Elaina woke later, still in Alex’s arms, but they were now in the cab of the pickup beside James. Clear morning sunlight streamed through the truck’s windows.
“Where are we?”
Alex gazed down, his eyes bulging and wild, and he clutched her with a tense grip. “Christ, it’s about time. Are you okay? When we stopped hours ago, your skin was cold to the touch, and I couldn’t wake you.”
“I’m okay,” she lied.
Whether the lie fell from her lips because she couldn’t talk about the issue in front of James or because she didn’t want to admit how weak she was, she wasn’t sure. Alex’s touch still wasn’t warming her inside, even though the hot air blasting from the vents kept the cab toasty. Was that bonus between them permanently broken?
She sat up in his lap. The truck sped through a snow-covered landscape. Ahead, a big city broke the horizon, but she didn’t recognize the skyline.
“Where we are?” she repeated.
“We’re almost to Minneapolis-St. Paul. James is going to drop us off at the airport and then return to Chicago to cover our tracks.”
“No one followed us?”
James looked over and grinned. “I think someone was following at first. I had to lose them—without driving as though I had a reason to try to lose them.”
She restrained herself from knocking that expression off his face but didn’t hold back her grumble. “I’m delighted someone had fun last night.”
James scrubbed his smooth scalp and returned his attention to the road. “Yeah, I heard the back wasn’t very nice. Sorry about that.”
She leaned around Alex and checked out the rear window. “You’re sure we lost them?”
“Positive.” James verified with Alex, who agreed. “To go along with the hunting story, I drove up to northern Wisconsin last night. Miles of country roads with no one on them. Over the crest of a hill, I killed the lights and pulled off the road at the bottom. After ten minutes passed without another car catching up to us, I knew we were safe.”
“That’s when he fetched us from the back.” Alex squeezed her against him. “But that was hours ago. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“The less said about it, the better.”
When she was strong, she was stronger than a human, but when she was weak, she was disturbingly vulnerable. Between the stress, cold, and healing of the physical abuse, the previous night’s escape had depleted the energy from the last several weeks’ worth of acquisitions.
And for whatever reason, not only was Alex’s touch not warming her, but her sleep in his arms also hadn’t been recharging. She was damned lucky she’d woken at all.
Had something changed the energy dynamics between them? His marriage proposal maybe? Or her rejection of his proposal? Had one of those changed her “claim” on him? She drove the questions from her mind before she started hyperventilating again.
The hard part of their travel didn’t end at the airport, as they alternated airline flights, car rentals, and taxi drives to hopscotch from Minnesota, Colorado, Missouri, and Tampa, Florida on their way to Miami. According to Alex, the broken itinerary would make it harder for anyone to track them, even if the bogus names they used for the airlines were exposed.
They’d done all they could by paying cash for everything and using fake IDs. Luckily, she still had her old IDs, and Alex had picked one up as part of his preparation.
Despite the 48-hour travel marathon and her energy deficit, she wasn’t going to complain. The man who had protested a couple of months ago about traveling on a bus had now accompanied her in the cheap seats on bargain airlines.
Maybe she could have used the journey to break away from Alex and leave in the chaos, but once again, she couldn’t help wanting to give them every opportunity to figure out a plan together.
After hitching a rollicking boat ride to Abaco Island in the Bahamas the next morning with a well-compensated fisherman—thus avoiding an airline ticket trail—Elaina was beyond ready for the journey to end. Their last obstacle was to locate the caretaker of Alex’s private island, whom he’d never met.
The Buttercup, his island’s main boat, was docked in the Marsh Harbour marina on Abaco Island as planned, but their guide was nowhere to be seen. As the sun dipped lower, every unanswered phone call to his island’s custodian caused Alex’s face to tighten.
Mid-afternoon had deepened into late afternoon by the time an older man stumbled up the pier, struggling under the weight of several boxes. Alex grimaced and sprang to his feet.
“Let me help you with those.” He took the top two cartons off the tower.
The islander eyed Alex and Elaina over the top of the now-lower pile. “Thanks. You must be Mr. Roberts.”
Was this the custodian? His Bahamian accent turned thanks to tanks and must be into mus-see. But even forgiving the accent’s effect on his pronunciation, he hadn’t called Alex anything close to Mr. Wyatt—or the phony name from his fake ID.
“Uh, yes. These go in the boat?”
The man confirmed and led them onto the Buttercup. The boat was bigger than it had appeared from the dock. The swimming platform off the back opened to a patio-like area behind the enclosed section of the boat.
Her steps halted inside the glass door. No small fishing boat, this thing was a yacht.
Boxes currently buried the cushioned benches lining the sides, but that clutter didn’t detract from the gorgeous mahogany wood or gleaming fixtures at the helm. Toward the front, stairs led below the expansive windows down to a lower level with a granite-counter-topped kitchenette.
The stress of the journey slipped from her shoulders. As far as she was concerned, they’d arrived at their destination.
Alex checked out the lower hall, drawing her attention to the master bedroom below. “Not bad. I’m glad that broker I bought it through didn’t steer me wrong.”
“True, true.” Their guide shook Alex’s hand in a friendly greeting. “I happy to meet you, Chief. Welcome to the Bahamas. You family to the Billy Roberts?”
“Uh, not that I know of. His people settled in the area though, right?”
The caretaker’s head of graying hair bobbed. “I’s Lenny Roberts. I’s a Roberts like you. You can call me Uncle Lenny.”
Alex’s lips twitched into a grin. She wasn’t sure which irony he found more amusing—the idea of him and the dark-skinned man sharing genetics or that he wasn’t a “Roberts” at all.
After they finished loading all the boxes and luggage, they followed “Uncle” Lenny up spiral stairs on the back deck to a second level over the enclosed section of the boat. Other than a roof, this level was open to the air. The men took the two control chairs at the front, and she settled on a cushioned L-shaped bench beside a table in the back corner.
A few minutes later, they were underway. Tropical breezes teased her hair, and she stretched out on the bench, surveying the view.
Turquoise water churned in their wake. Palm trees covered the main island to their right. Narrow barrier islands broke the surface of the ocean to their left. She breathed deeply, her worries about how long they’d have to stay here lessened by the hot sunshine.
Up front, Alex was getting Uncle Lenny’s rundown on the boat’s controls and his disagreements with the island’s previous “grabalishus” owner. Despite Uncle Lenny’s complaints about the greediness of his former employer, his singsong accent lulled her to unwind and close her eyes.
A few minutes later, Alex’s voice sounded above her. “You know, the bright sunlight makes your skin shimmer more than usual. If the locals could see it, they’d think you were a mermaid, or maybe a survivor of the lost city of Atlantis.”
“Yes, because a dragon isn’t exotic enough.”
He laughed, loud and genuine. The sound lightened the worry weighing down her heart. After the last couple of days, it was good to see him happy and relaxed again. For a moment, she let herself forget the difficulties facing them.
She sat up and grinned at him. “So, ‘Mr. Roberts,’ where is your pirate ship Revenge?”
He joined her on the bench and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You figured that out?”
“You’ve only made me watch The Princess Bride about seven times.”
Not that she was complaining. She was glad to be included in his favorite memories of his mother by watching “their” movie together.
Her finger ran teasingly down his open collar. “I should hope I could figure out the ‘Dread Pirate Roberts’ reference. Especially with this boat being named Buttercup.”
“It’s true that I love you for your brains.” He kissed her forehead and tipped his chin, indicating ahead of them. “Revenge is the name of the sailboat. More appropriate, don’t you think?”
“It sounds perfect. Now if only you had let me summon that first class passenger’s jewelry yesterday, you’d have been all set as a pirate.”
A shadow fell over his expression. “Don’t bring that up again. There are laws against that behavior. End of story.”
Easy for him to say. Those earrings might mean the difference between life and death, and she’d practically told him as much during the flight.
Once again, she debated at what point she should give up this experiment to follow the human rules he insisted upon and leave him. How could both options feel too selfish?
By staying, she was salvaging their relationship and respecting his rules, but she was also risking the financial state of his businesses and endangering his life. On the other hand, if she left, she’d protect him and his companies, but she’d hurt him emotionally.
Neither option was a clear-cut winner from her perspective either. She wanted to stay with him, but sticking around kept her weak. Leaving would be the hardest thing she’d ever done and being on her own might be more dangerous, but then she could ignore his rules and collect as much treasure as she needed.
She wanted to scream at the impossibility of the decision. None of the choices made sense for either of them—emotionally or logically or any other way.
Alex had returned his attention to the view. “Uncle Lenny’s been getting the beachfront guesthouse ready for us. He said a hurricane several years back took out the main house at the top of the island. The guy I won the place from neglected to mention that. I’d always wondered why he called it a money pit and seemed happy to let it go.”
The engine changed pitch a few moments later, and they moved to the front of the bridge. Up ahead, an island of green greeted them.
Uncle Lenny pointed out the beacon light at the northwest end of the island, which had been used to signal Marsh Harbour behind them in decades past. Two L-shaped walls of stone jutted from the western shore, creating a breakwater to protect the marina area. A sturdy pier extended from the beach, and a large golf cart awaited their arrival.
After Uncle Lenny expertly docked the Buttercup and they loaded the golf cart with the boxes and luggage, he drove them over the sandy paths cut through jungle-like foliage. The trail took them around a marina canal carved into the rock bed of the island, and she glimpsed the Revenge through the trees as they went by.
Past the canal, the path veered back toward shore, and a quarter mile of pristine pink sand beach lay in front of them. She now understood the draw of a tropical paradise.
An immaculate bright yellow cottage perched at the tree line. Caribbean blue shutters and doors decorated the outside, and white gingerbread trim supported the covered front porch. Vivid red flowers bloomed nearby, a parrot chattered at them before flying away, and a gentle breeze rustled the palm and ficus trees shading the house. And as a bonus, the warm weather wouldn’t eat up as much of her energy in the struggle to maintain body heat.
After they’d outfitted the one room cottage with their supplies, she went out to the front porch. Waves at the beach sang a peaceful lullaby.
Alex stood behind her and folded her into his arms. “Not bad at all.”
“I agree.” Salty air filled her lungs. “I shouldn’t like it, but I do.”
“It’s beautiful. Why shouldn’t you like it?”
She didn’t want to detail the depths of her fatigue. Knowing him, if she mentioned the problem, he’d insist on doing something even more risky. She couldn’t be responsible for endangering him any more than she already had. Besides, their journey’s end meant things might not be as dire as she feared.
With luck, her remaining energy would last long enough for her to come up with an Alex-compliant plan for how to obtain more jewelry while out here in the middle of nowhere. Or even better, now that they’d arrived, maybe being in Alex’s arms tonight would give her a bonus recharge.
She spun in his embrace. His touch didn’t elicit the tingles she’d become used to—not a good sign for the potential of rebuilding her strength. Instead of dwelling on whether the energy drain was permanent, she twisted the meaning of her comment.
“It’s so different from anywhere I’ve ever been. Remember that I grew up in dark caves. And when I left, I moved from one city to another, trying to disappear in the crowds. So I exchanged one place of gray for another.”
Her throat constricted at the thought of how empty her life had been before Alex, deadening her voice to a monotone. “Always surrounded by walls of stone.”
The truth of those statements reduced her guilt for keeping him in the dark about how she might not be able to stay.
She peered up at him. “I didn’t know if I would like it here. So isolated. So green. But I think I do.”
He squeezed her. “Good. I like it too.”
The surroundings did make it easy to ignore her problems for a moment—the ticking clock of Alex’s business obligations, the mobsters who were searching for her, and her father and the new tools at his disposal.
Not to mention that without new treasure, she’d soon starve to death.