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When Levka didn’t respond but continued to stare straight ahead, she squeezed his hand. “He couldn’t force me to go with him.”
“We can’t risk it, Caitlin,” Levka finally said, his words icy. “We always have to be on our guard.”
She twisted her mouth and looked out the window as the bus traveled through the capital of St. George, then up to a lookout. The view of the town nestled amongst the hills, its white and redbrick buildings topped with green and red roofs, the busy harbor, and the island’s south coast edged in sugar white sand surrounded by aqua water looked just like the advertisements she’d seen for island paradises. For the first time, she was really glad she’d come.
Traveling through the rainforest canopy, Caitlin pointed at a monkey with a yellow beard, black mask, and yawning mouth, sitting in a mahogany tree. Suddenly, he swung to another. “Isn’t he cute?”
“A mona monkey. They live in the forests of Africa, but British sailors introduced them to Grenada.”
“How do you know so much? You’re an encyclopedia of information.”
“Believe me, I know a lot about nothing,” Levka said, smiling. “You know, lots of trivia, but when it comes to something important, nah.”
“I bet.”
Beneath the trees, lacy ferns crouched at their feet and yellow-billed cuckoos and purple-throated carib fluttered in the lush greenery along the hairpin curves of the one-lane road. Houses hugged the tree-covered mountainsides. Surrounded by tropical flowers and ferns, the first of the falls suddenly appeared.
After leaving the busses, they headed for an aqua pool at the base of the fall, inviting swimmers to cool off.
Caitlin stared at crystal-clear pool, wanting more than anything to get in, just once, just to prove she could do it. And not this time because she was forced to.
Levka looked down at her and raised his brows.
Realizing she was squeezing his hand to death, she relaxed her grip.
He smiled. “Did you want to wade in?”
“I want to swim.”
“Can you?”
She shifted her gaze from his hypnotizing chocolate eyes to the inviting water. “I want to.”
“I can’t swim, or I’d take you in myself,” Levka said.
She looked up at him. “I wish I could teach you.”
“Someday I’d like that.”
Taking a deep breath, she nodded. “Okay, I’m going to do it.” She sat down and pulled off her sneakers, then peeled out of her T-shirt and shorts.
She smiled when Levka’s eyes focused on her shimmering blue bikini. “Do you want to wade with me?”
He pulled her up from the ground. “Lead the way.”
Stepping into the water, she shivered. “Woooh, it’s really cold. Oh, look, shrimp clinging to the moss-covered rocks and…” She drew closer to another. “…snails.” Watching swimmers sitting under the falls, she pointed to them. “I want to do that.”
“It’s twenty-feet deep out there.”
She sighed. “Yeah.”
“Are you going to be all right?”
She walked into the deeper part. “Yeah, I think so. It’s clear, not like the ocean. There are no sharks. Nothing to get me.” She spoke her fears out loud, trying to reassure herself this was not anything like her experience in the ocean. She could do it.
“I’m going to get in and swim a little way out to see how I feel.” Yet she couldn’t let go of Levka’s hand. Though the surface was clear, maybe down to about seven feet, the rest was dark, and she couldn’t help fear something was down in the blackness just waiting to get her. But the water wasn’t rough like the ocean. “I…I can do this!”
With a deep breath, she let go of Levka and jumped into the water.
