Saving Grace (Katie & Annalise Book 1) by Pamela Fagan Hutchins Page B
Authors: Pamela Fagan Hutchins
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fryers, sucking his cheeks into the space where his teeth used to be. No change. Paradise wasn’t cheap.
Ava hopped onto one of the barstools and faced the sea. I joined her. What a way to grab lunch. I could get used to this. I tucked my feet up onto the support bar around the stool’s legs and put my elbows on my knees, face in my palms.
“Lunch always so expensive on this island?” I asked.
“Yah mon. If you not bahn yah.”
I was indignant. “So he would have charged you less than what he charged me?”
She snorted. “He? No, he a thief. But usually there a local discount.”
Oh well. It wasn’t surprising. I rolled my head, enjoying a few neck cracks. The water was calling to me. “Do you mind if I put my toes in while we wait?” I asked Ava.
“Go ahead. I stay here and call you when our food come out.”
The sand was warm, almost hot. My feet sank in heel first, slowing me down. As I got closer to the waterline, the sand grew firmer and cooler. I didn’t hesitate. I plunged into the water, ankle deep, then knee deep. I pulled the hem of my white sundress up several inches. The water surged against my knees, then rose over them and wetted my thighs. Then it rushed out past my legs again and I felt the breeze move in to dry me off. I could see my toes on the white sandy ocean floor, and I wiggled them. The water came back, lifting me up as it rose. A school of small silver fish darted around me, half on one side of me and half on the other, only inches below the surface.
“Katie,” Ava called. “Food ready.”
I could have stood there for hours. But I walked out of the water, splashing it up with my toes on my last few steps. Imagining my mother, wondering if she’d done the same, if she’d done it right here on this beach. If the old man in the hut looking out at me now had seen her, and from a distance thought I looked familiar to him. Since my teens, people had claimed we could pass for twins. Mom would roll her eyes and say, “From a hundred yards to a myopic septuagenarian.” She was wrong, though. She was far too young to die.
I rejoined Ava, and we carried our greasy wax-paper-wrapped sandwiches and johnnycakes back to the car. Johnnycake is deep-fried bread, the Caribbean equivalent of biscuits to Southerners or sopapillas to Mexicans. Just what my cellulite needed. Except that really, it was lack of exercise in the last five years since I’d quit karate, not too many calories, that was my problem. Ava also had two icy Red Stripes between her fingers.
“How much further?” I asked.
“Ten minutes,” she said.
We drove another mile along the water, then turned straight inland and upward. I hated leaving the serenity of the shoreline. The last eight minutes of our drive were on rutted dirt roads that shot off into dense bushes every few hundred yards.
“Not a place to explore by yourself,” Ava said, pointing at one of the side roads. “Too isolated.”
“It’s gorgeous up here, though,” I said. In fact, I was shocked at how gorgeous it was. Different from the water, obviously, but different in a good way, a way that was perfect. The trees were taller and met above the road, creating a roof above us and dampening the noise of the surf against sand and rocks only a mile away. I saw a bright flash of feathers in one of the trees.
“Is that a macaw?”
“Yah mon. They live up here.”
I didn’t know if I could ever be as blasé about this flora and fauna as Ava sounded. I soaked it in: orchids more beautiful than hothouse flowers trailing vines of hot pink, pink and orange flamboyants standing tall and proud, reminding me of the mimosa trees back home.
“Turn in here,” Ava said, and I made a sharp right, back in the general direction of the water, but hundreds of feet above it now.
We drove a quarter of a mile, then broke out of the trees. The change in our surroundings was sudden, a ripping away of the quietude of the forest. My mood shifted with it. Who was I
Ava hopped onto one of the barstools and faced the sea. I joined her. What a way to grab lunch. I could get used to this. I tucked my feet up onto the support bar around the stool’s legs and put my elbows on my knees, face in my palms.
“Lunch always so expensive on this island?” I asked.
“Yah mon. If you not bahn yah.”
I was indignant. “So he would have charged you less than what he charged me?”
She snorted. “He? No, he a thief. But usually there a local discount.”
Oh well. It wasn’t surprising. I rolled my head, enjoying a few neck cracks. The water was calling to me. “Do you mind if I put my toes in while we wait?” I asked Ava.
“Go ahead. I stay here and call you when our food come out.”
The sand was warm, almost hot. My feet sank in heel first, slowing me down. As I got closer to the waterline, the sand grew firmer and cooler. I didn’t hesitate. I plunged into the water, ankle deep, then knee deep. I pulled the hem of my white sundress up several inches. The water surged against my knees, then rose over them and wetted my thighs. Then it rushed out past my legs again and I felt the breeze move in to dry me off. I could see my toes on the white sandy ocean floor, and I wiggled them. The water came back, lifting me up as it rose. A school of small silver fish darted around me, half on one side of me and half on the other, only inches below the surface.
“Katie,” Ava called. “Food ready.”
I could have stood there for hours. But I walked out of the water, splashing it up with my toes on my last few steps. Imagining my mother, wondering if she’d done the same, if she’d done it right here on this beach. If the old man in the hut looking out at me now had seen her, and from a distance thought I looked familiar to him. Since my teens, people had claimed we could pass for twins. Mom would roll her eyes and say, “From a hundred yards to a myopic septuagenarian.” She was wrong, though. She was far too young to die.
I rejoined Ava, and we carried our greasy wax-paper-wrapped sandwiches and johnnycakes back to the car. Johnnycake is deep-fried bread, the Caribbean equivalent of biscuits to Southerners or sopapillas to Mexicans. Just what my cellulite needed. Except that really, it was lack of exercise in the last five years since I’d quit karate, not too many calories, that was my problem. Ava also had two icy Red Stripes between her fingers.
“How much further?” I asked.
“Ten minutes,” she said.
We drove another mile along the water, then turned straight inland and upward. I hated leaving the serenity of the shoreline. The last eight minutes of our drive were on rutted dirt roads that shot off into dense bushes every few hundred yards.
“Not a place to explore by yourself,” Ava said, pointing at one of the side roads. “Too isolated.”
“It’s gorgeous up here, though,” I said. In fact, I was shocked at how gorgeous it was. Different from the water, obviously, but different in a good way, a way that was perfect. The trees were taller and met above the road, creating a roof above us and dampening the noise of the surf against sand and rocks only a mile away. I saw a bright flash of feathers in one of the trees.
“Is that a macaw?”
“Yah mon. They live up here.”
I didn’t know if I could ever be as blasé about this flora and fauna as Ava sounded. I soaked it in: orchids more beautiful than hothouse flowers trailing vines of hot pink, pink and orange flamboyants standing tall and proud, reminding me of the mimosa trees back home.
“Turn in here,” Ava said, and I made a sharp right, back in the general direction of the water, but hundreds of feet above it now.
We drove a quarter of a mile, then broke out of the trees. The change in our surroundings was sudden, a ripping away of the quietude of the forest. My mood shifted with it. Who was I
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