by Ally Blake
She turned to Raul to thank him only to find the man wringing his hands. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he managed, “I noticed, on the manifesto, you’re not . . . travelling with anyone.”
“Ahh. Not. Neither am I the benefactor of an extremely good facelift. Sorry. The second honeymoon thing was a surprise to me too. My travel agent was . . .” drunk “ . . . new. I’ll try to stay out of the way—”
“Nonsense!” Raul insisted, hand wringing forgotten. “The Royal Pacific is a wondrous ship and as a guest here on board you shall enjoy its every fantasy treatment. Sunrise yoga—”
Sunrise? Nope. Nuh uh.
“Private spa sessions.”
Okay, that sounded more like it.
“Our world-class casino with reduced-price beverages once we pass into international waters.”
JJ’s shoulder blades pinged together. Yes! And for the first time since the swooshing camera moment, things didn’t feel quite so dire after all. “Well that sounds just about perfect. Thanks Raul. And call me JJ.”
He nodded, then said, “Anything I can do for you before I get back to my duties, Miss Jones?”
Such a small thing, but JJ smiled all over at his properness. “Email?”
Already, his faltering smile seemed to ask, when you are surrounded with such wondrous wonder?
Though he quickly bucked up and backed out of the room. “Come with me.”
Chapter 4
Kane chatted up guest after guest as he did the rounds of the ship, catching up with regulars and touching base with first-timers, sparking interest in the onboard fitness programs as he went.
Though not much time passed between the moments his thoughts swerved to Juliana Jones. Specifically how she’d ended up on such a cruise. No doubt expecting beach volleyball, pina coladas, and dancing the night away, she’d instead get bingo, bridge, and slots.
His mouth twitched. It was pretty funny. But unless she signed up for golf, or quoits, or dusted off the equipment in the gym over the next few days, Miss Jones was not his problem.
There was far too much to keep him busy. With the ship off to sea, all hands would literally be on deck helping get each guest settled before they hit open waters.
He hadn’t enough time to scratch his chest. And yet scratch he did, an itch having taken up residence there from the moment he’d seen the woman standing in the hall in head-to-toe black, long dark waves spilling raggedly over her small shoulders, skin ghostly pale, standing out against the white wall like a bruised thumb.
She’d looked like she needed a long sleep and a good feed.
’Til she’d opened her eyes. The color of aged whiskey they were, molten, warm, and hungry. It was a hunger he knew all too well. For whatever was on offer. For more.
Another cruise and those eyes could get girl like that into a whole lot of trouble. Another time he might have gone there with her.
Kane all but heard his brother’s voice in his ear, saying, “Man up, princess,” right as the mangled muscle in his right leg pinched as if the kid had given him a horse kick from the beyond.
Best thing for that would have been a minute with his thumb pressed into the sweet spot above his knee, instead he embraced the pain. It kept him sharp as he jogged the last few steps into the gallery before taking the stairs down to the grand lobby two at a time.
He had to be on his A-game the next eight days, especially when the two-thousand-odd clientele of this particular cruise were only allowed on board after a doctor’s clearance, and he was in charge of keeping them moving.
Despite the added risks, the Second Honeymooners were his favorites by a nautical mile. There was something life-affirming about seeing couples who’d managed to defeat the odds and last a lifetime. There were lessons to be heeded in the way they didn’t sweat the small stuff—or the big stuff for that matter—they simply got on with living.
“Kane, dear boy!”
Kane flattened himself against the back of a couch as best he could when a large group chattered past, then looked up to find a regular cruiser hoofing it through the grand lobby, skittling any unsuspecting passengers who got in her way.
“Hazel,” Kane said, knowing there was no avoiding the double cheek kiss or the waft of Poison. “Don’t tell me you finally ditched Gerry, leaving the way for me?”
“Gerry is no more mine, thank heavens. Frank is my new love. And my forever love. So damn your beautiful eyes for putting temptation in my way. As for you, my dear,” she said, patting his cheeks like he was three years old. Not thirty-three. Not well-off enough to live out his life on an island somewhere. Not doing this because keeping busy was the only way to keep his brother’s voice out of his head more often than not. “I had hoped this time you wouldn’t be here.”
“You wound me, Hazel.”
Her face creased as her cheeks lifted in a careful smile. “Wife and babies, dear boy. It’s time you get cracking. While I’ll swear to any court in the land that you get more handsome by the day, you’re not getting any younger and it would be a crime not to spread these genes of yours. A crime.”
She gave him one last cheek pat, one that stung even after she floated off down the hall, once again parting guests like Moses and the Red Sea. Leaving Kane alone with the subject of his genes. And his brother. Who’d never even been given the chance for a wife, or babies, at all.
Swearing under his breath, Kane passed off the towels to a passing staffer, then made his way via the basic staff lifts to the Conservatory, a glass-roofed dome at the very top of the ship that the staff referred to as the Attic. Come night it would be a club, loud music, and mixed drinks. But as everyone settled in their rooms and toured the amenities below he knew it would be empty.
Heading out to the foredeck, he leaned his arms along the railing and soaked in the view—blue sky, white clouds, the haze of the horizon—and the power of the ship vibrating through his runners and into his bones.
Not the kind of exhilaration his past career had provided, or the deeply primal adrenalin rush he’d chased in that last fateful post-season before he’d given it all away. And yet not unlike the liberating distraction from everyday thoughts that came when standing on a cliff face with the wind buffeting his body and no one to catch him if he fell.
“Kane?”
He turned to find a pair of new kids in the entrance to the Attic, all wide-eyed and eager. “What’s up?”
“We’ve had a request for a Lilo, only the couple doesn’t want it for the pool.”
“Right,” he said, the moment of respite done and gone. Back to work.
Whoever had taken over for Judy in the nursing station this tour was in for a busy week, he thought as he made his way back to the body of the ship. Pity it wasn’t the brunette with the wild whiskey eyes and a mouth that could keep a man enthralled for days.
He scratched at his chest some more.
Busy as he knew he’d be, he’d keep an eye on Juliana Jones. He just had to hope he was smart enough it was for her sake not his.
Chapter 5
Barely an hour out of Sydney, and calling the Internet connection snail-paced would have been an overstatement. The cost was also exorbitant. Out of a job, JJ typed fast.
Only to find Erica had got in first.
Subject: summer holiday!
Is it gorgeous? I bet it’s gorgeous. Have you seen a show? You have to see a show. The dancers . . . their bodies. Phwoar. Gay, of course. The men anyway. I feel sorry for the poor girls, all lookey no touchy.
How’s the action on deck? Any lovelies bathing in the sun? Take photos for me. Blondes—with chest hair, in budgie smugglers—preferred.
Love, E
JJ cracked her knuckles, and proceeded to fill Erica in.
Subject: you are dead to me
Do me a favour, check what kind of cruise this is, and then you’ll understand why when I get home I’m going to sit you down and force you to look at every photo I take of every man wearing budgie smugglers I ca
n find.
Twice.
JJ didn’t sign off, just pressed send. And smiled at the thought of Erica strapped to a chair as she enjoyed a slide show of JJ’s fellow passengers in their Speedos.
Then the image of Kane Phillips—Fitness Director—in just such a get-up snuck into the slideshow and there the show stuck. The deep brown skin, the crinkling eyes, the muscles bulging against his purple polo shirt. It would have been a discourtesy not to imagine how that man would fill a pair of Speedos.
Her fingers curled against the keys at the thought of tracking down the guy’s Facebook page to see if he was single. But at thirty dollars to sign on and ten bucks per ten minutes thereafter, she’d be cutting into her rum money so wisely, she logged off.
Heading back to her room, she knocked on Raul’s open door as she passed. Inside a room far smaller than her own was a single bed neatly made, and a picture of a petite woman and three laughing boys.
“Just wanted to say thanks. For the email.” Her eyes shifted back to the photo again. “Your family?”
“Yes.”
“Those kids are adorable.”
“Yes they are. Do you have any, Miss Jones?”
“No kids. Though I was married once upon a time.”
What the heck made her admit that? Maybe it was that his Miss wasn’t even ironic. Maybe it was the fact that no one with a beating heart could lie in front of even a picture of kids with smiles that wide.
“Oh,” he said, in sympathy of the once upon a time part. “May I ask what went wrong?”
“I was young,” she said.
Youth had probably contributed. She’d been eighteen after all. But having been hungry for her life to begin for as long as she could remember, she’d known what she wanted just fine. Excitement and wonder. To suck the marrow out of life. And with her ex’s grand future all planned out, it was all in her sights.
Her ex had waited until the wedding night, after he’d left his new bride blissfully tattooed to the mattress in their honeymoon room at the Dainty Hill Delight—the only bed-and-breakfast in the coastal-adjacent small town in which they grew up—to tell her he’d rejected the full scholarship to study engineering at Melbourne Uni and was instead going to take over his dad’s successful hardware store. Which meant, like his own mother—and hers—she’d never have to work at all.
Their altered future had slammed her heart so hard into the back of her ribs it was the closest she’d ever come to a full-blown panic attack. For all she could think was that he was offering her the complete Mad Men fantasy whereby the husband works, drinks, cheats, and the little woman keeps his house beautiful in the quietly desperate hope it will bring her man home to her.
Her parents in a nutshell.
He may have had more book smarts than street smarts, but he’d been smart enough to know that if he’d told her his plans any earlier she’d have dropped him like a hot potato. He was so damn sweet, she’d never even been aware he had a slippery side. But she couldn’t hate him for trying. He’d married her anyway. While she’d run for her life.
Start of a pattern there, really. The reality of her life never quite turning out to be what she’d signed up for. Having fled Dainty Hill for Sydney the day after her ex’s revelation, instead of a life of adventure and travel and delight she’d found herself in a revolving door of odd flat-mates, men who never lived up to the sales pitch, and dissatisfying temp jobs that barely paid the rent.
Meaning the fact that of all the cruises in all the world she’d picked this one . . . nothing new. Yet another moment of great expectation shot down in flames.
“Well, your family’s beautiful,” she said, and meant it, before leaving him be before she lumbered dolefully back to her room.
Where, right when she needed it, she found that someone, probably Raul, had left her a little gift. In the middle of her sunny bed, her towels had been cleverly twisted into the shape of an elephant; her sunglasses perched atop its head.
Laughing through her down-heartedness, she grabbed the sweet thing and lay back on her bed with a whump and stared up at the low ceiling.
Okay, so she’d sucked at marriage. Never even made it long enough to have a first honeymoon much less a second. And she’d never quite managed to step into a career that felt as comfortable as a pair of old slippers. Her life was more like a meandering series of crooked laneways cooked up by an over-caffeinated town planner than the straight path to adventure and excitement as she’d once hoped it would be.
But outside her porthole were blue skies and sunshine. Here she wasn’t a single girl trying to make ends meet in her dodgy apartment; she was a citizen of the world. And in her arms she held an engineering marvel—an elephant made of towels.
Her next eight days were full of possibility. Seemed her ability to hope wasn’t completely dashed yet.
Hugging the towel-buddy to her chest, she at some point fell asleep; dreams of children’s laughter and strangely muscular elephants in purple polo shirts swimming through her head.
Chapter 6
Turned out dinners onboard the Royal Pacific were themed (yet another detail Erica seemed to have missed), and that first evening it was Nights of the Round Table (sic). Yet, as options for Lady Guinevere-esque attire went, JJ’s collection of bikinis and cut-off jeans left a lot to be desired.
In the end she pinned her hair into a demure low bun in order to offset the shortness of the skirt of her sparkly, silver dress; the only thing she’d packed with long sleeves. It also had a dipping asymmetric neckline and cheeky thigh split. Oh well.
She stood in the doorway of the restaurant, a huge room near the top of the ship, with portholes lining the walls on three sides and carpets exotic enough to hide a thousand food-stains. Swathes of fabric hung from hooks in the ceiling like giant maypoles, buffet tables were covered in piles of home-and-hearth Arthurian-type foods and beneath the hum of chatter the music was all lutes and harps.
As for the costumes? Wow! There were cloaks necked by fur, leather britches, swords as well as pointy princess hats, trailing ribbons and brocade as far as the eye could see.
Beneath the pointy hats what felt like a hundred pairs of keen eyes swiveled her way. Glancing down, she saw that the sparkles in her dress caught the lights, making her look less Camelot and more like a walking disco ball.
“Do you need help finding your table, Miss Jones?” asked a kind-faced man a half a foot shorter than her.
No point asking how he knew who she was. By that stage she was probably the ship joke. Did you hear about the single girl who came here looking for a good time?
But he smiled kindly, as he said, “Don’t worry, all dietary requests have been noted. No need to join the buffet queue, your meals will be brought right to the table.”
“Great. Thanks,” she said, figuring maybe her infamy would be a good thing after all.
When they reached a table with a solitary spare chair the lively conversation came to a loud halt and six people in splendid Arthurian garb stared back at her. The elevator had been one thing, but this was the open range.
“Bernie,” said the first to rise; a stout kindly looking man wearing a deep-red cloak and a crown that kept nearly falling off his head. “Retiree. My game? Vacuum cleaners. This is the wife, Myrtle.” Myrtle, to his right—a woman with sparkling pale-blue eyes and golden-rinsed hair—smiled contentedly as Bernie went on. “Together forty-eight years this May. Central Coast, we live.”
“Lovely to meet you, sire,” she said, her best effort at maiden-ese. She got a reassuring wink for her efforts.
Bernie then waved an arm towards the unassuming pair to JJ’s right. “Samuel and Carol right there. Numbers man, he was. Diamond Anniversary, they’re celebrating,” he added in his Yoda-esque cadence. “That’s a fantastical sixty years together.”
“Sixty? That’s . . . wow.”
Samuel and Carol, both seeming to have shrunken into their chairs, nodded sedately, making JJ wonder if fantastical was quite the ri
ght word.
Not so sedate was the woman directly to JJ’s left. A beauty she would have been in her day, all glorious Ann-Margaret-red hair, glinting diamonds, and powdery perfume.
“Enough, Bernie,” she insisted in that particular Australian accent JJ now recognized as Sydney North Shore. The woman swirled her large glass of white wine towards JJ. “Let the poor girl sit.”
“Sorry, love,” said Bernie, not put out at all.
He motioned for JJ to sit, which she did, in front of a small nametag with a bunch of letters after it: GF/NA/VG/LI, which she figured was some kind of passenger code. GoodFriend. NeedsAdventure. Ummm . . . VotesGreen. Likes Ice cream? Pretty close.
“I’m Hazel,” said she of the wine, and so much sun-tanned cleavage attempting to burst from the blinding golden sequins of her dress it would no doubt have shocked Arthur and his ilk. “This glorious hunk of a man to my left is Frank.” Frank—big, a crown of lustrous silver hair, handsome—raised a brief hand without looking up from the menu. “We are stowaways as well.”
JJ blinked. Hazel was a striking woman but there was no way she was a day under sixty-five. “How so?”
Audience hooked, Hazel’s smile stretched across her too taut face. “The stipulation was ‘Ruby Anniversaries and Beyond’. And while, between us, Frank and I have been married far more than forty years, much of that was not to one another.”
“How long have you been married?” Myrtle piped up in a breathy voice.
“Three days.”
A swift intake of breath that might have come from Bernie or Myrtle or both didn’t stop Hazel. “Frank and I are on our honeymoon. Third marriage for me, third cruise. Fifth marriage for him, first cruise. Between us we have eight kids and seventeen grandkids. It counts.”
Bernie’s eyes opened wider with each confession while Myrtle looked about nervously as if admitting as much might get them chucked off the ship.
