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And beyond the gardens, in his cabana close to the sea’s edge, across the smooth-cropped turf, was Rafael.
She felt her heart give a little lift. Rafael! A man who waited for her—waited for her to bestow upon him what she knew—knew!—was in her to bestow! Rafael! A man to whom she could give what she so longed to give. For he would cherish it—cherish her—respect her.
Can I be free to do so? Finally free? Free to leave the past behind?
She felt emotion swell within her.
‘We can make ourselves anew.’ Into her head came Rafael’s voice, talking about how even the solid earth beneath their feet was constantly remaking itself. New land, new continents...constantly forming, constantly remaking themselves.
Her gaze went out across the garden, glimmering in midnight beauty.
These very islands are proof of that continual change! Each one has been formed from the liquid mantle deep beneath the ocean floor, each one formed and shaped and made anew, moving on, ever westwards, each island newborn—leaving its past behind them...
Could she do likewise? If the very earth could change and leave its past behind could she not do so, too? Could she, too, be new-made like these emerald Hawaiian jewels? Finally leaving her past behind her?
Surely I can do so!
And surely that was the answer that she sought—she could leave her past behind and remake herself for the present that was offering itself to her. Give herself to the man who, alone of every man she had ever encountered, she longed to give herself to!
Slowly she returned to bed, shivering slightly in the air-conditioned cool as she shut the glass doors, slipped back under the coverlet.
And now, finally, she slept. Content, at last, with the answer she had found. The answer she had longed for so much...
CHAPTER NINE
‘THERE! THERE THEY ARE!’ Rafael’s voice rose over the rush of the wind in the huge sail of the catamaran as they clung to the tarpaulin with their hands and bare feet.
‘I can’t see!’ cried Celeste. Then, with a gasp of excitement, she saw them.
A school of bottlenose dolphins, rising and plunging to starboard, leaping one after another, effortlessly keeping abreast of the wind-powered sail craft.
‘Oh, they’re wonderful!’ she exclaimed joyously.
The helmsman grinned and shouted something to Rafael she could not catch, the wind whipping at his words.
‘They’ll surf our bow wave,’ Rafael relayed.
She craned her neck, and sure enough she could see half a dozen dolphins rising and falling through the creaming bow wave and then the wake of the catamaran. Then, suddenly, she gave another cry.
‘Rafael! Look—look, they’re beneath us!’
She gazed down, enraptured, into the space between the twin hulls directly below the tarpaulin, as the dolphins swam beneath them.
‘The currents bring the fish in,’ the Hawaiian helmsman explained. ‘Our wake stirs them up, too, and then the dolphins make the most of them. If you come to this bay in the morning you might be able to swim with them. But beware—they are wild creatures still.’
Rafael shook his head. ‘This bay is theirs, not ours. We invade their world far too much.’
They were content with this exhilarating catamaran ride—even though it seemed to Celeste she was clinging to the tarpaulin for dear life.
When the boat tacked she slewed sideways, but Rafael was there, holding her firmly. Safely. Then they came about and he released her. But she could feel the imprint of his grip. Feel, too, the echo of the sense of security it had afforded her.
I can be safe with him—safe in this wonderful, blissful present. Safe from the past.
The words flitted through her mind.
All that morning she had felt different. As different as the stars that shone down on this azure water world of the mighty Pacific, in which the precious islands of the sea glittered like scattered emeralds, born from the ocean floor. How deep the ocean was, she thought, how drowning deep—but here, with Rafael, I am safe.
