Lola Carlyle Reveals All

Chapter 7

Lola slid between the sheets of the king-sized bed and turned onto her side. She wasn’t a tease. He’d kissed her, and she’d responded, kissing him back. He was the one with the fast hands. He was so slick, she’d hardly felt him work the buttons on her blouse. She hadn’t even known what he was doing until he’d shoved it down her arms. No, she wasn’t a tease. She was sensible.

She hadn’t exactly kept her hands to herself, though. But, she told herself, his shirt had already been unbuttoned. She’d had no other place to rest her hands but on the hard muscles of his chest… and stomach. Okay, she’d let her fingers do a little walking, but that didn’t make her a tease. Max was delusional.

She rolled onto her back and placed her arm over her eyes. After the previous two nights, a regular bed with clean sheets was pure heaven. She forced thought of Max from her head, and lulled by the constant rocking of the yacht, within a very short time she was pulled into a deep sleep. But even in sleep, she could not escape Max completely. She dreamed of him, of his mouth and hands sending her on a wild roller coaster of sensation.

“Lola.”

She opened her eyes within the dark stateroom, saw nothing, and shut them again.

“Wake up, Lola.”

“What?” she groaned. Light from the salon flowed through the open door and lit up the corner of the bed and the bottom half of Max from the knees down. He’d changed into his black jeans and boots and his feet were spread wide.

“You have to get up.”

“What time is it?” she asked, then realized he would have no way of knowing.

“You’ve been asleep for a few hours.”

Lola sat up and immediately noticed the deep pitch and roll of the yacht.

“We’re being hit by a storm,” he explained. “You need to put on a life jacket.”

“Is it bad?”

“If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have woken you up.”

“Where’s Baby?”

Max leaned forward and set the dog on the bed. Baby jumped into her arms as the Dora Mae’s bow dipped and water smashed against the portholes. Lola glanced at the small round windows but could see nothing. Alarm shot up her spine to the top of her head. “Is the yacht going to sink?”

He didn’t answer and she threw back the covers. “Max?”

From the other side of the room, he flipped the light switch. His hair was wet and plastered to his head and he wore a yellow slicker. “Do you want the truth?”

Not really, but she guessed she’d rather know the worst than speculate. “Yes.”

“The seas are at about seven to ten feet, and I estimate the winds at about fifty knots. If I had a way to steer the yacht, it wouldn’t be so bad, but we’re getting tossed about like a cork.” As if to prove his point, a wave slammed into the port side. The Dora Mae rolled starboard and the lights flickered. Max grabbed hold of the doorjamb and Lola and Baby slid to the edge of the bed.

“If water floods the engine room, we’ll lose power,” he added to the already grim news.

When the yacht righted itself, Lola stood. “What are we going to do?”

“Nothing to do but ride it out.” He moved toward her and held out a life jacket. “Put this on.”

She took it from him and threaded one arm, then the other through the red and yellow jacket. “What about you?”

He opened his slicker and showed his bottle-green preserver. She handed Max her dog and snapped the straps across her abdomen and stomach. Across her breasts, the straps didn’t quite reach, so she left them hanging open.

“What about Baby? He needs a life jacket.”

“There isn’t one small enough for the little rat,” he said, and moved from the stateroom.

She followed close behind, droplets of water slid from the ends of his hair and down the back of his neck. “You checked?” Except for a few sofa pillows that lay on the floor next to the magazine Lola had been reading earlier, the interior of the yacht was battened down tight.

“Yep.”

The Dora Mae dipped to the left, and Lola felt her stomach weave right. “He might drown.” She grabbed the back of Max’s slicker. “Max, we have to do something.”

Max felt the tug on the back of the coat and looked over his shoulder into Lola’s frightened brown eyes. She expected him to do something to save her dog. It was all there in her beautiful face. She expected him to save her, too. The burden of it felt like a noose around his neck. He was nobody’s savior. The work he did for the government was never personal. Other than information from a brief, he didn’t know the parties involved. He didn’t know whom he helped, or whom he helped eliminate. He didn’t want to know.

Lola grasped hold of his arm as the yacht tilted starboard. She was starting to look a bit green. He knew the feeling. He’d already lost his dinner over the side an.hour ago. “Sit down on the couch before you fall down.”

Instead, she wove her way to the bathroom as fast as she could. The pounding rain and the ocean’s fury covered up any sounds from the head. Max didn’t need to hear it to know she was sick. During a storm, everyone got sick.

With Baby in one arm, he moved to the galley, where he’d gather the survival kit, life buoy, and folded self-inflating raft. Given the 1989 inspection date of the raft, he doubted the thing would even inflate. The survival kit, like the other emergency equipment on board, sucked. There was a small fishing tackle box and two waterproof lamps-complete with dead batteries.

Max set the dog on the bench seat in the galley, tossed his slicker on the table, then reached for the fishing knife he’d stuck in the top of his boot. He cut off two four-inch chunks of Styrofoam from the life buoy, then dug around in a duffel bag he’d filled with provisions they would need if they had to abandon the Dora Mae. He pulled out a roll of the silver duct tape he’d used earlier around the door of the cabin to help keep out the seawater. As the bow rose, he reached for Lola’s dog. Max raised his gaze to the windows that ran the length of the galley and salon, but he could see nothing of the chaos outside. What he did see was his reflection holding Lola’s dog against his chest, as if he had the answers to all their problems. Only he didn’t have the answers. During his naval career, he’d been through rough seas and tropical storms, but he’d been aboard destroyers. In 1998, he’d ridden out Hurricane Mitch aboard a Seawolf-class attack submarine. Safe and sound below the surface.

Baby licked Max’s chin and he looked down into the dog’s beady black eyes. Even Lola’s dog looked at him as if he were capable of providing a miracle. As if he could pull it out of thin air and save them all, adding to his burden. Tightening the noose.

He placed the Styrofoam on both of the dog’s sides. Then he wound the tape around Baby’s belly and back and the hunks of foam. When he was finished, the little dog looked like a silver tray with legs. It probably wouldn’t save Baby’s life, but it would keep him afloat.

The door to the head opened and Lola staggered out. Her face was as white as paper, and her lips were almost without color. She glanced toward the galley as she moved to the couch. The yacht swung hard to port, and she dropped down on her knees and crawled the rest of the way. From outside, unseen rain and sea smashed against the windows.

Max held on to the dinette and waited for a break in the turbulence before he walked to the couch. “This is the best I could come up with,” he said, and set the dog in her lap.

“Thank you, Max.” She lay down on her side and held Baby close to her chest. “I knew, deep down in your heart, you liked Baby.”

“Yeah, he’s grown on me.”

“Like moss?”

“Yeah, like moss.”

A weak smile touched the corners of her mouth. “Me and Baby and moss.”

“Maybe I’ve decided I like you a little bit more than moss.”

“Yes, I know.”

“How’s that?”

“You kissed me like you like me better than moss.”

A wave hit the Dora Mae starboard aft with enough force to knock Max to his knees. He hit hard and slid across the floor. The lights flickered and popped, then the engines shut down, pitching the cabin into darkness so complete, Max couldn’t see an inch in front of his face.

“Max!” Lola’s panicked cry filled the inky blackness.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Are you still over there on the couch?”

“I don’t know where I am. Where’s Baby?” A few tense moments passed before she spoke again. “Here he is,” she said a few inches from Max’s feet. “Will the lights come back on?”

The emergency generator hadn’t kicked on the first night, and he doubted it would tonight. “Not unless I restart the engines.”

“Don’t go outside.”

“Honey, I wasn’t planning on it.” Through the darkness, he crawled toward the galley and found the duffel bag on the floor. As he pulled the bag toward the couch, his eyes adjusted somewhat, taking in the varying degrees of black and gray. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“Just my elbow. I think I’ll live.” She was quiet a moment, then asked, “Max, do you think…” She didn’t finish, but he figured he knew what she was going to ask.

“Do I think what?”

He could barely hear the sound of her voice over the howling wind from outside. “Do you think we’re going to make it?”

Lola and Baby crawled back up onto the sofa, and Max sat on the floor, resting his back against the arm. “There’s a chance.” He told her the truth. Too many times in his life he’d thought he was a goner, but he was still here. Still alive and still breathing.

She grasped the sleeve of his T-shirt and twisted it within her long fingers. “Have you ever been close to dying, Max?”

More times than he could count. “A time or two.”

A few moments passed, then she spoke just above the sound of the angry sea. “I almost died once. It was scary and I don’t want to go through that again.” Her head was close to his right shoulder, and he could almost feel the warmth of her breath on his arm.

“What happened?” He unzipped the duffel and pulled out a flashlight.

“My heart stopped in the bathroom at Tavern on the Green.”

He shone the light on her shoulder and it illuminated her mouth and the top of Baby’s head. The little dog had a bad case of the shakes. Max looked down into the shadows cast across her face, and he wondered if she had some preexisting heart condition, of if she’d taken too many drugs. Again he asked, “What happened?”

“I’d gorged myself on lobster and mashed potatoes with extra drawn butter, then I did my usual fingers-down-the-throat thing,” she said as if she were talking about something she’d done quite often. “My electrolytes went all haywire and zapped my heart. It wasn’t the first time I’d passed out, but it was the first time I stopped my heart.”

“You almost died from puking?”

“Yes.”

Max had such an aversion to vomiting, he couldn’t imagine anyone doing it on purpose. “You were sticking your fingers down your throat? What the hell for?”

He watched her mouth as she spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, “To stay thin, of course. The waif look was in, and I am not a natural waif.” The bow of the yacht rose and plummeted, and her grasp on his shirt tightened. She stopped talking until the Dora Mae leveled out once more. When she continued, he could hear the fear in her voice. “Once I saw a girl overdose at a party at the Nepenthe in Milan. Heroin. A lot girls do heroin to stay thin. Not me. I starved myself or barfed.”

“Jesus,” he whispered into the dark cabin. “Why didn’t you find something else to do for a living?”

“Like what? I have a high school education. Where else could I make several million a year without a day of college?” She chuckled, but it sounded dry and without humor. “Not all of it was bad, Max. There were parts of it that I loved. Parts that were amazing. I met some wonderful people who are still my friends. Saw some incredible places. I was given the chance to be a spokesperson for great causes, and it opened doors for my lingerie business.” The wind outside howled and Lola leaned her forehead into his shoulder. She continued to talk as if talking would keep them afloat. “Other parts of the business were addicting. The money. The travel. The clothes. The attention. That’s hard to give up, Max. Going from a somebody to a nobody.”

As the yacht was tossed about, she told him a bit about recovering from bulimia and how her disorder hadn’t been about something missing in her life or an abusive childhood, but rather her desire for perfection.

“Aren’t you afraid it will come back?” he asked.

“Sometimes, but I can’t obsess about that, either. I just have to eat like a normal person and make sure I don’t have any erratic weight gains or losses.” Baby wiggled and she raised a hand and scratched his head. “I have to remind myself that control and perfection are illusions, and that I am okay with my body,” she said. “I don’t have to be perfect.”

“Lola, you are perfect.”

“No, but I’m learning to live with my thighs.”

“Your thighs are perfect.” He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation with Lola Carlyle, of all women. And under any other circumstance, he wouldn’t waste his breath. “When I met you, one of the first things I thought was that you’re more beautiful in person than in the magazines.”

“You’re sweet, Max.”

He didn’t think a woman had ever accused him of being sweet before. He thought about it a moment and decided he didn’t mind Lola Carlyle calling him sweet. And if they weren’t in the middle of a storm, he wouldn’t mind showing her just how sweet he could get. “I don’t like bony girls,” he said. “I like women. Women with breasts and hips and a butt that fits in my hands.”

“You have big hands.” She laughed, but her laugher died as the yacht took a hit to the port side. Max braced his feet, and Lola let go of his shirt to grasp the couch. When the Dora Mae righted, she grabbed his shirt once more and finally confessed, “Max, I’m really scared.”

“I know.” He covered her hand with his and squeezed.

“Talk to me. As long as I can hear your voice, I know I’m alive and I’m not so afraid.”

Under most high-stress situations, Max preferred silence, but if talking helped her, he would talk himself blue. He owed her that much. “What’s the first thing you’re going to do when we’re rescued?” he asked.

“Call my mamma and daddy? I know they’re just out of their minds worrying about me,” she said. “Then I’m going to get my naked pictures off the Internet.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I’m going to hire someone to blackmail Sam into closing down that site.”

Max thought there were probably more direct ways to go about it, but he didn’t offer any suggestions because once they were off the Dora Mae, Lola was no longer his concern.

“What about you?” she asked. “What is the first thing you’re going to do?”

“Eat prime rib.”

“Before you call your father?”

“My father died when I was twenty-one.”

She was silent a moment as the rain pounded against the door and windows. “I’m sorry, Max. How did he die?”

“He was an alcoholic. Believe me, it’s not a very nice way to go.” His father had been the one person Max had tried his hardest to save. Tried and failed, and he didn’t need a psychiatrist to get inside his head and tell him the reason why he lived his life the way he did. Why he risked his own life for people he didn’t know and a government that used him for its own needs. He knew.

“I’ve seen what alcohol and drugs can do to people,” Lola said, breaking into his thoughts. “I know that sometimes there is nothing anyone can do to help.”

Max laughed, more bitter than he intended. “God knows I tried, but nothing I did changed the outcome. When I was growing up, he was drunk most of the time. That sort of life is tough on a kid.”

“What did you do when he was drinking?”

“Now, those are some pathetic memories,” he said. Memories he wasn’t going to talk about. Not with her. Not with anyone. He took her hand from his shirt and brought it in front of him. He shone the light on her smaller hand cupped in his, and he ran his thumb across her palm. The yacht rocked toward the starboard bow, and he turned her hand in his and squeezed. “I played a lot with neighborhood kids,” he added. “When I was old enough, I joined the Navy.”

“Why the Navy?”

Max grinned into the darkness. “I liked the uniform. Thought I could probably get laid if I was in a uniform.” But once he’d joined, he’d set his sights on Little Creek and the SEAL program. He’d fit right in. While in the Navy, he’d earned a degree in political science and business, and he’d been selected to attend the National War College at McNair and was on his way to making commander when he’d been forced to retire.

“Did it work?”

“Yep.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. Then he looked into her eyes, the light casting shadows in her hair and across her nose. “I told you I’m a charming guy.”

She managed a weak smile. “Probably not as charming as you think you are, though.”

The tip of his tongue touched the crease of her fingers. “You’re just lucky I can’t show you how charming I can be,” he said against her moist skin.

Her response was cut short by the rise and fall of the ocean and the impact of a wave hitting them amidship. It pounded the windows and rocked the yacht hard on its port side. Max dug his heels into the carpeting and let go of Lola’s hand. He slid a few feet across the floor. Either the bilge pumps weren’t working or they couldn’t keep up. The Dora Mae took longer than before to right herself. The creak and groan of the vessel was more frightening than the howl of the wind. It was time to get serious. Time to let Lola know what they might be in for at any moment. He couldn’t put it off any longer. He crawled to where she and Baby lay on the floor and shone the light close to her face. Her wide terrified eyes watched him. “Lola,” he began as he knelt beside her, “how long can you hold your breath?”

“Why?”

“How long?”

“Maybe a minute.”

“If the yacht capsizes, it won’t sink right away. Find a pocket of air and look for a way out. The galley door will blow in and the windows might break out-go out whichever way is easiest. You have your life jacket on, so once you clear the yacht, you should pop right up.”

“Are we going to capsize?”

“It’s a possibility. The problem is that the yacht is orienting herself perpendicular to the wind and seas. Waves are mainly hitting us port with a few hitting starboard. The thing you have to remember is not to panic.”

“Too late.”

“I mean it, now. When water rushes in at you, it’s going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but you can’t give in to your fear. You have to save yourself. And you can’t save yourself if you panic.”

Her chest rose and fell. “What about you?”

“I’ll be right behind you. When I get to the surface, I’ll deploy the raft and we’ll get inside.” He purposely kept his misgivings about the raft to himself.

“What about Baby? He’ll never make it.” She held her dog tight in one arm and her free hand covered her face.

What she said was likely true, and as if he understood, Baby wiggled out of Lola’s grasp and came to stand by Max’s knee. His little pink tongue licked Max’s pants, then his bare arm. “I’ll make sure your dog gets out alive.” He heard himself utter the ridiculous statement before he could stop it.

Lola raised into a sitting position, and obviously tired of getting tossed on the floor, scooted to the couch and sat with her back against it. “Thanks, Max.”

Her “thanks” stuck in his chest as if it were the fishing knife he’d returned to his boot, and he had to look away. If it wasn’t for him, she and her dog would not be in danger of losing their lives. She’d be at home. Safe in her warm bed. Maybe designing bras in her dreams. “Lola, I’m sorry I got you into this,” he said.

“Me, too. And I’m sorry I burned down the bridge. I’m really sorry I did that.”

The sound of her self-deprecating humor twisted the knife in his chest. It was one of the things he liked her, and with Lola, there was a whole lot to like. More than he’d ever let her know. He picked up Baby and moved next to her. “For a pain-in-the-ass woman, you’re okay.”

“Is that a compliment?”

He glanced across his shoulder at her, at the light shining across her chin and generous mouth. “It was just a statement of fact.”

“Good, because it didn’t sound like that charm you keep warning me about.” The bow rose and Lola scooted closer. “And for an overbearing Steven Segal wanna-be, you’re okay, too.”

He forced a dry “Ha, ha” from his chest. “Steven Segal’s a pussy.”

“How did I know you were going to say that?” She grabbed his hand again and held tight. And when she laid her head on his shoulder, he lowered his face to the snarled part in her hair. She smelled like flowers and the ocean, like a garden growing near the beach.

Lola Carlyle wasn’t at all what he’d expected that first night when he’d seen her driver’s license. She wasn’t flighty or hysterical. She wasn’t a pampered model whose only worth came from how she looked in a thong. She was so much more than that. She was a person who faced her fears head-on and was braver than some men he’d known. She was a survivor-all wrapped up in soft sweet-smelling skin. A fighter.

She was horribly afraid, he could feel it in the death grip she had on his hand, but she controlled her fear. He’d been around too many people who didn’t, not to appreciate and admire her strength.

The Atlantic continued to pound the Dora Mae. Within the dark cabin, Max held Lola’s hand and just listened to the sound of her voice skipping from one subject to the next. She talked about her business, her family, and Baby’s expulsion from dog school. And with each hour that passed, the knife in Max’s chest twisted a bit more. With each minute, he had to fight the urge to take her into his arms and bury his face in her neck. No matter how he tried to ignore it, with every touch and sound and sigh, she carved out his heart.

The yacht listed portside, and there were a few times Max did not think it would recover. He held Lola’s hand as the wind continued to howl. That was it. Just her hand in his, but the touch of her slim fingers and warm palm felt more intimate to him than some of the countless times he’d made love to other women. He continued to hold her hand until the winds died and the sea calmed. Then he held her while she fell asleep against his aching ribs.

When the first rays of morning sun finally touched the windows, he lay her on the floor and placed a couch cushion beneath her head.

Then he went out to survey the damage.

For the second time since she’d stepped foot on the Dora Mae, Lola awoke after a night of hell in which she’d fully expected to die. She heard the galley door open and pushed herself to her elbows. The first thing she noticed was the complete lack of motion. The yacht leaned to the left but was utterly still. Sunlight poured through the windows and over Max’s shoulders where he stood in the doorway. He’d taken off his life jacket.

Lola rose to her feet and checked on Baby, asleep on the sofa. She tossed her life preserver on the floor, then followed Max outside. Raising one hand to her brow, she squinted against the morning sun. A hundred or so yards in front of her, blond sand and towering palms, jagged cliffs and thick vegetation filled her vision. Several palm trees and a Caribbean pine had been blown down by the storm and lay half in the water. The Dora Mae had run aground in a shallow bay of turquoise water.

“Where are we?”

“Don’t know.”

“Do you think we’re on an island?” she wondered out loud. “Or maybe the tip of Florida?” she added hopefully.

Max pointed toward the jagged cliffs and rocks to the left. “That doesn’t look like Florida.” He, too, shielded his eyes with a hand to his brow. “There are supposed to be some seven hundred islands in the Bahamas. I think we’ve landed on one.”

“Do you think there’s a Club Med on the other side? Or maybe this is one of those secluded islands owned by the rich and famous.”

He dropped his hand to his side. “Maybe one of your friends.”

She didn’t have friends who owned islands. “There’s only one way to find out.”

Max moved to the swimming platform, tied a line from the lifeboat to the back of the yacht, then he tossed it onto the surface of the water. A length of nylon rope was attached to the raft, and Max pulled it. Within a matter of seconds the little rubber boat inflated. Just as quickly, it hissed in several places, and air bubbled to the surface from beneath.

“Shit.” Max folded his arms over this chest and scowled at the rapidly sinking raft.

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t have to abandon ship last night.”

“We’ll have to swim.” He glanced at her, and he asked, “Do you think you can make it?”

“Yes.” Since she did not plan to panic and hyperventilate, she was sure she could swim to the beach.

Together they rounded up the food and supplies they would need to explore the island. Lola changed into the fruit dress and found a pair of old canvas sneakers without laces that wouldn’t stay on her feet. Max grabbed the duct tape and knelt in front of her.

“What happens if I turn into a princess?” she asked as he took her ankle in one hand, then wrapped tape around her sneaker.

His gaze slid up her shin, past her knee, to the hem of her dress. “What?”

“Like Cinderella.”

He looked up into her face, then reached for her other foot. “Then I guess that makes me Prince Charming.”

Prince Charming? No, but he was growing on her. After the shoes were securely on her feet, she brushed her hair and teeth, then she handed him the glass with her toothbrush. Without an exchange of words, he used it. When he was through, he tossed both Lola’s purse and the duffel bag stuffed with goods into a garbage bag and blew it up with air. He tied the end as tight as possible, then they all went off the back of the yacht into the water. Max, Lola, and Baby. The Styro-foam taped to the dog’s sides provided the buoyancy he needed.

The warm untroubled water with its sparkling shards of blue was nothing like the angry tempest of the previous night. So deceptively calm that it was hard to believe it belonged to the same ocean that had come close to taking all of their lives.

Twenty feet from the beach, Lola stood and walked through the waves to the shore. The gentle swells splashed the backs of her thighs and she plucked up Baby and carried him the rest of the way. The sand was still saturated from the storm, and when she set him down, he ran off to investigate a downed palm tree.

Lola didn’t know if the island was inhabited or if she was simply trading one disaster for another, but it felt so good to finally be standing on solid ground that at the moment she didn’t care.

She was cold and wet, and she felt like falling to the earth and kissing the beach. Instead, she sank to her knees on the moist sand and lifted her face to the sun. Last night she’d prayed for a rescue ship, and it hadn’t come. Maybe this was God giving her another way off the Dora Mae. Another chance at being rescued.

With the sun touching her face and cool morning air in her lungs, a rush of emotion squeezed her chest. She was alive. Several times last night she thought she would not live to see morning. Several times she would have become hysterical and lost it completely if not for Max. If not for the touch of his hand in hers and the reassuring sound of his voice within the dark cabin.

After everything, she and Baby were still alive when they could have easily drowned. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Now that it was all over, she sent God a quick thank-you and felt warm inside, like she might be having a religious experience. Not that she’d ever had one, but growing up she’d seen plenty. If not a religious experience, then just a wonderful moment to appreciate being alive. Of feeling her wet dress cling to her skin and the gritty sand in her shoes and between her toes.

Max ripped open the plastic bag and dropped her purse by her side. “Let’s go, Lola,” he ordered, ruining her moment.

“Can’t we just sit for a few and appreciate being on land again?”

“Nope.” He opened the duffel and handed her the pashmina. “We’re burnin‘ daylight.”

“Who are you? John Wayne?” She squeezed as much water from her dress as she could, then wrapped herself in the cashmere shawl. “And you have to cut off Baby’s water wings before we go anywhere,” she added, rising to her feet.

“His what?”

“The Styrofoam.”

“Come here, B. D.,” Max called to the little dog hiking his leg on the palm tree. At the sound of Max’s voice, Baby hurried to stand at his boots.

“How did you do that?” She reached for her dog and held him while Max cut the Styrofoam from his sides. “He never comes when I first call him.”

“He knows I’m alpha dog,” Max answered. The top of his bent head almost touched her nose. His thick black hair was finger-combed and smelled of him, a combination of soap and sea and Max. He glanced up as far as her mouth and his hands stilled. For one brief moment, she saw the yearning in his beautiful blue eyes. She thought he would lean forward and kiss her, and she raised her hand to run her fingers through his hair. Instead, he looked away and she returned her hand to her side. She was left feeling disappointed and a bit confused. After everything they’d gone through together the night before, her feelings for him had deepened. She respected his strength, not only his physical ability that made her feel as if he could take care of her and Baby, but his strength of character. There was a core of honor in Max. He would never abandon his responsibility or betray a trust. He would never use her to boost his own ego or sell naked photographs of her.

She didn’t love him, but there were many admirable qualities in him. No, she didn’t love him, but when he looked at her as if he wanted to consume her for lunch, her stomach got a bit squishy and her mind wandered to the shape of his butt in his jeans.

Baby yelped and Lola turned her attention to her dog. “Be a good boy, now,” she said as Max pulled off the rest of the tape. “You are a very brave dog,” she congratulated Baby once the wings were gone.

Max muttered something in Spanish as he shoved the plastic bag and Styrofoam into the duffel. By the tone of his voice, Lola thought it best not to ask him to translate, and the three of them set out toward the dense tree line.

“Which way are we headed?” she asked as she shifted Baby to one arm and hung her purse on her shoulder.

“Up,” was his informative answer, and she followed him in between two palms. Within a few moments they were swallowed by the vegetation and were forced to walk single file. Thick ferns brushed Lola’s ankles, and Max stopped several times, his hand outstretched to her.

Baby jumped from her arms and chased after a hissing iguana. They called at him to come back, but for once he didn’t listen to the alpha dog, and Max was forced to chase after him. When he finally caught Baby and brought him back, he opened Lola’s bag and shoved him inside.

“I thought he knew you were alpha dog,” she reminded him as he zipped it halfway.

Max’s brows smashed together over his blue eyes and he gave Baby a very hard stare. “Your dog has a real bad hearing problem.”

Lola didn’t even try to hide her smile. “Or maybe you’re not top dog.”

“Honey, there is no question about who is top dog around here.”

“Uh-huh. Maybe I’m top dog.”

He rocked back on his heels and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “I know you’d like to think you are, but you don’t have the right equipment to be top dog.”

She didn’t suppose he was talking about the equipment in the duffel bag. He was so delusional and male, she laughed. “What equipment is that?”

“I think we both know.” His gaze slipped down the buttons of her dress, over her breasts, to the bunch of cherries covering her crotch. “Or maybe you need me to show you,” he said, and lines appeared in the corners of his teasing blue eyes.

“I’ll pass.”

He shrugged as if to say, Suit yourself, then they climbed upward, past bushy lignum vitae trees with their tiny purple flowers, and Lola wondered what he would do if she placed her hand in the back pocket of his jeans and let him pull her along. Tropical birds sang and called to each other overhead, and when they came to a small stream, he crossed first.

“Stay there,” he said, and set the duffel bag on the other side. Then he came back for Lola and straddled the stream, with a foot on each side of the bank. She could have crossed the stream on her own, but when he reached for her hand, she took it as she had last night and all morning. Their palms touched and little tingles traveled up her wrist. As she stepped over the stream, she looked up into his eyes. And there it was again. The heated flicker of desire. The dark hunger in his light-blue eyes that he couldn’t hide. The craving that stirred passion deep in her stomach.

He dropped his gaze as he dropped her hand. “Is your dog getting heavy?”

Baby weighed somewhere between five and six pounds, but after a while, he made her shoulder ache. “A little.”

Max took the purse from her and placed the strap over his head and one shoulder. He reached for the duffel and started out again. Lola wished she had a camera to take a picture of Max carrying a purse with Baby’s head sticking out of it, the dog’s spiked collar making him look very tough. Max Zamora, carrying the dog he’d once threaten to drop-kick into the Atlantic. Somewhere beneath that hard, well-developed exterior, Max was a pussycat.

Baby chose that moment to let out a bark. He struggled to jump out of the purse.

Max placed a restraining hand on the dog. “If you make me chase you again, B. D., I’m going let that iguana eat you.”

Well, maybe not a pussycat, but he wasn’t quite the bad guy he wanted everyone to believe he was.

It took them another ten minutes or so to reach the highest part of the island, a breathtaking plateau heavy with Caribbean pines and rich foliage. They moved toward its edge and gazed over the side. The back of the island was less hospitable than the front, with jagged cliffs and vertical slopes. Pines and palms, but no Club Med. No reclusive rock star taking a break on his private island, just miles of ocean and endless sky.

They fought their way through low bushes to the middle of the plateau and discovered a blue hole. The freshwater spring was surrounded by pines and tall grasses. The hole was approximately fifty feet across, and a slight breeze rippled the water.

Max set the purse and duffel bag on the ground and Baby crawled out to stretch his legs. Then Max knelt on a rock jutting out from the shore, cupped his hands, and drank. “Damn, that’s cold,” he said as Lola sat beside him. She reached in the duffel bag and pulled out a canteen they’d filled earlier with drinking water from the tap.

“Any thoughts on what to do now?” she asked him. The back of her dress and the bodice was still damp, and she let the pashmina fall to her waist, hoping the slight breeze might help it to dry.

“Explore a bit more, then build a huge bonfire. After the storm last night, there should be rescue planes in the air.”

“What about a beacon?” Lola asked. “I saw it on that movie with Anne Heche and Harrison Ford. They were stranded on an island and looked for some sort of beacon so they could break it. Then, supposedly, someone would come to fix it and they’d be rescued.”

“A navigation beacon?”

“Yeah, I think that was it.” She slipped off her shoes and stared down at her dirty feet. She took a thin bar of soap from her purse and scooted to the edge of the rock.

“It would have to be on the highest point and free of vegetation.” He stood and looked around, his hands on his hips. His spread fingers pointed to his crotch. “Over there, maybe,” he said, and pointed to the west.

She removed her gaze from him and stuck her feet into the cold water. “You go. Baby and I will stay here and wait for you.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded and lathered her feet with the soap. “Baby needs a rest.”

Max chuckled and once again knelt beside her. He placed his hand beneath her chin and raised her face to his. “Okay, if Baby needs a rest,” he said against her lips, and she wasn’t so certain he was talking about the dog. As natural as if she’d known him forever, she leaned into him and opened her mouth beneath his. His tongue gently made love to hers, and the kiss was soft and sweet and turned her insides all warm. She dropped the soap to the ground and raised her hand to the stubble on his cheek. She ran her fingers through his thick short hair, but he pulled back, and the kiss ended before she was ready.

“Behave,” he said, and stood.

He took the canteen, a box of Chex Party Mix, an apple, and a bag of Ritz crackers. Lola was left with a wheel of Camembert, an apple, a box of wafer-thin crackers, and a hunger that suddenly had nothing to do with food.