Jamaica Dreaming (Caribbean Heat) (6 page)

He had her there. That was a point she couldn’t argue.

“I…please… I’d like to go back to learning to float.”

He didn’t say anything for a few seconds. His erection was as hard as ever, clearly outlined by the wet fabric of his pants. “How to stay afloat in the sea isn’t the only thing I can teach you.”

I bet it isn’t
. “Thanks, but it’s all I’d like to learn, right now.” Her voice came out in a breathless squeak. This crazy–sexy man was messing up her composure big time. “If you don’t mind,” she added primly.

“And, if I do?” His eyes sparkled with humor as he posed the question. Julissa stepped back further. Damn, the man had charm and charisma to burn. If he only knew the effort it was taking her not to forget all about right and wrong, and jump his handsome ass.

She took a deep breath. “All right, forget it, then.” She turned to go back out.

“Nah, don’t go.” He caught her arm. “Okay, I promise to behave. Scout’s honor.” He put his left hand over his heart and held up his right hand, palm out, and assumed a serious expression.

“You weren’t a Scout! It’s your right hand over your heart, and your left arm is straight down.”

“Is it?” He looked surprised. “You’re right, I was never one but I used to see them doing drills in a park near where my parents lived.”

“My brother was one. He loved the drills and going camping and all that stuff. I’d like to try again with the floating. It’d be cool to learn before I go back to Chicago.”

He sighed ruefully. “Don’t remind me you’re not staying. Okay, let’s do it. Come.” He beckoned her back out into the deeper water.

“Don’t panic. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Now, close your eyes and relax,” he commanded her.

Julissa did as she was told, breathing deeply to calm herself and keep the panic at the edges of her consciousness from engulfing her.

“Think about the water,” Sebastian murmured near her ear. “About how good it feels. Relax.” He rubbed the top of her head with the tips of his fingers. Julissa could have purred with bliss. “You’re doing really well.”

She tipped her chin further back and risked speaking. “Thanks.”

“Now, pretend you’re lying in the snow and make angel wings.”

“What?”

“Trust me.”

But, when she tried, she overbalanced and flailed around before his hands at her waist helped her to her feet.

“Hmm, I said an angel. That was more like a drowning cat.”

“If I had a better teacher,” Julissa said frostily, between coughing bouts. The sea water stung her throat.

“Want to go back out?”

“I think so. I’m famished.”

“Good, because Hellshire is the home of the best fried fish in Kingston.”

The fish they bought at one of the booths was the best Julissa had ever tasted and it went perfectly with festival, the narrow pieces of fried bread he bought to go with it. As Julissa tipped her head back to drink the last of her Red Stripe beer, she felt wonderfully at ease, more relaxed than at any time since The Event. Part of it was the island and being away from everyone and everything she knew, but part of it was also Sebastian Chung. He was very different from Earle. They were both rich, handsome and successful men but there was a frenetic impatience about Earle that Sebastian didn’t have. Perhaps it was just the more laid–back, island vibe.

Whatever it was, one thing was sure – it was messing with her head. That night, Julissa dreamt she was walking down a city street and suddenly saw Earle half a block ahead of her. She knew it was him, was one hundred percent certain of it, because of the set of his shoulders and the way he walked but, when she called out to him, he didn’t stop. Puzzled, Julissa ran up and grabbed his arm, but the man who turned around wasn’t Earle. It was another, younger man. Earle’s friend, Tony. Startled, Julissa cried out and woke up.

At first, she didn’t know where she was and her confusion added to her anxiety. Her heart pounded wildly but, slowly, her awareness took hold and she remembered she was in a hotel in Jamaica. She got to her feet and padded into the next room to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. Outside, the half–moon bathed the landscape in a silvery glow. Julissa sat on the couch and took shallow sips as the cool breeze blew over her. She’d had a good day but the dream had unsettled her for some reason. A strange uneasiness gripped her. Perhaps she should call Earle and see if he was all right, but he’d only pump her with questions. Instead, she sat back on the couch and drowsed until the chill became too much for her and she got back into bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.

Sebastian woke up the next morning with Julissa on his mind. As he threw aside his sheets and padded, naked, into the adjoining bath, he wondered if she was awake yet. He had meetings all day, but Lori would take her anywhere she needed or wanted to go and then he’d pick her up for dinner and maybe some clubbing, if she felt up to it. He’d made a stupid mistake yesterday taking her to such a public beach like Hellshire. Her accident had left her with scars, he knew that now. That was why she hadn’t wanted to remove her clothes. He thought he’d hid his disappointment well. She couldn’t have guessed how much he was looking forward to seeing her in a swimsuit, her smooth skin bare to his touch. Before he picked her up, he’d tantalized himself by imagining her in a scanty bikini, white for dramatic effect against her beautiful roasted–coffee complexion. He stepped out of the shower and shrugged himself into one of his thick terry–cloth robes, ignoring his arousal.

Downstairs in his kitchen, he turned on the Kevalia and put a pot of water to boil. The phone rang and his gut twisted. He forced himself to saunter over to the phone. The Caller ID announced Yvonne Houten calling. Not Julissa.

“Hello,” he said, cautiously. The Caller ID might say Yvonne Houten, but it could be any of the three people who used that number.

“Hello, Daddy.” Sebastian breathed a sigh of relief. Tracy, his fourteen year–old daughter, not his ex–wife.

“Hey, sweetheart. What’s up?”

“Not much. Are we still going to Caymanas on Saturday?”

He’d promised Tracy and her brother, Sean, that he’d take them to the horseraces. Tracy loved horses and took riding lessons twice a week at Sunnyview Stables in Portland. For more than a year, she’d been pestering him to buy her a horse of her own but Yvonne, her mother, was dead set against it. Sebastian was caught between a rock and a hard place. Personally, he was glad to see Tracy so enthusiastic about something and he wanted to encourage her. Who knew where her love of horses and horse riding might not take her? But Yvonne didn’t like horses and thought of them as deceptive and dangerous creatures. Every time his former wife read of an injury sustained by a rider anywhere in the world she would send him an email with the link. A couple days later an envelope would arrive in his mail with a hard copy and a note attached with FYI written in huge red inked capitals.

“I haven’t forgotten. I’m picking you guys up at eleven so be ready, okay.”

“I’m not the one who’s always late.”

No, Sebastian sighed inwardly. That would be Sean. “Tell your brother I don’t want to have to wait on him.” And risk being drawn into some kind of argument with Yvonne who was always spoiling for a fight with everybody, but especially with her ex–husband.

“No problem
.”

“Don’t forget,” Sean was two years older than Tracy and much less interested in things of an equine nature. In fact, it often seemed to Sebastian as if Sean would be perfectly happy if he never had to emerge from his room and could just stay inside all day, every day, playing computer games or whatever it was he did. Sebastian worried about this. Was it some kind of delayed reaction to the divorce? But every time he brought it up, Yvonne poo–poohed the notion anything was wrong. “They’re all like that now at his age,” she said. Sebastian wasn’t sure about that, but she was the boy’s mother and primary caretaker so he deferred to what he thought was her better knowledge.

“I’m bringing along a friend, by the way, the singer who’s here for the Ananda concerts.” The pot of water on the stove began to boil.

“Yeah?”

Sebastian marveled at how just like her mother she could sound. Cradling the phone against his ear, he took two eggs out of the fridge and dropped them in the boiling water. “Julissa Morgan. Remember, I told you about her.” He’d been careful to make sure his children and their mother knew she was coming and that he intended to show her around. Whether any of the three had guessed there was a bit more to his interest than that, he didn’t know.

“Why does she have to come? Does she like horses?”

He had no idea. In fact, he hadn’t even invited Julissa yet. It was possible she might beg off. Not everyone liked the sport of kings. He planned to ask her tonight at dinner.

“I don’t know but, even if she doesn’t, I want you guys to meet her. Is that all right?”

“Why?” Tracy sounded genuinely curious. “Why do we have to meet her? Is she your new girlfriend?” In the six years since his divorce from Yvonne, he’d dated several women, including a former Miss Jamaica, but he’d never introduced any to his children.

“No. She’s not.”
Not yet.

“Why do you want us to meet her, then?”

“Because she’s my guest. Chung Enterprises is sponsoring the Ananda concerts and she’s our guest performer. That should be enough to mean every Chung treats her with courtesy.”

“I saw a picture of her in the Gleaner.”

“You did?” He knew the media had been invited to the event but he’d forgotten to check if they’d got any coverage. Carly and Winston would be pleased.

“She’s black like tar.”

“Tracy!”

“Well, she is. Dina and Alice and Jackie said so, too.”

Sebastian groaned inwardly. He could remember when those same girls used to pick on Tracy but, ever since her mother doubled her allowance and began giving in to her demands to buy her more designer clothing and accessories, the three had suddenly become her best friends. Sebastian had suggested transferring Tracy to another school but Yvonne was adamant that she should stay. St. Ursula’s Secondary was the best school in Jamaica and the children of all the “best people” went there. That was Yvonne’s argument. Going to the right school was as important in Jamaica as anywhere else, Sebastian knew that, but he worried that Tracy was trying to become someone else, someone shallow and empty–headed, just because she wanted so desperately to fit in and be friends with the popular girls.

“I think she’s beautiful, Tracy. But that’s not what’s important, is it? It’s—”

“—what’s inside that counts. I know, you’ve said it a thousand times. It’s the outside people see first, though.”

That was true. Sebastian thought back to when he’d first seen Julissa emerge on the stage at the Coq d’Or. He hadn’t really known what to expect though Benjamin had sung her praises to the skies. She’d been so alluring and sassy in her clingy silver–sequined dress with the plunging neckline. And then, when she’d opened her mouth and sung, that was the last he’d seen of his heart.

***

Julissa ate a leisurely late lunch and went for another stroll around the hotel grounds before returning to her cottage.

She hadn’t known what to think when she first heard of the man who wanted her to perform in Jamaica, but one thing she knew was that she’d never in her wildest dreams expected Sebastian Chung to be smitten with her. If she’d been free she wouldn’t have hesitated for an instant to succumb to the desire she read in his every glance, but that was it, she wasn’t free. As she sat on the balcony of her villa with Beverly Jenkins’s latest historical romance on her lap she couldn’t shake her unsettled feelings. Earle, she loved Earle. She’d met the recent law school graduate six years ago when she was twenty–two and he was twenty–nine. He proposed to her on her twenty–sixth birthday and she’d been over the moon. All her friends and her extended family were drafted in to plan the wedding which she knew would be the happiest day of her life. The ballroom was booked, the dress ordered and their honeymoon trip to Venice reserved months in advance then, four weeks before the wedding, The Event happened. Not the event she’d dreamed of and looked forward to with such giddy excitement. No, the car crash that saw her lose control of her Honda Acura and go spiraling across the highway in front of a 19–wheeler.

Because it happened after midnight only two other cars were involved, beside the trailer truck, and hers were the worst injuries. Her family told her she’d been in an induced coma for weeks. When she came out of it, she remembered nothing about the accident or about the two or three days before it happened. Sometimes when people tried to jog her memory she would get vague impressions but no clear or definite memories. When Deej told her they’d gone to her favorite Italian restaurant for lunch the same day of the accident Julissa imagined she could alm
ost smell the spaghetti Bolognese her best friend told her she’d had. And when her mother tried to gently remind her about the Stevie Wonder concert they’d attended the night before, it was like she could, almost, remember it all, the noise of the audience, the songs Stevie sang. Other times, she suspected she was merely conjuring up false memories.

When everybody asked her what she was doing on I88 she had no idea. At first they’d thought she’d been on her way to Earle’s apartment, but when the police explained how the accident happened they became confused. She’d been driving east,
away
from Naperville, where Earle lived, not toward it. Earle was as puzzled as the rest and continually quizzed her.