The Trouble With Paradise

Cadence looked around carefully for other eyes, then unzipped her sweatshirt. Dorie took in the bikini top, which was so tight it had Cadence’s barely size B breasts looking like C-pluses.

“It’s hopeless.”

“I can fix it.” She pulled Cadence off the lounge and around the corner, to the relatively secluded corner of the boat where she’d stood yesterday having her fantasy Titanic moment. “Take it off.”

“Here?”

“Trust me. A designer, remember?” Which felt incredibly good to say. She wished she could always say that instead of “Shop-Mart sales clerk.” “Take it off and turn it upside down.” Dorie showed her what she meant, and then retied the strings.

Cadence looked down at her breasts, which now fit into the material, still snugly, but not X-rated-ly. “That’s amazing.”

“Just a little trick. Hungry?”

In marvel, Cadence cupped her breasts, adjusted. Smiled. “Starved.”

“I bet Ethan cooked something good.”

“I don’t know. He was busy busting Bobby for being a lazy shithead. A direct quote.”

They entered the galley. Busy bickering or not, Ethan had cooked something good, and they ate a breakfast spread fit for kings, served with a scowl by Bobby under the supervision of Ethan, who was wearing spotless, wrinkle-free trousers and an immaculate white shirt.

Dorie took a bite of her food and moaned. Ethan might look like a pretend chef but there was nothing pretend about the fabulous food he could produce.

So much for losing ten pounds.

“I’m going to have to replace my bathing suit with a muumuu,” Cadence said, stuffing her face.

Brandy joined them, wearing a minuscule bikini and an iPod tucked in between her breasts, looking like a supermodel.

Ethan came over. “A mimosa?”

“Oh, no thanks,” Brandy said. “I don’t drink in the mornings. Unless it’s straight caffeine.”

“Food then?”

“I don’t eat in the mornings either.”

Ethan laughed. “What do you do in the mornings?”

A wicked light came into her eyes. “Guess.”

Ethan arched a brow. “To each his own.”

Brandy grinned and dragged Cadence and Dorie out on deck, where they stretched out on lounge chairs. They slathered themselves in suntan lotion and soaked up some of the tropical sun. Well, Dorie and Brandy did. Cadence stood on the deck doing exercises.

“Crazy,” Brandy decided after watching her new friend sweat.

But Dorie understood Cadence’s restlessness. The idleness felt strange to her, too. As long as she could remember, she’d had a long list of things to do at all times. The list never seemed to go away, mostly because she was disorganized and could never actually find the list. This just lying here thing, it was definitely decadent. After awhile, she brought out her drawing pad, and inspired by the ocean, by the sails snapping high overhead, spent an hour designing beachwear cover-ups.

“Nice,” Brandy said, looking over her shoulder. “The long lines are gorgeous and slimming.” She pointed to Dorie’s own wraparound sarong skirt. “I want one of those.”

Dorie glanced over at the table Ethan had used to set up drinks for them. It was covered with a long, thin, silky cloth in bright red and yellow. She pulled it free. “Stand up,” she said to Brandy, then folded and stretched the material, wrapping it around Brandy’s hips. “There.”

Brandy strutted past Cadence-now doing yoga-looking like a runway model. “It’s perfect. I could go from beach to nightclub in this thing. A tablecloth.”

“I beg your pardon, that’s an Anderson original.”

Denny came up on deck, took one look at Cadence executing some complicated yoga pose, and laughed. “Relax, mate.”

“Not so good at that.” But she tried to sit, managing to stay seated for oh, thirty seconds. “See? Can’t do it.”

Denny, standing at the observation deck, offered to teach her to sail. “Come on, come up here.”

Cadence grinned at Brandy and Dorie, then joined him. She put her hands on the wheel, and was content until a whipping breeze jerked the boat. Denny yelled at Bobby-working on the sails-to make some adjustments, but Cadence shook her head and backed up. “That’s enough for me.”

Brandy tried next. She stood at the helm of the boat in that sexy bikini and new sarong skirt, an equally sexy smile on her face, feet planted firmly and confidently apart. “God,” she said, holding onto the wheel, tipping her head back. “The power. It’s glorious.”

“You know it.” After another sharp gust, Denny turned on Bobby. “What the hell are you doing? Hoist sail!”

Bobby, face impassive, set about the chore.

“My momma always said to think big, live big, and love big,” Brandy said, grinning. “I’m sure doing all three right now!”

Dorie absorbed that and decided that Brandy’s mother had some good wisdom. “What did your mother do?”

“Oh, she was a hooker. And at least twenty cents short of a dollar, but she was the best of the best on the street. Dorie, you’ve got to come give this a try.”

Dorie took the wheel. She could feel the swell of the ocean beneath her feet, the speed of the boat, and appreciated the authority. With the wind whipping at her and the control all hers, she felt dangerous and better yet, important. She could imagine she was a pirate on a raid, all-empowering, but then she hit the tip of a swell and the boat rose so high she screamed.

Just behind her, Denny laughed wholeheartedly.

“What if I capsize us?”

“You can try, but we’re tougher than you think.”

Good. Tough was very, very good. “What if I run into something?”

Denny took in the view. There was a faint line of islands in the distance, but other than that, nothing was out there, nothing at all.

“Good luck finding something to run into,” he said.

So she kept at it, in charge of the helm, with the wind giving her a rush. She was grinning from ear to ear when she finally turned to give the control back over to Denny-

And found Christian standing there, watching her.

“I was pretending to be a pirate,” she said.

“Ah.” He didn’t smile, but she’d have sworn his eyes warmed. A chink in the armor. She was wondering if there was some sort of trick to getting him to say more than a word or two at a time, when Andy showed up in designer board shorts and a vintage T-shirt, snorkeling mask in hand.

“Hey, partner,” he said to Dorie, looking as if he belonged on the cover of Sailing Today. “Ready to snorkel?”

Her tongue jerked once and promptly stuck to the roof of her mouth. “Um-”

Not noticing her handicap, he pointed to the stretch of tiny islands that lay scattered like a handful of emeralds cast upon a shimmering blue tabletop. “I bet we can move closer, maybe go exploring.”

Alone on a deserted island with a sexy baseball cutie. It should have thrilled her. Instead, she found herself glancing back at Christian.

But with one inexplicable glance, he was gone.

Snorkeling turned out to be a fairly painless adventure. Brandy joined them, and they even coaxed Cadence into the water-up to her neck, that is.

“You gotta relax, girl!” Denny yelled out to her from the boat. He stood at the platform, long hair flowing behind him, eyes covered behind aviator sunglasses, shirtless, tanned, weathered, looking like he’d been born to the sea.