Chapter Thirteen. Cody rolled over and squinted into the fading sun

“So here you are! ”

Cody rolled over and squinted into the fading sun. “How was Avarua? ” she asked.

“Hot.” Annabel lowered herself onto the sand.

She wore her dark glasses and big shady hat. Cody couldn’t see enough of her face to tell what she was thinking, but her voice seemed strained. All that flying backward and forward. It was no wonder. “Why don’t you take some time off? ” she suggested, “Couldn’t Bevan fill in for a few days? ”

“Bevan has enough to do. It’s not his job to run the island as well.”

“What about the other owners? If people want to rent their places out why should you have to be responsible? ”

Annabel’s mouth tightened slightly. “It’s a long story. Right now, I don’t feel like going into it. Okay? ”

Cody shrugged and backed off a little. “I guess I was just wondering why you have to fly into Rarotonga with some man all the time. I’m jealous already.”

This drew a brief smile. “You’re welcome to come along any time you want. We could do with the extra ballast.”

Cody cringed dramatically. “Forget it. I’ll only be flying in that antique when I absolutely have to.”

“It’s not so bad, ” Annabel defended. She was about to add that she had been flying the Dominie herself but thought the better of it, envisaging Cody torturing herself with lurid plane crash fantasies. Extending a hand, she caressed the flat plane of Cody’s stomach, hooking her thumb into the narrow bikini briefs.

“Nude sunbathing is allowed here, you know.”

“You don’t say.” Cody lifted her hips slightly to enable the briefs to be discarded. Her top soon followed and Annabel stretched out alongside her, sliding her hands the length of Cody’s body.

“You’re delicious, ” she murmured, stifling an unwelcome pang of guilt. She had come down to the beach to show Cody the poster and ask her what was going on, not to make love to her.

But the air was very warm and a mild breeze rustled the palms. The shadows were deepening around them. Soon the sky would flush pink and the first stars would appear. Annabel didn’t want to let precious hours slip away talking about something she already knew would only raise another barrier between them. They had so little time left together, she was loath to spoil the mood.

The thought jolted her. So little time…

“Cody, ” she paused in between kissing her shoulders. “When do you have to go back home? ”

Cody’s gray eyes took a moment to focus. “Home? ” She sat up, gathered her towel about her, and examined Annabel’s face with a guarded expression. “I’m leaving the island in fifteen days.”

Annabel groaned inwardly. So much for not spoiling the mood. She slid an arm around Cody’s shoulders. “Sorry, that was about as romantic as a tuna sandwich before bed.”

“It’s okay, ” Cody said. “I’ve been thinking about it, too.” She tried to sound blasé. “You know the kind of thing. Will we ever see each other again or are these just a couple of weeks we won’t be telling our grandchildren about in years to come.”

She got to her feet, tied the towel around her waist and shook the sand out of her hair. Her skin had already tanned a rich caramel brown, except for her breasts, which clearly showed the marks of her bikini.

She was upset. Annabel sensed her change of mood and felt her own confusion surface. “Cody.” She scrambled to her feet and reached for her arm. “This is not just a holiday fling for me. I want you to know that.”

Cody turned to face her, eyes darkening to rain cloud gray. She started to say something, then seemed to change her mind and shrugged half-heartedly. “Let’s not make this complicated.” The words sounded odd, stilted, “I mean, this is the grownups.”

“What are you saying? That you want nothing more than a meaningless affair? ”

Cody lowered her gaze, screening the feelings her face invariably betrayed.

Her silence frustrated Annabel. “Cody, I don’t want to say goodbye to you in a week or so and never lay eyes on you again.”

“Well, what do you want then? ”

“I want to give whatever is happening between us a chance.” She tightened her grip on Cody’s arm. “Why are you being so defensive? I’m not Margaret.”

Cody stared down at the fingers and shook her head slowly. “Oh, Annabel. It’s just so complicated.”

“I wish you would trust me.” Annabel drew closer. She wanted Cody to speak to her, tell her of her own volition whatever had to be told. Annabel could sense an internal struggle in her, something hidden. It raised a wall between them that would have to come down if they were to have any chance of building something more than a holiday romance. And Annabel wanted that chance. She wanted it badly.

But she was pushing Cody too hard, she realized, demanding a level of trust there had not been time to establish. And, not surprisingly, Cody was running in the opposite direction. That was what the mixed messages were about. Annabel loosened her hold and reached up to stroke Cody’s hair. This was one woman she didn’t want to frighten off. The police notice could wait and so could the deep and meaningful conversation.

“I’m sorry, ” she said. “I know this is hard for you. I just want to help. That’s all.”

“I know.” Cody’s shoulders relaxed and she leaned against Annabel, linking her hands in the small of her back. “I have to figure some things out for myself. One day, when it’s all ancient history, I’ll tell you about it.”

“So, you’re planning on us knowing one another past next week then? ”

A flash of wicked humor erased the despondency from Cody’s expression. “Only if you’re good, ” she said.

Laughing, Annabel imprisoned Cody’s wrists behind her back. With her mouth impossibly close to Cody’s, she said, “I think we both know I can be very, very good.”

“Where did you grow up, Cody? ” Annabel asked later that night.

“On a farm, ” Cody responded drowsily and nuzzled Annabel’s breast. “Near a little town called Waipukurau. Until I was twelve.”

“And then? ”

“In Wellington city. The place with the permanent wind machine.”

“Your family moved? ”

“No. My mother did, when she separated from my father.”

“Any sisters or brothers? ”

“Just one brother, ” Cody said quietly. “He was killed in a car accident when I was eighteen.”

Annabel felt her stiffen, caught the unmistakable edge of grief in her voice. Instinctively she tightened her embrace. “You were close? ”

“Twins, ” Cody said. “When my parents separated Charles stayed with dad, and we only saw each other on the holidays. It was awful. Up ’til then we had done everything together. We had a lot of fun.” She smiled, memories flooding. “One thing we used to do was dress up in each other’s clothes and fool people, even our teachers. We looked so alike, you see.”

“That must have been incredible.” Annabel was clearly fascinated by the idea. “Did you notice any difference in how people treated you when you were dressed as a boy? ”

“Hell, yes! One thing that really got me was putting up my hand in class. When I was dressed as Charles, I always got picked to answer questions or volunteer. Normally I could have chopped my arm off and thrown it at the teacher and she wouldn’t have noticed me.”

“They say boys get more teacher time, ” Annabel said. “What about at home? ”

“We couldn’t get away with it around Mom. She always knew. But it was a different story with Dad.” She thought about her father, always distracted with something.

Back then, when Cody had asked her mother why she was leaving him, she had said it was because of her hair. She’d had dyed it blonde.

But what’s wrong with that? twelve-year-old Cody had demanded.

Your father doesn’t like it.

So who cares what he thinks? Cody had stamped her foot. Anyway it’s been like that for months now.

That’s the whole point, Cordelia, her mother said in her quiet way. He only just noticed.

Cody shook herself back to the present. “Dad was always too busy to spend time with us. I suppose back then men didn’t anyway. You know, they left the kids to their wife.”

“Not always, ” Annabel said. “My Dad used to take me out to all kinds of places and sometimes we went on vacation without Mother. She’s not an outdoors person. So if it involved boats or camping, she always stayed home.”

“Do they know you’re gay? ” Cody asked.

“Yes. It wasn’t the best news they ever had, but I think they’re coming to terms with it.” Abruptly, as if uncomfortable talking about her family, she returned the conversation to Cody. “Tell me, what was it like growing up in your country? ”

For a moment Cody hesitated, wanting to know more about Annabel’s world. But she was worried her questions might seem intrusive, so she replied, “I’ve never given it much thought. New Zealand’s a small place, and Waipukurau is what you might call a one-horse town. It’s the kind of place the film crews hire to make retro commercials and they don’t have to change a thing.” She snuggled closer and ran her hand over Annabel’s warm curves. “It’s a beautiful country, Annabel, all green and natural. Tourists go wild about it, but I guess when you live there you take it for granted. We call it Godzone.”

“And you’re called Kiwis aren’t you, like the fruit? ”

“That’s right. But in reality the Kiwi is a rather fat flightless bird that sleeps all day and comes out at night.”

“Sounds like half of San Francisco, ” Annabel quipped. “So what sort of things did you do as a kid? ”

“God, that’s so long ago...I went to school on a decrepit bus that stopped at the farm gate. There were only sixty kids in the entire school, and show and tell usually meant bringing your pet lamb or demonstrating how to make cheese. Later on I went to a girls’ boarding school, which is where my father thinks I got these lesbian ideas—as one does.”

“You had a crush on the sports captain? ”

“I was the sports captain.” Cody laughed. “I think maybe the best part of my childhood was playing with my brother. We did the usual stupid stuff—like trying to blow up the neighbor’s mailbox with fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day, and driving Dad’s Land Rover into the river when we were ten.”

“Guy Fawkes Day? ”

“It’s a British thing. Four hundred years ago a bunch of Catholics tried to blow up the English Parliament along with King James. Their leader was Guy Fawkes. He got caught and they executed him in the usual gruesome manner and ever since, people celebrate the whole deal. We build bonfires and burn effigies. There are all kinds of fireworks and parties. No one’s really sure whether it’s the poor bastard’s execution we’re meant to be celebrating or his attempt to overthrow the government.”

“Astonishing, ” Annabel said. “And you do this even though you’re not actually in England? ”

Cody nodded. “It’s one of those colonial hangovers. Lately it’s been going out of fashion because New Zealand banned fireworks. But it was bigger than Christmas when I was a kid. Kind of like the Fourth of July for you folks.”

“Your childhood sounds amazing.”

There was a wistful note in Annabel’s voice. In the moonlight her expression was hard to fathom, but Cody had a strong sense of some deep, unspoken sorrow. Not everyone had happy memories of childhood, she reminded herself, even people like Annabel who seemed to be born with the world served up on a platter.

“How about you? ” Cody asked the most innocuous question she could think of. “Were you born in Boston? ”

Annabel opened her mouth to say yes, but paused as that image repeated in her consciousness—herself on a woman’s knee, playing with something shiny. “I’ve lived there ever since I can remember, ” she answered.

“Were you happy? ”

“I had everything a child could want.” Annabel thought of her huge doll collection, her pony, her vast wardrobe of expensive dresses. She felt her eyes sting suddenly.

“Mmmm, ” Cody nodded sleepily. “But were you happy? ”

“Happy? ” Annabel felt her heart thump erratically. Of course she was happy. She had the perfect family, didn’t she? The beautiful people, Clare had always called her parents. Annabel had the kind of life that was the envy of most children, certainly nothing to complain about. She had always scorned the poor-little-rich-girl syndrome. She was lucky and she knew it. But happy?

“Not really, ” she admitted in a whisper. “No, I wasn’t happy.”

“It must have been a drag being an only child, ” Cody said.

“That was part of it. I tried too hard to be a good girl, I think. There wasn’t much room for fun.”

Cody did not reply, and listening to her deep even breathing, Annabel knew she had fallen asleep. For a long while she lay there, restlessly revisiting the past. Plagued by that image of the faceless woman with the shiny object, she turned onto her stomach and cuddled her pillow. The longer she spent on the island, the more she learned about Annie’s past, and the greater the uneasiness that lurked in the back of her mind.