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“What are you doing?” I yell as he pulls up alongside me, holding out his hand to pull me into the kayak. “Are you fucking crazy?”
“Your girlfriend wouldn’t let me leave you,” he says. “She offered to pay for my son to go to university if I’d try to come back for you. She wasn’t taking no for an answer.”
Crazy, stupid, wonderful girl.
Getting out of the cave is difficult, but we’re both strong and experienced kayakers and can paddle against the current while managing to stay afloat as the bangka tows us, and we finally emerge from the cave.
McKenzie launches herself into my arms the moment I step foot on the boat.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” she sobs into my chest. I hold her close, my chin resting on her head for several long minutes while she cries. Someone has created a simple sling for Paige’s arm, and she’s sitting on the bench of the boat, her father’s arm protectively curved around her. Our eyes meet.
“Thank you for saving her,” he says. “I owe you everything. Anything. I’m not sure anyone else could have done what you did.”
I wave away the compliment as McKenzie finally unburies her face from my chest.
“Sorry I got you all wet.” I look down at my bare chest, the salt water of her tears indistinguishable from the salt water of the ocean.
“Don’t apologize. It’s been a while since I’ve had someone care about losing me, and I’m humbled by your concern, sweetheart.” I grab a towel and McKenzie’s hand, and pull her down onto the bench seat with me across from Paige and her father. I’m as reluctant to let her go as she is me.
“What took so long?” I ask as I roughly dry myself off. “And where’s Jake?”
“Jake wasn’t in any hurry to follow you,” Paige’s father said. “Even after I was back in my kayak, he was pointing out fish and talking to me, almost like he was stalling. When we finally got to the cave and there was no sign of you, he said the cave could be dangerous and we should go for help instead of going inside.” He scrapes a hand across his face at the memory. “I was sick with worry. I started to go in for Paige while he went for help, but the current was so strong I knew I’d just add another person to the list to save. And I’d watched you handle yourself and your kayak; I knew she’d be safe with you. I asked him why he’d told you and McKenzie to go ahead to the cave without him, and he said he’d never intended for you to go in it.” He shakes his head, still clearly flummoxed.
“We kayaked over to El Nido, although it seemed to take forever. He told me to go up to the hotel and tell them I needed a rescue group; he said he was going to alert the authorities. I never saw him again.
“When I came back down to the beach, he was gone. Probably worried about liability. I capsized when he accidentally rammed into me, and he probably thought we’d blame him for what happened. No one knew who he was or where to find him. I was too worried about Paige to spend any more time looking for him. I couldn’t find anyone to help me at first, but eventually, when they realized I was willing to pay, some guy at the hotel said he had a friend who could help.” He gestures at the man who’d rescued us in the kayak. “This guy said his brother had a boat. I wasn’t in any position to turn them down or even check their credentials. Thank God they could get into the cave. I’ve never felt so helpless or desperate in my life.” He hugs Paige to him. “I will never be able to thank you enough for saving my daughter.”
I shrug off his thanks. “Anyone would have done the same.”
“Not many would have actually been able to,” he presses. He gestures to the man who came into the cave to rescue us. “He told me how dangerous the situation really was. So did Paige.”
“Not many would have had to,” I mutter under my breath. There’s something about this that doesn’t smell right, although I can’t quite put my finger on it. What motive could Jake have possibly had to knowingly send us into a dangerous cave? “I’m glad we survived,” I say aloud. “No thanks to Jake.”
The boat takes us back to El Nido, where Paige and her father meet up with the rest of their family, and McKenzie says good-bye to them while I book us a room at a small but clean hotel on the beach. TheKairosis docked a good two miles south of us, which would take an additional hour to get to, and quite frankly, I don’t think McKenzie would make it. She’s held up like a trooper so far, but there are dark shadows under her eyes, and as soon as the adrenaline rush that got her out of the cave wears off, she’s going to crash hard. She needs a hot meal, a good night’s sleep, and solid ground under her feet. We can head back to theKairosin the morning.
While she showers, I ask around about Jake. Interestingly, he seems to have appeared as mysteriously as he disappeared. No one has any idea who he is. It’s as if he didn’t exist.
When I get back to the room, McKenzie is curled up on the bed wearing nothing but the thin hotel towel that’s barely big enough to cover her torso, and I get a tantalizing glimpse of creamy thighs and her sweet bare pussy lips as she shifts on the bed. She looks both innocent and intoxicatingly sexy with her slightly damp hair framing her beautiful, unmade-up face. I remind myself that tonight she needs to be held, not fucked senseless.
“I brought dinner,” I say, holding up the boxes of Chinese takeout I’d gotten from the restaurant next door. She smiles and shifts on the bed so I have room to sit down, giving me an even more enticing peek at what’s hidden beneath the towel. I hold up a T-shirt emblazoned with the Philippine flag and the wordsIt’s more fun in the Philippines. “And T-shirts for both of us, since we don’t have any clothes with us other than swimsuits. Although you don’t get yours until we check out tomorrow. I want you naked. We aren’t going to do anything but sleep, but I need to feel your warm body next to mine tonight.”
She smiles at that and I kiss her, biting her full bottom lip before handing her a box of noodles.
She eats a little, but she’s having trouble keeping her eyes open. She’s exhausted. I take her box of noodles, set it on the night table, and turn out the light before lying down next to her, tugging the towel off her, and pulling her into my arms. She snuggles into me, her head pillowed on my chest, and I lightly run my hands over her soft, satiny skin. God, but I love touching her. I love the way her body feels against mine.
But eventually, our time together is going to come to an end. I’ll have to go back to Mexico and finish what I started three years ago, and I can’t take her with me. It’s ugly and corrupt and dangerous—everything she’s not—and she has her whole life ahead of her. She deserves more than I could ever give her. But the thought of never holding her again, never feeling her soft skin and hearing that sexy lilt to her voice as she teases me, or seeing that sweet smile on her face as I slide into her is physically painful.
“When do you have to go back?” Her voice in the darkness, putting into words the very thoughts that are going through my own head, catches me off guard.
“I still have some time.”
She sighs and burrows in closer, and I hug her tightly.
“I’m sorry about Liam’s list,” I say, tracing the curve of her ear before brushing my thumb across her cheek. I’m sure after hours in the water, the list is long gone. I remember everything on it—I have a photographic memory—but I know how important it was to her.
“Actually, I didn’t have it with me this time. I left it on the boat.”
“I’m not sure if that’s any safer, but at least it’s possible it’s still there. If no one has ransacked the boat again, that is.”
