Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong - By Nikki Logan Page 0,24

seen. Did he have the patience to wait until he was back on the Australian mainland? His body was energised and hyper-sensitive; his heart hadn’t felt this light in months. Since his last new dive. At last, he noticed his air was below half, which meant his time was up. He turned his face to the surface and ascended, taking care to equalise every ten metres to get back to Honor safely.

He broke surface, blinked in the glare of the above-sea world and spat out his regulator. She wasn’t peering over the edge waiting for him. He was crazy to have harboured the expectation, even subconsciously, but he knew a tiny moment of disappointment.

Pulling his full weight into the boat was near impossible after the relaxation of complete buoyancy. He shed his weight belt and tank, hauling them ahead of him into the boat, but still he felt as if he weighed hundreds of kilograms. Like one of Honor’s turtles out of water. He peeled off his fins and chucked them ahead of him onto The Player’s deck, then pushed his whole body upwards with powerful arms and legs.

He saw Honor sitting near the helm of the boat, the monitor still tight in her hands. She didn’t look up at him.

He pulled off the mask and dropped it with his fins. Then he turned to speak to her.

And froze.

She sat, trembling and ashen-faced, huddled in the doorway to The Player’s forward hatch.

* * *

Was the nightmare over?

Soothing warmth seeped into Honor’s numb skin, not from the gentle hands rubbing her back but from the bare chest pressed tightly against hers. Intense heat radiated, soaking in, warming her frigid muscles. It should have taken just a split second for her to imagine how it would feel if his heart beat naked against hers, but the thought had to battle through the choked mire of her clouded mind. Shock still ruled and it lingered aggressively.

Breathing deeply, she lifted her stinging eyelids and Rob slowly came into focus. He’d peeled his wetsuit half down at some point on their return to The Player’s mooring and he enveloped her in his powerful arms and sea-salt smell. Safety had never felt—or smelt—so good.

His lips were working; Honor was mesmerised by the movement, but the words were an incoherent thrum in her ears. His hands moved in reassuring circles over her back, under her cotton shirt, against her bikini, all warm and toasty against her frosted skin. The whooshing started to recede, to sound more like words, and then finally those words impacted on her brain. He was reciting Paterson.

‘...and upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way, where mountain ash and Kurrajong grew wild...’

‘Wide.’ Was that pathetic croak her voice?

He stopped and looked into her face. Deep blue relief flooded into his eyes. ‘Hey. Welcome back.’ He gently brushed her hair away from her damp face. ‘What’s wide?’

‘The Kurrajong grew wide, not wild. Common error...’

His smile was entirely placating then. He wasn’t about to argue with the crazy lady. ‘How do you feel?’

Embarrassed and shaky, but warm, with his arms back around her. ‘How long was I...away?’

‘The whole ride back around the island and two-thirds of The Man from Snowy River.’

She shifted shakily away. Not because she wanted to—leaning into his safe arms was the most natural thing she’d done in years—but because the spectre of appropriateness suddenly floated up between them as conscience floated back with consciousness. She tried to make light of what had just happened and failed abysmally. ‘You know the whole thing?’

He smiled, putting some space between them. She mourned the loss of closeness but appreciated the courtesy. ‘I can’t promise I didn’t make parts of it up...’ His quiet humour thawed her even more. ‘Can you get to shore, do you think?’

She looked over to her familiar lagoon. She knew this water intimately and it held no fear. Immersing herself in the warm, familiar waters would give her the privacy and clarity she craved. And it would be off this damn boat. She nodded.

She stepped shakily onto the reef when he pulled the boat around and then waited for him to secure it and join her. He shadowed her the whole way into camp.

‘You get dry,’ he ordered as soon as they were back on shore, and his voice still echoed a bit in her ears. ‘I’ll make some tea.’ Honor responded immediately to the authority he’d assumed. She was too drained to argue. She stumbled into the tent