“He didn’t want to get bitten by a spider.”
“No poisonous spiders either.”
“Scorpions? Wild monkeys?”
Mathilda rolled her eyes. “We have pretty much the safest jungle you can ask for. There’s nothing that’s going to kill you, not counting humans. Even the centipedes don’t cause harm, they’re just very very painful. Bacteria, I suppose. The odd virus or parasite or…” She shook herself out of her listing of Hawaii hazards. None of that mattered now. “So he sent you into the jungle to…what, feel me out?”
“Deliver the letter. Gauge your reaction. He’s waiting at a resort near Kona. He wants to meet in person.”
Then maybe he should have grown a pair and hiked to the camp.
“Fine. I look forward to our meeting,” she said stiffly.
He muttered something she couldn’t hear. Uh oh. There was more, wasn’t there? “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Duncan wanted to make a grand gesture. He wanted everything to be ready in case you said yes.”
“Ready? Oh. You mean, like the paperwork? Marriage contracts and all that? Let me guess, there’s a whole posse of lawyers standing by.”
“Mmmm. As much as I revere the legal profession, I promise you it’s something more pleasant than that.”
He refused to say any more, no matter how much she begged. Apparently Duncan really wanted it to be a surprise.
Sweet, she supposed. Depending on the surprise.
The speedboat took them to a marina just north of Kona. It was midafternoon by now. She looked longingly at the pebbly beach outside the breakwater. She’d been hoping to go for a swim at the Waipi’o black-sand beach…that was one of the favorite expeditions of the research camp crew. She wondered how everyone was doing, whether they’d gotten her note, if anyone missed her.
The jungle felt very far away right now. The Kona side of the island had an entirely different climate, dry as a desert. It was hard to believe it was the same island as the dynamic green jungle she’d come from. She knew it rarely rained here, making it perfect for growing coffee and entertaining tourists. Almost every day was a beach day here, unless a storm came through and wreaked havoc with the beautiful white-sand beaches.
White sand. Imagine that. On the other side, the beaches were black sand, and the sand was actually formed by molten lava shattering into billions of tiny pieces when it hit the ocean. Or so Cody the volcanologist had explained to her.
Lord, she already missed her fellow grad students. Where was Bjorn to explain the botany of the thorny kiawe trees? And Robert to tell her a myth about how they’d been planted by a Catholic priest to make the Hawaiians wear shoes, when it was actually for shade?
When she spotted a saffron finch, she nearly cried at the familiar sight of the brilliant yellow bird. This wasn’t completely foreign territory. It was still the Big Island of Hawaii. Even though the jungle felt a world away, in truth, it was probably only a fifty-mile hike back to the camp.
A driver picked them up in a black SUV with tinted windows and took them to a resort she’d never heard of before, one so exclusive it hid behind royal palms and an avalanche of bougainvillea.
Instead of heading for the main building, Philip Phelps led her down a path lined with palm trees to one of the resort’s private cottages. It must have its own pool, barely visible from the front; she could hear people splashing around in the water. Had Duncan brought some friends with him? Proposal slash boys weekend in Hawaii?
“Here we are, then,” Phelps said as he pushed open the door. “Duncan, dear boy, we have arrived.”
A tall, wide-shouldered young man with a charming smile came toward them. His eyes were summertime blue, his manner carefree. He stopped in front of Mathilda and performed a graceful bow. “I’m thrilled to meet you, Mathilda Wheeler.”
She wanted to tell him to tone it down. Instead she smiled politely. “How do you do?” She winced as the words left her mouth. That was what British people said, not scrappy ornithologists who’d just left the jungle.
“You both look like you’ve been through a whirlwind.” Duncan’s smile turned sympathetic. “Did you run into trouble?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Phelps assured him. “But Ms. Wheeler would probably appreciate a shower.”
“Deeply,” Mathilda agreed, from the bottom of her heart. “Unfortunately, my backpack got lost along the way.”
“Say no more.” Duncan held up a hand. “I’ll call the concierge. They can send some clothes round. I’m sure they handle emergencies like this all the time.”
Probably not exactly “like this,” Mathilda thought. But she’d take any assistance they offered.
“I must alert you to a surprise I’ve cooked up,” Duncan was saying, before someone interrupted.
“My darling!”
