Sun-Kissed Secret Baby by Leigh Jenkins
Chapter 21
It was Easter Monday, a public holiday on Sabina, and people were making the most of it. Throughout the island there were parties, picnics, hikes and beach outings, and the weather was perfect for it. Walking between Allie and Daria, Sam couldn’t be happier—and that both amazed and troubled him.
Amazed because it had been only about a week since he’d discovered his unexpected daughter, and once he’d met her, he couldn’t un-meet her. Once he knew her, there was no way he could deny how bright, funny, and talented she was, and how desperately he wanted to keep learning things about her, watch her grow, share in her life.
And troubled because, well, she and Allie were only here for another two weeks or so. What would happen when their time was up? Would Allie really take his daughter and return to her home, as if he had no desire, no right to be near her?
That possibility made him feel sick inside.
“What are they doing?” Daria pointed to a couple of young boys who were trotting past, rolling a bicycle wheel minus the tire, nudging it along with a short stick with quick, deft movements.
They were visiting the Heritage Fair in the neighboring village of Petite Fillette, where both locals and tourists thronged every year to enjoy a nostalgic look back to the serenity of fifty or eighty years ago, with traditional foods, games, and entertainment. It was a staple event on the national calendar, and all around them, activity buzzed.
“Rolling a wheel. I used to be good at it when I was their age.”
“Rolling a wheel, why?” she demanded.
“For fun.”
“But… why?” She furrowed her brow, utterly perplexed.
He exchanged amused glances with Allie, feeling a rush of pleasure at her company and relief that she’d agreed to spend the day with him. As a family, he thought, although he was smart enough not to frame his invitation to her this morning quite in that context.
“Believe it or not, kid, we didn’t exactly have smartphones and video games to keep us entertained. Partly because most of the stuff you’re familiar with hadn’t been invented yet, and secondly, because even if they had, my friends and I would never have been able to afford it.”
Daria gasped. “You mean, you were poor?”
He laughed and shrugged. “Not exactly. My dad owned a small family resort, and it did okay, so I guess I was better off than most of the other kids in Batali Beach. We got by just fine.”
Allie spoke up, pointing to the cordoned-off section of the field where the wheeling boys had come from. “Look, D! Hula hoops!” There was a banner stretched across two poles that exclaimed Remember When We Played. And, indeed, there were hula hoops, along with kids playing hopscotch, double Dutch, and Red Rover.
For a while, Daria showed off her hula hoop skills, but, despite their entreaties, Allie refused to try.
“Come on,” Sam urged her, but to no avail. She brushed her hair out of her eyes, shoved her shades back up on her nose, and shook her head vehemently. He’d have liked to see her wiggle those hips, he thought regretfully, but instead settled for the equally enticing sight of her sucking on the snow cones he’d bought them.
He ushered them on towards an area where crowds were gathering. From the screams and the thunder of tiny hooves he could tell that the goat races had begun. “Come,” he said. “Hurry!”
They followed him to the edge of the crowd, which parted respectfully as soon as people around them recognized him, and soon they were near the front, watching the spectacle unfurl. Ten or twelve at a time, goats raced along a stretch of grass, each one wearing a colored bib with a number on it, while ‘jockeys’ with matching numbers ran barefoot alongside, yelling, shouting, urging their animals on.
When Daria discovered that someone was moving through the crowd taking bets on the races, her interest was immediately piqued, and Sam willingly handed over a few dollars. She lost twenty but won five, and to her, that was a great deal.
“More! More betting!” she yelled.
Allie lifted her brows at him. “You’ve turned my daughter into a gambler.”
“Looks like it,” he agreed.
“Well,” she put her hand on her hip in mock umbrage. “Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”
He grinned. “Sure will.” He raised his voice to be heard above the cheers. “Hey, Daria. Let’s go bet on the crab races!”
The crab racing track was short and muddy, but the competition was no less fierce. Money changed hands and people screamed as the animals wandered about in confusion, numbers painted on their shells. A few of them seemed to be headed for the finish line, but then swerved around and scuttled the way they had come, earning pokes with a small stick by their anxious owners and groans from the gamblers.
When a winner was declared there were curses and jubilation, and Daria turned to him, eyes shining. “That was awesome! Do the crabs that win get anything?”
“The curry pot,” he answered with a grin, “just like the losers.”
She stared at him stunned. “You mean they eat them? All of them?”
Sam noticed to his horror that tears were welling up in Daria’s eyes, and exchanged glances with Allie. “I’m sorry, honey. Blue crabs are a delicacy. Once the race is over—”
“You should have said something! You should have warned me. Why did you bring me here? Do I have to watch them get murdered?”
As the tears spilled, Sam stooped to wrap his arms around the girl’s thin shoulders. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d understand.”
“Well I didn’t!” She began to stomp away from the racing track, and then just stood there, hugging herself.
I’m an ass,Sam thought. So inexperienced at this fathering thing that—
“It’s okay,” Allie was soothing her. She bent over and cuddled the little girl, just as Sam bent forward to do the same. Over Daria’s shoulders, he shared a look with Allie, and realized to his shock that he had never before felt so in sync with someone else. In spite of everything that had passed between them, especially that debacle on Saturday night, they were now simply two parents, trying to achieve the same goal: to comfort their child.
It was such a perfect moment of connection that he hated the thought of letting go, and only did so when Daria began to wriggle irritably. “You’re strangling me! And I’m hungry!”
Sam and Allie rose, smiling almost shyly at each other, and for a second it felt too much to bear. Allie looked away, and Sam decided to take charge of the situation. “Let’s go to the food booths, then. There’s a Blue Food Festival on.”
Allie’s interest was piqued. “Blue food?”
Sam chuckled. “It’s what we call ground provisions; root vegetables like dasheen, yams, sweet potatoes, cassava. Dasheen in particular turns blue when you cook it. There’s an annual cooking competition where the competitors make anything and everything out of them; side dishes, soups, pies… as a cook, you’ll enjoy the experience.”
Throngs of people crowded the food booths. Daria was still feeling leery after the discovery that all the cute crabs were going to be eaten, so Sam wisely steered them to a booth manned by a Rastafarian couple. “They’re vegan,” he pointed out. “So I promise you there’s no crab in their corn soup.”
He then guided Allie through a selection of blue food dishes, explaining the root vegetables they came from, and how they were prepared. Then they perched on chairs in the hospitality tent, enjoying their lunches.
“This is amazing,” Allie enthused, savoring a thick stew steeped in coconut cream. “I’d love to experiment with making this. The flavors meld so well….”
“You can come try it at my place,” he said at once. “I’ve got a good recipe.”
She looked doubtful. “I don’t know. I experiment a lot in my free time, but at work, my repertoire is limited to strictly family restaurant meals.”
“You wanted to qualify as a chef,” he said impulsively. “You never pursued it?”
She glanced instinctively at Daria, who was too busy gnawing on a corn cob to pay them any mind. “It’s always been my dream,” she admitted, “but… you know. Stuff gets in the way.”
He understood, and it hurt him. He was more grateful to Allie than she would ever know for all the sacrifices she had made to put Daria first, but he was burning with the impulse to make things better for Allie. He could hear the longing in her voice, the sense that opportunities were slipping away.
“Can we go yet?” Daria asked, wiping her hands on a napkin, and shoving her soup bowl away.
Allie turned to her in surprise. “Are you bored already?”
She shrugged. “I had fun. But there’s no Wi-Fi, sooo….”
Sam laughed, and he and Allie got to their feet. “We’d better get going, Allie, before our daughter runs out of air.”
She blinked at him when he used the words, ‘our daughter’ but rose as well, smiling at him shyly, as if to say she liked the sound of that. They fell into step with Daria in the middle, oblivious to the currents sparking between her parents.
All the way back to Half Moon Bay, she chattered on happily, recounting each event in detail, blow by blow, as if neither Allie nor Sam had been there to witness it. He didn’t think he had ever been this content.
They’d barely arrived at Allie’s cabin when Sadie came bustling over. “Hey, you guys! Did you have a nice day?” Then, without even waiting on an answer, she rushed on, speaking as if she was delivering a speech she had rehearsed. “Allie, Lauren wants to know if Daria can come over. There’s another kid, Monique from Scallywag team, and we were thinking we can make an evening of it.” She eyed Sam slyly. “Maybe she can sleep over? I’m sure you could do with a night off.”
Sam had to hold in a chuckle; the woman couldn’t have been more obvious. Allie got the message too and flushed sweetly. Daria clasped her hands together in the classic please-please-please gesture, and there was nothing for it but to agree. She made a move to go into her cabin to help Daria pack an overnight bag, but Sadie shooed her away. “Oh, pooh. I’ll supervise the packing, and Daria has her own key card. We’ll make sure to lock up.”
Then, wingman extraordinaire that she was, she literally pushed Allie towards the path leading away from the cabin. “Go, go, go!”
Sam and Allie looked at each other, frozen in place for a moment, and he wondered whether his flush was as evident as hers. What to say, he wondered.
“Well,” Allie said with a nervous giggle. “You heard the lady.”
They walked side by side, down through the gardens, along the winding path that led to the largest and most remote building on the property. One of his staff spotted him and rushed up, insisting that there was something that required his immediate attention, but he held up his hand, informing her that whatever it was, they needed to take it to his admin. “I’m unavailable for the rest of the day.”
As his cabin loomed, he felt a shift in Allie, something almost imperceptible, the smallest of shivers. He reached out and took her hand and was relieved and delighted that she didn’t pull it way. “It’ll be fine,” he whispered.
She nodded.
Inside, he locked the door and clicked on the air conditioning. Through the windows, he could see the sea beyond, the gentle rise and fall of the waves, as if the Earth itself was breathing. She dropped her purse onto a couch and turned towards him. She lifted her face to his with determination, and he was proud of her. Whenever the pressure was on, she rose to it. He could see her mettle.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
“Yeah,” she responded as if there was absolutely no reason she shouldn’t be. “You?”
“I’m great,” he said with heartfelt sincerity. “I couldn’t possibly be better.”
He was only half surprised when she made the first move. She raised her arms and linked them around his neck, tilting her face further back and rising to tiptoe, pressing her mouth against his. It was the sweetest thing; he felt as if he was melting. As if he wanted to melt into her.
He embraced her, pulling her closer, feeling his longing as a tangible thing. There were many questions, or course, but none of them needed to be addressed now. All he wanted was to be with her, close to her, please her. Let her know how beautiful she was, how desirable.
She filled his hands, her body warm and soft, her breasts pressed against his chest. He lifted his head to look at her, and her deep brown eyes were holding his, unflinching. Her plump lips beckoned, but he wanted to keep staring into those dark pools, because they led him to a deep, intense part of her that he yearned to know.
Then she sighed, pulling his head back down. Her message was clear: I want you. Now.