Persuaded

by Misty Dawn Pulsipher

  As unpleasant as the prospect was, warning her about Eli was the least he could do to help her avoid getting hurt.

  “Can I ask you something?” he began, sitting in one of the beach chairs.

  A scowl fleeted across her face as she toweled her hair. “Sure . . .” she trailed off.

  Derick waited a heartbeat. “How well do you know Eli?”

  He could tell from Hanna’s expression that she was completely caught off guard. She sat in the chair opposite Derick. “Not very well. Why?”

  “Do you trust him?”

  This answer took a little longer, and the pause gave Derick hope. “As much as I trust anyone else I’ve known for a month, I guess.”

  Nodding, Derick picked up the corner of the beach towel, rolling it between his fingers.

  “Why do you ask?” A wall had gone up in her voice, notifying Derick that he was on potentially dangerous ground.

  “Earlier tonight I overheard him talking on his phone to a friend, or a colleague or someone—about you.”

  Hanna’s eyebrows went up. “What did he say?”

  The curiosity in her voice grated on him. “Stuff I can’t repeat as a gentleman.” Her face fell, and Derick hated that too.

  “Are you sure he was talking about me? Did he say my name?”

  “If he was talking about some other girl, that’s another problem altogether,” Derick told her, then pinned her with a look. “Trust me, he was talking about you.”

  Sitting back in her chair, Hanna looked out at the ocean, her brows drawing together. Derick could see that he was going to have to give her more to go on.

  “He basically indicated that he had ulterior motives where you’re concerned. I won’t repeat it, but I will say that if anyone talked about my sister that way—” He broke off, absently flexing his bandaged hand.

  Hanna noticed the motion, her eyes widening in understanding.

  He hadn’t meant to draw attention to the fact that he’d broken his skin breaking Eli’s face, but it was too late now.

  “Look, I just get the feeling that Eli is not what he says he is. There’s more going on below the surface. So, just be careful, is all I’m saying.”

  He could tell she was biting her cheek, mulling over his words. He wanted to make her laugh, not put that little crease between her eyes. It seemed ages ago they’d been laughing and playing in the water.

  “I’m sorry, Hanna.”

  She stood. “Don’t be. I appreciate you telling me.”

  When Derick stood but made no move to leave, something ghosted across her face, a realization maybe, followed by disappointment.

  “Sorry, I didn’t even think you might be waiting for Ella. I’ll tell her you’re here.”

  “No!” Derick said a little too quickly, backing away. “I mean, don’t bother her. It’s late and I need to get this milk to Sophie. I’ll see you later.”

  Hanna gave a distracted nod and a diminutive smile as she slid the door open and disappeared inside.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  HEI MATAU

  “Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever.”

  —Captain Wentworth, Persuasion

  Hanna was a bit surprised not to hear from Eli the next day. She couldn’t decide how she felt about his silence—relieved that it gave her more time to mull Derick’s warning over or miffed that Eli had all but declared his love one day and not bothered to call the next.

  Hanna couldn’t forget the gash on Derick’s hand, the way he’d flexed his fingers in anger as he told her of Eli’s phone call. She understood in that moment that the injury was something to do with Eli, and she couldn’t help wondering if he bore a mark of his own. Maybe that was why he hadn’t called. Or perhaps he feared Derick’s mentioning the conversation to Hanna. Whatever the reason, Eli didn’t contact Hanna for a few days. When he did text, it was to tell her that he’d caught a terrible cold and planned to stay in bed all week. She responded with an appropriate amount of empathy, asking if there was anything he needed. His reply, that he would sleep it off and see her in a few days, confirmed Hanna’s suspicion.

  Those particular few days were not the best of the summer. Ella and Derick went for a long walk one evening, and though Hanna prepared herself for the announcement of their impending nuptials upon their return, it never came. Instead Ella shut herself in her room and didn’t emerge until the following afternoon. Her perpetual bad mood increased her intolerance for Mary, which in turn amplified Mary’s . . . Maryness. This put Charles on edge, and with both their parents out of sorts, the boys were positively unmanageable, freaking out at the unstable atmosphere that swirled around them all.

  A classroom full of five-year-olds was starting to sound good again, and that was saying something.

  Determining that everyone needed something to lift their spirits, Hanna suggested a campout on the beach. It seemed a little silly to sleep in a bedroll a few feet from the door of your house, but at least it was something new. CJ and Walter were on board right away, and their contagious enthusiasm infected the adults. Charles got so excited that he invited all of Kelynch, oblivious to the fact that his sister’s mood was a result of the tension with Derick.

  Ella hadn’t confided any details in Hanna, but the fact that Derick was not around spelled out trouble in paradise. Hanna worried that her scolding was somehow responsible for the deterioration of their romance, and yet she was simultaneously overjoyed at no longer having to wonder what she might find walking into a room.

  The day of the proposed campout arrived, and spirits were high. Mary and Ella even tolerated each other long enough to help Hanna prepare tinfoil dinners for both households.

  As the sun set, the foil packs sizzled in the coals, filling the air with the aroma of meat, potatoes, carrots, and onions. Knowing her nephews would turn their noses up at the menu, Hanna brought along hot dogs and marshmallows for them to roast instead.

  Walter was the first to conk out, right on his aunt’s shoulder. Keeping her oath to sleep by him, Hanna bundled him up in his sleeping bag next to hers, then turned her attention to CJ. He was still coming off his sugar and only agreed to lie down if he could sleep next to Captain Wentworth.

  “I’ll stay here ‘til you fall asleep,” Derick bargained, casting a strained glance at Ella, who averted her eyes and began talking to Benny.

  Hanna guessed that Derick had taken a good amount of convincing to attend in the first place, and that he had no intention of staying any longer than he had to. Sophie had made it clear that she would be sleeping inside tonight, and the possibility of Mary’s roughing it was slim to none. Unless Ella stayed, Hanna would be the only girl sleeping on the beach.

  CJ jumped onto his bedroll, bucking his legs in the air several times before finally settling down. Derick lounged next to him, propping himself up on an arm and sending a help me look to Hanna.

  She bit her lip to hide a smile.

  “What’s this?” CJ asked, rubbing his eyes with one hand and fingering the pendant around Derick’s neck.

  “It’s called a hei matau,” he answered.

  “What’s a hei matau?” CJ asked.

  “It’s a Maori fish hook. A good luck omen for sailors to have safe sea passage.”

  “What’s a Maori?”

  Derick sighed. “If I tell you the story of the hei matau will you go to sleep?”

  Hanna grinned, relishing the exasperation beneath Derick’s patience.

  “Uh-huh,” CJ yawned.

  “Okay, then,” Derick began, sending Hanna a loaded look before launching into the story. “The Maori are the native people of New Zealand and the Cook Islands. That’s another country,” Derick added before CJ could ask.

  “Well, the legend goes that there was a boy named Maui—the youngest of many brothers. He always wanted to go fishing with them but they never let him go along—your typical ‘younger brother following you around’ kind of thing.”

  CJ nodded sagely, fa
miliar with the plight.

  “So, one day Maui hid in the canoe. His brothers didn’t notice him until they were far out at sea. They went to take him home, but it seemed like the more they tried, the shore kept getting farther away. What the brothers didn’t know was that Maui was a demigod—that’s like half God, half human—and he had magical powers. Finally the brothers agreed to let Maui fish, and he dropped his magical fish hook—the hei matau—over the side of the canoe.”

  Hanna found herself listening with wonder, probably more than her nephew. The combination of Derick’s storytelling voice and the crackling fire was intoxicating.

  “Before long, Maui had a catch. It was so big that he couldn’t reel it in by himself. His brothers came to help him, but when they saw what they’d caught, it wasn’t a fish at all.”

  CJ’s eyes widened. “What was it?”

  “The north island of New Zealand. The Maori call it Te Ika a Maui, which means, the fish of Maui.”

  “Wow, cool,” CJ said in a reverential tone. “Where’s New Zealand?”

  “Clear down on the bottom of the earth, by Australia.”

  “Did you go there in the Laconia?”

  “Yep.”

  “Cool,” CJ said again, sounding distinctly drowsy. “You have any other stories?”

  “Not tonight, little dude. Sleepy time.” CJ opened his mouth to protest, but Derick gave him a severe look that reminded him of his promise. CJ grumpily scooted down in his sleeping bag and was not heard from again.

  Hanna sympathized with her nephew. This piece of information felt like a gift from Derick, a glimpse into his soul. She had often wondered about the bone-colored pendant that Derick always wore on a cord around his neck, but she’d never really thought to ask him about it. She found herself just as impatient for more stories as CJ.

  “Well, I think I’m going to turn in,” Mary announced, earning an indignant look from her husband.

  “Me too,” Ella said, keeping her eyes off Derick as she stood and followed Mary into the house.

  Charles threw his hands up in the air, huffed in frustration. “What about our campout?”

  “Let them go,” Hanna murmured. She waited until they were inside to add, “Mary will be a lot worse tomorrow if she has a stiff back from sleeping out here.”

  Charles shrugged, unable to argue with his sister-in-law’s logic on that point.

  Sophie stretched, leading into her own departure. “Are you boys going to be okay out here on your own?”

  “Hanna’s staying,” Charles said, as if that solved everything. If Hanna had known she would be the sole representative of her gender, she might have reconsidered.

  Eyeing Hanna with sympathy, Sophie said, “If the testosterone gets too much for you, you can always come over to Kelynch.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.” If she was going to sleep inside Hanna would prefer her own bed, but Sophie’s invitation meant a lot.

  “G’night then. You guys take it easy on her.”

  It was by far the best campout Hanna could remember having. She and Derick talked in hushed tones for what seemed like hours. They didn’t discuss Ella or Eli or their own tangled past. It was a whole lot of nothing vital, but all that insignificance meant a great deal to her. With a jolt, she realized that she and Derick hadn’t really known each other at all ten years ago. They had been only kids, infatuated with life and with each other.

  Their whispers gradually faded as they both fell asleep. When Hanna woke, she was surprised to find Derick still stretched out on the sand next to CJ. Someone must have covered him with a blanket at some point—Sophie, perhaps.

  With Walter’s early-morning babble, Derick peeped one eye open and gave Hanna a tired smile, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He looked so much like a child to her then: one side of his head was crusted with sand, and his hair stuck up like the spines of a sea urchin.

  Filing the picture away for later, Hanna took Walter back to the house. Along the way her mind settled on last night’s conversation with Derick. Being with him felt so much different now—more, somehow—like the sequel to a favorite movie turning out better than the original.

  TWENTY-SIX

  UNDONE

  “Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death.”

  —Captain Wentworth, Persuasion

  Later that morning, Hanna took the boys outside to play on the beach. CJ begged to fly the kite again, but somehow, with all its failed flight attempts, it had gotten ripped. Hanna told him she would sew it up if the boys could entertain themselves for a while first.

  Settling down in the sand, Hanna pulled out the notebook she’d brought with along. Her head was still full of Derick’s story from the night before, and she wanted to write it out before she forgot any details. She jotted down what she could remember of the tale, then started a rough sketch of Derick’s hei matau pendant. She wasn’t a professional artist by any means, but she’d taken the occasional art class at the community college during her summer breaks. Her favorite had been color and shading, and she did her best to call up the technique she’d learned so long ago and apply it to the drawing.

  Holding it up for inspection, Hanna pinpointed several things she would like to touch up, but her nephews were headed her way again, most likely for an update on the kite. Resigned, Hanna set the notebook aside and picked up the kite, began stitching, and shooed the boys away. She was about three-quarters the way finished when a shadow fell over her, and she looked up.

  “I thought you would’ve gone back to bed,” Derick said, grinning and nudging her leg with a foot.

  It took Hanna a moment to process the words, and to realize that he was referring to the late night they’d both had. She might have caught on a little quicker had she not been sidelined by the fact that he had no shirt on. He was obviously in the middle of a run, rivulets of sweat running over his trim chest and arms.

  “Me?” she finally replied, tearing her eyes from him and setting them back on her work, “what can I say? Entertaining the next generation never sleeps.” She nodded toward the boys, pulling a few more stitches through.

  Derick plopped down beside her, folding his legs beneath himself and giving her a knowing—and inconveniently dazzling—smile. “Yeah . . . I think I got a taste of that last night. You really should renegotiate the terms of your deal, you know. They could at least give you dental,” he teased, bumping her shoulder with his.

  Was he flirting with her? Hanna found it hard to swallow, as if some sort of plug had been wedged in her throat. She tried to laugh, but it came out sounding shaky and unnatural. Taking a moment to compose herself, she looked up at him, which turned out to be a mistake. The sun glinted off his soaked hair, his golden freckles, his green-gray eyes. It was almost impossible to look away from him, even being as jittery as she was.

  That being said, it would have been a better idea to set the kite aside, because she felt a jab of pain when the needle stabbed into her finger. With a sharp intake of breath, she dropped the kite and transferred her attention to the pinprick.

  “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “It’s just a poke,” Hanna said, praying that Derick didn’t notice her red face—or the fact that he was the cause.

  “Let me see,” he said, reaching for her hand. “Not that I have a first-aid kit in my back pocket like some people . . .” He wiped away the blood on her finger, then declared, “Sorry, but it’s hopeless. I’m pretty sure you’re going to need a tourniquet.”

  Hanna kept her eyes down, but she couldn’t control a reactionary beaming grin. There it was again, that same playful tone.

  “Finally,” Derick said with relish. “I’ve been waiting for that smile.”

  When she looked up at him, he wasn’t teasing or baiting her. He was completely serious. And her hand was still in his. Then his eyes drifted down to the sand and a brief scowl crossed his face. Without letting go, he reached past her and picked up the sketchbook. Hanna panick
ed, stuttering out an explanation.

  “I was . . . really intrigued by that story last night . . . the one you told CJ . . .”

  Derick studied the page for a few moments. “I didn’t know you were an artist,” he murmured.

  “I’m not,” she assured him, burning with shame. “It’s just something I do once in a while.”

  After a prolonged pause, he set her drawings aside. “You should do it more often.” His eyes were on Hanna’s hand in his, his thumb swiping invisible prints on her palm. “You’re kind of amazing, you know that?”

  Hanna was about to knock the compliment aside, but then Derick fastened his eyes on hers. The look was so familiar, so intense and intimate—that she couldn’t for a second doubt his sincerity.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, wondering how long he would keep holding on—wishing he would never let go.

  She all but jumped out of her skin at the sound of Ella’s voice calling her name, ripping her hand from Derick’s and folding it safely in her own lap. “Yes?”

  Ella, dressed for a good long sunbathing session in a Ferrari-red bikini, came from the direction of the house. Hanna sincerely hoped she hadn’t seen anything that might upset her. “Mary’s looking for you. She’s in one of her moods again,” Ella informed her as she passed by, ignoring Derick entirely.

  Derick watched her go before facing forward again.

  “Ella is . . . unnaturally antisocial these days,” Hanna observed. “Everything okay?”

  Derick gave her a sidelong look before answering. “We’re kind of taking a break right now, but she’s not too happy about it.”

  A burden Hanna didn’t know she’d been shouldering lifted. “What brought that on?”

  “Charles inadvertently tipped me off that she was making plans for the future. Matrimonial plans,” Derick clarified.