Passionate Choice

Chapter 8.2

At the wharf, the ferry-boat has already docked and was filling up the passengers, mostly islanders who were going to Roadtown to ship and winter residents who were return g to the States, Canada and even Britain after six months in their tropical hideaways. Heather dropped Selena off, said goodbye casually and drove away without a backward look. In the saloon of the small but sturdy boat, Selena sat between two large black wines and as the boat ploughed across the thirty-five mike stretch of water that separated Sanada from the next island in the group, she had plenty of time to think about all that happened since she had first arrived on Sanada.

Only five days had gone by yet it seemed like a lifetime during which she had run the gamut of emotions as her love for Keith had revived, rising like a flame from the ashes of a desire which she had believed to be dead. And now she was in her own again, unattached, strictly single. Be she knew that Keith had been guilty of cheating too. When he had been engaged to marry a woman called Sora, he had been living with her, making love to her. He had been cheating on Sora as much as she had cheated on Ben yesterday. Oh, God, was it only yesterday that passion had flared up between ten at high noon?

Two of a kind, she supposed they were, she and Keith, both liking to be independent, both reluctant to make a commitment, both believing in free thinking and free love. Yet drawn magnetically to one another and unable to resist the passion of physical attraction.

No wonder Ben, conventional and a little timid emotionally, couldn't understand her affair with Keith. How cool Ben had been this morning when she had said goodbye to him. But, then, Keith had been in an Arctic mood too when she had parted from him yesterday. Both men had made her feel as if she were the one who was at fault, a typically masculine reaction to a woman who was able to act independently of them.

She looked out at the tranquil blue water. The other islands were appearing now, mountainous and covered with sparse green vegetation, rimmed with yellow sand, floating in emerald-green shallows. The boat twisted through a narrow passage between some dangerous rocks then surged out into the brad expanse of blue water named after Sir Francis Drake. For a while, Selena daydreamed, imagining what it had been like for those early adventurers and explorers when they had first come across the Atlantic and had seen what must have seemed like paradise to them.

Across the strait to the entrance of a wide bay, the ferry plunged. They passed anchored freighters, moored yachts and marinas spiky with masts in the approached to the Roadtown ferry wharf. Soon, Selena was aboard another ferry, leaving the harbour fast, and traveling further down the channel between other high islands on her way to Charlotte Amelie, St. Thomas, capital town of the US Virgin Islands.

The harbour at Charlotte Amelie was, as usual, crowded with yachts at anchor among which the ferry had to nose its way to the wharf. Buildings glittered, flags fluttered and traffic was heavy along the road that curved beside the bay. For a while, bewildered by so much noise and business after the quiet seclusion of Sanada, Selena stood outside the building where she had cleared customs and immigration and which was close to the ferry dock, not sure what she should do next. She had left without any real plan. To get away from Ben and Heather was all she had wanted to do, to act independently as if in control of her own destiny.

   "Taxi, ma'am." An elderly black man approached Selena.

   "Yes. Yes, please," she murmured, and he raised a hand to wave to one of a fleet of taxis waiting in a car park near the customs building. One drove forward, her bags were out into the back seat with her, the door was slammed and the driver turned in his seat to ask her where she wanted to go. After an initial hesitation, she said, "Yacht Haven Marina."

   After all, it was the only place she knew in St. Thomas, the place where she and Keith had docked Nightingale four years ago and the place where John had told her Keith had left his new yacht Jellyfish while he had been in Sanada. She knew also that there was a hotel near he marina where she could stay. She was on holiday, she reminded herself, as the taxi swept out into the road and joined the traffic going east. She had two whole weeks left before she could fly to England from Miami on her return ticket and also before her money ran out, she added ruefully to herself.

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