Authors: Suzan Colón
“And then everything got really quiet,” Carson says.
“Huh?”
“You’re all quiet now,” Carson says. “Should I have lied about me and Anya?”
“No, no, of course not.” I don’t want to admit that Anya’s story is upsetting me. I don’t even know the details of it, but I don’t need to. I’m not the first girl who came here on vacation and got caught in the green undertow of his eyes. If I stayed here, as Carson keeps hinting I should, I wonder whether I would gratefully take whatever job Juan had available at Emerald Cove just to remain in Carson’s sunlight. I’m sure Anya’s friends thought she was brave in changing her whole life for love, but her decision seems to have had all the triumph of me taking on my first big wave and nearly drowning.
Carson looks at me and frowns, clearly regretting his honesty. I touch his arm. “I’m really not upset about Anya,” I say, shoving the truth under a pile of dead palm leaves. “I’m just doing what you said back at the volcano, being in the moment, admiring the beauty of this place.”
After a tense moment for me, Carson breaks into his sunny smile. “This is just a shabby back path, and you think it’s beautiful. I love that about you.” He touches my cheek, gazing into my eyes as he seems to weigh a thought. “If you think this is good, I have something to show you.”
“Better than the waterfall and the orchids?” I ask as we start walking again.
“The best,” Carson answers.
“OKAY, JUST A little bit further,” Carson says from behind me. His hands are covering my eyes, and we’re advancing slowly through what feels like very overgrown terrain.
I feel plants softly brushing my legs where my board shorts end, and because I can’t see, I’m walking cautiously. “You’d tell me if I was about to step on a snake or off a cliff, right?” I ask.
“No snakes or cliffs where we’re going,” Carson assures me. “And we’re almost there. Just a few more steps, and
. . .
okay, open your eyes.”
Going from the darkness of his hands to bright sunlight has me blinded and blinking for a moment. Gradually, colors come into view and form a vision. Every jewel-like shade of blue and green becomes the ocean, the waves gentle and capped with sparkling white. Glittery champagne morphs into crystalline sand, bright compared to the dark, volcanic ash-tinged sand near Emerald Cove. Hills adorned with flowering bushes and palm trees bend gently downward to embrace this small, perfect stretch of beach. And there’s no one here but us.
“This is Heaven. That’s what I call it,” Carson says. “Randy, Evan, and I found it by accident when we were looking for another beach where we’d heard the surfing is good. We’ve never seen anyone else here, not even locals.” He looks at my awestruck face. “Nice find, huh?”
“Carson,” I sigh, “it’s incredible.”
I stand there marveling at Heaven’s unspoiled beauty as Carson goes to a shady spot under a cluster of palms and spreads out a white sheet. I walk to him slowly and carefully, trying not to leave too deep a footprint in the silken sand. It seems a shame to disturb its perfection.
Carson leans back against the base of a tree and pats the space in front of him. I sit between his legs and recline against his chest, loving the feeling of his arms wrapping around me, his legs crossing under my knees. Both of us sigh in unison as we take in the magnificent view, a vast and endless expanse of ocean and sky. “This place is unbelievable,” I murmur.
“This is my idea of what heaven must be like,” Carson says. “When people talk about spirituality, this is what that word means to me. It’s like a cathedral, something holy.” A few comfortably quiet moments go by. “I’ve never brought anyone else here, Kate.”
I can hear in his voice how important this place is to him, and I’m honored that he wanted to share it with me. I hold his hands, lacing my fingers with his, and look out at the pure blue horizon. “I love that you can’t see any planes or ships. It’s probably been just this way for thousands of years.”
“I wish it could stay like this,” Carson says darkly. “Beachfront property here is getting bought up and built up so fast. We’ve lost some beautiful shoreline to condos and hotels. I’m almost afraid to come here and see bulldozers on it someday.” I feel him shudder against me. “I wish I could buy it and keep it just the way it is.”
“Got a few million on you?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “Not available at the moment, though.”
I chuckle at his joke, though I know the situation is no laughing matter to him. He kisses the top of my head. “I’m glad it’s still perfect. I wanted you to see it and to share it with you. We just have to enjoy it while we can,” he says with a sigh. “I guess nothing lasts forever.”
Time seems to hold still for us so we can look out at the untouched sand and an endless ocean that has probably been this way forever and yet won’t be this way forever. Carson is right. You can love something with all your heart, but that won’t keep it from changing, coming to a close. I thought Daniel and I were going to be forever. Anya may have thought if she moved here, she and Carson could be forever. This beach, that has probably felt centuries of couples making love on its sand, will be changed some day. Forever doesn’t exist. The only thing that does is for now.
Slowly, I feel something slipping away from me. A demand I can’t ask for, the comfortable safety of permanence, ebbs away with the gentle waves moving off the sand and into the sea. Nothing can last forever. Even this perfect moment, in this most beautiful place, with this man unlike any I’ve ever met, is imperfect because it can’t last. But that doesn’t keep it from being the moment I’ve been waiting for.
I sit up and turn to Carson, kneeling in front of him. His face, his open expression, his beautiful eyes gazing at me, all fill my heart. I cradle his face in my hands and kiss him once, softly. And when I look at him again, he knows what I feel. In this moment, this most perfect of imperfect moments, I can tell we feel the same thing.
Slowly, Carson comes toward me, kissing me softly. Our lips touch, caress, press together. Our mouths open in unison, now familiar, yet still tantalizing. His tongue beckons mine, and I am there, and we touch and stroke with adoration, and we melt together.
My hands take their time going down the expanse of his back, wanting to feel the muscles that move in sensual response to my touch. My fingers travel further downward until they can curl around the bottom of his sky blue T-shirt and pull it up. Carson reluctantly breaks our kiss to let me take it off and quickly seeks my mouth again, though his kiss is slow and luxuriant when he arrives. His hands on my waist slip under my tank top, caressing my body as he pushes the shirt up. When he reaches my bra, I barely feel it being undone before his warm, smooth palms are against my tender skin. His thumbs sweep over my breasts, then again when he feels my nipples reacting, hungry for his touch. He cradles my breasts, handling them with reverent passion, and then he pulls my shirt and bra off.
I’ve been undressed in front of Carson before, but for a moment I’m shy. Then I see the way he looks at me, with the same wonder we felt for the orchids and the waterfall, and my shyness falls away as easily as my shorts. I barely feel them being pulled down my hips and legs, aware only of the feel of Carson’s hands on my bare skin.
He lays my naked body down on the sheet and embraces me. I feel the soft sand beneath my back give slightly as he rests on top of me, mostly braced on his elbows, but I can still feel the sweet weight of him.
“Kate,” he whispers, tenderly touching his lips to my temple and down my cheek and my throat and along my collarbone. “My beautiful Kate.”
My eyes close. My skin drinks in the feel of his kisses, moving slowly down. His hand holds one of my breasts, and I feel the warmth of his mouth on my nipple. My back arches up to him in the most natural way in the world, my body waiting for him all this time.
Carson has touched me before, but the slow trail of his fingers down my belly, over to my hip, and then further down has my skin shivering. His fingers play a symphony on and inside me. Only a short time together and he knows how to make small cries come from my throat, how to make my hips rise, and how to make me shudder, now mute with pleasure but for a series of gasps. His kisses are softer as he holds me in his arms.
But the glow of us continues to spread within me. I need more of him. My hands hungrily wander his arms, feeling his biceps tensing as he balances above me. Then down his back and to his hips. I can just feel the ridge of muscle leading down to his pelvis, but then the band of his jeans stops me, so frustrating to my inquisitive fingers. They quickly go to the button at the top of his jeans. Not wanting to stop kissing me, Carson merely lifts his hips away from mine so I can undo the button fly. I try to free him slowly, to sweetly tease him as he has me, but it’s too much for him. He makes a gleefully frustrated moan within our kiss before breaking it, quickly rolling to one side, shucking off his jeans and underwear, and rolling back on top of me so fast I start to giggle. Until, that is, I feel him pressing against me, warm and wanting. But waiting, as he looks deeply into my eyes.
“Kate.” He swallows hard. “There’s something I want to say to you.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” I whisper. I can’t ask him for forever, and he can’t give it to me. I don’t even want to hear him try. Too soon, the day would come when forever would end, and that would be the same as him coming to this beach, his vision of heaven, and finding it ruined. “Please, Carson. Just make love to me.”
He looks at me to make sure. “My beautiful Kate,” he whispers. He kisses me deeply, and a moment later, he pulls away to root through the back pocket of his jeans. He blushes. “I was so hoping this would happen,” he explains, tearing the condom wrapper open. Then he gets quiet, his eyes locking with mine as he slowly pushes inside me.
Ecstasy possesses me, filling me, but it’s more than that. I’m overwhelmed with the emotions I feel and see in Carson’s eyes as he looks at me. It’s all so much that my head falls back, my body wrapping around his as we two become one. I feel him tremble in my embrace as we revel in this first moment of our union.
As we get used to this magic, we begin to move together like silk. We’re graceful, sensual, our motions choreographed by instinct. Oh, we move so well together that it makes us smile. We’re in our glory, Carson and I, giving and taking with ease, our desire mutual, our desire to please just as mutual. My legs wrap around his waist. He gathers me up closer to him, and our chests press together. I can feel his heart beating a call to mine. Our eyes are locked, we breathe the same breath, and Carson kisses me, hard, moaning in our kiss, moving faster, my hips rocking to meet his as we hold each other tighter.
Bliss streaks like lightning across the sky. Then, suddenly, everything beautiful I’ve ever seen or felt or thought of in my life comes together, blinding me and making me see so clearly what love can be. I cling to Carson the way I want to cling to this most perfect moment and be in it forever. He gasps with the beauty of it, too, his eyes shut tightly, stunned by it as I am, saying my name over and over and over like a string of prayers.
When we fall, we fall together, into each other.
I’D FORGOTTEN WHAT it was like to make love for the first time and then to recreate that physical alchemy again and again. After the first time at Heaven, and the second, Carson and I returned to Emerald Cove, showered together, and got dinner to go. We had a picnic on our bed, feeding each other for a while before moving the plates out of the way and becoming each other’s dessert.
The next day was the same, a blur that could be recounted not by time, but by our physical discoveries beyond the ones I expected. Carson’s muscles leave dimples at the small of his back. I never knew how sensitive I was behind my knees until Carson drew designs there with his tongue.
Now, groggy from a deep, dreamless nap after another ecstatic stupor, I wake not knowing whether it’s still night or day or what day it is. The only thing that feels familiar is the warmth of being spooned from behind, a male arm slung possessively around me, and I wonder in a dazed sort of way where the cartoon mouse tattoo on Daniel’s forearm has gone.
“Mmmh,” Carson moans sleepily behind me as I startle awake. Not Daniel, not five years ago. I’m so disoriented that my heart starts pounding. Carson doesn’t seem to notice as he lazily shifts on top of me, murmuring, “You’re going to kill me,” as his hips nudge my thighs apart.
“Same.” That’s all I can think to say, still trying to wake up, get my bearings. Is it possible to be sexed senseless? Carson rests his chin between my breasts and smiles. “I was wondering if you’d have dinner with me some time.”
I have to laugh, given our situation and our position. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
He nods. “If we’d met some other way, I would have asked you out properly. Taken you someplace nice, not just the buffet at the Emerald Cove mess hall. So, better late than never. Would you have dinner with me?”
Smiling, I answer, “I’d like that.”
“I don’t want to insult you with short notice, but are you free this evening?”
“And I don’t want to seem too available,” I say, “but yes, I think that could be arranged.”
THAT NIGHT, AS the sun colors the ocean and sky orange during its lazy descent, I put on my best dress, otherwise known as the only dress I brought here. Carson, dressed crisply in a blue button-front shirt and khakis, borrows the shared Beetle again to drive us out of Emerald Cove and through winding hills. When we get to a short steel bridge, he pulls over. “I have to show you something cool,” he tells me, a hint of mischief in his eyes.
We lean over the bridge, which is about fifty feet over a shallow river. The water rushes gently over small boulders and some logs. By Costa Rican standards, it’s not a particularly pretty view. Just as I’m wondering what Carson wants to show me, a palm frond floats toward the water, and one of the logs leaps up and snaps a tremendous set of jaws. I jump about three feet in the air. “Oh my God!” I say, laughing from shock. “Are those alligators?”
Carson nods, wearing a little-boy grin. “Pre-dinner theater, Costa Rica style.”
A short drive later, we come to a fancy restaurant with a big wooden sign that reads, in Gothic lettering, Valhalla. “A German restaurant?” I ask.
“That’s where you go to get good German chocolate cake. And they have the best view,” Carson explains. I don’t know about the dessert, but he’s right about the other part. The maitre d’ leads us to a corner table on an outdoor deck overlooking a vast, lush green valley creped in evening mist.
Carson moves his chair from across the table and puts it next to mine. I try to read the menu, but I can’t concentrate with his fingers drawing little patterns on my knee. “There’s no point in looking at that,” he says. “We have to get the steak for two. It’s the house specialty.”
“Well, okay then.” I guess the days of me sitting patiently while Daniel analyzed the menu for vegan options and then special-ordered the waiter to death to make sure there wasn’t a shred of animal in his food are over. “Do you always make decisions this easily?”
“Definitely. I’m not much of a ‘look before you leap’ guy. Once I make up my mind, that’s it.”
“Even with big decisions?”
Carson nods. “Especially for big decisions. No over-thinking, no regrets.” He touches my hand affectionately. “I’m sure you can relate.”
“Me?” I have the presence of mind not to tell him that I’m the type who frets about thinking about looking before she decides not to leap.
“Yeah, you,” he smiles. “You changed your mind about going home in five seconds. I bet you made the decision to come here pretty quickly, too.”
“Well, the travel website didn’t give me much choice.”
“You could’ve said no,” Carson tells me.
Well, money issues aside, I suppose I could have. But everything has turned out so incredibly well that I don’t even bother with that moot point. I just smile as Carson gives the bow tie-wearing server our order, adding a bottle of some incredibly froufrou-sounding wine with perfect French pronunciation. When the server says they don’t have it and makes an equally chichi suggestion, Carson says, “Only if it’s the eighty-nine. The ninety’s not that great.”
The server walks away before I call, “Oh! Sir, is there any avocado in what we ordered? I’m allergic.” The waiter assures me there isn’t, and Carson looks repentant. “Kate, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Of course, how could you have?” I say, and just manage to stop myself from adding
We barely know each other.
Such a small detail, a food allergy, and something that only comes with time spent together. Mentioning it was the first thing Daniel did whenever we went out to eat or ordered in. He was always looking out for me. I shake the thought away, demoting it to him adding one more thing to his own litany of food issues.
Moments later, the server returns with the wine. He displays the bottle for Carson’s approval. With a show of grace and dexterity, he uncorks and pours a small amount in a glass. This is all very impressive, but I like the way Carson’s not making a big deal about his part. He takes a sniff and a taste, and he closes his eyes for a moment of enjoyment. Then he hands me the glass.
“Me? I don’t know anything about wine.”
“You’ll know whether you like it or not,” he says. He and the waiter smile at me kindly.
I take a sip. In my first formal wine presentation moment, my writerly pronouncement is, “
Ohhhh
yeah.”
Carson and the waiter laugh as our glasses are filled. We clink to nothing, just gazing in each other’s eyes. After a few luscious sips, I ask, “Where did you learn about wine?”
“My father,” he says. “Well, it was part of executive training at his company. So I guess he kind of forced me to learn about it.” He takes a larger swallow.
“What kind of business is your father in?”
“Media,” Carson answers, his eyes on his glass, though somewhere else. “Newspapers, magazines, websites, television.”
“Wow. That sounds kind of big.” Carson nods once but stays quiet, swirling his wine. “I’ve worked for some magazines,” I prompt, wanting to know more about him. “What company does your dad work for?”
He bites his lower lip for a moment before answering. “Wakefield.”
I’m not sure I’ve heard him right, though I know I did. “Wait a minute. I’ve worked there. Your father works for Wakefield Media?”
“No,” Carson answers. “My father
is
Wakefield Media.” He drains his glass, then he picks up the bottle. “More?”
“Yes. No, I mean more about you. Carson, you told me your last name was Richardson.” Slowly, something dawns over me. “As in, Richardson Wakefield. The head of Wakefield Media, one of the biggest media companies in the world.”
“The biggest. Last I checked.” Carson sighs and looks at me with a new kind of vulnerability. Not the way he’s shown me his emotions. This is the wariness of someone wondering if he can trust the person he just told a big secret.
He gets a momentary reprieve from my questions as the waiter brings our tiger shrimp cocktail appetizers. Then, when I keep staring at Carson, not even knowing what to ask, he says, “I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t mean to lie to you. I’ve been hiding who I am for so long I forget the truth. Or I try to.”
I don’t know whether I should be mad that he lied to me, so I just ask, “What is the truth, Carson?”
He thinks for a few seconds before a smile twists one side of his mouth. “Can you imagine me in an office, wearing a suit and a necktie as tight as a noose, crunching numbers on spreadsheets?”
I shake my head slowly. “Not even if I tried.”
“Well, my father could. From the time I was little, like all the Wakefield kids before me, I was being groomed to go into the family business. No choice, no questions about whether I’d be into it or not. Just, ‘You’re going to this university, and you’re taking these courses.’ School year round,” Carson says, “except for the days I played hooky to surf or snowboard.” He chuckles. “The old man nearly killed me for that.”
“Just for taking a few days off and surfing?”
“Zero tolerance for anything other than what he says,” Carson tells me, his eyes rolling briefly. “My mom begged me to go with the flow, not cause trouble. I love her, so I went along with things for a while. I put on the suit, the noose, went to the office, crunched the numbers. And each day, I felt like a piece of me got grey and died.” Carson’s shoulders hitch in a shrug. “I tried to tell my father it wasn’t working out, but he didn’t want to hear it. So I left.”
“You went to work somewhere else?” I ask.
“No,” Carson says, peeling the tail off a tiger shrimp. “When he told me to pick five hundred people within the company to lay off for cutbacks when we could have done a number of other things to save money, I got up, put my necktie in the shredder, and walked out of the Wakefield Building. Then I went home and booked a one-way ticket to Costa Rica.”
My mouth is suddenly dry. “I was one of those five hundred people,” I say.
Carson’s eyes go dark. “Just think, I almost fired you,” he murmurs as he refills my wine glass. “I like the way we met much better. Don’t you?”
I take a gulp of wine. Of all the things I thought I knew about Carson, now I feel like I hardly know him at all. “What did your father say when you left to come here and teach surfing?”
“I didn’t tell him. And he doesn’t know where I am now, hasn’t since I left two years ago. It’s only fair,” Carson says, his voice turning bitter. “I never knew where he was when I was growing up. He was never home, always at the office or at one of the company offices somewhere around the world. He missed all of my graduations and my sister’s as well. And all our birthdays. He was never there for any of us.”
The server comes with our steak, and after a concerned glance at our barely-touched appetizers, he begins carving it carefully on a small table, slicing and dividing with precision. I watch his movements intently as I try not to feel so many things swirling inside me. It’s not that Carson lied. It’s the way he suddenly left his mother and his sister, ultimately because he was angry that his father was never there for them. He must not be able to see the parallel. And he couldn’t know how it resonates with me, with my father leaving me behind.
He waits until the server leaves to put his hand on top of mine. “Kate, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I don’t want anyone here to know who I am. There was a big scandal at home when I left. It made the papers, and my father was furious. And people have always treated me differently when they find out who I am. Or was,” he amends. “It’s just so much easier being some random surf instructor, not the heir to a huge family business that I don’t want any part of.” He squeezes my hand tentatively, asking for me to look at him. “Kate, talk to me.”
“You left your mother and sister,” I accuse.
“No,” Carson insists. He shifts his chair closer to mine and takes both my hands in his. “I left my father’s iron-fisted plan for my life, right down to the person he wanted me to marry. Yeah, really,” he says to my look of shock. “But I’ve always stayed in contact with my mother and sister, and I’ve sneaked home to see them when my father’s out of town.” He smiles when he sees me soften a bit. “I’ve told you something nobody else knows, Kate. Not even the people I love most in the world know where I am right now. But if they could see me here with you,” he says, “I know they’d be happy for me.”
His eyes beg me to return to the way we were just a few minutes ago, when everything in the world was ours to share. I’ll have to leave that world soon enough, but not yet. “I understand,” I say, squeezing his hands back. “And I won’t tell anyone.”
We enjoy our dinner and our beautiful evening. The drive back to Emerald Cove is quiet but for some soft music on the radio. Carson holds my hand the entire way, frequently looking at me to gauge my expression. I give him small smiles to let him know that everything is fine.
Back at my tentalow, we undress in silence. This is the first time in days that we don’t automatically begin kissing as soon as we’re alone. We climb into bed, and Carson gives me a long look. “I feel like something’s changed,” he says. “I shouldn’t have brought my family issues into this. But I wanted to be honest with you.” He rolls onto his back and sighs. “Have I ruined everything?”
I touch his cheek to make him look at me again. “I can make things even with us. One big, ugly family secret for another.” I take a deep breath, and now I have to lie on my back so I can look at the blank green canvas of the tent’s ceiling. “I don’t like being honest. I don’t like telling people the truth about things, the way I feel. I did that once with my dad when I was nineteen. I hurt him. Badly.”
Carson waits. Then he asks, “What did you say?”
“I told him I hated him.”
He asks softly, “For leaving your mother?”