Somewhere on St. Thomas: A Somewhere Series Romance (2 page)

Rafe came to church the next Sunday. I stood a few rows behind him, appreciating the breadth of his shoulders, the wide column of his neck, the blond-streaked curling brown hair touching his back. That hair had a lively, rebellious quality to it, haloing his head as if to express impatience with the rules and all that was mundane and usual. The tattoo I hadn’t got a good look at was peeking out of his shirt. I kept staring at his arms, trying to see what it was.

He had a great voice and belted out the choruses of our weary old tunes in the dog-eared hymnal with an enthusiasm I couldn’t help but like. On the way back out, he hurried to catch up with me in the aisle.

“What are you doing after this?”

I turned my head, surprised. He was so tall I was looking at his collarbone. “Nothing in particular.”

“Want to go for a hike? I hear there are some good trails around here.”

“Okay,” I said hesitantly. “I’d better ask my dad.”

He grinned. “Tell him my intentions are honorable.”

I blushed, that awful flare, and I saw him notice it by the widening of his nostrils, the expansion of his pupils as he looked down at me. I had to force myself to remember I was standing in the doorway of the church. I held my Bible over my cleavage like a breastplate.

“Never mind. I don’t need to ask Dad. It’s just a hike. You know I’m leaving in two weeks, don’t you?”

“Like anyone around here could forget it. You’re the boss’s daughter, the smartest girl on the island. Leaving paradise and going to Northeastern University.” He pronounced it in contemptuous tones. “I just want to go on a hike with someone who knows the trails around here.”

“Okay, then.” I was so embarrassed by my self-important words that I could hardly get down the steps fast enough, but he was right behind me. “Let me get into some hiking clothes. I’ll take my bike and meet you at the park.”

“Bring extra water,” he said, lifting a hand in farewell. “You’re going to need it.”

I felt my heart speed up with excitement as I got into the family station wagon for the short drive home. “What was Rafe talking to you about?” Pearl asked, pouting.

“Nothing.” I didn’t want to deal with my siblings’ teasing or questions. “I’m going for a bike ride.”

Saint Thomas, in the non-resort area we live in, is rural and green with steep, jungled mountains made of the bones of the ancient volcanoes that formed the island chain. I hurried into the house and changed into shorts and a tank top, bundling my hair into a ponytail and rubbing down with sunscreen as I headed into the kitchen to fill up a plastic water bottle.

“Where are you going?” Mom was at the kitchen sink, washing something.

“I’m eighteen. Do I have to tell you everywhere I’m going?” I exclaimed, and filled the water bottle under the cold artesian stream of water.

“She’s going somewhere with Rafe,” Pearl said loudly.

“Am not!” I screwed the top on. “Just taking a bike ride.”

Mom’s hazel eyes crinkled at the corners. “Too much man for you,” she whispered.

I didn’t dignify this with an answer and flounced out. I hopped on my old bike with its three speeds and the wire mesh basket in the front. That bike was how I usually got anywhere from our tiny town on Magen’s Bay.

Rafe met me at the seed-tufted soccer field in the middle of what passed for town. He was driving a rusty old red truck that looked like it had been around since the sugarcane days fifty years ago. He wore shorts and a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. The tattoo I’d wondered about was a bald eagle pouncing, with claws extended.

He looked dangerous, poor, and way too attractive.

I was having none of the above, no matter how my skin prickled at the sight of him. I was going to Northeastern University. Danger and poverty were not something I was interested in.

At all.

Rafe was chewing a stem of long grass, and he used it to point to the rugged dark green mountain rising directly ahead. “I want to climb that.”

“Good,” I said. “Because that’s where we’re going.”

He opened the door for me, unexpectedly gentlemanly. I got into the truck and he slammed the door. Rust sprinkled down from under the dash onto my feet.

Rafe got in and turned the key, glancing at me with that wicked smile. Maybe it was the blue of his eyes in his tanned face, the white of his teeth, the fact that he knew good and well he was having an effect on me. Whatever it was, that smile scared me. I pulled my floppy hat down over my hair. The truck rattled and groaned reluctantly into life.

Dangerous and poor
, I told myself forcefully.

“Look at you, pasted up against the door. I bite a little, but only when I’m invited.”

I stared out the windshield, clutching my small canvas knapsack filled with a water bottle and a couple of mangoes. I pointed. “It’s that way.”

I directed us down a narrow road that turned to dirt. We bucked through ruts and potholes. “We’ve officially left the tourist zone,” he said.

The truck hit an especially deep pothole and it threw me against him. His skin felt hot. I scooted away, fumbling in the crack of the bench seat for the seat belt.

“No belts,” Rafe said. “You’re gonna have to take your chances with me.”

The dirt road dead-ended at a cow pasture. On the other side of the pasture, the long arms of ridges ran down from the steep mountain.

“The trailhead’s on the other side of the pasture,” I said.

“I never would have found this without you,” he said as we swished through bunchy grass.

“You’re welcome.”

“So why are you so eager to leave?” He made an arm gesture encompassing the jewel-colored mountains, the deep blue sky with its feather-bright clouds, the velvety field trimmed in ornamental orchid trees.

“It’s boring here.”

He laughed. “You just haven’t lived anywhere else.”

“Where are you from?”

“California. Talk about a place with a lot going on. But I used to think it was boring, too.” He told a few stories about a family home in a place called Red Rock, where Saturday-night excitement consisted of driving back and forth in cars packed with friends on Main Street and lighting bottle rockets at a drive-in movie theater.

“We don’t have a Main Street, or even a movie theater of any kind except in Charlotte Amalie,” I complained, jumping over a cow patty. “I’ve had it with this place.”

“What about water sports?”

“I can do all of them.” I waved a disparaging hand. “Surfing. Diving. Fishing. I’ve even been learning windsurfing, that new thing with the sail attached to a board. They’re all fine. Probably the best thing about living here. But I want things that have to do with the mind.”

“What about the body?” He turned those deep blue eyes on me. “You seem fit. For a girl.”

I snorted. “Maybe I’ll join some sort of sports team when I get there. There are no teams here, so I figure if I have a base of fitness, I can learn to play any sport.”

“Any sport, huh?” We were approaching a giant fallen log at the edge of the pasture. He pointed. “Let’s see you get over that.”

“No problem.” I reached up and grabbed a branch near the top. I hauled myself up to stand on top of the log, then jumped the six feet to the other side. I ran when I hit the ground, full speed, across the rest of the pasture and into the jungle on the other side. I’d show him how “fit for a girl” I was! I dodged and wove through trailing vines and towering trees, finally flattening myself against a mango tree draped so heavily in vines I was able to slip in under them as easily as hiding behind a curtain.

I heard him running, crashing through the brittle branches on the ground.

“Ruby!” he yelled at last. When I was born with red hair, my dad, in a poetic fit, named me Ruby Day Michaels. It was hard to live down.

“Boo,” I said from behind him.

He whirled, and for a moment I was frightened by the intensity of his face. He took two steps and loomed over me, and as suddenly as if we’d had a mind meld, I knew he was annoyed and aroused and amused with me all at once.

I could even see how I looked to him, my green eyes the color of the jungle leaves, the red hair I was named for bright as a lit match in the gloom, my skin flushed and lightly tanned as a perfectly done marshmallow, my body an hourglass with amazing legs and a tight, round ass.

I suddenly knew how his hands itched to cup my breasts, heft me up against him, put my legs around his waist. He wanted to explore every inch of my flushed skin in the dusky light of the jungle.

It felt terrifying and wonderful to so completely know what he was thinking and feeling. I wondered if he could read my mind, too, and my face heated up even more.

“You’re a brat,” was all he said. “This the trail?” He pointed into the greenish murk. Mosquitoes swirled around us.

“Yes. It’s lighter up ahead on the ridge.” I slapped at my arms.

“Okay. Let’s get out of these mosquitoes.” And he broke into a jog, leading the way.

I kept up with him for a mile or so, but by then the trail was switch backing heavily uphill, and though we’d left the mosquitoes behind, now we were in the sun, which ratcheted up the humidity and made my redhead’s skin even pinker than usual. But I wasn’t going to ask for a rest.

Instead I reached around into my knapsack and grabbed my water bottle, drinking some and pouring a little into my hand, splashing it onto my face and chest. He must have heard me because he stopped abruptly in the shade. “Let’s take a break.”

“You read my mind,” I panted, rubbing the water into my neckline. I could feel it trickling between my breasts, wetting my shirt. I held his eyes, daring and naughty, and poured another handful, splashing it on my face, hair, and chest.

“Oh damn,” he muttered, and turned away, pretending to focus on the view. I could see the front of his shorts bulging.

The sight did something to me it had never done before.

I knew about erections. I’d had boys get them looking at my breasts since sixth grade. Until now, knowing that had been an uncomfortable mixture of embarrassing and disgusting. To be honest, I thought less of men for reacting to my body, to women, that way. It demeaned us all, reducing people to animals.

But today, seeing how I affected him brought an answering rush of blood, loosening my knees. I was beyond nervous. And yet I had an urge to keep provoking him. I took a long drink of water, wiping my mouth on the back of my hand, and lowered the bottle to see Rafe staring at my shirt. He turned away with a wrench of movement.

This whole thing was a bad idea.
I had a dream, and it was to get off this miserable little piece of paradise and go somewhere that was all about the intellect. I wasn’t giving in to my hormones without a fight.

I had to keep moving. That was the answer.

I screwed the top on the bottle, stowed it in my knapsack, and passed him to hit the trail at a run, leading the way.

Of course, that meant Rafe was looking at my ass the whole time, and I could feel him doing it.

We were both exhausted and dripping, conversation impossible, when we crested the highest point of the ridges above the town. I sat in the lee of a boulder, panting, and looped my arms around my knees as I took in the huge vista. After a moment of hesitation, Rafe sat beside me, leaving a good two feet between us.

Magen’s Bay swooped before us, cobalt toward the horizon and turquoise inside, the white beach so bright it hurt my eyes. The fringe of palm trees around the bay looked like lace from this distance. Belatedly, I remembered my sunglasses in the knapsack, took them out and put them on.

We both sipped water. Mine was gone first. He’d been right. I should have brought extra water.

“So. Why did you pick Northeastern University?” He still said the name like it was something bad.

I shrugged. “It’s where I got a scholarship. And it’s the farthest I can get from here.”

“I think you might get a little homesick,” he said softly, “when it’s blowing sleet and snow off the Charles River, the sky’s a flat gray ceiling, and there is nothing but buildings all around.”

“You sound like you know what it’s like.”

“I’ve been there. Went to college in Boston. It was enough to make me take to the ocean full-time.”

I didn’t want to hear that.

There was no water left, so I took out a mango and my trusty Swiss Army knife and used it to cut lines around the fruit, stripping off the skin in a few economical gestures. I handed the peeled mango to him, and saw he’d taken out a Buck knife with a carved horn handle.

“Mine is bigger than yours.” He grinned, taking the sweet, slippery fruit.

I smiled back. “I won’t hold it against you.”

I stripped the skin off my mango and we ate companionably side by side. He cut slices off and ate them off his knife. I did the same, sneaking a glance at his large, capable hands holding the mango, the flash of the blade, the shine of his teeth as the fruit disappeared between his lips.

He’d taste like mango if I kissed him.

I pictured licking the fragrant juice off his sculptured mouth. Fortunately, he was gazing out at the beauty of the view below and the crystal turquoise of the bay and didn’t see me staring. He had a mouth that looked perfect on his face, but might look too hard on someone else—the top lip a full, arched line, the lower one wide and mobile. His jaw was a stubble-roughened angle, his brows made secret caves over the blue of his eyes. That long blond-and-chocolate hair waved back from his brow, damp with the sweat of the hike.