SEALs of Summer 2: A Military Romance Superbundle (70 page)

He could fantasize all day long, but the truth was the truth. They were done.

“Checking in?” A man behind a curved mahogany counter asked.

“Yeah,” Luke said, even though it felt very much like he was checking out.

“Are you with
Food for the Poor
,
Compassion International
, or the
United Methodist Committee on Relief
?” the man asked.

“Pardon?”

The man smiled brightly. “These are some of the organizations staying with us this week. Many people come to make life better for Haitians.”

Luke groaned. “No. I’m not one of them.”

“Okay, sir. How many nights will you be staying?”

*

Ysabeau drove through
the crowded streets. She glanced at her watch. Four twenty-five. She’d hit going-home traffic and had a terrible feeling she wasn’t going to make it to Luke before It—whatever It was—struck.

A car in front of her slammed on its brakes and she nearly rear-ended it. “Come on! Move it!” she yelled at the traffic.

Didn’t they know they were all in trouble?

She couldn’t lose Luke. Not like this. Her eyes welled with tears.

Screeching around the car in front of her, she sped toward the Hotel Montana.

*

With a room
card in his pocket, Luke left the check-in counter. He walked under a large square chandelier. It was off-white with a dark brown checkered pattern. Looking up, he saw people laughing on the second floor, enjoying their stay in the four-star hotel. He massaged the tension in his neck. It could be a good thing to sleep on a regular bed. With a good night’s sleep, he might be able to formulate a plan on how to convince Ysabeau to leave the clinic behind and come home with him. It was doubtful, but a desperate man could hope.

He made his way through the open lobby to elevators framed with rich mahogany wood that matched the elegant check-in counter. Entering the elevator, he pressed the button for the fifth floor and leaned against the handrail at the back of the car. He was exhausted and so damn sad. Catching his reflection in the mirror, he leaned forward and studied his face. The bruises were barely smudges, the lump was nothing more than a sore spot, and all of his things that had been stolen had been returned. If he went home this minute it would be as if he had never come to Haiti.

“Shitshitshit,” he mumbled and walked down the long corridor to his room. He had to fix this. Had to get her back, or die trying.

The suite was clean, bright, and much more space than he needed. There was a living room with a denim couch and two matching chairs, a mahogany desk and chair, and television. White curtains embroidered with red and yellow banana leaves draped the windows. He opened a door and walked out onto a tiled balcony.

The heat outside the air-conditioned suite hit him like a punch in the face. He rested one foot on the short wall encompassing his private balcony and looked out to the expansive view. It was a surreal thing to stand here inside the magnificent hotel lush with plants, and look across to the deforested hillside where a multitude of houses were piled one on top of the other. It struck him this was exactly what he’d been doing all along—living in his safe, wealthy home and making momentous decisions that affected hundreds of lives. Those people over there—in tiny houses without running water, stable nutrition, or medical care—were Ysabeau’s people. And here he stood in his air-conditioned room, with his comfortable bed, hot shower, and room service.

He hung his head, feeling more ashamed of himself than he had in a long time. Before coming, he hadn’t thought twice about the poor and sick people in Haiti. Caught up in his own troubles, he’d ignored the rest of the world. He was a selfish bastard.

Danny had said it. No one should get to choose who lived and died. Not even the Guardian.

*

Ysabeau started to
panic. She was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Poor Brigitte wasn’t getting anywhere fast. All around her the horns blared and nothing moved. Her heart ached as she replayed the hateful words she had yelled at Luke.
If I never see him again…

“Please God, let me make it to the Montana before it’s too late.”

*

Luke went back
inside the suite to soak his pounding head. On the way to the bathroom, he stopped to study a painting on the wall. It was a bright, sparkly blue-green painting of a two-tailed merman with crazy Tico dreads. The Naif artwork reminded him the day they’d gone to the Iron Market. How he longed to go back to that day and start all over again.

There was no going back. He’d learned that the hard way with Soli and it seemed the lesson was being hammered in all over again with Ysabeau.

He splashed cold water on his face until the pounding eased back to a dull roar. Through water-soaked lashes, he stared at himself in the mirror.

“What the hell?” he said out loud.

He grabbed a towel and dried his face, hoping to improve his vision. It didn’t change a thing. He saw what he would have bet money didn’t exist. There in the mirror were two auras clinging to his body. One red. One blue.

“No friggin way,” he said as he turned his head this way and that, watching the auras shimmer and pulse around him.

He was still in shock when the next surprising thing happened.

“Leave! Go! Go! Go!” A voice careened inside the bathroom.

Luke stood still, every cell in his body frozen.

“Hurry!” She yelled again. The voice came from the blue aura that blazed like a hot flame around his reflection.

“Soli?” Luke whispered.

“Please, Luke, leave here.” Was she sobbing?

“Sweetheart, you’ve got to understand. I’ll always love you. Nothing will change that, ever. You are my wife, the first woman I ever loved. The other part of my heart. But…” this was hard to say but he had to get it done. Soli deserved the truth. “I love Ysabeau too. It’s different, but I do. I need to be with her.”

He stared into his own reflection and wished he could actually see her face-to-face. At the same time he knew this was completely bonzo crazy. Who talks to his aura? Scratch that. Who could see auras? The heat must’ve melted his brain. Or the Great Grann had busted something in there during the Voodoo ceremony.

But he didn’t stop talking to the aura—that could not in any realm of possibility—be Soli. “I’m not leaving Haiti until I tell Ysabeau how much I love her. Because of her, I feel again. I have a new beating heart. I need to tell her, let her truly see what we could be if she chooses me. If she doesn’t love me, then…then I’ll leave.”

Soli sighed. “Then go to her. Right now! Don’t look back.”

Not exactly what he expected to hear from his dead wife. “You mean…you’re okay with…”

“Go to her. Run! Luke, run as fast as you can.” Her voice tore through his brain.

And he did.

‡

Y
sabeau drove into
the circular drive at the Hotel Montana. The valet opened her car door and she gave him her keys. The Montana always gave her a sense of pride. It was a reminder of the beauty and grace that existed at the heart of Haiti. Her people were poor and yet they’d accomplished this great magnificent feat that could be compared to any four-star hotel in Europe, Asia, or America. A shining star proving things could be magnificent throughout her beloved country. One day.

The last time Ysabeau had ventured up the hill to the Montana was two years ago when Leesha, a friend from the university, had gotten married. It had been a beautiful wedding inside a beautifully decorated ballroom. Leesha’s dress was one of the most extraordinary things she had ever seen, only to be outdone by the bride’s brilliant smile. Ysabeau was struck by the lavishness that was mere minutes from the squalor and slums of Port-au-Prince. Outside children were filling their bellies with mud cookies to stave off the hunger. Inside they were eating crab cakes.

After the I-do’s, the party had filtered out onto the terrace where the bartenders kept the patrons plied with rum. Musicians played traditional Haitian music, as well as modern American songs to dance the night away. It had been a beautiful evening full of hope and love, the exact opposite of what she was feeling at the moment.

Fear quivered in her chest as she walked into the hotel. What would she say to Luke? What if she didn’t find him in time?

Throughout the lobby there were several floor-to-ceiling mirrored columns. She looked for Luke’s handsome face in each mirror. Someone spoke English behind her and she spun around to see a group of six American men heading toward the restaurant. Luke was not one of them. She swallowed the lump in her throat and continued searching the lobby.

Would Luke want to talk to her after all she’d said to him? Would he forgive her?

A little boy interrupted her thoughts when he peeked at her from behind a giant kentia palm. One of his front teeth was missing. When he realized he’d been caught spying, he giggled and waved.

She waved back and got in the check-in line.

As the line advanced toward the counter, the hotel’s owner came out of an office. Ysabeau studied her. The woman looked remarkably well for all that she had been through. Five years earlier, the co-owner of the Hotel Montana had been kidnapped and held for ransom. The kidnappers had done all sorts of unspeakable things to her, including injecting her with blood they told her was tainted with AIDS. Ysabeau had been working at GHESKIO at the time. The ransom had been paid and the hotel owner was released from captivity. It was Ysabeau’s job to test the woman’s blood every three months over the course of a year. She remembered saying a little prayer of thanks each time the blood tested clean. She knew how close she herself had come to being victimized by a rapist with AIDS. If Deolina and Grann hadn’t stopped the bad man, she could’ve been the one having her blood tested, or worse, dying with AIDS.