The Heart of a Hero, page 13
“Aria?”
“This isn’t happening, this . . .” She pressed her hand to her head, turned, and wandered down the hall.
He caught up to her, grabbed her shoulders. “You okay?”
Her expression looked a little wild, her eyes big. “I’m supposed to be on vacation! Drinking margaritas and sunbathing, and . . . eating raw oysters.”
“Raw oysters. Now I know how you got sick.”
“Jake!” She focused on him now. “How does this happen to me? I go on vacation and suddenly . . . I’m in trouble? It’s like—”
“Maybe you like it. Trouble.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Really? You think I like this?”
“I’m just saying—you did choose to stay here. Mimi told me that you could have flown out on the last chopper.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I love trouble. It’s my favorite thing. In fact, after I get everyone buttoned up, maybe I’ll go out and do a little surfing in the thirty-foot storm surge. Or maybe I’ll swim with sharks—by the way, I did see one on my oh-so-fun snorkeling adventure.”
“You going to blame me for that too?”
She frowned. “What—?”
“Nothing. Just, I’m not responsible for all the trouble you get in.”
She blinked at him. “No, no, you’re not.”
He stood there, and there was clearly something wrong with him, because he still wanted to kiss her, the way she stared up at him, a little spark in her eyes. She’d impressed him on the mountain with her courage. Now, he didn’t know why he liked her . . .
Except, he just couldn’t take his eyes off that little pulse in her neck. And the way she looked so small and delicious in her scrubs and—
He wouldn’t even call them friends anymore after what she said to him. But he couldn’t get his heart to stop wishing she’d stop glaring at him and let him kiss her.
She drew in a breath and stepped back from him. “I guess I owe you an apology. It didn’t even occur to me that maybe I led you on in Alaska.”
He frowned. Oh, wait— “Aria, that’s not what I was—”
“No, no, you’re right. I was . . . well, I was just like every other woman you met—”
“What? No, are you kidding me? You’re nothing like the women I—” And oh, that’s not what he wanted to say at all. “Listen, Aria, I just meant that you didn’t know you were going to fall off a mountain. Or get caught in a hurricane. Those things happen—they’re nobody’s fault.”
“Yeah, well, I’m tired of them happening to me. And people I love getting hurt because they want to, I don’t know, save me.”
And click, suddenly her anger made sense. She thought he was going to get hurt. Because her sister had died, and because of it, Aria had lived. At her core, that had to ache. He lowered his voice. “Aria, I’m not going to get hurt because I came down to Florida after you.”
“Really? Because you’re stuck here, in a Cat 5 hurricane. Because of me.”
“I came down here because I wanted to—”
“It’s a Cat 5?” Yola stood in the hallway. “Oh, I knew it. I just knew it—”
Aria turned. “It’s okay, Yola, we got this. We’ll put everyone in the chapel. Right? Okay?” She turned back to Jake. “We need to get these people to safety.” She took a breath. Smiled. And suddenly, all the panic had flushed from her expression. “Can you help me?”
Jake just stared at her. Aria had morphed right in front of his eyes, turned into a surgeon, the boss.
Huh. “That wasn’t . . . me. The real me doesn’t, well, she doesn’t do impulsive, or unexpected . . .”
Then who had he met on the mountain? The girl who laughed with him and called him Hawkeye?
The woman who had kissed him as if she’d been starving.
That woman laughed and teased and . . . lived.
“Yes. Of course,” Jake said, morphing into the operator he’d been. Because two could play at this game.
“Good. Angel’s blood pressure is back to normal, and I got a heartbeat from the baby, so she just needs to be comfortable. Mimi, however, needs her ventilator—”
“I’m on it, Doc.”
She nodded and headed down the hall.
He followed her into the patient room.
She was already piling supplies—the nebulizer, some pharmaceuticals, the leftover foodstuffs—onto Mimi’s bed. Yola was maneuvering Angel’s bed out of the room, but Angel had hopped off.
“I can walk.” She started to limp but made a sound so Jake picked her up.
“You’re such a hero, Jake,” Angel said, the puppy in her arms.
He didn’t feel like a hero. So far, he’d become a stalker, a womanizer, a troublemaker, and maybe even a jerk.
What a fun trip.
And now, he’d somehow made Aria feel like all of it was her fault.
He carried Angel down to the chapel, a tiny room with six chairs, a small altar at the front, and a cross hanging at the end of the room. He set her down on a chair. When he scooted out, Yola followed him. “What can I do?”
“Let’s get some mattresses and build us a bunker.”
They pulled off mattresses from nearby beds, dragging them into the room. Yola made a bed for Angel, one for her grandmother.
Jake retrieved his backpack from the staff room, then helped Mimi, who insisted on walking, into the room. Aria wheeled the ventilator behind her.
Outside, the wind had picked up, a terrible moan filling the corridors.
“We should get some juice.” He deposited his pack, then returned to the staff room and emptied the vending machine of the juice boxes, piling them into his shirt.
A crash sounded at the end of the hallway. He ran out and found Aria sprinting toward him, her eyes wide, wind blowing in behind her through a broken window at the end of the hall. Rain bulleted in with a howl.
Aria’s hair had turned wild around her face. “It’s here!”
And just like that, she transformed back into the woman he’d pulled from the crevasse. Unguarded, her eyes full of emotion and definitely not afraid of him as she reached out and grabbed his hand.
The wind tore through the building, shaking it, ripping papers and supplies from the nursing station.
He clutched the juice boxes in his shirt as they raced to the chapel. Then he let them fall, shut the door, and braced a mattress against it.
Aria grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him down, his back to the wall.
Hunkered down next to him.
And then, confusing him completely, she reached out and grabbed his hand, threading her fingers through his.
Ho-kay.
He tightened his hand around hers. Maybe it didn’t matter who she was in Alaska, or even in Minnesota.
She could be whomever she wanted to be, really. As long as she was alive.
And, frankly, with him.
The lights flickered off as the wind around them raised its voice and roared.
Aria leaned her head against the wall of the chapel. The A/C had cut off with the electricity, although generators were keeping the ventilators still running. Outside their tiny spiritual enclave Lucy tore at the building. It shuddered, and with it, the wind moaned, haunting the hallways with shrieks and wails.
She wanted to press her hands over her ears.
Glass shattered all over the building, tearing at the metal frames. Rain pounded the building, the storm surge outside rising and falling with what sounded like great gulps of destruction.
She drew her knees to herself. She’d take a blizzard any day.
And, please, with Jake. Because he sat with her. She’d let go of his hand, but he was close enough for her to touch, if she needed.
Oh, she needed.
She was painfully, keenly aware of the way she’d practically launched herself at Jake, holding on to him like he might be dragging her out of a crevasse.
Again.
After she’d taken his hand and escaped to the chapel, after Jake had secured the door, and after she caught her breath, she’d tucked Mimi and Yola in, making sure they had blankets, checked on Mimi’s pulse and blood pressure. She’d done the same for Angel, then crawled back over to Jake, who’d held his cell phone flashlight on her activities.
She sat on the mattress next to him, his scent radiating off him—part seawater, part male exertion, part just Jake, a sort of force of power and safety that she could recognize anywhere.
Memories of Alaska kept sweeping into her brain, especially the way he’d held her, kept her warm inside the sleeping bag as the blizzard tried to bury them.
Yeah, any sort of misbehavior, any over-her-head with them had been all her doing, because even now, the man just sat there, his hands to himself.
Oh, she wanted to weave her hand back through his. Or better, lean her head against his shoulder.
And this was why she needed to stay away from Jake. And vacations. Because somehow they always combined to find her behaving exactly opposite of herself, as if she flipped a switch and became someone else.
Became . . . well, actually, her sister, Kia.
So, “I’m ready. Tell me one of your corny jokes.”
“What?”
“A silly joke. I need one.” She was whispering, just in case the rest of the women were sleeping.
“Okay. How do hurricanes see?”
“Tell me.”
“With one eye.”
She laughed. “Okay, that was clever.”
“What did one raindrop say to the other?”
“I have no idea.”
“Two’s company. Three’s a cloud.”
She could almost see him in the darkness, leaning against the wall, his hands folded on his lap. How many times had she woken up in Alaska to see him watching her? Funny that when skies were clear, he was the storm. But in the middle of the storm . . .
He was the calm.
“Okay, here’s a riddle. What goes up when the rain comes down?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“An umbrella.”
She wished they had lights—she would have liked to see his smile. But frankly, darkness gave her a measure of safety. Allowed her to loosen the hold she had on herself.
To relax and lean a little in his direction. And maybe . . .
“Okay, Jake, this is the last time I’m going to talk about it, but . . . what happened in Alaska wasn’t your fault. I know Jenny blames you, but the fact is, sometimes . . . well, sometimes I don’t know who I am. I want to be Kia, who flings caution to the wind and embraces life in the moment. But the prudent side of me says think it through. And right there, any spontaneity dies.”
“And in Alaska, you were Kia?”
“Yeah.”
“So, Kia is your heart, and Aria is your head.”
She’d never heard it put that way, but . . . “I guess so. Because literally, you know—”
“Your heart is Kia’s. I know.” His voice was closer now, as if he’d turned to her. “But it’s not, you know. It’s yours. She gave it to you. Your heart belongs to you.”
She frowned, not sure what to say.
“I have something for you,” he said and moved away from the wall. She heard a rustling, a zip, as if he were digging into his backpack. Outside the room, the wind howled, rattling the door.
Come back, Jake.
He finally resettled next to her. His shoulder touched hers and she felt his hand trace down her arm to find her hand.
“Here,” he said and opened her hand, dropping something cool into it. “I should have given this back in Alaska, but . . . it sort of got missed.”
She ran her thumb over the coil of what felt like metal, and a flat object— “My necklace.”
“Yeah. Sorry. I put it in my shoe polish canister and forgot about it. I got you a new chain. It’s just a cheap gold one I found in the Miami airport, so if you want a better one, I’ll upgrade it.”
She fumbled with the latch—
“Here.” He found her hand again and reached for the necklace. “I’ll put it on you.”
She let him have it and turned her back to him, lifting her hair.
He maneuvered his hands over her head, his body close to hers, then latched it around her neck. The half-heart charm fell against her neck, cool and familiar.
“Now you have your heart back,” he said.
She wasn’t sure, suddenly, why his words hit her. Why, suddenly, she wasn’t sure she wanted it back. Her hand went to the charm, tracing the jagged edge with her thumb, an old habit. “My sister gave this to me on our thirteenth birthday. I have the other half at home—I could never bring myself to wear it.”
She’d turned around again but somehow ended up leaning against him.
He didn’t move away.
“You mentioned a motorcycle accident. Kia sounds like she was pretty adventurous.”
“Yeah. Completely opposite of me. We could have been fraternal twins for the differences, but I blame my faulty heart. She was born first, and she did everything first. Walked, talked, danced. Well, I never really danced—”
“You danced with me, in Alaska.”
“If I remember correctly, I stepped on your toes.”
He made a low humming noise. “I liked it.”
Oh, Jake. Stop, please. Because a rush of warmth spread through her.
She’d liked it too.
“Kia was on danceline, knew all the guys, knew how to flirt—she did all the fun things—”
“Everything you couldn’t do because of your heart.”
“I don’t know. She was brave and beautiful and adventurous. I like to read about adventures, not go on them . . .”
“I beg to differ. This from the woman who climbed Denali.”
“Yeah, see, that was for Kia. Because she would have wanted to.”
“Mmmhmm.”
“What?”
“It just seems like a lot of commitment to adventure for someone who just wants to stay home.”
She had nothing. Her hand went to her charm, ran it up the chain.
“I was really jealous of Kia.” She didn’t know where that came from, and pitched her voice low when she said it, but there it was, the truth.
And it occurred to her that Jake had this knack of pulling the truth out of her, whether she wanted him to or not.
“She used to come home after dance practice, or a date, or even some crazy thing she did and come into my room, and she’d tell me every detail. Even the kissing.”
“Yeah, that sounds like sisters,” Jake said, and she heard a smile in his voice. Then, it turned soft. “But my guess is that maybe it was hard for Kia to watch you suffer. Maybe she did all those things because she wanted you to live them too.”
She hadn’t really thought of that.
“In fact, if I understand sisters at all—and I have five of them, remember—they would do just about anything for each other. I’ll bet Kia is in heaven right now smiling down on the fact that you’ve started to live the adventures you only got to dream about.”
“With her heart beating inside me.”
“With your heart beating inside you. The one she gave you.”
She dropped the charm, his words settling inside her.
“You don’t want to hear that, do you?”
“I don’t want to think about the fact my sister had to die for me to live. And I can’t help but feel I’m a poor substitute for her.”
He said nothing then but slid his hand down to hers, took it, and wove his fingers through hers.
Squeezed.
Something a friend would do, maybe, but it ignited a fire through her, right down to her veins, the feel of his warm skin, the slight hairs of his arm brushing hers, tickling.
And right then, the awareness of him—solid, sturdy, bold, safe, sitting right next to her in this terrifying storm—swept over her.
Jake. Was here. In the storm.
Again.
Like God had decided to providentially send him.
“Jake?”
“Mmm?”
“Why did you . . . why did you come to Florida? Really.”
Silence, and in it, thunder cracked, the rain pounding, wind whistling, high and sharp.
“I just . . . didn’t want your last memory of me to be the one where I made you run away.”
Huh? But yes, maybe she had run from him. From the overwhelming sense that with this man, she was someone different.
Someone she didn’t quite recognize.
She slid her other hand over his. Then she leaned her head against his shoulder. Solid, a little sweaty, but in a second, he unlatched his hand from hers and curled it around her shoulders, pulling her against him.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Aria,” he said softly. “We’re going to get through this.”
Yeah. He’d said that before. Only earlier, he’d added, “And I promise, you never have to see me again.” She held her breath, waiting.
He didn’t add the words, and she didn’t remind him.
“Thank you, Jake,” she said quietly.
“For?”
“Everything. Alaska, but . . . I’m glad you’re here.”
He gave a little chuckle. “I’m glad I’m here too, Houlihan.”
Ham couldn’t decide between the stuffed elephant or Gaius the Roman Turtle.
He stood across the street from the Baroque cathedral in Piazza del Duomo in the Mediterranean port city of Catania, the heat of the day pouring down his back, listening to the chatter of tourists as they strolled the square.
Not the tourist attraction of Rome or Florence, Catania sat in the shadow of Mount Etna, the live volcano to the north, and was built on lava flows. Still, the city bore the marks of the modern age, with trolleys and rail trains bisecting the city, bicyclists mingling with scooters to whip in and out of traffic. The smells of the sea rose from the nearby port, but he wasn’t here to see the beach.
He stepped inside the cool shadow of a kiosk that sold plush toys of gladiators, key rings of swords, picture books that detailed the epic history of Rome, and most importantly, burner cell phones.
He pointed to a phone, then to the turtle. “Per favore.”
The dark-haired teenager handed him the items and Ham handed over the euros.
