The Trouble With Paradise

with the swells!”

Damn it. Maybe he could operate the radio and drive at the same time but she could not.

“Base to Phillips,” came Christian again. “Pick up your goddamn radio or I’m going to kick some serious ass!”

“What the hell is his problem?” she shouted back to Brandy and Michael. “I answered him!”

“Hon, you have to push the button when you talk.” Brandy had ripped off her shirt, and was pressing it to Michael’s wound, leaving her in nothing but a tiger-striped bra and those hot Daisy Dukes. “Now forget the radio and drive this sucker home.”

“I swear, I’m trying.”

“Push the throttle all the way down,” Michael told her.

When she did, the boat leapt to life. Okay, that was good. Speed was good, because her flesh was crawling, flinching in anticipation of a bullet tearing through it. She risked a look behind them.

Ethan had figured things out and was beginning to really move.

“First-aid kit,” Brandy yelled. “Where is it?”

“Forget that.” Michael said this through gritted teeth, sitting up with Brandy’s help. “Dorie, keep going. Circle around him, he’s going to ruin the-”

“Oh, you are not going to be a guy about this,” Brandy told him. “Screw Ethan and your damn boat. You’re going straight back. Christian’s a doctor, the best. He’ll patch you up-”

But Michael wasn’t listening. His eyes had changed. Grown heavy.

Closed…

“Michael!” Brandy cried.

He didn’t open his eyes but nodded. “Still here.”

Both Dorie and Brandy sagged in relief, but he was bleeding like crazy, and Dorie began to worry that he could actually bleed out. “You have to stay with us, Michael.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t move.

Oh, God. There was a shocking amount of blood pumping from his shoulder, soaking into Brandy’s shirt, and Dorie did the only thing she could. She faced the terrifyingly choppy water and pushed the throttle all the way to the metal.

TWENTY-SIX

Faster,” Brandy cried. “We’ve got to get him back faster.”

“On it.” Dorie looked down at the swells barreling into the boat. “But I don’t want to kill us.”

“Circle around.” Michael spoke without opening his eyes. “Head into the swells, hit them perpendicular, so we don’t capsize.”

Right. No capsizing. She whipped them around, the boat nearly tipping up on its end when she hit a swell too hard.

“Into them,” Michael ordered again.

Into the swells. Into the swells. Into the swells. Dorie repeated it to herself like a mantra. She could see the house, the little canal they’d come out of, the dock that she was going to pull up to-if there was a God-and a figure standing on that dock.

Legs apart, radio up to his mouth, hair whipping around his face in the wind, Christian looked right at her from hundreds of yards away. “Are you hit?”

The button. God, she’d forgotten Christian still hadn’t heard a word she’d said. She picked up the radio and pushed in the button. “Michael was shot! We’re coming in-theoretically. Because I don’t know how to park this thing.”

“I can’t hear you, you’re breaking up. Are you fucking hit?”

“Not me. Michael.”

“What?”

Jesus! She looked up, screamed at the swell she drove straight into, nearly flipping them over, and tossed the radio aside to use both hands on the wheel. Sorry, Christian. She had to concentrate to turn into the canal.

Only she missed. She actually missed. “Oh, God.”

“Gentle,” Christian’s voice said, and she realized he was speaking to her through the radio lying on the seat. “Gentle on the wheel, that’s all.” His voice came soft and easy. Laid-back. As if they had all the time in the world. “Make a wide turn and come back, try it again. That’s it,” he said as she followed his directions, and this time made it into the canal. “Don’t worry about anything but this,” he said. “Denny’s tied up, and I’ve still got Ethan in sight. You’re doing great, Dorie.”

Bullshit, she was doing great. She was hyperventilating. Her heart was in her throat and her legs were sweating. “The steering on this is stupid!”

He couldn’t hear her, but he responded anyway. “Ease up on it, there you go. Ten more feet and I’ve got you.”

In five, he took a flying leap from the dock and landed like a cat right next to her, pushing her aside to maneuver the boat into the slip with an extremely irritating ease. “Tie us,” he called to Andy and Cadence, who were running toward them to help.

Then Christian let go of the wheel and hauled her up to her toes. “Thank Christ,” he said, looking her over. “Jesus, I thought-” He shook his head, his breathing hard and uneven.

At the sound and feel of him, her heart sort of swelled, and then jammed in her throat, which didn’t explain why her eyes began to burn. Strong as she’d had to be the past few days, she felt strongest right here, right now, surrounded by him. What she felt for him was so, so much bigger than she’d even imagined, and, more shocking, couldn’t be contained. “I love you,” she whispered, the words escaping without permission.

He went still, staring at her.

Oh, God. That thinking out loud thing really had to stop! “Michael’s been shot.”

As a diversion, it worked. He blinked, and very carefully put her down before moving to Michael’s side.

She stood there a moment more, swaying in the breeze, wishing for one good wave to just rise up and swallow her. Yeah, that would work.

But somehow she managed to draw air into her lungs, and then turned to see what was happening behind her. Christian had dropped to his knees at Michael’s side, where he’d pulled Brandy’s shirt away from the wound at his shoulder.

“How bad?” Brandy asked him tightly.

“Not bad,” Michael said.

“Shut up,” Brandy told him, eyes on Christian. “Tell me.”

“Not bad,” he said, echoing Michael’s words. “Bullet went through. Let’s get him up to the house.”

“My boat,” Michael said, looking a bit pasty. “We have to get my boat.”

“Oh my God!” Brandy exploded. “Will you stop being a stupid boy for a freaking minute? Jesus Christ, you’re going to bleed to death and you’re worried about a stupid toy, like a… a-”

“Stupid boy?” Michael’s lips twisted, in a combination of good humor and pain.

Brandy glared at him. “This isn’t funny. Nothing about this is funny.” And she burst into tears.

Michael went immediately contrite, reaching for her.

“No, no, don’t do that,” she sobbed. “I’m okay. Delayed stress. That’s all.”

But Brandy couldn’t stop crying. And because Dorie felt like crying, too, she hugged her tight, and together they watched as Christian and Andy helped Michael out of the boat and up to the house.

“He’s going to be okay,” Dorie said to Brandy.

“Yes, he is,” Brandy agreed. “The son of a bitch. Of course he is. It’s us I’m worried about.” She sighed and wiped away her tears. “So. You love the gorgeous doctor?”

“Heard that, did you?”