Below Deck

I try not to jump up and down and squeal when Declan gives me a slow smile before turning to nod at the captain.

“It’s no trouble at all. And I’m sure Ben will have no problem staying behind today. I’ll have my cell phone on me in case anything comes up,” Declan tells him.

And just like that, our plan falls perfectly into place.

“I can’t believe you’ve never ridden a horse before. Your dad doesn’t have a hundred purebred, champion horses locked up in a sprawling stable somewhere?” Declan asks, grabbing my hips and helping me up and onto the beautiful black Arabian I was given.

Once I’m in the saddle, I look down at him in annoyance.

“You’re doing it again. Making snap judgments when you don’t know anything about me.”

He winces, closing his eyes and sighing before opening them back up and looking at me apologetically.

“I’m sorry. I promised I’d stop being an asshole, and you’re right. It was wrong of me to assume.”

“Can we get that printed on a t-shirt? I’ve never heard a man say that to me once, let alone twice,” I joke as I watch him mount the white horse next to me. “And you’re forgiven.”

He grabs the reigns, holding them up and showing me how to do it. I copy his motions, gently tapping my heels against my horse’s flanks to get him to start walking, just like Declan does.

“I can’t believe the owners let us take out horses alone without one of their guides,” I muse as we walk our horses slowly, side-by-side, out of the fence and onto the trail that will take us around the island.

“That’s one of the many perks of working on a yacht. You get to know the owners of all the excursion companies over the years, and they’re willing to do favors for you. Jill and Eric, the owners of the horse farm, retired to St. Croix the year I started working on the Helios. They’re good people,” he explains.

The rain has given us a reprieve for a little while. The air is still hot and the sky is still overcast, but nothing can take away from the beauty of the lush, tropical island as we make our way down the beach, right next to the water.

“I’m really sorry about the comment I made. It’s a habit. And one I need to fix,” Declan apologizes again as we guide our horses up to a trail that will take us to the rain forest.

“Why do you hate people who have money so much?” I ask, ducking my head when we move under a few low-hanging branches.

“Have you met your stepmother and stepsister?” he jokes.

“Point taken,” I reply with a laugh. “If it makes you feel any better, I hate them with the burning fire of a thousand suns, and hope they choke on their hair extensions. When you walked in on Marcel and me in the galley the other night and he laughed, I just got finished telling him I couldn’t stand those bitches I’m related to.”

He throws his head back and laughs, blinding me with his dimples and making me suddenly aware of the rocking motion my hips make in the saddle as the horse eases his way through the forest surrounding us.

“Honestly, a lot of the guests we get aren’t that bad. They’re laid back and nice. But the rest are like Allyson and Arianna. One, or several dozen, bad apples spoil the bunch and all that bullshit,” he tells me with a shrug.

I understand his quick judgment of me a little better now. It doesn’t completely erase the hurt his words caused at the time, but at least I don’t feel like such a weak woman for accepting his apologies so quickly. I know what it’s like to be around Allyson and Arianna all the time, but I can leave whenever I want if I’ve had enough of their entitled, rude behavior. Declan’s job is catering to people like them twenty-four-seven. If he wants a paycheck, he has to suck it up and deal with it. He can’t just walk away and pretend like they don’t exist.

We ride our horses together in comfortable silence for the next few miles, Declan breaking the quiet peacefulness of the beautiful landscape every so often to point out a landmark or tell me about the history of a specific spot. When we get so deep in the woods that the air becomes heavy and thick and the plants and trees suddenly go from regular green to a color so lush and bright it looks like we’re staring at a painting instead of real life, I know immediately that we’ve made it into the deepest part of the woods and found the rain forest.

Declan pulls back on the reigns to stop his horse and I do the same. We both dismount and he ties his horse to the closest tree before doing the same with mine. Grabbing my hand and interlacing our fingers, he pulls me along the trail, deeper into the trees, until a light, warm mist starts falling around us.

I wore a bathing suit under my sheer cover-up for this trip, so I don’t really care if I get wet, and I have a dry change of clothes in my backpack we left back at the horse farm. I close my eyes and tip my head up to the sky, letting Declan lead us wherever he wants to go as I enjoy the feel of the warm, tropical spray on my face.

My eyes fly open when my body is suddenly yanked forward and I slam into Declan, who’s staring down at me with a hungry look in his eyes. He wraps his arms around my waist, and I press my hands against the damp material of his t-shirt clinging to his chest.

“You are so fucking beautiful,” he says softly, shuffling his feet and moving me backwards until my back bumps into a large tree.

One of his hands comes up between us and he uses the tips of his fingers to brush a few wet strands of hair out of my eyes and off my forehead, before trailing them down my cheek.