Ethereal King

by Ariana Hawkes

  He didn’t have a plan for what he’d do once she reached her destination. Maybe he’d watch her for a while. See if he could learn something about her that might help him understand.

  3

  Kyle and Tamika were being very elusive about the injured man.

  “He was absolutely fine, dear. He just had a little fall, but by the time we left him, he was up and at ’em again,” Tamika replied to Josie’s stream of questions.

  “But—where did he come from? And why was he naked?” Josie persisted.

  “He came on one of the other boats. I think he fancied a little skinny dipping, to be honest with you. Then he had the bright idea of climbing up onto a rock to get a good vantage point of the meteoroid, which was when everything came crashing down on him, so to say.”

  “B-but—what about the hang glider? He was in the air—”

  “Hang glider?” One of Kyle’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “My goodness. I didn’t see anything like that.” He looked at Tamika.

  “Me neither. That would’ve been quite a sight.”

  “B-but—?” Josie broke off. The image of the man, high in the sky, wings either side of him was sharp in her mind. But perhaps she was losing the plot. She passed her hand across her forehead. It was very hot; maybe she had the beginnings of sunstroke. “I think I’ll go sit in the shade and have some water,” she said.

  “Good idea. We’ll join you,” Tamika said, and they followed her to some seats under the covered deck.

  She took three bottles of water from the icebox and handed two to the others. She gulped half a bottle down, her throat protesting at the chill, but her body instantly felt refreshed.

  As Kyle and Tamika chattered on in their friendly, playful way, she couldn’t get the man’s image out of her mind. The way those curious saffron eyes seemed to look right into her. “Are you someone I’ve always known?” she’d been about to say to him. What a ridiculous question. The heat must have been making her delirious. Either that or his magnificent body—powerfully built, deeply tanned, and stark naked. He was like a god. A curvy girl like her could only dream about being with a man that divine.

  Tamika accidentally elbowed her in the midst of turning around to see something Kyle pointed out. “Oops, sorry my dear.”

  “Did you notice his eyes?” Josie demanded.

  Tamika’s nose wrinkled prettily. “Whose eyes?”

  “The man on the beach. He had very unusual eyes.”

  “No, I didn’t.” Tamika shrugged. “I’m not always the most observant, I’m afraid.”

  “I checked them,” Kyle cut in. “His pupils were round and responsive. No concussion, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  They gave Josie identical, careless smiles, then turned back to the sea.

  Josie returned it sheepishly. For a second, she’d sworn his pupils were slits instead of round. Then he’d blinked, and they were normal. Keep drinking the water, she told herself, and then finished the bottle.

  As the engines slowed and the ferry turned and began to reverse into the harbor, Josie exchanged contact details with Tamika and Kyle before they parted ways.

  “Kyle and I adored spending time with you over the past few days,” Tamika said, giving her a big hug. “Come visit us in Hope Valley soon…or we’ll come and see you in your town. What was it called again?”

  “Windpecking.” Josie laughed. “Which says it all, really. There’s not much to love about it. It’s probably better if I come see you instead.”

  “Please do, we’ve got plenty of space, and you’re welcome any time.” Tamika touched her arm, and Josie knew it was a genuine offer.

  “Thank you, I will—just as soon as I can take some more days off. I hope you guys have a lovely evening catching up with your two boys.”

  “You too, honey. I’m sure your dad will love to see your photos.”

  Josie watched until her kind-hearted, yet very eccentric friends, were out of sight, then she looked around for a taxi that would take her to the nearest bus terminal and then home.

  As the Greyhound bus rumbled along the ninety-minute route that took her back to Windpecking, Josie gazed out at the highway dreamily, a smile coming to her lips from time to time as her mind roamed over the events of the past few days. It had been a fantastic vacation where she’d left her boring, lonely everyday life behind.

  All her old friends had moved away for better opportunities, but Josie had been stuck in Windpecking at her low-paying office manager job, barely making ends meet. It was her dream to move with her dad to Beeches Bay, a thriving community where her aunt lived. She’d been saving for a long time, but still hadn’t scraped together enough cash to make it happen.

  Her work at Baudreau’s Machine Shop was less than satisfying, and certainly not glamorous like Tamika’s exciting technology business. Working in an industrial store certainly wasn’t her dream job. And her boss took advantage of her, forcing her to work long hours with no extra pay. But she stuck with it because there wasn’t much else in Windpecking in terms of employment.

  Then there were her co-workers. All guys; all craptastically chauvinistic idiots who constantly dogged her to date them. She was one of the few women left in town who still had all her teeth and was moderately pretty. But their fat jokes…

  No, she wasn’t going to allow thoughts of them to ruin the buzz of excitement lingering from her vacation.

  She stepped down from the bus and retrieved her wheeled suitcase from the hold, then paused, debating which direction to head. Turn right and walk the five blocks to her dad’s shop, or left and hoof it the quarter mile through the run-down part of town that led to her house. Part of her longed for the quiet of her home. Her legs ached from hiking around the island, and putting her tired feet up in her fluffy slippers sounded divine. She could pick up some food on the way home. It was taco Tuesday, so getting take-out wasn’t such a huge splurge. Catch a couple episodes of the series she’d been binge-watching on cable and cuddle with her cat Bella on the sofa.

  But she was looking forward to seeing her dad, too. He’d be eager to hear about her trip to Fire Island, and who knew? Maybe tonight would be the night she could convince him to step into the twenty-first century and get a cellphone. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about him all the time.

  She veered right and dragged her suitcase all the way to her dad’s auto body shop. He’d most likely be working late, as usual, so she’d keep him company while he finished up, sharing stories about the trip and her new friends. Later, she’d fix them both dinner in the tiny kitchen in the apartment above the business.

  “Dad?” she called out, walking into the shop. It was late enough that Lester, her miserable ex, would already be gone. No danger of running into him.

  As a favor to Josie, Dad had hired Lester after the big dope couldn’t find work. His parents had closed their greasy spoon, putting him out of a job, and he wouldn’t quit bugging her with mean little threats and insults until she got her dad to take him on. Even after Josie had found her spine and broke up with him, he’d kept his job, because she was too kind-hearted to tell her dad what an asshole he was.

  “Girly-girl!” Dad came from the office, wiping his hands on a rag. His eyes lit up at the sight of her. “How was the trip? Did you see any dragons?”

  “Unfortunately, no. Looks like they prefer to stay hidden from all us tourists. There weren’t any mysterious creatures to take photos of.” Except for a man who was the very definition of mysterious. “The meteoroid was super pretty, though.” She groped through her purse for her phone and pulled it out. She opened the photo app on her phone and found the pictures. There were so many of them. “It glittered as if someone had shaved diamonds over the area.” She traded her dad the phone for a stack of papers.

  “Glittered, you say?” Her dad held the phone and swiped through the pictures. At least he knew that much about “new-fangled” technology. “It must have been a trick of the light. I don’t see anything gl
ittering here.”

  Reclaiming the phone, her finger blurred across the screen, reviewing the pictures. Sure enough, the area looked plain Jane. Nothing special about it. Just a charred chunk of stone. “I swear, Dad. The entire area glistened.”

  “I’ll just have to see it for myself one day,” he said with a wink.

  “Oh, Dad.” She threw her arms around him. “Thank you so, so much for this vacation. I loved every minute of it. And I promise I’ll take you there one day.”

  He gave her his soft, slow smile. The one she’d seen almost every day of her life that never failed to touch her heart. “It’s enough to see my favorite daughter happy,” he said.

  She smiled back, promising herself she was going to save harder than ever to give them both a happier life.

  “What else did you see?” he asked as he returned to his machinery.

  She hesitated as she considered telling him about the strange, naked man. But if Tamika and Kyle thought she was crazy, her dad would probably try to get her committed.

  “So much!” she said instead and described the landscape of Fire Island and the nature the other islands they’d visited while she started sorting through invoices and inventory sheets.

  “Leave those,” he said as she flipped through the papers littering his desk. “I’ll get them in the morning.”

  “Dad, here’s an invoice from two months ago. Have you paid it?” She reached for his antiquated ledger. “Have you even finished the work?”

  “The part never came in.”

  “But they billed you for it.”

  “I asked Lester to locate the part. He said he hunted for it, but insists we never received it.”

  “So did you dispute the shipment and reorder the part?”

  If he didn’t clear some of his backlog, he’d start losing customers. Her Toyota Corolla was currently a prisoner of his inefficiency. Almost a month ago, someone had rear-ended her and left the scene of the accident, and her car had been sitting in the lot out the back ever since, waiting for a new part to arrive. At least she worked close enough to home to walk to work. A bonus was she’d lost a few pounds thanks to the added exercise. A drop in the bucket, really. But once the weather turned, she was going to need her car.

  Dad grunted, a sign he didn’t like the direction the conversation was going. “I’d rather talk about your trip.”

  But she had to try, as she did every time she sat in his office attempting to make sense of the mess of his books. “Dad, if you embrace technology, you’ll discover that ordering parts online nets instant results. This mess could go away.” Her knuckles whitened as she gripped a pile of coffee-stained papers. “Imagine being able to reduce the backlog of work with just a few keystrokes.” Josie despaired the day would ever come.

  “It was better when your mom was alive. She never let things get out of control.”

  And there it was. Her mom had worked in the office before she’d been stricken by cancer. After school, Josie would come to the shop. The desk was always tidy and Mom always had a snack, cookies or chips, to tide Josie over until they could get home to the hearty meal she’d thrown together in the crockpot. Dad would come into the office and ruffle Josie’s hair, then kiss her mom and return to the shop. The banging, whirring of drills, and scent of motor oil accompanied her time after school.

  Now, when she visited while work was on, the sounds and smells were just forlorn. Everything had fallen apart after Mom had died. But Dad tried to keep things the same, as if to preserve Mom’s memory.

  “Can we leave it, girly-girl?” The pain in his voice was real.

  Heaving a sigh, Josie set aside the stack of papers she held. Today wasn’t the day to convince her dad to step into a new century. But she’d keep wearing him down. One day soon, he’d see she was right.

  Being back at work the next day sucked. By midday, her vacation felt like a distant memory. The guys were being bigger assholes than ever, as if they needed to make up for the days she’d been away.

  During the afternoon, a delivery arrived for the office and, as usual, Cletus and Bruce refused to help Josie collect and stow it. It was backbreaking work, and her arms were soon shaking from the effort. Tommy, one of Baudreau’s kinder employees, stepped in to help her, but Cletus grabbed his arm and pulled him away.

  “It’s her job,” Cletus snarled. “You got your own work. Miss High and Mighty can move every stinkin’ box.”

  Josie hoisted another carton, shooting a glare toward Cletus.

  “It’ll only take a couple minutes.” Tommy took the heavy box from her, intent on helping.

  With a smirk, Cletus shook his head. “Son, you’re askin’ for trouble. ’Sides, Josie needs the exercise.”

  “It’s okay, Tommy. I can do it myself.” Josie pursed her lips and blinked hard, shoveling the hurtful words into a hole deep in her brain. She took the box from Tommy and turned her back on Cletus. Thank God, it was Thursday and almost the weekend. She’d have two days off from his brand of bullying.

  She tugged up her skinny jeans, getting them back to her hips where they belonged, and jerked her T-shirt into place, noticing at the same time that a smudge of black grease marred the hem. Damn! This was her favorite pink shirt. Cletus had tried to grab her when she was making herself a coffee. She’d evaded his grimy hands, but her shirt hadn’t been so lucky.

  “Cletus is not going to be my first-round pick to survive the zombie apocalypse,” she muttered as she put the last carton away. “More likely I’ll leave him staked to a pole somewhere as bait.” The idea cheered her, and she began earnestly plotting his fictional demise.

  She spent the evening with only her cat for company, but Tamika texted her, asking if she was enjoying being back home, and then told her a funny story about how she and Kyle had gotten lost on the way back to Hope Valley. Josie grinned as she typed out a cheerful reply. She didn’t have to fake it—hearing from her new friend had instantly made her feel better. But she couldn’t help comparing Tamika and Kyle’s life to her own. She imagined they had a really nice house with a big yard. Probably several cars, lots of friends, exotic vacations whenever they wanted them. She wasn’t bitter; she just wished she had a better share of the good things in life.

  Friday was more of the same. The only way she could deal with her butt-head colleagues was by pretending they didn’t exist, no matter what they said to her. Cletus was a mean kid from way back. In high school, he never spoke to her except to tease her about her weight. Now that most of the other single women in town had fled the creeping poverty that was killing their community, pickings were slim for a jerk like Cletus. Meanwhile, Bruce had moved to Windpecking from an even more depressed town, but he could’ve been Cletus’s long-lost brother, matching him in nastiness and stupidity.

  During her afternoon break, she took a cup of coffee out to the picnic table in the grubby courtyard behind the shop. She opened her phone and started to write a message to her best friend, Melody, who’d moved away two years ago. About the same time everyone else left town. She hadn’t seen Mel in six months, since the last time Josie had scraped up enough cash to make a fast visit.

  Behind her, the door banged open. Cletus sauntered into the sunlit courtyard, walking like a jock right after the best football game of his life. He’d been a bench warmer most of the time in high school.

  “Whatcha doin’, pretty lady?”

  Oh, my God! Was he riding the bipolar express? He’d been making fat jokes all morning, and now he thought she was pretty?

  He dropped onto the bench, his thigh touching hers.

  She bit her lip to avoid curling it in disgust as she scooted a safe distance from him. “Oh, I was just texting my BFF, the President of the United States, about my ideas for world peace.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m taking a break.” She didn’t add you big dummy, but the implication was heavy in her voice.

  “Why you gotta be so cold, Jos?”

  “Not cold, and for the hundredth time, please don’t cal
l me Jos.” More like the millionth time.

  Cletus squinted his eyes. “Girl, you’re so cold I bet you fart hail.” He edged closer.

  “That’s almost funny, Cletus.” Josie leapt from the bench and moved toward the door.

  Cletus was faster. He bolted up behind her, slamming the door shut when she’d barely managed to crack it open. Her favorite mug shattered when it hit the ground, and her cellphone slipped from her fingers as well. His fetid breath bathed the back of her neck with damp heat. He sniffed then she felt the tug on her hair as he wrapped her ponytail around his fist.

  Her pulse pounded and her breath froze in her lungs. She’d known, just known, that someday the situation would come to a head. She’d tried turning aside his come-ons nicely. When that didn’t work, she tried for aloof and had politely informed him of her no-dating-fellow-employees rule. But it hadn’t been good enough.

  She was screwed, especially since Cletus was the boss’s nephew. And she couldn’t afford to lose this job. She needed the paltry income to pay her bills and help her dad make ends meet.

  The door banged against her shoulders as someone else tried to enter the courtyard. Please let it be Tommy.

  She stumbled backward into Cletus as Bruce shoved his way into the sunlight. “You two having fun without me?”

  Cletus stroked his clammy palm over Josie’s hip before giving her a painful squeeze. “Plenty of her to go around.”

  Josie kicked Cletus’s shin, thrilled when he backed up.

  With a quickness that surprised even her, she ducked away from Cletus. His hand was still tangled in her hair, and the jerk on her ponytail stung when she’d pulled away. But it was worth it to be free.

  And then, the strangest thing happened. The sun was suddenly blotted out as a dark shape moved overhead. Cletus threw a startled look upward. Bruce screeched like a little girl. When she cowered under the overhang, the brick wall scraped through her shirt, abrading her shoulder blades.