Page 105 of Love and Other Trials
Then she caught sight of motion in the sky and lifted her head. Pelicans were circling overhead behind the tent.
“Ariel!”
She turned at her name and watched as the event coordinator ran from the tent, skirt flying up as she pumped her arms to reach her.
“What is it?” she asked, rushing toward the woman.
“It’s the koi!” She was panting when they met. “The pelicans are diving into the fountain and picking them out one at a time. I tried to stop them?—”
“Oh my God!”
She didn’t care about lockjaw. Taking off her shoes, she ran for the pond behind the tent where the open bar was situated. Dax was right beside her, she noted, but then she was stopping short at the sight before her.
Eight pelicans were taking turns diving into the clean water tank. Three koi were all that were left, and they were swimming in rapid circles, trying to evade the pelicans’ giant beaks. One dove in, caught a bright orange koi, and then hopped out of the water onto the pool’s edge, lifted its beak, and tossed it into the air, catching it in its mouth and working its throat to gulp the whole fish down. It disappeared before her eyes.
She stood frozen in shock.
Dax flew forward, crying out and waving his arms wildly. The pelicans flew off a short distance, but there were more of them than there were of him, and they seemed to know it. Worse, he was in the way of the best meal they’d had in weeks—to the tune of a few thousand dollars of sashimi—and they weren’t going to let some lone idiot in a white suit shove them off their turf.
“Ariel!” Dax shouted. “Stay back.”
Three of them dove at him, their individual wingspans easily reaching twelve feet. He thrust up at first, but they were coming for him, kamikaze moves in their nature apparently, something Dax clearly wasn’t ready for despite being a naval pilot.
She started running. She wasn’t leaving him. Suddenly the truth in her heart was absolute. He was her wingman, and she was his. She was not leaving him behind, no matter what.
Ariel looked around for something to throw and ran over to the short ice sculpture of a romantic couple sitting on a park bench on the side of the bar Tiffany had insisted on despite the incident at her first wedding. She picked it up, then ran back and hurled it at the closest pelican.
She missed, but the sound of it crashing to the ground sent more of them flying off. She could see their beady black eyes taking her measure.
Running back into the tent, she found the closest place settings and, picking them up, ran back out and started hurling forks, spoons, and then knives into the air at them. Her projectiles struck one pelican, who gave a loud squawk. Dax was still thrusting his arms into the air and yelling like a madman. The pelicans swirled over them before finally lifting up higher in the air. She watched them, gripping rumpled napkins and a single sterling silver fork, glaring at them, hoping they understood she was not backing down.
Not here.
Not now.
They had pushed her too far.
When they’d finally headed off, she looked in the pond, where a lone koi remained, swimming speedily in circles, clearly not certain the danger was over. She walked over to the water, staring at the poor thing. How did one soothe a koi? She knew how to soothe a dog.
“Everything’s okay, folks,” she heard Dax call out to a few people who’d come running. “Get back to your places.”
Right. Because the wedding was going to happen. With only one koi. She stared at it, still in shock.
“Are you all right?”
Dax suddenly stood beside her. His hands gripped her shoulders, and then he was pulling her hard against his chest. She clung to him. And then she started to laugh. Wild laughter. Deranged laughter. The kind that prompted jokes about someone needing to take Valium or be fitted for a straitjacket.
That thought cut off her laughter. Mother might just do it. “God, that was awful!”
He wasn’t laughing. No, he was holding her protectively against his chest. “You shouldn’t have done that! I told you to stay back. They could have killed you.”
“What? Pecked me to death? I’d like to see them try.”
When she pushed back and held up her fist, he cupped her face. “You didn’t leave me.”
She put her hand on top of his, holding his gaze, her heart somersaulting in her chest because the warmth was back in his beautiful green eyes. “No, I didn’t, and I don’t plan to.”
His mouth curved, accentuating the swelling in his jaw. “I’m glad. I was afraid for a minute that Elizabeth and Stephan?—”
