Page 77 of Storm over the Caribbean
“Good doggie! What a wonderful dog you are! And I’ll punch anyone who says anything different!”
The good thing about pregnancy: you have the perfect excuse to change your opinion every three seconds, and no one can complain.
“Good doggie! Bark again for me again, will you?”
“Woof!”
Yes!
Panting and swaying, I followed Fence’s intermittent barks, changing directions every time his signal came from up ahead. Finally, I staggered onto a clearing, filled with knee-high grass and flowers in all the colours of the rainbow. Only…
The bloody dog was nowhere to be seen!
“Fence?”
Silence.
I felt one of my eyebrows twitch. Mr Rikkard Ambrose was lying unconscious in a cave, and this muttstillmanaged to pick up his bad habits? I was going to have a word with my husband once he woke up.
If he wakes up.
Clenching my teeth, I strode forward into the grass. “Fence? Fence, where are you?”
“Woof!”
A happily waving tail emerged from among the tall grass, along with several more energetic barks and…splashing?
Speeding up, I dashed forward as fast as I could, until finally…
There!
The grass parted and there, right in front of me, spread a glittering, clear blue pond. Reeds rimmed the small lake, and beautiful petals swam on the surface, but all I could see was the water. The beautiful, bountiful, life-giving water. Falling to my knees, I dove forward and plunged my face into the pool. Greedily, I started lapping up the water, uncaring of the fact that I was acting altogether a little too much like the dog lapping up his drink three feet to my left. Right at that moment, I couldn’t bring myself to mind. I’d found water! Water water water water water water! Wonderful, wish-fulfilling, wound-healing water. With every drop, I felt my raw throat soothed, felt my half-dead body come back to life again. I wanted nothing more than to dive head-first into the sparkling pond and not come up for air again before I’d drained it all dry.
I didn’t, though. I remembered all too well reading up about dehydration back when my little sister Ella had come down with the cholera. Ravenously drinking water after being dehydrated could be just as harmful as the dehydration itself. Normally, I wouldn’t care. I was so thirsty right now, I would have drunk all the water in one go. But…
Falling back into the grass, I glanced down at my stomach, panting.
I wasn’t exactly in a normal situation, was I?
Gently, I caressed my bulging belly.
Please! Please don’t let anything bad have happened. Please let me have been in time.
I wasn’t entirely sure what those words were. A prayer? A plea to the universe? Whatever the heck they were, I hoped someone was listening.
Falling back against a tree that overshadowed the pond, I took a deep breath. For the first time in days, I was really capable of once more taking in the world around me. The sweet smell of the flowers, the singing of tropical birds…this was really quite the paradise. A deadly paradise, but still a paradise.
Reaching out, I ruffled the fur of Fence, who was still happily guzzling away. “Thanks, mate. Normally I don’t admit things like this to members of the male gender, but…couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Woof!”
“No need to sound so self-satisfied!”
With a sigh, I closed my eyes and gave myself two minutes to relax. Just two minutes to do nothing but listen to the birds sing in the trees and let sink in the fact that I was not, in the immediate future, going to die.
Then I forced myself to open my eyes again and bent over the pond.
“All right,” I muttered. “Time to bring some water to my hubby in distress. Wouldn’t want that son of a bachelor to croak on me. At least not before I’ve had a chance to wring his neck for trying to play the hero and leaving me alone like this!”
