Claimed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 3 (20 page)

“You up to showing what you got?” he yelled.

Nicki laughed, grabbing the belt as he tossed. She pulled it around her waist, struggling a bit to keep the sail steady in the wind as she lost momentary contact. They’d practiced this move dozens of times over the years, the goal always to stay upright in the water, no matter what the wind conditions or the difficulty of the maneuvers they were trying. She’d become somewhat of an expert and had the belt on quickly enough.

As she twisted the board backward and forward, however, warming up her usual moves, something felt off. She scowled, squinting at the mast foot of the rig. The board was super light and the sail flexible, but she couldn’t shake the awkward sense she had. She jerked out of the harness, then jumped over the sail as the board shifted beneath her. After she nailed a clean landing, the board wobbled beneath her again and she glared down, but everything held. So far, so good.

The wind kicked up and she took advantage of it, reattaching the harness and leaning all the way over, her right arm extended wide as the watchers on the shore cheered all the freestyle moves of the instructors. Coming up again, the board skidded awkwardly—and then she saw it.

The mast foot was ratcheting out of its hinge.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” she screamed into the wind, but of course no one could hear her. The other instructors were leaping waves, and all she needed to do—all she had to do—was get the boat in safely. It wasn’t an issue of crashing, though she sure as hell wasn’t about to crash. It was an issue of not freaking out any of the newbies and not letting slip the fact that someone on Josef’s team simply hadn’t ratcheted down the mast foot well enough.

She cut the sail quickly and headed against the wind, dropping her speed, a pretty move that had more to do with expediency than finesse. She made the turn easily and realized her adrenaline was jacked more than usual. Not surprising, but she was in shallow water, there was no danger here, no issue. She wouldn’t embarrass Josef but she wouldn’t—

Her sight went black.

Nicki whirled around, gasping as her vision cleared then faded again, the dizziness so strong that she could barely stay upright. As it was the harness was the only thing holding her in place, and she fought the urge to turn and throw up in the water. Her heart was pounding out of control and her breath was tight in her chest—everything was tight in her chest. Dipping crazily, the board whirled and shuddered, and she again was saved only by her harness as she caught a hard edge of wind. The board skittered out of the water, straight once more.

I won’t drop, I won’t fail, I won’t—

The board swung crazily around and Nicki thrust her head up, facing the sky, the sun, the source of warmth and joy that had fed her all those long days as a teenager surrounded by sick people. And as the spray cleared she picked out a point on the shore that shown brilliant white in the sunlight—a reflection off glass. A reflection off a camera lens, she realized blearily, and then she realized who was holding that camera, who was standing in the middle of the crowd as if no one else was there, focused solely on her, videoing her—seeing her.

Seeing her fail.

Nicki’s head spun, and this time there was no coming back. She cut the sail again and—well clear of everyone else in the group—tumbled into the water.

Around Stefan, the crowd burst into spontaneous laughter and applause.

“What a dismount!” breathed a woman beside him, awe thick in her voice. “Honey, did she see that?”

“She looked like she fell,” the little girl said and her mother snorted.

“You don’t fall with that much precision—at least I don’t. That was planned.”

Stefan was inclined to agree with the child. He pulled the camera off his shoulder and stalked to the edge of the water, ignoring the shouts and cheers of the other spectators for the remaining athletes. He didn’t want to draw attention to Nicki if she wasn’t harmed, but he had no problem jumping into the bay with the entire lifeguard brigade if he thought there was anything wrong with her.

Something had definitely been wrong.

She’d started well enough—slightly tense, perhaps, getting her footing with the unfamiliar board and sail. The other instructors had pivoted and pirouetted around her, their bodies as lithe and built for movement as Nicki’s. But then something had changed. He pinpointed it to after she’d gotten the harness from Josef, a freestyle apparatus that allowed her to angle her body more dramatically off the board. At first she’d seemed fine with it—but she’d kept staring down at her board, at first with curiosity and then with something approaching distress.

Then she’d grasped the boom of the sail hard and from that point on, he couldn’t tell what had been intentional and what had simply been her falling with precision.

He jogged up the beach, his eyes on Nicki as she floated for a few moments, her sail arcing out beside her. She’d pulled herself onto the board and her face was turned away from him. At this distance, it appeared as if she was watching the other athletes flip and whirl, more of them coming off their boards with each turn. The demonstration was winding down.

A few of the surfboarders managed a dismount while angling their boards toward shore, a simple procedure that nevertheless generated applause from the appreciative crowd. Nicki would have done that too, he suspected. She wouldn’t have done a flip into the water, no matter what, not with so many kids watching. She would have been more careful.

As if hearing his increasingly concerned thoughts, Nicki turned the paddle toward shore, and with a few strokes or her legs, got it positioned to where she could easily stand and push the entire apparatus forward. Other dismounted boarders were doing the same thing, only a few demonstrating a water mount to guide their boards in.

She took her time, then clearly noticed him standing at the shoreline. A bright, bold grin flashed across her face, and something hard and ugly unclamped from Stefan’s chest. For the first time in ten minutes he drew in a deep breath, and his hands unclenched from their fists as he proceeded casually down to the shoreline.

“You’ll get wet,” Nicki protested, waving him back. Her smile remained fixed on her face, but her voice sounded thin, thready.

“I’ll survive.” He waded into the water and took the edge of the sail. She let him, floating backward as he maneuvered the board and sail around. “This is all part of the demonstration,” he said over his shoulder. “Showing how easy it is to pull the unit onto the beach.”

She didn’t respond and he forced himself to focus on the board, the sail, safely bringing the unit out of the water to line up neatly with the other athletes’ equipment. As he walked, he scanned the board, and he paused as he noted where the mast foot was secured to the wide, colorful board.

Stefan hadn’t spent a lot of time on these toys, but he knew enough to know the mast foot was almost disconnected.

He dropped the board, turning back to the water, and Nicki was beside him. Someone had draped her in a brightly colored beach towel that proclaimed the name of Josef’s camp, and she followed his gaze to the mast foot.

“Did it break mid-run?” he asked. “Or was it damaged when you started?”

She didn’t respond for a second, pulling her towel closer as if it was protection. “It didn’t break as fully as some of them have I’ve been on. It sort of lost connection—it stayed attached, see? But not tightly.”

“How did that affect your sailing?”

“Why, did I look bad?” She turned to him, disappointment evident in her face. He found himself shaking his head quickly, willing to do anything—say anything to reassure her.

“Not at all,” he said. “The proof will be on the video footage later, and you can review it for yourself. There was a lot of spray at the end, when I suspect you had trouble with the mast. But it seemed you were in a controlled spin.”

“A controlled spin, that’s awesome.” Nicki’s laugh sounded shaky, and her color was off—not as warm or high as he would have expected, following the exertion in the water. “I fell at the end, though,” she said with a candor that surprised him. “No way around that.”

“It was artful enough to leave the question of whether or not you did it on purpose.” He shrugged, falling in line with her as they headed back toward the main crush. “Do you need to rest? Are you hurt?”

“Nah. Beat up a little, shook up too, I guess.” She shrugged. “I saw that mast foot issue and I could have kicked myself for not checking and rechecking the equipment more thoroughly. Josef’s crew is the best, and they work with kids. They’re hyper-vigilant. But it’s my job to check their work. I’m the one in the water.”

Her irritation sounded more like Nicki’s normal voice, and Stefan’s nerves quieted another few degrees as they re-entered the crowd. Fortunately, Nicki was one of several athletes, and while the older teen girls gravitated toward her, she emerged on the other side of the crowd relatively unscathed. Josef was surrounded by tourists asking questions, and Stefan suspected that she would not tell him of the machinery issue until he was out of earshot of the curious crowd.

“Ambassador Mihal, Miss Clark. You saw much, yes? You have more for your tourism video.”

Nicki blinked, but Stefan filled in smoothly. “We have a great deal of footage. You’ll be very pleased with the final result.”

“Good! Good.” Omir scanned up to the ridgeline, his gaze drifting to the southern ridge and the excavation, prominently obvious from this distance. “I think we go ahead and do the tour this evening, yes? As the sun is setting. That will give you good light?”

He slanted a glance to Nicki. It would provide terrible light, but she brightened immediately. “Oh! The light would be absolutely beautiful,” she said. “The sunset views from that location I suspect are stunning, and we could do some fun things with shadows since it’s a centuries-old site.”

“More than centuries,” Omir said, puffing his chest out. “The foundations go back thousands of years. We are only now beginning to uncover its treasures.”

“It sounds fascinating.” And to her credit, Nicki apparently believed what she said, moving up to her toes as she stopped clutching the beach towel so tightly. “When would be convenient for you to show us?”

“After most of the day’s work is done,” Omir said, his gaze shifting up to the ruins again. “I will send a car at six p.m.—we will have time to tour what we can and see the sunset. It will be a sight you will never forget, I assure you.”

Nicki nodded enthusiastically, even as Stefan grimaced.

It was certainly a sight he’d never forget…especially if it led them to Ari.

Chapter Seventeen

The short window between the demonstration and the tour was a godsend. Nicki spent longer than any human should in the hotel’s shower, which seemed surprisingly big and lonely without Stefan’s body surrounding her. But she didn’t want to see Stefan right away.

She leaned against the cool tiles. Her dizziness was totally due to lack of hydration, she knew. That and nerves. But it scared her anyway. Visions of five years ago flashed in front of her eyes. Her father’s gray face the day she’d found him on the floor, her brother’s fear. Her mother’s descent into petulance and fainting “spells”, checking out on Nicki as Nicki had cared for her dad and tried to keep her brother supported and motivated.

And then had come the day of the high school track meet, when her brother John had fallen too—passing out right in the middle of his race. Her worst nightmare come to life. He’d survived, but then he’d received the diagnosis of cardiomyopathy, and not only had his activity level changed…his entire approach to life had too.

Nicki pulled herself back from those thoughts, turning her face into the pounding spray. If she took much longer, Stefan would be in to check on her, and while ordinarily that would be something she’d welcome with open arms…not today. Today she needed to get the mission done, and convince Stefan that everything was good to go with her—her mind, her body, her heart. If he had one clue that she might have some sort of dizzy spell, he would never take her with him to find Ari. He might not take her anyway, but she had a shot if she remained healthy and alert.

He’d been impressed with her abilities up to this point, and she couldn’t screw this up now. Not when she was so close to truly contributing, to truly being part of a team that mattered.

By the time Stefan did knock on her door, she was dressed in a summer dress and walking sandals, her video equipment clean of all past sessions. She’d downloaded her own run to a memory stick. There’d be plenty of time to review that later and see if she could salvage any of it for use. If Stefan had been focusing on her body, not her face, she had a chance. But if he’d had the camera trained on her face, then the viewers would see what he had doubtless seen—her panic, her concern, her stress. Maybe even the point at which she’d momentarily blacked out. Those images wouldn’t be good for Josef, and they wouldn’t be good for Alaçati. Or windsurfing. Or her.

But that wasn’t something she needed to worry about. Not yet.

Stefan knocked again.