by Holly Kerr
“Maybe they want to get rid of him for a couple of minutes. Great kid, but lots of energy. Plus, you’re in a uniform, so you’re official.”
He gestured to my shorts and tank top. “You’re not.”
“Yes, but they think I’m nice. Also, I’m very cute. I’m not threatening.”
“You are very cute.”
I glanced quickly at Will, who was smiling at me. Warmth pooled in my stomach and I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across my face. “It’s nice of you to notice.”
“I’m very nice too.”
“And cute?”
Another moment, another smile between us was interrupted. “Here’s my room!” Sam cried, waving the key card his mother had pressed into his hand and cautioned not to lose. With a swipe, he opened the door and tumbled into the room.
As soon as the door opened, something brown darted out, running down the hall toward us like a flat and furry bowling ball.
A scream cut the air and I was pretty sure it wasn’t from me.
“Mr. Feeney!”
Instinct, and years of growing up with hamsters and guinea pigs prompted me to drop to my knees, hands at the ready like I was about to catch a baseball.
Of course I missed the ferret, and a second scream cut the air as the little body scampered over Will’s foot.
“Mr. Feeeny, wait!” Sam shouted.
“I don’t think he’s listening,” I muttered, swivelling to make a grab for the quick as lightning creature. My fingers felt the coarse hair, but the animal moved quicker than I did.
“What is that thing?” gasped Will.
“He’s a ferret,” Sam said with disgust. He darted into the room to get a bag of ferret food. “Mr. Feeney—treat!”
Amazingly, the little critter stopped and stood up on his short back legs, whiskers twitching as it sniffed the air in the direction of the treat.
“Good boy.” I reached out and scooped him up, giving him back to Sam, who cuddled him under his chin.
“You shouldn’t have that thing on board,” Will said in a shaky voice.
“He’s not a thing; he’s Mr. Feeney. And you scream like a girl.”
“You kind of do.” I laughed.
Apparently, Sam’s parents had no idea Sam had smuggled his pet on board, despite this being the third escape attempt by Mr. Feeney. They were aghast when Will told them. I felt bad for Sam who stood with head bowed contritely.
“Are you going to throw him overboard?” Sam asked in a wavering voice. He turned to me with big blue eyes filled with tears and my heart clutched in my chest.
“No, the captain frowns on throwing anything overboard,” Will said sternly.
“Are you going to tell the captain?” Sam wailed.
“If you promise to keep him contained in your room, I don’t see any need to mention this to anyone else.” Will frowned in Sam’s direction but when the little boy lifted his gaze, Will winked at him.
“I’ll find a better box,” Sam promised as we waved goodbye to the family.
“Maybe one of those rat traps,” Will muttered as we waved goodbye to the family.
“You really don’t like ferrets?”
Will shook his head. “Anything furry. Last year, my buddy Lincoln organized a Pets Onboard cruise and everyone brought their pets.” He shuddered. “It was a disaster.”
“You’re not a pet person, like dogs and cats pets?”
“I can handle them from a distance. But it’s rodent-like things that really get me. Rats, squirrels…skunks.”
“Everyone should be afraid of skunks.”
He hunched his shoulders. “I was sprayed by a skunk when I was a kid. We were at a friends’ cottage, and I had to—you know—in the middle of the night.”
“Pee?” I guessed.
“I was seven. It was a long walk to the outhouse, so I just stood by the backdoor and peed off the porch. I never even saw the skunk, and well, kind of got him.”
I burst out laughing. “I bet you smelled him, though.”
“Yeah.” Will rubbed the back of his neck. “He got me back pretty good. No one would play with me for the rest of the weekend. I spent a lot of time in the water. By myself.”
After another hour, Will took the memory card out of the camera. “You’re tired,” he said. “You’re on a cruise. I can’t monopolize you for the whole time. You need some time to relax.”
Will’s look suggested he wanted to monopolize my whole time. Another pool of warmth began in my stomach, but this time it mixed with a sour taste in my stomach. I still haven’t told him my real name. I reluctantly handed him the camera.
“I’ll take this to Marty. You have a good night. We’re still on for tomorrow?”
I nodded. I would tell him tomorrow.
Chapter Seventeen
After Will left me, I headed back to my cabin to change for dinner. I was tempted to take a quick nap but instead I took the iPad out to the balcony and looked up Charles.
My mother was right—it was all there, spread all over the internet for anyone to see. Fortunately, neither my family nor I were mentioned. Instead, they talked about Carolina Kirsch, a wealthy socialite from New York who discovered what Charles had been trying to do before it was too late.
Looks like Charles bit off more than he could chew with his new bride.
I watched as the waves kicked and rolled behind the boat, as the coast of Grand Cayman grew smaller. Tomorrow we would be in Cozumel, Mexico, and the next day we’d be headed back to Miami.
By Saturday, we would be back on American soil.
Excitement buzzed under my skin as I dressed for dinner. Maybe it was the knowledge I would have my family at my side when I dealt with Eduardo; maybe just knowing they were behind me brought about new confidence. As I dressed for dinner, I felt good.
How much did Will had to do with that?
I put on another one of Petra’s dresses and headed up to Deck 14 for my usual stop at Parnassus bar.
“My lady.” Adonis was once again behind the glossy bar and nodded his godlike head at me. “What can I get you? Nectar of the gods?”
“Is that what we’re calling a martini tonight?”
“Coming right up.”
I stood at the bar, turned sideways to watch the action flowing by. It was easy to pick out the passengers who had come from the early seating for dinner because they had pink cheeks and smiles on their faces, and many walked slower because of too much food.
I smiled as an older couple strolled by, the man clutching his stomach with a satisfied expression on his face. As I watch, the woman slipped her arm through his.
It wasn’t only the younger generation who were looking for love. I watched the couple, wondering if they had met on board, or if they were there celebrating a milestone in their life.
“Your drink, my lady.”
I turned to thank Adonis and saw Will in the mirror behind the bar.
He was leading a small group of sunburned passengers to Hestia restaurant beside Parnassus. His eyes widened as he caught sight of me and a smile brightened his face.
I waved before he disappeared from sight.
A moment later he reappeared and came straight to my side. “Hey. Fancy seeing you here,” Will said after he saw his group to their table at the pizza place.
“Are you playing maitre d’ now?”
“My work is never done.” Will nodded at Adonis and leaned closer. “You look absolutely amazing.”
I looked in the mirror before I left the room. I knew I looked good. Petra’s dress—a gauzy maxi dress was loose and comfortable, and the purple was a perfect colour for me. I couldn’t be bothered to straighten my hair, so my curls were wild.
“Thanks,” I said with a smile.
“How come you’re all alone? And no camera?”
“No one likes it when I take pictures with their mouths full.”
“Thanks again for your help today. And yesterday. I think, with your help, I might be able to take a picture withou
t cutting off heads.”
“Sometimes the headless shots are the best ones.” I sipped my martini and Will nodded his approval.
“Pre-dinner drink. Adonis does make a good martini.”
“Is that from experience?” Something had changed between us. It felt like it was a lifetime ago that he followed me around as I took pictures of the passengers, posing them against the railing, before the smokestack, with the waves behind them.
I wish it was Will I was meeting for dinner.
“I do get the occasional night off. Like tonight, for instance,” he said lightly. Then his face fell. “Sort of. My buddy works at the disco and there’s a big dance-off thing tonight that I promised to help with. You should come!”
He sounded as excited as Sam was earlier.
“To a dance off? Do I have to dance?”
“Do you like to dance?”
An image of my pole-dance lesson flashed in my mind. “I love to dance, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to off something with my moves.”
He laughed. “It’d be fun to watch.”
“I’ll see what I can do. It’s been a long day so I might have an early night.” As soon as I heard my words, I winced. “I sound like an old lady, don’t I? Oh, young man, I’m too tired to go out tonight,” I said in a creaky, old-lady voice.
“I think you’ve got a while to go before we put you in a home.”
“I like to sleep,” I confessed. “Naps are my favourite. I can fall asleep anywhere.”
“Anywhere?”
“I once fell asleep on a toilet in a bar. And I wasn’t that drunk.”
With a laugh, Will backed away. “I’d better go. I want to hear what happened on the toilet tomorrow,” he said.
“You really don’t,” I assured him. “I’ll come up with something better to entertain you with.”
Like stories about what I’d been doing for the past four years.
Mickey the maitre d’ greeted me with a smile when I arrived at Mount Olympus. “A glass of champagne tonight, miss?”
“I think I’m good,” I said. Even with a showdown with Greer looming over my head, I was still full of Will’s smile.
There were a few empty seats when I was shown to the table. “Greer not joining us?” I asked lightly as I took the seat beside Xander.
“Apparently she’s still not feeling well,” Xander said. If it wasn’t for the twinkle in his eyes, he could have passed for a concerned older brother. “And Miles is passed out in our cabin, so you, my sweet Sigalicious—” He threw a heavy arm around my shoulder. “—are my drinking partner for the evening.”
“Better you than me.” Ari raised his glass to me. Alicia was seated on the other side of Ari and when I smiled a greeting at her, I noticed a new face.
“This is Sayid,” Alicia said, her cheeks pink. “We met at the waterfall.”
I vaguely remembered seeing Alicia with the tall, dark and handsome stranger. I might not have known Alicia well, but I knew the signs of a woman in love. And Alicia had all of them.
It looked like Cupid’s arrow had struck again.
Chapter Eighteen
Day Five: Cozumel, Mexico
The next morning at seven o’clock on the dot, there was a knock on the door. “Why does he have to be the punctual type?” I muttered as I threw my sunscreen and an extra T-shirt in my bag before I opened the door.
Petra’s bag. Petra’s T-shirt.
“Morning, Petra.”
It was easy enough to forget I was playing a part when I was by myself, or even with Miles and his friends, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to do so with Will.
“Hi, Will.” He stepped inside the room, even though there was no invite. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him there, but it was a little embarrassing to have him see it like this. Clothes were strewn all over the place, thrown about in my attempt to find something in Petra’s wardrobe that looked even remotely like something I’d buy for myself.
I made do with my cutoffs and a purple tank top I unearthed that still had the price tag on it.
“This is your room?” Will asked, wandering farther in. “I mean, I know it’s your room, but just you? It’s so big to be staying in by yourself.”
“I had a friend who was supposed to come with me,” I lied. “When she bailed, I kept the room because it looked…pretty.”
He turned to me. “It is very pretty.”
My stomach had never done an actual somersault before.
“Thanks. It’s a bit of a mess right now.” Were we still talking about the room?
“Does it matter? You’re on vacation.”
“But you’re not.” I pushed him towards the door and grabbed my bag. “Since you made me get up so early, let’s go make the most of your day off.”
Will had already gotten our disembarking tickets and with him by my side, it was a breeze to get off the boat. We were driving away from Cozumel in no time.
“Do you go to this mysterious place every time you’re in port?” I leaned back against the back seat of the taxi, knowing that I was going to end up with sweat marks on the back of my shirt.
“Does it bug you that I haven’t told you where we’re going?” Will’s grin was both infuriating and infectious; his dimples were out in full force and his eyes crinkled in the most adorable way.
He was so cute.
“It’s driving me crazy!” I cried with mock frustration. “I love surprises, but I hate being surprised.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does,” I insisted. “Surprises are fun but it’s the anticipation of knowing you’ll be surprised that drives me crazy.”
“Would you have rather me kidnap you at breakfast and throw you in the back of the car so you have no idea of what’s going on?”
“That actually sounds like a story from 60 Minutes!”
“I guess. Just so you know, I’ve never kidnapped anyone.”
“I’m really glad to hear that.”
“I thought it was a good selling feature.”
I laughed, thinking again how cute he was. “I still don’t like being surprised.”
“Poor Petra.”
And that made him less cute. Or maybe made me less cute. I turned to the window. The cityscape of Cozumel was gone, already transformed into the jungle.
I had to tell him that I wasn’t Petra, and that I was a stowaway on his cruise ship.
Will leaned over and pointed to a road we were approaching. “Sometimes I stop at this village down there. The kids are adorable. I try to bring them little things because they don’t have a lot.”
His cuteness level was back and just flew off the chart.
We chatted as the taxi driver took us farther into the jungle. Will told me about his sisters, and I responded with true stories about my brothers.
It was one of the first things Eduardo taught me, that it was easy to be believable when you told at least part of the truth. But in this case, I wanted to be honest with Will. I wanted him to know me. I wanted to tell him about talking to my mother yesterday, and how it made me feel.
But I couldn’t. Not now. Not when I had no idea where I was, or where I was going. Because what if he didn’t like what I told him? Or didn’t like me?
“We’re almost there,” Will said shortly.
“Still not telling me anything?”
“I think you’ll have fun. I know I’ll have fun with you.”
Twenty minutes later, I was being lowered via harness into a hole in the earth. “It’s fine, Petra,” Will repeated, over and over again.
“I don’t think it is.” I clutched the rope with both hands as I was swung lower and lower into the hole. A dank smell rose up. Wet dirt and moss and something I couldn’t identify and didn’t want to think about. “I don’t think—what is this?”
It was a cave, a cavern. A cenote. A big black hole in the earth filled with water.
“It’s so cool!”
“Unhook and drop into th
e water,” Will called from far above. “Grab one of the inner tubes and I’ll be right down.”
A few minutes later, Will was beside me in the water. I had pulled one of the black inflatable donuts over my head, and rested my arms on the side as my legs dangled in the cool water. The cenote was lit only by the sunlight peering through into the hole at the top, and so dark at the water I couldn’t see the sides of the cave.
Of course, Will tugged my tube into the darkness.
It was peaceful, once I got past being terrified that a dianoga was going to pull me out of my tube and under the water. I told Will as much.
“You said dianoga.” Will stared at me with something akin to awe. “Which means you know what it is.”
“The thing that pulls Luke under when they’re stuck in the trash compactor,” I said disdainfully. The scene was classic for any Star Wars fan.
“Did you have a boyfriend that forced you to watch the Star Wars movies?” Will asked hesitantly.
“Brothers. But now I watch them for me.”
“You’re into Star Wars,” Will mused aloud, staring up into the darkness. “You let me drop you into a hole in the ground without freaking. You might be the perfect woman.”
“You’d better believe it.”
Suddenly Will disappeared into the black water. “Will?” I called nervously. His head popped up beside my tube, making me lose my grip. “Don’t do that!”
“Do what?”
“Scare me like that.”
He smiled as he hooked his arms on my tube and pulled me closer. “Maybe you’re not the perfect woman if you don’t like to be scared. Or surprised.”
“We were just talking about Luke getting pulled under and then you disappear? See how you like it!” Holding my breath, I slid out of the tube, disappearing under the water and resurfacing beside Will.
He laughed. “That doesn’t count because I was expecting it.”
“Are you expecting this?” With one hand on my tube, I pulled him to me with the other, leaning up to press my lips against his.
Will’s lips were soft and gentle and wet. As he deepened the kiss, my hand left the tube and wound around his neck, which promptly sank us both.
