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“The most daring thing you’ve done since we arrived is eat chicken in chocolate sauce,” Philip insisted, rushing up beside her.
If he wanted to fight, she wasn’t going to back down. “What do you want from me, anyway?” she cried.
He slapped his hands against his sides. “I don’t know. I guess I’d like for you to recognize that there’s more to life than self-actualization through checkers.”
Her hand flew to her hip, and she glared at him with a fierceness that stole her breath. “You know, I really tried to be the good sport. Everything you’ve wanted to do, including risking my life in that…that ocean surf.” She waved her finger at the incoming tide. “Deep-sea fishing…everything. How can you say those things to me?”
“For heaven’s sake, people come from all over the world to swim in this ocean. What makes it so dangerous for you?”
Several moments passed before she’d gained enough control of her voice to speak. “The very first day we arrived, you warned me that the current was too strong for swimming.”
“It was.” He pointed to a green flag beside the lifeguard station. “The flag was red.”
“Oh.” Carla swallowed and forged ahead, weaving her way around the sunbathing beauties that dotted the beach. “Why didn’t you explain that at the time?” she demanded.
Curious stares followed her as she ran up the concrete steps that led to the hotel’s outdoor restaurant. Not waiting for Philip, she pulled out a chair and sat down, purposely placing her beach bag on the empty chair beside her.
Philip joined her, taking his short-sleeve shirt out of her bag and impatiently stuffing his arms into the sleeves.
“And I suppose you’re going to make a big deal out of the fact I didn’t want to eat raw fish or dance on my hat,” Carla cried, incensed. “I’ll have you know—”
Before she could finish, the waiter came for their order. To prove a point, Carla defiantly asked for the hotel special, a hollowed-out coconut filled with a frothy alcoholic concoction. Philip looked at her in surprise, then ordered a cup of coffee.
“Carla,” he said after the waiter had left, “what are you doing? You’ll be under the table before you finish that drink. There must be sixteen ounces of booze in that coconut.”
Gritting her teeth, Carla slowly shook her head. “Everything I do is wrong. There’s no satisfying you, is there? If you find me so dull and boring, why have you insisted we spend this week together?”
“I don’t find you dull.” The paper straw he was fingering snapped in half.
“Then…then why are you so angry with me? What have I done?”
Philip ran a hand across his eyes. “Because I know what’s coming. We’re leaving in the morning, and when we arrive in Seattle it’s good-bye, Carla. With no regrets and no looking back.”
“But we agreed—”
“I know what we agreed,” he growled. “But I didn’t count on…Listen, Carla, I didn’t mean for any of this to come out this way. I think I’m falling in love with you.”
Carla felt the air rush out of her. “Oh Philip, you can’t make a statement like that after only knowing me a week.”
“Six days,” he corrected grimly, and stared at her. His annoyance was barely in check, even now, when he’d admitted his feelings. “I’m not all that versed in love,” he said stiffly. “Nicole was evidence of that. And if the truth be known, I thought for a long time afterward that there’d never be another woman I’d care about as much. But what I feel for you grows stronger every minute we’re together. We have something special, Carla, and your cautious, conservative fears are going to ruin it.”
Philip stopped talking when the waiter approached with their drinks. Carla stared at her drink. Normally she didn’t drink during the day, but Philip’s accusations hurt. She took a tentative sip from the alcohol-filled coconut and winced. Philip was right; she was a fool to have ordered it.
“I can see what’s going to happen,” he continued. “And I don’t like it.”
Confusion raced through her. Philip was saying the very things she’d dreaded most—and that she most longed to hear. “Don’t you attribute this attraction to the lure of the forbidden?” She sought a sane argument. “You knew from the beginning how I feel about men in law enforcement…and maybe in the back of your mind you thought I would change.”
“No,” he answered starkly. “Maybe the thought flitted through my mind at one time. But I felt that chemistry between us before you ever told me about your father.”
“That soon? Philip, we’d only just met.”
Her answer didn’t appear to please him. “Don’t you think I’ve told myself that a thousand times?”
The silence stretched between them, tight and unbearable. Carla shifted and pushed her drink aside. Tonight was their last night, and it seemed like they were going to spend it fighting. She was more than half in love with him herself, but she couldn’t let Philip know that, especially since she had no intention of continuing to see him after they returned to Washington. What was the use? He wouldn’t change, and she couldn’t. There was no sense in dragging out the inevitable.
“I think I’ll go up and get ready for tonight,” she said, struggling to keep her voice level.
Philip didn’t try to stop her as she stood, reached for her beach bag, and walked away. Tears had filled her eyes by the time she reached her room. Pressing her index finger under her eye helped to stop the brimming emotion. Somehow, with a smile on her face, she’d make it through tonight and tomorrow. When the time came, she’d thank Philip for a marvelous week and kiss him good-bye. And mean it.
