Page 18 of His Hawaiian Heart
“That you’d be upset. I know he was worried you might be hurt.”
“Josh can act a bit big-brotherish at times, but I assure you, I’m fine. It’s all good. Maybe we can catch up later.”
“Sure thing,” she said and then her hand shot up and began windmilling again. “Josh, over here!”
When I passed Josh on the way to Katrina’s table, I said, “Don’t worry, I didn’t grill your girlfriend. I told her you already told me everything, and it’s all good. I really don’t want to knowanything else, okay? We’re all adults and whoever we date is our own business.”
He looked relieved and nodded. “Okay, but if you ever just want to talk, you know, about anything, I’m here.”
“I know, and thanks. I’m going to go check in with Katrina and hope she hasn’t kicked me off the team.”
“Not a chance,” he said and grinned. “She’s been talking about you coming ever since we set up camp.”
“Good to know, thanks, now, please go put Beth out of her misery before the poor girl dislocates her shoulder.”
He chuckled and I was very glad to see the old Josh back. As he walked away, I silently thanked my mother for being so wise. Perhaps it might behoove me to remember another idiom as well. Ignorance just might be bliss after all.
If that’s true, then why aren’t more people happy?
I was getting a little tired of wasting time telling her to shut up, so I simply ignored answering her and asked, “Good morning, Dr. Davidson. Mind if I join you?”
Chapter Eight
Samuel
I’d exchanged my suit for jeans and a blue button-down shirt and the limo for my horse. He stood at seventeen hands and yet could move with the grace of a filly half his size. I didn’t need to speak to give him directions. We’d been a pair for so long, he could tell from a simple shift of my body or stroke of my hand what I wanted him to do. Right now, I was stroking my fingers through his mane as he stood still as a statue.
Even if the boughs of the trees didn’t totally conceal us, I wasn’t sure we needed the shadows they provided. From where I sat I could see Samantha. If I hadn’t seen her occasionally push aside fronds of ferns almost as tall as she was , I might have wondered if she was a figment of my imagination. Her curls were secured in a high ponytail, the ends of her hair sweeping past her shoulders. My horse gave a slight shift. “Sorry, buddy,” I said as I pulled my fingers free. He snorted softly as if he understood it hadn’t been his ebony black mane I’d unconsciously fisted and given a tug but strands the sun had highlighted into the color of flames that belonged to the woman in the valley below. Still,it was enough to remind me that I had a mission and being a peeping Tom wasn’t the way to go about it.
A click of my teeth had us moving forward. I didn’t take a direct path down into the valley where Sam was. Instead, we took the longer route in order to find a spot where he could graze. Dismounting, I patted his neck. “Wish me luck,” I said. His snort sounded far too much like a laugh for my comfort, but I’d never been one to shirk his duty. I made my way through the trees and smiled when I saw her again.
It seemed that while moving as slow as a sloth, Samantha wasn’t as concerned with being silent. I could hear her softly singing. I couldn’t make out the lyrics but thought it might be some sort of love song. Or perhaps that was wishful thinking. I couldn’t exactly claim I was up to date on current music. But when I moved closer and realized she wasn’t singing, but was humming, I went completely still. Well, not completely as my dick rose to half-mast as I pictured those lips vibrating while wrapped around it. It took effort to yank my mind from that vision and replace it with an axe hovering in the air right above an air hose connecting the diver beneath the ocean to life-giving oxygen on the surface.
“Yeah, yeah, I remember.” The words might have been spoken quietly but evidently not softly enough as the humming stopped. Samantha turned and my heart threatened to stop. Despite the fact she was wearing glasses as thick as the bottom of coke bottles and some sort of vest that had a dozen bulging pockets with who knew what sticking out of them, she was absolutely stunning. I’d have given everything I owned if the sight of me didn’t strip the smile off her face.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
Well, so much for impressing her with titillating conversation. A full minute passed before the silence was brokenand when it was, it was by the both of us speaking the same words at the same exact time.
“Look, I wanted to?—”
Seemed we cut ourselves off at the same time as well. It should have felt a little creepy, but instead it just felt… right.
I waited a few beats but when she said nothing, I took a chance. “Ladies first.”
“No, you go.”
“How am I supposed to show you I’m a gentleman if I act like a…” So much for feeling like I had any clue what I was doing. All I knew was I felt like I’d already fucked this up before a dozen words had been uttered. The axe lowered another inch and I shook my head. I wasn’t even saved by Sam asking me to continue and realized she was a woman who evidently was as comfortable in the silence as I was. She wasn’t jumping in to offer any of a dozen choice nouns to complete my sentence. Instead, she simply moved the glasses from her nose to the top of her head and waited.
“You’re right,” I said though she’d not spoken. “I can’t claim to be a gentleman. Especially not when I’m around you.”
At that her eyes widened and her lips parted. I’d never wanted anything more than I wanted to take those last few steps and press my mouth against hers. Instead, I ran my hand through my hair. “Fuck, I’m messing this up.” At this the corner of her mouth twitched as if she were fighting a smile, and I decided that the only way I was going to keep that ax from falling was to be honest. Dropping my hand, I said, “Please, I’m begging you here. I’ll owe you if you’ll please just go first.”
“Thank you.”
When that appeared to be all she had to say, I was confused. If she’d recited every element on the periodic table, I probably would have understood that more than those two words. She was thanking me? Why?
