Mast And Mercy

"There are two kinds of drowning: the kind where the water fills your lungs, and the kind where a man fills every room you walk into until breathing without him feels like the same thing." Dahlia Cross is a nurse practitioner whose strict moral compass has become her own prison. Fleeing the wreckage of her father's medical scandals, she boards the Absolution for a remote clinic posting. But her captain, Stellan "Steel" Creed, is no ordinary sailor. He's a hardened smuggler running stolen medical supplies outside the law, a man whose compass points nowhere and who plays by no rules but his own. When a devastating Category 3 hurricane shatters the Absolution against a jagged Bahamian reef, Dahlia and Steel are marooned on a deserted caye. Stripped of civilization and rationing their dwindling water, they must rely on each other to survive. Dahlia is forced to reset Steel's brutal arm fracture with her bare hands, while Steel harbors a secret that could save them both—or send him to federal prison. Trapped in a wrecked, tin-roofed shack with the scorching sun beating down, the hostility between the righteous healer and the ruthless criminal begins to blur. As Dahlia discovers the truth behind his two-million-dollar illegal cargo, her rigid boundaries crack. In the suffocating heat and isolation, their forced proximity ignites into a raw, undeniable fire. But Steel is hiding a working satellite phone, weighing his freedom against her safety. When the truth comes out, Dahlia must decide if the greatest danger is the island itself, or falling for a dangerous man who kept her stranded on purpose. Mast and Mercy is a gritty, intense dark survival romance about two deeply scarred people forced to confront their pasts and the terrifying realization that love doesn't always play by the rules.