“I’m getting used to it,” she admitted, swallowing hard. She was tense, but not rejecting. It was a step. “Can we agree to go slow? I don’t know what I want and I don’t have any idea what I’ll be able to handle. It’s going to take a while to get used to the idea that you guys could actually want me. That someone touching me isn’t doing it to hurt me.”
There was a low shout as Landon marched through the foliage and back into camp. He was carrying Alea’s mesh laundry bag, which he’d appropriated earlier when he’d left on his quest to gather coconuts. But it was dripping wet.
“Hey, I found a bunch of conches!” Lan held up the bag and looked at it proudly. “That’s some good eating and—holy shit.”
Lan had obviously caught sight of Alea’s half-naked state because it put a truly sizzling stare on his face. Then he lost his usual athletic grace as he walked closer, jaw hanging around his knees, stumbling over the log he’d dragged into camp earlier. He tripped in an epic pratfall. That would make some popular shit on YouTube.
Alea broke free and started running for Landon.
“I’m okay!” Lan shouted, but Alea was right there, crouching beside him, and there was no mistaking the way Lan took advantage to stare right at her boobs.
Dane slapped Coop on the back. “Let’s shore up for the night. We’re all tired. We can cook up those conches and talk about making base camp more comfy. Tomorrow we put our plan into action. It’s time to claim our girl.”
Coop nodded. “Amen, brother.”
Dane strode over to give Landon a hand with the conches, whistling as he walked.
It was the happiest he’d seen Dane in a long time. As Alea turned to glance at him over her shoulder and shot a smile his way, he had to admit, it might be the happiest any of them had been in a good, long while.
* * * *
Alea shivered a little and wished that her clothes had dried during dinner. But they hadn’t yet. The fire Dane had built was roaring, but she still trembled. Even so, the stars awed her. They wove a brilliant canvas across the dark sky. She’d never seen so many twinkling so brightly.
“Beautiful, huh?” Lan sat beside her, his shoulders rubbing against hers.
She wasn’t alone. She might be on one of the remotest islands in the world, but these three men had gone out of their way to show her that everything would be all right.
“It is.” The fire crackled in front of her. Cooper and Dane were talking quietly on the other side of the fire pit they’d dug. “Do you think someone will find us?”
“Sure.” There was no hesitation in his voice. “I think your cousins will move heaven and earth. But it’s a damn big ocean, Lea. It could take some time. Be prepared to settle in and get comfortable waiting.”
Her cousins. They would be worried by now. She’d intended to text…and now that wasn’t possible. They would know the plane hadn’t landed in Sydney. Piper would be so worried. They would be forced to call all of Dane, Cooper, and Landon’s relatives to tell them their sons were missing. She knew Dane had a father he didn’t talk to anymore. Cooper had a big family scattered all over southern Colorado. What about Landon? “Is there anyone back in the States who’s going to be upset? You have to know Talib is going to call your parents.”
Lan turned to the fire. “Don’t have any.”
His parents were gone? “I’m so sorry.”
A bitter smile crossed his face. “Don’t be. They aren’t dead, darlin’. At least I don’t think they are. I don’t know. My mom ditched me about five minutes after I was born. As for my dad, I don’t even know who he is. I’m not even sure my mom did. She got around.”
She knew he came from a small Texas town. How hard had it been to be abandoned by the woman who should have loved him above all others? “How old was she?”
“She was all of seventeen when she had me. The way my grandma told it, she tried really hard to get rid of me, but I was dug into that womb.”
“Get rid of you?”
Lan turned to her, his face a careful blank. “She tried a homemade abortion. I wasn’t part of her plan.”
“Oh, Lan.” She reached for him, feeling sick, and yet an urge to comfort him all at once.
Then she stopped her hand in midair as she realized that she’d been about to hug him. The sympathetic gesture had come almost instinctively.
Lan turned back to the fire as though he couldn’t stand to watch her choose to not touch him. Like other women in his life had rejected him. “It’s no big deal. My grandma raised me. We didn’t have much, but she made sure I got fed and had clothes.”