He sat beside me on the big-enough-for-two surface of the rock and we watched the sea together for a while.
I kept breathing, in rhythm with the waves.
He put his hand over mine.
I didn’t pull it away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t elaborate.
The harsh lashing my tongue would have delivered fifteen minutes before was gone with the wind, gone with the sea. All that was left were the memories of my very real emotions.
“I can’t ask a bird not to fly, because then it wouldn’t be a bird,” I said. I hope you don’t think that made sense, Katie. I started to try again, but he interrupted me.
“You can ask a bird to tell you where it is flying off to, and to fly a little closer to the ground,” he said.
“Birds can’t talk. So it wouldn’t do any good.”
“So, say it in bird language, sing like a bird, tweet, quack, however you have to say it. The bird loves you.”
“The bird told his father I was fat. Daddy-bird squawked.”
“What? No, I never said that.”
“That’s not what your father says. Did you know that Tutein tried to convince me you ran off with Elena to Mexico? And that your father said we couldn’t rule it out because you really wanted me to lose all of this baby weight.” I didn’t dare look at him.
He was silent, then exhaled. “I never told him that. The only thing I ever said that comes close to that was when Mom asked me what to make for dinner one night, and I said to take it easy on the fattening stuff because you were struggling to get your baby weight off. I was trying to help you because you were always talking about it. I didn’t say I thought you were fat.”
His explanation was plausible.
“Really?”
“Really. You’re beautiful. All the time. I’m sorry Dad said that, Katie. I’m sorry he hurt your feelings. It wasn’t how I felt. But why would you ever think I’d leave you?”
How to explain?
“I didn’t believe it. I fought against it. But you didn’t make it easy. You texted Elena the second we left her house. You lied to me about her. All signs pointed toward you, her, and Mexico. Tutein swore Monroe killed himself in our driveway on purpose. As a message to you.”
Nick pursed his lips. “I understand. I hate it, but I understand.”
I nodded. I hated it, too.
He put his arm around my waist. I let it stay there. “You know what Uxolo means?” he asked.
“Is it a real word?”
“So says Rashidi. He followed me out to the car when you made your jailbreak.”
“I’m not ready to laugh at your jokes yet.”
“Fair enough. He said it’s a Zulu word, which makes sense. The slaves here came from Africa.” He kissed my hair, right above my ear, and then stayed there, the movement of his lips rubbing my hair against my scalp. “It means grace. As in ‘by the grace of God we live, and by His grace we die,’ I suppose.”
“I like that.”
“I hoped you would.” He squeezed my waist. “I’m asking for some. A little grace, for me, from you. For flying too high without telling you. For falling short of perfection. For bringing the Chihuahuas into our life and lying to you. For not being here to protect you and the kids from Tutein because I left without telling you. I’m disturbingly human, it turns out. I make mistakes. But I am sorry. And I love you—” he took me by the shoulders and shook me lightly, “more than anything.”
Grace. I could use some, too. For lacking faith, for general bitchiness at times, for my inflexibility. For my addiction to Clorox wipes. For a lot of things. “I’m sorry, Nick. I’m sorry I ran out. I’m not mad at you anymore.” I turned my face into his neck and breathed him in.
“Don’t be sorry. Just love me,” he said.
We held each other for several minutes, silent, reconnecting at a level deeper than words. The invisible vines that grew from my heart to his—the ones I had machete-chopped apart to make my flight—grew back faster than bamboo reaching for the sun. My mother’s mother’s wedding ring felt molten, like a warm, approving embrace.
I lifted my head and faced him, nose to nose, in exactly the position I loved best.
“Hey, you know what I just remembered?”
He Eskimo-kissed me. “No, what?”
“The very first time I saw Annalise, with Rashidi, I Googled her. To see what Annalise meant. Because I have a thing about that.”
“I know you do. That’s why I knew I could make some headway by telling you what Uxolo meant.”
“Manipulator. Anyhow, Annalise means grace in Hebrew. Which I think is pretty cool, considering.”
He put a hand on either side of my face and leaned back to look into my eyes. “It’s cooler than you think.”
“Why?”
“Cue the Twilight Zone theme music. When I was stuck on Hornito—”
“The island is called Monito.”
“Huh? I thought it was Hornito. Like the tequila.”
I tried not to laugh. “No, it’s not.”
“Well, I like Hornito better.”
I sighed. But in an accepting way.
“When I was on that fricking island not knowing if I’d ever get off, I would swear I talked to Annalise.”
“You told me that in a dream. That she talked to you.”
“See? OK. I feel a little less crazy remembering it, then. But she wasn’t a house. She was a person. She was the person that is who we think of as Annalise.”
“Oh. My. God,” I said. “Seriously? Really? Our Annalise?”
“Our Annalise.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She was a young slave girl. She worked at the plantation at Estate Annalise. She died in childbirth when she was sixteen. When things went bad, the owner wouldn’t call for a doctor. Her name was—”
But I already knew, just like I knew her face.
“Grace,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And her daughter lived, and went on to write a diary. That Laura found. That led us here.”
“Precisely.”
Uxolo, Grace, Annalise, us.
I felt Nick move closer. His free arm wrapped around me from behind and he leaned his head forward to press his nose and cheek against my face. His breath caressed my lips, and as he moved his head back slowly into my hair, I felt that same breath on my eyes, my temple, and my ear. He landed a kiss into the shy triangle between my collarbone, shoulder, and neck.
That’s when it rocked me. It, the same thing as a thousand times before with him. My heart thumped open with a sonic boom, and all its contents flew straight and true for my husband. His met mine somewhere in the middle, and the intense connection threw off heat and a rainbow of colors that shot into the air like a Roman candle. I heard a crashing “thwack thwack” way off in the distance, and I didn’t have to see it to know that Annalise had thrown her stately mahogany doors wide open.
Subtle, girl. Real subtle. But I’m with you.
The End
Now that you’ve finished Finding Harmony, won’t you please consider writing an honest review and leaving it on the online sales channel of your choice and/or Goodreads? Reviews are the best way readers discover great new books. I would truly appreciate it. ~ Pamela
Excerpt from Going for Kona (Michele Mystery Series #1)
Chapter One
The best-looking man in the River Oaks Barnes and Noble had his hand on my thigh, and with the weight of hundreds of eyes on us, I snaked my hand under the table, laced our fingers, and slid mine up and down the length of his, enjoying the contrast of rough against soft. My index finger bumped into the warm band on his ring finger, and I let it stay there, worrying it in semicircles, first one way and then the other.
A Barbie-doll lookalike in form-fitting hot pink strutted into the spot vacated moments before by a tittering fifty-something woman. The bleach blonde brandished a plastic glass of champagne in one hand and held out a copy of our bo
ok, My Pace or Yours? Triathlon Training for Couples, in the other. Without letting go of my leg, Adrian took it from her and opened it to the title page, where a yellow sticky bore her name.
“Hi, Rhonda. I’m Adrian, and this is my wife, co-author, and editor, Michele.” He scribbled his signature and scooted the book over to me.
“I know that, silly.” Her little-girl drawl burrowed under my skin like a chigger.
I released Adrian’s fingers to sign, then held the book back out to the woman. “Hello, Rhonda. Nice to meet you.”
“I loved your talk, Adrian,” she said, ignoring me. I bristled. We had opened that night with a reading and Q&A. The book gets a little steamy at times, which is easier to write than to read aloud, so Adrian read those parts. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”
He studied her, eyes narrowed a fraction. “Thanks. Have we met?”
Maybe he didn’t remember her, but I was sure I had seen her recently. She didn’t exactly blend in here with Khaled Hosseini on her left and John Irving on her right. I set the book on the table and fought the urge to chew a fingernail. I was well trained by my mother, the one woman in Texas who could give Ms. Manners a run for her money, and Southern Women Do Not Bite Their Nails.
A slim man with a strained, too-cheerful smile stepped forward. He held up $3500 worth of Minolta. “Miss, around here for your photo.”
Rhonda swooped around the edge of the table and leaned over Adrian with her hand on the back of his neck, gripping the slice of shoulder that showed above his round-necked shirt.
The photographer held up his hand. “Look this way, please.” Adrian and I dutifully swung our faces in his direction and smiled. The flash blinded me for a few seconds, but as my vision cleared I got an eyeful of expensive cleavage. Rhonda Dale remained draped over my husband.
She dropped her voice, but I was six inches from Adrian and could hear her and smell her. I live with a teenage girl, and I’d recognize Urban Outfitters’ roll-on Skank perfume anywhere. “Of course we’ve met,Adrian, and I’ll never forget it.”
Where hot pink was before, I now saw red. Time to assert matrimonial authority. “Rhonda?” She glanced at me, barely, and her mouth tightened. I inclined my head toward the double-door exit and smiled as big as I could.
Rhonda released Adrian’s shoulder, leaving crimson fingerprints behind, and took one step back. She bit her lip. She ran her fingers through one side of her bleached hair. She shifted her weight, cocked her right hip, and reached into the white pleather bag slung over her shoulder. I tensed. This woman tripped my switch.
“You’ll be wanting this, Adrian.” She flipped a pink business card onto the table. If Adrian were a rock star, she’d have thrown her panties and bra instead. The card sucked less. A little, anyway. She turned and walked, hips slinging and champagne sloshing, toward the ubiquitous Barnes and Noble Café and the aroma of Starbucks coffee. I could hear her heels clicking across the floor even after she disappeared from view.
Adrian turned to me and shrugged his eyebrows.
I drew mine together in return. “What just happened here?”
“No comprendo.” He drew circles with an index finger beside his temple. “La señorita está loca en la cabeza.” He took a sip of his Kona coffee—cup number six of the day, no doubt—a nod to his quest for the triathlon world championships in Hawaii.
My eyebrows lifted. “Was that even Spanish?” I reached for his hand under the dark green tablecloth again and squeezed hard enough to do minor damage. I whispered sotto voce so the next customer in line couldn’t hear, “If you promise not to talk in that horrible accent, you’ll get a nice reward later.”
He shot me a grin. “Maybe you can show me what’s under that necklace, Itzpa.” Sometimes he used my papa’s nickname for me, which was short for Itzpapalotl, a clawed butterfly with knife-tipped wings, and an Aztec goddess of war. Usually he just called me Butterfly.
I reached up to the locket suspended from a long gold chain around my neck. Adrian had given me the brilliant enameled monarch at our second “wedding,” the secret B&B family affair he threw in La Grange on our first anniversary to make up for the original quickie at city hall without our kids. When we were pronounced “still man and wife,” Adrian put the locket around my neck and told me I was his butterfly. I’d stashed a picture of us taken on that perfect day in the locket and had never changed it since.
I scrutinized it. “This old thing?” I dropped it and stretched my shoulders, catlike. Or rather, like a cat would. There is no feline quality to my short frame. At best I am probably a Pomeranian; at worst, a Pekingese.
He laughed and mouthed, “Thanks a lot, baby,” and held his hand out toward the customer at the front of the line.
I signed the next few books on autopilot, trying not to grind my teeth over Miss Boob Job In Hot Pink strutting her stuff for my husband. I could take the Rhonda Dales of the world in stride, mostly. I’d known ever since I was assigned to edit his column for Multisport Magazine that Adrian attracted groupies. His following, and the fact that we were working together, were the reasons I’d resisted him at first. He tricked me into going out with him, though—research over a cup of Kona, my ass—and I melted like a butterscotch chip into a warm, sweet cookie.
Soon after, Adrian coaxed me to “just try” triathlon, something I had never aspired to do. Never, meaning no effing way, ever. Swim, then bike, then run? I didn’t think so. I’d rather curl up with a novel, when I had any free time at all as the single parent of a tween. Still, I was that butterscotch chip, and it turned out that I was made for triathlon, like I was made for Adrian. It spoke to the parts of me that like rigor and suffering. I signed up for one, and then another, until here we were at Barnes and Noble, at our book launch.
“I’m Connor Dunn,” a man’s voice said. Something about it made me flinch and brought me back with a bumpy reentry. A certain pitch. A heaviness of import. My gaze lifted to his face and I read the creases around his eyes like rings on a tree: forty-five-ish. Dark hair, freckled, light skin. Toned, as was to be expected at a triathlon book launch. Pressed Dockers and a collared shirt: earnestly conservative. No champagne cup.
Connor Dunn was still speaking to Adrian. “We haven’t met in person, but—”
My husband interrupted him, brightening. “Sure, I know who you are.” Adrian turned to me. “Allow me to introduce my wife, Michele. Michele, this is Connor Dunn.”
“A name I know well from Adrian’s column,” he said to me. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you look like Eva Longoria?”
I nodded. “Nearsighted people.” Eva Longoria doesn’t have the butt I got from the short, curvy Mexican women on my dad’s side. My blonde, Caucasian mother has no butt, but her genes passed me by in the looks department.
Adrian shook his head. “Not a chance. You look better à la natural on your worst day.”
“My husband is biased,” I explained to Connor.
He laughed and nodded at Adrian. “Hey, congratulations on your Kona qualification.”
“Thanks. There’s nothing like aging up to give you a boost.” Adrian was playing it cool, but he was over the moon about the Kona Ironman world championships. At forty-five, he had qualified by winning his first race as a forty-five to forty-nine age grouper, at the Longhorn Half Ironman in Austin last fall. “Will Angela be racing?”
“Yes. She qualified in thirty-five to forty.”
“That’s great.” Adrian turned to me. “Connor’s new bride is a tri-beast like us.”
Connor broke in. “I think we saw you guys last weekend at the Goatneck ride in Cleburne. I was going to introduce myself, but things got crazy.”
My skin went cold. A hit-and-run driver had killed one of the cyclists during the race.
Adrian put down his black Sharpie and sighed, sagging like a deflating balloon. “Yeah, that was horrible. Michele and I were one Brahman away from it.”
> Connor’s voice and eyebrows went up. “Brahman?”
“Adrian hit a cow. It knocked him off his bike and left him with a flat tire.” I sucked in a quick breath. “I think it slowed us down just enough that we weren’t the ones hit by the car, you know?”
“Yeah, I do. It’s scarier and scarier out there on the road.”
“We were the first ones to get to him after he was hit.” Adrian’s voice grew raspy. “I ended up doing CPR on him while Michele called 911.”
It was a surreal picture: Adrian and the fallen cyclist were mirror images of each other, one upright and one prone, both covered in blood. They were dressed alike and had similar blue bikes. It freaked me out, big time. I couldn’t keep their images from returning to me over and over.
Adrian continued. “This guy had been riding maybe a quarter mile behind the leaders—he passed us when I hit the cow—and then this car just came out of nowhere off a little dirt road and smashed into him.”
“You saw it happen?” Connor leaned in, his voice a mix of dread and morbid curiosity.
I started to speak but realized both of my hands were over my mouth. I pressed my palms together and lowered them. “We heard it.”
“Oh my God,” Connor breathed.
It was a sound I would know anywhere. Adrian had hit a car head-on two years ago. I still don’t understand how he walked away from the wreck—his bike didn’t—and I will never, ever forget the sound. A thud, a wrenching of metal, a thump, then a crack as rider and bike hit the road separately. Groans. And in Adrian’s case, the squealing of brakes as the driver came to a stop. Not that time, though. Not that time. That time there was silence, except for Adrian screaming “Rider down, rider down” at the top of his lungs.
I forced myself to keep talking, to expunge the rest of the memory. “We saw the car driving away. White, a small sedan, like a Taurus or a Camry or something.” I shook my head. “We couldn’t get the license plate number, though, and we didn’t see the driver, so we were practically no help at all to the police.”
Finding Harmony (Katie & Annalise Book 3) Page 26
