Nerd in Shining Armor

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “How could I think about where to set your precious glasses when I was sure you were going to be gobbled by a shark?” She surveyed the fuzzy landscape and started forward, hoping for a glint of sun off either the lenses or the metal frames.

  “Those precious glasses are critical to this operation. Hey, don’t walk too fast! You might step on them! Jesus.”

  Although his tone irritated her, Genevieve paused. He had a point. “What we need is one of those metal detectors. That’s how they found Granny Neville’s false teeth, with one of those things.”

  “If you’re fantasizing, you might as well ask for something really useful, like a helicopter.”

  She faced him, no longer caring if her nipples showed or not. “Your mood is getting downright ugly, you know that? You’re acting like a pup who got his nose stuck in a knothole, and I don’t much appreciate it.”

  “Well, I don’t much appreciate that you tossed my glasses into the sand! God knows if we’ll find them again, with both of us blind as bats. And even if we do, sand is an abrasive. The lenses will be scratched all to hell.”

  She lifted her chin. “Oh, kiss my grits.”

  He stared at her. Then a snort of laughter popped out of him, followed by a chuckle and at last a full-blown belly laugh.

  Watching Jack laugh was a novel experience. Now that she thought about it, she might never have seen him laugh like this, doubled over, holding his sides while tears ran down his cheeks. She wasn’t sure why he was laughing, though. Maybe he’d finally cracked and this wasn’t laughter but hysterics. That wouldn’t be so good.

  “Jack, are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” He swallowed and wiped his eyes. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  “What’s so funny?”

  He grinned at her. “Kiss my grits. That’s what’s funny.”

  “I think the sun is getting to you. There’s nothing funny about that. People say it all the time back home.”

  “I’ll bet they do.” He continued to smile at her. “Now, c’mon. Let’s get down on our hands and knees and crawl around until we find those glasses.”

  As Jack searched the warm sand for his glasses, he couldn’t help glancing up once in a while to watch Genevieve on her hands and knees a short distance away. The woman he saw bore little resemblance to the poised secretary he’d lusted after, but this new version was even more tantalizing than the old.

  He’d thought of her as cool and regal. Instead she was spirited and warm and funny as hell. And he’d love to kiss her grits, no matter what part of her anatomy that stood for.

  “I found them!” She leaped to her feet, spraying sand everywhere as she waved his glasses by the earpiece. “And they’re not broken or anything!” She slipped them on. “Well, okay, they might have a couple of scratches.”

  He sank back on his haunches and enjoyed his fuzzy view of Genevieve wearing his glasses. Even the prospect of scratched lenses didn’t bother him as those wire rims transformed her into a studious sex kitten. He didn’t know if there was such a category. If there was, she belonged in it—barefoot, her clothes wet and transparent, and her hair all mussed like she’d just climbed out of bed.

  “They’re smudged, though.” She took off the glasses, breathed on each lens, and then lifted a corner of her skirt to polish them.

  “Gen, let—” He clamped his mouth shut before another idiotic word came out. So her skirt was probably full of sand and she’d only make matters worse. She might ruin the damned glasses. But while she polished, he had a blurred but tantalizing view of her thigh.

  “What?” She glanced at him.

  “Nothing.” Worrying about his glasses was a reflex. It wasn’t like he had a computer screen to deal with, so scratch-free glasses weren’t a necessity right now, anyway.

  “You were about to say something, Jack.”

  “I was going to say, let’s go get your suitcase.”

  She frowned at him, as if she didn’t believe a word of it. “No, you were going to say, Let me clean my glasses my own self.” She walked over and held out the glasses. “Here. Clean them however you want. I’m sorry I threw them in the sand.”

  That reminded him of why she’d done that. She’d seen a shark coming after him and she’d leaped right into the water to try and save him, risking herself in the process. Besides that, she’d had the presence of mind to toss his glasses up on the sand first instead of wearing them into the surf where they would have been lost forever.

  He stood. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I should be thanking you for coming out to warn me instead of biting your head off about the glasses. That was a brave thing you did.”

  Her chin lifted. “You think I’d let you get chomped by a shark while you were fetching my suitcase? That would be mighty ungrateful of me.”

  Ah, the gratitude thing. Maybe that was what made Gen stand out from the crowd—that deep sense of appreciation for whatever good things came her way. The women he’d known had grown up in suburbia where deprivation meant having their allowances docked or being grounded for a week.

  He’d never thought of them as spoiled, but compared to Gen, they were. They’d had their choice of Reeboks or Nikes, while she might not have worn shoes until she was a teenager. His other girlfriends had taken their safe, middle-class lifestyle for granted. With her background, Gen never would. Not that she was his girlfriend.

  “Well, thank you, anyway,” he said. “Not everyone would have jumped into the water like that.”

  She flushed, almost as if his praise embarrassed her. “No problem. I reckon we need to take care of one another while we’re marooned, right?”

  “Right.” God, but he loved to listen to that down-home speech of hers. He supposed once they were rescued she’d quit talking like that, and he’d definitely miss it.

  “Now take your glasses.” She wiggled them at him. “They’re scratched, but they’re better than nothing.”

  “No, you take them. You’re the one who will be going through your suitcase, not me.”

  “You have a point.” She put on the glasses again. “I still can’t get over the coincidence that we have the same prescription. I mean, what are the chances that two people, stranded on a deserted island, would have exactly the same thing wrong with their eyes?”

  “It must mean we’re soul mates.” He said it with a smile, to let her know he wasn’t serious. Given his admission that he was attracted to her, she might think he was serious. He wanted to show her he could kid about it, so that when this was all over and they were back to being polite friends at the office, she wouldn’t feel sorry for him.

  “I thought Nick was my soul mate.” She started walking toward her pink suitcase. “Which tells you I’m about as psychic as a jug of molasses. Mama, now, she’s psychic. She told me not to go on this trip. I should’ve listened, but I thought I knew better.”

  Jack wondered what would have happened if Genevieve had listened to her mother and refused Nick’s offer. Nick would have asked another secretary, if there were any left who would fall for his act. Jack could have been stranded here with someone else. He didn’t really believe in Fate or premonitions or any of that mumbo jumbo he couldn’t quantify. However, having things turn out the way they had seemed exactly right to him.

  “Mama must be worried sick by now.” Gen knelt by the suitcase and snapped open the clasp. “I promised to call when we landed in Maui. She knows I wouldn’t forget, considering she was so petrified of me flying.”

  “Then she’s probably the person who will see that we get rescued.” If she had half the determination of her daughter, they’d be out of here in no time. He was happy about that, of course. They had no shelter, no water, and nothing to eat but those damned guavas.

  Furthermore, if they wanted to go beyond this little crescent of a beach in search of food and water, they’d have to scale a very high cliff, and that scared the daylights out of him. They were in a tight spot, so he should be looking forward to being rescued. But he also knew that
he couldn’t expect to be this closely involved with Gen once they were saved. Logic told him they’d go back to the status quo.

  She flipped back the top of the round suitcase. “Well, everything’s soaking wet, of course, but we can dry this beach towel and use it.”

  “South Park? You like South Park?” It didn’t fit that she would, but he was thrilled that they might share something as simple as a TV show.

  “No, not really.” She pushed the soggy towel aside. “My brother, Lincoln, loves it, though. I’ve watched it a few times with him and he gave me this towel, probably hoping I’d get hooked even more.”

  So she wasn’t an addict. Too bad. He hated to admit that he’d begun weaving fantasies of the two of them cuddled in front of the television with a bowl of popcorn. Okay, he could watch South Park with her brother, then. It was a start. “How old is your brother?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “It must be nice to have a brother.” His only family was his grandmother, and he’d ended up moving away from her.

  “Mostly it is nice, although sometimes he’s a pain in the butt.” She rummaged through the suitcase. “Oh, look! Mama must have tucked these in here!” She held up four energy bars, two in each hand. “She’s always afraid I won’t get enough to eat.”

  Jack’s mouth watered, but they were her energy bars. “Now you won’t have to depend on guavas.”

  “Now we won’t have to depend on guavas. I say we eat two now and save two for later. Which do you want, the chocolate or the peanut butter?”

  Chocolate. Oh, God. His stomach rumbled, but he tried once more to be noble. “You keep them. We’re not sure how long it’ll take for help to come, and you might need them all.”

  She grinned. “I heard your stomach growling, Jack. And if you think I’m eating these myself after you saved both me and my suitcase, you’ve got another think coming.” She waved two different packages at him. “Take your pick. On the house.”

  “Okay, I’ll take the chocolate.” He did his best not to rip it out of her hands, but he had the wrapper torn open and half the energy bar gone before he thought to take a breath. He felt a little better when he glanced down and she was gobbling hers just as fast, but he’d totally forgotten his manners. “Thank you,” he said.

  She answered with her mouth full. “You’re welcome.”

  He finished the bar and was ready for another one. But she was right. They needed to pace themselves. He also wished they had some water, but it looked like guava juice would be the drink of the day.

  She held out her hand. “I’ll take the wrappers and tuck them back in my suitcase. I wouldn’t want to litter.”

  He smiled as he gave her the empty wrapper. “Too late. We’ve already dropped a big old piece of metal out in the water.”

  “Which we couldn’t help. That doesn’t mean we have to add trash strewn around on the beach.” She tucked the remaining two energy bars back in the suitcase. “I sure hope my green suit will be okay once I get it washed. Everything smells of fish, but that’ll probably come out with a good soak.”

  “Probably.” He thought it wasn’t important what happened to her suit, but obviously she did.

  “You know, it’s hot sitting here in the sun.” She closed the lid and latched it again. “Let’s take the whole thing up into the shade and go through it. We can hang things over the rocks to dry, and I’ll rub sunscreen on your back.”

  “That’s okay. I can put on my shirt now.”

  “No, because then you’ll get a farmer’s tan on your arms, and when you take off your shirt, the rest of you will be lily white. You have a nice build, Jack. You should get a good tan to showcase it.”

  “What about skin cancer?” He’d noticed her comment about him having a nice build, though.

  She gazed up at him, looking so earnest in those glasses. “I’ll tell you something. My uncle Rufus was brown as a berry and he never had a lick of skin cancer. What gives you skin cancer is getting all burnt in one sitting. So slop on the sunscreen and work up to the tan slow and natural.” She smiled. “See? This mess isn’t for nothing, after all. You can get a great start on your tan, which is something that will help you get dates, especially in Honolulu.”

  So they were back to the makeover discussion. He didn’t want dates. He wanted Gen. Obviously that wasn’t a possibility if she was still hell-bent on transforming him into a guy other women would want.

  She stood, brushed the sand from her knees, and reached for the handle of the suitcase.

  “You’d better not pick it up by the—”

  Too late. She pulled on the handle and it came off in her hand. “Tarnation.”

  “Never mind. I can carry it without the handle.”

  “It broke clean off.” She stared at the pink leather strap in her hand. “I can’t believe it.”

  “No problem. We don’t really need the strap.” Jack leaned down to scoop the suitcase up from the sand. With its waterlogged contents it was very heavy, but that would give him a chance to show off the muscles she’d been admiring.

  He’d taken several steps toward the shade of the overhanging lava rock before he realized she wasn’t following him. He turned and discovered her still standing there looking at the broken strap. Then her shoulders quivered.

  Good Lord, she was crying. He plopped the suitcase back down on the sand and sprinted back to her. “Gen? What is it?”

  “Something stupid.” She wouldn’t look at him.

  “Try me.”

  “That ugly pink suitcase!” she wailed. “I thought I hated it because it was so old and out of style, and…and now it’s broken.”

  He thought about his Corolla, which was also old and outdated. Sometimes he cursed it and considered getting a new car, but he hadn’t done that, and if it ever got wrecked…. He slid an arm around her shoulders. “We’ll fix the suitcase.”

  She looked up at him, the glasses magnifying her teary eyes. “But the metal part pulled right out of the side! I don’t think you can fix something like that, Jack.”

  “I do.” He had no idea how, but he’d find a way, once they got back to Honolulu.

  “You do?” She sniffed and wiped her hand across her nose.

  Suddenly he had no problem picturing her as a little hillbilly, a scrappy kid who nevertheless had a sentimental streak a mile wide. “Sure. Maybe an insert inside to reinforce that part. There has to be a leather shop in Honolulu that could do it.”

  Although her cheeks were still wet with tears, she began to grin. “Do you realize how dumb that is, to fix this suitcase?”

  “Not if it means something to you, and it obviously does.”

  She sniffed again. “I didn’t think so yesterday. Yesterday I was ashamed to take it on this trip, but look what it did for me. It survived the plane crash and came floating in with all my stuff. When I saw it out there in the water, I felt so happy that I hadn’t lost it.”

  “You were ashamed of it? Why?”

  “Because it came from the Goodwill, and I thought Nick would see that it was at least fifty years old. I didn’t know that it had become a part of my family until I saw it bobbing out there in the waves like a big pink marshmallow.”

  He stroked her soft arm. “Then if it’s a member of the family, it deserves to be fixed. So keep the strap, and that can be the first thing we do when we get back.”

  “Yeah.” She gazed up at him. “You’re very sweet, Jack. Did you know that?”

  He didn’t know how to respond, but he was afraid sweet wasn’t a good thing to be if he wanted to make it with Gen. He was better off when she commented on his muscles.

  “It’s a crime a sweet guy like you doesn’t have a girlfriend,” she added.

  Yep, sweet was a bad thing. It was what she called guys who were nice but boring. He gave her a quick squeeze and released her. “I’ll go get your suitcase now.” In the process he’d flex his muscles. Then he’d let her rub sunscreen on those same muscles. And even when he had access to a
razor again, he’d let his beard grow so he’d look more like a pirate. He might even get contacts, although he hated the idea of putting objects in his eyes.

  But tough times called for tough measures. No more Mr. Sweet.

  Chapter Eight

  While Matt Murphy talked to the folks at the Maui airport, Annabelle watched him like a chicken hawk circling the henhouse. His expression gave him away, but then she’d known the plane wasn’t there. She’d prayed that she was wrong, but she knew.

  Matt hung up the phone. He looked a good ten years older than he had when she’d walked into his office. “I’m sure he’s taken it upon himself to land at a different airport,” he said. “Maybe he had engine trouble and put down at Molokai.”

  “Call there, then.” But Annabelle didn’t think Nick had put down at Molokai. She wished to hell that he had, but they had telephones on Molokai. Genevieve would have called her the minute she had a chance.

  Muttering under his breath, Matt picked up the phone again. “Kendra, I want you to contact the airport at Molokai and find out if the Rainbow Systems plane landed there this morning.” He paused. “And if it didn’t, then check with Kauai and the Big Island. Let me know what you find out.” He dropped the phone back in its cradle and stared at it without moving.

  “They won’t be at any of those airports.” Annabelle’s heart beat so fast she wondered if she should sit down and put her head between her knees. She couldn’t afford to faint. Time could mean the difference between life and death.

  He glanced up, his jaw tight. “What are you, psychic?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t usually admit that to strangers, but her daughter’s safety depended on Matt Murphy taking her instincts into consideration. “Not as psychic as some of my kin, but sometimes I see things. I saw danger in this trip, but I thought it was my fear of planes talking. It wasn’t. Something is terribly wrong and we need to alert whoever can call out the search parties.”

  Matt’s jaw muscles worked. “Until I check with every airport within flying distance of Honolulu, we’re not calling anyone. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for this. Nick’s a good pilot, and the Sky King’s well maintained. The weather’s good, and he didn’t have far to go. Whatever your Ouija board told you, I’m sure Nick, your daughter, and my top programmer are all just fine.”