With a casual shrug, Austen brushed off her unnecessary thanks, then caught the bartender’s eye. “Stu, bring us a couple of planter’s punches.”
“Oh, no,” Moriah objected. “I’ve still got a beer here, and I don’t want to mix.”
“Come on,” Austen insisted. “You’re in the Caribbean. Drink something festive. You can have beer any day. Besides, you’ll love this. Trust me.”
On cue the bartender placed two tall, pinkish-orange drinks on the bar before them.
“Stir it up first,” Austen instructed.
“Why?”
“They float one-fifty-one on top.”
“One-fifty-one?”
“Just do as I say, Muffy, or I’ll have to get ugly.”
“My name isn’t Muffy,” Moriah said with a laugh as she rattled her straw around in her drink. “It’s Moriah.”
“Wow, what a great name,” he remarked with genuine appreciation.
“Really?” she asked, irrationally pleased that he thought so. “Yeah. Isn’t there an old song or something about that?” He thought for a moment and then recited with mock seriousness, “Way out west they have a name for wind and rain and fire.’ Or something like that.”
“Yeah, the wind is ‘wind,’ the rain is ‘rain,’ and they call the fire ‘fire,’” she rejoined with a chuckle.
“No, no, that’s not it. They call the wind Moriah,” Austen corrected.
“Whatever.”
“After what happened tonight, though, I’d say the fire should be called Moriah,” he murmured in a silky voice.
Moriah tried to pretend she hadn’t heard, but she sloshed a good bit of her drink onto the bar as her stirring became more furious. Dropping her straw onto the napkin, she lifted the wet glass to her lips and took a deep sip of her drink. “Hey, this is really good. I could drink a lot of these.”
“You’ll be sorry if you do,” he cautioned. “If not tonight, then tomorrow.”
“I never get hangovers,” she told him. She neglected to add that it was because she so seldom drank alcohol.
“A lot of people have lived to regret those words. Especially down in the Caribbean.”
“Do you live here?” Moriah asked with great interest. She already pretty much knew the answer to the question just from looking at him. Tourists were far too easy to spot in their newly purchased vacation clothes, sunburned from head to toe and dead drunk most of the time. Austen was much too comfortable in his surroundings, and his sun-bleached, rebelliously long hair and basic choice of clothes indicated to her that he wouldn’t be flying back to the States for the opening bids at the stock exchange Monday morning.
“Yeah,” Austen responded as predicted. “I’ve been down here about five years. How about you? Do you live here?”
Moriah nearly choked on her drink. Did she live here? In the Caribbean? Really, it was all too funny. What would the other professors in the anthropology department think? “Do I look like I live down here?” she asked in lieu of an answer.
Austen turned her question into an opportunity to give her the once-over again, and he smiled. Moriah kept any comments to herself, as she realized belatedly that she’d set herself up for his ogling.
“No,” Austen answered. “Your sunburn is a dead giveaway.”
“Swell,” Moriah mumbled as she lifted her drink to her lips.
“But,” he hastened to add, “you look like you belong here.”
Moriah gazed at him openly, honestly amazed at his statement. “I do?” she asked softly. A small smile playing about her lips and eyes reflected her genuine pleasure at his compliment.
Austen caught his breath at her expression. She looked even more beautiful than before, her face almost childlike in its innocent delight, as if he had offered her the highest of praise. “Yeah,” he breathed out quietly. “You do.”
Moriah continued to beam. “Thanks, Austen.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied automatically, still entranced by the warmth that emanated from her gray eyes.
For several moments they only gazed at each other as if verbal communication was unnecessary. Then with a start, Austen realized he knew nothing of this woman except that her name was Moriah and she was a damned-nice kisser, and he’d better get his mind in gear if he was going to score any points with her.
“So I guess you’re here on vacation?” he asked lamely, realizing they both already knew the answer to the question. When Moriah nodded as she sipped more of her drink, he continued, trying not to sound like the idiot he must surely appear. “Where are you from?”
“Originally from Newport, Rhode Island,” Moriah informed him. “I grew up there. Now I live and work in Philadelphia.”
“Newport’s a big sailing mecca, isn’t it?” Austen asked, always interested in things nautical.
“There are a lot of big yachts and sailboats up there,” Moriah agreed distastefully. “But boating is something I was never much into, personally,” she added with an edge to her voice, remembering all the nightmarish occasions as a child when the family had gone out on their seventy-two-foot yacht, Teddy’s Toy. Her father had always been determined that his four daughters would be perfect sailors and flawless nautical hostesses, and he’d spent each excursion impressing them with the severity of a drill instructor. Naturally Morgana, Mathilda and Marissa had all passed the tests with flying colors and enjoyed the trips immensely. Moriah, on the other hand, had struggled for years with motion sickness and vertigo, for the most part losing her lunch over the leeward side while her father looked on, shaking his head in disappointment.
Austen detected the bitter note in Moriah’s voice and incorrectly surmised that it was there because she harbored a distaste for people who could afford big yachts and sailboats. Therefore he didn’t pursue the topic, wanting instead to reestablish their earlier humor and ease of communication. “So what do you do in Philadelphia?” he asked in an effort to change the subject.
“I’m a teacher,” Moriah responded proudly, sitting up a little straighter in her chair.
Austen couldn’t help but grin at her, so obvious was her love for her job. It seemed like an appropriate profession for her. He got the impression Moriah was the type of person who would take pleasure in giving something of herself to others. She was probably great with kids, too, he suspected, and with her abundant good humor and self-confidence, she must be a great inspiration to her students. They probably loved her. If he’d had a teacher like her when he was in school, he definitely would have been inspired. Not to mention in love.
“What grade do you teach? What subject?” he asked her. Then impulsively he rushed on. “No, wait. Don’t tell me. Let me guess.”
Moriah sipped her drink slowly and told him,
