Embracing Ellie: Chapter 5

The raft rocketed through the rapids, feisty water roaring in Ellie’s ears. She clung to the ropes along the raft’s inflated frame, knuckles white with tension, but excitement coursing through her veins in heart-pounding blasts.

Hemi, their ultra-experienced guide and navigator, piloted the raft with ease, huge arms steering them through the turbulent waters with the stab or sweep of his long carbon oar. Hemi had skill. Hemi had confidence.

Damn it, Danny. Now she did think of Hemi in that inappropriate way.

It hadn’t been in her head before, but now she watched Hemi’s tanned muscles work; those huge shoulders, bulging triceps, and massive forearms. Hey, it was Danny’s fault she thought this way now.

But maybe before today she had sort of considered Hemi in a manner a married woman shouldn’t. And, yeah, Danny, Mr. Eagle Eye, she had checked out Hemi’s package in the cafe. But it wasn’t like how Danny thought. She didn’t have a conscious assessment; it was just her eyes taking all over the various measurements of this unique male specimen who’d wandered into their lives out of a rugged mud-caked truck in a far-off fantasy land.

Now, as they rounded a bend, the rapids at last gave way to a calmer stretch of water, and Elena stifled an outsized sigh of relief. Towering cliffs rose up on either side of the river, their craggy ramparts covered in lush greenery. The sun glinted off the water, casting quaking golden geometry on the rocky faces.

Daniel regarded her over his shoulder, his helmet askew and his eyes wide with youthful wonder. “This is incredible, isn’t it?”

And it was; and she loved that wondrous look on Danny’s face. This was the whole reason they’d come to New Zealand. And, in case one might grow accustomed to New Zealand’s natural spectacle, Hemi’s river tour grew more beautiful and unexpected. They approached a waterfall that cascaded down the cliffs in shimmering white crescents, rushing up a fine mist that cooled their faces. Birds, big ones, soared overhead, wings spread wide as they “rode the thermals,” Hemi told them. “Though they’re albatrosses, and you wouldn’t want them ‘round your neck, now would ya?”

But then, finally, Hemi steered the raft towards a secluded and peaceful spot on the riverbank, where a small beach nestled between towering trees. He brought the raft to a gentle stop, and Elena and Daniel clambered out, Danny lending her a hand. 

“Oh, my gosh, Daniel,” she said, stopping, her hiking sneakers planted in the hot sand, pointing to her legs. They quivered. Her kneecaps trembled. “I can barely walk.” They both laughed and Daniel held her while she pretended to collapse in his arms.

“Ah, you’ll get ‘em back,” Hemi said, regarding them, crossing his beefy arms. He’d tossed away his hat and his hair jutted in clumps and jags. He struck a rugged pose, with the tan, the muscle, the sunglasses and the matted hair. And whatever he’d done to her on that wild whitewater raft ride, he’d certainly zapped the strength from her legs. He’d left her wobbly. And her seat wet, too.

She let go of Danny and climbed out of his clutch, straightening her clothes and her cheeks flushing. Though there had been nothing sexual about the river trip, her sudden realization of her state embarrassed her, and the more she felt the heat on her cheeks, the worse they burned. Like her blushing would reveal to Hemi what she’d been thinking watching him steer the raft and maybe give a glimpse into some indecent talk last night she had with her very own husband. What the hell would Hemi think of them, a husband offering up his cherished wife for some lusty Kiwi thrills that no one but Hemi Armstrong could offer?

Now she frowned. Well, Hemi better want to. What if he rejected the idea?

Hemi said, “How ‘bout your legs there, Danny? You got the wobbles?”

“Yeah, how about you, Danny?” she said, showing him a snide face. “You got the wobbles?” She kneed him in his charley horse spot, mad he’d got her thinking about Hemi this way.

“Ha, ha-ow,” Danny said, laughing, knowing exactly why she was irate. Her husband picked up on the wet seat and the wobbly legs and the rosy cheeks and knew what she was mad about. And he thought it was funny, limping away.

Hemi said, “She’s a feisty one, yeah?”

“Mean spirited,” Danny said, lifting his leg lightly and wagging his foot. “Not a team player.”

“You’re not too wobbly, I hope,” Hemi said, “you can’t tramp up the backside of this waterfall.” He raised his face up from the beach to where the water spilled over the rock face and crashed down the wall to the eddy below. “You won’t believe the view.”

“Best thing for wobbly legs,” Danny said, “is to walk the wobbly off. You can make it, Ellie, right?”

“Yeah, of course I can,” she said, feeling a little guilty now even though she’d barely nudged Danny. The charley horse was performative rather than harmful. But Danny still rubbed the spot.

Danny said, “Off you two go, then. I’ve gotta nurse a knot someone put in my leg.”

“Oh, come on, Danny,” she said. “I didn’t even hardly get you. Stop playing it up.”

“I’ll be fine,” Danny said, walking down the beach’s soft slope, heading to their raft. “I can’t pick a better spot for a nap right now, anyway. You two tramp your way up the cliff and you can tell me all about what you saw, maybe even take a picture.”

As Danny headed away from them, Hemi still regarded her. She liked the hopeful bowing of his handsome brow. Damn, he had a great set of cheekbones and brow. And that jaw and chin, too. She scrunched up her face, saying, “You and me? You want to?”

Hemi smiled. “Who’s gonna stop us?”

#

Hemi led her up a winding, and at times treacherous, path, and as they emerged from the narrow colonnade of trees, Elena gasped. They were on the cliff top overlooking the river, and the view was unbelievable. The river rolled out before them, sparkling in the sunlight, snaking through the green terrain, and the mountains rose up in the distance, their peaks shrouded in clouds.

All alone on a secluded cliff with another man. Her husband down somewhere below, unseen, supposedly napping in the raft on the beach. But it was nice. Pleasant. Safe. Hemi was a good guy, and being up here with him was a unique experience. Intimate, in its own friendly way. She caught Hemi watching her profile as she soaked in the landscape she’d traveled so far to visit, and heat blushed her cheeks again. She laughed and faced him. “You’re looking at me, taking me all the way up here, and you’re missing the best view.”

And, shucks, if maybe Hemi didn’t blush a little himself right now, cocking his head, showing her a softer smile and easier eyes. He put his sunglasses back on, saying, “Nah, yeah, I like watching people see her for the first time.”

She laughed and hip-cocked an emphatic beat on her lame joke: “You must take all the girls up here.”

But Hemi didn’t humiliate her, pounce on an inept jibe that came across almost like a come-on. God, how did Daniel twist her up like this?

Hemi was just a guide they paid for a service. It was imperative to veer from this strange romantic interplay Daniel had put in her head.

Hemi didn’t look away nor change his expression. Still affable and open. He bounced his eyebrows and turned at last to admire the view. “Yeah, I’d reckon I might look less at the mates, but still, yeah…? That view.”

Elena returned her gaze to the river far below and the hazy mountains beyond. “Thank you,” she said. “This is a magical place.”

“It’s more than just a view, isn’t it?” Hemi said, low and thoughtful. “It’s like nature’s talking to us, telling us its stories.”

Elena asked him, “What do you think it’s saying?”

Hemi paused, his gaze sweeping over the landscape. She didn’t think he might come up with something, but then he said, “It’s saying that life is constant change. The river, the mountains, even the clouds—they’re all shifting, moving, growing older, finding easier ways. But there’s beauty in that change, in the cycle of things, yeah?”

“Yes, I’d say there is,” she agreed.

Hemi glanced at her, a gentle smile playing on his lips. “You know, the Maori people have a deep respect for the land. They believe that we’re all connected—the people, the earth, the sky. It’s all one big family.”

She smirked to one side, crossing her arms and hip-cocking again. She said, “When are you Hemi the tour guide and when are you really Hemi Armstrong?”

Hemi looked caught, then turned his head away, hiding a smile. He ran a hand through his hair in vigorous scrubs, then peeking at her. “Sounds like a sales pitch, yeah? I reckon I mighta said it one time or more.” Now he cocked his head her way like a bad schoolboy would, a charmer who didn’t like being in trouble. He said, “Special this time all the same, ain’t it?”

Hemi was adorable with his youthful masculine charm, those brows and muscles, that smile. Sometimes he sounded authentic and other times he performed, gave the audience what he thought the audience wanted. But there was an honesty at his integrity’s root that made Hemi so endearing.

She shrugged a shoulder and smiled in her own hopeful way. “It’s the first time I’ve seen it.”

#

Though he’d slept soundly, Daniel jolted awake at the sound of footsteps approaching in the sand. He squeaked and shuffled around to see through squinted eyes two figures returning to the raft’s beaching. One was a tall, bulky male figure, the other was the exact silhouette of the sexy woman he’d married; the wide hips, the black curls…

Yes, Ellie returned with handsome Hemi of the broad shoulders and generous endowment. His wife had headed out with a young, handsome, and well-built young man with little hesitancy. Should she go?—yes, that’s fine. That was what he’d wanted. But seeing the smile on Ellie’s face now, and the liveliness in her eyes, did something strange to his chest. Seeing her that way—with another man—disheartened him. It snatched away the cozy support upon which his heart had beaten in daily comfort. It also electrified him, sent electric pulses that tingled like static on his fingertips and along the soles of his feet.

Why on earth such a sight would produce any positive effect escaped him? It was unnatural. The expected accompaniment to the disheartenment should have been rage or jealousy, not excitement.

But he put on his smile.

“Well, how was it?” he asked, masking the interior turmoil. “What did I miss?”

Ellie came to him, happy and light on her feet, bubbling over about the cliff-top experience she’d shared with Hemi. He hugged her, noting the warmth and the lively buzz in his wife’s body.

That buzz wasn't unfamiliar, but it always signified one thing to Daniel: his wife's arousal. Ellie was in the mood. If she had hugged him like that around the house, he’d be carrying her into the bedroom right now, and Ellie would make no complaint. However, a wild unknown had occurred on that cliff top, a mystery that sent a shiver of dread through him. How could he find something so dreadful so erotic?

As Ellie babbled happily to him about the view Hemi had exposed her to, Daniel fixated on her moving lips—those plump cushions and white teeth forming words that described the river, the forests, and the mountains. All the while, his mind drifted back to memories of Ellie in high school, of young love and of free-fall; of uncertainty’s fear, the fear of love unattached, and the terrifying thrill of love unreciprocated, and, much worse—the ego death from Ellie’s attention pulled in another boy's direction.

Despite the wild imaginings, Ellie’s interest in Daniel had never wavered. He remembered how easily he had won her heart. They had gotten hitched, bought a house, and all the while, Ellie had never dated another boy. Daniel had claimed her virginity, and she had never strayed; she had always been his. 

Yet now, a tightness in his chest challenged his love for Ellie, igniting a dormant passion he hadn't felt in a while. This was all he could think about—packing up the boat again, launching downstream once more. The terrifying mystery of what Hemi and Ellie had done on the cliff top consumed him. Of course, nothing had happened; there was no way—no chance. But the swelling bladder of imaginings stretched to its limit, and the fuller it got, the more lurid and irrational the individual fantasies became. 

What if he could picture the worst thing possible? Perhaps this bladder would burst at last and deliver him some relief.

By the time Hemi steered their raft into another beach spot, this one near where he had left his truck, Danny's throat was dry, his leg muscles ached, and he was erect—hard as steel—thinking of Hemi performing vile, pornographic acts on Ellie high on that cliff top. He envisioned Ellie crying out how much she loved it, urging Hemi to do it harder and deeper.

Somehow he made it into Hemi’s truck without Ellie noticing his prominent arousal, but he’d had to un-tuck his shirt. And every time he got close to Ellie, it was like she encouraged unseen static that rose the hair on his arms and made his turgid arousal worse. Hemi took them back to their rental Land Rover about forty-five minutes away, where they’d parked this morning before launching.

And still, Hemi had mentioned nothing they’d discussed on the call. And when it came time to depart, Hemi said nothing again and Danny worried he’d forgotten or had come up with nothing. As Hemi said his farewells, Danny said, “Hey, Hemi, you want to grab a drink with us? Our treat, to say thanks for today.”

Hemi’s face lit up, but then he hesitated, scrubbing a hand through his sandy hair. “Ah, mate, I’d love to, but I’ve got something else on tonight. Rain check?”

“No worries, man,” Daniel said, nodding, unsure. “Next time.”

Hemi grinned, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “Definitely. Have a good one, you two.” He turned to Elena, his gaze lingering a moment longer. “Take care, Ellie.”

Ellie smiled in return. “You too, Hemi.”

Hemi walked back to his truck and left them at the Land Rover.

Had he offended the man by asking for something special?

But then Hemi paused in his track as if something just occurred to him, and he pivoted and returned to them. “I just thought of something,” he said.

Ellie was all wide-eyed and happy still, saying, “What’s that?”

Hemi wagged a finger in their direction. “You want a real adventure, yeah? Let me take you both skiing. You guys ski?”

“Yeah, we ski,” Ellie said, light and airy. Then turning aside to look at Danny, her brow crinkling. “Sometimes. I mean, we’ve skied.”

“Yeah, we’ve gone skiing,” Danny said. Like one time in high school.

Hemi said, “How about bright and early tomorrow,” stepping closer, eyes on Ellie’s, “I pick you up and we make a day of it? . . . I guarantee it’ll be the experience that makes your trip.”