She’d forgotten just how magical it was with the sun beating on her back and her head immersed in an enchanted underworld kingdom. Where fish all the colours of the rainbow darted around her and cavorted amongst coral that formed a unique and fascinating underwater garden.
Where the dark shadows of huge manta rays and small reef sharks hovered in the distance.
Where the silence made the beauty that much more profound.
It was after five o’clock when they called it a day. Stella threw on her clothes from earlier; Rick just unzipped his suit to his waist and looked all James Bond again. They threw some fishing lines in to catch their dinner while they drank cold beer and looked at Rick’s pictures on her laptop. They laughed and reminisced and Rick showed her the pictures from their latest salvage—a nineteenth-century frigate off the Virgin Islands.
They caught two decent-sized coral trout and he cooked them on a small portable grill plate he’d brought up from below. It melted in their mouths as they dangled their legs over the side and watched the blush of twilight slowly creep across the sky to the gentle slap of waves against the hull.
Stella could feel the fatigue of jet lag catching up with her as the balmy breeze blew her drying hair into a no-doubt completely unattractive bird’s nest.
That was the one good thing about hanging out with a guy who’d known you for ever—he’d seen her looking worse.
Rick took her plate away and she collapsed back against the deck, knees bent, looking up at the stars as they slowly, one by one, appeared before her eyes. She could hear the clank of dishes below and by the time Rick rejoined her night had completely claimed the heavens and a mass of diamond pricks winked above them.
A three-quarter moon hung low in the sky, casting a trail of moonbeams on the ocean surface.
‘Are you awake, sleepy head?’ Rick asked as he approached.
She countered his question with one of her own. ‘Is it waxing or waning?’ she asked, knowing that a man of the sea knew those things without ever having to look at a tide chart—it was in their DNA.
‘Waxing,’ Rick confirmed as he took up position beside her, lying back against the sun-warmed wood, also staring towards the heavens. He’d taken his stinger suit off and was wearing just his boardies.
Stella sighed. ‘It’s so beautiful. I bet you never get sick of this.’
‘Nope. Never.’
He’d spent countless hours on deck at night, with Nathan teaching him how to navigate by the stars. He supposed to some, even back then, it had seemed hopelessly old-fashioned with all the sophisticated GPS systems and autopilot technology that had been around in the salvage industry for decades, but it had got him out of trouble more than once when satellites had been down or equipment had failed.
And he’d loved listening to the awe in Nathan’s voice as he’d talked about the heavens as if each star were a friend. He hadn’t just known their shape or the positions in relation to the horizon, but he’d known all the old seafaring legends about them and told them in such a way that had held Rick enthralled.
Nathan’s celestial knowledge had been encyclopaedic and Rick had soaked it up like a sponge.
And then he’d regurgitated it to an awestruck Stella, who’d hung on his every word.
How many hours had they spent as kids lying on their backs on the deck of a boat pointing out different constellations, waiting with bated breath for the first shooting star of the night?
Her arm brushed his as she pointed at the Southern Cross and he realised he’d missed this.
This...companionship.
The last time they’d done it was the summer she’d finished school for good. A year after that near kiss. She’d alternated between giddiness at the freedom of it all and distraction over her impending results. They’d lain together on deck and looked up into the diamond studded abyss and he’d told her if they saw a shooting star it would be a sign that she’d passed.
No sooner had he spoken the words than a white streak trailed its incandescent light across the heavens right above them. She’d gasped and he’d told her to shut her eyes and wish upon it and watched her as she did.
Yep. He’d missed this.
God knew he’d had a lot of women in exactly this position over the years but this was different. For a start he hadn’t been remotely interested in looking at the stars with any of them. Although to be fair, as his relationship with Stella had teetered on the brink of something neither of them had been game enough to define during their teen years, he hadn’t exactly had his head in the stars with her either.
But he did tonight. Stella somehow seemed to bring out the amateur astronomer in him.
And it was...nice.
No agenda. No pressure. No expectations.
Just two old friends relaxing after the perfect day.
‘Hey,’ Stella said, extending her neck right back as her peripheral vision caught a moonbeam illuminating a chunk of metal hanging off some kind of a fixed pole at the stern. She squinted. ‘Is that a shower head?’
Rick extended his neck too and smiled. ‘Yep. I’ve always wanted to be able to take a shower under the stars.’ He grinned, relaxing his neck back to a more neutral position.
She laughed as she also released the abnormal stretch, returning to her inspection of the night sky. ‘Well, you’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?’
He nodded. ‘I’ve been thinking about this boat for a lot of years.’
They fell silent for a moment, letting the slap of waves against the hull serenade them as their gazes roamed the magnificence of the celestial display.
Stella’s yawn broke the natural rhythm. ‘I’m beat.’ She shut her eyes. ‘All that sun and sea on top of the jet lag is a deadly combination.’
‘You can’t go to bed before we see a shooting star, Stel. Look.’ He nudged her shoulder. ‘There’s Gemini.’
Stella’s eyes flicked open and she dutifully followed the path of a perfectly formed bicep all the way to the tip of his raised index finger. She tutted. ‘You always had a thing for Gemini.’
He grinned. ‘What’s not to like about two chicks?’
They laughed and just as he was lowering his arm it happened: a trail of light shot across the night sky, burning bright for long seconds.
Stella gasped and Rick whispered, ‘Quick, make a wish.’
Stella thought about Lucinda and Inigo. And dear Joy with the patience of Job. She squeezed her eyes shut as the light faded into extinction and wished for another blockbuster.
Rick turned his head and watched her eye-scrunching concentration. ‘What’d you wish for?’ he asked.
Stella opened her eyes, her breath catching in her throat at their closeness. Even with the dark pressing in around them, his blue eyes seemed to pierce right into her soul. ‘It’s a secret,’ she murmured. ‘If I tell you it won’t come true.’
He shook his head. ‘You always were a romantic. I should have known you’d go on to write romance novels.’
His voice was light and teasing and not full of scorn as Dale’s had been. Dale had been barely able to say the R word. She smiled. ‘Says he who insisted I wait to wish upon a star,’ she countered.
He laughed. ‘Touché.’
His laugh did funny things to her insides and a part of her wanted to stay