Borrowed Bride by Patricia Coughlin

Connor’s irresponsible behavior.
    Or was she? If it was true that her words had caused him to drink too much, which in turn caused the hangover that caused him to be careless and injure himself, maybe she was at least partly responsible. Her eyes narrowed. Tough. She still wasn’t about to apologize to the man.
    At last spying a tiny screwdriver at the very bottom of the basket, she fished it out and headed for the deck with a triumphant smile.
    â€œIs this small enough?” she asked, holding it before him.
    He lifted his sunglasses and squinted at it in the sunlight, then extended his hand, palm up. Gaby dropped the screwdriver into it.
    â€œIt’s short enough,” he said, examining it more closely, “and it looks to be pretty sturdy, too. It just might do the trick.” He looked up at her as the dark glasses dropped back into place and he smiled. “Thanks, I’ll give it a try later, after the sun goes down.”
    Gaby responded with a curt nod. She really hated it when he smiled at her. It was so damn...distracting. And it had this strange effect on her stomach that made it hard to concentrate on the fact that he was the enemy.
    Now that she thought about it, she hated the way he dressed, too. He was wearing an old navy blue T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans that rode low on his hips and conformed to his muscular thighs like a second skin. Granted, there was nothing unusual or sinister about the clothes themselves. What irked her was the effect they had on her senses when he was inside them. Both the shirt and jeans had a soft, oft-washed patina that tempted her to reach out and touch. At least she told herself that was what was tempting her.
    She would have loved nothing more than to have been able to say that everything about Connor DeWolfe left her cold and that she couldn’t understand why so many women found him irresistible. Come to think of it, she had said exactly that, many times over the years since she’d met him, but always to others, never to herself. She wasn’t that good a liar.
    Sprawled in one of the two cushioned redwood deck chairs, he had his bare feet propped on the other. Lowering them to the deck, he shoved the empty chair back in order to make room for her.
    â€œTake a load off,” he invited.
    Gaby hesitated. In the past twenty-four hours she’d discovered that the entire cabin was a powder keg of memories for her. This corner of the deck where he’d chosen to sit, however, threatened to be the most highly charged of all. The last thing she needed or wanted was for those particular memories that lingered there to go off in her face.
    â€œCome on, Gaby,” he urged quietly. “Sit with me awhile. It’s not like you have anything better to do.”
    She sniffed. “Actually I have a great deal I could be doing with my time if I weren’t being held prisoner here.”
    He shrugged as if that were a detail beyond his control. “I guess you’d be on your honeymoon right about now.”
    â€œThat was the plan.”
    â€œWhere were you headed?”
    â€œWe were going to a private island in the Caribbean.”
    â€œTough break,” he said, neither sounding nor looking the least bit sorry. In fact, he looked pleased.
    Rankled, Gaby added, “I could also point out that even doing nothing alone is better than sitting here wasting time with you.”
    â€œYou could,” he allowed, appearing regally unscathed by her words. “Or else you could just take off your damn armor for a while and join me in making the best of a bad situation.”
    â€œA situation of your own making,” she felt compelled to add.
    â€œThat’s still open to debate.”
    â€œOf course, how could I have forgotten? Adam is the one to blame for us being stuck up here together. Is that right?”
    â€œThat’s how it looks to me,” he said, matter-of-fact.
    â€œWell, as usual your view of things