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soft susurrus of the ocean's rollicking waves, the chuck and lap of water against the floats, sea birds
cawing in the distance. I smelled engine oil, brine, clear, hot air, and Shane.
I turned my attention to the island. It was small, the sides curving away visibly, even from where
we sat, twenty or thirty feet away. It was green with tropical foliage, white sand rimming the outside,
a dock jutting out into the pale blue of shallow water. I caught glimpses of wood and glass on the
crest of the hill at the center.
I looked at Shane, the question in my eyes.
He grinned at me, a huge, joyful, boyish smile. "Welcome home."
I looked back at the island. "Home?"
Shane pushed the door of the seaplane open, hopped down into the water, which came to his
knees. He was wearing bright red and white board shorts and nothing else. He held his hand out, and I
took it, let him lift me down next to him. The water was cold at first, then grew warmer as my body
adjusted.
Shane gestured to the island. "This is Leona's Isle. It belongs to you."
My breath hitched. "What? What do you mean? How can an island belong to me?"
"I set up a bank account in your name a few months ago, put some money into it. And then, when I
found this little island, I bought it in your name. You signed the deed when we were doing all that
insurance paperwork a few weeks ago. I slipped it in and you signed it, none the wiser." Shane
grinned again and pulled me into a slow walk through the water toward the island.
"So...this island is really yours, then." I said.
Shane shook his head. "After the initial purchase of the title to the island, all control over the funds
in that account was turned over to you. I can't touch it. It's yours. This island is in your name, Leona
Larkin, with the proviso that if we ever get married, we could change it to your married name, if you
chose to take mine."
My head was spinning. "Shane...are you kidding me?" I stopped in the water and turned to face
him. "How much are we talking about?"
Shane frowned thoughtfully. "How much was the island? Or how much is in the account?"
"Yes."
Shane chuckled. "The island is a gift to you, so I'm not telling how much I paid. The account
has...six million? Something like that. Just a little nest egg for you." He shrugged, trying to act
nonchalant. "If anything ever happened between us, and we weren't together, you would have your
own money. You wouldn't have to go back to Detroit, or wherever. You could do what you wanted.
And before you ask, no, it's not up for discussion. I can't touch the account anymore. I can't access it,
find out the balance, withdraw or transfer, nothing. My name appears nowhere on the account at all."
My eyes burned. I wasn't sure what to say. "Shane, I "
He interrupted me with a kiss. "Shush." The kiss turned from sweet and loving to molten in an
instant.
Shane pulled away first, tugged me toward the island, my island. I shook my head at the thought.
I owned an island.
The water level retreated until we were sloshing up onto the hot white sand of the beach. There
was a path through the jungle foliage, wide, flat round stones paving the way up the hill, trees arching
overhead to filter the sun in shifting bursts of green.
We strolled hand in hand up the path, birds of all kinds cawing and chirping around us. The path
curved away to the right, and when we rounded the bend a house came into view. It was a single-
story structure, built into the island to fit between the trees and to conform to the contours of the
central hill. It wasn't an intrusive structure, ugly and extravagant. It was lovely, a natural extension of
the island, glass walls that slid away to make all four sides open to the air. It was a multi-level,
rambling building, sprawling across the entire crown of the island and descending down around the
apron of the hill.
Shane led me through a pair of wide French doors at the bottom of the house and into an airy,
spacious foyer. I recognized the entryway I had designed myself, from a magazine. There was a
round, brass-framed sunburst mirror on one wall, an eccentric, dangling-crystal chandelier on the
ceiling, Spanish-style mosaic tiles underfoot.
"Everything is exactly how you designed it," Shane said, leading me from room to room.
"Remember all those 'hypothetical discussions' about how you would design and decorate a house?"
I remembered. When we first moved in to our condo, I was a little irritated that I hadn't had any
say in how it was decorated or anything, so Shane had then spent every night before bed for weeks
grilling me on how I'd decorate my house. He'd shown me magazine after magazine with kitchens,
bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms...making me choose what I liked the best. He'd said he was just
making notes for later, eventually.
He swept an arm at the house in general. "Every tile you chose, every mirror and light fixture,
every stick of furniture. The only things I chose were little things, door knobs and cabinet handles and
things like that. It's all state of the art, completely green. Central computer system, accessible from
every room, controlling the lights, the water, the ambient temperature. The computer can even close
the doorwalls at a touch of a button. Tankless water heater, with the water drawn from the ocean,
processed and purified and recycled through a closed loop system."
He sounded proud of this house, and with good reason. It was incredible. And as he'd said, I
recognized everything as what I'd picked out. It all worked perfectly together, modern and sleek, yet [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]