by Anna Lowe
She was just coming back to the rickety dock when she heard a high-pitched wail. Another dinghy was rushing at the dock, outboard engine at full throttle — but even that didn’t cover the cry. She recognized the family right away: the French sailors from the catamaran Imagine. Luc and Marie and their three little girls. They’d crossed paths with Hannah once or twice before, all heading west across the Pacific. Obviously, though, something was wrong.
Hannah dropped her backpack and reached for the line as Marie steered alongside and cut the engine. The girls’ faces were ashen. The two youngest were wailing, while the oldest cried silently. Marie’s lips were set in a tight line, and Luc looked very pale, holding a bloodstained towel over one hand.
“He cut it — badly — with a saw,” Marie said. “We need to go to the clinic.”
Hannah steadied the dinghy while Marie helped Luc, then the first of the girls out. But it was taking forever to get each of them onto the dock, then take off their life jackets.
“Here, let me do it,” Hannah said. “You go — take Luc to the clinic. I’ll wait with the girls.”
Marie looked at her uncertainly.
“Go, go,” Hannah urged. “We’ll stay right around here. There’s a park and a playground. You go. I can handle this.”
“Are you sure?”
“I got it.” Hannah nodded and turned a big, soothing smile on the girls as Marie and Luc made for the road. The first car that passed picked the couple up and rushed away, making the girls cry harder.
She turned on her best French, but she didn’t do too well given the stress throbbing through the air at that moment. “C’est bon, c’est bon,” she tried. “Nous allons jouer.” We’re going to play. “Nous attendrons Maman et Papa ici.” We’ll wait for your parents here.
The girls, however, were not convinced, and it took all Hannah had to get them out of the dinghy and life jackets. Just when she thought they were quieting down, Claire, the youngest, started bawling again. Constance, the middle one, joined in. And Caroline, the oldest, insisted she needed a toilet. Right away!
Hannah scanned the waterside park, looking for a toilet, and found a familiar face instead. Kyle, coming over in his brisk New York hustle to see what was wrong. God, she hoped he knew this was not the moment to continue their conversation from last night. She started herding the girls toward the fire house, hoping to find a toilet there, while Kyle fell in step, silently eyeing the situation.
“Ummm…” he started. “I know you never want help, and that you don’t need help, but, um… Can I help?”
“Please!” The word was out before she could catch it. Then her mind processed his words. Never want help? Where did he get off…?
Never mind.
He chuckled at her obvious distress. “I thought you were a teacher.”
“Older kids. High school. I don’t usually wipe noses,” she admitted, then glanced down as if the girls might be offended. “How’s your French?”
“Not as good as yours.”
“That bad, huh?”
But Kyle was already kneeling down in front of Claire, smiling and poking his belly, then pointing to hers. “Ice cream?” he asked, then looked up at Hannah.
“Glace,” she translated.
“Right. Glace?” He winked at Claire.
The wailing dropped to a whimper, then a sniffle. Hannah shook her head. Obviously, no female could resist that smile, not even a two-year-old. Sure enough, Claire’s smile lifted, and her dimples grew deeper as she reached for his hand. Hannah might have even felt a little stab of jealousy.
“Okay, we’ll wait here” — Kyle mimed the words to the younger two — “while your sister goes to the toilet.” The girls were in giggles now. “And then we’ll get ice cream! Glace!” His voice screamed delight. Then he tossed Hannah a wink that could make the Virgin Mary blush and made a shooing motion toward the building.
“Wow,” Hannah whispered, once she and Caroline were back outside, mission accomplished. “You’re good.”
He smiled and hoisted Claire to his shoulders. “My sister has three kids.”
She threw him a sidelong glance and noticed a bit of shadow showing on his chin. So he’d skipped a shave at last. Well, well. Maybe the South Pacific was melting Mr. Wall Street.
It rather suited him.
“Lots of people have nephews and nieces but still have no clue.”
He shrugged and started making plane noises, scooting down the path with one arm extended like a wing, the other hand firmly on Claire’s foot. The other two girls followed while Hannah brought up the rear. Soon they had the kids lined up like three little ducks, happily sucking on their popsicles. Hannah tore off a piece of her baguette, then offered it to Kyle. He ripped off a chunk, too, and held it up to her in a toast.
Funny how she’d never noticed just how golden his brown eyes were until then. A rich, deep brown, like honey. The inner ring was light and sparkly, the outer rim aged whiskey. The kind of brown that made you look and look and wonder just what to call it. The kind of brown you could stare into for hours. The kind of brown—
Hannah blinked and forced her eyes away.
They took the kids to the playground next, where Kyle gave the girls airplane rides, holding each in turn by a hand and foot and spinning around. Then came duck-duck-goose in which Kyle was the goose every second time, and then language lessons.
“One!” Kyle said, like it was the best number ever.
“Un!” the girls cried on cue.
He clapped twice. “Two!”
“Deux!” they cheered.
Hannah watched, rapt. It was a whole different side to the man. And God, was he good.
They had started on the teens when a very relieved Marie and a bashful Luc returned. Hannah expected the girls to jump at their parents in glee, but after an initial hug and a pat, they were right back at play.
“Thank you so much,” Marie said.
Hannah waved it away. “It was easy. Especially with Kyle’s help.” She introduced them quickly, then turned to Luc. “How is your hand?”
“Trente… thirty stitches, and one nasty shot,” he said, turning a little pink. “But nothing too bad.”
The girls started showing off their English, and Marie shot Kyle an impressed look. “We try to teach them all the time, and they always resist. How did you do it?”
Kyle smiled and shrugged.
That’s how he does it, Hannah decided. That charm. Funny how she never really noticed it before.
A battered old Toyota beeped and pulled over, and a man emerged. He greeted Marie with kisses on both cheeks then reached into the back of his truck and pulled out a huge fish.
Kyle practically licked his lips, then let out a murmur Hannah could feel in her bones. Low and growly and with just enough caveman in it to send her imagination romping away in a direction that nothing to do with food.
She cleared her throat. “What did you say?”
“Mahi mahi,” Kyle murmured in an almost reverent tone.
“Yep.” She nodded. “Dorado fish. Same thing.” She had caught her share of them, though never one that big.
Marie waved good-bye to the man. “The doctor’s cousin is a fisherman.” Then she turned to Luc and exchanged a few words in rapid French before looking up. “We must say thank you, and you must help us with this fish. Can you come to dinner? Tonight?”
Hannah started to protest. “Haven’t you had enough to do today?”
Marie whisked the idea away. “We can use the company. Plus, this fish is really too big!”
Hannah looked at Kyle and gestured toward her dinghy. “I could give you a ride…”
When Kyle looked out across the water, his eyes danced as if he were being invited into a magic fairy domain. “Um, yes. That would be great.” His eyes locked on hers for a second, then jumped to Marie. “Thank you.”
“Perfect!” Marie clapped. “We eat at six, yes?”
The girls all groaned when their parents
tried to usher them into their boat, then let out a great cheer in hearing they’d have company for dinner.
And Hannah — she cheered, too.
Chapter Nine
At five minutes to six, Hannah was at the dock to meet Kyle. Sadly, he’d shaved, but on the plus side, he wore a beach bum’s version of formal wear: a colorful Hawaiian shirt. Maybe he was loosening up a little bit.
“Have you been on many boats before?” she asked as they made their way over to Imagine.
“Lots of little boats. Hobie cats, day sailors. But I’ve only been on bigger boats a couple of times. And never one that anyone lived on.”
She laughed. “Well, don’t let Imagine fool you into thinking everyone has so much space.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s a forty-foot catamaran,” she said, “Huge.”
“Still seems pretty small when you think of the ocean. And with three kids? I’m amazed.”
“You’d be surprised. Lots of people sail with kids. Well, most sailors out here are retired couples. But there are lots of kids, too. Especially preschool age.”
“How big is the boat you’re on?” he asked, gesturing at Windfall.
“Forty-two feet. A monohull. But there are people cruising on smaller boats, too. Thirty, thirty-five footers, even a couple around twenty-eight feet.” She pointed around the anchorage at the boats she’d grown familiar with. Funny how they’d formed their own little clan. “Anything under that, though, is pushing it.”
She slowed the outboard, then cut it completely to glide up to Imagine, where they tied off on the stern and climbed aboard.
“Magnifique!” Marie declared, accepting the bottle of wine Kyle had managed to procure.
“Well, it’s just a regular…” he started, but Marie cut him off.
“It has a cork, my friend! This makes it the best wine we’ve had for many months.”
Hannah laughed, and Marie went on. “Yes, even we French drink wine from cardboard boxes in the Pacific. But come aboard, come aboard!”
It was Hannah’s first time on the big cat, and her eyes were probably as big as Kyle’s as the girls led them around on a tour.
“This is huge!” Hannah couldn’t help saying, comparing it all to her bunk on Robert’s boat. Windfall hadn’t seemed small to her before. But this… Each of the girls had her own cabin and bathroom, for goodness’ sake!
She stepped back to the main cabin and admired the galley. “Huge!”
“Did you come all this way from France?” Kyle asked.
“No,” said Luc. “We left from Guadaloupe in November last year.”
“Any storms? Any close calls?”
Hannah smiled at the two most common questions every sailor was asked.
Marie grimaced. “No storms. And only one close call when we didn’t keep a good lookout and came a little too near a passing ship.”
“Not so close,” Luc protested.
Marie shook her head. “No, but enough to scare me. That’s the hardest part of sailing with only two adults. One always has to be awake and keeping watch, even in the open ocean. I wish we had more eyes!”
“And you’re going where?” Kyle asked.
“To New Caledonia. There, we’ll look for work. I am an architect; it should be easy to find something.”
Hannah hid a smile, watching Kyle’s dumbfounded expression. She’d been like that at the start, too, when her eyes had been opened to the wonderful world of sailing and the characters inhabiting it.
“It’s funny,” she said, “when you leave home to go sailing, it feels like you’re the only one doing this totally unique thing. But then you get out here and there are so many boats. Some going around the world, some just to the next place to find work until they have enough to carry on.”
“Yes, and half of them are named Imagine,” Luc joked.
“All of us determined not to let the rat race hijack our lives,” Hannah added.
Kyle was still looking around like he’d just entered the magic kingdom. Then he seemed to come to himself, stepping toward Marie in the galley. “Can I help?”
There he goes again. The thought flitted through Hannah’s mind — this time with an inner chuckle instead of a groan.
“Do you cook?” Marie asked.
He nodded. “I’m a star with ramen noodles.”
“A born sailor!”
Hannah wasn’t sure, but she thought she might have caught a little gleam in his eye at that comment. Then he was spirited away by the girls. Hannah made small talk with Marie and Luc, who was looking much better than he had that afternoon.
“I have a good excuse not to cook now,” Luc joked, but then his face fell. “But for sailing — not so good.” He held up his bandaged hand.
Hannah looked at Marie, who shrugged. “We wanted to depart for the Cook Islands this week, but the doctor says it’s better to stay two weeks to let his hand heal.” She exchanged resigned looks with Luc. “So, we wait.”
Hannah nodded. “I guess there are worse places in the world to be stuck waiting than Maupiti.”
That cheered them up, and soon the three were poring over charts, speculating where they might make landfall next. The Northern Cook Islands? Tonga? Samoa? It all sounded so good.
“I hope we see the mantas again before we leave,” Luc mused.
Marie nodded. “Did you see the manta rays here? Elles sont magnifiques!”
Hannah shook her head. “I haven’t had the chance yet. But soon,” she added, making a vow to herself to get out between jobs on the boat.
Marie tasted the fish marinade, pronounced it ready, and called down to the kids in the cabin. “Les enfants!”
“I’ll get them,” Hannah offered and went below to fetch Kyle and the kids.
She followed the sounds of laughter to the port aft cabin and pulled up short. Kyle was sitting on the edge of the bed, braiding Caroline’s hair. Constance was behind him, her hair already in two French braids. She tried to work a barrette into Kyle’s thick brown hair as Claire waited her turn to style Kyle’s hair.
“Wow,” Hannah said. “I didn’t think guys knew how to braid.”
He looked up, a little chagrined. “I had a girlfriend who…” His eyes flitted to Hannah then to the floor. “Anyway…is it dinner time?”
Dinner was delicious, a variation of the dish they’d had in the hotel the night before. “Poisson Tahitienne,” Marie said with evident pride. “A little lime juice, a little coconut milk…”
Hannah groaned in pleasure over every bite. “Delicious.”
Kyle licked his fingers and leaned out for the view of the stars. “What a night,” he breathed.
The craggy, volcanic peak of Maupiti was a dark shadow to the north, and the distant sound of the ocean meeting the fringing reef was a soft whisper.
“Amazing, eh?” Hannah agreed. “And sailors always get the best view.”
He nodded quietly, lost in thought.
After dinner came a round of cards with the girls, a variation of Go Fish with animal families.
“Le grand-père of the sheep,” Kyle said to Constance. “Baaa.”
“Maaa,” she corrected him.
Then it was Caroline’s turn, and she asked for a card in English. “The father dog,” she said, glancing at Kyle and earning a hearty thumbs-up.
Eventually, Marie and Luc packed the kids off to bed, leaving Hannah and Kyle alone together under the stars.
“Whew,” she said, mainly to fill the sudden silence. “Imagine having three girls!”
“Yeah, imagine that,” he said, very quietly.
Hannah wondered what he might mean. “I still can’t believe how good you are with them.”
He laughed. “Like I said, my sister has three kids. My brother has one — so far. See?” He rooted around in his pocket and pulled out a wallet full of pictures of happy kids. “Rebecca just had a dance recital. Zoe’s into coloring. Andy loves trucks, and Tyler is just about ready to walk.” He grinned
at the pictures as if he were the proud father. “They’re a lot of fun. You get to be a kid around kids.”
The way he said it made Hannah wonder if maybe he didn’t get enough time to do just that when he was little.
“So, you’re one of three kids,” she said.
“Yep, the oldest.”
She looked at him as he leaned back, still mesmerized by the stars. “I thought your siblings were older.”
“Why’s that?”
“I guess because…they sounded older. They have kids.”
He snorted. “If you say what you’re thinking, you’ll sound just like my mother.”
She laughed, and he joined her. “And you said you work in the family business,” she prompted. “With your dad?”
He shook his head. “Together with my uncle. My father died when I was six.”
Hannah sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m sorry…”
He made a small gesture. “I barely remember him.”
It wasn’t the first time Hannah was reminded of how very, very fragile life could be. “Must have been so hard for your mom, with three kids.”
He sat up straighter. Prouder. “She got a lot of help from my uncle — my dad’s brother. He pretty much took us under his wing.”
Hannah studied his profile and chewed on that. The oldest child of a widowed mother, working in the family business. As oldest, he was the one with all the responsibility. She could imagine it easily: Be good, Kyle. Help Mommy. Help the younger kids. Keep them out of trouble.
Suddenly, a lot of things about Kyle made sense. His sheepdog mentality, his instinct to protect. All his efforts to help and check on her yesterday had been meant well, yet she’d shot him down each time.
Her gut sank. Maybe she’d gotten him all wrong. Maybe the guy was genuine.
Now it was her turn to look out at the stars and think. So what if she didn’t need help carrying heavy things or if she wasn’t about to drown? Kyle had just been watching out for her. When was the last time someone had done that?
Not for a long time, that’s when.
Her eyes slowly traced the lines of the Southern Cross while her fingers scratched the hem of her shorts.
