Meet Me in Tahiti

Chapter Sixteen

“Close your eyes...imagine the taste of vanilla from your childhood...ice cream...cupcakes.” Silence. “Now imagine that innocent sweetness overlaid with an adult complexity. Rich, intense, luxurious, aromatic.” Silence. “Spicy...sensual...juicy...”

Matilda and Cristina were rapt, but from where Finn was standing, well back from the group, Zoe’s reaction was a level up. It was as though all of her senses were exquisitely, almost painfully, attuned to the scent, to the words, and he decided it had been worth every pain-in-the-butt moment it had taken to arrange this visit with Orihei, who as a rule didn’t allow tourists.

“That is the smell of paradise,” Orihei said, and let the silence stretch for a dramatic moment before clapping her hands—a hypnotist bringing her subjects out of a trance.

Matilda and Cristina instantly started talking animatedly to each other, but it took Zoe a moment to shrug off the spell before joining in.

Zoe’s hair was kookily—not seductively—styled in two enamel-pin-studded knot-like buns high on either side of her center parting. No hat today, but a crownless sun visor—to accommodate the hair-knots presumably. She wasn’t wearing the visor at the moment; it was hanging over the handle of her wheelchair with that bedazzled-to-hell-backpack she carried everywhere. She was wearing a modest ankle-length skirt, white with pale pink flowers, and a long-sleeved T-shirt in white.

She should not have looked sexy, but God help him, she did.

Her nipples were clearly defined despite the two layers covering them—the white and a haze of purple beneath—and he was desperate to feel them, taste them, lick them, suck them, and he tried—he really did—not to watch only her, but his eyes had other ideas.

He strained to hear what the three women were talking about but caught only stray words: vanilla...dirty...skirtlet—what the hell was a skirtlet? And was that? Huh? Sequin? And holy sh—Had he really just heard the word “sex” being giggled over?

“Vanilla” again.

A repeat of some of the things Orihei had said. Intense, sensual, juicy, spicy.

And then Zoe’s face was in her hands, and she was trying to smother that endearing guffaw thing she did, and his chest was aching so hard he wanted to punch himself in the heart to get it to stop. But he couldn’t do that. Orihei was walking toward him and he had to don the professional mantle of the owner of Poerava.

“Gaspard’s vanilla,” Orihei said. “Will you take it with you?”

“Yes,” he said, his eyes straying inevitably back to Zoe as he heard the word “sex” again.

Beat, beat, pulse, pulse. Vanilla. Click. Sex. Click. Intense.

Spicy. Sensual. Juicy. Click, click, click, click. Dirty. Click.

“She has a nice laugh, your Zoe.”

Zoe. His. What would it be like to taste vanilla overlaid on Zoe’s lemon scent?

He looked at Orihei, saw she was giving him the glinting, knowing smile he was becoming way too familiar with. He thought about insisting she wasn’t “his” Zoe but knew it would be a waste of time so he simply said, “Yes, she does, she always did.” It was the truth. “We knew each other, a long time ago, in England.”

And there it was again, the laugh, and he dared not look at Zoe this time because Orihei would pounce on it and that would be irritating as hell. But also because the sound of that laugh was making his chest ache again. The way it had always done. He’d hated that ache...but never enough to make him want her to stop laughing. He’d always wanted her to keep laughing, at herself, at him, with him, for him.

Nostalgia, he told himself, even though he didn’t believe it, and bent to kiss Orihei on the cheek. “Thanks for today. We’ll head over to Motu Marama and get out of your hair.”

He strode over to Zoe, Matilda and Cristina, and announced: “Beach. If you’re ready, let’s get back on the boat.”

The beauty of Little Micky, the pontoon boat Finn had borrowed from Kupe’s friend, was that it could be beached, which made it easy to get the all-terrain wheelchair from the boat onto the sand.

Finn disembarked first, giving the women privacy on the boat to change. While he waited he set up a portable table on the strip of sand separating the water from the dense circle of vegetation at the center of the motu, in the shade of three rogue palm trees that stretched across the beach in an arc almost to the water’s edge. Stools on three sides of the table, a space on the fourth for Zoe. Two cooler boxes—one for drinks, one for food. Four neatly folded towels on the sand, a mask and snorkel on three of them; a mask, snorkel and noodle on the fourth—Zoe’s.

By the time the women disembarked—Cristina pushing Zoe in the all-terrain wheelchair, Matilda already stripped to her swimsuit—Finn had the champagne poured.

He handed them each a flute as they reached the table.

Matilda immediately raised her glass. “A toast, to Finn,” she said.

Obviously, Finn couldn’t drink a toast to himself—no loss; as the boat operator he was drinking water—so he waited while Zoe and Cristina smilingly echoed “To Finn” and sipped.

And then, “OK—” he began, only for Matilda to raise her glass again.

“And of course to...” looking from Finn to Zoe, her lips twitching, “vanilla.”

Zoe lowered her eyes and choke-snorted before hastily taking another small swallow of champagne, Finn sipped his water, and Matilda managed a hefty glug before saying to Cristina: “What do you say we get into the water?”

Cristina shook her head. “I have to help Z—”

“I’m fine,” Zoe cut her off. “I need to do the whole sunblock routine.”

“But that chair, you can’t—”

“Finn can push me.” Zoe looked at him, her chin jutting a challenge. “OK?”

“Of course,” he said.

Cristina was clearly still reluctant but Matilda waggled what could only be described as vaudeville eyebrows at her while shooting Finn a meaningful side-eye. Cristina’s mouth formed an O. It was all over then. Cristina nodding, taking a last taste of champagne before whipping her dress over her head. Twin swoops to grab their snorkels, an extra swoop by Matilda to snag her waterproof camera, and with a warlike yell Cristina and Matilda were gone, leaving Finn alone with Zoe and no idea what to do except take the seat opposite her and try to make conversation.

“So, vanilla,” he said. “You found it...amusing?”

Zoe jerked, sloshing her champagne over the rim of the flute glass. “I was...er...telling them about the...the vanilla milkshake Ewan concocted as the seasonal special at the Crab Shack that summer.”

He left the moment there, suspended.

And then he said, “Well, there’s vanilla...and then there’s vanilla. Take imitation vanilla. Production line stuff. Easily produced. Cheap.” He leaned across the table, forced her to keep her eyes on his. “And then there’s the real thing. Labor intensive, focused, dedicated. Each flower of the vanilla orchid blooms for only six hours and has to be pollinated by hand before the flower closes. Timing, technique is everything. Worth its weight in gold.” He held her gaze, refusing to let her look away—two can play at this game. “That wasn’t just a vanilla milkshake at the Crab Shack, Zoe. It was a vanilla fondant milkshake with clotted cream. Vanilla isn’t always vanilla. It can be much, much more.”

She blinked, blushed, finally looked away. Her hands were going up and down her thighs, her eyes searching for Cristina and Matilda, as though she needed reinforcements.

“So what’s next?” he asked.

She licked her lips. “I guess we’d better get undressed.” She jolted, looked at him, blushed harder. “I didn’t mean—I meant—not undressed undressed. Dressed for swimming. Snorkeling. I have my swimsuit on. Under my clothes.” And as though to shut herself up she removed her visor and yanked her top up over her head.

Finn’s mouth went dry, his heart went whomp, and although he really, truly wanted to avert his gaze, he was stuck looking at her because his eyes would not move. She was wearing a minuscule bikini top covered in sun-catching purple sequins. And he was remembering what she’d said last night in the bar, that she let people she knew, people who understood her, people she trusted, touch her, lift her out of her chair, without asking...

How he wanted to put that to the test. Wanted to drag her out of that chair and onto his lap. Wanted to devour her, wanted to beg her to feel the same, to want him the same way, or any way at all as long as it wasn’t as the genderless friend-zoned coworker she’d slummed it with that summer she’d had a holiday job.

Holiday job. That stopped him.

Her summer job had been his real job.

She is not for you.

God, he had to stop thinking like that or she would never be for him.

Zoe pulled the pink rash vest she’d worn for Monday’s snorkeling cruise out of her backpack, as oblivious of his torment as she’d ever been. She looked at the vest as though debating whether or not to wear it and he wished, wished, wished she’d put it on, cover up, wrap a towel around herself for good measure, because he didn’t trust his willpower.

He got to his feet, moving a few safe steps away as she gave an infinitesimal shrug and dug out the Factor 60 and started performing the by-rote activity of covering every centimeter of her exposed skin with it. At least, the parts she could reach. She was having trouble with her back but making an effort nevertheless.

Finn glanced around to see if Cristina or Matilda was available to offer assistance but they were both still swimming.

Sunblock was an innocent thing, wasn’t it? Harmless. People put it on each other’s backs all the time. If Zoe would let him push her wheelchair surely she’d let him put sunblock on her back. And maybe, maybe, the mystery of her would then be solved, he’d find that touching her wasn’t such a big deal after all, that skin was just skin, and closure would be achieved.

Technically, though, closure wouldn’t be achieved, would it? That would only happen when she touched him.

But at this precise moment, with every nerve in his body stretching toward her and his hands trembling with need, did he really care about that technicality?

Right. He was going to do it. He was going to ask her if she wanted him to put the stuff on her back and if she said yes then he was going to just...just do it.

He unclenched his jaw ready to speak...just as Zoe tugged that pink rash vest over her head, and the sunblock offer was rendered null and void. He was relieved. No he wasn’t. Yes he was. Not relieved. Yes. No. Oh for God’s sake.

She made an adjustment to her hair, refixing a hairpin. Her hands went to her skirt next, unzipping, wiggling it under her backside, down her legs, off.

And good Lord, his eyes were going to melt the sequins right off her if he stared any harder at the playful little ruffled skirt attached to her shimmery bikini bottoms. The “skirtlet,” obviously. She was twitching at it, unconsciously drawing his attention to what was hidden beneath, and he thought it was lucky she was concentrating and therefore not looking at his face because his tongue was ready to roll right out of his mouth at the thought of what it was hiding from him. But he knew what he wanted was more than sex. He wanted to be as close as he could get to her, to be part of her, to be one with her, his soulmate.

Oh God, he was in trouble. Because there she went, putting more Factor 60 on her legs, making another adjustment to her hair, and he could tell himself that he saw the physical signs that she wanted him but emotionally she had to be as oblivious as ever or she’d be freaking out at being alone on the beach with a man who was clearly desperate.

As though feeling his laser gaze on her, Zoe looked at him, her eyes flicking from his face to his chest, and she licked her lips, and he imagined her licking him, all the way from his collarbone to his—

“Are you wearing your shirt in the water?” she asked, sounding as breathless as he felt.

His fingers went to the buttons of his shirt, and then stopped. She’d never seen him shirtless. In the old days he’d been self-conscious because his ribs stuck out. He hadn’t been aware of deliberately covering up here in the islands. If anything, he should be eager to show her that he wasn’t skin and bones anymore. And yet his shirt was somehow...armor. Once it was off...once she saw him...if she liked what she saw... Argh, where was he going with this?

“What’s wrong?” she asked, giving a breathy little laugh. “Do you have girls’ names tattooed across your chest like notches on a bedpost? I’d like to read those. It’d be like a school reunion. A hundred names I know, and probably another hundred I don’t.”

“No tattoos,” he said.

“Seriously?” Another breathy laugh. “And to think there I was all those years ago imagining you covered in tattoos like all the other guys in your—”

“Gang?”

“I was going to say group of friends.”

“Gang will do, Zoe.”

“Well, what kind of gang member are you to have not one measly little tattoo?”

“The kind with a mother who wouldn’t have approved,” he said, meaning it as a joke, but neither of them laughed.

“No, she wouldn’t have, would she?” Zoe said with such...such poignancy, and it damn near crushed him.

He thought of Gina, wanting to talk about his mother and always being blocked. Waiting on a decision he couldn’t make about a UK property because it would mean going back to Hawke’s Cove. All those years he’d thought he’d sloughed off that life he’d left behind, and yet he knew he wasn’t free of those years—they were still part of him, both driving and shackling him.

He wasn’t free of those years, that life. And he wasn’t free of Zoe, who could read him, feel him, wound him, own him body and soul.

He’d intended to let his frustrated yearning for Zoe go twelve years ago. Ten years ago he’d thought he had. But it seemed he’d only buried it—so deep it would have taken a psychological earthquake to uncover it, but there it was nevertheless. And now here she was. Tiny and glowing, smelling like sunlight, as indomitable as ever. Wanting to go only forward, not back. His earthquake, ripping out his soul, reminding him that she was part of everything he’d become and it still wasn’t enough because even as he told himself he wanted her not to matter to him anymore, she mattered more than ever.

He returned to the table, sat. “It’s still a part of us, isn’t it, Hawke’s Cove?” he asked, and although he hadn’t intended to ask that—was disturbed that he had—he found that he really wanted to hear her answer.

She took a moment, stuffing her visor, skirt and sunblock into her bedazzled backpack, putting the backpack on the sand beside her, looking at it for a frowning moment. “I thought... But lately...” She brought her eyes up, her hands going unerringly to her thighs. “Lately I’ve felt...” She made a sound redolent of frustration. “Felt something I can’t describe. Not quite homesickness but a need for...for closure that I can’t grasp because of the memories not being whole. Maybe there are things I’d change if I could go back. But there’s no time machine so we can’t go back, can we.” She said the words, didn’t ask them, but he heard a plea in them.

“I don’t know, Zoe,” he said.

“Finn...” It was almost a cry, but she brought herself up, shook her head. “Nothing. I just—” She gave a helpless little shrug. “Nothing.”

“You know you can say anything to me, Zoe. Even if I don’t have the answers I can listen.”

“I could...and you did...once upon a time.”

“You can and I will now.”

She took a deep breath, nodded. “I just wondered if... H-have you ever been back? Because I haven’t. At least, I have...but I haven’t. That is, I had to go because...not for me...but...” She slapped her hands over her face, said something that sounded like “Gagh” and then dropped her hands to reveal a ruefully laughing countenance. “That didn’t make sense.”

He smiled. “You’ve been back but only once, last Christmas, and in answer to your question, no I’ve never been back, not even once.”

“How do you know it was at Christmas? No, don’t tell me, I know. Google! Though why you’d want to look into how many times I’ve been back to Hawke’s Cove and when—why those details would even pop up in an online search...” She gave a words fail me shake of her head.

“Google provides me with general information so I don’t have to waste journalists’ time with superfluous questions. For example, I don’t have to ask you how many wheelchair users there are in the world because the answer—seventy-five million—is readily available. I also prefer to do my own research about the style of articles journalists write. If I read the stories they’ve filed in the past couple of years, I don’t make the mistake of inviting them to a destination they’ve already covered, plus I get an idea of whether they’re more into natural wonders, the spa experience, nightlife, cuisine, whatever, so their experience at our resorts can be tailored. Along the way, though, it’s inevitable that I’ll find out things I don’t need to know, things I wasn’t necessarily looking for.” He paused. Hell, why not? “For example, if X is single, if Y has a husband, if Z lives alone.”

Her hands were on her thighs, moving up and down. He knew the moment she became aware that his eyes were on her hands, because she stopped the action.

“Yes, no, yes,” she said, “if you want to know those things in relation to me.”

Relief surged but he kept his expression neutral. “Those were general examples but if you want something specific, I know Victoria got engaged in Hawke’s Cove at Christmas to some rich hotshot department store owner because I saw it on the local paper’s website. I assumed you were there, and I guessed that was the only time you went back to the Cove because there’s no mention of going home in your blog. If you can wax lyrical about your hair clips it makes sense that you’d chronicle your trips home.”

“So you weren’t—” She stopped, blushed. “I mean, you didn’t...” Her hands came up to cover her face again, and she made that adorable I’m-an-idiot explosion of sound. A moment only, then the hands were falling, and there was laughter on her lips and in her eyes. “No, of course you didn’t...you weren’t...whatever I was trying to say.”

Ah, what was he doing? This was like...like sand, trickling through that hourglass—one grain at a time but inexorable, telling him that time was running out. Four days left after today, and then he’d never see her again. And he needed her to know. “Actually...” Oh God, he couldn’t do this to himself.

She blinked at him, the laughter draining out of her, expectation filling the gaps.

Do it. Say it. Let her know. “Actually, I did and I was.”

She licked her lips. “Huh?”

“I did want to know if you were engaged or married or living with someone. And I absolutely searched for the answers on Google.” Long, dare you look into her pale green eyes. “Just for the record.”

She sucked in a breath, let it out slowly. “So you lied.”

He conceded that with a tilt of his head, a half smile. “Yeah. I do that sometimes, when the stakes are high. Then again, you lie sometimes too. You lied to me about fifteen minutes ago on the subject of vanilla milkshakes.”

“Oh,” she said, and spluttered out a laugh. “Well, OK, you got me. But vanilla milkshakes are not in the same league as...as cyberstalking someone.”

“But how do I know that if you won’t tell me the truth? Come on, play the game,” he challenged. “Truth or dare.”

“Dare,” she said and out came her chin. “I dare you to take off your shirt.”

He raised his hands. Surrender. “Fine,” he said, and stood. “I’ll even let you watch while I explain to you the joke about vanilla.”

“How could you know?”

“We both know I’ve been around the block a time or two,” he said, undoing one button. “And if you want to talk vanilla...” Another button. “I’m definitely the fondant vanilla milkshake with clotted cream.” One more button, very slowly because her eyes were fixed on his hands.

She swallowed as the last two buttons were undone. The air was almost sizzling and it had nothing to do with the air temperature. He started to shrug off his shirt, stopped as she squared her narrow shoulders. “A shame,” she said with an oh-so-innocent toss of her head. “I was kind of hoping for... I don’t know, a Dirty Rocky Road Milkshake, maybe.”

“You’ve got me there, Zoe, I don’t know what that is. How about you tell me?”

She opened her eyes exaggeratedly wide. “You don’t know? You, Finn Doherty? Well! A Dirty Rocky Road Milkshake’s got Jack Daniel’s, toasted marshmallows, rocky road ice cream, chocolate syrup, whipped cream and sprinkles.”

“Sprinkles, huh?” he said and removed his shirt.

She looked him over, her eyes snagging on the front of his board shorts, and he knew exactly what she was seeing because he could feel it pushing against the cotton, pushing and full-on throbbing. The air wasn’t just sizzling now, it was sparking like firecrackers, only those firecrackers were inside him, singeing every cell in his body.

Up came her eyes, direct and sure. “I’d insist on the sprinkles, Finlay, just so you know.”

Finlay.

Finlay.

Just a name. Don’t get carried away. It was nothing, it meant nothing that she could say it so easily, as though they had indeed gone back in their time machine to Hawke’s Cove when one of them had been head over heels and the other had been safely, securely oblivious.

“But if you want to fight about flavors...” She faltered. Took a breath.

“I don’t want to fight, Zoe. About anything.”

“Fight your big battles to the death, but don’t sweat the scrappy skirmishes if you want to win the long war,” she said. “Do you remember saying that to me?”

“Yes. I remember it. I remember...that time I said it.”

And it was there, stretching between them, the memory of that one time he’d dared to touch. It was so vivid, so real, he could almost believe she could see it the way he did, feel it the way he had. The silk of her hair, the tremble in his fingers, the want in him.

“Zoe...” he said. “I wish I’d—”

“Gotcha!” Matilda said, and they both startled, then turned their heads to see her waving her camera. “If I had to caption that photo it would be: No longer kids who once upon a time didn’t hang in the same circles. Whaddya think?”

Finn looked at Zoe. “How about Not all milkshakes are vanilla?”

“Or Not all bad boys have tattoos?” Zoe counteroffered.

“Or perhaps Matilda has no idea what the hell is going on?” Matilda said. And then “Riiight,” as neither of them responded. “I’m going swimming. Something the two of you might want to consider some time this century. Zo, do you need me to help?”

Zoe’s hands hovered over her thighs. Finn knew she was barely restraining herself from taking up her favorite nervous habit. “No,” she said and shook her head with something that looked a lot like defiance. “I already told Cris, Finn’s going to push me.”

As Matilda headed back to the water, Zoe looked up at him. “Don’t tip me over.”

“Zoe Tayler, are you scared?”

“It’s a question of dignity, not fear.”

A heartbeat’s pause. And then, seriously, he asked, “Does anything scare you, Zoe? Like, anything? ’Cause I’ve never seen you afraid.”

“Yes,” she said, and faced the lagoon again. Silence. Unbearable, and yet he would have waited all day. “If I’ve been in the water too long,” she said at last, “and my arms are tired and I find myself too far from the beach or the boat or the pontoon, I sometimes think I’ll keep drifting, and drifting...and end up like George Clooney in space in Gravity—only the marine version, floating out further and further until there’s only me, and water, and no way back.” A beat of silence, and then she looked at him, and gave a shrug and a laugh that sounded forced, and Finn guessed she was self-conscious about that confession. “Well, maybe me, a great white and a giant clam.”

He smiled, but he didn’t laugh. “I won’t let you drift too far, Zoe.”

She tilted her head, looked hard at him. “You won’t always be with me.”

“Hey, no time machine, right? There’s just today.”