Maybe I will pull myself together, but none of it will mean anything without Laney. Who falls in love with a one-night stand? What was I thinking? Best to move on. She probably has.
As if by some cosmic joke, she appears. At first, I think it must be a dream.
I rub my eyes and do a double take at the familiar form, and it's most definitely Laney: chin high, french-braided hair, and swaying hips poured into a pair of running shorts. Her hair looks different, longer, even more blonde. But that’s definitely her. Her full eyebrows, her kissable neck. I’d recognize those calves anywhere. It seems like just last night those legs were wrapped around my head in my hotel jacuzzi.
The fact that I don’t have a swanky hotel room or a jacuzzi to offer her anymore no longer matters.
My heart thunders in my chest. I stand up so fast, I knock over my rickety chair and my coffee tumbles from my hand. She halts in her tracks, startled by the clatter and the subsequent cursing at the spilled coffee that burned my hand. I decide to stop acting like an idiot, frantically trying to clean myself up, and look at her. I can see in her expression she does not recognize me right away, but is looking at me with concern, as if I’m having some kind of episode.
“Are you OK?”
At the moment I say her name, “Laney,” recognition floods her face. Once again those eyes see right through to my soul, even twenty yards away. My heart goes from breakneck pace to a standstill. Everything around her fades away and I have tunnel vision. My hands, feet, and face start to sweat.
I can’t read her. Goddammit, my entire existence has been about marking people and reading people, and now, when it truly matters, I can’t tell what she’s thinking. It’s only about three seconds that we hold each other’s gazes, and then, in the fourth second, she runs away. When I say run, I mean she takes off at a full sprint away from me.
“Wait!”
I hastily clean up the mess I've made at the cafe and then take off after her. “Laney!”
Wow, she runs fast.
“I just want to talk to you!”
She shouts, “Go away!” Eventually, I catch up to her and she tries to dodge me.
“I’m not going to grab you. I just want to talk.”
“I don't want to talk!”
She then runs into the surf.
“Where are you going? To your home under the sea?”
She shouts over her shoulder, “Maybe!”
“Laney, please stop!” I have to shout to be heard over the crashing waves. “I’ll walk away now so you don’t drown yourself, OK?”
I still myself and shove my hands in my pockets. “There. Hands in pockets. I’m not going to try anything. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
She stops in the surf and turns to me, calf-deep in the water. “What happened to the accent, Fab...I mean Hugo? I mean... First of all, can I just say I knew something was off the minute you introduced yourself? You might as well have said your last name was Escargot! And, pretending you don't know what Tex Mex is? What’s wrong with you?”
“I had to make up an identity to protect you, in case the feds found out you were with me.”
The way she’d looked at me the night we met had made me feel ten feet tall. The way she’s looking at me now makes me feel like a ten foot tall hairy monster who is scaring her to death. I can’t stand that I’m making her feel this way.
“I know it was only a night, but you broke my heart. You could have told me the truth.”
“Let me explain, please.”
She shakes her head and a tear falls from her eyes. “No, I’m going to talk now. When I went home and found out who you were? I think I was catatonic for a week. I’d never had a one-night stand before in my life and then this happens? And now you’re here? On my vacation? Did you follow me here?”
I shake my head. “No, I live here. I came here as soon as I was released from prison because…because you said this was your favorite place and you've been in my head for two whole years. I do work on charter boats, fishing boats, whoever wants to pay me. It's not much but it's honest work. I thought it would mean something to be here. But to be honest, I haven’t felt that life had meaning since I saw you last.”
She stares at me for a moment and drops her head. “This is too much.”
“Laney.”
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”
And with that, she sprints away from me for the second time in fifteen minutes.
But I’ll be damned if I miss my chance with her.
Somehow, there must be a way to get through to her. I thought I came here to live simply and die alone. But I see now that’s not how it has to be.
If this isn't fate, I don't know the meaning of it.
Chapter 13
Laney
“Laney, you can’t stay in the hut for the rest of the trip.”
Poor Stella. She has her hands full. Not with the baby. The now-two-year-old is taking a break from the sun with me indoors, napping on my lap while I read a book. No, poor Stella has her hands full with me, the dead weight she brought along on her family vacation. “Who says I can’t?”
“Please come to the bar with us. Lucille is here; she’ll watch the kids.”
I consider it. The truth is, I could use a drink.
I sigh. “What are the chances we would end up on the island as him, two years later? Did you even know he
