Julio Guzman hadn't been to the beach in ages.
He'd forgotten how awkward it was to cross one in formal shoes. He took them off, socks and all, and dug his bare toes into the warm sand, feeling younger with every step, as if he were a teenager on summer vacation again … although the sight of the actual teenagers playing beach olaball put something of a dent in the illusion. Ixlan was playing against both Princesses and Naomi Turner at once, and by the look of it, the Maruvian was winning.
They waved when they spotted him, except Ixlan, who took advantage of their distraction by slamming the ball through the makeshift hoop. He lifted his sombrero in return.
"Julio! Hi! How'd you find us?" Princess Elena came running with an eager, anxious look. "There's nothing else wrong at the palace, is there?"
"Not at all, Your Highness. Carmen, Armando and Dona Luisa have the coronation well in hand. A little jaquin cub told me you needed some assistance here, that's all."
He tilted his head in the direction of a gigantic blue sunshade and the figure huddled under it. The Princess sighed and shook her head.
"Yeah, turns out it's not so easy to de-stress Doña Paloma when we don't even know her all that well. She doesn't play sports, she doesn't do mud baths … "
"She is more trouble than the Princess," Ixlan added, marching over with the charred remains of the olaball in one gloved hand. "Which is saying something. By the way, I win."
"If anyone can get through to her, though, it's you." Elena gave Julio an encouraging pat on the back. "Good luck."
Ixlan saluted him with all the gravitas of a warrior sending a comrade off on a life-threatening mission. He could never tell whether that woman was joking or not.
Regardless, he slung his duffel bag higher over his shoulder, adjusted his sombrero, and approached the sunshade with extreme caution.
His co-worker, rival, assistant or boss (depending on the situation) was sitting on a blanket with her knees drawn up, swathed in a massive towel, still wearing the straw hat the girls had plopped on her head when they'd carried her off, and frantically scribbling with a pencil in a little blue notebook. He must have seen her this way countless times at the office. She was in list-making mode, so far inside her head that the warm sun and murmuring waves didn't even exist for her.
"Hey there, Hortensia. Enjoying your day off, I see."
"Julio!" Her notebook and pencil slipped from her fingers. She lit up with genuine happiness, though she covered it up only a second later with a scoff. "Well, you took your sweet time getting here."
"Mingo brought me your note." He recited its contents with his best falsetto imitation of her voice: "HELP. Am being held hostage at Punta Luz and forced to wear a swimsuit. Bring my fan. I must say," he added in his own voice, "I never took you for a damsel in distress."
"Damsel, indeed." She rolled her eyes. "Remind me, who was it who jumped into my arms earlier when those fireworks went off?"
"What can I say? I followed my instincts." He dropped onto the blanket next to her. Her face twitched into a reluctant smile.
"Did you bring my fan?"
"Here." He pulled it out of the front pocket of his duffel bag.
"Good boy." She unfurled it and began fanning herself immediately. Her face under the straw hat was flushed and beaded with sweat.
"You know, you might not be so overheated if you took off that tent you're wearing."
"I prefer not to." She shrank into her towel like a turtle into its shell.
"You're not a vampire, by any chance, who would burn up in the sunlight? That would explain a lot."
She swatted him on the shoulder with her fan.
"Come on," he said, more seriously. "You have nothing to hide, I'm sure."
"Fine." She shrugged off the towel and let it fall around her with a defiant glare. "If you insist."
"Whoa! You - you weren't kidding about the swimsuit," Julio stammered through a suddenly dry throat.
The suit was hers, he could tell, whatever she might say about being "forced" to wear it. They must have stopped by her house to pick it up. It clung to her in all the right places and, like her fan, was patterned with bright blue flowers. He'd never seen so much of her body at once. She was not a young woman, that much was clear. Her curves and lines had the pared-down quality of driftwood on the beach, all the stronger for the storms that had shaped them.
She adjusted one shoulder strap before it could slide off. "I haven't worn this old thing in years," she muttered. "I didn't realize how out of style it was until I saw the girls … "
Julio was no expert in women's fashion, but the suits the Princesses and Naomi were wearing didn't look much different from Hortensia's. It was not her outfit that she was self-conscious about, it was her body. Spirits only knew why.
"You look lovely."
She blushed all the way up from her V-shaped neckline.
"Now I don't know about you, but I didn't come all this way just to sit here." He unbuttoned his vest, followed by his shirt. "I'm going for a swim. Care to join me?"
"Hmm … " She watched him undress down to his swim trunks with a feline gleam in her green eyes. "Do you have any sunscreen in that bag?"
"My predecessor taught me that a Magister is always prepared."
"All right, Magister." She turned her back to him and smirked over her shoulder. "Rub my back and I'll consider it."
"As you wish."
/
They swam until they were pleasantly exhausted. Hortensia, it turned out, played as hard as she worked. She was relentless in a water fight. Her employees at the Emporium would never have recognized her, running through glittering spray like a wild sea nymph, long dark hair falling in waves out of its bun. Their young hostesses were astonished, then delighted (although you never could tell with Ixlan).
"Nice job," Elena whispered to Julio. "How'd you do it?"
"Trade secret," he replied laconically.
Elena made a face that said on second thought, she'd rather not know, and swam away after Naomi instead.
Soon enough, all six of them were wading happily over layers of seaweed and pebbles back to the shore to towel off, change back into dry clothes and finish their day off in comfort. Ixlan built a bonfire. Naomi unpacked enough fruit, marshmallows and bread to feed a small army. Isabel ran back to the carriage and proudly produced Elena's guitar. They told stories, laughed and sang; even Ixlan unbent enough to crack a few smiles.
As much as Julio appreciated the challenges of a high-stakes business dinner, a friendly meal like this was one of the finest things in the world.
He smiled at Hortensia, ready to tell her so, but she was staring into the embers as if her thoughts were a thousand miles away, shivering as if she were cold. Night was falling, but if there was a chill in the air, he couldn't feel it.
Whatever was worrying her, even the water fight had not been able to banish it completely.
They were at that stage of a party where people were drifting off into smaller groups. Isabel and Elena had wandered off along the shoreline to look for bioluminescent sea creatures, while Naomi had picked up the guitar and was trying to teach a skeptical Ixlan to dance a Norberg jig. They had the fire to themselves.
Knowing he wouldn't be overheard, Julio leaned over and murmured in Hortensia's ear: "Marshmallow for your thoughts."
"Hmm? Oh." She made a face. "Sticky stuff, no thanks, I'll take a pineapple. I was thinking about my inventory, actually. At the store. Tents, sleeping bags, medicine, preserved food … "
"Are you planning a camping trip?"
"Pfft! No. I'm trying to calculate how much I can give to the city in case of a disaster tomorrow."
It was such a surprising - and touching - answer that it left Julio speechless. He'd actually been planning along the same lines himself, stockpiling food from Café Angelica and clearing out space in the basement so it could serve as a shelter, praying all along that it wouldn't be necessary. For Hortensia to do the same thing stirred a deeper admiration in him than he could put into words.
"What? I have a vested interest in keeping my customers alive."
"Of course you do," he said. "Although there might not be a disaster."
"With Esteban and the others out there, it's only a matter of time." She wrapped her arms around herself despite the warmth of the fire, whispering the name of her old rival so the Princess wouldn't hear. "Since my family lost the farm, I know how easy it is to lose everything. You and the store are two things I don't intend to lose."
"Me and the store, eh? Are you sure you have those in the right order?"
"Shut up. I mean exactly what I said."
She really did mean it, he realized, seeing the flicker of vulnerability in her eyes. She'd said that off the top of her head, without calculation. He came first.
That was how his conscious mind realized what his instincts must have known already during the explosions and the rockslide earlier, that he could be safe with this woman. He'd been attracted to her from the moment they met, then he'd grown to respect her, but now he knew he was falling in love.
"Doña … " He spoke her title in the caressing tone of a pet name. "If, spirits forbid, there should be a disaster tomorrow, it would be my honor to weather it beside you."
She gave him a small, unsteady smile.
"You're still shivering, May I … ?"
He let his arm hover a few centimeters from her back. She leaned into him and closed her eyes. Silver threads glinted in her brown hair as her head fell against his shoulder. She still smelled like the ocean.
"Mmm, you're warm," she purred. "Businessman, pillar of the community, human blanket … there's no end to your good qualities, is there?"
"Get to know me better and you'll find out."
He looked at the flickering orange embers of the fire and the starry night sky above them, then back at the woman in his arms, just to remind himself that this was really happening. This was so far from the way he'd expected this day to go.
Relax Doña Paloma? Check. Now all they had to go was get through tomorrow.
