Persuaded (22 page)

Was
there no mercy in the universe tonight?

Pulling
out her phone again, she typed:

H: Every1
coming. Sorry :(

D:
Work your way to the back

Hanna
did as she was told, slowly falling behind the group. As they neared the pier,
the three of them were still arguing, debating which
Jaws
sequel was
better, two or three. She had just managed to slip behind Sophie, when a hand
closed on her wrist and jerked her into the shadows of the pier.

Just
like that, her back was flush with Derick’s chest as he covered her mouth with
one hand and held her to him with the other. Breathing
sh
in her ear, he
let his hand drop from her mouth to bracelet her wrist. Hanna was unable to
detain the grin from spreading across her face. As abductions went, this one
was pretty good.

It
seemed they had gotten away with it until Sophie’s eyes combed warily over the
black spot where they stood.

“Where
did Hanna go?” Charles asked, looking around.

Sophie
eyed the darkness for a second longer, then took Charles by the arm and led him
on. “She probably went back to the house. I don’t think she was feeling good
tonight.”

Bless
her!

In
some far corner of her mind, Hanna noted the triumphant bounce in Sophie’s
step, but it was difficult to take anything else in during sensory overload.
She stood with Derick, curling her free hand around the protective rod of his
arm under her chin, listening to the retreating voices being swallowed by the
tide. For a moment, it was as if everything in the world had been washed away,
leaving only the feel of her toes burrowed into the sand, the cool water
lapping at her ankles, the full moonlight coating the dark waves.

The
voices waxed closer, accompanied by the stampede of eager feet on the planks of
the dock as the group marched obliviously over them.

After
the crowd had moved past them, Derick put a finger to his lips and tugged Hanna
out from their hiding place. They crouched as they scurried over the sand
toward the breakwater—as if they were on some secret-ops mission. They scaled
the jagged rocks of the breakwater, scampering down the other side and out of
sight.

Laughing
breathlessly over their clandestine victory, they dropped side by side onto the
sand.

“See?”
Derick said, sounding a bit winded, “you have a sense of adventure after all.
How did you give Eli the slip?”

“Said
I was sick, then doubled back.”

“I bet
that made him happy.” There was a smugness to Derick’s tone that gave Hanna a
hopeful feeling. “Did you ask him about his phone call?”

Hanna
shook her head.

“How
was his nose?”

“His
nose?” Hanna repeated. “I didn’t really notice. Should I have?”

Derick
lifted a shoulder. “Not really. I was just wondering if it was broken or
anything.”

Hanna’s
eyes went to the ridge of pink skin on Derick’s knuckles—barely noticeable now.
He hadn’t come out and told her that he’d punched Eli, but she guessed as much.
She decided to test her theory. “Looks like your hand is healing up good.”

“It
was worth it.” He propped his folded arms up on his knees and looked out at the
water. Something about his posture made him seem more like the younger version
of him that she remembered.

☼

After
a few moments of silence, Hanna reached out and adjusted Derick’s
hei matau
pendant, which was twisted around and lay against his back.

Pulling
her hand back, she asked, “What’s New Zealand like?”

“Green.”
He couldn’t resist teasing her, just a little.

Hanna
narrowed her eyes at his cheeky answer. “How long were you there?”

“A few
weeks. I put in at Auckland for supplies and a hot shower. Salt water spit
baths get you only so far out there.”

Hanna
smiled nervously, dropping her eyes. In the bright moonlight Derick could still
make out the flush coming onto her cheeks. His heart warmed at the sight.
Hanna’s ready blush was the one thing about her appearance that had stayed with
him all those months out on the water. It was the one image he could conjure up
at will.

“I
heard another story in New Zealand,” Derick said, effortlessly hooking his
audience.

“Tell
me?” she pled with her big blue eyes. He couldn’t have refused her anything at
that point, even if he wanted to—which he didn’t.

“It’s
the story of the forbidden lovers, Hinemoa and Tutanekai.”

Hanna
bit her lip as she settled in for another tale.

“Hinemoa
was the daughter of a revered Maori chief,” Derick began. “Tutanekai was a
lowly villager—the youngest in a poor family who lived on a neighboring island.
The different tribes would come together to train their warriors, and it was at
one of these gatherings that they fell in love. But tradition dictated that the
tribe would choose Hinemoa’s husband. He had to be someone of equal standing, which
left Tutanekai out.

“So he
would sit on his beach playing his flute and pining for what he couldn’t have,
while Hinemoa listened to his song from her beach. Finally she’d had enough.
Her people had hidden all the canoes to keep the lovers from meeting, so
Hinemoa decided to swim over to Tutanekai’s island instead. She went to the
Waikimihia—the warm pool on his island—and tricked one of Tutanekai’s servants
into bringing him to meet her.”

Derick
finished with finality, earning a scowl from Hanna.

“What
happened next?” she pressed.

“The
tribe was so impressed by Hinemoa’s ingenuity that they agreed to the
marriage.”

“And
then?”

“They
spent many steamy nights in the hot tub and had lots of Maori babies.”

Hanna
laughed freely, making Derick feel giddy. Was there anything better than a
woman like Hanna laughing like that at something he said?

“‘Waikimihia,’“
Hanna repeated in a voice of reverence. “Is Hinemoa’s pool an actual place you
can visit?”

“Yes.
It’s a little remote, but if one was so inclined, it wouldn’t be impossible.”

“Tell
me more.”

“Like
what? I’m out of stories, Banana.”

“Everything!
Everywhere you went on your sailing trips and everyone you met. All of it.”

And
so, he did. And from unmooring his boat from the dock in Oregon to bringing the
Laconia
back to the panhandle of Florida, Hanna never once yawned or let
her eyes wander or made him feel smaller than the entire world in her eyes.

TWENTY-EIGHT

TURRETS
and TOWERS

“It is very bad
to have children . . . that one can only keep in tolerable order by more cake
than is good for them.”

—Mrs. Musgrove,
Persuasion

When
Hanna’s legs had been asleep for what felt like hours, she exhaled in defeat.
“How long have we been here?” she asked with a heavy feeling in her mouth—as if
her tongue had already gone to bed. A wash of light was just visible in the
east, evidence of the night yielding to the dawn.

“Long
enough that my butt’s asleep,” Derick answered, pulling a laugh from Hanna.
“It’s five-thirty,” he amended with a glance at his watch.

Trying
not to panic that the time had gotten away from her, Hanna slowly stood and
stretched.

Derick
followed suit, shaking his hands and legs out. “Pins and needles.”

She
smiled. “I’d better get back.”

“I’ll walk
you,” Derick offered, gripping her hand to help her over the breakwater. When
he let go, she swallowed her disappointment.

They
continued along the water’s edge in comfortable solitude. As they approached
the houses, Hanna turned to Derick. “So, I’ll see you when I see you?”

“Unless
I see you first.”

She
grimaced at his sarcasm. “Bye,” she said, forcing her eyes away from him as she
let herself into the house. Praying no one would be awake yet, Hanna picked her
way stealthily up the stairs. Not that she had anything to be ashamed of—but
somehow she doubted Ella would be thrilled with Hanna’s whereabouts.

After
making it undiscovered to her room, Hanna crashed into her bed, where she fell
asleep almost instantly—with a smile on her face and butterflies in her
stomach.

☼

Hanna
had been asleep for only a couple of hours when she was woken by her nephews
bouncing on her bed and chanting “Get up!” “Get up!” “Get up!” She had a
sneaking suspicion that their mother had sent them after her, which suspicion
turned out to be correct. Downstairs, Mary lay on the couch suffering from a
violent headache. Hanna suggested that her sister go to bed, which was only
partially for Mary’s sake. Hanna didn’t feel like dealing with Mary’s
complaining all day, not when she was feeling poorly herself after a night of
no sleep.

Not
that she resented the lack of rest—she had definitely traded up.

Giving
in to the boys’ pleas to go swimming, Hanna lathered them with sunscreen and
stifled a yawn as she followed them outside.

By the
time Derick turned up, the boys were bored with the water and had moved on to
building a sandcastle. His strawberry blonde spikes were waterlogged, his
freckles a shade darker, as if he’d been freshly sun kissed. His knee-length
board shorts had a damp look about them, and water droplets beaded on the skin
of his chest beneath his gauzy button-front shirt. Hanna’s eyes caught on the
hei
matau
that hung just below Derick’s collarbone. The sight of the pendant
flooded her with memories from last night. Her stomach swooped with the
recollections, and she averted her eyes quickly before he caught her ogling.

Luckily
the boys had just noticed him and were facing off for his attention by chanting
his name. When Walter managed something closer to Derick—D’rick—Hanna couldn’t
help patting herself on the back, mentally at least.

“What
are we building?” Derick asked the boys, allowing them to pull him down to
their level.

“Castle!”
Walter screeched.

“It’s
not a castle, Walt, it’s a stronghold,” CJ corrected his younger brother in
exasperation.

“This
tower looks like it’s crumbling,” Derick observed.

“It’s
not a tower, Derick, it’s a turret,” Hanna parroted with a grin, to which he
responded with a look that was part disbelief, part amusement.

“Let’s
get some more sand,” Derick said decidedly, earning a salute and “Yes, sir!”
from CJ and a gleeful whoop from Walter. “When we’re done with the stronghold,
we can bury Banana in the sand.”

The
boys cheered, and Hanna shook her head, a reluctant smile taking over her face
at Derick’s triumphant expression as he backed away from her.

Several
moments later, when the buckets were heavy with wet sand, the boys ran
pell-mell back to the castle. Walter planted himself on his aunt’s lap, and
Derick and CJ set to work on the repairs. The crumbling turret didn’t seem to
want to cooperate, and at one point both Derick and Hanna had their hands
clamped around it for support while CJ fixed it. Their fingertips were only
millimeters apart, and anxiety fizzed in Hanna’s stomach. The impulse to shift
her hand, even the tiniest bit, was almost overpowering. She looked at Derick,
wondering if he felt it too or if she was going crazy.

He
looked back at her with overcast eyes, with just a hint of a smile on his lips.

Unfortunately,
the adults’ distraction came with a price. The stronghold came to an untimely
end when Walter got bored with sitting on the sidelines and put his pudgy hand
right through the highest turret.

CJ’s
outrage was immediate, and Hanna knew retribution would follow unless she
intervened. Quickly picking Walter up and handing him off to Derick, Hanna
knelt down in front of CJ.

“He
ruined it!” he sobbed, his face lobster red.

“He
didn’t mean to,” Hanna reasoned. “And didn’t we have fun building it?”

CJ
swiped his arm under his nose. “Not until Derick came.”

Hanna
smiled up at Derick. “We can always build another one tomorrow.”

“Yeah,
CJ,” Derick said. “Besides, now we have the perfect place to bury Hanna alive.”

Hanna’s
head snapped up. He’d been serious about the burying thing?

“She’s
a naughty pirate and has to be punished,” Derick added, taking a step closer.

CJ
eyed Hanna skeptically. “Whadshe do?”

“Mutiny,”
Derick answered, and the demolished fortress was forgotten as the three boys
apprehended their prisoner.

Just
when Hanna had begun to be truly alarmed, Derick said, “We can’t bury her all
the way though.”

“Aw,
why not?!” CJ whined.