Free A Matter of Time by David Manuel Page A

cat’s litter.”
    “Why didn’t you take her?”
    “Nearly did. Even had a name picked out: Esmeralda. I imagined her napping in a little box next to me in the cockpit, sleeping
     on the end of my bunk at night.” He paused. “But then I made myself think about the dark side. And realized that Ezzie wouldn’t
     have a clue how dangerous an environment a boat is, and wouldn’t have her mother to teach her. I couldn’t watch her all the
     time. She might be up in the bow, playing with a knot in a line, and a swell would cause her to lose her balance and go over
     the side. If I didn’t see it, she would be gone. And if we’d grown close, as we were sure to, that would be—devastating.”
    He smiled at her, shaking his head. “You suppose we could talk about something else?”
    She nodded and smiled brightly; yes, there were more layers to this one than met the eye. But she couldn’t think of anything
     to say.
    Nor was he helping. He just sat there, studying her, ahalf-smile on his face. And that smirk, if that’s what it was, was beginning to annoy her.
    Finally, eyes twinkling, he observed, “You’re in a bit of a bind, aren’t you?”
    She frowned but said nothing.
    “I mean, you came all this way to check me out, and now you feel a bit foolish because you don’t know exactly how to go about
     doing that.”
    “Do you
always
speak what’s on your mind?” she snapped at him.
    “Why not?”
    She had no answer.
    “Amy,” he said gently, using her name for the first time since she’d arrived, “either it was a good idea for you to come or
     it wasn’t. I happen to think it was.”
    She was not ready to agree.
    “Look,” he said, catching her eyes with his, “we can go on playing games if you want to. But honestly—why waste the time?”
    Now he was infuriating! Coming here was
not
a good idea! It was the worst idea she’d ever had! She could be in Roma right now, on the
Via Veneto
sipping a Belini with Pam at Harry’s American Bar.
    She glared at him, and he impassively returned her gaze. Neither turned away.
    Oh, he was
really
making her angry! So sure of himself—well, we’ll see.
    She decided to take him on. Straight on.
Mano a womano
.
    “All right!” she declared. “From now on, we play by Bermuda rules. We say
exactly
what we think. No more, no less. No game-playing. And we say it, no matter how romantically incorrect it might be, even if
     it sends meback on the next plane. Because you’re right: I didn’t come here to play games! I came to see if,” she hesitated and then
     played by the new rules, “I wanted to make any emotional investment in a–gypsy of the sea.”
    In that instant, Lands’ End vanished. Colin did the sort of split-second re-evaluation that women would never understand.
     But men understood perfectly. If she’s the one, and you
know
it, then you go after her—and move heaven and hell to get her.
    “Deal.” It
was
a done deal, as far as Colin Bennett was concerned.
    It took Amy a little longer. But once she admitted to herself that he
might
be the one, things did seem to come together rather quickly. They ate breakfast together, lunch together, supper together,
     talking all the time, finding new subjects they mostly agreed on.
    After a few days, the talking subsided. They knew they felt the same way about the sunset, or the two Long-tails cavorting
     over the cliffs at Horseshoe Beach, or the young boys playing soccer (he called it football) in the late afternoon at a school
     in Somerset Parish, the sun limning their lithe forms and creating halos around them.
    They said nothing, because there was no reason to speak.
    When she asked about going out on
Care Away
, he put her off. Too cloudy or too windy. He wanted her first experience with the other lady in his life to be just right.
    She believed him, but she wondered if it might also be–that he was afraid it wouldn’t work out. Because she was afraid of
     the same thing. According to Bermuda