Chapter Eight
“He’s flirting with you,” Rosa whispered in Mari’s ear.
“He’s being nice.”
Rosa switched to Italian and spoke louder. Nice and flirting.
Mari cleared her throat. It’s rude to talk about someone in another language when they’re standing right in front of you. Sadly, she chided Rosa in Italian, breaking her own rules.
Would you like me to say it again in English?
“No.” Mari glanced over her shoulder and found James talking to Summer a few paces behind them.
The entire drive to the first waterfall was filled with laughter and conversation.
The man was easy to talk to, especially with them having so much in common. “He’s a new friend, that is all,” Mari told her friend.
Rosa switched back to English. “It’s okay, you know. If he is flirting.” To Rosa’s credit, she said flirting an octave lower than the rest of her sentence. But that didn’t stop Mari from feeling heat rush to her cheeks.
“He’s not.” Even as the words left her lips, they tasted a little off. Like sauce made from tomatoes that were past their prime.
Rosa lifted her hands in the air as if in surrender.
A few seconds later, Rosa said, “He’s attractive.”
“Shhh!”
Their guide brought them to a meeting point where, according to Rosa, they would be putting on a life jacket and water shoes to get closer to the falls themselves.
Five minutes into the tour guide’s instructions, Mari realized that looking at waterfalls and taking a few pictures was not what they were in for.
“We have lockers for you to leave your dry clothes and valuables behind. As a preferred guide for your cruise line, we can assure you everything will be safe. If you’ve brought a waterproof pouch for your phone, fantastic, otherwise we suggest you leave it behind.
It will get wet. There is about a forty-minute hike uphill, where we will get into the stream and make our way back down. ”
“Did he say ‘into the stream’?” Mari asked to anyone listening.
No one answered her.
“Once everyone has changed, see one of us for a life jacket, helmet, and water shoes if you didn’t bring your own.”
Mari grasped Rosa’s arm. “I thought you said we were going to the waterfalls, not in them.”
“I asked if you looked at our options. You said you did.”
“Sightseeing waterfalls is what you told me.”
Rosa pulled on Mari’s arm. “Don’t look at me like that. I read the fine print.”
“Divertimento.”
Mari should have known something was amiss when Rosa insisted she pack her swimsuit.
The open changing room where women pulled clothing off to squeeze into their suits was something Mari hadn’t seen since she was in high school.
She glanced around while simultaneously attempting to avert her eyes to the bare flesh of women everywhere.
Rosa opened an empty locker and pushed her bag inside.
Before Mari could protest, Rosa’s shirt was off her back and she was unhooking her bra.
A bit shell-shocked, Mari followed her friend’s lead. “You would think they’d have individual stalls for this,” she muttered.
“Who cares, Mari. No one is looking and no one cares.”
With her bag tucked away and her swimsuit at the ready, Mari slipped out of her clothes as quickly as she could and into the suit.
She started to put her shorts back on over the suit when Rosa stopped her.
“If you do that, you’ll be wearing wet clothes all the way back to the ship. The seats on the bus are cloth.”
Mari tsked and tossed the shorts into the locker.
Thank God for Mari’s good sense to not buy the two-piece suit Chloe had attempted to talk her into. Walking out of the locker room and into the jungles of the Dominican Republic in a one-piece was nerve-racking enough.
Without lingering, Mari marched directly to the guide handing out life preservers and quickly put one over her head. Next came the shoes and then the helmet, which she held.
Even with all that, she still felt air brushing the back of her thighs.
Air never played there in public.
“Are you ready for this?”
James’s voice came from behind.
Her back stiffened. “I don’t know what ‘this’ is.”
“You didn’t read the description?” he asked.
She glanced over, realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt or a life preserver, and forced her eyes to stay on his face. “A mistake I won’t make twice,” she told him.
He laughed.
“You can swim, right?”
“Of course.”
“Then you’ll be fine. Just a few waterslides and—”
“Water what?”
“Slides. Down rocks.”
“What?” He did not just say rocks.
“Natural waterslides, Mari. Don’t worry.” Rosa stood close, a smile way too big over her face.
Mari turned to glare at her friend. “How far are the drops?” The image of sliding off a rocky mountain, down a waterfall, and into a pool of crashing water clouded her vision.
“From what I read, they’re not big.”
Mari felt a hand on her shoulder. “I won’t let you get hurt,” James told her.
“What? Are you going to catch me?” The question came with a little fire in its delivery.
He smiled. “If I have to.”
Behind them, Rosa laughed.
Mari turned, pointed a finger at her friend, and snapped. “Enough from you.”
Rosa tried to hide her smile and cleared her throat. “I’m going to find Summer. Keep her safe, James. And mind her temper. She has one for all of us.”
Just like that, Rosa abandoned her.
Mari muttered an expletive in Italian under her breath.
James chuckled. “I have a feeling that wasn’t meant for children’s ears.”
“You’d be right.”
“C’mon. There’re kids here, it can’t be that bad.”
“If I break anything or come up bleeding, I’ll make you eat those words.”
James pinched his lips together, but the sparkle in his eyes said he was laughing. “A little blood might be worth seeing what that looks like.”
She pulled her thoughts in and reluctantly followed James.
The good news was, she’d completely forgotten that her butt was on display in a bathing suit she hadn’t worked up the nerve to even wear by the pool.
They entered the water by a vertical wooden ladder.
Below, crystal-clear blue water was surrounded by a tall, rocky landscape.
Rosa and Summer were already in the river, along with half of their group.
“I’ll go first,” James said.
Once James cleared the ladder and the water directly below, the guide encouraged Mari to take her turn.
She slowly descended the ladder, doing her best to ignore the shudder in her knees.
It wasn’t that the climb was all that far, it was the fact that Mari couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on anything but a stepladder in the stockroom at the restaurant since the time her children were little.
As soon as her feet touched the water, relief rushed through her veins.
“See, that wasn’t bad,” James said.
Mari took a deep breath and nodded.
They walked, waist-deep, to where one of their guides waited.
Mari looked up. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yes,” James agreed. “And not something you can really appreciate from above.”
A few meters from where they entered the water, Mari’s foot slid on a rock, causing her to lurch to one side.
James caught her arm before she could correct herself. “Oh, boy.”
He squeezed her arm. “You got it?”
“I see how this is going to go,” she told him.
He lifted his shoulders. “I don’t mind.”
Maybe Rosa was right about James flirting.
Or maybe her friend had planted that seed, and now Mari was looking for any evidence to prove he was or wasn’t.
Mari inched a little closer to the side of the canyon to use nature’s walls to help steady her steps. “This is better,” she told him, giving him a reason to step back.
Only he stayed within arm’s reach.
“Have you ever done anything like this?” Mari asked.
He nodded. “In Cancun with my girls. Only the river ran both above- and underground.”
“Under?” she questioned.
“It was beautiful. Swimming in a cave is an experience. The girls loved it.”
They continued to talk as they maneuvered in the water. At times, the river was swirling around their knees, at other times, their waists.
It wasn’t long before the guides directed them out of the river and pointed to a twenty-foot drop. “You have the option of jumping in, or there is a footpath where you can join us on the other side of this waterfall.”
Mari took one look at the twenty-foot drop, and the twenty-year-olds jumping in, and shook her head. “No, thank you.”
A woman behind her laughed. “I’m with you,” she said.
Mari looked at James. “Are you going to jump?”
He glanced over the edge. “I think so.”
“You’re crazy. I’ll watch.” With that, Mari followed the less adventurous to the stairs.
“Mari!”
She turned to see Rosa yelling her name from her perch on the jumping spot.
Mari’s smile fell. “What are you . . .”
Her words dropped off as Rosa hurled herself into the water.
Her head bobbed up almost as quickly as it had disappeared below.
Mari continued to walk, her hand tight on the railing.
Rosa swam over once Mari was back in the water. “That was fantastic.”
“Who are you, and what did you do with my quiet, reserved neighbor down the street?”
Rosa just laughed. “I forgot how fun life is.”
Mari thought she heard her name again and looked up.
James lifted his hand in the air and jumped.
“Oh, boy.”
A few yards away, their first natural waterslide waited.
Like before, she watched others before taking her turn. Not that she had a choice. There wasn’t an option to walk around.
Mari lay down, her arms over her chest, and let the water take her to the next level of the river.
Aside from her bathing suit riding up her butt, nothing bad happened. Her head didn’t even go all the way in the water.
James waited for her, and they both swam until they felt the ground.
The second waterslide was a much bigger drop. Like the first, the worry of what could happen was gone as soon as she came out of the water.
Then came an unavoidable jump. There was no way to walk around and no turning back.
Mari looked down. “I can’t do this.”
James took her hand. “Yes, you can.”
“I—”
James placed a hand on her cheek. “The last slide was a longer drop.”
“I can’t.”
“You raised three kids and ran a restaurant by yourself. You can jump ten feet.”
Two people from their group moved around them.
“Want to go in front of me?” James asked.
She nodded and shook her head at the same time.
James laughed.
And that spiked the skin on her neck. “Fine.”
She moved to the edge. The guide standing there looked bored and held out a hand to stop her.
Once the person in the water swam out of the way, he dropped his hand. “Go.”
The thudding of her heart whooshed in her ears.
“You got this,” a complete stranger said from behind.
“Jump out,” the guide said.
“Okay.” She looked down. “Okay . . . okay.”
Clenching the bridge of her nose with one hand and fisting the other . . . she jumped.
Water rushed around her face, her ears did that popping thing, and Mari sputtered to the surface.
I did it.
I didn’t die.
Someone was clapping.
James smiled from above. “You made it look easy.”
Mari smiled, swam out of his way, and watched him follow her in.
From then on, everything was easy. One of the slides was definitely going to leave a bruise on her hip, and two of the jumps pushed water up her nose. But the rush that came from overcoming her fears was the greatest reward of the day.
Once their waterfall hike concluded, they returned to where they began, changed clothes, and had lunch. James sat across from her, sipping a rum-laced drink and smiling.
And flirting.
Something she’d forgotten how to do.
Before Mari and James made it back on the bus, Summer and Rosa had resumed the seats they’d taken en route earlier.
Any awkwardness in being pushed together had passed as Mari eased back in her seat.
Eventually, their quiet conversation and the movement of the bus had Mari’s eyes drifting closed. “I’m not great company on the way back,” she said apologetically.
“Don’t stay awake on my account.”
She smiled and closed her eyes, only to be woken up what felt like a few minutes later.
The bus was pulling into the parking lot, and James was patting her arm. “We’re back.”
She yawned and stretched to bring life back into her limbs. “I was out.”
“You and half the bus.”
Back on the ship, James walked with her and Rosa until they reached their deck. “Thanks for hanging out with me today. It wouldn’t have been nearly enough fun without you ladies.”
Rosa patted her chest. “Ahh, you’re welcome. Maybe we’ll see you at dinner.”
“I don’t think I can eat anything more today,” Mari moaned.
“We have an hour to get ready.”
She turned to Rosa. “You go ahead. I’m going to sleep off that rum.”
Her friend laughed. “Speaking of, we’re doing the rum and food tour tomorrow, are you signed up for that?” she asked James.
He blinked a couple of times, looked between the two of them. “I’ll see if they still have room.”
“Great,” Rosa said.
Mari met his gaze. “I guess we’ll see you then.”
“Tomorrow,” he replied before continuing his way up the stairs.
Before Mari and Rosa turned to the long corridor to their stateroom, Rosa nudged her. “Huh.”
“Hush.” Mari took the lead.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.” Mari knew exactly what Rosa’s “Huh” said. It said James was flirting and was interested . . . and Mari wasn’t sure what to feel about that.