Touching Paradise by Cleo Peitsche

university’s marine biology department. He met my mother during a conference in Europe and was surprised to meet another… to meet someone he had so much in common with. Dad says it was love at first sight.”
    “That’s romantic.”
    “You’re getting the short and clean version,” he said. “My mother was pregnant.”
    That made her laugh, and she covered her mouth, embarrassed. Koenraad flashed a smile.  
    “Mom is from South Africa—that’s where my parents spend most of their time now—but she’d been working in Florida. Dad decided to join her, and when his parents got sick, he took early retirement from teaching, and we moved here.”
    Monroe fought a smile. A hot, rich guy who clearly got along with his parents. He was a unicorn. “So you grew up in paradise.”
    He nodded and gestured for her to walk ahead of him toward the front of the boat, where the remainder of their lunch awaited.
    Things had been different when Sosie was there, even though she’d been more in the background, taking photos, talking about some of the crazy things she’d seen since she started working at Dive Happy Caribbean, and asking questions that kept the conversation moving easily. Now, Monroe’s tongue felt clumsy and thick, like she’d had a shot of Novocain hours earlier that hadn’t quite worn off yet.
    When she was nervous, she had a tendency to run her mouth, but with Koenraad, it was different. He intimidated her into silence. Which made no sense because he seemed like a genuinely kind man, though she supposed anyone could pretend to be nice for a few hours.
    “I saw a shark earlier,” she blurted out, grateful to have something to say. Koenraad was looking off into the distance, almost like he was concentrating on something else.  
    He swung his head back toward her. His hair had dried to a light blond, and while it was still pushed away from his face by the sunglasses atop his head, a few disobedient locks now brushed his cheekbones, highlighting how angular they were. “Did you?” he asked, sounding amused. “Are you sure it wasn’t an angelfish?”
    “Yes, I’m sure, smartypants,” she said. “It was huge.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “You’d be surprised how often people tell me they’ve seen huge fish or sharks. Are you sure it wasn’t a whale?”
    She smacked his arm playfully. His muscles were so solid, and she remembered how it had felt to hold onto him in the water. Suddenly, she wanted that again.  
    Maybe she was doing all sorts of things outside of her admittedly narrow zone of comfort, but straddling this hunky sailor and forcing her tongue into his mouth wasn’t going to happen, at least not unless she downed a few drinks first, and it was still too early for that. So she aimed for the next best thing. “Think I’m ready for more snorkeling,” she said.
    Koenraad reclined, resting on his elbows, stretching out his long body. “I’m not going to insist you wait an hour, but how about thirty minutes?”
    “Why?”
    He smiled. “Because it’ll take twenty to get to the next place I want to show you.”
    She flicked at some crumbs, then pulled her legs in. Immediately she stretched them out again, not wanting Koenraad to see her legs all bunched up and looking stubby. She should have put her coverup back on, but she’d wanted to dry off first.  
    She lay on her back next to him and cradled her head in her laced fingers. The boat underneath her was so deliciously warm on her shoulders and the backs of her calves and thighs, and the sun’s heat felt wonderfully sensual on the front of her body. So this was why people went on vacation. What a change of pace from cold New York.  
    The slight rocking of the boat lulled her into a half-sleep where thoughts darted through her mind in no particular order. She drifted off completely, then woke, filled with an unfamiliar but welcome calmness.  
    She thought of her friends at the hotel. Hopefully Tara and everyone who’d gotten sick