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lose somebody the way he had lost his mother.
    Brandon turned off the car’s engine and leaned back against the seat. Exhaustion overwhelmed him. Tropical night air blew through the lowered car windows, tantalizing him with the familiar scent of gardenia. His mother had worn that same fragrance. He waited at the end of the driveway until all the lights went off inside the house. Until the night sounds from the surrounding jungle had blotted out the sounds of neighborhood dogs, TVs, and moving cars. Until he was positive his father was asleep and he could steal inside, alone and unnoticed.

6

    T he next morning April told her parents about meeting Brandon. Not about their very first meeting, atop the hill, or about the second one, when he came to the house, but about the third. She embellished, saying that she’d gotten lost and he’d come to her rescue at the Buccaneer. “He seems nice, and I think you’ll like him. He wants to show me around St. Croix.”
    Her father poured coffee for the three of them. “I can’t say I blame him. You are the prettiest girl on the island.”
    April rolled her eyes.
    “Do you want to see him?” her mother asked.
    Their gazes met, and April thought back totheir conversation that one afternoon on the beach. “Yes, I’d like to see him. I’d like to have him show me the island.”
    “We can show you the island,” her father declared.
    “Don’t be a wet blanket, Hugh,” her mother said. “We’re just parents. April needs to be with someone her own age. Besides, now that you’re commuting back and forth to New York, you’ll only be here on the weekends. What’s she supposed to do during the weekdays?”
    “I only go every other week,” he corrected her, then leaned toward April. “You sure you don’t want to go to New York with me?”
    April shook her head. “I like it here.”
    “We’ll both go with you on one of the trips,” her mother offered. “In the meantime, I’ve been thinking of spending a few days in the British Virgin Islands.”
    The British counterpart wasn’t far away, but to go would mean spending several days there. “Maybe later this summer,” April hedged. “Of course, you can go if you want. I’ll be fine by myself.”
    She caught their reluctance to go off andleave her to fend for herself in their glances at each other. It bothered her that they were so overprotective, but she wasn’t in any mood to start an argument about it. Fortunately, the phone rang just then, and her father answered and handed it over to her. “I’ll bet it’s that Brandon.”
    It was. She quickly made plans, and later that afternoon when he came, she made sure her parents met him. Once in his car, she said, “Sorry about that,” referring to the numerous questions her father had asked.
    He laughed. “Do I still have arms and legs? I thought your father was going to bite them off.”
    “They can’t help it. It came with their parenting lease.” She remembered apologizing to Mark for her family’s possessiveness of her, but he had known about her health problems and made allowances. Brandon did not know.
    “They care,” Brandon said. “It’s no big deal. Forget it.”
    “So where are we going?”
    “Have you driven up into the rain forest?”
    “Once. But I was on my way someplace else.”
    “Then that’s where we’re headed.”
    He drove into the hills, where tangled undergrowth and thick tree trunks lined the sides of the road. Brandon slowed, pulled off to one side, took April’s hand, and led her into the dense foliage. The air felt damp and heavy. Her hair stuck to the back of her neck. She heard a breeze rustle through the tree branches high above but couldn’t feel it. The trees absorbed it, like sponges sucking up water. “It’s so quiet,” she said. “I feel as if we should be whispering.”
    “It’s not so quiet,” he said. “Listen.”
    She heard a faint clacking sound.
    “That’s the seedpods of Tibet trees. They’re called