OFF THE COAST OF
CABO SAN LUCAS, MEXICO
“I feel like I’m flying when I stand at the bow. It’s so relaxing to feel the wind in your face and hear the thrum of the engines. I could get used to this.”
Now at the stern of the forty-six-foot Bertram yacht, Lili stretched out on a padded bench seat in the shade of a Bimini top. Relaxed and happy, she inhaled the briny scent of the sea.
She did love the ocean. Maybe she’d find a beach town to live in. She could run on the beach in the mornings. Swim in the afternoons.
A memory floated through her mind and she heard his voice. You have a siren’s alluring seafoam eyes, the kind that can lure a man to death. Just like a mermaid. You have mermaid eyes. Mermaid … attributes.
Okay, maybe she wouldn’t find a beach town. Perhaps she’d like the desert.
Patsy whirled the fighting chair around to face her, her eyes sparkling. “It is heavenly here, Lili. Hot as blazes, but heavenly. The scenery is breathtaking. The food fabulous. And the fishing! I’ve never had so much fun. The entire experience has been heavenly. What a dream come true this has been. Aren’t you glad you let Celeste talk you out of twenty dollars for a raffle ticket before we left Eternity Springs? After today, I can die a happy woman.”
“But not until we get back to Oklahoma. You promised.”
“I did.” Patsy scooted out of the chair. “Because I want to keep my promise, I think I’ll go below and take a nap.”
Lili’s peaceful mood vanished. “Do we need to return to the marina? Are you—?”
“I’m fine! I’m tired! We were up before dawn! Quit being a mother hen. You promised, too, remember.”
“All right. Yes, ma’am. Enjoy your nap.”
“Catch another big fish while I’m asleep, why don’t you? That dorado you landed was nice, but I’d love for you to catch a trophy.”
Yes, well, I tried. Didn’t quite work out.
“I’ll do my best. Enjoy your nap, Patsy.”
Lili flipped a switch that turned on the boat’s misters. Celeste had been right about the heat. It was brutal. But with the breeze and the mist and a little shade, this place truly was a little piece of heaven. Closing her eyes, she murmured, “Take that, Eternity Springs.”
Almost a month had passed since she fled Colorado. She hadn’t heard a thing from Brick. When she spoke with Josh about putting her truck and trailer up for sale, he’d not said one word about his brother. She tried to tell herself that she was okay with that. Lying to herself proved difficult.
She shouldn’t have run. Not without talking to him first. Her only defense was the emotional turmoil of the day. She’d reacted defensively and acted cowardly by running. Maybe someday she’d work up the nerve to contact him and offer him an apology.
She’d stayed busy during the past weeks. Upon their return to Oklahoma City, Patsy had conceded to visiting her doctor, which led to a hospital stay. The source of her illness had been an infection unrelated to her cancer. Antibiotics cleared it up, and on the day Patsy returned home they’d received word from Celeste that they’d won the school’s fund-raising raffle.
Lili barely remembered buying the ticket. She’d certainly not recalled the prize—an all-expenses-paid trip to Cabo including a fishing trip on a private yacht. Patsy remembered everything and she’d actually jumped up and down, clapping like a schoolgirl. “It’s marlin season down there!”
So here they were. Between the two of them, they’d caught three dorado, six tuna, and a wahoo. Twenty minutes ago, after a thirty-minute battle, Patsy had landed her dream—a marlin. At 130 pounds, the fish had been on the small side for a marlin, but it was perfect for a woman in her state of health.
Lili was drifting toward sleep when she heard the ringing of her phone. “Moth-er,” she whined, but she answered it. “Hello, Mom. What has Sugar done now?”
“Oh, she’s just the sweetest thing. Dad and I took her to the dog park and she made friends with this little puppy. It was the cutest thing.”
Her mother rattled on about the dog for almost fifteen minutes, and when they finally ended the call Lili no longer felt like napping. She couldn’t get over how gaga her parents were over dog sitting. Imagine how they’d be if they ever got the chance to babysit a grandchild.
She startled when one of the crew jumped down from the flybridge. The captain throttled back the engine. “Have we hooked something?”
“No, ma’am,” the young man said in heavily accented English. “Too long without a fish. Change the bait.”
“Ah. Okay.”
Lili had thoroughly enjoyed catching that thirty-pound dorado. Ugly fish, but fun to catch. She’d been thrilled that it had been Patsy’s turn in the chair when they hooked the marlin, but Lili wouldn’t deny that she’d like the opportunity to land one of those herself. All metaphors aside.
She expected the crewman to bait the hook with another tuna. Instead, he put on it an artificial … something … unlike anything she’d seen before. “What are we fishing for with that?”
“Big fish. Trophy.”
Lili rose, intending to take a closer look at the bait, when the captain called to her from the flybridge. “Are you enjoying yourself, miss? Do you like the lunch?”
“It was fabulous, Captain. I’d love your wife’s recipe for the chilaquiles verdes.”
“I have your e-mail. I’ll make sure she sends it.”
By the time they finished talking, the crewman had the line in the water. The captain pushed the throttle and the boat started forward. Almost immediately the outriggers snapped and began to hum.
Two crewmen hopped down from the flybridge. Lili jumped to take her place in the fighting seat. The two men fired a few sentences of rapid Spanish and grinned.
“Does that smile mean it’s a big one?” Lili asked.
“Like nothing this boat has ever landed, I’m sure.”
Lili took the rod. Tested it. There was something on the line, for sure, but this had a different feel than that dorado.
She was able to rather easily crank the reel. “Are you sure it’s a fish? Not a tire or something from the bottom of the sea? This one’s not fighting me.”
Leave it to her to hook a piece of trash.
“It happens that way sometimes,” the captain said philosophically. “Fish give up the fight on different timelines. Keep reeling him in, missy. You’ve all but landed him now.”
“Okay.” She couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. This wasn’t nearly as much fun as landing Patsy’s fish had looked. “We haven’t even seen him jump.”
“Oh, he’ll jump, missy,” said a crewman. “They always jump. Keep reeling.”
She kept reeling. Finally, she spied something in the water. Definitely big. Dark. The fish was almost to the boat, but he’d never jumped. Reeling him in hadn’t taken much more than five minutes. Lili felt cheated.
“Put the rod in the holder, but stay in your seat now, missy.” The crewmen reached over the stern and pulled something out of the water and onto the back platform. She leaned over and forward, trying to see. It looked like … metal? She had caught trash!
But then something moved. Black … arms. And a head … a mask. This wasn’t a fish.
Hands braced against the platform and a body rose from the water. What in the world?
A ribbon of fear fluttered through her. This was drug-cartel-warring Mexico. Had she and Patsy inadvertently ended up in the midst of trouble? But almost before the thought formed, the diver removed his mask.
She recognized those green eyes that zeroed in on hers. Green like the mountains in summer.
Shock stole her breath. Her pulse started racing as her heart climbed to her throat. Without taking his gaze from hers, Brick unzipped his wet suit and took it off. He wore a Speedo beneath it. A Speedo and …
The first words Lili spoke to Brick in almost a month were an incredulous, “You’re wearing a tie?”
“Uncle Matt wore a tux.”
Okay, apparently that was supposed to make sense. It didn’t. But Lili didn’t really care. She drank in the sight of Brick even as she asked, “What is this, Brick?”
As he stepped into the boat, she heard the crewmen climbing the ladder to the flybridge. Brick asked, “Liliana, will you do a favor for me? I’d rather not do this when you’re seated in the fighting chair. It’s just bad karma.”
Her mouth was dry. She climbed down out of the chair and moved to the middle of the boat. Brick’s steady gaze never left her. The Bertram swayed beneath her feet from the gentle ocean swell, or maybe it was from her world being rocked.
Brick was here. For real. She wasn’t asleep and dreaming.
“Lili-fair, I have a lot to say to you. Apologies and explanations and even a few old stories. But I want to start with the most important thing first. I love you. I love you to the depths of my soul and with every fiber of my being. I’ve waited all my life for you. You complete me. You excite me. You make me dream. You’re the girl next door who waited for me to grow up, and for that I will always be grateful. Please tell me it didn’t take too long.”
“Brick … what … why … how did you get here!”
“You’re gonna make me sweat, aren’t you?” He took a step toward her so that they stood within arm’s length. “How did I get here? I’m afraid I took the long route. Turns out all I needed to do was walk to my friend’s house to the girl next door.”
“What?”
He shook his head. “Never mind. First I drove, then I flew, then I boated, and finally, I swam. I’ll crawl if that’s what it takes, Lili. Tell me I’m not too late. Tell me I didn’t blow it. Tell me you still love me. I need to hear it.”
“You broke my heart.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I was stupid. I’m a Callahan man. I’m afraid this won’t be the last time, either. But I swear I’ll try to keep it down to a minimum. I figure if the brothers have managed to keep it under control with their wives, then I should be able to do it with mine.”
Wives! “What are you saying, Brick?”
“Tell me you forgive me. Tell me you trust me. Tell me you love me.”
Her heart began to soar. A grin wanted to break out on her face, but she held it back. “You arranged this entire trip, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Me and Celeste. Look.” He moved the tie and showed her the medal hanging around his neck. “I earned my wings.”
“Congratulations.” She gave up trying to fight off her smile. “That Celeste is something else.”
Though he’d appeared completely confident, Lili hadn’t missed the tenseness in his stance or the worry line between his brows. Her smile relaxed both. A grin began to play on his lips.
My, oh my, talk about wet-guy eye candy.
“Celeste is my angel,” he said. “I went to see her the day you left. I’d known I’d screwed up by running away, but I didn’t know how to fix it. I’m just a normal guy, Liliana. We make mistakes. We develop bad habits. That’s what my whole relationship phobia was. A bad habit. My whole three-dates-and-good-bye rule had nothing to do with Tiffany. It’s how I filled my time until I met you.”
Lili’s heart went all warm and gooey. “Celeste made you see that?”
“No. The brothers did when they tracked me down at the River Camp ghost town and kicked my butt because I was about to blow it with you.”
He edged a little closer to her. “Liliana, you and I are so blessed. I don’t know that it’s been exactly fair of us to take a share of the Eternity Springs healing angel dust. What we’ve had standing between us is nothing compared to what many of our Eternity Springs friends faced. We haven’t lost a spouse or a child or had one kidnapped. So a girl dumped me and bruised my heart? So your job treated you like crap? These are normal problems that people all over the country … all over the world … face every day. You pick up and you move on. That’s what we do. But you’re a girl and I’m a guy, so you figured it out before me.”
“That’s what Celeste taught you?”
“No. I had all that figured out before I returned to Stardance. Celeste played a more important role. She is my romance angel. She helped me plan this trip.”
Lili laughed then, and he took it as a signal to close the distance between them. He put his arms around her and smiled down into her upturned face. “Give me the words, mermaid.”
She’d give him the world if she could. “I forgive you. I trust you. I love you.”
“Whew!” He pressed a fast, hard kiss against her lips. Lili wanted to pull him back down to her for something a little more satisfying, but he continued to talk. “First hurdle behind me. Now for the next.”
Releasing her, he moved to the back of the boat and opened the lid on the bait tank. Reaching inside, he felt around, keeping his back to her so that she couldn’t see what he was doing. When he turned around, he appeared to have something concealed in his fist. What in the world?
Brick moved to stand before her. He went down on one knee and Lili caught her breath. In his hand, he held a sparkling diamond solitaire. “I want our summer to last forever. Liliana, will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
Her eyes misty, she said, “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you, Mark. I’ve dreamed about it since I was nine years old.”
He rose and lifted her left hand, and as he slid the ring onto her finger Lili asked, “Did you seriously hide my engagement ring in a fish tank?”
“I’m in a Speedo, Lili. I thought it was better there than with my jewels.” His breath caressed her lips as he leaned in to kiss her. “Am I romantic or what?”