The Trouble With Paradise

The crew came running at her shriek of terror, Christian at the head of the pack.

Dorie didn’t move, just stared down at the foot-long, dinosaur-looking creature strutting past all of them as if it was king, holding a still squirming frog in his mouth.

“Iguana,” Christian said.

The thing had wide beady eyes with a vertical pupil that gave it an alienlike expression, not to mention the prickly spiked ridges over each eye that almost made it look like it was wearing glasses. Its teeth were disarmingly plentiful, gripping its prize.

“He’s got his dinner,” Ethan noted.

Dorie did her best not to lose hers. “That poor frog is still alive!”

“Not for long.” Ethan offered the bottle of vodka. “Here, this might help.” He also had the last bag of chips. “Anyone?”

Brandy took the alcohol.

Cadence wanted to share.

Dorie went for the chips, and wished they were chocolate.

Denny went back to brooding on the Sun Song, and Christian and Andy tended to the fire.

Ethan stayed with the women. “Pass the vodka.”

Dorie offered to pass the chips around as well, but Brandy shook her head. “I might as well lose a few pounds while I’m here, because if we don’t get rescued in a timely fashion, I’m going to get fired. Being fit will help me get a job somewhere else.”

“If I don’t get back soon,” Cadence said, “I won’t finish a painting I’m doing on spec for a customer, and I’ll lose my rent money for the month.”

“If I don’t get back…” Dorie paused. If she didn’t get back, what would happen?

Nothing.

Nothing would happen, and nothing would change.

Not such a great thought. “I think I have changes to make,” she said softly. “Serious changes.” She realized they were all looking at her. “It’s that whole waiting for life to happen thing. I need to stop doing that, and make it happen.”

“Well, you could always go kiss a stud…” Brandy took a big swig of vodka. “In the name of the game.”

Dorie’s gaze locked on Andy and Christian. Andy stood on the far side of the fire, staring in the flames. Christian moved from the pit, walking toward the water’s edge.

“Actually,” she murmured. “You might be on to something.”

“She is?” Cadence asked, shocked.

Brandy smiled. “You go, girl.”

“Wait.” Ethan snagged the bottle from Brandy and offered it to Dorie. “You might need a shot of this first.”

Dorie took a swallow, choked, then handed it off. She stood, grabbed her purse, and started walking.

“Which one is she going after?” Ethan whispered.

“Not sure,” Cadence whispered back. “But she has her purse and the box of condoms.”

“A box?” Brandy asked.

Dorie kept walking, past the fire.

She heard Cadence’s surprised intake of breath, or maybe that was her own. But she was no longer unsure of her next move. There was really only one thing to be done, probably there’d always only been one thing. Actually, one man.

And she headed directly toward him.

SIXTEEN

As Dorie approached Christian, he looked up, his face streaked with sand, sweat, and a barely banked misery that pretty much ripped her heart right out of her chest. “What is it?” she asked.

He lifted a hat, which he’d clearly just pulled from the water, an Astros baseball cap.

“Bobby’s,” she gasped.

He hung the hat off the closest palm tree and shoved his fingers through his hair.

“Christian?”

Swiping an arm over his forehead, he waited for her to talk.

She swallowed hard. For whatever reason, she’d had some misguided idea that she could approach this tall, dark, and attitude-ridden man, and seize the day. Her day. Now she simply wanted to give him some comfort, but was suddenly at a loss. She glanced back at Cadence and Brandy, who waved her on. Right.

She could do this.

“Can we walk?” It was a procrastination strategy, but he shrugged and grabbed his flashlight. They headed up the beach, Christian not saying a word, Dorie’s heart hammering so loudly in her ears that she couldn’t have spoken to save her life. The long, dark beach curved around, and within a few minutes they could no longer see the glow from the campfire, could see nothing but the dark outline of the island jutting up to the heavens on their right and the glimmer of the faint starlight on the waves on their left.

Dorie had always imagined a deserted island would be silent, but she’d been very wrong. The water crashed onto the sand. Insects buzzed, and given the ear-splitting decibels of the hum, they were damn large insects. The small, colorful, plentiful birds hadn’t gone to sleep with the setting sun, and their cries were piercing. Haunting. And she’d have sworn that not all those screeches and hoots were avian based, but she didn’t want to think on that too long.

At a sharp curve in the beach, they met the rocky climb they’d made earlier, and silently took it again.

Ten minutes later, the steep incline once again gave way to the plateau that provided a windy, sweeping view of the dark beach far below. Dorie stood there, panting for breath.

She really needed to get serious about exercise. Assuming she survived her vacation, that is.

“What are we doing?”

“Seizing my day. My life.”

“Huh?”

“I…” Want to jump your bones. “Um-”

“Shh,” he said suddenly. “Do you hear that?”

Cocking her head, she listened. She could hear the wind rustling the trees. More insects buzzing. And then the lone cry of a bird. Surrounded by the wet, dark rain forest that she couldn’t see, the lushness of it dripped with moisture, and even by the moon’s glow, seemed vacuous. “I hear lots of things.”

“Water.” He pulled her off the rock and into-big gulp-the rain forest.

It swallowed them up whole.

One moment she could hear and see the waves below, and above the slender moon and billions of stars, and then the next moment, nothing. “Christian.”

Taking her hand, he tugged her along. Damp branches and leaves brushed her arms and legs. Something touched her cheek, and with a squeak, she glued herself to Christian’s back.

“What?” he asked.

She brushed a hand over his pagan-god-like shoulder. “You had something on you.”

Seeing right through her, he snorted, then continued on, but suddenly went still.

Oh, God, what now?

“Look,” he said.

She realized she’d closed her eyes in terror, and with a brave swallow, she opened them to find herself standing before a cliff that zoomed so high up she couldn’t see where it ended. From somewhere up there fell a waterfall, landing into a natural pool about thirty feet below them. Lit by the moon, the water shimmered like live crystals, but the pool, shadowed by all the lush growth, lay still as smooth, black marble. Still but not quiet. Here