Passionate Choice

Chapter 8.4

Selena slept badly that night as she wondered whether she was doing the right thing by going to San Juan, always ending the argument with herself by saying she was merely island-hopping for her own pleasure, to use up the rest of her spring vacation, and if she happened to run into Keith at any of the places she visited, well, she ran into him. Not for anything would she admit to herself that she was going to the places he might be in because she wanted desperately to see him again, to put everything right between them. Because even if nothing came of another meeting with him, she had to part friends with him.

The flight to San Juan the next day was uneventful I above a glittering blue sea dotted with green islands. Heavy purple clouds wreathed the mountains of Puerto Rico and the landing was made in a fierce shower of rain. A taxi shared with an American businessman whisked her to a high-rise hotel on Confado Beach, and after lunch she walked to the nearby Club Nautico at the eastern end of the San Juan canal, and then on to San Juan marina on the other side of the canal. The Jellyfish was docked at neither.

Assuming that Keith hadn't arrived in port yet, she returned to the hotel and spent the afternoon on the beach swimming a little and sunbathing. Later, when it was somewhat cooler and the western sky was streaked with feathery gold-lit clouds and flushed with crimson light, she walked again to the club and the marina, to be told that no boat had arrived that arrived that day from St. Thomas.

She sent the evening at the hotel not wanting to risk going into the center of town alone at night. In spite of the comfort of her surroundings, the exotic foods, she felt lonely and not a little depressed, thinking about Keith and wondering whether he was still at sea or whether he was groping his way into the harbour.

Next morning, she was at the two docking areas early but could not find him or his boat. It was suggested to her that the best way of finding out whether he had entered San Juan harbour would be to go to the US customs where he would have had to report on arriving, so she went by taxi to the old town to the 'most beautiful custom house in the Americas', an imposing, pink building close to the ferry landing. There were several yachts tied up near the landing but not one of them was the Jellyfish. Keith hadn't reported to customs and none of the skippers on the visiting yachts clearing customs had seen him or his yacht not had they heard him on their radios.

"Where would he be bound after San Juan?" asked one of the skippers, a grey-haired man with a weatherbeaten kindly face who had been cruising the Caribbean with his wife in their ancient ketch and were now in their way back to Florida and home.

"Puerto Plata."

"Could be he's gone on there without calling here. Weather is pretty good out there right now. We would have stayed out, only we needed to pick up some supplies and make a few phone calls. Of course, there's always the possibility he's put in at Samana on his way to Puerto Plata."

Thanking him for his suggestions, Selena wandered away along the narrow cobbler streets of the old city which had once been enclosed by the walls it Fort El Morro and Fort San Cristobal. Decorative wrought-iron balconies hung above her and elegantly shaped gas lamps jutted from the walls. Windows were covered by iron grilles set unit massive heatproof walls. She walked right out to Fort El Morro to climb the wall running along the edge of the headland guarding the entrance to the harbour. Waved pounded at the foot of the cliff and beyond them the sea, turquoise blue under the hot sun, stretched away to the dark line of the horizon. Wishing she had binoculars, Selena looked out, searching the wide waste of water for a sail and saw none.

Two hundred and eighty miles from San Juan to Puerto Plata by sea, so her acquaintance at the ferry landing had informed her. At a reasonable speed that would take a yacht like Jellyfish about forty-eight hours. If Keith had sailed on instead of coming into San Juan, reckoning from the time he should have arrived at the port yesterday afternoon, he would arrive at Puerto Plata, barring mishaps, some time tomorrow afternoon or evening. Unless he put in at Samana.

Oh, why was she bothering? Why didn't she just stay here a few days then catch a plane to Miami, change the time of her flight to Britain and go home? Why hang about the islands hoping to see him in some port?

Because she didn't want to go home. She wanted to linger among the scented tropical islands where life was so unhurried and, above all, she wanted to find Keith again and tell him she had made her choice.

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