stomach down. She turned, watching over her shoulder for just the right wave.
She floated up and over a few rolling waves, and then she saw one coming, the third in a set of three. She scrambled, but despite her practice runs, the board was impossibly slippery beneath her feet. It popped out from under her. The wave swallowed her, curled around her, tossed her and the board effortlessly toward the shore.
She popped up, aware Ronan was right beside her, waiting, watching. But the truth was, despite a mouth full of seawater, she loved this! She loved feeling so part of the water, feeling so challenged. There was only excitement in her as she grabbed the board, swam back out and tried again. And again. And again.
Ronan watched, offered occasional advice, shouted encouragement, but he’d been right. There was only one way to do this. No one could do it for you. It was just like life. He did not even try to retrieve the board for her, did not try to help her back on it after it got away for about the hundredth time. Was he waiting for her to fail? For exhaustion and frustration to steal the determination from her heart?
But when she looked into the strong lines of his face, that was not what she saw. Not at all. She saw a man who believed she could do it and was willing to hold on to that belief, even while her own faith faded.
It was his confidence in her, the look on his face, that made her turn the board back to shore one last time, watch the waves gathering over her shoulder. It was the look on his face that made Shoshauna feel as if she would die before she quit.
Astonishingly, everything worked. The wave came, and the crest lifted her and the board. She found her feet; they stuck to the board; she crouched at exactly the right moment.
She was riding the sea, being thrust with incredible power toward the shore.
She rode its fabulous power for less than a full second, but she rode it long enough to feel its song beneath her, to feel her oneness with that power, to taste it, to know it, to want it. Her exhaustion disappeared, replaced by exhilaration.
She was really not sure which was more exhilarating, riding the wave or having earned the look of quiet respect in Ronan’s face as he came up to her, held up his hand. “Slap my hand,” he told her.
She did, and felt his power as surely as she had felt that of the wave.
“That’s a high five, surfer lingo for a great ride,” he told her.
She achieved two more satisfactory rides before exhaustion made her quit.
He escorted her to shore. She was shivering with exhaustion and exertion and he wrapped her in the shirt he had discarded there in the sand.
“I did it!” she whispered.
“Yes, you did.”
She thought of all the things she had done since they had landed on this island and felt a sigh of contentment within her. She was a different person than she had been a few short days ago, far more sure of herself, loving the glimpse she’d had of her own power, of what she was capable of doing once she had set her mind to it.
“I want to see what you can do,” she said. She meant surfing, but suddenly her eyes were on his lips, and his were on hers.
“Show me,” she asked him, her voice a plea. Show me where it all can go. Show me all that a person can be.
He hesitated, looked at her lips, then looked at the waves, the lesser of two temptations. She saw the longing in his eyes, knew he was stoked. She caught a glimpse of the boy he must have once been, before he had learned to ride his power, tame it, leash it.
And then he picked up the board and leaped over the crashing waves to the water beyond. He lay down on the board, paddled it out, his strength against the surging ocean nothing less than amazing. He scorned the surf that she had ridden, made his way strongly past the breakers, got up into a sitting position, straddling the board and then waited.
He rode up and over the swells, waiting, gauging the waves, patient. She saw the wave coming that she knew he would choose.
He dropped to his chest, paddled forward, a few hard strokes to get the board moving, glanced back just as the top of the wave picked up the back of his board. She saw the nose of the board lift out of the water, and then, just when she thought maybe he had missed it, in one quick snap, he was up.
He rode the board sideways, one hip toward the nose of the board, the other toward the tail, his feet apart, knees bent, arms out, his position slightly crouched. She could see him altering his position, shifting his weight with his body position to steer the board. He was actually cutting across the face of the wave, down under the curl, his grace easy, confident and breathtaking. He made it look astonishingly easy.
This was where it went, then. When a person exercised their power completely, it became a ballet, not a fight with the forces, but a beautiful, intricate dance with the elements. Ronan rode that wave with such certainty.
Shoshauna had walked all her life with men who called themselves princes, but this was the first time she had seen a man who truly owned the earth, who could be one with it, who was so comfortable with his own power and in his own skin.
There was another element to what he was doing, and she became aware of it as he outran the wave, dropped back to his stomach, moved out to catch another. He was not showing her up, not at all.
Showing off for her, showing her his agility and his strength and his grace in this complex dance with the sea.
He may have been mastering the sea, but he was giving in, surrendering, to the chemistry, the sizzle that had been between them from the very moment he had first touched her, dragged her to the ground out of harm’s way, a mere week ago, a lifetime ago.
Ronan was doing what men had been doing for woman since time began: he was preening for her, saying, without the complication of words: I am strong. I am fearless. I am skilled. I am the hunter, and I will hunt for you. I am the warrior, and I will protect you.
It was a mating ritual, and she could feel her heart rising to the song he was singing to her out there on the waves.
Finally he came in, tossed the board down, then threw himself down on his stomach and lay panting in the sand beside her.
She wanted to taste his lips again, but knew she was in the danger zone. He questioned her motives, he would never allow himself to be convinced that it was about them, not about her looking for convenient ways to escape her destiny.
To even try to convince him might be to jeopardize the small amount of time they had left.
Tomorrow, hours away from now, they would leave here.
As if thinking the same thought, he told her his plan for the day. They would take the boat back across the water, find where the motorcycle was stashed in the shrubbery. Did she know of a fish-and-chips-style pub close to the palace? She told him that almost certainly it was Gabby’s, the only British-style pub on the island that she was aware of.
“We’ll meet Colonel Peterson there at three,” he said.
“And then?”
“If it’s safe, you’ll go home. If it isn’t, you’ll most likely go into hiding for a little longer.”
“With
