Imagine

by Jill Barnett

  He flew over the tall coconut palms, ruffling the fronds, then swooped down toward the crystal sea where the bottom stared back at them. He buzzed in circles above Hank, just because Muddy had a little of the devil in him.

  With an extra squeeze of their small hands, a tighter grip, and a wink, Muddy flew the children over a row of bumpy air drafts, then up . . . up . . . up . . . through a puffy and white cloud that cast its dew on their faces, making their cheeks sparkle when they were once again soaring in the bright sunshine.

  Over the blue sea and across the wide Pacific sky he flew on an ancient gift of magic and, even better, on the smiles of two delighted and squealing children.

  Margaret sat on the beach, a blanket wrapped around her like a burnoose. She twirled her makeshift parasol over her shoulder as if she were in an Easter parade.

  She looked up and watched the children flying overhead. No one at home would believe it, she thought. Not even her dad, who thought her the most rational of people. She turned back and glanced at Annabelle, who was asleep on a blanket next to her, her pale skin shielded from the sun by a tent shade she’d made from one of the lifeboat tarps.

  A refreshing breeze blew in from the sea and rattled the tarp a little, then ruffled the banana leaves and pressed the thick flannel nightdress she was wearing against her legs. Her knees were drawn up, and she hugged them to her chest, digging her feet into the sand.

  The water was a deep aqua blue and in the distance she could hear the waves rumble against the reef. Closer, flies buzzed around the kelp on the shore where sand crabs skittered across the wet sand and burrowed deep before a wave could sweep them out to sea.

  Hank staggered out of the rushing water and plopped down next to her. “You should come in the water, Smitty. It’s great diving.”

  She looked out at the lagoon, at the cool water. But she didn’t say anything.

  “There are all the oysters you could ever eat down there, sweetheart.”

  She looked at him. “You just think I’m the one who can pick the ones with pearls.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “You’re right.”

  They sat there for a moment, then Margaret looked at him. “I need a favor.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’d like you to teach Lydia how to swim.”

  “You can swim.”

  “You’re teaching Theodore. You can easily teach Lydia at the same time. And I’m still sunburned,” she added.

  “You don’t look sunburned to me.”

  “Trust me, I am.”

  He watched her for a moment. “You went in the water this morning.”

  “You said the saltwater would help my skin heal faster.”

  “Yeah, but that was over a week ago.”

  “I was too sore to go in until now,” she said, trying to sound tired. “I think I was in the sun too long again.” She raised her hand to her forehead and heaved a big sigh. “I’ve been feeling rather lightheaded.”

  He watched her for a moment, and she hoped he didn’t see through her. After a minute, he said, “Okay, I’ll teach her.”

  “Thank you,” she said as weakly as she could.

  “But only until you’re able to take over. Got it?”

  She nodded, pulling the blanket tighter around her. He was looking out at the sea so she took the opportunity to watch him.

  Beads of saltwater shimmered on his tanned skin, and the remnants of sea foam still bubbled on his ankles. He raised his wet hands to his forehead and combed his fingers through his black hair, slicking it back from his tanned face.

  Those cutoff pants hit him midthigh and were a concession to decency. But his body was still exposed—dark skin and the black hair that grew so thickly over his chest and down his rippled belly only to disappear into the waist of his pants where the fabric clung to the outlines of his form and the color of his flesh showed through the wet cotton. The black hair reappeared on his tanned thighs and calves. His legs were long and hard and thick with rippling muscles that looked like slithering snakes when he walked.

  She watched the way his arms flexed as he leaned back on his elbows and stared out at the sea, the way the water trickled down his ribs and slid around to his back before it dripped into the white sand.

  She didn’t know how long she looked at his body. Time didn’t enter into her thoughts, only an absurd fascination with the rugged look of him—of dark hair, tanned muscle and tendon that made his body male. Only an awareness of differences between them. That not only did they see the world from different perceptions and philosophies, but their differences were physical as well.

  She looked away, uncomfortable with him so close and wearing so little. She touched her mouth, aware that it was suddenly dry. She glanced at him to see if he’d noticed her.

  He was frowning up at the sky where Muddy was flying overhead with Lydia and Theodore. “I still don’t believe what I’m seeing.”

  “Me either.” She looked away, keeping her eyes on a spot in the sand.

  “Doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.”

  “I know.” She raised a hand to the bridge of her nose and pinched it while she closed her eyes, trying to make the image in her head go away.

  When she opened her eyes and looked at him, he was staring at her with a look she couldn’t read. He looked away.

  She sat there beside him, her hands clasping her knees. Her hem was up a bit, an inch or two higher than her ankles. She stared at her feet, then looked at the outline of her calves and knees. She longed to shed all that flannel and dive into the water. But she was bound and determined to get Hank to capitulate and teach Lydia to swim.

  Annabelle stirred on the blanket next to her, then sat up blinking at them. She gave them the serious look of an army general, then grinned. “Hi!”

  “Hi!” Margaret laughed. The silly look on Annabelle’s face made her appear as if she knew something funny that no one else did—a child’s secret.

  A shadow fell over her. Hank had shifted and looked at Annabelle over her shoulder. She could feel his breath near her ear and hair as warm as the trade wind, but she experienced an odd chill and her arms broke out in goose bumps, even with all those clothes on.

  “Hi there, kid.” There was a smile in his deep voice.

  Annabelle gave him a childish wave, and his laughter went right through her. The baby pushed herself up and walked over to him. He sat back, and she crawled into his lap and swung her small legs over one of his. She leaned back against his stomach and then tilted her head back and looked up at him, her apricot hair against the black hair of his chest.

  “Hi!”

  Margaret sat frozen, completely baffled. She had the most powerful urge to cry. She could feel the tightness in her throat, the ache of tears in her chest, and the pressure in her nose and behind her eyes.

  She turned away and took a deep breath. Then she realized she truly did feel light-headed.

  Within two days, Hank had Lydia dog-paddling across the freshwater pool while Theodore slid down the falls and taunted his sister into learning even faster. Hank swam over to the opposite side, where Smitty was sitting in the shade of a breadfruit tree, dressed from her ears clear to her ankles.

  He rested his arms on a rock and looked at her. Sweat beaded on her face and dripped from her hairline. She swiped it away and fanned herself with a broad banana leaf.

  “It’s cool in the water, Smitty.”

  “Yes, I’m certain it is.”

  “You haven’t been in the water since you took Lydia in.”

  She shrugged.

  “Hell, just wrap something around your torso so you can swim freely.”

  She gave him a strangled look.

  “You won’t burn again. Your skin is used to the sun now.” He pushed himself out of the pool and sat down near her; water spread across the rocks and near her feet.

  She pulled back, but he shifted closer. “Look.” He flipped her skirt up to her knees and put his tanned forearm against her
calf. “Your legs are almost as brown as I am.”

  She jerked her skirt back down and hugged it to her ankles. “Don’t you do that again.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Smitty. You think I haven’t seen a woman’s legs before?” He shook his head and jumped back into the water.

  When he faced her again, she was staring at his chest. She wouldn’t look him in the eye. “I’ve seen everything there is to see of a woman.”

  He caught a flash of some emotion in her eyes, but she didn’t say anything. “Believe me, sweetheart, your legs are no different than those of a thousand other women.”

  He turned and swam away, pulling his body across the cool water of the pool with long strokes . . . knowing he’d just told the biggest lie of his life.

  It was a few days later when Hank strolled down a stretch of sleepy sunlit beach. Smitty was sitting alone and drawing something in the sand with her finger.

  He stopped for a moment and just watched her. Her hair hung down her back, and the wind caught it. He crossed the sand, and she glanced up, then quickly smoothed out the sand. He wondered what she had drawn or written.

  He closed the distance between them and stopped when he was only a foot away. She was dressed in flannel from her high neckline to her bare ankles. Her face, hands, and feet were the only things exposed. And she was sweating; it was beading on her cheeks and in her hairline, dripping down her neck.

  And she called him stubborn.

  He sat down next to her. Close.

  She gave him a withering look, which made him laugh because she was the one about to wither.

  He didn’t say anything just to see if she’d speak first. He leaned back on his elbows in the sand, and he watched some gulls swoop down toward the sea. He felt her stare and turned.

  Her gaze was on his chest. He glanced down but didn’t see anything. When he looked up again, she was looking anywhere but at him.

  “If you’re just going to sit here and cook, we might as well call out the cannibals and let them have you.”

  “You are so witty.”

  “I try.”

  “Well, don’t. I’m trying to think.”

  He laughed. “Nah. You? Thinking?”

  She rolled her eyes at him.

  He waited, and she was silent. He watched her, wondering how long it would take before she finally said something. Her hair had turned blonder as if the tropical sun had stolen some of its golden color. Her cheeks were tanned and flushed, and she had a healthier glow about her.

  She was damn good-looking, he thought, one of the best-looking women he’d ever seen, but there was more to her than looks. She had a sharp mind, and even though he teased her about it, he liked it. He liked her sassy mouth. Liked the way she called his bluff all the time. She made him think, too, and he supposed that wasn’t a bad thing.

  He liked the challenge she offered, that she wasn’t predictable.

  “What’s eating at you, sweetheart?”

  “I’m not your sweetheart, Hank.”

  “You could be.”

  She turned slowly and gave him a wry look. “Be still my heart.”

  He laughed. “Well, if you don’t wanna talk, we could just—” He started to say a crude word but stopped himself. For some reason he didn’t care to think about, he felt saying it to her was somehow insulting. He wanted to tease her, not insult her. He looked away, pretending he hadn’t spoken.

  When he looked back, he saw the same emotion on her face that was eating at him. An awareness of the other. He sat up and twisted slightly, moving closer.

  She watched him, then suddenly held up her hand as if to stop him or ward him off. He could see it was instinctive, her natural reaction. He didn’t say a word. But he didn’t move either.

  Her hand dropped like a white flag of surrender, and he reached for her. An instant later, she was in his arms, and he lay back in the sand, her body along his.

  He gripped her head in his hands and kissed her openmouthed and hard. She tasted better than anything he could remember tasting in a helluva long time. He’d missed this, the feel of a woman. Long, hot, tonguing kisses; the beading of a woman’s nipple against his lips; and the flavor and smell of a woman. Hours in a bed just screwing real slow and easy.

  “No!” she said and jumped back, sitting on her heels between his legs. She caught her breath, then stood up and turned around, hugging her arms to her and looking out at the sea.

  He got up and stood behind her for an awkward moment. “Still thinking, aren’t you, sweetheart? Don’t you know by now thinking isn’t going to solve what just happened?”

  “Go away.”

  “I can leave, but that isn’t going to fix things.” “Perhaps not, but it would be a decided improvement.”

  “Talk to me, Smitty.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “What the hell is bothering you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t understand why I feel these things. I—I don’t love you.”

  He laughed. “Love has nothing to do with it.”

  “Have you been in love?”

  “Me? In love?” He laughed really hard at that. “Only with my hand.”

  She looked at him then, her head cocked slightly. “Don’t think about it. That was a barrel house joke.”

  “Yes, well, I expect you’ve more experience than I have at those kinds of things.”

  “Yeah. Years of experience.”

  She stiffened and stepped away from him, and he realized she had no idea he’d been joking about his age as much as teasing her. Smitty, with her healthy sense of humor, had suddenly lost it.

  He stared at the back of her stiff neck for a few seconds, then grinned. “No reason to be jealous, sweetheart.”

  She whipped around, her mouth hanging open. “What?”

  “I told you before. No wife.” He raised his arms out in surrender. “No lover. No reason to be jealous.”

  She snapped her mouth closed and gave him a long, narrowed look.

  “I’m all yours.”

  She just stood there. A moment later she raised a hand to her cheek in mock surprise. “And to think they say there’s no such thing as a miracle.”

  Even he had to laugh at that. But she wasn’t laughing.

  They looked at each other at the same time. The silence seemed to drag by as slowly as days in solitary.

  He stepped closer to her. “What’s wrong with just grabbing it, sweetheart? Take the chance for a little fun. I promise you’ll have a helluva lot of fun.” He drew his finger slowly over her stubborn chin. “Thinking about it will only complicate things.”

  She stiffened and shifted away a couple of steps. “Nothing seems to make sense anymore. You don’t make sense. I have to think about it.”

  “You think enough for both of us. Hell, Smitty, you think enough for the whole damn world.”

  “Well, one of us has to use their head.”

  He laughed.

  She gave him one of her direct looks. “Your head’s too hard to be of much use.”

  “My head among other things,” he muttered to himself.

  She turned and started to walk away.

  “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not walking away this time.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her to him so swiftly she stumbled. He was right there, ready, and he caught her before she could even blink and swung her up into his arms.

  “If you think you can manhandle me, Hank, think again.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Put me down.”

  “I can’t decide if you need heating up or cooling off, Smitty.” He started walking out into the water. A small wave splattered past them. “My guess is you need cooling off. Especially since Lydia can swim like a fish now.”

  She gave a slight gasp. “You knew?”

  He just laughed and tossed her in the air once. “Put me down, Hank.”

  “I don’t think so.” He kept walking into the water. Deeper. “Remember my
rum? Those bananas flambé? Remember the missing brandy? The whiskey bottle you used for target practice?”

  “Hank . . .”

  “Any last words?”

  She looked at the water, then gave him a narrowed look. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “I won’t, sweetheart.”

  “You’d better not.”

  “I won’t think.” He swung back and threw her into the next wave, then waded back to the beach and turned around, his hands on his cocked hips as he watched her surface, coughing and sputtering.

  He stuck his hands in his pockets and walked up the beach, whistling. When he got to the rise, he stopped and turned back.

  She was trudging out of the water, muttering. “Hey, Smitty!”

  She stood on the beach, wringing the water from her skirt.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth. “I won’t think. I’ll leave all the thinking to you.”

  The following morning Margaret walked down the beach with determined steps. She was wearing a makeshift bathing costume. She’d tucked the tattered hem of her skirt into a belt so it fit her like gymnasium bloomers. She stood there, waiting for Hank to notice.

  He rode a wave to shore, then froze in the waist-high water the moment he saw her. He didn’t smile. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at her as if he didn’t want to stop looking for a long, long time.

  Her mouth grew dry again. She wondered how she appeared to him. She wanted to look confident, as if she didn’t care that half her body was bare.

  After all, she wasn’t some shy young girl. She was a woman. A professional . . . intelligent . . . woman. “Want some company?”

  He laughed and began to walk out of the water. She was no fool. She tossed him his cutoff pants. Then she turned her back and waited. “Aren’t you finished yet?”

  “Yes,” he said so close to her ear that she jumped. She spun around, half expecting him to be holding the pants. He wasn’t. He’d put them on.

  She looked up into those dark eyes, that dark smile. She forgot what she was going to say. She took a deep breath, then blurted out, “I’ve got a craving for more oysters.”