Must Be Magic (Spellbound) (23 page)

But this was Darby, the only woman to spin his head around so completely.

The only woman he’d ever been in love with.

He’d dated over the years. Sometimes a lot, sometimes not for a few months at a time, but none of those women had cast such a spell on him.

With one palm braced against his chest—the only thing separating them—she tipped her head back to meet his eyes.

He didn’t even try to hide what he was thinking. She already knew, anyway, and she was still here. He slipped her hair behind her ear, wanting to see every inch of that beautiful face.

“Bryce…” Her voice sounded a little far away, but this time he knew it had nothing to do with the fever.

His gaze locked on her mouth. “Yeah?”

She leaned into him. “You’re right about one thing,” she whispered against his ear. “You really do need a bath.”

She slipped out of his arms, dancing out of reach before he could stop her.

Left standing in nothing but his boxers, his arousal painfully obvious, he called after her. “No peeking.”

She was already halfway back to the plane, and didn’t look back. “We both know you want me to.”

Grinning, he turned away from her to get cleaned up.

Alex closed his eyes. “How much longer is this going to take?”

He couldn’t quite bring himself to look down where Riley was on her knees in front of him. He sat on the edge of the bed in his hotel room, afraid to move, afraid not to.

Although this had been his idea, he hadn’t expected her to volunteer to be the one. And he hadn’t expected it to be so…awkward.

A weird sensation, something between a pinch and a tickle raced across the inside of his thigh. He sucked in a breath.

Riley grinned up at him. “First time, huh?”

“Funny.” He frowned. “Wait. This isn’t yours?”

She winked at him.

Alex wanted to take comfort in that. He was better off this way, wasn’t he? He scrubbed a hand down his face. It had all made sense when he’d come up with the idea last night—right after he thought that having a few drinks would help him break through whatever was stopping him from picking up on Bryce and Darby.

In the light of day, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“Do you have to fidget so much?”

He didn’t realize he was. He set his hand on the bed, inadvertently placing his hand on Riley’s. The contact made him jump, and his knee connected with Riley’s chin.

She set her hands on his knees, which was probably the last thing she should do under the circumstances. The whole situation was weird enough.

“Do I need to walk you through this again?”

He shook his head, forced himself to take a breath. What was it that he’d told her last night? “I’m putty in your hands.”

Jesus. Lack of sleep was turning him into an idiot.

“What the hell are you two doing?” The booming voice would have sent Alex vaulting toward the ceiling if not for Riley’s hands holding him in place.

“Well…” Alex turned his head to find Dante standing in the doorway, a lethal scowl on his face, and something in his hand. Where the hell had he found a saw?

“Don’t faint on me, big guy.” Riley patted his knee.

It took another second for Alex to find his voice. Now he knew how Bryce must have felt. “It’s not what it looks like?” he offered weakly. It probably didn’t help that he was practically naked.

He hadn’t even had time to drag on a shirt and pants when Riley let herself into the room. She didn’t even give him a chance to complain about the invasion of privacy.

“You know about the sleepover,” she’d said in defense of her actions. As if that one tiny, almost-inconsequential—but very fucking hot—memory gave her free reign to use magic against him.

“This looks bad. I get that…” He trailed off, scrambling for something else to say.

Riley rolled her eyes. “Shame your Spidey senses didn’t warn you that he was about to walk in on us?”

“What?”
He shot a look at Dante. “She didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

Riley grinned. “Sure I did.”

Was she trying to have him killed? Dante was already on edge as it was. “You knew he was coming?”

“Why do you think I left the door ajar?”

Dante’s eyes narrowed. “Somebody better start talking. Not you.” He pointed to indicate he was talking about his sister, then fixed his full attention on Alex.

Not used to being Dante’s sole focal point, which was damn intimidating, he thought about sliding off the mattress and hiding under the bed. Not even all his teasing comments about his crush on the youngest and very pregnant Violet earned him the kind of hostility radiating off the brooding Calder in front of him.

“She’s…taking off my cast.” He waited.

Dante grinned, tossing the saw on the bed next to him. “I know. I was just fucking with you.”

Whatever relief Alex might have felt over that little detail evaporated as his gaze locked on the tool that landed within Riley’s reach.
Oh hell no.

They ended up in a tug of war over the saw, and he didn’t win.

“You wanted it off,” she reminded him.

“You said you were going to use magic.” Magic was the only thing that stood half a chance of speeding his healing up, and even then it was iffy. But he wanted to be able to teleport unhindered the second he got any kind of vibe from Darby and Bryce.

Riley released the saw. “I’m just fucking with you.”

He glanced between the two Calders. “You pick now to screw with my head?”

He would have flopped back on the bed if the saw were anywhere but right next to him.

Dante shrugged, then held up his phone. “Violet’s on speaker.” He set it on the bedside table. “Go ahead, Vi.”

“Do I even want to know what you walked in on,” she asked over the line. “Forget it, I’m pretty sure I’m about five minutes from Reece taking the phone away and insisting we leave for the hospital so I need to be quick.”

Riley went still “You’re in labor?”

“No. It’s just some bad Braxton Hicks contractions. This baby is not coming out until Darby is found and you guys are all back home.”

“If you’re having pain…” Dante started, frowning like this was the first he’d heard of it.

“I’m fine. I’m not rushing to the hospital just because Reece is freaking out.” Something clattered in the background, like she’d dropped the phone. “Do not touch it, Detective, or I will make sure every person in the hospital hears that you faint at the sight of blood.”

“Not everyone’s,” Reece argued. “Just yours.”

“Violet,” Dante said sharply. “What did you want to tell us?”

“I got a call from McNally.”

At the mention of the competing private investigator that the Calders routinely ran into—some more than others—Riley scowled.

“Somebody contacted him the night before the crash about investigating both Darby and Bryce. Mostly background information, but they even wanted addresses and family information. All he got was a contact number to call when he had the info.”

Riley was on her feet. “If he even thinks about taking on—”

“He’s not,” Violet rushed to add. “But he did want to give us a heads-up. Chances are that when whoever wants the info doesn’t hear from McNally, they’re going to contact another PI firm.”

“Thanks, Vi. Watch out for her, Reece.”

“If she’ll let me,” came the detective’s response before Dante hung up.

Riley crossed her arms. “Who would want to investigate both of them?”

“Someone who doesn’t know what our family does for a living.” Dante picked up the phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“McNally. Maybe there’s something else he could tell us that he forgot to mention to Violet. At the very least I’ll get the contact number he was given. Maybe that’ll tell us something.” Dante held out the phone to Riley, his eyes glinting. “Unless you want to call him?”

“I’d sooner use that saw to cut my own leg off.”

“Well, while you’re handling that—” Alex ushered both Calders toward to the door, “—I have a cast to get rid of.”

Riley stopped in the doorway. “I thought you wanted my help.”

“I’d sooner use that saw to cut off
your
leg.”

She turned to go, only to stop once more. “You never told me how you broke your leg.”

He hadn’t told anyone and that was the way it was going to stay. “Good-bye, Riley.” He closed the door.

Alone in his room, Alex sat back down on the bed. Someone had been investigating Darby and Bryce the night before the plane crash.

Could that even be a coincidence?

She was trying to kill him.

A few hours later Darby stood ankle deep at the edge of a sandbar, wearing something Bryce was sure was supposed to pass for a two-piece bathing suit.

He cocked his head, wondering if changing the angle would make any more of the lemon-colored material crisscrossed over her breasts magically appear.

Apparently not.

He
really
hadn’t been paying enough attention when she’d lifted her shirt earlier and asked him to tie the strings.

“Somebody’s feeling ambitious,” she said over one shoulder.

It had taken a little bit of maneuvering to reach her without completely submerging his leg in the water, and now that he’d seen up close what she was wearing, he wondered if he shouldn’t have stayed back on the beach.

“What happened to resting?” She jiggled the stick she’d rigged up as a fishing pole, complete with a dental floss line and an earring for a hook. He’d helped her tie it on earlier when she’d given up on trying to use one of his shirts as a net.

“I slept for a bit.” The nap she’d forced him to have, insisting on withholding lunch if he didn’t agree to rest afterward, had turned out to be a good idea.

If he didn’t count how much of it he’d spent dreaming about her.

“What’s that?” She nodded to the stick he held.

He moved his hand, revealing the floss twisted around a second fishing pole. “Seeing as we’re on vacation, I thought maybe we should have a friendly wager.”

“Still trying to get me naked?”

“You’re not already?” He gave her a thorough once-over, one that had her shifting in place. “How did I miss seeing you in that at the resort?” He stepped up behind her, his intentions forgotten as he caught the scent of her sunscreen.

“Guess you were busy.”

He pressed his face against her hair, breathing deep, then moved her hair out of the way. He ran his cheek along the side of her neck.

She shivered. “You shaved.”

“Thought it was a good idea.”

“Too bad. I always thought the castaway beard was hot.”

He nipped the back of her shoulder, and she laughed.

“You mentioned a wager,” she prompted.

Was she trying to distract him? “First person to catch a fish doesn’t have to clean or cook it.”

“What makes you think I wasn’t going to make you cook and clean the fish I caught anyway?”

He opened his mouth on her neck, laving the sensitive spot with his tongue.

She leaned into him, moaning softly. “Going to be hard to win if you don’t actually try to fish.”

Good point.

Slipping an arm around her waist, he held her tight against him, his lips moving against her jaw. “Next time, I won’t stop,” he vowed.

He took his time letting go of her, giving a lot of thought to forgetting all about fishing. If not for the fact that all they had to eat was breadfruit, he wouldn’t have bothered.

He lowered himself to the sand, and after a bit Darby sat next to him, her feet in the water where the sandbar sloped away at a steep angle towards the nearby reef.

More than once they’d glimpsed fish big enough to eat, but few approached the glinting hooks. It was doubtful the floss would hold anything bigger than a minnow. There might be something better to use in the plane, but he’d stayed away from it after covering Miles’s body the evening they’d crashed.

He and Darby sat in companionable silence for a while, occasionally teasing each other about technique.

Every now and then Darby would cast him a speculative look, but it took her a while to say anything.

“I was six weeks pregnant when I found out,” she said quietly.

When he glanced at her, she stared out at the water.

“I wasn’t expecting it. I thought we’d been careful. Obviously not.” She set her pole aside and folded her hands in her lap. “I took four tests before I would believe it, and even then I didn’t want to. You had stopped calling, stopped trying to see me.”

Not willingly. Not in the beginning anyway, but he didn’t interrupt her.

“I kept myself busy, tried to forget that I was even pregnant. Except every night I’d pull out the last pregnancy test and stare at it, the phone in my other hand. I’d start to dial your number, but always stopped myself at the last second.”