The flimsy, uncomfortable excuse for underpants she left on; the fabric was almost dry from the heat of her body. Even though the thong felt like butt floss, she’d feel way too vulnerable without its scant cover. She toweled herself dry, wincing at the scratchiness of the rough fabric. She thought longingly of the luxurious linen towels left behind on Matt’s boat.
Then she folded the sheet in half and managed to fashion it into a sarong, wrapping it around her body and fastening the ends around her neck in a halter. She smoothed the makeshift dress down around her, grateful that it fell below her knees rather more modestly than the scrap that remained of her wedding dress.
That she picked up and, along with the corselet, rinsed it as best she could under the trickle of water that came from the faucet. She wrung out the excess water and walked outside.
The afternoon heat hit her as soon as she left the shelter of the verandah. The chattering of what sounded like hundreds of birds filled the humid air.
Conscious once more of her tender feet, she tiptoed gingerly over to a nearby overhanging branch and spread out her laundry to dry. In this sultry heat it wouldn’t take long.
What would she say to Matt? Never had she felt so humiliated. She pushed her fingers through the tangles of her hair in a vain attempt to tidy it. Then, at the sound of rustling undergrowth, she looked up. Looked up and found it hard to suppress a smile.
Matt strode toward her. He too, had dressed himself in a white sheet. Only the effect wasn’t quite Roman Senator. The sheet was wrapped around his waist and then looped between his legs, Indian fashion. His impressive chest was bare.
“You look like my parents’ guru,” she said. Only a thousand times—no a million times—better looking.
“Yeah, well, I haven’t had a lot of practice. And I didn’t, uh, want it to fall off.”
Cristy couldn’t stop a nervous giggle from escaping. Ohmigod! Don’t let her fantasize about what would happen if it did…
He handed her a pair of ancient rubber flip-flops and she noticed he wore a pair himself. “I found these around the back of the hut. They’ll be too big for you, but better than nothing.”
She took them, scrupulously avoiding contact with his fingers. Or his eyes. She still felt mortified at the way he’d told her to cover herself up.
“Thanks,” she murmured, and slipped the flip-flops on. Several sizes too big, they flapped behind her heels; but at least she could walk in them without injuring her feet on the coral sand.
“My knife is in the panic bag so I can trim them down for you,” Matt said.
He turned to head back to the hut. Cristy stopped still, arrested by the sight of his upper back. Across the hard muscles flew a tattooed eagle, its wings outspread across his shoulder blades. Ohmigod. Who knew that was under his T-shirt? It was magnificent. He was magnificent.
He started to walk away. Cristy gathered her senses enough to follow him, walking awkwardly in her flapping flip-flops. She tripped as she went through the doorway. Matt instantly held her arm to steady her, then as quickly dropped his hand as if her arm were flaming hot.
So that was how he wanted to play it? No touching and no talking about it. Just act as though they’d never stroked, kissed, wanted each other.
That was fine by her.
He picked up the black fanny pack he called his panic bag. “There should be some food in here, too. Emergency rations. Beef jerky or something.”
At the thought of food, Cristy’s mouth felt dry with hunger and her tummy rumbled, loudly, embarrassingly. “Food sounds great. Anything. I’m starved.”
Matt took the panic bag over to the small wooden-topped table. “Everything a castaway might need,” he joked, as he unzipped it and up-ended it.
Was he kidding?
As the contents of his boat’s emergency bag tumbled haphazardly onto the table, all Cristy could do was stare at them in horrified disbelief.
There was the Swiss Army knife all right. And a box of matches. But the rest of the contents comprised an assortment of different-sized chocolate bars—and an equal number of brightly-colored condom packets.
CHAPTER SIX
Cristy
stared at Matt in dismay and disbelief. What kind of guy considered the essentials of life to be condoms and chocolate?
“Danny!” Matt groaned as he picked up a Hershey’s bar and slammed it down again on the table. “His stupid idea of a joke.”
“Danny?” Cristy asked, her brow furrowed. “Who’s Danny?”
The anguish in Matt’s voice surprised her.
“My damn stupid kid brother. He was the last to use the boat and he must have packed the panic bag.”
Matt’s face softened and he ran his fingers through his hair. His voice was wry. “Chocolate and condoms. That’s just what Danny would think were all that was needed in an emergency.”
Cristy’s eyes followed the path of the chocolate and her tummy growled again—louder this time. “As far as the chocolate is concerned, I’m inclined to agree with him.”
Matt laughed, picked up the Hershey’s bar again, and tossed it to her. “You’ve got a point there.”
Deftly, Cristy caught it and had the wrapper torn off in seconds. The smell was heaven. She broke off a row and had it halfway to her mouth before, with willpower she didn’t know she possessed, she paused and held it toward him. “Want some?” She must really like this guy to put his chocolate needs ahead of her own.
He shook his head. “It’s yours. There’s plenty more to choose from. There must be a week’s supply here.”
Relieved, Cristy pushed a row of delicious brown squares into her mouth and sighed in ecstasy as it melted. “Uh-uh. Not the way I eat chocolate, there isn’t.” She reached for the rest of the bar.
“So I’ll have to fight you for it?” asked Matt.
“All’s fair in love and war when it comes to chocolate.”
She looked sideways at Matt. What she really wanted to do was to put a row of chocolate between them; for him to nibble one end and she the other, so they met in the middle for a divinely chocolate kiss.
She wanted to lick the chocolate from his mouth and suck it from his tongue. She wanted to smear it on his chest and slowly tease his nipples as she licked it off. She wanted to—
She flushed and made a show of searching through the chocolate bars for another choice. What was it about this man that every thought she had seemed to lead to sex? Now she’d picked up a packet of condoms instead of a Kit Kat. Flushing even redder, she dropped it. These kind of carnal thoughts were not routine for her.
“Tell me about Danny,” she asked and almost immediately regretted it at the shadow that darkened Matt’s face. His eyes looked grim, his mouth taut, as though his brother was not someone of whom he wished to be reminded.
“Sorry,” she said. “Don’t say a word if you don’t want to. I was just curious about someone who shared my priorities in life.” She flushed even deeper as she realized what she’d said. “I mean… at least one of them…”
Her words trailed off. Matt was silent for a long moment before he spoke.
“You’d like Danny. Women do. He’s charming, funny and with the gift of the gab. If there’s a party or a good time going, you’ll find Danny. But he’s smart, too, he’s a lawyer. He can talk his way in and out of any situation. Or he used to…”
A look of pain contorted his features. Cristy sensed there was something wrong here, that Matt was talking about Danny not because he wanted to but because he had to.
“You… you sound very fond of him,” she said tentatively.
“You could say that. He was my best friend as well as my brother.” He seemed lost in thought for a second then shook his head. “But you don’t want to hear about Danny,” he said. “C’mon, I want to scope out what’s in this place so we can make ourselves comfortable before the storm hits. The wind’s starting up.”
Cristy was conscious of a sharp stab of disappointment. She did want to hear about Danny. Well, not so much about Danny, more about Matt. She wanted to know everything about him. From the time he was a cute little boy right up to what he was doing sailing around the coast of Queensland all by himself on a luxury yacht. And how much had it hurt to get that tattoo?
“Had enough?” he asked as he swept the chocolate—along with the condoms—back into the bag. “I’m going out to check the weather.”
A
fter he’d spent quite some time exploring their surrounds, Matt came back inside the hut to find Cristy curled up on the battered cane chair in the corner, reading some old papers. The too-long flip-flops had fallen to the floor and her feet were bare again.
Did she realize that her makeshift sarong had fallen open oh-so-temptingly to reveal the triangle of her thong?
He forced himself to avert his eyes from the provocative image. He clenched his fists by his sides. Being around Cristy Walters meant being in perpetual need of a cold shower.
He cleared his throat. “What have you found there?”
She looked up, startled, her hair tumbling around her face. She leapt up from the chair, her sheet-sarong falling back into place. He didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved that her gorgeous legs were now modestly covered.
“The most marvelous thing! I was poking around in the cupboard over there and I found these. They’d slid behind a drawer.” She brandished the yellowing pages. “They’re extracts from a diary. Of someone who used to live here. In this hut.”
“Must have belonged to old Seth.”
Her eyes sparkled with interest. “Seth?”
“Seth Hamilton. He was an old guy who lived here for years and years. A hermit. This hut was his. He built it.”
“A hermit lived in this hut? A real-life hermit? Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Didn’t think to. I would have gotten round to it, I guess.”
Why would he be thinking about Hamilton the Hermit when his mind was fully occupied by this gorgeous woman who attracted him like no one else before her—and who didn’t seem able to keep her clothes on?
But her thoughts weren’t following the same path as his. “Matt, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this! You told me this place was a surveyor’s hut and used by fishermen.”
“It is.”
He had to think hard about what kind of explanation he’d give her. He didn’t want to give away anything about his involvement in any project on this island. And with the bird watchers fighting to block any development and have the island preserved in Seth’s memory, he was very involved.
Cristy had him down as some kind of itinerant and he didn’t want to change her perception. Too many women had been interested in what he had, rather than what he was. It was refreshing to find someone who took him at face value.
He chose his words carefully. “The… the company that owns the island took the hut over when it started surveying the island for a new resort.”
“And where was Seth?”
“He was long dead by then.”
“Oh.” Cristy looked at the pages she held in her hand, as if she longed for them to tell her their story. “These do look old.”
“He came here not long after the Second World War, when he was only a young man.”
“By himself?”
“Yes. I told you, he was a hermit.”
Her brow creased in puzzlement. “Why would a young man come and want to live here by himself, at the end of nowhere?”
“They say he’d been interned in a prisoner-of-war camp. Only the thought of his fiancée at home had kept him going. When Seth was freed at the end of the war they married. But when his wife and young daughter were killed in an accident they say he nearly went mad with grief. He found his way to this island and never left it.”
Cristy’s eyes filled with tears. “What a heart-wrenching story. He loved his wife and little girl so much that he… he couldn’t live without them.” She sniffed.
Don’t tell me she was going to get all emotional on him. He couldn’t cope with crying women. Female tears made him come out in hives.
“I wouldn’t say that. He found life in the city intolerable. Probably something to do with his war experiences, I’d say.”
“Oh Matt! How could you be so unromantic?”
She stood hands on hips. Matt could hardly stop himself from laughing. She looked like an angry kitten, all fluff and bluff.
“That is the loveliest story I ever heard,” she said with a catch in her voice.
She started to pace the small length of the hut. With each step the sarong slid open revealing her long, elegant legs.
“Imagine. So in love, he couldn’t face life without them. Just locked himself away to die of a broken heart…” Her voice tailed away and she looked wistful.
Sentiment like this made him uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable.
“His heart lasted pretty well. He was in his eighties by the time he kicked the bucket.”
Cristy’s gaze was outraged. “How could you! To… to trivialize such a great love story.”
Matt shifted from foot to foot. “This soppy stuff—it’s not a guy thing. Old Seth was a grumpy old hermit who—”
“How can you say that?”
He glared back, but not too ferociously. She looked really cute when she was uptight. He held up his hand in a halt sign.
“I was going to say, before you interrupted me, that from what I’ve heard he was quite happy here. Solitude suited him and he grew to love the birds.”
“You mean of the feathered variety?”
“The very same ones that are making such a racket outside right now. After Seth died, they found he’d observed and painted the tropical bird life here on the island. The pictures, along with his notes, were published in a book. He became quite famous.”
“Seth Hamilton,” she said slowly. “I’ve never heard of him.”
“You’re American. I doubt you would hear much about him outside of Australia. His work was considered so important here that a university gave him an honorary degree.”
“Posthumously, of course.”
“Of course.”
“So his life wasn’t wasted. Something good came of his lost love.”
Surely she didn’t expect him to go along with this sentimental drivel?
“Yeah, you can think that if you like. But you’d better hang on to those papers you found. They could be valuable.”