Courier of Love

by Della Kensington

  Courier of Love

  By Della Kensington

  To honor the spirit of the men and women portrayed in this book, a portion of the book's sales will be donated to the Wildlife Conservation Network and its efforts to protect and preserve the habitats and life of the world's oceans.

  http://wildnet.org/

  © 2016 by Della Kensington.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978-0-9900280-2-4

  Stewart and Hobbs Publishing House L.L.C.

  P.O. Box 80936

  Portland, OR 97219

  www.stewarthobbs.com

  Dedicated to all men and women who dream.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  About Della Kensington

  Chapter 1

  The eleven hour flight had exhausted Christina. Increasingly aware of the physical restrictions of the small plane, she moved uncomfortably against the seat. Working their way slowly, but honestly through the air, the drone of the DC3’s old engines was a sharp contrast to the whine of the giant jet that had, hours earlier, brought her from Seattle to Puerto Rico. Having hurriedly transferred to this inter-island flight to Tortola, she considered the change in engine sounds oddly soothing despite her increased discomfort.

  Resting her temple against the cool surface near the window, Christina’s lips parted in pleasure at the beauty beneath the descending plane. On the turquoise sea far below, islands and cays created a pattern, a blanket of sand and limestone that looked like tiny jewels laid across the water’s surface.

  “It’s beautiful isn’t it? You did say that you’d been here before?” The question from the elderly woman seated next to her, wafted slowly through Christina’s tired consciousness.

  “I’m sorry…what did you say?” Christina redirected her gaze away from the bracelet of land forms, jewels that were becoming ever larger, ever nearer to the small well-groomed woman sitting patiently beside her.

  “You mentioned being in Tortola before,” the woman repeated in a quiet friendly way. “I don’t mean to pry,” she apologized.

  A smile dismissed the tension from Christina’s brow and she shook her head reassuringly. “Of course you’re not prying.” She suddenly realized with a sense of embarrassment that she had become so preoccupied with her weariness of the trip and her anxiety about arriving in Tortola that she had hardly been aware of her seat companion.

  “Yes. Ten years ago in 1974. My parents brought me. I was thirteen. You must be excited to see your friend again.” She remembered the woman’s earlier explanation of the purpose of her trip and altered the inquiry away from herself.

  “Oh, yes,” agreed the woman, her soft brown eyes bright with expectation. “I have put off visiting Grace much too long. She’s alone now too. Her husband passed away recently. My husband and I promised each other we would visit after they moved here but, well, you know how time slips away when we believe we have so much of it ahead of us.” Her voice trailed off with emotion and self-consciously putting on reading glasses she refocused her attention away from Christina’s gaze and back to a crossword puzzle that lay on her lap.

  “We will be landing soon.”

  The announcement of a flight attendant interrupted the silence that suddenly fell between Christina and the woman who was now busy penciling a vertical line of letters.

  Moving her attention from her companion’s weathered finger tip as it now studied “14 across,” Christina looked once again out of the window and to the sea below the descending plane.

  Arthur would be at the airport by now Christina thought. He would be waiting calmly and casually, contrasting her apprehension about their meeting with his puzzling resolve. She had missed Arthur’s thoughtful style and manner these six dreary months in an unseasonably wet Seattle. Working as her father’s assistant while he served as a professor in the University’s archeology department, was time fulfilling, but Christina disliked the rain and gray skies of Northwest winters. Of all of the places she had traveled with her father, damp, cloudy winters made her feel the most restless and the loneliest.

  She swallowed deeply and her lips tightened for the briefest moment as she considered how much she wanted to please her father by making this trip a success. It had been difficult to ever noticeably get his approval or attention. H. Weldon Trent had always been a very busy and preoccupied man, a man filled with commitment to his work. Christina, in return, had tried to be a quiet, unassuming and dutiful daughter. She wasn’t always certain their roles were fulfilling for either of them.

  Her dark violet eyes gazing absently out of the small window, Christina’s mind reflected upon the comment she had made to the woman beside her.

  “Ten years, my god, it seemed like last summer.”

  A veil of carefully sewn self-protection fluttered and drifted for a moment as Christina expectantly recalled the feelings of pride she had felt in her mother’s grace and beauty as they had traveled through these islands in what were, unknowingly, to be their last months together.

  H. Trent had, as was his manner, left them to entertain themselves as he immersed his attention in yet another research paper. Strange, Christina considered, that the same paper that had a decade earlier separated them, was now bringing her alone, back to the British Virgin Islands.

  In her reveries, Christina’s eyes had moistened with long denied feelings and her delicately cut lips whispered a prayer into the silence of the plane’s window. “Please keep him safe while I’m gone.” Her words coincided with the sudden rush of the runway’s union with the wheels of the aircraft.

  As the pilot announced their landing, Christina smoothed her mauve colored Indian cotton slacks against her long firm thighs and as she discreetly touched the corner of each of her eyes she suddenly longed to be freed from the plane, to be held for a moment, to be needed. Her eyes scanned the approaching terminal. Seeing Arthur would be wonderful she thought. A smile etched across her face and at the same time an uneasiness she did not understand cast the slightest of clouds across her expectations.

  …

  The small airport was alive with casually well dressed tourists, who were both coming and going, distinguishable by whether or not they were tan and rather quietly resigned looking, or pale and alive with the excitement of arrival. The elderly woman nodded a farewell in Christina’s direction and Christina watched the tenderness and emotion of the woman’s reunion with her friend, who was about the same age but much more youthfully dressed and tanned by her residence on the island.

  Their greeting pulled long held grieving from their hearts into the open and tugged at those feelings that Christina tried so hard to bar from her consciousness. She turned quickly from witnessing their embrace and looked anxiously into the sanctuary of the crowded room. Arthur was nowhere to be seen and throughout the customs check she strained her long graceful neck in search of his reassuringly pleasant face.

  The c
ustoms officer’s questions momentarily distracted her from her search of the crowd.

  “Miss Weldon, your passport says you’re here on an archeological assignment.” The officer’s tone was as crisp as his white uniform. “Do you have any special equipment that you are bringing into the B.V.I. to declare?”

  “If you are wondering if I’m smuggling in shovels, no,” she said in irritation at not finding Arthur among the crowd. “I’m sorry,” she offered almost simultaneously, apologizing for her shortness. “No, just the maps in the briefcase and they have been stamped by your government.”

  The customs check complete, Christina stood in the terminal feeling singularly alone among the tourists. Her tiredness, apprehension, and disappointment brought a sudden flush to her regal face and she bit her bottom lip fighting off her frustration.

  Across the room, a young native man in sparkling white clothes whom Christina had noticed zigzagging his way from woman to woman, approached her with a wide smile. She was about to rebuke a request for money when he said, “Are you Miss Christina?” His eyes were dancing with hope.

  “I am Christina Weldon,” she replied cautiously as she looked past his anxious gaze and expectantly into the crowd.

  “I am Jonathan, the Vaughn’s houseboy. Mr. Vaughn is very sorry, Miss Weldon, but he could not meet your plane, and I am instructed to bring you to the house,” he added in a surprisingly proper British accent.

  “Where is Mr. Vaughn?” Christina asked, fixing her eyes upon the young man, disbelief coloring her voice. “I have been flying for eleven hours and I expected him to meet me.”

  “He had a very important errand and could not come. It could not be helped.” His voice was apologetic as he reached efficiently for her luggage and he looked once more at her. “Really. A very important errand.” His voice rose with assurance and sincerity.

  Following Jonathan towards a doorway, Christina uttered angrily “I had thought that meeting me would be important.” Her feelings formed the personal remark before her reserve could shelter her sense of disappointment from disclosure.

  Sitting quietly in the driver’s seat in front of her, Jonathan stopped the car as they crossed a very narrow toll bridge connecting the airport island to Tortola. In a sun bleached shack on the side of the bridge sat an elderly, dark skinned, white haired man, who, when their car stopped, mechanically extended a frail, wrinkled arm. In his hand was a long, thin wooden stick with a tin cup attached. Without an exchange of words, Jonathan dropped a coin into the cup. The arm immediately lifted and withdrew in a manner that pleasantly reminded Christina of an old cast iron bank she had had as a child. The bank’s performer accepted pennies in a hat and then with a flip of a mechanism on the side, the hat would lift and deposit the penny into the safety of the base.

  The memory of the toy bank, cobbled together with the magical feeling of having left a damp, late winter day and arriving on an island bathed in summer, began to move through Christina’s spirits. Running her hands through her hair to assist the sea scented wind across her temples, Christina began to banish her disappointment and she settled back into the seat. It was good that Arthur hadn’t met her she reconciled. She probably looked worse than she felt. Her body now ached with the anticipation of arriving at the house and taking the longest of cooling baths.

  Her head resting lazily against the seat, Christina scanned the horizon. The other tiny islands of the B.V.I. were coming into view. Here and there along the coast line, small stucco houses with colorful flowers surrounding them, started to appear. Each house seemed to have a preponderance of junky objects, no longer of use to the owners, randomly abandoned around its perimeter. In one yard, several young children were playing with a small Nubian goat. With each passing sight her confidence in being here at last was bolstered.

  After H. Trent’s heart attack, she had been torn between completing their plans to travel here to the tropical warmth of the islands and staying by his side, a position which she had not left since her mother’s death. Her father’s need to have someone he trusted in Tortola, however, prompted Christina to reluctantly venture away from him. Finding a suitable housekeeper, over his objections, had been a difficult task. But she had insisted and once done, she became confident that in her absence he would be well cared for.

  Christina’s thoughts began to drift untethered from her father’s needs and began to join the blur of the magical landscape like a kite freed of its owner in an unexpected breeze. She could almost sleep. She could almost let go.

  Languishing near the realm of dreams and scarcely aware of the breathtaking climb on Kingston Point, Christina, her head nodding just at the moment of conscious abandonment, suddenly found herself being thrust violently forward from her seat. Jonathan, without warning, had aggressively slammed on the brakes and in the force of the action the car was sliding to an abrupt stop. Surprise and alarm crossing her face, her heart pounding, her consciousness thrown to full alert, Christina grabbed to catch her purse as it bounded from her lap. Its contents spilling to the floor around her sandals Christina shouted, “Jonathan….what…” Her voice faltered and became lost in the surprise of her automatic response.

  As quickly as he had stopped, Jonathan turned and apologized for the incident. “Miss Weldon, I am sorry. Are you harmed?”

  “Why did you stop like that, Jonathan? Where are we?” Her face reflected her anger and confusion as she jammed her make-up back into her purse.

  “The roads here in Tortola don’t lend themselves to maneuvering around such incidents.” His appraisal of her was concerned as he searched for clues in her expression and simultaneously pointed to a car that was in front of them.

  Just ahead and partially blocking the road, a car, long deprived of a thorough cleaning, had pulled over to the bank side of the rocky, barren hillside. Its rear tire was painfully flat and contents from the rear of the car had been tossed onto the road in what appeared to be an expedient effort to gain access to a spare tire and jack. To the left of the car, near the cliff, a frighteningly narrow space remained for any other vehicle to pass through and the space was made even smaller by the car’s clutter and the presence of a shirtless man kneeling by the rear tire.

  “Be done here soon, Jonathan.” The slow easy announcement from the man was matter of fact, explanatory, iron like in its intent.

  Leaning out the window Jonathan offered, “Could I be of some assistance?”

  “No thanks, I’m fine, almost done.” The man’s voice was smooth, easy, and deeply masculine. The casual, relaxed smile on the man’s face as he waved towards their car contradicted the task of changing a tire in such a difficult location.

  Fixing her attention on the kneeling form of the man, Christina was struck by her own notice of a tiny crystal of perspiration traversing his broad, bronzed back, his muscles taut as they joined in a powerful union in the valley of his spine. His efforts with the repair seemed to her unhurried, indifferent. Her patience, having been given over to the length of her plane flight, sought a solution from Jonathan.

  “Who is that? Tell him to move his things please, so that we can get by.” Her words were instructive, apprehensive.

  “He’ll just be a minute, Miss Weldon.”

  Before he could say more, Christina leaned from the window and said with tautly couched politeness, “If you could just move some of your things, we could get by, I think.”

  The crouched form, wearing only dusty hiking boots, a baseball cap and loose fitting shorts began to unfold and slowly turn toward Christina. The man’s handsomely chiseled face came into view and his lean, athletic body, his muscles pulled tight across his frame, reflected the sun on his hard, tanned surface. She was right about the relaxed and indifferent expression on his face.

  “I’ll be done here real soon, if you wouldn’t mind waiting a couple minutes.” His voice was friendly, but Christina sensed stubborn intent in the way he stood before her, his feet parted, his right hand seeming to arrogantly smooth the skin acro
ss his chest.

  “Actually, I mind a lot. I would greatly appreciate it if you would move your things and then fix your tire at your convenience, not mine.” She was aware of her breathing, and a sudden rush of color heated Christina’s features.

  The man’s unexpected movement toward the car caused her to sit back into its sanctuary and she looked self-consciously away from the sheer masculinity of his form as he approached. He had that grace of movement that muscular men sometimes gain through years of athletic skill. She could not stop herself from wincing at his nearness.

  Putting his hand authoritatively on the top of the car near her window, he hooked the other hand in a vacant belt loop, exposing at Christina’s eye level, a fine line of untanned skin cross his abdomen, just above his thumb.

  Feeling an unexplainable rush of panic churn within her, Christina emotionally braced herself against the presence of the man who had begun to lean toward her. His thick, quizzical eyebrows raised, he bent to look in at the source of complaint. As his face came nearer the window opening, she noticed his blue eyes. They were sheltered by long dark lashes which even under the shade of his cap cast shadows which fell across his skin. Within those eyes she detected the glint of a keen intellect attempting to control a flash of primitive ferocity. His wide grin staged large, straight gleaming teeth. His hair curling from beneath the cap looked golden like that of a lion resting casually in the warmth of an African sun. The stranger’s compelling gaze burned into her most basic fear of men and she looked away from him, somewhere past Jonathan’s quiet, unobtrusive presence in the front seat.

  “You seem to be in a big hurry on such a lovely day, miss.” The man’s voice lowered in a placating manner.

  Christina attempted to disguise her inner fear by avoiding his direct gaze, which was now within two feet of her. Flashing a hesitant glance to his lips and then back to her own index finger, she touched the door lock. She consciously didn’t plan the action, but in doing so Christina realized that the lock was inoperable and in recovery she tried to appear as if she were fingering the button nonchalantly.