Compromises

As I waited for Luke to change to go to the beach with me, I walked over to the baby grand piano. I hadn’t asked Seth if he had learned the music I gave him at Christmas. I tapped a key and listened to it resonate through the room. I would have to ask him to play it for me later. It was a beautiful piece, and I wondered if he had practiced all those long months that we were apart. If he had, that would mean that he had thought of me often, as I had of him. I, again, was still wondering about his comment this morning about his being my boyfriend. Did he think of us as more? I dared not go down that path. Luke ran up from the crew’s quarters and chuckled when he saw me. “Playing chopsticks?” “That’s about all I could play,” I laughed back as I gathered up my bag for the beach. We spent the day lazily taking in the sun and chatting like old friends. We were “people watching” all day. We would laugh over some of the tourists, easily identifiable as they dressed so outlandishly in their tropical shirts and skirts. I was looking for a love interest for Luke, although Luke said it was hard to see anyone else when I was sitting there next to him in nothing but a bikini. He had more than several women look his way. They ranged in ages from fifteen to sixty-five. I teased him about it and he just chuckled, saying he couldn’t help that women were so love crazed that they couldn’t resist him. He reminded me that only I was immune to his charms. He was the perfect companion, and our relationship was growing stronger every day, even though he knew he and I would never be more than friends. At the end of the day, we were making our way back to the yacht and I was joking about a particular busty redhead who had eyed him as we had packed up to head home. “Come on, Luke, she was literally lusting for you.” “I haven’t heard it put quite that way before,” he chuckled. “What, women can’t be visual creatures like men are?” “I . . . ,” Luke started to answer me when he stopped short. “Luke,” I questioned, picking up on his tense mood, “what’s wrong?” “You stay here,” he ordered me as he kept his eyes locked ahead and walked off. I watched where he was headed and saw two big, burly men with long ponytails. I knew the look of these two. Saw it in the pirates who had taken us over on the yacht. Fear coursed through my veins, and my heart picked up in tempo. I was so intent on watching Luke that I failed to see that another man with short-cropped hair had stepped up behind me. He was dressed casually in white linen pants and matching shirt, with a stylish straw hat that shaded his face. I felt the barrel of a gun in my side as he whispered, “stay calm and no one gets hurt. Walk with me,” he added as he steered me in the opposite direction from Luke. I wanted to scream out, but the man had the gun in my side and Luke was deep in conversation with the other two, his back to me. The man led me quickly down a back alley. I was already thinking of how I could gain the upper hand in this tricky situation when he said, “sorry, but I need your cooperation,” and he hit me on the back of my head. As I slumped into his arms, my last thought before losing conscience was of Seth.