Here at Last (36 page)

I didn’t want
to violate
his
privacy,
but
I
also
knew that he was
quite
close with his parents and that he would be fine with me
s
haring what I did. "
He’s
doing pretty well. He still goes to the bereavement group and says that they've helped him get through the worst of it.
I know that Lydia’s helped out. Nicholas
seems to have a
few
old college
friends
in Chicago
, but I don’t
get the sense that he sees them anymore
.
I think he’s too busy with work and Hannah to have friends.
Hannah
’s
a
smart
girl
,
and
I think
that
she worries about her dad. He got a little choked up when I was reading to her recently, and she asked why he was crying,"
I
said.

Michelle
looked concerned
, "
W
hat did you say?"

"I told her that her fath
er was very tired
but that she was the light of his life. That seemed to take care of it for the moment."

"Yes, Hannah is a very perceptive little girl. She
doesn’t miss much
.
When she visited us last summer
, she told us that her father was very sad.
"

"I'm not surprised," I told her,
"
but
Nicholas seem
s
to be
coming into a
very
different place
now
.
He doesn't seem so serious anymore. I
’ve
see
n
him
smile more
recently
than I
have
during
the entire time
since we met."

Michelle nodded. "Yes, I can hear it in his voi
ce on the phone. He does seem… l
ighter. I imagine a lot of that is due to you," she said.

"Some of it probably is," I
told her
,
"
b
ut I certainly can't take credit for all of it. He
’d
already
done a lot to work through
his grief
before we ever
started dating
."

Nicholas and Bernard
walked back into the living room, and
Michelle excused herself to make dinner
while
Bernard went to wash up. Nicholas and I check
ed
in on Hannah,
who
was still sound asleep
, before returning
to our room
where we took turns s
howering and changing
our cloth
e
s
.

"
You k
now," I
told him as I toweled off,
"I still have no
idea where we
’
re going tomorrow.
"
He stepped into the bathroom and close
d
the door behind him,
steam
from the shower filling
the room.

"You said you wanted
a
surp
ri
s
e," he
smiled
.

I grinned.
"I do
want
a surprise
."

Wrapping his arms around me, he
said,
"You'll have a surprise. At least until we get to the airport."

Michelle knocked on the bedroom door
and told
us
that
dinner was ready.
While
Nicholas went to get Hannah, I dressed and
walked into the dining room a
few minutes later.
We had a
lovely
evening
together
, and I
could
tell that it meant a lot to
Nicholas and his parents that they’d shared some time together. Our discussion
also
seemed to have eased Michelle’s mind
.

When we left the next morning, Hannah was stoic, having been promised
lots of
play
time
with
Grandma
and
Grandpa
. Hannah
began making a batch of oatmeal cookies with Michelle right before
Bernard drove us to the airport
. She’d been so engrossed in the idea of cookies that she barely noticed us leaving. Bernard assured us that
he would pick us up in
eleven
days
.

We
hugged him and
walked into the terminal with
our
carry-on bags
.
Nicholas had printed
our
boarding passes
at
his parents’ house
and managed to get me through security without my knowing where we were going
.
It wasn’t until we reached the gate that
I
discover
ed that we were
headed
to St.
Marteen
.

Chapter
31

“Do you still want the surprise, or do you want to know where you’re going?” he asked me once we had settled into our seats.

I turned to look at him, and he was smiling. “
I know we’re going to St. Marteen, but everything else can be a s
urprise,” I said.

He squeezed my hand.
“Okay
.”

The flight to St. Marteen was smooth, and we enjoyed looking out the window at the beautiful blue Caribbean
Sea
below. As we left the mainland behind, Nicholas began to relax. It was as if he’d left all of his cares behind, and, finally, there was nothing but the two of us without distraction.

We held hands through most of the flight, and
, when Nicholas had gotten up to use the lavatory,
one of the flight attendants told me that she’d thought we were going on our honeymoon until she saw that I wasn’t wearing a ring. “You just look so much in love,” she
said.

“We are,” I smiled as Nicholas made his way back to his seat.

As he returned to his seat, t
he flight attendant
smiled at him before walking away. Curious, he
asked, “What was that all about?”

I put my hand on his knee. “She wanted to know if we were on our honeymoon.”

He chuckled and took my other hand in his and leaned over to kiss my cheek. Then, he put his arm over my shoulders as we both looked out the window at the sea below.

Once
we arrived in
St. Marteen
,
we got off the plane, and
I wondered where
our hotel was
.
However,
Nicholas
told me that we had one more flight. He’d
arranged
for
a
small
commuter
plane to
take us to
St. Barts
where we would be staying.
The ten-minute ride gave us a fantastic view of the island dotted with
many red-
roof
ed
homes scattered throughout. A car was waiting for us when we landed, and we were taken not to a hotel but to a private residence that Nicholas had rented for
our entire stay
.

Known as
Aramada
, the house was located on a hillside overlooking
a
lagoon
. With its own private swimming pool, it had high ceilings, lots of glass, and was
spacious and
bright.
Paintings by local artists hung on the
white
walls
. In fact, everything in the house was white and accessorized in reds and apricots.

The driver brought our bags inside, and Nicholas tipped him before he left. “Let me take care of it,” I urged, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

We walked through the house
and familiarized
ourselves with its layout. “
It’s beautiful,” I told Nicholas, and he readily agreed. He told me that he hadn’t wanted to stay in a busy hotel. Our lives were
far
too
busy as it was, and he wanted to give us time together without any distractions except the swimming pool.

As we walked out on the verandah that overlooked the lagoon below,
Nicholas
stood behind m
e and wrapped his arms around my waist
. I told him that I’d be happy to hole up in the house with him for
our entire vacation
, but he laughed.

“I’ve already made arrangements for us to
get out and
play,” he said, resting his chin on my shoulder. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do
, b
ut I thought it might be nice if we
actually
saw some of the island.”

I
smiled
. “Before we see any of the island
,
we should find something to eat.”

He agreed.

W
e were both
ravenous
and were grateful to find that there were some fresh
fruit and bread
in the refrigerator. It provided enough of a lunch to tide us over until dinner, which was
still
a few hours away.

After we’d eaten, I showered and changed into some white shorts and a short-sleeved turquoise shirt. I wore a
short
necklace made
of
small turquoise beads.
Then,
I
joined
Nicholas
out on the verandah where he was taking in
the view. He turned around when he heard me coming, and we embraced. He kissed me on the head and excused himself to go shower. I walked over to one side of the vera
nda
h
and sat down in a chair, res
ting my feet on a
nearby
stool. I close
d
my eyes and felt the breeze
move
across my body. A little while later, I heard Nicholas
e
merge
from
the bathroom. When I turned to look, he was
standing in the wide doorway to the verandah
and looking out over
the palm trees
and
the
Anse de Marigot
lagoon
below.

He didn't see me sitting off to the side of the veranda
h
, and I watched him for a moment.
W
earing a pair of khaki shorts and no shirt
,
I looked at the well-defined
muscles in his
torso
and his muscular
arms and legs
.
H
e was lean and strong,
and
I found him incredibly sexy.

For the first time since we'd met, he looked
truly
relaxed. I could easily have imagined meeting him
in
another time and place
without all of the pressures and demands that life had thrown his way over the past several years. Here, he was a different person,
a
different man. There was a look of freedom in his eyes, freedom from a life that
had been
reduced to checking off
a
daily list
of chores and
responsibilities
.

Suddenly aware that I was watching him, he turned his head to the left and smiled before walking over to me.

“Hi," he said, standing beside me with his hand on the back of my chair.

"Do you feel better?" I asked him.

He nodded and scanned the
view
before looking back at me. "I do."

I stood up and turned to face him. "What do you want to do?"

For long moment, he looked in
to
my eyes, and his
expression
became serious.
He reached behind my head
with both hands
and moved the hair up off of my neck. “
I have an idea
.”