Somewhere on St. Thomas

by Toby Neal

  I stopped, turned to face him. “But I think my family will want to be there!”

  “Do you really want to wait until we can sail to Saint Thomas for a proper ceremony?” He lifted my hand, nibbled on the tips of my fingers. “Because I don’t think either of us can wait that long. We’ll go there for a honeymoon and redo the ceremony at your church.”

  “You’re being silly. The actual wedding’s a technicality,” I argued, even as pleasure sizzled down my nerve endings to melt my resistance. “I said I’d marry you. Let’s just go—to bed.” I knew my priorities.

  “Yes, let’s. As soon as we get married. I’ll get you back to the dorm and you can pack your things.” He turned me around and we walked briskly back to the yacht club building. I felt almost delirious, like I was going to wake up from a bizarre and fast-moving dream any minute, but Rafe was still talking in that unfamiliar brisk work mode. “I need to get on the phone, take care of some business.”

  That’s how I came to be standing in the middle of my room in something of a daze as two sturdy sailors from the Maid threw my paltry possessions into boxes, hauled my meager furniture to the corner for campus recycling, and then set about cleaning and scrubbing with the same uncomplaining energy they’d already impressed me with.

  I got back to the docks in short order after checking out of the dorm, escorted by the two sailors in the yacht club’s truck with all my stuff. Not that there was much of it. What I had fit into a storage locker assigned to the Maid.

  Rafe then put me in a hotel next to the yacht club for the night. “Don’t argue,” he said against my mouth. “I’ll be back to get you in the morning. I’m sending something for you to wear.”

  I looked at my one suitcase with the broken wheel. All I’d arrived in Boston with and now all I was leaving with. There were so many unanswered questions, like what the hell we were doing, but I was scared to ask them. I felt swept along by a force greater than myself, greater than Rafe even, and it turned out I was enough of an adventurer to want to see where it led.

  But that didn’t mean I wanted to be abandoned in a hotel.

  “Don’t you want to stay? And, um…convince me this is a good idea?” I knew I sounded plaintive, but this so wasn’t how I’d imagined it would be the night before my wedding. If I’d ever had such secret fantasies, they’d involved lots of bridesmaids and other silliness. It was going to be just me, alone in a hotel room, waiting for Rafe to come get me like a bundle of laundry he’d dropped off.

  He stopped and seemed to really see me for the first time since he went into a frenzy of mysterious arrangements. He cupped my face, brushed my lips with his. “Oh, Ruby. God. I’m trying to do the right thing here,” he breathed into my mouth.

  “Don’t. Just be with me,” I begged.

  He stepped back into the room and shut the door. “Maybe you do need a little convincing,” he said. “A preview of coming attractions can’t hurt.”

  My heart sped up to trip-hammer speed as he swiftly shucked off the long-sleeved crewneck sweater and jeans he wore. Clad only in those black silk boxers I thought looked amazing on him, he draped the clothes over a nearby chair. “But first,” he said nonchalantly, “we need to call your parents.”

  “Oh God,” I said, my eyes filling. “They’re going to hate this.”

  “Not as much as they’d hate you moving into my cabin on the Maid, which is what I’m going to tell them is the alternative.”

  “I’m going to let you have fun with that, since this is all your idea,” I said, sticking my tongue out at him. “I need a shower.” And I went into the bathroom and turned on the water.

  I was just soaping up when Rafe thrust the receiver into the shower. “Tell them you’re okay and I haven’t kidnapped you or something.”

  I would have laughed at his disgruntled face and tone if I hadn’t known he was perfectly serious.

  “Ruby!” My dad’s voice was an alarmed shout I could hear a foot away. “What the hell is going on?” Dad must have been really freaked out to use the word “hell.”

  I shut the water off, but now I was standing there stark naked, holding the phone and looking at Rafe with my father’s angry voice vibrating between us. Rafe shut his eyes and handed me a towel, which I plastered against my front as I took the phone.

  “Hi, Daddy. It’s all okay.”

  “He asked permission to marry you!”

  “It’s legit,” I said, smiling at Rafe. “He apparently really wants to.”

  “I told him you’re a handful, and he said he was well aware.”

  I frowned at this. “I thought you wanted to see if I wanted to marry him, Daddy. I’m not sure whose side you’re on.”

  My dad’s voice had calmed down. “Well, honey, you know our values. I know perfectly well you’d never go along with something you didn’t want to do. We want to be there to make sure you’re happy.”

  “I’m happy,” I said, and held Rafe’s eyes as I said it. “I’ve never been happier.”

  Rafe stripped off his boxers and stepped into the shower with me, taking me in his arms, towel and all. He held me and kissed the top of my head as I talked to Mom and then Pearl, and finally, when everyone was reassured we were coming straight to Saint Thomas for a redo of the ceremony, which they could plan to a tee, I set the phone down outside the shower.

  “I believe we were going to have a preview of the coming attractions,” Rafe said.

  “Yes. I think I still need some convincing you’re the right guy for me. I’ve been really confused.” I said it dead serious, and he tipped up my chin and looked into my eyes, his narrowed, and that’s when I grabbed a tuft of chest hair and tugged. “I’m a little mad at your emotional blackmail. I mean, it worked. But I’m still a little mad.”

  “All’s fair in love and war,” he quoted. And bent his lips to mine.

  We got started in the shower, a lengthy and delicious foreplay. My mouth on his nipples, his mouth on my neck. Slippery, soapy hands sliding all over each other’s bodies. His hands on my breasts, hips, thighs, and finally, sliding deliciously around on my ass, mine stroking up and down his washboard abs, around the chiseled lines of his chest, over the tight rounds of his butt. And everywhere I looked, his hard length seemed to be. I was still a little afraid of it.

  “I can’t take this anymore. To the bed with you,” he growled. I grasped him by that protruding member and tugged as I stepped out of the shower.

  “I need to reacquaint myself with my friend here. Does he have a name?”

  A short, charged silence.

  Rafe sounded strangled as he followed me to the bed, my hand tight around the base of his equipment. “Um. Sometimes he answers to ‘Captain,’” he confessed, and I laughed in delight at the sight of the tops of his ears turning red.

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” I said directly to his shaft, and dropped to my knees.

  I ran through my repertoire of skills, which apparently seemed to still be working if Rafe’s helpless groans and inarticulate exclamations were anything to go by. It felt terrific to be down on my knees in front of him, in such a subservient position, yet to know I held all the power. It felt amazing, and I knew I’d won our little battle of wills when he tried to detach from me before he came and couldn’t.

  “You slay me, woman,” he said when he could string words together. “That wasn’t how I thought things would go.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve told me that,” I said with a triumphant grin. “Get used to your new life.”

  He picked up one of the towels and wiped himself and my mouth, then tenderly rubbed my wet hair. I shivered with the sopping length of it against me, and he made a clucking noise. “I think we should get you dry before round two.”

  He hustled me back into the bathroom and into a robe, then plugged the hair dryer in. “Where’s your brush?”

  I pointed.

  He turned on the hair dryer and applied it to my head, drawing the brush gently through the heating strands of m
y waist-length hair. Within minutes, I was purring like a cat as he blow-dried it, brushing it until it rose rebellious around us in a shiny, crackling cloud.

  I hadn’t felt so loved since I was a child and my mom used to do this to my hair, then braid it for school.

  He turned off the dryer and set it on the counter. He buried his face in the abundance of my hair, his arms around my waist for a long moment. “I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time.”

  “You can do that every day if you like,” I said hopefully.

  He chuckled.

  “Go to the bed, Ruby,” he said, very definitely.

  I went, a fine trembling beginning in the pit of my stomach.

  “Take off the towel.”

  I did.

  “Go and sit on the bed. Lie back against the pillows and wait for me.”

  I did, feeling that fire I was becoming familiar with stoke my belly, feeling the delicious anticipation he knew how to build in me.

  “Close your eyes, Ruby.”

  I did, my legs together and hands crossed modestly over my rebelliously large breasts, which were trying to escape.

  I felt the dip of the bed as his weight dented it, heard the slide of his body on the cheap coverlet, felt the heat of his breath above me.

  I burned for his touch, but I waited. Because I knew it would be better if I did, and it was what he wanted.

  I felt something drop onto my belly, something hard and heavy, and my eyes flew open. The star ruby winked up at me, held in the cup of my navel.

  “It’s yours to wear now,” he said, and his voice was soft. “Put it on.”

  I picked up the gorgeous antique ring and slid it on the fourth finger of my left hand. “It’s so beautiful, Rafe. It’s too much for me.” I looked up at his eyes. They were dark with emotion.

  “It was my grandmother’s ring,” he said. “She wore it almost all her life and gave it to me when her arthritis got too bad for her to wear rings anymore. ‘Give this to your future wife,’ she told me when she gave it to me. I couldn’t believe it when your name was Ruby.”

  I didn’t meet the Captain that night. I wasn’t surprised, but when Rafe wrapped his big, hot body around me and we both fell asleep, I knew I’d meet him the next day.

  I finally felt ready for all of it.

  Chapter 18

  Rafe was gone when I woke up, but the pillow beside me was dented and still warm, so I knew he’d spent the night with me. In the chilly late-spring sunshine pouring through the window, I felt all my doubts return.

  We hadn’t even talked about school next year. I had no intention of quitting. All we’d talked about was this summer, of which the only plan was sailing to Saint Thomas for a redo of our wedding. I felt as unsettled as ever, with too many questions—but under that was also a rock-solid certainty: This was the right man for me, and it didn’t really matter about the rest.

  We’d figure it out together. I had no doubt he was already ten steps ahead of me on that front. That thought gave me the energy, in spite of my mild aches and pains from a night of excessive pleasure, to get up out of bed and face the day.

  The first thing I saw was a big white box topped with a bow on the side table. This must be the “something to wear” he’d said he’d send.

  He was so incredibly thoughtful and thorough in everything he did.

  I opened the lid, feeling a pang of all that was missing from this moment—my friend Shellie, no doubt full of commentary; my mom, fussing around, my sisters, excited and proud.

  “All that can come later,” I muttered aloud to myself to quell the loneliness of the moment. I smoothed tissue paper away from an ivory silk dress.

  I lifted it out. How could he possibly have had time to pick something off the rack that would fit a figure like mine, big busted and slim hipped?

  The gown was simple in design, I saw to my relief. Ivory silk subtly patterned in something that looked like waves, tucked into a modest-looking sweetheart neckline with long sleeves. A tulle overskirt frothed over the narrow underskirt.

  I turned the gown over, wondering how to get it on by myself. On the back was a row of tiny buttons, but hidden behind them was a long zipper with a length of ribbon tied to it.

  In the bottom of the box were a pair of matching ivory satin low-heeled pumps and a set of underwear that included a lacy demi-bra, a thong, and a garter belt with ivory stockings.

  He’d thought of everything.

  “What guy does this? And it must have cost a fortune,” I muttered, frowning.

  I set the wedding clothes back in the box, feeling in great need of a cup of coffee. I threw on a pair of old sweats, ran down to the Ramada Inn lobby, and filled two Styrofoam cups with inky brew. Sipping double-fisted, I headed for the elevator.

  “Hey!” Someone was hailing me. I turned, and a flash went off in my face. “Are you Ruby Michaels?”

  “Yes,” I said hesitantly, and the flash went off again. “Stop with the pictures. I don’t even have mascara on yet. What’s this about?”

  “Are you secretly engaged to Rafe McCallum the Third?”

  “I don’t know if that is any of your business,” I snapped, feeling cornered and apprehensive. The Third? I’d never heard he was a Third of anything. And who would care?

  “Aren’t you a minor?” the busybody reporter shouted into the door of the elevator. If both my hands hadn’t been occupied with coffee cups, I might have flipped him off.

  “I’m nineteen, thank you very much,” I snapped. “And aren’t you unbelievably rude!” The doors finally closed, and I rose, sipping and frowning and wondering what the hell kind of news story was made by a boat captain wedding a missionary’s daughter from Saint Thomas.

  The phone was ringing inside the room and I had to hustle, wrestling with the key and the coffee. By the time I got there it had stopped, but thankfully it started up again.

  “Hello?” I said, gazing at the dress, feeling conflicted.

  “Hello, love.”

  He’d never called me that before. My heart jumped like a fish on the line.

  “Rafe! Oh, thank God. There was some jerk trying to take pictures of me in the lobby. Asking questions. I don’t get it!”

  “What did you say?”

  “Not much. I told them to mind their own business. But I did say I was nineteen when the bugger pretty much accused me of being a minor.”

  A short silence, then a sigh. “I was hoping to have a few days before this hit the fan, but I guess it was not to be. Please don’t answer the door or phone unless it’s me. I’m sending the guys to get you at ten a.m. Be packed and dressed. In what I sent.”

  I felt a waft of anger. “Don’t boss me around, Captain Rafe McCallum the Third. You might be in charge on your ship, but you don’t get to bark orders at me.”

  Another sigh from his end.

  “I’m sorry, Ruby. I know this is scary and hard for you to go through alone. I’m glad we spent the night together—aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.” His kindness melted my defenses. Remembering how tender he’d been with me last night reminded me I had a lot more of that in store. “I just wish you were here now. And I didn’t know you were a Third.”

  “Old stuff that doesn’t matter, and it’s bad luck to see the bride in her outfit before the wedding,” he teased. “Besides, I’m neck-deep in details, trying to get everything ready for the ceremony and shipping out.”

  “I’m sorry. I feel useless.” I sat on the bed and bit my cuticle, a bad habit when I was worried.

  “There’s really nothing you can do or need to do but be ready to go on time. We’re sailing out on the tide. And don’t talk to any reporters.”

  “I don’t get why they are interested in us.”

  “I’ll explain everything later. After the ceremony.”

  “You aren’t a criminal or something, are you?” I laughed weakly.

  “No. I promise you it’s nothing to worry about. Just be ready, okay? Can you do that for
me?”

  I was the one who sighed. “It feels wrong doing this all by myself. But at least there’s a cord to pull the zipper on the dress up. I can’t promise it’s going to fit, though.”

  “It’ll fit. Just remember I love you, Ruby, and we’re doing this because we love each other and want to be together.” There was a note in his voice as if he were reassuring himself as well as me, and I frowned, looking down at the play of light on the star ruby on my finger and thinking of all the unanswered questions.

  “I guess.”

  He laughed. “Just be ready at ten.” He hung up.

  I looked at the clock. It was nine. That gave me an hour to get into the dress, assuming it fit, get some makeup on, and figure out what to do about my hair.

  At least I didn’t have to wash or blow-dry it. Even now it floated around me, loose and silky from Rafe’s ministrations of the night before.

  “Onward, Ruby Day Michaels,” I said aloud. “Hammer down that coffee and get ready for your wedding.”

  Chapter 19

  I stood on the deck of the Creamy Maid, clutching Rafe’s hand. The dress was on, and I knew from my endless checking in the mirror that it couldn’t have fit better if it had been designed for me. I could see admiration in the eyes of the cluster of the Maid’s staff that had gathered with us,

  I’d messed with my hair for a few minutes and then just decided to leave it down, tying the ivory satin ribbon that had been used to pull up the zipper around my head. The brisk wind of the day before was mercifully absent. I sneaked a peek at Rafe, resplendent in a tux. The sailors wore dazzling whites, and the ship gleamed and brass glittered as if freshly washed.

  In spite of all that, I felt the loss of my family and any female friends keenly, and looked down at Rafe’s hand, clutched in both of mine, for reassurance. Why did everything have to be such a rush?