Private Paradise (10 page)

Kayla ignored her, grunting as she managed to
lift the trunk about two inches off the floor.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“Carla, what the hell are you still doing here?”

Carla turned to see Sam in the doorway. His
dark hair was wet and rumpled, rain dripped down a face tight with
anger, and his wet shirt clung to every swell and dip of his
muscled torso.

“
Ooh, did you come to rescue us?” Kayla
cooed. She dropped her end of the trunk, sending Carla lurching
forward as it threatened to jerk her arms out of the
sockets.

“
Just helping the twins pack up a few
things.”

Sam's eyes narrowed at the huge trunk. “We
can't take―”

“
They won't leave without it,” Carla
said through clenched teeth. “Just help me get it out to the cart
so we can get out of here.”

Sam reached for the trunk and hefted it onto
his shoulder like it was nothing. God you're strong, Carla thought
as she watched the muscles in his arm and shoulder ripple under the
weight of the trunk.

“
I know,” Kayla said, staring at Sam
like he was a steak and she was a very hungry lioness. Carla felt
her cheeks heat as she realized she'd said the words out loud.
“Imagine those big strong hands, running all over―”

“
Okay, let's go,” Sam said, and Carla
could see the hint of a flush under his tan. “After you,” he said
indicating for Carla and Kayla to go first.

Carla started down the stairs, flushed too,
all over, and not just from embarrassment. The skin of her neck
tingled from where his thumb had brushed it earlier this morning.
Unlike Kayla, she didn't have to imagine how it felt to have Sam's
strong, long-fingered hands touching her, running up the bare skin
of her back, cupping her breasts, sliding inside the waistband of
her panties...

She stepped outside, jolted back to reality
as the rain hit her face. Sam cursed as he struggled to get the
trunk loaded onto the golf cart, and they all squeezed under the
awning as best they could. Even so, in the five minutes it took to
reach the dock all four were drenched.

Bryce greeted them at the bottom of the
ferry's ramp, relief visible in his face. He hurried over to escort
the girls up the ramp. He was bone dry under a massive umbrella
emblazoned with the Holley Cay logo. “We were this close to leaving
without you.” he said to the girls in a scolding tone as they
sauntered up the ramp without so much as an apology.

“
I can't believe you wasted half a
goddamn hour packing all their shit up,” Sam snarled at her as he
handed over the trunk to two of Holley Cay's bellmen. “We'll be
lucky to make it in time to miss the storm.”

Carla's hackles went up immediately. “What
the hell was I supposed to do? They wouldn't go without their
stuff, and unlike you, I'm not built like the incredible hulk. I
can't go walking in all burly man and start throwing people
around.”

“
You can't get so caught up in ass
kissing a couple of spoiled brats that you put everyone in danger!”
he said, pointing an accusing finger at her nose.

Carla slapped the finger out of the way. “And
you have no idea what it takes to do this job. I'm doing the best I
can, so get off of my fucking case!”

“
Uh, guys?” Bryce's voice called over
the whooshing of the wind. “We really need to get
going.”

Carla shot Sam one last glare and marched up
the ramp and felt the metal walkway vibrate as Sam stomped up after
her.

She stepped into the ferry's enclosed cabin,
her nose wrinkling at the mingled smells of expensive perfume and
nervous sweat. The cabin was crammed full, the resort guests and
staff members packed tight as sardines as over fifty people sought
refuge on a boat never meant to carry more than twenty-five.

Sam came in behind her and closed the door,
so close she could feel the rise and fall of his chest against her
back.

“
I'm sorry,” he breathed into her ear.
“I didn't mean to get on your case.”

“
It's fine,” she said, not bothering to
keep the snippy tone from her voice.

“
I didn't mean to criticize you, it's
just that when you were gone for so long I started to worry about
you.”

She turned to look at him, craning her neck
to meet his eyes. “You knew where I was. Why were you so
worried?”

His lips pulled tight in a grimace. “The wind
was kicking up, the rain started. I started wondering if maybe a
branch had broken off and hit the cart, or maybe you slipped on the
stairs to the villa, whacked your head on that concrete―”

Carla's lips quivered as she tried to hold
back her smile. “I never realized you were such a worrywart.”

“
I'm not, usually,” he said tightly.
“But when you've been through enough natural and man made disasters
it's easy for your brain to go to worst case scenario.”

His hand came up to cup her cheek, and even
that slight contact was enough to raise her core temperature
several degrees. “Anyway, I'm glad you're okay. I'll feel even
better when you're a safe distance from the storm.”

Carla tried not to notice the way he said
“you're” not “we're,” or even “everyone,” as though he was
especially worried about her in particular.

She couldn't afford to entertain the idea of
Sam morphing into a nice guy. If she even entertained the idea that
he might approach relationship material, she'd be lost in a
heartbeat. Especially when even now, in the middle of a
catastrophe, it was almost impossible for her to keep her mind on
anything but how good he smelled, how warm his body was pressed up
against her. Her nipples tightened into throbbing peaks as every
inhale caused her chest to brush his.

Could he feel it, she wondered, the thought
making her cheeks burn hotter.

She had to get away from him. “I should
probably say something to the guests,” she murmured. She stepped
back, apologizing profusely to the New York banker whose foot she
stepped on. She pushed her way to the front of the cabin, stopping
at the door that separated the helm from the main cabin and called
for attention. “Everyone, I want to apologize for the
inconvenience. I know you were looking forward to another lovely
day on the beach, but unfortunately for us, mother nature had other
plans.” A titter of nervous laughter rippled over the crowd. “The
good news is we've arranged for accommodations for all of you at
the Ritz Carlton in St. Thomas, and of course the remainder of your
stay at Holley Cay will be comped.”

“
Do you mind? That was my
foot!”

Carla winced at the annoyed voice, once again
kicking herself for the decision to send the resort's other ferry
to St. Thomas to be serviced. “I know it's crowded in here, but
it's only forty-five minutes to St. Thomas so if we can make do
until then, we should be just fine.”

She tried to ignore the annoyed rumblings and
after a brief consult with Ron, the ferry captain, who was a dead
ringer for Bill Murray, she exited through the helm to the deck to
cast off the moorings.

Squinting against the steadily falling rain,
Carla untied the thick ropes from the cleats mounted to the side of
the ferry and felt the engines rumble to life.

“
You okay out here?” Sam's voice called
over the engine noise.

“
Just cutting us loose,” Carla said as
the boat started to pull away from the dock. She followed him to
the cabin door, pausing to take a last look at the island, the
white buildings and red tile roofs of the resort. Was everything
she and her cousin had worked so hard to build about to be swept
away in the storm?

“
Everything will be fine,” Sam said as
though reading her mind, his hand warm and reassuring on her
shoulder. “No matter what happens, you'll get through
this.”

He stepped into the crowded cabin and held
the door open for her. Just as Carla was about to step inside, the
boat caught a swell and pitched hard to the left. Sam lost his grip
on the door handle, and it slammed shut. Carla stumbled a couple
steps back before she regained her balance.

She caught the handle and unlatched the door,
but before she could pull it open more than a few inches a violent
gust of wind caught the edge and sent the heavy door flying open.
The handle slipped from her hand as the heavy metal framed door
slammed her hard in the chest.

Pain exploded through her torso. Disoriented
and gasping for breath, Carla staggered back, not realizing how
close she was to the edge of the deck until her hip knocked into
the railing and she went sailing over the side.

Sam watched Carla flip off the back of the
boat in slow motion, like one of those horrible dreams where you're
trying to run but the ground feels like molasses, you try to scream
but nobody can hear.

The crowd gave a collective gasp as Sam
struggled to get to the door, to get to her. He looked out over the
railing. The ferry had picked up significant speed once it hit the
end of the dock, and in the few seconds since she'd fallen, the
boat had already traveled several hundred feet. He could just make
out Carla's dark head moving through the water. Sam squinted into
the wind, his knees going watery with relief as he watched Carla
swim the short distance back to the dock and pull herself onto the
wooden platform.

“
Oh my God, we have to go back,”
someone called.

“
We can't stop,” someone else said.
“The storm's getting worse. If we turn around we risk getting stuck
at sea in the middle of a hurricane.”

As cold as it sounded, he was right, and Sam
knew it. Bryce, white-faced, froze with his hand on the door of the
wheelhouse. “Tell Ron to keep going. I'll take care of Carla.”

He kicked off his shoes and dove off the
stern, felt the warm waters of the Caribbean close over his head.
As his body sliced through the water he could hear the sound of the
ferry's engine fading as it continued on its course.

Within a few minutes he was hauling himself
onto the dock next to Carla, who sat huddled against the wind,
still looking slightly dazed.

“
You idiot,” she said, with a weak
punch to his shoulder as he sat to catch his breath. “You saw me
get on the dock. You should have kept going.”

Sam had always been careful to control his
temper. Twenty-one years sharing the same space with an alcoholic
on a hair trigger taught Sam countless hard lessons on the kind of
damage a man could do if he didn't keep a lid on his rage. But the
idea that she thought he was capable of ditching her to wait out
the storm by herself, combined with the gut twisting fear he'd
experienced when he watched her fly over the side of the boat,
tangled together with the unrelenting sexual frustration of the
last week had brought fury roaring to the surface.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her
a shake and got his face right up close to hers. “Goddamn it,
Carla, I know I was shitty to you, but do you really think I'm such
a selfish asshole that I'd leave you alone with a fucking hurricane
barreling down on you?”

“
It would have been the smarter thing
to do,” she said with a belligerent tilt to her chin, her eyes
narrowed in a glare.

His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “I
think we established a long time ago which one of us is the brain
trust around here. I don't give a shit about being smart. I care
about making sure you stay safe.”

“
In that case,” she said, her jaw
softening, “thanks for coming back for me.” Her eyes lost their
defiant glimmer and in that instant, her guard disappeared and Sam
saw exactly how scared she was under her toug- as-nails
I-can-handle-anything-you-throw-my-way-exterior.

The anger drained out of him and he pulled
her to him, resting his forehead against hers. “I think my heart
actually stopped when I saw you go over the rail.”

She let out a muffled chuckle. “I think mine
stopped when that door nailed me.”

“
Oh, shit, how bad are you hurt?” Sam
asked, feeling like even more of an asshole for manhandling her. He
pressed his palm against her sternum, frowning at the way she
winced.

“
I got the wind knocked out of me, but
I think I'll just have a big bruise.” She looked pointedly at his
hand where it rested between her breasts. In spite of everything,
he felt the blood surge in his groin at the feel of full curves
against his hand.

The wind kicked up another notch, and the
rain started to fall harder. Sam pulled his hand away and helped
Carla to her feet. She looked out over the sea, churning with
whitecaps. “They're not going to have time to come back for
us.”

Sam put his hand on her shoulder, felt the
tension quivering under her skin. “No.”

They had no choice but to wait out the
storm.

###

Carla took Sam's hand and let him lead her up
back up to the main building. Soaked, her chest aching where the
door had slammed into her, she tried to put her fear aside as they
prepared for the coming storm. Panic wouldn't help either of
them.

Instead, she stayed close to Sam, following
his lead as he gathered supplies to help them through the storm. If
he shared any of her panic, it didn't show as he moved calmly,
purposefully through the main lodge, putting together everything
they might need.

It surprised her how calming his presence
was. The way he faced the challenge, did what needed to be done
with no unnecessary drama or emotion. Carla had never thought of
Sam as someone who could make her feel safe, but right now she
couldn't think of anyone more capable of helping her see the storm
through safely.