Read Online Here Today, Gone to Maui by Carol Snow - Free Book Online

I’d opened the bottle. They were at the table next to you—old dude, young chick.”
    “Oh, yes.” Now I could say the thing I’d thought while sitting across from humorless Geoffrey. “I figured she was his niece. His very favorite niece.”
    In the middle of a swig, Jimmy choked on the champagne and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Mr. Robertson has a lot of favorite nieces.” He passed me the bottle.
    I held it up. “Here’s to Mr. Robertson’s latest niece.” I took a long drink. It tickled my nose. “Are all of them that well-endowed?”
    “Oh, yeah. The more silicon, the better,” he said.
    He meant silicone. For some reason, the error seemed cute.
    “You probably see a lot of interesting stuff in your job,” I said.
    He made a dismissive wave with his hand. “Oh, this isn’t my real job.”
    “It isn’t?” I tried not to sound hopeful. (I sounded hopeful.)
    He leaned back on his elbows. “I’ve got my own business—designer wetsuits. It’s still in the start-up phase, though, so I took this restaurant gig to make ends meet.”
    I checked his face in the moonlight, tried to guess his age. Twenty-seven? Thirty-seven? Either would put him within five years of me, a respectable age difference. Not that it mattered, I reminded myself: I was only having a fun conversation on the beach with a very handsome stranger.
    He picked up a handful of sand and let it fall from his fist, like from an hourglass, over my foot. “Do you dive?”
    I shook my head. “I tried once. Not really my thing. Do you surf?” I’d tried that, too. The experience had been less traumatic than scuba diving but no more successful.
    “Nope.” He pointed to the scar on his jaw. “You see this? I got it in high school. Bad wipeout. Now I stay under the water. It’s safer there.”
    He lay back on the sand, his arms crossed under his head. “You can really see the stars tonight.”
    I lay down next to him and closed my eyes. “I’ve never seen them so clearly.”

Chapter 7

    When I woke up on our second morning in Maui, Jimmy was gone again. Against all odds, he had left a note.
     
    Gone for a drive & to get a bite to eat. Back soon. J.
     
    Had I not told him about the pineapple-mango scones? I couldn’t remember. According to my itinerary, we were supposed to be watching the sunrise over Haleakala right now. And then we were going to bike down the volcano. I never should have made the itinerary: planning and Maui just don’t work. Or maybe it was planning and Jimmy that didn’t mix.
    I took my coffee and a scone out to the lounge chairs. After two days, it felt like a treasured routine: the whale spotting, the contemplation, the soothing sounds of someone playing a guitar in a nearby condo.
    When I returned to the condo and found it empty I felt a tinge of worry. The little red car was flimsy. What if there had been an accident? But a few minutes later, Jimmy strolled in, forcing a smile but looking tense around the eyes. He was taking the credit-card incident hard. He’d barely spoken when we’d returned last night, just pulled a T-shirt over his boxers, kissed me on the top of my head, and gone to sleep.
    “I brought you a bagel.” He held up a paper bag.
    “Thanks, but I already ate.”
    He grimaced. “The scones. I totally forgot. Sorry . . .”
    “It’s okay,” I said. “They were kind of dry.”
    He dropped the bag on the table along with my guidebook. “There’s this beach up the coast I’ve been wanting to dive. Snorkeling’s pretty good there, too. You want to do that today?”
    “I’d love to!” I said, thrilled that he wasn’t springing another meeting on me. The volcano could wait for another day. Or another life.
    “It’s this spot past Kapalua—Slaughterhouse Beach. It’s supposed to be awesome, really secluded and pretty.”
    “Nice name. You never dove there before?”
    He shook his head. “I usually dive around Kihei, further down the coast.”
    “We can go