“You’ve got yourself a deal, Mr. Gamble. You tell me your big secret, then you get to massage me all afternoon.”
Chuckling, he says, “I don’t know why I’m saying yes to this, but I am.” He captures my mouth in a quick kiss, then says, “I fell off my bike when I was a kid. Landed on my face.”
I give him a deadpan look. “That’s your big secret.”
“I haven’t told you why I fell.”
I grin at him. “You were trying to impress a girl, weren’t you?”
“How’d you guess?”
“I told you. I’m clairvoyant.”
“Oh right. I forgot. Well, I was on my mountain bike and this girl I knew from high school was with her friends at this pizza place we all used to hang out at. I decided to pull a stoppie. Do you know what that is?”
“I’m guessing it’s when you turn sideways and stop fast?”
“Yup. You guessed it. Well, I didn’t account for some gravel on the road, and I went too far. Knocked her overand embedded my cheek into a key chain she had hanging from her backpack.”
“Nooo!!!!” I say, my face heating up with sympathy embarrassment.
“True story.”
“Was she okay?”
“Sort of. She broke her wrist when she hit the pavement. She basically never spoke to me again.”
I wince. “Ouch. That’s so much worse than I thought it would be.”
“Yeah, you can see why I don’t tell that to just anybody.”
“Yes, I can.”
He climbs off the hammock, then picks me up and lifts me over his shoulder, fireman style. I scream, then say, “What are you doing?”
“It’s massage time. You don’t expect me to do it on the hammock, do you?”
I laugh as he walks over to a lounge chair and lays me down on it.
“That would be totally unsafe,” he says, reaching down and pulling on the string of my bikini bottoms. “Now let’s get these off so I can give you a proper full-body massage.”
An hour (or so, who knows?) later, we’re out in the ocean again, completely nude, swimming and driving each other wild, when suddenly a loud noise invades our perfect world. It sounds like a helicopter, and I don’t know whether to be elated or burst into tears.
“Do you hear that?” I ask.
He nods. “It’s an AgustaWestland CH-149 Cormorant.”
I give him a questioning look.
“A rescue chopper.” As if on cue, the helicopter appears over the mountain, coming straight towards us.
We stare at each other for a second, my heart dropping to the bottom of the ocean. I want to tell him I’m in love with him. That I don’t want to live without him, but I don’t. I can’t. Not now that everything is about to change. “I’m not ready for this.”
“Me neither, but it’s happening,” he says, resting his forehead on mine.
I tighten my grip on his neck while we watch the helicopter lower itself onto the beach. “This is real,” I say.
“It’ll be okay, Paige,” he whispers.
