Page 115 of Guilty as Sin
Not just for things that are floral.
Rafe looked like he was either going to be sick or laugh. He didn’t do either, fortunately.
Paige said,“Whatring?” She didn’t look frustrated, though. She looked thrilled. Jace hoped.
Lily said, “It’s a treasure hunt. He’s made you a treasure hunt. Oh, it’s so sweet. We’re keeping these notes. I mean, you are.”
Jace looked at his mum and said, “Twins, hey.”
She said placidly, “Yes, darling. I got that,” then held a hand out to Lily. “I’ll put them in my bag. I have a plastic zip bag in there. That way they won’t get spoilt.”
“Time to get in the water, baby,” Jace said. This had all seemed too easy when he was making up the clues, but he suspected she was halfway to tearing the boat apart. He was going to have to nudge her along like a sheepdog.
Never mind. You did what it took.
“Oh,” she said. “OK. Oh, gosh.” She put her hands in front of her mouth. “I’m a little bit excited to be breathing through a snorkel.”
Jace laughed out loud. He still felt nervous. He still felt sick, truth be told. But sometimes, being nervous was the price you paid for the big steps, the important ones. “Lily will swim with you,” he said. “Keep you afloat.”
The two of them did exactly that, moving like they were one body. Jace waited until the deckhand, a blond fella named Chris, had somehow managed to locate a sea turtle, and then enlisted Rafe to help Chris round the little group up to take a look. After that, he swam fast to the boat and told the skipper, “Toss it to me.” When the bloke did, he swam a little ways away from the group around the turtle, launched his floating message-bearer, and hoped Paige would find it before it drifted to shore with the tide.
It took forever, of course. Everything did when you were waiting. But finally, when Jace had not-watched hundreds of colorful tropical fish swim through forests of coral and waving beds of anemones, he saw a blonde head surface, then propel herself farther out of the water for a better look before nudging the swimmer next to her and going for the ring.
The pink ring. The pinkplasticring floating on the water, with a pink note in a ziplock bag duct-taped to its side.
They had to go back to the boat to read it. Once they were aboard, though, and everyone had their towels, the skipper waited patiently until Paige had the note out of the bag and was reading.
When you are upon the land
The clue is hidden near the sand.
Over the rocks and down again,
A ring is waiting’round the bend.
“Better,” Rafe said, “but Keats still isn’t quaking in his boots.”
“Yeah, mate,” Jace said. “You’re just jealous that you don’t have my literary talents.”
Paige said,“Jace.This is just too cool. I can’t believe you did this.” She was clutching the note like she didn’t want to let it go, but finally, she handed it to his mum, and the skipper took off again.
Fifteen minutes, and a straight shot almost all the way onto the nearly pure quartz sands of Australia’s most stunning white-sand beach, all seven pristine kilometers of it. A few yachts moored offshore and no other commercial vessels, because almost none were allowed here.
“Whitehaven,” the skipper announced. “Best beach in Australia. We’ll spend some time ashore. We have a lunch for you, and I think there may be drinks sorted as well. Need to check that out.” He winked at Jace, but Jace was having trouble winking back.
He’d parachuted into combat more times than he could count. He’d done mission after mission into hostile territory, cleared areas building by ambushed building. But he’d never done anything more frightening than this. He waded ashore behind the others, saw Paige take Lily’s hand and tug her toward the outcrop of rock to the right, where a secondary cove would hide them from view, then grabbed Rafe, said, “Give us a hand, mate,” and doubled back for Chris and Bobby, the skipper. And started to unload.
“Five minutes,” he said. “Hustle.”
Paige didn’t run, even though she wanted to. Jace was sending them around the island? There was a reason. She scrambled over the rocks with Lily, taking care with her bare feet, until her sister turned to her and asked, “Are you ready for this?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I think I must be. Jace took me for a look at jewelry the other day,” she finally admitted to Lily, “and I thought, maybe… And then, no, and anyway, I thought, ‘You’re crazy. You’ve both been divorced. Why would either of you want to do this again? But it doesn’t feel the same. The first time I did it, it was almost like a joke. Like fun. This doesn’t feel like a joke. This feels…”
“Real,” Lily said. “It feels real, because nobody could be more real than Jace. He’s a wonderful man, Paige. He is. You did good.”
Paige smiled at last, then didn’t, because her smile was too wobbly. “I don’t think I did much.”
“Yes, you did,” Lily said. “You took your chance. It wasn’t easy to believe. It never is, not by now. But you did. You said yes.”
