Free Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong by Nikki Logan Page B

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, soakingin, 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, familiarwaters 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 and sank down onto her swag, nausea threatening. Bad enough to have lost it so publicly out on the water; how much worse would it be having to face the inevitable pity in his face when she explained?
    And she knew she must. He’d been unexpectedly silent about last night—the whole chick thing—but there was no way he would ignore this one. Or could.
    Finally, she emerged. He thrust a hot cup of herbal tea into her shaking hands and gently pushed her into the camp chair.
    ‘I put sugar in, for the shock.’
    Honor didn’t even know