Meet Me in Tahiti

Chapter Four

He watched her.

Couldn’t seem to help himself.

At least he did it covertly. Always when he was with someone else—listening as the virtues of Poerava were extolled, answering questions, giving what he hoped appeared to be his full attention.

Zoe couldn’t have guessed that he knew where she was every minute, who she was talking to, when she was smiling/ frowning/ laughing, that she had a slick of sauce from one of the canapés on her chin she wouldn’t be able to feel because the nerves in that spot had never recovered from that wisdom tooth extraction.

The pretty red-haired gorgon with her, though? She knew. He didn’t know how she knew but she sure did know. He’d felt her steely gaze on him at frequent intervals, making it clear that she was guarding her fragile ray of sunshine from the threatening darkness.

And she did look fragile, Zoe. She always had, though she’d never seen herself that way. Small and slender enough to be snapped in half by a too-rough touch. Otherworldly, with all that white-gold hair either falling in perfectly defined waves to her hips or tamed into a ponytail or plait or bun with a glittery clip or a comb somewhere (diamanté stars tonight), the fair skin so translucent you could almost see the blood flowing through her veins, the heart-shaped face dominated by huge eyes that were lime—mint green like the lightest shade in the curve of a cold breaking wave, lips the color of untouched reef coral.

A mermaid, forced to walk on a too-hard earth.

When they were teenagers working in the Crab Shack, Ewan, the boss, had warned Finn that Zoe Tayler was off-limits to him. Finn had taken that to heart; Ewan had given him the job out of sympathy for Finn’s ailing mother so he was already primed to be on his best behavior. But Finn hadn’t needed to be told: he’d always known Zoe was off-limits. He’d never spoken to her before that summer but he’d seen her around the village. He knew her history, knew she was a protected species, knew she was considered too good for the likes of him, knew she was too good for him. She’d been off-limits in every conceivable way. Rich to his poor, light to his dark, cool to his hot, angel to his devil, sweet to his bitter.

And yet for that one summer they’d soared above their differences and become...something that didn’t have a descriptor. How that had happened was a mystery. All he knew was that the tremulously inviting smile she’d given him when they were refilling the salt shakers ahead of their first lunch shift together had grabbed his heart and twisted it. She was a sprinkle of fairy dust amid the mundane drudgery that was his life, and as each day passed, they’d grown closer. It was like they were the two puzzle pieces waiting for every other piece to fit into a predetermined pattern before they finally slotted together.

Oh, who was he kidding?

If that puzzle analogy was anything other than romanticized claptrap they would have been able to stay friends once autumn rolled around.

The truth was that Finn had deluded himself into thinking they belonged together because that’s what he’d wanted. But within a week of leaving the Crab Shack she’d started dating Brad Ellersley: clean-cut, conventionally handsome, sports star, straight-A student, heir to a fortune. That had been the start of two years of torment, their meetings in the village stilted and awkward as Finn had fought to keep her at a safe distance for his own sanity.

Until that last time he’d seen her, three months after the accident, when they’d moved past stilted and awkward but not to anywhere good.

And OK, with ten years’ hindsight he could accept it wasn’t her fault that the way he’d felt about her hadn’t been reciprocated, but he sure wasn’t going to thank her for kicking him to the curb that night, regardless.

He wasn’t going to thank her, either, for still smelling the way he remembered. Like lemon because she always rinsed her hair—the only thing she was vain about—in lemon juice. Only better than lemon. She smelled like the tiare mā’ohi. His favorite flower. How had he not made the connection before?

She’s not for you, she never was, she never will be, let her go.

“Um... Finn?”

He snapped his attention back to the moment to find he was being regarded quizzically by the editor of Travel in the Fast Lane. He didn’t know her name because when Aiata had introduced them Zoe had been smack-bang in his line of sight talking to Joe Hauata, known locally as Captain Joe, the captain of Poerava’s luxury catamaran, Pearl Finder, and Joe had been all but salivating over her. He knew his current companion had been talking about the turtle sanctuary, though, so probably all he had to do was say that a visit could be arranged.

“Problem?” she asked.

“Problem?” he repeated, mystified. It was a turtle sanctuary, not the Pentagon.

“You said something about someone being not for you.”

Ah. He’d said that out loud. He was losing his marbles. “A staff member,” he said, improvising. “She’s not working out.” Improvising badly because that wasn’t the best thing to say to a journalist who was going to write about his resort. “I mean, she’s terrific, but she has family in Australia and wants to relocate to Doherty Berne’s head office in Sydney and there’s no role there.” He turned slightly to raise “save me” eyebrows at Nanihi and when she picked up her cue without a hitch and headed over, returned his attention to his companion. “Small thing, but it’s preying on my mind because I’m flying out in the morning so I need to talk to her tonight to see if our Daintree resort might suit her.” He flashed his best smile. “Which is no excuse for being distracted, but yes, I agree the Bora Bora Turtle Center is worth a visit, even though it’s quite a distance from here and you’ll have to fly. I’ll leave you with Nanihi...” another smile, this time for Nanihi who arrived like the champion she was, “...and ask her to organize it for you.”

He kept right on smiling as he backed away and headed for the ramp that would take him back to the fare pote.

He thought about stopping at Manuia, knocking back a shot of the vanilla-infused rum he loved, but a quick time check had him vetoing that idea. The cocktail reception would finish within ten minutes. In his experience many guests made straight for the bar after such events. He had a sneaking suspicion Captain Joe would be doing his best to persuade Zoe to join him for a nightcap and if he succeeded... Well, Finn did not need to see that. Much better to raid the mini bar in his bungalow and have his rum in private.

There was a well-lit path to the garden bungalows skirting around the thickest section of rainforest, but Finn opted for the more direct, less-traveled route, which arrowed into the heart of the rainforest. To the untrained eye this path appeared impenetrable, but it was there—a narrow, dimly lit track for the intrepid. And Finn was in an Indiana Jones frame of mind.

The path diverged at a central point where the foliage was thickest, leading in one direction to the bungalows, and in the other to a lagoon that was reserved for the private use of guests staying in the garden bungalows—compensation for not having water views.

He opted for the lagoon and a few minutes later, a little scratched and dirtied up, he was standing on the sand. Finn preferred this part of the resort—the intense privacy of bungalows built in individually carved-out clearings and an almost secret lagoon suited him.

Zoe would be in a postcard-picturesque overwater bungalow. All the media were. He wondered what she thought of it.

“Yeah, well, you had the chance to ask her, moron,” he said, the words sounding too harsh juxtaposed against the almost-silence of the night.

They weren’t too harsh, though, those words. He was a moron to have blown her off instead of talking to her. She was a journalist and he had a resort to promote. He wanted her to write a good story the same way he wanted all the journalists at Poerava to write good stories. It was a business relationship, nothing personal.

Then again, she’d made it personal, hadn’t she?

He bent down, picked up a handful of sand, let it sift through his fingers. Seeing the sand fall made him think of an old-fashioned hourglass. Time being measured, time passing a grain at a time.

I’m not lost... I can look after myself.

Ten years later she still remembered what he’d said to her in that cruel moment.

There’d been defiance in her words tonight but surely she knew how ridiculous they sounded with her carer standing beside her, keeping watch over her.

The carer. Young for a dragon. Cristina.

She had a nickname—Cris—which meant she had to be very familiar with Zoe, who only gave nicknames to those she cared about. V for Victoria, Lils for Lily, Devil for Malie.

For him, it had been a nickname reversal: she’d called him by his full given name—Finlay. His burly Irish father had named him after Finlay William Jackson hoping Finn would become a cricketer or a rugby union player like his namesake. His father had ended up disappointed that his son lacked the bulk to make a decent sportsman. Finn had hated the name, hated his father’s disappointment. His mother—delicate, refined, bookish, adoring—had predicted (correctly, as it turned out) that Finn would be a late developer, but when he’d shown no sign of it by the age of fifteen and his father had died with his disappointment intact, she’d quietly dropped the “Finlay.”

The real miracle was that he’d not only let Zoe call him that when he would have punched anyone else for doing so, but that he’d liked it.

He ran an agitated hand through his hair, annoyed at the memory. Tonight, to Zoe, he was Mr. Doherty. Finn, not Finlay. And that was just fine. What did it matter? What did any of it matter? The nicknames. The past.

The present certainly shouldn’t matter. And yet all it took was the sight of Zoe across the room to mess up his head. Zoe, guarded and protected as usual. Not that he should care that Zoe had Cristina in tow. How disingenuous, when he would have killed to have been able to afford a personal nurse for his mother in those last terrible months.

And yet...he did care. He was honest enough to admit it, if only to himself. He cared because Zoe had told him that night in the hospital that the position of caring about her, caring for her, wasn’t available to him. She’d told him to go and look after his mother because she, Zoe, didn’t need or want him, she could look after herself. So to see her tonight, letting herself be fussed over in a way he never would have fussed over her because he knew how much she hated it... Well, it rankled.

He sucked in a breath at the sudden realization that her attitude tonight was a direct result of that last meeting of theirs. How else to explain her...her desperation, almost, to be seen as independent.

I can look after myself... If you’re leaving in the morning you won’t see...

What she should have done was tell him it was none of his business how she lived her life. It wasn’t his business. Tomorrow morning he’d be on his way to Pape’ete to catch his flight to London while Zoe, according to Aiata, would be one of three journalists cruising around Tiare Island on Pearl Finder, visiting the best snorkeling spots in the vicinity, and that would be that. Her living her life, him not seeing how she did it.

Although there was one thing he could see, at least in his head. Zoe on the boat, Captain Joe oozing his Polynesian charm all over her, giving her special attention because she was in a wheelchair. Or maybe just because everyone always gave special attention to the earth-imprisoned mermaid whether she asked for it or not.

They’d talked a lot about mermaids back in the day. Zoe had been obsessed with “The Mermaid of Zennor,” an old Cornish legend. He’d seen her as that mermaid. Himself as the mortal who followed her off a cliff to live in her world.

Sentimental teenage drivel.

Although he was living in her world now. He never would have thought of going to Australia and applying for the job at Travel in the Rough, his first real job, his stepping-stone to success, if Zoe hadn’t filled his head that out-of-time summer with her dreams of traversing the globe one day. He’d borrowed her dream. He was traversing the globe.

And so was she.

Not that the fact they were living two halves of the one dream made them any more compatible than they’d been all those years ago. The saint, and the sinner who’d wanted to believe she could be his because under their skins they had the same burn for a life in a world that was different, bigger, wilder than where they were.

He’d wanted to believe...yet he’d known in his soul she could never be his.

And very suddenly, Finn felt like an imposter in his designer clothes and his Italian leather shoes, with his hundred-dollar haircut and his penthouse apartment with its view of Sydney Harbour. It was as though seeing Zoe had transported him back to the wrong side of the tracks, to that tiny, crumbling cottage just outside the village, the high school dropout who’d never amount to anything except a prison sentence.

That night, in the hospital, Zoe had called him a thug. Putting him in his place. She’d done it deliberately. Had meant to hurt him.

He’d said goodbye to her that night, in a way he hadn’t quite managed to say in the preceding two years despite his best efforts.

He’d said goodbye again, in his head, the day she left Hawke’s Cove. He’d been furious at her for going off to see the world without him, for doing it like that, holidaying with her parents when fleeing the village had always been about her escaping the prison they kept her in. So furious, he’d deleted every selfie of the two of them and then gone half-crazy with remorse at having not one image of her. He’d rehearsed what he’d say to her when she got back from her holiday. Vicious, biting, awful words. He knew he’d never get close enough to her to say them but he’d enjoyed forming them in his head anyway.

Then, three months after Zoe had left, Finn had had a more final goodbye to say, to his mother. And when she died there’d been no reason to stay in Hawke’s Cove, so he’d left too. He’d stopped thinking about Zoe on the flight to Sydney. Just...stopped. Cold turkey. A bit like the way he’d given up smoking on his eighteenth birthday.

And now this. Tonight.

How could it be that after ten years of not thinking about her all it took was five minutes in her company for his head to be crowded with memories?

He didn’t know, and he definitely didn’t know what to do with those memories.

Block them all over again, he supposed. Go to his bungalow, drink his rum, read Aiata’s briefing notes on every journalist except Zoe, and block them.

Sounded like a plan.

“Goodbye again, Zoe,” he said, and headed back along the path.