In Fantasy Island Liz sets off on a shakedown cruise for her new yacht on a bright

EXCERPT!

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Liz woke to a weight on her chest which made it hard to breathe. She thought her eyes were open, but all was black. Was she dead? Or buried alive?

She forced herself to think. People don't get buried when a boat runs aground. They drown or are washed ashore.

Two points of light stared at her from just below her chin. Slowly, they blacked out then reappeared.

A rumbling noise like a smooth engine began somewhere in the vicinity of the pinpoints of light. A cat. A damn cat was sitting on her chest. She moved to dislodge the animal, then groaned aloud as a stabbing pain pierced her head. Dead people don't have headaches.[DC4] She was alive, but she wasn't on the boat or in the water.

She was in a bed, and she was naked.

Someone had undressed her and put her to bed like a baby.

She touched a hand to the side of her head where the pain stabbed. Her fingers met a dressing and a crust of blood that had trickled beneath the edge.[DC5] She remembered crouching fully dressed and drenched with spray in the cockpit while the sails flapped uselessly and the wind drove Destiny toward the rocks. An image flashed into her mind of the last seconds on the boat with the crack of a broken stay and the boom swinging toward her. It must have slammed against her skull and knocked her out.

What had happened to her precious boat? Had it been rescued, too? From somewhere in the house, a clock struck three. A house, a bed, a chiming clock, and a friendly cat. Too weary to work out the puzzle, she closed her eyes and let herself drift back into unconsciousness.

She opened them again to a pale gray light. The air was cooler. She was lying in a room with log walls and could see a stove—a black, potbellied contraption with a large pipe leading up to a beamed ceiling. A window covered with a blue curtain filled one wall. Two doors stood ajar.

She struggled to sit up despite the throb in her head and the nausea that threatened to rise in her throat. Taking deep breaths through her mouth, she held the blankets against her nakedness. The cat strolled back into the room and jumped up beside her. “Good morning, cat,” she whispered. “Who lives here with you?”

The animal settled beside her like a cloud of smoke and closed its eyes. Liz stroked its neck. and it began to purr.

A noise from beyond the doorway made the cat sit up. Liz followed the animal's stare and turned her head toward one of the doors. After a couple of bumps, the door opened wider, and a man came into the room, a laden tray in his hands. Liz sank back against the pillows, clutching the covers to her chin. The newcomer pushed the door closed with one foot and stepped[DC6] [PC7] toward the bed.

He was tall, wide shouldered with dark hair worn long. A pair of rimless glasses sat on his nose, and a short black beard trimmed his chin. He wore a plaid bush shirt over a turtle neck sweater.

Liz followed the line of faded jeans down to his feet. Thick slippers with the face of a beaver advanced toward her. One of them had lost an eye, but tongues lolled out of both of the stitched mouths between white felt teeth.

Liz dragged her gaze away from the furry faces, up the length of long legs to the hands grasping the edges of the tray. My God, had these hands been on her, undressing her, warming her, wrapping her in blankets? A sudden heat flared through her at the possibility. She sank deeper against the pillows, burrowing instinctively further under the covers.

Their eyes met, and she wanted to look away, but made herself hold his gaze. She always hid doubt or fear from the world, however much she was quaking inside. That wasn’t about to change.

His mouth curved in a hesitant smile that made tiny creases around his eyes. “Good morning.” His voice sent a ripple through her, and now she looked away, lest her thoughts betray her. she betray herself.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Good morning.” She ventured another look at him and caught his eye again. The smile had broadened. This time she didn’t immediately look away.

He put the tray on a small table and opened the lid of the stove to throw on more wood. A wave of heat wafted toward her. He rubbed his hands on his thighs, came back to the bed, and crouched beside her, touching her hand that lay outside the blanket with the tips of his fingers. An electric tingle snaked its way from her fingers, through her chest, down to a tiny spot deep in her abdomen.

If he had seized her hand, she might have pulled away, but his touch was feather-light, tentative, questioning.

Up close his eyes were a gray blue, the color of a stormy sea. His mouth was firm and well shaped above the beard. The cat was no longer on her chest. Why did she have trouble drawing a breath?

“I'm Stefan Haber,” he said as if speaking to a child. “You're in my house on Shelley Island in Howe Sound.” Her entire being seemed concentrated on the warmth of his fingers holding her hand. He nodded toward the fat, gray cat. “Casper and I are the only ones on the island.”

No wife, then, who might have helped undress her. He was the one who'd stripped her wet clothes from her body and laid her warm and dry in the bed. Probably his bed. Her heart rate notched up.

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