Chapter Twelve
Petra
Did Petra really want to go to bed, stare at the ceiling, and vegetate?
Yes!
Would she allow herself to?
Not today. Not with two people—Tamika and Hawkeye—waiting to hear about her grand adventures. Incentives, she’d take them where she found them.
As Tamika always said, a body in motion tends to stay in motion, so as long as her shoes stayed on and her body had a destination, Petra could keep going and doing.
Burnout was part and parcel of what Petra had to navigate on the daily.
Surprisingly, she didn’t feel like she needed to shut down despite all the crazy that had happened since yesterday—not the least of which was meeting one Michael George Kesse and having her world—and her libido – flipped upside down by the touch of his fingertips, his kiss.
That man could kiss.
What would it be like to have his hands slide over her naked skin? What would he murmur to her as they made love?
She was determined to find out. That very night.
Dinner and sex.
Maybe reverse the order if she couldn’t stand the ache any longer.
And over dinner that night, Petra wanted a story to tell. Something funny. Something light. Something very different from the death’s doorstep shit that had gone down.
Sliding her sunglasses in place, Petra went outside to wait for the tidepool tour guide to show up.
There was one guy out there who looked like he was rounding folks up, but his T-shirt was about the Caribbean Swim Club. Just in case, she asked. “Breezy Tours?”
“You’re going to the tidal pool?” The guy might be seventeen at most.
“I am.”
“They usually run a little late. I’m Mitch. I take folks horseback riding on a trail, then out to the shore.” He pointed at his T-shirt. “We usually get people out in the water, swimming with the horses. It’s a great time.”
“Usually, but not today?” The wind whipped the skirt of Petra’s sundress.
“Can’t swim them this time of year on account of the Christmas Winds.”
Petra looked at the tree canopies shaking like a cancan dancer’s skirt.
“The winds, especially out on the open water, can make for some difficult currents. I don’t personally like snorkeling in this. The waves can go over the snorkel, and it’s not a great experience. You never know if you’ll be sucking in air or water.”
“I can imagine.”
“We’re not going to risk swimming the horses through the surf until the winds die down in early January or so.”
“Of course not.” Petra caught at the strands of hair that brushed across her face—tickling her skin—lighting her nerves on fire. She pushed them back behind her ears for a moment’s respite. “But you can still ride the horses on the sand part of the beach? I would enjoy trying that. Do you have a card or something?” She stepped closer to him.
“Brochure?” He reached into his back pocket and pulled one out.
“That will do. Thank you.” She looked it over before shoving it in the side pocket of her day pack. “I’ll reach out and see if you have spaces open tomorrow. I was going snorkeling off Buck’s Island. I wanted to see the underwater park, but I don’t want to get waterboarded.”
“Yeah, for sure,” Mitch glanced over his shoulder as a topless vehicle pulled in. “That’s you,” he said with a hitch of his thumb. “About Buck’s island snorkeling, not to bite into anyone’s business, but the last few days, the people who went out couldn’t follow the underwater park trail. They had to hold onto life rings and hang out by the boat because Captain Bill wasn’t sure they were strong enough swimmers not to get pulled out to sea. And Captain Bill and his crew couldn’t keep their eye on all of them at once.
“These Christmas Winds—” Petra watched a family move through the automatic doors—father, mother, three towheaded children dressed in outfits that screamed, “Mom’s getting ready for a social media photo shoot.” She forced herself to look at Mitch. “These Christmas Winds, will they have any impact on the tidal pool?”
“Johnson family of five!”
Petra pulled her gaze around to find a man equally as young as Mitch, maybe still in high school. He stood in his open vehicle with a welcoming grin. “We have to divide up the Johnson family. I’m Jumping Beans. You can call me Beans. I can take three children in the back and one adult in the passenger seat. My man, Lucky—” Beans looked over his shoulder, then lifted an arm to wave at his friend who was pulling up behind. Beans pointed to the second vehicle. “Lucky will take the other Johnson parent and Miss Armstrong.” He shot a look at Petra. “You Miss Armstrong?”
Petra stepped forward. “That’s me.” She finger-waved to Mitch. “Hope things work out for tomorrow.” And she stepped up.
It seemed that the Johnson family didn’t need to discuss who would be the supervising parent and who would enjoy some alone time. The mother was loading their bags into the back of the open vehicle with all three kids at her side.
Watching her put bag after bag in the cargo area, Petra wondered if there was something she should have packed but didn’t. She’d applied sunscreen and wore a bathing suit under her sundress and sunglasses. A towel and water bottle were in the backpack she had slung over her shoulders. That should be enough to keep her comfortable. It was only a three-hour tour. Forty-five minutes out, a short but slow section moving along the cliff to the pools, an hour to explore, and then reverse back here to the hotel.
Yeah, she was fine. Kids needed more stuff.
“Yes?” Lucky’s grin was bright and comfortable. He seemed like a young man who didn’t have a care in this world. “We go? Climb in, and Lucky will take you through the St. Croix jungles. You’ve been here before?” As she and Daddy Johnson shook their heads, Lucky said, “Then you are in for a treat!”
“Petra,” she said in case anybody cared.
“Herb.” Before she could ask his preference for where he sat, he stepped in front of Petra and climbed into the front.
Okay then.
They started off.
“Petra, are you here on the island for work or fun?” Herb asked.
It seemed from his tone that he wasn’t really interested in her but anxious to open the conversation so he could start telling her about himself.
“Work,” she said. Petra was loathe to tell strangers what she did for a living; it made for all kinds of complicated conversations, so she had a travel persona she’d worked on with her friend Avery, the romance editor. In this role, Petra was an author who traveled the world coming up with ideas for her novels. She wrote under a pseudonym that she didn’t tell because yes, she was quite famous. And what with this day and age, social media and all, she wanted to maintain her privacy.
“Yeah?” Herb said. “What business are you in?”
“Author.”
“You wrote a book? What’s your genre?”
“Books. Women’s adventure fiction.”
Okay, the look he sent her was uncalled for. What in the world?
“And what qualifies you to write about adventure?” he asked.
“Well, Herb, I’m here on a jungle safari, aren’t I? I can certainly use this experience for fodder in a future plot.”
“I wish to be in your book, Miss Armstrong,” Lucky said. “If you write about me, would you sign it and send me a copy?”
“I can do that.” Petra wished she were going to write a story so she could send it to Lucky. That would have been fun.
“While you write made-up stories,” Herb said. “I’ve lived through some harrowing experiences that are movie-worthy.”
Here we go.
Herb had turned almost all the way around in his seat and was playing with the pendant of his necklace. It was colorful enough that she had spotted the same necklace on each of the family members and wondered if they had had some kind of special event where they wore them to be unified, maybe an adoption or a renewal of vows that would include the kids.
But if they were sentimental, why wear them to the tidepool?
Herb lifted the pendant and rubbed it over his lip like a fidget toy.
Petra wished he’d let it hang so she could get a good look at it. There was something niggling in the back of her mind that really wanted to see the design. Something that made her think of that shiver through her system when Petra told Hawkeye she hoped the adventure part of this trip was over.
Put it down , Petra thought as hard as she could. Let me see it.
“One time, I was in Malai, and there was a coup attempt. A moped was winding through the crowd slow enough that I was able to grab the guy’s shoulder and jump on behind him. Scrawny man. No match for me if he wanted to fight. He was terrified.”
“Imagine that,” she said dryly. Malai, wasn’t that Hindi for clotted cream?
“I grabbed his shoulders and hung on tight so he knew he couldn’t throw me. He took off, weaving his way through the crowd, and didn’t stop until he ran out of gas. There I was on the side of a dirt road, unable to speak the language, with what money I had in my pocket and the city ablaze.”
“Wow. That does sound harrowing.”
“My wife, Jenny, too. She’s had real adventures she could write about. She’s an adventure racer. They go out and run a hundred miles over all terrains and in all climates all over the world. These are races that are by invitation only. She’s not fat. That’s all muscle on a short frame.”
“I’m sure.” Despite being prone to motion sickness (hence that darned medicated patch), Petra was glad she got the seat in the rear. She’d rather keep her eye on this Herb guy rather than have him staring at her head. Something about him was … He seemed like an educated, well-mannered, dadbod, middle-aged man from the suburbs. What was it about him? “I know a romance author who’s an adventure racer. I think that’s right. Long distances on a team where they have to do all kinds of skilled things to get through the different terrain sections of the race, and they have doctors look you over at each check-in to say whether or not you’re allowed to continue?”
“That’s it. That’s what she does. Jenny likes to read romance. She likes it spicy, too. Maybe she’s read your friend’s books.”
“I’ll ask Jenny when we get there. If she has, and even if she hasn’t, I can put them in touch. I mean, how many women in the world are at that level in the sport?”
“Here!” Lucky was pointing at a shack on the side of the road as they drove past. “This is St. Croix’s social club, home of the famous beer-drinking pig. Would you like to hear the story?”
Before she could answer, Lucky swung the steering wheel, and the vehicle crashed off the side of the road onto a hidden path the width of the wheelbase.
“Hands and feet stay inside,” Lucky instructed. “Watch for branches that might hit you in the face and hurt your eyes. We are now in wild St. Croix, and things can get dangerous.”