Maybe we have to pretend about our past, but not about our future.”
Her cheeks flushed a delicate rose. “A real marriage?”
“Were you really ready to settle for less?”
She bit her lip, small even teeth pressing hard enough against the soft tissues to be dangerous. He folded his arms over his chest to keep from covering her hand with his own. “We’re adults, and we’re going to be almost alone in paradise. And we’re going to be married. I don’t work in the lab day and night….”
“Well, that puts things in perspective.”
He smiled, dredging it up from some place deep inside that hadn’t been touched by the cruelties and disappointments of the past years. “We’ll take that part slowly. I’m not expecting you to jump into bed with me. I’m not making demands.” The smile disappeared, and he tasted ashes again, because he knew he was not above using his most foolproof weapon. And he used it now.
“I need you. No one will ever need you more than Heidi and I do, Matty.”
She nodded. If she was aware that he was playing on her greatest vulnerability, she gave no sign. “I’ll go with you to Inspiration Cay.”
“And I’ll do everything in my power to be sure you’re never sorry that you did.”
He told himself it was true, but even as she smiled in answer, he wondered what he could ever give her in return that would be half as important as what she was giving him.
Matty was used to exhaustion. She had worked graveyard shifts, double shifts and even, during the worst years of her father’s illness, around-the-clock vigils, snatching sleep when she could as she hovered at his bedside. What she wasn’t used to was the muscle-clenching, nerve-pinging meltdown of a body stressed to the limits of its endurance. She had survived the flight to Miami with its delays and rerouting, and the first sight of Damon with its emotional intensity. She had survived their lunch together with its revelations and evaluations. She had survived her own decision to accompany him to Inspiration Cay.
But she wasn’t at all certain she was going to survive the trip there.
“Matty, you’re as white as a ghost.” Damon’s voice vibrated against her ear.
She wanted to smile reassuringly, to explain in a cheery nurse voice that nothing was wrong except that her blood had drained to her feet. But she couldn’t summon a smile or an explanation. She closed her eyes and promised her stomach that the flight to George Town was almost over.
“You’ve never flown in a small plane, have you?” Damon shifted subtly closer in his seat. The heat from his body felt like an electric blanket cranked up to nine.
“Tell me we’re almost there.”
“We promised to be honest with each other.”
Something surprisingly close to a groan rumbled through her throat. His voice was kind. “This wouldn’t be bad if it weren’t stormy. But we’re perfectly safe. We’ll pass through this in no time.”
She wanted to keep him talking. She needed to concentrate on something besides the jolting of the plane and the roiling of her stomach. “Tell me about the island.”
He didn’t answer immediately. “First, I’d better tell you about Kevin. And Nanny.”
She knew that Kevin Garcia and Nanny Rolle were the other two adults who lived on Inspiration Cay. During one of their phone calls, Damon had mentioned that much in passing. He had left her with the impression that they were caretakers, and she had pictured them as a friendly older couple who trimmed hedges and swept verandas in exchange for a small cottage in paradise.
“Kevin first,” he said.
Matty waited, but moments passed before Damon began.
“About six months ago I was in Miami on business, and I’d stayed out later than I’d expected at dinner. My colleagues grabbed cabs back to their hotels somewhere on the other side of town, but I decided to walk to mine because it was less than a mile away. About halfway there I met Kevin.”
She frowned. This didn’t jibe with her notions about who Kevin was. “You mean Kevin was visiting from the Cay?”
“No. He was living in Miami.” He paused. “On the streets.”
Her picture of a smiling old man who would show her shells on the beach and identify tropical shrubs dissolved. “Go on.”
“Kevin ran away when he was fifteen. That was almost two years ago.”
“He’s only seventeen?”
“Not quite.”
“How did you meet him?”
“He tried to rob me.”
The plane lifted, and Matty’s stomach dropped. She squeezed her eyelids shut and pictured herself on the beach with a maniacal teenager who was pelting her with deadly-looking seashells. She forced open her eyes. “I see.”
“He was carrying a knife. A very sharp knife. And I wasn’t carrying anything of interest except a few dollars. I thought I was…” He shrugged.
“Dead?”
“Or thereabouts. Then I noticed the knife was shaking, the kid was shaking. And while I stood there waiting for the right moment to jump him, he collapsed.”
She made a noise low in her throat that was meant to be comforting, but it sounded more like a plea for help.
Damon continued. “He was half starved, crawling with lice, and well on his way to pneumonia. I ended up taking him to the nearest emergency room and telling them he was my nephew, so they would agree to treat him. They shot him full of antibiotics and cleaned him up, then I took him back to my hotel.”
“Minus the knife?” Her voice was faint.
“Definitely. He slept for twenty-four hours straight, and when he finally woke up we had a good long talk. Actually, I did most of the talking, but I found out enough about him to make some decisions. He has no family worth discussion. His mother was an American who died just after he was born. His father’s still living in Cuba. Kevin came to the U.S. with an aunt who moved to California when he was thirteen and didn’t invite him along. His mother’s brother teaches in Peoria, but he doesn’t want a half-Cuban nephew with an attitude. The state stepped in and put him in a group home, which he ran away from three times. The next stop would have been a locked facility, but no one was in hot pursuit. The older a kid is, the less interest the system has in him. At Kevin’s age they’d be only too happy to let him look after himself.”
“But he couldn’t…”
“Of course not.” Damon shifted in his seat so that he could watch her face. “Kevin’s brilliant, Matty. One of the brightest kids I’ve ever met. He’s tough and profane and unpolished, to say the least, but he’s got so much potential. I had to do something to give him
