Carats and Coconuts (18 page)

“
Would you believe…,” I
started to explain, not even knowing how to say this, “on
Facebook?”

“
Facebook?!” Roman, R and my
dad all shouted in unison.

“
According to Grams, that’s
how you learn who’s bad and who’s good. ‘On that damn Facebook’ to
quote her exact words,” I said, feeling heat flush my
cheeks.

“
Hmmm…I’ll have to make a
note of that for next year’s Naughty List,” Dad said, clearly back
in his own private Santa Claus Land.

“
Let me guess…she learned
that from Maxine too?” Roman asked.

I didn’t have to say anything. My now
super hot, and probably brilliantly cherry red, cheeks gave it
away.

“
So Grams can found out
something on Facebook, and you didn’t have the decency to tell me,
knowing damn well all of our lives are at stake?!” Roman’s tanned
Italian skin suddenly looked more tomato red than sun-kissed
Mediterranean.

“
Our lives would have been
more at risk if I had told you!” I shouted at him for the first
time.

Actually, for the record, till that
moment, he’d never shouted at me either. Nothing like a couple’s
first argument to know your relationship is real.

“
No, Zoey! You’re always
more at risk from what you don’t know. It’s not what you know that
kills you. It’s what you don’t know!”

And with that, he stormed out of the
room and slammed the door.

I looked at R, who looked just as
distressed by Roman’s behavior as I was.

“
He’ll be okay. Just give
him some time.”

“
We don’t have time, R.
That’s my concern. You do know that I only withheld all this
because I care so much about all of you, right?”

“
I know that. And so does
Roman,” R stood up and started for the door. “But what you don’t
get is that your marriage isn’t just a publicity stunt to Roman. He
loves you, Zoey. And your family too. But he can’t protect you, and
neither can I, if you don’t tell us everything you
know.”

“
I’m sorry, R.”

“
Don’t tell me. Tell your
husband,” he said, then left me alone in the room.

Well, not alone. My parents were still
there via conference call.

“
I think you and your mother
here better start spillin’ the damn beans, Pumpkin,” my dad said,
calling me by the name he used when I was in trouble as a little
girl.

I didn’t know how to answer that. He
was right. Absolutely right.

“
I love you,
Pumpkin.”

“
I do too, my dear,” my mom
said, her voice clearly shaken by Roman’s outburst.

“
I love you both
too.”

“
We know that,” Dad said.
“But it sounds like there’s someone who doesn’t.”

I
waited patiently outside the lodge’s bar while Roman made it
clear to Grams that she should definitely keep up the great work on
Facebook.

Who would have ever thought that Grams
was both the dare devil of The Mom Squad, as well as the computer
hack of the bunch?

From what I could hear from where I
stood behind a large potted palm tree at the bar’s entrance, Grams
wasn’t just proficient at hacking. She was a government spy-worthy,
quant-level computer genius. A quant, who, from the way it sounded,
actually could have given Zuckerberg a run for his money creating
Facebook.

Still eavesdropping on Roman and
Grams’ conversation, I couldn’t believe she was a quant by hobby
only. Instead of spending her working years in a cubicle cracking
and hacking codes, she’d spent them in a kitchen as a Meat n’ Three
Diner queen. A-mazing.

Let’s just hope I had more skill than
Zuckerberg and Grams when it came to interpersonal
relations.

Somehow, I had to get Roman to
understand that I do care about him – a lot – and that’s why I’d
kept all this from him.

But how was I supposed to say
that?

And here’s something else I was
stewing about…

Here I was being made to
look like the asshole, but I don’t ever recall one moment in which
Roman has ever said
he loved
me
.

Nope. I’d have definitely remembered
that.

So why was it suddenly up to me to
take our relationship to another level?

“
Are you now a plant
whisperer too?”

Before I could come up with a plan,
I’d been busted behind the potted palm by my Prince.

“
What all did you hear?” I
asked.

“
Doesn’t matter what I
heard. I’m more interested in what you decide to tell me, now that
you know you’ve got my full attention.”

Damn! I hate it when he gets all tough
on me.

“
Is it hot in here?” I
asked.

“
We’re in the rainforest.
It’s always hot.”

“
How ‘bout we sit out on the
porch and get some fresh jungle air?”

Roman lifted his eyebrows and ushered
me toward the French doors which led from the lodge to a
wrap-around veranda.

We took a seat in two kudzu vine
chairs side-by-side and settled into our thoughts.

I could only imagine what he was
thinking, and where I was concerned, it couldn’t be
good.

But that’s okay. Even though I finally
realized how much I was actually in love with the guy, I didn’t
always think warm and cuddly thoughts about him either.

“
So what’s goin’ on in that
head of yours?” He asked.

“
I’d tell ya, but then I’d
have to kill ya,” I answered, twirling my hair so tight around my
pointer finger, I’d have one terrific ringlet thanks to another
steamy night in the jungle.

“
That’s my line,” Roman
said, taking my hand in his.

Even though I wanted to be mad at him,
I could never seem to get there. And I knew, even though he’d
gotten on me pretty hard back in my dad’s office, he was still my
number one fan.

And yes. I wasn’t in
denial.

I’d deserved every bit of what he’d
dished out.

Sort of.

“
You do understand why I
withheld all this from you, right?”

“
I don’t know. Should
I?”

Well damn. He’s wasn’t about to make
this any easier on me was he?

“
You want to play hard ball?
Fine. Let’s see how tough you really are,” I said, knowing right
then exactly how I was going to play this.

I looked right at him, deep into those
eyes that I’d come to think of as my home away from
home.

“
I love you.”

I said it. Just like that.

But he never so much as batted a
lash.

“
Is that all you got? All
hands played?” He asked, although his voice, now huskier and deeper
than usual, betrayed his attempt at a Bond-cool
response.

“
Yep. Everything I’ve got is
on the table with just that one card,” I said, able to hear the
tremble in my voice.

“
Well played, Plum
Puddin’.”

His eyes may have been twinkling from
the reflection of the citronella torches lining the walkway to the
lodge’s front door, but I knew they were also shining from the
inside out.

I’d never been more sure of anything
in my life. With Roman, at least, there were no more
questions.

I loved him more than anything, and I
knew that love would be reciprocated.

He brushed his lips against mine,
holding the kiss just long enough for me to feel it in my toes…long
enough for it to capture my heart forever.

“
But here’s the thing…I love
you more,” he said, then settled back into his chair and returned
to his own thoughts as I returned to mine.

This time, though, our thoughts were
bound to be much more pleasant.

At least for a little
while.

“N
ot a creature is stirring. Mousetraps, folks. Mousetraps,” I
heard Grams whispering into one of our two-way radios while seated
in the backseat of our Jeep.

She was not so patiently waiting for
Roman, R and I to join her.

“
That’s what Maxine suggests
to keep things all quiet on the home front,” she said, and I still
didn’t know if she was talking to me or the trees in the forest or
her imaginary friend on the other end of her radio.

I decided I’d answer her anyway while
I climbed into the front passenger seat.

“
You’re not at home and
things are far from quiet around here.”

All at once, I noticed a huge colorful
prism bouncing off the chrome trim of the Jeep’s
dashboard.

I turned around to find Grams holding
up to the sunlight a large aquamarine, sending still more radiant
prisms bouncing off every reflective surface around us.

“
Give me that! Where did you
get it? And what the hell are you thinking – or not – waving that
thing around? Do you want to get us all killed?!”

“
Relax, Psycho. It’s an
aquamarine. They’re meant to protect us in our travels against all
the perils and monsters of the sea,” she said, as if she were
reciting a Wikipedia description.

“
We’re not out at sea. We’re
in the rainforest.”

Although, I had to give it to her,
there were plenty of monsters in our world too.

“
But we
are
goin’ fishin’, so there’s the
water tie-in,” she crooned

She had me on that point.

“
I wonder if aquamarines are
sacred to the Sol Larga like they were to Neptune and thus the
Greeks of 300 B.C.?” She asked.

Little did she know, and I wasn’t
about to give her this little nugget of info, but not only were
aquamarines considered sacred to the Sol Larga, they were their
most prized gemstone. The naturally occurring deep blue aquamarines
found here on their land were beyond rare and brought amazing
prices.

That was the significance of Stanley
stealing The Witherspoon Blue Moon diamond. He was simply sending
us a message regarding his true intentions. It wasn’t about the
diamond. That’s why he gave it back. It was about the other blue
gems that could be found here, beyond the Coconut Highway, blue
stones worth much more than that perfect blue diamond.

To the Sol Larga, aquamarines were
also a large part of their medicinal arsenal. They were used as
antidotes to poisons. Plus, their soothsayers used them as magic
mirrors to look into their future.

“
I’m going to take the fact
that you’re not answering me, along with the fact that your panties
were in a bunch over me fiddling with one, as a sign that these
aquamarines are vital to us making it out of here alive,” Grams
said in a very matter-of-fact tone, as if it really wasn’t a big
deal and either outcome was okay with her.

“
I just don’t think you’re
taking all this as seriously as you should. We’re in a lot of
trouble down here,” I said.

I was fairly annoyed at this point
that Grams could always be so cavalier about our
predicaments.

“
Honey, I’m old. I take
every day seriously because any one of ‘em could be my last. But
that’s also the reason why I totally don’t give a shit. I’m just
gonna live it up and hope for another awesome adventure
tomorrow.”

How could you argue with
that?

I reached my hand behind the seat and
squeezed her bony hand.

“
You’re right,
Grams.”

“
Duh. And besides, today’s
the day,” she said, then cackled like a witch who’d just concocted
her best spell yet.

“
So you’ve gone from quoting
Maxine to Mel Fisher?” I asked, thinking we were a long way from
Mel’s Emerald City of Atocha emeralds, twenty miles west of the Key
West Coast.

The stones we were after were every
bit as valuable as the estimated two billion dollars worth of his
still unrecovered cache.

I could only hope that Grams
was right that “Today’s
the
day” and not our last day.

T
he
Sol Larga Indians spend very little time on agricultural endeavors.
They spend almost all their time either fishing or
hunting.

Today, we were meeting Chief Valente
on the banks of one of his favorite fishing spots.

Since we had proof his home was being
staked out by Fosito’s men, Roman, R and The Chief agreed that it
would be safer to meet here than having us all show up in their
village.

We sat with Chief Valente while he
prepared the special arrows the Sol Larga use to shoot at fish from
the riverbanks.

As we talked, several of the young Sol
Larga boys, barely old enough to walk by themselves but carrying
their own miniature, handmade bows and arrows all-the-same, chased
butterflies and lizards.