Kiss Me Maybe (Princess Cruises Presents: Kindle Love Stories) (6 page)

“But your lives would have changed for the better. Surely your grandmother could see that. More money, less stress.”

“Yes. But that doesn’t make change any less frightening.”

Well, that was an understatement. “What made her decide to go ahead?” Megan asked.

“My grandfather. He told her the best things in life were buried under tons of risk. He claimed life was like a bucket full of rare jewels that are covered in dirt. You can live in the dirt, stay near the top where things are safe, and no one will stop you. But if you really want to get to the gems, you have to . . .”

“Dive in?”

He grinned in answer.

“You have to dig through the dirt to get to the treasure?” Her voice lifted a bit because she understood.

“Exactly. And once in a while, a gentle rain will come along and . . .” He let his words trail off so she could finish the sentence.

“Will wash away some of the dirt for you?” That would make it easier, she supposed. Digging in dirt was messy business. And what did it have to do with her and her situation? Everything. She just didn’t know how the pieces fit.

If Megan didn’t die right here, right now, she’d surely have a heart attack.

“Keep your eyes on me.” Alexander gripped her shoulders. “Princess, you got this. You’re so much braver than you know.” His eyes flecked with more assurance than should be possible. He was strength. He was marble. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

Megan drew a breath and nodded for the attendant to push her off the platform. Her eyes stayed on Alexander—still standing on the wooden deck, one hand wrapped around the railing—until the rush of wind and the zing of the line demanded Megan’s attention. She chanced a glance forward and then down . . . and was captivated. Below her, the treetops, green and perfect, sailed by. She could scarcely breathe from the excitement and the whoosh of adrenaline taking hold of her body. Off to her right was a lake and to her left more vegetation. This was like flying. And sailing. And falling. It was magical and wonderful and she thought maybe this was what the angels felt as they rose from earth to heaven. Wind kissed her face, the sun shone on her arms and legs; she
was
an angel, free and soaring above the earth. Megan’s momentum slowed as she neared the next tree platform and the grinning attendant. For a quick moment she wondered if he ever tired of seeing exuberant tourists with their wide smiles. Her face tingled. She could feel the color in her cheeks and the lightness in her heart. Her eyes were practically dancing out of her head.

He pulled her onto the platform where she drew a huge breath, hoping it would slow her racing heart. She hadn’t screamed, hadn’t fainted dead away like she’d thought she might. As the tanned young man worked with her harness, he asked, “Ready for more?”

She nodded, wondering if she might faint—not from fear—but from pure excitement. Her legs were shaky but she knew they’d hold her. Megan rested a hand on the tree, a massive thing with a trunk that seemed as big as a house.

There was a zing behind her, and she knew Alexander was making his way to the platform as well. She turned in time to see him land. His face grinning, his body looking perfectly suited to the rigors of treetop travel.

She hadn’t spoken yet, but when he gripped her in his hands, her mouth opened and words poured out. “Did you see the water? That was . . . I’ve never . . . I mean . . .”

He grabbed her shoulders, planted a quick kiss on her lips, and chuckled. “My thoughts exactly.”

The brush of his mouth on hers brought a bit of stability to her. Now, she could complete a thought. She gripped his arms. “I will never ever
ever
forget this. My whole life. And one day when I’m old and living in a nursing home, I’ll talk about this. Flying in the treetops.”

His brows dipped in a frown. “You’re not scared anymore?”

She rolled her eyes. “Terrified. I might completely freeze at any moment and end up curled on the platform in a fetal position sucking my thumb. But it’s worth it! This is—” she gestured in a wide arc. “This is the most incredible thing I’ve ever done.”

“It’s pretty amazing.”

“I want to ride roller coasters. I want to try bungee jumping.”

“Slow down, Megan. Let’s finish this adventure first.” He laughed. The attendant led them to the other side of the tree where another zip line waited. “We’ve got several more runs. You ready?”

Megan bobbed her head. In an instant, she was flying again.

The last zip line carried them over the salty water and deposited them on the beach. Today, she’d conquered the world. Today she wasn’t just a princess, but a
warrior
princess, fresh from battle with an adventure lust that would carry her for the rest of her life. Today, she’d said hello to danger and good-bye to fear.

They sat at a beachside cabana bar to have a cold drink and watch as sun worshippers folded their brightly colored blankets and started making their way back to the ship. “Roatán’s my favorite.” Megan sipped from the straw in her fruity drink.

She looked beautiful and innocent and perfect. And Alexander knew his heart belonged to her. He’d given her that flush in her cheeks, that elation in her eyes, the smile, the excitement that caused her voice to pitch upward with her joy. “Shall we stop off at the real estate office before heading back to the ship?”

Her eyes came up quickly, batted furiously, then dropped back to the drink.

“How’s Richard?” he said, knowing they had to tackle this subject sooner or later.

It was crazy for a woman to spend just one week deciding with whom she’d spend the rest of her life. It was crazy that he’d seen her and knew . . . somehow he
knew
she was exactly what he’d been missing in
his
life. The lifestyle of Alexander Andrews offered him plenty of company where beautiful women were concerned. Gorgeous women weren’t in short supply in the circles he moved in. Women like Megan were. With her zeal for life, her tender heart for others, her very spirit, she was everything he wanted and possibly nothing he could have.

But they’d known each other less than a week. Of course, his grandfather still told the story—with a spark in his eyes, no less—of how he first laid eyes on Alexander’s grandmother and mumbled to his best friend, “You see that girl? She’s the one I’m going to marry.”

Love at first sight. Maybe it was as real as the essential oils that made Andrews Lotion a household staple. Maybe love transcended time and space. Maybe it landed on whom it chose when it chose and maybe, just maybe, he was a victim.

Megan chewed her lip, her brows a slash above her eyes. She hadn’t answered.

“Megan?”

“He’s . . . very nice. Handsome, like I remember. It makes sense.” Her gaze trailed to the rainbow beach umbrellas beyond them, where whitecapped waves rolled then gurgled at the clear water’s edge.

Alexander’s heart took a dive deeper into his chest. She was talking herself into Richard. “But?”

She huffed, dropping her hands flat to the table. “But you.”

It was all she said, and all she needed to. She hadn’t made up her mind and that was okay. He still had time. “Have dinner with me tonight.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but he stopped her with the brush of his fingertip across her parted lips.

“Please, Princess.”

A slow half smile touched her face. “You make it hard for a girl to resist.”

“You make it hard for a man to concentrate on anything else.”

“Dinner,” she agreed.

And Alexander knew he had one last opportunity to win the heart of the woman he’d just met.

She needed to get a grip. Richard was real. Someone she’d loved as a kid.

Alexander was a fantasy. He called her Princess and treated her as such. But that was fairy tale and a
real
world awaited her when she returned home. A world where her job was to wash and style women’s hair and listen to their problems and make them feel beautiful. There was a real world where she lived on solid ground and swam in the lake where she might come up out of the water with dirt and bits of floating leaves and other debris in her hair, compliments of the frequent Ozark Mountain storms.

There was no Neptune’s Pool, no Sabatini’s. No perfect fruity drinks with umbrellas perched on the edges. No Alexander.

Her heart ached at the thought. He was a fairy tale wrapped in flesh and if she could grab Aquanna by the throat and punch her in the face right now, she’d do it. She could. She had taken four months of karate. She had mad fighting skills.

But, Megan could hardly blame Aquanna. It was Megan herself who opened her heart to the man from Arkansas who—despite his obvious wealth—just seemed like a good ol’ boy. One who rode horses on his grandfather’s farm. One who could enjoy the fireworks at a small-town display and eat cotton candy at a local fair. And one who could take her to Paris on a whim. So many conflicting thoughts surged through her mind, she stepped onto her balcony and stared out over the water.

When something flashed alongside the ship, she craned her neck to see. Could it be Aquanna? Or just a school of silvery fish? She lifted her hands in question, as if the sea would part and there Aquanna would rise from the depths to offer her advice.

“I mean, it’s obvious that Richard is perfect for me,” she whispered as if the seawitch were right there and ready to hear Megan’s plea. “He’s from my hometown, even if he doesn’t live there now. We know all the same people from high school. Of course, he never bothered to go back . . . or let folks in town know he’d survived the ordeal years ago. Still, he’s a hometown boy. Plus, he loves the water.”

Megan glanced at the clock and realized she was already running late. She hurried inside the stateroom and—for a woman who had a lot of monumental choices to make—she felt strangely calm as she prepared to go meet Alexander. Tonight’s dinner was at Crown Grill so she’d dress in formal attire. Her grandma had sent her with a beautiful antique gown that had tiny pearls sewn on the bodice. She shimmied into it and realized . . . there was no way to fasten the tiny buttons on the back. Megan chewed her cheek. Alexander was right next door . . .

No. She shook the thought from her mind and rushed to the phone, the soft lace of the gown swishing as she moved. She grabbed the receiver and punched a button.

“Room service, how may I help you?”

“I . . . uh, well . . . I need someone to button my gown. It’s an antique thing and—”

“No worries, Miss Cooper,” the attendant said with a lovely accent that Megan could have placed if she were a more worldly kind of girl. “I will send someone immediately.”

Megan breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I have dinner reservations.”

“Of course.”

Within fifteen minutes she was buttoned, retouched her makeup, and headed out the door feeling like Cinderella on the way to the ball. She’d left her purse in the stateroom; who needed one? No one. It was the beauty of being at sea, a complete departure from life and all its responsibilities.

It wasn’t until she was stepping out of the elevator that she made a startling discovery. Megan lifted the hem of her dress and stared down at her bare feet. A sound that was neither a cough nor a huff escaped her mouth. How on earth had she left without her shoes?

Two of the ship’s officers were just walking by as she lowered her gown.

They stopped when she didn’t answer their customary friendly greeting. “Miss, are you okay?”

If she tried to get back to the stateroom, she’d certainly be late. “I have dinner reservations,” she fumbled through the words.

One officer frowned. “Can we help you find your dining room?”

“Uh.” She shook her head. “No. I mean I left my purse, everything in the room.”

They both nodded, knowingly. “Yes, once the ship has left port, we usually see women no longer carrying their purses within a couple days. That’s when we know they are truly enjoying their at-sea experience. They’ve left all the responsibilities behind and are fully relaxed.”

The other grinned. “By the end of the cruise, no one carries their bags. It’s one way we know we’ve done our job well.”

She stared at the gold tag on one of the officers’ crisp white uniforms. His name was about fourteen letters long and she’d surely mangle it if she attempted to say it. “No, sir, you don’t understand. I left
everything
in the room.” With that, her brows rose and she tilted the bottom edge of her dress up.

The officer glanced down. For a few moments he stared at her pink-polished toes then cleared his throat. “Oh. I see.” He looked to the right and the left and leaned closer and whispered, “No one will know. Your gown covers your feet.”

The other officer smiled. “Go to dinner. Have a marvelous time. Your shoes will be waiting for you when you return to your stateroom.”

She’d met Alexander in the entryway of Crown Grill. He looked handsome, as always, in his dress shirt and jacket, dark eyes sparkling. They’d laughed and visited over dinner and dessert and everything about the night seemed perfect. Except, of course, the fact that she was a Missouri hillbilly masquerading as a seawitch and hadn’t even bothered to wear shoes.

After dinner, they passed through the Piazza, where a lively show entertained guests. The laughter and applause followed them as hand in hand Alexander and Megan walked outside, where a star-filled night waited as if only for them.

“You purposely kept the conversation light at dinner,” she said, giving him a sidelong glance.

He turned to face her. “You noticed that?”

“I feel as though I’ve gotten to know you pretty well.”

He lifted her hands in his and cradled them between their bodies. “And I feel as though I’d need several lifetimes to get to know everything about you.”

She laughed. “I’m not that interesting, believe me.”

“Megan, I need to tell you something. Something I should have told you when we first met.”