Waterborn (The Emerald Series Book 1) (9 page)

I
didn’t see
the bird until it was too late.

Erin had insisted I meet her for lunch so here I was, soaked with sweat from my ride over, sipping a Diet Coke and wishing I had worn a hat and a pair of sunglasses. Heat poured down from the sun shining bright overhead.

Erin was sitting at one of the picnic tables on the other side of the bird exhibit—an exhibit that had been closed the last time I was here. I passed the wooden sign with the picture of a parrot, confident I was in no danger. Only this time the exhibit wasn’t empty. I don’t know why the bird picked that particular moment to let out an ear-piercing screech, and maybe if it hadn’t flapped its wings, I could have walked on by without incident. But as it were, I was pretty sure I screamed. I know I threw my Diet Coke at it, hoping to distract it from gouging my eyes out with its beak. My arms cradled my head, and I ran in a zigzag pattern like bombs were falling and my life depended on me taking cover.

After I stopped screaming like a two-year-old at a clown party, I slowly raised my head from the protective cover of my forearms. I let them fall back to my sides and did my best to act natural. Maybe no one had seen me. Or heard me. Fortunately, most of the tourists were preoccupied with more entertaining activities with the exception of Noah. I barely contained an audible moan. He was standing by the vending machine, laughing at me. Well, not out loud, but I could tell he wanted to, that maybe he was laughing on the inside.

“Are you laughing at me?” I managed to squeak, hating the way the word “me” had come out high-pitched and shrill.

“You got a problem with birds?” He leaned down and retrieved a bright orange Gatorade from the mouth of the machine.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” I said and slowly began a backward retreat. The bird was still staring at me with tiny black eyes, and I was reluctant to turn my back on it. Deep down I knew better. I had seen enough episodes of Funniest Home Videos to know to never, under any circumstances, walk backward in public. Especially when there was a pool nearby or a “petting zoo” full of horseshoe crabs, stingrays, and nurse sharks. The fact that Noah was actually smiling was my first clue of impending disaster. He just stood there with an expectant smile on his face as if waiting for—

The back of my knees hit something solid. They buckled and I collapsed like I’d made a wrong move in a game of Jenga. The last thing I saw were my orange toenails against a blue sky before water plunged over my face. My back hit the cement bottom of the pool. Something slithered under my arms and butt. Then a massive amount of flailing and spitting ensued on my part in an attempt to regain my balance. Thank God a pair of strong hands gripped me by the arms and hauled me to my feet. Water gushed all around me.

“You okay?” Noah’s grip loosened and I danced around in full-blown panic mode.

“Is it on me?” I twisted around, trying to get a good look at my backside while swatting wildly with my arms. “Is anything on me? Did it sting me?” I had nightmarish visions of a horseshoe crab attached to my ass.

“Nothing stung you,” he said around a real smile, but the effect was lost because my knees were already weak.

This could not have just happened. I could not have embarrassed myself this badly.

“Now I’m laughing.” His fingers on my elbow were gentle as he guided me to a nearby bench. He had picked up the bag I had dropped and placed it on the ground next to our feet. “You got to admit, that was pretty funny.”

Of course it was funny.

“No thanks to you.” The palms of my hands were plastered to my face. “You could have warned me.”

“Uh, no way. I’m the bully, remember?”

“How many people saw that?” I fanned my fingers just enough to gauge the size of the crowd. They were like sunburned zombies, laden with boxes of popcorn and cherry Icees, shuffling mindlessly from the concession stand to the next exhibit

“Not many,” he said, casually looking over each shoulder. “No more than fifty.”

My shoulders shook with silent laughter. Noah wasn’t so quiet about it. He had a really nice laugh. He seemed so serious all the time that maybe it had been worth the humiliation just to make him laugh. His long legs stretched out in front of us, his skin smooth and hairless. He sat next to me like he had nothing better to do than save me from myself. I was still dripping, creating a small pond under the bench, but I didn’t want to get up yet. A little girl strolled past us, two pudgy hands clutching a lollipop as big as her head. She stared straight at me, a big grin on her sticky blue lips. Great, even the five-year-olds were laughing at me.

“Wow, Caris. That was some show,” Erin said as she walked up to the bench.

“Go ahead, laugh.” I threw my hands up.

She did. Then she leaned down and put one hand on my leg for balance while the other hand reached for her sunglasses. She slid them down her nose so she could peer at me from over the top of the frames. Her eyes, big and brown and mischievous, cut to Noah as if she’d set the whole bird thing up. I guess she would take credit for me falling into the pool too.

“I guess you want to sit here for a few minutes and dry out.”

No, she wasn’t being the least bit obvious.

“Good idea,” I agreed. “I guess we’ll have to do lunch another time.”

“Yeah.” She pushed her sunglasses back up her nose. “I need to get back to work anyway. I’ll call you later.” She looked over at Noah. “See you later, Noah.” She practically sang his name as she walked back toward the shop.

“Bye,” we said at the same time.

My stomach growled under my wet shirt.

“Cheeseburger or fish taco?” Noah pushed from the bench, shading the mid-day sun with his body, a body that begged my eyes to look and they were all too happy to comply.

“What?”

He’d asked me a question and I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was. I had never really gotten into guys that wore jewelry before, but Noah’s bracelets looked kind of sexy, the pearls a delicate contrast to his strong wrists and arms. I couldn’t make myself look away. Who knew wrists could be so distracting?

“Would you prefer a cheeseburger or a fish taco?”

Either. Both. With a voice like that, did I even need food? Evidently my stomach did because it growled again.

“Cheeseburger sounds good.” My eyes traveled up the length of him, lean hips blooming into broad shoulders where golden hair cascaded over his collarbone. I blushed. I knew good and well what that hair felt like. I had a stash of it underneath my pillow that demanded to be touched.

“Be right back.” He walked to the concession stand, and I watched the sway of the palm leaves on his board shorts. He didn’t get in line, but instead walked around to the back of the trailer.

I picked at my wet clothes while he was gone and tried to finger comb my hair into something that didn’t resemble a wet mop. I probably had mascara smudged under my eyes, so I wiped at them with my fingers. It wasn’t long before he returned with both hands full. He sat back down on the bench, so close my thigh grazed up against his. The hand closest to me was clutching a cheeseburger—I could see the cheese melting against the paper wrapping—and he had a fish taco in the other.

“So, I guess this makes us even.” He held the cheeseburger out to me as though it was a peace offering.

“Even?” My fingers closed over the wrapper. It was just the slight touching of fingertips, but I felt the heat of it all the way up my arm.

He didn’t immediately pull his hand away, and I wondered if he would make me play tug of war for it.

“Yeah,” he said with a tilt of his head. “You came to my rescue, I came to yours.” He slid his hand away, letting me claim my lunch.

I set the cheeseburger in my lap and started to peel the paper away. I kind of wanted to tell him I had his hair but that sounded creepy to me. Creepier, that I liked having it under my pillow while I slept. So I said nothing and sank my teeth into my cheeseburger.

“It wasn’t the smartest move though.” He threw out reluctantly.

It took me a minute to respond. I had to swallow my bite of cheeseburger first. “What wasn’t the smartest move?”

“Interfering in a fight between a bunch of guys you didn’t know with nobody else around.” His eyes fell on mine and my heart started thumping so loudly I was afraid he might hear it.

“Jax had a knife,” I said in my defense, surprised I could speak at all under the weight of his gaze. “I thought he was going to slit your throat. What kind of person would I be if I stood by and watched?”

“A smart one,” he said then wisely averted his eyes and watched a group of kids pass by. One of them had on a birthday hat and they were all holding hands as though they were playing a game of Red Rover.

“Are you calling me dumb?” I said loud enough to be heard over the kid's squeals and laughter.

“No. I’m just saying there might have been a safer solution than running into a situation you knew nothing about with guns a blazing.” Sarcasm dripped off those last three words. Then his eyes cut upward as if he had a sudden thought. “Oh, that’s right. You didn’t have any kind of weapon.”

Was he lecturing me?

“Don’t talk to me about safety. You were the one pinned on the ground with a knife held to your throat.” I took another bite of my burger.

He handed me one of the napkins he had bunched in his back pocket. I took it and watched his jaw tighten while I wiped the ketchup off my mouth. He let out a snort of impatience.

“What about when you offered me a ride?” Blond brows scrunched together over a pair of scorching eyes. He was actually mad I had tried to help him. At some point this conversation, or argument, or whatever it was, had turned into a game that I was determined to win.

“Need I remind you, at the time, you were in no condition to do harm to anyone.” I narrowed my eyes at him as I crumbled the empty wrapper in my hand.

“That might be true and it might not. The point is you had no way of knowing one way or the other. You could have been hurt.”

He was right of course. I had even given consideration to what my dad would have thought about me offering a complete stranger a ride, one that I had suspected might have been on drugs. It hadn’t stopped me though. I had known the minute I had looked into his
Return to Paradise
eyes that I could trust him.

“You would never hurt me,” I said with blind conviction.

The anger fled from his eyes like a defused bomb and his face softened into an expression that slayed me where I sat, turning me into a puddle at his feet like the one under the bench.

“No, I wouldn’t,” he said, the words a softly spoken promise. Then his cheeks flamed, and he returned his attention to his taco. He hadn’t even taken a bite yet, and I’d scarfed down an entire cheeseburger. We sat in silence while he ate, the sun warm on my legs, and I thought being able to sit here sharing lunch with Noah was worth every bit of embarrassment I’d endured earlier. And I thought it was sweet that he had been worried about me. That he had thought about me at all.

“You’re right. My dad would kill me if he knew I’d let you in the car.”

He didn’t seem to take much satisfaction in me conceding him the point. He did finish his taco and like me, crumpled the paper in his fist. I almost panicked when he stood because I had no real reason to hang around anymore.

“Give me your trash.” He held his hand palm up, and when I looked up into his face, it felt like an apology for the way he’d acted that day at the dolphin tank. It had only been a few days ago and I already looked at him as though he were a different person. Maybe we were friends now. I hoped so.

When he got back from throwing our trash away we stood facing each other in an awkward silence. His eyes traveled down my body. The one advantage of short hair was that it dried fast. My shirt was still damp though and clinging to me in all the wrong places. I tugged at it self-consciously.

“Come on.” He jerked his head back over his shoulder. “I’ve got a dry shirt you can have so you don’t have to ride home wet.”

As hot as it was, I would probably dry out pretty quick on the ride home. I didn’t tell Noah that, though. I wasn’t giving up the chance to spend an extra few minutes with him.

Wind tunneled down the walkway, catching wisps of his hair. I felt my own hair lift in the tiny whirlwind. Noah held the gate open, and I paused in amazement. My hair could never be considered long and had certainly never caught in the breeze quite like this before. Noah reached out with his free hand, guiding a few tendrils of it off my cheek.

“You okay?”

I stared up at him with a growing ache in my chest. This feeling was stupid, I’d given up on the idea of ever having long hair, resigning myself to pixie status. But the simple gesture nearly brought tears to my eyes.

And then I thought I could tell him. I could tell him the truth. Because I had to tell somebody.

“No.”

“
N
o
.”

That one word coming off her lips was the saddest sound I’d ever heard. A question, a confession, a cry for help all rolled up in a single syllable. I could see it in her eyes. I could feel it in the way she trembled when I dared to touch her. It was just her hair, just her cheek, but she looked like she was about to come unglued. I had no idea how to help her.

Caris closed her eyes and I watched as she waged a war within herself. Whether to collapse under the weight of unanswered questions or pull herself together and pretend like there was nothing wrong. Years of pretending had made her good at it.

When she opened her eyes, the threat of tears was gone. She blinked and the moment of vulnerability vanished. It was like the fog of uncertainty evaporated under the bright light of her smile and the dismissive wave of her hand.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

She made a big show of looking at the sign on the gate. “You’re sure?” She looked up at me, eyebrows high under the fall of her hair. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“Go on, smarty pants.” I jerked my chin in the direction of the tank.

“Oh, so now I’m smart.” She actually skipped through the gate and right up to the tank where Ellie was floating in her corner, held there by stubbornness and rebellion.

Caris rested her arms on the lip of the tank, fingertips barely dangling in the water. The question sat right on the end of my tongue. How did she stay out of the water? I knew she didn’t swim, I just didn’t know
how
she didn’t swim.

She absentmindedly scratched at the parched skin on her arms. Thirsty was how it looked, a shade or two darker than that first day I’d seen her lying on the beach. Now that I was close, I could see the gold flecks in her gray eyes. Her nose and cheeks were sprinkled with freckles. I bet she hated them, but at least she didn’t try to cover them up with a bunch of makeup. I couldn’t even decide if I thought she was pretty.

“What’s wrong with her?” She nodded at Ellie who still floated stubbornly in her favorite corner.

“She’s depressed.” My fingers dragged through the water.

Caris sighed, a heartfelt breath of understanding. Her hand joined mine in the water, fingers splashing as a low hum teased her lips. If the Song in her head held a certain power over me, the sound of the real thing washed over me in a slow wave, threatening to pull me under like the unyielding current of an undertow. My whole body tensed in response, my mind telling me to fight it, but at the same time some part of me wanted to let it take me away. What did this girl want from me?

Ellie responded too and abandoned her corner, making one slow, lazy circle around the pool. She stopped under Caris’s hand, bumping it with the top of her head. Caris laughed and looked up at me.

“She trusts you,” I said.

A tide of pink washed up her neck and colored her cheeks. Yeah, she was pretty. Breathtaking, really. I had to move before I did something stupid like kiss her. I also had an idea that gave me a chance to put some space between us. I walked into the storage building and grabbed one of the buckets of fish. Fish Ellie had refused to eat. If I didn’t get Ellie to eat soon, we would have to resort to feeding her intravenously. That was never a good thing.

“I want to try something.” I motioned for Caris to join me on the training platform.

She was skittish at first, eyeing the tank of water as though it were full of sharks. I tossed one of the fish into the tank. Ellie ignored it, drifting right past it.

“You try.” I held the bucket between us.

She scrunched up her face, reached inside the bucket, and grabbed one of the fish between her index finger and thumb, careful not to touch more of it than she had to. She tossed it in the tank. Ellie went straight for it and swallowed. Figured.

“That’s good, right?” Caris fished in the bucket for another one.

“Right.” I put the bucket down and let Caris continue to feed Ellie. It seemed even Ellie couldn’t resist her.

“This must be a great way to pick up girls.” Caris tossed her another fish, and Ellie gobbled it up, the moody bitch. It was hard not to take it personally.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s better than having a puppy. You bring girls out here and let them swim with Ellie. It’s a deal sealer. What girl could resist?” She bit her lip as though she wished she could take the words back.

“You want to swim with Ellie?”

“No.” She shook her head as panic swelled in her eyes. “That’s not what I meant. Forget it.”

“You can if you want to.” It wasn’t a bad idea. Ellie clearly liked her. It might even be good for her. For both of them. Was that the reason she didn’t swim? She was scared? Could a charm make her scared to swim? “Might be a good idea actually.”

“I don’t. Really.” Her eyes cut back to the tank and I witnessed that war she waged again. She wanted to swim. I could feel her longing, hear it in the pleading tone of her Song.

“Caris?” Her eyes widened when I said her name. “What’s wrong?”

She opened her mouth to respond then shut it again. I didn’t know how to reassure her, not without scaring her more. I couldn’t just come out and tell her there was nothing to be afraid of, that she was born to swim. She let out a long breath and looked me right in the eyes.

“I can’t swim,” she said.

“What do you mean you can’t swim?” The words left a bad taste in my mouth. What she said was impossible—unthinkable for someone like her.

“I mean sinking, drowning, all of it.”

Is that what her nightmares were about? Drowning? Another impossibility.

And now I was a little scared because I’d never heard of a charm powerful enough to do that. And I flat out didn’t believe her. “How do you not know how to swim? You’re a…”
Waterbreather,
I finished to myself.

“Because I just don’t. Never learned how.” She was getting defensive, and I could well understand, except I didn’t.

“Well, have you ever tried?” Maybe the solution was that simple. God, I hoped so.

“Yes. No. Kind of,” she sputtered.

What the hell kind of answer was that? I took a step closer to her. The thought formed in my mind before I really had time to consider the consequences. It was the way we all learned. Granted, we were babies, but it couldn’t be all that different.

I pushed her.

Gently, with the tips of the fingers of one hand, but she fell in, and then I watched her sink straight the the bottom, which was probably normal. Instinct would kick in any second. She didn’t move other than the frantic bicycling of her arms. Her Song wailed like it had on the night of her nightmare and my blood ran cold. Ellie darted around, agitated. I could see her bumping up against Caris. Why wasn’t this working? Something was wrong.

I dove in, grabbed Caris around the shoulders, and pulled. Or tried to. She didn’t budge. It was as if something held her down and wouldn’t let go. I planted my feet on the bottom of the tank, pushing for all I was worth off the bottom. Whatever clung to her let her go and we surged out of the water, landing on the platform in the rush of a small tidal wave, arms and legs tangled. She gasped and coughed and I flipped her over, pounding on her back with the flat of my hand. What the hell just happened?

She turned herself over and slapped my hands away.

“I’m so sorry, Caris. You just… God, I’m sorry.”

“What is wrong with you?” She choked out the words. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“Yes, I heard you. I just thought… Hell, I don’t know. I’m sorry.” I thought she’d swim was what I’d thought.

“Would you stop looking at me like that? I’m sorry I’m not a candidate for the Olympic swim team. Not everyone was born part fish.”

I wanted to argue that point but it would have been a waste of time. She would never believe me. Her body had no idea what to do. Or maybe she would believe me. She had to know something, feel something was different about her. I just didn’t know if it was my place to tell her. And this was more than not being able to swim. Her body didn’t know how to breathe either. That could hurt her. Kill her.

“That’s not the point. You sank. Like a… Shit Caris, I’ve never seen anything like it.” My hands gripped my knees to keep them from shaking. “And would you please shut up,” I yelled over my shoulder at Ellie.

“What’s wrong with her?” Caris rolled herself off the ground and wiped the hair out of her face

“She’s pissed at me.”

Ellie flipped over then flicked her tail in the air in dismissal, the gesture unmistakable.

“I think she just gave you the finger,” Caris said and started laughing—a hysterical laugh that didn’t quite hide her fear. I wasn’t ready to laugh yet. All I could think about was the potential danger to her. And the fact that I’d pushed her without thinking.

“She’ll get over it.” I wasn’t sure I would. My eyes roved over her body. Saltwater ran in rivulets over her smooth skin. I wanted so badly to touch her, but I didn’t trust myself. Less than an hour ago I had promised not to hurt her and that was the first thing I had done. Not that it had been on purpose, but still, it was a dick move. “Does that happen every time?”

“Pretty much.” She shrugged like it was no big deal, but I knew that to be a lie.

I was proven correct in the next instant when she burst out crying.

“Hey. It’s okay.” I had to touch her now because the sound of her crying did something to my insides, churned them up and made my chest ache. When I put my hand on her shoulder she turned toward me and basically collapsed against my chest. I wrapped one arm around her and tucked her close to my side, resting my chin on the top of her head. I let her cry it out, the sound sparking anger. Not at her, but at whoever had done this to her. I pressed my mouth to the top of her head. Her scent was there, hidden under the minty smell of her shampoo. I could smell her, the salty, sweet smell of the girl she was born to be.

When she pulled herself together, she pushed away from me, wiping her eyes with her hands, embarrassment keeping her from looking at me.

“I’m sorry for crying all over you. This isn’t normal.” She pointed to the tank where Ellie swam in easy circles. “That wasn’t normal.” Her eyes were still wet with tears when she looked at me. She might as well have punched me in the gut. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing is wrong with you.” I wanted to tell her she was perfect. Dripping wet and red faced from crying, she was beautiful. I wondered how I’d ever thought maybe she wasn’t pretty. I wondered how I’d ever thought I could hate her. “And you don’t want to be normal. Normal is overrated.”

Especially around here.

“That’s easy for you to say. You seem pretty normal to me.” She rose to her feet, gathered her hair at her neck, and squeezed out the excess water.

I had to laugh. If she could have seen me the day she had called me back from the Deep she wouldn’t have said that. And it stung that she would say it now. Was that how she saw me? As normal? Mundane like Jax and his friends? It kind of made me want to jump in the pool with Ellie, or steal her away to the Deep and show her just how not normal I was. How not normal she was.

I’d show her normal. “I’ll get that shirt.”

“
Y
ou don’t have
to do this.” Caris stood by Betty, protesting for the third time.

For the third time I ignored her. Once she’d unlocked her bike, I’d confiscated it and loaded it in the back of Betty. I figured I at least owed her a ride home after pushing her in the tank. And because that was what a normal guy would do: offer a girl he liked a ride home. And I had to admit now that I did like her.

“It’s done. Get in.” I shut the back of the Bronco. I followed her around to the passenger door and opened it for her. She looked up at me with an odd expression on her face.

“Don’t you ever wear shoes?”

We looked down at my feet and I squished my toes together.

“Rarely,” I said. “When the occasion warrants.” I shut the door and jogged to the driver’s side. When I got in, she had her phone in her lap and was frowning at the screen.

“Something wrong?” I turned the ignition over then waited for her to put her seat belt on.

“Not really. Ally invited me to go out on a boat this weekend.” The hint of longing in her voice scared me.

Hell no. The last thing she needed to do was put herself on a boat. I forced calmness into my voice. “You do know that’s not a good idea, right?”

“Yeah, my dad and I are supposed to do something together anyway.” She put her phone back in her bag and leaned her head back, letting the wind blow on her face.

I’d never had a girl in the Bronco before. I’d barely been in it myself. No more than a handful of times including today. I’d never bothered to get a driver’s license.

Caris cradled her bag in her lap over the t-shirt I’d given her to wear. The t-shirt was old and faded, and had a cheesy picture of a sunset on the front. Somehow she made it look good. I was having a hard time not staring.

“I’m really sorry for pushing you in the tank.”

“Noah, you can stop apologizing now. It’s okay. I’m over it.”

She didn’t look over it. Her skin had a sheen to it that hadn’t been there before and excitement flashed in her silver eyes. They looked more silver now than gray. “Energized” was how I would describe the way she looked, which made perfect sense. One short stint in the saltwater and already she looked different. Subtle differences that I doubted she would notice. Caris, who wanted to be normal, had no idea she was a ticking time bomb of not normal.

“Nice ride, by the way.”

I had the top off on the Bronco and the wind was warm under the afternoon sun. I wouldn’t have been able to stand the closed confined space otherwise. My bedroom still felt stifling, and I’d been sleeping on the beach most nights, when I slept at all. Which, after running into Sol last night, had been zero hours.

“Thanks.” I white knuckled the steering wheel. “She was my dad’s, then my brother’s.” I kept my eyes on the road, hoping she didn’t detect the slight quiver in my voice. It was the most I’d said about him in days. For some reason I just needed her to know. “He called her Betty.”