by Alyssa Day
Suddenly, his earlier thoughts about getting some woman – any woman – alone for a naked interlude seemed cheap and unworthy. Since he'd never particularly worried about being unworthy before, and he certainly didn't think getting naked was cheap, he could only think that something about Savannah was doing weird things to his brain. He drew in a deep breath of ocean-scented air to steady himself.
"What about your friends?" She glanced over at the now-empty table. "Did they leave you?"
"They had things to do," he said, shrugging. "Perfect timing, really. Now I have my evening free to go for a walk on a beautiful beach with a beautiful woman."
She blinked. "I may have had four or five margaritas, but I can still tell a line when I hear one. Does that work for you very often?"
He laughed. He liked her. She was feisty. Feisty was another word he'd never used or thought before in his life. A lot of firsts were happening with this woman. He didn't know whether to be happy about it or terrified.
"To be perfectly honest, I've never use that exact line before. But I've been in bars, and I've used lines, being a poor, pathetic man, sad and lonely, and desperate for a little company sometimes."
She shook her head, but she was still smiling. She rummaged in her bag, tossed some cash on the bar, and waved to the bartender. "Thanks, Mickey."
Then she swung around and took Jake's arm. "Lead on, Jake. I had a crappy day, and tomorrow promises to be even crappier, but right now the evening is looking terrific."
She beamed at him and he forgot what he'd been going to say, forgot what he'd been thinking, almost forgot his name. Savannah smiled with her entire face, and it felt like sunshine on his battered soul.
"Who are you?"
Her eyebrows drew in a little. "I'm Savannah. Savannah Hastings. Remember, we just met?"
Jake laughed and shook his head, shaking off his befuddlement. "Right. I remember. Let's go."
The band picked that moment to arrive; ten o'clock on a Friday night was prime music time in Jacksonville Beach, apparently. Jake took Savannah's hand and maneuvered around the group of men and women carrying guitar cases and drumsticks, but her sandal caught on something and she tripped. Jake tightened his grip on her hand, and one of the band guys who was stocky, bald, and muscular, and looked like a hammerhead shark with a throat tattoo, caught her other arm.
"Are you okay, darlin'?" the man drawled, pulling his hand away from Savannah's arm in a way that Jake didn't like: slowly, while caressing her skin with his fingertips.
A trace of annoyance or distaste crossed her face as she politely pulled her arm away from him. "I'm good, thanks."
They made it out from under the thatched roof of the open-air bar and onto the sand and stood for a moment listening to the band tuning up behind them and the roar of the surf in front of them. Jake would pick the music of the waves over any other sound, every single time. He was Atlantean—it was woven into the fabric of his being.
Next to him, Savannah stood, eyes closed and face raised to the moonlit sky, breathing in the fresh ocean air. "It's so beautiful, every night, but every night it's different, the ocean music," she murmured, almost too quietly for him to hear.
He glanced at her and, as if she felt the weight of his gaze on her face, she opened her eyes and smiled shyly, glancing down and then back at the sea.
"I know, I'm overly poetic, go ahead and make fun of me, everybody else does," she said, sighing.
"Actually, I was thinking the same thing." He was still holding her hand, but it felt so good—so natural—that he had no plans to let go.
They started walking, long strides in almost perfect sync without even trying, and she told him a little bit about her job, and how she was saving up to go to Madagascar. The trip was already planned.
"And, I know you'll think this is stupid, but maybe even Atlantis one day." She gently pulled her hand from his and bent to pick up a seashell. "Maybe this very shell was once on the shores of Atlantis."
He shook his head. "Doubtful. We haven't been on the surface long enough for shells to make the journey from what you call the Bermuda Triangle to this beach."
He walked a few more steps down the beach, trying to calculate sea routes and what it would take for a shell to get from Atlantis to Jacksonville Beach, and suddenly he realized she wasn't walking next to him anymore. When he turned around, she stood frozen exactly where she'd been, and her mouth was hanging open just the tiniest bit.
"Savannah?"
"We?" She pointed at him with the hand not holding the shell. "We?"
It took him a second or two, but then he realized what she was talking about. "Yeah. I'm from Atlantis."
Her eyes lit up, sparkling in the moonlight, and she dropped the shell and lightly ran toward him and jumped up into his arms.
"Jake," she said seriously, while he struggled with the unexpected and entirely delightful sensation of holding an armful of sweet-smelling, slightly wiggly woman.
"Yes?"
"Wanna have sex?"
4
Savannah woke up to a hideous clanging noise, like somebody was playing cymbals inside her skull. She felt around with one hand for the alarm clock on the bedside table, and finally succeeded in knocking it to the floor, where it continued its shrill alert.
She started to sit up and then clutched her head and fell back to the pillow. Damn. She was in serious pain. More slowly and carefully, she leaned over and grabbed for the clock, finally succeeding in silencing it.
She took a careful breath, because even breathing hurt, and then she took stock. Pounding headache? Check. Mouth tasting like something had died in it? Check.
Her mind played back the evening in stuttering memories. Five—at least five—margaritas, and she'd known Mickey was putting extra tequila in them, but she'd been so annoyed by being trapped into the retreat thing she hadn't cared.
No dinner, so all that booze on an empty stomach.
And then she met the guy…
Oh, no freaking way.
The guy. The most beautiful man she'd ever met, who'd claimed to be from Atlantis, just before…she winced again…just before she'd jumped him like some wild, sex-crazed, nymphomaniac.
"Wanna have sex?" she muttered, throwing an arm over her eyes to block out the morning light that was drilling a hole in her brain. "Did I really say that?"
The memories got blurry after that, and Savannah froze, suddenly realizing she had more to worry about than a hangover. Had she brought a perfect stranger—perfect, indeed, oh holy cow those muscles and those cheekbones and that gorgeous hair, if only…
Focus!
She opened one eye and glanced down, then blew out a huge sigh of relief. She wasn't naked. She was, in fact, fully dressed all the way down to her shoes, although she smelled like she'd been on a three-day bender. So, whatever had happened, Jake hadn't taken advantage of her ridiculously inebriated state.
She sighed. She hadn't gotten to take advantage of him, either.
"Um, Jake?" she called out quietly, hoping he wasn't there.
Hoping he was.
No answer, and by the feel of the silence in her tiny rented cottage, she was pretty sure she was alone. Still, she tried again, a little louder. "Jake?"
Again, nothing.
She gingerly sat up, moaning, and made her way to the bathroom, pausing only to drink half a bottle of water and take a couple of headache tablets. A shower, some hot tea, and she'd be ready for . . . oh, crap.
The retreat. H Prime. She had an hour to get ready before Callie came and picked her up. She dashed to the kitchen and flicked the switch on the hot-water pot, then spent some quality time in a very hot shower.
When she started to wash her arms with cucumber-scented body wash, a sharp stinging sensation alerted her to the fact that she'd somehow gotten a long, shallow scratch on the back of her arm the night before. She winced and cleaned it out and put some Neosporin on it after her shower. It was red and a little puffy, and she wondered how the heck
she hadn't felt it happen.
Of course, she also couldn't remember anything between jumping Jake and waking up. She sighed. It was going to be a long-ass morning. By the time Callie pulled up in front of the cottage in her minivan, Savannah was, if not ready, at least marginally more able to face three hours of H Prime zealots.
Tote bags. Sheesh.
The place, set several miles back in the boonies behind Green Cove Springs, was a fortress. All blocky gray concrete and barred windows, with a fence that rose at least sixteen feet into the air and was topped with loops of barbed wire.
"Is that a jail?" She turned to look at Callie, who'd been humming along to the radio all the way to the retreat, apparently happy as a clam that several days of lighthearted bigotry were about to begin.
"Oh, yes, it used to be. But not for a long time. Maybe fifty years. It's one of the few places big enough to hold our retreat, while being secure enough that we won't be bothered." She laughed, a little-girl tinkle of a laugh, which Savannah really wanted to tell her was inadvisable for a woman Callie's age. Or, really, any age past about eight.
"Bothered? Bothered by whom?"
Callie put on her turn signal and glanced over at Savannah. "Oh, Savvy, you know how it is. Reporters and Liberals and other evil people." She shuddered, apparently with horrified disgust at the idea of a group of torch-bearing liberals storming the compound with some reporters from CNN.
Savannah's stomach turned over, and this time she knew it wasn't just the hangover. She didn't say anything else; there was nothing more to say. She wasn't going to change anybody's mind with reason or logic, especially not anybody here. She'd just Suck it up, Buttercup. Suck it all up: her distaste, her disagreements, and anything else she needed to stuff away in order to get through the next three hours.
Like your morals, her conscience said in a nasty little voice.
She told her conscience to take a hike. Three hours for her job. Three hours for Madagascar. She could get through it, and then she'd put this place in her rearview mirror and never think about it again.
A guy wearing head-to-toe camouflage clothing and carrying a rifle checked them in, making a big show of studying Savannah's ID and peering at her. Finally, Savannah snatched her driver's license out of his hand.
"The picture is of my face, so you can quit staring at my boobs, jerk."
A trace of petulant anger crossed his thick doughy face, but another car pulled up behind them, so he waved Callie on, scowling at Savannah the entire time.
"You shouldn't provoke them," Callie said in a chiding voice, parking the car. "Some of them aren't exactly well mannered."
"Some of them?" Savannah muttered as she got out of the car. "My bet’s on all of them."
They'd parked at the end of a row of mostly pickup trucks, with a few SUVs and minivans interspersed among them. Callie jumped out of the car and started bustling over to the building, where another armed guard waited outside the open doors.
"Come along, come along, Savvy. We have so much to do. Luckily, Mr. Greer transported all the tote bags over here last night."
"Oh goody, Mr. Greer is here," Savannah said flatly. "My joy is complete."
Callie shot a narrow-eyed glare over her shoulder at her but didn't respond. Savannah followed her into a short hallway and then through another door which opened into a courtyard, or whatever you call a courtyard in a prison.
It was a sad, dreary place, with no grass or greenery of any kind. If this was where the prisoners had gone to exercise, the place itself was definitely part of their punishment. Now, at nine in the morning, a lot of people were already milling around; some talking quietly, others leaning against walls or rusty picnic tables and benches. There were a lot of children running around, too, which surprised Savannah. It had never occurred to her that people would bring their children to their hate group meeting. It made her sadder than anything else about this day had, somehow.
Well, except for the fact that she would probably never see Jake again, thanks to her own drunken stupidity. She shrugged. Easy come easy go, except…not. This time, she felt the loss. He'd been someone she'd wanted to get to know; she'd wanted to explore that strange, almost-electric connection between the two of them. She'd never felt it before, and she doubted she'd find it again with anybody she met in Madagascar.
Still, Madagascar. Even the idea of it cheered her up, and helped her steady her nerves and her queasy stomach enough to face the three hours in front of her.
She followed Callie over to a long table that held a couple of clipboards and a dozen or so fully stuffed bags, with the rest of the bags piled up on benches behind the tables. There were already a dozen or so men and one or two women lined up in front of the table to sign in.
Mr. Greer's whiny voice cut through the sound of conversations and ground into Savannah's skull like a chainsaw. "It's about time. You should've been here half an hour ago. Let's get started handing out the registration materials. Chop chop." He clapped his hands at them, as if they were misbehaving children or untrained dogs, and it seriously ticked her off.
Savannah could feel her lips lifting into a sneer, but she covered her mouth with her hand and pretended to cough, instead. It wouldn't do any good to start a fight with Greer in front of so many of his people. Plus, it looked like most of them were carrying guns. Knowing her luck, mouthing off to the chapter leader would get her shot. She resigned herself to three hours of penance for whatever sins she'd committed in her life, and she followed Callie to the metal chairs behind the table and took a seat. Callie took a moment to show her the system, which was just a list of names in alphabetical order.
Savannah sighed. "Yeah. I think I've got it."
She picked up her pen, took a deep breath, blew it out, and then looked up at the first person in her line. "Name, please?"
After the hour-long early rush, people arrived in twos and threes for the next hour or so. She and Callie had both checked in about two-thirds of their lists, and the tote bags had gone down to a manageable number by then. When there was a lull, Savannah decided to inspect the contents of one of the bags and see exactly what the on-trend bigot needed to make his life complete. She pulled one of the bags closer and glanced inside, but the contents were hidden by the retreat's official T-shirt, which was rolled up and stuffed in the top of the bag.
"Savvy," Callie hissed. "You got someone."
Savannah dropped the bag and picked up her pen. "Can I help you?"
She looked up, past the jeans and the black leather jacket, past the throat tattoo, and into the face of the musician who'd caught her arm in the bar last night when she'd tripped. The one who'd probably scratched her in the scuffle. She automatically glanced at his hands and, sure enough, his nails were long and ragged. She suppressed a shudder. At least they were clean, though.
"You," he said, an unpleasant smile snaking across his face. "Well, looky looky. Are you the entertainment?"
Savannah pretended to misunderstand. It was either that or stand up and slam her clipboard into his face, so she went with her best wide-eyed innocent face. "No, you're the musician. I'm just the woman with the clipboard and the tote bags. Speaking of which, name, please?"
He narrowed his eyes and studied her face, but then seemed to come to the conclusion that she was just flaky, not mocking him.
"B.D. Anderson. I'll pick up my dad's, too. He's also B.D."
Savannah automatically started to ask Callie if B.D.'s dad needed to come pick up his own bag, but then she realized she couldn't really give a flying fart one way or the other. B.D. could take all the bags if he wanted. She pushed the tote and the clipboard toward him.
"Sign here, please," she said brightly, glancing at her watch. Only forty-five minutes to go. She didn't care if Callie wanted to leave then or not, she'd start walking and call an Uber on the way. This place was making her skin crawl, and she didn't want to stay in it one minute longer than she had to in order to protect her job.
"I'll see you late
r." B.D. licked his fleshy lips and delivered the unpleasant remark and then sauntered off with his tote bags, blithely unaware that, if looks could kill, Savannah's glare would have him sprawled dead in the courtyard.
They checked in more attendees, and when it was finally noon, thank heavens, Savannah stretched. "I think –"
"Oh, Savvy. There's a real hottie, and he's heading straight for you."
The last thing Savannah was in the mood for was any more of these Humanity Prime people, hotties or not, but she looked up anyway and then promptly dropped her pen.
It was Jake.
But a very different Jake, wearing jeans, a beat-up brown leather jacket, and a hard expression. He looked like a full-on badass, and her heart sank as she realized two things:
1) He was here, and
2) He looked like he fit in just fine.
Her heart sank to the level of her queasy stomach as she realized just how lucky she'd been the night before. He was probably one of the few guys of the many she'd checked in that day who would have been a gentleman enough to leave her unmolested and safe in her bed like that. Which just made her even angrier that he was a member of H Prime.
He caught her gaze and smiled a little, just a fleeting up-tilt of the corners of his mouth, before his face turned expressionless again. He was headed straight for her, and she had no idea on earth of what she'd say to him. Whatever it was she decided she wanted to say, she sure as heck didn't want to say it in front of Callie.
Before he reached the table, though, B.D., Junior intercepted him and Jake stopped, only a few feet away from her, to talk to him. Savannah studied his body language and wondered how it was that B.D. didn’t realize the danger he was in. Jake's body had shifted into a subtle martial arts ready position, and he almost radiated a sense of barely leashed ferocity. B.D. had a gun in a side holster, and Jake had no visible weapons, but Savannah realized she'd put her money on Jake if it came to a fight.
By the sound of B.D.'s loud insults, she was betting that it might.