Sorry for the wait, folks. This one pretty much picks up right where Chapter 3 ends...

Chapter 4:

As expected, Mindy had a glorious time in the water. The temperature was perfect and the setting was incredibly serene. She floated on her back for what seemed like hours. She was interrupted briefly when Danny stealthily swam up to her and pulled her under the water. She sputtered when she rose to the surface, prepared to unleash a healthy dose of righteous indignation but his face had taken on this childlike glow which she had never seen before. Like the mother of a naughty child, she couldn't quite yell at him. She tried of course, but her tone took on an air of amusement which was not intended. She swatted at him and found that she allowed her hand to linger on his chest just a moment longer than necessary.

They all spent the afternoon apart. Mindy went to the sauna with Gwen, while Carl played a round of golf with a threesome seeking a fourth. Danny wandered off to some mysterious place and it wasn't until the evening after her pre-dinner shower when Danny responded to her request to hand her the blow dryer that she noticed where he must have been.

"Dude, you totally got a manicure!"

"I did not!"

Mindy lifted an eyebrow. It was all the statement she needed to make to express her disbelief.

"Fine, technically I did. But it was called a gentleman's manicure and there was absolutely no nail polish. We each get two free spa treatments with the hotel package and they talked me into it."

Danny plopped down on the bed with a mixture of shame, regret, and a touch of anger.

"Danny, relax! Sure, women tend to be the ones to get manicures, but hand care and maintenance is for everyone. Besides, now your hands are probably a lot softer...and that doesn't make them any less masculine."

"Yea?" he questioned hopefully.

"Totally, give me your hand." Mindy grasped his hand and for a brief second her mind fleeted back to that plane ride home from Santa Fe. But, enough about that she chastised herself, Danny needs some reassurance right now.

"See, very strong and firm, but now they're soft too. Trust me, girls love soft hands on a man."

"Really," Danny asked suspiciously, clearly assuming she was just trying to make him feel better.

"Totally. I mean don't get me wrong, rough hands are OK at times, but I'll tell you a secret. I personally prefer to be touched by soft hands...you know lightly running across my back or up my legs or running through my hair or...other places. For the record, your hands were perfectly acceptable for that brief time that you were sort-of my gynecologist. But they're definitely better now."

She didn't quite seem to notice the way she was absent-mindedly drawing circles with her fingers on his hand as she said all of this.

"Good to know," Danny choked out in response.

Mindy was pulled from her daydream by Danny's words and noticed that the expression on Danny's face was a little pained. And she was apparently still holding his hand. What on earth was going on with him…oh, he wasn't in pain. Danny Castellano was totally turned on! And trying to hide it! God, what had she been saying to him? Oh yea, that she liked being touched in lots of intimate places by soft hands and that one time he professionally caressed her breasts was totally adequate. Yea, that would probably do it…

Mindy's eyes caught Danny's eyes for a brief second. His stare could be so intense sometimes. And right now, there was definitely something akin to desire there, which caused her stomach to flip. She released her hold on Danny's hand, denying to herself that she was a bit reluctant to give it up. To avoid the awkwardness, she picked up the hair dryer and turned it on. But then she saw something that simply didn't leave her any choice but to yell over the noise.

"Oh my God, you got a pedicure too!"

Danny threw himself (with dramatic flair that could rival her sessions on her office floor, she would add) face-down on the bed and groaned unintelligibly into the pillow.

An hour later and Mindy's promise to never mention the nail situation to Jeremy Reed ever or may Brad dump Angelina, they headed down to dinner. They had opted for the elegant dining room tonight and it was exquisite. Danny wore a suit and Mindy had already told him twice how good he looked. He appeared embarrassed the first time, but winked at her the second time, clearly having recovered from her accidental seduction on him earlier in the evening. Mindy wore a knee-length lavender halter-neck dress with her hair up and couldn't help but notice the way that Danny's fingers grazed her back as he stood close to her in the elevator and lingered against her wrist as he touched her arm to gesture for her to go ahead in front of him as they were shown their table. In fact, he seemed to be taking any and all opportunities to touch her this evening and she couldn't help but wonder if it was intentional after their earlier conversation. At the same time, he didn't quite seem to even notice he was doing it.

He did it again when they got to the table, but this time his fingertips grazed the back of her neck as he bent down to push in her chair as she sat to join Gwen and Carl who were already seated. She shivered at the sensation of his hand on this particularly sensitive part of her body and she wasn't sure if he noticed. She perceived the most subtle twinkle in his eye, but it was for so brief of a time that she could have been imagining it.

The dinner conversation naturally turned to the beauty of their vacation setting.

"You know, this is exactly the type of place we wanted to be married," Gwen commented.

"So why didn't you?," Danny asked.

Carl snorted. "Because weddings are more about the families that the couple?"

Gwen clarified, "Between his parents and my parents, we ended up with the traditional church wedding with everyone we knew and their mother invited."

"It was huge," Mindy admitted.

"At the end of the day, we really just wanted to marry each other with our toes in the sand and a couple of witnesses."

"Well, it's never too late," Danny off-handedly said.

"Oh my God, Danny! That's brilliant. Gwen and Carl should totally renew their vows here this week."

"Boy, I am a genius. I'm glad I came up with that idea."

"Oh shut up, you know you were thinking something similar."

"That would be amazing," Gwen said.

"I don't see a reason not to," Carl added.

And so it was settled. Gwen and Carl would make arrangements to renew their vows on the beach with Mindy and Danny as witnesses. Oddly, Danny seemed strangely comfortable with all of this given his own marriage's demise, asking the waiter for paper and a pen to jot down notes as Carl and Gwen started listing out everything they wanted and who they would have to talk to in order to get it. Mindy sighed and began to daydream. She found herself wondering what it would have been like if she had known Danny at Gwen and Carl's first wedding. When she first met him when she was hired at Schulman & Associates, she definitely could not have predicted that he would end up being her date for Gwen and Carl's vow renewal. Woah, wait a second. Date? Where did that come from?