Moments In Time: A Collection of Short Fiction (23 page)

On the way to the door, I paused by the mirror and winced at my reflection. My eyes were sleepy and puffy with smudges of mascara underneath, my hair was a mess, and my nipples were poking out of my camisole. Another knock prevented me from trying to fix myself up.

I opened up the door and lo and behold, Esteban was on the other side, a motorcycle parked behind the Jeep.

He looked surprised at my disheveled appearance and couldn’t hide the cheekiness in his grin. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought we said noon.”

I wiped underneath my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest the minute his eyes rested on my breasts.

“You said you’d call me first.”

He shrugged, taking my body in, his gaze trailing from my tired face all the way to my bare toes. I felt like I was being dissected. Couldn’t say a tiny part of me didn’t enjoy it. I couldn’t remember the last time Doug looked at me like that. I couldn’t remember the last time I wanted him—or anyone—to mentally undress me.

“I’m sorry,” he said more sincerely this time. “I should have called.” He looked at his watch. “It’s eleven thirty . . . want me to come back?”

I sighed. He was already here, and I didn’t feel right about turning him away. Luckily I never took too long in getting dressed, so I invited him inside. He said he’d put on a pot of coffee while I got ready. I picked up my clothes for the day, hoping I wouldn’t have to ride his motorcycle, and went into the bathroom to do my face.

The only problem with the vacation rental—and it wasn’t a problem when you were alone—was that it was extremely
un
soundproof. While I washed my face and put on the barest touches of makeup, I could hear him puttering around in the kitchen. It was an odd feeling having a stranger in the house, doing domestic things while I was in another room. Of course he could have been casing the joint, stealing my camera and the few pieces of jewelry I had brought with me, but I didn’t feel that was the case with him.

Then again, other than his name, I didn’t know Esteban Mendoza at all.

When I came out of the bathroom I found him standing on the back steps, two cups of coffee in hand, admiring a pair of chickens that were strutting around the backyard. He shot me a winning smile and handed me my cup of coffee like we were old friends.

He nodded at it. “It’s black. There was no milk and sugar in the house, so I figured you liked it dark.”

I couldn’t tell if that was sexual innuendo about his deeply bronzed skin, but I tried not to dwell on it.

I took the hot mug from him, our fingertips brushing against each other. The brief contact caused my face to grow hot, something I didn’t quite understand. I was never shy—introverted, but not shy—but this man made me feel like an awkward teenager again.

“Thank you,” I said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

He watched my movements like a hawk and just before his attention became too intense, he smiled. His dimples were such a contradiction to his scars. I had this terrible urge to reach out and touch them, to stroke his face and find out what shadows followed him.

Instead I cleared my throat and said, “Thanks for taking my call last night. I was . . .”

“I know,” he said, taking such a large gulp of coffee that I winced, imagining it must have burned going down. “You don’t have to explain why. I told you why. I’m just glad you called.” He gestured to the yard with his free hand. “This is a beautiful spot.”

I nodded. “It is.”

“You’re a painter.”

I gave him a sharp look, feeling intruded.

He tilted his head. “I saw your easels. I saw no art, though, so I could only assume. You have the hands of a painter.”

I sipped my drink, gathering my thoughts before I said anything. “I do paint. I came here to . . . but . . . I just haven’t.”

“You haven’t been inspired.”

I snorted and shot him a sideways glance. “If you can’t be inspired on the most beautiful island on the planet, there’s something wrong with you.” My smile quickly faded at my last words. There
was
something wrong with me. Fatally.

“Maybe you’re not looking in the right place. Inspiration isn’t in your backyard or at the bottom of the ocean. It’s somewhere else.”

I glanced at him curiously. His face was grave but his eyes bright, shining like the sun.

“Come on,” he said, tugging lightly at my arm. “I’ll show you.”

Minutes later I had finished my coffee and was climbing on the back of his bike. Legally you didn’t have to wear helmets here, but he still gave me his to wear. Truth be told, I hated motorcycles—I hated the speed and uncertainty, finding them to be more constrictive than freeing. They also forced intimacy with the person you were riding with. Not only did I have Esteban’s helmet on my head, which was damp from sweat, though it was a musky, pleasant smell, but I had to put my arms around his waist. This Harley was definitely not a cushy cruiser.

“Where are we going?” I shouted into his ear as he revved the engine.

“Around,” he shouted back at me.

“That’s not very helpful!”

“Don’t worry, it will help you in the end!”

“How do I know that you’re not taking me somewhere to kill me?”

He shot me a lopsided smile. “Because you’d already be dead. Besides . . . they call me the nice one.”

“Who are
they
?”

He didn’t answer. He accelerated and we were flying down the road toward the highway. Esteban was a safe driver, though, and didn’t go much faster than the speed limit, which on Kauai was stupidly low, yet I still found myself holding on to him for dear life. My God, he had fucking abs of steel, and somehow I felt guilty just touching them.

It took about ten minutes of us heading south before I began to loosen up a bit and reduced my Kung-Fu grip on his T-shirt. I began to appreciate the speed as we picked it up and the road rushed past us. The scenery was breathtaking; to our right were deep-cut green mountains, straight from the scenes of
Jurassic Park
. To the left were the fields of tall grass and small farm stands, red dirt coating the signs while the Pacific sparkled in the distance.

But despite how much I relaxed, the ride—everything—felt dangerous. It wasn’t the same type of danger that I’d been courting, though. This danger was more subtle, more menacing. This danger spelled trouble for the life I’d have to go on living.

Eventually we passed through the towns of Kapa’a, Lihue, and Poipu before I realized we were going quite far off the beaten track.

“Where are we going?” I yelled at him.

“You’ll see,” he said. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

I wasn’t. But being afraid of a stranger pushing you off from a great height was a different story.

Soon we passed the ramshackle town of Hanapepe and started zooming up toward the mountains, heading inland. There was only one place for us to go, and I knew where we were going: Waimea Canyon.

It was one of the places I hadn’t been before, thanks to its location at the south end of the island. Also, when you’re traveling alone, you don’t really feel like being a sightseeing tourist.

Eucalyptus trees flew past us as we ascended the mountain road, the foliage becoming greener, the earth redder, the air filling with ethereal mist.

When we zoomed past the most popular lookout over the canyon, I started to get a little nervous.

“Where are we going?” I asked again.

“That view is, how you say, overrated.”

We accelerated as we rounded a corner, the colder air snapping against me. I went back to holding on to him for dear life as we passed more and more viewpoints filled with tourists. I started to wonder if this was such a good idea after all. It seemed he was taking me to the end of the road, the end of the line.

That idea hadn’t scared me before; it was curious that it was scaring me now.

But eventually when the road did end, it did so at a parking lot with a couple of cars parked and some sightseers milling about. I breathed out a sigh of relief as the bike came to a stop and I was able to get off.

I slipped off the helmet, knowing my hair was probably sticking flat to my head, and Esteban stared at me curiously.

“You seemed a bit scared at the end,” he noted.

I swallowed hard and looked away. “Well, I’ve never been good on bikes.”

“It’s a good sign to be scared, hey,” he said. “When you stop feeling fear, that’s when it becomes dangerous. That’s when you die.”

I resisted the urge to say something, to tell him he didn’t know shit. He acted like he knew all this stuff about me, just because he rescued me and saw my “shadows,” something we hadn’t even touched on yet.

“This is the Puu o Kila Lookout,” he said as he lightly touched my elbow and guided me toward an unpaved trail that sloped away from the parking lot. “Not many people know about it. They stop at the one before and never venture on. But this is better.”

“And how do you know so much about this island?” I asked him.

“I like to do my research,” he said in a low voice, and I followed him as we went down the smooth red banks until suddenly . . . I was breathless.

There, sprawled out in front of us, was a view like nothing I’d see before. The red dirt sloped off sharply with no guardrail to keep us back, and when the drop ended thousands of yards below, the valley begun. It ran green and wide toward the ocean, the cliffs rising up from it on either side, gouged out by millions of years of rainfall and weather. Though the sun was out, clouds passed through the valley, quickly scooting over our heads, so close at times that I wanted to reach out and touch them.

“Careful.” His voice whispered at my neck as he gently put his hand around my waist and pulled me back a step. I looked down at my feet and recoiled with horror when I realized how close I had gotten to the edge. It was almost like I had really been going for the clouds.

“It’s okay,” he said, leading me away from the edge.

I was shaking; I couldn’t help it. Jesus, I had been so close to going over.

“Come on, we can get the same view from up here.” He took me to where the path sloped up. We were farther back, but the surreal view was the same. Too bad my heart was still beating so fast, my blood pumping loudly in my ears.

Esteban took his hand off me and I felt a strange chill in its absence. “Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes searching mine.

I nodded. “Yes,” I said, licking my lips that were suddenly dry. “I’m fine.”

“When women say they’re fine, they’re usually seconds from throwing their shoe at you.”

I cracked a smile, my gaze flitting over to him. “Is this from personal experience?”

He shrugged and tucked his wavy hair behind his ear, the highlights catching the gleam of the sun. “I’ve pissed off my fair share of women. But it’s not my fault they all fall so madly in love.”

I laughed. “I think you’re full of shit.”

“Oh, I am,” he said, facing me. “Perhaps that’s why they throw the shoes.”

We lapsed into silence, our attention turned back to the view. Now that I was calming down and we were farther away from the edge, I was able to take in the view as much as I could. It was like watching a moving painting. There was something so .
 . . unbelievable, unnatural about finding such beauty in real life. I felt like I had stepped into my own art.

And that was when it hit me like a kick to the shin.

I was inspired.

The feeling, the itch to paint, to capture the crazy, otherworldly beauty of this place, the rich, thriving greens and the opulent blues and the vista that seemed carved out of time.

“I told you so,” Esteban said.

“Told me what?”

“That you were looking in the wrong place.”

Thoughtfully, I rubbed the back of my hand across my lips, not sure what to say to that. But he was right. We stood there for a little while longer, not saying anything, and pretty soon the silence was as comfortable as warm flannel.

I thought about the man standing beside me, the relaxed yet intuitive way about him, the way my feelings about him swung from easygoing to vaguely fearful in the blink of an eye. He was handsome as hell, the scars only adding to his rugged appeal.

I needed to know more.

“So you said
they
call you the nice one,” I said. “You never said who they were. How do I know I can trust their opinion?”

He scratched at his sideburn and squinted at the sun. “They’re my colleagues. Out of all of them, I am the .
 . . most civilized. Though I guess that’s not saying much, hey.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his board shorts. “Oh, you know. This and that. I’m usually a tech guy. Sometimes I help out in other areas of the business.”

“What business is it?” I asked, and immediately felt stupid for doing so. From his evasive nature, to the darkness, to his very scars, I knew whatever he did, it wasn’t working at Target.

“I’ll tell you the truth if you tell me the truth,” he said without looking at me.