Page 14

Colin laid there in the darkness of the room with the ceiling fan stirring the cool breeze coming from the meshed window close to the side of his bed.

His feet dangled over the edge of the mattress as his tall frame was too big for the queen-sized mattress in the guest room of Coco’s grandmother’s house in Barbados.

This being the room where her father grew up and where her sister lived before finally heading off to school in the UK.

Coco’s youngest sister was flying in tomorrow to come and meet him and his grandfather, who when finding out that they were coming to Barbados to visit Coco’s grandmother, had wanted to come along.

He’d been here once with their grandmother and they’d both enjoyed vacationing here.

He wanted to come and go and see the places they’d been to when she was alive.

Colin was happy his grandfather was here with him and that they got to spend more time together. He had received the all clear from the doctor before they booked a private jet.

He gave a slight jump when he heard a creaking sound. His eyes, now adjusted to the dark, scanned the room, and seeing nothing he relaxed.

The past week had been a firestorm of activity for the both of them as he took Coco to meet his grandfather and his brothers that she’d met before.

Jacob was away from the family dinner, and he’d received a text from him saying that he had a lead on where Sierra had gone and was heading out to a remote area in Maine.

He was going to a place called Matinicus Isle.

What she was doing there was a mystery and Colon was waiting to find out from his brother how she ended up from Boston to an isle.

And then Coco trying to get one of her products to the finish line.

She worked late hours with her staff, rolling up her sleeves and working alongside them.

The marketing of her product to helping with getting her formulas just right.

He helped out where he could with making sure she and her staff were fed or sitting her down and giving her a massage to loosen the tension in her neck when something wasn’t going right.

He had been so amazed to see how she worked.

She was quick thinking with solutions when problems arose and was patient with her staff when they would ask her questions.

He was proud of her when she gained herself another customer after having a pitch meeting that was pencilled in last minute because the potential distributor was in Boston on business. Now her hair care and body line were going to be featured in another store across the US.

At night, when they would have dinner in her office, she would talk to him about her dream of when she finished launching this new product.

She had set her sights on another distributor in Canada.

Coco’s goal was to become internationally known and he wanted to help her do that.

She would listen attentively to what he had planned.

He was also busy working on opening up another restaurant and had been working with the architects this week to get the concept design down on how he wanted his restaurant to flow and look like.

He would bounce ideas off her, and she would give him her suggestions.

They were falling into a routine and she no longer tried to chuck his favorite chair out the door.

She even allowed him to order and bring more stuff into the vacant office he’d commandeered from her.

He loved having those quiet moments with her.

They were becoming his favorite time of the day.

The girl he dated in the past was now being replaced with the woman she was today, and he wanted her, mind, body, and soul.

When he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, she felt like a needy drug to his soul.

She melted into him and responded so beautifully but before it could go too far, she would pull away, leaving him craving more.

He began wanting this to become real. He wanted all of her and hoped that coming here and being in this tropical paradise that he would be given the opportunity to show her that she was beginning to mean more to him than just someone to play at being his fiancée.

He won her heart once and he was determined now that he could do it again.

His thoughts scattered when he heard the floor outside his door creek again and cursed; he was having trouble sleeping not only because he was thinking of Coco, but also because of all the ghost stories her family and his grandfather had talked about on the plane ride here.

He did not believe in ghosts and was shocked to hear his grandfather say that he’d heard some stories from the locals at one of the bars down in Bridgetown.

Here he thought he would be regaled with more stories from her father about cricket and his cricket days as a youth before he got into becoming a diplomat for the embassy and travelling around the world.

But no, they talked about ghosts and haunted places for most of the plane ride.

Colin was sure they were pulling his leg and that his grandfather was a part of it.

His grandfather loved a good joke, especially at his grandsons’ expenses.

Coco’s father was having a little bit too much fun with his stories, especially telling him that his mother’s place was haunted.

“I remember the night when Mommy said she saw Miss Birch in her nightgown floating down the street, and then another night she came to the house for a visit. Mom just asked her if she wanted some tea.” That was the first time he heard Linnel laugh without daggers in his eyes aimed at Colin.

“What about the Reverend looking scared when giving the sermon saying if Mr. Baxter had been of a godly nature, he would not have been cocked up dead between a woman’s thighs that was not his wife’s when they found him, and suddenly letting out that high pitch scream when Mr. Baxter’s coffin lid flew open.

And then he claimed it away with the springs not working properly. ”

Colin had turned and his gaze connected with Coco’s, hers holding amusement, then she added her tale of floating teeth in the air. He couldn’t take it anymore and put on his headphones to tune them out and pretended to sleep for the rest of the plane ride there.

And now every damn creak or sound had him believing that Miss Birch was coming for a visit.

He turned in bed, deciding it was time for him to get some sleep before meeting up with everyone at Coco’s parents’ house tomorrow where everyone else was staying.

The house was full with Coco and his grandfather staying there and the extra bedroom was for her sister who was arriving soon.

He got the impression that Linnel didn’t want him under the same roof as his daughter and out of respect he decided to not make a fuss and was going to make reservations at a hotel in Barbados but one call from Linnel to his mother, Coco’s grandmother Celia, had refused hearing that he would stay in a hotel and prepared one of her rooms for him.

He froze when he heard the knob turn slowly.

His heart racing now, he sat up in the bed and squinted in the dark to see the door but all he could perceive was dark shadows.

Suddenly there was a low light highlighting the door that opened, and he could peer into the semi-dark of the hallway.

He almost screamed when he saw a woman in a white nightgown float in, her white hair sticking up in disarray, the only other color he could see in his dark room.

She was coming closer and he was about to leap from the bed when his eyes finally adjusted and the ghost stepped from the hallway glow into the room.

He realized, foolishly, that it was grandma Celia staring blankly back.

“Mrs. Hunt, are you all right?” His voice came out as a squeak and he cleared his throat, embarrassed now.

She didn’t say anything, just continued to watch him eerily and he found himself reaching for the covers as if that could protect him somehow from who he thought was Granny Celia, but he wasn’t so sure now because she wasn’t saying anything to him.

“Mrs. Hunt?” When he was about to repeat her name a third time, she turned around and headed back through the door, closing it behind her.

Colin sat there for a second, wondering what the hell just happened.

He went to go and grab his phone off the small night table in the room, ready to hit the dial button and call Coco, but he saw that it was 3 am in the morning and put the phone down.

He could not wake her; he was sure she was sound asleep now and he was feeling foolish about what he just experienced.

He fell asleep with the light on.

When he was finally able to meet up with Coco and her family after having breakfast with Granny C, the family had made their way down to the beach from the house and had taken a dip in the ocean, leaving him and Coco to finish getting the towels and chairs sorted with the umbrella for his grandfather and her grandmother, who now seemed to be in deep conversation as they sat at one of the benches near the shade of the tree.

He felt foolish again for now having to bring this up but needed to know he wasn’t going crazy with what he had seen last night.

Because this morning when he mentioned it to Granny Celia, she just stared at him blankly until he felt silly for asking.

He just tucked into the hearty breakfast she had prepared for him.

She smiled happily when he went back for seconds, especially for the fried plantain.

It was hard and juicy at the same time with the flavours bursting on his tongue.

“Coco.”

She glanced up at him as she unfolded another chair, then her attention was caught when her mother let out a shout of outrage followed by a girlish laugh as her father splashed his wife and went in for a wet kiss.