Before she could respond to his ridiculous proposal, they were interrupted by more skittering close by. Their heads whipped in this new direction, knowing danger wasn’t far. “We have to move.”
“I agree.”
“Help me get this stuff,” she said, scrambling across the ground and reaching for one of the discarded water bottles. He tried to yank her up, not wanting to stick around in this spot longer than necessary.
“Just get what you can. We don’t have time.” He grabbed a different water bottle and the last bag of airplane pretzels. Trey tried to run, but his ankle was tender from where the claw had grabbed him and could only manage a hop-shuffle. Catalina slid under his arm, wrapping her own around his waist as though she could support him alone. They jogged along, not really knowing where was going to be a safe position from the rest of the crabs, as they were still on the open beach.
He took her support while trying not to burden her too much, clutching her close. “You called me your husband,” he said, grinning at her. It had been a long time since she had claimed him so fiercely. He’d missed it. “And you came back to save me.” Even though he knew this would do nothing but antagonize her, a mischievous part of himself couldn’t help but poke the beast, wondering if there was a part of her heart that continued beating for him.
She gave him a small smile. “Like I’m going to allow an asshole crab let you off easy when you’ve only come up with eighteen reasons why I should love you. Maybe I want to hear them all.”
“So you like them then?”
She didn’t say anything for a while, and he thought the whole conversation had died on that note, but she surprised him by speaking up again, this time her words softer. “I do like them, and I think… I want to be convinced.”
His chest expanded with hope. Sure, they were defenseless on a beach filled with dangerous ghost crabs that wanted to eat them. But, with this one small confession from Cat, he finally had a moment where their survival was not only entirely possible but essential. He had to have as much time as he could with his wife.
Trey tilted his head closer, speaking into her ear. “I never should have stopped giving you reasons. You know, before all this. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too…for making it hard to love me because I thought I didn’t want it anymore.” She turned her gaze to him. He felt a shiver go through her. “It’s not true.”
He wanted to kiss her at that moment, really kiss her, not a tease but to completely let go. Unfortunately, stopping would be a bad idea, especially when a spray of sand landed nearby and they had to dart away from it.
“As soon as we’re safe,” he yelled, “I’m going to give you the biggest reason of all.”
Chapter 19
Catalina
"I’m going to hold you to that promise,” she shouted in response, a smile flashing on her lips because she couldn’t help it. Catalina meant it because she planned to give him reasons as well—to reward him for not giving up on them when he easily could have.
The problem was, what did safety look like? Were they just going to run until the sun rose in the sky and the crabs returned to their sandy bunkers? Or until they collapsed from exhaustion? She had a good amount of adrenaline pumping through her from rescuing Trey, feeling she could take on a whole beach of critters, but this wasn’t something she could count on forever.
Of course, this was before Trey had spoken low in her ear, his tone sincere in his regret. Also, she was going through her own turbulent emotions. Catalina hated that she kept putting up her wall when she didn’t want to hurt him anymore. She wanted this one agonizing part of her life to be done with. Never more so than that moment he’d been running behind herand had suddenly vanished. Her heart had dropped into her gut when she’d turned and witnessed him being dragged away in the dark like a poltergeist had seized him. Realizing it had been a crab, the chill in her blood had turned to absolute rage.
Nature couldn’t have him because she wasn’t done with him, not even close. She was going to fight with her life because the thought of a world without him was too unbearable to consider. Catalina would battle every crab on the beach for another chance to be with him.
Pivoting in a different direction to avoid another crab, she tripped on her feet and almost dragged Trey down with her before he pulled her upright again to support her. Wordlessly, they took turns supporting each other until the muscles in her legs were like jelly, her lungs burned, and she ran out of adrenaline.
They were so focused on getting away, they stopped short at a weird-looking rock, almost colliding with it. “What is that?” she panted. The texture was different from what she would expect from a large boulder. It was smooth with vertical ridges, its pale color shining in the moonlight.
“Maybe we can climb it,” he said.
He let her go, and she instantly slid to the ground in exhaustion. “You go ahead. I’ll wait here.” There was no way her limbs had the strength for climbing anything.
Trey made a few attempts before slipping off, having nothing to grip to pull himself up. “Actually, you know what…” The rest of the sentence died as hewalked around the perimeter of the strange object. “Oh my God. Do you know what this is?” he said excitedly from a few yards away.
“If it isn’t the world’s smallest hotel with a soft bed and all-you-can-eat buffet, I’m probably going to be disappointed.” At this point, her exhaustion hit her in full force and it took everything in her not to collapse on the ground and let the crabs drag her away.
“Come over here! It’s pretty close.”
She doubted the object waspretty closeto being a luxury hotel, but she managed to get to her feet again, stumbling her way to him. “What is it?”
He grabbed her hand, continuing to pull her along the outside edge. “I think… It’s a conch shell.” He removed the cell phone from his pocket, activating the flashlight app.
With the answer revealed, she could see it. The light hit the edges of an imperfect seashell, some tips and edges broken off, but it was almost intact, partially buried in the sand. The main swoop of the shell gracefully arched upwards like a modern piece of art. From what she could see, the inside portion of the shell was ghost white and shiny as though carved from marble. Touching the cool surface was like running her fingers over glass.
“Yeah, I think we should stay here for the night,” Trey said, sounding confident.
