brute force.
And failing.
Oh, God, he was failing, and the nose was pointing down into what she knew would be a very unpleasant end. They might be in a seaplane, and not at the altitude of a commercial jet, but that would mean nothing when they hit the water at a sixty-degree angle. Besides, she’d watched all those seconds-from-disaster documentaries and knew there’d be no floating gently away from this.
Gulping, Eve watched in terrified fascination as the muscles in his arms and shoulders bunched and strained against his soft polo shirt and smooth, tanned flesh until she thought they’d burst right out of his skin.
“Buckle up,” he snarled through clenched teeth. “It’s going to get rough.”
Eve felt her mouth drop open. More than it was already? A whimper bubbled up her throat and threatened to pop, along with her very tenuous hold on control. She was absolutely certain she could not handle rough.
They were going down.
“We’re going to die.”
“We are not going to die. I’m an excellent pilot,” he said tightly, and the engines protested with an almost human scream.
“In case you haven’t noticed, Slick,” Eve yelped, almost as loudly as the engines as she fought with the safety harness that seemed to have taken on an evil life of its own, “this is not a storm for excellent pilots. It isn’t even for creatures meant to fly. It’s Armageddon. And if I die I’m going to kill you. Very. Very. Slowly.”
“I have no intention of dying,” he snapped, as though she’d insulted his manhood as well as his entire family tree. “And what kind of doctor are you to be threatening the man trying to save your delectable ass, anyway?”
He shook his head at her and reached out to snag his Saint Christopher, kissing it before he looped it around his neck.
Eve watched in fascination as the shiny silver disc disappeared into the neckline of his shirt, wondering at her brief flash of envy that Saint Chris got to be nestled close to his heat and strength.
Dammit. She wanted to be held and protected too.
Just this once.
“What you need is a little faith,” he declared, just as the craft bucked and the engines gave an alarming splutter.
She swallowed another yelp, envy forgotten as she sank her nails into the armrests, wishing it was his hard thigh. She would like to put a few holes in his thick hide, despite the “delectable” quip. Besides, her “delectable ass,” as he’d so gallantly put it, was in real danger of becoming shark bait.
“What I need,” she snarled, “is for you to get us out of this storm. What I need is to find my sister and stop her from making the biggest mistake of her life.” Her voice rose. “What I need is not to be thinking about meeting my maker without ever having had a screaming orgas— Well, never mind.”
“What?” His gaze whipped to hers so fast she half expected his head to fly off his shoulders. After a moment his gaze dropped to her mouth. “A what?”
“Never mind,” she squeaked, losing her famed cool just a little. “I am not discussing the fact that I’m nearly thirty-one years old and have never had an earth-shaking orgasm. Before I kick the bucket I’d like to have just one. One!” Her voice rose. “Is that too much to ask?”
“You... What?” He looked so stunned that if she hadn’t been on the verge of a total meltdown she might have been flattered by his stunned disbelief. Or maybe insulted, since the disbelief was now edged with amusement. It didn’t matter that at any other time she would have been mortified at having admitted anything so private. Especially to this heathen flyboy. But since she was going to die she guessed it didn’t really matter. Dignity was the least of her problems.
“No. And now I’m never going to.”
His answer was drowned out by another ear-splitting explosion and in the next instant the airplane lurched sideways and flipped, throwing her violently against the harness. Lights exploded inside her skull and she knew that this was it. She was going to die and she was never going to have that screaming orgasm.
And to think she could be safely in London, with a hundred eligible men...
Six hours earlier, Port Laurent, Tangaroa.
EVELYN PRACTICALLY FELL out of the cab as it came to a screeching halt in front of a squat building professing to be the offices of Tiki Sea & Air Charter Services. She’d flown halfway around the world, but the worst part of the journey by far had been the past five miles. Five miles of absolute white-knuckled terror in a cab that she was somewhat surprised to have survived.
Swaying in the intense midday heat, Eve clutched the side of the car and locked her wobbly knees against the urge to sink to the ground. The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that the road was hotter than the depths of hell and would fry anything on contact. If she didn’t get somewhere air-conditioned soon the soles of her elegant heels weren’t the only things in danger of vaporizing with a whimper.
She’d left Boston in freezing rain, landed at Heathrow in the middle of a snowstorm, and the smart little suit she’d bought to celebrate her new professional status was sticking to her skin as if she was a sealed gourmet snack. And, since her suitcase had been lost in transit, there was nothing in her overnight bag suitable for the current soaring temperatures and smothering humidity.
Fine. There was nothing in her suitcase either, but at least she’d have something fresh to change into. She’d lost count of the time zones she’d crossed to get to... Darn, where the heck was she?
Blinking, she looked around, but that didn’t help because she was in a daze of fatigue and jet lag and couldn’t remember the name of the South Pacific island she’d just landed on.
Oh, boy... The South Pacific.
Her pulse picked up, her ears buzzed and a prickly heat erupted over her body. For an awful moment she thought she was going to pass out, and quickly sucked in the warm, moist air to clear her head.
Who’d have thought when she’d stepped off the plane at Heathrow and turned on her phone that instead of heading for the Women and Birth conference, as she’d been supposed to, she’d be getting back on a plane to fly off to Tuka-Tuka.
Or was it Moramumu?
She sighed.
She’d never even heard of the Society Islands, let alone a chain called the Tuamotu Archipelago. Which begged the question: what the heck was her sister doing down here? The last she’d heard Amelia had been singing at some fancy hotel in Hawaii.
“Lady, you sure you wanna be here?” the cab driver yelled over the music pumping from the boom box mounted on the dashboard. “There’s a much better place on the other side of the marina.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Eve said, hopefully masking her horror at the thought of getting back into that death trap for one mile more than was absolutely necessary. The guy flashed his gold teeth and cackled
