Free Right Place, Wrong Time by Judith Arnold Page B

duty-free. That was the main reason I jumped at the chance to come to St. Thomas. I mean, St. Thomas in July?” She wrinkled her nose adorably again. “But I figured the shopping would be great.”
    “I guess.” Gina enjoyed shopping well enough. She wasn’t a diamond sort of girl, though. She liked her jewelry funky, and if she ever had a lot of money to blow on earrings and necklaces, she’d go for handcrafted Native American designs. She was a real sucker for silver-and-turquoise.
    “Actually…” Kim slid closer to Gina on the bench.She glanced sidewise, then focused once more on Ethan and Alicia, down near the rock, deeply engrossed in their conversation. Gina couldn’t count on them to rescue her as Kim struck an intimate pose. “I should apologize for the way I’ve been behaving.”
    Gina agreed; Kim should apologize. But she didn’t want to have to listen while the beautiful blond woman bared her soul and sought forgiveness.
    Kim was going to make her listen anyway. “It wasn’t just the shopping. I was hoping this trip would be a chance for Ethan to bond with my parents, to bring us all together as a family. And when you and your niece refused to move out of the time-share, well, that dream went splat. Know what I mean?”
    “Sure.” Gina’s dream of having a peaceful week in the tropics with Alicia had gone splat, too.
    “My parents are wonderful people. I want Ethan to love them as much as I do. I thought it would be so perfect, the four of us living together in Paul’s condo, cementing the relationship.”
    Gina shrugged, her gaze drifting back to Alicia and Ethan huddling near the rock. The sun must have dried his hair, which looked tawny, shot through with red highlights in the afternoon light. If he’d been boring Alicia with his lecture on iguanas, she’d have let him know. But she was clearly enthralled by what he was telling her, nodding at regular intervals. Maybe living in Paul’s—correction, in Carole’s —time-share had cemented the relationship between Ethan and Alicia.
    No, of course it hadn’t. There was no relationship, other than whatever existed between strangers brought together by a disaster. And perhaps a shared love of snorkeling. Or iguanas.
    Still, Kim seemed determined to make amends. “Sowhen our plans didn’t work out the way I’d hoped, I blamed you and your niece. I realize it’s not your fault. Well, it is, in a way, but that’s not the issue. The issue is that I didn’t behave well, and I’m sorry.”
    “Forget about it,” Gina said, wishing she could forget about it. Across the beach, Alicia clamped her hand around Ethan’s sun-bronzed forearm and said something to him. Gina would bet his skin was warm, his bones thick and hard beneath firm muscles. Alicia shouldn’t be touching him—it struck Gina as much too personal—but she was seven years old and didn’t know better. And Ethan, kind soul, didn’t pull his arm away.
    If Kim noticed Alicia’s forwardness, she didn’t comment on it. Gina wasn’t sure why she was so aware of that touch. Her family were touchers. Her mother, in particular, used her hands to talk and loved touching whomever she was talking to, as if the words were being imparted through her fingers as well as her mouth. Gina and her sister, Ramona, had picked up that habit, although they were not as bad as their mother, and Alicia was Ramona’s daughter, so she, too, must have inherited the touching gene. Gina would have to explain to her that it wasn’t a good idea to touch someone unless you felt really comfortable with him and you sensed he wouldn’t mind—although it appeared that Ethan didn’t mind. He just kept talking to Alicia, pointing out parts of the iguana with his free hand while the leathery green monster sunned itself on the rock. Maybe Ethan was so glad to have a willing audience for his habitat lecture that he’d endure a few minutes of Morante touching.
    Then again, perhaps the reason Gina was so