Isabella moved to his side, rubbing his back while he took deep breaths. “You’re okay.”
No, he wasn’t, but she didn’t know that, and it wasn’t like he could explain.
Yes, so, about that gorgeous husband of mine. We’re actually not married. In fact, I only met him a few days ago, and we’ve yet to make it a full day without irritating one another. Not that it’s stopped me from becoming utterly infatuated with him, of course. Because I am a weak, pathetic soul with no sense of self-preservation.
He made a series of increasingly miserable noises, helpfully explained by the boat rocking heavily from a broadside wave that sent him and Isabella grasping for the table to stay upright. Another followed, sending more water beneath the sealed door and trickling down the stairs.
“You were saying?”
Her increased concern was a small consolation. At least they would die screaming together.
“I can see land. We’re almost there,” Olivia announced, stumbling from the master suite to brace herself in the doorway.
She looked worse for wear, her pallor still a faint shade of nauseated, but for a woman who’d likely just lost two meals to seasickness, Heath admired her poise. Especially as the boat lurched through another wave.
A solid knock on the door startled them all. It slid open with a rush of water, behind which a very serious and bedraggled Nate sloshed in.
“Leave everything. We’ll come back for it.”
No one argued. No one could. It took every ounce of concentration to shuffle from one end of the cabin to the other without being thrown against the walls. Herculean strength was required to hold on while wind, waves, and torrential rain beat down on them topside.
Heath spotted Evan on the swim deck and allowed himself a moment of intense, bone-shaking relief.
Clothes plastered to every magnificent coil of muscle, Evan wrestled the wind while pulling the raft closer. His expression was pure, undiluted stress, but he was alive and at least physically unharmed.
“Ladies first,” Nate said, trying to smile through the sheeting rain. He held firm to Olivia while Evan fought to keep the raft steady. Isabella slid to the rear of the raft and fired up the outboard motor to assist with keeping it butted against the back of the yacht.
Heath stepped forward and Evan grabbed his arm, looking him dead in the eyes. “Don’t be trying to knock me in again.”
The desire to wrap Evan in his arms and lavish him with praise for his bravery sent more red flags scattering with the wind. “I won’t if you don’t.”
Nate and Evan were the last to board. Evan pushed the raft away from the boat so Nate could turn them toward shore, and everyone hunkered low, holding tight as water pelted them from all sides.
Heath moved to Evan’s side as the raft fought the current, telling himself it was to keep the ladies safe at the center. It was the warmth of Evan’s body, and the scent of salt and sweat on his skin, that really lured him closer. An intoxicating war of desire against fear waged in his belly.
The last of his common sense had shattered to pieces with a single kiss, and he let the wind carry the fragments away to rot on the ocean bottom. He held no illusions about what would happen when their time at Stout Rock was over, but for the duration of that time, he vowed to accept whatever the universe threw at him.
God help him, but his red flags had all turned white.
eighteen
. . .
Agroup from the resort met them at the docks to lash down the raft and get everyone safely back to the main house. Evan felt the threads of his control snapping one by one as they rushed along the rain-slicked path to Gracie and Marta, who waited with towels and warm drinks.
“Thank goodness you returned when you did. This is going to be far nastier than they predicted.”
“It moved so fast! One minute it was clear, and the next we were being bombarded.”
“Just tea for me, love. TheIbizahas successfully turned me off wine.”
“Forever?”
“Don’t be silly. Just for now.”
The conversations swirled around him as the storm pounded against the doors and shutters, but it all sounded like white noise in his head.
When was the last time he’d been so close to losing control? Sixteen? No, seventeen. When they’d finally broken him down to the point that he’d earned himself a trip to the hospital.
