emergency crowns overseas.”
“The crayfish in Sardinia is exquisite,” said Etienne as he lifted Alice’s crayfish off its platter. “I imagine this is just as good. You attack it like so.” He snapped it backward at a joint between body and tail, exposing a succulent hunk of white meat. “You then take your wooden pick and gently pry the meat out of the tail, into your drawn butter, and into your mouth. Don’t think of it as an annoyance, ladies. Think of it as an adventure.”
It was a funny thing about women. When a black-haired, blue-eyed European with one percent body fat and a dreamy accent said something, they tended to listen.
“Will you help me when my food arrives?” asked Lucille.
“Me, too?” asked Margi.
“It would be my pleasure.” He executed a little aristocratic bow that left them with goofy smiles, fluttery eyes, and a breathless craving for Kangaroo Island shellfish. I shook my head, feeling a sudden deficiency in my people skills.
Maybe I needed to work on my accent.
“Talk about lowdown tricks,” Dick Teig sputtered as he dropped his tray on the table. “Look what they’re expecting us to eat. The creature from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. You can do what you want, Helen, but I’m not eating anything with antennae growing out its nose.”
“Sit down, Dick,” Helen urged sweetly, “and shut up. It looks delicious. Absolutely delicious.”
“Okay then,” I said, as the tension eased, “while Etienne gives you a hand with the crayfish, I’m going to check out the tunnel. If it doesn’t look too treacherous, maybe we can all hike through to the beach.”
Cheers. Whoops. One dissenting snort. “I’m not going,” Bernice sniped, “and there’s nothing you can do to make me.”
Wasn’t it neat how we sometimes lucked out in life without even trying?
I crossed the picnic area and navigated the shoreline’s rocky flanks with extreme caution, stepping over shallow tide pools, slipping on green algae, and crunching the occasional seashell beneath my sandals. Spying a simple marker with an arrow emblazoned on it, I scanned the headland for an entryway and spotted a vertical break in the boulders.
The passage twisted and turned like a maze tunneling to the center of the earth. There was an eerie prehistoric feel to the landscape, as if raptors still scavenged for food around every corner, and woolly mammoths came here to die. I followed the trail around the jagged rocks, scraping my shoulder bag at every turn and wishing I’d left it behind. I had so much stuff crammed inside, it had ballooned to the size of a whole other person. But I was encouraged by the accessibility of the trail, until I reached a spot where I had to turn sideways to squeeze between opposing rock walls.
Uh-oh. I sucked in my tummy and wiggled through. If either of the Dicks tried this, he’d become a human wedge until a rescue team freed him. Henry had sure called that right. But the poor Dicks were going to be so disappointed, they’d probably be impossible for the rest of the day, unless—
My mood brightening with a sudden thought, I quickened my pace to reach the end of the tunnel. Unless Henry’s little piece of paradise turned out to be nothing to write home about.
It was glorious. A deserted, horseshoe-shaped cove, hugged by craggy cliffs and washed by sparkling turquoise water that glazed the sand with froth. A break-water of low rocks formed a protective pool around half the beach, while beyond the barrier, the ocean swelled with booming rollers that didn’t look at all user-friendly.
Wow. This place was amazing. A few palm trees, some forbidden fruit, and it really would be paradise. But I couldn’t tell that to the Dicks. I needed to play it down so they wouldn’t think they were missing anything.
In other words, I needed to lie.
I kicked off my sandals to walk barefoot on the beach, hopping on tiptoes when I realized the sand wasn’t just sugary. It was hot! “Ouch. Ouch.” I ran toward the water and sank my toes into the cool tidal sand, tottering off-balance when the ground oozed from beneath my feet on an ebbing wave.
“Turn around and do something sassy!” a voice called from behind me.
Guy Madelyn sat on the beach in the shade of a boulder that may have broken off from the cliff a million years ago. He brandished his camera in the air. “The light doesn’t get more perfect than this, Emily. You want to give it another shot?”
“No!