He thought again of Jewel, but the tightness that brought to his chest was too much, so he forced his mind around the bend and found his way back to Christy. There was no friggin’ way he would let one sleepless night pull him backwards on his path away from the bayou and his recent past in Africa. His strong pull to Jewel should do nothing but show him how ready they were for a family – a child of their own.
Christy’s excitement about trying to get pregnant had opened the lid on his own strong desire to have children – and not just because she wanted it. He realized his desire to be a daddy with her had been there for a while, un-noticed until Jewel and then Christy’s invitation. The more he thought about it the more he felt his body relax, and his face broke into a smile. This was running towards the future, and if it took him away from his past, as well, then fan-fucking-tastic.
The sun erupted over the flat horizon with sudden and blinding intensity, and he raised a hand to shield his night-accommodated eyes, spinning on a bare heel to head westward toward home. He slowed the pace from what had become a pounding sprint and started a long-stride middle gait. He now felt sweat instead of cool salt water run down his back and legs and moved closer to the water’s edge where the sand felt wet and cool on his feet. It was also softer and an ache in his calves surfaced – the good ache of tough exercise.
Maybe they even got pregnant last night. Not impossible right? He had absolutely no idea where Christy was in her cycle. The thought that even now a little cluster of their combined cells might be nestling into a cozy little temporary home inside her made him feel so happy he thought he would laugh out loud. Only his controlled heavy breathing from the hard run kept it at bay. He would ask her about that cycle thing this morning. Might as well give it another go after breakfast, right? Load the boat. He felt pretty certain his little SEAL swimmers would get the job done once the mission had been assigned.
Ben looked and found himself about a half mile from the town house so he turned left and plowed into the cool surf, pushing hard against the resistance until nearly waist deep and then he lunged forward in a flat dive and started a long-stroked freestyle swim for the point on the beach where he had lay and looked at the stars. He pounded the water hard, pulling himself along, but then had to roll onto his back and continue on in a leg-only backstroke while he pulled his shorts back up over his bare ass and tied the drawstring. He then flipped back over and kicked off in a hard sprint. A few minutes later he walked out of the surf, winded and with a stitch in his side, but feeling great. He leaned over, hands on knees, and spit salt water onto the sand. He then stood up and leaned backward, arching his back to stretch out the last kinks and when he did he saw her on the deck, warm in a fleece and sweat pants. She waved and held up a cup of coffee at him. Even from this distance he could see her beautiful smile. He waved back and then jogged up the beach to the deck.
“You are a very crazy man” she said and handed him the steaming cup over the rail. “It is sixty-two degrees out, crazy man, and you are swimming in the ocean?” she shook her head in a mock scold and sipped her own coffee. “Get up here, and let me warm you up.”
They sat together on the deck and sipped the murky dark stew she had made from the packets she found by the Mr. Coffee. Not the Starbucks they both addicted themselves to on and off, but not bad. They drank it black since they had not yet made a supply run for sugar or cream, and they held hands and watched the sun turn the dark ocean into a shimmering blue-green.
“How did you sleep?” she asked, unable to keep a tiny little concerned furrow off her forehead.
“Not great,” he answered honestly.
“Dreams?” She looked disappointed. Ben didn’t have to read minds to know how much hope she had hung on his trip to the bayou.
“Actually, no, just restless, I guess. Mind spent the day at Disney.” That was her favorite way to tell him she had a lot on her mind, and she smiled at hearing it back. She seemed content to let the night go.
“Watcha’ wanna do today?”
“You mean in between trips to the bedroom?” he asked with a mischievous grin.
“Or the family room,” she gave a wink and a nod.
“Or the kitchen?”
“Kitchen’s good,” she agreed. “Maybe the deck?”
“Or the beach?” he threw back, and they both laughed. “I was thinking we could rent a Hobie Cat for a few hours,” he added. “I saw a place in the stack of brochures they gave us.”
“That would be awesome,” she sounded genuinely excited. “The water looks so beautiful.”
They decided they would make a store run first and then try and find the Hobie rental place later in the morning. Their shower together was preceded by a half hour back in bed when she told him they might as well both be sweaty since they needed to shower anyway. Afterwards he had kissed her belly softly and cupped his hands and in a loud stage whisper said “Go get ‘em boys! The egg is your objective for this mission.” That got a squeal of excited laughter from his wife, who then lifted her hips and put two pillows under her, elevating her in ways that made him wish they hadn’t finished yet.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked with a chuckle.
She shrugged and blushed.
“Supposed to increase the odds.”
Made sense, he thought. His swimmers would be no use to anyone flopping about in a wet spot on the sheets.
They talked about her cycle on the drive to the store where he learned that she was indeed in a “vulnerable window” as she put it. He again wondered if perhaps their baby grew inside her already. He got a few glimpses of thoughts from her that she thought about it to, but tried hard not to invade her mind too much.
They shopped for the rest of the week, leaving a couple of nights open for dinner out, and after they had unpacked it all into the fridge and cabinets they sat again on the deck and enjoyed a late brunch of bagels and fruit. They ate lazily and watched the Gulf and twice returned waves from other couples staying at Hibiscus Bay who walked hand-in-hand along the water’s edge. As they cleaned up, he watched a couple their age walk onto the beach with their two kids – both toddlers – and he smiled as the children splashed and giggled in the gentle surf. He could easily picture them celebrating an anniversary here in a few years – a couple of kids in tow.
They were on the Hobie before one o’clock and he felt himself really start to relax. The fatigue from his sleepless night seemed only background noise as they cut the short sailboat through the crystal clear water. Christy stretched out on the canvas tarp while he sailed the little boat back and forth up the beach. He went as far as their condo community a few miles west of the rental company (which had been nothing more than a guy with three Hobie Cats next to a shack on the beach behind the Holiday Inn). The boats looked well kept, the long-haired owner had a genuine persona, and they had no worries renting from him. Now he watched her at his feet, eyes closed and face covered in a happy glow as he tacked back and forth. Now and again she would throw out another name for him to think about.
“Nathan?”
“Reminds me of the Hot Dog store – no.”
“Sophia?”
“Old fashioned, but stylish – yes or maybe.”
“Brett?”
“Too Yuppie sounding – no.”
“Jason?”
“I like that. Yes, it makes the list.”
And on it went. When they would heat up in the sun they slipped into the cool water and kissed and groped each other as they held onto the tow line to keep from being left behind should a gust of wind sweep their catamaran away. It was nearly four when they zigzagged back towards the Holiday Inn where Kirk (could have been a yes, but now would always be a beach bum name) waited for them with a Schlitz tall boy in one hand.
“How was it?”
“Great,” Christy answered for both of them. “Awesome, in fact.”
“You got a lotta sun there, lady,” Kirk said, and Ben noticed that Christy’s skin had, in fact, turned
a slight crimson. “That’s gonna hurt later.”
Christy pressed a finger to her shoulder and watched a dime size circle blanch white and then turn red again.
“Bummer,” she said.
“I’ll lotion you up at home,” Ben offered as he paid Kirk.
“I’m not fallin’ for that again,” she grabbed at his hip with a wink.
By the time they walked into the condo the redness had deepened and started to look painful. Ben felt bad for his wife. He had gotten a bit more sun then he wanted as well, but nothing like her.
“I don’t know why the hell I didn’t think to put on sunscreen,” Christy pouted. “We bought it at the grocery and everything. What the hell was I thinking?”
“I really do think I should put a little lotion on that,” Ben pursed his lips. Man it looked painful. “Does it hurt?”
“It’s starting to,” she conceded.
They headed upstairs where she stretched out naked on the bed (obviously planning on more than just lotion) and Ben knelt between her legs and rubbed a thick amount of cool lotion on his hands. He touched her gently and started to rub, but she tensed up a bit.
“Ooooh,” she winced.
“I’m sorry baby,” he lightened his touch. Then, he looked at the ring on his right hand which pulsed a soft and glowing aquamarine. Ben smiled and stretched his lotion covered hands out over his wife’s back and watched as the blue light spread like an aura from his finger tips to his elbows. The little sparkles, what he had come to call the fireflies, followed a moment later, and he spread his filmy covered hands across her back and shoulders. He could feel the hum like vibration in his fingers.
“Hmmmmmm,” she sighed. “Wow, that is much better. That feels so awesome. What are you doing different?”
“Shhhh,”
He passed over every sun scorched inch of her skin and then rubbed her neck with one hand while the other awkwardly slid his shorts off. He ignored the fleeting, burning pain in his own shoulders and back that flickered and was gone. He tried even harder to ignore how easily he slipped into the role of Traiteur when his wife needed him. What did that mean about his adamant denial of all that had happened?
Ben shook the thought away and spread her legs farther apart with his knees and then kissed the back of her neck as he slid gently inside her already soaked body. She raised her hips up to meet him and moaned.
They lay together afterwards, wrapped around one another, and she kissed his hands.
“Magic hands,” she said. “It might just be my post-orgasm endorphins, but my sunburn feels completely better.”
He looked at her shoulders and saw without surprise that the redness had disappeared. Her skin looked lightly tanned and healthy. He kissed her right shoulder softly.
“I’m glad,” he stole a glance at his hand again – more of a burnt orange color now. He hugged her tight. “What do you want me to make you for dinner?”
She turned over to face him, and her face literally glowed with contentment.
“Do you know how much I love you?”
“I do,” he promised and kissed her mouth.
He spent the rest of the evening happy and fulfilled as they cooked together, sipped wine (only a half glass for her which she nursed all evening on the deck), and held hands. Even during their quiet sunset walk on the beach he managed to keep his mind away from where it tried to sneak. With only a little effort he managed not to think at all about what his ability to heal his wife’s burn might mean.
* * *
The rest of the week disappeared, not in a blink, but in whirlwind of building momentum – alternating happy and carefree days of sun, sand, water, and sex and long, pensive, sleepless nights which ended in pounding runs on the beach and swims in the ocean.
Christy marveled on their second day at the miracle lotion that had cured her sunburn, but never brought it up again and wisely slathered on the SPF 30 the rest of the week. They had many times stared at each other and grinned, each wanting to ask the big “I wonder if” – but not wanting to set the other up for disappointment. He did his best to keep his blue light fingers out of her mind, but he knew she hoped almost desperately that they (funny how men had somewhere along the way earned the right to think of it as “we”) were pregnant.
The week had been the happiest days of his life, offset only slightly by the long and exhausting nights spent almost sleepless in their bed or on the beach, images of Jewel, Gammy, and the Indian swirling through his mind but held precariously out of reach by sheer will. The short bursts of sleep had been overflowing with dreams of Africa. Always they held Jewel, usually cowering in fear or crying in the dark as evil men with orange eyes did unspeakable things to what was left of their people. He saw the villagers clearly and in rich detail – perhaps twenty of them now that the little band they had rescued had found their way to the others the Elder had told him of.
Always the peaceful scenes were shattered by the violence and bloodshed brought by the ragged bands of Al Qaeda assholes – always with the orange eyes that he somehow knew meant they were possessed by the dark ones and led by the one with the black blood.
His transformation to acceptance of the dreams as prophecy rather than madness or some sort of advanced post-traumatic stress disorder came slowly but surely. By the time they sat on the deck of the Destin town house for the last time, their bags packed and waiting for them by the door, he knew the images were not fantasy. They were a calling. He didn’t know what he would do about it – owned as he was by the U.S. Navy – but in the wee hours of the budding dawn of the last day, he had come to accept his new belief in the reality of the calling.
“Whatcha thinkin’ about, baby?” He felt her warm hand on his and realized he had felt her eyes on him, as well, but had ignored them in favor of his thoughts. He looked up at her with a sad smile.
“I had the best week of my life, Christy,” he said simply. She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it.
“Then, why so sad?”
He shrugged.
“I guess I don’t want it to end,” he said, and she nodded.
“Well,” she rubbed the back of his hand on her cheek, “we’re going back to a pretty great life, you know.” She smiled warmly. “The honeymoon can go on indefinitely at home if you want.” She leaned in and kissed his mouth.
“Oh, I do want,” he stroked her cheek.
On the drive to the airport he thought about almost nothing else.
Except of course what he should (or could) do about the calling he felt to Jewel and his people in Africa. He had no idea whether his Gammy, the voices of the Elder, or his meeting with the Attakapa were real. They had felt so real, and he had been so certain of them only days ago, but the insanity of that made it easier to see them as a dream – a last fantasy his mind had created when he had visited his childhood home.
Now, he felt much less sure. A big part of him believed Gammy, the Elder, even the trip down the rabbit hole were, at least, some form of reality. Mostly it just didn’t seem to matter much. No matter what the source, the pull he felt to some undefined destiny in Africa could not be denied.
He had a fair idea what he needed to do, and he would have to do it soon if he held any hope of saving his people from the dark ones.
He also wanted to get things done so he could be home in time for the birth of their baby that the magic part of his brain knew grew inside his wife.
Chapter 31
She drove home from work and felt the familiar anxiety build inside her. In some ways, Ben seemed worse than ever in the ten days since they had gotten home from their honeymoon. But it was so different from before that it seemed hard to compare.
Instead of dreams that brought him upright in their bed screaming – or sometimes just left him crying in his sleep – he now seemed quiet and brooding in the evenings. It usually started a short time after dinner and lasted most of the evening. She didn’t think it had anything to do with them or their fledgling marriage. Whenever
she nudged him with a soft touch or softer words he would come back to her, and his eyes filled with the love she had grown accustomed to seeing in them during their time at the beach. He would smile and hold her, tell her how much he adored her, talk to her about babies and names and the future.
He also seemed near exhaustion. She had begun to sleep lightly herself, due entirely to her worry about her husband, and would awaken to see him staring at the ceiling, quiet but awake. He didn’t deny he was having trouble sleeping, but he did minimize it a great deal.
She decided it had to be something at work. She had accepted a long time ago there would always be things with the Teams he couldn’t tell her. The top secret nature of his job that had seemed so bizarre early in their relationship now felt like just a normal part of who they were.
It must be work. What the hell else could it be?
Whatever was going on somewhere in the world that might inevitably involve a visit by the Navy SEALS clearly had him troubled. She wanted so much to ask him what kept him up at night distracted, but instead dropped subtle hints of her worry in the hope he would share with her if he could.
So far it had not happened.
And, so she felt anxious – not because he kept a secret he must surely have to keep, but because she loved him so much and worried about him. She felt so terribly tired herself. She supposed that sleep lost together, as a sharing of problems even if not discussed, was a part of marriage. It certainly seemed to be a part of theirs.
She steered her way home and felt her pulse quicken with concern as she turned onto their street. But she slowed her breathing when she saw his truck wasn’t yet in the driveway. She parked and threw her detail case over her shoulder to free up her hands to grab the grocery bags. She had decided if she couldn’t talk to her husband about whatever troubled him, she could at least be a terrific wife and baby him a little.
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