a card out of her wallet and handed it to him. Like its owner, the card was smooth, classy, and slender. “We’ll have a party.”
“Party?” His eyes lit up. “A New York party?” Visions of glittering dance floors, wild colors, and wilder music raced in his head.
“Absolutely.”
“With all the ice cream you can eat.”
“Don’t be cranky, Douglas. You can come too.”
Jacques was quiet a moment while his imagination worked out all the fascinations of a party in New York. His brother had written about women with dresses that came high above the knee and cars as long as the canoe he rowed. There were buildings as high as the mountains to the west. Once his brother had eaten in the same restaurant as Billy Joel.
New York, Jacques thought, awed. Maybe his new friends knew Billy Joel and would invite him to the party. He fondled Whitney’s card before tucking it into his pocket.
“You two are…” He wasn’t quite sure of the American term for what he meant. Not a polite one anyway.
“Business partners,” Whitney provided, smiling.
“Yeah, we’re all business.” Scowling, Doug cut through the water with his pole.
Jacques might’ve been young, but he hadn’t been born yesterday. “You have business? What kind?”
“At the moment, we’re into travel and excavation.”
Whitney lifted a brow at Doug’s terminology. “In New York, I’m an interior designer. Doug’s a—”
“Freelancer,” he finished. “I work for myself.”
“Best way,” Jacques agreed while his feet tapped out the beat. “When I was a boy, I worked on a coffee plantation. Do this, do that.” He shook his head and smiled. “Now, I have my own shop. I say do this, do that. But I don’t have to listen.”
Chuckling, Whitney stretched her back while the music reminded her of home.
Later, the sunset reminded her of the Caribbean. The forest on either side of the canal had become denser, deeper, more junglelike. Reeds grew along the verge, thin and brown, before they gave way to dense foliage. At the sight of her first flamingo, all pink-feathered and fragile-legged, she was charmed. She saw the iridescent blue flash in the brush and heard the quick, repetitive song Jacques identified as the coucal’s. Once or twice she thought she’d caught sight of a fast, agile lemur. The water, becoming shallow enough now and then to require the poles, was washed with red and skimmed with insects. Through the trees to the west, the sky was lit up like a forest fire. She decided a ride in an outrigger canoe had a lot more allure than punting on the Thames, though it was just as relaxing—except for the occasional crocodile.
Over the quiet dusk and jungle silence, Jacques’s stereo poured out what any self-respecting DJ would have called hit after hit—commercial-free. She could’ve floated for hours.
“We’d better camp.”
Turning her eyes away from the sunset, she smiled at Doug. He’d long before stripped off his shirt. His chest gleamed in the dim light with a light sheen of sweat. “So soon?”
He bit back a retort. It wasn’t easy to admit that his arms felt like rubber and his palms burned. Not when young Jacques was still bopping with the beat, looking as though he could row until midnight without slackening pace.
“It’ll be dark soon,” was all he said.
“Okay.” Jacques’s lean, limber muscles rippled as he stroked. “We’ll find an A-Number-One campsite.” He turned his shy smile on Whitney. “You should rest,” he told her. “Long day on the water.”
Mumbling under his breath, Doug rowed toward shore.
Jacques wouldn’t allow her to carry a pack. Hefting hers and his sack, he entrusted her with his stereo. Single file, they walked into the forest where the light was rose-colored, touched with mauve. Birds they couldn’t see sang to the darkening sky. Leaves shimmered green, damp with the moisture that was always present. Now and then Jacques would stop and hack at vines and bamboo with a small sickle. The scent was rich: vegetation, water, flowers—flowers that climbed through vines and burst through bush. She’d never seen so many colors in one place, nor had she expected to. Insects hovered, humming and whining in the twilight. On a frantic rustle of leaves a heron rose out of the bush and glided toward the canal. The forest was hot, wet, and close and had all the tastes of the exotic.
They set up camp to the tunes of Springsteen’s Born in the USA.
By the time they had a fire started and coffee heating, Doug found something to be cheerful about. Out of