Island of Secrets and Scars

Because he grew tired of waiting for me to get over you and love him.Of course, she’d never tell Ian that. Not because the words weren’t true, but because he didn’t deserve to hear them. Once, she’d given him her love, wholly and unconditionally. In return, he’d stomped on her heart. So just because she couldn’t stop loving him, didn’t mean he had to know.

Straightening her spine, she forced herself to meet his gaze. “Keso is none of your business.”

Something dangerous swirled in those whiskey eyes as they narrowed on her. “You had a child with him.” He stepped toward her.

Cameron retreated until her back bumped the cabinet.

Ian pressed closer. “He had a child with the woman I love. The woman who should’ve had my child.” His warm breath whispered across her cheek, making her shiver. “I’ll have answers, Cam. Before I leave this island, your secrets will be laid bare.”

The dark, possessive look in his penetrating gaze promised to bare more than her secrets. Fine. Maybe she could handle, even enjoy, him baring her body, stripping her down and drowning her in the pleasure she’d missed through the years. But her secrets. She’d never let him that close.

He pressed closer, his chest skimming her breasts. “The two of you aren’t together, are you?”

Her traitorous nipples tightened, begging for more. “He’s Ara’s father.” Why couldn’t her damn voice have sounded stronger?

“Not what I asked.” He slid his hand to her waist. His fingers tightened, kneading the flesh above her hip. “If you were mine, I’d spend every night in your bed.”

Suddenly she remembered the nights after her attack. Nights she’d slept alone, while Ian worked late or fell asleep on the couch. Reality cleared away the blanket of arousal he’d begun pulling over her.

She pushed against his chest. “You’re a liar.”

His eyes widened. In his surprise, she managed to move him away. “I was yours, Ian. I was one hundred percent, completely yours. You didn’t spend every night with me then. If I hadn’t been hurt in Africa, you would’ve sent me an ocean away from you. Alone. While you stayed behind with . . .” No. She wouldn’t go there. They didn’t need to have this argument. Or any other, for that matter. They were over. Their relationship had ended the moment he first turned to Mallory. Cameron just hadn’t known. Now, she couldn’t unknow.

She shoved past him, ignoring the heat from his skin and the small tingle of awareness at being near him again. “I have a patient. This might be some quick adventure for you to come play superhero, but this is my life. Excuse me.”

Hurrying from the room on trembling legs, she prayed he’d have the good sense not to follow her and cause a scene. She loved and trusted the people on this island, but she hadn’t shared her past with them. They didn’t know about her failed relationship or her lost baby. They couldn’t. The truth would create questions with answers she and Keso had been careful to bury.

When she reentered the room, Tommy still sat on the stool, holding the cloth to his head. Across the room, Ara had lifted her gown to show the boy’s grandmother her stitches.

“I think I might have a scar,” she told the woman with a smile. “Then I can be like Mommy.”

Cameron’s vision blurred. Leave it to a child to find beauty in the mess of her ravaged skin. The older woman turned to her, her lips turning up slightly. Yeah, adults didn’t have quite the same reaction.

Cameron turned her attention to Tommy, then motioned for him to take away the compress. Across his forehead was a wide gash. The skin around the cut was already blue and purple.

“You hit the board or something else?” She leaned in closer as she squirted saline into the cut.

He winced. “I think it was just my board. There weren’t any rocks. I don’t think.”

“What about debris? A plane exploded and landed in that water yesterday. You know that, right? Who were you with?” She ignored his protests as she cleaned the wound. No one should be out trying to surf while bodies and debris still floated in the water.

The boy didn’t answer for a moment.

“Were you by yourself again, Tommy?” She stepped back to better see his face.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he whined.

Cameron shook her head. “What if you had been knocked out? You would’ve drowned. Do you get that?”

Tommy flinched at her harsh tone, but after what she’d seen yesterday, she couldn’t ignore the very real threat of the water surrounding them.

“You heard about Brodie?”

Tommy nodded.

“He was unconscious. Trapped. He might not wake up. If you get hurt or trapped in that water alone, that could be you.” Tears strangled her. “I don’t want to have to pull you out, Tommy. I don’t want to have to pray you’ll wake up.”

The boy’s dark eyes swam. He blinked away the tears, then nodded. “Yes, Dr. C.”

Giving into her emotions, Cameron pulled the teen into her arms. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I worry about you. About all of us. We think we’re safe on this island. Usually, we are. But we never know when something else, something from beyond this island, will turn our world upside down.”

As she spoke, she couldn’t shake the growing feeling that, for her, Ian’s presence, not the plane crash, would be what flipped her world.

* * *

An hour later, Cameron ushered Tommy and his grandmother out of the clinic with strict instructions for the boy to stay out of the water until Cameron removed his stitches. A part of her was tempted to leave them in longer than needed just to keep him out of the water. After watching the pair disappear into the jungle, Cameron turned to find Wes standing by the door. His gaze tracked her movements as she crossed the grass to a picnic table by the cliff.

He made his way through the foliage toward her. “I can see why you chose this as your hiding spot. It’s beautiful.”

“I’m not hiding.”