Love Islands: Summer Kisses. Joanna Neil
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known her for seven years. The first few years of university they hadn’t dated—just casually flirted. The five years after that, they’d been inseparable. Rachel had never seemed heartless to him. That just wasn’t her. That wasn’t how she worked. No one could spend five years with someone and not know them. It just wasn’t possible to put on a good enough act to hide all your flaws and character traits for that long. He did know her. Or at least he had known her.
So why had she done something so out of character? What on earth had happened?
Their eyes locked. Chocolate-brown, framed with dark lashes, her eyes had always been one of his favourite parts of her. Her tan was deepening slightly after a few days on the island. Her dark hair was pulled up at either side of her face and tied in a rumpled kind of knot, the rest sitting on her shoulders. And the pink sundress covered everything, just giving enough of a hint of the soft curves that lay underneath. Pretty as a picture. Those were the words he’d always used for Rachel in his head. And no matter how angry he’d been with her—still was with her—some things were just buried too deep. The underlying frustration and resentment was still there.
No one had hurt him like Rachel had. What she’d done was unforgivable. But now he was in her company again he kept having little flashes of the good stuff. The way she tilted back her head and laughed when she was joking with some of the crew. The way she frequently reached out and touched someone when she was talking to them. The way that every now and then she drifted off, thinking about something else. All sparked waves of memories for Nathan. Memories of good times … memories of better times. Five years of shared memories.
Why had she walked away?
She wiggled her toes, the sand from the beach obviously caught between them. He dragged his eyes away from her painted toes and stood up. ‘I’ll stay with Ron for the next few hours. Come back and take over at dinner time.’
She gave a nod and glanced around the cabin. ‘I promised Tallie I’d get her some petroleum jelly for her dry skin. She’s trying to ward off an eczema flare-up. Do you know where it is?’
He looked up from Ron’s notes and pushed the stool towards her. ‘There’s not enough storage in here. I think it’s at the top of the cupboard over there.’
‘Great, thanks.’ She dragged the stool over to the counter and climbed on top to open the cupboards. Nathan glanced at Ron. Thankfully, his eyes were still closed and he wasn’t watching Nathan fix on Rachel’s bare legs and backside as she rummaged through the cupboard. The corners of his mouth turned upwards. Most of the prescribed medicines were easily accessible but the more routine things had to be packed away wherever there was space.
After a few minutes she finally found what she was looking for. ‘Here it is.’ She bent down and placed the container on the counter at her feet, ready to jump back down. But her rummaging had dislodged a few of the precariously stacked items in the cupboard and, as she looked back up, a few packages of bandages tumbled from the cupboard, bouncing all around her. It was pure instinct. As the items started to fall, Rachel lifted her hands, crouched down and curled into a ball.
The movement made her dress ride up, and not just a little. She was wearing a bikini under her dress—pink, of course. He’d already noticed the straps tied around her neck. But this time he got a flash of something else. The bright pink bikini bottoms covered some, but not all, parts of her. She was quick to grab at her dress and pull it back down, colour flooding into her cheeks.
She spun around as he got to his feet to come over and help. She lifted her hands quickly. ‘Oops. Bit of a disaster.’ She couldn’t meet his gaze as she jumped down from the stool and made a grab for the wrapped bandages that had landed all around her. He bent to help, their hands brushing.
He saw her gulp as for a split second he caught her gaze. ‘Just as well you’ve seen it all before,’ she said quickly.
He didn’t reply. He couldn’t. He was still crouching down as she grabbed some of the bandages and set them on the counter. ‘I’ll let you get the rest. I’ll take this to Tallie and be back in a few hours.’
She rushed towards the door, still talking nervously as she made a quick exit. Nathan still hadn’t moved. He sucked in a deep breath as he reached for the last few bandages.
He couldn’t be sure—he just couldn’t be sure. But he’d seen more than enough battle scars in his time. He’d definitely seen something. But what it was he just couldn’t fathom.
He’d seen Rachel’s bare body a thousand times. He knew every contour of her body, every blemish, every mark. What he didn’t know was the flash of a surgical scar just above her right hip. He’d no idea how far it went; she’d pulled her dress back down much too quickly. And it had only been the tiniest flash. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was reading too much into something.
He closed his eyes for a second, trying to visualise what he’d just seen. It wasn’t ragged; it was clean. It couldn’t be from an accident. It had to be deliberate. It had to be surgical.
Rachel had always been in perfect health. She still looked in perfect health today. So where on earth had the scar come from and what was it?
NATHAN SAT ON the sidelines while Rachel had dinner with Ron. It was clear she was onto the health promotion part. She was pointing at his plate and obviously talking about food choices. Next she swapped his soda for a diet one. Then she persuaded him to have some salad with his steak.
Ron wasn’t eating much but the flushed colour of his cheeks had faded. Next, Rachel held his GTN spray for angina in her hands and talked him through how and when to use it.
‘Earth to Planet Nathan. Are you home?’
Len was grinning at him from the other side of the table.
‘What is it?’
Len gestured with his fork. ‘You haven’t taken your eyes off her for the last ten minutes. I keep expecting you to make an excuse to go on over there.’
‘What? No way.’ He speared a bit of his steak.
Len raised his eyebrows. ‘I know.’
‘Know what?’
‘That you two have history.’
He almost dropped his fork. ‘What do you mean?’ He shot a quick wayward glance in her direction again. He’d love to say that Len was far too observant for his own good. But Len was one of the crew members he had a rapport with. He hoped Len would be on his side.
Rachel reached across the table and put her hand over Ron’s, obviously offering some words of comfort.
Just as well he knew there was absolutely nothing in it, otherwise he was pretty sure his stomach would be twisting right now.
Len had started eating again. ‘I knew it when I talked to her down at the bar. She mentioned you then.’
‘She did?’ All of a sudden Len had his instant attention. ‘What did she say?’
Len laughed. ‘Oh, nothing good. I take it you didn’t leave things on the best of terms?’
Nathan started toying with his food. His gaze drifted back to Rachel. Her dark hair had fallen in waves over her shoulders and she’d put a pink wrap around her shoulders.
Rachel liked pink. She always had—at least seventy per cent of her wardrobe was pink. But what she probably didn’t realise was just how good she looked in the colour; it didn’t matter what the shade was. It seemed to make her lightly tanned skin glow and her dark hair and eyes shine.
He hesitated. It was obvious Len was waiting for an answer. ‘We’ve not been on the best of terms for eight years.’ The words kind of stuck in his throat. ‘Before that, we were good together …’ he paused ‘… really