Chapter 17
DANI
The bay at Allen's Cay was a stretch of pale jade water cut into the lee of a low green island. They were anchored two hundred meters off the beach in clear water that went turquoise where the sand picked it up. A reef wall sat half a mile out.
Tyler, Olivia, Mark, and David were over there in fins and masks, dark shapes moving along the surface.
Closer in, Noah, Emma, and Jack were on the swim platform with Grace and Zoe keeping an eye on them—Noah and Emma doing somersaults off the edge while Jack bobbed in the shallows in inflatable arm-bands.
The water toys were out, the sun was high, and everyone was having a great time.
Patricia was on the sundeck under a wide sun hat, reading. Gerald was asleep beside her with his mouth open. Caroline was in the hot tub, and Sarah was on a lounger with rosé and her phone, Bea next to her on her iPad.
It was the easiest charter day they'd had in a while. Lunch was in two hours, and until then Dani's job was to circulate with cocktails and snacks and small refilling kindnesses, which was normally a job she could do in her sleep. Except, she wasn't doing a very good job today.
She'd made Sarah's spritz with sparkling water instead of champagne. She'd apologized, made her another one, and on the way she'd walked into the corner of the bar table and bruised her thigh because her mind was elsewhere and she'd stopped paying attention to the world around her.
Thankfully her collar was covering the other bruise at the side of her neck.
Her body reminded her of last night every time she moved and the insides of her thighs felt pleasantly tender.
All of it was making it impossible for her to focus on whether Caroline wanted a top-up of the rosé or the white.
She didn't even remember what she'd been drinking.
"Dani, sweetheart?" Patricia waved at her from the sundeck.
Dani looked up. "Mrs. Whitfield. Sorry. What can I get you?"
"Just a water, dear. Sparkling, with lemon."
"Coming right up." Dani was just about to head for the bar when a shriek came from the upper deck—Bea's. She was on the lounger with Sarah, her hands cupped over her head, sobbing. A half-eaten fruit kebab was on the deck beside her.
"It tried to EAT me," Bea was howling.
"A bird wanted your pineapple, Bea. It didn't try to eat you," Sarah said.
"It DID."
"Don't be dramatic." Sarah went back to her phone, but Bea continued to howl so Dani crossed to the lounger.
"Hey, Bea. Was it that naughty bird again?"
Bea nodded, lower lip wobbling.
Dani crouched beside her and looked up at Sarah. Ice cream? she mouthed. Sarah smiled and gave her a thumbs-up. Anything to not have to deal with her own kid, Dani supposed.
"Want to come to the galley with me?" she asked Bea. "See if Lindsay's got ice cream?"
"Yes!" Bea was off the lounger before Dani had straightened herself, the seagull abruptly demoted to a problem for another day.
Dani scooped up the abandoned fruit kebab, took Bea's hand, and they made their way down to the galley, Bea chattering at her about ice cream toppings.
"Well, well. What have we here," Lindsay said when Dani pushed the door open with her hip.
"Bea got eaten again." Dani threw the fruit kebab in the trash can. "By a seagull."
"Did it now?" Lindsay set her knife down. "Sounds like an emergency. Bea, are you an ice cream emergency?"
"Yes, please."
"Excellent answer. Climb up there." She gestured to the bench at the crew table, and Bea scrambled onto it. She knew the drill by now.
Lindsay opened the freezer and took out the chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry tubs, set a glass bowl on the counter, pulled a scoop from the drawer.
She assembled a small scoop of each flavor, layered with a drizzle of chocolate sauce, a drizzle of strawberry coulis, and a handful of rainbow sprinkles and edible glitter.
Then a wafer pushed into the side at a jaunty angle and whipped cream.
She reached into a drawer and produced a paper umbrella and a sparkly mermaid tail cake topper, and lastly a few edible flowers from a box in the fridge.
"It's a MERMAID!" Bea squeaked.
"I know. Don't tell the others. They'll all want one."
"I won't." Bea picked up her spoon and Lindsay turned her attention to Dani.
Whatever it was she was seeing—the color in Dani's cheeks, the way she was standing, the way she hadn't quite met her eye since she'd walked in—was adding up in her head fast. Dani's hand went to her collar, tugging it a fraction higher.
Lindsay's eyes tracked the movement. "Dani."
"What?"
She stepped around the counter towards her, and out of reflex, Dani stepped back. Lindsay covered the distance and tugged the side of her collar down before she could stop her.
She gasped and stared at Dani, open-mouthed. Needing a moment to recover from the discovery, she stepped back and continued to gawk at her, crossing her arms over her chest. "Well, well, well. That's interesting. Now where did you get a bruise like that, Dani?"
"Lindsay, please."
Bea looked up from her bowl with sprinkles stuck to her chin. "Are you hurt? Do you want ice cream too?"
Dani's face had gone an alarming shade of hot.
"I don't think she's badly hurt, honey," Lindsay said. "She was probably just uhm—wrestling—with the captain last night."
"What's wrestling?" Bea asked through a mouthful.
"It's a sport," Lindsay explained in all seriousness. "Two people roll around on the floor and the one who's still on top at the end wins."
"Oh." Bea considered this, then turned to Dani. "Did you win?"
Dani just forced a smile because there was genuinely no answer.
"That's between Dani and the captain," Lindsay said. "Eat your ice cream, Bea."
Dani leaned against the counter and covered her face in her hands. Lindsay was humming 'Love is in the air'.
"I'm going to kill you," she whispered to her.
"Mm-hm."
"I am going to throw you overboard and you'll be eaten by a seagull."
"Worth it." She started slicing scallions and continued to hum the damn tune. And that, apparently, was that. There was nowhere else for Dani to go because she had to stay and keep an eye on Bea who was working through her ice cream at a leisurely pace.
Dani slid into the booth beside her and Lindsay glanced up every minute or so with a fresh teasing grin. After what felt like an hour, Lindsay set her knife down.
"Don't worry," she said. "I won't tell anyone."
"Thank you."
Lindsay winked. "Come on, we're friends." She wiped her hands on a tea towel. "And actually, I have something to tell you too. A secret for a secret. How does that sound?"
Dani shrugged. Whatever Lindsay had, it couldn't possibly compete with what she'd just figured out about her.
"Sunset Café," she said. "When we get back. Let's meet a little earlier than the others, just the two of us." She picked her knife back up and went on slicing.
Bea finally tipped her bowl up and drank the last of the sauce and melted ice cream. Dani held out a damp cloth and she offered her chocolate-smeared face up to be wiped.
"Ready?" Dani asked her.
"Yes. Thank you for the ice cream." She looked at Lindsay, then at Dani, and Dani gave her cheek a squeeze.
"You're very welcome, honey." Dani took her back to the sun deck where all the adults had gathered on the loungers now. Gerald had woken up and Mark was drying his hair with a towel.
"There she is," Mark said. "Better?"
"Much better." Bea climbed into Sarah's lap. "I had a mermaid."
"A mermaid. How nice. Did you say thank you?"
"Yes."
"Good girl. Dani's very nice for getting you ice cream, isn't she?"
"Mm-hm." Bea leaned against Sarah's shoulder. "Dani was wrestling with the captain last night."
Dani was refilling Caroline's wine as she said it. The bottle jerked in her hand and a splash of rosé hit the rim of the glass and ran down the side. She righted the bottle and grabbed a napkin.
"Sorry," she murmured.
A small, awkward chuckle went around the loungers and they all looked up at her.
"Well. Good for Dani," David said. "I can't remember the last time I wrestled anyone. Caroline, when did we last wrestle?"
Caroline gave David a sharp, fond shove on the shoulder. The whole group was laughing now, even Sarah.
Bea was delighted to have caused such a hilarious reaction. "Wrestling is FUNNY," she announced, to nobody in particular.
"Some kinds of wrestling more than others, dear," Patricia said. Her eyes met Dani's for the briefest moment from under the brim of the hat, and Dani felt her face go even hotter. She'd just been sold out by a five-year-old.