Chapter 4 Gray
GRAY
As we sat at the breakfast table enjoying an early meal together, we could see the next port through the window. It was a gorgeous green island, and it captivated my gaze—so different from what I saw every day. Although it was hard to focus too much with Aggie staring at it gleefully.
“It looks kind of like Hawaii from the airplane,” she commented, a bittersweet tinge to her voice.
That had been a hard time for us all, the time she’d spent in Hawaii to help nurse Enzo back to health.
Thankfully, her son was in much better health now.
In fact, you almost couldn’t tell he’d ever been so injured—unless he wore shorts, then you could see the scars.
He worked as a firefighter for Cottonwood Falls and did his duties well.
We finished eating our breakfast together—which my Fletcher would be glad to know included a helping of fruits and vegetables—and then went to our room to grab our things for the day.
Aggie wanted to spend it at a beach outside of Nassau.
It sounded like a grand plan to me, even though I hated the feeling of sand getting caught in my leg hair.
She told me that wasn’t a sexy thing to say out loud. I’d take her word on it.
Getting off the boat in the massive crowd wasn’t particularly fun, especially considering the number of people I usually saw in a day was ten.
But we made it out of the port and into the back of a taxi cab with a chatty driver who told us all about the island as he drove us to what he promised would be one of the more remote beaches in the area.
Neither Aggie nor I wanted to spend time at a tourist stop surrounded by people—we wanted something just for us to enjoy.
Eventually, he pulled the car around to what looked like a cliffside with a gap in the railing.
“It’s down there,” he said.
Aggie and I both stared at him, looking for a hint of a trick in his dark-brown eyes. “Are you sure?” she asked. “It looks like a death trap.”
He chuckled heartily. “There’s a set of stairs that will lead you down to the beach. It’s a small beach—just locals go here—and it won’t be busy this time of the week.”
I gave Aggie a look to ask if she thought this was okay, and once she nodded, I asked the driver, “You’ll come pick us up in a couple hours, right?”
“When you hear me honking, I’m here,” he confirmed.
Hopefully he was right—otherwise it would be a long walk into town. The thought of being stranded here made my chest feel tight, but I reminded myself that I was okay. Everything was okay as long as I had Aggie.
So the two of us got out of the car, and it zoomed away as we walked to the gap in the railing.
I stared down the cliff—it was about twenty feet down.
The concrete stairs were a little crumbly and the railing looked rusty, like this place had been forgotten long ago.
But we walked and scooted our way down, taking it plenty slow just to be safe.
When we were finally at the bottom of the sandy basin backed by cliffside, I was in awe of how beautiful it was.
This was like something out of the movies, with deep sand, gentle waves, and clear blue sky as far as the eye could see. There was no one around—just the two of us.
“This place is perfect,” I said.
Aggie agreed and lay our towels out in the sand. “I can’t wait to feel the water.” She must have meant it because she shimmied out of her shorts and took off for the water.
“Come join me!” she tossed over her shoulder, her words floating in the breeze.
And as I pulled off my T-shirt and chased after her, I thought, This is the best Christmas ever.