They swam back to shore in silence. Alex's mind raced through the implications—the damage to the reef, the protected waters violation, the dead turtle that had probably been alive yesterday, swimming free before some careless fisherman's abandoned net trapped it.
On the beach, he sat heavily on the sand, fury and grief tangled in his chest.
Lily settled beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. He heard the quiet sounds of herreviewing footage on the camera's small screen—the net, the damage, the turtle's body suspended in the mesh.
"This is in protected waters," she said, her voice shaky. "How is this possible?"
"Because laws only matter if someone enforces them." Alex stared at the water, his jaw tight. "SPECA does what it can, but they're underfunded, understaffed. Illegal fishing operations know they probably won't get caught."
Lily's hand curled into his. She pressed a gentle kiss to his sun-burnished skin—tender, wordless comfort that asked for nothing in return.
That simple gesture cracked something open in his chest.
Tell her, his heart demanded.Tell her you don't want her to leave. Tell her she's become the most important variable in an equation you don't know how to solve.
But the words stayed trapped behind his teeth, suffocating in the same silence that had swallowed every important thing he'd ever wanted to say.
Alex Carmichael had spent his entire career fighting for dying reefs and endangered species, documenting fragile things before they disappeared forever.
He couldn't seem to find the courage to fight for this.
Chapter Eleven
It’s wild how quickly a person adapted to extreme situations. Like being stranded with a hot stranger, then, segueing to searing, mind-altering sex with said stranger, and realizing, you are quickly becoming addicted to the hot stranger’s presence in your life.
Lily noticed the energy of the room was off the minute she opened her eyes. Usually, she woke to Alex’s arm draped across her waist, the steady rhythm of his breathing against her hair, the warm press of his body against the curve of her backside. And always the morning sex that followed.
But today she found the bed empty, the sheets beside her cool to the touch.
She sat up, blinking away sleep, and spotted him hunched over the small kitchen table. His back was toher, shoulders curved over what looked like his field journal, but something about his posture felt off.
"You're up early," she said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
“Some of us still have work to do.” Clipped. Dismissive. She knew that voice. She'd heard it on her first day here, when he'd tried to leave her on the porch in a monsoon. It was hisgo away, I'm handling this myselfvoice, and it immediately put her on alert.
She padded across the cabin, deliberately ignoring the coffee maker—a sacrifice that should earn her actual sainthood—and rounded the table to face him. Immediately, she saw his left hand wrapped in a bandage that definitely wasn’t there yesterday.
"What's wrong with your hand?"
The white gauze was spotted with something yellowish that definitely wasn't seawater.
“Don’t worry about it.” He tucked it against his chest like a kid caught stealing cookies. “I’ve got it handled.”
"A scrape that's oozing mystery goo?"
"It's notoozing?—"
"Let me see."
"Lily, I'm fine."
"You're a lot of things, Carmichael. Fine isn't one of them." She crouched beside his chair, putting herself at eye level, and that's when she saw it—the sheen of sweat on his forehead, the slight glassiness in those blue eyes that usually looked at her with such sharp focus. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me. You have a fever."
"I don't?—"
She pressed her palm to his forehead before he could finish.
"Jesus, Alex." She yanked her hand back like she'd touched a stove. "You're basically on fire."
