by Lena North
Halfway through the evening, Dupree dropped a bottle of beer. It wasn’t a big deal, we all did it every now and then, but he grunted sourly and disappeared into the kitchen for a while. He still looked angry when he returned.
“What’s wrong with Papi?” I asked Lippy. “Problem with the ladies?”
He snorted out surprised laughter and leaned in.
“Your papi has never had any lady-problems in his life. It’s just that time of the month.”
I blinked. That time of the month? Really?
“Tax reports are due tomorrow.”
Oh.
“He does them himself?”
“Yup. He’s a moron like that. Says he won’t let some hoity-toity accountants fool him.”
I turned to look at my uncle and waited until his gaze was on me.
“Wanna watch a grown man cry with joy?”
I didn’t wait for his reply and walked to the other end of the bar.
“Papi,” I said quietly.
“Huh,” he grunted and filled a plastic cup with ice.
“You know I went to university, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, still grunting, as he poured soda over the ice.
“You might find it interesting to know I have a degree in accounting, specialized in taxation and auditing. Filed tax reports for two years in my job on the mainland.”
He froze and then his eyes moved to me. I nodded.
Without warning, he threw the cup to the side. It went straight into the kitchen, and I heard Bananas roar, but my eyes were on Dupree. He spread his arms out and started moving toward me.
“I think this might be the happiest moment in my whole life!” he bellowed.
Then I was in his arms and lifted off the floor. He managed to twirl us around in the limited space, and I saw Lippy grin in the corner of my eye.
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess you want me to do the taxes tomorrow?” I teased him when he finally put me down.
“Hell, yes,” he said immediately.
“Okay,” I chuckled and walked back toward my end of the bar.
“Charlie,” he called out.
“Yeah?”
“I lied.” He was suddenly right next to me. “Happiest moment of my life was when you walked in the first time, snarling at me and looking like an angel. Never wanted kids. Not until you, Charlie.”
“Papi,” I whispered, not sure what to say and afraid I’d start crying.
I’d cried enough in the past month, so I swallowed and made my mouth form a smile
“You still get to do the taxes,” he muttered, squeezed me and walked away.
I watched him, and it wasn’t an effort to smile anymore. I hadn’t enjoyed my job in Prosper, but I hadn’t hated it so I wouldn’t mind doing the tax reports for the bar.
“Hey,” someone said softly, and I turned to find Snow watching me thoughtfully.
I didn’t know my cousin Domenico very well. They’d been in Croxier a couple of times, and I’d met him. Pauline had told me stories about him, and since Sebastian anyway had figured out where I was, I talked to Carrie on the phone, and she mentioned him every now and then. I found the way Nicky watched me unsettling, though, so I’d held back. I hadn’t met his girlfriend at all.
“Hey,” I said. “Was it your soda Papi tossed into the kitchen?”
Her lips twitched, and she nodded.
I did too, and took a cup, filled it with ice, and said, “Orange, right?” She nodded again, and I put the cup in front of her. “Domenico’s tab?”
She nodded, and I put a blue mark next to the name Nicky.
“Have I done something wrong?” I asked quietly when she sipped her drink but didn’t move away and still didn’t speak.
“No,” she said slowly. “I just like to think about things before I spew shit all over.”
“Makes sense,” I said, wondering what she hadn’t been sure about. “Joao would probably appreciate if you rub off on me.”
She snorted out a surprised chuckle.
“We fight all the time,” she said quietly and added when I raised my brows, “Me and Nicky. He doesn’t mind, and I don’t think Joao does either.”
“Huh,” I said.
I might blurt out things in the heat of the moment, but I wasn’t going to stand there and gossip about Joao. She grinned, and it changed her completely. She was beautiful with her black hair and amazingly blue eyes, but when she smiled, she was stunning.
“You have a very nice smile,” I said before thinking.
“I hated Mimi,” she retorted coolly.
Okay. That had not been the reply I expected, and she wasn’t the first to share a dislike for the woman, but it was still a surprise.
“A lot of people do these days,” I said.
“I thought she was weak, silly and I did not like that godawfully sweet voice. It was like she exhaled every friggin’ word and it mostly made me want to thump her in the back. She’s also brainless. And she has cow’s eyes.”
Wow. Okay, when this girl decided to spew, she spewed.
“You’re not wrong,” I murmured and tried to hide my grin.
“The thing is; A man who I like a lot had a girlfriend I hated. Then he jumped straight in with someone else, so I wondered about you. Nicky wouldn’t ask Joao for details, and I was puking all the time so we couldn’t come here. Heard about how you grew up and wasn’t sure what it had done to you.”
I liked that she cared for Joao, but I did not like how she assumed I was some kind of damaged goods because of my mother. She saw it on my face and put the cup down.
“My mother had some problems too, and I know how it can taint your life.”
Oh. So her mother had been what? High strung? Difficult? Boo-hoo for her.
“Pretty sure your mother wasn’t the kind of crazy mine was, so all due respect, but you don’t know.”
“My mother killed herself, and her last words to me was that it was my fault my father died.”
I blinked. Wow.
We stood in silence for a few seconds, and I wondered what the hell I could say to apologize.
“I feel really, really stupid right now,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
For some reason, that made her laugh.
“It’s okay. Most people don’t know about it. I just wanted you to know that I get it, and if you want to talk then I suck at listening, but I’ll try.”
Her smile was infectious, so I grinned back at her.
“I also heard you have some… abilities.” She wiggled her brows. “I do too.”
“What?”
She wasn’t from the Islands. Not with that skin and hair, so –
“Looky,” she chirped. “There’s a very pretty bird on the dock!”
I turned, and I could have sworn the beautiful osprey sitting on the rail winked at me. Then it tilted its head to the side and bobbed it a few times.
“A bird like that probably poops a lot,” Snow said, and my head snapped back toward her. “Enough to destroy a security camera completely would be my guess.”
Oh. She was apparently part of the group who had organized the transfer of my money.
“Thanks?” I said weakly.
It had felt completely natural to talk to the dolphins. They hadn’t made a big deal out of it, so I hadn’t either. It had been odd to find out I knew people who could change into watermen, but since both my boyfriend and father could do it, I hadn’t had any other choice than to accept it. The fact that the girl giggling in front of me had ancestors who shifted into dragons was just too much, and I didn’t know what to say.
“Oh, Charlie,” she laughed. “Let’s get together tomorrow. Our place. There’s a lot Joao hasn’t shared, I see.”
“Uh,” I wheezed out.
A lot? A lot of what?
“What are you talking about?” Nicky murmured and put an arm around Snow’s shoulders.
“Nothing,” she said, innocently but with a tiny snap in her voice.
It was way cute.
“Snow.”
“Poop,” I cut in before they got into an argument.
“Not that again,” Joao sighed.
“Again?” Nicky said.
“Nothing,” I muttered and glared at Joao. “And I wasn’t discussing your poop this time.”
Three heads were slowly turned toward me, and then Nicky started laughing.
“Jesus,” Joao said with emphasis, but he was grinning too. “Get your things, Sunshine. We’re leaving.”
“Leaving?” I echoed.
It was a few hours until we closed and there was a lot of people in the bar.
“You’re sleeping at the bluff tonight. It still looks like crap, but I’ve had some people clean it so there shouldn’t be any mice at least.”
“I’m sleeping in your house.”
“Yeah. Told Dupree, he said you could leave whenever you felt like it, and they’d handle the bar. Muttered something about taxes.”
“Okay,” I said. “You’re sure there are no mice?”
There had been mice in the church, and I did not ever again want to wake up with one running over my face.
“Maybe you should get a cat,” Snow said. Her face was serious, but I saw laughter in her eyes. “You could call it…”
She turned to laugh into Nicky’s happy eyes, and then they said in unison, “Josie.”
I decided leaving would be a good thing, so I went and got my things, said goodnight to a grinning Bananas, and tried not to blush when I gave Dupree a kiss on his cheek.
“Taxes tomorrow,” he said with a crooked grin.
“Totally,” I said and then Joao took my hand and pulled me out of the bar.
It was a surprisingly short walk to the house, although most of it was stairs or uphill, so I was out of breath when we got there.
“I need to start exercising,” I huffed out.
“Not if you ask me.”
“What?”
“You’ve added some very nice curves since you got here,” he said and lifted me into his arms. “I like.”
Then he walked inside, and I tried to look around, but his mouth was on my neck, so I mostly saw him. He kept walking up a set of stairs, and then I was on my feet again.
“Sunshine,” he murmured.
I moved my hands down and then up again, pulling his tee with them. He raised his arms to shrug out of it and threw it on the floor. My tank top went the same way, and slowly we removed the rest of our clothes. The windows were open, and the sheets were cold when we sank down on the mattress on the floor, but I didn’t care. He was warm, and his hands moved over me in a way that heated my skin. As we made love, I finally felt it. We’d found our way back to us again.
***
I woke up with a start and stared into the darkness. Joao moved next to me, and I turned.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“Don’t know. It woke you up too?”
“Something bad is happening,” I said and crawled to the side to find my clothes.
I didn’t know why I felt such an urgent need to get up, but Joao must have felt the same because I heard him get dressed too. Then he pulled me with him through a door, and we were outside on a terrace. The moon was almost full, so there was some light over Croxier, which stretched out below us, but the town was sleeping so most of it was dark.
Then I saw the red flames of fire in two places, and my breath hitched when I realized where it was.
The duplex by the beach.
And Dupree’s house.
Chapter Seventeen
Fire
Charlie
“Papi and Roark,” I whispered. “We have to go.”
“Get out,” Joao suddenly called out.
His voice was strong, and the wind carried it down toward town. It vibrated in a way I’d never heard before, and I inhaled it. Something ignited in my chest, and I embraced the warm flame, nurtured it until I burned through my soul.
“Get out,” he called again.
A chorus of voices echoed him from the ocean, and I felt them in my core. Slowly I moved to stand behind Joao and put my hands on his hips, resting my forehead on his back to give him my strength.
“Wake up and get out!”
All over the ocean, dolphins added their voices to his until the air seemed to sparkle with energy and I stepped closer to him when he stumbled. Then his shoulder slumped, and he breathed heavily.
Lights were suddenly turned on in several houses, and he rasped out, “Let’s go.”
When we reached the car, I veered off.
“Charlie!”
“Go to your brother, I’ll go to Papi,” I called over my shoulder as I ran toward the stairs leading straight down from the bluff.
“Be careful,” he shouted, and then I heard the car roar down the street.
It was dark but not pitch, and I stumbled on the steps but kept going. I ran for the life that had been given to me by chance because it was one I wasn’t willing to give up. I’d found my father, and I’d do anything to save him.
“Roark is out of the house. Coughing. They’re taking him to the water.”
I’d only ever heard the dolphins when I was in the water, but didn’t question what I heard. I kept running, forcing myself to ask a question I already knew the answer to.
“Papi?”
Silence.
I was off the stairs, running flat out. The gravel road cut into my bare feet, but I kept running toward the smoke and the fire. People had reached the house, and the garden hoses they were pulling out wouldn’t do much good, but it was all they had. I heard sirens in the distance but couldn’t see any lights.
“Papi!” I yelled and looked around, knowing I wouldn’t find him anywhere in the crowd, but still hoping.
“Charlie!” Lippy shouted, and I turned.
I didn’t have to ask if my father had made it out of the house. The hard look on Lippy’s face told me he hadn’t. Ban came running, roaring with anger, and Lippy tackled him when he went for the house.
“You can’t do anything, Ban,” I heard my uncle yell.
I didn’t care. My father was inside that inferno of smoke and fire, and we had to get him out.
“He’s on the floor. Backdoor. Snow’s bird saw him crawling. Backdoor, Charlie. Backdoor.”
The dolphins kept shouting at me, and I ran again. Someone tried to block my path, but I raised my arms and fought my way past them. When I rounded the house, one of the neighbors was there, carrying buckets of water.
I tore one of them out of his hand and emptied it over my head.
“No!” he yelled, understanding what I was about to do.
When he moved, I spun around and slammed the empty bucket in his face. Then I pulled up my tank top to cover my nose and mouth and ran into the fire that was my father’s house. The heat blasted over me in a wave that took my breath away at first. Then I inhaled, and the smoke burned my lungs, but I kept pressing forward.
He was sprawled out on the floor just a few steps from the back door. A loud crackle came from the roof, and I looked up. The whole ceiling was lit up, so I had to get us out of there before it caved in. I put my hands in his armpits and started dragging him across the floor. His legs twitched suddenly, and I could tell he was trying to help, but he was heavy, and we were moving too slow. Part of the roof caved in, and part of it hit his leg.
“No!” I roared and pulled again.
Then two strong hands suddenly joined mine, and we were moving.
Ban and I kept going until we were well away from the house and I sank down on my knees next to Dupree. He breaths rattled, and then he opened his eyes.
“Charlie,” he rasped out.
“Papi.”
“Charlie,” he repeated, and his face softened.
Then his breaths seemed to st
utter, and he closed his eyes.
“Papi!” I yelled.
He tried to open his eyes, but the lids just fluttered, and then he stopped breathing.
“No!” I roared and thumped his chest. “Breathe, Papi. Breathe!”
He didn’t move, and something broke inside me. Tears from smoke and pain streamed down my cheeks as I fell forward to lean on his chest. It wasn’t moving.
“Inhale,” a deep voice said.
I turned to find Joao there, watching Dupree with eyes that were hard and focused. “Inhale, goddamn it,” he roared, and I recognized the vibrations in his voice.
“Papi,” I whispered. “Do what he tells you.”
“Inhale,” Joao commanded again.
The force from his voice made me suck in air, and when I did, I felt Dupree’s chest move. There was a horrible rattle in his chest underneath my ear, but he did what he was ordered and pulled in air in his lungs.
“Exhale,” Joao barked out, and we did.
He kept his orders coming in a steady rhythm. The flames from the fire warmed my cheek, I heard sirens approaching, and people were shouting around us, but my focus was on my father. Then I felt his hand move. It took hold of mine, and as we breathed together, following the orders of the protector of the Islands, my tears dried up. My eyes met Joao’s, and I smiled.
“I love you,” I whispered.
***
I’d been too close to losing my father, so I didn’t want to leave the hospital and was planning to stay by his side until he was back to his usual self. Maybe even longer, I decided.
Two days later, Dupree yelled at me to stop hovering and get the hell out of his face. It made him cough, and through the awful sounds, he growled a few f-bombs and some other unpleasant words.