Why had he done that? Oh, right. This day was about Mandy, not him.
He tried to force himself off her, but the rise and fall of her chest beneath him felt too good. Aware he was being selfish, but just not caring—it was her fault for being so damn sexy—he tilted his head toward the parking lot. “There’s always the SUV.”
“I thought you were hungry.”
He leaned down and licked her neck. “Mmmm. You taste better.”
“Ugh!” She squirmed like a fish out of water, and he gave up the fight, letting her up. He was sure to get lucky wherever they were after he showed her the diamond ring. He patted the box in his pocket, and his nerves began to assault his stomach. What if she said no?
Mandy settled next to him on the blanket. When she bit into her sandwich, her eyes widened. “You remembered the black olives.”
“And the wine with the straw.”
“And the white chocolate Macadamia nut cookies?”
“Yep.”
A huge smile lit up her features as she rose up on her knees, leaned forward, and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you.”
He grinned, his nerves settling. Of course, she’d say yes. She was as careful with her heart as he was with his. If she said she loved him, she meant it.
After they finished eating, he sucked in a calming breath, stood, and took Mandy’s hands in his. It was officially go time.
He pulled her to her feet. “Dip our toes in?” The day had warmed into the seventies and, though the water would be cold, it’d also be refreshing.
Mandy slipped off her black ballet flats and rolled her jeans to her knees. When she finished, he led her toward the sea’s edge. The water was murky brown from the fine sand agitated by the waves, but further out, the ocean became a symphony of blues and greens.
He stilled the surf while they waded in so she wouldn’t get too wet. The sand around them settled to the bottom, leaving the water as clear as glass and as cold as a mountain-fed stream. But with the warm sun beating down on them, the temperature was bearable.
He fumbled with the velvet box in his pocket, deciding how to start. For the last week, he’d been preparing his proposal speech in his head—how he looked forward to having blond-haired babies with her and watching them grow up playing in the surf, how he wanted to have Thanksgiving every year with his family and Christmas with hers, and how he couldn’t wait to wake up every morning with her by his side. But most of all, he wanted to face life’s unknowns—sickness, accidents, losses—with their love to shore each other up.
Justin wrapped his arm around her waist. They watched a pelican gracefully swoop into the ocean and fill its bill with water and fish. He turned to see her blue eyes light up when a group of seagulls took off after the pelican’s dinner.
“Lazy gulls,” she said with a smile.
He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek before taking her shoulders in his hands and turning her to face him. With the time at hand, his mouth was as dry as cotton, and his brain was a wasteland of jumbled sentences. With words eluding him, he decided to let the ring speak for him. He reached into his pocket and grasped the smooth velvet box between three fingers.
Her eyes grew wide. He had always imagined that, as he dropped to one knee, her eyes would glow as bright as the sapphires in her ring. Instead, they continued to grow larger, almost scared, and her mouth opened slightly as if she wanted to speak but was unable to do so.
Didn’t she want this as much as he did?
He stared at her terrified expression. Maybe it was too soon for her. He pushed the velvet box deep into his pocket, the bitter disappointment eating at his insides like acid chewing on metal. “Let’s head back to the beach before you get too cold.”
“Ty,” Mandy said in a raspy whisper, her lips barely moving.
“What?”
“He’s behind you.”
Relief flooded over him. The fear in her expression was because of her ex. Thank God!
Faster than the relief had come, it drained away, replaced with cold dread. If Ty was at the beach, it sure as hell wasn’t to congratulate them.
He turned slowly, afraid of what he’d see. Ty stood atop a dune, glaring down at them. In his hand, he carried a pistol, the steel glinting in the afternoon sun.
“How did he find us?” Justin whispered.
Mandy gazed intently at the gun, her face the color of white marble. She whimpered, then said, “I put it in my blog.”
“Christ, Mandy!”
She dug her fingernails into his forearms, the stinging pain lost in the adrenaline pumping through his veins. “I didn’t think he’d read it.”
“Everybody can read it.” He pushed her rigid body behind him and glanced around desperately. The beach was still deserted. “Just stay behind me.” Hopefully, Ty had come to scare them and nothing more, but considering his and Mandy’s shit luck, he doubted they’d catch a break.
The ocean around them began to ebb and crest with waves again, the water splashing against their bodies. Mandy shivered behind him, her trembling limbs brushing his back. The cold must have snapped her senses alive and settled her fear because she shoved her way around him. In her eyes, a spark of anger ignited, the kind that could get her killed if she said the wrong thing.
Justin growled a deep rumbling sound from the depths of his gut and elbowed her backward, trying to keep her out of the scope of the pistol. She wasn’t having it. With a forceful swing of her hips and arms, she broke free and stepped to his side.
“He’s going to listen to me before he listens to you,” she said, her normally full lips a thin slash of terror and courage. She marched out of the water and onto the beach, the bottoms of her rolled-up jeans soaked.
“This isn’t a game, Mandy,” Justin said, as he stormed toward her.
Ty slid down the dune and stalked closer, the pistol clutched tightly in his shaking hand.
“We’re going to be fine,” she said, though her voice wavered.
When Ty was a few yards from them, Justin could finally see the madness burning in his eyes, like the lit end of a match. They were not going to be okay.
Ty’s gaze darted from Justin to Mandy. “You two enjoying a nice picnic?”
Justin inched forward so as not to seem threatening, his eyes never leaving the pistol. “We can talk this out. There’s no need for a gun.”
Ty snorted, raised the pistol, and pointed it at Mandy. “I tried talking it out. Your little woman wouldn’t listen.”
Justin could barely hear the seagull cries or the pounding of the ocean over the thundering of his pulse. He stepped in front of Mandy, his hand shooting backward. With a forceful thrust, he pressed his palm against her hip and pushed her behind him again. “What do you want, Ty? Maybe we can work something out.” If Ty wanted to hear him grovel, apologize, or beg for mercy, he was game if it’d get that gun away from Mandy.
Ty pointed the pistol at Justin’s head. If he’d been a foot closer, Justin would have lunged for the pistol, but Ty apparently knew that and stayed just out of Justin’s reach.
“I want my job back,” Ty hissed. His cheeks flushed blood-red, the fire in his eyes flaming brighter. “First, you take my fiancée, then you fuck up my career. If you’d died at sea, like you were supposed to, at least my sacrifice would’ve been worth it.”
“You tried to kill him!” Mandy gasped and moved back to Justin’s side.
Ty’s confession sent a torrent of anger pulsing through Justin’s veins. His god’s energy hummed over his skin, vibrating, almost uncontrollable in its desire to explode.
Ty frantically waved the gun in the air. “You should be dead, Justin. Maybe I’d have lost my job, but at least I’d have had a consolation prize.” His frenzied gaze rested on Mandy. “Except now, I don’t want your whore. I’d rather watch you both suffer.”
The entire world slowed when Ty pointed the gun at Mandy. “Now you can feel what it’s like to lose someone you love.”
He cocked the pi
stol.
The beast in Justin rose up, the force within him erupting. The pulses traveled up his spine to his fingers, the air around him crackling with his power. With strength fueled by fury, Justin thrust his energy into the churning ocean. A wave the size of an oak rose from the depths, seething, undulating under his will. It towered over them, its crest barreling down on them.
The sound of Ty’s pistol firing pierced the hum of rushing water. With a deafening roar, the sea slammed into their bodies. The wave engulfed them and thrust them beneath its mountainous peak.
Mandy!
Justin fought the ocean, frantically searching for her. His energy traversed the hissing water. She was being thrown like a rag doll by the fury of the wave. Next to her, Ty clawed toward the surface. But Mandy was limp, her limbs swaying violently in the currents.
Desperate for air, Justin quieted his own body, stopped fighting, stopped moving. Still, he commanded, as he surfaced and sucked in a strident breath. The sea didn’t obey. Wave after wave surged toward him, his wrath far from appeased. The onslaught of rage toward Ty couldn’t be pacified and, until it was, he had no control over his power.
Justin forced himself to concentrate through the haze of his fury. He homed in on her body again. Her dark figure sank deeper in the water, pulled under by a current. The ocean crashed above him as he dove for her. He wrapped his arms around her waist. He struggled to the surface with the weight of the sea crushing him. With all his might, he pushed her above the waves. She was lifeless, pale, her lips tinged gray.
“Mandy,” he cried out, searching for flowing blood, evidence that Ty had shot her. Nothing. Then, why wasn’t she breathing?
He wrapped his arm around her neck and swam toward the beach. The sea fought him, and he could do nothing to calm it, not when he was crazed himself. He dragged her onto the small swath of land left untouched by his wrath.
Justin spread her out on the ground, her head lolling to the side, and explored her body for a gunshot wound. Still nothing. He tilted her chin and began CPR, pushing down on her chest and then crushing his lips to hers. Pushes to the chest. Mouth to mouth. Pushes to the chest. Mouth to mouth.
Images of his mother lying dead on the sand filled his mind—her pale skin, her blue lips, her wet, black hair fanned around her. He fought back the vomit and kept going. Pushes to the chest. Mouth to mouth.
Mandy’s chest rose from the air he forced into her lungs. She sputtered, water dribbling down the sides of her mouth, then coughed up a flood of ocean. Her chest heaved with another cough, and then another, the force freeing more water from her lungs. She sucked in a shrill gasp. Greedily, she pulled air, over and over again, the ashen color of her face filling with life.
Justin rocked forward on his hands and knees and moaned in relief. The sea still boiled as Mandy coughed again and again. Finally, she rolled over and stared at the twenty-foot wave hurtling toward them. It crashed against an invisible wall feet from them and receded back into the ocean.
“Where’s Ty?” she wheezed.
He glanced at the churning tide.
“Stop the waves,” she said, then sputtered as more water dribbled out of her mouth.
Justin squeezed his eyes shut, trying to break his hold on the surf, but his wrath dug into his very core, its roots refusing to release. He buried his head in Mandy’s neck, pressing his cheek against her smooth skin, but still the anger clung to his soul, making his body tremble and muscles ache. “I can’t.”
She cupped his cheeks, terror filling her eyes. “You’re going to kill him.”
So what if he did? Ty had tried to take the most precious person in the world from him. Fury bubbled in his blood, the panic from almost losing her consuming him.
“He was your friend,” she said, her voice breaking.
“He tried to kill you.”
“If you let him die, you’re no better than him.”
“I can’t stop it, the water…” His emotions had hijacked his abilities, short-circuiting his control and bypassing his brain. But if he let Ty die, he’d be a monster. He stared at the waves surging toward him, then down at his soaked clothes.
I still have control of my body.
Justin jumped to his feet. His toes dug into the sand as he darted into the ocean, the waves striking savagely at him. Searching for Ty, he dove under a swell with his energy traversing the sea. He felt him ten yards to his left. Ty was dragging against the sand, his body being crushed, pushed down by a pummeling wave. Ty’s limbs flailed, his body contorted; nothing about his movements was coordinated. No kicks, no thrashing hands fighting the ocean.
Please be unconscious.
Justin swam to Ty and reached down. He latched onto Ty’s arm and pulled him to the surface. Sorrow filled his chest over what Ty had done, and over what Justin had been forced to do to save Mandy. As regret washed over him, it cooled his temper and the waters began to calm, the mountainous waves easing, their fury abating.
He trudged through the surf until the water became shallow, then he collapsed to his knees. He cradled Ty to his chest and breathed for him, pushing air into his quiet body. But Ty’s heart was still, his soul gone.
Justin stared down into Ty’s eyes, the gray of his irises dull and unseeing. For years, he’d loved the man in his arms. He’d confided in him, worked by his side, lived with him. He’d known a Ty that cared for Mandy, wanted a family, a future. That version of Ty was as real as the twisted one that had stalked them to the beach.
“Why?” he whispered.
Had Justin pushed Ty too far, breaking him? When Ty had left Mandy, Justin had hurt for her. But mixed in with that worry and pain, he’d also experienced hope that she might one day be his. Seeing where his desire had put them, he hated himself.
With Ty in his arms, he stood, his bones creaking, and struggled toward the sand, the weight of his guilt making each step impossibly tiring. Carefully, he laid Ty down on the beach, crossing his hands over his chest and straightening his legs.
He placed his thumbs over Ty’s eyelids and closed them. The man lying before him looked peaceful, at last. “It shouldn’t have ended this way.”
Mandy shut her eyes so tight they disappeared behind a hood of brows and lashes. An anguished sob escaped her lips. “No!” She beat the sand with tight fists and cried.
As he listened to Mandy’s broken voice carry high above the din of the surf, he knew he’d never forgive himself for killing Ty. He didn’t expect Mandy would forgive him, either.
Chapter 22
Justin sat on the sand and stared at the waves breaking on the beach, the peaceful scene in stark contrast to the violence he’d unleashed five hours ago. He pulled his legs to his chest and buried his head in the cradle his knees created. Several hours ago, Mandy had been taken to the hospital as a precaution, and thirty minutes ago, Ty’s body had been carted off.
Lieutenant Dale trudged across the sand and sat next to him, folding his legs Indian style. His cheeks were flushed red, and his lips pressed tightly together the way they always did when he was pissed. “I told the investigator to fuck off. He wasn’t too happy with my choice of words.”
Justin rested his cheek on one knee and gazed at Dale. “Why’d you do that?”
“’Cause he kept asking me how you survived a tidal wave unscathed while Ty died and Mandy almost drowned.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“You’re a goddamn rescue swimmer. That’s what I told him. You’ve saved men in category-five hurricanes. You saved your woman and couldn’t get to Ty in time. He said you’re free to go.”
“Thanks, Dale.”
“You going to tell me what really happened out here?”
Justin scanned the wrecked beach. The sand was soaked all the way to the dunes, and channels were cut a foot deep where the water had drained back to the sea. The evidence of what had happened was all around them, but Dale knew better. He was one of the few people who’d witnessed Justin’s twisted relationship with the
ocean.
“I saved Mandy’s life from more than a tidal wave,” he answered.
“Figured as much.” Dale patted him once on the back, then let his hand linger on Justin’s shoulder, a show of solidarity that Justin needed in that moment. “Ever since the accident, I had a bad feeling about Ty. I’m sorry things ended this way, but I’m glad you and Mandy are okay.”
He wasn’t sure they were okay. The second he’d dragged Ty’s limp body ashore, a wedge had been driven between them that he didn’t know how to fix.
“You need a ride home?” Dale asked.
Justin shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”
“Call me if you need anything.” Dale patted him one last time on the back, stood, and headed toward the parking lot. Justin gazed at the ocean as he reached into his pocket to pull out Mandy’s ring. His fingers met nothing but a damp cotton lining.
He closed his eyes and traversed the water with his energy, feeling his way past shells, seaweed, and small schools of fish. When he felt Ty’s gun rocking in the waves a few yards from shore, he paused, then pushed the pistol further out to sea. Ty had been killed by a freak wave, according to the police report. His family didn’t need to know he’d died while trying to shoot Mandy.
“The thing you’re looking for is twenty feet past the buoy.” His dad’s voice carried on the breeze. “Whatever it is, it’s small, and it’s got a piece of your heart attached to it. A shark’s swimmin’ by it right now.”
Justin rolled his energy toward the red buoy bobbing in the ocean. Sure enough, he felt the fins of a small shark slicing through the water. Beneath the fish was Mandy’s ring. He gently tumbled the velvet box to shore.
Wearing his uniform of faded jeans and a button-up long-sleeved shirt, his father walked to the water’s edge and picked it up. As he strolled toward Justin, he opened the box and whistled. “Nice ring.”
“It’d look better on Mandy’s hand.” Justin took a deep breath, not sure why his dad was there. “You just left yesterday. You didn’t have to come back because of this.”
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