Of course. It was a makeshift stretcher for Duncan.
Time she got ready. Carefully Belle inched herself up, wincing as she scraped her chafed ankles. By the time she had manoeuvred herself to her knees, ready to rise, she was breathless, and pain thrummed in her hands and feet.
‘What are you doing?’ That deep voice was dangerously low, sending a thread of renewed tension spidering up her backbone. She looked up as he loomed over her, a tall pirate. In the shadows she could see his sensuous mouth was a taut line. His brow furrowed.
‘I’m getting ready to leave.’ Obviously.
‘Not yet.’
‘But I—’
‘It will take two of us to get Mr MacDonald to the boat. I can’t look after you and carry him.’
‘I don’t need looking after!’ She’d survived this long virtually alone. She could make it to the boat by herself. All she wanted was to get off this godforsaken island. After what she’d been through, scrambling to the shore would be a doddle. She wouldn’t feel completely safe till she’d left this prison behind.
He hunkered down in front of her, blocking off the torchlight so she couldn’t read his features. But she felt his warm breath on her face. Inhaled the spicy scent of his skin.
Somewhere low in her abdomen a quiver of excitement flared.
‘You’re hurt, Ms Winters.’ His tone was patient. Almost. ‘You’ve done everything you could in the circumstances. Now it’s time to let us take care of you.’
It made sense. Even to someone as desperate to escape as she was. Reluctantly she nodded.
‘Good.’ He reached for the blanket and draped it over her shoulders, pulling it round her as protection against the grit laden wind. She winced at the abrasion of cloth against tender skin.
‘I’ll leave a torch,’ he said, placing it so its light shone towards the door. ‘And I’ll be back soon.’
Then they disappeared into the howling darkness, carrying Duncan. Leaving her to wonder who they were.
Or, more precisely, who he was. The man with a voice like a caress. If it weren’t for that hint of an accent she’d have thought him English. Well-educated English. But he was probably local. His deep olive complexion was the norm in the Arab world.
Not that Q’aroum was a typical Arab country. As a fiercely independent island nation in the Arabian Sea, it had been home for centuries to adventurers and buccaneers from the Middle East, Africa and beyond.
The proud tilt of his head, the way he walked, as if he owed allegiance to no man, made her think of long ago princes. Or pirates.
She really had to find a new fantasy, she decided wearily as she pulled the blanket closer, huddling into its comfort. If only it could block out the lashing sand and the sound of the rising storm. Experience told her this was no minor gale. This was seriously nasty weather. And she wanted to be back on the main island when it hit.
It took a moment for her to realise he was back, his approach hidden by the storm. She raised her eyes from his boots all the way up to his face as he stood in the doorway.
His expression was unreadable, but his watchfulness and the way he obviously masked his thoughts made her shiver.
There was something wrong. She could feel it.
‘What is it?’ she whispered as fear clawed its way back up her throat, drying her mouth once more.
The torchlight cast heavy shadows on his face, emphasising the compelling personality she sensed in him. This time it didn’t reassure.
He moved into the room, pacing slowly towards her in a way that made her shrink back a little under her covering. He stopped, folded his legs beneath him and, in a single supple motion, sat cross-legged in front of her.
‘There’s a complication to our plans,’ he said.
Belle swallowed hard as apprehension shivered through her. She didn’t want to hear this. She looked into his gleaming eyes and tried to draw on his strength. She wasn’t alone any more. Whatever it was, she would cope.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘Dawud and I came over on an inflatable,’ he explained. ‘It’s a small boat.’
She nodded impatiently. She knew inflatables.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean this one is small. Too small for all four of us now that Mr MacDonald is strapped across the length of it.’
‘I see.’ The disappointment was so strong she felt like weeping. Ridiculous, since all she had to do was wait for Dawud to come back to collect them.
Patience, Belle. Just a little longer.
‘Well, we’ll just have to wait for Dawud to return.’
He paused for a second before shaking his head. ‘I’m afraid it’s not that simple.’
She really had a bad feeling about this now. Foreboding sliced through her. She hunched lower under the protection of her blanket.
‘There’s a storm coming this way. A cyclone.’ His voice was steady, unemotional.
Her heart plunged and her hands clamped, white-knuckled with effort as she willed herself not to shake.
‘Dawud’s left. He should just have time to reach port before it becomes too dangerous. But it would be suicide for him or anyone else to return tonight.’ The buccaneer scrutinised her, as if watching for signs of weakness. ‘We’ll be stranded here until the storm passes. Maybe for another twenty-four hours.’
Twenty-four hours. It sounded like a lifetime.
And, if the cyclone hit head-on, time enough to die.
She felt sick with disappointment after the certainty she’d been rescued. Nausea welled and she swallowed hard, oblivious now to the raw abrasiveness of her throat.
At least Duncan had got away safely.
Belle stared at the man before her. His gaze was impenetrable and his utter stillness gave nothing away. Neither urgency nor the fear that would be natural in the circumstances. The fear that froze her own limbs right now.
But something about the set of his shoulders, the casual grace of his hands resting at his folded knees, told her he was ready for anything, even a hysterical woman.
She gnawed at her lip, willing the trembling to subside. She’d seen tropical cyclones as a kid on the Great Barrier Reef coast. She knew how devastating they were. Involuntarily she looked up at the barely-there roof. It shifted and groaned in the gale. ‘How can we prepare?’
He inclined his head and the waiting stillness left his body. As if she’d passed some test. He’d expected her to panic, had braced himself to handle a distraught woman.
He gestured to her blanket. ‘If you’ll permit?’ When she nodded he folded it back to reveal her bare feet. She shuddered as the torchlight illuminated her, and she felt a ridiculous urge to tuck her feet back out of sight.
They were filthy with sand and dried blood. Each ankle ringed with red welts where the shackles had bitten into her skin as she moved.
In the gloom his face was impassive. Yet she read tension in his clamped jaw as he surveyed her injuries. And the air between them was electric, charged with some fierce emotion that radiated from him in waves.
Anger? Or frustration that he had this to deal with as well as the approaching storm?
She shrank further under her cotton wrap as she felt his eyes on her face. She wished she could read his expression. Instinct warned