Losing Control - By Robyn Grady Page 0,34

wondering how this boy and Tate might get along. Tate could show him how to use his most recent gadget - the one Cole had reset the other night - and this little guy could demonstrate how to catch fish in a handmade net or canoe. Hell, he'd even like to try that. Maybe one day he could come back and bring Tate along. He hadn't liked Taryn's remark, but they really didn't spend enough time together.

Eventually they stopped at a freshwater spring surrounded by mossy boulders. Watching a line of small snails slither over a leaf the size of a pizza, Cole hunkered down. It was muggy under the canopy and he'd worked up a sweat. First he splashed water over his head. Then, enjoying the icy trickles trailing down his back, he scooped up a handful and drank. He groaned aloud. It tasted so good and clean. Cole drank his fill then dragged the bucket through the pool.

Heaving the bucket out, he spotted a large red flower fallen to the ground...some kind of hibiscus hybrid. Only the petals were closed up tight, like it was asleep in the middle of the day. Noticing his interest, the boy carefully gathered the flower up. Perhaps he meant to make a gift of it to Taryn. Cole smiled. Nice kid. Obviously brought up the right way.

When the boy looked at him again, Cole asked, "Where are your mother and father?"

Immediately the boy set off along that path again but veered down a different track that was crisscrossed with pygmy palm fronds and littered with color-filled butterflies. After several minutes' journey, a clearing came into view. Pulling up, the boy nodded toward a clutch of bungalows. A score of people in casual Western dress were making meals, crafting woods. Kids laughed as they chased each other around buildings and other structures. When a woman carrying a baby in a sling strolled into view, the boy pointed.

"Your mother?" Cole asked.

The boy spoke a word in his language and nodded. Then, thoughtful, he lowered his gaze to the bloom.

Cole remembered giving garden flowers to his mother when he was around that age. He recalled her loving smiles and warm hugs those times she'd held him close and said, "You're a special boy, Cole."

Nowadays, when he was dating a woman and a birthday or some other occasion came around, he'd choose a nice pendant or bracelet. Might be more the norm, but, to his mind, the giving of flowers in new relationships was too personal. And his relationships rarely lasted past "new." What female would choose a floral arrangement over gold or gems, anyway?

The boy was heading off again with that sleeping flower still protected in the cup of his hands. Cole shifted the bucket to his other hand and followed.

Back at the bungalow, Taryn had indeed shown mercy. A light dress now covering that bikini, she was taking shots of the bay where a pod of dolphins played. Closing his eyes, Cole lifted his nose to the air. God, he loved the smell of the ocean. Taryn had once asked and it was true. If he hadn't been bequeathed a career in television, he'd have found a vocation that took him offshore. He'd sometimes wondered if some sailor or pirate ancestor had passed down the seawater that seemed to flow through his veins.

Her shoulders glowing from their time in the sun, Taryn angled around. "You're back."

"And bearing gifts." Cole presented his bucket.

Lowering her camera, Taryn watched Cole move forward with his bucket and pint-size companion.

"This water is guaranteed to leave your soles feeling like silk," he said as she snapped the cap over her camera lens.

"That good, huh?"

"Just ask the man." Cole glanced down but the boy was already disappearing back into the trees. Grinning, he shrugged. "Busy man."

He moved toward the chairs, obviously preparing to fill that tray.

Taryn wanted to tell him, don't bother. She wasn't taking a footbath. The game of "on this island, men must serve" was over, at least between the two of them. But, caught up in admiring that vision of masculine perfection - all those rippling muscles in Cole's arms and chest as he'd moved toward her - Taryn's thoughts got waylaid. She had appreciated the physique of the man who'd brought down their luggage but, to her mind, Cole's proportions were far more appealing.

His shoulders, she already knew, were delectably broad. The muscles that sloped from the sides of his neck to each shoulder were stacked and