by Kate Stewart
A towel lay a few feet from where he expired, and I picked it up quickly and covered his saluting soldier. My heart ripped at the sight of him. “Oh no, poor Mr. Harper. I’m so sorry.”
Jasmine bowed her head. “I have to live with that image for the rest of my life.”
“Jasmine!” I scolded as she pulled out her phone from her boobs and frantically dialed emergency services.
As she explained our situation, I took a seat next to Mr. Harper and took in the view he was blankly staring at. If that wasn’t the way to go, I didn’t know what was. He’d probably just taken a swim and sat down to dry off. In the distant water, a whale breached just as Jasmine came back into view, her shoulders slumped.
“You scared the hell out of me. I thought you were being attacked.”
“All I saw was an old man’s penis. It was horrific.”
I glowered at her. “Can you please have a little respect here? This poor man just died.”
“He was what, early eighties? And he died rich,” she shrugged. “He definitely didn’t read the warning on the Viagra box.”
“Jasmine?!”
“What?!”
“I really can’t handle this today.” She made her way inside the house and raided the cabinets until she found a bottle of vodka. She poured herself a healthy cup as the emergency sirens sounded down the street.
She drank a half glass and then downed the orange juice in the fridge.
Crossing my arms at the sliding glass door that separated the patio and large kitchen, I watched her fill another glass of juice. “Hope it wasn’t the OJ that did it.”
She sprayed the juice all over the counter before she gave me the stink eye. “Now you’ve got jokes.” She scrutinized me. “Wait, why are you okay?”
“I don’t know. Just go with it.”
She nodded.
I moved to again sit next to Mr. Harper. The silent blue water seemed appropriate for the cloudless sky.
Another whale breached in the distance. I saw the large fin as it flipped on its side before disappearing below the deep blue surface.
Without glancing his way, I spoke to him. “I hope you got to see them before you went.”
The whole situation was completely depressing. John Harper might have been wealthy, but he was alone when he died. Alone with his fortune and his twenty-million-dollar view. Suddenly nothing about the water calmed me and my whole body broke out into a sweat.
Did he die knowing he was loved? Did he sit on that chair and mentally list his regrets? Did he call for help? I sat up as my throat began to burn. What if we could have helped him if we’d shown up a few minutes before. I looked over at his gaping mouth and sprang from the seat, my heart pounding.
“Koti?”
“I…” I held my chest as Jasmine crossed the deck to get to me. I stood mute as a wave of nausea hit. My chest tightened unbearably, and I looked to her in a full-fledged panic. “He was alone! That’s not right. It’s not right!”
“Koti,” Jasmine said with a small shake in her voice. “Baby, you can’t take this into yourself.”
“What if we could have helped him?”
“It happens. This stuff happens,” she said in a soothing voice as the sirens grew closer. “Try and calm down.”
“You know I hate that! Don’t tell me to calm down!”
“Okay babe, you’re having a freak-out. It’s cool. I’m here. Deep breaths.” She got to me just before my legs gave out and gripped me tightly to her.
“No.”
“It’s okay,” she said, gripping my hand. “Let’s just breathe.”
“Get away from me, please. I can’t breathe.”
“Koti, you are breathing. Come on, baby, just breathe. You can do this.”
“He was alone!”
“I know. I’m sorry I made a joke. In… out. You can do this.”
“I don’t have my pills.”
“You don’t need them, you’ve gone all this time without them. It’s just life. Let’s make it through this. Come on buddy, breathe.”
“Get away from me!” I shrieked, trying to pull away, but she held on tighter. The sirens blared outside the house as I began to melt down.
“Okay, Koti, listen,” Jasmine said softly “everything is okay.”
My body shook uncontrollably as I continued to try to yank my hand away. She stood undeterred. “Breathe, one, two, three…”
Pound. Pound. Pound.
“The door is open!” Jasmine yelled while she kept me captive in her stare and instruction.
“Please let me go.”
“Can you walk over to the couch?”
I pulled away from her as the medic emerged from the patio door and eyed us.
Jasmine, still engaging me fully, nodded toward the chair that held Mr. Harper. The man rushed to his side as his partner looked at me. I averted my eyes as I breathed in again trying to calm myself.
“Panic attack,” she mouthed to the second medic.
Instantly furious but unable to control my breathing or the shaking, I took steady breaths and let Jasmine walk me to the couch. “Sit tight, okay. I’ll take care of this.”
“It’s my worse fear,” I said, hot tears trailing down my face.
“I know.”
She picked up my hand and kissed it before she gently pushed me back into the cushions.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Jasmine,” I pleaded knowing I was making a fool of myself.
“I’ll be right back, Koti.”
I drew my knees up as my body quaked and took breaths until the fatigue set in.
“I’M SORRY,” I SAID, STARING at the mismatched houses that flew by us as Jasmine drove us to the office a short time later.
“Stop.”
“I’m so embarrassed,” I admitted.
“Stop it,” Jasmine said firmly.
“Why can’t I just make jokes like you or throw up like normal people?”
She let out a loud laugh. “You think I’m normal? Babe, please. My mother was a nurse. Her calm reaction would have made us both look crazy.”
“I feel crazy.”
“You are a little bit. That’s how you deal with things. I make jokes. Who knows what other people would have done in that situation.”
“Stop trying to make me feel better.” My limbs ached. I could barely keep my eyes open. “Why do you even deal with me?”
“Trade-off, you save me right back. I’m pretty selfish. That’s how this works.”
I let out a long breath and turned down the radio she’d just turned on.
“Where did he go, when he died, where did he go?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s the worst part,” I swallowed as the fear began to resurface, “we don’t know for sure. We don’t know, and even the truest of most faithful believers aren’t certain there’s a heaven or hell or just darkness. And if it’s just darkness, are we aware of it? We get to know nothing except that death is every single living creature’s fate. The thing I’m most afraid of in the world is the one thing that is inevitably going to happen to me and everyone I love. I get to know nothing else.”
“We all have that disadvantage, no one knows for sure.”
“But you aren’t afraid to die. You’ve just accepted it. And you live every day of your life not worried about it.”
“Give yourself credit, kid. You’ve done a damn good job curbing your fears this past year.”
“I know, but then today this happens and I’m more terrified than ever.”
She grabbed my hand and held it. “I wish I could say something that would change this for you, Koti, but I can’t.”
“I know,” I said tearfully. “Some days I feel like our creator is the cruelest with the rules and some days I can’t believe how amazing this world is. Ya know? It’s like here, enjoy this life while I give it to you but be careful because at any moment I can take it away and you don’t get to know what’s next. And then there’s religion and what if it�
�s wrong, or if it’s right and all the people who don’t believe have this horrible fate because they are realists and need proof?”
“Deep breaths, Koti.”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.”
“Stop it. Don’t be sorry. These are all valid questions. You aren’t crazy.”
“I feel crazy.”
“You’re human. You have thanatophobia. It wouldn’t be a phobia if you were the only one. There are millions of people with the same fear.”
I swallowed and nodded.
“And your anxiety makes it worse.”
I nodded as thoughts of the rest of our schedule raced around my head. “We have to open the Brewer house in five minutes.”
“We’ll make it.”
She gripped my hand before I pulled it away.
“Stop, honey, stop beating yourself up.”
“God, I’m so sick of this. So sick of myself. One step forward, a hundred back. This is bullshit.”
Jasmine’s next order was a plea. “Stop.”
I turned in my seat to face her. “I’m so full of shit. You know I spewed off some crap last night to Ian about being proactive and taking care of other people. I’m such a spaz. Who the hell am I kidding?”
She eyed me for a long minute at a stop light. “That’s who you are for me. You take care of me.”
“I have all these ideas of the new and improved Koti Vaughn and then crap like this happens. I feel so out of control. My mother says it’s all in my head.”
“We all feel out of control most days. Especially on days like this, I really hate your mother for making you feel like that. It’s anxiety and we all have it in different degrees. My sister won’t leave her house. Trust me, yours could be a lot worse.”
“Is that how you knew how to deal with me?”
Her shoulders slumped. “I’m not dealing with you, I’m being your friend.”
I nodded as a hot tear slipped down my face. “Who’s going to want me like this?”
“A very intelligent fucking man.”
This time when she gripped my hand, I squeezed hers back. Jasmine was overly affectionate, at least that was my opinion when we first met. She was quick to hug and offer her sympathy. But over time, I learned to love it about her. In fact, it was what I loved most.
Even as I managed to get through our day, I still felt the dread course through my veins. I was thankful when I pulled up to my house and hit the pillow.
A knock at my back door had me scrambling from my bed. My chest and throat raw, I raced to the bathroom and cupped water in my mouth before I answered the door still half asleep.
Ian stood on the other side, his easy smile wiped the minute he saw me.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. What’s up?”
He drew his brows. “You forgot?”
“Forgot?”
“About our bonfire?”
Yes.
“No, I’m sorry. I must have drifted off.”
Ian took a step back as I pried my eyes open further to see he was dressed casually in shorts and a T-shirt. It was a far cry from the suit-clad man he arrived as a month before. His thick brown hair had gotten slightly sun-bleached and a few blond hairs had sprouted out of the thick disheveled mess. Gorgeous gray eyes peered at me through thick black lashes. It was always on the tip of my tongue to tell him how beautiful he was.
“Koti?”
“Yeah?”
“Bonfire?”
“Yeah.”
Ian patiently pressed his lips together to hide his grin.
“I mean, yeah. Let me wash my face, okay?”
“Must have been some nap,” he said with a small smile. “I’ll be out here.”
“Okay. Do I need to bring anything?”
He paused again and cupped the back of his head with his palm. “Chocolate, graham crackers, marshmallows?”
“Right.”
He frowned. “We can do this another time.”
Snapping out of my haze, I finally met his watchful gaze. “Nope, I’m on it.”
He turned to make his way to the beach as I admired the fit of his clothes. The man had swagger and it was dizzying. He carried himself as any military man would—with confidence and purpose.
Ian chose the exact moment I zeroed in on his ass to glance back at me. I didn’t bother acknowledging I was caught. Instead, I shut the door and raced to my bedroom.
I spent short minutes showering and scouring my skin in a sugar scrub that smelled like juniper before I raced to my closet and threw on my favorite white sundress and gold flip-flops. With another minute to spare, I brushed some bronzer on my cheeks and glossed my lips. Feeling lighter from the shower, I grabbed a small bag from my pantry and threw my stash into it along with a few other provisions. I grabbed a bottle of wine and two plastic wine glasses. Outside, Ian was carefully crafting our bonfire. I watched him work with it for a few seconds before I ran back inside and turned on my beach mix. The first few notes of Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” sounded as I shut my door and crossed the sand. Slightly nervous and still a little drained, I met Ian near the shore where he was setting up a pair of folding chairs next to his newly lit fire.
“This is perfect. I brought wine.”
He perked up and eyed the bottle I pulled from my bag. “Looks familiar.”
“Yeah, well, it’s delicious.” I pulled out a second bottle and we shared a smile.
“That kind of day?” he asked.
I slowly nodded as he took one of the bottles from my hands and I dug through the bag for my corkscrew. “We found a man lying dead in a lawn chair at one of our properties.”
“Oh?” Ian said with interest. “We?”
“Me and my boss, Jasmine.”
I held out an empty glass to Ian who poured generously into one and then the other. We clinked our plastic and took a seat.
Nervous laughter burst out of me. “He was naked.”
His eyes bulged. “Wow.”
“Yeah, nothing kinky. He wasn’t tied to the chair or anything. He probably didn’t expect to die naked on a porch. He was in his eighties.” I felt the lump in my throat threaten and pushed through it. “He was alone. I hate that.”
Ian took a sip of wine. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Yeah,” I said dismissively though my voice shook. “Yeah, it was.”
“Does he have family?” Ian asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Let’s talk about something else. How is Disco?”
“She was asleep when I left.”
“Oh well, she’ll keep you up all night.”
Ian rolled his eyes. “As she has every night.”
“Got to get her on a schedule, professor.”
“She sleeps with me now,” he said affectionately.
Lucky bitch.
With a glass of wine in hand, we sat for several minutes simply enjoying the view, the sun slowly creeping down before us. The islands were becoming giant black rocks with twinkling lights as their canopy as each minute passed. I had so many questions but decided to start with the one I thought was the safest.
“How long are you staying?”
He paused before he answered. “I’m not sure.”
“How long has it been since you’ve been here?”
“A few years after I got married. The last time I saw you was the last time I was here.”
“You were leaving,” I said, recalling the day he walked out of the Kemp house, keys in hand. I remembered pausing to look at him before I stepped out of my parents’ SUV.
“You recognized me right away,” I said with a grin.
“You had on gold sandals,” he laughed as he studied my feet. “What is it with you and gold sandals?”
I shrugged and sipped my wine to hide my smile and pushed off my sandals to drag a lazy toe through the cooling sand. “Why didn’t you say hi? You just took off.”
“I was in a rush to get home,” he said, taking a sip of his win
e.
“And you couldn’t say hello?”
He sank a little into his chair while an expression I couldn’t place flit over his features. “I was late for my flight.”
“Oh.”
“Feels amazing out here,” he said, his eyes flicking to the firelight.
“It does.”
“You’re really here for good?” he asked.
“Yep. No other place I want to be.” Ian picked up our bottle and refreshed our glasses.
“Right now, with this view, I have no argument.” I sank further into my seat as the sun set, a wine buzz, and the music drifted between us. I’d only ever shared my bubble with Jasmine. I felt strangely comfortable doing it with Ian. Because though the man in front of me was a far cry from the boy who chased me through the sand, he wasn’t a stranger.
With a bottle between us and the false courage that went with it, I studied him.
“So, tell me about the Marines. Is the training really as hard as it’s made out to be?”
“Worse,” he muttered. “It didn’t matter, I was up for it and I had already been training for months before I went in. But it wasn’t a breeze by any means. God, that seems like another lifetime ago,” he whispered almost inaudibly.
“So, you got out right away?”
“I served four years and I could have served more, but I had a baby coming, I wanted to be out.” He pulled at his lip and nodded. “I didn’t want to miss anything.”
“How old is she?”
“Just turned fifteen.”
“Wow.”
He stoked the fire as I swallowed a little intimidation.
Ian had been married, divorced, and was raising a daughter. The longest commitment I’d had was with my Mac, who I murdered on my way out of the city.
I chuckled.
“What?”
“I was just thinking of how much further evolved you are than I am. You’ve already had a marriage and are almost done raising a kid.”
He shrugged as he dug his feet into the sand. “What’s the rush?”
“No rush, well actually, at this point…”
Prodding eyes flicked my way.
“I have no plans past today, and those are my plans tomorrow.”
“I like your life. I wish I had it so easy.”
“Trust me, I pay for it. My mother is pissed and my dad is utterly confused with my choice to stay here. I tell them constantly they should have had another child, at least then they could do that fun comparison thing. It’s not my fault my mother was worried about her figure instead of procreating, and they were forced to place their hopes on one kid.”
