Eleventh Grave in Moonlight

And who came up with the animals for these euphemisms, anyway? Why bat shit? Why not cow shit or grasshopper shit? And why don’t we give a rat’s ass as opposed to a hamster’s ass?

My point being, I could pretty much say anything in front of Sammy. He took it all in stride. The angel standing beside the walk-in freezer, however, would just have to deal.

“But I’m still human, yes? I was born a human.”

“Yeah,” he said to him, completely ignoring me. “Just keep an eye on the driver.”

“You got it,” Sammy said, noting my indignation with a barely suppressed grin “What are you going to do?”

Reyes looked down at me at last. “We’re going to the beach.”

Suh-weet.

As Reyes took my hand and led me out, Sammy shook his head again. Probably because we didn’t have any beaches in Albuquerque. Not real ones, anyway.

The lunch crowd was vast as usual, but with Dr. Feel Good being gone so much lately, the demographics had shifted from a large percentage of women to some actual men. Or so I’d thought.

We stepped out, and the noise level dropped. A couple of women got on their phones, saying stuff like, “He’s here today,” and, “Get over here, stat.” Still more women either texted or took his picture with their phones. He was somewhat of an Internet sensation, and he was either oblivious or just didn’t care. It was fun to watch, all the while knowing he’d be going to bed with me at night.

Delight shuddered through me. Not a gloating delight. More of a delight of disbelief. If someone would have told me two years ago I’d be spending my nights with this man… well, I might have believed them, but only because one look at him and I would have offered my services. But to be spending those nights with him in a marital capacity? Priceless.

He walked to the men’s restroom and dragged me inside.

“Hey, mister,” I said, playing coy. I batted my lashes and gave him my most innocent look. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers. Or follow grown men into restrooms. What would my daddy say?”

He pulled me against his chest, shoved a hand into my hair, and devoured my mouth with a kiss that should have been X-rated.

As soon as Donnie, our bartender, finished making pee-pee, he left without washing his hands. I could only hope the alcohol would sterilize them. In his defense, the kiss was rather sexual. With sexual undertones and a sexy, noir slant to it.

Reyes broke off the kiss and stared down at me. “You keep talking like that, and I’ll have to take you into a stall.”

“You romantic, you.” In truth, he left me completely breathless, and the stall sounded pretty freaking good.

“Ready?”

“For stall sex? Hell, yes.”

The grin that slipped across his face bore a strong resemblance to the one he’d worn the night he’d performed a vaginal exam with kitchen utensils. I melted. Or I started to until he took hold of me and said, “This time, I’ll steer for both of us.”

Celestial storms slammed into me and around me and through me, and then a sun brighter than I’d ever seen – and I was from New Mexico, thank you very much – blinded me. All I could see was a single shade of blue and a single shade of tan.

I cupped a hand over my eyes and kept the fingers of the other one curled in Reyes’s shirt. The image around me slowly came into focus. Actually, it was already in focus, I was just now figuring it out.

“We’re in a desert.”

Reyes nodded. He had yet to actually look at our surroundings. Instead, he chose to look at me, and I could not fathom why.

“Oh, my God, Reyes.” I turned and surveyed the area. “This is stunning.”

We were surrounded by exactly two things: a sky so blue it glowed and a desert such a rich golden red it took my breath away. My feet sank into the sand. It formed little hills around them. I reached down and sifted it through my fingers, then fell onto my knees. They sank into the warmth beneath them, too.

“Are we where I think we are?”

He kneeled beside me. “If you think we’re in the Sahara, then yes.”

I gasped. I was standing – kneeling – in the Sahara. “Reyes, I don’t know what to say. I’ve never seen anything so… so perfect in my life.”

“I brought you here for a reason.”

“Yeah?” I sat down and played in the biggest sandbox in the world.

He watched me, and I wondered what he must think of me. I must seem like the craziest kind of loser, fumbling around in his world, trying to navigate it like a child in a walker, running into walls and cabinets and knees.

I shook off the sudden feeling of insecurity, chalked it up to the freaking Sahara. If there were any one thing that could make a person feel insignificant, it would be this vast terrain. Beautiful and deadly at the same time.

I tossed sand, as blisteringly hot as it was, onto his jeans. “You could have warned me. Sunglasses would have been nice.”

He flashed his perfect teeth and picked up a handful of sand. Let it slide through his long, strong fingers. Then he began the lesson of the day. “Pick up one grain of sand.”

I picked up a handful and showed him proudly.

He grinned patiently, so I sifted it down, trying to get down to one grain. I had to wipe my hands together and start over. Finally, after much effort, I had one grain of sand in my palm. I named him Digby.

He took Digby, much to my dismay. I’d worked hard for the little guy.

After placing Digby in his palm, he held him out to me. “This is how much of you is human.”

“Okay.”

“Look around you.”

I did and then looked back at the man I’d always believed sane.