Nathaniel Reis screwed up. He put his career as an air force pilot before his marriage to Tess, and wound up divorced. Now that he’s left the service, he has a plan to fix things, if only he can get her alone for a few days.
When Tess misses her flight to a corporate retreat, Nat’s there with his island-hopper plane and a plot to get stranded in paradise thanks to “mechanical problems.” But his plan goes awry when a storm blows them off course and they have to make a real emergency landing—and not on the island where he’s stashed supplies.
Tess is furious. She’s anxious to get to her retreat, and away from Nat. She’s even angrier that being so close to him arouses her in a way she hasn’t been for a long time. Rescue can’t come soon enough, but in the meantime, she’s going to have to trust Nat to keep her safe. Even if she’s in danger of falling for him all over again.
Of all the sad aspects of human living perhaps the saddest of all is the fact that people fail to learn life’s most valuable lessons until one’s relationships become victims of self-interest or goals that have become more important than people. So it was with our hero, a man who truly tried to do the right thing, who felt every one of his responsibilities keenly, but forgot that meeting the expectations of his own goals and those of others could never fill his life the way he needed. And as is often the case, he lost the one person who was absolutely necessary for his future happiness and contentment.
But never sell short a man who can indeed focus, and who now is focused on getting his woman back. She may think she has her life all worked out, but Nathaniel Reis is about to blow it all to smithereens. This novella is very erotic, but it is substantive in its lessons. Both these characters stand as examples of what can happen when a marriage becomes collateral damage in the struggle to meet personal goals rather than communal ones. Tess had a right to feel that she had become incidental. In many ways she had. The demise of this marriage was a wake-up call for both of them, and Nathaniel was out to prove that he had become, could continue to be the man Tess wanted and needed in her life.
This is not a long read but it is a worthy one. There is passion, anger, hurt, humor, creativity, and gentle loving here in these pages–all the things that make for real living, even on a deserted island. Perhaps it is the very absence of all the “window dressing” of modern living for these two that forces them to get back to basics. It remained to be seen whether Nathaniel could pull it all off and whether Tess was even willing to accept the changes for the better that had occurred in his life. I really enjoy Frederick’s writing and found that this was a continuation of the writing quality that has impressed me in the past. Romance junkies will love this story.
I give it a rating of 4 out of 5
You can read more from Judith at Dr J’s Book Place.
