The Best of Me

by Tina Wainscott

  Straightening her shoulders, she stepped forward and tried to remember how she’d seen other women ride motorcycles. Chris scooted forward on the small seat, and she tried to sit down without getting too close to him.

  “Ready?” he called over the wind and the engine.

  She took a quick breath. “I suppose so. I mean, yes, I’m ready.”

  “You’d better put your arms around me so you don’t fall off.”

  She looked at his broad back. “Hold on where exactly?”

  “I’ll demonstrate.” And then he hit the gas.

  With a yelp, she grabbed on to his shoulders, sliding forward on the seat until they were pressed together more intimately than she’d wanted. “You…you…”

  “I believe creep was your word of choice.”

  “Yes! That’s the nicest word I can think of.”

  “It worked, didn’t it? You go with your instinct.”

  But when he took a corner, her fingers started sliding down his shirt. She lowered her hands to his waist, which was thinner and more graspable. When they hit a pothole in the road, her arms automatically went around him. Now her chest was pressed against his back, and her body started at the feel of his warmth and solidness. Geez, she hadn’t been this physically close to a man in…she shook her head, not wanting to know exactly.

  “You all right back there?” he asked.

  “Fine,” she murmured, laying her cheek against him as well. The sight of the road and cars flashing by made her dizzy. With every jarring hole or dip in the road, she pressed closer. The engine vibrated through her, and she closed her eyes and lost herself in the feel of the air that was cool and the warmth that emanated between their bodies. A strange and wonderful sensation curled through her, and she pressed her pelvis against him. Pure, sensual pleasure poured through her. She felt a long, deep breath rumble inside and release on the wind as something close to a sigh. And then her eyes snapped open and she sat up straighter.

  “Oh, gawd!”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I forgot about driving on the left side. It sort of startled me.”

  She shook her head. Yeah, right. How utterly embarrassing. How long had it really been?

  He leaned his head back. “Why are you blushing?”

  “I am not blushing, and please keep your eyes on the road. We are, like, totally out in the open here where everyone can see…I mean, hit us.” Oh, no, what had she looked like, speeding down the street snuggled up against him? He was looking at her again. “Watch the road!”

  When she slid her arms back around him, she felt his bare flesh beneath the flapping shirt. She decided to keep them there instead of appearing to be prudish and pulling the shirt down. His skin was warm and soft, all hard muscle beneath. She would not lose herself in the feel of him again. She would not—

  When she glanced to the right, she saw Barney’s go flying by.

  “We passed Barney’s!” she said.

  “Hold on.”

  As he slowed down, her fingers reflexively tightened against him, and her body pressed closer as they leaned into the turn-around.

  “You must have gotten caught up in the scenery, too,” she said, trying to inject a laugh in her voice.

  “Without a doubt.”

  They pulled in just as the rain began to dump down. They were both drenched when they walked inside, and she couldn’t help laughing as the eight or so people in the bar looked up at them.

  “Come on in, mon,” a different bartender called to them. “We’re having a warm-up-dry-down special jus’ now. It’s called a Rasta Runner, and I guarantee it will heat your blood up.”

  Lucy did not need her blood heated again. “I’ll just have a soda.”

  “Red Stripe for me,” Chris called, heading over to a table near the outer edge of the place.

  The exterior half walls allowed the rain-drenched air to seep in and cool everything down. She followed him, stopping short when he took off his shirt, held it out the window, and twisted the water out of it. She pulled at hers, but it stuck back to her skin again.

  “It’s not fair that men can do that,” she said, sitting down and propping her feet up on the chair across from hers.

  He turned to her as he shook out his shirt and hung it on the back of the chair. “Go right ahead.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Not today.”

  She watched him walk to the bar to pick up their drinks. He had the easy gait of a man who was comfortable with himself. When he set down her soda in front of her, he leaned forward and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. It was a casual movement, yet she froze for a moment when his finger touched her skin.

  “You had a hair…” He gestured vaguely toward his face, then dug in his pocket and took out a couple of quarters. “I’m going to play some music. This place doesn’t seem the same without tunes.”

  She jumped up. “Let me. Please.”

  He handed her the coins, and she made her way to the jukebox. Jimmy was already singing “Margaritaville” by the time she got back to the table.

  “I never would have figured you for a parrothead,” he said, propping his sandal-clad feet up on the sill.

  “A what?”

  “Parrothead. That’s what they call Buffett fans.”

  She smiled, pulling her knee up and resting her chin on it. “I wouldn’t consider myself a…parrothead. But I like this music. It kind of reminds me of…” She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “Reminds you of what?”

  She never talked to anyone about this. “It’s kind of silly.”

  He didn’t have to say a word, but urged her on by the way he waited.

  “Well, I didn’t really know my father when I was growing up. All I knew about him was that he sailed around the Bahamas and never settled down or got a good job, which is why my mother divorced him. So I kind of got this image of him, sailing the seven seas, maybe even with a patch over his eye. When I hear this music, I think of him just that way.” Her smile faded when she met his gaze. “I told you it’s silly.”

  “That’s not silly.” He took a sip of his beer. “You said you didn’t know he had a park down here.”

  “Nope. Found out from the lawyer. I never heard from him all that much. Mother didn’t exactly make it easy for him to see me.” She cleared the haziness from her voice, looking out at the wall of rain beyond the window. A gust of cool, damp air ruffled the napkins on the table. “Let’s talk about you.”

  “Let’s not talk about anything.”

  “But you must have such an exciting life, saving the dolphins and all.”

  “My life is great. Perfect. I travel all over the country, usually beautiful, tropical, sunny places like this.” He lifted his hand toward the window, and they both laughed. “And I like what I do.”

  “But you don’t make much money at it. And you’re never home.”

  “I have a place down in the Keys, a small place on the water. But I don’t like staying in one spot too long. And I don’t care about the money.”

  She sat up straight. “How can you not care about money? I mean, we all have to have it to live and survive. It makes life comfortable. It gives you things that make you happy.”

  He leaned toward the rough table surface, balancing his chin on his fingers. “Does your Beemer and all that other stuff make you happy, Miz Lucy?”

  “Of course it does. Very. I like getting in my nice car and smelling the leather and going fast. I like being able to buy whatever I want. I like having a regular schedule, getting up in the morning and knowing I have a job to go to.” She wasn’t about to tell him about that empty spot inside her.

  He leaned back in his chair. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. I can’t imagine what I would do if I didn’t have my goals.”

  “As long as you’re happy.”

  “Very happy. Ecstatically happy.”

  “Then why were
you lying about the park?”

  “I thought you didn’t want me to explain.” He shrugged, but waited for her answer. “It’s stupid, I know. It’s the competition thing. We’ve always been that way, even when we were dating. And before Tom, it was my two stepsisters. Our parents encouraged us to compete, to be the best we could be and better than anyone else.”

  “I’m sure you’ve made them very proud.”

  She couldn’t tell whether he was patronizing her or not. He wasn’t easy to read like her ex-husband was. “They are.” She didn’t want to talk about her happiness anymore. Her very ecstatic happiness. “And you’re happy?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s it? Not very, wonderfully or anything else?”

  “Nope, just happy.”

  And he was. He didn’t have to go on like she did, defending her happiness to the bitter end. “What made you like dolphins more than people? Why don’t you like to stay in one place too long?”

  “Because I’m a quiet, private person who doesn’t like people asking a lot of questions.”

  “But why…” Her voice broke off as she realized what he’d implied. Lucy, admit it: you’re dying to know more about him. Well, yes, but only out of…curiosity. Nothing more. “Can you at least tell me why you went to jail?”

  He lifted an eyebrow at her, though his lips were tinged in a smile. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  She trailed her finger in the condensation of her bottle of cola. “I want to know if you’re a mass murderer or something.” She shrugged. “Just for the record.”

  “You want the gory version or the nice version?”

  She tapped the side of her bottle, contemplating. “I’d better hear the gory version.”

  He got up and walked over to the bar with his empty bottle. The rain had lightened considerably, leaving a solid slate-colored sky behind. She could hear the waves lapping against the shore. What kind of vacation was this, anyway? Spending her time cooped up in an office deciding the fate of several hundred sea specimens and one Bailey and one Bill, hanging around a man who enjoyed ignoring her, or merely irritating her, and not soaking in any of the beauty around her. Hmph.

  Then she realized she was staring at his backside, from the way his damp curls brushed against his back of his neck, the expanse of tan, muscular back that tapered to his shorts. She felt a tingle start in her chest and travel languidly to more southern regions. Instead of feeling annoyed about that, she let herself enjoy it. See, she was soaking in some local beauty. Vicki’s words about having a fling floated through her mind, upping the tantalization level—until she realized it wasn’t Vicki’s voice urging her on. It was her own.

  Chris walked back over, a Red Stripe in one hand and a bottle of Ting in the other. “Let’s go for a walk.” He headed out the back door leading to the beach.

  She sat there for a moment, though her body strained to jump up and follow him. Lucy Donovan did not follow. She did not let some good-looking man lead her around on a leash for his enjoyment. She might get up at her own pace and leisurely stroll out the same door he happened to stroll out, and might possibly join him if he was going in the same direction she happened to be going in. She spotted him standing several yards to the left and decided that might be a good direction to take.

  “You were telling me about the time you went to jail. The gory version.”

  He slid her a sideways glance. “I was, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  The damp sand crept into her sandals and between her toes. Although it was early afternoon, it felt more like evening. The gray sky tainted the ocean with the same dull color. People were starting to come back out again, but the wide, beige beach was still fairly deserted.

  He headed to a large cement structure that jutted out into the water. It seemed to have no particular purpose, no markings or railing. He walked a few feet ahead of her, drawn to the water like a fish. His hair was still damp and mussed, his chest bare and tan. He looked wild and reckless and careless, and she had a hard time accepting the fact that she found him so darned attractive.

  He walked to the far edge and dropped down, and she sat down next to him. She had accidentally—at least she thought it was accidentally—brushed her leg against his. He handed her the bottle of Ting. They remained quiet, wrapped only in the sound of the waves. His leg hairs tickled her as she swung her legs in rhythm with his.

  “You don’t like to talk much, do you?” she said when she couldn’t stand the silence anymore.

  “Silence is better. It’s nice to absorb the atmosphere.”

  “But it’s weird for two people to not talk to each other.”

  He tilted his head. “Why?”

  “Well, I don’t know why, it just is. When you’re sitting with someone, you feel, I don’t know, obligated to make conversation.”

  “I got out of that whole social obligation stuff a long time ago. In fact, some of my best relationships were with women who couldn’t speak English. We sat in silence and enjoyed each other’s company without having to talk about stuff.”

  She could easily picture him with some exotic beauty, sitting face-to-face, absorbing each other. She didn’t want to picture it, though, and that worried her. She shouldn’t care. “I don’t imagine they last very long, those relationships.”

  “Nope.”

  “That doesn’t seem to bother you terribly.”

  “Nope.” He stared out over the water for a minute, looking at peace with himself. She noticed he’d set his beer to the side, untouched. “Ever been snorkeling or diving?”

  “No way.”

  He took her hand and pulled her so that she was looking over the water. His touch startled her, so out of the blue, but she leaned forward next to him.

  “Aren’t you curious about what’s down there?”

  “I looked at the aquariums in the park.”

  He shook his head. “But seeing them in their world is completely different.”

  “There are lots of things down there.” She tried to look beyond the reflection to what lurked beneath: rocks and coral, things that looked like fingers swirling in the water and two little black fish that were either courting or fighting. For some reason they reminded her of herself and Chris.

  “And all those—” he glanced at her with a sideways smile “—things are happy in their world, just like you’re happy in yours. Just because we can keep them doesn’t mean we should. That’s why I went to jail.”

  She blinked. “I think I missed something here.”

  “For most of the nine years I worked at Aquatic Wonders, I thought the dolphins were happy. Most people do, because we want to.”

  Her words echoed through her mind: Very happy. Ecstatically happy. She nodded, pushing the thought away. “Even Liberty looks happy. I mean, he has that smile.”

  “That’s only a physical trait, an illusion much like an alligator’s so-called leering grin. Dolphins can be miserable and still look happy. Which is too bad. I wish they could look unhappy. Anyway, I grew up on a fishing charter boat. I’d seen dolphins ride the bow wake, but never swam with them. That’s why the Aquatic Wonders job sounded so good. I thought I knew a lot about dolphins. I considered myself their ally and friend, and they trusted me.

  “Then the park changed owners, and things went downhill for the dolphins. They cut back on the quality of the fish we fed them, cut back on the hours we worked with them and separated the dolphins instead of keeping them all together in their pen.”

  “But they’re social creatures,” she said, remembering Chris saying that before.

  He took in her heartfelt words, and his gaze softened. The way she felt with him looking at her like that…he abruptly turned toward the ocean and continued. “I tried to tell the owner that, but he had several other small parks throughout the country, and this was the way they treated all their dolphins. I spent every spare minute, even my off time, with them so they wouldn’t be lonely.

  “One day I went diving off t
he coast and a pod of dolphins swam right past me. I watched them play and swim and interact, and I realized how different they were from the ones I worked with. They felt different. They were happy.” He looked right into her eyes. “Really happy.”

  “Happy,” she repeated softly, held spellbound by the passion in his eyes.

  “Everything changed after that. I wanted to free the five dolphins we had in captivity. I talked to the manager, the new owner, everyone involved with the park, but no one wanted to listen. A newspaper reporter heard about the stink and interviewed me, and as soon as the article hit, I was fired.

  “The thought of leaving those dolphins with no one to fight for them rattled me. So I went out to the pens that were situated on the water and cut the fence to free the dolphins. But they wouldn’t go. I pushed, teased and even physically moved them out of the pens. The dolphins returned. That’s when I learned that you couldn’t just free them. How would they survive after eating dead fish for so long?

  “The new owner had me arrested for vandalism, so I went public with the high mortality rate of the dolphins at marine parks, something that gets sympathy easily, if briefly. I spent a couple of days in jail before we came to terms—he wouldn’t press charges, and he wouldn’t release the dolphins. I got a few articles and TV coverage and that was it.

  “But after that, I was deemed the fighter for dolphins. I started the Free Dolphin Society, got a few backers, and tried to fight Aquatic Wonders. I wanted the dolphins freed. They publicly agreed to some concessions, but I lost the big fight. I thought it was over, but it was only beginning. People started writing, calling, coming to my door to tell me about dolphin abuses. And like my friends at Aquatic Wonders, I couldn’t turn my back on them either. So I continued my fight.”

  Her chest felt compressed, but he shrugged, as though it were all such a little deal.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Lucy,” he said in a soft voice, using her name without the Miz for the first time. “It’s just what I do.”

  “I know, I know, you’re not a hero.”