Badass: A Stepbrother SEAL Romance (17 page)

“If you think it’s our best bet, yeah, I’m game.”

“Okay. We have water and can get more, so let’s stay here for a siesta and then head out. I think we can get to the shore before nightfall. Where there’s water, there will be wildlife. I don’t want to run into something in the dark that I might not be quick enough to protect you from.”

I was beginning to realize that he was all about protecting me. I liked it. But I knew it was the SEAL thing. It wasn’t as if he actually cared about me. It was his duty to protect someone he figured was weaker than he was.

He went back to the spring to fetch the container he’d left there. When he returned, he was excited. “I went a little higher, to get a better look. We’re even closer to the sea than I thought. There’s a creek—almost dry but with a trickle of fresh water. But better still, I saw smoke.”

“What sort of smoke?”

“I couldn’t see. It’s behind a ridge near the shore. I think it’s a camp of some sort. Maybe it’s your whale-whisperer.”

“Oh, I hope so!”

“Whoever they are, they might have supplies or communications. We’ll have to be careful, though, in case they’re unfriendly.”

“Will people really be unfriendly in a disaster zone?”

He looked at me with eyes that had seen a lot of nasty stuff. “You’d never know,” was all he said.

Chapter 38—Shane

In my line of work, there was no room for luck. We trained extensively; we were intricate machines, human terminators. Part of the reason that BUD/S training was so intensive and brutal was that we were taught to survive anything. SEAL: Sea, Air, Land. But today, I prayed for some good fortune.

We were dehydrated and hungry. Cassie’s lips looked ashen, her eyes tired. I was dizzy and had a headache, not sure if it was from the extreme heat, the rationing of water, or limited food, more likely from a combination of all the elements.

I motioned for her to get back on my bike. She seemed a bit shaky and I wanted nothing more but to hold her in my arms, promise her I would keep her safe. I had a fleeting thought what it would be like to protect her not just through this trip, but forever. But I didn’t make promises I couldn’t keep.

A mile turned into ten, my eyes focused on the road. Hoping for some sign of life or the smoke I’d seen in the distance.

But what I found was something better. A sign. An actual sign.

A sign with no letters—just a pictograph of a crescent shaped moon with a whale underneath.

I kicked down the stand.

Cassie’s lips brush over my ear. “Shane! This is the place I was telling you about. A moon! Meztli means moon in Nahuatl.”

Nahuatl? At this point I didn’t care what the fuck language this guy spoke, as long as he had water. But as we exited the road, the first thing I noticed was bricks—huge adobe bricks, collapsed over what seemed to be some type of dwelling.

Cassie and I drove up and took off our helmets. I pulled out my knife, I didn’t know who I was going to encounter here, even the so-called whale-whisperer. Besides, I hadn’t forgotten those motorcycle engines I’d thought I’d heard.

I motioned Cassie to stay silent. There was a decaying truck with what looked like herbs growing out of its back, a broken down motorcycle, and a stacked rock fence. I heard the distant sound of a coyote baying; the howl almost soothing. The ground had no fresh tracks, so I assumed that no one else had been here since the quake, which alleviated my fear of looters.

I decided it was safe enough to call out. “
Hola. ¿Hay alguien ahí?”

Silence. I held Cassie to my side, and pushed in the door to the hut.
“Hola.”

A Chihuahua seemed to fly out of dwelling, running frenzied in a circle, nipping at my ankles, as if she were pulling me inside.

I scanned the house, clay pots strewn everywhere, broken stone dishes. I waded through the mess to the back where I spotted a man, early fifties, long black hair streaked with silver, an ice chest pressing on his chest.

I lifted it off him, noticing the gash on his leg. “Cass, get my kit and our water.”

She ran to the bike as I laid the guy out and elevated his legs with a chair I found. I reached down to his wrist and detected a pulse. Airways, Breathing, Circulation. I pressed my ear to his mouth, and could hear a shallow breath.

I tilted his head back, and he coughed. I checked him all over for broken bones. He was lucky—I found none.

I noticed the man’s tattoo, some Aztec god. “You’re gonna be fine, old man. I’m a medic.”

He didn’t say a word but squeezed my hand. After he had a sip of water, and I cleaned and bandaged the wound on his leg, he finally spoke.

“
Tlasohkamati.
Thank you. You have a polished eye. Your woman looks like an angel.”

“Well we’ve had it pretty rough last few days. You may be able to repay us. Do you have food and water here?”

“
Mi casa es su casa
. But you’re going to have to help yourself.”

I kissed Cassie. I helped the old guy up and then I transferred him over to his mattress so he could rest. He said his name was Meztli. He told me the layout of the place; where he kept the food, the supplies, the well out back, the outhouse. I told him we’d take care of him.

My first stop was the well.

The cold water tasted so fresh and sweet. After I was hydrated, I got down to business. Still no reception on our phones. I needed to get in touch with my command and also see if my mom was okay. But for now, I just wanted to stare at this glorious sunset and drink some more water, with my angel by my side.

* * *

Meztli had recovered well enough to move around. But the best news was he had an extensive tool kit. After an hour of work, I was able to fix my satellite phone and check in with my command.

My command was fine. I had taken official leave after all and had asked for permission to come to Mexico, so I was in the clear. My buddy gave me the 411 on the quake: the epicenter had been in the desert very close to our location, and the quake registered at 7.2 on the Richter scale. There was extensive damage and casualties throughout the Baja region, but due to the ruralness of the area, the full impact of the quake was not known yet.

Of course, my buddies offered to sweep in on a helo and save us, but Meztli had an extensive supply of water and food and believed he could find the parts to fix my bike. So Cassie and I decided to take a day to rest and head to Cabo tomorrow.

We hadn’t been able to get hold of our parents. I tried to assure Cassie that they probably were also lacking reception, but Cassie was worried sick that they’d been stranded at sea, the result of an earthquake-related accident.

Cassie, Meztli, and I settled around the campfire. Some Aztec music consisting of flutes and drums played on a battery-operated tape deck. Meztli was dining on raw food, like our ancestors had. Paleo before it was trendy. I’d made some hash, smoked chicken, corn, and eggplant from his stock. I worried that Cassie would protest and refuse to eat the meat, but she must have known our bodies needed protein because she didn’t complain.

She excused herself to try the satellite phone again to call her dad. “So,” Meztli asked while he sipped his homemade blend of medicinal tea, “how long have you been together?”

“We’re not together. She’s my stepsister . . .well will be in a few days.”

Meztli gave out a hearty laugh. “Stepsister? I see the way you look at her. Your heart has become white, her heart has become white.”

I took a sip of the tea he’d made me. Tasted like licorice. “Well, it’s complicated. We met before our parents did, but I don’t need a girlfriend. She’s cool, though.”

Meztli slapped my leg. “Listen,
Huitzilopochtli,
you scratch the jade, you tear apart the quetzal feather. She is worthy of honor.”

I finished my crappy tea. Needed a break from his new-age crap. “Thanks for dinner. I’m gonna check on Cass.”

My job pressures were different than from other men’s. It would never work with Cassie. I didn’t even know how to be in a relationship, and I had no examples to emulate. Fuck ‘em and leave them. On to the next. No worries about her cheating when I was thousands of miles away from her, unable to even call. No worries about not being around to protect her. Who would want to date me anyway? I was gone most of the year, and when I was home, I was training. Cassie deserved someone who could listen to her, share her interests, someone better than me.

Besides, she was about to be my stepsister. She’d claimed I was in denial about that, and maybe she was right. I sure didn’t want to think about it. Or face it. It was too fucked up.

Now was not the time to worry about our future. I rummaged through Meztli’s tools and started working on my bike.

Chapter 39—Cassie

A little later that evening, while Shane was tinkering with his motorcycle, I sat in Metzli’s hut with him and chatted a bit. He seemed remarkably revived for someone who had been injured in the earthquake, especially considering how old he was. But I noticed that despite his age, he had strong ropey muscles, proving, I guess, that if you use it, you don’t lose it.

Metzli spoke a combination of Nahuatl, Spanish and English. When he discovered how bad I was at his two primary languages, he lapsed into English for my sake. Shane was much better with Spanish than I was.

“Is it true, sir, that you are a whale-whisperer?” I couldn’t resist asking.

His wise old eyes gazed deeply into mine. ”What the whales say to each other is beyond my understanding. But sometimes they grace me with a song.”

“What do they sing to you?”

“They sing of friendship and fellowship and long journeys through waters cold and warm, turbulent and still. They sing of love and sorrow, loss and joy. Their songs are much like the songs of men. They sing of fear, for they notice changes in the seas that they do not understand. They dream of refuge, but the race of man has taken over the seas and they know not what to do.”

“Wow. That’s so sad. I’m a marine biologist. I study the seas and the creatures that live within.”

He smiled at me. “Perhaps you are a whale-whisperer, too. Do you ever hear them speak to you?”

“Not whales, but seals and sea lions, yes, sometimes. I can recognize some of their calls, but their world remains largely a mystery to me.”

“Some things should stay mysteries,” said Metzli. “The moon would not be the same moon, if one side did not remain in the dark.”

Maybe he had a point. As a scientist, I believed in shining light upon mysteries. Explaining things. Learning, knowing. But Metzli had lived a great deal longer than I had, so I respected his wisdom.

Shane called me over and handed me one of the now-empty water canteens. “Can you fill this for me? His well’s out back. I’ll need it boiled up for the next time I change our bandages.”

“Sure thing. I saw the well. I’ll take another container and fill them both.”

“Thanks.”

I didn’t tell him that I had never operated a real well before. I doubted it was powered by electricity. But I knew the basic idea from watching frontier movies and stuff. Amazing how an earthquake could send us all back into our more primitive past. Then I reminded myself that our host lived this way all the time and, from the looks of his neat and well organized camp, he was happy with his simple lifestyle. He had a well for his water, the sea for his fish, the grains for his chickens and his plants and vegetables to supplement his meals. He had his old gods and goddesses to listen to his prayers. He had the sun and the moon and the brilliant panoply of stars. What more did he need?

I figured out the well. It worked just the way you’d expect. Bucket down, wind the crank, and bring the much heavier bucket back up. I was surprised at the strain it put on my arms and shoulders. No wonder Metzli had such powerful muscles at his age—living in a simple, primitive manner was hard work!

It had been something to watch Shane go into full EMT mode when we’d first arrived. I knew he was a corpsman, and I’d watched him check me out in the desert and tend to his own lacerations, but the old man had clearly been in bad shape after being stuck under that heavy ice chest ever since the earthquake, if that was how long he’d been there.

I was amazed at how tenderly Shane had treated Metzli. He’d spoken gently to him, words of encouragement and praise, and the old man seemed to draw strength and hope from his touch.

I’d felt a twinge of envy. Why didn’t he show that kind of tenderness to me? But I was ashamed as soon as I thought it. My feelings about Shane were starting to tumble about wildly. I didn’t understand myself, and I didn’t really want to.

This would all be over soon. Somehow we’d make it to Cabo, find our parents, do the wedding thing, and then play the roles that we’d be stuck with for the rest of our lives.

Assuming Dad was really okay. Now that we had found some sort of shelter, and the promise of food and water and maybe a way to fix Shane’s Harley, my own single-mindedness about surviving had begun to give way to other thoughts. We were going to be fine, but what about Dad and Molly? Until I heard Dad’s voice again, I wasn’t going to be able to relax.

We set up our tents as soon as the sun went down. Two tents again. I was getting so sick of that. Now that we were relatively safe, with food and water, my nerves seemed more frayed than ever. I wanted Shane to hold me, comfort me. I think I wanted it even more than I wanted sex. But I guess the food and all the excitement made us sleepy, because he didn’t stay in my tent for long before crawling out and going to his. I couldn’t even resent it, because I quickly fell into a deep sleep.

I woke up in the middle of the night, uncertain of what had awakened me. All was quiet. Perhaps another aftershock? I realized, though, that I had to pee. Metzli had a comfortable hut that he used as an outhouse, and it was not far away. So I grabbed my flashlight and left my tent.

On other nights when we’d camped, Shane had told me to wake him if I needed to relieve myself. When I’d objected that I could pee all by myself, thank you, he’d explained that he didn’t want me leaving camp without his knowing about it.