AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The smell of coffee reached me, and I froze.
“Grace?” I jumped into my boxers and climbed down the tree, but she wasn’t anywhere near. A small fire pit puffed smoke and a pot of boiled water was set up by the rock. Two steaming cups of coffee stood on a tree stump. I pushed past the foliage to the riverbank where I saw Grace bathing underneath the waterfall. I cupped my hands around my mouth to make a bullhorn and called out, “Grace!”
She turned around and cleared the water off her eyes. Her t-shirt clung to her chest, outlining her breasts and nipples, and her lace thong may as well not have been there.
“Did you see the anaconda?” I called out to her.
“Anaconda?”
She flatted her back against the cliff-side, avoiding the water’s edge, and shuffled her feet sideways until she reached me at the shore. I wrapped a towel around her.
“You could have warned me.”
“You can’t sneak out like that on your own. It’s too dangerous. I’m kidding about the anaconda, but you must tell me when you leave.”
“How can some place so beautiful be dangerous?”
Looking at her standing in front of me with soaking hair, wet lashes, and pouty lips, I asked myself the same question. For the five years I’d lived here, I’d never imagined Grace coming to Costa Rica with me. Yet here she was, fitting in like she’d been raised by the Swiss Family Robinson.
She clutched the towel in front of her and looked up. “I don’t have a bathing suit.” Water dripped off her soaked lashes.
“There’s nobody around for miles.”
“So, it’s just you and me?”
“Plus a few monkeys, jaguars, and cougars.”
“No bears?”
I kept my stern gaze on hers and dipped my chin.
“You’re serious?”
“Yes. I’ll show you around, but stay close. Always. There’s a sonic sound barrier fencing the perimeter, but animals can slip through.”
“All right. I promise to stay close if you give me a tour of this paradise. Let me guess—no wifi?”
I laughed. “No. We’ll need to hike up the mountain to get a signal.”
“You have a phone?”
“Not yet.”
“Can I call Frankie when you do?”
“I told Frankie we were going on a vacation before we left. He has explicit instructions not to disturb you, and I made him responsible for the salon’s re-opening upon our return.”
“Wow. Thank you. And… when are we going back?”
“Scar and my brothers are on Chad’s tail. Ace and Axel are working on the legal papers.”
“What legal papers? I still don’t understand why Chad’s after me. Why did he drug me? What does he want from me?”
“Don’t panic when I tell you this, but we believe he wants you to give him a child.”
“What?”
“I know. It’s sick.”
