Tropical Getaway

by Roxanne St Claire

  When they arrived at Marco’s room at seven the next morning, Cassie was already sitting at his bedside. It didn’t surprise Ava that she’d beaten them to the hospital. Since Cassie had arrived the day before, she’d been no farther than a foot from Marco’s side. They had to beg her to go to the hotel for sleep the night before.

  “What time did you get here?” Ava asked as she set her purse on the table and looked at her brother’s sleeping form.

  “Three.” Cassie’s eyes twinkled a little guiltily. “I really appreciate your getting me the room and I needed to shower, but I couldn’t sleep, knowing he was here. I’ve just been talking to him about the surgery.”

  Dane walked over to her chair to ruffle her burnished curls and drop a kiss on her head. “And what did he say? He needs it like he needs another hole in his head?”

  Cassie rolled her eyes. “Very funny.” Her face turned serious as she looked at Marco. “The nurse was just here. They will be back to take him in a few minutes for his surgery.”

  “I’ll get us some coffee,” Dane offered. “What do you want, Cass? A great big glass of milk for my soccer star godson?”

  “Sounds divine, luv. Thank you.”

  Ava pulled a vinyl chair next to Cassie’s to assume their positions from the day before. It felt familiar already. “Any change?”

  “Nope.” She ran a finger down his still, limp hand. “He always did love to sleep, though.”

  Ava laughed. “Absolutely. Like a rock, till eleven in the morning.”

  “Well, he should have that out of his system when this is over.” She smiled sadly, then the smile disappeared altogether. “If this is over.”

  “Cassie, don’t say that.” Ava reached across and wrapped both arms around her. “You can’t stop hoping. The doctors are optimistic. Dane says this Dr. Young is the best in the world.”

  Cassie nodded, letting her head fall on Ava’s shoulder. “I know all that. I just…I just can’t go through losing him all over again.”

  They sat wordlessly, Ava’s arm around Cassie and both their hands on Marco until Dane came back with the coffee.

  “They’re right behind me.” He signaled to the door as he entered. “Ready to take him down.”

  A nurse and an orderly followed him into the room with a gurney. “Let’s go, Adonis,” the nurse said cheerily as they started unhooking IVs and unsnapping straps on the gurney. “It’s your big day.”

  The three of them stood to one side as the professionals moved his limp body with trained precision and careful timing. When they finally wheeled him out, the loss of the sleeping man’s presence seemed unbearable.

  “I have an idea,” Ava said brightly, taking Cassie’s hand. “Let’s go visit maternity. I’d like to see what kind of babies they make in Trinidad.”

  Cassie smiled. “Oh, yes. We’ll get ideas for names.”

  Dane grinned at the two of them and held an American newspaper up as a mock shield. “I think I’ll wait here.” He winked at Ava. “Sounds like a girl thing.”

  Ava picked up her purse and started out of the room, but heard Cassie whisper a parting shot to Dane. “Chicken.”

  There were sixteen babies in the Birthing Suites, mostly tiny chocolate faces of African descent and creamy East Indians with thick mops of soft, dark baby hair. For nearly an hour, Ava and Cassie cooed at them, chatted with nurses, and forgot their grief and fear in the wonder of the newborns.

  “I can’t believe it, Ava,” Cassie whispered as she stroked the cheek of a girl named Jacinta, inhaling what they agreed was the most appealing fragrance in the world—new baby. “I can’t believe that in five months I will be holding my own child.”

  They looked at each other and Ava knew what they were both thinking: would the father be there too?

  Cassie’s green eyes filled with tears. “I’m so damn scared, Ava. I’m so, so scared.”

  Ava stroked the buttery soft cheek of a baby being taken to its mother. “Non ti spagnare.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” Cassie responded with a smile. “Marco used to say that too.”

  “They’re Grandma Rose’s favorite soothing words. Whatever the trouble: a thunderstorm, Dominic’s temper, a bad spill on a bike, nerves before a test in school. She’d hand us a peanut and say ‘Non ti spagnare.’”

  Cassie nodded. “I won’t be afraid. As long as he’s breathing, we have hope, right?”

  They locked arms and headed back to the floor that had become so familiar to them. As they rounded the corner, Ava swore she heard a conversation from the room. Dane’s voice and another male voice in return. They looked at each other and Cassie broke into a run, pulling Ava along, their sandals clicking on the linoleum. Cassie burst into the room first, obviously hoping for the impossible.

  But Ava recognized the familiar voice, and it filled her with a deep sense of happiness. She saw Dominic before she saw her mother, leaning against the windowsill, dark and tall and imposing. It felt so right. So completely right and so important and so damn wonderful. For a moment, history didn’t matter. If just for a little time, they could be a whole family again.

  * * *

  Dane noticed immediately that the presence of Dominic and Maggie Santori changed everything. The room was louder, happier, more intense and, somehow, complete. Even with Marco gone in surgery, the Santori family exuded unity.

  Maggie, who brought light blue eyes and the pale skin of Irish genes into the mix, held her own with her dynamic and animated husband. And they laughed. Considering the solemnity of the situation, they kept finding things to laugh about. Cassie somehow blended in, looking more like Maggie Santori’s daughter than Ava did. Dominic made sweeping statements and Ava argued with them. Sparks flew, and then they were drenched with humor.

  Dane felt himself pushed even further off kilter as the impact of the Santori family hit him hard. He’d never known anything like it.

  It was obvious where Ava and Marco got their dramatic Mediterranean coloring, Dane thought as he looked at the older man. But Maggie intrigued him even more. Her contribution had been fine bone structure and sinfully flawless skin. And, son of a gun, she had the dimple.

  From across the room she caught Dane’s eye, obviously aware he’d been looking at her, and she moved close to him.

  “I’ve had a few letters from Marco,” she said, her voice much quieter than the discussion Ava and Dominic had launched into over what was being fed to Marco through the tube. “He spoke very highly of you.”

  Dane smiled. “He spoke highly of you too.”

  “He told me you saved his life when you met him.”

  He nodded. “He’s been a good friend.”

  “Well, thank you.” She put a gentle hand on his arm. “For saving his life more than once.”

  Dane lifted an eyebrow and covered her hand with his own. “Don’t give me all the credit this time around. Ava is a very determined and driven woman when she wants something.”

  Maggie grinned, and it reminded him so much of Ava that his heart tripped a little. “Yes, she is that.” She glanced at her daughter, who watched the two of them talk. “She’s a dear girl.”

  Dane smiled at Ava, enjoying the fact that she surely wondered what he was talking to her mother about. “Yes. She is that too.”

  A nurse came into the room and they all immediately quieted in anticipation.

  “He’s in recovery,” she announced. “You can go down and wait. Dr. Young will speak to you there.”

  An ominous silence replaced the noise and they remained that way until they’d all reconvened in the postop waiting room. There, Dr. Young and Dr. Sanchez greeted them with matching optimistic smiles.

  “He did very well,” Sebastian Young said, glancing at the new faces of Marco’s parents. “We drained a significant amount of blood, and I expect the swelling to decrease dramatically in the next twenty-four hours.”

  “How did he look?” Dane asked.

  The doctor paused to consider his answer. Dane knew
Sebastian wouldn’t exaggerate just to make them feel better.

  “There was significant swelling, but he was fortunate in the way the bullet grazed his skull. If he…when he regains consciousness, he may never hear out of his left ear. And he’ll stumble like a drunk for a while. In fact, his equilibrium may never fully return.”

  “He’ll never sail again,” Dane said quietly.

  Dr. Young put his hand on Dane’s shoulder. “Let’s just get him awake first. Therapy can do wonders, but not unless he comes out of this.” He looked around the group and smiled. “He can hear fine out of his right ear though. So the more you all talk to him and coax him out, the faster he’ll come back to you.”

  Ava and Dominic started firing questions at the same time, their voices raised over each other. Dane smiled to himself. Marco ought to hear those two easily enough.

  They fell into a natural schedule of watches. Ava and Dane sat through the night, then Maggie and Dominic took over in the morning. Cassie rarely left the room, only to sleep for two or three hours and shower, then return to her chair. The twenty-four-hour mark came and went without change, and the mood among the keepers of the vigil darkened.

  Ava tried to be cheerful, warmed by Dane’s presence and his obvious attention and affection toward her in front of her parents. She didn’t once give in to the temptation to brood about her feelings for him, but she longed to run away from the bitter smells of the hospital, from the tubes and softly beeping machines, from the stubbornly unchanged atmosphere of Marco’s room to somewhere safe, and lovely and fresh. To examine the amazing sensations that teased her, to fantasize about him and them.

  For some reason, though, she thought it would be wrong. A sin, somehow, to concentrate on anything other than Marco’s recovery. Then, she promised herself, she would ride the roller coaster and delight in the thrill of the love that had captured her heart.

  By the time her first night shift at Marco’s bed was over, she could barely stumble into the little hotel room, take a shower, and climb under the covers. Even then, even curled into Dane’s warm body before sleep overtook her, she didn’t give in to any temptation, mental or physical. Just the overwhelming need to sleep.

  The second day, the pulsing excitement of Port-of-Spain and the tropical beauty of Trinidad didn’t exist for any of them as each hour slipped by and he didn’t move. Ava counted up the hours in her head as she took the elevator back to Marco’s floor. He’d been out of surgery nearly thirty hours.

  Max Roper had returned to Port-of-Spain and called Dane on his cell phone, asking for a meeting to discuss the raid and the fate of Maurice Arnot. The Frenchman, desperate not to lose his restaurant and reputation, wanted to negotiate a deal that would lead the DEA to a kingpin of the Cali mafia that they’d been trying to nail for years.

  Waiting for the taxi to take him there, she and Dane had kissed in the middle of Charlotte Street and Dane reminded her that it would be the first time they’d be apart since the night on the ship.

  “You must need a break from Santoris,” she commented as he opened the back door of the taxi.

  He winked and kissed her cheek quickly. “Not yet, princess.”

  As the cab drove off, she stood silently, the hole left by his absence threatening to swallow her. Inside the elevator, she repeatedly stabbed the button for the fourth floor, even though it was already lit.

  Not yet, princess.

  The thought of going back to Boston and leaving him forever further darkened her mood. She wouldn’t let her mind go there. As she turned the corner into the room, she saw Dominic sitting alone next to Marco. Spears of late-afternoon sunshine broke through the hospital blinds, particles of dust dancing around her father’s weary face.

  The ordeal had aged him, she thought with a start. He’d always been so handsome and striking. When salted strands had started showing around his temples, he’d grown even more distinguished and appealing to the camera. But this afternoon, he looked every one of his fifty-eight years. As their gazes locked Ava noticed that the fire was gone from his black eyes, and the creases around them and across his forehead had deepened to permanent wrinkles. Oh God, she thought as her heart dropped, he’s giving up.

  “Where’s Mama?” she asked casually.

  “She and Cassie went to get something to eat,” he answered.

  Ava sat in the chair on Marco’s left side, across from Dominic. “Cassie’s sweet, don’t you think?”

  Dominic nodded. “Nice girl. Your mother likes her a lot.”

  “And what about Dane?” she ventured carefully as she tucked the sheet around Marco’s chest, as though someone else hadn’t done that same thing twenty times already. “Do you like him?”

  “Not as much as you do.” Ava flushed at his quick response but relaxed when Dominic’s face broke into a rare smile. “He’s obviously very fond of Marco. And you.”

  “I guess you know I dropped out of that lawsuit,” she said, watching her father’s face carefully for the response. “Cassie said the lawyer left St. Barts anyway, after the whole drug cartel business was revealed.”

  He shrugged. “It got you here. If you hadn’t come, you wouldn’t have found my son.”

  Enjoying her rare quiet moment with her father, Ava sat in silence for a while. But thoughts swirled in her mind and she finally spoke. “I guess it kind of makes up for my role in getting him sent away in the first place, don’t you think?”

  Her father’s sharp black look flashed at her, but it wasn’t accusing or angry, just vehement. “Ava Rose, don’t you carry that guilt around for one more day. I was as responsible as you were. And frankly, Marco was the most responsible of all. Anyway, it’s all history now. He can come home.”

  “What?” She grabbed onto the vinyl cushion of her little hospital chair. “What do you mean?”

  “I had a…I met with Anthony Ferrisi.”

  Ava felt her jaw drop. He met with a mobster? He broke his own code? “What—what did he say?”

  “I told him that Marco was still alive. That he had escaped the shipwreck he read about.” Dominic looked up to meet Ava’s shocked gaze. “He said ‘Nobody should have to bury his son twice.’”

  The air rushed out of her lungs. “We can bring him home?”

  “If he wants to come home, he can.” Dominic took Marco’s limp hand in his, tears filling his dark eyes. “If he’ll forgive me. If he’ll understand that I…I only wanted to protect him. Not punish him.”

  Ava watched the tears fall down Dominic’s cheeks. Giant, anguished drops that fell onto Marco’s hand as he held it. She stood and came around the foot of the bed to put her arms around him.

  “Of course he’ll forgive you. He’ll forgive us both. We’re family.” Her own eyes burned with unshed tears. “Please, don’t cry. Don’t cry, Daddy.”

  His sob shook her as she clung to his wide, sagging shoulders. “I know he will, sweetheart. I just want to hear his voice. I just want him to come back to us. I want another chance to be his father.”

  Wrapped in years of love and guilt and invisible, unbreakable bonds, they held each other and cried from the depths of their hearts.

  The freight train stopped. It just stopped. It had been so loud, deafening and screaming in the darkness, racing at breakneck speed, but never actually making contact. Never crashing, never stopping. Then, suddenly, silence.

  Only blackness remained. A blanket of thick, suffocating blackness that fell over him, covering him, smothering him. Nothing moved. Nothing felt. Nothing. Just blackness.

  Inside the blackness, water rushed. Black water that gurgled like blood out of a wound. A stream. There must be a rushing stream nearby. It was too steady to be the ocean. It whooshed, unstopping, unwavering and steady through the blackness.

  Then the thick, unforgiving blanket of black started to change color. It turned golden. Amber. The water continued, but there were other sounds. A pinging around the stream. A tree branch, perhaps. Was he in a forest? The dark orange light paled t
o a shade of yellow.

  A voice. No, not a voice. A cry. A child crying in the forest. Find the child. He had to find the child, but he couldn’t move. He could hear the child’s sobs, hard and terrified. He had to help. Had to find the child. But the blanket, hot and impossibly heavy, trapped him.

  He listened for the child. It stopped. The water had stopped rushing. Silence. He wanted to call out. Perhaps if he called to the child, it would respond. Maybe they could find each other.

  He tried to open his mouth, but the blanket was over his face. Move, he wanted to scream. Move the blanket.

  Something smelled. Was that the blanket? It stunk. Bitter and pungent, assaulting his nostrils. It didn’t smell like a forest. With a stream. And a crying child.

  Another sound came through, muffled by the heavy blanket. He had to lift the goddamn blanket so he could hear. A voice. A high-pitched, screaming voice. The child’s mother? Was she looking for him? What was she saying? He listened hard, willing the wet, smelly blanket off his face and head.

  The voice was so far away. She must be wandering the forest, searching, calling for her lost, crying child. Over here, he wanted to yell. No sound would come, but he felt something. Something moved under the blanket. His stomach tightened with the effort to make noise, but the blanket pressed so hard. He had to move his arms. If he could just raise his arms, the blanket would lift, freeing him. So he could find the mother of that crying child. He could still hear her. He could hear her screaming miles and miles away.

  He could feel the weight of his own hands and arms. And shoulders. Lift, lift, lift it up.

  He heard her yell, louder now, but still not clear, still so far away.

  She sounded frantic. Could she see him? Could she see him under the blanket?

  A low, long sound filled his head. What was that? The train? Was the train coming back? He heard it again. A rumble, a moan. It filled his head. It burned his throat. It was his voice, his rumble. Calling the mother. But, oh, God, it burned so bad, like knives scraping the flesh of his throat. Had he been in a fire? Was he under a fireman’s blanket? Was he alive?