a life-sized portrait of a woman and boy. The woman, elegantly beautiful in a long formal gown, stood with her hand on the shoulder of a small boy with plump, rosy cheeks and a mischievous smile. The warm light and friendly expression of the child beckoned, and Celia entered the room.
A camel-backed sofa, flanked by deep chairs, faced the fireplace, whose black, gaping maw devoured a profusion of potted ferns and bromeliads. She shuddered at the image and stepped around the sofa for a better look at the portrait, wondering if the pair were related to the present occupants.
Someone muttered incoherently behind her. Startled, she jumped and clasped her chest to prevent her heart from pounding through her breastbone. Whirling around, she discovered a man stretched out asleep upon the sofa. Her fear turned to surprise when she recognized Cameron Alexander, and surprise dissolved into a surge of relief. She would shake him awake and beg him to take her to the mainland.
But her vision blurred, her head throbbed, and the pain and dizziness returned. She slid weakly onto a chair beside the sofa. When the vertigo passed, she focused slowly on the man before her. With sun-burnished hair the color of a lion’s mane, he lay on his back. His unbuttoned shirt fell open, revealing the tanned muscles of a powerful chest, rising and falling in a hypnotic rhythm.
The strong lines of his sun-bronzed face, handsome, square-jawed and high-cheekboned, were softened by a lock of hair that fell over his forehead. A frown drew down the corners of his wide mouth, and a deep vertical line creased his forehead between his eyebrows, as if he dreamed unpleasant dreams.
His fitted pants accentuated muscular thighs, and his boots seemed more suitable for riding than boating. He had flung one arm over his head, and the other hung to the floor, where an empty brandy snifter rested in his curled fingers.
He didn’t dress like a boater, no jeans or shorts or T-shirt, but, living on the island, he had to have a boat.
She rose, gripped the firm muscles of his shoulder, and shook him gently.
Instantly, his hand flew up and seized her wrist. In the same moment, his lids sprang open, and his eyes gleamed golden and wild. The dreaming frown intensified, and he stared at her so fiercely, she shivered in the warm air.
“What are you doing here?” His voice rumbled like distant thunder.
She pried his fingers from her wrist, realizing she couldn’t have freed herself if he hadn’t allowed it, and took a step back. “Looking for a way to contact the mainland to charter a boat. Do you have a radio?”
“No.” In contrast to his harsh tone, his eyes flickered with sympathy.
“Can you take me to the mainland?”
“The closest town is Key West.” He snarled the words, but his hands clenched and unclenched as if he fought some inner battle.
Instinctively, she retreated a few steps. “Will you take me there?”
He shook his head, as if to clear the sympathetic look from his eyes. “I haven’t been to Key West in six years.”
“But you said Key West is the closest town—”
“It is.”
His gaze shifted past her to the portrait above the mantel, and when he spoke again, he seemed to be speaking to himself. “I haven’t set foot there in six years and I have no intention of returning now.”
Giddiness struck her once more, and she comprehended his words with difficulty.
“I have to go home—” The pain in her head stabbed and swelled, the room spun wildly, her knees buckled, and the floor came up to meet her.
CAMERON ALEXANDER scooped the slender figure into his arms for the second time that day and placed her on the sofa. He had sworn to avoid her, to closet himself away until she left the island, but she’d found him.
He should awaken Mrs. Givens and leave the girl to her, but his resolve to keep away weakened as he feasted on the sight of her. His hands tingled with longing to bury themselves in the halo of her auburn hair with its highlights bleached by the sun. Golden lashes brushed her cheeks, hiding her sea-blue eyes, but the wide-eyed stare she had bestowed on him when he first gathered her off the beach remained etched in his mind.
He had seen no woman other than Mrs. Givens in over six years, but if he saw hundreds a day, the one before him would still captivate him. Fleetingly, he wished he’d met her years ago in the drawing room of a respectable London home, before his marriage, before his trouble. He’d believed he’d lost everything before he came to the island, but he hadn’t calculated losing someone he had yet to meet. He’d had no way to predict a storm would wash such a woman onto his beach.
Poised and elegant, even in distress, yet poignantly vulnerable, Celia Stevens called forth all his protective instincts. A groan escaped his lips. He yearned to safeguard her, yet the most prudent thing he could do was place as much distance between himself and the woman before him as possible.
Had the Devil sent this vision to torment him? Worse yet, had God Almighty sent her as punishment for his grievous sins, a sight to conjure up memories of the horror he had spent so many years trying to forget?
He could not break his exile to take her away. He must avoid her, so there would never be another disaster.
Another death.
But even as he pledged to stay away, he could not refrain from staring at his gift from the sea.
CELIA OPENED HER EYES and gazed at the strange, lamplit ceiling in confusion. A glass clinked, and she looked toward the sideboard where the handsome stranger stood, filling a snifter with brandy from a crystal decanter.
“Feeling better?” The soft glow from the lamp bathed Cameron’s face in golden light, and a concerned look replaced his earlier fierce expression.
She pulled herself up to a sitting position and curled into the corner of the sofa with her knees tucked beneath her, uncomfortably aware she wore only a thin cotton nightgown.
He handed her a snifter of brandy, folded his tall frame onto a chair beside her, raised his glass in a salute, and downed his drink in a great gulp. “Drink, Miss Stevens. The brandy will revive you, bring the color back to your cheeks.”
She sipped the smooth cognac, and a flash of heat seared down her throat. “I’ve never been this giddy. When my boat broke up at sea, I banged my head somehow.”
He leaned toward her and parted her hair with gentle fingers. “You have an angry knot there, but the skin isn’t broken. Your dizziness should soon pass.”
He smoothed her hair back with the palm of his hand in a gesture both comforting and disturbing.
“You never answered my question.” Her throat burned from the brandy, and her voice came out a whisper.
“What question?” The edge returned to his tone, and his strange-colored eyes drilled into hers.
“Will you take me to Key West—or at least to the mainland?”
A wariness touched his eyes, and he appeared to withdraw inward. “No, I cannot.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
As
