Chapter 40
Arguing, I knew, would be futile. Plus, we didn’t know how long we had before the three men might come back downstairs. We had to go. Now.
With his arms slung around Drew and Garth for support, Xander made his way slowly but steadily out of the bedroom and down the hall.
Following behind them, I texted an alert to the rest of our team, putting the next phase of our plan into action.
Then, I scurried ahead to open the door to the kitchen, the door to the lobby.
“Omigosh!” said Maureen when she saw Xander. “What happened?”
Tossing my car keys to Drew, I paused at the desk while he and his husband continued to half walk, half drag Xander toward the front door.
“Maureen, you can go,” I told her.
She looked confused. “But I haven’t even made up the rooms yet.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I have a friend coming over to cover things.”
Right on cue, Rita entered. She balked, paling when she saw Xander’s state. But like the cool customer she was, she quickly pulled it together, waiting by the door and closing it after Drew and Garth maneuvered Xander outside.
Breathing a sigh of relief that they’d made it through the lobby without discovery, I turned back to Maureen. “Trust me,” I said. “It’s better if you leave.”
Still, my part-time employee didn’t move.
I watched as she took in the seriousness of my tone, of my demeanor.
Clearly, she knew something strange was going on.
But when I didn’t say anything else, she must have realized no additional explanation would be forthcoming. And in the end, she did trust me.
“Okay,” she said, getting her things together. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Rita stepped into the lobby, passing Maureen on her way out. When my housekeeper left, Rita grabbed me by the shoulders. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“No,” I said, answering honestly.
Upstairs, a door opened and closed.
“Go,” said Rita. “I’ve got this.”
“The rest of Team Xander Watch?” I asked.
Movement. And another door.
“They’re already in position,” she said, nodding. “But don’t worry. It’s going to take these guys a while to get by me.” She grinned. “I’m foreseeing a lot of problems running their credit cards.”
I returned her grin and gave her a fierce hug.
A third door opened and closed.
“Go,” she whispered in my ear, pushing me away.
As I heard footsteps on the stairs, I hurried for the door, grabbing my coat on the way out. If my ancestors in the photograph on the wall watched me leave, I didn’t notice.
Scrambling across the porch and down the front steps, I spotted the rest of our team standing by the beat-up Ford pickup that my guests had registered with me in exchange for parking validation.
Wills, having completely abandoned his British reserve, was using a corkscrew to puncture a tire while Paulette dumped what looked like one of her Berry Blast smoothies in their gas tank.
Meanwhile, Miles and Angie were doing their best to shield them from view.
For this covert op, Angie was wearing camouflage.
Head-to-toe pink camouflage, with a fresh set of nails to match.
Hoping she wouldn’t leave any press-on evidence behind, I flashed them all a grateful smile. But as I headed toward the driveway—
“Hannah!” called the familiar voice of Joey D. I turned to see him double-park his mail truck haphazardly and jumped out. “I am so, so sorry.”
While his voice was familiar, his appearance was a bit of a shock. His usually sculpted hair hung loose and disheveled. Underneath his deep tan, he looked pale, like maybe he hadn’t slept. Oh—and for once, he didn’t smell like he’d bathed in Drakkar Noir.
“How can Joey D make this up to you?” he asked me with big puppy-dog eyes.
I hadn’t really been angry with him, but now I couldn’t even be mildly annoyed. Honestly, I felt kind of sorry for him.
But I didn’t have time for pity.
To underscore that, the front door opened, and the three undersea treasure hunters came flying out.
“You can make it up to me by stalling those guys,” I told Joey, nodding in the hunters’ direction. Not waiting for a reply, I booked it to my Kia.
Drew already had the car running, with Garth riding shotgun. I reached for the door to join Xander in the back seat.
“There they are!” shouted one of the seamen, pointing at the Kia.
I got in quickly. “Go, go, go!” I told Drew.
My BFF started to back out of the driveway before I’d even closed the door.
“We can follow them,” yelled another one of the men, waving his car keys.
Hearing this, my friends halted their sabotage attempts and sprang away from the Ford pickup. I could only hope that enough damage had already been done.
The hunters piled into their pickup. But, goddammit, we still weren’t out of the driveway. Because of where Joey had stopped his delivery truck, Drew was having trouble maneuvering around it.
Luckily, the Ford wasn’t starting. Apparently, Paulette’s antioxidant-rich power shakes stopped more than just the body’s production of free radicals.
And Drew was finally rounding the rear of the mail truck. I exhaled in relief.
But did I relax too soon? As the hunters climbed out of their vehicle, one of them spotted Joey. “You!” he said. “How ’bout you give us a lift?”
Joey clearly had no idea what was going on. But when the guys started to board his delivery truck, he seemed to snap out of his confusion.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, my dudes,” I heard him shout as we drove off down the block. “This is not an Uber. And tampering with the mail is a federal offense.”
* * *
No one said much on the car ride to the beach.
Xander was still conscious, but his coloring was getting worse.
I held his hand tightly, trying to impart some of my own strength to him.
Drew was driving more aggressively than normal, speeding up at the yellow lights, running at least one red.
I appreciated the effort—and then again, I didn’t.
After all, the quicker we got to the ocean, the sooner Xander and I would have to say goodbye.
When the two of us had traveled this same distance back from the Hard Rock, our bodies screaming to be with each other, the drive had seemed to last a lifetime. Now, it was over far too soon.
Drew parked and killed the ignition. Then, he turned to peer into the back seat. “Ready?” he asked.
“No,” I said in another burst of unfiltered honesty. I would never be ready for this.
Xander pressed my hand. I knew the gesture was meant to comfort me, but his grip was weak, and his body temperature was dropping fast. I felt the opposite of comforted.
Only, the longer I hesitated, the weaker Xander would become. And the more danger he would be in. Having vowed to protect him, I needed to make good on that promise one last time.
I searched within me, looking for the fire that had started to burn. With Xander’s power fading, I’d have to draw on my own strength.
“But I guess it’s now or never,” I conceded.
Drew and Garth got out of the car.
“Can you still walk?” I asked Xander.
He nodded. His skin was ashen, but there was a resolute set to his jaw, a determination in his eyes.
I opened the door and got out on my side while Drew and Garth helped Xander out on the other. As they walked him around to meet me at the front of the car, my heart wasn’t just breaking. It was as if a sledgehammer was coming down on it hard, shattering it to smithereens.
“I can’t thank you both enough for all you’ve done,” Xander was saying to my friends.
“And don’t worry about Hannah,” said Garth.
“We’ll be here for her,” said Drew.
“I can take him from here,” I said. “I’ll walk him down to the water.”
Drew opened his mouth to argue, but my look must have made him change his mind. After exchanging glances with Garth and Xander, Drew stepped out from under Xander’s arm, relinquishing his place to me. A moment later, Garth moved off too, leaving me as Xander’s sole support.
“I’ve got you,” I said, hugging him tightly to my side.
“Hannah,” he said, “you’ve always had me. You’ve had me, body and soul, from the first time I saw you ten years ago.”
The jagged shards that were left of my heart started to tear me up inside.
“If there were any other way—”
“Shh,” I said, cutting him off. “Save your strength.”
Aside from us, the beach was deserted. The tide was high, so there wasn’t much sand to traverse. Leaving Drew and Garth at the start of the beach, Xander and I walked toward the waves. After a handful of halting steps, we were at the water’s edge.
I took a deep, bracing breath that smelled of the salt and the sea. I wasn’t sure if I was inhaling the scent of Xander or the ocean. Standing here, it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.
I looked up at him. “This is as far as I go.”
We hadn’t discussed the possibility of me going home with him since Valentine’s Day. Not directly, anyway. So, this was the first time I was saying my final decision out loud. Peering down at me, he looked disappointed, though not surprised.
“You’re sure?” he asked. His green eyes searched me, beseeching me.
He touched his hand to his necklace of magical shells and beads.
“I promise you, if you wear this, you’ll be able to breathe underwater.
You’ll be perfectly safe. And we’ll be able to be together.
” His gaze probed me, trying to read my thoughts.
“Are you certain you won’t change your mind and come with me? ”
I shook my head. “And I know you can’t change yours and stay.”
He looked at me for a long time. I knew he was trying to memorize every strand of my hair, every pore of my skin, every inch of me. Because I was trying to memorize every last inch of him.
“Why did the merman cross the portal,” he asked with a small smile.
I gave a small smile in return. “To get to the other side?”
“To get to you,” he said. “To see you again. For however briefly.”
The sentiment stung just as tangibly as the wind and the sea spray.