“I said I’m good. What else do you need?” She turned to face me now, tugging her suit bottom back up.
Boy did you blow that! “This is not you.” It isn’t either of us.
She was quiet for a minute before she shrugged and splashed water around casually with one hand. “I don’t know…”
Clearly you do.
“I’m sorry, Ryan. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I was enjoying this. I just can’t shake this bad feeling. I can’t think about anything else.”
“Okay…” I somewhat stuttered. “What do you mean? What feeling?”
She wasn’t smiling anymore. “Don’t you get the feeling that there’s something going on we don’t know about?”
I had no idea what she meant. I didn’t feel like there was anything going on at all. My focus at the time didn’t go much past her body. “I have no idea—”
“Come on, Ryan.” She stood up. I watched the water funnel off her shoulders and into the well-defined canyon between her breasts. I reluctantly looked away, glancing up at her face as she continued. “I don’t like the idea of this rescue mission… and I know you don’t either. No one does. But it feels like there’s something else going on… it just doesn’t feel right.”
I could tell she was frustrated that I wasn’t on the same page, but her concerns were so general and ambiguous. I had no idea what she was trying to say. Mars and Venus… She was usually pretty blunt—pretty clear—sometimes even too blunt and clear.
“Tara, everything’s going to be fine.” I struggled to find the right words to ease her mind. My eyes dropped back down to her strained bikini top and her well defined… I shook my head. Eyes up, Ryan. “None of us are going on that mission. Danny promised me he wasn’t going. Worst-case scenario, the mission fails and all those people die, but it doesn’t change any of this for us.”
Tara settled back down into the water, restricting my view to her face—or the back of her head now, actually. She wasn’t saying anything, just gazing out to sea now, but she didn’t look any more reassured. “Tara, no one’s going to be able to get to us here. We are safe. I pr—”
“Don’t.” She pointed a finger at me. “Don’t say it.”
“Fine.” I reached out and grabbed her hand and pulled her back against me. “I only want you to be happy here. I want you to know you’re safe.”
She turned her face toward me and gave me a weak smile. “I know.” She kissed me one more time. “And I appreciate it.”
I knew my speech hadn’t solved the problem. If anything, she was even more distant now. I tried tickling her but playtime was over. She pushed my hands away and kicked off toward shore. “I’m gonna go check on Ollie.”
Dang it. “Okay. I’ll be right up.”
She shook her head. “No, you stay down here and hang out with everyone else.”
Ouch. Why do I feel like I should take that personally? She was swimming away again. I slapped the water as she walked up the beach, that beautiful backside peeking out the sides of her bikini bottom, swaying with each step. Way to go, idiot! Real smooth.
As Tara made her way up the hill, I emerged from the water and grabbed a towel off a beach chair. I sat down and put it over my head. I didn’t even hear Hayley walk up. “What’s going on, Dad?”
I flipped the towel back off my head and squinted up at her. “Nothing.”
“Tara didn’t look happy.”
“I don’t even know what to say.”
“Well, did you say something to—”
“No! Nothing…at least I don’t think I did. We were just playing around out there, and I was—”
“I don’t need those details, Dad. None of us are blind.” She gestured towards the others. “I only ask because she seemed happy when she went out there with you and then…”
“I know. Tell me about it.”
“Is everything okay with Ollie?”
“Yes.” I sank back into the beach chair. “I think. I don’t know. I thought everything was okay, but for some reason she’s all freaked out about this rescue mission.”
“Seriously?” Hayley sounded like she didn’t believe me. “You think she’s upset about the rescue mission?”
I stayed silent. What else would it be?
“No, Dad, none of us are even going on—”
“That’s exactly what I said. I thought I could ease her mind somehow. I don’t know…I probably said the wrong thing.” This time, as much as I expected her to, Hayley didn’t disagree with me. At least not vocally.
“Do you want me to go talk to her?” Hayley placed her hand gently on my right shoulder. I shrugged. “Dad, don’t take it personally. Girls can be weird sometimes…or so I’ve heard.” I smiled, and she took my hand, pulling me up. “Come hang out with the rest of us for a while. By the time you get up there, I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
Hopefully. Tara wasn’t easily upset. There had to be something deeper to what she was feeling. But I didn’t know if even she knew what it was yet.
ELEVEN – Under Where?
While everyone was down at the beach in the cove, Lazzo was waiting for a chance to sneak back into Danny’s room for another look at the book. He could hear Kate downstairs singing something about loving a bushel to Ollie, but he knew she’d be taking him back to Ryan and Tara’s soon for a nap. When she finally left and had been gone about a half hour, he checked his watch. He figured he had a good twenty minutes to look around—the time it took for someone to climb the hill from the cove—so he snuck out of his room and into Danny and Kate’s. He made mental notes of where everything was in the room, from Kate’s clothes on the bed to Danny’s stack of papers on his nightstand. Lazzo carefully and methodically moved objects in a specific order to make sure he could reverse the sequence and leave everything exactly as he found it. When he finally moved the panel and punched in the key code on the safe, he took one last look out the window. He was alarmed to see Tara nearing the top of the cliff trail, meaning he had less than ten minutes to flip through the book. He swung the door open and stared in horror at the inside of the safe. The book was gone.
When Lazzo had recovered enough to think clearly, he rapidly put everything back in place. Then he hurriedly looked around the rest of the room. The only other place he could think of where the book might be was Blake’s office. He swung open the door and quickly stepped out of the room, nearly plowing into Kate and Ollie.
Kate jumped. “Lazzo?”
“Kate.” Lazzo tried to remain calm.
“What are you—what are you doing in my room?”
“This is rather embarrassing.” He couldn’t look her in the eyes.
“Okay…” Kate took a few steps back.
Lazzo didn’t like the look on her face—obvious distrust. He tried to think of something quick. “I… I ran out of underwear.” He could feel sweat running down his backbone. “But don’t worry, I wasn’t looking for yours. I thought maybe Danny—we’re the same, uh…” He stopped talking. He didn’t know if she bought it.
“Yeah…” She laughed awkwardly. “You could have just…”
“Asked?” Lazzo smiled. “It’s really not that easy. I’m so sorry. I’m so embarrassed.”
“I was going to suggest laundry.” She smiled uneasily.
He noticed with relief she hadn’t backed any farther away. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t have solved my—er—problem with what I have—or don’t have.”