“Yeah, it’s not my favorite flavor.”
She had to smile at that. “But you know what? You were right about this. About convincing me to stay in the race. This is the best time I’ve ever had. So maybe you just needed to regroup and you’ll go back to your team with everything all fixed up the way you want it.”
“That was the plan.”
Rolling in his arms, she glanced at him, and his eyes were so beautiful in the firelight she got lost in them for a moment. “I’m part of your regroup plan? That’s something else I’ve never done before.”
It put a little glow inside her to have helped facilitate that.
He grinned. “It’s a new one for me too, but I’m digging it so far.”
The fire burned down to embers, and they covered as many topics as they could think of: best Christmas present ever received, favorite books, movies, candy, a rundown of their hopes, dreams—generally speaking, it was the most she’d ever revealed to another person in her life, let alone in one night. She couldn’t fathom what it meant that he was giving her exactly what she’d asked for. Maybe a lot of guys would have done the tit-for-tat thing—conversation in exchange for sex. But she didn’t think that was his motivation.
What was? A better question might be… what did she want it to be?
At some point, they fell asleep in each other’s arms, and she awoke to a sunrise that rivaled what she imagined heaven might look like. It tossed so many colors into the sky that she couldn’t count them all. The beauty caught in her throat.
She didn’t reach for her camera. Fitz still held her and she didn’t want to move. Ever.
He must not have felt the same way. He sat bolt upright all at once, the sheet sliding down his torso in a fast reveal that put some heat into the morning.
“Look.” He pointed. “It’s a cruise ship.”
A… what? She blinked. Sure enough, there was a ship not too far from the island, chugging away toward the horizon. But it was too late to build a signal fire or yell or somehow get the attention of the crew.
“Stay here,” he said. “I’m going to swim out to the boat to grab my phone and see if I can get cell service.”
Since he didn’t bother to put clothes on, it was absolutely her pleasure to sit there and watch him run out into the surf, then dive like an Olympian into the shallows to swim the remaining few yards. Gracefully, he swung into the boat via the ladder at the rear, and even from a distance, he was magnificent.
The best part was when he came back to shore, rising out of the water like a mythical Aquarian god reborn in flesh. Now she wanted her camera. But the shot disintegrated as he dashed to the blanket, dripping and grinning from ear to ear.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said. “I’ve had a blast with you. But I got some bars. Rescue is on the way.”
“That’s great!” It was. It totally was. If she kept repeating it, she might actually believe it. Somewhere along the way, she’d starting wishing she and Fitz could just stay in this fairy tale dream world where nothing else existed but the two of them.
The intrusion of the thing called Real Life was most unwelcome.
He picked up a spare blanket that they hadn’t needed because his body heat had been more than enough for her and toweled himself off, then got dressed. Which meant she had to as well.
Suddenly self-conscious, she pulled on her clothes. “How did you know to try your cell phone?”
“Cruise ships have cell towers.” He nodded at the horizon, where the ship had nearly disappeared. “So happens I’ve jacked the signal from one a couple of times. We were lucky. It was nearly out of range.”
They busied themselves with putting out the fire and gathering up all of the evidence that humans had slept on the beach, and far too fast, an orange and white boat rounded the island at a brisk clip. She closed her mouth before it started gathering flies.
“Are we that close to civilization?” she asked.
Fitz shrugged. “Nah. They were looking for us already. I had like forty-seven messages from Jack and a few from some unrecognized numbers. The second that cruise ship came in range, my phone went live and they triangulated our position.”
“Um… that’s a little high tech. They can do that with a phone?” It was like she’d been dropped into a spy movie without a script.
“Welcome to my world,” he said with a small smile. “I’m a little bit valuable to some people in Washington, so I get all the cool toys.”
Good thing it had taken so long for that to kick in. Otherwise they might have been rescued yesterday, and that would have been… sad. Look at her. Twelve hours ago, she’d been one panic attack short of meltdown over their situation, and now her heart hurt to wade into the surf rushing across the beautiful beach. Tiny black fish darted away from her steps as she slogged toward the vehicle that had shattered her fantasy.