in the distance. Each step she made wedged a chasm between us that threatened to crack me in two.
The sun pierced through the canopy above and the fierce heat smothered me. My lungs burned. My legs ached. My fucking brain screamed for the brutal thoughts to stop.
The ground leveled out, and I forced my legs to move faster. The vegetation stopped so abruptly that I stumbled onto the beach and fell to my hands and knees.
Indiana stood at the ocean’s edge with her hands on her hips. Every ounce of her sexy body oozed anger.
I dusted my hands on my legs as I marched to her.
“Damn it, Indy, listen to me!” I grabbed her arm, spinning her toward me. “I’m protecting you. That’s why I can’t tell you.”
Her eyes blazed as she jerked free. “I don’t need your protection. Or your lies.”
“I’m not lying.” The words were like glass shards in my mouth. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“From what? You?” She released a hollow laugh. “I’ve been taking care of myself since I was eleven, remember?”
“I know you have, and you’re incredible and brave.”
The pain in her expression was so tangible I felt it in my chest.
“Please, trust me.” I reached for her.
“I can’t trust someone who won’t open up to me.” Her tone softened as her hand slipped through my fingers.
As much as I wanted to tell her the truth, the words wouldn’t form in my mouth.
Sand flicked up behind her heels as she marched away.