Meg Maguire - The Wedding Fling

“Sure. It’s my favorite thing in the world. Or it used to be.”

“And here I thought maybe you’d missed me.”

“Again, you’re greatly misinformed.”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking of, but the dancing here isn’t what you’re after. More like stand-up dry-humping.”

Leigh pictured such a thing. “Sounds like a movie I starred in.”

Another of those deadly, snarky smiles. “What happened in the movie?”

“The annoying pilot told the charming actress where to find a cold drink and a good beat.”

“Of course he did.” Damn, that dimple.

She kicked at the sand. “So, will you tell me?”

“I’ll do better than that. I’ll take you.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure, what the hell.”

She smiled. “Thank you. It’s way too quiet back in my villa.”

“I’ll get chewed out if any managers think I invited you to fraternize with us lowly workers.”

“Then tell them the truth—that I forced myself on you.”

His lips twitched, as though he was holding back a remark, a flirtation. Just that tiny hesitation from this shameless man brought a warmth to Leigh’s skin, one that had nothing to do with the late afternoon sun.

“I’ll bribe you,” she offered.

“No more bribes. Plus I’ll get chewed out worse by management if they hear I failed to chaperone you, out among us uncivilized natives.” Will slid down from the canoe.

“Is this what you do with your free time? Fix up old boats?” Leigh ran a hand over the point where rough paint met smooth wood, and stole a glance at Will’s bare chest while he stowed tools.

“I do all sorts of stuff. And I work less than four hours a day, so I do a lot of all sorts of stuff.”

“No TV?”

“I don’t have one. Very little worth watching.”

“That’s for sure.” Leigh imagined what would have happened if she’d stayed in her villa—check room service for peanut butter availability, then scour the channels for news about herself. Pathetic, toxic habit. Tomorrow she’d phone and see if the satellite could be disconnected for the duration of her stay.

She waited while Will disappeared inside his house. The radio went silent and he emerged carrying a cooler, with a pair of sandals on top of it.

“What’s in there?”

“Essentials.” He headed up the walkway, dropping his sandals to the ground as they reached the rough gravel road and slipping them on. Leigh did the same.

“Thanks,” she said.

Will shrugged, setting ice inside the cooler rattling. “I would have ended up there eventually anyhow, with or without you.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Bethany and Oscar’s place.”

“And they work here, too?”

“That’s a given. Bethany’s a chef, Oscar manages the drivers.”

“They throw lots of parties?”

“It’s not that organized around here. People finish work, take a nap or smoke a joint—”

“Or sand a boat.”

“Or that. Then you wander toward wherever the ruckus is coming from. But I know it’ll be there tonight, since it’s Monday. Always something happening at their place on a Monday.”

A girl ran past them, followed by a smaller one, both shrieking with laughter.

“That little one was theirs,” Will said.

“Cute.” Leigh craned her neck to watch the kids disappear between the trees. “How often do us guests turn up at your get-togethers?”

“Rarely. Especially ones like you,” Will said with a tight, self-satisfied smile.

“Ones like me? Go on, tell me what that means, since I know you’re dying to.”

“Just that you’re a girl. Most of the guests who party-crash are older men, looking to escape their wives’ idea of a vacation. But they’re rare, as well. You’re just extra rare. Like how I like my steak.”

She laughed. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Thirty-three.”

She nodded, not sure what she’d been expecting. He lived a life she’d normally have ascribed to either a younger man, not yet compelled to shape up and find a “real” job, or an older one sick of the rat race. “What’s it like, living in a postcard?”

Will stared over the water for a moment, and Leigh studied his eyes in the dying sun, bright as a blue glass pendant she’d admired in the shopping district the previous morning. She wondered who had raised this man and given him those eyes, and what they thought of the life he’d made for himself, so far from New York City.

“It’s lovely,” he finally said.

“What’s the least lovely thing about it?”

“Hurricanes.”

“I mean, like, from day to day.”

“Honestly, there’s not much. Bit of a pain getting hold of certain things. Costs an arm and a leg to have stuff shipped from the States. Hence all the bribes you’ll see going down around here.”

“What sorts of things? What do you miss?”

“Aren’t you just brimming with questions?”

She smiled at him. “I’m desperate for human contact.”

“You must be, if you came to me. So much for your dreams of seclusion.”

“So what do you miss?”

He pondered it. “I miss watching the Knicks play. Can’t buy that off a guy in Bridgetown.”

“Well, I’m sure I get that channel at my place. Feel free to come watch a game, in exchange for tonight’s party.”

He met her gaze squarely for a breath. “I may just take you up on that.”

“You’ll have to make it worth my while, of course.” She rubbed her fingers together and bobbed her eyebrows at him, as silly as she’d been with anyone in weeks.

“You’ll fit in just fine here, Miss Bailey.”

Their gazes lingered longer than was casual before they turned back to the road. Leigh felt that heat again, the one she wished was as simple as sunburn. This time it had nothing to do with revenge, a shift that felt at once joyous and dangerous.

“That’s it.” Will nodded to the farthest house in the settlement, bigger than his own but also on stilts, with rounded lavender shingles like fish scales. Tiki torches were lit along the beach, a grill smoking and a dozen people milling around it, cups and beer bottles waving as arms gestured. The breeze carried their laughter, and the aromas of sizzling meat and ocean breeze and that distinctive Caribbean scent, of flowers and sand and the vastness of the sky here. Leigh breathed it in, drank in the color of the clouds as dusk approached. She filled herself with this place, so full there’d be no room for a single bad thought.

Will kicked off his sandals at the roadside as they headed for the beach. He glanced at her. “Ready?”

She looked at the people. “Sure. Seems calm enough to me.”

He grinned. “Wait till the sun goes down.”

“You guys can’t be crazier than the nutjobs back in L.A.”

They rounded the house to the beach, and a few partygoers cheered as they spotted Will.

“Everyone!” he bellowed. “There is royalty among us peasants this evening.”

More cheers and a few whistles sounded, and a couple of bottles raised in Leigh’s direction.

“Her highness wants a taste of how the real islanders live,” Will went on with an indulgent grin. “So do be on your worst behavior.”

He led Leigh across the warm sand and set his cooler near the grill. A tall, big-bellied man greeted him with a hand clasp and a slap on the back before turning his smile on the party’s newcomer.

“Oscar, this is Leigh, staying at Shearwater. Leigh, this is Oscar, your host for this evening.”

She shook Oscar’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“And you.” His attention shifted as Will pulled two shining blue fish from the cooler. “Ah, beauties! Bethany will be pleased.”

Will handed off the gift and rinsed his hands in the ice. Oscar left them to deliver the fish to the immensely pregnant woman manning the grill.