Devon’s canoe was secured among the leathery foliage of the seaside grape trees, and a good many of those crimson-veined leaves and red berries had dropped into the canoe’s bilge along with yesterday afternoon’s rain puddle. Together he and Merry cleaned it out.
On the water, once they were beyond the churning surf, the canoe rode like a chamois cloth over oiled glass. Clear sea quivered behind them into a whispering wake; beyond the short, easy strokes of Devon’s paddle the bay was quiet. Heat blossomed in waving tails as the canoe passed light as a floating feather through a bobbing flock of man-o’-war birds. Feeding pelicans dropped on flagging wingbeats toward the disappearing diamonds that lit the placid water.
On the day before, Devon had set a fish pot. The light wood marker made a dancing speck in the glossy distance, and they approached it slowly over a pristine underwater landscape of honeycombed limestone caverns that were carpeted in undulating marine grasses. Starfish clung by prehensile arms to hidden niches, and fantastically colored fish schooled and swirled in the deeply drifting sunbeams.
Morgan’s German cook had packed them a small lunch, and Merry’s rummage through that basket turned up a long piece of sugarcane shed already of its green outer layer. She settled back against the bow, abandoning herself to the lapping movement of the canoe beneath her body, and to the warm penetration of sunlight through the cloth over her breasts and legs. She had made the colorful chain of flowers into a wreath, settling it timidly upon her apricot curls, where it tipped seductively forward as she bent her head to the sugarcane. Bringing the thick stalk to her lips, she nibbled the cane fibers to release the sweetly flowing juices and sucked gently on the tip. Tepid sugar water dripped into her throat, and she drank in a softly rippling swallow. Escaping drops pearled her pink lips, and she caught them in an arcing sweep of her tongue.
Across from her and watching, Devon had drawn a single breath that was out of rhythm with the others and that focused her attention on him. His eyes were hooded fires, a forgotten smile lingering on the surface of his mouth. Withno very accurate idea of what he had on his mind, Merry smiled back, sat forward with the flower wreath dropping endearingly over one eyebrow, and said genially, “Would you like to share?”
“Another time, lady bright,” he said, not taking his gaze from her face.
The fish “pot” was a woven canework box with narrowing jaws, a trap for unwary sea creatures. Devon pulled it up by the attached rope, and as the trap broke from the sea, shrimp flooded through the lattice with cascades of aerated saltwater. Inside the pot were four fish. Devon identified them for her—a white hind splashed with scarlet spots, a pink goatfish, and two snappers with golden bellies and yellow fins. Merry couldn’t help noticing they didn’t like being pulled from the water any more than she had ever liked being thrown into it.
“I suppose,” she suggested carefully, “that now that you’ve had the fun of catching those beautiful fish, you’ll be letting them go?”
His grin assumed she was joking. Working the rope into a damp coil, he said, “They taste as good as they look.”
Merry studied the effective movements of his well-formed hands as he untangled a small and disgruntled squid from the trap’s interior and tossed it back into the sleeping bay.
“I don’t think I could enjoy the taste of a fish I’d met face-to-face,” she said reflectively, putting her hand outside the canoe and stirring the water with sticky fingertips.
Devon’s eyes traveled to her wet fingers and followed the line of that graceful arm from her rounded shoulder to the deliciously pretty face under the lopsided flower crown, dusky lashes innocently lowered against the creamy cheekbones—and that ridiculous little nose. Her face was a delight in color and in form, but it was not the face of a woman he would ever have anticipated would wield this kind of power over him.
“Merry!” he said in mock reproach, remembering suddenlythe scenes so similar to this one that had led him at the age of ten to stop letting his sister come fishing with him. The thought produced the smile he was trying to hide. “I can’t believe you want me to let them go. Why, that snapper is more than two feet long!”
The too-small nose took on a mischievous tilt. “Pooh. It’s only a foot and a half.”
“Damn it, it’s two feet if it’s an inch.”
“One foot nine inches,” she said, “and that’s my last offer.”
Her manner was still oh, so playful, but some abstract sense told him that for her this was no game. She meant to test him. It was like her suddenly to see the fish as a symbol of her own captivity. He had never met anyone with her amazing sentimentality. More amazing still was how that delicacy of mind had survived those weeks on theJokeand contact with men like Erik Shay and Max Reade… and of course himself. He carried that thought to his fingers as he opened the box’s latched back and sent the trap again into the calm waters. One by one the fish went their ways, tails twitching.
In the meantime Merry was resisting the urge to toss her arms around his neck and shower his blond hair with kisses. Among other deterrents she’d probably upset the canoe. From her brother, Carl, and her cousin, Jason, she knew it was usually useless to ask men and boys not to shoot squirrels or catch fish. Devon had understood her. She knew her uncontrolled smile was silly and a little tremulous.
Devon’s grin had equal elements in it of affection and amused exasperation. Shaking his head slowly, he began to laugh, and she laughed with him until the floral wreath made its final slip and plopped down over her eyes.
The canoe moved idly for a long time near a hilly shoreline heavy with groves of coconut palm and straggling beds of prickly pear with their profuse baubles of flower and fruit. Staring in a happy daze at the scenery, Merry was recalled toher surroundings by Devon’s voice with the prosaic reminder that even though the heat was unseasonably mild, she had better cover her arms and face because God only knew what Cat would do to the pair of them if Devon brought her home with a sunburn. Merry struggled into a straw bonnet and shawl as she watched Devon relax against the stern, trailing a line baited with enough sprat to sink the wire hook of its own weight.
“If something bites,” he said, holding her in a lazy gaze, stretching his long, handsomely proportioned legs out before him, “can I keep it if it’s u-g-l-y?”
To cover the soggy wash of love she was feeling for him, Merry answered his teasing with a face. “Man’s work, isn’t it—fishing?”
“You ought to go with Raven. He ties the line around his toe and falls asleep. Once he caught a turbot, and a shark ate that and dragged Raven through fifty feet of water.” Then, “You realize, of course, if one of those fish had been served to you at dinner, you would have eaten it without a qualm.”
She rested her chin on her fist. “I know I haven’t always been philosophically consistent. I’m to work on it,” she said, thinking about certain lectures from Cat. Shifting her body, she dug in the picnic basket and discovered her sketch pad. “Sometimes I think I should be eschewing animal flesh altogether.”
“Doubtless, mine included. Good Lord, what are you doing? Are you going to draw a picture of me?” he said.
“Why, yes, but only as part of the scenery. Imagine yourself as being a rock or a tree.”
“Stones have been known to move and trees to speak.” Devon spoke the quote with a half smile. “What would you like me to do? Must I not talk? Or shall I be amusing? Would you like to hear about this canoe?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Merry, making a rough outline of his hair, which shone in the tropical sun like late-summer wheat.
“The canoe,” he said, “was a silk-cotton tree, hollowed by axes and by burning. Cat and I made it a few years ago—a very wholesome project, mind you. Morgan was beside himself to see us so constructively engaged. Do you know—you have a unique ability to sit for a long time on your heels. Love, stretch your legs out.”
Her eyes of horizon blue became very wide. Steadying herself on the sides of the canoe, Merry shyly unbent her knees until her feet alternated with his in the white sunlight that leached color from the canoe’s bottom. She had taken off her shoes, as he had, and his clean, tanned skin heated hers. The sharp classical cut of his bones was evidenced even in his feet, which were as charming in their appearance as it was possible for that under-valued, ill-regarded body member to be.It must be love,Merry thought.I adore his feet.
