“Who knows? Small, yes, but still tropical-storm status. And they think it might turn and hit they Keys after all. Anyway, give a ring if you need anything else.”
“Thanks.”
David closed the phone, sliding it back into his pocket. The tangles were definitely intensifying. And there was only one person he could really clear in Alicia’s disappearance and probable death.
Seth Granger.
Who was now among the departed himself.
Hearing a rustling in the trees, he turned, a sharp frown creasing his forehead. Long strides took him straight into the brush.
There was no one there.
But had there been? Someone who had been walking along, heard his phone ring…
And paused to listen in on the conversation?
Alex sat at the edge of the first platform with her bucket of fish and called out, though she knew the dolphins were already aware she was there. “Katy, Sabra, Jamie Boy!”
They popped up almost instantly, right at her dangling feet. They knew the time of day and knew when they got treats. She stroked them one by one, talking to them, giving them their fish. Then she moved on to the next lagoon and the platform that extended into it. “Shania, get up here,” she said. “You, too, Sam, Vicky.”
She gave them all the same attention, her fingers lingering just a shade longer on Shania’s sleek body. The dolphin watched her with eyes that were almost eerily wise. “You’re my children, you know that, guys? Maybe I shouldn’t be quite so attached, but, hey…when I had a guy, he was at sea all the time anyway.”
“Was he?” The sound of David’s voice was so startling, she nearly threw her bucket into the lagoon.
She leaped up and spun around. “Must you sneak up on people?”
“I didn’t sneak up, I walked,” he told her.
“You scared me to death.”
“Didn’t mean to. Still, I couldn’t help hearing what you said. So…was that it? I was away too much?”
“David, there wasn’t one ‘it.’ My decision to ask for a divorce was complicated. Based on a number of things.”
“Was one of them Alicia.”
“No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t even know anymore, David.”
“I asked you to go on every expedition I took,” he said.
“But I work with dolphins. They know when I’m gone.”
“So you can never go anywhere?”
“I didn’t say that. I just can’t pick up and leave constantly. And I don’t want to. I like a trip as much as the next person, but I like having a home, too.”
“You had a home.”
“We had a series of apartments. Several in one year. There was always a place that seemed more convenient. For you.”
He was silent for a minute, then asked, “Was I really that bad?”
“Yes. No. Well, you’re you. You shouldn’t have changed what you were—are—for me. Or anyone else. It just didn’t work for me.”
“There is such a thing as compromise,” he reminded her.
“Well, I didn’t particularly want to be the reason the great David Denham missed out on the find of the century.”
“There are many finds—every century,” he told her. “Are you through here? I came to walk back to the cottage with you.”
“What makes you think I don’t have other plans?” she demanded.
He grinned. “I know you. There’s nothing you adore more than the sea—and your children here, of course—but you’re also determined on showering the minute you’re done with it.”
“Fine. Walk me back, then. I definitely don’t want to get dragged into the Tiki Bar,” she said wearily, aware that she no longer felt alone—or afraid.
“Want me to take the bucket?”
“Wait—there’s one more round for these three.”
“May I?” he asked.
She shrugged. David sat on the dock. As she had, he talked to each of the dolphins as he rewarded them with their fish. Spoke, stroked.
She was irrationally irritated that they seemed to like David so much. Only Shania hung back just a little. It was as if she sensed Alex’s mixed feelings about him and was awaiting her approval.
David had a knack for speaking with the animals. He understood that food wasn’t their only reward, and that they liked human contact, human voices.
Shania, like the others, began to nudge him, asking for attention.
Traitor, Alex thought, but at the same time, she was glad. Shania was a very special creature. She needed more than the others, who had never known the kind of injury and pain that Shania had suffered.
When the dolphins had finished their fish, Alex started down the dock. He walked along with her in silence. She moved fast, trying to keep a bit ahead. No way. He had very long legs.
“If you’re trying to run away, it’s rather futile, don’t you think?”
She stopped short. “Why would I be running away?”
“Because you’re hoping to lose me?”
“How can I lose you? We’re on a very small island, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Not to mention that my legs are longer, so I can actually leave you in the dust at any time.”
“Go ahead.”
“You have the key.”
“You have your own place here.”
“But I’m not leaving you alone in yours.”
His tone had been light and bantering, but the last was said with deadly gravity.
“This is insane,” she murmured, and hurried on. She knew, though, that she wasn’t going to lose him. And in a secret part of herself—physical, surely, not emotional—she felt the birth of a certain wild elation. Why? Did she think she could just play with him? Hope to tempt and tease, then hurt…?
As she felt she had been hurt?
No, surely not. Her decision to file the papers hadn’t been based on a fit of temper. She had thought long and hard about every aspect of their lives.
But wasn’t it true, an inner voice whispered, that jealousy had played a part? Jealousy, and the fear that others offered more than she ever could, so she couldn’t possibly hope to keep him?
Despite his long legs, she sprinted ahead of him as they neared the cottage. She opened the door, ignoring him. She didn’t slam it, just let it fall shut. He caught it, though, and followed her in.
Inside, she curtly told him to help himself to the bath in the hallway, then walked into her own room. She stripped right in the shower, then turned the water on hard, sudsing both her hair and body with a vengeance. Finally she got out, wrapped herself in a towel and remembered that the maid never left anything but hand towels in the guest bath.
Cursing at herself, she gathered up one of the big bath sheets and walked into the hallway. He was already in the shower. She tapped on the door. No answer.
“David?”
“What?” he called over the water.
“Here’s your towel.”
“What? Can’t hear you.”
Why