“Jamaica and the Dominican Republic were considered dicey, and we were told not to leave the port areas without a guide. But the other islands seemed plenty safe.”
“I’ve heard all kinds of things about crime in the Caribbean,” Luca said. “Especially if tourists go off on their own.”
Sandra nodded. “Some of those countries are pretty poor, making those who can afford a cruise or a vacation natural targets.”
Miguel put his arm around Sandra’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, babe. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know you won’t.” They smiled at each other and exchanged a quick kiss.
How the heck did people do it? Invest so much in another person who at some point was going to let you down or leave you? Even if their “till death do you part” vows did hold out, his human mother and sister-in-law would eventually break the hearts of everyone around this table.
Phoenixes could live as long as five hundred years. They could die as humans, but if bathed in fire right away, they would reincarnate. About a dozen reincarnations is the max, but he hadn’t known anyone to try it more than three or four times.
When an elder needed to disappear before local humans became suspicious of their longevity, they’d take the opportunity to start over in a younger body. The phoenix physiology was similar to a hawk’s when in bird form or human when in that form. As shifters with a choice, they usually stayed human to prolong their longevity.
They didn’t have any formal ceremony around reincarnations, but their families would generally help them with a controlled fire and let them go. The exception was when it happened as an accident while they were still in their prime. Then families would have a home base to fly to. The brownstone in Boston’s South End had been his family’s headquarters since his great-grandparents bought the place new in the 1800s.
Now, Gabe’s great-grandparents headed a phoenix shifter clan in Arizona. Great-Grandad had become sick of New England winters—much like his father was now. With no female phoenixes born in nearly two hundred years, his grand- and great-grandfathers had married humans. Gabe tried not to think about the heartbreak they must have gone through when they lost their spouses.
His father and brother Miguel had to know this would happen to them. How did they expect to live two, three, or four hundred years as widowers? The concept just boggled Gabe’s mind. They say to love and lose is better than not loving at all.
He disagreed.
* * *
Misty hadn’t seen Gabe in a week. She wouldn’t have minded his company as she waited in the doctor’s office, trying to read a magazine. She’d read the same paragraph in the same article three times.
“Miss Carlisle?” The nurse standing at the doorway with a chart in her hands smiled at her. Was that a smile? It looked more like a grimace. Maybe she was having one of those days.
Misty gathered up her purse and left the magazine on the side table, then followed the nurse down the corridor until she stopped at a scale.
“Oh,” she groaned. “Do we have to do this?”
The nurse looked her up and down. “What are you? A size six?”
She was a four but said, “I haven’t been getting much exercise lately.”
After a chilly silence, she stepped on the scale and then followed the nurse into an exam room. Some high-tech equipment on a rolling stand nearby produced a little clip that went on her finger. Then the nurse waved some kind of wand near her forehead without touching it. Boy, the city had some crazy medical toys they didn’t use in the suburbs.
“Well, your vital signs look okay.”
“That’s good, I guess.”
“Change into the gown, and have a seat on the exam table. Dr. Warren will be with you shortly.”
The nurse shut the door behind her and left Misty alone.
She knew the drill. Put on the unfashionable garment with the gaping opening in back and climb up on the cold exam table where a sheet of white paper would protect her from the last patient’s germs. Now she didn’t even have a magazine.
After she’d read all the signs stuck to bulletin boards and decided she had at least half of the illnesses they were describing, the doctor finally walked in.
“Good morning. I’m Dr. Warren.” He extended his hand for a handshake. It was cold, just like everything else in this place. “What seems to be bothering you today”—he glanced at the chart in his hand—“Misty?”
“I’m having some weird symptoms. It’s probably nothing, but they’re not going away.”
“What kind of symptoms?”
“I seem to be a klutz. This is new for me. I was a dancer and always had a good sense of where my feet were. But lately, I’m stumbling or losing my balance for no reason.”
