Chapter Five
So much for plans and goodbyes, Finn thought as he stood under the shade of a palm tree well back from the pier, waiting for Zoe to arrive for the snorkeling cruise.
If he had half a brain he would have set fire to Aiata’s briefing note on Zoe the minute he’d got back to his bungalow last night.
Instead, just a peek, he’d told himself, and only after he’d finished reading everyone else’s.
Kiss of death, because page one had revealed that Zoe lived in Sydney—Sydney, where he lived. Of course he had to read everything in the file then, plus every one of her blog posts, because that felt too much like fate.
And so here he was, not on a plane to Pape’ete, determined to see for himself just how well Zoe could look after herself. Not that it mattered, but she’d tossed that challenge at him last night so why not at least—
He jerked so suddenly he hit his head against the trunk of the palm tree.
He swallowed a harsh curse—not only from the pain in his head but at the kick in the guts caused by seeing Zoe on approach in full sunlight.
No, not in the guts—the kick was higher, in the region of his heart, which ached the way it always had when he’d looked at her and wanted his hands all over her and known he wasn’t allowed to touch her.
She was wearing white. A dress as long as the evening gown she’d worn last night, but this one was beach casual. It had long sleeves and a high neck and looked demure with the row of prim buttons fastening all the way down the front. But that demureness was an illusion; the dress was made out of something so flimsy and filmy he could practically see through it. He felt that old tremor of helpless, hopeless longing suffuse him. He’d felt like a lecher back in the day, salivating at the outline of her body through her oh-so-innocent attire, knowing it was sun protection that dictated what she wore and she was oblivious of what it revealed to his not-innocent-at-all eyes. She’d always been covered up, slathered in Factor 60, wearing sunglasses and a hat.
Her hat today was a broad-brimmed straw number with a band in her favorite color. Blue ocean, she called that shade, like the Celtic Sea off the coast of Devon.
And damn, he shouldn’t have been able to remember something as inconsequential as how she’d once described that color. He wished that hat was on her head instead of on her lap because seeing her platinum-gold hair in the sunshine, bright as a beacon, drawn forward over her right shoulder in a braid threaded with a string of glittery green stones, made him remember the feel of it that one and only time he’d touched her.
She looked...ah, she looked beautiful.
No. Not that. “Beautiful” was like “perfect.” What did “beautiful” really mean? A symmetrical arrangement of facial features all in proportion. Gina was beautiful. Zoe was...more. A ray of light, more dazzling than the sun but gleaming fresh and cool.
How he’d wished she’d put her cool hands on him, once upon a time, and take the angry, shameful, lustful heat out of him. But she never had. And after that one time he’d touched her, when she’d been almost-crying over one too many phone calls from her parents, he’d never dared touch her again. Too risky, because that simple tuck of her hair behind her ear had made him want more than he was allowed to have. Ewan would have sacked him if he’d found out that what Finn really wanted to do was tangle both his hands in Zoe’s hair, tilt her head back, take her mouth with his, and then take the rest of her too.
Oh boy.
What had happened to blocking those memories?
OK, seeing her was a bad idea. He needed to go back to his bungalow, rebook his flight, get away from Poerava.
But as he pushed away from the tree her laugh floated through the air to him, and his heart jumped and his breath stuck in his throat. Zoe’s oversize sunglasses hid half her face but he knew her eyes would be glowing; they’d always glowed when she laughed, she’d always glowed when she laughed. She used to laugh all the time—carefree, joyous, as though it was a type of freedom for her.
He wondered now—for the first time since he’d stormed out of her hospital room ten years ago—if she still laughed all the time. Wondered if she still did that thing when her words got jumbled up and she covered her face with her hands and laughed into them, which had always made him want to grab those hands and kiss them and promise to make her laugh for the rest of her life. Wondered...what her day-to-day life was like.
He’d never seen Zoe in a wheelchair until last night. It jolted him now to realize that even during that scene at the hospital he hadn’t imagined her being so...so restricted. She’d always longed for complete liberty to do and be whatever she wanted, and now...well, what was it like for her?
She’d reached the ramp that connected the boat to the pier. Finn took an automatic step toward her, his first impulse to help.
But then he saw Cristina was leaving Zoe to it, and he forced himself to stop. If Cristina wasn’t rushing to assist that meant Zoe didn’t need help. In any case, not only was the catamaran custom-made with full wheelchair accessibility but so was the ramp to get on and off.
Captain Joe called out to the two women from Pearl Finder’s deck and Zoe called something back before wheeling herself onto the ramp with barely a pause.
There. Done. That was him told and shown: she really could look after herself.
Great. Wonderful. Time for him to leave.
Except that suddenly he knew he wasn’t going to leave.
Suddenly he knew he was going on a cruise around Tiare Island.
On board Pearl Finder, Aiata gave Zoe a personal familiarization tour of the features and facilities on the main deck before directing her to the lift that would take her up to flybridge, where the other guests were already gathered.
But Zoe came to an abrupt stop when she was halfway toward the group.
Was she hallucinating or was that Finn Doherty standing in profile beside Captain Joe at the helm? As in Finn flying out in the morning and won’t see you being independent and I don’t care anyway Doherty?
Except he wasn’t the well-dressed, polished resort owner she’d met last night. This man looked more like Crab Shack Finn—and yet not quite. He was wearing well-washed (but not disintegrating) jeans, a rumpled (but not faded) Henley T, worn-in (but not wrecked) trainers, and sunglasses (which he never used to wear). His hair, while a lot shorter than it once was, looked as though his hands had torn through it a time or two like they had in the old days. And he had proper adult stubble on his jaw instead of a sparse scattering of teenage facial hair. Small but telling differences.
A hybrid, that’s what he was. Half familiar. Half stranger.
Entirely disturbing.
As though he’d known she was there, he turned and smiled at her—an actual, real smile—and she saw that he hadn’t had the goofy chip in his front tooth repaired and somehow that seemed so Finn, to not bother getting it fixed, she found herself smiling back at him. She wished he’d take off his sunglasses so she could see if his smile crinkled the corners of his eyes the way that used to make her want to trace the radiating lines with her fingertips.
He said something to Joe, then started toward her without waiting for Joe’s response. Her lungs squeezed and her pulse raced and that inconvenient shiver was coursing through her and she knew, she just knew, her nipples would be sticking out, and she dared not look down because that might make him look down too and if he saw the reaction her body was having to him she would wheel herself overboard.
She had to get control of herself or she’d start babbling the way she had last night. But how, when just the sight of him wreaked such havoc on her body? How?
Her mother! She would channel her mother. Give him that regal keep-your-distance look her mother had always given him when she’d seen him on the high street and—
“We’d better make sure we get a spot in the shade,” Cristina said, reaching her side just as Finn stopped in front of her—presumably in response to the heat Zoe could feel suffusing her face.
Cristina wasn’t looking at her, though; she was regarding Finn in a decidedly Selena Tayler-ish way, and Finn was giving Cristina look for look.
Don’t be fooled, was what she read in the expression on Finn’s face: I am not Crab Shack Finn. He was still smiling, but somehow that chip in his tooth now looked far from harmless, it seemed almost...predatory.
Her imagination?
No, not her imagination. No matter how he dressed or how he smiled, he was not her old friend. She’d known that last night when she’d been so desperate to prove to him that she could look after herself despite Cristina’s presence and he’d said she had nothing to prove, and she’d said...she’d said it was a shame he was leaving in the morning.
Ah. Of course. That was why he was here. To test the truth of her claim that she could look after herself. It seemed ridiculous—why would he care?—and yet she was positive the reason he wasn’t on his way to London was because he’d decided to throw down the gauntlet: go ahead and prove it to me, Zoe.
Well, she was going to pick up that gauntlet by not proving a damn thing. She wasn’t going to explain herself. She wasn’t going to apologize for the way she lived. She wasn’t going to chase Cristina off as though it was shameful to need assistance. If she decided to let Cristina push her chair, or lift her, or...or feed her grapes while she reclined on a chaise longue, it was none of Finn Doherty’s business.
Decision made, she beamed her best smile at Cristina. “Yes, you’re right, shade would be nice.”
“If you want shade, Zoe,” Finn said, “why don’t you join the QA session I’m having with the other two journalists on board down in the cabin. The Americans, Matilda and Daniel. Did you meet them last night?”
“Yes, I met them, but no thanks, I’m not really into group briefings,” she responded, quite regally she thought.
He raised his eyebrows. “It’s only thirty minutes, nothing too arduous.”
“In any case, I thought up here was the place to be,” she went on despite the obvious dare in that “arduous” comment—as though she wasn’t up to thirty minutes sitting around a table! She wasn’t an invalid!
“Up here?” he said, slowly taking off his sunglasses, his smile unfreezing as though he was reading everything in her head correctly and was choosing to be amused by it. And yes, his eyes did still crinkle at the corners, and her fingers still twitched with the need to trace those lines. The cruise, she knew then, was going to be torture.
“The panoramic views...the...um...ambience.” Ugh. Shades of last night’s blithering idiotism! He needed to put the sunglasses back on so she could concentrate on something other than his eyes.
Finn shoved one arm of those sunglasses down the neck of his T-shirt. Like, seriously. It was sunny, he should be putting them on his face!
“You’ll have lots of opportunities to enjoy the ambience up here, but it’s up to you. Although—” transferring his attention to Cristina, his smile cooling “—of course you’d be welcome at the briefing if Zoe needs you.”
Oh! Oh! “Zoe does not need anyone,” Zoe said through her teeth. “Zoe can attend a media QA perfectly well on her own because it’s her job.”
Finn brought his eyes back to her. “So you’re coming?”
“I’m coming.” Double ugh. Zoe had the feeling she’d just been hooked like a mackerel.
“Great,” Finn said. “I’ll come down with you in the lift. I’ve been meaning to try it out for myself and haven’t had a chance.”
Zoe eyed Finn, thinking about the size of the lift. A briefing with other people around a table she could manage. Being alone with Finn in a tight, confined space was another story. “I’m not sure there’s room for the two of us in there,” she said. “You’re...well...big.”
Finn’s lips twisted, Cristina choked back a laugh, and Zoe—realizing how her words could be interpreted—slapped a hand over her mouth.
“Er...yes, I can confirm the rumors are true,” Finn said, deadpan.
“Oh!” Zoe gasped, a giggle burbling up even as her face went furnace hot and her eyes...oh no, her treacherous eyes went to the front of his jeans for a flying second before she found the willpower to jerk them straight back up to find his eyebrows raised. “I mean...”
“That I’m six feet two inches tall and weigh fifteen stone?” he asked. “The weight’s mostly muscle which takes up less room, I promise. Or are you telling me I need to get to the gym more often?”
“You...you... Oh, let’s just go!”
“So you’re coming to the briefing and I can join you in the lift?”
Zoe’s answer was to start wheeling herself toward the lift.
And as Finn laughed, she knew she’d been hooked, reeled in and landed.