As Bright As The Stars (Vaquita Beach Book 2) Read online

  “Well, I’m a helper, that’s for sure. Always prepared to sacrifice myself for somebody else on a moment’s notice.” She wasn’t kidding about that. It really did seem to be her purpose in life, no matter the cost to herself. This sacrifice didn’t seem hopeless, though, as maybe she could help stop this from happening again.

  They’d returned to the car now, and as they continued toward their campo she turned toward him, placing her hand gently on his arm.

  “What do you plan to do?”

  “I don’t know yet. I notified my editor, for one. He’ll need to know. He’s the one that convinced me that it needed to be printed as is, including the information about the value to the overseas population in their efforts at fertility.”

  His chin set and his jaw hard, he squinted toward the horizon before he turned up into their campo.

  Following his gaze, she saw several boats huddled together and wondered if they had anything to do with this slaughter they were witnessing. She shuddered to think that an entire species could be wiped out for soup.

  15

  As they pulled into their campo, James’s grip on the steering wheel loosened and his eyes softened. He turned in to her driveway, the sand crunching under the tires of the Range Rover.

  He quickly hopped out, opening her door before she even had a chance to gather her things. He grabbed the bag of shells they had collected and walked in behind her as she opened the door.

  “These shells are spectacular,” he said, laying them out on her counter. “I’ve never seen some of these before. This one has to be a paper nautilus—actually an octopus egg container.”

  As he pulled the shells out of the bag, she watched as he set them down in a mosaic pattern, almost like a mandala. A huge clamshell lay in the middle, and he quickly placed the other assorted shells around it in a pattern that looked, to her, like rays of the sun.

  “That’s beautiful. How do you do that?” she asked, peering over his shoulder.

  He shrugged as he continued to place the shells in a beautiful pattern. “Just like the painting we did. You just check in about how they make you feel, and ask what to do next.”

  “You make it sound so simple. The blue tulips were really tough for me to do.”

  “But you did it,” he said, winking at her.

  She peered over at her wood stove and had an idea.

  “I’ve always wanted to add something like that on the hearth over there by the wood stove. The ashes fall out onto the carpet, so I wanted to do something creative, but I’m afraid to.”

  “There you go again. Afraid of what?”

  “I don’t know. Doing it wrong?”

  “There is no wrong. Didn’t we prove that with the blue tulips?” He shook his head, turning toward her. She couldn’t read his sentiment as he took her hand and placed it on his cheek. He gazed into her eyes. What was it? Pity? No, sadness.

  “I have an idea. I’ll be right back,” he said as he headed out the door.

  Within minutes, he was back with a bucket, a trowel and a bag of some kind of powder.

  “We’re going to do your hearth right now.”

  “Right now? I can’t. I’m not ready.”

  “When will you be ready?” he asked, standing in front of her. His blue eyes never left hers, the challenge clear.

  “Um, maybe next week?”

  “How about never, if you had your way. We’re going to do it now.”

  She felt the sweat on her palms as he filled the bucket with the sand-colored powder and water, mixing it quickly with the trowel.

  “You’d better get your ideas sorted out. The grout will dry if we leave it too long.” She quickly turned to the shells, and the panic rose in her chest.

  “I’ll just do the pattern you did. It’s pretty.”

  He set the bucket down, turning to the counter. In one swift motion, he rearranged all of the shells, obliterating the pattern he had made.

  His blue eyes bore into her as he leaned on the counter with one elbow. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I–I don’t know. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t want to mess it up.”

  “That’s not possible. It will be your creation, and it will be perfect, whatever it is,” he said, picking up the bucket and heading toward the cement hearth. “I’m spreading the grout now, so you have about ten minutes to decide what you want to do.”

  Her hands now completely drenched and her heart fluttering, she quickly sorted the shells on the counter, arranging and re-arranging them in different patterns. She shook her head, moving them all around again, not satisfied with her effort.

  “One-minute warning,” she heard from the corner of the room.

  Panicked, she gathered the shells she had chosen and rushed to the wood stove. She looked at him, pleading with her eyes. “Please don’t make me do this. I can’t. I’ll make a mistake.”

  He set the trowel in the bucket, pointing to the grout he had spread on the cement square in front of the wood stove.

  Taking her hand, he pulled her down toward the floor. They sat in front of the blank canvas of grout, her shells piled by her side.

  “There is nothing you can do that would be wrong. This is your house. It will be your creation, your memory of gathering shells today on the beach. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and create.”

  His blue eyes intent, she turned her gaze toward the floor. Taking the shells in her hand, she closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply and vowing to let the shells fall where they should.

  As she placed the big shell in the center and pushed it into the grout, she turned to see him gazing, his lips turned up in a smile. He moved back a bit, encouraging her to continue.

  “Go on. You can do it.”

  Smiling, she turned back to the hearth. She felt a joy come over her as she picked up shells of purple, gold, and green. Matching stones fell into place swiftly by her hand, and she felt as if time stopped as she placed them where she felt they needed to be.

  She reached for another shell and, almost in a daze, she realized she was out of shells. She suddenly stood, taking a step back and bumping into him standing behind her. She felt his arms around her waist, his cheek next to hers as he looked down at what she had created.

  “Look at what you’ve done,” he said, rubbing his beard against her cheek, grabbing her more tightly. “It really is beautiful.”

  Her heart swelled as she looked at the mandala she’d created with the gifts from the sea. She was stunned that she’d done it. Is this what it feels like? Happy? she thought? If it was, she wanted more of it.

  He pulled her around to face him, holding her tightly to him. She lowered her head on his shoulder, feeling his heart beat. Closing her eyes, she felt her heart opening, her creation still fresh in her mind. He stepped back, his hand on her chin, tilting her face up toward his.

  “You have so much inside that you’ve never known,” he said as he lowered his lips to hers.

  The sound of a car horn blasted the air, and she stepped back, startled. It wasn’t a sound common here at the beach. Whoever was honking was really laying it on, the horn blaring wildly. The blasts were coming from the direction of James’s house, and he looked out the door to see who it was.

  His eyes narrowed as he peered down the road. With a look of concern, he turned back toward her. “I’ll be right back. I’ll grab my camera while I’m over there and we’ll memorialize your art work,” he said, squeezing her hand before he walked out the door.

  16

  She studied her handiwork for a bit, marveling at how she’d gotten the shells in just the right places. It really was pretty, if she did say so herself, and she giggled at the thought that she’d actually had the courage to do it.

  She hummed as she cleaned the tools he had brought, washing the grout off of the trowel with warm water. She’d cleaned the bucket, too, by the time she realized he hadn’t returned. Drying them off with a towel, she headed out the door to return them.
/>   She passed a police car in the driveway and wondered if this had been the car that had been honking so loudly. She started up the colorful tile steps toward his house, anxious to see him.

  The front door was open, and she stopped in her tracks as she heard loud voices arguing. Worried she might get caught eavesdropping, she turned to leave, but felt herself drawn to stay, as the voices grew louder.

  “Senor, we have no other evidence right now to stop these smugglers. Your pictures are the only way to get a warrant quickly. We need them.”

  “You have no way to take pictures yourselves? This is not something I want to get involved in. I told Manuel that.”

  Manuel’s voice broke into the exchange. “Don’t you understand? We live here. This is our home. And it’s your home now, too.”

  “Yes, it is my home, but I don’t want to get involved. My editor has told me not to. I could lose my job.”

  Manuel’s voice sounded tired. “Fishing is too important to the people here, to their livelihood. There aren’t enough totuaba to supply them to other countries.”

  “I didn’t ask you to come here. I took the pictures only to tell you what I suspected.” Anger seeped into James’s voice as he continued. “I actually don’t want to get involved with any of this.”

  The scrape of chairs sounded as the men abruptly stood up.

  “Senor, we need those pictures.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking me to do,” James said, his voice low.

  “Please reconsider, Senor. We need your help.”

  James was silent as she heard the men heading toward the door.

  She felt the heat rise in her cheeks as her face flushed with panic. She heard the men heading toward the door, and tried to find a place to hide before they saw her. Setting the bucket of tools down as quietly as she could, she turned and jumped around the corner of the house, out of sight from the front door.

  The men stomped down the stairs, the policeman’s face red, fists clenching as he strode toward the police truck. She ducked further behind the house as they hopped into the car and sped off, sand shooting from the spinning tires.

  She wrestled with whether or not to go inside and talk to James—how could this be true, that he wouldn’t help—but just as she started up the steps, she heard his voice again.

  “No, I won’t do that. No, I’m not interested. I intend to stay completely out of it.”

  She had no idea who he was talking to, but it was clear that he wasn’t going to stand up for what was right. He wasn’t going to do right thing, fight for the underdog. And if that was the case, she didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

  17

  Tears stung her cheeks as she ran down the road, her head fighting her heart. As she neared her house, she started up toward Felicia’s, her thoughts jumbled and confused. The light shone from Felicia’s house and she heard laughter coming from the windows, something she had no interest in. She turned back toward the cliff and to her own safe haven. As she pushed the door of her house open, she stumbled inside, hardly able to see.

  She’d set the wood stove up with logs before she’d done the hearth today, and she struck a match quickly, the logs lighting on the first try. The door of the stove hung open, the light of the flames dancing on the shells she had carefully placed earlier.

  She closed the door of the stove and twisted down the metal handle, flames still glowing through the clear glass onto the shells.

  “What happened?” she heard, as her door opened and Felicia walked in. She set a bottle of wine on the counter, grabbed a corkscrew and deftly opened the bottle. “I saw you run out of James’s house but couldn’t catch you before you came back here. Have you been crying?”

  Taking the glass of wine that Felicia held out to her, she walked over to the wood stove, plopping down on the sofa.

  Felicia followed, her eyes glued on the hearth.

  “Where did that come from? That wasn’t there last night.”

  The tears came in a flood now, as Megan looked at the beautiful array of shells that James had coaxed out of her earlier.

  “I thought...I thought...” she said, before the sobs overtook her, her shoulders shaking as she tried to make sense of what she’d heard.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. Take a deep breath,” her friend said, settling in beside her on the couch. “What did he do? Do I need to go poke him in the eye?”

  Megan smiled in spite of herself, pushing Felicia’s shoulder.

  “No, friend. But I might do it myself.”

  She recounted the events of the day, from the sea turtle laying its eggs to the totuaba to the new hearth.

  “It was all going so well. I’ve never had a day quite like today.”

  “Sounds good so far. The hearth is gorgeous. I never knew you had it in you,” she said, smiling as she poured more wine into Megan’s glass.

  “Well, that was the good part of what happened. Did you hear all that honking earlier?”

  “Yeah, we saw a police car pull up at James’s, and they were laying on the horn.”

  “Well, that guy was arguing with him when I went to take back his tools later.”

  “What about?”

  “You’re not going to believe this. He knows about the smuggling. You know the totuaba that Kyle found on the beach? Somebody’s killing them and smuggling their bladders overseas. I think he’s involved.

  “Excuse me? After a day like today, the turtle and everything? What a jerk.”

  “I really felt like we were on the same page. He seemed so content, so happy. And carefree.”

  “Well, you can be pretty carefree if you’re making the kind of money those would get you. Are you sure?”

  “I’m almost positive. The policeman in the house was talking about the pictures and asked for them, but James refused.”

  “He seemed to me to be more like you, concerned about people and protecting the campos.”

  “That’s what I thought. I can’t believe it. I don’t know what happened. How could I have been so wrong?”

  “Oh, honey, don’t worry about it. Come over to my place. We’re making clams.”

  “You?” Megan’s eyebrows shot up at the surprise of Felicia cooking anything.

  “Well, not me. Kyle. But you need to come over and be with friends. If he’s involved in that, he’s no friend of ours. Honestly, he doesn’t deserve you.”

  “Yeah, right. I’m such a catch. No job, no prospects. No wonder.”

  “Stop it. If he can’t see the big heart you have, it’s his loss. And if he’s capable of something like that, you can’t be with him anyway. You’re the kindest, most compassionate person I know. Not to mention, a ridiculous rule-follower. You could never be with a smuggler.”

  “I just can’t believe he is one. Not after today, not after seeing him so upset at the dead fish. And excited about the sea turtle laying her eggs.” Her head fell into her hands now, her shoulders slumped.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure. We can’t let them cover up a smuggling ring, can we? Shouldn’t we do something?”

  “Not tonight, that’s for sure. Come on. Let’s eat lots of clams with butter, and finish this wine. Things will look better tomorrow. Heck with him. Like I said, he doesn’t deserve you.”

  “Felicia, I know you’re trying to make me feel better. I’m just so confused. I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  “Well, come be confused over at my place. We can play Scrabble. If you’re that confused, maybe I can win for once. I promise I won’t cheat,” she said, as she grabbed the bottle and pulled Megan out the door. They made the short trip across the road and Megan waved at Kyle as he stood at the stove.

  “Kyle steamed the clams since we couldn’t find you. The butter should be ready, too,” her friend said as she set plates out on the patio table. They’d sat on the porch overlooking the waves, enjoying the sweet gifts from the sea as the wine disappeared from their glasses.


  Megan tried to focus as thoughts of James and the police rushed back in at every turn. Felicia rarely won at Scrabble when they played, but tonight had been different.

  “Wow, you really are out of it,” Felicia said as she played her last tile, winning the second game in a row. “I never win at this.”

  Megan turned to her friend, trying to focus her eyes and willing the fog in her brain to lift.

  “I don’t’ know what’s the matter with me.” Her head dropped to her hands, and she felt her friend’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Well, I do. You’ve been so focused on helping other people for such a long time, you’ve forgotten you have your own needs to tend to. You’ve opened your heart for the first time in a long time. I’m so sorry it got stepped on. But please don’t let it stop you from keeping it open. I’ve missed this part of you,” she said, her hand squeezing her friend’s. “You’ll feel better tomorrow. Get some sleep tonight, and we’ll go let the air out of his tires in the morning when he’s not looking.”

  18

  With a hug from her friend, she headed over to her house and tossed a few more logs on the fire. As she sat before the wood stove, the beautiful shells on the hearth caught her eye. The joy she’d felt when she’d laid them carefully on the hearth, her fear conquered and her heart light with his challenge and encouragement, was gone now. She wiped new tears from her cheek as they sprung up again, unbidden.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw a black bundle of fur scratching at the door.

  “Whiskers!” she said, as she opened the door to let the dog in. His tail wagged at full speed as he ran in circles at her feet, and she knelt to pet him, her head peering past him as she waited for Jimmy’s inevitable arrival.

  “Hey,” she heard him growl as he rounded the corner. He never was one for elaborate greetings.

  “You’ve been crying. That’s not good.” He sat down beside her and opened the wood stove. Poking the coals, he added another log.