Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong - By Nikki Logan Page 0,29

the trees. He stood ankle-deep in the wash, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his head tipped forward in thought. Honor shrank back into the shade of the shore trees to watch him. She wasn’t ready to see him again, to confront the anger in his eyes. Or, worse, the pity.

A frown creased his forehead where his hair fell forward over it. He kicked absently at shells on the sand under the lapping waters. Not rough enough to be anger, but agitated enough to be... What—confusion? There was no question in her mind that he’d never admitted to anyone what he’d admitted to her yesterday. Perhaps not even to himself. That he was self-absorbed.

She studied him, free for the first time to do so unobserved. Standing one-quarter onto her, his board shorts hung low on his narrow hips, fit snugly across firm buttocks and draped over toned quads. Above them, his tanned back broadened out to a pair of shoulders that spoke of hidden strength. Not massive, but well formed and powerful. Not for the first time, Honor wondered how much of the real Rob he hid from her. From the world. Possibly from himself.

He turned and moved onto the shore. She held her breath and tucked back into a cluster of emerging coconut plants below the trees. If he saw her, she’d look completely ridiculous hiding in the bushes, but if she stepped out now, he’d know she was looking for him—spying on him—and after she’d given him such a earful for spying on her...

She squirrelled deeper, then froze as he moved up into the trees. If he looked to his right, he’d see her. Pin her with that heart-stopping gaze. Honor had a fleeting urge to rustle in her hiding spot, to bring on the confrontation.

But it passed and so did Rob and she hissed her breath out slowly and closed her eyes.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SHE was fast running out of excuses—and island—but tonight was a perfectly legitimate reason. It was work and, conveniently, it was one more way to keep a comfortable distance between them. She sat on her camp chair, perched on a flat vegetated spot about five metres back from the edge of the sandy turtle nesting site, her logbook ready in her lap. The sun hung low in the sky, just minutes away from sinking into the dark blue ocean.

She switched on her ultraviolet lamp, invisible to the turtles and not likely to frighten them away. Not that she would need it much tonight; it was a full moon, making for prime hatching conditions. Although she’d be lucky to get a hatching in any of the marked nests so soon.

The damage to the dunes told her female green turtles were still visiting nightly. Some of the fluorescent ties marking the survey nests had snapped. If a turtle dug her nest out over the top of another, the first clutch of eggs was usually destroyed. Honor looked along the beach philosophically. It was such a small stretch of beach and dozens of females had laid already, more than once, so some losses to friendly fire were inevitable.

The first time she’d had to stand back and let nature take its course was the hardest. It was on a mainland project and many rare cockatoo nests had burned in a bushfire that went through while she was in the area surveying.

‘If people knew what happened in nature, they’d shut it down.’

Nate’s words still resonated, all these years later.

Honor sighed. She didn’t let herself think casually of her husband, or Justin. She remembered them, every minute, but tried not to think about them. Now she’d done nothing but think of them all afternoon and evening.

It didn’t feel as bad as she thought it would. It still ached but it didn’t suck all the air from her body as it once had. She turned her head for the millionth time and stared to the north.

At least they were together.

Tingling senses warned her a split second before she heard the crunching of leaves behind her and she stiffened. He’d come for her.

‘Hi, stranger.’

Honor kept her eyes firmly glued to the nest markers as Rob squatted on the sand nearby. Not that she needed to look at him; she could practically feel every move he made through the highly charged place where her energy met his. Her pulse picked up.

She nodded in reply, glanced quickly at him and then back to the nests, not trusting herself to speak. That quick glance had