Villa Blue

by Isla Dean

  “Villa Blue.”

  The man’s face rippled into even more lines that, as a painter, Ivy appreciated the life and texture of.

  He let out a lingering whistle. “Haven’t been there in years. How’s that woman, Danielle, doing?”

  “Donatella.”

  “Yes, Donatella. If memory serves, and more and more it doesn’t, but if it does today, she was a true woman. You know, a woman.” His hands motioned the shapely curves of a female form.

  Being more on the slight and petite side, Ivy could appreciate a man’s view of the buxom Donatella. She’d seen guests, especially the male variety, drool generously at Donatella’s feet. Which always made it easier for Ivy—who had no personal interest in male drool—to slip away through the shadows. “You’ll see her as soon as I call her to come get us.”

  “What’s that?” the man asked as a woman about the same age as the man approached then leaned in toward him for a kiss. For an unhurried minute, the pair swam in each other’s eyes.

  Lost in the dreamy bubble of witnessing the moment, Ivy watched the interaction with fascination. Had they been in love for most of their lifetimes? Had they just found love together? Were they having an affair? Her imagination went to work.

  The couple looked at her in unison, reality interrupting imagination. “Sorry. I suppose you’re not staying at Villa Blue, are you?”

  “Renting a place at the end of the harbor, dear, why?” the woman asked.

  “I’ve mistaken you for someone else,” Ivy explained. “Did you happen to see another man by himself on the ferry?”

  The old man’s wrinkles burst around his eyes as he glanced to the side of her.

  She followed the direction to where a man with dark brown hair—thick and windblown—sunglasses, and a smirk, leaned against the railing between land and sea with his legs casually crossed at his ankles. Ivy studied the lines of him, the white T-shirt, the toned and tanned arms with a shiny watch glinting at the wrist of his left hand. Lanky, she decided. He’d been lanky once, then had filled in.

  Enjoying the story her imagination created, and appreciating the image of him as just that—an image—she wished she didn’t have to interact with the actual man. Instead, she wanted to paint the vital, cocky stance of masculinity.

  Attempt to paint, she corrected with some annoyance.

  Ivy turned back to the couple, offered a quick goodbye, then moved toward the lone man.

  “Staying at Villa Blue?”

  His extended hand answered her question. “Aiden James.”

  Points for Donatella, she decided as she reached out, shook his hand. Though his words were sparse—which she could appreciate—the man’s voice was a potent mix of depth, edge, and gruff amusement. Even still, Ivy would’ve preferred to paint him from afar. Then she could let the myth of him play through her mind without having to interact. She wanted desperately to capture the lean on the railing, the lean of the man who’d been waiting patiently for her to simply turn around and see him.

  And he hadn’t gone after her attention, had he? He hadn’t interrupted to say he was the one she was looking for to take to Villa Blue. He was a man who must not have one flitter of nerves, one thought of unease within him. He looked like a man who had all angles of life inside of him, a man who’d experienced all facets of what life had to offer. And that was what she wanted to capture on paper.

  When her phone interrupted her meandering thoughts, she checked the screen out of reflex, then sent the call to voicemail and shoved it back in her pocket.

  “What’s your name?”

  Her phone rang again. Annoyed, she brought it out and hushed it.

  “Ivy. Yes, like the toxic plant,” she told him, used to the question that followed. “Do you have any bags or are you okay to walk up the hill?” She motioned up to the sprawling blue villa nestled between tall, tapered cypress trees at the top of the hill.

  He reached down, picked up a distressed gray leather bag from beside his feet. “Lead the way.”

  When her phone rang again, she took a deep breath and figured she may as well get the call over with. The continuous disturbance was annoying and the likelihood that she’d take the energy to call her ex-husband back later was nil. Plus, the man in front of her appeared competent enough to lead his own way up the hill.

  “Just head up that road, up the hill until you reach the villa. Donatella will greet you when you arrive. Just follow the smell of rosemary bread. I need to take this call, excuse me.”

  She turned, wandered down the center of the main road through town, not noticing the line of golf carts—the only mode of motorized transportation allowed on the east side of the island—that swerved, making way for her.

  The serious-faced woman, who looked more like some kind of fairy than an actual person, amused him. At first glimpse, he’d pegged her for a polite rule-follower, one of those people who tiptoed through life then arrived at the end as if there were a halo waiting for them for good behavior. But she hadn’t been polite—at least not overly—nor did she appear to pay attention to rules like walking on sidewalks instead of streets, which bumped up the mild amusement into keen fascination.

  He watched as she wandered away with her phone clutched at her ear, and he took in the moving maze of tourist activity—strolling pedestrians, bicycle riders, golf carts—observing in awe as it parted for her wherever she went.

  A young guy on a bike rode past, then glanced over his shoulder, giving Ivy a once over, ringing the bell twice on his bicycle trying to get her attention.

  Enjoying that the slight and slender woman was seemingly oblivious to all around her, Aiden decided to head into the nearby bar, grab a beer, then sit back on the patio and watch the show. A single-minded woman maneuvering through the seaside town was bound to provide some entertainment.

  The fact that the woman had blue eyes that looked to be on the verge of dipping into daydreams, a full, soft mouth that somehow balanced out the carvings of her finely featured face, and hair that looked like it was about to burst from its hold on top of her head…well, it just made things interesting.

  And he was a man skilled at finding what interested him wherever he went.

  After glancing around at the neat lines of colorful shops, the narrow streets dotted with golf carts, and the boats moored in the harbor moving with the rhythm of waves, he stepped into the bar that was bustling with the buzz of vacationers and scented by an abundance of fried food.

  This might be one hell of a business trip, he decided.

  She stopped midstride and a tourist bumped into her from behind, but she barely registered the collision. “You’re what?” she asked into the phone.

  “Getting married.”

  The voice of her ex-husband sounded like a remnant echo from the other side of a long, flimsy tube that burrowed through time.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Married, Ivy. Married. I’m getting married and I, well, I wanted to see if you wanted to come. Or maybe that’s too weird. But I wanted you to know, and I wanted you to know that you’re invited.”

  Her mind stunned into silence and she reached for words, grasping for something to say. “Married?”

  “You were my best friend for five years, Ivy. I was hoping you’d want to be there. But it’s okay if you don’t. I get it.”

  A lump lodged in her throat, allowing only a whisper to escape. “You couldn’t possibly get it. Our anniversary…” She cleared away the clog, testing her voice. “You called me on what would have been our anniversary to tell me this?”

  “What? Babe, I can’t hear you. Reception keeps cutting out.”

  Blinking away the tears that stung, she began walking without aim. She just needed to move. “I’m…” She stepped around exclamatory announcements on sandwich boards—buy one pair of flip-flops, get one free!—giggling kids with ice cream smeared on their sun-soaked faces, men leisurely gripping fishing poles. “I’m happy for you,” she settled on the basic yet complex trut
h.

  “There’s one more thing. If you decide to come to the wedding, and we hope you do, but you should know that we’re pregnant. Well, she’s pregnant. Whatever. Can you believe it? It all happened so fast.”

  Tears spilled over and words evaporated from her mind, not necessarily out of sadness, or even frustration—she’d dealt enough with that. More out of the confusing poignancy of the moment, like a microscope focusing in on a nick in time, one that had begun to heal over with new life but that had left behind a commemorative scar.

  “Babe, oh, I gotta go. Heading into surgery. But think about it, about coming to the wedding. It’s this Saturday. I’ll email you the details. Okay, love-you-bye,” he said as if the three words were lumped into one.

  As the call ended, she frowned at the phone. His voice reverberated through the haze that had descended. Love-you-bye? Hadn’t that basically described their marriage?

  Frozen in place, hearing the words over and over, her eyes widened when a hand, competent and strong, appeared through the fog of her thoughts, reaching for her.

  She squinted, searching up the length of the man’s arm to his face that was shadowed with dark stubble. What was his name? Aiden something?

  “Take my hand.”

  “What? No,” she managed to say.

  “Take my hand. You look like you need a distraction. I have an idea.”

  She didn’t take his hand but felt his clasp around hers anyway. “Did you get lost on the way to Villa Blue? Where are we going?”

  “I don’t get lost. Being lost is just an alternative adventure. And you look like you need one.”

  She offered no resistance as the shock had overwhelmed her senses. “I’m not really an adventurous person.”

  “You won’t be able to say that five minutes from now.”

  “Why? What’s happening in five minutes?”

  He continued to hold her hand, easily taking her to the edge of the harbor. “You’ll see.”

  “If you’re going to murder me, you may as well just get it over with now.”

  They trudged up a hill that snaked along the rocky edge where the sea collided with land, then stopped at the end of the cliff that jutted out like a long, craggy finger between the harbor and the bay. Before them, ribbony waves of blue stretched toward the California coast.

  “I’m not going to murder you, Ivy.” His voice was rich, calm by comparison to her commotive mind.

  She looked out at the horizon and her eyes leveled with it. “If this is some version of ‘take in the view, see the beauty, blah, blah,’ I don’t want to hear it. And I don’t want to hear any life advice either. I get enough of that from my mother.”

  “I’m not going to give you advice.”

  He stepped between her and the stretch of sea, looked directly at her, into the depths of what stung beneath the surface. “I’m going to help you forget about whatever hurts.”

  Suspicion scrunched her face into a frown as realization crept through the fog. “I’m not interested in kissing strangers at the moment, thanks.”

  A side grin slid onto his handsome face. “While the idea is a good one, I’m not into kissing crying women. But I am going to help you.”

  “Help me how?”

  “By jumping off this cliff with you.”

  She took a step back. “I’m not jumping off of a cliff. Are you crazy? Never mind, obviously you are. But I’m not. I’m not jumping off of a perfectly fine cliff.”

  “All right. Then you can watch.” Aiden tugged off his shirt, stepped out of his shoes, tossed his sunglasses on top of the heap.

  Refusing to give him the satisfaction of studying the strength of him, she shifted her gaze from his lean muscles back to the horizon that, by comparison, was unfortunately dull.

  “You sure you don’t want to come? It’ll be fun.”

  “I don’t feel like having fun.”

  “Want to talk about it instead?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Good. This would be better anyway. Let me ask you something,” he started, taking stance next to her. “The person who called you earlier. Would they think you’d ever jump off a perfectly fine cliff?”

  She thought about it—her ex-husband learning she’d done something dangerous—and a smile hinted like a defiant whisper on her lips.

  “Isn’t that reason enough?” Aiden asked, reading her.

  Feeling her heartbeat for the first time in months, she surprised herself by joining her hand with his and stepping out of her shoes. “What am I doing? I can’t do this.”

  “Yes you can.”

  “Are you sure this is safe?”

  “No,” he replied. “We go on three.”

  She heard the count as she thought of the years spent politely smiling through dinner parties hosted by fellow doctor’s wives, riding the spinning hamster wheel of small talk. She thought of the years spent doing what she was supposed to do, according to others. She thought of the woman her husband had left her for, the woman now carrying his baby.

  That woman had life inside of her.

  And what did she have inside of her besides a big boulder of artist’s block weighing down her world? Would she sink to the bottom of the sea because of it? she wondered as she heard the final count and found herself soaring through the sky with a man she’d just met.

  Chapter Two

  Submerged in the depths of the bay, Ivy kicked her way up to the surface where she sucked in a gasp of air. “Holy crap, that’s cold.”

  “Refreshing. Feel better?” Aiden’s face was covered with glinting drops of the reflective ocean, somehow looking even more handsome.

  “Strange idea of refreshing,” she told him through teeth that began to chatter. “And I’ll get back to you on the rest once my senses return. I think my fingers are numb.”

  He gave her a little nudge and they began swimming toward the sandy crescent that cradled the bay. The touch was a gentle form of checking on her—it wasn’t pushing or pulling her in any direction, but rather the easy reminder of a comrade.

  As they reached where tourists sprawled on colorful towels and played in the shallow bay, Ivy expected applause for the death-defying plunge. But the only sounds were of waves lapping at the beach, boats sounding their way into the harbor, seagulls squawking demands for food, and that collective chatter of beachgoers. Either no one had seen them or no one cared terribly much, because their approach was broadly ignored.

  When her frozen toes reached hot sand, she thawed enough to realize she actually did feel better. Alive. Her lungs and heart had skipped breaths and beats as she’d fallen through the air, and that feeling that had welled in her chest while talking to Greg had been replaced by a potent rush of adrenaline. Realizing that, she tilted her head up to the soothing glimmer of the sun to soak in the warm and glorious sensations.

  She may not have encountered a magical muse on her trek into town, but she had come across an adventurous—if not a tad dangerous—man who had somehow managed to get her to jump into the Pacific Ocean.

  Goosebumps covered her arms and she felt along them with her chilled fingers. She’d done something adventurous, she thought with a soft smile. Just what had come over her?

  When she looked down at the sand that coated her feet, she realized her white linen shirt that had been baggy was now clinging tightly to her petite figure, sheer and showing the lacy bra beneath it. She immediately tugged at the fabric to pull it away from her chest.

  “I’ve seen you jump off a cliff. No need to be modest now,” he told her as he shook water from his hair then raked a hand through the thick waves, pushing it back.

  His face was striking; his features were hard and angled but there was something boyish about his grin, something unpredictable about his mouth, like it could take you places with one spontaneous breath.

  The pulse pumping through her body provided a healthy dose of heat.

  Maybe it was the fact that she’d done something so out of character, so far o
utside of the scope of who she was, that the adrenaline was altering her perspective of him. Or maybe it was clarifying it? She was open to either perspective—after all, she had the heart of an artist and could appreciate contrasting views—but, she reminded herself, the man was still a complete stranger.

  “I don’t usually show my bra to men within fifteen minutes of meeting them,” she replied as they made their way toward the sidewalk.

  “Good to know. So if you don’t flash men—at least ones you don’t know—and aren’t into adventure—usually—what do you do around here, Ivy?”

  A thin twinge vibrated through her at the casual sound of her name rolling off his tongue, like the single string of a guitar being strummed.

  “I’m an artist,” she said softly, as any rigid declaration would’ve felt false. Though she’d been painting for almost her entire twenty-six years, the announcement of it was new, the singular identification of it still stiff like the bristles of a new paintbrush, so she spoke tenderly, easing in.

  “What style?” Aiden asked as he approached a yellow striped cabana with a sign declaring golf cart rentals.

  “Impressionism. Where’re you going?”

  “Monet, Renoir, Manet,” he nodded. “To rent a golf cart. Looks like best way to get back up the hill to our stuff, right?”

  “I don’t have a wallet with me,” she said, realizing how poorly planned it had been to jump into the ocean. Not that she’d ever plan to do such a thing. “I don’t suppose you do?”

  “Nope.”

  The messy bun on top of her head started to feel like a heavy, matted mess. “You have to give them a credit card and driver’s license to rent a cart. We can just walk. It’s a ways but—”

  “Men don’t walk long distances in wet jeans.”

  She eyed him as she pulled the band out of her hair, releasing the tangle of it to fall down her back. “You told me not to be modest with a wet white shirt on,” she pointed out as she squeezed water from the ends of her hair. “So you should have no trouble walking up the hill in your underwear.”