Avra's God (34 page)

On the verge of bagging the two things he
wants most—a sailing charter business and marrying old money—Jake
Murray’s fiancée/sole crew member dumps him. Salvation comes in the
form of dyslexic, basketball toting Rachel Martin, the only one to
apply for the first mate position he slapped on craigslist.

Rachel, on a dead run from an affair with a
married man, snags the job on Jake’s boat before she can change her
mind. Her salvation is shoving ocean between her and temptation
and, just maybe, between her and an oil slick of self-disgust.

The many-layered story weaves together
disparate strands into a seamless cord. Mother and daughter look
eerily alike—down to their lusts. Their symbiotic bond, forged in
the blood of childbirth on the kitchen floor and cemented by their
secrets, must be cracked open. A son must go home. Sin must be
expunged.

Tattered Innocence
is for anyone
who’s ever woken up sealed in a fifty-gallon drum of their
guilt.

Chapter 1

Rachel hot-footed it across the glittering
sand of the Dolphin View Restaurant lot, too-new sandals clenched
in her hand. The denim of her skirt caught her knees and shortened
her stride. She slowed her breath. Hyperventilating wouldn’t help
her ace this interview, and crewing on
The Smyrna Queen
was
her only way out.

Worn work boots appeared on the dirty sand
in front of her. “Rachel?”

Her gaze panned upward over faded jeans,
carpenter’s belt, paint-splattered T-shirt, and stopped at toffee
eyes trained on her. Her breath hitched. She’d been prepared for an
old-salt captain, not a Diet Coke commercial. Hot granules scorched
the soles of her feet, and she burrowed one foot toward cooler sand
and balanced the other on a big toe.

She held out her hand, squinting at him.
“Rachel Martin.” Her heart hammered like it had when she
interviewed for her first and only job—high school athletic
secretary—five years ago. But she only had to convince him she
could sail, not manage details for nineteen sports.

He glanced at her hand but didn’t take it. A
muscle tensed in his jaw. “Jake Murray.”

Palm fronds rustled in the May breeze.

She dropped her hand, swallowing his slight,
and burrowed deeper in the dirty sand with her toes. First mate was
the only job listed in the
Hometown News
classifieds she
qualified for, and she needed this job to untangle herself from
Bret. Why had she thought doing the right thing would be easy?

His pale curls moved in a puff of hot breeze
as he frowned at her bare feet. “I’m starved. Let’s go inside.” A
halo of chin stubble sparkled in the sun. He shoved his hands into
his pockets and strode toward the restaurant, his shoulders
hunched.

The screen door banged behind him. A
weather-beaten
B
est Fried Seafood on the Florida Atlantic
Coast
creaked on a sign overhead.

Rachel marched toward the smells of grease
and fish. She dropped her sandals on the Dolphin-shaped mat, slid
gritty feet into them, and pushed through the fingerprint-smeared
door.

At three, the place was empty, except for a
woman peeling shrimp in front of the fan, her support hose rolled
into knee-highs. She tossed each shrimp into a huge stainless steel
bowl, like morsels of wisdom she’d collected from living.

Rachel fought the urge to drag a chair over
and pour out her messed-up life.

Jake moved from the counter, through the
back door, to the outdoor seating without casting a glance in her
direction.

The counter guy scratched the grouper tattoo
on his bicep and yelled, “One super-deluxe combo basket, two sweet
teas.”

At least he ordered something I like. And
paid for it.
She stepped onto the deck and spotted Jake facing
the seawall where a beater fishing boat was moored.

His fingers drummed on the picnic table, his
eyes slits above an anchor-hard jaw.

Rachel slid onto the wooden bench across
from him.

He coughed and glowered at her as if it were
her fault she’d caught him brooding.

Okay, so there were worse things than an emo
boss.

Jake pierced her with his eyes. “Sail?”

Everything rode on this answer. She took a
deep breath. “My dad taught me and my brother to sail. I was the
one who caught the bug. I have a Sunfish stowed on a friend’s lawn
on the Indian River. Sail every chance I get. I’ve piloted a
Catalina 27 a couple of times.” If he was looking for big boat
experience, she was screwed. “When you learn on a small boat, you
have to grasp wind dynamics to stay out of the drink. It makes you
a better sailor.” Her voice went up at the end as if she doubted
her own theory.

The grouper-tattooed guy plunked a heaping
basket of seafood in the middle of the table with one hand and set
down Styrofoam cups with the other. He wiped thick fingers on his
starched apron. “Enjoy.”

The aroma made her mouth water.

Jake bit into a piece of fish and cast his
eyes toward the awning shading them. A moan of pleasure escaped as
he chewed.

She twisted curls up off her neck to let the
breeze off the Intracoastal dry the sweat as she popped a scallop
into her mouth. She sat back to savor the Dolphin’s magic and
Jake’s improved mood.

Jake sprinkled the basket, and salt danced
on the grease paper. “Why do you want to crew on
The Smyrna
Queen
?”

Rachel gazed at tiny whitecaps the wind
kicked up on the water. “I want to taste the salt spray on a long
tack. I want to live the ocean’s moods—summer squalls, flat as
glass without a breath of wind, even the big blows. I want water
between me and—New Smyrna Beach.” She wished she could bite back
the words. Jake didn’t need to know she was running.

Jake cocked a brow.

Don’t ask.

He shrugged and leaned his elbows on the
rough wood of the table. “
The Smyrna Queen
is a
sixty-eight-foot ketch. She was built thirty-one years ago,
according to her plumbing fittings.”

Rachel stared at the pale hair curling on
Jake’s forearms, willing him not to notice how desperate she was.
“How big is your crew?”

Jake flattened his lips. “Two. Captain,
first mate.”

“Two people can sail a sixty-eight-foot
boat?”

“I billed the cruises as ‘hands-on,’ so
we’ll get help from the guests. Besides, I rigged her to be sailed
by two people when necessary.” Jake wiped his mouth and tossed his
napkin onto the table. “The
Queen’s
booked through the end
of the year, mostly five-day vacation cruises starting two weeks
from today.”

“You filled your cruises in this sleepy
little town? Amazing.”

“
I majored in
marketing.”

“I majored in boredom.” The defense
mechanism to hide her dyslexia and lack of college kicked in before
she realized she’d spoken, and she cringed.

Jake’s fingers drummed again on the planks
of the table. “Does crewing bore you?”

“I haven’t been this wowed since an
accordion player marched up the center aisle at church.” Had she
come down with Tourette’s? If she didn’t put a lid on her sarcasm,
she’d sabotage the interview.

Jake’s eyes iced over. “Another church
girl.”

She lifted one shoulder. Her stomach
quivered with panic. After all her lip, would she lose the job
because she’d grown up in church? That was almost laughable. If
anyone was a poster-girl for bad choices, she was.

Jake stared at her as if she were a rotting
fantailed mullet.

She squirmed on her bench, feeling like he
could see inside her. See that she’d let her innocence go too
easily. That she’d never recover the five-and-a-half-year-old who
pressed her gooey, newborn brother in chubby arms against her
Cinderella T-shirt.

He blew out a breath. “Fifteen wannabes
bailed over the phone when they heard cooking was part of the job.
What about you?”

“I have a shoe box full of yellow ribbons
from 4-H cooking competitions.”

“Yellow?”

Take it or leave it.
She was trying
to shove her way out of something she shouldn’t have flirted with
in the first place. But if Jake wouldn’t be shoved….

He shifted on his bench. His eyes darted
around the deck and the tiki bar. The door banged behind a man with
a white ponytail and an earring hooked through the brown leather of
his ear.

“All the bunks are rented out except for my
cabin.”

Rachel’s gaze snapped to Jake’s. “So, if I
want this job—” Across the deck two teens she recognized from the
high school plunked down. Rachel lowered her voice to a whisper. “I
have to sleep with you? I thought I’d heard all the lines from
B―”

“I’m talking about a job—nothing more.” His
eyes darkened to granite. His look said she’d sprouted cystic acne
and two hundred pounds. “You’d have to share a small cabin with me,
but you would have your own sleeping area and as much privacy as
possible. Do you want the job or not?”

Well, okay, then, as long as we
understand each other
. But he’d made her mad. “I told you on
the phone I wanted the job.” She forced the hard edge out of her
voice. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

He let out his breath. “If I hire you,
you’ll need to plan the week’s menu, grocery shop―”

“I think I know all the steps in cooking.”
What was with her passive-aggressive mouth? This job would give her
a clean start. But part of her clawed for Bret.

He eyed her. “I’ll let you know about the
job.” He stood, tossed bills on the table for the tip, and walked
away.

She watched his back lumber around the
corner of the building, a wrestler leaving the mat. All the air
released from her lungs. Who had pinned whom?

1st Place Long Contemporary, 2009 RWA Faith,
Hope and Love Contest

Stuck in sleepy New Smyrna Beach one last
summer, Raine socks away her camp pay checks, worries about her
druggy brother, and ignores trouble: Cal Koomer. She’s a plane
ticket away from teaching orphans in Africa, and not even Cal’s
surfer six-pack and the chinks she spies in his rebel armor will
derail her.

The artist in Cal begs to paint Raine’s
ivory skin, high cheek bones, and internal sparklers behind her
eyes, but falling for her would caterwaul him into his parents’
life. No thanks. The girl was self-righteous waiting to happen. Mom
served sanctimony like vegetables, three servings a day, and he had
a gut full.

Rec Director Drew taunts her with “Rainey”
and calls her an enabler. He is so infernally there like
a horsefly—till he buzzes back to his ex.

Raine's brother tweaks. Her dream of Africa
dies small deaths. Will she figure out what to fight for
and what to free before it's too late?

For anyone who's ever wrestled with their
dreams.