by J. K Harper
Feeling another shock of cold wash through her, she looked wild-eyed around the drenched deck of the sailboat. The red top piece of her swimsuit was caught tightly on the railing. Lunging for it, she almost sagged with relief as she felt the hard chunk of gold still in it. The bottoms were gone, but she hadn't lost the piece of the Santa Maria's treasure that she had removed in order to prove to the UTEI treasure hunters that she could hold up her end of their bargain.
Clutching the swimsuit top in her hand, she looked at Kai. He stared at her swimsuit with the strangest expression on his face. Longing. Anger. Amazement. A deep, aching loss that seemed old yet fresh at the same time. Dragging his gaze up to hers, he snagged her eyes with the harsh intensity of his own.
Gabi suddenly felt very strange. Lightheaded.
In two long strides, Kai was back at her side, his expression melting into one of more concern. "Easy. You just had about five different shocks. Come here. Sit down." He guided her to one of the rail seats, letting her sink into it. Gently pushing on her back so she had to lean her head forward, he said, "Sit like that for minute. Hang on. Going to get you some water."
As he turned away to slip below decks, she couldn't help her typical slightly saucy, slightly sarcastic reply. "Water, water everywhere."
She didn't mistake his poorly concealed snort of laughter as he thumped down the stairs. Well, she could still make him laugh. That was more than she could do for herself at the moment.
Kai reemerged moments later, a large tee shirt and shorts grasped in one hand, water bottle in the other. He unscrewed the plastic top and handed it to her. "Drink."
Gabi straightened up slightly so she could sip the water, swallowing faster as she realized she was indeed actually thirsty. The cool, filtered liquid somehow served to soothe her and bring her back to feeling more like herself. She waited a couple of other moments for the little dizzy spell to pass before she murmured a quiet thank you.
He sat beside her, close enough to touch but not quite. She sensed he was still giving her space.
"I saw you by the wreck of the Santa Maria, didn't I? And at the bar that night. You somehow recognized me, and sought me out. Didn't you?" Even as she spoke, she realized it was true. Combined with her distress over not only having taken but now lost the gold nugget, but understanding that he'd found her attractive only because he wanted something from her, sensitive information or she didn't even know what, shredded at her chest with sharp, unexpected pain.
Come on. Buck up, she whispered to herself. She'd just met the guy. He didn't mean anything more to her than a fun tumble.
Then why did it suddenly feel like someone was stabbing her heart with a bunch of small, hot pokers?
~~~
Kai stayed motionless in the seat beside her as casually as if they'd simply been enjoying a day of sailing together. Yet he was completely tensed as he waited for her reaction to her realization of the truth. Now, she really knew his biggest secret. Which—
Wait a damned minute. Apparently his brain was so addled by insanely fantastic sex and the tremendous surge of adrenaline from the attack that he had clicked pieces together. Losing his casualness, he snapped his head around to look directly at her. "You’re right. How could you have seen me? And also the other dragon? Yes, we do cloak," he went on a musing tone, sorting out the pieces out loud as Gabi's head slowly came up to look at him with puzzlement evident on her own face. "We have the ability to hide our dragon shapes from human eyes. No humans can see us, except—"
He narrowed his eyes slightly at her. "Gabi, are you from a dragon fealty family?"
The utter, genuine bewilderment on her face as she shook her head immediately told him she wasn't.
"I don't understand," he said, frowning. Damn, she was so beautiful he longed to simply reach over and just engulf her with another kiss. He sensed for both their sakes, this wasn't the time.
“I don't know what to—" Gabi began, before being abruptly interrupted by music.
Her face changed from confused to worried in nanoseconds. "My phone!" She jumped to her feet, looking around.
Kai stood up as well and looked down at the rail seat. The velcro had held fast. The phone in its waterproof case was still securely attached to the railing.
Gabi fumbled with the case and got her phone out, answering quickly. Just as quickly, fear filled her voice. She began babbling in Spanish to whomever was on the other end. Looking at Kai, her features frozen in distress, she switched back to English. "Mateo, slow down. What do you mean, she collapsed?"
Without waiting for her to ask, Kai sprang over to the boat's anchor, muttering a quick oath as he realized it had been broken in the attack. Taking a cursory glance around the boat, he finally felt a bit of relief that she appeared still seaworthy. Striding to the sails to quickly adjust the rigging and ready them to go, he then grabbed the wheel and set her on course.
With a terrified dread that squeezed his heart because he knew himself how it felt only all too well, Gabi said, "Hurry. As fast as you can.” Her words were clipped with fear. “It's my abuela. My grandmother. She collapsed. They're taking her to the emergency room right now."
It seemed like all her kickass strength and certainty had drained from her in a split second, leaving her merely an anxious family member worried beyond belief about someone she loved.
Setting his jaw as he allowed the cool, blank numbness so familiar to rise in him in response to her pain, Kai sailed them as quickly as possible back to the island, leaving all their unanswered questions and unease behind.
For now.
Chapter Fourteen
Gabi shifted in the chair again, trying to get comfortable. Her inclination was to pace, but she was afraid to move around too much or make noise in case she jolted her grandmother out of sleep. Instead, she simply sat there in a corner of the sterile room, staring at the tiny, frail body of her grandmother curled up in the hospital bed, lines running out from her arms to machines.
Just the sight made Gabi feel hollow and terrified inside.
Her abuela had collapsed in the kitchen yesterday, right in the middle of making a sandwich for herself and a snack for one of Gabi's nephews. Gabi barely remembered getting from the island back to the mainland. She kept calling Lacey, but her best friend wasn't picking up. Kai's worried yet also oddly distant eyes also haunted her, as did the crazed, scattered images of everything that had happened in the past several hours.
She could hardly believe so much had happened in such a short time span. She'd lived what felt like three lifetimes in about seventy-two hours. Now she understood how people her age could get gray hairs.
Putting her feet up onto the chair so that her knees were bent in front of her, Gabi dropped her head onto her knees and closed her eyes. Wrapping her arms around her legs, she took several deep breaths to settle herself. By the time she'd arrived at the hospital, her grandmother was stable. A flurry of family members had met her in the waiting room, including Mateo and her mother. The hospital was limiting visitors, so the family was taking shifts to go in and see her. Gabi had finally gotten in. Seeing her father's worried, haggard face, she'd urged him to go with her aunt down to the hospital cafeteria to get some coffee. She promised to not step a single foot out of the room until he returned.
As she'd watched her aunt drag her father out of the room, Gabi had felt a new pain inside her. Pain born of the terror that she could lose someone she loved very much. The doctor said the cancer was pressing on abuela's lungs. It had caused her to get short of breath earlier today, enough that she'd actually passed out. The main reason she was actually in the hospital was because she'd hit her head when she fell onto the kitchen floor in front of Gabi's nephew's horrified eyes.
Gabi tightly hugged her legs as she pressed her face into her knees. Nothing in the world mattered but that her abuela, the glue that held her family together, would be okay. Unfortunately, insurance sucked. Although many members of her family had good jobs and contributed to the medi
cal care beyond what abuela's insurance covered, no one had enough to get her the best treatment. The only treatments that had a real shot of saving her life.
Except for Gabi. Because she was doing something that went against her entire moral code. But when it was family, she would do anything. Anything at all.
"Gabriela, corazon. You're supposed to be on the island. What are you doing here?"
The scratchy but steady voice had Gabi's head off her knees even as she swung her feet to the floor. "Abuela! I thought you were sleeping." Gabi went to her grandmother's side, gingerly taking one frail-seeming hand above the bedcovers in her own. To her surprise, though, her grandmother squeezed back with some firmness.
A smile teased at her abuela's voice as she went on in Spanish. "Now, now, my lovely girl. I just slipped and got a little bump on my head. Nothing to worry about. I am still strong."
Gabi looked at her grandmother's soft, beautiful face. A patchwork of wrinkles and lines across her skin told the story of her long lifetime. Gabi was her grandmother's youngest child's next youngest child. Her grandmother had been fifty-five by the time Gabi was born. She'd always been incredibly healthy and spry, until the cancer had been diagnosed late last fall. Even so, she kept up her spirits as well as most of her health. Even though chemo and radiation had been challenging, Gabi's grandmother was one of the strongest women Gabi had ever known. Despite that, she couldn't help the tears that welled up in her eyes as the sweet, light brown ones of her grandmother looked back at her with some concern.
"Corazon, don't you do that. You tell me instead what's been going on with you. Tell me about your research. My Gabriela, the brave and daring woman who dives under the sea." Her voice grew dreamy, as it always did when she spoke of the ocean.
Gabriela knew she got her love of the sea from her grandmother, who also always had loved the ocean. Gabi had tons of childhood memories of picnicking at the beach almost every weekend, body surfing in the waves, making sand castles, listening quietly to her grandmother's tales when they sat alone as her brothers played in the sea under the watchful eyes of Gabi's mother and father.
"So. Tell me about the last time you went diving down beneath the waves.” Abuela smiled. “I want to hear all about the underwater creatures you saw. Any sharks this time?"
Gabi laughed at her grandmother's avid tone. Like Gabi, her grandmother never had the massive, irrational fear of sharks like most of the world's population did. In fact, when Gabi was little, her grandmother had often told her stories about the animals that lived under the sea. She said they were just like people in that they too had families, loved ones, and things they wanted to do in their lifetime. Gabi had always eaten it all up, despite her father's mutters that she was going to grow up to be a dreamer with silly old notions crammed into her head.
Instead, she'd ended up a respected scientist on a good career path. One who also happened to half-believe a lot of the stories her grandmother had always told her. So much so that seeing a dragon beneath the sea hadn't shocked her nearly as much as it should have.
"Okay," Gabi said, blinking back the wetness in her eyes as she carefully settled on the edge of the bed, still holding her grandmother's hand. "So." She lowered her voice a little bit, glancing at the door. Her grandmother was the only person in the world who knew what Gabi and the team were actually looking for, although Gabi hadn't told her about the deal she'd made with UTEI. Deep inside she knew she felt too ashamed to admit it to anyone. But her grandmother could keep a secret better than anyone else Gabi knew. She was the one who'd encouraged Gabi's love of ancient ships and treasures. "We actually found it a few days ago," she whispered.
"You did!" Great interest flared in her grandmother's eyes, even though she kept her own voice quiet. It warmed Gabi's heart to see that. She was half convinced that her stories about the hunt for the Santa Maria had kept her grandmother's health good for the last couple of months. "Tell me all about it. Is it intact?"
Gabi nodded, quietly telling her grandmother everything about the discovery. She told her about the way the sunlight slanted through the seaweed and across the yawning underwater caverns and canyons. The way the huge masts of the ship were unbelievably still intact. About the hole in the side of the ship, which indicated that it had been attacked rather than lost in a storm as everyone had always supposed.
Looking up at the door one more time, Gabi lowered her voice even more and leaned toward her grandmother. Her own eyes darting furtively to the door and then back to her granddaughter's, abuela leaned close as well.
"But—that's not even the most amazing thing that happened that day. I—abuela." Gabi closed her eyes for second, the thrill of everything suddenly jolting through her again as all the images of the past couple of days flashed through her mind in rapid-fire succession.
Opening her eyes again, she looked at her grandmother and whispered in very quiet Spanish, "They're real. I saw one. Actually, I saw two.” She took a deep breath. “Dragons. You were always right." In a fierce whisper, she said it again. "Dragons are real." She paused, wondering how much she should share. Looking at her grandmother's face, what she saw was a blaze of fascination oddly mingled with what seemed like sadness. Also joy, along with the unwavering belief in Gabi that she'd always had. She knew her grandmother could never find shame in her, no matter what.
Taking a deep breath, she carefully went on. Telling her grandmother the entire story. Well, she didn't exactly give her details about Kai, she pretty much blushed and skimmed over the sailboat part, though she was pretty sure her grandmother probably had a good idea what had happened. Abuela simply listened quietly the entire time, her expression never changing. Once or twice, though, Gabi could have sworn she caught the glint of tears in her grandmother's eyes.
It was only when Gabi admitted that she still had a piece of Kai's gold that her grandmother struggled to sit up in the bed, her eyes suddenly flashing with the same inner fire Gabi knew she had inherited from her. "Gabriela." Her grandmother's voice was serious, even stern. She clutched Gabi's hands hard between her own, fixing her granddaughter with a firm stare. "You have to return his gold to him. It is the most important thing. You cannot even understand how important it is. It is more important than anything else that you do that."
"But—" Gabi started, but her grandmother shook her head.
"No. Gabriela, you know I never tell you what to do. Mostly because I know if I did, you would never listen to me."
Gabi barely managed to stifle a snort. She gave a self-deprecating shrug of her shoulders. Her grandmother knew her very well. "But this one time, Gabriela, I'm telling you to listen to me. You cannot separate the dragon from his gold."
Gabi's eyes returned to her grandmother's again. Such intensity, such seriousness emanated from her grandmother's expression that Gabi's breath caught in her throat.
"Separating a dragon from his gold hoard is extremely dangerous. And I think perhaps it might be dangerous for your own future, Gabriela. You must return it immediately. Now."
“But I—” Gabi began. Her grandmother clutched her hands hard, shaking her head fiercely.
“Promise me you will do this, Gabriela. Now.”
“Okay, okay.” Gabi retreated. “I promise.”
Her grandmother sighed and closed her eyes. She was quiet for such a long time Gabi thought she had fallen back asleep. But then one of her sweetly gnarled hands moved on the sheet and her lips curved up in small smile. "You know, Gabriela, I too could see the dragons when I was much younger."
Gabi nodded. She'd grown up on her grandmother's tales like these. She realized now, with a jolt, that while she'd always half believed them, her encounter with the truth this morning—was it really only this morning? It felt like a year ago—now made her understand that those had been the hopeful wishes of a child. She had never actually believed before.
Now, she did. Softly, she asked, "Tell me more."
With a dreamy sigh, her grandmother continued. "His name was Mal
eko. I met him before your own father was even a spark in my eyes. It was before I knew your grandfather.” Her voice softened with memory. “I was younger than you are now. I still believed in magic, and wishes coming true. He came out of the ocean one night like some sort of undersea god."
Stunned, Gabi blinked. Her grandmother went on in a quiet, almost pensive voice. “Maleko was the most stunning man I had ever seen in my life. He said he had been watching me. As it turned out," she laughed a little bit, "I knew him already. He worked at the Marine Institute on Catalina. The one you love so much, Gabi."
Beyond startled by the parallels of her encounters with Kai, Gabi cautiously nodded.
"By the time he told me his secret," her grandmother went on, the smile still playing on her lips, "I was already completely in love with him.
"Abuela! You never told me about this.” Gabi's startled words didn't stop the flow of her grandmother's story, who went on as if she hadn't been interrupted.
"He didn't want to scare me, but he said he could never withhold the truth from me. He changed his form right in front of me, and he was the most magnificent creature I had ever seen in my life. He shimmered like the ocean. Green and white, with spikes on the back of his neck, and some along his tail that flattened when he swam fast. But he could still fly." Her grandmother's eyes opened. She looked at Gabi with a glorious smile that lit up her entire face. “He could fly. He used to take me flying. At night, because even though he could shield himself so that no others could see him, there is less air traffic at night." Her grandmother's laughter bubbled out, so girlish and merry that Gabi stared at her. "Air traffic. He was less likely to bump into an airplane while flying at night, you understand."
Her grandmother laughed harder, as if at a joke. But a single tear slipped out of one eye.
Concerned, Gabi said, "No, don't tell me the stories if they're upsetting. You need to be resting and relaxing right now."