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  I got home, went in the side door, the hinges shrieking at me to oil them, and put three bags on the counter.

  Jericho walked into the kitchen and slapped his forehead. “I forgot to go to the store yesterday. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you work anymore? What’s up with your job?”

  “Things are slow at the marina.” He gave me a quick kiss and then stared hard at my eyes. “You smell like smoke.”

  “You know I don’t smoke.”

  “You taste like it and your hair smells—”

  “No pack, no fire.” I patted myself down.

  He put his head a few inches from mine. “Why were gone so long? Your shift ended two hours ago.”

  “I got off late, had to run by the condo office,” I motioned to the sacks on the counter, “and we needed bread and produce real bad.”

  “You run into anyone while you were out?”

  “No. What’s this look you’re giving me?”

  “I uh, was waiting for you, thought you might’ve run out of gas.” His fingers lightly travelled my face and fell to my neck, his right hand stopping below my ear. “You’re not very good about filling up regularly.”

  “I know you’re compelled to top off the gas tank like every other trip, but I like to wait until the little light comes on. It saves time.”

  He ambled the room, his forehead a mass of wrinkles, one hand clenched into a fist. I’d had a plenty long day and didn’t even want to try to figure out why he was being weird, so I started unloading veggies into the fridge. As he passed me, I handed him a bright orange package.

  “You got me cheese twists! Rock out!” He began emptying another brown bag.

  “Dude, I don’t know how you can eat them. They’re made from garbage.”

  He got to the bottom and tossed me a pack of cigarettes. “So are these.”

  “I didn’t buy those.” Mistake at the checkout, second time this month.

  He grabbed the pack out of my hand and chucked it into the trash so hard the can tipped over.

  “J?” I turned the sea glass between my fingers.

  “I’m sorry. It hasn’t been a good day.”

  “Me either.”

  He leaned against the counter and crossed his feet. “How come?”

  “It’s Sylvia. She’s still gone. Her ex-husband cleared out her space and other than the cat, it’s like she never existed. Arnold, the security guy—a freakin’ saint by the way—found Bongos a home with a nice family.”

  “No sister or brother or niece who wanted a cat that plays drums?”

  “Arnold said she doesn’t have any family.”

  He closed his eyes and then looked to the living room. “You need to forget about her.”

  “Forget about her? She’s a person. She needed help.” I stomped my foot. “I should’ve done more. I should’ve tried harder with her. You should’ve told the police about Joel.”

  “What would I have told the police about Joel? I don’t even know his real name.”

  “You know what’s worse than that? I didn’t know her last name. It’s Montgomery. I should’ve at least known her damn name.” I put my phone in the charger and crossed my arms. “Something’s not right. She wouldn’t just up and leave Bongos. She’s had that cat since he was a kitten, taught it to beat drums, and he slept with her. And swear to God, I thought I saw Joel when I was driving home.”

  “You saw him?” He uncrossed his feet.

  “It wasn’t him. I’d talked to Arnold, was thinking about Sylvia, thinking about Joel, and mistook a troubled youth for him.” My cell rang and I scratched my head with both hands. What!

  I looked at the display, felt a smile coming, and picked up the call. “How’s it goin’, nimrod? I’ve been trying to get you for weeks.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” Derek said. “Hard semester. How’re you?”

  “Hard day. How’s college life?”

  He rattled off a list of classes, all of them core curriculum or business. He briefly described the social scene and told me about his roommate, Roger, a computer programming geek. They were going to go into business someday, make millions on a software project.

  “So I’ve been stressed with my course load and working most nights at the computer lab, making friends, involving myself,” he continued, “and then with everything going on with Mom—”

  “What about her?”

  “She has cancer.”

  “Don’t joke about—”

  “She has cancer, Kris.”

  He’d called me by my first name and I was dumbstruck, my body numbing from head to toe. No, God no. I loved Mary Masters, had spent thousands of hours in her house and had talked to her about all the stuff I couldn’t talk to my own mom about. How could this happen? Why her?

  “She’ll beat it. Hell, Derek, she raised you. What’s a little tumor?” I couldn’t believe I’d said it, but thankfully he laughed.

  We talked for another couple of minutes and then he had to leave for study group.

  Jericho plugged in his laptop and sat at the island. “So how’s Derek?”

  “His mom has cancer.”

  “That’s horrible. I’m sorry.”

  After setting the oven at four hundred seventy-five and putting the potatoes in, I started a balsamic reduction for broiled asparagus, and then grilled the swordfish steaks. I couldn’t stop thinking about Mary, about the worry in Derek’s voice, about Sylvia, about the smell of tobacco that was in my hair, and about the teen on the corner. Thoughts and questions were banging around my head too fast, multiplying at the speed of sound.

  The oven timer beeped.

  “Kris! Don’t!” Jericho rocketed out of his chair.

  I saw then that the oven mitts were lying on top of the stove. I thought I’d put them on. I yanked my hand back but I’d already grasped the pan. It hit the oven door and potatoes scattered across the tile. In my haste to turn on cool water and shove my hand beneath the tap, I knocked the swordfish onto the floor.

  Any burn to the hands, feet, or face required medical attention in nearly every instance and I knew it was bad because it didn’t hurt yet. My right palm was snow white as were four of my fingers from the knuckle to the tip. How am I gonna work? Wash my hair? Do anything? How could I have let myself get so distracted that I didn’t use a freakin’ oven mitt?

  “Let me see.” Jericho took my hand.

  Before I could get it back under running water, his palm bore down onto my baked skin as his eyes lit. My fingers itched and were then set on fire. The heat coming from him was a flare, melting the skin and cremating the bones. The flames increased and I wanted to scream but couldn’t get enough air. I gripped the counter with my good hand, sure I was going to pass out. The heat subsided and he let go. Pale pink stained my hand where the injury had been. I stretched and curled each digit.

  “Pretend I didn’t do that for you.” He wrapped his arms around me.

  I angled right and looked around his elbow at my hand. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  He held me for another minute, his calm removing my panic over the event and the insanity that had followed.

  He ran his fingers through my hair. “Tell you what, I’m gonna run out real fast, but I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Do me a favor? Just sit on the couch.”

  I sat down and examined my hand for a couple more minutes and then cleaned up the kitchen floor and counters with cold water. As I was sweeping up the potatoes, I remembered the night Jericho had told me the story of his friend who’d gotten a surfboard fin stuck in his head, had a concussion. Dots finally connected and the little baby porpoise took its nose out of my ear.

  He returned with a pizza, a six pack, and a bottle of water, and set them on the patio table.

  I didn’t know where to start with what I needed to say so I opened the pizza box instead. “What’s up with the chivalry?”

  “You had a bad day, you’re inordinately fond of pepperoni, and if pizza makes you feel better so be it.” He took a long
swallow of beer. “The burn—that’s nearing the limit of what I can fix, so you know.”

  “You called Derek,” I said quietly.

  “Derek called you.”

  “Right before I blacked out at The Bakery there was a flash of light. It was blue, your blue. I remember now. I also remember feeling a hand stroke my hair. My head was on your lap. You were there. I didn’t crawl out. You carried me outside. You called Derek.”

  He put his slice down and slowly nodded.

  “You left me lying on the ground alone and afraid.”

  He shook his head. “I had to go. I would’ve done anything to stay. I had no choice. You’ll never understand it but that’s the truth. I called EMS. And then I called Derek because I knew he’d take care of you and do what was best. I loved you then and—”

  “You had to go? Go—?”

  “God, Kris, you didn’t even like me then, were suspicious of everything I did or said. In hindsight, I think it was good that I wasn’t there when you came around. What would you’ve thought?”

  “I don’t know what I would’ve thought. I didn’t get the chance. What was so important that you left like that?”

  “I had no choice in the matter. Please accept that.” His eyes pleaded with me to understand.

  “Hold up—how did you even know I was at work that morning?”

  “I’d just gotten off one of Donovan’s boats, was driving past The Bakery on my way home, saw your car. The shop lights weren’t on. I got a bad feeling.”

  “Another bad feeling.”

  I turned my attention to the shore so I could make sense of everything he’d said. The sky was darkening into a cool deep blue. The horizon had merged with clouds and the water was flat and gray. A black skimmer stood in the shallows. It looked like a penguin: black on top, white underneath, with a stripe of orange on its long beak. A spoonbill, its feathers as pink as a flamingo’s, landed a few feet away from it. It seemed the skimmer was watching the sky and the spoonbill was watching the skimmer. Another skimmer sailed over the surface and alit by its kin as the spoonbill took to the clouds.

  Jericho’s a spoonbill. He’d left me at The Bakery, but he’d made sure I was in good hands. Derek was the right person to call. I remembered how Jericho had watched me the next day at Nick’s. At the time I’d thought he was freaked out about my blood-stained hair, but I knew better. He’d been worried. He’d come over to make sure I was all right.

  I was going to ask about the broken glass and windows, about what had happened to my attacker when it hit me: Donovan was the dwarf. It was his beard, that pointy, elfin beard.

  “Donovan.” I said.

  He didn’t reply.

  “There were four hands on my body. It hurt so much worse than what you did twenty minutes ago, felt like napalm. And you said the burn was nearing the limit of what you could do. Donovan helped you. How bad was I? I need to know.”

  He ran one finger over his eyebrow. “Bad. What’s important is that you weren’t in the hospital for weeks. If Donovan hadn’t been with me, you would’ve.”

  “Donovan’s like you? Julia?”

  He gave me a glance as if to say I’d answered my own question.

  A minute or two went by with me being stupefied.

  “I’ve met you halfway, gone past it,” he said softly. “I did everything I could for you that morning. Please believe that.”

  I didn’t understand how it was that he and Donovan had turned broken bones to bruises, but I was grateful they had. I knew right then that he’d brought the Brussels sprouts, had probably whispered to Arnold to keep it on the down low.

  I got up, sat on his lap, put my head on his shoulder, and poked him in the ribs. “And you didn’t get me flowers after that, after all I’d been through?”

  He put his arms around me. “You’re not a flowers kind of girl.”

  He knew me, really knew me, even back then.

  _______

  I went for a run but stopped by the pier to gaze at the beauty created by a strong southeast wind and a rip current the size of the Amazon. Oh yeah. That day, that morning, was what I had been waiting for. Six a.m., sunlight diffused by scattered clouds, and chunky, healthy waves breaking right. Even better, Jericho was in death mode form of sleeping. Better still, it was Tuesday and no one else was out. All mine. I used my key to get in his house and asked my funboard to be kind.

  The waves I’d surfed before were knee high or waist high, little. That day’s were shoulder high nearing overhead, huge to me. On my first attempt at catching a respectable wave, I paddled too fast. I knew because I looked over my shoulder and the wave was breaking five feet above my head. I was thrust to the sea floor and a second later the leash was towing me to shore. The second, third, fourth, and fifth time, I paddled too slow and missed the wave altogether.

  Trying again, I heard the wave before I felt a monumental surge of energy that stripped my mind of thought. I was up, moving with the ocean’s energy and it was a pure rush, all my senses tuned to the water’s path. I dropped down the face, my body in a crouch low and tight as I went down the line. The ride probably only lasted five or six seconds but felt much longer. Thoroughly invigorated, I paddled back out.

  The session lasted a little over an hour and a half. I didn’t get half the waves I wanted and massively wiped out too many times, scraping up my arms, legs, hips, and elbows. The five waves I did get inspired me to try harder. With every ride, successful or not, my confidence grew, the board telling me exactly what my parameters were and the ocean forgiving my blasphemy.

  Surfing was about a lot of things: timing, positioning, balance, and awareness of my environment. But more so, surfing was about experience, going out and doing it over and over again. More than that, surfing was personal: one board, one body, one wave.

  He stood at the shoreline, his hands in his pockets.

  I put down the board and picked up a towel. “How’d I do?”

  “I am so proud of you!” He grabbed me into a hug and then pushed me back. “What were you thinking? Look at that current! Don’t you ever go out without me again. Damn, Kris! Are you Nick?”

  “I made up my mind a long time ago that I was gonna rock the big girl waves on my own terms, in my own time, by myself. I only inhaled six gallons of seawater, almost barfed once and by golly, I’m alive to tell the tale, so screw you.” I stuck out my tongue. “Does that make you wonder?”

  “Yes!” He hugged me again. “Your timing’s still a little off. Foot position was good but you should drop your shoulders a touch. I’m so proud of you. If you ever go out alone ag—”

  “It was so much fun.”

  He took me out for breakfast and smiled the whole day.

  The next two weeks were decent: worked, went on an unsuccessful clam dig, sent a note to Derek’s mom, almost ran out of gas on a Wednesday, fell in love with a new cookbook, and held on tightly to my connection to Jericho to keep my fear of him at bay.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  He struck the glass against the counter. “Devon’s been working on her. She comes home and her eyes are glassy for an hour or more, and patches of her skin are cold. The first time I thought I was imagining it, but it’s happened three more times that I know about. And she’s been smoking. He’s sending me a message.”

  “Oh dear.” She put down her paint brush.

  “He has her right where he wants her.” He kicked the baseboard. “I can’t be with her every second of the day and I’m making her nuts as it is.”

  “But you can’t make yourself crazy with worry over this. Your souls have come together and there’s no way anyone could know that. What’s happening between the two of you is unheard of in our world.”

  “She may be connected to me, but that doesn’t mean she won’t do whatever he wants.” He walked around the room again. “And Joel’s still around.”

  “You need to recharge. You’ll be better equipped to deal with anything Devon’s planned if you’ve had some time at the a
ssembly.”

  “I’ll meet up with you there for Thanksgiving, come back, and then go again at Christmas. She’ll be in Austin then, should be safe. Maybe I’ll whisper to Jermaine to give her a little more time off.”

  “There’s purpose in that.”

  He stared at a painting of the Irish coast. “I think she’s The One of Green Water. I think that’s why Devon’s waiting her out, has Joel keeping residence here.”

  “The One of Green Water is myth and nothing more.”

  “I think she is. She’s coming to us at the right time.”

  _______

  I went out the side door and made a face. He was messing with my ride.

  He held up a greasy hand to me. “Do you check your oil—ever?”

  “Not really. There’s an engine light. That’s my cue. And there are these little places in town where they’ll do your oil and check everything over for cheap.”

  He looked away from me, horrified by my engine light strategy for car maintenance. “This is an old car. If the light comes on, it means it’s gonna die.” He tossed his keys to me. “I’m gonna change your oil and filters and tune a bunch of other stuff today, so use the truck.”

  “I can’t use your truck. I’ll feel like some sort of cowboy. The dragon’s fine.”

  “No, Kris, it’s not.”

  “Okay.” I sat on the step. His keychain was a silver surfboard—how apropos. “So Donovan has family in Ireland?”

  “Two sisters, one mean and one meaner.” He mimicked Donovan precisely, his voice even and face too serious.

  “That was good. Hey, Julia mentioned you go with them there over the holidays, but if you want, you’re welcome to come home with me for Thanksgiving. You could watch my brother beat up on me for three or four days straight. He’s six five with the build of a linebacker. It’s top-notch entertainment.”