Page 31 of In Too Deep

A woman mellowing into a sleepy haze. Her body lolled, relaxed, sagging into a beautiful sprawl on the lounger that made his pulse hammer.

Max speared a hand through his hair, scanning the perimeter from his higher vantage point. What would it be like to make love to this uninhibited woman out in the open? She might be innocent, but he recognized a sensualist when he saw one. And Darcy was an enthusiastic sensualist. It would be a lucky man who tapped into that.

Except he did not need jealousy burning his gut. She wasn’t his and never would be.

Waves lapped in the distance with a lulling regularity. Darcy’s eyelids drifted closed, her breathing rhythmic. Finally Max allowed himself the pleasure of looking at her—so very pretty. Not gorgeous in some unapproachable-model kind of way, but pretty. Real. And alive, thank heaven.

In the quiet and solitude of the night, Max let himself say the words he’d bottled up for hours. “You scared me with those gunshots. It knocked a year off my life seeing you on the floor with that snake.”

A smile teased at the corner of her lips, her lashes still caressing her cheeks. “I told you. I never miss.”

Sighing, she nestled on her side, cheek on her hand.

She didn’t miss? Well, neither did he. And he knew it would be tougher than he’d thought keeping his hands off her while ensuring she didn’t fall victim to any more “coincidences.”

* * *

Darcy pulled herself through at least seven layers of sleepy fog. She turned her face into the pillow. A pillow. Not a lawn chair. Sometime during the night, Max must have carried her back to her room.

She’d actually slept through the chance to snuggle against that muscle-cut chest again. She must have been more wasted than she’d thought. Probably for the best as she would have been tempted to pull him down onto the covers with her to discover if he had other tattoos.

To uncover more pieces of Max’s past.

Darcy arched into a languorous stretch. Her leg throbbed from the bites, just as her mind throbbed with memories of moonlight and Max. She didn’t want to leave the bed and lose the dreamtime with him that had so perfectly overlaid the horror from earlier.

She’d found more distraction than she’d bargained for with the hunky professor. Sure, the night glow and solitude had been enticing, but the talking had been even more intimate. Somehow confusingly different from the friendships she shared with her crewdog buddies.

None of them could have pried bits of those past Guam days out of her. Yet wasn’t this trip about putting that time behind her? She wrestled with lending too much importance to her sharing with Max.

Tougher than wrestling a ten-foot snake.

As difficult as putting her past behind her.

Of course, so far she’d made zero progress in that department, too. One little encounter with a tree snake and she’d been plunged back into that nightmare time.

Get a grip, soldier.

Darcy rolled out of bed. She tested her weight on her injured calf. Winced. Wincing even more at the next three days she would spend working a desk in the squadron until she returned to flying status. Might as well get to it.

Today would be as good a time as any to start confronting those critter memories with a hike to stretch out her tension kinks. She limped over to her dresser. The scraggly, puffy-eyed image in the mirror mocked her. She grabbed a brush and started yanking it through her tangled rat’s nest of hair.

Darcy paused mid-stroke. One of her flowered sticky notes waited on the mirror. She dropped her brush beside her day-planner and peeled the paper from the mirror.

Meet us at the bay—6:00 p.m. Lucy and Ethel.

Anticipation, too much, stung her stomach as she remembered his insistence from the night before that he accompany her on her jungle walks. She crumpled the pink Post-It note in her fist, angry at Max Keagan and his mixed signals.

Sit with me on the deck, but don’t touch me.

Stay away. Come see me.

What did he want from her? And what didshewant from this man? She had friends. She wanted him to be something more, no question, but not while he carted around baggage from a dead lover.

Unfurling her fist, Darcy stared down at the mangled scrap of paper from a man who’d known she wouldn’t want to be alone but had let her keep her pride. A man who called few people friends, but had been there for her. Somehow, just talking to him had hauled her through a horrific night. Maybe he could pull her through the next weeks confronting her past as well.

Placing the paper on her dresser, she slowly smoothed out the wrinkles until it lay flat again. No, she wasn’t sure what she wanted from Max anymore. But she knew she would be sorry if she left the island before finding out.

* * *

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