Excerpt

Chapter 2: Honor

Rain pounds the beach in El Tuque, Puerto Rico. The lack of sun combined with the wind from the retreating tropical storm lashes me with a deep, nagging chill.

Tightening the straps on my jacket, drawing the slick red hood into an outline around my rain-drenched face, I push through the last brutal gusts.

Stacked lounge chairs clack in the distance and striped cabanas snap in the tempest. No sane person should be out here today, but I needed to be alone. Anyway, it’s an appropriately cold and miserable day.

It’s like the sky and heaven wail with me, tears of sadness and fury. Has it really been two years today? Two years since I lost Mom and ran to my grandfather, my abuelito’s home, looking for guidance from the man who’d lost, first, my grandmother, then my mother. I thought Abuelito could teach me to live a life without the ache of missing mom.

He couldn’t.

Oh, Mom, I miss you. I wish you were here to share your wisdom. What should I do about the confounding offer on Loco for Cocoa?

To accept the ridiculous money an anonymous buyer offered for our family business is to give up not just on me, on my vision of selling chocolate from Puerto Rico worldwide, but on my grandmother’s vision, of years rebuilding the inn and the cocoa farm, and on everyone who works for us.

It’s also to give up on our family, Abuelito, on the life I’ve grown to love, and of course, the cocoa. But to not take it means to keep scraping by, desperate for money with only our tours and the cruise ship patrons keeping us afloat.

Ducking my head as if from the weight of this decision, I avoid puddles in the sand as the indents from my sneakers create smaller puddles.

“Follow your heart, mija,” Mom’s voice whispers in my head, as if it could ever be that easy for me. I ran from my heart when she died. Ran from the wound straight through my center that never heals and is easily torn open—as proved by this anniversary of her death. The media reaching out through phone, email, and texts for quotes about the unfortunate death of my famous mother was too much.

It was their painful harassment more than the offer on my business that caused me to come out here, hoping the ocean would provide some certainty.

Instead, it’s provided a distraction.

A kiteboarder, rash and daring with a bright-yellow sail, glides across the rough ocean water. His dark hair flies back as his agile body, covered in a wetsuit, maneuvers his board with and against wind and waves.

He’s so skilled and confident that he creates an ache, a desire, inside me. What I wouldn’t give to be that strong, that free, and that daring.

A gust, and the kiteboarder leaps into the air, flies up and up.

I gasp as my heart rises with him. He’s too high. He has too far to fall.

He slams back down to the surf, angling his athletic body this way and that as he skims along the waves.

He did it! Mom would’ve loved watching him—another confident, courageous soul, just like her and nothing like me.

Mom stomped through puddles; I’ve always hung back, worried about consequences. Mom went boldly after love, spoke her desires aloud, and gave her heart away again and again. I secret away my heart and my true desires because I remember her tears, the drink, and the therapy she needed to get right after every failed relationship.

With every exciting new relationship, Mom had seemed to forget that. I never forget.

Still, when the winds of time had swept Mom’s fierce soul back into the nunca-nunca, as she had always called death, it hadn’t been her wild and crazy lifestyle that had caught up with her. No. She’d been hit by a car as she’d walked the streets of her quiet neighborhood.

One less brave and daring light in the world. Today, I feel the dark cold of that extinguished warmth in my skin, my bones, and my heart.

Maybe, that’s why I can’t stop watching the kiteboarder. Anyone that wild and free and exciting, anyone like Mom, calls to me like a siren song to my soul.

He continues to work with the energy of the waves, weaving himself among them even as he wrestles his second opponent, the wind.

My breath fans out in sheets of white as he, explosive and strong, leaps with sail and board into the wind. A thrill of terror grips me as he flies through the air.

A moment later, he hits the waves and the sail jerks his arms straight, then he leans his body almost flat against the roaring ocean.

I clap and jump up and down.

Then the wind turns, snaps his kite, and yanks him backward.

I watch in stunned disbelief as the man is tossed up then beat down against an outcrop of rocks. His strong body, suddenly flimsy and fragile, slips from the rocks into the waves.

Racing toward the ocean, I fling off my shoes and rain slicker. Knee-deep in cold water, I stop to get my bearing. Where is he? The sail bobs against the waves, but where is he?

There.

He’s floating face-down. A wave rises up and crashes over him, and he disappears beneath the water.

I take a deep breath and dive under the surface. Using muscles conditioned by years of swimming, I fight forward. Saltwater stings my nose and throat, and the ocean pushes against me with an insistent, Turn around.

Surfacing, I tread water and look around to make sure this is where he went under. It is; I know it.

Diving again, I look around. Green and gray, a surreal, muted picture stretches out before me, then I spot him, a blob darker than the rest of the ocean.

I swim deeper and deeper to get to him.

This day is already an anniversary of one tragic death; I won’t let it take another life.

Ears muffled with pressure, I grab the collar of his wetsuit, capturing a fistful of his hair in the process.

I kick up and pull. His limp body comes even with mine. I grasp him under his armpits and swim.

My head angled as high as I can get it, I race for the surface and much needed air. The weight of him slows me. He’s too heavy. If I’m to survive, I need to let him go.

I can’t.

I absolutely cannot.

The edges of my vision began to dim. I’m too far from the surface. The drag of him is too much. We’re not going to make it.

Heart and lungs desperate for air, I kick harder, propelling us toward that glassy ceiling.

We break the surface. I gasp for breath with the kiteboarder silent against me. His head bobs in the water.

Legs as insubstantial as seaweed, I roll onto my back. Keeping his head up, I kick weakly toward the shore.

It seems forever before my butt hits the beach and an exhausted cry escapes me. Sweeping my feet under me, I crouch-pull the kiteboarder onto the sand. Waves roll into us, nearly toppling me.

“Déjame ayudar,” someone says, and I turn to find an older, dark-skinned man offering me help. I can’t even nod my acceptance, but he doesn’t need me to. Together, we drag the kiteboarder out of the waves and drop him onto the rain-soaked beach.

The bystander pants beside me so deeply I worry for him.

“Enfisema,” he says, pointing at himself. He coughs roughly, before advising me that he called emergency services.

With a nod of understanding and praying the EMTs hurry, I start CPR. My knees grind into the sand as I pinch the kiteboarder’s nose, put my mouth over his, and force air from my aching lungs into his lifeless body. I begin compressions on his chest.

Drops of water slide across his handsome, too-pale face, but not one muscle twitches in response.

Please live, please, please.

Desperate tears sting my eyes as the rain whips my hair. I repeat the process again and again until he convulses once, hard enough to look like I’d hit him with electric paddles.

He coughs dramatically and spits out water.

I quickly roll him onto his side.

He spits out more water, and I pat his back repeatedly. When he’s done, the kiteboarder groans and flops onto his back, eyes closed, breathing heavy.

Breathing.

“They’re here,” the old bystander says, standing and walking up the beach to wave at the EMTs.

I did it. I’d saved a man’s life. If I can do that, I can do anything—even save my failing business.

That’s it, then. I’m not taking that offer.

Feeling a surge of happiness and a connection with this human, I brush the sand from his jawline, cheekbones, and lips. The most perfect shape of lips. The most perfect feel.

He’s beyond handsome with a muscular build that fills out his wetsuit like a superhero. Mom would’ve declared him good enough to eat.

His eyes pop open, blink, and catch me with a finger still on his lips. I pull my hand back.

Deep hazel eyes ringed with the longest lashes I’ve ever seen stare at me. His eyes turn to slits as if trying to puzzle something out, then he sighs, “Yeah, they are. Silver eyes.”

He closes his eyes and, smiling to himself, whispers, “So fucking beautiful.”

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