“Did you see a waterfall?” Nicki asked.
“We had to turn back when it started raining,” the woman said. “But there’s supposed to be one.”
Nicki stopped under a large canopy of branches, watching the drizzle turn to rain. When the family had passed, she caught Ansel’s gaze and pointed up.
“I thought you said you didn’t mind the rain,” he said.
“It’s really coming down now.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Afraid of water even when it’s just in the sky?”
“Hey.”
“Just asking, just asking.” His face broke into a grin.
When the rain stopped soon after, they hiked for five minutes up a rocky, fern-lined trail along a small creek as the trees dripped on them from above. To her credit, she wondered only every few minutes if he was staring at her butt. The rest of the time, she knew he was.
Two other groups passed them on their way down, one couple in high-end weather gear sufficient for a climb up Everest, the other family more like the previous one, in shorts and sandals and plastic-bag ponchos.
And then they were alone at the base of a glassy pool, fed from above by a ribbon of water snaking down a mossy wall of stone.
“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered.
“Some things only get better with time.” He let out a long, exaggerated sigh. “Lucky them.”
She elbowed him lightly in the ribs. “Better old than dead.”
Another sigh. “I’m not so sure. Some men don’t age well.”
“I think you’re doing okay.”
He tilted his head, eyes dancing. “You do?”
His nearness, the flirting, the gorgeous surroundings—it was too much. “You’re just a big baby,” she said, rolling her eyes.
The humor drained out of his face. He looked away. “Yeah.” He forced a laugh. “Too true. Should we take a picture?” Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he held it up to the waterfall and fiddled with the controls.
“Hey,” she said. “I was just kidding.”
“No, it’s true. But I’m working on it. Just this morning I decided it was time to throw away the Pull-Ups.” He pointed at a cluster of rocks at the base of the cliff. “Stand over there and I’ll take a picture for your… whatever. You have a boyfriend?”
She’d really hurt his feelings. He wasn’t afraid of getting older; he was afraid he wasn’t. “No.” She met his gaze and held it a second too long.
“Give the camera some skin, post it online, and you will.” With a big phony grin, he grabbed her shoulder and gave her a gentle push toward the waterfall. “Guys love a wet woman.”
Well, she would need photos of the trip for the blog—her face cropped off, of course. She made her way around the pool’s edge to the cliff face and turned, clasping her hands in front of her in a traditional pose.
“Are you kidding me? You might as well be in Iowa. Get closer,” he said.
She looked down at her feet, then at the pool. “I’m not getting in there.”
“Of course not, but you can stand on the rocks. Those,” he said, pointing, “right there.”
“They’re in the middle of the lake.”
“It’s not a lake, it’s a puddle, and they’re like four inches away.”
“More like four feet.”
“You’ve got awesome long legs,” he said. “That won’t be a problem for you.”
Damn it, she was blushing. Awesome? “What if I slip?”
“You’ve got tread on those sandals. You’ll be fine.”
She frowned at the rocks, the waterfall, him. It would be a much better picture if she were closer. Who knew if she’d be able to come back and find somebody else, a stranger, to take one?
Rocks in rainforest pools at the base of waterfalls were going to be slippery. Signaling for him to wait, she walked off into the forest to find a fallen branch to use as support, just in case, but she couldn’t find anything longer than a few feet long and returned to the pool empty-handed.
Giving up on her courage, he had the phone up to his face. “Say cheese.”
What the hell. “Hold on!” Front teeth grinding into her bottom lip, she leaped over the water. Her right foot landed at an angle and she lurched sideways, arms windmilling, but her left found a flat stone and she braced her weight, turned, and waved triumphantly at him.
“Damn! I thought you were going in,” he said from behind his phone. “That would’ve been an awesome shot. Oh well, guess this will do. Hold still, will you? You’re blurry.”
She put her hands on her hips, grinning. Water surrounded her. Birds chirped in the trees. The mist from the falls shimmered in faint rainbows. Her heart swelled with tropical, exotic happiness.
And then, while she was still absorbing the world in a blissful daze, Ansel jogged over and leaped across the water to join her.
“No!” she gasped, jerking sideways. Her right foot slipped.
From midair, he saw her panic and shortened his stride to abort the leap. With comical resignation on his face, he went directly into the water, two feet shy of anything solid, and disappeared under the surface.
“Ansel!” she screamed. Squatting down, she reached her hand out, but he was too far; she could barely reach the water from up on the rocks. Without thinking, she stepped closer, submerging her feet in cold water, wondering how the hell deep it was for him to disappear like that. “Ansel!”
A hand shot out and clutched her ankle. She screamed—until she saw his laughing face come out of the water. That made her so angry she jerked her leg free and kicked him in the shoulder.
Well, she meant to kick him in the shoulder. She may have clipped him in the side of the head.
He went under again and didn’t come up.
“Ansel! Shit! God damn it! Get up!” She squatted down and pawed at the surface like a St. Bernard after an avalanche. “Fuck!”
He sat up, rubbing his ear. “First you kick me, then you swear at me like a frat boy on meth. You use that language in class, Miss Fitch?”
He was sitting up. Sitting. The water only reached his neck. Because of the waves from the waterfall and the returning sun’s reflection, she hadn’t seen the sandy bottom under his skinny, annoying ass until now. “I hope you drown.” She jumped over him and landed on shore, her feet wet, her heart pounding, furious.
He rose to his feet and wiped his face. The water hit him mid-thigh. “Unlikely. But I might need a new phone.”
She was already striding away down the path, knowing her anger was out of proportion to the offense, but not caring. It was hard enough to be afraid of every goddamn ordinary thing in the world, but to have people mock you for it—
She tripped over a gnarled root and flung her arms out for balance so she could walk faster. Her feet slid off the front of her wet sandals, poking into the mud and bringing it back inside the sole of her shoe where it blended with the soggy leather. She reached out and swatted a leafy branch out of her way.
Was he even following her? Was he even sorry?
Twenty feet down the path, the red fury coloring her world faded and she stopped, licked her lips, forced a deep breath into her lungs, and closed her eyes to count to ten backward in Japanese, a calming technique that worked because she imagined her elementary school judo sensei. He was one of the first people to teach her a few tricks for managing the craziness.
She was fine. Nothing bad had happened. Ansel was just fooling around, no harm intended, none done.
In fact, he’d been great. He’d seen her freak out when he’d tried to join her on the rocks and had chosen to go into the water fully dressed, with his phone, without hesitating.
So what if he’d teased her a little? Wasn’t she always so proud about her sense of humor, funny Ms. Fitch who told jokes and played The Simpsons during lunch on Fridays?
He came up behind her. “Nicki, I’m sorry…”
“It’s fine, really. Ignore me. I’m fine.” She smiled but couldn’t look at him; t
he sudden emotion was making her eyes burn.
“I didn’t mean to scare you. My feet went out from under me and I sank to the bottom…”
“It was funny.” She turned, smiling brightly. “How’s your phone?”
“Are you crying? Jesus. I’m such a dick.”
“This is my problem, okay? Not yours. You’re fine.”
But he was moving closer. Wet hair dripped onto his face, emphasizing his high cheekbones, the deep gray eyes.
He lifted a hand and brushed his thumb along her cheek.
With her emotions already out of control, she couldn’t resist leaning into his touch.
He edged closer and lifted a second hand to her face, his eyelids falling as his gaze dropped to her mouth. “I really am sorry,” he said softly.
“Don’t be…”
His voice dropped. “No, I mean for this.” And then he kissed her.
* * *
Of course he had to kiss her. From the moment she’d admitted she had a Prius back home and slid behind the wheel like a sacrificial warrior, he’d known it was hopeless; he’d have to try.
When he’d been under the surface and heard her screaming profanity—muffled by the water—it had taken all of his self-control not to pull her in with him and have his way with her right there in the water she hated.
He wasn’t a vain guy, but he saw the way she looked at him every now and then. He knew the type of woman who wasn’t into him at all, and Nicki Fitch wasn’t one of them. She was into him a little bit. If he were smooth, she’d be into him plenty.
And why not? They were adults, happily isolated together in Hawaii, and the warm climate was conducive to undressing.
He caressed the back of her neck, admitting to himself that his feelings ran deeper than that. She felt real, she felt important, she felt…
Better under him than he’d imagined. Her soft lips parted for him just as he tilted her face to fit against his. Shivering with lust and his soaked clothes, he ran his hand down her back, pulled her against his hips, and stroked the curve of her bottom before sliding his fingertips back up along her curves to her neck and jaw. He held her face there between his palms and focused on kissing her.
She tasted sweet and salty, like lip gloss and tears. It bothered him that little everyday things made her suffer, or that he could’ve contributed to any of it, however unintentional.
He licked her bottom lip and felt her tongue slide out to meet his. What had started as a fun impulse flared into hot, serious need; he deepened the kiss, forgot about her cute neuroses, and ran a hand down her body, pushing aside her jacket to touch her breast through her thin, damp T-shirt. She gasped into his mouth, arched into him.
Since he’d been shockingly young he’d been a breast man, and he’d often joked, if he were a woman, he’d never get anything done because he’d stay home all day fondling himself. Therefore, when a woman let him kiss him, a woman he’d seen all week in a bikini, a woman with just the kind of breasts he loved—a woman’s breasts, with nipples, right there on her chest—he couldn’t help himself.
And Nicki didn’t seem to mind. Emboldened, he tugged up the hem of her shirt and felt the satiny bra fabric over her hardening nipple, then the nipple itself as he glided his hand under it from above, turned on further by the little moan she made in the back of her throat.
She was perfect. She felt perfect, she tasted perfect, she sounded perfect, she smelled perfect. God help him, he loved women. It had been much too long. The surge of raw lust he felt shocked him, and he wished he’d chosen a better spot than a tourist-infested rainforest for his first move. Somebody was bound to appear on the trail any second.
Time to get back on the road. With him driving, they could get back to the condo in under three hours. Maybe even closer to two.
Aware of his own trembling, he caressed her breast back into the bra, withdrew his hand, pulled the shirt down over her, and returned his hand to her face. Her eyes were dark, seductive, watching him hungrily. Unable to resist, he leaned into her again, mouth open, and she rose up to kiss him with gratifying enthusiasm.
It was when she did something wild with her tongue along his top teeth, sucking and tickling, that he remembered.
Like an anvil on a cartoon coyote’s noggin, the ten-year-old memory slammed down on him.
Food, pillows, candles, beer, secrets, friends, girls in the dark.
Girl.
The others had left, but he’d stayed, totally into the cute one in the dark corner of the room who kept making jokes, even after they’d started fooling around. He’d never had so much fun in his entire life, laughing and feeling her up, French kissing, groping, giggling, gasping, falling a little in love until he’d realized he was drunk out of his mind and so was she and had the decency to leave.
He tensed and drew back, still holding her face, eyes closed, between his palms. “Mickey,” he said roughly.
It was as if he’d slapped her. Eyes popping open, she stiffened, staring, mouth still parted. Then she pushed free and pivoted away from him.
“I remember you now,” he said.
She walked away from him down the muddy path, arms out for balance. An elderly Asian couple, hand in hand, appeared in front of her, hiking up to the waterfall with a grinning black Lab on a leash pulling them along. Mickey—Nicki—whoever she was—greeted them with a loud, cheerful hello as she left the path to pass them. Once the couple was between them, she broke into a jog.
Ansel watched her in a frustrated, confused daze. Was she going to run all the way home? Steal the car and leave him on the Hana Highway with a broken, waterlogged cell phone and a half-erect dick?
“Hi,” the woman with short hair said, smiling at him.
“Hi,” her companion said.
They were side by side, taking their time, savoring life under their six-foot-wide golfing umbrella. Even the dog moved as though he had bad joints, slow and deliberate, and the three of them blocked the path completely.
Ansel nodded his hellos and moved into the ferns to let them pass before bolting after Nicki. She still had the keys, after all. Phobia or no, she could take off without him; she probably was more afraid of him than of driving. What had been a shock to him couldn’t have been to her; she must’ve known who he was before she ever landed in Hawaii. Rachel had found out he was in the condo, then set him up with Nicki.
He stumbled over a clod of earth. As he recovered, a new thought struck him: would Nicki ever have told him she was that girl in college?
He caught up to her just as she climbed into the driver’s seat. “Wait!” He ran along the shoulder and threw himself against the hood of the car just in case she was going to peel out and leave him—on his birthday, damn it—and then he pulled the passenger door open and jumped in, soaking wet, breath heaving, and put on his seat belt.
“Want to drive?” she asked. Her voice was low, flat.
“What?”
Without looking at him, she held up her hands. They shook like a laundry basket on top of a college dorm’s coin-op washer during the spin cycle.
Memories of his university days were fresh in his mind just then.
“You want me to drive?” he asked, sucking in another breath.
“Yes. If you would.” She looked at him, chin raised. “Please.”
“Fine.” He pushed open the door. “Hope you don’t mind if I head back home.” Home, he thought. As if they were a happy family.
She shook her head and got out. He walked around the back, she walked around the front, and in a minute, they were both seated again and on the road to Kahului.
Chapter 10
NICKI PULLED THE SUITCASE OUT of the closet. Her new jeweled sandals caught on the wheels, dragging along the carpet like the security boot on an inner city grocery cart. She jerked harder, stumbled, and fell to one knee with her heart pounding.
It had felt so… sweet. Not just hot, but warm, soft, and familiar. For two years in college, she’d had recurring hot dreams abo
ut him; now she’d start having them again.
Damn it. Obviously she couldn’t resist the guy; one peck on the lips, and she’d practically flung herself on her back in the mud. Way to go, Nick. That’s exactly why you came to Hawaii, so you could humiliate yourself again.
She lifted the suitcase onto the bed, swiping the hair out of her eyes. It had dried in frizzy waves around her face. She probably looked like a crazed witch. All she needed was a cauldron and a few animal parts. She certainly felt like doing black magic, anything to make herself forget what had happened, or to wipe the shock off that handsome face.
He’d barely spoken during the drive back to the condo. Shivering behind the wheel in his wet clothes, he’d stared straight ahead, jaw clenched, stopping once only for gas. While she’d been trying to recover from the rush of blood to her reproductive organs, he’d seemed irritated and put out. As though it were her fault he hadn’t remembered her.
She dragged her poppy-pink fingernail along the zipper. Expensive polish chipped off the edge.
It wasn’t entirely his fault, either. She’d never sought him out after that night, just waited for him to come to her and act smitten and romantic. If she’d really wanted him, she should’ve gone to him. Used Rachel to track him down, at least for his phone number. But she’d been a coward. Giving him all the power.
She stared at her empty suitcase. Then up at the ocean glimmering out the window. Her feet had touched sand, but not salt water, not even once.
Why should she be the one to leave?
It was late, almost dark. She had time to run to the beach for a minute. She shoved her feet into the sandals and grabbed a towel before she froze.
Was putting her toes in shallow water right before she ran away the sort of courageous act she’d had in mind when she started this trip?
A knock broke her daze. “We need to talk,” Ansel said through the door.
She threw the towel on the bed. If he had the nerve to act irritated again, she’d shove him off the balcony. But his voice was polite. Not warm, but neutral.
“I thought we could go for a walk,” he added.
Letting out a breath, she checked herself in the mirror. Frizzy hair, flaking mascara, mountainous zit, stress rash on her neck.
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