Second Chance Honeymoon Read online

  Second Chance Honeymoon

  a honeymoon novella

  Ally Blake

  Tule Publishing Group

  dpgroup.org

  Second Chance Honeymoon

  Copyright © 2014* Ally Blake

  Kindle Edition

  The Tule Publishing Group, LLC

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  ISBN: 978-1-940296-53-1

  dpgroup.org

  Dedication

  To anyone lucky enough to hear the voices of characters in their head and the moxie to get the entire thing down on paper. I don’t know where the urge comes from to make up stories, but I do know better than to question it. Because it is a beautiful thing that we do; nothing short of transcendental. Even when, like in this tale, the magic runs to septuagenarian tantric yoga, towel-buddies, and the unfortunate revival of parachute-fabric tracksuits. Keep writing, please, even if only so that I have stuff to read for the rest of my life.

  —Ally

  dpgroup.org

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Honeymoon Series

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  [You know that trick in movies where the camera swirls about the hero, the background a blur, in that moment in which they realize they’ve made a huge mistake?

  Our scene is the deck of resplendent cruise ship the Royal Pacific; sunlight glinting off of her bright white hull as she prepares to depart Sydney Harbor. Our heroine is Juliana Jones—mid-twenties female, eyes and hair brown, a lone figure in head-to-toe black among a dazzling sea of tropical prints.

  And at this stage JJ’s mistakes have yet to reach critical mass . . .

  ***

  A cool change took the edge off the sultry summer heat; the accompanying breeze spinning and bumping a mass of red and silver decorations dangling from the ceiling. While Juliana Jones in her sky-high black ankle boots and black sunglasses and pulling a little black roller-suitcase nudged her way through the crowd to find a spot at the railing.

  Anticipation bouncing through her veins, JJ gripped the Happy Holidays! card her best friend had given her as she’d set off in the cab early that morning, filled as it was with helpful—read increasingly immoral—descriptions of what she might get up to the next few days, and tilted up onto her toes, leaning over the barrier, breathing deep in search of an expectant hint of sea air.

  Even before Erica had gifted her the card, JJ’s hopes for the week were big. Probably too big. But if a Pacific cruise couldn’t give a girl a shot in the arm, what could? In the cab ride to the dock, she’d indulged in glorious visions of a sun so bright it hurt her eyes. With cocktails so delicious they made a person weep. With a weeklong party filled with flirtation and fun. A hot fling with some buff bronzed beach bum wouldn’t go astray either. After the events that had led her to booking the cruise in the first place, she figured she was due a break on that score. Hence the fact she’d dusted off her bikinis, waxed unmentionable places, and spent ridiculous sums on sunny highlights in her long dark hair. Now she was sooo ready to sink into a sun, rum, and fun daze she could burst.

  JJ glanced along the railing to scope out her fellow passengers, wondering who among them might be up for some fun right alongside her. But the view was obscured by a mass of multi-colored streamers twirling out into the sky before dropping in great looping curls down the side of the ship towards those waving goodbye below.

  She could forgive her best friend for being at work instead of waving from far below since it was the fact that Erica had a newfangled travel agent job that she’d been able to hook JJ up with a great deal so last minute. As for her family . . .

  JJ rolled her shoulders and shook out her hair. Re-gathering her fighting spirit, she smiled beatifically at the crowd below. She could afford to be so magnanimous, because for the next eight days and seven nights she was leaving them all—the people, the city, and her entire hot mess of a life—behind.

  A great clanking groan rent the air as the last of the huge chains tying the ocean liner to land were unhooked, and with the hum of the engine buzzing deliciously through the floorboards, JJ felt the leaden weight of her past few days begin to lift.

  It was only when a clutch of crew below began to unhook a huge banner spanning the main gangplank that JJ felt the first flutters of her impending panic.

  The words Welcome! Love Birds for a Lifetime! were branded into her mind’s eye, but the banner was already folded and being carried by the crew into the belly of the ship, so she couldn’t be sure.

  And yet . . . Curling her hands around the metal railing JJ glanced over her shoulder at the fall of red love hearts and curls of glittery silver ribbon hanging from the ceiling.

  Skin prickling with a sense of impending doom, she tipped her sunglasses lower on her nose, her frenetic gaze finally able to focus on those around her, swerving over face after face of her jubilant fellow passengers, until she found—

  Nothing but couples; everywhere she looked.

  Apart from the occasional staffer in a purple polo shirt and beige cargo shorts there were couples holding hands, couples laughing, couples leaning into one another in that way that meant so much more than simply you have my back.

  And—because fate can be a bitch that way—not a single other guest was a day under sixty-five.

  For a second JJ seriously wondered if she was dreaming. The possibility was high that she was actually in a crème-de-menthe-induced coma. The wild night at their apartment when Erica had booked her on the cruise went down mere hours after JJ had quit her latest job subsequent to having been groped by her married boss. Not a pretty thought.

  But the alternative was that she was a twenty-seven-year-old divorcée with a string of dismal temp jobs trailing behind her like a piece of toilet paper stuck on her shoe. And that she was wide awake.

  Cue panicked heroine, blurred vision, and swirling camera sensation as JJ gripped the railing hard enough to bend the metal with her bare hands.

  Cheers pelted up and down the deck, snapping JJ from her trance as poppers popped and the air rained down twirling rainbows of tiny streamers.

  Blinking away the long strand of curling pink paper caught in her eyelashes, JJ watched in mute freak-out as the grey Sydney dock, and any chance of getting off the boat, slowly but surely moved out of reach.

  Despite the sharp sunlight shimmering in the water below it looked cold. But it wasn’t the cold that worried her. An amusement-starved small-town girl from way back, she’d leapt, squealing, into en
ough icy waterholes to know the adrenalin rush made the slim chance of peril worth it. It was the kind of thrill that made a girl feel alive. But unlike leaping from a tire swing, a jump off the side of a 70,000-ton ship would totally be her last.

  The crowd surged, the couple next to her bumping her elbow. She twisted, her ankle turning in her “lucky” boots. Sucking in a sharp breath she glanced up to find the pair in matching white slacks and Hawaiian shirts smiling so smoochily into one another’s eyes that the cold dark water didn’t seem like such a bad option after all.

  Instead of finding herself buoyed by a plethora of buff bronzed beach bums with whom she could blissfully while away the hours, she was drowning in a sea of “lovebirds for a lifetime.” Walking talking examples of what was really missing from her life.

  Happy holidays!

  Chapter 2

  Neil Diamond musak crooned from hidden speakers as JJ and her suitcase stood crammed in the back corner of the elegant gilt elevator. Conversation twittered jubilantly about her; leaping from the famous cranberry and flaxseed smoothie made on Deck Eight that did great things for one’s morning constitution, to the hotly contested couples bridge tournament, and . . . no, please god, let the rumor not be true that on the offering were classes of tantric yoga.

  Doing her all to put that image from her head, JJ closed her eyes and tried to recall the pictures of the ship that had made Erica—and her—so excited in the first place; fourteen sprawling decks, three lustrous pools, a cinema, a casino, quaint island stopovers, and four bars.

  Four gorgeous, deluxe, well-stocked bars. As she struggled with the knowledge that her hopes for a no-strings fling had gone up in smoke, she knew she’d need them.

  When Deck 11 lit up JJ excuse-me’d her way to the front of the elevator without making eye contact with her clearly curious passengers. They too had apparently noticed that she was the only guest on board less than half their average age. And once she hit the hall, she took her first breath in minutes that didn’t boast the sweet scent of talc.

  She checked the Post-It note stuck to her passport—Erica’s version of an itinerary—to find her room number was 11-121. How many rooms were on this ship? How many blissfully married couples inhabiting them, discussing intestinally beneficial smoothies while gazing longingly at one another?

  The sooner she found any of those bars the better.

  But first she needed to find her room.

  Eeny meeny miny . . . right. Fingers curled around the handle of her suitcase she began the interminable walk down the hall. Alone. Feeling like she was in the middle of one of those naked-in-public dreams, collecting stares and whispers like a normal holidaymaker collects postcards.

  Hastening her pace—not easy to do in her sexy come-and-get-it heels—she was sweating by the time she reached the end only to find another wall of elevators, and a row of cupboard doors marked Staff Only, and around the corner . . . another hall that led off into infinitum.

  JJ closed her eyes as she leaned back against the cool of the cupboard door, chanting sun and rum, sun and rum, lovely numbing sun and rum inside her head. It was all she had left.

  She muttered, “Who does a girl have to screw around here to find her damn room?”

  A shadow poured over the backs of JJ’s eyelids.

  “Need something?” a voice rumbled.

  JJ pried her eyes open to find herself looking at . . . well, quite possibly the answer to her prayers.

  To call him a man felt like an understatement, for the guy had to be part mountain. Double her height—or so it felt—and all brawn, his skin was deeply tanned, his hair thick and dark, and his square jaw shadowed with the kind of stubble that she’d bet even the most exacting shave couldn’t keep at bay for long.

  The wild child who’d leapt into those freezing water holes way back when perked right up; as the mountain man had also been born the same century as she.

  All of which was why it took her a few beats to notice the purple polo and beige cargo shorts.

  Mountain Man was not a passenger—he was staff.

  “Kane Phillips,” he said, heaving a pile of crisp white towels from one beefy arm to the other so that he could hold out a hand and fill every last fraction of space he hadn’t already. “Fitness Director.”

  “Juliana Jones,” she said on the back of a regretful sigh as she shook his hand to find it warm, dry, and a little rough. The scrape of calluses against her palm left a delicious tingle in its wake. It was all she could do to contain a sob.

  “First-timer?” asked he of the two-word-sentences in a voice so deep it created ripples in the air.

  “Am I that obvious?”

  His gaze flicked down to her feet and all the way back up so fast she’d either imagined it or the guy had wicked cataloguing skills.

  “Glaringly,” he said with a hint of a smile that caused a riot among her insides. Then he added, “Dancer?”—cutting all the way back to one-word sentences. As if he needed to say anything at all. The man could just stand there and most women would smile and nod.

  Not JJ though. She shook her head. Her skills were many and varied, helped along by the million temp jobs she’d mastered in her life, but dancing wasn’t one of them.

  No singular talent, the Dainty Hill sixth grade teacher had labeled JJ in front of her entire class of eight kids. After which she’d beamed at JJ’s future ex-husband, who was already by that stage, a math whiz the entire town had known would take the world by storm. No wonder JJ had decided then and there that was the boy she was going to marry.

  “Two left feet,” she said, shortening her cadence to match his, as this fast turned out to be one of the more peculiar conversations of recent times. And that included having to recently tell her boss that do you want me to call someone to fix the photocopier was not a euphemism for please fondle my backside. “You?”

  Grooves creasing his forehead, making him look rather the bad ass, Kane Phillips, Fitness Director, glanced the miles down to his enormous feet and said, “This week? Mostly quoits. Gentle Pilates.” His eyes lifted to hers, cool, level, fringed in curling dark lashes that were, quite simply, unsporting in their gorgeousness. “If you’ve taken over from Judy in the nursing station, you’ll be the most popular woman on board.”

  Yikes. “Little blue pills?”

  Mountain Man’s mouth kicked up at one corner to reveal a now-you-see-it-now-you don’t dimple, as if life wasn’t unfair enough. “Sea-sickness jabs.”

  “Ah. Right.”

  “So . . . bar staff?”

  And then JJ realized why the exchange felt peculiar; not because the man’s cool eyes held hers in a way that was a nudge left of friendly but because they’d been having two separate conversations. He thought she was staff. Made sense; considering the idea that she might be a passenger was just plain dumb.

  “Judy’s job is safe from me. I’m just here for the sun. And the rum. And—I’d been hoping for someone along the lines of you—“that’s it.” Coward.

  “You’re a guest?” Dark eyebrows slid up his tanned forehead as his focus remained locked on her even as a pair of ladies in retina-burning, neck-to-knee, fluorescent-pink swimsuits shuffled down the hall.

  “I am that,” she said.

  This time he took his time roving over her Rolling Stones tour t-shirt, her skinny black jeans, and her boots which were tipping in and out at the ankles as her nervous energy hit sky-scraping levels. His gaze lifted back to the iconic image of lips with the tongue poking out and stayed a beat as he scratched at his chest, pulling purple cotton across mounds of muscle that had JJ swallowing . . . hard.

  “When you get back on dry land, I suggest you have a word with your travel agent, Ms Jones. This is a Second Honeymoon cruise. Many on board are celebrating their golden wedding anniversaries and beyond.”

  A veritable speech, she thought. Though if she’d been holding out any last faint sliver of hope that maybe she’d just stumbled onto the wrong deck and the real fun was awaiting h
er down a flight of magnificently sweeping stairs, such hope was promptly snuffed.

  Until Kane Phillips, Fitness Director, reached a hand towards her hair.

  Her next breath caught in her throat, her cheeks warmed with a sudden rush of blood and she nearly went cross-eyed as his big-knuckled fingers disappeared from view and delved into her hair. The tug at her scalp made itself felt elsewhere. Then south of elsewhere.

  When his long brown fingers reappeared they held a thin curling green streamer. On autopilot, she held out a hand and he dropped the paper spiral into her palm.

  “Poppers,” he rumbled. “We’ll be cleaning ’em up for days.”

  Because he was staff, she reminded herself, and therefore not about to dive headlong into a red-hot fun-fest with a willing passenger looking to forget about real life with whatever method was on offer, probably even if she said pretty please.

  JJ wondered if her internal plea had manifested itself in an outward one, as when his eyes shifted back to hers they held on. Long enough she felt his gruff energy loop around her like the paper curled round her little finger.

  With a frown, his gaze glanced away, down to a big battered diving watch circling his thick wrist.

  Then, with a, “Bon voyage, Ms Jones,” he heaved the beach towels from one big arm to the other, and, whistling, ambled down the hall, leaving her alone no clue as to where she was going to sleep that night but the utter certainty she’d be doing so alone.

  Chapter 3

  “Miss Jones?”

  JJ glanced sideways to find a much smaller man hurtling towards her.

  “Miss Jones,” he repeated.

  “That’s me.”

  “I am Raul. Your purser for this hall.” He motioned to the door she was leaning against. “This is my room. Shall I show you to yours?”

  With a sigh she said, “Yes, please.”

  Around the corner and barely three doors down the next hall, he opened the door to her room which turned out to be a sweet little suite with a double bed, subtle beachy theme, and its very own porthole. Otherwise known as nirvana.