Jamaica Dreaming (Caribbean Heat) (16 page)

He looked at her in astonishment. “Is that what you want to do?”

“No. No, but…this…it’s not just hard on you,” she burst out. “It’s hard on me, too. I want you to make love to me so bad it hurts, but I can’t. Earle doesn’t deserve that and I feel like I’m breaking apart inside. It would be easier on both of us if I left now.”

He looked out to sea as if he were considering it. “No, you don’t have to do that. The first concert raised a lot of money for the Ananda Alert and I know the other two will do just as well, maybe even better because there’s a buzz now. You have to stay, but I don’t have to be around you.” He gave her a crooked smile. “We’ll declare some kind of amnesty or truce or whatever for the rest of this afternoon and then, I’ll disappear. You won’t even know I’m on Jamaica.” He pulled the picnic hamper closer to him, handed her a plate and began opening the containers.

Julissa didn’t know what she thought about this. On the one hand, not seeing him would allow the fever in her heart and body to cool down but, on the other, not seeing him would hurt. He was right about the Ananda Alert, though. She wouldn’t have liked to let Carly and Winston down. And, then suppose Joyce was found? She wanted to be around for that and she had a feeling it would happen soon. God, she wanted the little girl to be found very soon, unharmed. “Does that mean you won’t come to the other concerts?”

His face gentled as he looked at her. “I think that would be best, don’t you?”

“Yes, you’re right.” She tried to inject more enthusiasm into her voice. “That would be best, of course.”

He nodded without looking at her. “We’ve got curried chicken, baby lamb chops, candied sweet potatoes, herbed bammies and chick peas salad.”

“Sounds yummy. I’ll have a little bit of everything.”

He grinned. “Coming right up.” He handed her a napkin with her knife and fork and spooned her food onto a dinner plate.

“Thanks.” Julissa tried to pretend she hadn’t noticed that he’d held the plate in such a way their fingers couldn’t possibly touch. It was all right. That was how things had to be if they were going to get through this afternoon.

Sebastian heaped his plate up then rested it beside him as he reached for the champagne bucket.

“We’re being so agreeable, we need to celebrate.” Quickly and expertly, he popped the cork and filled their glasses. “To reason.” They clinked glasses.

Julissa drank her champagne, feeling that she was being a fraud. She had nothing to celebrate. Reason was overrated.

After they ate, they walked around the island again but without holding hands, their conversation stilted. Afterward, Sebastian went for another swim. When he returned, he found that Julissa had made herself comfortable and fallen asleep. Her eyelids flickered every now and then and he wondered what she dreamed about. Those full, sexy lips he loved to kiss were slightly parted and her dark, velvety skin glistened with a light sheen of perspiration. She was so beautiful and so strong yet she held herself so carefully, as if an underlying fragility had made her wary of the world. Even now, her knees were drawn protectively up in the fetal position. This was not the sassy, confident and stunningly beautiful Julissa Morgan he’d seen on stage in Chicago. She was still stunningly beautiful but the sass had been replaced with a sober sadness that sometimes made it look as if a hundred–year old woman was peering out from her eyes. And the confidence had given way to a hesitant uncertainty. The Event as she called it had definitely changed her in deep ways she, herself, probably didn’t understand.

Sebastian lay back on the blanket and turned on his side, toward her. She was so close. All he had to do was just lean forward a little bit, a little bit more, and…there. Now he could feel her breath on his face. He ached with the sweetness of it. His whole body trembled with need. Her scent, a mingling of the floral perfume she wore and her own warm earth and rain smell, filled his nostrils. He stuck out his tongue and licked the tip of her nose. She tasted slightly salty. Her eyelids flickered and he drew back, but she didn’t wake up and he bent closer to her again. Earle was such a lucky man, he thought, able to kiss her and touch her at will. But, today, was their last day together. He’d promised to stay away from her. Surely, he could kiss her one more time, a farewell kiss. He had desired her for so long.

Propping himself up on his elbow, Sebastian leaned in and brushed his lips against hers before throwing himself back, and away. He jumped to his feet, ran down to the water and did two laps from one end of the cay to the other, churning furiously through the waves, until, finally his arms and legs ached and he couldn’t swim any more. He flipped over on his back and floated, staring up at the great blue sky above him.

“Sebastian.” Her voice startled him and he flailed for a moment before catching himself.

“Sorry. I thought you heard me coming.” She smiled shyly at him.

She’d entered the water fully–clothed just like at Hellshire. Disappointment lanced through him. She might be off–limits but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t love to see her body and torture himself a little. “Are you sure…you didn’t want….” He stopped and took a deep breath. “I mean, nobody will see your—”

“Scars?” she finished for him. “You’re not exactly nobody.”

“I don’t care about your scars.”

She gave him a searching look. “Maybe not. But
I
do. They’re horrible, Sebastian.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He could tell her no part of her could ever be horrible to him. That all of her was touchable, kissable, loveable. But she’d made it clear that those were not things she wanted to hear from him.

“Scars are rarely pretty,” he said, gently. “But they make us who we are, for better or worse. You survived The Event. It didn’t kill you.”

“What doesn’t kill makes you stronger, right?” Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Something like that.” The truth was, it hadn’t made her stronger. Instead, she was like a beautiful but cracked vase and he couldn’t figure out why. She had a loving family, friends and a fiancé who had supported her through The Event so, where had this fragility come from. Or had it always been there but he hadn’t noticed it because he’d only known her from a distance?

They spent the rest of the afternoon swimming before making their way back to the
Ixora
and returning to the main island where they had dinner at the Yacht Club. Later, outside her villa, he wished her a curt good–night.

“So, I won’t see you at the other concerts, then?”

“Why would you want me to?”

“I…it’s nice when there’s a friendly face in the crowd.”

“Then I definitely shouldn’t be there, Julissa, because I’m not sure I can promise you ‘friendly.’” He spun on his heel and left her because there was nothing he wanted to do more than shove her inside of her villa and make hot, fierce love to her. Because he couldn’t trust himself to stay and keep his hands off her, or even be civil, he pretended he didn’t see the hurt on her face and stalked away.

At home, he knocked back three brandies and prowled through the house and around his garden until the neighborhood dogs caught his scent and began barking up a storm. He retreated inside and took a cold shower, but it didn’t help. As he lay in bed, image after image of Julissa tumbled through his mind until finally he fell into a fitful sleep. The next morning, he woke late, his head groggy. He wondered if Julissa was up yet. He thought of calling her, but what would be the point?

He’d just switched on the Keucera for his first cup of Flax Hall coffee for the day when the phone rang. Sebastian’s heart pitched, but when he checked the Caller ID, it was Purnell Thompson, the manager at his coffee plantation.

“Morning, Purnell,” he said briskly, hoping the other man wouldn’t catch the disappointment in his voice.

“Morning, Sebastian. You said you were coming up this week to check out the new pulping machines.” The machines had arrived at the beginning of the month but Sebastian had been busy with the export business, the Ananda concerts and Julissa’s arrival. He’d forgotten.

“I’m coming today.” Sebastian glanced at his watch. “I should be there by eleven or twelve and I’ll stay a few days. Visit the village. See how the new schoolhouse is working out.”

“That’ll be good. You know everyone is always glad to see you.”

Yes, Sebastian
did
know and he felt slightly guilty that the concert and then Julissa’s arrival had driven his plans for the trip to Flax Hall out of his mind. The plantation’s former owners had used it as collateral on a loan for a new and luxurious house on the east coast. Then disaster struck in the form of Hurricane Dennis which brushed past the island as a Category Three storm. Flax Hall was devastated, but the owners were in no position to restore the plantation or continue making the necessary payments for the new east coast house. Both properties were put on the market.

Sebastian wasn’t interested in the house, but he’d gone to see the plantation and instantly fallen in love with the rolling hills and the 17th century stone ruins from the estate’s glory days. Evidence of Dennis’s destruction was everywhere, in the boulder strewn road leading to Flax Hall and in the shredded trees and plants. It would take years for the plantation to begin making money again, but Sebastian hadn’t been thinking about that so much as that here, finally, was something he could build on his own.

He’d sat down with his financial advisers and made an offer that same week despite his family’s gently voiced doubts. The Chungs were in shipping and transportation, not agriculture, his father had said. The elder Chung believed Sebastian was on the verge of squandering the inheritance left him by his maternal grandmother, but Sebastian’s mind was made up. His bid was accepted and, for the next six months, Sebastian threw himself into learning all there was to know about coffee and coffee production while workers cleared the debris at the estate and made it ready for planting again. That was when Sebastian made the decision to switch from growing regular coffee to growing Peaberry. He’d also entered into a partnership with three other coffee growers which resulted in the construction of a state of the art coffee mill on Chung family property near New Castle. But Flax Hall hadn’t started breaking even until 2011 when the first set of seedlings began reaching peak production. Last year was the first time it had turned an actual profit.

Sebastian planned to make an offer for the adjacent property in the next two years or so and, after that, he would finally turn to restoring the plantation house. Flax Hall would then be able to offer people from the nearby village of Thomas Christian Gap a range of employment as some would be trained to offer tours around the estate. Young people wouldn’t feel a need to leave for Kingston. Sebastian intended to ask Lori to manage that side of the business since she would have graduated by then. He had it all planned out in his head, but, sometimes, he chafed at the slow pace at which his vision was unfolding.

His cellphone rang just after he threw the small hold–all with a couple changes of clothes into his Mercedes.

His heart leapt again but, when he checked the ID, it wasn’t Julissa. Winston Joseph didn’t waste time on preliminaries.

“Joyce is back.”

For a minute, Sebastian had no idea who he was talking about, his mind had been so far away, and then he realized.

“Joyce? She is? When? Is she all right?”

“Yes, she’s fine. Well, I mean nobody hurt her or anything like that. Apparently, she’s been hiding out a friend’s house. The friend tried to persuade her to go back home but she only agreed to return this morning. The Parchments just called. The police are there. I thought you’d want to know.”

“But why didn’t she want to go home? Is there something wrong at home?”

“No.” Winston sounded weary. “I didn’t get the full story but something’s happened to her face and she didn’t want to be made to go to school so, instead, she hid out, hoping her skin would heal.”

“Her skin?”

“I don’t really understand but I think it has something to do with this bleaching nonsense
The Gleaner’s
been writing about. Anyway, the Parchments asked for Julissa to come. Not now. Maybe this afternoon when things quiet down a bit and the police and the media have gone.”

“Well, I’m sure Julissa will want to meet her. You should call her and tell her the child’s been found.”

“Oh.” Winston sounded surprised. “Aren’t you going to see her, today? I thought, perhaps, you could take her to the Parchments. They said you were there yesterday.”

“Yes, we were, but I was just on my way out the door. I’m going to spend a few days at Flax Hall. I can ask Lori to take her, though.”

“All right, then.” Winston still sounded mildly puzzled, as if he suspected there was something going on that Sebastian wasn’t saying. “I just thought I’d ask you since I know you’ve been squiring her around.” Winston was much too polite to come right out and ask him what was going on, but he was not above hinting at what he knew in the hope that Sebastian might confess all.

Sebastian grinned to himself. He’d known Winston all his life since the older man was a friend of his parents but there was no way he was going to bring the older man into his confidence. Especially since there was a good chance his parents would find out and he wasn’t ready to talk to them about Julissa yet. He’d already told them she was coming and he rather thought his mother had guessed there was something special about her, but he hadn’t come right out and said so, which was probably a good thing given how things had turned out.