Chapter Twenty-Six #2
However, I wasn’t sure I wanted to swim with sea turtles either.
I’d never seen one in real life, but like two-thirds—that was a rough guesstimate, but I figured it was close enough—of the population had seen them on TV.
Those fuckers were huge. I couldn’t remember the size of their mouths, and with a possible dip into the water on the horizon, I wasn’t going to think about it.
“If you looked at the map, would you be able to locate the house Carlos took you to?”
I glanced at Calista. She was nodding and holding her hand out to Jack.
“Here, take my seat,” I offered, so she could sit next to Jack.
As soon as I pushed to a stand, a wave of nausea hit, and I swayed.
“Jesus,” Mason mumbled. “We need to get her off this boat.”
I barely fought back repeating Calista’s earlier retort—no shit, Captain Sherlock. Instead I opted to flip him the bird.
“I’m fine.”
I wasn’t.
I was ready to jump overboard and take my chances swimming with the turtles.
Mason took pity on me and grabbed my arm to steady me. “Here, sit by me.”
Calista moved from the port side to sit next to Jack. Mason guided me starboard. For the record, “guided” was an understatement. He practically dragged me to his side.
Once I was seated, Mason leaned close and whispered, “The trick is to focus on something stationary in the distance.”
The only trick that was going to work was getting off the rocking boat.
I didn’t say that. I stared at the lights coming from the village and breathed deep while I listened to Calista tell Jack about what she saw and what turns she remembered before she’d arrived at Carlos’s cousin’s house.
At least, we assumed it was the cousin’s place, though it could’ve been anyone’s.
But the bottom line of it was, it was a house we wanted to avoid.
“Water infill,” Jack announced. “The house is on the north end of town.”
I practically groaned my relief.
Mason chuckled from beside me. “One day you’ll get your sea legs, Kitty Cat.”
When I’d moved to Virginia, the people there had told me my Texan blood would thicken and I’d get used to the cold. That hadn’t happened, so I wasn’t holding out for sea legs.
“Doubtful,” I muttered as I watched the rocky shoreline for the alcove, counting down the seconds before I got to get off this puke bucket.
Thankfully, a few minutes later, Pete was pulling back on the throttle.
Nope. Scratch that, now that the boat was no longer in motion, it was bobbing side to side.
“Everyone ready?” Pete asked.
Hell. To. The. Yes.
“Whoa there, Kitty.” Mason grabbed my shoulder before I could bolt. “Pete goes first. Then you and Jack. Calista and I take up the rear.”
I wasn’t so seasick I didn’t smirk at his comment.
With a shake of his head, Mason cut off my retort. “Don’t.”
I didn’t have time to evaluate Mason’s stern tone before Pete was shuffling forward.
Jack and Calista were on their feet, with Jack swinging his dry pack over his shoulder.
When Jack had his gear adjusted the way he wanted, he took a step closer to me and offered his hand.
Once I was tucked to Jack’s side, Mason got himself ready.
Next thing I knew, Pete was in the water. He dove under and a few seconds later popped back up.
“Maybe ten feet deep,” Pete called back.
“Sit on the edge and push off. Not straight down,” Jack instructed.
I followed his unnecessary orders without comment. Mostly because I was eager to get off the boat but also partly because if he hadn’t told me to push off, I might’ve just dropped straight down.
What can I say? I’m not a boat person.
Seeing as I’d been sitting on the edge when I pushed off, my head barely went under water. But when I popped up, Pete was right next to me with a hand around my upper arm, guiding me away from the boat and the rocks.
Jack jumped in next and came right to me, followed by Calista, with Mason indeed taking up the rear.
“Do you know how to sidestroke?” Jack asked.
“That’s the doggy-paddle thing on your side, right?”
“I thought you said you knew how to swim?”
“Yeah, in a pool.”
Jack let out a string of expletives.
“I’m screwing with you,” I told him.
In the moonlight, treading water, I watched Jack shake his head in exasperation.
“Ready?”
I ignored his question and kept staring.
“Baby?”
The timing was strange, but the feeling wasn’t. It was the kind that dug in and settled deep. The kind that warmed you to your core. Not contentment or happiness or anything as simple as that. It was bigger than that, so huge it filled my lungs and fed my soul.
This was life—my life—it was unpredictable at best. After losing my grandmother and the foundation she’d given me, moving on to not so great until Lina, I’d never been settled.
When I got older that had translated into me craving the thrill of the chase.
I didn’t know why and it didn’t much matter, I just knew I liked the excitement of the hunt.
I liked moving around. I liked knowing I did a job that made a difference.
I needed these things to define me. My job was my identity.
But right then, treading water off the rocky shore of a Mexican village, I came to the realization I no longer needed the chase or the rush.
I wasn’t ready to give it up, I loved what I did, but I didn’t need it—I wanted to continue because it helped good people who’d found themselves in impossibly heinous situations, but I was more than the human-lie-detector soldier, the agent, the federal law enforcement officer.
I was just me.
Catarina, the friend, the daughter, the granddaughter, Jack’s woman.
There was nothing to prove to anyone.
Not even myself.
I sucked in a breath . . . all mine.
The feeling of freedom I’d discovered all those years back was now accompanied with a sense of completeness.
I was whole without Jack.
But with him, I was complete.
“Ready,” I told him.
It was his turn to stare at me.
“Move it, Donovan. We don’t have all night, and now my jeans are wet and sticking to all the wrong places,” I bitched.
“Catarina—”
“Jack.”
His lips tipped up into a smile.
And there it was again, total and absolute completeness.