From the yacht, it was just a five-minute drive to shore. Luca drove the speedboat himself to keep his hands on the steering wheel and his mind occupied.
“It’s beautiful!” she cried above the roar of the engine, turning sparkling eyes on him, the wind whipping about her face as they approached the cove of blinding white sand and towering limestone cliffs. “The water is so clear I can see all the way down!”
A few meters from the beach, he stopped the engine and clambered out. He held out his hand. She hesitated then took it. They trudged to the shore, the warm water slapping at their legs.
The island was straight out of a postcard. The slab of giant rock formations was a crescent that hugged the beach. Here and there were olive trees tufting the peaks like the hair on a baby chick. Against a backdrop of clear blue skies, it looked like paradise.
A paradise that had only two people on it.
The beach appeared deserted. Sabrina frowned. Sea glass came from glassware that people had thrown into the sea as trash. The waves tumbled them and the sand smoothed their sharp edges and frosted their surfaces. Transforming a piece of unwanted refuse into a collectible item took decades. Good sea glass hunting ground was usually populated. Not uninhabited. Unless it had been before, she thought hopefully.
“It’s named Isola Vetra.’” He shrugged out of his shirt and jammed it inside her eco bag. She had just been running her hands all over his firm, tanned pectorals in the yacht, but the sight had her clutching the strap of her bag tighter. She had to keep her hands to herself. Remember how he refused to touch you once you were out of bed? If you’re not sexing, then there’s no touching. “Glass Island,” he translated.
“Because of the sea glass?”
He was leading them to one end of the island, the nearest to the point where they had disembarked.
“No. It was called Isola Vetra long before any sea glass was found here. When you find one, I’ll explain to you the origin of the name.”
She scrunched her nose at him, but his sunglasses only showed her reflection. “No one lives here?”
“Are you trying to trick me into revealing more than you need to know at this point?”
“I hate mysteries. I hate it when people tell me ‘I’ve got something to tell you’ and then they leave you hanging because they can’t talk because someone might overhear or they’re rushing about. It ruins my day, thinking about what they were planning to tell me. ”
“How did you survive Christmas?”
Her nose scrunched deeper. “Christmas?”
“Presents under the tree? Not opening them until Christmas day?”
“We never had a tree.”
He stopped short and faced her squarely. “You never had a tree?”
She wished she could take it back. “No.”
He pushed his shades up and now she was gazing into his eyes, which were really like the blue of the waters that beckoned you to dive into them. She couldn’t bear it if there was pity in them, so she rushed on. “It wasn’t practical. The apartment was tiny. There was no place to put it.”
“Where did you put the presents?”
“I didn’t have any. I meant any that had to be wrapped. My grandmother and mother always gave me money.” She was blabbering to stop him from jumping to the wrong conclusion. “My grandmother gave me money so I could buy what I wanted.”
She didn’t tell him that often the money wasn’t enough to buy the latest toy she wanted, so she got something cheaper so her grandmother wouldn’t suspect.
“Your mother died when you were young?”
“Why would you think that?” Her tone was sharper than she had intended.
“You said your grandmother raised you on her own.”
He remembered what she had said yesterday. “She did raise me on her own. My mother,” she said, taking a deep breath, “she had to be with her family.”
He remained silent and cursed the need she felt to fill it.
“I have three half-siblings, so she had to stay with them. And her husband.” She ducked her head, pretending to inspect the sand so he would get the hint.
He didn’t. “Why didn’t you live with her?”
“It’s complicated.”
“And your father?”
“I never knew him.”
Blessedly, he remained quiet after that. Sabrina fished out her hat from her bag, plunked it on her head, and started combing the sand.
“I’m going swimming,” he declared, looking a bit distracted.
She just nodded, grateful he wasn’t hovering nearby. Sea glass hunting was best done alone. Usually she would consult a chart for the tide schedule since it was ideal to do one’s hunting during low tide but since she had no pre-knowledge of the area, she would just have to follow an end-to-end pattern to comb the shoreline. She started off for the edge of the shoreline, which was delineated by the bottom of a limestone formation, her back bent as she scanned the sand for treasure. The activity filled her with anticipation yet it made her also feel calm, a sort of moving meditation.