Surviving Broken(100)
She shook her head curiously. “No. Why?”
“Your mom brought your daddy’s ashes here to Bora Bora years ago in a teakwood box. It had a manta ray intricately carved on the lid.” He nodded, knowing she’d heard the story. “That was the day we met.”
“I remember that box.”
“I bought this island for your mother as a wedding present, JC, because the manta rays come here almost daily to be cleaned. This cavern is like a carwash for them.”
Her eyes darted, searching the depths of the water below.
“The manta rays symbolize your father, so I purposely picked this motu so she could be near him. She can see him or talk to him whenever she wants.”
JC blinked back yet another round of waterworks. “You did that for her?”
“I did. That’s how much I love her. Enough to accept the fact she was madly in love with him.” A smile broadened across his face. “And now she’s pretty crazy about me.”
Her eyes widened, darting beneath the surface. “Is that why you brought me out here? To talk to my daddy?”
“Yep. I thought you might have a few thoughts to share with him.”
Her chest burned with gratitude. She nodded.
He adjusted the mask over his eyes. “Come on.”
Tom guided her further out into the channel, giving her the chance to view the most colorful fish she’d ever seen. Drifting in the current, they hovered above schools of different sorts, turtles, sting rays and even several black tip reef sharks.
Before Tom had time to point out the giant creatures, JC swam toward the dark shadows rising from the deep. He grabbed her flipper from behind, gesturing Easy! Slow down.
Her heartbeat accelerated rapidly as five magnificent manta rays danced smoothly through the water, like a flag waving in a slight breeze. They rolled in a summersault rhythm, exposing their white bellies.
Tom tapped her shoulder, signaling for her to dive on the count of three. When he pointed his third finger, she inhaled in a big breath of air and dove deep, coming side-by-side with the creature. As if in a trance, pulled by the presence of her father, she extended her arm, briefly touching the wing.
Running out of air, she surfaced long enough to draw in another gasp of air, filling her lungs before diving again. JC kicked her flippers, swimming beside the twenty-foot wingspan as long as possible before they returned to depths of the cavern below.
In that precise moment, in the presence of the two men she most admired, her daddy and Tom, all she could think of was the man who mattered more than anything. Reed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Climbing into her Prius parked at the LAX airport, JC had so much adrenaline and excitement flowing through her she suspected she might be able to outrun her car. Driving along the bluff that seemed to go on forever, her heart pounded in anticipation.
Pulling into Reed’s driveway, JC slammed on the breaks and her car came to a screeching halt, sending pea gravel flying. She stepped out of the car, stomping back to the end of the block wall.
“What the hell?” she grumbled, hands on hips, gawking at a bright white For Sale sign sunk into the ground next to Reed’s mailbox.
“How could you?” she snarled, her heart and hopes of a future life crushed. JC stared at the sign. Her fairytale life was just put up for sale like a garage sale. Shock and anger boiled to the surface and she kicked the post. “I told you I was coming right back.”
She kicked the sign repeatedly, her lip turned up, mocking him aloud to herself. “I trust you. Go do what you have to do. Sure, I go away for three days and you’re leaving?”
JC circled her arms around the sign, tugging and twisting until it ripped free from the earth. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
She marched down the drive, clumsily dragging the heavy For Sale sign behind her. Grappling with the bulkiness, she swung the front door open and it thundered against the wall with a loud bang. She huffed, blowing loose strands of hair from her face, wiping sweat and soil from her forehead with the back of her hand. Dirt covered the front of her shirt.
“JC?” Reed stared at the scene with a cartoon-like mouth open wide image. “Oh, hell.”
She marched up to him, poking him in the chest. “Oh, hell is right! I leave for three days, I come home to marry the man I love and I find this in front of our home!” She threw both hands toward the sign, her chest heaved. “How could you?”
Reed swept the strand of hair from her eyes, wiping the dirt from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I thought you liked the house on the beach better.”
She wasn’t breathing well.
He clutched her waist, pulling her to the length of his body. “Did you just say you were coming home to marry me?”