Chapter 7

Maria gracefully slipped off the float, lifted her hair, and ducked down until the water reached her neck, then they started back, smiling and laughing naturally until they reached Brent. Maria said, “You should have joined us. The water is wonderful.”

“It was,” Jimmy said. “You can see to the bottom and the fish swimming.”

Brent was completely disarmed by the casual, enthusiastic conversation. “That’s why they call this an island paradise. I’ll go in later.”

Maria turned and bent for a bottle of water. Brent stiffened, grinding his feet into the sand. His wife had red finger marks on her butt and inner thigh. “Why was your hand on her ass?”

Jimmy’s head turned from Brent to Maria. “Look at it.” He slapped his mother’s ass. “It’d be hard not to touch it. Don’t you agree?”

“That’s it,” Brent said and stepped forward, pushing his chest out, “I’ve had enough.”

The boy’s chest billowed, and his arms became knotted ropes of muscle. “No, you haven’t,” Jimmy said and drove his fist into Brent’s face.

Blind except for the sparkling specks floating in front of Brent’s eyes, he tasted blood as he staggered back, then he was falling, falling, falling, the way you do in a dream, but he didn’t wake up a second before impact. Instead, the cold, packed sand at the bottom of the hole smashed the air from Brent’s lungs, and everything went black.

Marie glanced down in the hole before placing her hands on Jimmy’s shoulders. “That was a hell of a punch.” Her hands moved to Jimmy’s neck, pulling him into a passionate kiss.

Jimmy looped his arms around Maria. His hands slid down to her ass and he pulled her into his muscled body, kissing her hard.

With panting breaths, Maria said, “Okay, okay, that’s enough for now. Come on, we got work to do.”

Jimmy held on and hunched against Maria’s body.

“No, baby.” She stepped back and looked at the top half of the erection sticking out of Jimmy’s swimsuit. “We have to stick to the plan. Get him in position, and I’ll help you with the sand.”

After their work was finished, Maria said, “Let’s take a swim to cool off. And get all this sand off us.”

“That’s a good idea,” Jimmy said and pulled the strings at his mother’s hips. Her bottoms fell. “That’s better.”

Brent had never been in a fight or even been punched, especially not in the nose, so he knew nothing about coming to, but in the movies, the guy usually shook it off, jumped up, and staggered away, yet he could hardly breathe.

His vision was blurry at best, and what he heard was echoed and distant. The only thing that seemed to work was his neck, so he turned his head. “What the hell?”