With each arm stroke, Sierra fought the waves of discouragement. She was young. She was using her life to make a difference. She was in Hawaii, for goodness’ sake! Chin up. Trust God. Be of good cheer. This is the day the Lord has made. Rejoice! Be glad in it!
Just then the guy turned around and started to swim in her direction. Sierra had to make a quick decision. He was less than thirty yards away. Should she swim back to shore and scamper off to her room? Or should she wait out the moment?
Just then the most unexpected thing happened.
Chapter Eleven
“Did you see that?” Jordan called out to the woman who was in the ocean not more than twenty yards from him. He paddled over closer to her. “Did you see the whale that just jumped?”
“No, where was it?” She swam closer to him.
“Straight out toward the island at about two o’clock. I saw a big plume of water from a whale spouting. Look! There! Do you see it?”
Across the great expanse of water a huge white puff rose from the surface. A moment later an enormous whale rose out of the deep blue sea and breached in a wide arc, splashing on his way back into the watery depths.
“Whoa!” The woman gave a spontaneous laugh of awe and delight.
“That’s incredible, isn’t it?”
“There’s another one!” The woman pointed to the left of where he had sighted the first whale.
A second great beast leapt from the ocean and curved as it returned to the sea with such a splash that Jordan wished he had his camera. “Unbelievable!”
“This is so amazing.”
As they watched, the whales continued to breach and make fabulous splashes in the water. Jordan thought it seemed as if the whales were frolicking like kids in the water on a summer day.
As quickly as it had started, the flurry of marine activity ended. He didn’t know enough about whales to estimate if or when the pod might surface again and go about their enormous somersaults. Jordan looked more closely at the young woman who was the only other early-morning swimmer and now was just a few feet from him. Her long, wet hair was slicked back from her face. She had a fresh, cleareyed look, and he guessed she was about his age. Something about her seemed vaguely familiar.
Still looking at where the whales had been, the woman said, “That was amazing. Like Genesis chapter one all over again.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she turned to Jordan. It seemed she hadn’t meant to say that aloud. Either that or when she turned and looked at him, what she saw startled her.
Then Jordan realized where he had seen her. She was the mom who had been holding the baby when he accidentally tried to enter her room yesterday.
“Were you the one who opened the door when I…” Jordan paused.
“Yes. I thought I recognized you.”
“In case I didn’t say it yesterday, sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry. I understand completely. It’s confusing. All the doors look alike.”
“Yes. Well, again, sorry.”
“No problem.”
Neither of them seemed to know what to say next. They floated in an awkward silence until Jordan finally said, “I should probably get back.”
“Me, too.”
They faced another awkward moment when they swam together toward the shore. It would have felt even more uncomfortable to Jordan if he had hung back and let her swim in first because then it might seem as if he were watching her. If he swam ahead of her, it would seem rude somehow.
Maintaining their synchronized pace, they arrived onshore and seemed to be trying not to look at the other as they went for their abandoned clothes. Once again, they were in tandem since their clothes were tossed on the sand only a few feet from each other.
“I would have brought a towel if I had known I was going to swim,” the woman said.
“Me too.”
They pulled their clothes on over their wet skin. She gave her long hair a twist and wrung out the saltwater.
“I think they have a shower up there by the pool.” Jordan wasn’t sure why he said that.
“I’m going to wait until I get back to my room.”
“So am I.” Again, he could have smacked himself for the way this conversation was going. The worst part was that he was having a hard time not stealing glances at her. Yes, she was very attractive, but he shouldn’t be looking because she was married and her husband was waiting for her back at the room with their baby.
“Well, I hope you have a good day.” Jordan gave a funny wave. He was certain that the look on his face was equally idiotic.
“You too.”
She had the sweetest smile. And just a sprinkling of freckles across her nose.
Jordan turned his head away from her and headed toward the hotel through the garden area. He didn’t look back. Several trails led to the hotel lobby and elevators. He hoped she wasn’t following him but was taking a different route. He would feel even more ridiculous if they ended up in the same elevator since they were on the same floor.
To guarantee that they wouldn’t meet up, Jordan headed for the espresso bar he had seen the night before that was located next to the gift shop. A morning cup of coffee sounded great, and he could hide out long enough to avoid meeting up with her again.
Jordan wound his way through the lobby and pulled open the door to the small espresso bar. Only two people were in line, which was good. But she was one of them.
Two things happened before Jordan could quietly back away. First, when he saw her standing in line with her long hair cascading, he knew that she was the mermaid in the turquoise dress he had captured in his lens last evening.
Second, as soon as he set one foot inside, she turned to look at him.
Going with the flow, Jordan gave her a half smile to acknowledge the obvious and then stepped over to the shelves as if he were in the market for a new Hawaiian coffee mug with the word Wailea in hot pink letters. Picking up a mug as if he were examining it, Jordan tried to catch glimpses over his shoulder so he would know when she was gone.
He listened for her voice to determine when she had completed her order. That was when he realized he was dripping water from his swim shorts. Glancing at the door, he knew he should go, no matter how strange his exit might seem, before he left a puddle on the tile floor.
The door swung open, and the groom from the wedding walked in. Jordan turned back to the mugs and closed his eyes, trying to remember the guy’s name. He remembered the last name, Mackenzie, but couldn’t recall the groom’s first name.
Before he could say anything, he overheard the guy say, “Sierra?”
Glancing over his shoulder, Jordan watched as his mermaid turned and faced the groom with a look of mixed trepidation and tenderness. They moved toward each other awkwardly, the groom making a noble effort to give her a hug or perhaps a kiss on the cheek.
She leaned forward to receive his gesture at first but then quickly pulled back saying, “I’m still dripping with saltwater. Sorry.” She laughed nervously.
“Early morning swim with the dolphins?” the groom asked.
“Whales, actually.”
“Listen, Kinsey told me about the misunderstanding on the arrangements for dinner last night. I’m really sorry, Sierra. I heard that you and Ben ended up in your room ordering room service.”
“It was fine. Really. Don’t worry about it.”
“You’ll be at the ceremony, though, won’t you?”
“Yes, definitely. And congratulations, Paul. I’m really happy for you and Kinsey. She seems like a wonderful person.”
“She is. And thank you, Sierra. That means a lot.”
The barista asked, “Did you want to order something?”
“Yes,” Sierra said. “I’d like a peppermint tea. Medium.”
“Still drinking tea, are you?” Paul asked. “I thought all the time in Brazil might have turned you into a coffee drinker.” Now he was the one with a nervous chortle. “I also half-expected to s
ee you show up in your cowboy boots.”
“I have them with me, so be careful what you wish for.”
“Anything for you?” the barista asked Paul.
Jordan realized this was his chance to make a swift escape. He slid out the door and went the shortest route to the elevator, thinking about the curious bits of information he had picked up.
The curious thing was the way the groom, whom Sierra had called Paul, was interacting with her. Did the two of them have some history? Was she a relative? The wife of a relative? Her name was Sierra, and she apparently was married to someone named Ben, who also missed out on the rehearsal dinner last night. That answered any question about her possible availability.
Intriguingly, Paul indicated that Sierra had spent a lot of time in Brazil. Brazil was on his short list of places to go to one day. He’d always wanted to see the Christ statue in Rio de Janeiro. Capturing an angle no one else had yet caught would be a great photo challenge.
Thoughts of travel and Brazil reminded Jordan of Costa Rica, and Costa Rica always reminded him of Paige. Jordan unlocked his hotel room door and headed for the shower. He wondered what his life would be like if he had gotten serious about Paige when she was ready to be serious. Would they be married now? Would he be able to have the sort of career he wanted if he were married?
Jordan told himself that Mindy had only improved Derek’s career. She was vested in his success while still pursuing her own interests. To Jordan, Derek and Mindy were the ideal couple. If he could find a woman like Mindy, he would be golden.
He thought about the two text messages he had received from Derek early that morning before he had gone swimming. Mindy was still in the hospital. She was still in an unstable condition. Derek asked Jordan to “pray like our child’s life depends on it because it does.”
With all his heart, Jordan prayed for Mindy, Derek, and their unborn child.
Chapter Twelve
Sierra took a sip of her peppermint tea and waited as Paul paid for his cappuccino. She wasn’t as flustered as she thought she would be when she saw him for the first time. She had felt more flustered during the encounter with the guy in the water this morning. They had shared such an incredible experience as they watched the whales, but as soon as he realized he had tried to open her hotel room door with his key, he seemed skittish. Sierra noticed that he had entered the espresso café right after her. Was that a coincidence, or did he know she was there? She hadn’t seen him leave the café or order anything to drink. It was kind of strange.
Paul motioned toward one of the small tables outside that had two chairs. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure.”
Sierra was glad for the warmth of the tropical weather outside. The air-conditioning inside the café had chilled her with her wet swimsuit and dripping hair. Now that she was sitting across from Paul and not feeling as jittery about the guy from the beach, she noticed how much Paul had changed. His wavy brown hair was longer than she had seen him wear it before.
In the same way that his brother Jeremy had filled out, Paul also had become more solid through the shoulders and was built more like his father, who was a large man. With Paul’s solemn mouth, long hair, and slightly crumpled white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, he reminded Sierra of an actor who played a Victorian poet in a film she and Mariana had seen right before Christmas. It seemed a fitting look for Paul since he was a writer.
She took another sip of tea as Paul pulled his chair over into the shade. She remembered the many long, handwritten letters he had sent her from Scotland while he was going to university. She had read his letters over and over and had prayed many heartfelt prayers for him during her last two years of high school while he was going through rocky times. His life started to turn around, and to Sierra’s delight, they finally shared a few promising, hand-holding months. They agreed to take it slow to see if anything more than friendship developed.
From Paul’s perspective, nothing did. Their casual dating relationship slowed to a crawl and came to a stop during Sierra’s first year of college. To intensify the blow, Paul’s brother had fallen in love with Sierra’s sister. All the family support and happiness on both sides were focused on Tawni and Jeremy while Sierra quietly buried her still-warm feelings about Paul and waited.
Now here she was, face-to-face with him after all these years, and nothing was as it seemed it would be when she saw him again. Sierra thought she would feel her heart race at the sight of him. She thought seeing him would make her melt or cry or at least feel some of the old attraction she had experienced when they had first met at Heathrow Airport in London.
None of that accompanied her thoughts and feelings this morning.
“I read your updates about Brazil,” Paul said. “It sounds like you’ve had some amazing experiences, Sierra.”
“I have. It’s been good.”
Paul tilted his head. “Have any interesting Brazilian men captured your heart?”
“No.” She felt funny confessing this truth to him. He was getting married in a few hours. She was a nomad at the moment and didn’t want to be reminded of that uncomfortable fact.
“I’m surprised. I thought you would have gotten married long before me.”
Sierra wasn’t sure how to take his statement. Did he see her as pushing for commitment when they were quasi-dating? Or was he trying to make a guy sort of compliment, meaning that she was more of a catch than he thought he was? Sierra decided the only way to find out what he meant was to ask him.
Paul leaned back. “I just meant that you were more relationshipminded than I’ve ever seen myself being. You always go after what you want. At Jeremy and Tawni’s wedding, you seemed like you wanted to be the one to walk down the aisle.”
“That’s not true. To be honest, I wanted you to notice me that day. I was still thinking our relationship might have another round to go before we decided it was over.”
Paul laughed.
Sierra remembered that laugh. It came across somewhat condescendingly in a friendly way but mostly as an attempt to camouflage his sense of being caught off guard.
“You haven’t changed when it comes to your zeal for the truth, Sierra.”
She was glad to hear that. With all the other ways she had changed over the last four years, she liked knowing that Paul still saw her as a bit brazen when it came to speaking her mind.
“You can relax, though, Paul. I didn’t come to this wedding with the same objective.” Sierra added a coy smile the way Mariana had taught her by example. The softened expression and merry twinkle allowed her to charm her way out of a corner when she had spoken too brashly. Sierra did that often.
“Well, that’s good to know.” Paul added his own twist of a grin to his reply. He sipped his cappuccino as Sierra tried to think of what to say next.
“Sierra, did you mean any of that? About Tawni’s wedding and thinking we should start dating again? Because I honestly thought we had given our relationship as much of a chance as we could back when you were at Rancho Corona. Are you telling me differently?”
Sierra felt cornered. She had found herself in that spot more than once with Paul. He was the kind of guy who seemed like a silent, deep thinker who would politely sit back and just listen. Not so.
“Is that how you felt, Sierra?”
She crossed her legs and leaned back. “Here’s how I felt: I felt as if I had invested a lot of time, prayers, and thoughts into the possibility of our relationship going somewhere deeper than it did. I felt as if you pulled back and decided it was over before I had reached the same conclusion.”
“Did you want me to prolong the inevitable breakup?”
“No, of course not. I’m just saying that you reached the ultimate conclusion before I did.”
“And you would have liked it if we had kept up a front for everyone a little longer. Is that it?”
“No. I didn’t want to be fake about it. I just was”—the word that came out surprised her—“sad. I was sad that
nothing came of us.”
Paul leaned back. He didn’t seem as if he had been very sad. She could see the wheels of his logical male mind spinning as he took a slow, deliberate swig of his drink.
“And are you still sad?” he asked.
Sierra shook her head and answered with an honesty that felt good to hear resounding in her heart. “No, I’m not sad. I think everything turned out the way it was supposed to for you. For both of us. I did wonder for a long time if maybe both of us had changed enough over the years that, should we meet up again, we would click, you know what I mean? Like the many jagged pieces that never fit together in our puzzle would have rounded off at the corners so they could be connected.”
“And we’re still jagged, aren’t we?”
Sierra nodded. They were as jagged in their connection as they had always been. That was as evident to Sierra now as it must have been to Paul all those years ago. “Kinsey is a great fit for you, Paul. I meant it when I said I’m really happy for you both.”
“Thanks. I’m glad I ran into you and we could talk, just the two of us. I didn’t know you had had lingering feelings for me.”
“I didn’t have lingering feelings. I just wondered what might have been.” The frustration in trying to express herself accurately to Paul was a familiar one and a large part of what had ground their dating stint to a halt. They never seemed to be on the same page at the same time.
“So, are we good?” Paul asked. “Is there anything I should apologize for?”
“No, of course not. I probably shouldn’t have said all that. Maybe I should be apologizing.”
Paul laughed again. “You haven’t changed, Sierra. That’s a good thing. I hope you never change.” He looked at his watch. “I should get going.” He grinned in a way she had never seen him grin before. “I need to get ready. I’m about to be married.”
Sierra smiled back. What she felt for Paul right then was the best sort of sisterly affection. This was where she had always hoped her emotions would end up toward him, but on their own, her feelings had always gone to a sad place. This encounter changed everything. She finally felt as if the closure was solid.