Tia

The skill in which Emerson handles the rough Pacific waters amazes me. Huxley and I try to stay upright as waves crash against the side of the boat, but Emerson looks like Poseidon himself, his legs steady, body poised like the boat isn’t taking on the largest waves I’ve ever seen.

I forget his Norse ancestry for a moment and only see him as a Greek god battling the ocean like he was born from the salty depth.

His long hair whips frantically around his face, and his turquoise eyes remain fixed on the watery expanse in front of him.

Huxley, on the other hand, looks like he’s going to be sick. I don’t feel a hundred percent myself, but the myosotis parviflora tea that Em insisted, no demanded, I drink before we departed has helped. Morning sickness combined with seasickness, and I should be violently ill.

But I’m not.

While I’m still not convinced that the plant holds a miracle cure for my pregnancy, I am starting to wonder if it doesn’t hold some medicinal properties.

Plants were the first drugs used. Even primitive people knew the power that nature provided.

Chamomile, echinacea, lavender. They each can ease different ailments and discomforts. But herbal remedies were never considered while I was growing up at Saint Augustine’s. There, the only cures are synthetic.

Maybe as a species, we’ve gone so far to the left, we’ve forgotten the right. That before laboratories there were apothecary shops, mortar and pestle ground cures collected from the Earth.

There is no doubt that the myosotis parviflora has helped with my nausea.

Could it help with more?

Huxley teeters from side to side as he makes his way below deck.

“You should go down with him,” Emerson shouts above the howling wind. “There’s a storm coming in.”

“You’re okay up here by yourself?”

He gives a small grin, and a shake of his head like he can’t believe I just asked that question. “I’ll be fine.”

I kiss his cheek before following Huxley below. He’s on his phone when I enter the small bedroom, but he ends the call when he sees me.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“Yeah. Just making some arrangements for when we dock.” He groans and reaches for the wall to steady himself as the boat rocks.

“Why don’t you sit down,” I say, seeing his face turn a shade of gray.

He grunts. “I’m fine.”

The boat rocks again and this time, even I lose my footing.

“You need to sit down,” Hux says, capturing me around the waist, and helping me sit on the bed.

I relax in his arms, somehow managing to fall asleep, but when I wake, it’s to shouting.

“Huxley,” Emerson’s voice carries from above. “Get up here.”

Hux frowns at me, before shifting off the bed and heading up to the top deck.

The waves continue to beat against the boat, and I can hear them yelling above.

“The water is too rough to dock,” Emerson shouts when I poke my head up, water splashing over the side of the boat and soaking both of my husbands to the core. “Stay below deck.”

I want to help, but I know this is one area that I’m useless.

“Can we dock over there where the lights are?” Hux screams through the whipping winds.

Em shakes his head. “That’s the coast guard.”

Part of our mission means coming onto the mainland undetected.

Before I have time to turn around and make my way back below deck, a giant wave blankets the boat, sending me flying backward.

“Tia,” Em screams. “Huxley, help her. I can’t let go of the wheel.”

Huxley is beside me almost instantly, helping me up as we’re doused with another cold shower of salty water that leaves me sputtering and the floor of the boat flooded with water.

“I have to take us in,” Em screams. “Brace yourselves. It’s going to be rough.”

Hux surrounds me, keeping me steady as Em fights the ocean to get us safely to shore.

There’s a sickening crunch as the boat jolts to a stop. And when Huxley leads me upstairs I know that the sound was rocks ripping apart the side of the vessel.

Emerson is immediately on me, large hands fumbling down my arms, my face, my body. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re sure?”

I nod. “But the boat?”

He glances over at Hux and grimaces. “We’ll figure it out.”

Huxley looks down at his phone and starts scrolling. “We’re twenty miles north of the city. I have a guy coming to pick us up.”

Emerson finds blankets, which he wraps around my shoulders as we wait on the beach for the ride that will take us into town. I try to ignore the knot of worry in my belly. Just how many people does Huxley know?

It doesn’t take long before we’re in a warm car, with thick, dark windows. Huxley sits in the front next to his contact, and in the back, Emerson wraps his arms around me. “Maybe this was a mistake,” he mutters. “If something had happened to you…”

I bury my face in his chest, shivering from the cold. “Don’t,” I whisper. “Don’t doubt the plan now.”

“Tia, you could have been thrown overboard.”

“I wasn’t though, was I?”

He kisses the top of my head and I hear the fast beating of his heart. He is scared in ways I’m not. I swallow, doubting my motives, wondering if I am pushing the men I love too far. Maybe I’m leading my gentle lion astray, forcing him to take me to a dark jungle when he should stay at the water’s edge.

Before I can say anything more, the car stops in front of a luxurious, five-star hotel. I remember being here once before, for a gala honoring my father’s achievements. Lawson was my date that night. He gripped my arm as he led me around the ballroom as if I was his property. Because I was his property. But those memories mean nothing to me, I no longer feel small because of the way they treated me. I don’t need them. I never did. Now I know true, unconditional love. My husbands will protect me until the bitter end.

Still, when Huxley takes my hand as we exit the car, I duck my head, letting my still-wet hair cover my eyes. If my father hears that I am here, I don’t doubt that he would kidnap me, force me into his laboratories. Test my fetuses until he gets what he wants.

Exhausted and cold, as soon as we’re in the hotel room that Huxley procured, I go into the bathroom, ignoring the ornate, heated marble floors. Unfazed by the lush towels and bathrobes. No amount of wealth can buy me what I am after.

What I have always been after.

Freedom.

My husbands are in the living room, discussing what they should do with the boat, but my mind is too exhausted to help them formulate the next step. I strip down, then step under the warm spray of water in the shower.

Still, I hear them over the running water. Huxley and Em arguing in the bedroom. The boat is totaled. Which means we’re going to have to find a new way to get home.

“I can’t just snap my fingers and have a new boat ready for us.” Huxley’s voice carries.

Emerson says something that sounds just as defeated.

I know he blames himself, but there was nothing he could have done differently. All three of us are lucky to be alive with how quickly the storm came in.

Huxley and I should be praising him, rather than freaking out about how we’re going to get home.

I poke my head out of the shower and yell to them. “Would you both stop your arguing and get in here. I’m going to need more than a hot shower to warm me up.”

A small chuckle escapes my lips when almost instantly my husbands are in the room, stripping down.

They may disagree on a hundred and one different things, but there’s always one thing I know that can unify even the most stubborn of them -- me.