by Roz Lee
As the hours passed, Fallon berated herself for being a gullible idiot. It had all been a lie. A very elaborate one to be sure, but she’d fallen for his, I’m-in-love, I-don’t-want-anyone-but-you routine, like some naïve teenager. He hadn’t even bothered to see why she didn’t show up for the Chocolate Buffet. Not that she wanted to see him, or him to see how low she’d sunk. She’d made enough of a fool of herself for one day, no need to compound the error.
Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, the ship sailed into calmer waters and Fallon peeled herself off the cold tile floor and crawled into bed. Her heart was a hot lead ball somewhere near her toes now. Her stomach felt like a wrung out dishtowel, and Noah was hammering his ark together inside her skull. Between puking and crying, she was afraid she’d need an IV to replace lost fluids. Her sleep was fretful. Richard Wolfe couldn’t even leave her dreams alone.
Morning came too soon. Fallon swung her feet to the mercifully unmoving floor and buried her head in her hands. She had a long day ahead of her and a seasick, heartsick, and a crying hangover couldn’t get in her way. Back in the shower, this time on her feet, she washed away as much of the previous day and night as she could. A final blast of cold water jump started her. A gallon or two of caffeine and she’d be good to go.
The twenty-four hour, open-air café on the Mediterranean Deck was a popular place for the early risers, as well as the party-all-night crowd. Fallon talked one of the waiters out of his sun visor and donned her darkest sunglasses. Usually she took little notice of the carnal activities going on around her. Living on the Lothario, she had formed a detachment to her surroundings. It was either that, or be horny all the time. This morning, she hid behind her dark glasses and watched the various displays going on around her. Every kiss, every intimate touch, was saltwater in an open wound. She accepted the pain as punishment for her stupidity. She only hoped these shipboard romances had a happier ending than hers had.
Hadn’t she known all along not to get involved with Richard? She’d managed to live with her unwise feelings for him and had steeled herself to walk away, and then he’d blackmailed her into staying. Sipping her third cup of coffee, she thought back to what a telling moment that had been. She should have called his bluff immediately. If Ryan had been onboard, she could have gone to him, and none of this would have ever happened. She would have left the ship before this cruise, and her heart would still be whole, empty, but whole. Empty sounded a whole lot better than shattered.
It took four cups of coffee and a pity-party giant cinnamon roll, before she began to feel human, and then she began to plan.
* * * * *
Richard speared his fingers through his hair and took a deep, cleansing breath. The sun had barely cleared the horizon before he’d been woken up by a haggard faced kid calling himself the acting Cruise Director. Apparently, an overwhelming number of passengers had succumbed to the violent ship movement the night before. Among the ones suffering was Jason, the official acting Cruise Director.
The first thought he had was for Fallon. He missed her and hoped her stomach had weathered the storm. He handed the weary eyed third in line a note for Fallon. The too-young man assured him he knew who Fallon was, and would deliver the note immediately. Richard relaxed.
Fallon would find him, and as they had many times before, they would deal with today’s problems. Over the last few months, whenever he’d needed a hand, it seemed Fallon was there, working side by side with him. He’d come to expect her company, and respect her help. They worked well together. An image of the two of them 'working' together filled his mind and he had to smile to himself. Yes, they were well matched, in many ways.
He dressed, confident he would be sinking inside Fallon in a few short hours, and he had no intention of leaving her ever again.
He worked on autopilot. Thanks to the vigilant crew, all passengers were accounted for, always a worry when the seas were as rough and unpredictable as they had been last night. He authorized shopping discounts and comped dinners for countless passengers who’d visited the infirmary overnight. He listened patiently to the ones who felt the need to complain about the weather, as if he could do something about it. More than once, he looked around, expecting to see Fallon pitching in. After lunch, he led the regularly scheduled tour of the Bridge, and fielded more questions regarding last evening’s storm.
It was late in the afternoon before he had a chance to wonder what had happened to Fallon. She hadn’t found him, not a stretch, as he’d been on every deck from forward to aft, and everything in between. Half the time, he didn’t know where he was himself. He found a house phone and called her cabin. No answer. Where the devil was she? He sent one of the front desk staff to walk the pool decks and search every restaurant and bar, with orders to escort her to him when they found her.
* * * * *
Her small office space felt like home. It wasn’t much more than a closet, but she’d made it her own, and the neat but cluttered space was all hers. Surrounded by her favorite things, she found it easy to think here. She could be alone with her research, read, write, contemplate the universe, or dream. Over the last two years, she’d done all those things.
Fallon folded another flattened cardboard cutout into the storage box it promised to be. The last time they’d been in Miami she’d purchased the collapsible boxes, enough to pack everything she’d accumulated.
As she filled the boxes with books, files, and the small items she’d scattered around to add a personal touch, she wished she could toss her feelings for Richard into a box and put a lid on it. A little packing tape across the top, and voila, problem solved. If only she could shove that box onto a basement shelf somewhere and forget about it. She sighed, that wasn’t going to happen.
Richard wasn’t going to fit neatly into a box, and forgetting him wasn’t going to happen either, not in this lifetime anyway. Crystal’s taunts echoed in her head. She might have gotten over the woman in Richard’s arms, but knowing he’d been carrying on with Crystal, apparently off and on for the last two years, made her sick. How could she not have known? She’d known Crystal had been a frequent passenger. It was hard to miss someone like her, even on a ship the size of the Lothario.
It wasn’t the first time Fallon had lost track of time in her office. She understood why casinos had as few windows as possible. When you didn’t have the arc of the sun to mark the passing of time, your body didn’t send your brain the usual signals, time to eat, time to rest. You just went on and on, one task after another, unaware of the day’s passage. She taped the last file box shut. Her stomach growled, reminding her she’d missed lunch.
Costumed revelers crowded the main lobby. Fallon sighed as she spotted the first of what would inevitably be several Lady Godiva’s. Originality was a rare commodity. She supposed the Wardrobe Department was responsible in part, as the passengers’ choices were limited to what was onboard. She wove her way through the throngs gathering around the various photo backdrops, waiting their turn to have a commemorative photograph taken. The photos taken on this, the final evening, always sold well.
Another photo came to mind. No matter what else had transpired, the photo wasn’t a lie. Everything she’d felt when it was taken had been real, and it was all right there on her face during that frozen moment—all the love, the wonder at being loved, the total surrender, and her complete abandon of sanity. What kind of fool had she become?
The question brought on a fresh wave of sickening humiliation. She needed to be strong if she was going to make it through the next twenty-four hours and get off the ship with what was left of her dignity.
The first step in that direction was food and preferably without running into Richard. She’d kept busy, sorting, and packing, but the physical work hadn’t been enough. Richard hadn’t been far from her thoughts all day. She’d braced herself for a confrontation. She’d hoped he’d seek her out, just so she could tell him what she thought of him, but he hadn’t come, and she hated to admit how much t
hat hurt. The knife he’d pierced her heart with had slashed a gaping hole in her pride too.
She made it to the Parthenon Buffet and filled a plate with her favorite comfort foods to take back to her cabin. She had no desire to sit alone among all the excited passengers. Eating alone in her cabin sounded pretty good.
Fallon balanced a brownie and a couple of chocolate chip cookies on the top of her plate and headed back the way she’d come. A familiar physique caught her attention. Richard. Dressed all in black, he fit the role of Wild West Bad Man to a T. From the worn riding boots, to the calf length duster, to the wide brimmed Stetson, he exuded bad ass sex appeal. He posed for a photo, surrounded by half a dozen women in various stages of dress. No one seemed to care that their costumes spanned five centuries, and none fit with the cowboy they were climbing all over.
She must have made a sound, or maybe he sensed her eyes on him. Richard met her gaze across the room and with her hands full she didn’t have a chance of escaping him. She stood her ground. Isn’t this what she’d wanted? A chance to confront him? Her shaking knees and racing heart said otherwise. Dear God, did he have to be so damned good looking? Testosterone in boots. Just watching him walk in that self-assured, loose-limbed gate weakened her resolve.
Thankfully, the first words out of his mouth hardened her resolve faster than quick drying cement.
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve had people scouring the ship all day, looking for you.”
He reached for her and she took a wobbly step back. “Why? Couldn’t you find someone else to play with?”
“I haven’t had any time for games, and even if I did, you’re the only person I want to play with.”
“Well, I for one, am tired of the games.” She started to move around him and he blocked her path.
“What do you mean? What games?” He wondered if he’d been off in some parallel universe, only to return and find it had all been a dream.
“You, me. . . games. Go find someone else to play with. Maybe you could start with that piece of candy you picked up at the Chocolate Buffet. She looked like the type to play games. Or how about Crystal, or did she get tired of waiting for you to come play bad cop?”
* * * * *
Crystal? What the hell was Fallon talking about? While his brain scrambled to process what she was saying, she took advantage of his confusion and made good her escape. He hurried after her, but his second-in-command waylaid him. Whatever she’d meant by her barbed remark would have to wait. Half listening to his Assistant Cruise Director, Richard inwardly cursed the woman’s timing. For two years, the Lothario had been coming between him and Fallon, and he couldn’t wait to get off it for good, but for now, the ship was his responsibility. Fallon would have to wait, again.
* * * * *
Fallon stared at the plate of food. Her appetite was gone. There was nothing like gullibility to sour your stomach. She nibbled on a cookie, her favorite, a sugar cookie dipped in cinnamon and sugar before baking. It might as well have been sawdust. She tossed it back on the plate and flopped on the bed. Well, you sure told him, you silver tongued devil. She groaned. After spending hours thinking up smart things to say to him, things that wouldn’t sound like the wretched, heartbroken, jealous reject that she was, what did she come out with? Drivel. She’d sounded like a high school girl telling her star-of-the-football team boyfriend she’d seen him making out with a cheerleader in the lunchroom. Pathetic.
Silver tongue or not, he’d gotten the message and let her go. Now all she had to do was make it through the night, and in the morning, she could leave the ship. As soon as the Lothario docked in Miami, she would get the two boxes of research files, and be gone. She’d already made arrangements to have someone transport the boxes with her personal things, but she wasn’t about to trust two years of research to a stranger.
Fallon flipped from her left side to her right, again. Usually, the gentle movement of the ship lulled her to sleep, like a baby in a cradle, but not tonight. A constant loop of scenes played through her mind. She tried to look at her departure from the Lothario as just another one of those commas everyone has in their life, a brief pause at the end of one life interval before you move on to the next one. No matter how hard she tried, she didn’t succeed in convincing herself. This wasn’t just one more in a long line of changes, and there wasn’t any way around that fact. This time there was Richard. This time she was leaving behind a piece of her heart, the piece that trusted, and the piece that had believed her and Richard would sail off into the sunset together. Instead, she’d sailed off on the love boat all alone and hit an iceberg in the middle of the Caribbean.
Plans that a few days ago excited her, now lacked appeal. Unable to sleep, she wrapped her own cozy bathrobe around her and stepped out onto her small, private balcony. Off in the distance, another cruise ship kept a similar pace toward Miami. Fallon turned away from the twinkling outline on the horizon. Without that marker, it was easier to let the vast darkness, and the sound of the ship cutting through the water, override her anxiety.
She was going to miss this. The crew didn’t have the luxury of private balconies, but Fallon often spent quiet evenings alone on deck. Far out to sea, the darkened sky, with its splash of pinhole lights, stretched over a seamless magic carpet. Some people liked crowded cities. Some felt more at home in the mountains, or even the desert. She hadn’t known it until she joined the Lothario, but she felt at home in the middle of the ocean. Some of the crew complained about the isolation. Fallon never noticed. She supposed it was like someone looking out over the great Midwest prairies, seeing nothing but land and sky for miles, only she looked out on water and sky. To her, it was as if she was a part of the vast open space, rather than lost in it.
The sun began to lighten the eastern sky, painting it in broad strokes of pink and gold. Her last sunrise at sea. As tired as she was from a day of packing and emotional upheaval, she was glad she was awake to see it. A few minutes later, the Port of Miami began to take shape on the horizon, and Fallon returned to her cabin to dress.
She skipped breakfast, snaring a cup of coffee on her way to her office instead. The bare room felt cold and impersonal without her random collection of trinkets and photographs cluttering the walls and shelves. With a heart as empty as the room, she hefted the two heavy file boxes into the hallway and closed the door on a chapter of her life. She called herself all kinds of a fool for not asking someone to give her a hand as she carried one box and shoved the other toward the elevator with her feet. If she could just get them as far as the crew deck, someone would help her get them off the ship and into a taxi.
* * * * *
If she thought she was going to get off the ship without him knowing it, she had another think coming. Richard left the Bridge just as the sun peeked its unblinking eye over the horizon. Captain Whittier had summoned him in the wee hours of the night with concerns about the Starboard engines. After hours of conversations with the engineers and performance tests, the problem seemed to be resolved, but Richard was running on the last thread of his patience.
He needed Fallon. He needed to see her, to touch her, to sink himself inside her. The confrontation the previous evening left him with more questions than answers. Today he was going to get answers.
* * * * *
The elevator door swooshed open. Fallon lifted the top box and gave the remaining one a kick, sending it halfway on. She dropped her burden at the back of the cubicle and froze as the other box slid in behind her, propelled by an all too familiar pair of dusty black boots. The door closed, sealing her in the elevator with the last person she wanted to see. Keys clanged against the control panel. Richard locked the elevator. Her heart felt like hot lead in her chest and she forced her stiff body to uncoil.
He moved like a mountain lion, swift and silent. His hard body pressed against her back, his big hands gripped her upper arms pulling her upright. Demanding fingers caressed their way down until they encircled her wrists. She had no choice. His
body molded to hers, pressing her face first against the mirrored back wall. He splayed her hands on either side of her forehead that rested against the cold glass.
“Where do you think you’re going?” His heated words whispered dark and hard against her ear. What did he have to be angry about? With her out of the way, he was free to prowl the available women onboard to his heart’s content.
“None of your business.”
“Like hell it isn’t.”
“Let me go.” She fought back the tears stinging her eyes. “Just let me go,” she pleaded on a ragged sigh.
“Not until you tell me why. I think I deserve that much.”
Her own anger simmered and began a slow boil. “No you don’t. Leave me alone and go back to your other women. I can’t and won’t live that way.”
“I don’t know what the hell you are talking about, Fallon. There aren’t any other women. I’ve spent the last two days trying to track you down, and you’ve avoided me like I’m a walking STD. Tell me why.”
The heat of his body so close to hers in the tiny cubicle made it hard to think.
“I saw you, Richard. I saw you with another. . . . ” She didn’t finish the sentence as he shoved her pelvis against the handrail so she was pinned between it and the steel of his erection.
“I don’t know what you think you saw, but I’m telling you now, and hear this good. There is no one else. There hasn’t been anyone else in nearly two years and there won’t ever be anyone else. Only you, Fallon. You are the only woman I want, now and forever.”