Excerpt from Just an Afair
Chapter One
Scowling fiercely, Caryl Walker strapped on her seatbelt and checked her rearview and side mirrors before pulling slowly out of the airport parking lot and into the road in her ageing Jeep Cherokee. Tortola's mountain roads, narrow, winding and with precipitous drops on the side to the breathtakingly beautiful sea below were full of good reasons to check your mirrors and drive slow. If it wasn't children darting in front of your car, then it was a pig with sudden urgent business on the other side of the road or a lamb wanting to rejoin its mother.
Usually, Caryl was patient with the livestock and the people who stopped their cars, without warning, to chat with friends walking by. Living on Tortola had taught her to slow down, that life did not have to be lived in a series of New York minutes. But today, well, today she had spent two hours at the island's noisy, airless airport waiting for the man who had chartered her boat for a week and he hadn't shown up. Caryl was not in the mood for livestock on the hoof. When she rounded Paraquita Bay and came face to huge behinds with an ambling herd of well-fed cows walking three and four abreast, she took a deep breath, counted to ten and leaned on her horn. The cows continued on their shambling way, oblivious. Caryl counted to ten again and waited until the road was clear before gunning her engine and overtaking them. The cows didn't even look her way as she passed. Caryl let the speedometer rise to forty and didn’t slow down again until, in a record twenty minutes, she pulled into the Nanny Cay parking lot, jumped out and almost ran to the Elendil.
Despite her mood, she felt a rush of pride as she stalked up to Dock B where the Elendil was moored. When its owner, Janus, Inc., a U.S.-based company, made her the captain of the new 70-foot Jordan about ten months ago, she had felt enormously proud and grateful. The sleek blue and white boat with its fine trim was a real beauty, excellently crafted and powerful. Three double staterooms, each with its own bathroom, as well as crew quarters and a spacious saloon, made it a comfortable and luxurious getaway for as many as six clients.
Noel Richardson, Caryl's first mate, was standing on deck checking the diving equipment when Caryl ran lightly on board. Richardson was a burly, middle-aged, cocoa-coloured man who’d practically grown up on the sea around the forty plus islets and cays that made up the British Virgin Islands. When she took up the appointment as captain, there had been some initial tension between them. Richardson wasn't so good at taking orders from a foreigner, a woman at that. The good relationship they had now was due mostly to this wife, Patricia. Patty to friends, who acted as the perfect foil to their quick tempers. Patty was always ready with, as she put it, "a jar of virgin olive oil to pour on troubled waters." Olive oil all the nut-brown woman used in the galley where she reigned supreme.
"Cheerio, my girl." Richard greeted her amiably with a phrase he had picked up from their last clients, a group of Britishers.
Caryl gave a most un-amiable snort.
"He wasn't on the flight!" she snapped. She liked Richardson enormously but his bounteous cheer when she was stressed could be a bit trying. Certainly she had no time for it now. First, Joshua Tain had brought forward his charter date, then he hadn't bothered to show up on his scheduled flight. It was enough to make Caryl spit.
"Mr. Tain arrived about a half-hour ago," Richardson answered with a grin.
"He came via St. Thomas, so he just took the ferry to West End and caught a taxi here." As if on cue, the saloon door behind him opened and a man ducked his head under and came out. The Improbably Tall and Handsome One. The sour thought popped into Caryl's head as the man straightened up in front of her. He had to be at least six foot five. A beige shirt, tucked neatly into white pants of soft, Sea Island cotton, set off his dark complexion with its bronze undertones. Anytime Ralph Lauren wanted another black man for his ads here he was, Caryl thought. Tain, with his dark, aristocratic features, looked as if he would be right at home in a desert tent surrounded by Turkish rugs and overstuffed cushions, a setting favored by the designer.
A winged brow lifted at her.
"Since I've met Mr. Richardson and his wife, you must be Captain Caryl Walker. They didn't tell me you were a woman. I hope I didn't put you out unduly by coming through St. Thomas." He smiled at Caryl and extended his right hand. "I'm Joshua Tain." His charm was palpable but Caryl, still miffed about the time she'd spent at the crowded airport, was determined to resist it.
"Caryl Walker, I hope I've not put you out unduly by being a woman," she responded dryly, taking his hand in a firm grip.
He chuckled and held on to her hand a tad longer than Caryl who took it away, thought necessary. His touch, warm and hard, somehow disturbed her.
"If women can be astronauts, there's no reason under the moon why they can't be boat captains or anything else for that matter," Joshua said, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
"We can cast off right now, if you like," Caryl said, ignoring the banter.
"I like," he murmured, His eyes bored into hers making the double entendre obvious.
Caryl smiled politely. If he noticed the smile didn't reach her eyes so much the better she thought, turning to nod to Richardson. She'd had it with men a long time ago and one like Joshua Tain, oozing confidence and come hithers wasn't about to make her change her mind, no matter how good looking he was. The sooner he understood that, the better.