Passionate Choice

Chapter 9.1

From the bow of the Jellyfish, Selena looked down into the clear, blue-green water through which the yacht was sailing. The wind was on the beam, filling the the shiny white mainsail and billowing out the silvery green and grey striped cruising spinnaker. Overhead, the sub was shining out of a clear blue sky across which little white puffs of cloud occasionally floated. It was the last day of their cruise through the Bahamian Family Islands and they were crossing the tail of the Yellow Bank, an area f shallow water lying between the Exumas and New Providence Island. She was on watch for the dark brownish loom of coral heads beneath the surface, the dangerous pinnacles which could rip through the hull of a boat, wrecking it, and which had to be avoided. Every so often, she would stick out an arm to point either right or left to indicate to Keith, who was steering, so that he could swing the wheel and the boat would miss danger by a few inches.

In about two hours, they would be in Nassau harbour, nosing their way into the marina where Keith kept his boat. Memories of the last time they had come this way together and had parted so abruptly and coolly rushed in on Selena and she bit her lip, wondering how she could avoid a repetition of what had happened three and a half years ago. Nothing during the last five days could lead her to the conclusion that it might be avoided. Keith had been coolly polite to her. There had been no intimacy between them at all. He hadn't touched her and she hadn't touched him, although there had been times when she had ached to break down the barrier of pleasant but distant friendliness he had erected between them.

During those days and nights, they had shared the sailing of the yacht between them, they had worked easily together as a team. She had obeyed his orders as she always had, acknowledging that in the matter of sailing a yacht and navigating it through treacherous passages between islands, he was her superior. When he had spoken to her, it had always been about the weather, the courses he wished her to steer, the performance of the yacht or to name the islands among which they sailed. A few times she had tried to direct the conversation into more personal channels but when she had, he had always moved away to another part of the boat or suggested she rested while she could when it had been his turn to be on watch.

A shout from him drew her attention and she looked back.

"We're over it. You don't have to look out any more," he called.

She wandered back to the cockpit and sat down, aware as she had always been aware, of his physical presence, of the bronze sheen of his bare skin, the muscular symmetry of his arms and legs, his shoulders and chest. Physically, he hadn't changed since the last time they had sailed together but she knew now after these last few days that he had changed as a person. No longer the light-hearted, irresponsible playboy she had known, he was harder, more serious. He had always been self-reliant and independent but now he was self-contained, refusing to share thoughts and ideas with her, as withdrawn and deep as some underwater cavern, and somehow in the next hour before they reached Nassau, she had to try and plumb those depths.

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