The Sea of Aaron by Kymberly Hunt Page B

accident.”
    â€œI’m sorry to hear that,” Valerie said softly.
    â€œHe was drunk,” Danny added wryly. “Soon after that I quit school and started hangin’ out with guys selling drugs. I got arrested and went to jail for a year. When I got out, no one would hire me, so I started getting in trouble again. Then Drew and his dad came back. Drew looked me up, and the Captain told me I had to turn things around and if I was willing to work and go back to school, he’d help me out. That’s when I found out that he owned Avian International, and he got me a job as a freight handler at the airport. He paid me more than I was worth, but that opportunity saved my life.”
    Valerie liked that part. It felt good to hear confirmation that Aaron wasn’t as stone cold as people seemed to think. “So obviously you didn’t remain at the airport. What happened next?”
    â€œOn weekends, Drew and me and our girlfriends would go hiking through the rainforest and canoeing on the river. We started inviting the cruise ship tourists along…taking them out to the caves and all that stuff. The tourists loved it and were willing to pay.”
    â€œNice,” Valerie said. “And this was something you actually enjoyed doing.”
    â€œYeah. And since Belize is my country and a lot of its economy is from tourism, the Captain said I could probably make a living doing this, and I liked the idea. He then taught me a lot of important stuff about running a business, and he loaned me the capital to get started. I also ended up studying about Mayan culture and ecology, which was tough, but worth it. Now I’m sort of known as an environmental expert and I’ve got two of my brothers and ten people working for me.” He smiled. “Business is good.”
    â€œSounds like you’ve got a lot to be proud of,” Valerie said.
    Danny was about to say something else when someone called him. He excused himself, rose slowly, and flashed a crooked smile. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently. The Captain is a good man, the best.” His eyes twinkled. “And just in case you happen to be his girlfriend, don’t let the tough guy, I-don’t-need-nobody bull scare you off.”
    Way too late for that advice, she thought wryly. She felt more attracted to Aaron than ever and scared, not of him, but of what she might do if she kept seeing him.
    ***
    Cadmium orange, yellow, a mixture of burnt umber, and purple. Aaron preferred acrylic paint to oil these days because it wasn’t as messy. Shirtless, wearing only a pair of shredded jeans, he stood on the terrace of his former room, now Valerie’s, and stepped back to study the canvas. The beach at dusk had not taken long to create at all. He had capitalized on the present Belizean sunset, a mélange of smoky mauve and red fire, but the darkened sandy shore he’d created from his head, since there was no significant beachfront on Caye Caulker.
    The painting seemed to have almost conceived itself, and as he studied it he realized there was an aberration apparent in the silhouetted form of a lone woman strolling by the sea. Normally he did not paint people—preferring vast landscapes undefiled by human bodies—but this subliminally sketched woman was not disturbing or defiling anything. This shadow of a female who distinctly reflected Valerie’s proportions blended right in with the landscape, accepting her environment and her solitude.
    He sat down on the edge of the lounge chair and rubbed his eyes. There had been only one other time he had painted a woman, a girl actually, and that was when both of their lives had been driven by youthful passion and no foreknowledge of what tragedy lay ahead.
    Slowly the room and the painting blurred into a kaleidoscope of muted shadows and light, careening wildly through days, and months, and decades—decades that led to the memory of a more recent