Page 50 of The Holiday Honeymoon Switch
December 22
Kauai, Hawaii
At Na Pali, time passes quickly as Ivy sits on a rock at the lookout point she found and draws the view, one she is sure she will never tire of. The jagged surfaces of the mountains and cliffs are even more exquisite in person than they were in the photos she saw on Larry’s phone, and the colors present a unique challenge in every case. When Ivy does her pastel work, she often makes her colors extremely vivid, far surpassing what a vista might actually look like. But here, her task is to get the colors vividenoughto do the scenery justice.
Her fingers are cramping and her back is sore when her satellite communicator goes off.
“You all good, Jovie 92?”
“Yes! Great! You?” She stops herself. “Sorry. What I meant was, ‘Roger that, Buddy 90, this is Jovie 92, all good. Season’s greetings. Over and out.’ ”
A staticky pause, and then Oliver’s voice is back. “Ivy? Stay where you are, and I’ll be there in a few minutes to get you. You need to see the waterfall. I’m sorry I said no earlier.” A pause. “Buddy 90 out.”
A few minutes later, Oliver arrives in the clearing. He runs his hand through his hair, making it stick up wildly, and sighs a long sigh she can hear even from several feet away.
“I couldn’t concentrate,” he says. “I felt so bad, telling you that you couldn’t come see the waterfall. All I could think the entire time wasI wish Ivy were here to see this. So, I came back to get you.”
“It was fine, really, Oliver.” But she’s touched by the fact he came back for her, and finds her heart feels suddenly light, when without him around before, it felt a little heavy, even as she enjoyed her work.
“I promise, I won’t be a distraction. You can still get your shot,” she says as they walk.
He slows and gives her a long look, his expression more serious than she’s ever seen it. The dimple is nowhere to be found. “I’m not so sure about that, Ivy,” he says. Then he speeds up again before she can question why he said that. “Do you have a swimsuit on under your clothes?”
“Yes.”
“Perfect. It’s a bit of a hot hike, and the pool below the falls is great for a refreshing swim. It’s where I’ve been standing for the past few hours, pruning up my toes and fingers, but not getting anywhere. I need a break.”
He’s right—she’s sweaty and tired by the time they reach the waterfall. But she forgets all about her physical state when she sees it. “Oliver.”
For the first time since he came back to get her, he smiles and looks relaxed again. “I know. It’s perfect. Come on.”
He peels off his shirt, and she looks away from his smooth, tanned skin and the trail of golden hair beginning just above the waistband of his board shorts. She lifts her own T-shirt over her head, discards her faded jean shorts on the rocks, then chases him as he runs lightly down the dirt path toward the water and does a cannonball into the pool below the falls. She does a slightly demurer scissor jump. The water is cool and refreshing around her.
“Ahhh, this is heaven,” she says. She swims alongside him, then treads water and stares at the falls. “I want to draw this. So badly.”
“Absolutely,” Oliver says. “Let’s dry off.”
They swim back to the edge and climb out. Ivy dries herself with her T-shirt before putting it back on. She gets out art supplies while Oliver pulls his waterproof SLR from his bag and slips back into the water. She watches for a moment as he swims over to the opposite edge of the waterfall pool,where there’s a shallower place for him to stand, just beneath the feathery wisps of water.
“I hope I’m not in your way?” he calls out.
“No, you’re good!”
For the next while, she keeps her head bent over the page in front of her, looking up only to examine the falls again, or search for a better, creamier shade of white to get the wispy strands of water against the pewter gray of the rocks just right. She’s trying hard not to focus on Oliver, not to look at him at all, but she finds that the proximity to him has made her entire body feel like it’s buzzing, more alive than usual. Eventually, he steps out from beneath the falls and swims back toward her. He’s got that serious look on his face again.
“How’d you do?” she asks.
“Not great,” he says as he climbs out of the pool and comes to sit cross-legged beside her.
“No?”
“I still don’t feel like I have it. I might have to settle for one of the shots I already have, and I’m sure once I decide on one, I’ll let this go. But for now, I have this image in my mind of the shot I want to get, and it keeps eluding me and that’s”—he rubs his damp hair—“frustrating.”
“I think I understand,” she says. “There are times I want to draw something and the light isn’t right, or I can’t seem to get the right angle, and I can waste entire days on that. But I have a lot more control over my medium than you do. Ican just draw something the way I want it to look, or mix a color myself from my imagination. You’re at the mercy of nature.”
“Exactly. And don’t get me wrong, I love it—the challenge of it, because that moment when you get it, there’s nothing like it. But it’s also the bane of my existence. Anyway.” He turns away from the waterfall and looks at her. “I’m glad you got to see it.”
Ivy scoots forward to hang her legs over the side of the rocks and dips her feet into the cool water. “I love this place,” she sighs.
