by Nora Roberts
“I can’t have happy?”
“A happy. It’s . . .”
“Jesus, Sawyer, be direct. It’s a hard-on.” Riley pointed to Sawyer’s crotch; he batted her hand away. “When a guy gets hard.”
“Oh! That is happy, isn’t it? I should say I am happy. I would love to pose for you, Sasha.”
“Would you pose in the pool, in the water, a mermaid?”
“Yes!” Instantly, she reached for the hem of her dress.
“Wait, whoa. You don’t just take off your clothes.”
Baffled, Annika lifted her hands at Sawyer. “I don’t go in the water in clothes, and I can’t wear the suit for swimming in my true form.”
“Yeah, but.” He looked directly at Doyle. “Go find somewhere else to be.”
“I like it here.”
“Doyle and Bran have seen me without clothes.”
“What?”
“When we came back, I had no clothes. Doyle gave me his coat so I wouldn’t be cold. You’re too shy,” she said to Sawyer. Walking toward the pool, she pulled her dress off as she went, tossed it on a chair, then dived in.
“She’s already art. And she’s yours, brother.” On a last admiring glance, Doyle rose. “I’ll do more translating while you dig up demons,” he said to Riley.
And to Sawyer’s relief, strolled inside.
Since searching and diving, even training seemed to be off the agenda, Sawyer took the day. It annoyed him to conk out over his own research, but he felt better after the hour’s sleep.
But even after the rest, the compass told him nothing. Part of him worried, despite the reassurances, that using it as he’d used it had cost him the right to it.
Braced for that, he took his phone, walked outside. Annika sat—more lounged—on the steps of the pool, wet hair sleek and not quite covering her breasts. Her tail glistened, a thousand small, bright jewels. She turned her head, just a little, smiled at him.
“I’m supposed to stay still for a few minutes more. Sasha says I can’t see until she’s finished.”
But he could, and circled around to where Sasha stood at her easel. He saw she’d pinned up several quick sketches, different poses, expressions. And on the canvas she’d captured joy and beauty.
“It’s great. It’s . . . amazing.”
“So many tones and shades and hues.” Sasha mixed more paint on her palette, dabbed at the canvas with a thin brush. “And the way they all catch the light.”
“You could come in the pool, and talk to me. Sasha says I can talk.”
“Maybe later. I need to make a call.”
“Will you paint Sawyer, Sasha?”
“She doesn’t want to—”
“It’s on my list.”
“What? Really?”
“I want to do a painting of each of us, and one of all of us together. I just have to . . . find it. Like this with Annika. I’ve done Bran’s, from memory. At night, with the power on him, like the jewels in Annika’s tail. Bright, brilliant, and marvelous. But I need to find it, and find the right time. Today was Anni’s.”
“It’s . . .” He really didn’t have the words. “You’re going to love it,” he told Anni. “I’m going to take a walk, make this call.”
He chose the grove for the quiet, the shade, the scents. He took out the compass again, considered simply traveling to his grandparents’ home. But with his energy still on the low end, it wouldn’t be smart. And more, he didn’t want to worry his family.
He settled for the phone.
“Dedushka.” Even the sound of his grandfather’s voice lifted him. “Kak pozhivaesh?”
He kept it casual initially, sliding from Russian to English and back again, catching up on family news.
“Zolotse.” His grandfather’s use of the affectionate term, and the gentle tone stopped Sawyer’s rambling. “Chto sluchilos?”
What’s wrong? Sawyer thought. Where do I start?
“Dedushka. I’m afraid I’ve . . . Let me tell you what happened.”
Bran walked into the grove. He looked for Sawyer, as Sasha had some mild concern. Apparently Sawyer had been gone nearly an hour.
He found him, sitting on the ground, back resting against a tree pregnant with lemons. And the compass in his hand.
“I hope you haven’t taken any recent trips.”
“What? Oh, hey. And no, no. I’ve been right here. I just talked to my grandfather.”
Bran joined him on the ground, stretched out his legs. “Is he well then, your grandfather?”
“Yeah. Since that scare a while back, he’s stronger than ever.”
“It’s good to speak with family. I spoke with my mother only yesterday.”
“Is she worried about you?”
For a moment, in the bright, hot Italian afternoon, Bran felt the cool, damp kiss of Ireland.
“She’s my mother. Of course she has worries. She also has faith. And though I don’t like the worrying of her, her faith gives me more of my own.”
“Yeah. I love my dad, you know? And my mom, my sibs, my grandmother. But Dedushka . . .”
“It’s a special bond, isn’t it? The compass was his, and he passed it to you. I love my father, and all the rest of my family. But it’s my mother who taught me, who helped me learn to open myself to what I am.”
“So you get it.”
“I do, yes. Now you’ve told him what troubles you still.”
“Everything y’all said made sense, and it helped. A hell of a lot. But . . . You know your power’s there all the time, right? You don’t have to use it to feel it.”
“I know what’s in me, yes.”
“Since we came back from the cave, I haven’t felt the connection.”
A dragonfly winged by, gossamer in the dappled sunlight. Sawyer watched its flight, and how it zipped away. He knew what it was to fly.
“When I knew I had to tell my grandfather, I thought about going to him. And I told myself I needed to keep recharging the batteries, you know, and how I didn’t want to worry them anyway. But under that was the fear I couldn’t do it anyway. I couldn’t travel again because I’d lost the right.”
“And what did your grandfather say to that?”
“Well, he listened when I told him what happened, about Malmon, the cave, Annika, all of it. And how I’d used this, this gift, to kill a man. And I thought that might have cost me the right to have it.”
“And?”
“Basically, he told me to stop being a pussy.”
On a half laugh, Sawyer shrugged, and easily, as the weight of guilt no longer sat on his shoulders.
“It was longer than that, had pretty much everything y’all said to me, but with that ‘don’t be a pussy’ tagged on tight. Then he said he loved me, and he believed in me, believed I’d do what I’d been born to do. To get it the hell done and come home safe.”
“I look forward to meeting him one day.”
“Yeah, we’ll have a post-quest party that rocks the house.”
Emotion shuddered through him, and leading it was gratitude.
“I feel it again. That connection. I know it’s mine until it’s time to pass it on. Had to stop being a pussy, stop moping over dropping some asshole into the void who’d have put a bullet in my brain.”
“Brilliant. I’d say that’s earned you a beer.”
“A whole one?”
Testing, Bran laid a hand on Sawyer’s wounded shoulder, then on his side. And pleased with what he felt, he nodded. “It’s a full pint for you.” Bran rose, held out a hand. “Welcome back.”
“So we can dive tomorrow?” With barely a twinge, Sawyer let Bran pull him to his feet.
“Another day or two for that. We may as well let our digger dig.”
“A couple more days, our digger’s going to go wolf on us.”
“Only from moonrise to moonset. It’s this Bay of Sighs clearly enough. Let’s give her, and Doyle, time to find it, and you and Annika a bit more time. And let’s go have that pint.”
>
“I’d be a fool to argue.”
Annika no longer lounged in the pool. Sawyer didn’t see Sasha, but cut across toward the canvas still on her easel.
And just stared. Joy and beauty, magick and marvel. He didn’t know how Sasha captured the gleam, the sparkle with only paint. Didn’t know how anyone could so clearly show the light in those sea-green eyes.
How could a painting so perfectly show sweetness and sex and strength?
“You like it.” With one of Riley’s famed Bellinis in hand, Sasha wandered out, hooked her arm through Sawyer’s.
“It’s everything she is.”
“I’m going to do others. It’s why I did so many sketches. I want her in the classic mermaid on the rock in the sea, and I want her doing cartwheels or flips on the lawn.”
Hearing how relaxed she sounded, seeing all the strain had vanished from her face, Sawyer understood Bran’s reasons for waiting another day or two.
Riley had it right, too. They needed the break.
“I could paint her for years,” Sasha continued. “And I likely will. But this one’s for you.”
“For—for me?”
“Absolutely.” While she sipped her Bellini, Sasha studied her work with a critical eye. “I need maybe another hour with it, just to punch it up, then it’s yours. Just like she is.”
“But I can’t take her, can I?”
“We’re in a world of miracles and magicks. I’m going to believe in both.”
“This painting. It means a lot, more than I can tell you. I need to give you something for it. Not money,” he said when she started to pull away. “I get that, and it’d be insulting between us. But when this is over, when we’ve done what we’re meant to do, if you want that conversation with Monet, I’ll take you.”
She gasped, bounced on her toes, grabbed him in a hug. “Oh, my God! Sawyer, that would be— Oh, my God! I have to brush up, big-time, on my French.”
“With just one down and two to go, I figure there’s time.”
“Riley will find the Bay of Sighs, then we’ll have two, and one to go. I just . . . I haven’t felt where we go from here. Have you?”
He shook his head. “No hints from the compass yet.”
“It’ll come, for both of us. And you need another day, at least, before we pick all this up again. So, tomorrow it’s you.”
“It’s me what?”
“I’m going to paint you tomorrow. I haven’t figured out what I’m after with you yet.” She stepped back a pace, studied him with a keen and curious eye that made him feel . . . goofy.
“But it’s you,” she said firmly.
“It already feels weird.”
But he took a seat in the sun, and looked forward to having a beer with friends.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sawyer knew he was well on the mend when Doyle ordered him into training—on the light side—in the morning. And he managed five pull-ups before his shoulder screamed like a woman getting a hard pinch on the ass. Maybe it scored the pride, a little, when Sasha did five, then gutted her way through a sixth.
“I’m not last.” Sliding to the ground, panting, Sasha wagged a fist in victory. “I’m not last.”
“Hey, bum shoulder. Near-death experience.”
“I don’t care. Today, this fine day, I’m not last. And you’re on breakfast detail.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have been so impatient to get back to it all.
But he could admit to relief when he didn’t want to crawl back into bed after an hour’s activity. And when he did crawl back into bed again, with Annika, he’d do something—at last—besides sleep.
So that did make it a very fine day.
Though it did feel weird, he posed for Sasha—mostly because she hounded him. He stood for an hour—another triumph—wearing his guns, left hand on the butt of one, compass held in the other.
At one point Riley wandered out.
“Did you find something?” he demanded.
“No—and you and Doyle can stuff it. I’m taking a break. The guy who knows what we want to know should be available tomorrow.”
“Hope you get him before you wolf out.” Hip cocked now, the thumb of the hand holding the compass hooking in his pocket, Sawyer sent Riley a quick, insolent grin. “Hey, you could bark in Morse code.”
Riley merely shot up her middle finger, studied the painting. “Yeah, you’re getting him, Sash, right down to the beady little eyes.”
“You need to do Rile here in wolf form, Sasha. An action shot. Like when she’s scratching at fleas.”
“I don’t have—” Riley hissed out a breath; Sasha just kept working.
“Do you believe in reincarnation?” she asked Riley.
“Absolutely. One go-round? What’s the point?”
“I strongly believe the two of you were siblings in another life. And I do want to paint you in wolf form. And as you are now.”
“I don’t think—”
“All sides of us,” Sasha interrupted, and chose another brush. “Now that I’ve started, I know it’s something I need to do. Do you need a break, Sawyer?”
“I’m good, unless you do.”
“I’d like to keep going—until you tell me you need a break. And you have to tell me. Painting helps me focus, and she’s trying to get in.”
“What? Nerezza?” Riley squeezed Sasha’s shoulder. “I’ll get Bran.”
“No, it’s all right.” Calmly, Sasha worked on Sawyer’s hair—he had a lot of it—sweeping in sunstreaks. “I’m all right, and he’s busy. Annika’s helping him mix medicines. I want Nerezza to try, and if I feel she’s getting through, we’ll get Bran.” Focused, Sasha continued to paint, switching brushes to detail the curve of Sawyer’s fingers on the compass. “I don’t want to push back today, just block. I can’t explain why—”
“You don’t have to.” With her hand still on Sasha’s shoulder, Riley exchanged a look with Sawyer. “All you need to do is tell Sawyer when and if you need Bran, or anything else.”
“That’s right.” Without realizing it, Sawyer took a firmer grip on his gun.
“It’s like—you can tell Bran when you go back in, Riley—it’s like she’s playing with me, just trying to distract me. I know she’s waiting, waiting for Malmon to fully become. There’s more but . . . it’s as if she wants me to try to see.”
“Maybe misdirection?”
“I don’t know, Riley. But I feel, I know she’s trying to lure me, and I’m not falling for it. Just as I know this interlude we’ve had, this really lovely break from searching, from fighting, from bleeding, is nearly done.”
“Then let’s enjoy it while it lasts.” Giving Sasha’s shoulder a final squeeze, exchanging a last look with Sawyer, Riley went back inside to tell Bran everything.
He watched her while she painted him. Flicked a glance up once when he saw Bran come out on the terrace, obviously checking for himself if he was needed.
Shortly after, Doyle strolled out, angled a chair, and sat, gaze on Sasha’s back. So Riley had made the rounds, Sawyer thought, and one way or another, Sasha was guarded.
He relaxed a little, let his mind drift a little. Wished Annika would come out. He wondered if, when they had the stars, when they found the Island of Glass and returned them—not if, but when—there would be time, just a few days, for him to be with her. Without war and vengeful gods, without responsibilities and risk.
It didn’t seem like much to ask, those few days.
“Have you told her you love her? I feel it,” Sasha said. “It’s so strong, I can’t not feel it. Have you told her?”
“What good would it do? It seems like it would only make her sad. I don’t want her to go back with regrets.”
“I don’t think a heart like Annika’s ever regrets love. And I believe love makes its own miracles.”
“The moon’s about to turn.” He could see the ghost of it behind the bold blue sky. “After that, she gets two more. Some people get lifetimes, some get moment
s. I’ve got to tell myself it’s what you do with what you get that counts.”
“I believe that, too. I’ve come to believe exactly that. Don’t you regret what you didn’t say, didn’t do.”
Lowering her brush, studying the canvas, she stepped back. “That’s it for now. I can finish it without you.” To loosen them, she rolled her shoulders. “And we can both use a break.”
Ready for that break, he walked over, stood beside her to see the work.
“Well, wow.”
“You like it?”
“Yeah. It’s . . . again, wow.”
She’d painted him with the hills rising at his back, everything sunbaked, brilliant, alive.
“How do you get the light to just . . . pour like that?”
“Trick of the trade.”
He shook his head. “Scope of the talent. I know it’s here, because I know those hills, but the way you’ve painted the background, it could be anywhere with hills, mountains, sky.”
“That’s what I wanted, because that’s the scope of your gift. And you look out from the painting knowing it, sure in it. Riley helped with that.”
“Riley?”
“I couldn’t get what I wanted from you until she did, and you got loose, poked at her, grinned with it. That’s you, Sawyer. Hand on your gun, ready to fight when you must, compass in your hand, ready to travel where you’re needed. But just as ready for a friend.”
“You made it glow—the compass.”
“It did glow.”
“No, it didn’t. I’d have felt it.”
“It glowed for me.” She hesitated when, as he still held it, he looked down at it. “It may be I just saw what it will do, or has done,” she told him.
But she knew better. It had glowed, soft, steady, when he’d thought of Annika.