"Are you totally insane? I don’t suppose words like "decency" or "modesty" mean anything to you, do they?" she said in a huff.

Just to infuriate her even more, Jax shifted his weight to stand on one foot, tapping the other in the sand while pretending to think. "Modesty, huh? Hmmmm…." He tapped his finger against his chin, and then looked at her with a devilish grin. "Now, Miss Barrett, do you really think I have that much to be modest about? Actually, I would have to say that I have more to be proud of than be modest about, don’t you think?"

Brenda’s temper was about at the breaking point. First, there would be no coffee this morning to help wake her up. Now, she had his male vanity being flaunted in her face. "Well, I can’t really say, Jax," she replied in kind. "Not having seen the whole package, you see." She folded her arms in front of her. {Two can play at this lewd game.} "And it’s not in my nature to make snap judgments."

Jax’s one eyebrow rose. {A woman after my own heart.} "Well, princess, it’s certainly not in MY nature to avoid FULL disclosure." He put his arms out to his side, and with a confident smile, began to turn slowly for her viewing pleasure. When his backside was presented to her, he stopped momentarily and turned his head to look over his shoulder. "Is that better?"

Brenda felt her cheeks growing warm and shifted her weight, trying to stay nonchalant. But she wasn’t about to let him get the best of her. "Definitely." She extended one arm and twirled the finger. "Keep going, Ace."

He began to turn again and finally faced her in his original position. "Well? Anything in particular that caught your eye?"

She took a deep breath, trying not to let him see just how shaky it was. "Not really. Just the standard equipment." As his eyes widened in shock, she saw she was being successful, and decided to take his game a step further. "But since you were so persistent in making remarks about my behind before we got off the plane, I feel it’s only fair that I do the same for you. Nice butt, Ace." She turned to walk back up to the fire where the fish was cooking, but then turned back to throw one more remark over her shoulder. "If you’re into butts, that is."

As she turned back, feeling her face flush, she heard his loud laughter. "Bravo, princess!" She walked back to where the fish was cooking and when she turned to face him again, she saw with relief that he had put his boxers back on and was in the process of trying to pull his trousers up over his still-damp legs. As she heard him swear softly, she sat down on the log near the fire and chuckled to herself.

"I guess that’s what you get for bathing in salt water," she said with an air of superiority.

Jax looked up at her as he still struggled with the trousers. "Excuse me?"

"I said, not being able to get your clothes back on is probably what you deserve for thinking that salt water would make you feel cleaner." Brenda stared at the fish intently, but to her dismay, Jax came over to the fire in his dark blue boxers that she guessed were made of silk.

"So, I take it that means you won’t be bathing for the duration of our stay here, princess?" Jax said in surprise. "Well, then, don’t expect to share this little piece of paradise with me. I think you’ll find that even the salt water is preferable to grime and sand after a few days."

Brenda watched as he sat in the sand and struggled with his trousers once more, finally getting them over his legs and up to his waist. She caught her breath a little as she realized that he didn’t intend to put on a shirt. "Well, you can be sure that if I DO decide to bathe in the ocean, it will be sometime when you’re not around to watch!"

She was surprised when he returned her glare with a serious look. "I have to hand it to you, Brenda," he said gently. "You’re a stronger person than I thought when I first met you in the plane. You came through a rough landing, the prospect of being marooned on a godforsaken island, and the sight of a naked stranger with flying colors! There aren’t a lot of women who have nerves of steel like you do."

Brenda smiled at the compliment. {Oh, Jax….if you only knew….if you only knew how close I came to screaming my head off as I felt the plane going down. And as for not being affected by the sight of your body….obviously you’re not as observant as you claim to be.} Brenda was temporarily distracted from their conversation as she remembered every inch of his beautiful body. She vividly recalled his broad chest and thickly muscled arms, and how narrow his waistline looked. She had deduced there and then that he must be some kind of exercise fanatic, because no man had that narrow of a waist and such perfect abs without working out. She had noticed the fine sprinkling of blonde hair on his chest, and how it also tapered down past his navel. She noticed where his tan line ended, and deduced that he must prefer wearing some kind of Speedo swimsuit when he spent time in the sun. And from the depth of his tan, she knew that he must have spent a LOT of time in the sun. Her throat tightened when she remembered the parts of him that weren’t tanned – the parts that gave evidence that he was VERY much a man.

Thankfully, Jax was so busy checking the status of their breakfast that he didn’t notice the reverie she was in. Her mind wandered to continue her inventory of him – past the untanned portion of his body, down his muscled thighs and lower legs, which were also covered with fine blonde hair. He was so much taller, so much more muscular than Sonny.

{Sonny! Oh my God, Sonny!} Brenda’s hands almost flew up to her mouth as she came to the shocking realization that she hadn’t even thought of Sonny since their landing. {What’s the matter with me? Did my brains get rattled when we landed on this rock? I should have thought of him before this! I’m almost engaged to the man!} But then she slipped into an odd sadness as she thought of HIS reaction to her being missing. In her mind’s eye, she saw the airport officials calling him into a private room to tell him that they were very sorry but Miss Barrett’s chartered flight suddenly had vanished from the radar screens. She saw him clearly – not ranting, not wringing his hands, not even shedding a tear. He would simply do what he always did – delegate. He would snap his fingers and three men would be on the phone to various listening posts around the world, tracing the flight. He would glance at another man, and three more men would be assigned to take the next flights out of Sydney, following the same flight path. And then, he would give the airport officials a withering stare, and stalk out of the private room in silence. Sonny would never let anyone or anything ruffle his cool exterior. He would never break down – not like she had when Julia died. Maybe it had been just as well that he couldn’t come with her on that last visit – he would have been embarrassed at the emotions she displayed when she finally had to say goodbye to her sister.

No, Sonny was nothing like Jax. Jax was tall and blonde, with piercing blue/green eyes that almost looked like they contained droplets of the waters in the ocean that was nearly at her feet. Sonny’s were…..Sonny’s eyes were…..Brenda really began to panic. She couldn’t remember what color Sonny’s eyes were! In fact, to her complete dismay, she couldn’t even form a picture of his face in her mind. {This is totally NUTS! I must be suffering from some kind of post-crash traumatic stress. Why can’t I remember what he looks like? I love Sonny! Why, when I hear his voice on the phone, it gives me chills…just the way he says my name… Brenda…Brenda….}

Suddenly, she realized that somebody WAS saying her name, and it wasn’t Sonny. "Brenda! Princess! Hey, do you want some of this for breakfast or not?"

Brenda snapped out of her trance, embarrassed to admit that the voice she had been imagining sounded a great deal like Jax’s. "Yes, I do! It smells wonderful!" She saw he had removed the fish from the makeshift spit he had used to cook it. "Exactly what is it?" she asked cautiously, fingering the hot, flaky meat.

"It’s a yellowtail – a fish in the snapper family," he answered knowingly.

She took a small portion in her fingers and tasted it. "It’s good!" she said in amazement. "How did you catch it?" Suddenly she looked at the fish in fear. "It hadn’t beached itself to die or something, had it?"

Jax crinkled his eyes in laughter. "It’s not a whale, Brenda! It’s a little fish – and a nimble one, at that. I speared it this morning in that cove over there." He inclined his head toward a sheltered spot at a distance in the trees. {No need to tell her how many tries it took you, Jax. Only you and Thomas know how you almost had to give up.}

"I guess I’m pretty lucky to be stuck here with someone who’s so skilled in survival skills," she said, gratefully accepting the coconut he passed her. She looked at it skeptically. "Although, I have to admit – I would give anything for a little caffeine this morning. This coconut milk just doesn’t get my motor running in the morning like a strong cup of black coffee."

Jax felt a twinge of guilt at her praise, but still couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he almost missed spearing their breakfast. "Well, I have a feeling we’ll get to know a lot about each other’s skills before our little adventure is over here."

Brenda stopped eating. "You sound pretty pessimistic about our being rescued."

Jax sighed. "Not pessimistic – just realistic. There are thousands of islands out here in the Pacific. It’s going to take them some time to re-trace our path. And I think that the windstorm that messed us up probably blew us off course, too."

Brenda shifted nervously on the log. {I can’t be stuck here with you for a long time, Jax. I need to get back to my business and my life. I particularly need to get back to my boyfriend – the one whose face and voice I can’t remember because all I see when I close my eyes is YOUR face and YOUR body.} "Well, if my boyfriend has anything to say about it, we’ll be found quickly."

Jax looked up quickly at the mention of her boyfriend. {Now’s the time to find out about the boyfriend!} "Why? Is he some bigshot or something?"

Brenda let out a little sigh of exasperation. "Kind of. He just has a lot of very important connections. I’m sure he’s starting all kinds of search and rescue operations right now."

"Really." Jax chewed thoughtfully. "So who is this Mr. Wonderful?"

Brenda shot him an icy glare. "Not that it should matter to you, but his name is Sonny Corinthos."

Jax pretended innocence. "Sonny Corinthos? Why does that name sound familiar?" He then faked enlightenment. "Isn’t he some kind of criminal or something?"

Now Brenda was really perturbed. "He is NOT a criminal. There are a lot of vicious newspaper reporters out there who keep putting everything he does in a bad light. Sonny’s in the import/export business and people are just jealous that he’s so successful."

{Yeah – successful at getting people killed.} "Really? You sound like you know the guy pretty well. How long have you two been a couple?"

Brenda stewed. "I really don’t know why I should be answering your questions…." Then she realized that she couldn’t very well alienate the man who was keeping her alive until Sonny would show up. "….but since you asked, we’ve been together four years."

Jax choked on his coconut milk. "Four years?! And you haven’t married the guy? What’s wrong with him?"

"There’s nothing wrong with him!" Brenda shot back defensively.

Jax smirked. "Well, there MUST be something wrong with him if you haven’t married him in four years. What’s the matter – has he got warts?"

"No, he hasn’t got warts!" Brenda gasped. "He’s very handsome." Jax nodded, and Brenda felt she had to go on in order to defend him. "He’s got dark hair, and very dark, expressive eyes."

"Hmmm…eyes….eyes are good." Jax sounded skeptical. "OK, so if he’s not a troll, then he must have the personality of a rock."

Brenda was beginning to fume again. "He does NOT have a bad personality. He’s clever, and witty…." {That is, when he TALKS to me.} "…kind of like the strong, silent type."

Jax nodded again. "He’s strong? A big guy?"

"Not exactly. He’s just a little taller than I am." Brenda saw Jax take a breath to speak, and she cut him off at the pass. "And don’t you DARE say that he’s short for a man!"

Jax threw his hands up in the air in surrender. "I wasn’t about to say any such thing!" He folded his fingers together and put them behind his head. "So, this guy is dark, handsome, strong and silent….sensitive, I take it?"

"Very! He has very deep feelings!" Brenda said sharply.

Jax nodded once more and folded his arms in front of him. "So, if this Sonny is good looking, witty, a real touchy-feely kind of guy…." He let out a long sigh and shrugged his shoulders. "… obviously the reason you’re not married to him yet is that he’s a dud between the sheets."

Brenda gasped aloud and began to stutter. "He’s….you’re….why, you….we do NOT have any problems in bed, not that it’s any of your business!" She stood up to stalk away, but Jax reached out an arm and grabbed her quickly.

"Hey, take it easy there, princess. I don’t think you should be going anywhere too far on that ankle today." She was still fuming, but she sat back down on the log. "I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made that comment about your sex life." He looked into her eyes. "How does the ankle feel today?"

Brenda was still upset, but not only with Jax. {If everything you were saying was true, why DON’T you want to marry him? After all, you’re comfortable with him. Sex with him is comfortable. No rockets and pinwheels in the sky, no breathless anticipation until you see him again….but comfortable.} She realized he had changed the subject, and she sighed in relief. "It doesn’t feel quite so sore today. I think a night’s rest helped it a lot."

Jax moved over closer to her to check it. He probed the bones gently but firmly with his fingers, and it gave her a funny tingle deep inside. "I think you may be right. It does feel less swollen today. But I think you should still rest it and not venture too far from camp."

"Well, then, I guess I’ll just have to call those party animals on the other side of the island and cancel happy hour for this afternoon," she said sarcastically.

Jax just smiled. "Good, because I’ve got other plans for you today."

Brenda grew a little apprehensive. "Like what?"

He stood up, went to her tote bag, and returned with her sewing kit. "You, Miss Barrett, will be designing and creating some clothing for us to wear during our stay in this little corner of heaven." He opened the kit and took out a scissors. "And you can start right now by shortening these trousers of mine. I’m dying of heat and you can use the fabric from them to make something else, like sheets or shawls to protect us from the sun."

"Shorten them?"

He looked at her as though she were from another planet. "Yes, shorten them – as in, cut off some of the fabric to make them into shorts instead of long pants!"

"Why can’t you do that yourself?" Brenda asked in a shaky voice.

Jax put his hands on his hips. "You mean to tell me that after I caught our breakfast, cooked it, and provided you with a roof over your stubborn little head, you can’t even shorten my pants for me? Do I have to do EVERYTHING, Princess?"

Brenda smoothed the fabric of her hopelessly wrinkled suit skirt. "No, of course not. I can shorten them." As she looked up at him, still shirtless, she saw the perspiration beading on his broad chest. Her mouth suddenly became very dry. "Ummm….what are you going to wear while I shorten them?"

Jax rose an eyebrow and smiled at her. "I’m going to wear THEM." He came to stand right in front of her. "I don’t want French seams, Brenda. I just want you to cut them off fairly evenly. Just take the scissors and cut them while I’m wearing them." He looked down at her and winked. "Unless you REALLY want me to take them off and sit here in my boxers and wait while you finish them."

"NO!" Brenda practically yelped the answer. She took a shaky breath. "I can shorten them while you’re wearing them." She took the scissors in hand and reached for his one leg. "You’ll need to come a little closer," she said in a tiny voice.

He smiled and his eyes crinkled again. "No problem. Anything else I can do for you to help with the process?" As she sat on the log with her legs turned gracefully to one side, he moved to stand right in front of her. She paused for just a moment as the area she remembered as being untanned was presented at her eye level, about 6 inches from the end of her nose.

{He’s doing it again, Brenda. He’s deliberately trying to shake you up. Stay cool. Don’t let him get to you.} As she reached out and pinched the fabric between her fingers, she was surprised to feel that it was an expensive silk and wool blend. "Are you sure you want me to just whack these off? I mean, they feel like very expensive trousers." She looked up at him. "I imagine on a pilot’s salary they must have set you back quite a bit."

Jax had to keep a straight face. {D*mn, she is observant.} "Yeah, well, I got these from my mother for Christmas last year. You know how a mother worries about her baby boy – she spared no expense to make sure I had some good clothes." He looked around the island. "But since I don’t expect to be invited to very many formal functions here, go ahead and whack away, as you put it!" He smiled down at her with a glint in his eyes. "Just be careful what you’re whacking, though!"

Brenda’s hands froze in place. "Don’t tempt me, Ace," she said through grit teeth. She started on the left trouser leg. "How short do you want them? Because your tan goes up so high on your leg that I guess you don’t have to worry about exposing any skin that isn’t already tanned."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. "Aha, so you DID notice that part of me!" he smirked.

She jerked on the trousers, trying to get him to turn so that she could continue to cut on the outside edge of his leg. "Just turn around and shut up!" she said succinctly. She kept cutting, and with the inevitability of a circle, eventually found herself fingering the cloth between his legs. She felt him flinch for just a moment. "Sorry," she said softly. Then she put on a grim face. "You know, you really don’t have to worry about me wounding any critical areas on you with these scissors. God knows I wouldn’t want to have to administer first aid to THAT part of your body."

Jax smiled and kept his gaze on something in the distance. "Uh-huh, yeah, right….whatever you say, Brenda," he said cynically. She was about to open her mouth to protest again, but decided it wouldn’t get her anywhere, so she just kept on working, trying to get the job done as quickly as possible.

She finished that leg and then proceeded to shorten the other leg to about the same length. When she was done, she let out a long sigh of relief. "There you go," she said. "How’s that?"

He looked down at his now-bare legs. "Perfect! Thanks!" He walked back over to where he had been eating and took one more long drink from the coconut. Then he rubbed his hands together and looked back at her. "OK, now that that’s done, we’re ready to get to work. I’m going to see what else I can dig up this morning, and why don’t you get going on making some things out of those scraps."

Brenda picked up the two tubes of fabric. "I really don’t see how you think I’m going to work miracles with this little bit of fabric, Jax," she said with a sigh. "I can’t turn nothing into something, you know."

He was putting his chambray shirt back on. "Brenda, you’ve got a lot to work with here." He looked around and finally spied his blazer and her suit jacket. He went and retrieved them and then dropped them in her lap. "You can take these apart at the seams and use the fabric from them plus the lining." He looked down at his shirt sleeves, which he had rolled above his elbows the previous day. He began ripping at the shoulder seam, and finally succeeded in making his shirt sleeveless. "You can add this to your collection, too." He stared at her blouse, and it made her feel oddly self-conscious. "And you can probably get rid of the sleeves in that expensive little bit of nothing you’re wearing, too." He gazed down at her legs. "And I would turn that skirt into some shorts if I were you. You’d have to spend a lot less time trying to watch how you sit around me."

Brenda started to blush, but Jax had already moved onto another subject. "Now stay put and don’t try to be some super-woman and tax that ankle today, OK? I’m just going to try to scavenge the area around the plane again and see if I can find anything else we might find useful."

Brenda nodded as he left. She took a deep breath and slowly looked at the pile of odds and ends of fabric in front of her. Then she looked up to see if Jax was out of sight yet. When his body looked like a tiny dot on the horizon, she got up slowly and went to her tote bag to pull out her purse.

Once she had found it, she got out her wallet and then limped her way back to the log. Her ankle was really much better today, but she didn’t want to over-do like Jax said and risk re-injuring it. She sat down, opened the wallet, and then found the small section with pictures in it.

{There we are.} She fingered a picture of herself and Sonny lovingly. She traced his features with her finger. {Of course, black hair and dark eyes. How could I forget that face? How could I forget features that I’ve traced with my finger so often after we made love?} She kept looking through the pictures in the wallet. There were a few more of Sonny and her on various occasions, and then she came to a picture of Julia and her that had been taken right before Julia had been diagnosed with the leukemia.

She felt a sob begin to rise in her throat. Her phone conversation with Sonny a few days before Julia died began to echo in her ears. She had begged him to fly out to the coast to be with her. She didn’t think she could face losing Julia alone. But Sonny had refused. He had a big business meeting he couldn’t miss, and besides, he really didn’t think Julia was that bad. He was sure she would hang on and right after the meeting, he would join Brenda in LA.

As it turned out, he joined her just in time to watch her trying to put her life back together after the funeral. He had held her and tried to make it up to her, but somehow she just couldn’t forget the fact that he hadn’t been there for her when she really needed him.

As she felt tears beginning to drop from her eyes, she wiped them with the back of her hand and closed the wallet. Jax was right. She should get busy on their clothing. Thinking about what Sonny should have done wouldn’t help her when she was roasting in her silk blouse or when they needed something soft to lay on the sand for sleeping.

She let out a long sigh, and then attacked the task of being seamstress for herself and Jax. {First, I need to fix my outfit. He’s got shorts – I need them, too. This skirt will never do.} She looked down the beach carefully and could still see the small dot on the horizon that was his body. She wriggled out of the skirt, and held it up in front of her. If she cut the fabric in the front and back and seamed it together, it might work.

An hour later, she held up her finished product. {I did it! I actually did it!} She didn’t think she had been that proud of herself even when one of the artists for L&B Records went to the top of the charts with a single. She pulled the shorts back on, and immediately felt freer and more comfortable than she had in the past 24 hours.

Gaining momentum from her success, she slipped the blouse off her shoulders and took a good look at the shoulder seams. Although the fabric was thin, it raveled easily and it took her almost another hour to get the seam apart and take the sleeves off. At one point, she was almost tempted just to rip them, but then she might not have enough fabric left to use in some constructive project.

After she finished both sleeves, she gazed up at the sun. It was high in the sky – probably close to noon. The sweat was rolling down her arms in rivers, and she had to brush her wet hair off her forehead more than once. {Geez, if I’m this hot just sitting here, what must Jax have felt like when he was carrying me all around the island yesterday? Especially with long pants on!} She used the discarded sleeves from her blouse to wipe her brow, and was once more reminded of just how grimy and sandy she was.

She looked longingly at the clear blue ocean waters. {Jax is probably busy down at the wreck – he hasn’t been back all morning. If I just take a quick dip in the water, I’ll feel cleaner and have more energy to try to put all these scraps together into something useful.} She cast one more gaze at Jax down at the wreckage, and could still see his small form moving around between the burned out jet and a pile he seemed to be forming on the sand.

{It’s now or never, Brenda. Go for it.} She looked around once more, and then shook her head at her timidity. {Just who do you think is going to pop out of a bush, Brenda? Oprah? Sonny?} Shedding her new shorts and her lingerie, she stood on the sand next to the log, feeling the warm sun beating down on her naked body. {My God, Brenda, you’ve been spending too much time with this nudist-maniac. You’re beginning to enjoy the feeling of the air and the sun on parts of your body that normally only your mother would see!} She timidly took a few steps, testing her ankle, and when she was assured it would hold her, she made her way down to the water’s edge.

She dipped a toe in, testing the temperature. {Well, it’s not like you can add some hot water, Brenda! It’s the ocean!} It was a little brisk, but she was so sticky and grimy that she threw caution to the wind and waded into the water. When the water was about knee-deep, she moved forward and immersed her entire body.

The water felt like heaven on her sandy skin. She caught her breath at the temperature, but then ducked her head under the water to rinse out her hair at the same time. She surfaced, and looked up at the sun. {It is GOOD to be alive. I’m alive!} Even though it was salt water, she had to admit that Jax was right – it did make her feel cleaner than she had before. She startled, but then realized that she was being greeted by tiny tadpoles who were swimming in the water near her. She laughed out loud at them, and then rolled over in the water.

Suddenly, she realized that she had better get her business done while the time was right. She scrubbed at her arms and legs, ridding herself of some of the dirt of the previous 24 hours. She ducked beneath the waves one more time to thoroughly rinse her hair.

After about 10 minutes in the water, she decided she had better get back to work. She emerged from the ocean, turning her head to the side to take her long black hair and twist it, wringing out some of the salt water. She had to laugh when she imagined her hairdresser’s reaction to the salt water and what damage it would probably do to her hair.

She was still smiling when she came back to their small camp, and she tossed her hair back over her shoulder. Suddenly, she froze when she heard a familiar voice.

"Miss Barrett, are you totally insane? Don’t words like "modesty" or "decency" mean anything to you?" She looked up into Jax’s sparkling blue eyes. He was standing next to the pile of fabric she had been working with, and was holding up the new set of shorts she had created.

She instinctively folded her arms across her chest. "I didn’t think you would be back for a while," she spat. "What are you doing here?"

He walked over to stand 2 feet in front of her, his eyes raking her naked body. He felt his own body reacting strongly to the vision before him. He smiled at her and looked her slowly up and down again. She almost felt the heat from his gaze. "What am I doing here? How about – trying to decide what to have for lunch?"

To be continued….