The Trouble with Mojitos (9 page)

Then he gave in to the bone-melting post-coital relaxation. He couldn’t ever remember feeling so light, so free from tension.

It was as though he’d been only half alive before now. As though in making love to Kenzie he’d finally shed a weight he’d carried for so long. As though he’d finally found himself. And what he’d found wasn’t the dutiful son, the straight A student or the diligent prince, but the man he was meant to be.

***

They slept deeply, limbs entwined, bodies rocking together as the boat rolled lazily on the groundswell of the incoming tide. When he woke, stretching muscles cramped and sore from his struggle against the ocean, Kenzie was already stirring beside him. She looked up at him through heavily hooded eyes.

“We should head back to Los Pajaros,” he said, brushing her hair back from her face. “You need to get back in range of a mobile signal.”

“I feel like I don’t ever want to leave Tortuga,” she said drowsily.

He didn’t either.

He’d only ever been interested in the old legend of the curse of Tortuga in an intellectual way. It had felt like a story in need of an ending. Like his father - the man he’d called father rather than the womanising sperm donor - he’d wondered what end Thomas and Clara had met.

Now he saw the story in a whole new light. He could imagine how Thomas had felt, bringing his pale European beauty to Tortuga, being able to have his way with her at last. His desperation to get her away before another man could lay hands on her, his need to submerge his body in hers and lose himself in her.

No matter how short a time those star-crossed lovers had together before the tropical storm or the governor’s revenge ended their idyll, he knew now they’d been happy. Because at least they’d had this.

And now he had too.

“We don’t have to leave straight away. We can take what’s left of the food and have a picnic on the beach before we leave.”

She smiled, eyes lighting up. “But this time we make damn sure the dinghy is safe.”

He wasn’t going to argue with that.

One of the greatest advantages of a deserted island, Rik discovered, was that clothing was entirely optional. He pulled on his jeans, and Kenzie wore nothing but knickers and his fresh shirt which hung almost to her knees. Barefoot, they walked back along the now familiar sandy path through the forest fringe to the beach at Salvatore Bay, taking their time, stopping as they walked to sneak kisses.

Kissing a beautiful woman really was one of life’s greatest pleasures. There were an infinite number of ways to kiss, from the light and playful to the deep and passionate. Never before had he found a woman capable of delivering everything in one mind-blowing kiss though.

They missed the sunset completely, emerging from the trees just as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. The air was blessedly cooler, though the sand retained the day’s warmth. The sky still shone with ambient light but the shadows lengthened.

Rik spread out the groundsheet from his rucksack at the base of a palm. They sat and ate, watching the moon rise over the sea, casting an arc of white light across the darkening beach.

When they were done, and even the last of the mangoes were gone, he leaned back against the tree trunk and pulled Kenzie between his legs, her back against his chest, his arm looped loosely around her.

“If you still don’t want to go back, we could sleep right here on the beach,” he offered.

She could have no idea what a big deal this was for him. He’d never slept anywhere but on the finest linen, never done anything so unplanned, so out of his comfort zone. He’d still prefer the fine linen of his bed to the rough scratch of beach sand, but he wanted to make her happy. And he didn’t want this moment to end either.

Kenzie sat up suddenly. “The sand is moving. Look!”

He turned his head. The sand close by was indeed shifting, rippling and bubbling in a gradually widening circle. “Get back,” he whispered urgently, recognising the signs. “It’s a turtle hatching.”

Moving as quickly and carefully as they could, they grabbed the sheet and their picnic things and retreated several feet to watch in fascination as a small circular depression appeared at the heart of the shifting patch.

“Sleeping on the beach might not be such a good idea after all,” he said. “We don’t want to disturb any other possible nests.”

She nodded slowly. “Let’s stay to watch.”

“It could take a while.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Do we have anything better to do right now?”

He could think of a few things. Most involved getting Kenzie naked again. But this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for her.

He’d been lucky enough to witness a few hatchings over the years, and the sight still moved him every time.

So he folded up the groundsheet and laid it down a safe distance from the nest, and drew Kenzie back into the cocoon of his arms. Then, in awed silence they kept a vigil.

The minutes ticked by with little to see but the writhing beach sand, until at last a dark flat head broke the surface. The tiny turtle peeked through, its head followed by a pair of flippers struggling against the sand.

He recognised the paler markings edging the dark carapace. “It’s a green turtle. They’re highly endangered since many of their nesting grounds have been taken over by man.”

He felt a kinship to the sea turtles that nested here. Isla Tortuga was as much a haven for them as it was for him, the one place that hadn’t been taken away from them.

Perhaps he could persuade the mayor to divert a little of the film’s funds to turning the island into a protected sanctuary? Though there wasn’t much need to protect it since no one came here anyway. No one but him, until now.

But too soon a film crew of hundreds would descend on this island, and it would no longer be his secret. There were researchers who’d probably kill to get access to the island’s untouched flora and fauna, and divers who’d pay small fortunes to explore the wrecks. If they discovered that the ban on Tortuga was lifted … 

The island would need someone to protect it, someone to care for it.

“Take my camera,” Kenzie whispered, thrusting her camera at him. “I don’t want to miss any of this, but we should have pictures for posterity.”

Rik had usually been on the other end of a camera, but it didn’t take genius to figure out how to work the thing. He zoomed in and focussed just as a second head pushed up beneath the first.

Suddenly there were dozens of baby turtles, shoving and crawling over each other to climb out the hole, spilling up and out like oil from a well, their tiny bodies dark against the pale sand. The most intrepid raced ahead in a straight line towards the edge of the water as more and more poured from the hole.

Rik snapped away, fiddling with the camera controls to compensate for the fading light, his pulse racing as he caught image after image. The turtles motored across the cooling sand in a rapid, ungainly gait until they reached the water where they gave up the fight and let the waves sweep them away.

The last turtles emerged covered in clinging wet sand, flailing to climb from the ever widening, deepening hole, until there was only one turtle remaining.

In his struggle to claw up the steep bank of the collapsing hole, he flipped onto his back, limbs flailing.

“Should we help him?” Kenzie whispered urgently.

He stifled a laugh. “Have patience. It’ll all work out in the end.” He heard a faint echo to his words and frowned. Then shrugging off the eerie feeling, he focussed his attention back on the camera and watched as the struggling turtle managed to right itself, clawed out of the hole, and chased towards the moonlit sea in the wake of the others. Kenzie cheered quietly.

The waves continued to lap in on the beach, silent and deserted now, the shadowy hole in the sand the only disturbance.

“Whew.” Kenzie sagged back against him. “That was truly an awesome sight.”

A vastly over-rated word
awesome
, but just this once he agreed.

He handed her the camera so she could examine the pictures he’d taken. She flicked through them. “Wow – these are good. Have you done a lot of photography?”

He shrugged. Holidays here on the islands were about the only time he’d had a chance to take pictures. The day he’d left for the elite boarding school in France where he and Max had been educated, his parents had given him his first camera. He’d loved messing around with it, but too soon his life had filled up with schoolwork and other more active hobbies, like playing polo and rowing. After school, he’d gone on to Oxford and the start of his training as a future leader.

Something occurred to him, and he swallowed against the assault of emotions he couldn’t name. “My father was a photographer,” he said.

Her brow furrowed and she seemed about to say something, but she bit her lip.

“He’s dead,” Rik said. He didn’t know why, but the thought saddened him. He hadn’t wanted to know about the man who fathered him. But suddenly there were things he wished he could ask. Were they anything alike? Had his father felt the same rush behind a camera that he’d just felt? Though snapping pictures of pouting women hardly rated alongside photographing a miracle of nature.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

He lifted his head. “I’m not. He was a complete stranger.”

Her brow furrowed again and for half a second he wondered if she suspected who he was. If she thought he was lying to her. Even though she was the only person in all these months he’d admitted the truth to.

“You have a gift,” she said, looking back down at the camera’s screen. “You should consider taking up wildlife photography professionally.”

Then she looked up at him, and the mischief was back in her eyes. “Let’s go home.”

@LeeHill: @KenzieCole101 Hey Mac, you ok? The radio silence is starting to worry me.

@KenzieCole101: @LeeHill Don’t panic. I’m here. Got a little distracted by a mix of vodka, peach schnapps, OJ and cranberry juice.

@LeeHill: @KenzieCole101 You’re drinking Sex on the Beach cocktails on the job?

@KenzieCole101: @LeeHill Something like that

Kenzie’s phone started to beep the moment the yacht came in sight of Los Pajaros. She sat on the cabin roof, legs swinging over the edge, and scrolled through the day’s messages. Two texts from Lee wanting to know why she hadn’t been on Twitter all day, another from her mother which she deleted without reading, and a voice message from Neil, several hours old, saying he’d received the pictures and would call as soon as they’d had a chance to discuss them. There hadn’t been another call since. Her stomach knotted.

The mobile trilled in her hand, but one glance at the screen and she groaned. She let it ring.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Rik emerged from the cabin and handed her a chilled glass of the rather superb crisp white wine she’d grown a taste for.

“I’d rather not.” But she hit the answer button anyway. Postponing this call would be like trying to stop a volcanic eruption. “Hello, Mum. Look, I can’t talk now. I’m expecting a work phone call … yes, I know how late it is … yes, I know normal people don’t work these hours.” She couldn’t keep the exasperation out of her voice.

“I’m sure he’s very nice, Mum, but you do know I’m halfway across the planet right now?” Besides, she didn’t need fixing up. She was doing rather well on her own in that department.

“I’ll call you as soon as I get back, okay?” She disconnected the call and frowned at the screen.

“That sounds like a set-up. Who’s the lucky guy?” Rik asked, sitting beside her.

“Shouldn’t you be driving this thing?”

He raised an eyebrow and waited. She gave in. “Their accountant. He’s steady and dependable, and … ” she raised her fingers to make air quotes “ … he’ll make a really wonderful father.”

For that matter, Rik would make a really wonderful father too. She could see him teaching his son to sail, or sitting beside a turtle nest with a little girl in pigtails watching breathlessly as the hatchlings escaped to the sea. He’d be patient and generous and slow to anger. And making babies with him would be so much fun.

She shook her head to clear the vision from her clearly sex-addled brain.

“My mother’s convinced being a location scout isn’t a real job, and that one day I’m going to stop ‘playing’ at it and miraculously turn into my brother.”

Rik moved back to his post behind the wheel. He stood with a loose gait, legs a little apart, rolling with the pitch of the boat. Masterful, commanding. God, but he was sex on a stick and she wanted to lick him. She crossed her legs.

“What does your brother have that you don’t?”

“Aside from the obvious?” Kenzie laughed. “James is the Golden Boy who does everything my parents want. He’s taken over the family business, provided them with grandkids, and has the perfect little wife.”

She hoped she didn’t sound bitter. She liked her sister-in-law, really she did. She was just so tired of always being measured up against Amy and found wanting.

“Me, I’m the screw up. I’m the wrong side of thirty with no man and no baby. And according to my mother I’m doing it all deliberately to hurt her.”

It hurt Kenzie far more. Since she’d crossed that decade marker, she’d wanted a baby too. But she wasn’t about to marry some dull accountant in order to have one. She wasn’t that desperate. Yet.

“So tell your mother you’ve met someone.”

Kenzie shook her head. “Then she’ll want to meet him, and that is so not happening.” The only man she’d ever taken home was Charlie, and that had been an unmitigated disaster.

“He’s not good enough for you,” her father had said, more quietly but more emphatically than her mother ever had.

“He’s the son of an Earl. How much ‘better’ do you need him to be?” she’d shot back.

The worst of it was that her parents had been right. Charlie had been very, very bad for her. And the end of their relationship, under the glare of spotlights and video cameras, had been utterly humiliating and utterly devastating. She still hadn’t got over it.

She wondered what her parents would make of Rik, scruffy haired, bearded and tattooed. She doubted his having been raised a prince would make any difference to how they’d see him. If he didn’t fit into their neat little box, they wouldn’t be impressed.

She should know. She’d never fitted those same neat little boxes.

But that was about as far as the resemblance between her and Rik went. She was still an outsider wanting to fit in, while Rik …  Beneath the ink and the attitude, Rik was just another Golden Boy. Everything in life had come easily to him. He wore his arrogance and his assurance like a second skin. She’d bet he’d never felt like an outsider. If they’d played footie in Prince Academy, he would have been the star striker.

She sipped the wine. She really needed to check if her local off licence stocked this label. “I’ve found the ‘less is more’ approach works best with my parents. I don’t tell them anything but the most vanilla details of my life and for the most part they leave me alone.”

Rik laughed. “I guess that definitely counts me out of the conversation then. Sex on the beach is definitely more cranberry than vanilla.”

“On the beach, on the yacht, up against that palm tree … ” She grinned. Being single and child-free definitely had perks.

The mobile vibrated in her hand half a second before it rang. She swung her legs, hopped down from her perch, and answered the call. “Neil?”

Rik adjusted their course and tried to look like he wasn’t eavesdropping while Kenzie paced the deck, her mobile glued to her ear.

“I have meetings set up for Monday morning with the mayor to talk about the tax rebate, then with the harbour master to discuss building the ship, and appointments with a number of hotels to talk preferential rates for the crew.” She was a different person on the phone, the cheekiness of a second ago replaced by a brisk, professional tone.

Not for the first time, he wondered how much of who he’d been had been dictated by the job he’d been prepared for all his life. Because being a Prince of Westerwald was so much more than a job description. You didn’t turn it off when you clocked out.

While other kids played computer games or watched TV, he and Max had been raised on the tales of their forebears, the laws and legends of their country. Who he was and what he did were woven together, integrated into his DNA. Or so he’d thought.

Without that job, who was he? He wiped a hand over his eyes. He’d asked the question so many times, and he was still no closer to an answer.

He didn’t even have a name he could claim as his own.

Kenzie nodded at whatever Neil said. “I’ll meet you at the airport on Monday morning.”

She disconnected the call and turned to him, no longer able to suppress her excitement. “I did it! The team will be here on Monday to take over from me.”

“You won’t be involved in the rest of the film?” Of course, she’d said she’d be leaving in a couple of days. It hadn’t sunk in until now that she wouldn’t be coming back.

She shook her head. “I’m a scout. I find locations. The production people handle the actual logistical planning of the shoot.”

He stared ahead, at the dock that was nothing more than a shadow against the shore. He had just one more day with her. Although this was never meant to be anything more than a way to scratch an itch, a fun way to pass the time; this no longer seemed enough.

“Do you need to work tomorrow, or do film people at least take Sundays off?”

“I can take a day off.”

“Good.” He held his arm out, and she came to him, snuggling in against his chest. He bent his head to breathe in the fresh summery scent that lingered in her hair. “Then tomorrow you’re all mine.”

***

He hadn’t slept so well in months, and he hadn’t even needed a drop of alcohol to fall asleep. And the familiar ache was gone.

Rik slid out of bed and crossed to the glass doors that stood open to the patio. Gauzy white curtains billowed on the breeze.

The sun was a cool pink glow on the eastern horizon, turning the sky pale over the silvery sea. He breathed in the wild ocean scent. Dawn had always been his favourite time of day, that moment’s pause before stress and worry and endless meetings replaced the happy anticipation that anything could happen.

Here in the Caribbean, dawn also brought clarity, before the baking sun turned the brain languorous. Every day began with the promise of warmth and sunshine and pleasure, but dawn brought something more: hope.

In his attempt to escape his memories, he’d missed far too many dawns on Los Pajaros.

He stretched and turned back to the room, to the large bed where Kenzie lay, limbs tangled in the sheets, hair splayed out bright and beautiful against the stark white pillows. Soft rosy light crept across the bed, illuminating her.

He was beginning to appreciate that some of the changes wrought in his life were a definite improvement on what he’d had before.

In that grand palace in Neustadt, he’d never once woken with a woman in his bed. By the time he’d been greeted by his valet, with the red leather box filled with schedules, government reports and the morning newspapers, any woman who’d graced his bed had been long gone.

Those moments of stillness at daybreak had been far too brief, and he’d never wanted to share them with anyone. They’d been an indulgence to treasure, since he’d scarcely enjoyed a moment alone.

But with one DNA test everything had turned on its head. He’d had all the alone time he’d ever craved, and more. Yet he’d never felt lonely, not until now, looking at Kenzie asleep in his bed and knowing she might not be there tomorrow.

He wanted to share a lot more dawns with her.

He was over pretending this was just casual sex. What he’d experienced with Kenzie was far more than a random hook-up. He’d begun to feel emotions he’d never believed he would feel, and begun to want things he’d never wanted before.

But before he could take this to another level, first she had to know who he was. Today he would tell her.

He strode back to the bed and slipped beneath the sheets, rolling into the warmth of her body. In Neustadt, he’d also never returned to bed after he’d woken. There’d always been too much to do: agendas to follow, other people’s needs to attend to.

Now there was only one item on the agenda: pleasure. His and hers.

He slid a hand over the curve of Kenzie’s breast, over the gentle arch of her hip. She sighed, lips parted, caught between sleep and waking.

Stroking back the hair from her neck, he brushed his lips over the sensitive skin at the base of her throat, while his hand slid lower, between her legs. She moaned, and her eyes fluttered open.

“Good morning.” He bent to kiss her lips.

She stretched, the movement lazy, sensuous, and smiled. “Good morning.”

“There’s some place special I’d like to take you today.”

She rolled on top of him, her hair tickling his chest. “Does it involve more hiking?”

“No hiking.”

“Okay, I’m in.” She slid down the length of his body, which hardened instantly at the seductive glide of skin on skin. “But first, I want to swim in the sea.”

She slipped from the bed, taking the sheet with her and leaving him aching with unfulfilled desire. It took a few minutes and a lot of deep breathing before he was able to chase after her.

***

@KenzieCole101: I love surprises.

Rik refused to tell her where he was taking her.

The yacht bumped over turbulent waves as they passed the smaller inhabited island of Arelat and approached an island Kenzie couldn’t remember visiting before. It was small, not much more than a mountain peak submerged in the sparkling sea, its heavily forested slopes made the island glow like an emerald in the sunlight.

“Which island is this?”

He grinned. “I thought you’d done your homework?”

She screwed up her eyes and tried to picture the aerial maps. Then her eyes widened in shock. “But this is Isla Corona. Isn’t this private property? Won’t we be trespassing?”

“Yes and yes.”

On the sheltered side of the island lay a short marina and a boathouse. There was no-one in sight.

Kenzie shielded her eyes and scanned the landscape. Aside from a gravel road winding away from the marina, there was no other sign of human occupation.

She helped Rik moor the boat beside the dock, practiced enough now to know what to do without instruction, then she followed him down the pier to the rear of the boat house. Under a corrugated iron roof stood a battered open-topped jeep. Rik searched for the key, and found it under the dashboard.

“It looks like an old world war two jeep,” she commented.

He jumped into the driver’s seat and waved for her to follow. “That’s because it is a world war two jeep.” He drew in a deep breath, as if psyching himself up for something. “The military gave it to the royal family of Westerwald when they took refuge here during the war.”

“So they were lucky enough to escape the war then?” She climbed into the passenger seat.

Rik shook his head. “Not all of them. The Archduke and his son stayed behind. The Archduke was later killed for helping the resistance.”

“And his son?”

“He lived.” He held her gaze. “He was my grandfather.”

She tried to look away, but his dark gaze held her pinned.

“I was born a prince of Westerwald.”

“I know.”

The silence was so complete she could hear the distant chatter of birds.

Rik’s face was a mask, giving her no clue how he’d taken her revelation. After a heart-stopping moment in which she prayed for him to say something, anything, he turned the key in the ignition, gunned the motor, and backed the jeep out of its parking.

He neither spoke nor looked at her the entire time they drove along the gravel road which curved along the base of the steep slope and around the island.