Zach set his glass down. “You’re kidding.”
Piper gave a shrug.
“After day one of meeting you, I bought you that ring.”
“Well, we both know what that was about. The business deal.”
“Yes and no. It was yours whether you went for the deal or not. It complemented your eyes too well to let it lie unused in the jewelry store when you existed in the world.”
“Be careful. You’re flattering me.”
“I’m telling the truth.” He took a bite. “Oh, did you try this? Salted papaya.” He held out a piece and she took it in her mouth straight from his fingers. Had he meant it to be as flirtatious as she felt it? It tasted like his kisses, salty and sweet.
“Mmm.”
“So, fine. If you didn’t have boyfriends who bought you stuff, let’s go there.”
“Where?”
“Past relationships.”
With that, her heart pinched. Past, or present? The worry of Chad still loomed, but did Zach really need to know? She wasn’t sure.
“Unless,” he hedged, “you don’t want to tell. In that case, it’s fine. But if you listen, I’ll tell you, since it might come up in the company party couples’ quiz.”
The couples’ quiz. Piper had almost let that worry leave the universe.
“I assume you have dated around.”
Zach took another bite and looked down the market street. “You saw me in my last dating situation.”
“Oh, right.” Piper had seen first-hand the girl so mean to the waiter that Zach had made up a lie about Grandma Vada to get rid of her. What kind of lie would Zach make up when it was time to get rid of Piper? “Kinsey. So, from that, should I take it you’re the reel ’em in and then cut bait type? At least you were with her.”
That was yet another reason she would be keeping her distance from him on this trip—and indeed until the citizenship situation worked itself out. Slowly, slowly, Zach was playing the line with Piper. The perfect house, the puppy, the out-of-body time-vortex kisses on the private jet, the peacock blue sun dress, the way his eyes caressed her. He was reeling her in, just to toss her back into the sea.
Zach took a drink of his fruit juice. “I guess that would be what it looked like.” He frowned. “But that was only our third date. By the third date, I’ve usually got all the information I need of whether to ask a girl for a fourth date or not.”
“Do girls always take you up on those first three? Or the fourth?” She might have been teasing him a little here, prodding at his ego out of self-protection, but he took it well.
“Oh, depends. I figure I give them three chances, they give me three, it always seems to work itself out by the third date curse.”
“Third date curse!” Piper didn’t need an explanation. She’d lived that a few dozen times over the years. She got it. She had a more important question for Zach. “So, what chance am I on?”
Zach looked up from his rice and set down his fork, as if a revelation had hit him.
“To be honest, I haven’t been keeping track.” Zach’s eyes locked with hers. “Every day feels like the first day. And the thousandth.”
Piper’s face grew hot. “You’re a sweet talker, Zach Travis.” She said it with a half-hearted teasing, even though she knew that wasn’t necessarily true. Rather than sweet talk, he’d used pure logic to get her onto a honeymoon on an island. What else might he talk her into? “Get back to the point. Past relationships.”
“Fine. To the point, I’ve had one serious girlfriend. It was during my first year at Crockett, Bowie and Houston. Good girl, but wrong timing. And my family gave her a scare, so we parted ways after a few months.” A deep line formed between Zach’s eyebrows, and Piper thought she understood what he meant by the family giving the girl a scare. They hadn’t scared her, though. “After that, a lot of three-date situations. Only a few fourth dates.”
“It takes a lot to impress you, huh?” Again, Piper’s teasing didn’t take. He was being guileless, and she realized it was nice to have him talk to her about what was real. Not everything had to be light banter with him to keep him entertained. Maybe she could tell him her truths, too.
“Maybe it does take a lot to impress me.” He took a long draught of his fruit drink. “And this is definitely going to be showing my cards too much, but you do impress, Piper Travis.”
The weight of his stare pressed on her. She glanced down at her plate, and, fidgeting, pulled her hair into a ponytail. “Maybe we should swim.”
∞∞∞
They walked a bit and found a beachside cabana to change in, then met on the sand. Sure enough, Zach’s biceps did not disappoint. Nor did any of the rest of him. It wasn’t like she’d been dying to see him with his shirt off all this time. Herculean effort had suppressed those musings thus far, but now that she was presented with the perfect picture that was Zach Travis’s form, Piper had a hard time not turning into a jaw-dropped gawker.
He’s mine. He said I do. To me.
She’d seen muscles in the past; case in point: Chad Floyd, king of the muscle-bound accountants.
However, Zach didn’t resemble Chad. Yes, they were both muscular, but Chad’s recent nonstop obsession with Maxx Impact had turned him into a peacock. Shirtless and oiled up at every opportunity, he’d even gotten to where veins popped out atop his muscles. It turned out, there could be such a thing as too much muscularity, at least for Piper.
By contrast, Zach had struck the right balance: strength and definition without showiness. He just looked like a man.
“You ready to go in?” he asked as she walked up, the sand between her toes, her eyes still caressing his shoulders, hoping her sunglasses were dark enough that he couldn’t tell how thoroughly she was examining him. She dropped her cover-up on the towel beside his t-shirt and the beach umbrella.
“It’s a perfect day.” They crossed from hot, dry sand to cool, packed sand. The water slid warm up her calves, her knees, her thighs. She let him pull her beside him as the water deepened against their waists, their chests, and now they were floating just past where the waves were breaking.
“It’s warm.”
“Didn’t you expect that?”
“I’ve only been to a beach a few times. It was at Corpus Christie, but it was winter. This his heaven.”
“You’re heaven.” Zach slid his arms around her waist. “The green of the ocean brings out your eyes. Have I told you how gorgeous you are?”
“You’ve hinted.”
“Let me be direct.” Zach pulled her close and kissed her. It was like picking up where they’d left off in the jet. No slow crescendo or need to rebuild to that sleepy, united point. His lips found her neck, her eyelids, her jaw line. The waves were warm and ensconcing. Piper’s eyes closed, and she sank into Zach’s firm embrace.
Yeah, this whole trip could be extremely dangerous for her resolve.
“Zach—” Piper pulled her lips from his, difficult though as it was to lose his kiss even for a moment, she was growing so accustomed to it.
“Piper,” he said in response, low and gruff and sonorous. When he said her name it sent a warmth through her. “Piper Travis,” he echoed, intensifying it in every way.
Adding the last name turned warmth to heat. It implied possession. With the waves lolling against her, she could resist that possession less and less.
She had to do something. Fast.
“I’ve only had two semi-serious boyfriends.” There. That’d pull them apart, at least for a second. Talking about another man might protect her from how fast she was going toward Zach, her husband. “The guy who stood me up the day I met you. Chad.”
“Chad.” Zach cooled. “You mentioned him before.”
The tension inside Piper dropped, and she was able to breathe again, extract herself from the hormonal riptide that had been pulling her into Zach’s total possession.
“I should have mentioned him more completely.”
“Stood you up? That’s one co
mplete fool of a guy. Then he didn’t jump to your rescue when you told him about your immigration situation. I’m pretty shocked.”
Well, she hadn’t been explicit with Chad about that, exactly, for…reasons.
“He had to leave the country that very day. I couldn’t—”
“I’m just glad he did.”
“You are?”
Zach came in for another kiss, and Piper started to find herself floating in the ether again, his hands on her hips, his kisses on her temples…
“The other boyfriend—” This had to slow down. It had to. Her will grew weaker with every one of his forays. Not that she didn’t trust Zach to be a man of his word, but she also knew the way she reacted to his touch, and it was more like C4. Plastic explosives are stable unless detonated by a shockwave or a detonator.
Zach was her detonator.
“His name was Mike, and when we started dating I could tell he was a great guy at his core. Texas Ranger, really staunch about truth, justice, and the American way. We dated a while, and after a while, I got a little antsy around him. I’d seen him get weird.”
“Like weird how?” Zach pulled back, concerned. “Controlling?”
“Exactly.” How’d he know that?
“From your brief description, I’ve seen the type.” Zach frowned. “They see everything in black and white, including the emotions of people around them.”
That fit. Wow. She’d never analyzed Mike quite that way, but it was spot on.
“He got more than controlling, he got possessive. He wanted to know where I was all the time. He tried to put one of those apps on my phone that let him track me. I think he was tracking me anyway.”
“And so you broke up.”
“Yeah.” Piper still shuddered a little when she remembered how well Mike had taken the breakup, meaning not well. “He had a hard time letting go.”
“Did he harass you?” Zach’s eyes narrowed, as if his hackles were rising.
“For a while.” It’d been a nightmare. She had withdrawn socially for a long time after that. Just focused on food and cooking and starting up Du Jour with Mitzi.
“He didn’t hurt you.” Alarm shone in Zach’s eyes. “Because I will hunt him down and—”
“No need. My parents finally reported him. He lost his job as a Texas Ranger, which I think took some of the stuffing out of him. He stopped after that.”
Zach still didn’t look appeased. “Guys like that—they don’t let go so easily.”
“Well, I didn’t hear from him anymore after that.” Not even once. It had surprised Piper at the time. “Frankly, I hope he got another job. He really did have a strong love for the safety and security of the country. Despite everything, I have to admire him for that. He was bad, but he wasn’t all bad.”
“No one is.” Zach frowned. “Is Chad? Bad, I mean?”
She shook her head. “Chad is an accountant.”
“For whom?” Zach’s skepticism seemed to rise. What could he have against accountants?
“For a pretty big firm downtown. But they represent non-profits. He’s fairly harmless, unless he’s in the MMA ring, of course.”
“Wait. He does mixed martial arts?” Zach chuckled. “So he’s a fighter, not a lover.” He raised an eyebrow and then flexed his bicep. “These guns will keep him at bay, but maybe I should be a little less forward with you just in case.”
“If he knew we were in Puerto Rico together on even a pretense of a honeymoon, he might come after you. Ha, ha.” Her laugh was dry.
Piper actually didn’t know how Chad would react. Sure, he’d demanded a promise of faithfulness from her, but she hadn’t really considered what the consequences would be if things didn’t work out between her and Chad. But naw, Chad was no Mike.
“Actually, no. He’d never go after you. Don’t worry. I did respect him—immensely.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because he respected my boundaries and my standards.” Sure he’d pressed a few times for more physicality, but Piper had stood firm, and Chad had been honorable.
“I see.” Zach dropped his hands from around Piper’s waist and took just her hand. Their feet could touch the sandy bottom now, and they had floated to where the waves were breaking. “It’s getting close to time.”
“Time for what?” Please say dinner reservations. But then reality slapped her and panic gripped Piper. “To check into the hotel?” It came out squeaky. Being in the ocean together in public was one thing, but a shared hotel room—with her defenses as ridiculously weakened as they were already…
“Not until three. It’s something else. A surprise. I think you’ll like it.”
Piper exhaled, although three loomed large.
“Have you ever tried parasailing?”
∞∞∞
Piper buckled the harness at her chest and the second one at her waist. Zach had already secured himself in the twin harness beside her. A long tether attached their equipment to the rear of a speedboat, where a young driver waited for the go-sign as soon as the parachute was spread adequately behind them as the boat rocked on the waves a few hundred feet from shore. The Atlantic sparkled, and the salt of the sea spray smelled like heaven. Piper loved it, even though terror had her by the throat.
“You’re sure this is safe?” Piper swallowed hard. She could swim, but the tether looked extremely long. If the island wind caught them and extended that thing with the two of them up in the air, they’d be suspended, flying with nothing between them and the impact of the sea a hundred— or more— feet below.
“This is going to be such a rush.” He gripped her hand.
“How long is our tether line?” Piper gulped, just as the attendant gave the boat operator the sign to go, and the boat took off at full throttle, skating over the waves, bumping and splashing as it picked up speed. The operator signaled for them to run a few steps.
Within seconds, the wind caught their parachute. Before Piper could breathe, the forces of nature and physics had combined to lift her and Zach’s weight from the bonds of earth’s gravity and shot them high above the sea. No more bouncing of the waves, just—
“We’re like a human kite.” Piper gasped as she looked down. “That’s no hundred-foot tether.”
“It’s four hundred feet, when they let out all the line eventually.”
Four hundred!
“That’s longer than a football field.” Piper’s mouth dried, and her heart pounded. She grabbed Zach’s hand and threatened to crush every bone in it.
“You’re not scared of heights, are you?”
“I’ve always loved airplanes, but when you’re flying in them, you have the security of a metallic cocoon surrounding you.”
“Do you want me to radio for them to let us down?”
She didn’t want that either. The sun was too sparkly on the rippling water below. She could see that now that she could open her eyes.
“It’s—I’ll be fine. Just let me catch my breath.”
Zach caressed her arm, and she relaxed even more. He had some kind of voodoo magic over her psyche, the ability to turn her most tightly-wound moments into a dazzling view of serenity.
“When I was a kid, my parents took us parasailing at Galveston Island once.”
Piper pictured him as a kid, and pictured his parents as functional, parasailing adults.
“It was the most amazing feeling in the world. I thought I’d like to share it with you.” He pulled a little grin. “I should’ve asked how you were with heights first.”
Piper could breathe now, and the boat, so small below them, all but disappeared. Everything did except the sky and the broad sea, and the green of the island now in the distance.
“Now that the initial scare is done, it’s incredible. I never knew— I feel…free.”
Piper hadn’t felt free since she’d received that ICE letter. She’d been a trapped animal, fearing her captors for days. In a similar but less threatening way, Piper had been caged by her job at Du
Jour ever since it opened, never free to leave it for more than a few hours at a time. As the parasail glided, her soul expanded. She could see all the way to the horizon, nothing but air and waves between herself and heaven.
Free.
“See?” Zach lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “I hoped you’d like it.”
They floated for a while, the sky and sea quiet. The ocean’s noise came mostly from its edges, Piper thought. In the center it had a serenity.
“It makes me forget about the stuff I have been so worried about,” she said after a while.
“Like Agent Valentine.”
“Her, too, I guess.”
“You have bigger stresses?” Zach reached over and pushed a strand of blowing hair behind Piper’s ear. “If Agent Valentine is small potatoes in your world, then it must be serious.”
It was.
“I haven’t told you the most stressful part of this whole immigration disaster.” Gathering her courage in this moment of clarity, Piper told him about Mitzi’s parents’ investment in Du Jour, and what was at stake—the futures of the most generous people on earth. “It was blindingly foolish of them, but I can’t help but love them for it.”
“But you also really can’t get deported now.”
“Exactly.” She bit her lip. “I hope it explains why I’m willing to put both of us through this insanity.”
“Speaking of impressive, your concern for others impresses me.”
“Well, let’s be clear that I also don’t want to get sent to New Zealand for reasons of my own.”
“Reasons including a certain mayor’s son, I’ll wager.”
“Yes.” Totally. “But there’s also the fact that I just like America. I like Texas. In fact, I’m ridiculously close to getting my culinary dream to come true in Texas. Leaving now would rip that chance out of my hands.”
“What’s that dream? You already own your own restaurant—on the Riverwalk, no less. I can’t think of a better dream for a chef.”
Legally in Love Boxed Set 1 Page 63
