Page 37 of Iron Hearts

That was my only concern. He had a daughter about Rarity’s age. Dusty was pretty much the club’s princess. All the guys would kill for that girl in a fuckin’ heartbeat.

I think that was what wasn’t sitting right with me.

I was worried about what Renegade would think – which was fuckin’ stupid, wasn’t it? Hadn’t he been the one to give his blessing to return to the Iron Horse so early on just so I could try and slide in across Rarity at her bar and shoot some kind of shot?

Of course, did heknowhow old she was? Had he really gotten a look at her?

Fuck, man, what the hell was wrong with me? I’d never worried about shit like this before.

I let my thoughts meander all over hell and gone over the subject of Rarity, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ever been in such a damn tizzy over a woman. It was confusing and yet…delightful.

She gave me butterflies in my stomach, and I couldn’t remember a time that’deverhappened… except back in high school.

I made it to the lighthouse and sat astride my bike in the parking lot, my mind justchurning. I had no idea if the object of my new obsession even spared a single thought toward me.

Probably not…I thought. I wouldn’t be able to know until the Iron Horse reopened and that still depended on if I was recognized as one of the “bad actors” and tossed before I could even shoot my shot.

I could do things, get around it. I knew what her car looked like. I could leave a note like I’d said.

I thought about that, got off my bike, and stretched. I went into the Ponce Inlet giftshop and wandered around sightlessly for a while until I ran into a rack with notes and postcards on it.

I turned the rack and looked at the art, then stopped at one of the postcards.

It had a mermaid on it, and it made me smile. It was in the old-school art style of old travel posters and magazines from the ’40s or ’50s. Illustrated, watercolor painted, framed in white, the undersea background in the blues and turquoises of the waters around here.

The mermaid was beautiful, but a brunette, but still… she reminded me of Rarity and how I’d thought of her as a little mermaid, with her hair still wet from the shower, her face fresh and free of makeup, making her look younger,moreinnocent if it was possible.

I bought a handful of the cards and my ticket to go out into the yard that housed the lighthouse and its accompanying lightkeepers cabins down below. I wandered out and looked up at the light. It wasn’t nearly as tall as St. Augustine’s light, but it was still impressive. While Augustine’s light was painted in a black-and-white barber pole swirl with a fire engine red cap, Ponce Inlet’s was much more sedate. The tower was painted a uniform color. It was closest to a brick red, a few shades darker than terra cotta, with a tinge more earthy tone to it. The window cross bars and the lighthouse cap were black, but the window sashes and the framing of the door at the bottom were a gray stone hinting at tan.

The doors were flung wide and there was a beautiful golden wood with just a hint of red to them. The window above the door had classic gold block lettering and readPonce De Leon Lighthouse, 1887.

There was one thing I loved about the Ponce light more than the St. Augustine light, and one thing only… the design and beauty of its spiral staircase.

It was imminently more photographable than the Augustine light, even if capturing it was tricky as the bottom of the staircase was cordoned off. You had to lean way over the railing to get the camera centered to get the snap, and it sometimes took several tries. But if you could get it, it was chef’s kiss fuckin’ perfect, the ridges and swirl up to the top as perfect as a nature-made nautilus shell.

It was wild to me that the Ponce lighthouse wastallerthan Augustine’s light by a mere ten feet, but to reach her top? She had two-hundred-and-three steps to get to the top, which was sixteen stepslessthan it took to get to the top of St. Augustine’s light.

I imagine it was some engineering thing but nothing that I thought too much about.

I started the steady climb to the top, and it didn’t take long for the burn to set into my legs, my already stiff body from the explosive fighting of the night before protesting every riser as I worked my way to the top.

To say I had some serious fuckin’ regrets about undertaking the climb by the time I reached the top was amajorunderstatement of the facts – but by the same token, the view over the Atlantic couldn’t be beaten from up here.

I leaned on the railing, catching my breath, the wind ruffling my hair and plastering my shirt to my body, cooling and drying the sweat on my back.

While the ride had let me work through a lot of thoughts, worries, and concerns and let me wonder and daydream freely – standing up here at such an unearthly height with the wind washing over me, the vastness of the water out in front of me, feeling like I was standing at the edge of the world itself?

My mind went blessedly quiet. Silent in its awe of the view and the churning waves ahead of me. I slipped into what could only be described as a meditative state as tourists snapped pictures beside me and made fools of themselves by playing up their fear of heights… which I thought was stupid as fuck. If you’rethatafraid of heights, why make the fuckin’ climb in the first place?

I had respect for the one girl, though – she was afraid but was genuinely there to conquer her fear. I listened to her tell the attendant at the top how she had been to all the lighthouses you could climb in Florida, taking them from smallest to tallest, and she’d made it. She was here at the tallest, and that meant something – even if she clung to her boyfriend and shook like a leaf.

It brought me back to my fearless little mermaid and the peace I’d felt with her in my arms. Safe, cuddling into me like I was her prince… I liked it. Maybe I’d let my imagination run wild… maybe she’d meant nothing by it… but it sure felt like she’dcravedthat feeling as much as I craved to give it.

I didn’t know.

I stood up there and let the wind and salty breeze carry my thoughts and troubles off over the water and trees out there. I took my time making my descent.

When I reached the bottom, I lingered, wandering over to the wrap-around porch of the lightkeeper’s cottage and dropping into one of the rocking chairs on it for guest’s enjoyment to look up at the lighthouse from down here.

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