Paradise Cafe

by Adrienne Staff

  “Or been so glad to be alive?”

  “Yes, I guess that’s it. Silly, isn’t it?”

  “Nope.” Understanding flickered in his eyes. “I’ve had mornings like that. They’re a present dropped on the foot of your bed when it isn’t even Christmas.”

  Abby breathed in the cool mountain air. He knew! She wanted to tell him, Yes, that’s just how I feel that’s it: You’ve read my thoughts! But she was too private a person ever to reveal that much to a stranger. Instead she steadied her wobbly voice and said, “One thing I’m sure of. I’ll feel even better after a good hot shower. Can you point me in the right direction?”

  “I can do better than that,” he said, and grinned. “After all, I’m a guide with a reputation to uphold. Follow me.”

  “Wait. Just let me get my clean clothes.” Ducking back inside the tent, she grabbed her pack. She debated putting on clean socks and tennis shoes, but her feet were so filthy she decided to wait until she had showered.

  Jack was already a way down the path, and Abby had to trot to catch up. A small groan escaped her lips as she strained sore, aching muscles. “Ow!” she yelped, stepping on a sharp rock with her bare foot. Oh, where was the warm, sandy ground of home?

  Jack turned. Cursing himself silently, then hurried back and took her arm. “Sorry. I thought you said you were fine.”

  “I thought I was!” With a rueful smile she added, “I guess there are a few bumps and bruises hiding under all this mud.”

  “Yup. After a spill like that, you usually find all kinds of aches and bruises the next day.”

  “Oh,” she whispered, remembering. “I hate that river!”

  He wrapped an arm around her trembling shoulders. “Hey, it’s not the river’s fault. You picked the wrong outfit, the wrong guide—”

  “The wrong vacation, ho-ney!” she drawled, stretching her vowels with a down-home sultriness that made Jack grin. “I mean, I could’ve been bird-watching in the Everglades, or lying on the beach at Daytona, or—”

  “Sounds dull.”

  “No, it sounds safe and sensible. And I’m a safe and sensible person.” Their gazes held through a pause that was perhaps a heartbeat long, and then Abby added softly, “That’s who I am, and I can’t afford to be anything else.”

  Jack frowned, Without another word he led the way down a steep trail that just skirted the clearing and stopped in front of a hand-pumped shower rigged at the water’s edge.

  Abby skidded to a stop at his side.

  “This is it?” she exclaimed, wide-eyed, breaking the tension.

  “The Gore Canyon Hilton, at your service. You wash, I’ll pump.” Jack handed her a blue terry towel from a hook nailed in the wooden wall. The wall itself came just up to her shoulder; there was no roof!

  That dark, appraising glint flickered in his eyes again. “Hope you’re not shocked.”

  For the first time, Abby laughed out loud, a sweet ringing peal of laughter that sailed to the tree tops.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “It’s just that I’m a country girl. I’ve taken many a bath in a galvanized tub set smack dab in the middle of the kitchen. No,” she said, and grinned, “this doesn’t shock me.”

  Abby tossed the towel over the side, then ducked inside, pulled off her clothes, and threw them across the wooden wall next to the towel. On tiptoe, she looked over at Jack. “No peeking,” she warned, eyeing him warily.

  “Scout’s honor,” he assured her.

  Goose bumps lifted all over her bare skin. It was no boy scout on the other side of the wall—of that she was sure! Instinct warned her to get done and back into some clothes, fast.

  “Soap?” she asked, looking around. All she saw was a piece of root stuck on a nail. “Don’t tell me …”

  “Yucca root. No pollution,” he explained calmly.

  “Should have known!” Shaking her head, she stepped under the shower head. “Okay!”

  “Okay,” he answered, and she heard the creak of the pump handle and got hit right over the head with a gush of ice-cold water. “Yikes! Turn on the hot!” she yelled, laughing even as she did, knowing this was it.

  She hadn’t washed as fast since her childhood in Hooper.

  Covered with suds, she peeked over the wall to make sure he was keeping his promise, and sure enough, she saw the chiseled line of his profile. But she thought she detected just the faintest hint of a grin lifting the corner of his mouth.

  She scrubbed faster, sticking separate, goose-bump-covered parts of her anatomy under the icy spray. “Enough, enough!” she shouted finally, rinsing the last of the lather out of her hair. “Stop!”

  Abby toweled off, delighting in the luxury of clean hair, clean skin, clean clothes. Rubbing her hair dry, she hummed a little song to herself as she stepped out from behind the partition.

  Jack’s dark eyes widened in surprise. She was a golden girl, a slender woman painted in a palette of summer colors: The gold of her skin, sun-streaked blond hair that lifted and curled as the wind dried it, touches of coral at cheeks and lips, and those sky-blue eyes. He whistled softly between his teeth. “Sure am glad the river only gave you a few bruises and left the rest untouched!”

  Abby blushed, the blood rising to her cheeks so quickly, it made her dizzy. She pressed one hand to her throat and felt her pulse fluttering wildly beneath her fingertips.

  Jack reached over and put his hand gently on top of hers. “Hey, I’m sorry! I keep forgetting what you just went through. But don’t worry, I’m a rough-talking river rat—”

  “A wonderful river rat who saved my life!” she insisted fiercely, reaching up to touch his unshaven cheek.

  They both felt the sudden jolt of electricity. For only a second, Jack recklessly considered taking advantage of her vulnerability: He’d sweep her up in his arms, cradle her slender warmth against his body, carry her back to the tent, and make fiery love to her. Then he saw the confusion in her wide eyes and put a hard rein on his desire.

  Abby, equally as flustered, quickly changed the subject. “How about some breakfast? Your treat,” she added teasingly. Her usual reserve seemed to have fled, banished by the wonder of the warm sun, the solid, wonderful earth beneath her feet, and this man.

  This was an extraordinary day, something good coming to balance the bad, as her mother always said. And if it didn’t seem so safe and sensible, and if she didn’t know quite how to handle it, well … it was only for one day. She’d wing it!

  Still laughing, Jack cupped her elbow with his broad hand. “Come on. I want to get a bandage on that knee of yours, and I’ll introduce you to the rest of the crew.”

  The rest of the “crew,” as he called them, were gathered in the clearing down near the riverbank, sitting on logs or upturned barrels, drinking coffee, playing poker, or studying U.S. geological-survey topographical maps of the rivers. The maps were creased and worn, stained with coffee, covered with large X’s and dates penned in indelible ink. Their voices were a muted whisper against the roar of the river beyond.

  A bearded giant of a man looked up as Jack and Abby emerged from the woods. “Hey, you river rats, straighten up! Here’s the boss—with company.”

  “Abby Clarke, my partner, Bear Dempsey.”

  “Glad to meet you,” Abby said, staring as her hand vanished in the man’s grip.

  Bear introduced her around while Jack went for the first-aid kit and a mug of steaming black coffee.

  There was an older man, sixty, perhaps, with a white scar down his cheek; two women, lean and sunburned and athletic-looking; and several men in denims and cut-offs and T-shirts: guides, rafters, kayakers—river rats all.

  They’d look up for a moment and nod politely, offer a name or more often a nickname, Scratch or Lucky or Debby Dare, and return to their own business. There was an intensity here that Abby felt familiar with. It was the singleness of purpose, the camaraderie that she had seen between her father and the grove workers on the nights that frost threatened. Charting
the cold front, readying the smudge pots, they had given the tourist, the curiosity seeker, the same cool welcome she now felt.

  It didn’t bother her at all. She sat on the edge of a log and nursed her coffee. Jack had stopped to peer over someone’s shoulder at a worn, creased map. She overheard snatches of their conversation: “The Dolores River … Snaggle Tooth Rapid … Class Five … portage.” It all sounded terribly ominous, but Jack laughed. “Yup, that’s a sure case of rapid fever!”

  “What’s ‘rapid fever’?” Abby asked as Jack hunkered down beside her, his hands resting on his denim-clad thighs.

  “It’s when you take one look at a rapid and your stomach hits your throat. Best thing to do is portage.”

  “But do you? Do you carry your raft—or ride it?”

  “Depends on how high the water is. How fast. How good I’m feeling.”

  “I could never feel that good!” Abby swore. “From now on, if it’s not a lake, it’s too high, too fast.”

  He laughed. “You’d get used to it.”

  “Not me.” She took another sip of coffee and looked up the slope into the woods. “That’s for me. Hiking. Walking. Sitting!”

  “Climbing?”

  “Like yesterday? On mountainsides, with ropes and falling rock? No, thanks.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Do you?”

  “ ’Fraid so.”

  “Thought so,” she muttered beneath her breath. “The man must be crazy!”

  Jack heard and bit back a grin. “Sit still now,” he commanded. “I’m going to put some iodine on that knee and wrap it for you.”

  Abby acquiesced, soothed by the good, strong coffee and the sure, strong touch of his hands. Someone else handed her a doughnut, and she nodded her thanks and wolfed it down in three bites. She hadn’t had anything in her stomach but river water for longer than she cared to remember. Oh, for one of her gram’s sweet sticky buns, crusted in pecans they had shelled themselves, sitting knee to knee on the big swaybacked porch under the magnolia trees …

  Jack glanced up from his bandaging and caught her licking her fingers, a faraway look clouding her eyes.

  “Hello, there,” he said softly, filled with an irrational desire to have her look at him that way. “Whatcha thinking about?”

  Pulled back from her daydream, Abby shrugged. “Just lazing around and letting you do all the work.” She smiled.

  He remained still for a moment, one hand resting on the bare skin of her thigh.

  Abby read the flicker of desire in his eyes and decided it was time to change the subject again. “Any chance you’ve seen Elaine this morning?”

  “Yup,” he answered, straightening. “One of my guides took her and your two pals downriver in an oar boat. They left about nine—”

  “What!” Abby choked, spilling coffee down the front of her shirt. “What? You let them get back on that damn river?” she shouted.

  There was dead silence on the riverbank.

  Then Bear got up, tossed his coffee on the ground at his feet, and stomped away. The others looked expectantly from her to Jack and back again.

  He stood stiff-backed, tight-jawed for a moment, and then grabbed her arm and propelled her back up the path.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded, squirming in his grip.

  “I’m getting you out of there before someone decides to chew you up and spit you out.”

  Abby gasped. “Me? What did I do?”

  Jack stopped, took hold of both her shoulders, and turned her to face him. He knew he should let her go. See her get on the van back to town that afternoon and forget her. That was what was going to happen anyway, so why explain? It was crazy to try!

  But she had already said he was crazy—and emotion he couldn’t explain made him want to try, just this once.

  His intense gaze swept from her sandy blond hair, to those clear blue eyes, to her stubborn, beautiful mouth. His expression grew thoughtful.

  “I don’t know if this will make sense, but if you’re willing to listen, I’m willing to try.” He waited for her to nod, then continued. “We, the people you just met and I, we love the rivers. Not just the Colorado, but the Yampa, the Piedra, the Gunnison, the Blue, the Dolores. We love the canyons, with their wild names: Desolation, Cataract, Animas, Split Mountain. For us, the rivers are adventure and sport, risk and challenge. They’re what we test ourselves against, the things we use to measure our lives. They fill us with excitement, with passion.”

  He placed his hands gently around her face and tilted it up to his. “Tell me, what fills you with passion, Abby Clarke? What do you love?”

  “You are crazy,” she whispered. “You don’t even know who I am, where I come from, what I do for a living—”

  “We’ll get back to that. Answer my question.”

  But she stood silent, mesmerized by his touch. Pictures flashed unbidden behind her eyes: Acres of orange groves, the sultry Florida air heavy with the scent of orange blossoms; the shabby, unpainted house of her childhood; her parents; a corncob doll; an old hound waiting on a dusty road. These were things too personal to share. But there must be something; she owed him that—and more. So, Abigail Jean, what can you tell this man? Up popped the image of her neat little restaurant, with its yellow shutters, and the Open for Business sign in the window.

  Jack saw the smile form on her lips, washing away the haunted look her lovely face had worn. He waited silently, wondering, one thumb absently circling on the cool skin of her cheek.

  “My restaurant,” she answered with great surety.

  “A … restaurant?” he echoed skeptically, frowning.

  “My restaurant,” she said insistently. “My own. I built it from nothing, just an idea, a dream, and now people come from miles around, from Eustis and Tavares and—” She stopped suddenly and gave a pixieish smile. “You wouldn’t know any of those places, not a one. But it doesn’t matter, because I know them, and back there, they know me. That’s home. You asked, and I told you—but I don’t expect you to understand.” She set her hands on her hips, cocksure and defiant.

  “You didn’t give me a chance to understand. Lord, you are a short-tempered woman.”

  “So I’ve been told,” she said, echoing his words of the night before.

  He gave a shout of laughter, narrowed his eyes, and grinned at her. “Well, you gonna try me?”

  Lifting one shoulder in a little shrug, she matched his grin. “Maybe. Why should I?”

  “Because I want to know something about you. I have to! According to an old Indian legend, once you save someone’s life, a part of that person stays with you forever. Well, you wouldn’t want me to carry a total stranger around in my heart for the rest of my natural days, now, would you?”

  Abby swallowed hard.

  “Okay,” she conceded, smiling. She walked over and perched on a boulder, arms wrapped around her knees. “Well, I own a restaurant in Mount Dora. That’s central Florida, just north of Orlando. Disney World, you know? It’s really nice: Lovely, and quiet—intimate. I call it the Paradise Café. And I’m one terrific cook! I opened it four years ago with every cent I could save and borrow and beg, and it’s done well, knock wood! I mean, sometimes—well, sometimes I can’t believe it myself. But the whole area’s growing, and suddenly I’m not in the sticks any more; I’m ‘fashionably removed from the city’s hubbub’—or so says my advertising!”

  Now that she’d started she couldn’t stop, and the words tumbled out. “And recently I took on a partner who’s got money to invest, I mean the kind of money I could never get hold of, and we’re going to expand and redecorate, and we’ll reopen on Memorial Day weekend, and it’s going to be wonderful! So there it is.” And, her eyes glowing with pride, she laughed as if it didn’t matter what he thought.

  “Nice,” he said. “Sounds nice. And I’ll be careful never to say anything bad about your restaurant.”

  Abby dropped her gaze, ran her fingers through her curls, and grinned ruefully. “Ah.”
She sighed, folding her hands in her lap and looking away back down the path. “I see your point. Well, that’s a nice—an acceptable river you’ve got there.”

  He came and knelt beside her. “Can we try for ‘fantastic’?”

  “Don’t push your luck.”

  Another husky laugh rumbled in his chest. “Okay, let’s go on back and I’ll square you with the crew.” He rose and held out a hand.

  Abby slipped hers into the pockets of her shorts. “I don’t think so, Jack. I didn’t mean to offend anyone, but my apologizing won’t make any difference. Besides, I’ll never see any of them again, so their opinion of me doesn’t matter too much, does it?”

  Jack felt a strange constriction in his chest. He dropped his hand, but stood nailed to the ground. “Any chance you’d want to stay another day? Give that knee a chance to heal?”

  “And get into even more trouble? No, I don’t think so!” She shook her head, sending her hair flying around her flushed cheeks.

  “But your pal seems to want to stay—”

  “Then let her! Anyway”—Abby sighed—“we’re not such pals. She works in a little boutique nearby, and when she heard I was closing for the remodeling, she talked me into this vacation.” Lifting one shoulder in a tiny shrug, she continued. “I haven’t had too much experience with vacations; never could afford one or find the time. And Elaine made Colorado sound so exciting, I just—Well, I got caught up in it. I told you, I never take chances like this.”

  “Then I owe her some thanks,” Jack said, leaning over her, his voice a husky rasp.

  Abby’s huge eyes flew to his face. Her cheeks were flushed. She knew in a moment he was going to kiss her, and that it would be like no other kiss she had ever tasted. For a second she waited in breathless anticipation, but then common sense hit her like a bucket of cold water. This was crazy! More risk! More danger!

  Pressing one hand firmly against his chest, she shook her head. “I think I’d better go lie down. The world’s spinning.”

  Jack wanted to argue, but he held his tongue. The rivers had taught him this: Oppose the current and it would fling you out of its path. But learn its depths and turns and nature, and then you could ride it to heaven.