Watermark (The Emerald Series Book 3)

by James, Kimberly

  Watermark

  Kimberly James

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Copyright

  For K, because it was her butt in the chair.

  1

  He knew something more existed beyond this watery landscape; it shimmered at the edge of a need he couldn’t place.

  A scent.

  A name he longed to recall but memory denied.

  He remembered a face. A pair of haunting brown eyes. A smile that lit his dark world.

  He hadn’t always been as he was now, a hulking shadow swimming in the Deep. So many days—a day, a measurement of time he reminded himself—so many had passed and as they did, his former self, his human self, grew more insistent. More impatient.

  He was more than this.

  And then there was the voice. Her. The Deep.

  A voice he couldn’t deny. That voice consoled him.

  You belong here.

  The Deep whispered under his skin and fired his blood, fueling his very existence. He would have died without her.

  She beckoned him, luring him with her Song back into the depths where all was peaceful. Where he was invincible.

  His former self rebelled against that voice. He had to see. He had to know. He turned his mind away from the voice and the place she called him to.

  His head pounded in time with the thumping in his chest as if something were about to happen. He was close to breaking free. From what, he didn’t know. All he knew was more lay beyond the surface. The one place the voice didn’t want him to go. Forbid him to go.

  The surface. The surface hurt. The surface was too bright. Too loud. Too heavy. The light had a name. He knew it. Why couldn’t he remember?

  His arms wavered in front of him, his long fingers encased in silky webs that ribboned in the current. Hands he barely recognized as his own. His only thought looking at them was that she would be afraid of these hands. But not only his hands. Him. She would be afraid of him. Yet he was compelled to let that light touch him.

  Just once.

  Ignoring the hurt, he climbed until the weight of the water left him. Until gradually the light dispelled the dark that trapped him and he emerged in a world bright and blinding. His mouth opened and his body responded on instinct, sucking in air as though for the first time. The air burned his chest. A tremor ran over his body in an attempt to reject this place. His body didn’t want this. Mere seconds and it already craved the Deep. Only his mind kept him here, hovering between two worlds.

  No, it was her face that kept him here.

  Blue sky. A scattering of clouds. The sun. The light was called the sun. When it touched his skin, he absorbed its warmth. How had he forgotten this place? His eyes closed and he saw her. He remembered.

  Erin. Her name was Erin.

  2

  I dipped my paddle into the coppery water. Other than the occasional kayaker, the lake was deserted. The sun cast its cheery smile on the back of my shoulders as I glided to a stop before I sat, straddling the board with my knees. Tall slimy grass slithered around my legs. I ignored the tickle on my toes and placed a small cube of raw fish on the end of my paddleboard.

  “Come on girl, you know you want a bite.”

  I was breaking the rules. Luna was supposed to be learning to fend for herself. And she could. I’d seen her scavenging for small shells and tiny fish. But Luna occupied the one tender spot in my otherwise calloused heart, and I couldn’t see the harm in offering her a few freebies.

  I owed her, after all.

  Luna swam in a lazy circle two feet away from the tip of my board. Her curious brown eyes brightened at the sound of my voice. Her eyes didn’t exactly match. A silvery scar bisected the left one above and below the rim, a hairless line that caused her left eye to droop. The vet assured me she retained as much as eighty percent of her vision in the injured eye. Otherwise he never would have signed off on her release. But I noticed she always favored the right one. Even now she angled her head so that her right eye had a direct bead on the tempting treat on the end of my board.

  It had been friends at first sight the day Luna had been brought to the Walton County Wildlife Rescue Center. My life at the time hadn’t resembled a life at all, certainly not the life of a normal seventeen-year-old. My parents had wanted me to go to grief counseling. I’d refused. I didn’t want to talk to a stranger about my dead husband. There was no way I would talk to a stranger about my baby girl. So we’d agreed I could volunteer at the WCWRC instead.

  Luna came in on my first day. She was a brown river otter. She’d survived a close encounter with a boat propeller and we’d latched onto each other like the barnacles on the pilings of our dock. I held no illusions. I was the parasite in this equation, but I had needed something to cling to that couldn’t hurt me. I'd looked into her scarred but trusting eyes and deemed her safe.

  Luna proved to be a very good therapist.

  She’d been released back into the wild three weeks ago and appeared to be thriving. I hoped it was a good omen for me. Today was my release day. My release back into the wilds of that place called high school.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” I teased the fish with my finger. Her nose twitched then stilled, her little claws curling into fists.

  “What’s the matter girl?” She usually jumped right up on the end of the board and gobbled up whatever snack I brought her. She was unduly skittish this morning, exhibiting a nervousness I hadn’t seen in her since the day she’d been brought into the center.

  Her nose gave another little twitch, and she flipped over and disappeared, leaving me staring after a lonely ripple that grew lonelier the farther it traveled from its epicenter until it too disappeared altogether.

  Seconds later, Luna emerged on the far side of the lake and scrambled up the opposite bank. She paused and looked back at me, twitching her tail once before scampering into the underbrush.

  “Thanks a lot,” I called, trying not to take offense at her abrupt departure. Not that I could blame her. She’d been through quite a trauma and still had the scars to prove it. I had scars too, but unlike Luna, mine were on the inside, barely healed, the edges still festering. Like Luna’s face, I imagined my heart rested lopsided in my chest. And like the ankle I’d sprained during volleyball practice last week, I’d packed ice around it, numbing it to the pain of grief and loss.

  Something grazed my foot. I jerked my legs out of the water and tucked my knees to my chin. My board shimmied, paddle teetering precariously before my hand closed around it.

  My heart leapt with possibilities. I hated that after nearly two years there was a part of me still looking for him. Still hoping. If Jamie hadn’t been what he was, these crazy thoug
hts would never have crossed my mind.

  But Jamie had been different. He’d been special.

  I’d lived in this resort community on the Gulf Coast of Florida all my life. “Florida’s Best Kept Secret.” That’s what the sign read at the foot of the bridge that linked our community to the rest of the panhandle. Any tourist reading that sign would rightly assume it was referring to our white sandy beaches and the clear emerald water. But the locals knew it also had a hidden meaning, a reference to another secret. One not so well kept. Our community was habitat to another species of human. On the outside, they looked the same as anyone else, unless you were attuned to the subtle differences.

  The first time I’d seen Jamie Jacobs, I’d been attuned to them. I’d never seen eyes like Jamie’s on a regular human—pale and sparkling green like the water he’d emerged from. I could never look at the Gulf of Mexico and not think of him, which was one of the reasons I’d started coming to the lake and forsaking the beach. I didn’t see those pale green eyes in the coppery depths of the lake. It was hard to see anything at all.

  He had a sensitive spot behind his ears, a crescent-shaped layer of translucent membrane that, when immersed, gave him the ability to cycle oxygen through his skin and allowed him to breathe water. Jamie was strong, stupidly brave, and I’d believed him invincible. He’d been trained to be invincible. And not only was he a hero to our country, he was my hero.

  I’d fallen for him so hard, I found myself pregnant. A month later we’d been married. Then the unthinkable happened, and I discovered Jamie wasn’t invincible after all. And neither was the tiny life growing inside me. I lost the one thing he’d left behind and spent the next year drowning in my grief, spilling my guts to an otter. Now it was time to move on, and part of moving on for me was finishing high school, picking back up at normal. If such a thing were possible.

  I was counting on it being possible.

  I shook off thoughts of what would never be and stood, angling the tip of my board toward the dock. Underneath me something flashed through the water as quick as a shooting star—dark instead of light and looming instead of wishful.

  An alligator? It was possible, even though I’d never seen one in the nine months I’d been coming here. Is that what had scared Luna? I hadn’t seen anything, nothing more than a shadow, but my pulse raced in the growing quiet, putting a chill on my skin despite the warmth from the rising sun. My toes gripped the board as my arms stroked faster. I cast a glance downward.

  Something shadowed my progress, stalking me.

  The twenty feet of water between the end of my board and the dock loomed as if it were twenty miles. Whatever shadowed me hit my board, causing it to shoot out from underneath me. I fell flat on my back, the sting stealing my breath. I resurfaced, gasping, the snake-like grass coiling around my legs. I watched my board glide along the surface toward the center of the lake. I thought about going after it for about half a breath then turned and swam for the dock. I wasn’t alone in this lake. It had to be an alligator. What else could it be? I imagined its jaws clamping around an arm or a leg, dragging me under, trapping me there until I drowned.

  My arms worked faster. No way would I let that happen. Not after all I’d lived through. Maybe at one time, in those darkest days when I’d felt as though I had nothing to live for, the thought of dying would have brought with it a sense of relief. It didn’t today. I had a life now. Too many people had made sure of that. I had high school to finish, college to attend, a future. I finally, after so long without it, had found a sense of hope.

  I grabbed the edge of the dock, fingers biting into the splintered wood, and pulled myself up. The corner of the dock dug into my stomach as I lay half on, half off the weathered wooden boards. The lower half of my legs remained submerged and the dock vibrated as though absorbing the blows from something big. Something strong enough to knock the whole thing down. My grip faltered, and I slipped farther back into the water, the wood scraping away a layer of skin on my thigh. I ignored the sting as my brain spurred me on. With one desperate heave, I propelled myself out of the water. I landed on my stomach, my breath coming short and tight, my arms and legs weak with the relief of making it to the safety of the dock. But I didn’t feel safe. I didn’t think I would until I was back in my Tahoe, back at my house.

  A loud keening rent the air, and the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood on end. I flipped over, my eyes searching the water before rising to the thick growth of vegetation surrounding the lake. Nothing. Not a stir. Not the slightest breeze.

  There weren't many panthers this far north, but we had our share of black bears and deer. None of those animals could’ve made the noise I just heard. And it hadn’t come from the thick sponge of scrub oaks and palmetto bushes. It had come from the lake.

  I had no idea what it was, but it was still there. I felt its eyes on me. I lurched to my feet and ran.

  I didn’t get far. I’d failed to register the footsteps pounding down the dock until a pair of arms caught me, holding me away from a sweat-soaked t-shirt.

  “Whoa.” Long fingers tightened on my upper arms, preventing my escape. “You all right? I thought I heard someone screaming.”

  “No,” I said, not meeting his eyes. I didn’t want to make friends, and I didn’t need another hero. “I mean yes. I’m fine.” I didn’t know this guy’s name. I didn’t want to. He was here most mornings, running the trails. I’d seen him and he’d seen me, but this was the first time verbal contact had been initiated.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  I sensed his eyes on me, and my skin tingled where his hands had clutched my arms. I couldn’t remember the last time a boy had touched me who wasn’t Jamie. Noah didn’t count. Noah was safe. He was family. This boy was… I didn’t know this boy.

  “Yes,” I said with more forcefulness as my gaze lifted to his.

  “Is that your board?” He dipped his chin in the direction of the lake.

  I nodded. My board rocked peacefully in the light breeze. The boy walked to the end of the dock, full of intent.

  “Don’t go in there!” I warned.

  Too late. My do-gooder leaped off the dock, his shallow dive bordering on a bellyflop. I wanted to call out another warning. But of what? A monster lurking in the lake? Admittedly, I hadn’t really thought it was an alligator stalking me at all.

  He swam easily enough, going for the board first. He jumped on it, laying flat on his stomach, pulling himself to where the paddle floated in a crop of lily pads close the shoreline. I watched as he maneuvered back to the dock, knowing I owed him, at the very least, a thank you. But I was still holding my breath even as he clumsily fell off the board, nearly hitting his head on the dock, waiting for that moment when whatever I had seen offered definitive proof that I was indeed not crazy. And then he was standing in front of me, dripping wet with a satisfied look on his face. No incidents with snapping jaws. No missing limbs.

  I was an idiot.

  “I’ll help you get to your car,” he said as I bent down to pick up my board from where he’d laid it on the dock.

  “No, I got it.”

  “You’re hurt,” he said, eyes fixated on the bloody scratch on my thigh.

  “I said I got it.” I turned and made my way back up the dock, not wanting to contemplate why I was in such a hurry. Why I was being such a bitch when he was being nice? Nice. I didn’t need a nice guy. I didn’t need a guy at all. I’d been down that road and it had ended in absolute heartbreak.

  Blood oozed down my leg. I ignored the bite of the shells under my bare feet as I walked toward my Tahoe.

  Home. I needed to get home.

  * * *

  I leaned my head on the steering wheel and groaned. Pulling down the visor, I looked in the mirror.

  “Erin, what is the matter with you?” Water dripped from my hair and my eyes had a wild look to them. “You saw nothing,” I told my reflection. “You heard nothing.”

  After I caught my breath and my
hands quit shaking, I crawled out of my car, wincing when my feet touched the warm concrete. I had left my flip-flops. My shirt was ripped where it looked like it had caught on a nail.

  This was not how I wanted this day to start.

  The scrape on my thigh throbbed as I walked up the driveway. I grabbed a beach towel in the garage and wiped at the blood, using the other end to dry my hair.

  By the time I made it to the door leading into the kitchen, my features were well-schooled. My dad stood next to the counter pouring a cup of coffee. He took one look at me and his brows dove over a pair of assessing eyes. In hindsight, I should have gone in the front door and escaped to my room unnoticed.

  “Morning.” I shuffled past him, or I tried to. He stopped me with a hand on my arm.

  “You know I don’t like you going to the lake by yourself,” he said.

  We’d had this discussion a million times. The bay was right behind our house and hauling my board to the lake was an unnecessary hassle.

  “And you left without telling me.” He leaned his hips against the counter and took a slow, deliberate sip of his coffee.

  A ruse to study me. My dad knew body language. He was a living lie detector test and could sense traces of stress in a few words. Was my pulse throbbing? Maybe the lake water covered up the sudden sweat. Damn my rosy cheeks.

  “You okay?”

  “Everything’s good. I’m just late.” Relieved my voice sounded calm, I grabbed a cup from the cabinet and poured myself some coffee.

  His gaze dropped to my leg. “What happened?”

  The toweling off had done the trick and stopped the bleeding, but it was still red and agitated.

  “Nothing,” I said firmly. “Came into the dock a little too hard. It’s just a scratch. Looks worse than it is. It’ll wash off in the shower.” I turned for the foyer and the stairs that led to the haven of my room.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said to my retreating back.

  I paused in the doorway and angled my face to his. He’d made no secret he preferred I take the GED route, and while I knew that was a viable option, it felt like cheating. My high school years had been brutally interrupted by tragic events so completely out of my control. In my mind, finishing high school was my way of regaining some of that lost control. A part of me needed to experience senior year and all that went with it—last first days, homecoming, prom, graduation.