The Trouble With Paradise

“How? I’m trussed up like a turkey on Thanksgiving.”

“Say it, goddamn you.”

Denny stared at him, but let out a long breath. “Fine. It’s done.”

“Spell it out.”

“I release you from your father’s debt.”

“Entirely.”

“Entirely. We’re even. Congratulations, you’re now the best doctor in the South Pacific to be both homeless and jobless at the same time, you bastard.”

Christian’s mouth split in a grin that was so beautiful, Dorie felt her heart swell, and then rip wide open. She grinned back, and stepped into his arms for a tight hug.

“You don’t have to be jobless,” Michael told Christian. “After what you did for me, I’d be glad to help you get a job.”

“Thanks.” Christian squeezed Dorie, then let her go. “And the islands have been great, but I’m ready to get back to it.”

“Back home?” Dorie asked with remarkable calm considering the train wreck occurring between her heart and soul.

“Yes.”

To France. She’d known this. She’d expected it. And he hadn’t made her any promises so there was no reason for her to feel like the bottom had just fallen out of her world, no reason at all.

“Do you hear that?” Brandy asked. They all went still to catch the humming that was getting louder and louder.

“A helicopter?” Cadence shielded her eyes. “A helicopter!”

This was greeted with such excitement that Dorie made herself smile along with the others. Because rescue was good. Great actually, because now she could put her new epiphany to the test.

She was going home to live her life. To design clothes, which had been her dream for a very long time. This trip halfway around the world had given her that, if nothing else.

Yep, any second now she’d feel the joy…

TWENTY-SEVEN

By the time the helicopter had refueled, Christian had gotten word via the radio that the authorities had caught Ethan. He’d run adrift on a ridge of coral and had given up fighting the sails. He willingly surrendered to the authorities and confessed in exchange for rescue.

Denny was hauled off, still trying to get everyone to say that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

He’d be telling it to a judge soon enough, Christian knew.

Then the helicopter was ready to leave. Cadence had decided to go home with only what she wore on her back. She didn’t want her bag, didn’t want anything from the island. “Going home to make a fresh start,” she said, and hugged everyone, even Dorie, though they were traveling together. “Friends forever,” she whispered fiercely, smiling when Dorie repeated it back to her with tears in her voice.

Christian watched them, not surprised at the deep bond that had formed between them. They’d been through a lot in five days.

Andy lifted his bag. “I’m not leaving anything behind. I want to remember.” He hugged everyone, too, and like Cadence, held on to Dorie for just a little bit longer than the rest.

Christian resisted the urge to step in, reminding himself of what he’d always known, that there was just something about Dorie, something different. Special. She pulled back, smiled, and watched Andy get onto the helicopter. Then she looked at Christian.

He was staying to watch over a stubborn Michael for the night, since he refused to go to the hospital.

Which made it good-bye.

“My turn,” Dorie said with false cheer. She hugged Brandy, then carefully did the same for Michael, then turned to join Cadence and Andy on the helicopter.

Christian stood there, poleaxed by a swamping rush of emotions. She was going to walk right out of his life. And since that’s what he’d wanted, there was nothing he could say.

Dorie reached for the hand of the man squatting just inside the helicopter. He wore a headset and was talking into it, but all she could hear was the roar of her heart.

She was leaving.

Then someone tapped her on the shoulder. “What about me?” Christian asked. “No good-bye for me?”

At least that’s what she thought he said. She couldn’t hear him over the chopper, or her own heart. She certainly couldn’t talk. Didn’t he know how hard this was for her? Couldn’t he just let her go, without making her lose it entirely? “Christian-”

“We need a minute,” he said to the pilot, then pulled her aside.

“Listen, I’m really sorry about earlier,” she broke in. She had to say this. “I didn’t mean to blurt it out. I think it was just a remnant from all that adrenaline, from the shipwreck, from being back in a boat, from the gun-”

“When I heard the gun go off,” he started, then closed his mouth. His eyes were shiny with some fierce emotion when he finished. “I didn’t breathe again until I saw you.”

God. The look in his eyes. She really wished he wouldn’t look at her like that, like maybe it would have killed him if it’d been her to get shot.

“It was the longest minute of my fucking life, and then you wouldn’t get on the goddamn radio-”

“I wasn’t pushing the button down-”

“I love you back.”

She just stared at him. “I’m sorry. I think my brain just hiccupped. Could you repeat?”

He let out a rough sound and rubbed his eyes. “Okay, but you’re risking my organ failure, and I don’t think you know CPR-”

“Look, I think I heard you correctly, but I’ve been really wrong about this stuff before, so-”

“I love you.”

She swallowed, her eyes locked on his. “Just to clarify, this has nothing to do with us not using a condom in the shower, right?”

“What?” Brandy shifted closer, sticking her head between them. “Sex without a condom? Are you kids crazy?”

Dorie closed her eyes. “Crazy. That would explain everything.”

Cadence hopped out of the helicopter. “What’s the matter?”

“Well, they had sex without a condom, for starters,” Brandy said.

“Just the once,” Dorie said weakly.

Andy hopped out of the helicopter, too. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Hey!” The pilot yelled out to them. “We’re on the clock here!”

“Just one minute.” Dorie hadn’t taken her eyes off Christian. She couldn’t.

“I’ve never felt like this before,” he told her in front of everyone. “This can’t-eat-can’t-sleep sort of thing.”

“It could just be indigestion,” Andy said ever so helpfully.

Dorie twisted around and glared at him.

“Just saying,” he muttered.

Christian took Dorie’s hand and stared down at her fingers for a moment, before lifting his head. “I thought I wanted to go back to France, because that’s the last real home I remember. I wanted to go there, work in an urgent care clinic, or the ER, because I figured that’s what would make me happy.”

“I know.” And it would be okay. Somehow, it would be okay. If only she could keep breathing, but she couldn’t seem to do that.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the headset guy tap his watch. She refused to acknowledge him.

“But I realized something,” Christian said. “Home isn’t a place. It’s a who.”