“I know.” She raised a hand to the bridge of her nose and pinched it while she closed her eyes, trying to make the image in her head go away.
When she opened her eyes and looked at him, he was staring at her with a look she couldn’t read. He looked away.
She sat there beside him, her hands clasping her knees. Her hem was up a bit, an inch or two higher than her ankles. She stared at her feet, then looked at the outline of her calves and knees. She longed to shed all that flannel and dive into the water. But she was bound and determined to get Hank to capitulate and teach Lydia to swim.
Annabelle stirred on the blanket next to her, then sat up blinking at them. She gave them the serious look of an army general, then grinned. “Hi!”
“Hi!” Margaret laughed. The silly look on Annabelle’s face made her appear as if she knew something funny that no one else did—a child’s secret.
A shadow fell over her. Hank had shifted and looked at Annabelle over her shoulder. She could feel his breath near her ear and hair as warm as the trade wind, but she experienced an odd chill and her arms broke out in goose bumps, even with all those clothes on.
“Hi there, kid.” There was a smile in his deep voice.
Annabelle gave him a childish wave, and his laughter went right through her. The baby pushed herself up and walked over to him. He sat back, and she crawled into his lap and swung her small legs over one of his. She leaned back against his stomach and then tilted her head back and looked up at him, her apricot hair against the black hair of his chest.
“Hi!”
Margaret sat frozen, completely baffled. She had the most powerful urge to cry. She could feel the tightness in her throat, the ache of tears in her chest, and the pressure in her nose and behind her eyes.
She turned away and took a deep breath. Then she realized she truly did feel light-headed.
* * *
Within two days,Hank had Lydia dog-paddling across the freshwater pool while Theodore slid down the falls and taunted his sister into learning even faster. Hank swam over to the opposite side, where Smitty was sitting in the shade of a breadfruit tree, dressed from her ears clear to her ankles.
He rested his arms on a rock and looked at her. Sweat beaded on her face and dripped from her hairline. She swiped it away and fanned herself with a broad banana leaf.
“It’s cool in the water, Smitty.”
“Yes, I’m certain it is.”
“You haven’t been in the water since you took Lydia in.”
She shrugged.
“Hell, just wrap something around your torso so you can swim freely.”
She gave him a strangled look.
“You won’t burn again. Your skin is used to the sun now.” He pushed himself out of the pool and sat down near her; water spread across the rocks and near her feet.
She pulled back, but he shifted closer. “Look.” He flipped her skirt up to her knees and put his tanned forearm against her calf. “Your legs are almost as brown as I am.”
She jerked her skirt back down and hugged it to her ankles. “Don’t you do that again.”
“For Christ’s sake, Smitty. You think I haven’t seen a woman’s legs before?” He shook his head and jumped back into the water.
When he faced her again, she was staring at his chest. She wouldn’t look him in the eye. “I’ve seen everything there is to see of a woman.”
He caught a flash of some emotion in her eyes, but she didn’t say anything. “Believe me, sweetheart, your legs are no different than those of a thousand other women.”
He turned and swam away, pulling his body across the cool water of the pool with long strokes, knowing he’d just told the biggest lie of his life.
* * *
It wasa few days laterwhen Hank strolled down a stretch of sleepy sunlit beach. Smitty was sitting alone and drawing something in the sand with her finger.
He stopped for a moment and just watched her. Her hair hung down her back, and the wind caught it. He crossed the sand, and she glanced up, then quickly smoothed out the sand. He wondered what she had drawn or written.
