Page 33 of Girl in the Water
She deflected like he’d shown her earlier in the week.
She got nearly everything on the first try. Her brain was as quick as her limbs.
“That’s good,” he said when she nearly swept his feet out from under him. “Let’s try that again. Give it everything you got.”
And she did.
They practiced until even he grew winded. Then they cleaned up and went to bed in their separate rooms. The next morning, they did everything all over again.
They settled into an easy rhythm.
By the end of the month, Daniela grew pretty good at self-defense and could speak English even better. She picked up everything insanely fast.
The boy who’d watched the house before still hadn’t come back. Ian kept asking around town, but he couldn’t find a single lead on Finch. He should have gone back home, but he didn’t want to leave Daniela alone in Santana, not until he was sure she could fully take care of herself.
He stopped detoxing. His head no longer hurt; his hands no longer shook from lack of alcohol. He felt better all the way around, maybe because of the food she made from fresh ingredients every day. He hadn’t felt this healthy and clearheaded since his army days. Staying was easy.
Another month went by.
He called his mother every other week, reassured her that he was doing well and was safe. And he promised, upon his return to the States, a quick visit to Connecticut.
“A long visit,” she negotiated, then said, “I know you’re down there on serious business, but try to live a little.”
“I’m living.”
“I can still hear the sadness in your voice. I’m never going to forgive Linda. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
Ian stayed silent. He didn’t want to talk about Linda. Linda and his mother had never gotten along. They were too different: Linda high-strung and a perfectionist, assistant director of accounting at one of DC’s top firms; his mother as laid-back as they came, living on an organic farm in Farmington in a trailer she named Robert Redford, so she could tell everyone at the farm shop at the end of the day that she was going home to Robert.
She’d had a couple of good boyfriends over the years, but she’d never married. Ian’s father hadn’t stuck around past Ian’s birth. Ian knew nothing about the man beyond his name.
“I want to talk to Daniela,” his mother said. She knew about Finch’s death too. She’d known and liked Finch.
Ian handed the phone to Daniela, and she chatted on with his mother, mostly about cooking and the weather. Daniela ended the call after ten or fifteen minutes, with a grin.
“Iris said I shouldn’t let you boss me around. And if you do, you’ll answer to her.” Her eyes danced. “She said next time she’s going to tell me some embarrassing stories about you.”
He knew what his mother was doing, making friends with Daniela so she’d have one more chick to care about besides Ian, and she was mothering Daniela because she knew Daniela had lost her own mother.
Ian reached for the phone. Daniela didn’t flinch.
She no longer cringed if he stepped too fast in her direction. She stopped expecting him to beat her if she as much as dropped a spoon. And, thank God, she started to believe that he wasn’t going to expect sex from her. Ever.
If he had needs, he worked off the extra energy. He swam in the river. He got used to the heat and humidity. He even got used to the bug bites. Damn if the town wasn’t growing on him.
The fishing was great, and he found walking in the jungle with Daniela oddly relaxing. When they hiked through the jungle, he couldn’t think about anything else, not Linda and the twins, not the van in the river. His mind had to be on his surroundings one hundred percent. He had to watch out for poisonous spiders, snakes, plants, drug runners, and poachers. He couldn’t afford to get distracted by the losses of his past or worries about the future. He had to be in the present.
In the jungle, Daniela was a revelation. She walked differently, talked differently—with more confidence—could literally run circles around him. The roots he tripped over, she seemed to be able to avoid without even looking.
She spotted flowers and animals that completely escaped him. One time, she found an orphaned baby monkey that had fallen from a tree.
Her face lit with joy as she picked up the small animal. “Can we take her home, senhor?”
And it hit Ian all over how young she was, how, of course, she’d want to play. All he did all day was go about his business, grumbling along, then force her into hours of self-defense training in the evenings. She spent her free time cooking and cleaning. She needed a playmate.
He considered the monkey. Cute little bugger. “You think you can train her into a pet?”
Daniela blinked at him. “Oh no, senhor. To eat. I could cook her so good, it’d be the best thing you ever ate.”
