Storm over the Caribbean

14. Desperate Measures

"I lied." My husband's voice echoed in my mind as I stared down at his unmoving form. "I lied."

Grabbing him by the shoulders, I shook him.

"Hey! Don't you black out on me! What do you mean, you lied? You bloody idiot! Why on earth would you—"

His eyelids fluttered open one more time. "Had to make...sure." With a trembling hand, he reached out until his fingers brushed against my face, then trailed down to my belly. "Couldn't...risk..."

Then he sagged back, finally unconscious.

"Oh bloody hell, no! Don't you dare do this to me, Rikkard Ambrose! Do you hear? Don't you dare!"

He didn't even twitch.

Damn him! Damn that frigging, bloody son of a bachelor!

Instantly, I knew. I knew what he had done. He had used himself as a human guinea pig! Just randomly picked a fruit from the nearest tree and eaten it, in the hope he wouldn't bloody die from it!

Stupid, blasted, chauvinistic—

...loving man.

He'd done this for me. For us. For our child.

And now he was out cold and I had to deal with the fallout.

Men! Typical!

Only...he wasn't just out cold. The realization suddenly settled in belatedly. He was poisoned.

The panic came in an instant.

Crap, crap, crap!

What the bloody hell was I going to do? What could I do? I was a pregnant woman, all alone in the jungle on a deserted island, with nothing to my name but three dead crabs and an unconscious business mogul. Crap, crap, triple crap with a cherry on top!

All right, Lilly, settle down. Think about this logically!

Oh yes? Would that be before or after the panic attack?

Before, of course. Stupid stuff like that can be postponed till later.

Thank you so much, inner voice that points at split personalities and a decline of my sanity! You're such a great help!

All right. I took a deep breath. Logic. Logic.

How did that stuff work again? I'd sort of taken a holiday from logic for a few months. It was rather hard to think logically when your brain suddenly tells you that eating ice cream and mustard on toast would taste delicious. Bloody pregnancy!

Get your brain going, Lilly. Think! What is the best thing to do to detoxify someone?

Well...dilute the poison.

And how can you do that?

Water. I needed lots and lots of water.

Well...

Crap.

A double load of crapulitious crap.

Another way, Lilly! There's got to be another way! What else could you do to get that stuff out of him?

Wait a minute...

Out of him?

In a blink, I was above him. Turning him on his side—Why the bloody hell do men have so be so big and heavy?—I grabbed hold of his head with one hand and pulled open his mouth with the other.

"Really didn't think I'd be the first to stick something into your mouth," I mumbled. "At least not after what Amy told me about men." Taking a deep breath, I raised my forefinger. "Don't get any ideas," I told him. "This does not mean you can reciprocate with your 'lower finger'."