“Let’s go out on the deck.”
He led her by the hand out onto the deck. They leaned against the rail together, breathing in the fresh, salty air. It was darker out here, more private, and the wind whipped Samantha’s hair over her shoulder in a wildly exhilarating manner. She thought then that, if she’d been born male, she’d have been a sailor, would’ve joined the Navy and sailed all over the world. She turned to him, nearly breathless and confessed as much.
“I’ve never been on a real boat before, Alex,” she told him. “I never knew it could be like this.”
“The name’s Dave, ma’am,” he corrected with a grin.
She smiled, then she sighed, knowing she’d missed so much of life already.
“This is the first time anything really special has ever happened to me. Maybe Marianne’s right, maybe I should loosen up a little. You know, go with the flow a little more. See where life takes me.”
Alex smiled indulgently, willing to let her talk.
“A week ago, I’d never have danced with you like I just did. I wouldn’t have dared get into that hot tub with you, either. Not that it wasn’t nice, but it wouldn’t have seemed...appropriate. Do you understand?”
“Of course.”
“My parents are very old-fashioned, Alex-as if you haven’t noticed. My dad tried to talk me out of coming with you to the last. I respect him for that, and that’s what makes it so hard for me. I mean, I feel so guilty.”
“Guilty? About what?”
“I’m supposed to be your employee, and yet here we are having fun together like we’re best friends or something. Plus, you’re really nice to me. You treat me like a little princess.”
He chuckled. “It won’t be like this at home, trust me,” he assured her. Their eyes met. “What’s the matter now?”
“It sounded so strange to hear you say ‘home’ like that. I don’t know anything about it, really.”
Alex turned his back to the rail and finally started to tell her more about the ranch.
“But what’s my room like?” she asked, impatient for more details. A slow smile drifted onto his lips.
“That’s a surprise.”
“Surprise?”
He turned his face away for a moment, obviously trying to decide how much to reveal to her.
“I’m having it redecorated for you,” he admitted.
“What? How?”
“I told you, it’s a surprise. But I knew from the start you couldn’t have it the way it was. Only guys have used it before.”
“But you don’t know what I like,” she said, amazed.
“I think I do.”
After that, Samantha couldn’t keep her mind off the room. She longed to see it, eager to know what sort of taste he thought she had. On the way back to the condo, she asked about it again. He enjoyed teasing her, she could tell, but he was kind enough to drop a few more hints.
“When are we going?” she asked him.
He turned to Samantha, a look of mock dismay on his face.
“Don’t tell me you want to leave so soon, when there’s so much more I have to show you?”
Not wanting to seem ungrateful, she shook her head and let the subject drop. When they got back to the condo, Alex turned on the stereo and Samantha sat down beside him.
“Can you swim?” he asked her.
“Yes. Why?”
“I want to show you my favorite swimming hole tomorrow.”
Her glance met his.
“What are you up to now?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. I know you’re up to something.”
He shook his head, shrugging, but Samantha wasn’t convinced.
The next morning, he woke her up, impatient to get started.
“Come on, Sleepy. Let’s get a move on.”
He drove the rental car up towards the mountains and, before long, made a U-turn. He pulled off the road onto a dirt patch and parked the car.
“Where are we?”
“We’re going cliff diving,” he said, leading Samantha off the shoulder of the road and onto a dirt path.
They hadn’t walked very far when they came to a clearing with a huge boulder overlooking a natural rock pool. Some Hawaiian boys were perched to jump from the boulder, a drop of at least twenty-five feet.
“Oh, hell no,” she said flatly.
“Aw, come on. You said you wanted to loosen up a little. Well, here’s your chance, Samantha.”
“I wanted to loosen up, but I didn’t say I wanted to kill myself.”
“Come on, don’t be chicken. It’s perfectly safe. Just be careful not to jump on top of me, will you?”
“No, Alex, I - ”
Before she finished her sentence, he jumped over, plunging into the depths of the murky water below. A few seconds later, he swam to the top.
“Come on, Samantha,” he called, waving her into the water.
Her heart hammering at the prospect, she cautiously peered over the edge, which did nothing to strengthen her resolve.
“Are you nuts? It’s too high.”
One of the smaller of the local boys laughed outright.
“It’s safe, lady. Look.”
The boy, who must have been all of ten years old, joined Alex in the water. Seconds later, he, too, bobbed to the surface.
“Jump, lady, jump,” the child chanted. Soon, they were all goading her to jump.
Taking a deep breath, Samantha backed off, and then ran straight off the edge of the boulder with a shriek of fear.
She broke through the surface of the water and it seemed to take forever to come back up for air. Alex swam up beside her and she laughed, exhilarated and a little out of breath.
They swam to the edge of the rock pool together, Alex climbing out first to help her out.
Without really meaning to, Samantha reached up and pressed her lips to his. The local boys howled in approval and she jerked away suddenly, shocked by her own brazen behavior.
“Oh,” she said, ashamed of herself but trying to hide it, “thanks for getting me to jump.”
Alex merely smiled and, her hand in his, he led her back up the hillside.
They sat on one of the larger rocks by the water’s edge and let the sun dry them off. The local boys were still at their games, some of them jumping and some swinging from a rope swing at the far end of the pond.
“You never had any kids,” she asked absently as she watched the boys play. “You never got married?”
His expression grew serious all at once, and Alex shut his eyes.
For the first time in a very long time, he allowed himself to think about the past, about his failed marriage, about everything it could have been but had failed to be.
And oh, yes, he’d wanted children. But his ex-wife had fled the scene way too early for anything to come of it.
He stole a glance over at Samantha, who was still watching the boys play, obviously enjoying their chatter and nonsense. He realized she loved children, would be a wonderful mother.
However, there was no reason to pursue this thought. She was years younger than he was, and so sweet and innocent he couldn’t even imagine a scenario where they could be together in that way.
“I was married once, when I was in my early twenties,” he admitted. “But we never had any kids.”
He volunteered nothing else, so Samantha let the matter drop.
Before long, Alex rose to his feet and announced it was time to go back to the condo. Once there, he excused himself and went out alone.
He walked the streets of Waikiki alone, knowing there was no way he could’ve spent another evening in Samantha’s company and not plumb to its depths this strange connection he felt towards her.
What was the deal with that girl, anyway? At first she’d come off all innocence, and then that business in the hot tub and today’s kiss at the pond.
Was she hot for him, or did she just get off on teasing him?
He rejected such a thought immediately, though. Samantha’s motives were as transparent as a window to him. He knew she was attracted to him but was too afraid to act on the impulse, knew she was a good girl who didn’t fling her love around indiscriminately.
And though he did want to know her better, he knew himself well enough to know he could only do that by keeping her at the kind of emotional distance he’d kept every woman at since Jennie.
Besides, a romantic relationship with such an inexperienced young girl could do neither of them any good, could only lead to disappointment for both of them, could only hasten the inevitable ugly breakup. And what that breakup might entail made him shudder. It might mean a nasty lawsuit for sexual harassment, possibly even some kind of breach-of-contract suit. Or, at the very least, he could easily imagine Samantha’s enraged father flying over from the mainland to personally kick his ass for messing with his only baby.
Nope, he thought. Best to leave the girl alone, best to keep his hands to himself.
However, a little light flirtation could hardly hurt either of them. And so, with that in mind, he slipped into a dark, quiet bar to have a few drinks and daydream about that smokin’ hot, ripe little body of hers in that bikini she’d worn today.
It had been so many years since he’d met a young woman like Samantha, teetering on the brink of full-blown womanhood, that he actually felt a little self-conscious, wondered if he were turning into a pervert. And while he guessed she was no virgin, he knew it was unlikely she’d sleep with any man she wasn’t emotionally connected to.
No, a love-affair with her would have to come with a long-term commitment, and Alex was pretty sure he wasn’t up to that kind of thing right now. After all, his career was exactly where he wanted it to be and his domestic life was settled into a nice, even pattern of hard, serious writing peppered with plenty of leisure time to relax and dream up his next plot-line. His comfort was seen to by his very capable housekeeper and each of his books were ably received and pushed off onto the publisher by Paris.
Everything was efficient, everything in working order, everything stable. The only thing lacking in his life was, in fact, a good steady lover, one who could to deal with his many moods and sudden desires without driving him nuts, one who understood his writing career had to come first, who understood how many, many hours of solid concentration it took just to churn out one single book.
And somehow Alex doubted Samantha was the woman to handle all of that, feared she might be too high-maintenance, would require him to spend way too many of his precious hours attending to her needs.
It had been quite some time since he’d had a lover, he was forced to acknowledge, and so, he even went so far as to chat up an attractive woman sitting near him at the bar. But in the end, he found he didn’t have it in him to take her back to her hotel room, although she clearly expected him to.
Instead, he bought the woman another drink and paid his bar bill, going back out into the streets alone. For the first time in ages, he allowed himself to wander down to the International Marketplace to poke casually around the various stalls.
It was a dangerous thing to do, since he was not in any mood to be pestered by Jesse Dent fans, but he went anyway, throwing caution to the winds. Most of the stalls held nothing more than an assortment of cheap tourist items, but in one, he found a lot of very pretty glassware and crystal for sale.
Samantha would like this one, he thought with a smile, and then his conscience suddenly smote him. He recalled how he’d left her back at the condo all alone, without one word of explanation. He pictured her lying there in bed alone, worried about him, grieving over him, wondering where he was and why he’d felt it necessary to flee her presence.
He ran his fingers over a particularly lovely scent bottle and decided to get it for her and hopefully make amends for his behavior.
And Alex was right about Samantha. She did feel very bad, was acutely aware that the mention of his former wife had driven him away from her.
I’ll have to be more careful what I talk about, she told herself sternly. I’ll have to keep myself from prying into his affairs.
She tossed and turned in bed, unable to rest until she heard him come in. It was very late, past three when she heard him open the front door and softly shut it behind him. Her hearing tuned to his step, she knew by the way he tiptoed into his own room that Alex believed her to be asleep. She didn’t feel much like setting him straight, though, so she stayed put and, within a few minutes, she really was asleep.
In the morning, Samantha went out to the lanai for her breakfast. Alex had arranged for the table to be set with fine linen and china and silver. As soon as she slipped into her place, she saw the small, gift-wrapped box that sat in the middle of her plate.
He seemed to be in a better mood, at least, and she hoped he’d gotten over whatever had been bothering him. He poured her a cup of coffee and, nodding, smiled indulgently as she reached for her gift.
“Oh, how pretty,” she exclaimed, discovering an exquisite crystal and silver perfume bottle lying nestled among the lavender-colored tissue paper.
“It’s for your new bedroom, which is almost ready, by the way. We can go home in another two or three days.”
She smiled, appeased by his gift.
“What do you want to do today, Alex?” she asked. “Sky-dive? Rappel into the nearest volcano?”
“Close. I thought maybe you’d like to climb to the top of Diamond Head.”
“You mean with ropes and spikes and stuff?”
He shook his head.
“Stairs.”
“Stairs I think I can handle,” she agreed.
It was hot out there on the trail and she stopped a moment to take a big swig of water, then she glanced up again at the seemingly-endless flight of concrete stairs they were climbing.
“I’m not sure, but I think these stairs might suck even more than the ones at the Point Reyes lighthouse,” she remarked, remembering the trip her parents had taken her on when she was twelve.
“I’ve never been,” he admitted, taking a drink from his own plastic bottle, “but I’ll take your word for it.”
They resumed their climb and, in the end, Samantha was very glad they did, for she was rewarded by the most spectacular view she’d ever seen in her life. Had there ever been a bluer sea or sky? If so, then she’d never seen it.
“Look over there, Samantha,” said Alex, pointing towards Waikiki. “There’s our building,”
She looked in the direction he was pointing and could see it all, the whole of Waikiki, could actually even pick out the building housing Alex’s condo.
“Oh, my God. This is so freaking awesome. Take a picture of me for my parents, okay?”
She shifted her phone into his grasp and moved closer to the rail.
“Move to the right a little,” he told her. Once he’d taken the photo, she returned to him. Their glances met and Alex seemed pleased.
“I’ve never been anywhere like this before.”
“I love Hawaii,” he told her. “I’m just really glad you like it, too.”
She found she was aching to kiss him again and suspected he felt the same way, but he merely grinned and turned his glance away.
“There’s still time to go to the zoo,” he told her. “I think you’ll like it there. They let you feed an elephant and then there’s this giraffe thing...well, come on. You’ll see.”
The zoo turned out to be pretty small, but it was also fun and quite interesting. And though, after her trip to Diamond Head she wished she’d never see another stair in her life, she was more than willi
ng to climb the short flight up to view the giraffes.
Once up on the viewing platform, she smiled, as she discovered they were now eye-level with the giraffes.
“Oh, my God, Alex, they should have this at all the zoos.”
“I know. It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
She glanced up at him and realized he was pretty amazing himself, taking such pains to make sure she enjoyed her visit to Oahu.
Randy had barely ever taken her anywhere, not even to some of the free or nearly-free things there were to do in Los Angeles.
Not that she’d expected to be treated to anything expensive, of course. Randy had been a student, too, but now she realized he’d never made even the slightest effort to entertain her or make her happy.
Her heart hardened once again against her former boyfriend and she was very glad she’d listened to Marianne’s advice and ditched him.
“Alex, I...I just want to thank you for taking me everywhere.”
He reached out and stroked her cheek and she gazed into his eyes again. For a brief, fleeting moment, her heart skipped a beat. She thought he was getting ready to kiss her at last, but instead, he grasped her hand and squeezed it gently.
“No, it’s nice,” he told her. “It’s nice to have someone to show around. I get kind of lonely once in a while.”
She found herself wanting, once again, to stroke his lovely cheek, the way he did hers, but was afraid to just reach out and do it. He’d never really given her the slightest encouragement and she wasn’t the type to throw herself at a man, so she accepted that he wanted to be her friend, not her lover.
“If we get up early tomorrow, we can check out the Arizona Memorial. If we wait too long, though, it’ll be packed with tourists and it’ll take forever to get in.”
“Yes, I’d like that,” she told him, releasing his grasp on her hand.
“They don’t let you bring your purse, though,” he told her. “I have no idea why, but you’d better wear cargo shorts, if you have any.”
Early the next day, they drove out to Pearl Harbor and took the boat out to the memorial.
Samantha had never really been into modern history or any of the World Wars but, once out there, once getting a look at the real sunken ship, she realized it wasn’t just some abstract story out of a history book.
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