“Honey, if we had kids, there’s no way I’d keep a loaded gun around. But I like to know it’s there, just in case. My father taught me to have a gun handy in case of emergencies. One time, when I was too young to remember, some criminals broke into the house. I’ll teach you to shoot, if you like. Maybe it’ll make you feel a little bit more confident, make you understand it’s not as scary as it seems.”
“Maybe,” I said, without enthusiasm. “Maybe, but some other time.”
“Yeah, some other time.”
Ashton strolled toward the other side of the kitchen, took the dish of pasta from the oven and brought it, piping hot, to the table. It smelled delicious and my stomach rumbled in appreciation. He then stood behind me, massaging my neck and shoulders. The wine, the effort he’d made with the cooking, his touch—desire for this man spread through my body. In a couple of hours, we’d be making love.
“Let’s just have a great day out tomorrow and concentrate on each other,” he said. “I’ve missed hanging out.”
My knots melting, I let out a sigh. His full-on attention and kindness made me feel equal parts sad and equal parts in love.
Nine
We were racing along choppy waters out to sea, the wind warm, the salty air a springboard for my soul.
Ashton was in his element, too. “For shallow waters and chop, this little boat has done me proud. It’s the second Action Craft FlatsMaster I’ve owned. You have to watch out for sandbars along here. Navigating these waters is no easy feat.”
“It’s a fun boat,” I shouted above the roar of the motor, glancing up at him. “I love boat trips.”
Ashton had prepared our picnic himself, stowed away for later. He’d done it all while I was fast asleep in bed this morning. I looked at him now, the waves of his sandy hair bleached all summer by the sun, and his dark eyes crinkling with happiness. Yesterday’s tired neurosurgeon was quite gone. His spirits lifted with every wave, with every bounce of the boat. He looked boyish and younger than his thirty-nine years.
I thought about what Lindy had told me about Ashton: that he was a ladies’ man. He was a catch, I was well aware. I reminded myself how I had lucked out, how hard I worked—so careful to dress the way I knew he liked women to dress and behave. Feminine, but not too flouncy. Assertive but never aggressive.
Ashton slowed down the boat some, as he navigated through a narrow channel. “You know, Beaufort’s history is as old as the hills. All kinds of nations and cultures have put their mark on this place. A lot of different European explorers—from the Spanish to the French, usurping Native American tribes’ lands along the way, and then the English with Sir Francis Drake—staked their claim on these sea islands.”
“Francis Drake was no more than an aristocratic pirate, really. Queen Elizabeth I’s pirate, who was rewarded for looting and stealing,” I said, feeling pleased with myself that I could offer some tidbits of knowledge.
Ashton laughed. “I like your take on it.”
“They all acted like pirates,” I said. “They all behaved badly.”
“True. You know that the European settlers brought the first strain of malaria to the Lowcountry? Then a new strain came along with slavery.”
I grimaced. “Ugh, I hate that evil part of American history. It’s so shameful.”
“No denying that. I’m proud that one of my ancestors—a doctor—was an abolitionist; he was part of an underground movement to help slaves gain their freedom. The Gullah are an important part of our culture. Probably the most important African-American community and linguistic heritage in the United States. You know some of the largest populations of Gullah are here in Beaufort? They were from the west coast of Africa. Brought over for their expertise in rice cultivation. Rice became one of the most successful industries in early America. Charleston, for a good hundred years, was the richest city in the country, thanks to the skill and ingenuity of the West African culture.”
“I didn’t know that about the rice,” I said.
“And their incredible talent for music? Gullah music was the basis for gospel, jazz, and the blues and influenced all American music, really. And, of course, their sweet grass basket weaving is famous.”
“Not to mention their cuisine,” I added, thinking of Georgia-May’s nurse’s amazing dishes. I told Ashton about Mariama’s fabulous recipes that I was trying to get my hands on, but the mention of his mother made him go quiet again. I wasn’t going to let him get away with clamming up about his family and his past yet again. Not today. I broached the subject of his father. There was a backstory there, and I needed for him to share it with me, once and for all.
He groaned. “You really want to go there?” And then he sped the boat up so the noise made it hard for us to hear each other.
“You bet ya!”
Just then, as if by miraculous timing, a dolphin rose out of the pearly water and broke through the waves beside the boat and began to swim alongside us. Then there was another.
“Look! Dolphins!” I cried out.
Their speed was amazing as they steered with their tails like the sterns of boats. The sunlight caught their backs as they shimmered and arced through the waters. A third arrived.
“They’re the bottlenose variety,” Ashton shouted above the motor.
I leaned down as far as I could over the boat, mesmerized by the grace and rapidity of these incredible creatures. It was as if they had magical propellers as they streamlined through the water, their dorsal fins slicing along like sails. They steered with their noses, too, weaving and cutting through and under and over each other. How anything so fast could glide with such grace amazed me. Their skin was a little bit mottled, a beautiful silver gray—no, several shades of silver, platinum-gray—and their bellies pearly white. I caught their smiles as I looked from one to the other, and then down they went into the water and disappeared. My heart dropped with disappointment at such a fleeting visit from them.
But Ashton shouted, “They’re over here, starboard!”
I scrambled to the other side of the boat, my eyes darting around the water, and I made out the moving shadows beneath. Then they came up again, one and then the other, and the third, smaller one. Their curving, powerful leaps almost took me by surprise. Water unspooled off their backs like ribbons as they dived back down, bottlenose-first.
So free! I shuddered to think of their cousins, captive and imprisoned at sea parks around the world, hiding their misery with default, permanent smiles. These dolphins were so liberated, so one with nature. Tears—wind tears or real tears I wasn’t sure—were streaming down my face. The flutter in my heart told me they were tears of happiness, because I had never been up so close and personal to an exotic and majestic wild animal before. A free wild animal.
Then, as miraculously as they had appeared beside our boat, they vanished deep into the Carolina waters. I looked around, bereft.
They were gone.
My gaze finally tore itself reluctantly away from the water as Ashton slowed the boat down. The creek became smaller, dividing itself into thin arteries like veins on a leaf. Spartina flanked the marshy, narrow channels with abundant grass. After Ashton navigated a left, we arrived at a tiny island, where a thick grove of palmettos and a fountaining sound of cicadas welcomed our arrival. Sea oats flipped their tawny-green colors in the salty breeze, and the wind lifted a little, shimmying feathery ripples through the water. The boat puttered in the suddenly shallow creek, then he killed the motor and we drifted noiselessly.