Free Antigua Kiss by Anne Weale Page A

present, he would have said something to make her blush again.
    For lunch they had smoked ham with pineapple, accompanied by servings of lobster and chicken in coleslaw, these mixtures arranged on a large red- veined leaf from the sea grape bushes growing along the back of the beach.
    With lunch Christie tried a Pina Colada, a mixture of pineapple juice, coconut cream and rum whipped in a blender until it was frothy.
    Having sipped it slowly, through a straw, she became aware that it was not as innocuous as it looked. Obviously the rum had been added with a generous hand and, not being accustomed to drinking, she would have to watch her step.
    After lunch they drove a little further north to a stretch of water behind the coast road where many birds were to be seen, including the brown pelicans known on the island as boobys, and the frigate-birds often called weatherbirds. Ash had fieldglasses in the car with him, and he let John look through them to see the birds in close-up.
    The sun was losing its fierceness by the time they returned to Turtle Creek.
    'Now for the snorkelling lesson,' he said, as he parked the car.
    John was his first pupil, and a surprisingly apt one. In no time at all the little boy had mastered the way to hold the mouthpiece between his lips and inhale and exhale through it. It happened that a shoal of small pale silvery fish were darting about near the shore, and while John was absorbed in watching them, Ash came to where Christie was waiting her turn.
    He had already told her that the test of a good mask was that it should cling to the face when the wearer inhaled without the aid of a strap.
    Nevertheless it took him several minutes to adjust the strap to his satisfaction and, while his fingers were busy at the back of her head, she found herself intensely conscious of his closeness and the brush of his forearms against her bare shoulders.
    'There: I think that should be comfortable. Now sit down here in the shallows and keep your face submerged and practise breathing until it no longer seems strange,' he instructed.
    Before the lesson was over, both she and John had had the exciting experience of gliding through the water with as clear a view of the plants and creatures beneath the surface as they had of the trees and birds in the air above.
    John even had no problem with his small pair of bright yellow flippers, but Christie found it more difficult to adapt her leg movements to gain maximum impetus from them. They seemed to her heavy and clumsy, but Ash assured her that many people had the same difficulty at first.
    When the time came to leave the water, John flip-flopped his way up the beach with the air of a veteran snorkeller. When Christie attempted to follow suit, she tripped over her flippers and fell backwards.
    Before she could struggle to her feet, Ash scooped her into his arms and, as if she were no heavier than John, carried her ashore.

    'I should have warned you—it's advisable for adults to back out of the water,' he said, grinning. 'Small kids seem to manage to walk forward in flippers, but not grown-ups.'
    From the water's edge to the low wall which prevented sand from encroaching on the lawns was not a great distance. But to Christie, cradled in his arms, in intimate contact with a man's almost naked body for the first time in more than four years, it seemed an eternity before he lowered her into a sitting position on the wall, and knelt to remove the flippers for her.
    'I should like to stay and have dinner with you, but I have another engagement,' he said, rising to his full height and placing the flippers on the wall. 'Tomorrow morning I'm busy, so I'll come over here about two and we'll have another snorkelling session.'
    Christie watched him strolling across the gardens, still wearing his wet black briefs, with a towel tossed over one shoulder, and his clothes in a canvas bag.
    She wondered where he would dry and change. Presumably at Bettina's cottage.
    This supposition was