Passionate Choice

Chapter 4.8

The other door if the truck opened abruptly, Keith climbed in, slammed the door shut and started the engine. The truck rolled away from the telephone station down the narrow village road.

   "Did you get through to John Claes?" Selena asked.

   "Yes, he's up and about and should be able to fly out here tomorrow, maybe." He glanced at her. "You look hot. Like to go swimming?"

   "Where?"

   "There are other beaches besides the one at the resort. I remember one from the last time I was here. It's beyond the village at the north-western tip of the island. It's quite secluded." He braked the truck at the junction of the lane with the main coast road.

   "I haven't got my swimsuit with me."

   "That never used to stop you from swimming as I recall," he said drily. "I don't have mine either. Well, what do you say? Would you like to go? Or are you just dying to return to your dear professor? God, he's as dry as the dust on some ancient artefact found in a desert." His voice rasped harshly. "And I can't understand why you're going to marry him."

   "I like and respect him. He has a very fine intellect and we gave much in common," she retorted. Then with an attempt at lightness, she added, "Besides, her the only man who had ever asked me to marry him. He likes and respects me."

   His eyes glinted with a strange expression before they looked away from her face to glance out of the windscreen.

   "So what is it to be? A swim at the cove I mentioned? Or back to the resort?" he asked.

   This would be the only time she would have alone with him before he left, her one chance to steal some delight with him.

   "I'd like to go to the cove," she said and at one his foot came off the brake and the truck surged forward to turn to the right instead of the left.

   Once the village was left behind, the road meandered through the bush. There was no sign of habitation and after a few miles, the road ended abruptly, becoming only a narrow track along which no car or truck could be driven.

   Keith parked the truck and they got out to force their way through the bushes. Spiky twigs snatched at their clothing and bare arms and legs. At last they reached a beach of thick coarse sand, a narrow semi-circle of sunlit gold rimming the clear, greenish water of what was really a small lagoon, protected from surf by a coral reef so that only the tiniest of ripples showed on its surface. Some small palms and sea-grape trees leaned over the sand.

   Selena would have made some comment to Keith about the perfection of the place but he strode away from her into the shelter of some trees and reappeared in a few seconds without his clothing to run straight down to the water. Lifting his arms above his head, he plunged under the surface, reappearing several yards out to swim strongly towards the distant reef.

   She discarded her own clothing with less abandon, leaving it in a neat pile before also running into the water and diving. The water was warm but tingling with salt, refreshing on her hot skin, washing away the pinpricks of heat rash; washing away too the feeling of depression.

   By the time she reached the reef, Keith had left it to swim back to the shore and she wondered if he was trying to avoid being close to her. After resting a few moments, treading water, she swam back slowly to the beach, shaking back her hair as she walked out of the water, squeezing it as dry as she could.