Meet Me in Tahiti

Chapter Seven

“Hmm?” Zoe murmured, distracted by the sight of Matilda, the American journalist from Hot Destinations, hanging with Finn inside the cabin.

“I asked if you were going on the...”

Matilda had flawlessly tanned skin. Chestnut hair cropped close to her head in a don’t-mess-with-me style. She looked strong and fit and bold. No one would dare tell her to put a wrap around her shoulders! And that bikini was a knockout. Fire engine red. A color that would make Zoe look like every drop of her blood had been sucked out by a vampire.

A splash penetrated her abstraction. The first group was jumping into the water one person at a time. She returned her attention to Daniel, who was exactly the buff-tough type of guy who’d appeal to Xtreme Travel magazine’s sporty readership—no wonder they’d sent him. “Sorry. I missed that. What?”

“I asked if you were going on the fishing trip tomorrow. Apparently, in the old days fishermen would beat the surface of the lagoon using ropes with stones attached to them, driving the fish toward the shore to be speared.”

Zoe grimaced at the thought of spearing a helpless, corralled fish. “It’s not exactly my style.”

Daniel laughed. “Don’t worry, tomorrow we’ll be using fishing rods. You can catch blue marlin, yellowfin, wahoo, bonefish, trevally, tuna, mahi-mahi, bonito and skipjack.”

“How about mackerel?” she asked, laughing to herself. She detested mackerel, but she’d consumed more than her fair share during those beach barbecues with the girls in Hawke’s Cove, not wanting to let the side down on those Girls’ Own Adventures: Four Go Off in a Stolen Rowboat and Fish.

Except it wasn’t really stolen. Did that make it a true adventure?

And why was she still thinking about Hawke’s Cove?

“I think there’s a kind of mackerel tuna you can catch,” Daniel said earnestly, which made Zoe feel bad that she wasn’t taking the fishing expedition seriously.

“Oh, really?” she said politely. “How interesting.”

“So how about it?”

This time she suppressed the grimace, knowing it was at best idiosyncratic to enjoy eating fish while being unable to kill one herself. “That trip starts way too early for me,” she said, a good enough excuse. “Cris and I are having a lazy day on the beach tomorrow.”

“Is she, like, your minder or something? Does she go with you everywhere?”

Zoe made a concerted effort not to bristle, but it was beyond her at that moment to reply in her usual appeasing manner so she settled for: “No.” One discouraging, repressive word.

But it didn’t discourage or repress Daniel. “Then how about we grab dinner tonight, just you and me?”

What? Where had that come fr—Oh. She got it. He was interested.

She had a few seconds’ internal debate on whether she could be interested back, but a laugh from Matilda drew her eyes to Finn and out came: “Sorry, I’m catching up with Finn tonight.”

Daniel looked at Finn, then at Zoe, then at Finn again, and nodded as though he’d just figured something out.

Zoe bit down on a vehement denial of what he thought he’d figured out and said instead, “It’s a work dinner,” which nevertheless sounded way too defensive.

She wished she’d just said she was busy. She didn’t owe Daniel an explanation of who she was having dinner with or why. It would be like her expecting Finn to explain why he was so absorbed by the questions Matilda was asking him. Mind you, she didn’t understand what there was left to ask. He’d already answered a thousand of Matilda’s questions during the QA. OK, slight exaggeration, more like ten. But ten questions was a lot in that environment. Especially when you combined those questions with the ones she and Daniel had asked...and...

And ugh, Daniel was talking again. “Huh?” she said, dragging her recalcitrant eyes back to him.

“I said it might be work but play isn’t out of bounds on these junkets.” He jerked his head in Finn and Matilda’s direction. “Exhibit A.”

She allowed herself another glance at Finn and Matilda. Finn looked so...so Finn. And Matilda looked so sexy. Her bikini was so...well, red! And tiny. It was almost indecent for her to stand so nonchalantly in that bikini next to a fully clothed man.

Finn’s eyes flicked toward Zoe and she quickly returned her attention to Daniel, who was in the process of stripping off his T-shirt. Daniel’s body really was fabulous. And if play wasn’t out of bounds?

“Our group’s going in, let’s gear up,” Daniel said, his smile a little too knowing. He was well aware of his attractions. “We’re going to be the last two off the boat if we don’t move fast and we don’t want to limit our time in the water. Here, let me help you get out of your wheelch—”

“No!” she cried, and was instantly aware of Cristina taking a step toward her. She held up a hand to stop Cris, giving the subtle royal wave they’d agreed long ago would be Zoe’s I’m OK, as you were signal. Zoe didn’t want any drama. Nothing that would draw Finn’s attention. That would draw anyone’s attention, she corrected. “It’s a bit of a production for me to get into the water but I have to do it myself. If you don’t want to cut into your time, go ahead without me. We’ve only got an hour until lunch.”

He stood. “If you’re sure?”

She ordered her eyes not to roll. “I’m sure.”

“It’s just that I know how much it must suck getting out of the chair and if it’ll save time I can just pick you up and take you in with me.”

Oh, he knew how it must suck? No, he did not. “Thanks, but I’ve got this,” she said as calmly as she could. “I do it all the time, you know.”

“OK then,” he said, and put on his goggles. A cocky thumbs-up signal, and he was diving off the boat. He surfaced, called out something about coming back to help her in a few minutes, and she actually groaned. He’d already pushed her in her wheelchair, against her protestations, from the cabin onto the deck, and if his chair technique was anything to go by he’d likely drown her if he got anywhere near her in the water. Or maybe she’d have a crack at drowning him.

If she were going to rely on anyone it would be Cristina, who was already in her swimsuit and talking with Captain Joe, presumably asking him about the submersible hydraulic stern platform—one of the Diver’s special features Aiata had already explained to her—which would lower Zoe into the—

Oh. Revelation! Cristina wasn’t talking to Captain Joe so much as flirting with him, flicking her glossy red-gold hair and shifting her weight from foot to foot, her hips swaying toward him. Well, well, well. This was a first. Cristina romancing on the job.

Zoe smiled to herself. The swim platform wasn’t that urgent. Especially since Zoe had to wait for Matilda to get into the water ahead of her and Matilda was still deep in conversation with Finn. Finn, who was still fully dressed so clearly wasn’t snorkeling with them.

No, of course he wasn’t snorkeling. This wasn’t a pleasure trip for him, it was work. He probably had a million things to take care of.

She was embarrassed that she’d queried his motives for involving her in the QA. That had obviously been work. As dinner tonight would be. How could she possibly have imagined even for a minute that his missing his flight today could have anything to do with her? For all she knew Matilda would be joining them at dinner. Which would be fine with Zoe.

Well, no, not “fine,” given Finn had pitched that story he was giving her as an exclusive.

But hey, if he wanted to invite Matilda, Zoe wasn’t going to make a fuss. He might think she was...was jealous. Which she wasn’t.

Nope.

In those two years after the Crab Shack she’d become immune to jealousy. Immune to him. It had been ten whole years since she’d thought about him, and she was only thinking of him now because of that trip to Hawaii two months ago when Malie had gone on about Finn and the way he looked at her.

“Get out of my head, Malie,” she muttered and instantly regretted it because Finn’s eyes were drawn straight to her, and her eyes locked with his, the way they had in the cabin when he’d been trying not to laugh at her handwriting. Malie was hammering the point in Zoe’s head—Finn was the bad boy every female wanted to be ruined by—and she wanted to scream that he’d never made any attempt to ruin her so what was the point of all these shivers she was experiencing every time he looked at her?

Determinedly, she looked to the water where the instructor was waiting for the last three stragglers. She needed the swim platform deployed. Now. Immediately. Deshivering required. And if she was lucky a giant clam would swallow her.

“Hey, Zoe!” Daniel, calling out to her from the water. “There’s a pontoon, so no need to freak out if you get tired. I can help you get onto it!”

Well, that got everyone’s attention.

Zoe wanted to throw her snorkel at him even though his offer acted like the starting gun she needed: Captain Joe moving immediately to deploy the swim platform; Cris hurrying over to her; Matilda stepping away from Finn. Major downside? It also made Finn’s eyes zero in on Zoe, sending those unwanted shivers into overdrive.

When Cristina asked if she needed help Zoe fought a brief, hard battle with herself. She could transfer from her chair to the deck on her own but it wasn’t the most graceful process. Then again, hadn’t she decided at the beginning of the cruise that she wouldn’t be ashamed of needing assistance? All she had to do was say the word and—

No!

No, no, no.

She knew very well that if she accepted Cristina’s help it wouldn’t be because she needed it but because she wanted to look perfect in front of Finn. It was tantamount to hiding her disability and she’d made a pact with herself to never do that. Her disability was part of her, her wheelchair was part of her. She should not care that Finn Doherty would see that she had limitations.

“No, I’ll be fine,” she told Cristina and then she smiled at Matilda, who’d finally come out of the cabin. “If you’re snorkeling you might want to get in the water ahead of me. It’ll take me a few minutes. I’m not exactly agile.”

Everyone except Cristina and Zoe was in the sea, their designated instructor treading water waiting for them.

Finn’s natural inclination was to offer to help but he clamped down on the impulse because once again Cristina was standing back.

He’d already provided assistance by ensuring anything Zoe might need was available. A wet suit because some paraplegics had trouble with temperature regulation (which she rejected); webbed swimming gloves to make it easier for her to move through the water (rejected); a lifejacket (rejected); a pool noodle (hallelujah, she’d accepted that). But it wasn’t easy to be reduced to spectator status, nor to be subtle about it so Zoe didn’t catch him at it. An occasional darting look as he stood talking to Joe was all he allowed himself.

OK, he wasn’t so much talking to Joe as pretend-listening to him. But his professional patter was so practiced he threw out the right lines almost by reflex. A comment about lunch...mention of the next snorkeling spot...reference to one of the journalists who’d booked a tour tomorrow being of the don’t you know who I am variety.

But he stopped responding altogether as Zoe unbuttoned her dress because there wasn’t enough breath in his body for an intelligible word to escape.

She slid her arms out of the sleeves, wriggled the dress past her hips, under her bottom, down her legs, tugged it free of her feet...then she sat up and that caught breath of his rushed out. She was wearing a dark blue bikini, not brief like Matilda’s red number—more like a gym top and a pair of tiny shorts—but it made his mouth go dry in a way Matilda’s did not, mainly because Zoe’s nipples were hard. He was sure they’d never looked like that in the old days. Then again, he’d felt so guilty for his constant state of arousal around her back then, when she was so obviously innocent and he just as obviously was not, he’d tried not to look too hard or too long. Sixteen, only two years younger than him, but in experience terms it was more like a twenty-year age gap.

And he was not going to think about those days.

She yanked a rash vest over her head—an eye-popping pink that had absolutely nothing going for it—then laughed up at Cristina as she pointed to the circular logo on the front of it. His mouth got inexplicably drier. He saw that her braid was caught down the back of her vest and wanted to go over there and pull it free, go over there and just...just touch her hair, touch her somewhere.

No touching! Don’t even think about touching her!

Fine thoughts, but so strong was the urge he had to turn his back and count to ten.

He’d got to eight by the time he realized Captain Joe had stopped talking and was giving him a weird smile.

“What?” he challenged.

“Nothing,” Joe said too quickly.

Finn narrowed his eyes but let it go because he suspected he didn’t want to know what was so amusing. “Are we done here?”

“We’re done,” Joe said, and waved to someone behind Finn’s back, which had to be Zoe since she and Cristina were the only two left on the boat.

He turned around, because that wave had annoyed him, and saw that not only had Zoe liberated her braid but she’d liberated herself from the chair.

She was now on the bench seat that bordered the deck, the height of which was lower than her wheelchair, and was applying Factor 60 to her legs. A minute later, Factor 60 passed on to Cristina, Zoe’s chest rose and fell—a deep breath, oh God, he was going to explode out of his jeans if she took another one—and then she did some quick repositioning, using her hands to place her feet on top of a spongy mat Cristina had laid on the deck.

Zoe gripped the edge of the bench and Cristina tensed as though preparing to step in at any moment. One—two—three, and Zoe reached a fisted hand down to brace her knuckles on the mat. Pause, then she swung her bottom off the bench and lowered herself onto the mat. That had to take some strength! Another pause, then she adjusted her legs and reached for the mask and snorkel Cristina was holding out to her. She put them on, then scooted forward.

Cristina swung around to where Finn was standing with Joe. “Ready!” she called.

The portion of deck where Zoe was sitting began to lower. Zoe was laughing again as she hooked her arm over the noodle, and almost the instant the platform had finished moving she was off, Cristina beside her in an instant, swimming away from the boat toward the instructor.

Finn turned to Joe, caught him gazing after Zoe.

“What?” Joe asked, sounding pretty much exactly the same as Finn had sounded a moment ago.

“Hands off. She’s a journalist.”

“No she’s not, she’s a nurse.”

A nur—“Oh, if it’s Cristina you’re interested in, go for it,” Finn said, only to find Joe regarding him with that weird smile again. “What’s so amusing?”

“Just wondering what’s going to be happening with your own hands tonight.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I heard there was a hands off the journalist coming to your bungalow for dinner. Bungalow G11. Not sure why you bothered changing rooms when you’re leaving in the morning.”

“How did you...?” He gave up on that question. Everyone at Poerava always knew everything that was going on. “To try it out, that’s why.”

“Aha.”

“And dinner tonight is business. Zoe’s writing a story.”

“They’re all writing a story but they’re not all coming to your bungalow for dinner.”

“A different kind of story.”

“What story?”

“I need Aiata to tell me that.”

“A story you have no idea about and yet it requires dinner. Makes sense.”

“Oh, shut up,” Finn mumbled, fully disgruntled now, and stalked off, even though Joe’s ill-concealed laugh made him want to punch the guy.