lost track of time as she watched Zach head out to the water. The bright blue-and-white sail was easy for her to track. She picked up a pineapple spear, dunked it in her piña colada the way a doughnut was dunked in coffee. She took a bite of the fruit, enjoying the slight coconut-and-rum taste that had soaked into it. In no time, the pineapple spear was gone and she was munching on a second one.
“If he stays out too long, I’ll have to get another bowl of pineapple,” she told herself, already eyeing a third spear. “And if he’s lucky, I’ll save him one.”
“YOU’RE A VERY STUBBORN man,” Ginna told Zach as they returned to the hotel.
Ginna walked. Zach limped.
“I wasn’t going to let a piece of lumber win,” he groused.
“And it didn’t,” she said happily.
“It only took me about three hundred tries to get it right.” He straightened up, then groaned. “It was easier when I was younger.”
“When you were more agile and flexible?” she said, tongue tucked firmly in cheek. She flashed him a blinding smile when he glared at her. “Younger bodies bounce better. Softer bones,” she went on blithely. “At least you landed on water. It’s a lot softer than if you landed on, say, cement.” She patted his shoulder.
“Small comfort, Ginna,” he growled.
“All you need is a good massage and a hot shower, and you’ll feel like a new man,” she assured him.
He brightened at her suggestion. “Are you going to give me the massage?”
“Not my line of expertise. But I understand the hotel has a lovely spa and a couple of massage therapists. I hear the one named Stan is excellent.”
Zach winced and not just because his muscles were protesting every move he made.
“I don’t think so,” he muttered. “I’ll just stick with the hot shower.” He stopped at the bank of elevators. “There was a time when I didn’t end up looking as if I was ready to fall apart at any second.”
Ginna smiled at his confession. “Ah, a man of the millennium.” She pushed the call button. “Does this mean you don’t want to play tennis this afternoon?” she teased.
“Right now, I wouldn’t even play golf if I could swing the club from a golf cart,” he told her. He stepped into the elevator after the doors opened. “Still have pity for an old man and have dinner with him?”
“Okay. I’ll see you at seven,” she said.
He was smiling as the elevator doors closed. A smile that disappeared as soon as the doors slid shut. He leaned against the wall.
“Oh, yeah, you gave the lady a great impression,” he muttered. “And on the first day, too. She’ll probably wait and call later with an excuse for why she can’t meet me tonight, and I can’t blame her. I thought chasing after the kids kept me fit. Obviously that fitness routine isn’t very reliable.”
Zach took his time in the shower, savoring the hot spray as it pounded down on his battered body. By the time he got out and toweled off, he was feeling more like himself but could still feel some stiffness in his arms and legs.
He regretted not bringing his laptop computer along. Writing down his impressions of his vacation could be some good fodder for his column. He pulled stationery out of the desk drawer and began writing. When he got a chance, he’d pick up a notebook in town.
I’m sitting here in paradise. I’ll be meeting a beautiful woman for dinner. Is this not every man’s dream? After all, the kids are three thousand miles away. So why am I thinking the kids would have a ball here? Yeah, I know I’m a fool.
I’m a single dad who works out of my home. Meeting women isn’t easy unless we’re parents in the same play group or at the preschool.
But I’m still feeling guilty being here without the kids. Maybe I should look at it another way. Maybe the kids are enjoying a vacation from me. Maybe they’re doing all the things I don’t allow them to do.
Can any of you tell me why when I woke up this morning, I thought about that beautiful woman instead of my kids? In a sense, I did think about them. I thought about how it felt not having a small body jump on top of me and demand breakfast. I thought about how it felt to hear sounds of the ocean in the background instead of Sesame Street.
Then I thought about seeing the lovely lady in a bikini.
You know what this means, don’t you? I’ll be taking home a small fortune in souvenirs for my kids because I’ll feel guilty I didn’t take them with me.
And for now, I’m going to enjoy my time with this lady. Do guy-and-girl stuff. I bet there isn’t one of you out there who wouldn’t do the same thing.
Zach sat back and reread what he’d written. Not bad. Some fine-tuning and he’d have a column in the making, detailing his vacation.
He looked out over the glorious expanse of blue water and white sand.
The man was looking forward to spending time with Ginna. The father was missing his kids big time.
Chapter Three
“Vacation is starting out to be even more than I wished for,” Ginna said aloud as she wrote on a postcard she’d already addressed to the salon. “If you only knew.” She signed her name and stuck a postage stamp in the corner. “This will make them crazy wondering what’s going on.” She went on to write short notes on several other postcards to family members. She made sure each note hinted at something good without giving anything away.
She’d hoped to spend most of the day with Zach, but then she thought it over and decided maybe it was better if they didn’t spend too much time together. She didn’t want him to think she was too eager.
Even if she was feeling pretty impatient to see Zach again.
He might have thought he was less than macho for losing his battle with the sailboard, but she saw it as adorable. A description she knew he probably wouldn’t appreciate, but she thought he was pretty special. She’d met more than her share of men who wouldn’t have dared admit any type of weakness. It was nice to meet an honest man.
“I’VE COME to the conclusion I wasn’t the one having a problem with the sailboard,” Zach told Ginna over dinner. They were tucked away in one corner of the hotel’s Chinese restaurant. “It was the sailboard. It was definitely possessed by an evil spirit, and I was the idiot who had to battle it.”
“So you’re thinking if you try a different sailboard, you won’t have the problem you had with that one,” she guessed.
“I’m not sure it would be a good idea.” He moved his rice around on his plate. “Second time around, I might push my luck, get too cocky and really get hurt.”
“You’re afraid that sailboard will kick your butt,” Ginna said bluntly.
Zach winced at her candid, and all too realistic, assumption.
“That, too,” he admitted. “Death by sailboard isn’t my idea of a suitable epitaph.”
She used her chopsticks to corral a piece of ginger chicken. “Don’t worry, my brothers wouldn’t be able to do it, either. They’re happy as clams on a football or baseball field and can do their worst on a basketball court. Anything to do with water is way out of their scope. Even Denny could beat them at water polo,” she muttered, choosing a water chestnut next.
“Denny?”
Ginna grimaced. “My ex-husband,” she explained. “I usually refer to him as the scum formerly known as Denny. Even if it’s because of him I was able to take this trip.”
“He wanted you out of the state and sent you here?” Zach asked.
“If