“Don’t go too far,” Officer Ryan warned.
“Just going to soak up some sun,” she assured him.
“Really?” He wiped a drop of sweat glistening on his temple. “It’s hotter than Satan’s ball sac today.”
As soon as he realized what he’d said, he grimaced. When he opened his mouth, Chrissy stopped him with a raised hand. “Please, if you’re going to be my protection for the next little while, you need to understand that I’m on a first-name basis with the full gamut of curse words. You can’t offend me unless you start badmouthing conch fritters.”
Officer Ryan looked genuinely confused. “Who’d badmouth those? They’re delicious.”
“I work with tourists,” she told him. “You’d be surprised what passes forgood food”—she made air quotes—“in other parts of the country. Ever heard of mayonnaise on fries? Kombucha? Turkey bacon?” She shuddered again for effect.
“No accounting for taste, I guess,” Officer Ryan mused at the same time his cell phone rang. Pulling it from his pocket, he glanced at the screen. “My wife,” he said by way of explanation. “I wouldn’t take the call while I’m on duty, but Dustin, our oldest, tried out for the baseball team today and—”
“Say no more,” Chrissy interrupted him.
He nodded gratefully before holding his phone to his face. Using his free hand, he plugged his opposite ear against the noisy traffic on the nearby road.
In that moment, she was envious of Officer Ryan. Of his family. Of the nervous excitement she heard in his voice when he said into the phone, “Tell me he made it.”
Will that ever be me?
She was beginning to have her doubts.
Rummaging through her plastic bag, she searched for the bottle of pain pills the nurse had given her.
She didn’t normally resort to prescription medication. On those rare occasions she suffered a headache, she tended to fight it off with two full glasses of water followed by a catnap. Even the time she was caught in a bad tide and slammed up against a reef, getting coral lodged in her thigh, she’d only cut the pain with some topical analgesic and a big slug of rum before going in with tweezers to pull out the foreign matter.
But according to Nurse McCleavage, Chrissy was,“Better off staying on top of the pain, or believe me, that pain will get on top of you.”
Placing a pill on the back of her tongue, she turned her face into golden light shining from above and swallowed it down.
Her mother used to throw back the curtains on their little conch house after a rainy day.“Sunshine is Mother Nature’s disinfectant. Let’s open all the windows and let that healing light in,”Josephine would say.
Chrissy wasn’t sure there was any science to back her mother’s notion, but she closed her eyes all the same, letting the warmth of the sun seep past her skin to sink into her bones.
Which is why she didn’t see the beat-up sedan barreling toward her.
Chapter 12
9:18 AM…
“What kind of person doesn’t own a cell phone?” The guy at the admissions desk eyed Wolf suspiciously after he hung up with the cab company.
“The kind who lives on a private island with no cell service,” Wolf answered absently, turning toward the hospital’s front doors. Through the glass, he could see Chrissy standing in the sun. The light glinted off her hair, making it shine gold like the Cherokee Nation flag that flew from his grandmother’sfront porch.
The scrubs the nurse had given her were a size too small. And damn, but he couldn’t stop himself from scanning the sweet curves neither the shirt nor the pants could fully contain. As bodacious as Chrissy’s body was, however, it was her pretty profile that caught and held his gaze.
Her head was back, her eyes were closed, and he watched as peace stole over her features. Watched as trauma was replaced by tranquility, as pain was replaced by placidity.
The gentle ocean breeze that was a constant companion in the Keys ruffled the ends of her messy ponytail. The sun kissed her cheeks. When she dragged in a deep breath, he wondered if she could smell the distant saltiness of the water.
Christina of the Sea.
His island girl.
Well, not mine,he silently admitted. Then he added,not yet, anyway.
Like they always seemed to do, his feet carried him toward her. He’d stepped through the automatic doors when the sound of traffic assaulted his ears. Slightly below thebuzzandwhirof cars passing by on the road was the unmistakable sound of a poorly tuned engine that backfired as it revved up.
