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Intrigued and amused now, Lyric settled back against the wall with a grin. She loved a tall tale and had a feeling this one was going to be a doozy.
* * *
Chapter 13
* * *
“So, I’m gonna take you back to the beginning,” Heath said, his voice taking on the rolling cadence of a professional storyteller. Not that that was exactly a surprise. The man had been telling tales since he could string two words together. She should know. She’d bought more than a few herself.
Including the one where he’d said he needed her.
“Lyric’s and my reunion all started with the Kilauea volcano.”
“A volcano?” Harmony asked doubtfully.
“Not just any volcano, Harm.” He looked up then, his eyes meeting Lyric’s across the room. She hadn’t realized he knew she was here—was a little disappointed, in fact, that he’d figured it out. She’d been looking forward to the tale he was going to spin.
But as he beckoned her forward, he continued, “It was the Kilauea volcano. A truly sacred place, at least to Lyric and myself. Right, darlin’?”
“Oh, right. Absolutely.” She should have known that having her hear the story would only encourage him. The bigger the audience, the more Heath brought to the table. And because trying to figure out how they could possibly have reunited at Kilauea was helping to pass the time, she decided not to call him on it. Instead, she put the drinks and snacks on the closest table, then took hold of the hand he was reaching out to her. And tried not to shiver like a schoolgirl when he laced his big, talented hands with hers.
“Lyric was out all night with her big telescope on top of Kilauea watching for the shift of this super rare comet that only comes around every couple hundred years.” He turned to the crowd of hospital staff who now surrounded them. “She’s an astrophysicist and loves watching the stars and stuff like that.”
“What comet is that exactly?” her sister asked.
Lyric tried not to laugh as Heath looked around a little desperately, as if he was searching for something he could name a comet after. Finally he said, “The Keurig Majora—”
“Keurig, like the coffeemaker?” Jeannie sat up and pointed to the Keurig in the corner. “I bet whoever named that comet really loved coffee.”
“You have no idea,” Heath agreed.
“Seriously?” Harmony asked, staring holes through Lyric. “The Keurig Majora?”
Lyric started to shrug, but Heath squeezed her hand firmly before replying, “Yes, the Keurig Majora.” He gave her sister the stink eye. “You can google it if you want to know more about it. Right, darlin’?”
It was so far from right that she didn’t even know where to start, but what the hell. She nodded and did her best to look like a woman whose love for a man had actually made her brain cells liquefy and leak out her ears. It was hard, especially since she had to mash her lips together to keep from blurting out that comets didn’t shift. They orbited the sun.
Why couldn’t he have chosen an actual comet, like Wild 2 or Wolf-Harrington, anyway? Then again, it wasn’t like anyone was going to fact-check his sure-to-be-ridiculous story. Nobody but Harmony, and it wasn’t like her sister hadn’t already copped to things. Besides, Lyric was counting herself lucky he hadn’t named the comet Labia Majora.
“Anyway, that night, she was out recording the shift of the comet, and she was staring up at Keurig Majora when she noticed that the lava flow of the Pu’u ’O’o vent had suddenly changed course. Now, let me tell you something about lava—it’s the slow, silent killer. It sneaks up on you and then BAM, you’re on fire. Forty-seven people are killed in lava-related accidents every single year.” He nodded like that absolutely absurd, little-known, and completely made-up fact was gospel truth.
She was pretty sure no one had died in a slow-moving-lava-related accident since Vesuvius had swallowed Pompeii. And even then, it would have been the cloud of ash that killed them. But who was she to contradict the Deuce?
“So Lyric trained her telescope on that lava, following the new path down the side of Kilauea. The lava was headed for a field, and she thought, hey, no big deal, right? Until she noticed a troop of Boy Scouts camping in that field.”
Oh God, not the Boy Scouts. She loved the Boy Scouts. And why would Boy Scouts be camping on the side of an active volcano anyway? That troop leader must be the most irresponsible person ever.
Oh crap, even she was starting to buy his bullshit.
“And that’s when my brave, brave Lyric sprang into action. She hightailed it down the side of the volcano and woke up all of the Boy Scouts. She made sure every single one of them got to safety—or so she thought, until she found little Mikial.” Heath paused for dramatic effect.
Lyric couldn’t help wondering what was coming next. Was this the place where Mikial gotten eaten by a pterodactyl? They did film Jurassic World on Kauai, so it was possible that one stray pterodactyl flew on over to Oahu and gobbled up little Mikial. Or was this where a huge tsunami came up and washed him away? It was a choose-your-own-disaster story, and she didn’t know which way it was going to go.
“Poor little Mikial was the youngest and the smallest of the Boy Scouts. He’d always dreamed of being a Boy Scout, and he’d finally found a troop that accepted him, wheelchair and all.”
There were several sharp inhalations of breath around the room.
Wheelchair? Oh no. Please let little Mikial have something curable. Lyric felt her eyes welling in horrified sympathy.
