and accepting gifts for a wedding that didn’t happen had been a killing blow to her emotions. She wondered if she could ever trust anyone else, if she could believe in love again. Simultaneously, she thought of Cal, and something inside her began to dance.
Nikki went back up to her room around four, ignoring the beach, because if Cal’s conference had ended early, he just might call. It could be anytime now.
She took a bath and threw on a beige slacks set with a silky brown patterned matching vest. Then she pored through the few paperbacks she’d packed, listened to the radio, stared out the window, paced the floor and chewed on her nails until six.
In desperation she went down to the restaurant to have supper alone, her eyes restlessly catching on every tall, dark man she noticed on the way. But Cal was nowhere in sight. She rushed through her steak and salad, gulped down her lemonade and went straight back upstairs, just in case he called. But when seven o’clock, then eight o’clock, came, she began to realize that he wasn’t going to call.
He’d said he was busy, but hope had died hard. And maybe it wasn’t only business, maybe he did have a woman with him, in spite of his denials. She’d thought when they first met that he was a cold sort of man, with hardly the time to attract women. But she’d revised that opinion drastically. He’d known exactly what he was doing when he’d kissed her. There was no fumbling, no hesitation, about it. He was obviously an experienced man, and far beyond Nikki’s small knowledge of men. If anyone had told her a month ago that she was going to allow a stranger to kiss her in front of a beach full of people, she’d have laughed hysterically. But he’d undermined every logical objection she had. And she hadn’t fought him. Not at all.
She went back to the dark window and peered out at the streets below. Tourists were still coming and going in droves, and on the street were three young French sailors in their white uniforms with their little red-pom-pommed white caps. She watched them stroll away back in the direction of the docks with a sigh. What would it be like to be a foreign sailor in port, young and single and probably away from home for the first time? She felt a sense of loneliness herself. America seemed a world away from this, and for a moment she missed Uncle Mike and Aunt Jenny. She’d faced all the faint terrors of a tourist alone before the plane landed: What happens if I get hurt? What happens if I get sick? What if someone steals my money and my plane ticket? What if I miss my flight back home...? And the list went on. But she’d come to grips with all those questions the moment she landed and got her first look at the island from the ground. All the fears had disappeared by the time she got through immigration and customs. She’d worry about it when and if it happened. Not until. And she hadn’t had a problem so far.
The phone rang twice before she heard it, and then she made a wild dive across the double bed that left her breathless as her hand made a grab for the receiver.
“Hello!” she burst out.
A deep, slow chuckle came over the line, stopping her heart just before it ran wild in her chest and brought a sunstruck smile to her face.
“Cal?” she asked.
“I can’t think of anyone else who’d call you at this hour of the night,” he murmured, “unless your uncle called to check up on you.”
“I thought about calling him,” she admitted breathlessly, “but I was afraid of the overseas charges.”
“It would cost you more to call Atlanta from your hometown and talk fifteen minutes,” he replied lazily. “It’s not expensive. Join me for a drink?”
“I’d love to,” she said sincerely.
“Meet me at the elevator in five minutes.” And the line went dead.
She scurried around searching for her shoes, lost one, called it foul names for the minute it took her to locate it, brushed her hair again, checked her makeup and grabbed her purse. Then she stood watching the clock until four and a half minutes had gone by. She jerked open the door and peeked down the hall.
Seconds later Cal came into view, wearing a tan bush jacket and beige slacks, and she wondered if coincidences