Exasperated, she huffed and looked around yet again for someone, anyone, to call on. But the divers Esteban had shown her had moved farther down the coast. Shane might still be back by the cars. By the time she ran there, though, Esteban might be back here, needing her. Not that she had a clue how to help him, or even the kind of trouble he might run into. What were the ways he’d said divers got hurt, back when they were sitting at the bar at Bodega? Riptides? Exhaustion? Getting stuck in a hole?
Where is he? She focused on the flag, willing him to appear, while the minutes ticked by.
Finally she let her aching arm fall from where her hand had shaded her eyes for so long, and paced the sand, only to stop and peer out again. How far was it to the float? How deep? How long would it take her to wade and swim out there? Could she make it without hurting herself, making things worse? And what about her glasses? She couldn’t see a thing without them.
Where are you, Esteban? Maybe that was his head, bobbing among those of the other divers down the coast. No. He never could have made it that far. She was grasping at straws.
She cupped her mouth. “Esteban!” she screamed, knowing in her heart of hearts it was useless.
Desperately, she looked around for something, anything useful. Grabbing a towel, she turned toward the other cluster of divers, their flags tiny postage stamps flapping in the wind, and jumped up and down, waving it back and forth. “Hey! Help!”
The seagulls laughed and laughed.
Her phone. She snatched it, punched in 911, and waited. No service. They were too far out. In disgust, she flung it onto Esteban’s pile of clothes.
She’d taken a lifesaving class when she was thirteen. Everyone had to take it back at Five Oaks. It was required—and why was she even thinking about middle school now when she should be out there, finding him?
She whipped off her dress—you were right about the frumpy skivvies, Mer, ugh—folded her glasses, jammed them in her bag, and ran down the beach and splashed into the water, the sharp rocks crucifying her feet. She’d get off them and start swimming as soon as—Ahhhhhhggg! It was freaking freezing!
“Esteban!” she screamed as her chest hit the surf. Then she remembered. He had a wet suit. She had nothing. But now she was committed.
“Esteban!” Her voice was consumed by the roar of the wind and the crash of the tide. She struggled to stay on the surface of the cold, turbulent sea. A wave washed over her and she choked on a mouthful of salt water. Long strands of hair pulled loose from her chignon, whipping in her face, blocking her already useless eyesight.
The float was a vague red shape in a world of green and white. If she could only keep her eye on it, she could reach it, hang on to it, and decide what to do from there. The current rushed by perpendicular to her as she fought to keep going.
Bizarre thoughts rushed through her head, like that time her car had hydroplaned and it was flying diagonally across the dotted white line, out of control, and she was in a time warp, completely powerless waiting for it to crash over the opposite bank, even though she knew that in the next few seconds there was going to be major hell to pay in terms of a permanently scarred face or broken limbs or at the very least, big-time vehicular damage. She might die of hypothermia before she ever reached that damn float . . . or get eaten by a shark. Esteban was going to be pissed. . . . This was going to ruin her plans to seduce him. . . . She’d spent all that time picking out that new green dress—why green? She never wore green—and that lacy white underwear for nothing. If only her arms could move as fast as her brain, because she didn’t care if she never made that land deal, never made partner, none of that mattered now. All that mattered was getting to Esteban. Saving him.
It was taking forever.
“Esteban!”
And then she imagined she glimpsed a black hood. Was that him, hanging off the side of the float? If he could see her splashing toward him, why wasn’t he waving back? Yelling at her for disobeying him? Saying hello, good-bye, or go to hell?
She dug down deep, mustering the reserves to up her pace, cycling her arms, keeping her head out of the water, her eye on the blurry prize. She’d never swum so fast or so hard, or been so cold.
And the whole time she swam, she had a terrible dread that something was very, very wrong. At long last, she flung herself onto the float. “Esteban!”
“S-Savvy?”
“Esteban! What’s wrong with you?” she gasped. “Where were you? Didn’t you see me coming? Why didn’t you answer me?”
“C-c-cold,” he stuttered. “S-s-sleepy.”
She gaped at him in disbelief, shoving the wet hair out of her eyes with numb fingers. Cold? Damn right it was cold! Bracing, not sedating. He sure picked a helluva time to take a nap. . . .
A line from that middle-school water safety class came back to her. The main symptoms of hypothermia are confusion, slurred speech, and drowsiness.
“Esteban, listen to me. Hold on to the float. I’m going to get us back.” She grabbed onto a nylon rope and took a stroke in the direction of the shore, only getting a short distance before she felt an opposing tug. It’s anchored. To the bottom. She couldn’t waste precious time, breath, and energy diving down who-knew-how-deep to figure out how to undo it. Besides, she wouldn’t be able to see down there.
“Esteban. Hand me your knife.”
Behind his mask, his eyelids fluttered.
“Esteban!” She slapped the side of his head. “Give me your knife! I need it, now!”
His head fell back. At least he’d had the presence of mind to loop a rope attached to the float through a carabiner on the shoulder of his wet suit before he lost consciousness.
“Wake up!” Her hands blazed a trail down his firm body. His fingers were fumbling around his waistline, too, getting in her way.
“Move your hands!” she screamed, shoving at them in frustration. What was he doing, making this harder?
“Bell,” Esteban mumbled.
Bell? What bell?
“Belt.”
That’s right—his belt is weighted!
Seemingly in slow motion, her unfeeling fingers combed through the viscous water, found the plastic buckle, and at last felt it unclick. Victory! The heavy belt slipped away, and Esteban’s body floated upward. Seeing the knife strapped to his thigh, she ripped open the snap securing it and withdrew it from its sheath.
Next, she reached under the float, holding the line taut with one hand, slicing with the other. One pass of the knife, and the float sprang free.
The problem now was, did she have the strength to pull them both back through the perpendicular current?
In case of riptide, don’t fight the current. Swim parallel to the shore until you come out of it.
Thank you, water safety manual. Thank you, Five Oaks, and my annoyingly compulsive need to excel at every class I ever took, even lifesaving. Especially lifesaving.
Chapter 17
Something lay along Esteban’s chest. Something warm and firm, yet pliable, like the big old hound he used to sneak into his bed when he was six years old that Madre would shoo back out to the porch after Esteban had fallen asleep.
“Esteban?” A female voice broke through the veil of his subconscious.
Esteban?
What was that roar? The sea. The wind. Oh yeah. They were at the coast. He’d know that sound anywhere.
“You’re all right. You’re going to be okay. Oh, thank you, God, thank you,” the voice cried.
The warm weight rolled off of him. “Help!” he heard a holler. “Somebody help us!”
And then the presence was back, stroking his cheek, murmuring assurances again and again. A thin covering was being pulled up to his chin and tucked around his leaden body.
He coughed and it tasted like salt water.
“Are you awake?”
Through his squint, he saw the anxious face of a bedraggled mermaid hovering inches above his own.
Had he died? Was this some sort of abalone diver’s hea
ven?
He blinked the facial features into hazy focus.
The mermaid smiled, the sun forming a halo behind her, bringing to mind an old church hymn. Break forth O beauteous heav’nly light, and usher in the morning . . .
“Your teeth are really white.”
Her laugh rang with relief. “So are yours.”
“¿Qué pasa? Are you an angel?”
“You got too cold out there. I think you have hypothermia.”
He tried to think, but it was taking a while to get his head in gear. “How’d I get in?”
“I brought you.”
He hefted his weight up onto an elbow. “You?” A more beautiful face than hers he’d never seen. He blinked again, eyes flickering further down. For a mermaid, she sure wore an ugly bra. And he’d never known mermaids wore glasses.
He fell back coughing, putting a hand to his forehead. It was starting to come back to him now. Fighting the arctic waves, tiring, knowing he should go in, but too stubborn.
He’d felt himself slipping, slipping away into a frigid, eternal darkness.
His head lolled to his left to gaze at the vision kneeling over him on the sand, skeins of wet auburn hair plastered to slender shoulders. He removed her glasses and set them aside, then curled his hand around the back of her head, brought it down, and kissed her, seeking her warmth. Craving her vital force. She unfolded herself to lie back down and press herself against him again, snaking her arms around his neck.
As he sucked on her lower lip, then savored the textures of her mouth, it all came rushing back to him, moment by treacherous moment.
I’m alive.
The stark reality of what could have been tempered all other thoughts, principles, and rules of conduct.
He kissed her until he ran out of breath. And then he kissed her some more, devouring her like the dying man he’d narrowly escaped becoming. As if she were life itself.
He had to have her—all of her—right there on that beach, under that blazing blue sky. It wasn’t an idea or a choice. It was a mandate. Nothing else mattered. Greedily, his hands molded her flesh. No sooner did he discover one delicious curve than he had to tear himself away to capture another, and then another.
Their clothes were gone.
He didn’t know how. It didn’t matter. Coercion played no part in this. Morality, either. She returned his advances with an eagerness that matched his own. They were two primordial creatures, at one with the earth, sea, and sky, their cries of righteous satisfaction swirling into the atmosphere on the unceasing wind.
When it was over, she collapsed onto his chest. He held her there until the rhythmic rise and fall of her breathing slowed, finger-combing her tangled locks into the hollow between her shoulder blades.
“Ahhhhhhhh,” she sighed into his shoulder.
Cradling her head in his hands, he raised it and peered up into her naked eyes, so pretty without those glasses. Emotion swelled his heart. “Are you good?”
She smiled lazily. “You have no idea.” With her leading, they rolled onto their sides, facing each other.
“Me too.”
“We’re naked,” she giggled.
He wouldn’t have cared about his own skin even if he didn’t feel newly invincible. Then again, he didn’t want anyone else seeing her that way. He lifted his hips, whipping his towel out from under him so he could cover her up. That’s when he saw the red blotch about two-thirds of the way down.
“Whose blood is that?” In a flash, he was sitting up, concerned eyes skimming her from head to toe. “Are you hurt somewhere? Did you get hurt on the rocks?”
She lay still, waiting for his eyes to complete their circuit of her body and return to hers.
She opened her lips as if to speak, then apparently changed her mind.
“No. Don’t tell me. You’re not—you weren’t—”
Her silence was his answer.
“Savvy,” he whispered. “Oh, Savvy.” His throat filled with salt water again, but this time it wasn’t from the ocean. He was overwhelmed with a rush of possessiveness. “You’re mine now. You hear me?” He crushed her to his chest and rocked her while the seagulls screamed and the surf pounded against the shore.
All Esteban had ever cared about was getting up with the sun each morning, tending his little patch of ground, and hiking and diving when he could get away. Love—the romantic kind—was just something on the radio used to sell songs. Now, on a windswept beach, love had found him in the guise of a bespectacled mermaid, grabbed him by the throat, and shaken him senseless.
Meri gave Savvy a slanted glance when she caught her sashaying down the upstairs hallway to her room, well after dusk.
Savvy smiled a Mona Lisa smile.
Meri’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh. My. God. You did it.”
Who cared who knew? Savvy was a completely new person now. A whole woman. Her blood flowed more powerfully through her veins than when she’d gotten up that morning. She held her head higher, walked taller, every step a reminder of the soreness in her most private place that served as proof.
“What?” Char’s head popped out from her doorway.
“Savvy did the nae nae,” Meri announced matter-of-factly.
Char made a face at Meri, then turned to Savvy. “Hey, Savv. What’s going on?”
Savvy had cleaned up the best she could under the circumstances. Smoothed down her dress, twisted up her hair and fixed her makeup. Count on her sisters not to miss a trick.
“Where’ve you been? It’s not like you to disappear all day.”
“Out,” she breathed, feeling regal as a queen.
“Out,” aped Meri with a dramatic flip of her hair. “C’mon, spill it.”
They tailed her into her room, first Meri, then Char, closing the door behind her.
“Is it him?” asked Meri. “Is it Esteban?”
Savvy huffed in mock disgust. “Can’t a girl get any privacy around here?”
“Don’t play coy. All three of us were dying to move back in together after all that time apart, and you know it.”
Meri was right. Savvy flopped back on her duvet, spread eagle. “I’m in love,” she sighed to the ceiling.
“Savvy! That’s wonderful!” said Char.
“In love with the boy next door,” Meri said. “Wait till Papa gets a load of this.”
Savvy smiled dreamily.
“I’m so happy for you,” said Char, lowering herself gracefully onto the bed. “You know who else will be thrilled? Jeanne. She’s always been a fan of that family.”
“Details, we want details.” Meri hopped aboard, rocking everybody.
“I’m not ready. It’s still raw,” said Savvy, regretting her choice of words as soon as they were out.
“Please.” Meri held up a hand. “Not that detailed.”
Char patted Savvy’s knee. “Let her be, Meri.”
“Where were you? What’s it like with a farmer boy? Pretty good, from the looks of you. You’re a wreck.”
“Meri! She said she’s not ready.”
“Just tell me one thing. You used protection, right?”
Savvy’s smile disintegrated.
“Right?” Meri might be young, but she was wise in the ways of the world. There’d always been a certain je ne sais quoi about her.
Everything had happened so fast, so unexpectedly. “It was only once,” said Savvy, subdued. “Besides, quote, ‘any random act of intercourse only results in a pregnancy twenty percent of the time.’ Unquote.”
Meri pulled a face. “You looked up the stats?”
“Didn’t have to. I aced Bio.”
Anyway, it was too late for regrets now. She jumped up and headed for her bathroom. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. What I need is a nice, warm bubble bath. So, if you’ll excuse me . . .”
Her phone rang and Esteban’s name on the screen reignited her sultry grin.
“Hello?” she sang, waggling her fingers in a farewell to her sisters before closing the bathroom
door on meddlesome eyes and ears.
“¡Ay!” Esteban winced as his mother put salve on the cut in the center of his back.
“This might sting.”
“No kidding!”
“Hurt anywhere else?”
“No.” Everywhere.
Savvy had just left the Morales house.
“Why did I have to wait two days to find out from Señorita Sauvignon that you scratched your back diving?” Madre scolded. “Why couldn’t you tell me Sunday night, as soon as you got home?”
Because he wasn’t a wuss, and besides, Sunday night all he’d wanted to do was be alone with his thoughts, to savor the memory of making love to a mermaid.
“Very nice of her to bring you a present.”
Savvy had stopped by after work tonight with a gift certificate to an online dive shop.
When he’d called her Monday afternoon, she’d assured him she was fine. No bumps or bruises from hauling his sorry ass out of the water. More importantly, no regrets over what had gone down afterward. He’d insisted on seeing for himself though, taking the Chevy over, climbing the steps to knock on the front door of Domaine St. Pierre after his day in the fields, despite his sore limbs and the stinging gash on his back. Leaving her with the best thank-you he knew: the abalone he’d salvaged, pounded thin, iced in a plastic bag.
“A fine lady, and generous, too, bringing you a present for nothing.”
With an impatient tug, he started lowering his shirt. Madre had no idea that certificate was to be used toward the replacement of the belt and knife Savvy had let fall to the bottom of the ocean when she’d saved his life. And she never would. Not if he could help it.
“Not so fast, Señor. Let me put a bandage on that.”
Impatiently, he leaned on the kitchen sink and waited while she sifted through a drawer. Madre didn’t get to play nursemaid much anymore.
“I saw you kissing her at her car before she left.”
He rolled his eyes. One of the downsides to living with your parents.
“I think she likes you, too. The way she threw her arms around your neck—”
“Okay. That’s good.” He whipped around, straightening to his full height.
A Taste of Sauvignon Page 10
