Through the veil of sleep, I felt my husband prod my shoulder.

"Hm...just five more minutes," I muttered, unwilling to open my eyes. For some reason, I felt rather tired.

He prodded me again. Impatient son of a bachelor! Didn't he know that pregnant women needed their beauty sleep in the morning?

Grumbling, I rolled away from him, snuggling into the soft sand. I would just stay a few more minutes, and then—

Wait a minute.

Sand?

Soft sand?

I bolted upright. For a moment, my head whirled, and I felt as if I were on a swaying ship that—

Ship!

We were on the ship, and then...oh God! What happened?

"Ah," a cool, blissfully familiar voice reached my ears. "You're finally awake."

Another bout of dizziness came over me and, bracing myself against the ground with both arms, I just managed to prevent myself from toppling over. Dragging in a deep breath, I looked around. It didn't take long for me to spot the tall figure striding along the shore towards me.

"God...!" I grabbed my swirling head. "What happened? We..." Cautiously, I glanced around the beach. A completely empty beach, with not a soul on it, except for us. "We were shipwrecked?"

"Astounding observational skills, Mrs Ambrose."

"Did...did anyone else...?"

Silence.

An icy claw dug into my chest.

"Tell me you found Karim!"

Grimly, he shook his head. "I found nobody else."

"Bloody hell!" With a growl, I staggered to my feet. You bloody beard on legs! You'd better be all right, do you hear me? If not, I'll come after you with a razor! I won't leave a single hair alive! "We've got to go! We've got to find them and—"

"That, I fear, would be rather difficult."

"Huh?"

"Look around."

I did as he said. Sand. Sea. An annoyingly bright and cheerful blue sky above. Palms swaying in a light breeze. It was like a scene straight from a darn postcard, as if we were at some holiday resort on a Caribbean isla—

I stiffened.

My eyes flicked over the curving coastline. I listened intently for any sounds of civilization—yet there was nothing but the murmur of the waves and the mewing of gulls.

"We're on an island?"

"Very likely." Turning from right to left, Mr Ambrose inspected the land and sky, as if surveying his new domain. "And by the looks of it, not an inhabited one. We weren't anywhere near any significant landmass when the storm hit. Not near any of the larger islands either. Whatever this place is, we can't be certain it is even on a map. We're going to be here for a good, long while."

"I...see." Groaning, I stretched and started dusting off the sand that covered most of my dress. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something—and froze.

Right there, leading up from the water to the beach, was a set of footsteps. And, beside the footsteps, there were drag marks in the sand that suddenly cut off, as if...as if someone had dragged something out of the water, then picked it up to carry it in his arms the rest of the way.

I swallowed. I had expected I'd just been washed ashore. Apparently not.

"You...you carried me ashore."

I felt an instinctive desire to hug him. To hold him close and never let go.

"I did. You should diet. You've gotten fat."

Desire gone. Completely!

"I'm pregnant, you son of a bachelor!" I hissed, aiming a kick at his shin. "That's your child in there!"

He cocked his head. "Your point being?"

"Dang you! I'm going to—" Suddenly, I cut off—then my eyes narrowed. Did my dear hubby think I was so easy to fool? "Don't think that I don't know what you're doing! You're trying to distract me! To rile me up in order to make me forget that Karim...that they're probably all..."

I couldn't get the words out.

"Yes." Stepping forward, he cupped my cheek in his hand, forcing me to look at him. His dark, fathomless eyes were deeper than any ocean could ever be. "Is it working?"

Biting my lip, I buried my face in his chest. "Yes, dammit!"

"Don't worry." His arms came around me, holding me close. "Karim will be all right. He has survived much worse than this."

"That much is obvious," I mumbled. "He works for you."

That earned me a frosty look from my husband. Too bad for him that, in this tropical climate, it was very welcome and refreshing.

For a long moment, we just stood there, holding each other, gathering strength. I was the first to break the silence, when suddenly something occurred to me.

"Who do you think 'they' are?" I asked quietly, still clutching him tightly.

"They?"

"That man on the ship. He said 'they' had his family. Who do you think he meant?"

"That, Mrs Ambrose, is a question I am very curious about as well." The tone of his voice alone made me shiver. I had a feeling that whoever "they" were, they were in for a reckoning. "However, this is neither the time, nor the place." Releasing me from his embrace, he once again let his gaze sweep over the beach. "We have more important matters to attend to."

"Such as?"

He turned towards me. His gaze was cold, hard and implacable. "Surviving."

It was only then that my fuzzy head grasped the implications of the situation. We were on a deserted island. Alone. Without supplies.

"Crap!"

"Not quite how I would have expressed things, Mrs Ambrose, but...yes."

"Double crap!"

Trapped on an island without food, water, or a method to contact civilization. Not how I planned to spend this little Caribbean holiday.

On the other hand, a little voice whispered at the back of my mind, trapped on an island with sun, beaches, and Mr Rikkard Ambrose. In this hot weather, we'll probably be sweating a lot. It's practically guaranteed that he'll take his clothes off sooner or later. They might even get destroyed or, ehem...accidentally lost. Wouldn't that be a tragedy?

Immediately, I pushed those thoughts aside. This was not the time to fantasize over a naked Mr Rikkard Ambrose lounging on a beach.

Even if I really, really wanted to.

Blasted pregnancy hormones!

"...should get to work immediately."

Blinking, I came back to the real world. "Ehem, sorry. What?"

Mr Ambrose sent me a look. One of those looks. "I said," he said in a tone of voice that made clear how very much he detested repeating himself, "without supplies we will not last long. If we want to survive, we will have to get to work immediately." Flexing his fingers, he took a step forward. "Or rather I will."

"What are you planning?" I asked with trepidation.

"What will be necessary if we want to have any chance of survival on this island: getting water."

With that, he strode off towards the forest.

"Err...the ocean is that way." I pointed in the opposite direction.

He didn't stop.

"And you intend to drink salt water, Mrs Ambrose?"

"No, of course not! I thought maybe we could..."

My voice trailed off. Truth be told, I hadn't thought that much about it. But hell would freeze over before I ever admitted such a thing!

Quietly, I had to concede he was right, though. Drinking water from the ocean would only make us die faster. Still...where else were we going to get water? It wasn't as if we were stranded right next to the River Thames!

"I..." I hesitated. "I thought maybe we could gather some, make it evaporate somehow, and catch the condensation."

He shook his head without turning around. "Too little, too late. By the time we manage to gather enough to drink, we'll have long died of thirst."

"Then what are we going to do?" I asked, looking around. I prided myself on being an independent and resourceful woman. But more importantly, I prided myself on being an independent and resourceful city woman, with running water in the house and a grocery store in walking distance. Survival training for a deserted island had not been in my plans! And it was clearly audible on my wavering voice. "What are we going to do?"

"This." And he started to run. "Stay back."

"What the...!"

Then he jumped! With a thud, he hit the palm in front of him...clung onto it with both arms and legs? A moment later, he started climbing, and climbing fast. I blinked. I had seen many strange and startling things in my life, and had expected to see many more. But watching Mr Rikkard Ambrose in his mint-condition tailcoat climb a tree like a monkey was not one of them.

"Err...what are you doing?" I enquired—then one corner of my lips twitched. "Water doesn't grow on trees, you know."

"Wrong," Mr Ambrose announced from atop the tree. "Catch."

Instinctively, I reached out—but the object landed more than a dozen feet in front of me. Good thing, too, I realized once I got a good look at it.

"Oy! What..." I stared at the thing, confused. Big, brown, oval...? "What is that?"

"Coconut," was Mr Ambrose's curt reply. "It should contain a sufficient amount of water for us to survive for the time being, if we act quickly."

"We?" I perked up, not missing his use of the pronoun. "You're actually allowing me to help, Mr Fearless Hunter-Gatherer? And here I thought you were going to tell me to sit tight like a good little wife."

"Oh, of course not," came his answer from up the tree. "I value your help, and we need to work together to survive."

I beamed. Seems like, in this desperate situation, he had finally put aside his chauvinist ways.

"I'll continue gathering coconuts," Mr Ambrose told me. "Meanwhile, can you open the coconuts and gather the water?"

"Sure!" Eyes sparkling, I tightened my grip on the coconut. "Leave it to me!"

***

Roughly ten minutes later...

Bam!

"Bloody!"

Bam!

"Freaking!"

Bam!

"Thing!"

Bam! Bam!

"Why!"

Bam!

"Won't!"

Bam!

"You!"

Bam! Bam! Bam!

"Open!"

Bam!

"Well, Mrs Ambrose?" came a familiar voice from high above. "How are your efforts progressing?"

I resisted the urge to brain him with a coconut. Mostly due to the fact that my arms were aching too much for me to raise them.

"You..." I panted, directing an accusing glare in his direction. "You...!"

With a soft thud, Mr Rikkard Ambrose descended from the palm, his mint-condition tailcoat and trousers somehow, infuriatingly, unblemished and unwrinkled. Dusting himself off, he turned towards me. "Yes? I?"

Unable to squeeze out any words between my desperate pants for breath, I accusingly held up my scratched, but undoubtedly still whole, coconut. Those evil beasts! Peeling off the outer husk wasn't really difficult. But below lurked the impenetrable shell, ready to drive me insane! Seething, I glanced over at where, beside me, a huge pile of untouched coconuts rose towards the sky.

Mr Ambrose cocked his head. "Have you been slacking off? I should inform you, Mrs Ambrose, that I do not tolerate slackers. And I certainly do not pay them."

"We're shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, you bloody son of a bachelor! You don't have any money to pay me to begin with!"

"Irrelevant."

"You knew, didn't you?" I panted. "You knew!"

He cocked his head again, to the other side this time. "Knew what, pray?"

Raising the coconut, I shook it at him. "That this wasn't going to work!"

I value your help my arse!

Well, that tempting little voice at the back of my mind piped up, he probably does value your arse. And certain other parts, if memories of the wedding night are anything to go by.

Not helping.

"Oh, but it does work, Mrs Ambrose. I do not give my employees tasks that cannot be completed."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Indeed, Sir?"

"Indeed. Perhaps I should try," The chauvinistic son of a bachelor graciously extended his big, strong, male hand. "That might work better."

I gave him a beatific smile. "Perhaps I should crack one over your head. That might work better."

"I very much doubt it. You lack the necessary arm strength."

Calm, Lilly. Calm.

"Then pray tell, how would you," I thrust one of the coconuts in his face, "open one of these?"

"Well..." Taking the coconut, Mr Ambrose turned it upside down, slid his finger over the surface and...where those three dark spots underneath his fingers? Instantly, his fingers halted, and he pressed down hard.

Crack!

"...like that."

One of my eyebrows twitched. Grabbing the coconut, I peered into the hole through which I could hear liquid sloshing. "Those three spots...you couldn't have mentioned them earlier?"

"I could have. But then again, I assumed that, smart, capable and independent woman that you are, you would quickly find them yourself."

That son of a...

He was still trying to take my mind off Karim, wasn't he?

And even if he bloody wasn't, what was I supposed to say to something like that? No, Sir, I'm not smart and independent, because I'd prefer to be a pampered little housewife?

Yeah, right.

"Besides..." In a flash, he bent down towards me until his face was right in front of me. My breath caught in my throat as his hand came up and trailed over my cheek, then further down across my throat to catch a single drop of sweat on my collarbone, just above my heaving chest. "If I did, I would not have gotten to see you like this."

"L-like what?" I demanded. I was not stuttering. Nope, absolutely not. "Sweaty?"

He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. His deep, dark, icy eyes somehow stoking the fire inside me even more.

"No," he corrected me, his lips brushing against mine. "Hot. Wet."

"Th-that is not very sensible if we want to conserve water."

"For some reason," he murmured, his breath caressing my heated skin, "I find I do not care."

Yep, he was definitely trying to distract me from depressing thoughts. And what's more, it was working. The coconut slipped through my fingers and fell onto the ground. Milky liquid spread across the sand.

"Tut-tut, Mrs Ambrose." Shaking his head remonstratingly, Mr Ambrose moved farther forward, until he was so close I could nearly hear his heart beat. "Look what you did. You shouldn't be so wasteful."

"I..."

"We can't have that, can we?" he cut me off, his eyes glittering with an icy light, "I suppose I shall have to help you."

Snatching up the coconut from the ground, he lifted it to his lips and took a deep swig.

"Hey!" I protested. "You greedy son of a bachelor! Why are you guzzling up everything for yourself? Are you just going to drink while your pregnant wife dies of thirst? I thought you said you'd help me!" I gave a snort. "Not that I need your help or anything. I can drink perfectly well by myself, thank you very much! I don't care if you aren't going to share with your wife!"

Swallowing, he licked his lips. In the brilliant sunlight, I could see them glisten with moisture. "Oh," he said, "I am."

Then he bent down and kissed me.

----------------------------------------

My dear Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Mr Ambrose is still as good at brevity as ever, eh? ;)

You might have found it strange that Lilly didn't  know what a coconut was at first glance. But this isn't as unlikely as one might think. One must remember that, back before freezers were invented, transport of perishable goods from tropical regions to Europe was almost non-existent. At the most, she could have seen a black-and-white photograph. Mr Ambrose, on the other hand, has travelled the world for years and traded all kinds of things, fruit included.

Yours Truly

Sir Rob