Authors: Gayle Ann Williams
Tags: #Action & Adventure, #Gayle Ann Williams, #Paranormal, #Fiction, #Romance, #Fantasy, #Post-Apocalyptic, #Gayle Williams, #Tsunami Blue, #Futuristic
Yes
, the sea whispered,
yes, Tsunami Blue
.
My hair was yanked, and my head and neck were pulled back at an impossible angle.
“You die tonight, Blue. As do I. But not before you feel what real pain is.” Indigo held a blade at my throat.
I rolled my eyes. “Real pain”? He obviously had no idea what I had been through in the last few days.
The wave suddenly roared as the water rushed forward now, faster and faster. The sound rang in my ears, straining my eardrums to the breaking point.
Indigo couldn’t keep his footing. The fact that Gabriel had appeared behind him and driven a fillet knife all the way through him didn’t help. I knew this because Indigo had let me drop, and when I turned, no one was more astonished than I was to see Gabriel Black on board.
“Remember, you bastard? I don’t share,” Gabriel said with ice in his voice. “Not Blue. Not ever.”
Wow.
He had just saved my life. All three minutes of it.
He lifted Indigo into the air with the knife still embedded. Gabriel personally fed him to a great white, with Indigo screaming all the way.
“Blue”—Gabriel tossed me a knife—“behind you.”
I caught the knife in the air. It felt smooth, familiar. It fit my hand perfectly. My bowie. I turned, twirling my blade like old times. The Runner stopped short. My blade was bigger. He turned and ran down the deck. I smiled down at my knife. A girl and her knife. Now that was what I was talking about.
“We gotta get out of here,” Gabriel said as he swung me up over his shoulder. Again.
The sea had become Gabriel’s new best friend. Kind of like Max. Which explained how Gabriel got on Indigo’s boat. Just in time to save me.
The sea whispered, and Gabriel heard.
The sea protected us, and before I could say
tsunami
, the sea delivered us to the Space Needle, with only moments to spare.
We climbed into the interior of the Needle and ran up the little stairway to the top as fast as we could. Stepping through a large crack in the Needle’s tip, we found ourselves standing on a little ledge facing the deadliest wave in our blue planet’s history.
So we were either going to die together in a few minutes because my guy was nuts, or I would be pleasantly surprised and we would live happily ever after.
Gabriel tossed off his duster and stripped off his shirt. Wave or no wave, I was just enjoying the view when he took out a knife and turned to me.
“Do not tell me you need a blood sacrifice, Gabriel Black. Because I don’t think I have a drop left.”
“Blue, calm down. I just want you to hold this for me.”
“Oh.”
“And I need you to be real quiet.” He put a slender finger to his lips. “Okay?”
“’Kay,” I said, borrowing from Aubrey.
And then he kissed me. Who knew we had the time?
Gabriel spread his arms out in front of him, his golden and bruised skin now damp with the salt mist. He murmured words foreign to me. His concentration was such that I ceased to exist, as did the entire world around him. It was freezing and well past midnight, but the heat radiating from his body warmed me to the point where I stripped off my torn thermal.
His golden skin turned white as sea salt dried against it. And still the heat grew. The wave had paused like a rearing horse, and the sight was so unbelievable that my breath caught and tears stung my eyes.
I thought of my mother and father, and lastly, but mostly, of Finnegan. I whispered his name on the wind, and the wave, monstrous yet so beautiful, shimmered just like my tattoo did when it was wet. I fell to my knees as my brother’s name appeared in the mist. And just like that the monster tsunami was gone, folding back into the sea from where it had come. Gabriel had somehow turned it away.
Good-bye
, the sea whispered to me.
Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye.
Gabriel dropped to his knees, exhausted, and I rushed to embrace him, crying.
“I know, Blue, I know. I saw it too.”
“Do you think it was a message?”
He leaned against the steel, holding me in his arms. “Or a good-bye,” he whispered, and kissed the top of my head.
They found us in each other’s arms a day later. Hungry, battered, bruised, half-naked, we were quite the sight.
Gabriel had a reason to be half-naked.
I, on the other hand, did not.
But luckily, Aubrey was below deck when John anchored, launched a dinghy, and brought us home. Unfortunately, Nick and Alec were topside.
Home was a sleek black sailboat that would, if Gabriel got his way, belong to both of us. And time would tell if our little whiskey-brown-eyed Aubrey would remain with us. But for now she was part of our family. We loved her already.
Nick and Alec and Aubrey were thrilled to spend a little more time with John, and had hitched a ride back home to New False Bay. After all, he had a real pirate ship. And dogs, namely Max and Bacon, were allowed on board. And it seemed, according to the boys, that the new kid, Aubrey, turned out to be a lot of fun. Hanging with us? Not so much. They said something about “old” people.
They lost some future pancakes on that one.
Sailing away from New Seattle the next morning, with Starbucks in my hand and a wonderful new soreness in my body, I saw a shark.
It was blue.
“Don’t ask,” Gabriel said. I didn’t. But I did feel sorry for the shark. I just hoped he ate the hat too.
Epilogue
New San Juan Island
Six months later
“And so, my friends, I come to you today with news of a different sort. News that’s been in the wind, and I’m here to set you straight. It’s true. A little tsunami is heading our way.”
I paused for effect, just for fun.
“Actually, my way. And”—I couldn’t help but smile, remembering Gabriel’s reaction, the soft tears and kisses—“Gabriel’s too. Yep. We are going to have a baby, folks.”
“I’m so thrilled and proud and honored to share this news with you. Together we can build a safe, sane, waveless world for all our children.”
“This is Tsunami Blue signing off on another of many, many, many smooth-sailing days.”
I put down the mic and touched my belly and smiled. I’d been doing a lot of that these days. I watched Nick and Alec playing in the surf with Max. I watched our Aubrey—Aubie, as we had come to call her—draw pictures in the sand. She had considerably more talent than I. We continued to search for her family, putting out messages in the wind and on the air. But word had it they had last been seen in New Vancouver, trying to reach high ground. So for now, she was ours. Maybe forever. And should that be the case, it was more than all right with all of us.
My heart swelled at the sight of my new wonderful family. A tear slipped down my cheek. I’d been doing a lot of that lately too.
“Blue? You okay?”
Startled, I turned and saw Gabriel, my pirate, my dark angel, my husband, at the door. And he was in trouble again.
“Fudge, Gabriel, do not sneak up on a pregnant woman that way.”
He walked over, took me in his arms, and kissed the tear away.
“Happy tears?”
“Yeah.”
“‘Fudge’?”
I walked over and pointed to the nearly empty pickle jar. I’d really been working hard at it.
“Damn right,” I said proudly. Then, “Damn it! I mean, darn right, darn it.” I socked him in the arm for laughing.
Gabriel reached into his pocket and put two twenties in the pickle jar for me.
He gathered me into his arms once again. “I love you. Keep up the good work.” He released me and rubbed his arm. Smiling, he said, “Don’t ever change, Blue. Don’t ever change.”
Gayle Ann Williams lives on a small island off the coast of Washington in the amazing, beautiful, wet Pacific Northwest. Growing up in a small, cowboy town in Eastern Washington, Gayle, after numerous visits to Seattle during her college years, fell in love with the ocean. Trading her spurs for a sea kayak, she left her Rodeo Queen roots behind (yes, she really was a Rodeo Queen) and moved to the “rainy” country. For a time she lived on a sailboat and to this day she thinks sailing throughout the San Juan Islands and the Canadian Gulf Islands as one of the best experiences of her life.
To learn more about Gayle and Tsunami Blue visit her on the web at
www.gayleannwilliams.com
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