Right Place, Wrong Time (13 page)

Well, there was an idiotic idea, she thought. She was
not
going to fondle Ethan’s butt. She wasn’t even going
to think about it. She was going to enjoy the rest of today and tomorrow—her last day in the Virgin Islands with Alicia. Sometime during the next forty or so hours, she was going to break the news to Ali that her father had vacated the family homestead, and she was going to comfort Ali and assure her that everything would be all right, even though she had no way of knowing that was true. Sometimes love meant having to lie a little, or at least make baseless assertions.

After she broke the news, she and Ali would fly home—and Ethan, his erstwhile almost-fiancée, her superblond mom and her windbag dad would vanish from Gina’s life forever. In two days she’d be back in New York, a city teeming with men who boasted rock-hard butts.

Yeah, right. Before she and Ethan had clashed over the condominium at Palm Point, she’d been in New York City, and none of the rock-hard butts she’d seen there had ever seized her imagination the way Ethan’s did.

“Potato chips!” Alicia yelled as Gina neared the table. “Can I have potato chips?”

“Everyone gets a bag,” she told Alicia as she distributed them. “They came with the burgers.”

“You can have mine,” Kim said, pushing her bag across the table to Alicia.

“You don’t want them?” Alicia appeared shocked. She obviously couldn’t conceive of anyone not wanting potato chips.

“They’re fattening. Not that you have to worry about that,” Kim said with a smile.

Fattening, hell. Gina tore open her bag and popped a crunchy, salty chip into her mouth. As she chomped down on it, her eyes met Ethan’s. He was smiling—and
damned if his smile wasn’t vastly more enticing than his rear end. He had those luscious dimples. Of course, for all she knew, he might have luscious dimples on his other cheeks, too. The thought made her laugh.

Ethan’s smile deepened. If he knew what she’d been thinking, what lewd notion had stimulated that laugh, he’d lose his smile fast enough. Or else he’d smile even more, and run his hand along her back again, and make her sigh as her body shivered in the wake of his touch…

She hadn’t been aware of how steamy the midday air was. Actually, it hadn’t been as steamy a few minutes ago as it was now. She rearranged herself more comfortably on the bench across the table from Ethan and he brushed one of his feet against one of hers in the sand under the table, his gaze meeting hers to let her know that contact wasn’t accidental.

She pulled her foot back. He was playing with her, playing with fire. Last night he’d promised he wouldn’t make a pass at her. He’d said he wouldn’t touch her again. And here he was, breaking his promise.

To her great discredit, she was glad. Because the thought of never being touched by Ethan was truly depressing.

A
FTER LUNCH
, Kim announced she was going to take a cab to Cruz Bay to shop. She would meet them at the dock in time to catch the four o’clock ferry back to St. Thomas. She tied a chic, gauzy skirt around her waist, slapped a straw hat onto her head and allowed Ethan to walk her to the beach’s entrance to find a cab for her.

Gina contemplated whether to wait for him before heading back into the water with Alicia. If she waited, he might interpret that to mean she welcomed his advances—and his interpretation might be right. But even
though his caress by the snack bar had aroused her to a ridiculous degree, she’d have to be crazy to let him think she wanted him to push for more.

Yet if she and Alicia returned to the water while he was up at the road with Kim, that would be rude. Besides, Alicia ought to digest her lunch before she resumed swimming. Gina wasn’t sure whether the belief that swimming immediately after eating caused cramps was a myth, but better safe than sorry.

Alicia didn’t seem in any rush to go back into the water, anyway. “Do you want to snorkel some more?” Gina asked her.

“Of course I do! It’s great.” Yet Alicia sat patiently, swinging her feet under the bench and gazing up into the shifting palm fronds above her head.

“So how come you aren’t nagging me to go back into the water?”

“I’m digesting.”

The last time they’d snorkeled, Alicia hadn’t wanted to take the time to digest. “You want to wait for Ethan, right?” Gina guessed.

Alicia giggled. “He’s so nice, Aunt Gina. I really think you should—”

“I can’t, honey, okay? After tomorrow we’re never going to see him again.” She needed to convince herself as much as Alicia.

“People see each other all the time,” Alicia argued. “If they want to, they can make a plan.”

“Well, I don’t know that I want to. We’ll be leaving St. Thomas on Saturday, and Ethan’ll go back home to his home and we’ll go back to ours.”
And yours will be a disaster
, Gina thought, sighing. “But if you want, we’ll wait for him today.”

“’Cause we don’t want him to come back and not
find us here, and then he’ll go snorkeling all by himself, which is dangerous. No swimming alone—that’s the rule.”

“Then we’ll definitely wait. We don’t want him breaking any rules.”
We most certainly don’t
, Gina added silently.

Within a few minutes Alicia spotted him strolling back to the table by himself. “There he is!” she hollered, not bothering to hide her delight. Gina felt a weird flutter in the pit of her stomach as he approached. He looked better from the front than from behind, his chest beautifully muscled, his eyes squinting slightly in the glaring sunlight, his hair a touch lighter than it had been the day, nearly a week ago, when he and the Hamiltons had tried to evict her and Alicia from the condo. His movements had an elegance about them, the sort of refinement Gina credited to a prep school education and a Connecticut address.

“We waited for you,” Alicia announced as he drew near.

“That was very nice of you,” he said, then glanced at Gina.

“Ali didn’t want you swimming alone,” she explained, hoping he wouldn’t go searching for any other reason.

“So let’s swim together,” he said, gathering up his snorkeling gear.

They went together, the three of them staying close as they followed the underwater trail of markers and ogled the coral formations and sea life. The water was balmy and the fish were friendly. Ethan freely touched Gina as they swam—her arm, her shoulder, a tug on her hand to get her attention so he could point out a blossoming plant she might have missed. He touched Alicia,
too, guiding her around outcroppings and other swimmers. Maybe he was just a toucher, like her.

Gina tried to recall him touching Kim. No, he wasn’t a toucher. He must simply feel close to her and Alicia, and comfortable with them. He touched them because it was a way of sharing.

They had snorkeling in common. That afternoon, it was more than enough.

S
HE WANTED
that last day for just herself and Alicia—a fact Ethan could appreciate. He respected her wishes, even though respecting them meant he couldn’t spend
his
last day with her. But then, what was the use of attaching himself to her? After they left Palm Point tomorrow morning, their roads would diverge, just like in the Robert Frost poem. Gina would be nothing more to him than a slowly fading memory. Years from now, he and Paul would still be laughing about the crazy mix-up with the time-share, and he’d have to struggle to remember her name.

He respected Kim’s wishes for her last day on St. Thomas, too. Considering that this vacation wasn’t what either of them had hoped for, she’d weathered the situation with poise. For all he knew, she was as relieved by the outcome as he was. If he had come to realize that she was all wrong for him, she’d probably come to realize that he was all wrong for her.

And it could have been worse. They could have come to their realizations while sharing the condo with Kim’s parents. Ethan would always be grateful to Gina for having spared him that disastrous fate.

In this deeply respectful mood, he agreed to drive with Kim to Charlotte Amalie for the day. While there, he’d buy a watch for his father, a bottle of rum for his secretary and what the hell, maybe even something for him
self. And something for Kim, whatever she wanted—as long as what she wanted wasn’t a diamond solitaire.

They drove over the winding mountain roads, beneath a blue sky flocked with cotton-ball clouds. Ethan had grown used to driving on the left side of the road, and he was beginning to recognize some of the goats that grazed along the shoulders. His fingers no longer clamped reflexively around the steering wheel when a jitney or a motorcycle rumbled past them on the right. He no longer tensed when he had to steer the car down a thirty-degree slope or around a hairpin turn. In fact, he’d grown extremely fond of the island, not just for the swimming and snorkeling but for its picturesque roads, its relaxed pace, its friendly citizens—and yes, its goats. Maybe he ought to consider buying a time-share on the island. You never knew whom you might meet through a time-share.

To his right, Kim sat quietly. Occasional glimpses of her reminded him of how incredibly gorgeous she was. He recalled with nostalgia the first time he’d seen her. His first thought had been
God, she’s beautiful
. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing complicated. The same notion filled his mind when he saw her today, six months after that first meeting. She really was that beautiful.

And they’d had a decent run, he reflected as he maneuvered the car around an acute bend in the road. He and Kim had given each other their best shot. When they got back to Connecticut, he would likely never see her again, and that understanding made him wistful. It really would have been great if things had worked out. But they hadn’t.

Gina had nothing to do with anything.

After wedging the car into a parking space on a narrow, sloping lane a few short blocks from Main Street,
he gave an extra yank on the parking brake and sent forth an unvoiced prayer that the car wouldn’t roll down the road while they were shopping. Not surprisingly, Kim knew her way around Charlotte Amalie’s shopping district. She hustled Ethan up sidewalks and down alleys, zeroing in on this shop for perfume, that boutique for a belt, this kiosk for a mother-of-pearl hair clasp, that outlet for a scarf. Ethan insisted on buying her the scarf, a Hermés rectangle of silk featuring a simple pattern. When she looped it around her neck and asked him what he thought of it, he was once again stricken by her astounding beauty.

“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly.

Her perfectly shaped eyebrows flexed, and she studied her reflection in the mirror above the counter. “About what? The scarf doesn’t work?”

“The scarf is fine. It’s very nice. Let’s get it.”

“Then what are you sorry about?” she asked as she handed the scarf back to the clerk to ring up.

Ethan passed the clerk his credit card, then turned Kim to face him. She looked placid yet determined, someone used to getting what she wanted. Maybe, once she’d analyzed things, she’d recalibrated her goals—skip the wedding proposal, get the Hermès scarf—and she’d achieved those new goals.

However, he had to finish the apology he’d begun. “I’m sorry this vacation didn’t turn out the way we’d planned.”

“Well.” She shrugged and accepted the shopping bag from the clerk as Ethan signed the charge slip. “My mother got to stay in a luxury hotel and my father played plenty of golf. Things could have been worse.”

Did she think he was apologizing for the screwup with Paul’s condo? “I meant, I’m sorry our…” No, he wasn’t
going to use the word
relationship
. It was one of those terms men preferred to avoid. “I’m sorry this isn’t ending with wedding bells. That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. I turned down two other marriage proposals while you and I were dating. I’m sure there’ll be many more.” She hooked the bag’s handles over her wrist and sashayed out of the shop, leaving Ethan blinking in confusion.

Two other marriage proposals? Had she been seeing other guys while she’d been dating him? Was he supposed to be flattered that she’d declined their offers of marriage?

Shaking off his shock, he hurried out of the shop and searched the pedestrians crowding the sidewalk. He spotted Kim half a block away at the center of a milling throng, using her hand to shield her eyes from the glare as she stared through a window at an array of jewelry. He worked his way through the crowd to her. “Tanzanite,” she said.

“What?”

“This jewelry is all tanzanite. These are fabulous prices.”

He’d never even heard of tanzanite. “Do you want to go in?”

She shook her head. “I think I shot my load with the Chopard watch.”

She stepped away from the store, but he grabbed her hand before she could get too far ahead of him. “Kim. Who was proposing marriage to you while we were dating?”

“Nobody you know,” she said blithely. She started down the sidewalk and he fell into step beside her. “Men ask me to marry them all the time, Ethan,” she
explained. “You’re probably the first man I’ve ever been involved with who
didn’t
ask me to marry him. That made you very special to me.”

“I see.” So if he’d given her the proposal she’d been angling for, would she have turned him down and gone off in search of someone more special?

“There will be others. There are
always
others.” She paused again at another window. “Ooh. Cartier.”

He stood by patiently while she scrutinized the jewelry. After a minute, she sighed, straightened up and resumed her walk. Ethan adjusted his stride to remain even with her. “I do wish we hadn’t wasted the opportunity for sex,” she went on. “Once my parents were no longer staying in the condo, we could have had a good time.”

“Yes, but—” He sighed, aware of how old-fashioned he was about to sound. “Once I saw that we weren’t going anywhere with our…” Again he choked on the word
relationship
. “That we weren’t going anywhere,” he said, “I thought sex would be…I don’t know.”

“It would have been good. It was always good, Ethan.”

It wouldn’t have been loving, though. It wouldn’t have included the emotional component, the intimate connection. It just would have been…sex. Not that there was anything wrong with sex, of course. But Ethan wanted intimacy along with physical pleasure. He wanted to look into his lover’s eyes and see more than mere satisfaction in them. He wanted a woman who laughed with her whole body, who considered coral reefs more precious than coral jewelry, who let passion seep into everything she did.

He wasn’t sure what Kim wanted, but he had no doubt she would find it. That understanding eased his mind.
She didn’t need to hear how sorry he was; she didn’t seem to care. He was done apologizing.

“How about a drink?” he offered.

She flashed him a smile—a breathtakingly pretty one. “As long as it has rum in it,” she said.

T
HE DAY WAS SUBDUED
. The sun didn’t shine as brightly as it had earlier in the week, and puffy clouds drifted across the sky. The beach at Palm Point was less crowded than usual, the waves gentler, the breezes muted. St. Thomas seemed to be toning itself down, preparing to say goodbye to Gina and Alicia.

Gina considered it miraculous that she could hold her own in her conversations with her niece while her mind kept wandering off. It traveled, alternately, down two paths. She’d capture it and drag it back from one path only to have it escape down the other.

The first path led to thoughts of the ghastly news she had to break to Alicia.
Sweetie, you know that prick Mommy married? Right, the asshole you call Daddy. Well, he’s gone. Bye-bye, ciao, sayonara
. No, that wouldn’t do.

Alicia, your father loves you more than life itself, but he just couldn’t stay home anymore. For your sake, because he loves you so very, very much, he had to leave.
Alicia would see through that bull without having to squint.

Alley Cat, your mother loves you madly, and I do, too. And so do your grandparents. Things could be worse.
That might work.

“I said,” Alicia broke into her ruminations, “I’m going to fill the bucket with water and I’ll be right back. I’m not going in the water by myself, except maybe my feet.”

“Okay,” Gina said, giving her head a sharp shake. “Up to your ankles. I’ll keep an eye on you.”

She watched Alicia scamper down to the water’s edge, swinging her bucket, and her mind strayed down the other path, the Ethan path.

He would have chosen to spend the day with her and Alicia. She’d known it without his having to ask. The desire had glowed in his eyes and whispered in the curve of his mouth when he’d smiled, in the brush of his hand against hers as they’d both reached for the coffee decanter at the same time that morning. All yesterday afternoon when they’d snorkeled together, she’d known. Last night, after she’d washed up and was crossing the hall to join Alicia in dreamland, and he’d stepped out of the master bedroom at the same time, and their gazes had collided, and they’d both stood motionless, watching each other while the minutes stretched like taffy….

The yearning was there.

But nothing would come of it. She didn’t
want
anything to come of it. This vacation was for her and Alicia, a week away from all the crap in Alicia’s life. And even if Alicia hadn’t been with her, Gina wouldn’t have chosen to start anything she couldn’t finish—especially with a representative of the blue blood elite.

So she and Alicia spent the day by themselves on the beach, building sand castles, digging moats, constructing bridges. “This can be the Frog’s Neck Bridge,” Alicia declared as she molded the damp sand above a moat.

“The
Throgs
Neck Bridge,” Gina corrected her.

“How come they named it that?” Alicia asked. “It’s a silly name.”

“It’s a pretty bridge, though. Have you ever driven over it?”

Alicia shook her head. “I don’t think so. It goes to
Long Island, and we never go to Long Island. I wish it was called the
Frog’s
Neck Bridge. That would be so funny.” She didn’t laugh, though. She worked diligently, solemnly, as if compelled to finish her bridge before the clouds thickened and covered the sun.

They would cover it, Gina thought sadly. Even if the sky cleared, the clouds of tomorrow loomed on the horizon. Alicia would be going home to a broken family, and Gina would be going home to a life without Ethan.

Which was a really stupid thing to be upset about, since a week ago she’d never even heard of him.

At four o’clock they rinsed off the bucket and shovel, shook the sand out of their towels and climbed the hill to building six. Once inside the apartment, they took turns showering, got dressed and headed off for dinner at the restaurant just down the beach, where they’d eaten the first night. Like that night, Alicia ended her meal with a butterscotch sundae. She smiled as she ate it, but her eyes looked worried, as if she knew the evening wasn’t going to end well.

They walked back to Palm Point on the brick path that edged the beach. A bench near the path beckoned, and Gina led Alicia over to it. They sat and stared at the water, an expanse of deep blue in the dwindling light. “I don’t want to leave,” Alicia said, just like that first night. “I want to stay here forever.”

“So do I,” Gina admitted. “But we’ve got to go home.”

Alicia leaned her head against Gina’s shoulder. “This has been the absolutely best vacation in my life, Aunt Gina.”

Gina arched her arm around the girl’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Ali, I’ve got to tell you something. I don’t want to, but I have to. Okay?”

“Okay.” Alicia peered up at her.

“When we go home tomorrow, your daddy isn’t going to be at your house.”

“Does he have to work? Sometimes he has to work on weekends.”

Yeah, right
, Gina nearly blurted out.
He says he’s working, but he’s really spending the weekend with the Other Woman.
“I don’t know if he has to work,” she said honestly. “What I know is, he won’t be living in your house anymore. He and your mommy decided it would be best if he moved out.”

“Why?” Alicia’s eyes glistened. “Because of his girlfriend?”

Gina nodded. “It’s called being separated. Your parents are going to be separated now.”

“When will he come home?” Alicia asked in a quivering voice.

“I’m sure he’ll come over to the house so he can see you.” Gina was sure of no such thing, but she had to offer Alicia some hope to cling to. “The thing is, I don’t think he and your mommy are going to stay married.”

“They’re getting a divorce?”

“I think so.”

Alicia started to cry. Tiny sobs shook her and she buried her face against Gina’s breast. “I don’t want them to get a divorce.”