At Last (9 page)

“Whose are they then?” The devil, most assuredly. The thoughts that had been rushing through her head had to be planted by the devil.

“Your mother’s.” The woman shrugged her shoulders. “All our mothers.”

Susan smiled politely at the deranged old woman. The voice that was in her head, telling her to go get Kevin, that voice was clearly not her mother’s. Her mother would have an aneurysm if she even thought Susan wasn’t still a virgin.

“I’m just going to go find my friend,” Susan said, turning to walk away.

“If you’re looking for that tall drink of water with the great pecks and hazel eyes…”

Susan stopped and turned in her tracks, suddenly very interested in what the old woman had to say.

“He turned off that way.” She gestured with her thumb to behind where she was standing. “Headed up to The Virgin Drop on Twelve Apostles Lookout.”

“The Virgin Drop?” Susan said dubiously, shielding her eyes with her hand as she peered up the jungle choked hillside.

“Virgins go up there and are never seen again.” The woman wriggled her eyebrows. “They all come back women.”

“Funny,” Susan said. “But how did Kevin get up there?”

The woman gestured with her long, thin arm. “There’s a path, there. Leads up to where you want to go.” The woman’s eyes widened as she peered past Susan at the ocean. “Excuse me, dear, but my ride’s here.” She grabbed her board and started sprinting toward the surf, running into the water and diving onto the board heedlessly. A few strokes and she broke past the waves lapping at the beach and cut her way out to sea, where the waters were roiling, and Susan could see larger waves looming in the distance.

She turned and looked to the hillside again, and had to really search to find the mouth of the trail. She had seen too many horror movies. It was never a good idea, under any circumstances, to go off into the woods--or a jungle--by yourself. In slasher flicks, it wasn’t a good move to enter a forest at all.

But then that part of her that wanted her to go paragliding chimed in that at least if she was killed by a maniac, or savaged by a wild animal, she wouldn’t have to face Kevin. Wouldn’t have to apologize or get turned down again.

But if she didn’t go she might never see him again, and that thought alone propelled her into the jungle and down the path leading to Kevin. She had to see him.

THE OLD SURFER CHICK was right. Standing looking over The Virgin Drop, the view was outstanding. The palm trees parted and gave a full panorama of the beach, the other hills and mountains, and far out into the blue ocean. Fragrant flowers swayed in the breeze, their scents both soothing and intoxicating. But no landscape was going to help Kevin sort out the jumble of thoughts quickly turning into a swamp crowding his head.

What was Susan trying to do to him? Had she lost her goddamn mind?

Or was she really interested in him that way, the way he’d always dreamed of?

If so, what was the problem again?

Kevin couldn’t pin down the problem, but he knew it was there, festering, waiting to kill him. He couldn’t have what he wanted, not when it came to Susan. The world didn’t work that way.

If he slept with Susan, and Kevin could already feel himself taking her in his arms, crushing her curves against himself, feasting on her mouth, on her flesh, being inside her...

But she was in pain. That was her exact word for it. How could she be ready to sleep with him if she was still in pain over shit-head Mark! It had to be something like a one-night stand, a rebound thing. And that was empty. That was always a mess. And if he was just her rebound guy, then...

Then he wouldn’t be her friend anymore. He’d be the guy she used to get over Mark.

And he’d lose her.

Kevin took a deep breath of the unbelievably clean tropical air. Everything about this place was pure and beautiful, and not worth a damn if Susan wasn’t with him. Somehow he’d have to find a way around this. Some way to make Susan forget trying to bed him. Because it was a bad idea. She needed time to heal, not a one-night stand. She needed her friend Kevin, not his horn-dog evil twin.

He couldn’t chance losing her, no matter how badly he wanted her.

Pussy!

Suddenly there was a rustling behind him, on the other side of the clearing, and Kevin’s eyes widened as he turned to see Susan drop through a stand of young palm trees and land flat on her face in the tall grass.

Kevin gave a quick snort of laughter. “So, I can’t even get a couple of minutes to think?” he grumbled to God under his breath. “You had to send her all the way up here just to screw with me.”

~*~

The trail had gotten steep and rocky, and then littered with fallen trees, and finally covered in vines until there was no trail left. And just when Susan was about to freak out, wishing hard for a big machete or an industrial strength weed-whacker, she unceremoniously tripped and fell. Her life flashed before her eyes, for she was sure she was about to fall right over The Virgin Drop, and to her death. But her life was short and whizzed by far too swiftly to comprehend. When she hit the nice solid ground and didn’t go tumbling head over heels, or simply pitch down into the seething ocean, she sent a hysterical
Thank You
up to heaven.

She looked up to see Kevin staring at her, hands crossed over his chest, and then he snorted. Kevin didn’t snort. So Susan was pretty sure she looked ridiculous. As she stood, and tangles of dead vines and bits of palm and grass fell out of her hair, she rescinded her
Thank You,
replacing it with
Asshole
!

She realized Kevin had turned away from her and hadn’t so much as lifted a finger to help her. “Thanks for the helping hand.”

He didn’t move a muscle, but Susan could tell he stiffened all over. “I wanted to be alone. Is that so hard to understand?”

Well, yes...Susan had to rein herself back. She couldn’t just start yelling at him

“A plane could’ve gotten you.”

Kevin’s head jerked. “A plane?”

Susan felt silly. She made it sound like an airplane was some sort of ghoulish monster out of a B movie.

“I’m a paranoid former jilted bride with abandonment issues,” Susan paraphrased Liz. “Give me a break.”

Kevin grunted and shook his head. “I wasn’t going to leave. I just needed...”

“Some space?” Susan said to utter silence. “Some time?”

“To think.”

“That’s never a good idea.” Susan tiptoed over, trying to get closer without scaring him off.

“You have room to talk,” Kevin said, still not looking at her. “When your thoughts don’t have you jumping your best friend, they’ve got you in a coma.”

Ouch
.
But Susan pushed that barb right out of her head. She had to fix what she’d done. She had to get him to forgive her.

“Funny,” she grumbled. “So, can I buy you a drink or a shiny new car to make up for it?”

She could tell Kevin was smiling, and it made her heart skip a beat. He was going to forgive her.

“Since you attacked me last night after a couple of margaritas, I think I’ll go for the car.”

Susan found herself standing right beside Kevin, looking out at the ocean, at the white capped waves, at the palm trees swaying back and forth. “Foreign or domestic?”

“Surprise me.”

“Mind if it’s shiny and used? Or not so shiny and like a decade old? Did I mention I spent a ton of money on my wedding that wasn’t?”

Kevin sighed and let his arms fall from where they’d been staunchly crossed over his broad chest. His shoulder was all of a sudden touching hers as they peered down at the best view on the island.

“So, how much that set you back?”

Susan smiled. The tension had melted out of Kevin’s voice, and he sounded like the old Kevin again. Her best friend. But there was the warmth of his shoulder pressed against her own, and how she could feel her heartbeat pick up the pace just being near him. She gulped, swallowing the thoughts that were about to make her mind and body go into meltdown stage.

“Well...” Susan shook her head, but still she kept flashing on the drunken memory of Kevin naked in that towel, and the way his body felt under her touch. And how those tentative kisses had tasted. “Not enough to repay my folks for college, but enough for a couple of shiny, new, moderately priced cars. A couple of Saturns.”

Kevin must have sensed Susan’s yearning boiling up in her, because he sidestepped away from her and ran both hands through his hair, looking tired and exasperated.

“What did I--”

“I think you should head back to the hotel,” Kevin interrupted.

“No!” The word came out of her like a shotgun blast, and Kevin turned to glare at her, clearly irritated. “I’m not going anywhere until we’ve talked about this. I can’t chance losing you!”

The irritation in Kevin’s eyes melted to a sad, worried expression. “I’m not leaving you, kiddo.” He lumbered back over to her and nudged her playfully with his elbow. “I think I should get another room until Liz can come and--”

And just like that Susan started to sob. Her eyes misting up, burning as big tears slid effortlessly down her face. Susan tried to choke her sobs back, but the terror that had just seized her, whether made worse by all the troubles she’d already had, or that she really felt like she was about to lose her best friend, overwhelmed her, and she fell to her knees in the tall grass.

~*~

Kevin’s first reaction was to go to her. His knees jerked, but he pulled himself back. She was just crying, not falling over the Virgin Drop ledge. She could handle that without him. But when she fell to her knees, her hands in the tall grass desperately trying to hold herself up. That made Kevin spring into action, swooping down and taking her in his arms, pulling her to him as she started frantically sobbing, saying things that were unintelligible and disjointed. What had he done?

“It’s all right. I promise, everything’s fine,” Kevin assured her, yet Susan kept bawling, clinging to his chest and breathing like an asthmatic. “You’ll see. It’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

Susan howled. And then she said something that Kevin could make out. “I’ve lost you.”

“You haven’t lost me.”

“All I wanted was for this pain to go away.” She cried into the cotton of his t-shirt. “It’s this pain! I can’t stand it. It won’t go away.”

It wasn’t supposed to. And Kevin knew it wasn’t. Even though he’d gone deep into the witness denial relocation program just to stave off his own pain, he knew she needed to work through her own. She couldn’t be like him, not daring to look inward, never truly happy, always wanting what she couldn’t have.

But it was Susan falling to pieces in his arms, not some stranger. And he couldn’t stand seeing her in pain.

“Give it more time, Suze. It will go away.” Kevin didn’t believe a word that had just come out of his mouth.

“But I want it gone now!” She clutched at him, and he could feel her body convulsing with her sobs. She was shaking apart. “And Liz said--”

Kevin’s body stiffened. “What did Liz say?” he asked, his voice hardening. Was this all some joke fucking Liz was playing on both of them? He’d kill her!

Susan coughed and took a few deep breaths before speaking again. “Liz said it would help the pain go away.”

He shook his head. “What would?”

“Sleeping with you.” Susan started crying again on “you.”

Kevin felt himself turn as cold and still as a statue. Liz wanted Suze to sleep with him? Impossible. Crazy. Unbelievable. And yet that’s what Susan had said. Or had she?

“What exactly did Liz say?”

Susan was still sobbing, and speaking so quickly, all Kevin heard was a blur of words. He used to call it
speaking chipmunk
. She’d done it a lot back in college, whenever she was excited. Finally she slowed down enough that he started to catch the words.

“She said she would help me hunt for one when she got here. But I couldn’t wait for her to come. I wanted the pain gone now.” She sniffled and choked, coughing again. “And then I saw you coming out of the shower and...and...” She stopped.

Kevin waited, holding his breath, afraid she’d start speaking again and he wouldn’t hear what she was saying. He counted to thirty before finally letting his breath out. He took in another breath and said with the utmost patience, “And?”

“And you were exactly what she said I needed.”

Kevin was so confused. “And what did Liz say you needed?”

Susan balled up her fists and pushed Kevin away hard. “Don’t you listen to a word I say?”

Kevin rolled his eyes and pulled her back into his arms. “Humor me. You were speaking chipmunk there for a minute.”

Susan pushed away from him again. “I do not sound like a chipmunk! I never did.” She gave him the evil eye.

“So what did she say you needed?” Kevin gave her his most patient smile.