Elizabeth Bevarly - Moriah's Mutiny

“Great,” he repeated, then felt like an idiot for suddenly losing track of his normally extensive vocabulary.

“But I don’t know anything about St. Vincent,” she told him. “I don’t know where anything is.”

“No problem,” he assured her. “It’s not that big an island.” He wracked his brain to come up with a place where he could meet her that would be appropriate. Normally he saw very little of the islands he visited, usually restricting himself to the bar life—waterfront bars at that. But Moriah wasn’t exactly the type of woman to frequent such haunts. The Green House and Sparky’s were great places to go when he was home on St. Thomas, crawling with tourists and locals alike who might want to hire him and Dorian, or else put him in touch with someone else who would. But when he worked, he generally needed the distraction and escape that came with little hole-in-the-wall dives, wanting to get away from the demands of his employers, usually self-centered, whiny, red-faced little people who wanted to spend their vacations throwing their weight around because they’d been pushed too far by their own bosses at home.

After a moment’s thought, he came up with a brilliant idea, the perfect spot for trysting lovers. Somehow that’s the way he viewed their next meeting. “The airport is in Kingstown,” he told her. “Just north of town is the botanical gardens. They’re gorgeous. Any cabdriver can take you there. Meet me the evening of the fourteenth at, say, five o’clock?”

“Okay,” Moriah agreed. “Five o’clock it is.”

“I’ll be at the front entrance with a red hibiscus behind my left ear,” he said with a smile.

“I’ll find you,” she promised.

They gazed at each other for a long time, having forgotten that they were still standing in the middle of the dance floor until another couple bumped into them during the duo’s lively rendition of a popular Jimmy Cliff tune.

“Oops,” Moriah mumbled sheepishly as she was thrown once again into intimate contact with Austen’s tall, muscular form.

He caught her in his arms, steadying her even though there was very little need to do so; she had righted herself by gripping his big biceps possessively. He smiled when she looked up at him shyly with wide, questioning eyes. Almost involuntarily he lowered his mouth to hers, nibbling provocatively at her lips, tasting the corners of her mouth with the tip of his tongue, pulling her closer still until she wasn’t sure where she ended and he began. Moriah closed her eyes then and kissed him back, softly at first, in response to the gentle request in his actions, then more intensely as the passion built. Amid the sweating, gyrating, laughing dancers on the floor, Austen and Moriah became oblivious to everything except each other—exploring, touching, tasting as if they’d never experienced the glory that could be found with another human being. Only when a couple of islanders danced by and muttered, “Eh, go for it, mon,” did they put an end to their extensive research, standing still at the center of a crowd, feeling muddled and uncertain, gasping for breath and confused as hell.

“I’m sorry,” Austen whispered.

“For what?” she rasped through ragged breaths.

“I shouldn’t have kissed you like that. Not out here in front of all these people.”

“I thought I was the one who kissed you,” Moriah told him.

“Did you?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed with a laugh, honestly confused. “I don’t know what’s happening between us. It’s like…”

“Like nothing you’ve ever experienced,” he finished for her.

“Yes,” she agreed with a slow nod.

He nodded, as well. “Me, too,” he said softly. After a brief instant he added, “Come on. Let’s go back to the table.”

When they returned to their seats, most of the original group had dispersed, leaving only Dorian and his date, Maggie, a very beautiful and exotic-looking woman from St. Lucia who was wearing the most form-fitting red dress Moriah had ever seen, and another couple from St. Thomas that Austen had called old friends, a sixty-three-year-old Norwegian named Gustav and his twenty-two-year-old Swedish wife of four years, Anna. They were passing around photographs of their eight-month-old twins when Moriah and Austen returned, and it occurred to Moriah then, that since she had arrived in the Caribbean, she hadn’t met a single person who wasn’t interesting in some way.

Despite Austen’s warnings, Moriah ordered another nautical nog, arguing that since the drink had coffee in it, she couldn’t possibly get that drunk from one or two more, and the group lapsed into lively conversation. Seated beside Austen, feeling more and more mellow as the night wore on, Moriah began to experience a most remarkable sense of well-being, as if the entire earth were beginning to rotate specifically as she dictated. All of a sudden her life seemed more appealing, her future more promising. And then, with surprising clarity, something very odd and very significant occurred to her.

For the first time that she could ever recall in her life, Moriah Mallory felt as if she was in the center of things instead of in the background, like she was a part of what was going on instead of a witness to it. Her insights into the dialogue surrounding her were well-heard and appreciated by the others, and their responses in return were pertinent and respectful. She simply wasn’t used to such reactions after years of being ignored or pooh-poohed by her family as too young, too inexperienced or too naive to know what she was talking about. Moriah liked Austen’s friends almost as much as she liked Austen, and she was startled to discover that she felt more at home in the dimly lighted, character-infested bar than she had ever felt among her family at home or her colleagues at the university. On top of everything else Austen had made her feel that evening, he’d given her the opportunity to be a part of something, had made her feel as if she belonged. And for that more than anything else, she felt she owed him the greatest thanks.

When the hour grew late and the conversation lagged, the group reluctantly but unanimously agreed that it was time to part ways. Gustav and Anna were going to head home, while Dorian and Maggie invited Austen and Moriah to an all-night party at the home of a mutual friend near Red Hook. With an expressive glance toward each other, both simultaneously declined. Instead Austen drove Moriah back to her hotel, taking a roundabout route to give her a casual tour of the island along the way. Even in the dark, the moonlit views were spectacular, and Moriah breathed deeply the balmy Caribbean night, so different from the stifling, stale heat that had pervaded Philadelphia all summer. What was it about the tropics that made the heat not only bearable but enjoyable? she wondered. Then gazing along the way at the silver moon and crystal stars that hung above the lush whispering palm trees and the long ribbon of surf that stretched around the U-shaped beach at Magen’s Bay, she realized the answer to her question. Who wouldn’t prefer this to the city?

Probably anyone who couldn’t find a job down here, she told herself drily. Too bad the number-one business was tourism, she added silently. She hadn’t gone to school for seven years and suffered through her thesis and dissertation to become a hotel manager or bartender or diving instructor. And even if her studies focused on primitive Caribbean cultures right now, there weren’t too many universities down here that could offer her the funds, the staff or the resources she needed to facilitate her research.

Moriah sighed heavily at the realization, and Austen glanced at her from the driver’s side of his Jeep. Every time he looked at her, she was more beautiful, he thought. And now, with the moon glinting off her curls like honeyed silver, her hair tossed about furiously by the wind, she nearly took his breath away. When they finally arrived at her hotel, he pulled into the parking lot and got out along with her, suggesting that they end the evening with a stroll along the beach.