Wes mentioned that the thing he missed most about Texas was the barbeque. “There just isn’t anything in this world like slow-cooked beef brisket and pulled pork with slaw and beans. That’s my little version of heaven. I’m sure the angels would all have sticky fingers and sweet, spicy sauce on their cherubic faces if they were able to sample it.”
I laughed. “I feel that way about cheeseburgers.”
“It’s been, oh, about three years since I’ve had a good barbeque. Three long years of rice and curry.”
“I’m not much of a curry fan myself. Maybe we can ask the chef to arrange something special for you.”
“Why, aren’t you just about as sweet as syrup on a sundae? I sure would appreciate that, ma’am.” He winked. “How’d you like ta stroll the deck of this fine ship with me and watch the sunset? I need a purty girl to put her arm around me and steady this wandering cowboy as he finds his sea legs.”
I raised an eyebrow and affected a Southern accent. “Why, I think you’re a-pullin’ my leg there, Texas. You’ve had your sea legs a lot longer than I have.”
Wes rubbed the stubble on his face. “You might be right at that. Well then, how about you taggin’ along to keep me warm?”
“It’s about eighty degrees.”
“Shoot, you’re a smart one, you are. Then how ’bout I jes say that a feller can get pretty lonesome by hisself in a strange country, and he’d like to keep comp’ny with you fer a while longer.”
Wes offered his arm with a charming grin. I was just about to take it when Kishan stood up between us and stared Wes down.
“If Kelsey wants to stroll the deck, I will take her. Why don’t you … mosey back to your buckhouse?”
“That’s bunkhouse.” Wes grinned and crossed his arms over his chest. “And tellin’ a man to git lost and makin’ him do it are two entirely different propositions.”
“I’m happy to tell you and would be even happier to make you. Your choice.”
“Kishan, cut it out. I’ll walk with you tomorrow night. Wes is our guest, and he won’t be here very long. You’re not planning to make any fresh moves are you?” I asked Wes.
“No, ma’am. I consider myself a perfect Southern gentleman. I ain’t never laid a finger on a gal that didn’t want me to, not that any of them ever turned me down before.” He grinned mischievously.
That statement made Kishan glower even more fiercely.
“There, you see, Kishan? Wes will be a perfect gentleman, and you know darn well that I’m fully capable of protecting myself.” I raised my eyebrows, so he’d get my meaning. I turned to Wes and said, “I’d love to see the sunset with you.”
Wes gave me a brilliant dimpled smile and held out his elbow. I took his arm, shooting a meaningful glance at Kishan over my shoulder as we turned the corner. We walked to the railing at the front of the boat and I sighed.
“Those two sure are keeping you hopping,” Wes said.
“You have no idea. Have you met the captain yet? Would you like to?”
“Maybe later. I’d rather enjoy the sunset with a pretty girl first.”
I smiled, sat on the deck, and rested my arms on the railing, letting my feet dangle over the side. Putting my chin on my arms, I looked out at the beautiful Arabian Sea. The ocean is so beautiful … and dangerous, I thought. Just like tigers.
He soon joined me. “How long are you planning on juggling those two?”
“I don’t know.” I flashed a smile. “You’re incredibly astute for a dumb hick, you know.”
“Hick I am, but dumb I ain’t,” he said with a dimpled smile. “But seriously, you look about as trapped as a piglet at a baby-back-ribs cook-off. Wanna talk about it?”
“They fought over a girl a long time ago, and she died accidentally. They both blamed each other until they finally got over that. They’ve come to terms and forgiven each other.”
“And now they’re doing it again … but with you.”
“Yes.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I love both of them. I don’t want to hurt either one. Ren has always been the one I wanted, but there’s a good chance we can’t be together.”
“Why not?”
“It’s, umm … complicated. Our relationship has been bumpy. Kishan adds another major bump.”
“There never was a horse that couldn’t be rode; never was a cowboy who couldn’t be throwed.”
I laughed. “What does that mean?”
“It’s cowboy wisdom. It means that there’s no such thing as an insurmountable object. If you want to, for lack of a better term, ‘ride that horse,’ you do it. You might get thrown, but at least you’ve tried. It’s worth the bruised posterior if that’s what you want. And if you let that opportunity pass you by, you’ll always wonder ‘what if.’”
“Right, but what if I can’t fit the pieces of our relationship back together? What if there are too many parts broken or even lost?”
Wes considered for a moment. “My momma always said, ‘You can’t tell how good a man or a watermelon is ’til it gets thumped.’ If he’s not willing to help you find the pieces or rediscover the lost ones, then he’s not worth keeping.”
“Being willing and being capable are different things.”
“Not even the most willing mule with the biggest heart will ever win the Kentucky Derby, honey. Sometimes we don’t get a choice. We want something out of our reach, and no amount of wishing will make it happen. If he’s not capable of being the man you need, then you need to move on. Find a strapping stallion, such as myself, for example.” He laughed but stopped when he saw I wasn’t. “I’m sorry. I’ve made you droopier than a corsage the morning after the prom.”
I laughed and wiped away a tear.
He sighed. “When the girl loves the mule, he wins her heart, even if he can’t win the Derby,” the charming Texan remarked.
I nodded and stayed with Wes until the moon came up. It wasn’t long after I climbed into bed that I heard a soft scratch on the connecting door. I opened it and wrapped my arms around my white tiger’s neck.
I mumbled, “I do love my mule,” and resettled in the bed. He gave me a questioning look, jumped up next to me, and snuggled against my back.
The next day, Wes had us watch diving videos all morning. We learned about diving safety, techniques, equipment maintenance, how to plan a dive, and how diving affects the body. He also told us about common dangers and mistakes novice divers make.
“Decompression sickness, or the bends, happens when you ascend too quickly. Tiny gas bubbles form in your body when you’re deep diving, and they need a chance to dissipate. Following the rules of ascent will greatly diminish your risk.
“Narcosis, or the rapture of the deep, is much more common, and it’s hard to tell at what depth it will affect you. The key is to watch for the signs and ascend to shallower depth if you feel the symptoms. The signs are similar to that of alcohol intoxication. In early stages it’s a feeling of tranquility or mild euphoria. Later you will start to have delayed response time, you become altered, confused, dizzy, and will hallucinate. It’s been compared to altitude sickness.”
“Wes? I get altitude sickness. Does that mean I’m more susceptible to narcosis?” I asked.
“Hmm, maybe. We’ll watch you carefully your first couple of dives to figure out your tolerance levels. Some people get it worse than others. I heard stories about divers who go too deep, get narcosis, and take off their regulator to give it to a passing fish, presumably because the fish needs air too. That’s one reason we always dive with a partner.”
The rest of the morning he had us practice how to assemble and disassemble our equipment. After lunch, we were in the pool again, but this time we worked with our equipment. Ren wanted me to partner with Kishan while he worked with Mr. Kadam. Kishan was happy to oblige.
“This is your confined-water training,” Wes said. “We’ll practice all the basic skills here before we go into deeper water.”
; First we did pre-dive safety checks to make sure all our equipment was functioning. We learned how to clear our regulators and how to recover them if they were knocked out. We practiced clearing our masks, removing and replacing them, and breathing without them. Then we actually dove in the deep end of the pool to practice standard hand signals, how to secure air from an alternate source, and did buoyancy checks.
Wes told us to take a breath from our regulator, hold it, and see if we remained steady floating at near eye level. If we sank, then we needed to lighten the weight. Mr. Kadam and Kishan sank a little, so they lightened their belts. Then we were supposed to exhale. If we sank, we were fine. If we floated, we needed to add more weight. Kishan, Ren, and Mr. Kadam all sank fine, but I floated. Wes added more units of weight to my belt until I sank like the others. He told us we needed to go through this process on every dive.
When we were done, Wes had us swim laps for half an hour again. Ren and Kishan decided to work out after that while Mr. Kadam and I both agreed we were done for the day. We retired to the library to research.
The Deschen docked at a place called Betul Beach that afternoon, and Mr. Kadam gave the crew the night off. We told the chef that we would be bringing in a catered meal that night. When no one was around, we used the Golden Fruit to create a Texas barbeque buffet.
When the three men came up to dinner that night, Mr. Kadam and I smiled as we opened the buffet servers with a flourish. A look of rapture crossed Wes’s face as the aroma of Texas barbecue hit him. He grabbed me, kissed me hard on the lips, and spun me around.
Ren threatened, “Put … her … down.”
“Gosh, I sure am sorry to be kiss’n on yur gal, but this is the nicest thing anyone’s done fur me since Miss Louellen Leighton, the runner-up for the Miss Austin, Texas, beauty pageant, paid a thousand dollars to win a date with me at our high school annual football fundraising auction.”
I laughed. “That must’ve been some date.”
“A Southern gentleman never kisses and tells,” the cowboy said soberly.
Wes piled his plate full of fried okra, pulled pork, baby back ribs, barbeque chicken, beef brisket, garlic bread, and corn on the cob. Then he got a second plate for his barbeque beans, fresh coleslaw, hot biscuits, salad, and buttered green beans with onions and bacon. Mr. Kadam stuck with chicken and vegetables while Ren and Kishan ate almost everything.
“Whoo-eee! This is a little taste of home right here.”
As Ren and Kishan filled their second plates, Wes paused to watch them. “You two fellers are a little bit different, then, aren’t you?”
Everyone at the table froze. I nervously took a sip of lemon water in the sudden tense silence. “What do you mean, Wes?”
Wes speared the air with his fork. “What I mean is that most men from India wouldn’t come closer to eating barbeque than they would a rattlesnake. They’d be eating more like Mr. Kadam over here. Sticking with the chicken and the veggies.”
Ren and Kishan looked at each other briefly. Kishan answered slowly while pulling apart some ribs.
“I’ve hunted boar and buffalo. They taste almost the same as pork. Though this is a little bit more well done.”
Wes leaned forward. “A hunter? What kind of rifle do you own?”
“I don’t.”
“How did you hunt without a rifle?”
“Ren and I hunt more … primitively.”
Wes nodded as if understanding. “Ah, a bow hunter. I’ve been meaning to try that. My cousins hunt deer and javelina that way. It’s much more dangerous and requires more skill.”
Kishan nodded and kept eating.
Wes added, “Well, whoda thunk it? That I’d be teachin’ two carnivores in India how to dive?”
I coughed and choked on my water over that remark. Kishan tried to help me by thumping my back.
“Maybe if we have time I can give you a few lessons in sea hunting,” Wes offered.
“Sea hunting?” I asked.
“Yeah. Spearing fish. Dart harpoons. That sort of thing.”
“We would both be interested in spear fishing,” Ren said quickly, making eye contact with Kishan.
“Yeah. I wouldn’t mind learning that myself,” I added.
“Really? Well, ain’t you as full of surprises as a lady’s tea party!”
I laughed, and the boys finally began communicating with Wes. They spent a couple of hours talking about spear fishing, asking what types of weapons were used and how they worked underwater.
We spent the next day by the pool again preparing for our open water training, which Wes hoped to start the following day. We practiced entering the water four ways: giant stride, controlled seated, backward roll, and belly flop. He taught us that how we entered the water depended on the diving conditions. We worked on changing back and forth from snorkel to regulator, removing our scuba units underwater and replacing them, and hovering. We practiced doing a tired-diver tow back and forth across the pool. Kishan had it easier than I did. A few quick strokes took him across, dragging me along behind him, but I had to work three times as hard to pull him along.
Then Wes had us practice massaging out cramps. Kishan spent an extra-long time massaging an imaginary cramp from my leg. When I protested, he pushed my head underwater and laughed. I threatened to trade partners and he apologized profusely and promised he’d never push me underwater again. Then he picked up my other calf and started massaging my leg with a great big grin on his face. I rolled my eyes and asked if we could move on to the next subject.
As we were drying off and stowing our gear, Wes announced that we were ready to skin dive the next morning from the beach. If all went well, we’d dive deeper the next day. I immediately panicked. Learning how to dive in the safety of a swimming pool is one thing; entering the ocean is something entirely different.
“Wait a minute, Wes. Are we ready for that? I mean, have we learned enough? I think I need a few more lessons.”
“You’ll be getting more lessons, just out on the water.”
“Right. But I think I might need a few more in the pool.”
“Sorry, darlin’, there’s only so much I can teach you in a pool. It’s time to face the briny deep.”
I was going to be sick.
While Ren looked on, Kishan said, “We’ll be with you, Kells. Nothing will get through us.”
Wes added, “If anyone can overcome a fear of the ocean, you can, little lady. Courage is being scared to death and saddlin’ up anyway.”
I nodded and thought of nothing else for the rest of the day. Nerves were wearing a hole in my stomach, so I skipped dinner. The next morning, I put on my swimsuit and followed Mr. Kadam glumly down to the wet garage to load our gear in the twenty-two-foot boat. He pushed several buttons and the side hatch opened while hydraulic cables lowered the ship into the water. Kishan leapt into the boat first, followed by Mr. Kadam and Wes. Then Ren took my arms, pressed a kiss on the top of my head, and lowered me down to Kishan, who caught me around the waist.
Ren jumped into the boat after me, sighed, and sat as far away as possible. Mr. Kadam drove the boat close to a point on the beach where Wes wanted us to practice. He asked us to team up, and I went with Kishan again. We slipped into the water, equalized our ears and masks, and put on our fins.
We practiced vertical dives, swimming underwater, and clearing our snorkels. After a while, I started to relax and enjoy myself. The water was crystal clear and placid. I could see about five to ten meters all around me. Wes ran us through navigation drills, in which we had to swim following a straight line, using our compass. After that, we just enjoyed ourselves.
We discovered beautiful shells and pretty coral fields. I saw hundreds of fish. I couldn’t even begin to identify most of them, but I did recognize angelfish and groupers. Thankfully, I didn’t see one shark, but a sea turtle and some kind of a ray swam lazily past us. I looked down to find Ren looking up at me. His eyes crinkled just as a school of colorful fish swam past him, and I sudden
ly realized this was one of my dreams from Shangri-la.
I’d dreamed of swimming with Ren in the ocean—and there he was. He gave the thumbs-up sign to mean we should head to the surface. I emerged near him and began treading water.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I really like it. As long as I don’t see any sharks, I’m fine.”
“Good.”
“Did you want to ask me something?”
“No. I just wanted to tell you you’re beautiful.” He winked at me, grinned, and ducked underwater again.
After we’d returned to the boat and had finished lunch, we all agreed that we were ready for our next lesson that afternoon. We put on our wet suits and our tanks. This time we dove right from the yacht. I followed Kishan’s example and took a giant step right off the boat ramp. We swam a little away from the ship and ran through CESA drills—controlled emergency swimming ascent drills—which Wes said are used when a diver runs out of air and has to ascend on one breath while exhaling slowly.
Then we went through five-point ascents and descents. For ascents, we signaled the dive was over, ascended to fifteen feet, did a safety stop and checked the surface for ski boats or Jet Skis, signaled our buddy, then extended the deflator and released air slowly from the BCD. I carefully watched my gauge and my air bubbles. Wes had told us never to ascend faster than our slowest air bubbles. Once we were up and had established buoyancy, we circled looking for hazards and signaled the boat.
Wes felt we’d done well enough to go on a short dive together. He asked Ren and Kishan to partner and said he would work with Mr. Kadam and me. We were to all stay together and practice being buddies. This time I saw a barracuda and a lion fish. I touched some brain coral, a starfish, and a huge conch. A large crab scuttled into view, so I followed its path across the rocky seabed for a while.
The sea was full of color, movement, and even sound. Seaweed swayed. Fish darted, swam, and drifted, and I could hear the hiss of bubbles and feel the vibrations of the currents pulling me as I moved. Getting lost in my environment for too long, I noticed that Wes was ahead of me, so I hurried to catch up.