Come Back (Dirty, Dark, and Deadly 2)

“OK, I’ll go see what’s up. But I don’t think she’s doing this on purpose. She’s just mixed up and confused.”

“About what?” I whisper in her ear, my anger surfacing as we walk towards the front of the restaurant. “There’s only one f**king thing she needs to understand. None of us are in a very good position right now. There’s a global organization that wants you back and wants her dead. If she’s half as smart as I think she is, she’ll f**king take a clue from you and do as she’s told.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Harper

Do as she’s told?

Can he be any more of a caveman? I sigh as I watch his ass walking to the back of the restaurant. It’s a nice ass. Then I notice several women checking him out right along with me and an unfamiliar feeling creeps up.

Jealousy.

One woman notices me watching and quickly averts her gaze, so I just turn around and walk outside. The dinosaur is on the other side of a large parking lot and just this trek has my shoulders burning from the morning sun. It’s so hot here. I’ve spent most of my life in the tropics, so I’m used to hot. But the heat out here in the desert is suffocating. It zaps the life from you. And there’s no water to ease your discomfort. Our biggest yacht, not the sailing one, actually has a pool. But even if there was no pool, the spray of the sea kept you cool most of the time. I’m only halfway across the parking lot when another emotion hits me.

Homesickness.

I have to admit, I miss the ship. I miss that life. I was not abused or treated badly. I miss the ocean and the salty wind. I miss the crew too.

I am almost upon the big gray beast when I spot Sasha sitting underneath. At least it’s shady. I walk under, bypass an empty stone picnic table, and cop a seat on the brontosaurus toe next to the one she’s occupying. “What’re you doing?”

“Thinking,” she says as she rolls her flip flop over some stones on the concrete.

“Oh.” This is going great. “I think James is ready to leave. He wanted me to come get you.”

She’s silent for a few seconds and I’m racking my brain trying to think of something else to get her feet started when she finally pipes up. “Did you ever miss living in a house? With parents and school and stuff?”

“Ummm…”

“We lived in an RV until I was almost ten. I kinda liked it.”

“Oh.” I consider this for a second. “Well, that’s sorta like living on a ship, isn’t it? You move from place to place and see lots of stuff.” I catch movement out of the corner of my eye and turn, automatically looking for danger. But it’s just James. Leaning up against the dinosaur leg, smoking a cigarette. He shrugs at me and I turn back to Sasha. She’s not paying any attention to James. “The best thing about living on the ship was the whales.” Sasha looks up at me, her eyes bright with curiosity. “The humpback whales migrate in certain places every year, so we’d have to be in that part of the world to catch them moving in groups like that. But we saw them enough for it to leave an impression, ya know? Like—it became a part of my life. It was something special when I woke up in the morning and discovered a whale outside.”

Sasha laughs as she pictures it. “Did you ever swim with them?”

Now it’s my turn to laugh. “No. No, I’m not brave like that. You could never pay me enough money to swim next to a whale. I like to snorkel, but mostly in shallow waters.” I take a deep breath. “I’d probably have a panic attack if a whale ever came up to me in the ocean.” I sigh heavily. “I have those attacks a lot. It makes me need the pills.”

She stares at me for a second and then shakes her head slowly. “That’s not true. You haven’t panicked since I’ve met you.”

“Which is only two days,” I say back, chuckling under my breath.

“It feels like forever since that night you pulled a gun on us.” And then she looks over to James, who is still calmly smoking his cigarette, leaning up against the dinosaur’s front leg. Just waiting us out. Sometimes he is very patient.

“I know,” I say, picking the subject of panic again. “I’ve been pretty good. But you know why?”

She shakes her head and resumes rolling her flip flop over the stones.

“I think because James is here to help me. And you remember that first night when you said he was being mean to you all day, and for me to not take his anger personally? Well, I’ve thought about what you said since then and I think you’re right.”

She stares hard at me and I can see the tears building. “He’s all I’ve got,” she says as a tear slips down her face. “He’s all I’ve got so I have no choice but to forgive him when he’s mean.”

“Well, that’s sorta true. You always have a choice whether or not you want to forgive people. And he’s not really all you’ve got, because I’m here too. But what I think you meant was—we’re together now. Whatever it is we’re doing, we’re doing it together. So even though all three of us are used to doing it alone, we’re not alone now.”

She starts crying for real, sniffling in rapid succession as she tries to make it stop.

I think a distraction is in order, so I come up with a question for her. “Tell me what you liked about living in an RV. Did you see cool things?”

She nods her head as she wipes her wet cheeks. “We—” A new sob escapes despite all her best efforts and she takes a moment to pull it together. “We were dinosaur hunters.”