He couldn’t help being disappointed at MotherNature for ruining their moment of bliss, but getting upset was pointless. Following his wife’s example, he shot to his feet, grabbing his clothes. Unlike Catalina's, his clothes were mostly still dry. He pulled them on before grabbing the last remaining water bottle.
With the next swell, the water pushed up to his calves. It was becoming more difficult to slog through the shell’s interior with the surface slippery and the sand shifty. All they could do was rush out as quickly as possible, hoping they could escape before the rising tide overtook them.
Once on the outside, he grabbed her hand. “Come on, we have to move further inland or higher ground while we can!” He wasn’t even worried about crabs or his sore ankle at this point. The only goal was to move. They raced across the dunes, attempting to put enough distance behind them to be safe.
“I don’t know how much further I can run!” Catalina called beside him, tripping in the sand again. He didn’t blame her, as he barely had any energy either, his strength was almost tapped, but he’d push himself until his legs gave out to keep her safe.
“Let’s just…” He was panting hard. “Let’s try to make it to that tuft of grass over there. There’s a rock we can climb onto.”
It looked doable, not too big, more like a boulder. Of course, once they were at the chosen destination, everything was a lot more overwhelming size-wise. The grass sloped overhead like awnings, and that small boulder was more of a hill. Both he and Catalina were tired, and climbing a hill wasn’t an easyfeat, but it had to be better than being at sand level.
Using the last of his strength, he helped drag Catalina, who continued to fight with everything she had, even while looking as though she was about to collapse. It was darker in this area of the beach, probably due to the growth of plants, but at least the boulder had an easy slope to it, and the surface was textured, making it easy to walk across and not slippery like the seashell. They got to an area that was more or less flat. At which point, they both dropped to the ground, rolling onto their backs and letting their limbs fall outward like exhausted starfish.
“I’m sorry,” he managed to mumble, closing his eyes while waiting for his racing heart to settle once again.
Catalina crawled toward him before collapsing again, curling into his side. “Why?”
“I made a wish earlier. I wished there was a way for us to clean off because I knew we both felt really grungy. So that high tide thing was my fault. My wishes are too powerful.”
She huffed a laugh. “In that case, why don’t you wish for this to all be a bad dream and for us to wake up in our hotel room?”
“Can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I also wished for you to forgive me, and I’m not giving that up for anything.”
“We can’t fall asleep,” she murmured, already on the brink. “What about your concussion?”
If falling asleep led to him going into a coma, heno longer had the energy to care. He couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, and he had his wife spooning into his side, which was the ultimate comfort position.
“I love you,” she whispered.
He drifted off with a smile on his lips. He finally had everything he needed.
Chapter 22
Catalina
The first thing Catalina did when the bright sun pierced over the horizon early in the morning was roll from the tangle of limbs of her husband and make sure he was breathing. She gave him a jostle, and he mumbled something in his sleep before pulling her close. Immediate relief filled her. She smoothed her hand across his cheek and jawline, the prickles of his facial hair scratching her palms. It was a face that was infinitely more dear to her today than it had been a few days prior. Her heart couldn’t help but expand in her chest at the sight and feel of him.
She loved him. She did.
It was, no doubt, disappointing to wake up and discover the whole thing hadn’t been a horrible nightmare. Everything she had experienced—being dropped while inside an empanada and chased by crabs—had happened. It hadn’t all been a fever dream for her to eventually forget. Although, there was a part of her relieved to discover it had been real. While their situation was awful and dangerous, and they were probably going to spend the rest of their lives thesize of bugs, there were parts of it that she wouldn’t give up. The biggest one being that the bridge between her and Trey was being rebuilt. She no longer had to worry about being on an island by herself and was happy that the strife between them had been mended and she could keep everything, including him.
She loved him.
While keeping her hand on his cheek, she leaned toward him to press a kiss onto one of his eyelids, and a smile passed over his lips, the satisfied look of contentment. Ah well, whatever happened to them later, at least she had this moment. With a happy sigh, she watched the shadow and light change across his face because—
She jerked to a sitting position.
“Trey! We’re moving! This isn’t a rock, it’s a—”
“Shhh,” he replied, keeping his eyes closed and wrapping his arm around her thighs, encouraging her to cuddle against him again. “I know. It’s not a rock. It’s an iguana.”
“An iguana?” Glancing down, the surface they rested upon was covered in flat circular scales of pear green, brown, and black variations. There was a slight roll under the surface brought on by the creature’s muscles moving under the skin. The movement, at least, was slow, almost soothing, like the calm, lazy rocking of the ocean. A short distance away, sail-like ridges jutted out along the back of the iguana, occasionally providing shade to where she and Trey rested. This explained the changing of the light and shadow. She couldn’t see the iguana’s head but sawanother iguana moving slowly not too far away, heading in the same direction.
Out of all the animal encounters they had so far, this one was the least frightening…for now. Who knew what could happen and, for this reason, Catalina wasn’t sure she wanted to be on an iguana. “Okay, but…shouldn’t we get off? Is this safe? Maybe he hates us being on him.”
