by Anna Lowe
Everything. Everything was wrong.
“Nothing,” she insisted, slamming a palm against her thigh. Could it be that she’d been all wrong about him? Maybe he wasn’t a manta prince. Maybe he was a shark from the business world. Maybe she was letting herself fall too fast, the way she had with Don.
“Hannah!” He caught up with her and matched her jerky stride. “What did I say?”
She whirled. “Did you ever consider that this place is as nice as it is because it doesn’t have brands or Facebook or Wi-Fi? Did you ever consider what that might do to this place?”
His step faltered, and she plunged ahead again, feeling powerless to stem the emotions flooding up. Dream guy was outing himself as something less than perfect. Hadn’t she known that would happen all along?
“Sorry. I think I need to go,” she mumbled.
He chased her all the way to the dinghy dock. “Hey, Hannah, don’t be mad. I just—”
She squatted on the dock and started untying the dinghy.
“Wait — are you going?”
His face fell, and she cringed, feeling the same crush of pain his eyes held.
“I need a little time alone. It’s just that we’ve been…kind of intense, and…I just need to slow down a little.”
She winced at her own words. Why was she pushing him away? What was wrong with her? She was letting everything get to her: Mike and Scrub, and all her insecurities about Kyle. Why was she overreacting like this? Kyle was just trying to help Tiri, after all, misguided though his efforts might be. Helping, the man was always helping. Was that so wrong?
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, letting her eyes slide shut. “I just have a lot on my mind.”
He pulled her into a tentative hug that quickly grew tighter, and she found herself clinging to him, gulping air like a fish out of water.
Get yourself together, Hannah. You’re all mixed up. You’re not being fair. She opened her eyes on the curve of his neck, inhaling his breezy scent.
Was the man a shark in disguise or a prince among mantas? Nothing was clear to her — nothing except how good his hug felt. Her body slowly melted against his. The warm hug led to light butterfly kisses, which in turn led to full-on global warming under a kiss that went deeper and deeper, as if she might unearth the truth of his identity if she tried hard enough. She kissed him hard and hot, hiding away from the world in that comforting den he created for her between his chest, arms, and lips. Kissed him like someone was about to drag her away, even if that person was herself. When her hips pressed into his groin, he hardened, and suddenly nothing mattered. Her body demanded more and more, her mind completely out of the running until a sound registered vaguely in her ears.
“Hmt-hmm.”
Kyle broke the kiss before she did. Hannah found the ground with the foot she’d snaked around his ankle and whirled when she realized someone else was there, clearing their throat in a hint.
It was Hugh, a gray-haired English sailor, her muddled brain slowly registered. A friend of Robert’s.
Her eyes skidded across the lagoon and came to a stop on the boat she hadn’t been able to place before.
Shit. Hugh. A close friend of Robert’s.
“Uh, hello,” she managed, wiping the kiss from her lips. “I didn’t see you come in.”
“Obviously not,” he muttered as his eyes picked Kyle apart.
She stood in guilty silence.
“Don’t you have work to do on the boat?” Hugh continued, his eyes piercing.
Hannah caught a breath. Had Robert sent him over to check on her and Windfall?
“It’s been going really well, actually.” She tried to sound casual, not defensive, and failed utterly. “I’m nearly done with everything.”
It was the truth, but Hugh wasn’t buying it. Not a word.
She stepped left, putting a few inches between her and Kyle, but the damage had been done. Damage in more than one sense, because Kyle’s look went from bewildered to hurt and then hard.
“I guess I better go,” he murmured, dropping her hand.
It felt as if a lifeline had been severed; instinct urged her to fight her way back to it with everything she had. But some robotic part of her mind took over and pushed away the lump building in her throat. She darted toward Windfall’s dinghy, untied the line, and then looked back at a red-faced Hugh and a downcast Kyle.
Yes, the damage had certainly been done. And she had no one to blame but herself.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Kyle stood rooted to the spot, watching Hannah speed off in the dinghy the same way he did every time. Except this time was different. This time, it hurt.
He kicked the ground. Okay, so they’d let that kiss get a little out of control, and that guy had seen them. Why was that such a big deal? Why did Hannah freeze up and brush him aside? Why the change of heart? She hadn’t been shy introducing him to Luc and Marie. What made this new sailor any different?
And what had gotten into Hannah, anyway? He’d said something wrong on the hike, apparently. But before he could get anything out of her, she’d raced down that hill.
He thought Hannah wasn’t one of those emotionally wrought, impossible to understand women. He thought he’d gotten to know her: a dreamer, a doer, a woman with a mind of her own, riding on a very even keel.
Yet something had happened to knock her off-balance. He just couldn’t figure out what.
He stood on the dinghy dock for a long, long time, a man at the edge of the great divide where his world ended and hers began. For the past week, she’d let him in to that world. Surely she wasn’t giving him the boot now?
A voice growled from the back of his mind. You’re really gonna let her go?
Since when was his wilder side interested in getting tied down with a woman?
Since her. She doesn’t tie me down. She sets me free.
But what could he do when she was the one pushing him away?
Don’t let her, idiot. You’re supposed to be so good at recognizing opportunity.
His eyes lost focus until the colors of the lagoon all melted together, concentrating his attention on the itch building inside him. If there was one thing he was good at, it was recognizing opportunity — a skill that had allowed him to advance quickly in the business world. He’d feel an itch, the urge to get moving, to grab an opportunity before it fled.
That’s what he felt right now. That itch was starting again, and he knew he wasn’t wrong.
It was her. Hannah was the opportunity. The once-in-a-lifetime kind.
Not that he was some kind of romantic who believed two people could make a sound judgment about forever in the space of a couple of days. But he was sure he had to give it a try, or he’d always look back and wonder. Or worse, regret what might have been.
So what are you waiting for? Follow her. Talk some sense into her.
In a business setting, he’d launched himself in flying tackles at opportunities much less important than this one without the slightest hesitation. So why was he frozen in place now? Could it be that he was scared?
Scared of what?
Regret.
He’d seen his mother wrestle with that monster a thousand times. What might have been, what she and his father might have shared if it hadn’t been for the car swerving off an icy road into a tree that awful night, so long ago.
Regret. Kyle’s only real fear. Could he really let Hannah go?
No! Don’t let her go.
Behind him, a car horn beeped, and someone called a cheery Iaorana to a friend. And just like that, logic and reason shoved his heart aside. Life went on, even with trouble in paradise, right? Hannah said she needed time; he’d give her time.
With a last look over the water, he stalked away, trying to shake off the unfamiliar heaviness in his chest.
You’re really going to let her go?
A question he asked himself all the way back to the hotel. Did he have any choice?
When he got to Le Beau Soleil, he
popped into Tiri’s tiny office, slumped into the chair in front of her laptop, and stared blankly at the results of his morning’s work. He’d already decided that working on someone else’s website was not breaking the spirit of his bet. He wasn’t surfing the Internet, after all, just working on one site. He hadn’t even been tempted to check email or anything else, actually. He looked at the new design, feeling strangely deflated with Hannah’s words replaying in his mind.
Maybe Tiri likes to do her own thing.
Hannah did, that was for sure.
Associations come with a lot of strings attached.
So do relationships. Did he have what it took? Did Hannah?
This isn’t the business world. It’s the South Pacific. And a lot of people like it the way it is.
He let his gaze wander beyond the shade of the thatched hut, out to the splendor of the lagoon. Who was he to change things here?
Less is more.
He’d been slowly absorbing that lesson over the past couple of days, learning from friendly islanders who lived simple lives and from sailors who squeezed their lives into tiny boats in exchange for the freedom to explore a vast ocean. For adventure. For the great unknown.
Some people lived their lives like that, while he spent his at a desk.
What Tiri needs is someone to fix her roof, not her Internet presence.
He cocked his head at the website, then sighed and moved to one the lounge chairs on the beach. Sat there and contemplated the horizon, watching a bird flit in and out of view and afternoon shadows grow long. He took a deep breath and caught the scent of flowers — a smell so rich, he could practically see the color in them.
Out in the lagoon, a fisherman stood balanced in his canoe, casting a net. It fell in a perfect circle, like a solitary ripple on the water. The blue of the sky paled and grew streaks of yellow and orange as the man pulled his net in, hand over hand.
Was Hannah watching the sunset, too? Did she pick at her food the way he picked at his, once Tiri called him in to dinner?
His attention wandered throughout the meal, picking up the scratch of insects in the thatch overhead, the gossip of palm fronds in the breeze, the feeling of a vast universe revealing itself as day turned to night.
If he’d been at home, he’d be working at his desk with takeout by one elbow, or he’d be in a restaurant listening to the sharp clack of silverware as a hundred strangers devoured their meals around him.
What was it that Hannah had said?
You gotta slow down. Eat Polynesian style. Let the flavors come to you.
He tried it, holding one small bite on his tongue and letting it dissolve there.
A half-dozen new flavors worked their way out of the fish stew, tickling his tongue. The silky sweetness of coconut milk. The sharp bite of pepper. A hint of nutmeg and a swirl of other spices he couldn’t identify. More followed a second later when he swished white wine over the residual taste.
Hannah was right. About food. About a lot of things.
He lingered long after the others had gone, listening to Tiri sing a sweet Polynesian tune while clearing the kitchen. Then she came to join him, clucking like a mother hen.
“Kyle! You make my web page beautiful, yes?” Her flower-print dress swayed in the breeze, every inch of her alive. A little like Hannah, although in a totally different way.
Tiri led him to the office and made approving noises over his new website design.
“Fantastique!”
He forced himself to focus. The new version did look nice. The logo, the simplicity, the clean lines. That was all good. But parts of it were giving him second thoughts. Like the Facebook “like” button. Was that really necessary?
“You say you have more ideas?” Tiri asked eagerly, slipping her generous figure into the chair beside his.
Funny, he wasn’t so sure any more.
And yet the ideas slipped out from sheer habit.
“I was thinking you could try to fill to capacity in the high season, and build up reservations in the off-season.” Every tourism-related business he’d ever worked with knew that.
Tiri looked horrified. “But when will I rest? The off-season is my favorite time!” Her features softened. “The peace, the quiet. The birds… C’est superbe!”
Just her saying that seemed to turn the volume switch up on the birds chirping outside.
“But you could expand the business, fill more rooms…”
She put a hand on his arm. “This is Maupiti, not New York. We Polynesians need to breathe!” She patted his shoulder and laughed, a melodious, hearty song of a laugh. “I like the pretty page, my friend. But that is enough. Nothing can be as beautiful as the real place, and we can not put all of our island on one little page.” She spread her arms wide and winked. “Merci, mon ami. Merci.”
With that, she rose and padded back to the kitchen.
Kyle sat quietly, letting her words echo in his mind. Hannah’s, too.
His eyes flicked from the drooping ceiling to the computer screen and back. He was finished with the basics of the web page, and Tiri was right. He could never capture the beauty of the place on a screen. Maybe it was time to leave well enough alone.
He stood with a weary sigh and sat by the shore, listening to the waves swish in. Headed to bed long after the crickets, long after the sounds of lovemaking from the French couple’s bungalow ceased. And lay there quietly for a long, long time.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Damage control? Hannah wondered who she was trying to kid.
Never mind that she took Robert’s friend Hugh straight over to Windfall and showed him everything she’d done: a long, exhaustive checklist that she’d worked almost down to the end. No, never mind all that. Because Hugh had seen her pawing a man at the dinghy dock, and Hugh would tell Robert for sure. Robert would be furious and kick her off his boat. She’d never be able to find a new crew position, at least not a serious one — not with Mike and Scrub spreading rumors.
She sat under the light of a thousand stars, hugging her knees. A day that started so well was coming to a bitter end, now that she’d been slapped awake from her dream. Mike and Scrub had done that, followed by Hugh. Her argument with Kyle was sandwiched somewhere in between. Just when she thought she knew who he was, he’d thrown her a curve ball. Mr. Civilization had been there all along, lurking in the backseat.
Hannah wondered if it even mattered. It was a fling, and it was bound to end anyway. It was just too bad it had to end like this.
Like what? part of her asked.
She snorted at her own stupidity. Like this. Me sitting brokenhearted on a boat I’m about to get kicked off of.
You mean you completely overreacting to Kyle and the website. He was only trying to help.
She looked up and found the Southern Cross winking at her from light years away. About as far as she felt from Kyle now, and it was all her fault.
Ultimately, though, Kyle was not the problem. Even if things had played out differently, he’d still have exited her life before long. The problem was her tenuous position as Robert’s crew. She’d allowed herself to get so wrapped up in a fantasy that she’d endangered her own dream. Endangered her own reputation, damn it! Was any man worth that?
The breeze whispered through the rigging, saying, Yes. This one might be.
She pushed back her shoulders, trying to turn a deaf ear. She had dreams to live — and a promise to keep. A promise to herself. A promise to Lindsay’s spirit. She’d live life to the fullest, not get hung up on some guy.
Somehow, though, she couldn’t summon any resolve, only a bitter laugh. It was crazy how quickly she’d gotten swept up by the man, like she’d gotten swept up in that kiss this afternoon. She could still taste it now, feel the shelf of his upper lip under her tongue. She could still—
Hannah coughed to snap herself back to the present. God, she was losing herself just in the memory. Was it love? Or just a crush?
Just a crush, of course. She’d get ov
er him soon.
She repeated the words to herself countless times over the next two days while she applied layer after layer of varnish to handrails that were rapidly outshining the tropical sun. Her hand was steadier than it had been before, even if her heart still wept.
If Kyle was just a crush, why was she still so distraught?
She blinked the thought away, because there was no future with him. There never had been. The best she could do was to salvage her position on Windfall. Hugh was anchored a stone’s throw away, casting hard looks in her direction all day, every day. The man had the makings of a champion spy; he’d probably email Robert a full report soon. One to follow up on the bomb she was sure he had already delivered, reporting Windfall’s crew in the throes of passion.
Varnishing became her salvation, her one chance at redemption. If she did a good job — no, a perfect job — Robert might just let her stay aboard Windfall.
Luc, Marie, and the girls swung by. “Bonjour, Hannah!” She loved the way they let the second syllable on her name rise. “We’re going to the store. Would you like to come?”
Hannah cast a nervous glance in Hugh’s direction. “Uh, thanks, but I need to get this done.”
“Do you and Kyle want to picnic with us tomorrow? We’re going to the motu over there.” Marie pointed to a sandy cay at the edge of the lagoon.
The girls perked up at the mention of Kyle’s name, and three little faces looked up in hope. Their hearts would be broken, too, if they knew he was gone.
“Kyle is, um…busy. And I have to finish things up before Robert comes back.”
“You can’t work all the time,” Marie protested.
Hannah gave a weak shrug. “I’d love to, but…”
Marie shook her head sadly. “Dinner, then. See you tomorrow!” And with that, they sped away.
Hannah wondered how much she’d get to see of the family once Robert returned and the shit hit the fan. She turned back to the varnish, determined to get it just right.