Persuaded (27 page)

Hanna
couldn’t resist adding a new hooded sweatshirt to her wardrobe. It seemed like
the store carried every color in existence, and she wilted a little at the
overwhelming choices. Derick noted her struggle and picked out a pale aqua
zip-up that spelled out BLOCK ISLAND across the front in white lettering.

“It
brings out your eyes,” he said as he held it out to her.

Hanna
blushed when the cashier smiled indulgently at the two of them, but she
couldn’t deny the pleasure his compliment gave her. With souvenirs in hand, the
little group set out to return to the boat.

THIRTY-THREE

TACKING

“We are not all
born to be handsome.”

—Mrs. Clay,
Persuasion

For
Derick, the hike out to Crescent Beach had been more of a stroll—casual,
relaxing, enjoyable, even. But the same stretch of land in wet suits, with
enormous stuffed animals, shopping bags, and two cranky kids was nothing short
of torture. Walter was out cold on Derick’s shoulder, while CJ stumbled along
next to his aunt. By the time they got back to the
Asp
, Derick had no
idea why anyone wanted children of their own—ever.

Back
on the boat, no one had much energy for anything. All four of the boys watched
a movie on Derick’s I-pad while Sophie and Hanna made taco salad for dinner.
There were no protestations when the kids were tucked into one of the four
cabins afterward, both of them falling into bed like cooked spaghetti and not
moving again.

The
adults went up on deck. Adam and Derick played Spades while Sophie read and
Hanna sketched. After losing the third game in a row to Derick, Adam declared
his intention of turning in, and Sophie embraced Hanna in a brief hug. “Keep
him in line for me,” she said, referring to Derick, who wandered over to the
bow and sat down to take in the view.

“I’ll
do my best,” Hanna pledged.

Derick
looked over his shoulder and waggled his eyebrows in response. Sophie rolled
her eyes and herded Adam down into the galley, leaving Derick and Hanna on
their own.

Hanna
joined him on the bow, sliding down beside him and stretching out her legs. She
had on a pair of cutoffs  that showcased her pale, slender legs. Derick
knew from experience, as well as her frequent self-deprecating comments, that
she hated her skin tone, but it was something Derick had always loved about
her. It reminded him of the old days, when women wore bonnets or carried
parasols to stay out of the sun, when being fair-skinned was the standard of
beauty. All the better to see that stunning telltale blush.

She
wore the sweatshirt he’d picked out for her earlier as well. It had been a good
choice—it made her ice blue eyes a little brighter. Her long hair had been
twisted into a loose braid over one shoulder, a fringe of blonde framing her
face as the wind pulled its fingers through the strands.

It was
just the two of them now, under the darkening sky, and Derick could almost feel
the night buzzing around them. The only sound was the water lapping gently at
the
Asp
’s hull, the occasional cry of a passing gull. He could taste the
salt in the air, could smell the sea as the sun dipped into the water. It
seemed like an age that they stayed like that, wrapped in silence as the stars
began winking awake in the night sky.

“You
alive over there?” Derick asked, bumping her shoulder with his.

“Yeah,”
Hanna answered in a strange voice that Derick found himself trying to name.
Awe? Contentment? Humility? He longed to see her face, so he could have a frame
of reference—but their proximity made looking over awkward.

“For a
minute I thought you fell asleep on me. Or rolled overboard,” he joked in an
attempt to divert himself from pondering Hannah’s voice inflection.

“I’m
sorry,” Hannah sighed. “I don’t mean to be antisocial. It just felt . . .
sacrilegious, somehow, to break the silence.” After a short pause in which she
seemed to be gathering her thoughts she added, “Like if I were to speak it
would alter the course of history or something.” She had the good grace to
laugh at herself. “I know it sounds ridiculous.”

Derick
swallowed, or tried to—for some reason his windpipe felt as if it was
shrinking. “Not at all,” he countered. How had Hanna managed to put into words
the very thing that had gone through his soul so many times on the
Laconia
?
So many nights he had been bobbing on the water, completely at nature’s mercy,
with nothing but the silence to keep him company, and had thought something
along the same vein. How could Hanna be repeating his thoughts to him, almost
verbatim? Derick scowled as he set his eyes on the horizon.

Hanna’s
voice coaxed him from his thoughts. “Is this what it was like for you, out
there?”

Derick
appreciated that she didn’t clarify “out there”—they both knew it was
unnecessary. Still, he couldn’t help chuckling at Hanna’s idea of his
circumnavigation, all calm water and profound silence. Unfortunately, the sea
had a soul of its own and wasn’t quite so obliging as all that.

“Sometimes,”
he allowed. “There were times when the quiet was almost . . . spiritual. Like
something was hiding under the silence that you could only experience on the
other side of it, after the peace became too loud. When you make it to the
other side of that, you find something more.”

Now it
was Derick’s turn to feel ridiculous. “Of course, there were plenty more times
on the water that were anything
but
spiritual,” he continued. “The wind
doesn’t cooperate, a line breaks, you find a tear in one of the sails . . . and
you understand where the phrase
swear like a sailor
comes from.”

For
just an instant, he was rewarded by her soft laughter before it floated off on
the breeze. He’d never wanted to hold anything in his hands so badly. Hanna
pivoted to face him, leaning back on her hands.

Clearing
his throat, he said, “The boys crashed pretty fast.”

“It’s
the rocking,” she said. “And it helps that we drained their batteries today.”

“So it
can
be done. Good to know. All we have to do is kill ourselves in the
process.”

Hanna
smiled in sympathy, her blue eyes like a soft summer sky.

So
many moments . . .

Reaching
out, Derick captured a lock of her hair between his fingers and tucked it
carefully behind her ear. She dropped her gaze to her lap, but he lifted her
eyes back to his with a hand under her chin.

“Why
do you do that?”

“Do
what?”

“Look
away.”

“It
makes me nervous when people watch me,” she confessed with a tiny tremor in her
voice.

“Even
me?”

“Especially
you.”

“Why?”

Casting
her eyes down again, she released a pent-up breath as she removed his hand from
under her face, but she didn’t let go. “I don’t know . . .” she trailed off,
lifting a shoulder. “I guess I’m afraid that the longer you look, the more
flaws you’ll see.” There was a raw vulnerability in her next words. “I’m no Ella
Musgrove.”

Derick
took a second to process this. He hadn’t expected the conversation to take such
a turn. And he was a little sidetracked by the fact that Hanna was playing with
his fingers. “I don’t see what Ella has to do with us.”

“She’s,
like, a perfect ten.”

“I
think you’re forgetting to account for preference. There’s really no such thing
as a perfect ten because you’d have a hard time finding two people who agree on
what that is.”

Hanna
snorted. “Most people agree that petite, tan, and curvy is a good thing.”

Derick
shrugged. “I’m sure there’s someone out there who would agree with you—”

“Only
the entire male species!”

“You’re
generalizing. She’s not really my type.”

“But
you dated her! You must have been attracted to her.”

“Sure
I was,” Derick allowed. “Until I got distracted by my perfect-ten
ex-girlfriend.”

The
effect of this bold speech was immediate: Hanna’s lips parted in surprise.

“If
you want the truth, I haven’t thought about Ella since the night we all camped
out on the beach. I don’t remember the last time I even looked at her.” He
steeled himself with a breath. “For a long time now, the only thing I’ve been
able to see is you.”

Her
eyes widened, then cut away again as the blush crawled over her skin.

“I
wish you would stop doing that,” he said.

“It
just doesn’t make sense,” she murmured, “that someone like you would even look
at me.”

“But I
am looking at you.”

Nothing.
Maybe he was going about this the wrong way. In sailing, when a heading took
you directly into the wind, you did something called “tacking.” Turn to the
left, then to the right, then back to port, then starboard, and so on—reaching
your destination in more of a broken zig-zag, but eventually coming to the same
end. Derick had never imagined that his sailing prowess might help him out in
the romantic sector, but it was worth a try.

Grasping
Hanna’s hand, he flattened her palm over the place where his heart beat, then
layered his hand over hers to trap it in place. Finally, her eyes traveled
slowly up to meet his.

“What
do you feel?” he asked.

“Your
heartbeat.”

“Very
good. Would you say it’s fast? Slow? Average?”

“I
don’t know,” she breathed. “Maybe a little fast.”

“I
think you’re probably right,” he agreed. “Now, pay close attention,” he told
her, then leaned in and touched his lips to hers.

THIRTY-FOUR

AGE
DIFFERENCE

There they
exchanged again those feelings . . . which had once before seemed to secure
everything, but which had been followed by so many, many years of division and
estrangement.

—Jane Austen,
Persuasion

Several
things assaulted Hanna’s senses at once: the blood pounding in her ears at
Derick’s approach, the thrumming of his heart under her hand—speeding up as he
leaned in, his mouth molding itself to hers with patient determination. And
then, the way he lost it when she buried her hands in his hair and tugged him
closer, the way he deftly scooped her onto his lap without lifting his mouth
from hers.

It was
their first kiss—or technically, their second first kiss—but, as first kisses
went, it couldn’t have been better. It was even sweeter for all the
anticipation of the last few weeks, and comprised of all the essentials in
perfect amounts: tenderness, desire, urgency, loss of control—all just right.
Goldilocks herself couldn’t have been more pleased.

How
much time passed after that was difficult to say. When Hanna began to fear
spontaneous combustion, she pulled back. Derick protested by clutching her
tighter for an instant, then released her into the cradle of his arms.
Emotionally drained and still reeling from the implications of what had just
transpired, Hanna pressed her cheek to Derick’s chest and snuggled against him.
She wouldn’t have left that little cove for all the riches in the world.

After
a hush of several minutes, Hanna ventured a glance up at Derick. “What are you
thinking about?”

There
was a tranquil smile on his face as he answered. “The same thing I’ve been
thinking about for weeks: you.”

She
felt herself redden, and Derick’s grin spread. “There it is again. If I live a
thousand years I’ll never get tired of that blush.”

Hanna
tried to turn her face into his arm, but he wouldn’t have it. “Okay, I’m sorry.
I won’t tease you on purpose to get that reaction. Even though it’s my favorite
thing ever.”

She tried
to give him a stern look, but ended up going limp in his arms instead when he
bent down and brushed his lips against hers. It was just the hint of a kiss,
but it was enough for her to reach out and draw him back for another one. Sated
by her reaction, he smiled against her lips. “I guess we know what your love
language is. There’s one less thing I have to figure out about you.”

He
laughed heartily at her chagrin, and Hanna shushed him.

“What
if you wake Adam or Sophie up? What if they see us?” She couldn’t hold onto her
disapproving tone with Derick kissing each of her fingertips.

“Adam
would give me a high-five, and I’m pretty sure Sophie would do a happy dance.
Aside from the fact that you’re one of her favorite people, my sister knows how
I feel about you.”

Hanna
thrilled to the words, but got distracted by the information. “She does?”

Threading
his fingers through hers in a lingering sort of way, he nodded.

“Does
she know about . . . before?”

“She
knew there was someone I was getting serious with, but I wasn’t wildly keen on
talking about it afterward. Anyway, she had no way to contact me since I
drowned my phone in the Pacific Ocean on my way out of Port of Brookings
Harbor.”