Cursed

by Melissa Michelle Green

  He gestured to indicate that they were surfacing and heading back, and Jami nodded and followed. His heart rate had returned to normal by the time their heads broke the surface a few yards away from the boat.

  He spit out his mouthpiece and pushed his mask up on the top of his head while Jami did the same.

  She spoke before he had a chance to, the worry in her eyes telling him what she was going to say before she got it out.

  “Shit! I’m so sorry, I’m sure I did that all wrong. But I couldn’t remember what you said about how to use the dive computer to figure out how to warn you. The boat did a loop pretty much over my head, and I was thinking that they were going to head back the other way, but they ended up circling all the way back around. Do you think they are looking for the crash as well?”

  Her light brown hair was dark as a seal’s pelt while it was wet, and the sunshine had her eyes looking as though they were lit from behind with an amber glow. He heard everything she was saying but all he could think of was that she had saved his life, again. In two strokes he was in front of her. Her eyes were wide, and she opened her mouth to say something, but he interrupted her by hooking his finger into the front of her vest and pulling her to him for a sound kiss. What had begun as a thank you kiss ended up being much more. Her lips were soft and full and had been slightly open when he surprised her. He kept his eyes open to gauge her reaction and was fascinated to see that she did as well. He watched her expression move from shock to the briefest flicker of panic then, faster than he could even react, pleasure. He felt her lips curve under his, and he moved his head the slightest bit, flicking his tongue against her lower lip, tasting saltwater with something sweet behind it. He knew that the sweet was all Jami. He wanted more.

  Her lashes had fluttered closed when he heard Illeana’s laugh skip across the water like the pebbles he used to let fly when he was a child.

  “Hey, you lovebirds! That might not be the best place for a make-out session!”

  He pulled back and watched Jami’s face. Her eyes flew open and with relief all he saw in them was joy. She laughed out loud and tossed back to Illeana. “Speak for yourself, I’m quite comfortable!”

  Val laughed as well. “Come on, let’s get on board and eat while we get our equipment ready for another dive.” He glanced at his dive computer. “I think we can fit one in before sunset.”

  Jami swim behind him, with smooth sure strokes even as the water got choppy closer to the boat. Damn, that girl could move.

  He pulled himself up on the ladder and allowed Illeana to help him remove his equipment. He then reached down to help Jami do the same.

  As they sat on the deck of the boat catching their breath, Illeana tossed dry towels at them and asked eagerly, “Well, are we close? Did you see anything?”

  Jami met Val’s eyes and laughed again, lighting hers up.

  He smiled back, unable to take his eyes from her face even while he answered the other woman’s question. “Oh yeah, we found it.”

  16

  Jami stayed quiet while Val brought Illeana and Stefano, who had joined them, up to speed. She closed her eyes and allowed the blazing afternoon sun to soak into her bones. She hadn’t been cold, but that dive had taken a lot out of her. She kept going back to the moment where she had connected the boats wake with the increased movement of the wing and had seen Val directly beneath it, in its path.

  “I’m telling you she was amazing. She didn’t freak out, she didn’t panic, she didn’t shoot up to the surface. She got my attention and then, when I was too dense to figure out what was going on fast enough, she pulled me out of the way.”

  In the silence that followed that last statement, Jami opened her eyes to find three pairs of eyes staring at her with various combinations of surprise, pride, and admiration.

  Uncomfortable, she blushed. “Oh, come on, it’s not that big of a deal. I’m sure it’s what you would’ve done if the situation were reversed. I uh—I have to use the ladies’ room.”

  She scrambled to her feet, tying the damp towel around her waist, and practically running to the stairs.

  She stared at herself in the mirror while she washed her hands after using the bathroom. Holy crap! Her heart was pounding. But she wasn’t scared. She was excited. And then she realized that thought kind of did scare her. She’d run off on her own, dove headfirst, literally ha, into a crazy plan, and now she’d kissed a stranger. She knew she should be cautious, but that’s not what she wanted. She wanted this. Adventure, fun, friends that didn’t look at her as though she were about to break. Val. She wanted Val. She wanted him to look at her again like he had right before he kissed her.

  He’d kissed her! She ran her tongue over her lower lip thinking of it. As kisses went, this definitely blew all of her other experiences out of the water. But even more than that, she’d felt it in her toes and on the back of her neck and in the pit of her stomach. She’d felt it everywhere. Was that what it was supposed to feel like? Was this what Remi felt when she kissed Hart? God, she hoped so. Because now that she felt it, she didn’t just want it for her, she wanted it for everyone. Shouldn’t everyone get to feel this way? She pushed her hands, cold from the water in the sink, to her cheeks. She had to chill the hell out. She was getting way ahead of herself. Hell, he’d probably only kissed her because he was grateful. Right?

  She bit her lip. Deep breath. No big deal. Just go back up and go with the flow. Baby steps.

  When she got back up on the deck, Illeana had more food on the table and Val was chewing while they pored over the map again. She flushed with pleasure when as soon as he saw her, he grinned, beckoning to her excitedly. “Hey there, gorgeous, come here and check this out.” He traced his finger along a line drawn on the map.

  “I think Illeana figured out what happened.” She reached over the map to grab a sandwich and Val casually hooked his arm around her waist, as though they had done this a million times before. Repeating ‘chill out’ to herself again she forced herself to concentrate on what he was saying instead of how warm his arm felt against her lower back through the thin material of her bathing suit.

  “So, Illeana says that a pretty good storm came through about three weeks ago and all kinds of things have been washing up on the shore since then. This happens a lot when the currents get stirred up and whatever’s down there gets shuffled around. Anyway, she figures that we were right about where the plane went down, and it shifted to here.” He pointed to another location on the map. “Then, over the course of fifty years or so, as it’s breaking down, things are falling off changing weight of the fuselage and altering the wreck’s location. If the last storm caused the back of the plane to break off that would have tilted the nose up which is why we were able to see it. Now, the bad news is that this portion here—” he pointed to another section of the wreck “—is pretty deep and if the rear of the plane fell down there, we will never get to it. But maybe we will luck out and my grandparents will have been seated near the front.”

  He grinned at her and she smiled back, she would’ve been unable to stop herself even if she wanted to. He gave her waist a gentle squeeze and then pulled back to grab another sandwich. Handing it to her, he said, “Eat up, we’ll rest a bit while Illeana and Stefano finish getting the equipment set up and go back down in about forty-five minutes.”

  “That sounds great, I can’t wait to see the inside of the plane, although I’m a little iffy about finding the people.”

  Val shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll go in first and make sure everything is secure and stable. Also, you have to realize how long that plane’s been down there, all we’re likely to find will be things that don’t decompose. With the fish, the ocean, you see what I’m getting at.”

  “Yes,” she murmured, “not too much of the actual people left.”

  “Exactly.”

  She settled herself on a lounge chair with her legs in the sun and her head in the shade of the awning and Val pulled a chair up next to her
and joined her.

  “So, where did you learn to swim like that, vacations?”

  “No, I’ve never been anywhere. Well, at least not before this. No, I live in a cottage on the shore of a lake in Colorado, so the water is damn cold year-round, but summer afternoons can get freaking hot and sometimes a cool dip is exactly what you need. Anyway, I was never a team sport girl, so I learned to do a lot of things that don’t require speaking to other people. Swimming, running, hiking. That kind of thing.” Wanting to get the subject off her, she asked, “Why did you learn to scuba dive? Just for fun?”

  “I live in California, and I travel a lot for work. I was in Hawaii for a couple of weeks right after I first started and the story I was working on was pretty rough, I won’t go into any crazy details but I needed an escape. So, someone at the hotel suggested scuba lessons and honestly, I only said yes to try to get my mind off the story, like I said. Anyway, I completely fell in love with it. There’s something magical about this whole other world that’s right under our feet, basically. It’s so quiet and so filled with life, even the harsh stuff makes sense. Not like up here.”

  Jami found her pulse racing again, this time from fear instead of excitement. “Story? Are you a reporter?”

  “Yes. I’ve been working for the LA Times for a few years now. Not sure how much longer it’s gonna last, though”

  “And why’s that?”

  He shrugged. “I guess we could call it creative differences. I’ve got to bring in a big story here pretty soon, something that gets clicks on the website, or I’m pretty sure they’re going to show me the door. I haven’t always been a model employee, but I deliver stories and that’s what they want. I may have put the last straw on the camel’s back.”

  Oh no. Her thoughts were racing. A reporter. What were the odds?

  “Hey, what’s wrong? You look like you saw a ghost.”

  Well, she couldn’t think of a good way out of this one and she didn’t want to lie to him. She telling the truth. She could do that. Right?

  “I’m fine, you surprised me. Honestly, I haven’t had the best experiences with reporters in the past.”

  He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue without pushing.

  She bit her lip. What if he started looking her like everyone else? What if he felt sorry for her? But if he started treating her with kid gloves instead of looking at her like his favorite person in the world?

  Just get it over with.

  “When I was six, my big sister and I were kidnapped. It was a pretty big story at the time, all over the papers. On the news. Tabloids. Every once in a while, someone will bring the story back up, making up reasons to call us, asking for interviews. Following us. It always dies down after a while but that’s why my sister and I live in such a small town. Everyone there is nice, and they understand that all we want is some peace and quiet. But we’ve had reporters show up, asking questions, digging around. They always end up printing something that brings it all back up. Couple of times we’ve even had stalkers.”

  Val had listened quietly and when she stopped talking, he sat up on his lounge chair and turned to face her, swinging his legs over the edge. He took his sunglasses off and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

  “Jami Chase, right?”

  She pushed up on her elbows on her lounge chair but didn’t remove her sunglasses, it might be easier if she had something to hide behind.

  She scanned his face, realizing that she wasn’t seeing shock, or even surprise.

  “You knew?”

  “Yes, I’ve known since this morning. I thought you looked familiar when I stopped to speak to you. When I thought I caught that creep taking a picture of you it made my brain wonder why anyone would be following someone around taking pictures of them, when you think about it, there’re only a couple of reasons. Either you’re having an affair and he’s a private eye, I discarded that idea right away, or you’re a story somehow. It clicked last night.”

  He’d known since last night. So, this whole day on the boat, everything he had said and the way he’d been behaving, he’d already known.

  “Jami.” His voice was low and sincere. She didn’t move a muscle. He reached over and gently removed her sunglasses. She wanted to close her eyes, but his were warm and sincere, and she couldn’t look away.

  “I swear I didn’t know before I spoke to you at dinner. I swear that you’re not a story. Not to me. I didn’t call anyone after I figured it out. I would never do that. I may not have always made the best choices in my life, but I’ve never resorted to tabloid reporting. I admit that my boss wants me to bring in a big story. And yes, you would be one hell of a story. But that’s not what I’m after, not from you. OK?”

  Her heart was racing again but had shot all the way to the other end of the spectrum from fear. She nodded.

  He smiled a slow, easy smile. “OK. Now we’re on the same page, you ready to go down?”

  She stopped breathing and her heart stuttered in her chest. What? Her eyes flew to his and she watched them crinkle before he boomed laughter out uncontrollably. “Get your mind out of the gutter, I was talking about diving.”

  He leaned in, standing a bit to bend over her. With his mouth so close to her ear she could feel his breath warm on her cheek he whispered, “Don’t worry, we’ll get to the good stuff eventually.” He pulled back, placed a light kiss on the tip of her nose and put her sunglasses back on for her.

  Standing up, he held out his hand. “Come on, let’s get ready to go.”

  17

  THEY GOT suited up again while Val explained to Jami the specific issues of diving a wreck.

  “You need to be very aware of how much room you take up with your air tank and everything, you can easily bump it against something on the inside without realizing it, but as fragile as things are after they’ve been in the water for this long, this is even worse because it’s so precariously balanced. We definitely do not want to be in that thing when, and I do mean when, not if, it decides to finish going down.”

  “Got it.” She zipped her vest up decisively and adjusted her mask. “Ready?”

  He grinned. “Let’s go.”

  He loved that she’d fallen in love with diving right away, and he loved that he was the one who had been able to show her that world first.

  The swim to the wreck was uneventful, and just as gorgeous as it had been last time, but a little darker as the sun was much lower in the sky.

  Their dive plan had them back at the boat by sunset, but to be on the safe side, Val had made sure they were both wearing dive lights. They would need them anyway, in the darkness of the wreck. This way with the flick of a switch they had small flashlights on their shoulders aiming forward, freeing their hands up from holding a flashlight once they were in the plane. They also each had small metal detectors, as Jami had thought to ask to have them included with the dive equipment when she booked the trip.

  The fuselage was exactly as they had left it and Val breathed a little sigh of relief when he saw that what would have originally been the center of the plane, but was now the jagged torn-open rear, was clear of debris. He and Jami were able to swim right in the back of the plane, as though they were walking down the aisle to take a trip. There was no material left on the seats but most of the chair structures were still in place, at least parts of them. The destruction that the trauma of the crash had caused was still evident. He flipped his lights on and Jami followed suit. Their lights pierced the murky water about ten feet in front of them pretty clearly. As Val had explained to Jami, there were no partially decomposed bodies still buckled into seats like you see in the movies, and when he turned to check on her, he could see the relief in her eyes even through the diving mask. He nodded to her, and they continued as he checked each seat on the right side of the plane while she did the same on the left, according to their plan. As they moved, they checked the entire area, moving scraps of decomposing material, seaweed, and things they couldn’t identi
fy.

  He saw something glint in front of him and his metal detector emitted a shrill beep. He freed it from the muck excitedly only to see that it was a watch. Just the metal face portion though, the band long having deteriorated. He slipped it into a zippered pouch at his waist and kept moving.

  They were almost out of air by the time they reached the front of the plane. He’d love to check out the pilot’s compartment, but knew that would be a waste of time and air since there would’ve been no reason for his grandparents to have been up there.

  They switched sides and began working their way back towards the rear of the plane, but something distracted Jami and she turned her metal detector back on, moving it to a section of seats that, from what was left of them, looked as though they’d been pushed into the row in front of them with the force of the crash. Imagining what that would’ve done to whoever was had been sitting there was not a pleasant thought. Jami was tugging on the seats, so he moved over opposite her, using his legs to push against them while bracing his back on the next row of seats. He felt them shift, then, as they floated free, Jami stuck her detector in the space they’d opened up. When he heard the faintest of blips, his heart stuttered.

  Was this what was left of his grandparents? He pushed the morbid thought aside as Jami was sifting through the pile with both hands and lifted her left to dangle a chain in front of his face.

  Unfuckingbelievable.

  She was waving her hands excitedly and it took him a minute to get the chain from her. He wanted to look at it more closely, to see if it was the pendant, but the seats they’d loosed bumped against the ceiling of the fuselage and they both heard a jagged, tearing sound at the same time.

  Time to get the fuck out of dodge.

  The necklace joined the watch in his pouch, and he followed Jami, already heading for the rear of the plane, their only exit.