by Anna Lowe
“Now you tell me,” he said.
“About a guy?”
“The guy you were with when I was with Cindy.” He told himself he didn’t care, though his ears strained for her answer.
“Hmm.” She chewed on it. “When was that?”
He shook his head. He’d thought enough about Cindy for one day. “Just whenever. Doesn’t matter.”
“Okay, then…” Hannah started, then lapsed into thought.
He wondered how many names she was sorting through. How many had made it past her armor?
“Don,” she said finally. Warily.
Don. He hated the guy already. Like Robert, another sure loser. “What was Don like?”
“Good at first. Fun. Then he revealed his true, scum self.” Her tone was half joking, half bitter.
“And how did he do that?”
“He wanted to borrow money.”
He winced. “Let me guess…” He tried to picture a guy who might sweep Hannah off her feet, then disappoint her. Someone who promised adventure but came up empty. “Money for his motorcycle?
She chuckled. “No, he had a pickup. Cowboy type. Mountain man.”
That was easy to picture Hannah falling for: always a new horizon, a new adventure. “So was he your type?”
“I guess you can say so,” she sighed.
“And what is your type?”
“My type?” She mulled it over as his hands worked their way down. “Let’s see. Adventurous. Exciting. And total scum.” She laughed but didn’t sound too amused.
He worked the muscles wrapped around her shoulder blades, wondering how that relationship ended.
“And what’s your type?” she asked, shifting under his hands.
Adventurous. Exciting. Smart. Like you, his mind threw out without hesitation.
“The limo type,” he lied, and they both chuckled.
“You know what we should do?” Hannah asked after a thoughtful pause.
He could think of a thousand answers to that question, all of them promising. “What?”
“Get Cindy and Don together.”
He laughed, a real one this time. “Now, that, I’d like to see. City girl meets mountain man.”
She let him work a while at her lower back, and again, he had to wonder where her thoughts were. Because his were going in all sorts of crazy directions, like wondering how many more perfect days the two of them might enjoy before this bubble of South Pacific magic burst.
“Hey, Kyle?”
“Hey, Hannah?” he echoed, liking the sound of their names together. Kyle and Hannah.
Her voice was quiet and tight. “How long are you in Maupiti for?”
So she’d been thinking along the same lines as him.
The massage wasn’t quite over, but he lowered himself to her back and hugged her tightly anyway.
“Not long enough,” he whispered truthfully. “Not long enough.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Eight days. Hannah checked the calendar the next morning. She and Kyle had eight days left.
Just long enough, she suspected, to fall in love. And, yes, the pain would be something when it came. But damn it, she was committed to pretending.
Pretending she was fine with a little fling.
Pretending she didn’t wish for more.
Pretending she wasn’t falling in love with a man she’d misjudged. A good man who listened like there would be a pop quiz on her words very, very soon and the fate of the planet rested on the results.
Part of her heart had already adopted him as a project. Kyle was solid as a rock, yet needy in his own way. He was much too responsible, too uptight. Focused on others instead of himself. By his own admission, he hadn’t taken a vacation in years. Why?
They were such opposites, yet so alike. Hannah was driven by one ghost; Kyle by another. That much, she got from the heavy silence he fell into after talking about the woman in his past. While she did enough adventuring for two restless souls, Kyle threw himself into the family firm. Did he do it just out of family loyalty, or to win the approval of a father he’d never gotten to know?
Why do you do it? She wanted to shake him and ask. Why?
Part of her wished she could tell Kyle his father would have loved him for who he was. Because who wouldn’t love him just the way he was?
Which was exactly the problem. She was starting to love him.
She took a deep breath, leaned over the wooden handrails she was sanding, and blew the dust away — and with it, thoughts of the impossible. Pretend. Just pretend. After all, she had the sun, a great view, and the promise of Kyle’s company again soon.
He’d offered to help with the job, of course, but she insisted he take up Luc’s offer to go spearfishing. A little spearfishing was just what he needed.
She chuckled inside. Yeah, she’d make a Robinson Crusoe out of him yet.
She wiped the sweat from her brow and spotted a new arrival circling the anchorage, the crew on deck ready to drop anchor. They looked familiar, though she couldn’t place them.
“Ahoy!” the man on the bow called.
She waved absently and went back to work as their anchor chain rattled into the water not far away.
Was she really falling in love with Kyle, or was it just the idea of him she was falling in love with?
You’re falling in love with a fantasy, not a man, a voice of warning chimed in her mind.
She sanded harder. In truth, she didn’t really want to discover the real Kyle, because reality could only disappoint. Besides, he was probably doing the same thing: pretending she was someone impossibly right when she was only plain old Hannah.
She sanded harder, then paused to blow the dust away, revealing the raw wood beneath the old varnish.
A short-term fling was better than nothing, right? Not every relationship was meant to be forever.
Forever…
The word hung in her mind like a single painting on a white wall. Forever would be so nice. Just her and a good man, building a life together. Traveling a while, then settling down to build a future.
Hi, honey. I’m home! He’d come through the front door of their cute little house and say.
How was your day? She’d greet him with a smile and a kiss, then pat the dog and lead him inside.
Funny how that kind of life had never seemed so appealing before.
She cut the thought off abruptly. She didn’t have white picket fence in her bones.
She shook her head at herself. She should just enjoy this while it lasted, and afterward, get on with her life. In the meantime, pretending worked just fine.
Right?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kyle blinked behind his dive mask, trying to concentrate on the underwater scene in front of him. Luc had given him a spear gun and a weight belt, and he was supposed to be catching fish. There was a big, juicy one right there, just past the point of his spear. All he had to do was sneak a little closer and squeeze the trigger.
But all he could think of was his morning with Hannah. Reliving the feeling of waking up slowly, one side of him warm from her body, tucked close beside his. Watching her blink, stretch, and smile at him like he’d made her day just by being there. Even getting up and having breakfast together was nice, like the two of them were a real couple and waking up to just another day. The kids would be playing in their rooms, the dog digging in the yard, the sun smiling on a quiet Sunday morning.
He gulped and pushed the thought away. He had a fish to catch, damn it!
He fluttered his feet, took aim, and pulled the trigger. A streak of foam rushed at the fish and something jolted in his hand. A hit?
No such luck. The spear jerked short at the end of its line, and the fish was gone. Another miss. Kyle kicked to the surface and heaved in a lungful of air.
Luc’s dinghy bobbed at anchor nearby, and Kyle wondered how many fish Luc had filled it with by now. The Frenchman seemed half fish himself, even with a plastic bag tied around one hand
to protect his stitches. An expert marksman with a spear gun, unlike Kyle. Well, Luc probably wasn’t distracted the way Kyle was. He didn’t need to be. He had a lovely wife, three adorable kids, a boat, and an open horizon. Kyle, he had…
What did he have?
A couple of weeks ago, he might have seen things differently. He was the one with a great job and a great apartment. He had investments, stocks, plans for his future. He had everything every guy he knew wanted: a life full of ambition and free of complications.
But right now, the scales seemed tipped in favor of Luc, whose life was fairly free of ambition — professional ambition, at least — and full of complications, like a boat, a wife, and kids.
You could be like him, you know, a voice hummed in the back of his mind.
There really were people who sailed away from it all. People who went spearfishing for dinner and scheduled their days by the tide and the wind. People like Luc, who hadn’t blinked when a shark ghosted right past them.
Just a harmless little reef shark, he’d shrugged.
Kyle was fairly sure he would never put “just” and “shark” in a sentence together, let alone “harmless.”
Nothing to worry about, Luc’s eyes had telegraphed. Just enjoy.
And yes, he was enjoying himself. Immensely. Living the good life wasn’t just fiction. And he could live it, too.
Couldn’t he?
Kyle propped the mask back on his hair and took a couple of deep breaths. Even if there really were people who lived the good life, he wasn’t one of them. He had a job and responsibilities and plans, and none of them involved any of this. The company needed him; his family, too. He didn’t belong here. Not the way Hannah did.
And that was the thing. Hannah didn’t need a guy like him. She was a wanderer, an adventurer, a woman with her own mind. He would only get in her way. He might be thinking house, dog, and kids, but she was thinking about masts, motor oil, and varnish. And when she’d ticked off this dream, she’d move on to the next: something involving pickaxes and climbing gear or camels and compasses.
You could do that, too, the voice whispered. You can stick with her. Travel the world for a while…
A long-neglected part of his soul filled in the rest: And then settle down in a nice little house full of pictures of our adventures.
“Voilà!”
Luc surfaced with a triumphant cry, splashing Kyle out of his reverie. He tossed yet another fish into the dinghy, grinned, and climbed in.
Kyle paddled over, trying to clear his mind of silly fantasies. He should quit thinking while he was ahead. He had Hannah for this week, and he should be glad for it. Because afterward, he’d have nothing. Nothing but work and an empty apartment and an empty space in his heart. The one he never even knew was there until he’d met Hannah.
“Nothing?” Luc looked at Kyle’s empty hands.
He pulled off his flippers and tossed them into the dinghy. “Nothing.”
***
His mood lifted as they sped across the lagoon. Luc headed straight for Imagine, where he unloaded the fish to a chorus of delighted cries from his family.
“You must come for lunch!” Marie cried. “I’ll marinate the fish.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes. Why don’t you get Hannah and come back?”
That was another thing Kyle already loved about the sailing life: inviting someone to lunch was as simple as shouting across a stretch of water. No calendars to check, no meetings to work around.
“Um, sure. Can we bring something?”
Even as he said it, the word struck him. We. Had a nice ring to it, actually.
“Bread would be great. A couple of baguettes?”
And so Kyle found himself captain of Imagine’s dinghy, speeding alone across the anchorage with the wind whipping his hair.
He made a detour around the boat that had anchored between Windfall and Imagine, waving to the new arrivals as he went. A couple of scruffy sailor types with tangled beards waved back. Their sailboat was the first he’d seen that wasn’t tidy and clean. Even the letters spelling the boat’s name — Lucky Lady — were peeling off.
There goes the neighborhood, he could picture Robert saying. Not that he’d ever met the man, but he already had the guy pegged as a snob.
“Hey!” Hannah’s face lit up just as it had when she’d awoken beside him. “Any luck fishing?”
He stood in the dinghy and held on to the boat’s rail, delighted to find her leaning over for a long, sloppy kiss. Yes, he could get used to this life.
“Luc caught four fish, but I doubt it had anything to do with luck. We’re invited to lunch, but I have to get some baguettes first.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
He looked past her. “Wow, the rail looks really good.”
She gave him a playful shove. “I haven’t even varnished it yet, silly.”
“Well, it still looks good.” He reached for the outboard cord and pulled, but nothing happened.
“Pull out the choke,” Hannah said. “That knob there.”
Kyle tried again and the little engine caught this time. He put it in gear, then looked up, a little chagrined.
“Now push it back in,” she called over the sound of the engine.
“Aye-aye, Captain,” he yelled back, already zooming away.
He whistled all the way over to shore and on his walk to the store, then all the way back to the dock, arms laden with baguettes like so many sticks of firewood. He nearly laughed out loud at the sight of his own reflection in a window: unshaven and unshowered after swimming. Barefoot and still in his surf shorts, the bottom edge of which had caught on something and torn. He looked like a real sailor now.
The new arrivals, the bearded sailors, were just dinghying up to the dock as he was getting ready to push off.
“Hi,” Kyle said.
“Hey.” They flashed easy smiles. “Don’t remember meeting you before.”
It was just like Hannah said — everyone knew everyone among the cruising fleet. “Kyle.” He nodded.
“Mike,” said one.
“Scrub,” nodded the other.
Only a guy with a beard that long could call himself Scrub. The guys were in their twenties and reeked of pot.
“Been with Hannah long?” Mike asked.
Kyle was too busy concentrating on starting the engine without losing the bread overboard to think before blurting out a reply.
“No, we just met.”
He looked up to see the young men exchanging smirks. Kyle clenched a fist, wishing he could pull the words back. They made the past couple of days sound so…cheap.
“Lucky you,” Mike murmured.
Scrub gave him a wolfish grin as he pushed Kyle’s dinghy clear. “Have fun, man.”
If Kyle were any nearer, he might have been tempted to put that fist into a punch, but he just scowled and sped away. He had a lunch date, after all, with far better company than these two idiots. Let them think what they wanted.
What he had with Hannah wasn’t cheap. It wasn’t opportunistic or crude. It was…
Yeah, what is it? his second self demanded, tapping a foot.
Destiny, maybe?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lunch on Imagine was delicious; Hannah would still be licking her fingers if she hadn’t been back to sanding. At first, it seemed she’d never finish the job, but with Kyle helping, she could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
“I feel bad that you’re working during your vacation.”
Kyle stopped sanding and looked up, sweeping her away on the tidal wave of his rich brown eyes.
“You do most of the work,” he said. “Besides, I like it. I like being with you.”
The man could set off fireworks just with his words. He really did seem to enjoy her company. Sure, there was a fringe benefit to it for him, considering their Olympic activities each night, but still. A guy like Don would have spent the afternoon snoozing on the beach, s
howing up just in time for dinner and a shag.
“I like being with you,” she echoed, her heart choking on the thought.
Pretend, she reminded herself. Just pretend.
They sanded side by side in amiable silence, interrupted once by the sound of an outboard motor. Hannah looked up; the boys on Lucky Lady were back on board from the looks of things.
“You know them?” Kyle asked.
She snorted. It had taken her a while to place the unkempt pair, but now she remembered. They were the scrappiest sailors she’d ever seen — a couple of Californians whose blood alcohol level must permanently hover around the DUI mark.
“When I was asking around for sailboats heading west, someone pointed me their way. I didn’t even bother.”
Never mind that. She had a ride west now, with Robert. If only that thought cheered her the way it used to.
“Hey, Hannah?” Kyle ventured after another few minutes of sanding.
“Hey, Kyle?” she echoed with a smile.
“What made you go into teaching?” He paused, putting words together with care. “Isn’t it hard? I always hear about low pay and dangerous schools.”
She laughed, still sanding. “No, I love it. It’s different, all the time. Nothing dangerous about it. The money’s not as bad as people make it out to be, not if you know how to budget.”
Kyle chuckled. “Obviously, you do.”
“Kids are much more inspiring to be around than adults. They still dream, you know? The way Lindsay and I used to dream of all the places we’d go, all the things we’d do.”
“Right, Lindsay, the lion tamer. What did she end up becoming? Dog musher? Magician?”
Hannah concentrated on keeping her sanding even. Anything to ward off the sensation of her heart plummeting through her chest.
“Lindsay died in seventh grade. Leukemia.”
The sanding from Kyle’s side of the deck stopped abruptly. “Jesus, Hannah. I’m sorry.”
Hannah kept sanding, her eyes fixed on the wood. “Me, too.” She blinked, because no matter how many years it had been, tears for Lindsay were never too far away. “Imagine knowing that April of seventh grade was as far as you’d ever get.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry for her parents, too.” Her voice choked up there, so she left it at that. No need to tell Kyle about the burning guilt she felt every time she saw Lindsay’s parents on visits back home, gracious as they were. They’d invite her over and grill her for stories of her adventures, telling her how much she reminded them of Lindsay.