She entered the rickety lobby, approached the high wooden desk, and asked the French lady behind it for a room. Her voice quavered. The old lady looked at her sharply. There was a great mulling of reservation cards, shuffling of papers, and a few more bird-like glances while the old girl tried to decide why she was here.

“You were once of the yachts?” she asked finally.

Lindy nodded. She was awarded a room with a porch. “And you will see, it is not far from the bath, n’est-ce pas?”

The room was immense and smelled of sweat, wicker, and old wood. A ceiling fan creaked nervously. The bed had mosquito netting draped over it. There was no breeze at all from the porch. The gangplanks wailed across the street. A Vespa stuttered by below.

She bathed and went back to the room and wrapped herself in an orange pareu. She stepped to the porch. Her heart was thumping, and her hands were numb.

His boat was there, but maybe he was back in the Marquesas or had flown to Moorea or France. Because she could not bear to find out, she looked past the boats, across the harbor, out at la Grande Passe. Spray was vomiting high above the reef with every swell.

Finally, she looked down at Xanadu. Taarii was topside, doubling her lines. Something was brewing, in the skies, or somewhere. Xanadu, with her massive scantlings, would be the last boat in the harbor to worry. She hoped whatever it was would miss Bora Bora.

If Taarii looked up, OK, but she refused to call out. He secured his lines and started below. Opening the hatch, he glanced idly across the street. She waved. He looked startled, called below, and in a moment Jean-Paul’s head appeared. From fifty yards, she was sure she could see the blue of his eyes in the shadow.

Her legs turned weak. She turned away so that she would not have to watch him cross the street. His footsteps on the creaky stairs started her hands trembling. They were shaking so badly by the time he tapped at the door that she could hardly turn the old brass knob.

They stood facing each other for a moment. Her eyes filled, and then she was in his arms.

Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

The strange slow swell had been building all day in the Bora Bora lagoon. It impelled Mitch to row out to Star of Peace, still moored to the abandoned seaplane buoy off the Oa Oa dock. He stood sipping New Zealand beer in her great cabin aft while her mate cranked up her ham radio rig.