Now that she had been, she could state with absolute certainty there hadn’t been a curse word invented that adequately captured the sheer terror and helplessness one felt when one was falling out of the sky.
Is that what happened to Carlotta before she died?she wondered, shivering despite the relentless sun beating down on the top of her head.Was my sister terrified? Powerless? Resigned to her fate?
The authorities had assured Cami the bomb that took out Carlotta’s private jet had instantly killed everyone on board.
But what if it hadn’t?
What if Cami’s sister had been conscious while she tumbled through the air? What if Carlotta hadknownshe was living her last seconds? Breathing her last breaths? Feeling her final heartbeats pounding in her chest?
Cami realized she’d been numb with shock since the crash, because thoughts of her sister melted that numbness away. She became aware of her blood roaring through her veins, tasted the saltiness of the sea air filling her lungs, and saw how her limbs shook like the leaves on the trees in the front yard of her childhood home whenever a big nor’easter blew through.
A plane crash. I was just in aplane crash!Fuck!
See? Didn’t come close to doing the experience justice.
If Doc hadn’t thrown a muscled arm over the side of the life raft just then, she might have given into the terror and trauma and burst into tears. Just like poor Mia.
The woman had been a stone-cold rock through everything. The one to tend to Doc after he’d been knocked unconscious. The one to keep singing even after they first hit the ocean going way too fast. The one who’d helped Doc unpack and inflate the life raft with apopand ahissof industrial-smelling rubber. She’d even leaned over and wiped a smudge of something off Cami’s face after they’d climbed into the watercraft.
But when the plane sank beneath the surface of the sea, dragging Romeo down with it—and when he hadn’t emerged after what felt like twenty years, prompting Doc to curse and plunge into the ocean after him—all of Mia’s cool-headed poise had abandoned her.
She’d screamed Romeo’s name. Not his nickname either. Hisrealname.
“Spiro!”
It’d been the kind of scream to shatter glass. Or shatter eardrums, at the very least.
Cami could still hear it ringing inside her head. And if someone were to ask her to describe the exact sound of horror mixed with heartbreak, she would say it was those two syllables ripped from the back of Mia’s raw throat.
“Little help here?” Doc said and Cami was quick to hook her hands under his armpits. The soles of her sandals scrabbled against the side of the raft as she fought for leverage. And when he helped her by giving one mighty kick with his powerful legs, he slipped over the edge of the watercraft like a seal sliding into the ocean.
His big, wet body landed on top of hers, and she let loose with an unladylikesquawk. Warm ocean water seeped through the material of her suit, and she got a nose full of his scent—a delicious combination of pine trees and fresh mountain air that she clearly remembered from the night before.
Basically, the man smelled like a Glacier National Park commercial come to life, and she would have stolen a moment to enjoy it. You know, taken a little comfort in sucking in the scent of solid land since she’d just been in aplane crashand now she was floating in the middle of the ocean. But the weight of his chest was immense, making it impossible to breathe.
Or maybe she was having trouble filling her lungs because his lean hips had settled between her spread legs and his hot, sweet-smelling breath fanned her face.
Thiswas what she’d been after last night.This right here.
But she reallydidn’tmix business with pleasure. So she ignored her body’s instinctive responses to his and tried to wiggle out from under him.
It was like trying to wiggle out from under a city bus.
When he didn’t scramble off her immediately, she frowned. Was he the kind of guy to take advantage?
She hadn’t thought so last night.
But last night I was all tipsy and in vacation mode and very likely romanticizing him. I mean, honestly, how well do I know the man?
Considering she hadn’t even known his real name until an hour ago, the answer was obvious.Not well at all.
Opening her mouth to give him a good tongue-lashing, she slammed it shut again when she glanced at his face and found his mouthnotcurved into a smarmy grin, but instead contorted in pain. She tried to project a tough-as-nails persona, but on the inside she was as squishy as a marshmallow.
“Hey.” She placed a tentative finger against the side of his jaw. His beard stubble was surprisingly soft, but the muscles that clenched tight beneath her touch were not. “You okay?”
He didn’t answer. Simply rolled off her with a long, low grunt, sat up, and touched the back of his head. His fingers came away stained pink, blood mixed with salt water.
“Must’ve been one hell of a ride,” he snorted. “Sorry I missed it.”
