Page 67 of Last Destination

I offered a gentle smile and threaded my fingers through his much larger ones before stepping out onto the concrete porch. We were only a few steps from the beach.

“Can you show me the cove you were telling me about?” I asked.

He nodded and tugged me toward the right, where a long shoreline led to some jagged outcrops toward the end. Soft white sand crunched beneath our feet, his strides long and purposeful as my shorter legs struggled to keep up.

We walked in silence except for my muttered grunts with every slip and slide of my feet on the uneven ground. Eventually, I released his hand and took off the shoes, dangling the delicate straps in my fingers while he retook my hand.

Madman was unnaturally comfortable with silence. In the jungle, it had practical applications, but now it was a little unnerving. How did I start this conversation?

So, Madman, can you tell me your hopes and dreams, so I can see if I fit in them and then invite you to be my … what would he even be? My boyfriend? My trauma-bonded partner? What if he decided I wasn’t a part of his future at all?

“How are you liking the island?” I stumbled on a hidden rock and stubbed my toe, cursing the pain as I cursed my stupid intro.

Wow, Marley. Excellent start. Most generic fucking question ever.

“I like this place.” His gaze met mine as he pulled me up from my lagging, toe-broken position. “It is peaceful, and the people are nice here. I like no one knows us.”

That was true. Though our survival had finally made international news, except for our not-dead convict, on this island we hadn’t encountered a single person who had any idea who we were. I’d already turned down several media requests for interviews, and Nikki had done the same. We were focused on healing, not on dredging up every part of our journey, even if the fees offered could have set us all up for life.

“I do, too.” I spread my free hand out like Vanna White, encompassing the whole beautiful ocean right in our current front yard. A prize, indeed. “It’s hard to beat this view.”

“It is,” he said solemnly and stopped in his tracks, casting his gaze over the sight. Several boats were on the water, although they had to be at least a mile out from the shore. Gulls squawked aggressively overhead and the waves sloshed against the sand, patting it into submission. “I would like to stay somewhere like this, if I could.”

“Yeah? You’ve thought about your future?”

This was the meat of it, really. He had a new identity, a passport, an opportunity to completely ditch the first thirty-eight years of his life and start something distinctly his. How could I want him to stay with me when he had the entire world at his disposal? It was the most selfish thing I could ever ask for.

He shifted his body toward me and squeezed our threaded fingers, piercing me with his stoic stare. “A future was not possible until two months ago. My life was lost, and now it is found. I don’t have big dreams or expectations.”

Oddly, I felt the same. The baggage of my entire history lay finally, fully, in the rearview, instead of clinging to me in the passenger’s seat.

“And so, you want to …” I trailed off, hoping to lead him into a statement of substance.

His gaze swept back toward the sea, and he spoke into the wide-open air instead of directly to me.

“I want to build something of my own.” He stuffed his free hand into his sweatpants pocket, as if the admission was embarrassing. “I enjoyed landscaping. I liked business.” He shrugged, as if that was enough to define a future. “There is a place nearby that is looking for a buyer.”

He pulled me forward, closer to the water’s edge, and we resumed our walk along the darker, wetter sand. “I don’t have enough to purchase the property, but it’s rundown. A small ecotourism resort. A few buildings, an old bus. I could make it beautiful.”

We rounded a wide corner strip of coral sand and turquoise water to a private alcove, cut into a tall, jutting cliff by a once raging sea.

“This is the place.”

He released my hand and passed me, walking into the cove as if he’d claimed it. The sandstone loomed above our heads with an outcrop cutting off our access to the other side. It was cozy and private. Silty sand crinkled between my toes, blistering hot in this one patch from the heat of the sun, and I took shelter beneath the shade of the cliff.

His brows knitted together, an uncharacteristic hesitancy written into the lines of his face. “It is a dream I would like to build with you.” His eyes softened from ice blue to navy as a rare tenderness entered his eyes. “I would like to build a home with you. But I understand if you have other dreams and plans. You had a life before. I did not.”

He shrugged, his bulging shoulder with a fresh purple knotted scar bobbing up and down with feigned nonchalance, as if he hadn’t just admitted he wanted to keep me.

Every nerve ending in my skin tingled. An ecotourist resort. Nikki would love the idea, and I certainly didn’t hate it. This island was beautiful and I had nothing tethering me to any other place on earth. But that wasn’t the detail I was stuck on.

“You want to keep me?” Why was I a silly schoolgirl for this man? To keep me? Like a little doll on a shelf?

I had no idea what I expected. Where Madman was concerned, his future was a completely blank canvas that could take him anywhere. He was smart enough — more than — to pursue higher education if he wanted, even at his age. But he wanted to stay here... and play house with me?

I sat on the damp, cooler sand and looked up at the man who filled one third of my fantasies. He’d followed me to my spot and loomed like a shadow.

He lowered to sit beside me and before I could open my mouth and reframe my question, he cupped my chin and hauled me forward, pressing his coarse beard against my cheek before his lips met mine in a bruising kiss.