LATE THAT night, they set anchor near the Bahamas. Hannah had spent the day helping Sally. They fixed dinner and prepped the next day’s meals, and then had gone through the daily maintenance routine.
She was aware that James was assisting her dad, but their paths didn’t cross—which on a seventy-foot boat was a miracle, or she wasn’t the only one using avoidance techniques.
Well done.
She waited until her dad had consumed his usual bedtime cocktail and passed out before sneaking into his quarters to steal back her phone. It wasn’t hard to see in the cabin because he had twinkle lights hung across the room, blinking in festive red and green. Through the holiday glow, she easily spotted her phone on his dresser, along with another. She tiptoed into the room, but she could’ve been a bull in a china shop and he wouldn’t have been able to hear her over his own snoring.
She eyed the two phones, flashing back to James dropping his phone into the Santa hat without argument. She knew from her mom that he helped out with the family lumber business but also ran his own expedition company. Surely he needed his phone too, right? After all, what if Candy wanted to reach him? Or sext him?
With a sigh, she grabbed both phones and was backing out of the room when from the corner of her eye she caught sight of a shadow watching her and nearly screamed.
James.
She opened her mouth, but he put a finger against her lips and pulled her into the hallway, carefully and quietly shutting her dad’s door.
“Hannah Banana, sexy cat burglar,” he murmured. “Who knew?”
“I needed my phone. I’ve got work to do.”
“Of course you do.”
She opened her mouth to further explain, but he shook his head. “None of my business,” he said.
Right. And true, but a little part of her felt . . . sad? There’d been a time when they’d known everything about each other. Now the only thing she knew for sure was that he’d hoped to make this trip without her. She was silently grappling with that when one of the two phones in her pocket buzzed with an unfamiliar tone. Pulling it from her pocket, she tossed it to James. “When you scared me half to death, I forgot I also liberated your phone for you.”
He simply slid it into his pocket. Still ringing. She stared at him. He’d changed into cargo shorts, but still wore the same T-shirt. As per yachting rules to protect the teak flooring, he was still barefoot, as was she. There was something about being barefoot with someone that felt . . . oddly intimate. “You’re not even going to look and see who was calling?” she asked in shocked disbelief. “It could be important. Maybe it’s Candy.”
“I’m off-line. And she wouldn’t be calling me.”
Okay, that actually told her nothing. “But . . .” This was unfathomable to her. “What if it’s work?”
“I’m unreachable to work. It’s called a vacation, Hannah. Everyone should unplug once in a while. Especially people like you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “People like me?”
“People who can’t unplug from work because they don’t have a life.”
She gaped at him. “I have a life.”
“Good.”
“I do!”
“I said good.”
She eyed his pocket, which was lit up from his phone inside it. “What about the people who might need to get ahold of you who aren’t your work?”
“The people who matter most to me either know where I am or are here.”
She sucked in a breath, having no idea what to do with that, plus still stinging from the “people like you” comment.
“Have you talked to your dad yet?” he asked.
Startled, she blinked. “What?”
“I could tell earlier that you were holding something back from him. Figured you were here to talk to him about something.”
Nice to know she was still transparent. “It’s nothing that concerns you.”
He looked at her for a long beat, then nodded, and with one last unreadable look, he vanished down the dark hallway.
THE next morning, Hannah awoke at the crack of dawn. Actually, that statement wasn’t quite accurate. In order to wake up, she would have had to have gotten some sleep—which she hadn’t. She lay there registering the gentle vibration of the motor beneath her. They were on the move again. Turning her head, she looked out the porthole. The porthole she hadn’t won but had anyway because James had given it to her without a fight.
As if she wasn’t worth the fight.
But that was a problem for another day. Or, you know, never. At the moment, she needed to own her past and her mistakes—of which there were many. That’s what adulting meant, right? She was going to have to face all of it. Trying to pretend to vacation while working to keep a promise to her boss. Giving her dad the divorce papers right before Christmas.
James . . .
Mad at herself, she pulled on a bathing suit and another sundress—which for someone who’d just come from the States in December felt unreal. After an extremely cold fall and early winter at home, she’d been unable to fathom ever being warm again, so she had packed heavy clothes. She added a thick cardigan sweater to her ensemble before padding upstairs.
It was a stunning Caribbean morning, already warm and glorious, which was a comfort but also made her heart hurt. Drawing a deep breath, she went directly to the closed bridge door and lifted her hand to knock.
But didn’t.
Instead, she hesitated, picturing how happy her dad had been at the idea of seeing his estranged wife again.
How was she going to do this without breaking his heart? Answer: she wasn’t.
Lowering her hand, she swore and turned to walk away. But . . . she couldn’t. He needed to know. Turning back, she stared at the door again. For god’s sake, make like a Nike commercial and Just Do It already. Again she tried to knock, but couldn’t make her knuckles touch the wood. “Argh!” Spinning on a heel to leave, she plowed right into a brick wall.
James.
Of course. Because this wasn’t hard enough.
“Whoa,” he said, easily absorbing the impact without moving, wrapping his arms around her to keep her from falling.
Which was how she found herself face-first in the crook of his neck, enveloped in the only pair of arms where she’d ever felt at home. For a beat, she didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t do anything but sift her way through the memories of being right here in his arms on this boat, safe and sound and cared for.
When she didn’t move, his arms tightened a bit, and he bent and put his head against hers. “You okay?”
Sure. For someone completely losing her shit.
“Hannah?”
Just the low timbre of his voice had her eyes stinging. She decided to blame this on the sun and the morning breeze, which was blowing her hair into her face.
James looked in his element in a pair of board shorts and a T-shirt advertising something in Spanish. He was warm and toasty and so familiar she burrowed in closer without thinking.
He stilled before squeezing her gently. “Hey,” he said softly. “Let’s go somewhere else not quite so visible.”
“Why?”
“Because I know you hate it when anyone sees you cry.”
She sniffed and shook her head. “I’m not crying.” But she was sweating. She shucked her sweater. “It’s just allergies.”
“Yeah. You’re allergic to confrontation,” he said dryly and untangled her fingers from where, oh boy, they’d been fisted in his shirt. Taking her by the hand, he pulled her away from the bridge, portside toward the stern until they came to the aft deck. This was where guests usually hung out on the days they were moored and near land. It was half-covered, half-open to the sky, complete with a stocked bar, tables for dining, and comfortable lounge chairs, and led to the swim platform where all the toys were kept, such as snorkel gear and flotation devices—all empty now.
James gestured to the ladder that would take them up a level to the crow’s nest, where they’d be two stories up in the lookout, all alone.
“I don’t bite,” he said. “Not unless you ask real nice.”
Rolling her eyes to hide the fact that for one second she was tempted, she reached for the ladder. She started to climb, all too aware of him beneath her waiting for his turn. “Are you staring up my dress?” she asked.
“I do that only when you’re not crying.”
She snorted, then realized that somehow he’d managed to make her sadness retreat a little. At the top of the ladder, she climbed into the crow’s nest, which was a round platform with a railing protecting the “nest.” Someone—most likely Sally—had wrapped the mast with holly, and there was also a tiny Christmas tree that looked more like a Groot wannabe than anything else, decorated with eco-safe scrap ribbons and what looked like salt dough ornaments.
Definitely Sally’s doing.
The area was small, and the farthest she could move was maybe three feet. She was hugging herself and looking out at the stunning 360-degree view when James came up behind her.
“So . . . what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she said, proud that she’d managed to collect herself.
“It’s never nothing.” He moved to her side and eyed the water before turning all his attention on her.
Feeling oddly vulnerable, her emotions still far too close to the surface for her comfort, she sighed. “It’s complicated.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Everything is.”
Right. And this was James, who like it or not—and for the record, she didn’t—knew her better than just about anyone else, even if they hadn’t seen each other for a while. “My mom’s new boyfriend proposed to her. She’s got a date picked out and everything.”
“Except she’s already married,” James pointed out.
“Right.” Hannah patted the purse hanging across her body. “She’s divorcing him. I’ve got the papers.”
James let out a surprised exhale. “Jesus, Hannah, you’re going to destroy the guy.”
“Look, I know, okay? But she was going to have a courier deliver them just before he set sail yesterday, and I . . .” She shook her head. Closed her eyes. “I couldn’t let him find out like that.”
She heard James expel a harsh breath. “She shouldn’t have let you do this for her, Hannah. She should never have put you in this position, much less this week of all weeks, over the holiday. She knew what this time means to him.”
“Yeah,” she murmured, eyes still closed. “I know. I also know that heartbreak wasn’t on his Dear Santa list.” Nope. She’d been the only thing there.
James lifted her chin with a finger and waited until she opened her eyes. “And I’d bet you delivering the news wasn’t on yours,” he said quietly.
“No. I hate knowing I’m going to hurt him.”
“That’s why you’re here this year, so he’d at least have you when he got the news.”
She looked away, not sure her being here would help at all. “Figured I was better than nothing.”
“You know you are,” he told her, his voice low and serious. “You’re important to him.”
She hoped, but wasn’t all that sure sometimes.
“So she’s not really joining us in Puerto Rico.”
“I didn’t know she was going to tell him that,” she admitted. “I think he’s been holding out hope for a reconciliation this whole time. Finding out that’s not ever going to happen is going to break his heart. And not to make this about me, but I don’t have any idea how to tell him.”
He ran the pads of his thumbs beneath her eyes, swiping at the tears she hadn’t been aware she’d let fall. “I get that. And it’s not your fault, Hannah. Not the way she chose to tell him or how he chose to keep his head in the sand for so long when it comes to her. But you’re here now. If I were you, I’d do it sooner rather than later. Rip off the Band-Aid.”
She met his gaze, surprised by the not-your-fault thing. Intellectually she knew that was true, but emotions were never logical, at least not for her. “I’m going to break his heart.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling.”
Surprised that he’d gone there, she took a deep breath. They hadn’t talked about what had happened between them, indeed hadn’t been sure if they ever would. But she knew she owed him an apology. “James, about—”
“What was on your list?” he cut her off to ask.
“What?”
“You said you doubted that divorce was on Harry’s Christmas list. How about you? What’s on yours?”
She paused, thrown by a question that she actually hadn’t given a second’s thought to. “I . . . I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “I guess I’ve been so worried about this, and also underwater at work, building a case that’s due to go before a judge in a few days, that I haven’t even had time to think about the holidays, much less what I’d wish for.”
His eyes were on hers, unreadable now, as she braced for the age-old argument between them: she worked too hard, never took the time to live her life. And while that was all true, she didn’t want to fight with him. “James . . .”
He held up a finger and disappeared down the ladder.
Okay, so that’d gone pretty much as she’d expected. With a sigh, she sat on the platform, hugged her knees, and stared through the open slats of wood railing. The day was getting warmer and more humid now, each swell of the sea lit from the sun, the whitecaps sparkling like strings of twinkly infinity lights, so beautiful it took her breath away. As far as she could see there was nothing but wide-open ocean and an endless bright blue sky.
There were certainly worse places to find herself in the dead of winter. But even that didn’t help all the butterflies flapping loose and fancy-free in her gut.
“Here.”
James had reappeared without a sound, crouching at her side, holding something out to her in a closed fist.
She stared at his hand. “What is it?”
“A Christmas present.”
“Oh.” She shook her head. “But . . . I didn’t—I didn’t know you’d be here.”
He opened his hand, palm up, revealing an exquisite anklet with dainty blue stone charms woven onto the delicate silver chain.
Recognizing it immediately, she sucked in a breath. The stone was Larimar, a rare blue variety of the mineral pectolite, unique to the region. The last time she’d been here, she’d seen it on one of the islands and it had been all she’d wanted for Christmas that year. But neither of her parents had remembered.
Clearly James had. She stared at it, her throat thick, unsure what this meant.
“Maybe this will help get you into the holiday spirit,” James said quietly.
She lifted her gaze from the anklet. “I thought you said you didn’t know I was coming.”
“I didn’t. I saw it in a market in the Dominican Republic a few years back. I was going to give it to Harry to pass on to you.” He reached over and pulled her bare foot into his lap. Then he unhooked the anklet, carefully wrapped it around her ankle, and resecured it, the feel of his warm, calloused fingers on her skin giving her a shiver.
He looked up. “Cold?”
“No,” she whispered, beyond touched. “James, I didn’t get you anything.”
His gaze fell to her lips and he smiled. “Well, I’ve been mentally working up quite the list. It’s pretty extensive.”
She gave a shocked laugh and watched as his gaze fell to her mouth. Around them, the air was thick with regrets, longing for what had once been, and the fear of getting hurt. “James, I can’t—”
“I know.”
She stared down at the pretty anklet against her skin. “About that year and what happened between us . . .”
He shook his head. “Not talking about it.”
“But—”
He set a gentle finger on her lips. “I’m still struggling with the fact that I’m back here on this boat without Jason.” He closed his eyes for a long beat. “I’m not . . . I’m not steady enough for more today.”
It felt like a knife twisted in her heart. “I’m so sorry. What can I do?”
James drew a deep breath. “You can leave the past in the past.”
Just then a voice came over the loudspeaker.
“Morning, cruisers, this is your captain speaking. All guests please join me on the aft deck immediately.” After a pause, the voice went on: “This means you, Smalls and WK!”
Hannah sighed and eyed James, still crouched at her side, easily balanced on the balls of his feet. “Do you think he’s going to interrupt every conversation we try to have?”
“It’s your dad. So yeah, probably.”
Hannah found another laugh in her, and apparently James did too, and as she soaked up the sight of his quick smile, she had to remind herself not to even think about falling for him again. Been there, done that, and it had been more than enough heartbreak for a lifetime.