Melissa la Cruz - Frozen

“So what happened to you?” Wes asked.

She shrugged. “The usual. Ward of the state. I grew up in a group home.” She didn’t mention the real reason her mother had abandoned her. The reason Mrs. A had tried to hustle her out of the country.

“And I thought Shakes had a sob story.” Wes smiled.

“Worse than mine?” she asked.

“Ask him to tell you later, it’s a doozy,” he promised. “Must have sucked, growing up like that,” he said. “Group homes are no joke.” He shot her a sympathetic glance.

“Yeah, well.” She nodded. “At least it’s over now.” She was touched by his concern, even though she was sure there was an ulterior motive behind it, especially with the way he ran hot and cold toward her. She was a card player, she knew the deal. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me, Wes, why’d you take this job? I’m not paying you enough—not for the risks that are out there. What’s in it for you?”

“Maybe I want to see what’s out here, too,” he protested. “If there’s such a thing as paradise—I don’t want to be left behind.”

But Nat knew there was something behind his smile. Something he wasn’t being honest about. She tucked the blue stone underneath her shirt.

That made two of them.

WES WATCHED HER WALK AWAY FROM THE railing, then went back to staring out at the water. He wondered how much of her story was true. Who was she, anyway? She said she recognized him from somewhere, and Wes wondered whether she was right and he had just forgotten. But he was certain that he’d remember meeting Nat. He scratched the scar on his forehead. Funny how she’d wondered about it, just like Jules. That story about Shakes and the pickax was a lie. But maybe one day he would tell her the truth. The one he’d never even told Jules.

On his first date with Juliet Marie Devincenzi, she’d laughed when he’d told her the story of the avalanche, all that rigmarole about how he’d made Shakes feel guilty about the scar.

Wes was still on deck by the rail when Shakes found him, staring at a photo he’d pulled from his wallet.

“Put that away,” Shakes said with a grimace. “Let sleeping dogs lie.”

“I know, I know,” Wes agreed.

“Look, boss, Jules was all right, but . . .” Shakes shrugged.

“But?” Wes asked.

“You know why,” his friend reminded him. Shakes had never liked Jules very much and blamed her for some of their trouble.

Wes put away the photo. “You think she really died at the Loss?”

“It’s what I heard. What’s the problem, boss? She left us high and dry after that Dreamworks hit. I mean, rest in peace and all, I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but she messed you up good.”

“No, man.” Wes shook his head. “That’s not how it went down.”

He’d met Jules right when he’d gotten out of the service. She was already running the cards then, a real pro, and she needed some muscle, a driver, a getaway car, and she’d picked him for the job, having heard that he’d made his name as a death jockey and knew his way around New Vegas. Jules had been a few years older. They hit it off immediately.

Wes had never been in love until Jules, didn’t even know that’s what he’d been feeling, until he was in over his head. She loved him, too—he would never forget that. He would have done anything for her at one point, but she’d asked for something he couldn’t give.

“I never told you, but she wanted to get married, get the license, the whole deal,” Wes told Shakes. “She wanted to get out, too. She always talked about escaping to the Blue. She believed in it. But she was willing to make a go of it anywhere, in K-Town, or Xian maybe, she had some friends who lived in Shangjing.”

“And you didn’t?”

“No.” Wes shook his head. “K-Town’s not any place to live, and since we wouldn’t merit visas, I didn’t think we’d be able to hack it as illegals in Xian.” But there was more. His sister Eliza was out there somewhere, and he couldn’t leave without finding out what had happened to her, whether she was even still alive.

Juliet had said she understood, she hadn’t pushed it. So they stayed in New Vegas, and slowly, imperceptibly, whatever love had existed between them began to fade, and they fell apart. Jules had wanted out—and he’d let her down. Wes found he couldn’t live with her disappointment. It stared at him in the face every day. He couldn’t choose between them. Jules or Eliza. It ate at him, destroyed the love he felt, left him furious and stymied. Shakes got it wrong; Wes had broken up with her, not the other way around, right before the Dreamworks casino gig. After that, they stopped speaking and never ran a job together again.

He pulled out his wallet and stared at her photo again. He hadn’t wanted to feel close to anyone else after that. The crew began to call him a priest and joke he was celibate. He didn’t care. He began to think that maybe the boys were right about him, that he’d given up on that sort of thing, that he was no longer interested. But something in him sparked to life when he’d met Nat, and he felt the beginnings of something familiar . . . not just an attraction, but the embers of an emotion he had suppressed for so long. She wasn’t his girl anymore.

Natasha Kestal.

He couldn’t be with another girl who needed so much from him. He had nothing to give. His heart was as patched together as his ship.

Nat.

Jules.

When he heard that Juliet had died at the bombing, he didn’t want to believe it, but it had been at least a year since he’d seen her. A long, lonely year.

He wondered what would have happened if he’d kissed Nat, if he had risen to the dare—he’d seen the look in her eye, the invitation—and more than anything, had wanted to accept. He was glad he had restrained himself, had not let her win; she was playing with him somehow, and he wouldn’t give in to that game. He was playing one of his own, as Shakes reminded him.

“So, boss, you ask her about that stone yet?” his friend said. “Ask her where she got it? What it is?”

“In time, my friend,” he said, thinking of the sparkly blue sapphire Nat wore. “In time.”

Maybe he should have kissed her. Wasn’t that what he was after? For her to fall for him so he could take what he wanted? So why hadn’t he?

AFTER THEIR CONVERSATION THE OTHER day, they avoided being alone together. Wes kept himself scarce, eating his meals by himself and hardly leaving the captain’s quarters. Nat tried not think too much about it, or why she had instigated that almost-kiss in the first place. She had hoped he would take a shine to her so that he would think twice before messing with her. That was all it was, so why did she feel so strange? He was nothing to her . . . and yet . . . she had wanted him to kiss her because she had wanted him . . . If only they were already at New Crete, so she would be rid of Wes and his ship and her confusion.

She took to reading her book up by the transom in the afternoons, and for the next few hours she was engrossed in the story. Daran and Zedric came up as well and sat away from her, at the bow of the ship, their legs dangling over the edge. Daran gave her his usual smarmy smile, and asked if she wanted to join them, but she shook her head and went back to her book.

After her eyes tired, she put it away and looked down at the ocean. It was black and oily as usual but underneath . . . she saw a glimmer . . . a flash of color? What was that?

A fin?

A fish?

But there were no more fish in the seas, everyone knew that.

But it was a fish. It had to be. She saw its brilliant red flash flit through the water. “Did you see that?” she asked, pointing.