Island Heat (A Sexy Time Travel Romance With a Twist) (16 page)

Salvador smiled at that, and brushed a lock of hair off my forehead tenderly. “You cannot find one thing to be thankful for in all this? That you are alive and healthy, and you have people that care for you?” He seemed sad at this realization.

“It’s not the same,” I said, fighting for my old life, knowing that everything I said was a slap to the face of his kindness. “I wanted a family of my own...my job...I wanted children someday.” I blinked back tears as I realized none of that was going to happen now. “I wanted to get married.” Damn. I was really going to cry now. All those sad, sweet little daydreams that every girl has were escaping away from me, before I’d even had a chance to experience them.

“Diana,” he said, his fingers under my chin and lifting my face towards his. “I would marry you.” His voice ached with so much longing that it brought a knot to my throat.

“You would?” The girlish, sick part of me was inordinately pleased.

“You are brave, courageous, beautiful and smart,” he said.

“—And don’t forget, the only girl on the island,” I added.

He chuckled at that. “Does it matter?”

“I don’t suppose it does,” I said, blinking back tears.

He kissed my eyelids gently, his fingers brushing away my tears. “Let me make you happy, Diana. Let me love you.”

Even as I agreed, I wondered if I could ever be truly happy on this island, or if I’d always long for the real world.

Then, he was kissing me again and I let the sensations drown out everything else.

*** *** ***

I awoke later, cuddled against Salvador’s chest and listening to him sleep. My heart still hurt at the thought of being stuck here for all eternity, but pressed up against his warm, delicious body, it was equally hard not to think of the up-side.

I’d never get old. I’d never wrinkle, or sag, or get gray hair. I’d never have to answer to my horrible, nasty boss ever again, or drive fifteen miles in a raging snowstorm just to get to work and show some irritating client a house they wouldn’t buy.

I had the world’s most gorgeous man completely to myself. What were a few man-eating dinosaurs in the face of that, right?

Forcing myself to be cheered by that thought, I slid out of bed and straightened my wrinkled clothing. We’d slept with it on, and there’d been no hanky-panky. I was almost disappointed about that, but he’d been good to his promise, and simply held me while I talked about my life at home, and the modern things that I missed – Starbucks, clean restrooms, my laptop, a hot shower. I’d never find out what happened on Grey’s Anatomy, or see my parents ever again. I’d never drink another mojito or go dancing in a night-club, though I could certainly do without the men that such things normally drew.

As we’d talked into the night – or rather, I’d talked, and he listened, since I suspected that many of the things I discussed were beyond his comprehension – I realized that maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. I’d never catch the flu from sitting next to someone sick on an airplane. I’d never be stuck in rush-hour traffic. I’d never have to worry about getting Botox, or fending off a slimy client, the state of the economy, or if I was going to make my rent that month. I didn’t have to worry about anything except survival. Primal, true, but it had its appeal.

Being cuddled all night in the arms of a big, hunky man that adored me also helped things. And even though I dreamed about the footprints on the beach, and the wreck, I also dreamed about Salvador and his beautiful green eyes.

So, with a more cheerful mindset, I emerged from Salvador’s small cave the next morning, humming and lost in thought. It had been almost three weeks since my plane had went down, and while parts of it seemed like forever, it had all gone by very fast. Idly, I yawned and wondered how fast four hundred and eighty-nine years had passed by. I headed for the fire, wondering if Olivia was up yet and had made breakfast. I needed to learn how to cook too, if I was going to make it here. I wanted to do my share – it was the least I could do.

Olivia was up, all right, her face wreathed in smiles. Sitting at the campfire in the midst of the cave was Harold, as usual, and next to him sat a very grimy, bedraggled Eustace, who glowered at me when I stopped in surprise.

“Hi,” I said, feeling suddenly uneasy. How was he going to act around me? Around Salvador?

He nodded in greeting and didn’t say anything else. Olivia trotted quickly over to his side and shoved a bowl of soup under his nose, urging him to eat. “It’s your favorite,” she murmured, shooting me a happy look.

I sat down across the fire from him and watched as he wolfed down his food, my own appetite gone. I wondered if having Eustace back would be always as uncomfortable as it was right now.

Salvador emerged from our sleeping area a few minutes later, and immediately went to Eustace’s side, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It is good to see you, my friend,” he said, his voice warm with emotion.

Eustace stood, all eating forgotten, and the two men gave each other a quick, brief, guy hug. It was obvious the affection between the two was great. I guessed that spending a hundred and seventy years on an island together would make you as close as brothers.

Heck, it was almost like they’d never fought over me. Salvador leaned over to give me a gentle kiss, and then strode to the far end of the cave, pulling out his favorite knife and regarding his reflection in the shine of one of the helmets, and began to scrape his jaw clean of the day’s growth. A quick glance over at Eustace showed that he had gone back to eating, and was studiously avoiding looking at me. Well, if we were going to pretend that my being here was a non-issue, I was all for that.

Salvador finished shaving, rubbed a bit of coconut oil on his face to take away the sting, and ate a quick bowl of food. “I must get going before the sun is high in the skies.”

I got to my feet, surprised. “You’re going? Where are you going?” He was going to leave me here, with Eustace?

He chuckled at my astonished expression. “The food does not bring itself to the cave,
belleza
,” he chided. “I will be back soon enough.”

To my immense relief, Eustace got to his feet as well. “I’ll come with you, Salvador.”

Olivia clutched at her brother’s arm. “Eustace, no! You just got back! You’re exhausted.”

He did look tired, I had to admit. He’d lost quite a bit of weight since I’d last seen him, and his clothing – already ragged – was in tatters. But he gave his sister an offhand hug and smiled at her. “I’ll be just fine, Olivia. Not to worry. Salvador and I have to discuss some things.”

Oh boy. ‘Some things’ as in me, I could guess. Uncomfortable prickles touched the back of my neck, but I forced myself to smile and wave goodbye like Olivia as they climbed down the ladder and disappeared into the woods, talking quietly.

I looked over at Olivia and kept my forced smile on. “Anything exciting planned today?”

She couldn’t quite hide the sulky, resentful look on her face. “I was going to go do laundry with Eustace before, but I guess I’ll stay around the cave instead.”

I winced. “Look, Olivia, I’m really sorry about the whole situation, I really am.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said, sighing as she sat down on a nearby stool. “I know it’s not. It’s just that...” she spread her hands helplessly. “I’ve had them both to myself for so long, it is difficult to share. Do you understand?”

Why, I did. I smiled at her. “Surely there’s something we could do, just the two of us girls.”

And there was. Most of the morning we spent experimenting with the fruit wines that Olivia kept on a ledge in the sun. She’d stoppered several broken bottles with just about anything she could find, filled them with all kinds of fruit, and had been letting it ferment for various periods of time. A quick taste nearly made me cough on the sweet liquor-syrup taste, and she laughed brightly at my expression. We’d discussed different flavors of wine to try and spent the morning mashing up mixtures of fruits and flowers. It was almost like having a kid sister around, and I enjoyed her company.

As Harold napped the afternoon away, we spent most of it digging through her scrap-bag and piecing them together to make her a bikini similar to mine – albeit with a longer skirt. “It does seem rather airy,” she admitted to me at one point. I busied myself with the project of making panties with no elastic, and she showed me how to make a drawstring instead.

Drawstring panties. Novel.

We were both laughing over the sewing when we heard a shout below. Eustace. Olivia’s face drained of color and she bolted to her feet, rolling back the woven-palm roof and shoving a pulley – that I hadn’t noticed before – down the side of the ledge.

I raced over to her side just as she called down. “Is everything all right?”

Below us, I spotted Eustace. He shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun and stared up at us, and I gasped at the blood covering the remains of his grey shirt. Salvador was a few steps behind him, staggering slightly, and between the two of them, strung on a branch, was the carcass of the biggest tiger I’d ever seen.

Olivia’s bellow surprised me. “What have the two of you fools done?”

Salvador didn’t answer, and my worried heart thrummed in my throat as I watched him slowly hobble to the lift and slide the animal carcass on, and sat down with it. “Just lift us up, Livvy,” Eustace said to his sister, ”And don’t worry about it. We’ll tell you shortly.”

I didn’t think that between Olivia and I that we’d be able to manage to pull up the pulley on our own, but Eustace climbed up the ladder and helped us, and we were able to crank the heavy platform up to the lip of the cave and tumble both Salvador and dead cat onto the cave floor.

The moment Salvador was on the ground, I was on him, running my hands over his skin and praying in my head. A litany of ‘oh lord, oh lord, oh lord’ repeated in my mind, over and over again as I touched him. His body was covered in scratches from head to toe. Several surface scratches were accompanied by one or two deeper gouges that tore the skin and slicked his tanned flesh with blood. His back was especially covered, and his arms. He winced when I touched him. I couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt, just that he was slow moving and covered in blood, and it frightened me more than anything I’d ever imagined.

I found it hard to breathe I was so terrified for him. Taking the undergarment that I’d just sewn together, I swabbed at his skin, trying to see where the blood ended and the wounds began. “What happened? What happened?” I kept repeating over and over.

Salvador winced when I hit upon one particularly sensitive spot and pushed my hands away. “It is nothing. A few scratches—“

“A few scratches?” Outraged, I resisted the urge to throw the half-sewn undergarment at him, and examined him with my eyes instead. “A few scratches? You’re covered!”

“It is nothing; a stupid mistake.”

I gestured at the pulley. “You had to ride up the damn cart because you couldn’t climb! How can you say that’s nothing?”

Quietly, Olivia said, “I don’t understand. Why would you hunt one of the big cats? It is more meat than we can possibly prepare without it spoiling, Eustace. It makes no sense—“

From the side, Eustace sighed, sounding much put upon. He unslung a pack from his back and set it gently on the ground, along with his hunting spear. “To be fair, Olivia, it attacked us more than the other way around,” he said, rubbing his head in chagrin and causing the dark curls to stick up on his head in sweaty chaos. “As for Salvador, he’s fine. He just twisted his ankle is all.”

I looked over at Salvador and noticed that his ankle was swollen to twice the size of the other, and other than that, he did seem relatively whole – if not blood-spattered and scratched. I shook my head at him, confused. “I don’t understand.” I’d seen Salvador in the woods – he was graceful, careful, silent. How had he been caught by one of the big hunting cats? Worried, I ran my hands over his shoulders again, fluttering and feeling the need to touch him, repeatedly, to make sure that he was all right. I was torn between laughing with relief and bawling my eyes out in fright.

I settled for being cranky and shoved him towards my stool. “Sit down,” I said. “Get off your ankle if you’ve hurt it.”

He obliged me, hobbling over to the stool itself and letting me fuss over him with a wetted cloth as I cleaned away some of the blood and put a wet compress on his ankle. I wished fervently for ice, knowing that it was an impossibility on a tropical island.

“But I don’t understand,” Olivia was saying again, her small voice perplexed. “You always stay away from the long-tooth caves, always—“

A soft mewing interrupted her, and I froze.

She cocked her head slightly, puzzled. “Did you hear that?” Olivia glanced uneasily at the carcass of the large tiger, but it was very dead.

The mewing grew louder, and I looked over at Salvador, who had a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “I brought you a present.”

Another one of his courting presents? I didn’t comprehend, and still had a hard time comprehending when Eustace reached into his bag and pulled out a small, mewling, scratching kitten with tiny dun stripes and long front teeth. “We didn’t anticipate the mother following us for quite so long,” Eustace explained, handing the kitten to me. “And then when we killed the dam, we had to go back and get the other cub as well, so it wouldn’t starve.” He reached into the bag and handed another equally tiny, equally fussy mewing bundle to Olivia, who accepted it with wide-eyed shock.

I cradled the baby kitten against my neck, half torn between thinking the gesture was sweet and being utterly confused. “I don’t get it,” I said, stroking the soft, soft fur of the baby kitten. It was terribly tiny yet, no larger than a chihuahua, though at some point it was going to grow to be as big as the dead mama, sprawled in the midst of our cave.

“You wished to be courted,” Salvador explained, as if this was obvious. “In my country, we gave gifts when we wished to court a woman.”

I remembered our conversation from last night, and my tearful confessions.
I even miss my cat
, I’d said at one point.