The Castaway Bride (2 page)

This wasn’t just a bride in distress. This was a runaway bride. This was a bigger mess than he’d even imagined.
Whoa, white charger, whoa boy.

For the first time, Matt saw beyond the gauzy veil and the white gown and looked at the woman who stood so closely before him. He looked. And kept on looking.

She’d felt slender and warm in his arms. But that hadn’t prepared him for how breathtakingly beautiful she was.

Surely this woman was every man’s dream bride. A living, breathing fantasy. A vision of what-might-be if a guy got very, very lucky. That is, if the guy ever had any intention of getting married. Which he didn’t.

Her blond hair was pulled back off her face and tucked behind her headdress but the severity of the style only accentuated the perfect structure of her face. Her cheeks were flushed with panic but the pink glow served to highlight the creaminess of her skin and the startling, clear blue of her eyes—eyes that glittered with unshed tears.

But her mouth. In its trembling, pink fullness it was a mouth made for passion, begging to be kissed and for one crazy out-of-control moment he wanted to pull her to him and taste its honeyed sweetness.

He inclined his head toward her, his heart drumming in anticipation. He took a step closer—then forced himself to stop. What madness was this? He looked at her again. This time with a more dispassionate eye.

She was beautiful all right. Almost too beautiful. Perfect hair. Perfect skin. Perfect teeth. And that hand that had gripped his arm was tipped with perfectly manicured fingernails. She was high maintenance. Expensive. And trouble. Just the sort of woman he’d sworn off forever.

Those blue eyes should have warned him. Blue eyes like hers could look so innocent while their owner was quietly stabbing you in the back.

He hadn’t realized before but, when he thought about it, everyone who had betrayed him had blue eyes. Julia. Danny. Even his mother.

“Shouldn’t you be trying to sort things out with your fiancé?” His voice was gruffer than he’d meant it to be as he tried not to look again at that mouth. Or be intoxicated by the scent of roses that wafted from her.

Her face screwed up in anguish. Anyone else would have looked ugly. She looked heartrendingly vulnerable.

“I’ve told you. As from a few minutes ago he’s my ex… ex-fiancé.” Her voice stumbled a little over the word. “And I couldn’t bear to ever see him again.”

Those big blue eyes were raised to his in appeal. “Please help me get away from here.”

No! No way.
He struggled against those darn white knight instincts.

He’d bought her some time by pushing her bridegroom out of the elevator but that’s as far as he intended to aid and abet this absconding bride. He’d come up to these islands to escape trouble. Not to court it.

Mentally, he slapped the rump of that knight’s white charger and sent it off home to its stable.

T
he man wasn’t going to help her. Cristy could see it in the tightening of his mouth and the shutters that came down over his green eyes. She swallowed a sob of desperation that rose in her throat. He
had
to help her get away.

But why would he want to get involved with this disaster? They were just strangers in an elevator. “Can I help you?” he’d asked. That was just a platitude.

She felt awash with humiliation. Somehow it made it worse that he was so spectacularly handsome. She wouldn’t feel so bad if he was fifty with a paunch and a bald spot.

But why waste time worrying over this stranger? At any second Howard could arrive to coax her to go through with the ceremony. A guy in his position would not be made a fool of by having to explain his bride had run away. Or why.

How had this gone so wrong?

She’d worked her tush off to make senior analyst at blue-ribbon New York stockbrokers, Templetton & Templetton. Stay at the office until midnight?
I’m your gal!
Weekend lockdown?
Count me in!

On her way up, she’d become friends with Howard, the Templetton heir. They’d been platonic buddies who’d shared movies, dinners and dating woes. They’d never even kissed. She’d been shocked when he’d proposed. He’d offered a marriage based on trust and friendship with the promise that passion would grow. She’d taken her time to say “yes”. But once she had, she’d made a whole-hearted commitment and flung herself into the wedding plans.

And now this.

But no way would she go to pieces in front of this stranger. Or beg him for help.

She blinked down hard on the tears that stung her eyes. “Can you tell me the way to the ferry?”

“Ferry? There’s no ferry to this island. Just the hotel jet boat twice a day. And you’ve got…” He looked at his watch. “About five hours to wait for the next one.”

“Five hours?” Her voice rose in disbelief.

He nodded.

“Water taxi?”

He shook his head.

“Helicopter?”

He shook his head again.

“Wh… what about those buildings at the other end of the island?” Maybe she could seek refuge there.

“Staff quarters.”

She scowled. “Don’t tell me. I wouldn’t be welcome.”

He didn’t nod or shake his head this time. Just grinned. An infuriating grin. Was he staff himself? He wasn’t dressed in the designer sportswear that was the dress code for the male guests on Starlight Island.

She mustered up as much sarcasm as she could. “Well, thanks a lot for your help.”

Then she turned on her heel, her long skirts swishing around her. She tossed her veil behind her without glancing backward. There was no time to waste on wise guys like this. She had to get as far away as possible, as fast as possible.

Ignoring the titters and stares of the fascinated bystanders, she marched as quickly as she could on three-inch heels toward the lobby doors. They slid open before her and she was greeted by a blast of warm, tropical, late morning air. Down the marble steps and past the pathway that wound its way through palm trees and hibiscus was the marina. She had to find it.

She lifted up her full skirts and sped down the stairs. Negotiating the gravel in satin heels wasn’t as easy as she’d thought and she stumbled.

Someone caught her arm to support her. She whipped around. Howard!

No. The man from the elevator.

“So where are you going?” he asked in that slow, sexy Australian drawl.

“To the marina. There are boats parked there. I—”

“You don’t park a boat, you moor it.”

“Moor it, park it. Who cares? There are boats there and I want to hire one to get me off this darn island.”

“How do you intend to do that?”

Cristy was beyond thinking straight. “I… uh… just ask people, I guess.”

“Walk up and down the jetty shouting into the boats?”

“If I have to…”

“In your wedding dress.”

A pained look crossed his face. A
spare me the idiocies of women
kind of look. The kind of look that would annoy her on a normal day. Drive her crazy on a PMS day. And right now, made her itch to shove him in the nearest clump of bougainvillea and enjoy watching him become impaled on the thorns.

She gritted her teeth and flounced—she couldn’t do anything but flounce in a voluminous silk gown—away from him. A breeze picked up her veil and whipped it around her. Fighting with the wind to push it back from her face, she found herself turned right back around to face him.

And was stunned by the struggle visible on his face.

He didn’t want to help her. Was obviously regretting he’d found himself in the same elevator as a bride on the run. But she could see that he was losing the battle. The words were forced grudgingly from his mouth. “I’ve got a boat.”

Hope bubbled through her. “A boat? Here? You mean—?”

“I’ll take you off the island.” He spoke through gritted teeth.

“You really mean that?”

He nodded.

She closed her eyes in sheer relief. “Thank you. Oh thank you.” Then looked up at him. “I… I can pay you.”

But could she?

She realized she had no wallet, no handbag, no pockets even. She was a bride for heaven’s sake. And a bride, like the Queen of England, didn’t carry cash or credit cards.

“Actually I can’t pay you. Not, uh, yet anyway. I…”

“Who said anything about payment? Do you want to get off this island or not? Come on, before I change my mind.”

He strode away. Cristy stumbled again as she followed him across the gravel. Darn shoes. They were hardly the stuff of rapid escapes.

But she didn’t want to waste time by stopping to take them off. And she didn’t want to admit she’d stumbled because she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him as he walked ahead of her.

Broad shoulders tapered to the best butt she’d ever seen fill beaten-up Levi’s. Brides on their wedding day were
not
meant to notice details like that on other men. Or the muscled strength of his arms, tan against the black of his T-shirt. Or the athletic grace of his stride. And brides were not meant to experience, for even a second, a little shiver of sensual appreciation. But she did. She still wore the dress. She still wore the veil. But she was no longer Howard’s bride-to-be.

She followed the handsome stranger past the lush plantings of frangipani and bougainvillea that lined the pathway leading to the marina where the wealthy visitors to the island moored their craft.

He strode out on to the jetty. “My boat’s over here.”

Cristy hadn’t thought about what type of boat he might have. It was just a means of escape. But she was surprised by the luxurious white yacht he indicated before he leaped on board.

“C’mon,” he said, holding out a hand.

She stood stock-still on the jetty, unable to move forward. Her feet seemed glued to the wooden planks beneath. Ahead were the aquamarine waters of the vast Pacific Ocean bounded only by the endless horizon.

She was about to get on board a boat with a total stranger. She didn’t even know this man’s name. Who he was, where he came from. He didn’t seem axe murderer material but who could tell?

Then she heard it. Her name carried on the humid tropical air from way back where the hotel gardens edged the pathway. “Criiistiee!”

She spun around to see, still well in the distance but coming closer, a small dark-suited figure followed by several others like him and an indistinguishable blob of hot pink. This was not a wedding march but a wedding hunt—and she was the prey.

She gathered up her skirts with one hand, took the lean brown hand being offered to her by the handsome stranger, and jumped on board his boat.

CHAPTER TWO

C
risty hadn’t allowed for her long, full skirts being caught up by the wind and slowing her down as they billowed around her legs.

She was suddenly, frighteningly, aware of a gap of blue water way beneath her, then as she cleared it, felt her high heel catch on the railing of the boat.

Fuelled by a spurt of panic, she jerked back her foot and wrenched her shoe away. The heel snapped off, freeing her, but the force of it propelled her helplessly forward. She stumbled awkwardly onto the deck, teetered, managed to right herself, then tripped on the hem of her gown, lurched forward, and fell.

“Damn, shoot, hell!” She didn’t usually curse, but she couldn’t help the words from streaming out as she struggled to pick herself up.

Suddenly strong arms were around her, lifting her to her feet as though she were a featherweight. “Whoa! Thought for a minute there I had a bride overboard.”

Cristy was too stunned to say anything. Her heart was pounding and her breath came in gasps. “Me too,” she finally managed to pant. She remembered with dread that gap of water teeming, she imagined, with vicious, bride-eating sharks. “This darn dress.”

She looked down at her wedding gown as she spoke and found reason again to curse it. This double-darn dress. It was cut so low she was practically falling out of the front, thanks to the tightly-fitted corselet beneath that gave a gravity-defying boost to her cleavage. She’d joked with the designer that it was lucky she wasn’t being married in church in something so revealing.

And now look where she was—in the arms of a stranger on his boat and terrified that at any time soon her breasts might hove into his sight.

She flushed and pulled away from his grasp, intent on a modesty check and a discreet hauling-up of her bodice. But before she could do more than reassure herself she was covered, her rescuer stooped down, pushed her skirts up and aside, slid off her heel-less shoe, and had her foot cradled in his strong, brown hand.

“Now for your ankle,” he said.

Ohmigod. What the heck did he think he was doing? He should be getting this boat moving. Howard wouldn’t know which boat she was on, but it wouldn’t take him long to search the marina and find her.

“My ankle is fine,” she protested.

He tightened his grip so she was powerless to move, no matter how hard she tried to pull away. “That was a heavy fall you took there. You could have hurt yourself.”

With powerful but gentle fingers he stroked her instep and around her ankle, probing for any injury. “It’s not swollen? Feel okay?”

He glanced up at her as he spoke and she caught her breath as it struck her again just how handsome he was. Handsome in a bold, take-me-as-you-find-me kind of way with high cheekbones, a strong jaw, a firm, sensuous mouth and marvelous white teeth. He just needed an earring and a bandanna around his dark head to pass for a modern-day buccaneer.

But he wasn’t about to make her walk the plank. He squeezed her ankle again and ran his fingers firmly under her instep. “Need ice on the ankle?”

All Cristy could do was shake her head, incapable of speech. Not because of the pain. It was only her shoe that had sustained injury, not her ankle. No. She couldn’t speak because of the incredible sensation of his rough, callused hands on her silky, stocking-clad foot.

How could something as ordinary and everyday as a foot become the channel for such tingling pleasure? New and surprising sensations shot up from a super sensitive instep and traveled in shivery delight up every nerve pathway in her leg. Her nipples tingled and tensed.