Linda Gayle (15 page)

“Guys, yes. Love for you.”

“No love here, sorry.” She paused and bit her lower lip. “Who were they, really? I mean… Never mind.” She decided she didn’t want to know. They hadn’t done anything other than con her and give her great orgasms and break her heart. She folded her arms across her chest and stared at the rutted path. “You know, you shouldn’t let those two go around bothering the tourists. They’re gonna be bad for business.”

“Henri very mad at them for long time.”

“Well, no wonder. If they did to other people what they did to me…” She trailed off before she went into graphic detail.

Maria sat up as much as her bent back would let her, and an obstinate light came into her eyes. “I see you, say, curse over! Time for love.”

Oh for Pete’s…
“Please, I heard the whole curse routine. I don’t believe it. Not that they did anything awful, but… Look, is it part of the whole island-getaway package? Like a fantasy island scenario you arranged?” She waved her hand, getting pretty disgusted. How could Maria and Henri and…whatever the guys’ names really were…do this? Or had Nina ordered it up for her, thinking two hot guys would cheer her up? “You should probably take into consideration that some people—some women—might fall for it. You know?”

Maria tilted her head, looking like a curious little silver bird. “You no understand. You, they, eh…?” She tapped her fists together, which Lyric interpreted as a hand gesture for fucking. Her whole face went up in flame.

“Yeah, well, I was weak.”

Maria clasped her arm with her cool hand. “No. You
strong
woman. What they need.”

“I thought they needed a woman with a pure heart.”

Maria snorted and waved her off. “Henri tell you that?”

She nodded.

“He say anything to win.” She jabbed a thumb into her chest and squinted one eye. “Since islands were young, we play game. He say, Rahiti and Moana be cursed forever. I say, only ’til good woman come. He say, no woman good enough. I say, here she come!” She chuckled then grew stern. “You no leave. I no lose.”

Lyric shook her head. “Are you saying this whole setup was a game to see if I’d fall in love with Rahiti and Moana?”

The brilliant, toothless grin was back. “
Oui
.”

“Oh for the love of—” She put her hand on her forehead and slumped in the seat. She supposed it was almost a relief to know she’d been duped, and the guys were just players in a game. She should have gone with her first gut feelings after all. “Look, Maria, it was fun while it lasted, but seriously, can we go?” The more she thought about it, the worse she felt. She turned her head to gaze out at the ocean so the old lady wouldn’t see the pain in her eyes.

Just where the lagoon began to deepen, a shining shape moved through the waves. Two shapes—two dolphins. She held her breath and watched them surface in tandem, spraying breath, and her stomach sank. Well, if she’d needed any other proof, there it was. The two trained dolphins, probably waiting for their handlers and their next mark. A big ball of pain began to expand in her chest. “Maria, please.” She looked at Henri’s wife, knowing her eyes must be going bloodshot from the pressure of held-back tears. “I really want to go home.”

The woman’s weathered face fell as her words finally sank in. “You no love Rahiti and Moana?”

She shook her head. “How could I? I only knew them a couple days, and—and they’re not even real.”

That seemed to stiffen old Maria’s upper lip. She cast a disparaging gaze on Lyric that she was sure she didn’t deserve. Then, muttering something about losing and winning and “woman not strong” under her breath, she started up the golf cart and began the trundle to the dock on the other side of the island.

Lyric tried not to look out at the ocean as they traveled deeper into the forest, but it drew her gaze inexorably, and the dolphins she could see through the breaks in the trees seemed to follow them along the shore. Through a haze of tears, she watched paradise pass her by.

Like a dream. The dream Rahiti had said she’d woken up to.

The dolphins leapt from the sea in perfect unison, almost as if they were trying to get her to see them.

Suddenly, she sat up and shouted, “Stop! Maria, stop!”

Chapter Eleven

The path seemed clearer in the morning when Rahiti and Moana hurried back toward Lyric’s hut. They’d slept tangled in each other’s arms on the forest floor all night, but after waking and a quick wash in the pool, they both felt an urgent need to find her and set things right. As he trailed half a step behind Rahiti, Moana’s body hummed with satisfaction, and his steps felt light with hope. He could hardly wait to find Lyric and explain all that had been happening. Perhaps because she had gone through so much herself, with her previous mate betraying her, she would understand what emotions he and Rahiti struggled with. So much change, so quickly, would confuse anyone.

His body felt stronger than ever. The occasional twinge in his ass reminded him of the strength of their joining. Their fucking last night had washed away any last resentment between him and Rahiti like a powerful storm sweeping clean a beach. Now he looked forward to them being with Lyric the way they should have been from the beginning. With honesty and trust between all of them.

The gods had shown their wisdom again in guiding her to them. He could tell watching him and Rahiti touch each other only drove her own passions higher, just as watching Rahiti fuck Lyric while she sucked Moana’s cock had driven him crazy with lust. Yes, they belonged together. Three as one.

When they reached the edge of the forest, though, it wasn’t Lyric waiting for them, but the old fisherman, Henri.

“What is he doing here?” Rahiti muttered as they slowed to a walk.

“I don’t know. Where is Lyric?”

“I have a bad feeling…”

Moana touched Rahiti’s arm for reassurance, and they stopped in front of the strangely smiling old man. Something about him seemed familiar and…ominous.

“So, Rahiti and Moana”—he clasped his hands behind his back as he inspected them—“back again, I see.”

“How do you know who we are?” Rahiti asked, eyes narrowing.

“I know all about you.”

Rahiti glanced at Moana then said, “We are going to find Lyric.” He lifted his hand toward the hut, temptingly close but so far away.

“She is gone.”

A chill raced up Moana’s spine, and he stepped forward. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”

“I didn’t have to do anything. You did it all yourself. Again.”

He spoke in English with a thick French accent, and Moana answered him in French. “There is a dark cloud around you, old grandfather. I do not know who you are, but I do not think you are the harmless fisherman you appear.”

The bright brown eyes gleamed, and he switched to Tonga. “And neither are you who you appear.” He pointed a finger toward the ocean. “But soon, you will be back where you belong. My warrior dolphins, for eternity.”

“No!” Rahiti came forward quickly. “Never again. You…” He clenched his fists and his jaw. “Kanaloa.” He uttered the name with venom, and suddenly, Moana could see the power of the god glowing around the deceptively frail form of the fisherman, as if the speaking of his name unleashed it.

The old brown eyes took on an unearthly glow. “You did not learn your lesson. Your lover is betrayed, brokenhearted. You were given a second chance and wasted it again, fighting between yourselves. You have destroyed another innocent heart. She is cursed and will never love again.”

The earth seemed to drop from beneath Moana’s feet. He clutched Rahiti’s arm then slid to his knees. “Kanaloa, I beg you. Mohea’s death is my fault. Rahiti is a good man. He wanted only to make her happy, and I–I ruined it for him. And for Lyric. You cannot condemn her to a life without love. None of this is her fault.”

The old god cackled. “She, too, was given a second chance.” He waved his hand at Rahiti and Moana. “She could not see you for who you are. Instead, she listens to her eyes, not her heart. Her feet do not stray from the path of regret. She closes herself away and is undeserving of what the gods have offered her.”

Rahiti sank to his knees beside Moana in the sand. Beneath his bronze skin, he’d gone deathly pale, and to see the great warrior humbled, begging, was almost more than Moana could bear. “Great Kanaloa,” Rahiti said, his voice gruff, “last night I asked you to take me as payment for the mistakes my friends have made. I plead the same again.”

“No,” the god answered, baring teeth that were far too large for his human face. “No third chance.” He thrust out his arms and began to chant.

The sand started to circle and swirl around them, and the air burned with power. His heart pounding, Moana grabbed Rahiti’s arm, and the other warrior drew him close. “I am sorry, my friend,” he said.

Rahiti put his arm around him and held on tight. “As am I. Moana, you will always be part of me.”

Moana wanted to reply, to tell him his world meant nothing without Rahiti, but his throat had closed up, and the terrible twisting agony of change consumed him. He focused on their still-human hands, clasped together, but knew in seconds, they would find themselves plunged into the heartless sea in some animal form. His stomach knotted when he realized Kanaloa did not have to return them as dolphins—they could end up as something awful, like eels or turtles. Creatures unable even to communicate with each other.

If not for Rahiti’s strength holding him together, he would have screamed.

* * * *

Lyric paced the beach along the strip of ocean outside her hut. “Where are they? Where did they go?”

The dolphins she’d seen from the golf cart had disappeared. Had her hopeful imagination only conjured them? Or had they given up and returned to the ocean without her.

Beside her, old Maria, that unhelpful smile back on her lips, leaned on her staff and nodded. “Who you talk about?”

“You know who.” She turned on Maria. “I have a feeling you know a lot more than you’re saying.”

She lifted a bony shoulder. “What you care where they are? They not real. You say so yourself.”

“They are real. They were real. Oh, fuck my life.” She kicked off her flip-flops and walked shin-deep into the water. “Rahiti! Moana!” Maybe if she got into the water again, as she had when she’d first arrived, she could bring them back. The glare off the water made it nearly impossible to tell the difference between a rising wave and a cresting dolphin’s back even when she shaded her eyes with her hand. What if she never saw them again? What if she never had the chance to tell them she was wrong? What if she never got the opportunity to convince them that she’d fight for them, that she wouldn’t let her past blind her to the future, the future they offered?

 
“You have been dreaming a long, dark dream, and now you have awoken here with us.”

“We will give you strong sons…”

“You will never fight alone again.”

Driving back with Maria, she’d realized what she was leaving behind. It took a big leap of faith. A huge one, a jumping-over-the-Grand-Canyon leap, but God dammit, she finally admitted to herself that she did believe. She knew Rahiti and Moana for what they really were—two loving men who wanted to share that love with her. What an ass she’d been to reject it, not to wait. Especially knowing they’d be cursed again because of her.

She sank to her knees in the waves, and the water soaked through her shorts and shirt, lapping under her breasts. Wrapping her arms around herself, she hung her head. Was this what Mohea had felt? Had she known she’d made a terrible mistake and tried her whole life to fix it?

“What is this now?”

The voice behind her startled her into turning. “Henri!”

“As you see,” Maria said. “She come back for her men.”

The old fisherman stood next to his wife, scowling. “Too late,” he said. “She had already left, and they are cursed again!”

Maria patted his arm. “She never put foot off the island. She come back, for them. Look at her.” She pointed with her staff toward Lyric. “Her heart pure. Open. Ready to believe.”

Henri stubbornly crossed his arms over his chest, and that dark energy she’d felt when she’d run into him in the forest rippled around him like a living shadow. “I cannot undo the curse this time.”

“Why not? You no powerful?”

“I am plenty powerful, woman. They do not deserve forgiveness.” He pointed to Lyric. “She will do the same as Mohea. Walk the sands forever, waste her life.”

“Oh no I won’t.” Lyric stood, dripping, to face them, fists clenched. Whoever these two were, they were definitely not just a couple of AARP members. Spooky energy surrounded them both. “You’re—you’re Kanaloa, aren’t you?”

Henri sniffed and looked away. Maria nudged him with her staff. “Face it,” she said in her musical voice. “You have lost.”

“No. I gave her all that she asked for, and she walked away. Now”—he jabbed his fingers toward the open ocean—“it is as it should be. She is here. They are there. We are where we started.”

Lyric heard splashing and turned around. Two gray dolphins surged in the waves, just where the water was deep enough to swim. One lighter and leaner than the other, one dark and strong. She pressed her hands to her face to smother a cry.