by Zana Bell
“Did all the girls fall in love with you?”
She felt the sharp splinter of something akin to jealousy—absurd, really. She never wanted commitment, so jealousy was never an issue.
“There were girls, yes. Also guys who wanted to be like us, and magazine shoots and sponsorships and wild parties. It was crazy. The only time anything felt real was waiting, scared shitless, for the next wave.”
He fell silent and Sass waited. She always found it an effective way to get someone to talk.
“There was a girl on the circuit—Carole. Built like a goddess and a top surfer. Things got intense and she started wanting all the things I wasn’t sure of, like marriage and kids, so I took off for a while, needing to get my head straight. I’d heard the waves were fantastic in Mozambique and I could have them all to myself, so I went there.”
“You escaped to Africa?”
“Sure, why not? The waves are incredible.”
It made sense, she supposed, remembering how the video had shown surfers flying around the world in search of the perfect wave.
His hand shifted in hers, his thumb tucking in to caress her palm. Sass had never felt anything so sensual in her life, but it was strangely relaxing, too. She felt herself splitting in two—with one part listening to a story that could only be confessed in the dark, the other vividly conscious of her desire for this man beside her.
“You’ve never seen such a beautiful coast. And yet the cities are still recovering from a vicious civil war—you see signs of it everywhere. I surfed a lot, slept a lot, lived very simply. Then one day, in the middle of nowhere, the ancient Jeep I was driving broke down. I began walking and that’s when I came upon an orphanage. All these gorgeous little kids whose parents had died, mostly of AIDS. Many of them were suffering from AIDS themselves. They lived in primitive conditions, sleeping on mats, having lessons outside. The teacher was using this ancient piece of blackboard and the younger kids practiced their writing in the red dust. They only had one soggy old football. No computers, no TV, no mobiles—nothing. And yet I’d never seen anything like their joie de vivre.” Sass could hear the smile in his voice as he said it.
“I stayed there a week and got to know Francesca, the Frenchwoman running the orphanage. Her strength and dedication are phenomenal. She’s a couple of years older than me…and I was attracted to her.”
Jake paused, and Sass thought again how she had to be careful about inviting confidences. She really didn’t want to hear about Francesca, who was probably a triple-orgasm-a-night woman. After all, she was French.
“She laughed at me and turned me down flat. It was a shock to the ego. She said I didn’t know who I was and that I should try finding out sometime. That was insulting. I knew who I was. I was a contender for the world’s Best Big Wave Rider.
“But that evening I sat looking out at the bush silhouetted against a red sunset, and began to wonder if anything I did was worth a damn. None of it made much sense in Africa. I left the next day. Saying goodbye to those kids ripped me apart.”
“I hear you left them all your money.”
The thumb stopped. “Who told you that?”
“Moana.”
“That woman talks too much.” But his thumb resumed its circular motion. Sass could feel him shrug. “The money’s nothing. I was only wasting what I’d earned on what I’d thought of as the good life. It’s doing one helluva lot more good over there. And Francesca is amazing—she gets every cent’s worth out of a dollar. It’s cool how the kids still write to me. If I ever get the money together, I’ll go back one day.”
He truly didn’t give a damn that he’d given away a fortune.
“Didn’t you agonize over it at all?” Sass had to ask. “I mean, you’d only known the kids for a week.”
“What was there to agonize over? It was a no-brainer. New Porsche or decent facilities for the kids? Anyone would have come to the same decision.”
She let that one pass. “So what happened?”
“I tracked Carole down. She was at the big competition being held at Mavericks in California. It has the wickedest waves in the world. I told her about the African experience and how I was ready for something more meaningful, and that I wouldn’t be taking part in any more competitions. She asked me what I was going to do instead. I hadn’t decided. Well, that ended that. She wanted to get married, yeah, but to a world-class surfer, not some loser with no life plan.” He laughed. “She sounded just like my father when I told him I was going into surfing.”
Jake unclasped his hand from Sass’s and for a second she felt the hollowness of rejection. But he was only shifting position. He slid an arm under her neck, drawing her to him so that her head nestled into the muscles of his shoulder. With his arm around her, his thumb took up its rhythm once more, this time on the sensitive skin under her ear. It felt unbearably wonderful.
“Problem was,” he continued lightly, “I truly didn’t know what the hell I was going to do instead.”
Sass was amazed. “Did you really stop big wave riding, just like that, after it’d been your life?”
“Well, I did go out one last time, the day after Carole and I broke up. It was a perfect dawn. The sky was clear and the waves were like glass. I had several stunning rides, then paddled out again, thinking, this is it, this is the final one. I waited and waited for the perfect wave. Not this one, I kept thinking, the next might be better. And then it struck me how dumb I was. Kids were starving, people were having bombs dropped on them and there I was, bobbing about on this God-given morning, worrying about which was the perfect wave. I caught the next one in.”
Sass laughed. “And was it the best?”
“Course not. This is life, not the movies.” He laughed, too. “It should have been the ride of my life, shouldn’t it? The poetic end. It was good, great even, but nothing earthshattering. It didn’t matter a damn. I flew home that afternoon.”
They lay there in silence. What surprised Sass was how companionable it felt. In talking about Jake’s life, her humiliation had dissipated. It was stupid to have got so riled up like that. After all, he’d climaxed. And he did make her feel great. All her bones had melted down to Jell-O. She was mesmerized by the thumb that still caressed her neck, but she was also aware of the firm skin beneath her cheek, the salty tang the man carried with him everywhere like cologne. Was this what pillow talk was all about, then? It was so good.
At the same time, her analytical mind was turning the evidence over. “I can’t believe you threw everything away on a week’s experience.”
“Dreams change. The week was plenty long enough. I was seduced by the place, the kids, from Day One.”
“But you didn’t even return to them. You quit surfing and had nothing to take its place.” She shook her head. “You’re either really brave or ridiculously rash.”
“Neither. At the risk of sounding hippy-dippy, I do believe that sometimes if you throw everything out, leave yourself open to fate, you’re giving opportunities a chance. I enjoy my life now even though I’m crap at it.”
Sass thought about the changes he’d made, the challenges he now faced.
“What sort of trouble had the boys been getting into before they came to you?”
“Usual guy stuff. Brad bounced from foster home to foster home and was picked up several times for hotwiring cars and taking them on joyrides. Mike and Mark were chronic truants and shoplifting for kicks. Both divorced parents were into new relationships and not paying enough attention to them. They’re with me until their mum and her new man find a bigger place. Their current house is too small, adding to their problems.”
“What about Paul?”
Jake’s arm tightened around her. “Your special boy. His family was a tight unit until his mum was killed in a hit-and-run accident. His dad couldn’t cope, went into a severe depression and basically shut down. The poor kid became more and more introverted until one day at school he was found beating the shit out of one of the older boys. Broke
the other guy’s nose and several of his teeth before the teachers could haul Paul off.”
“Paul?”
“Turned out the other boy had been laughing about how he’d hit a dog when he was speeding, describing how the animal had bounced over the bonnet and onto the roof. Much the same fate as Paul’s mother.” They were silent for a while before Jake continued, his voice grim. “I wanted to help the boys.”
“You’re doing a great job.” Sass raised her head to look at him. “The kids are happy with you.”
In the moonlight, she could see him smile. “Happy, yes. Doing well, no. I’m not supervising them enough.”
“All you need to do is set up some systems.”
“I bet your whole life runs on systems.”
“Hey, that sounds patronizing.”
“Sorry. You’re probably right, but you know, routines and lists are not my thing. What are you striving for?”
She was taken aback at the change of tone, the change of direction. “What?”
“I can’t believe you don’t have a life plan.”
“Of course I do.”
“And what is it?”
When she didn’t say anything, he gave her shoulders a shake. “C’mon, tell me.”
“There’s a position coming up I’m hoping to get.”
“What, in your company?”
“Yes.”
Now it was his turn to be silent. Was it her imagination or did the darkness seem thicker, the air a fraction colder? She might have known he’d be onto it in a flash.
“So this resort is personally important to you?”
She had to be honest. “I didn’t set the deal up, but now that it’s in the pipeline, yes, it’s in my interests, as well as in the company’s, to see it through.”
“This promotion, is it something you really want?”
“Want?” She gave a hollow laugh. “I’ve worked eighty-hour weeks these past seven years to prove I’m just as good as any male in our company. It’s run by men who, though they’d never admit it, still have the deep-seated belief that a woman is too emotional to cut it at the top. Idiots like Kurt Branston can get away with schmoozing, but I have to prove myself or people will say I slept my way to the top. I want my achievements to be seen for what they are.”
“So you hate this Kurt fellow as much as we do?”
“Probably more. You only had him for a few days. I’ve had him on my heels for five years.”
In the ensuing silence, Sass discovered that she’d curled her fingers into Jake’s chest as though she was clinging to him. She forced them to relax and lie flat.
The minutes ticked by and, despite the warmth of his body, she could feel herself going cold. She shouldn’t have told him. She shouldn’t have let him see. God, she was stupid to have let things get this far. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She had broken every one of her rules. Never show weakness. Never get rattled. Never get involved. What the hell had she been thinking? What the hell was Jake thinking now? She’d be damned, though, if she was going to ask.
Finally, he sighed.
“This has become very complicated.”
Well, duh! She had warned him, hadn’t she? And now he was going to pull away. Physical urges satiated, they could get back to business. She ought to pull away herself, but for some reason she just couldn’t. She waited, a lump in her throat, for what he’d say next that would gently disentangle them.
“Tomorrow, Sass—that is today—I’d like to show you the terns. It’s time you guys were introduced.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SASS WOKE UP
at daybreak when Jake kissed her on the forehead before sliding out of bed. “Don’t get up,” he whispered. “I’m just heading back to the house before the boys know I’m gone. We’re going out for a dawnie. Afterward I have to pop into town. You sleep in.”
She smiled drowsily and murmured, “I’ll be up soon. I never sleep in. Enjoy the surf.”
The next time she woke up the sun was streaming into her room. She blinked, disorientated. When she glanced at her watch, she almost fell out of bed. Ten-thirty! What on earth was going on with her in this upside-down country? Jet lag, she thought. Plus two late nights and an early morning run. And dancing. She hadn’t been dancing in months.
Then there had been the sex. It had been a long while since she’d last slept with someone, and her body still gently throbbed as though Jake had left his imprint on her, in her. Finally, there’d been all that talking—she who never talked. She was a listener, for chrissakes. It was ten-thirty and a night of follies lay behind her. But as her initial horror faded, it was replaced by a sense of languor. She stretched out, finding a cool spot in her rumpled sheets. There was still an indentation in the pillow next to her. Last night had been rash, last night had been mad and maddening—and incredible.
She lay there, replaying the fun with Moana, the dancing with Jake, the intimacy that came with sharing confidences in the dark. She veered away from focusing on the sex too much. It had, as she’d told Jake, been great. Enough said.
It was only when she heard his Jeep return that she finally scrambled out of bed and pulled on some clothes. Jake came up the steps. “Sass?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
She met him on her deck. He was looking his usual rumpled self, but he had something behind his back and a mischievous expression.
“Close your eyes and hold your hands out.”
“What?”
“No, I’m not telling. Go on, close them.”
After throwing him a look that told him she was not six years old, she closed her eyes and stretched out her hands.
“Whoa, what’s this?” she said, as something very large and surprisingly light was placed across them.
“Wait!” Another light weight was added to the package in her hands. “Now you can look.”
“A bodyboard?” She stared at it. “But I leave in a few days.”
“Hell, you bought a coffee machine for a week, and this is way more fun than that!”
She shook her head and laughed. “Here, take it so I can open the box on top. What on earth is it? Not diamonds?”
“I can promise you faithfully it’s not diamonds.” Jake tucked the board under one brown arm, wearing a surf’s-up, expectant grin as she unwrapped the box.
“Patches? Oh my God, you’ve got me nicotine patches!” Sass didn’t know whether to laugh or be insulted. “But I don’t want to quit smoking.”
“You do, deep down,” Jake assured her. “Just imagine conquering your only addiction. Once weaned off coffee and cigarettes, you’ll be Ms. Invincible USA.”
“Life won’t be worth living. What possessed you? It’s my business whether I smoke or not.”
She plunked down on the step of the deck and stared at the packet. No one, no one had ever ambushed her like this before.
“I care,” he said, leaning over to drop a light kiss on the end of her nose. “Stop looking as if I’ve just handed you a nuclear bomb. It simply struck me as crazy to watch you tick the boys off about eating vegetables, and go jogging on that infernal machine every day, only to ruin it all with a few surreptitious fags snatched here and there.”
“It’s my business, not yours.”
He sat down beside her. Today he was wearing cutoff denim shorts. She was not going to act sixteen and think how sexy he looked. “Of course it is, but seriously, Sass, you don’t need that shit in your system. It’ll lead to an early death.”
He gave her a come-on-get-over-it nudge with his shoulder. She tried to suppress a smile. He gave her a bigger nudge.
“Hey, watch it. You nearly knocked me over.”
“My intention exactly.” Pushing her shoulders back, he bore her down onto the deck, where he proceeded to kiss her. It felt so good to have the sun hot on her face, the planks warm beneath her and his mouth covering hers. If I could only freeze time, she thought. Then they heard whooping and whistles and a couple of adolescents chanting, “Jake and Sa
ss sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
Jake groaned. “Bloody kids. I’d forgotten I told Brad I was popping over to get you to go surfing.”
Sass and Jake struggled upright to see the boys laughing as they scooped up their boards and disappeared up the driveway.
“Crap,” she said, blushing. It was stupid, she knew, but she couldn’t help feeling somehow busted.
“Don’t rush on our account,” Brad yelled.
“Cheeky buggers,” Jake said, smiling.
“I thought you went surfing at dawn.”
“We did. The waves are fantastic. That’s why I bought you a board. You’ve got to come down and try them.”
Sass demurred, feeling as if she was being swept out of her depth by Jake’s enthusiasm.
“Kids do it,” he insisted.
“I know, but I’d like to maintain some dignity.”
“Who for? Me? The boys? There’s only us out here. Come on, I’ll be with you all the way.”
“Don’t you want to make the most of these fantastic waves?”
He shook his head. “No, you’ll have my full attention. Today, Sass, you are going to ride the waves.”
IT WAS FUN, she had to admit. Swimming out with the board was hard, especially when she was also learning to use the fins Jake provided, but bouncing over the waves took on a different dimension.
“Woo-hoo!” she cried as she ripped along the top of a wave and was carried up the beach. “I can see what you love about this sport.”
Jake, who had body-surfed next to her, said simply, “No, that wasn’t it.”
“Whaddaya mean? That was great. Wonderful, in fact.”
“You were just riding the white water.”
“But it was fun.”
“Sure, but it’s not taking the drop.”
She sat in the shallows, letting the spent waves lap around her. “Explain—in real English, if possible.”
He settled next to her. “You stayed on the crest of the wave all the way in. Yes, it’s fun—yes, you traveled. But taking the drop is when you actually go over the lip of the wave, just before it breaks. At that point it’s pitched highest and smoothest, and you ride down the face of it, not on top.”