Getting Rough (2 page)

Popping over the hill and following the main road down to the small village nestled below, I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the simplicity of it all. It was like stepping onto the set of a fictional town in a movie or a book. I never knew places like this actually existed, but there it was.

The street corners were not home to Starbucks or McDonald’s. There were no Walmarts or Targets. No shopping malls or gas stations. Not even a traffic light. Main Street was home to a handful of boutiques, one locally owned and operated diner, a convenience store, and a singular bank. But the hustle and bustle was concentrated at a dock, the hub of it all. A dock loaded down with just about every make and model of truck ever produced in the good ol’ U. S. of A.

Just past the Opera House – “Wait. They have a fucking Opera House?” I asked myself incredulously – I made a left off School Street and onto West Main, where a giant, weathered sign in need of a fresh coat of paint told me I’d finally reached my destination. I parked on the side of the road, turned off the ignition, and unfolded myself out of the little windup-toy car. How clowns got so many of themselves into one during their circus act, I’d never understand.

Stepping out onto the sidewalk, I stretched and inhaled a deep breath of fresh air. Well, it wasn’t so much fresh as it was fishy and sodium based, but it was natural all the same. My lungs must have been too used to the carbon footprints left behind by big-city living because the resulting cough attack had me scared shitless that I’d never breathe again. Once the spasm was over, I took a look around to be sure no one had seen me, and was struck dumb by the scenery.

Fishing boats moved in and out of the harbor, a flock of seagulls hot on their water trails. The sound of engines and horns, the call of the birds, and the stray shouts between fishermen as they passed one another was almost a lullaby compared to the harsh noise of the city. Islands of all sizes were scattered throughout the bay and beyond like a treasure map awaiting exploration. But most impressive was the horizon beyond. It was like a painter’s canvas of blue skies the color of a baby’s eyes, and streaks of sunlight penetrated marbled white clouds as if the fingers of a young god were playing with toy boats in a tepid bath.

Cassidy Whalen had been born inside a postcard and had stepped right out of it like a two-dimensional character brought to three-dimensional life. Rarely had I ever taken note of the splendor of such things. Maybe that was because I’d always been in a hurry, thanks to the fast pace of city life, but something about this backdrop forced me to stop and take notice. Chick-ish moment aside, I was in awe.

I took out my phone to call Ben to let him know I’d arrived and did a double take when I spotted the words
NO
SERVICE
in the top corner where there should’ve been full bars.

Holding my cellphone in the air, I did a three-sixty. “No service? Is that even possible with today’s technology?” I sighed in defeat and shoved my phone back into my pocket. Forget the postcard. I was in
The Twilight Zone
.

Looking around again, I shook my head at how easily I’d been duped. Like Cassidy, the small town was beautiful and nonthreatening, a succubus luring its prey with a false sense of security, and then
blammo!
You were under her spell with no choice but to submit to her will until she sucked the essence from your soul and then discarded your rotting corpse. Luckily for me, I’d figured it out way before it was too late, which was a miracle in and of itself considering my level of exhaustion.

Behind me, the Whalen House stood proud atop an incline that overlooked not just the harbor but the entire town. And I used the word “town” loosely. How fitting that it should be the place the great counselor, Cassidy Whalen, called home. Obviously, the high and mighty perch from which she passed judgment had been one she’d inherited at birth. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if I walked inside to find out her father was the town’s judge, jury, and executioner.

If I’d been in my right mind, I would’ve turned around and made my way back to civilization. But again – thanks to the sleep deprivation – I’d traded out “right mind” for “one hallucination short of a padded cell” a long time ago. The one and only order of business at the moment was to make it inside and into a warm, comfortable bed to capitalize on some much-needed downtime for my brain. After that, I’d say my piece to the she-devil and then I’d make my hasty escape back to some normalcy in San Diego with my new and very lucrative partnership at Striker Sports Entertainment and an extraordinarily exceptional life.

Yep, everything I’d worked so hard for was just sitting there waiting for me to come live the dream… As soon as I could get free of the nightmare.

Life was a funny thing. All those inspirational sayings about how we are in control of our own destiny, that we have the right to choose which direction we take during our journey to the end, were a crock of manure.

Rarely had anyone born in my town ever left. If they did, they returned within a couple of years, max. The culture in Stonington was so unlike the culture anywhere else that the natives found it hard to exist outside of it. The rules were different; the way people thought was different. It was like being dropped in the middle of an ocean and being told to sink or swim. Without ever having the first swimming lesson.

I’d done it. I’d taken control of my own future, and I’d gotten out of Stonington, Maine. And not only had I learned how to swim, but I’d grown fins and gills. Yet this town had managed to suck me right back in anyway. I was not the master of my own destiny; I was a slave to my fate. I’d left behind everything I’d worked so hard for, only to return to a place I’d fought so hard to leave. Like an overprotective mother, Stonington had a way of grabbing ahold of its children, smothering them with her breasts, and refusing to let them go. I was simply the headstrong daughter determined to forge her own way.

The short trips I’d made home for visits in the past had been safe. Mostly because they were preplanned trips, with a definite date of departure that was nonnegotiable. This time that safeguard wasn’t in place. I had no idea how long I’d need to stay to see my ma and da through this crisis, but I was sure if Stonington had her way, I wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. It was a risk I had to take for my family. They were more important than any partnership or any client or any egotistical asshole with a giant chip on his shoulder who just happened to give cosmic orgasms.

It was an emergency phone call during the biggest moment of my life that had sent me dashing across the country in a hurry to get to my hospitalized mother. When Da had picked me up from the airport, he’d assured me she was fine, but warned that she looked much worse than she actually was. He’d been right. Ma looked like she’d gone through a twelve-round bout with the heavyweight boxing champion of the world and had come out on the losing end. The broken bones and concussion she’d sustained only further substantiated my analogy.

Despite the fact that I was sitting in a hospital – which always gave me the creeps – something felt off, unsettling. Every time I tried to pinpoint the cause of my uneasiness, Shaw Matthews’s stupid face kept popping up in my mind, compounding my restlessness. Perhaps it was because there’d been no closure there. Not that it should matter. It wasn’t like we were an item. Far from it. But I couldn’t help the confusion over my inability to define the freaking relationship that I think I had with him in the first place. It was just sex, right? And if that was the case, why did I feel the need to check in with him? Explain to him that I’d landed safely, fill him in on how my mother was, and give him some sort of guesstimate as to when I might return. Because I was the blooming idiot who’d found herself back in Nowhere, USA, with little to no hope of ever escaping to civilization again.

“You all right, kiddo?” The gruff voice of my father suspended my internal ramblings and I glanced up to catch him studying me, concern furrowing his brow. My own gaze roamed over his familiar features and noted the many differences since my last visit. The old man’s red hair was thinner and his beard was in need of a trim, but his barrel chest and potbelly were the same as always. Ma had been keeping him well fed, as usual. When I didn’t answer, he looked at me with that weathered face. The squint to his eye had nothing to do with his curiosity and everything to do with his failing eyesight.

“I’m fine, Da. Just a little tired.” On cue, a yawn snuck up on me and I stretched it out. “I see you’re still not wearing your glasses.”

“Bah,” he scoffed, waving me off. “There’s no place for those damn things on a lobster boat. Proved that when the last pair fell right off my face and into the ocean where they belong.”

“Fell off, or got tossed off?” He wasn’t fooling anyone.

Da shrugged. “What difference does it make? Somewhere out in the deep blue, a real-life Incredible Mr. Limpet is patrolling the ocean and keeping our country safe from enemy attack. You’re welcome,” he said with a wink.

I laughed because I couldn’t help it. Leave it to my da to make accidentally on purpose losing his glasses a patriotic contribution. Duff Whalen was set in his ways and was fighting growing old with every breath in his body. It was one of the reasons he was still fishing when he should’ve been retired. He swore it kept him young and healthy. Truthfully, he probably had a point, though I’d never tell him that in front of Ma.

As if she could sense the conspiratorial thought – and she probably could – Ma stirred in her sleep, her eyes opening just enough for me to see the caterpillar green of her irises. I might have inherited the ginger hair and short temper from my father, but Ma was the benefactor of my eyes and willfulness. A willfulness that had landed her butt in the hospital with a broken leg, a couple of cracked ribs, and some scrapes and bruises. Thank God it hadn’t been worse.

“Hey, sleepyhead. You okay?” I asked, sitting up to brush a graying lock of hair from her face.

“Cassidy, you’re here.” Her smile was groggy, the prescribed painkillers forcing her to take a much-needed nap to help her body heal. It was a good thing, too, because otherwise Anna Whalen would’ve been out of that bed and walking the twenty-five miles back to Stonington to tend to her guests.

“You know, if you wanted to see me, you could’ve just called and asked me to come. You didn’t have to go to this extreme.”

Medicine-induced semicoma or not, it didn’t stop her from quirking a sarcastic brow. “Didn’t I?”

Here we go
. I sighed. “Ma, don’t start with the guilt trip, okay? You know how busy I am.”

“Yes, I know. I really wish they hadn’t called you in the first place. I’m fine. You should go back to California before you’re missed. I wouldn’t want my little accident to be the cause of some major catastrophe, like one of your fancy clients not having his favorite bottled water on the set of a commercial shoot for some athlete’s foot something or other.”

Jesus, she really knew how to lay it on thick, but I wasn’t going to let her avoid a much-deserved interrogation by pointing out all my shortcomings as a daughter. “Oh, you’re fine?” I challenged. “So you’re in the hospital because…?”

“Because you two are a bunch of overprotective hens who can’t tell that these doctors are only trying to milk my insurance company out of more money than they’ve any right to. Can I go home now?”

I laughed with a shake of my head. “That would be a big, fat no.”

“Well, why not?”

“Because you have an issue with your blood pressure, which you knew before you decided to go on a little adventure. Said issue is what caused the dizziness that led to the fall in the first place. And as a result, the doctors want to keep you here another night.”

The information didn’t sit well with my mother. Not that I’d expected it would. “I’m not staying here another night. I have guests to attend to.” She started to pull the covers back as if she was going to get out of bed, but I stopped her.

“Oh, no you don’t. Abby’s taking care of them just fine without you there, and I’m going to relieve her in a bit. Right after I make the doc explain why the medication he gave you for your blood pressure hasn’t been working.”

Ma’s gaze dropped to the covers and she occupied her hands by smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles in the sheets. If I hadn’t already sensed her guilt, Da’s reaction would’ve been a dead giveaway. He could always read her like a book.

“Damn stubborn woman. You haven’t been taking your medicine, have you?” He threw his hands into the air as if he already knew the answer.

My mother shrugged. “Not as often as I should.”

“Why not?” I asked.

She looked ashamed, an apologetic glance at my father preceding her words. “Because we can’t afford all the medication we have to take between us and still be able to keep the bed-and-breakfast running.”

“Oh my God. Are you kidding me right now?” I asked, flabbergasted. Turning toward my father, I asked, “Did you know anything about this?”

His face drew up in disgust. “Hell no! Do you think I would’ve let that happen if I did?”

It hadn’t been my intention to insult my father, but I had. “I’m sorry. Of course I know you wouldn’t.” I whipped my head around and focused my attention where it belonged. “Ma, why didn’t you say something?”

“Because I didn’t want anyone to know. It’s my fault. This stupid recession has affected the tourism in Stonington and we need to keep the house open because it’s not just a source of income; it’s the roof over our own heads. So I cut some corners. I figured if I took my medicine every other day, it wouldn’t matter so much and I could stretch out the prescriptions until things got better.”

“Oh, you figured that, did ya?” Da grumbled from his chair. His face was flushed, the top of his ears a ripe tomato red, and I worried that his own blood pressure was peaking at a dangerous level.

“Should I ask if you’ve been taking your medicine, too, Da?”

My father brushed off the question with a casual wave of his hand, ignoring me and staring down his wife instead. “You also figured you’d climb up on the ladder, didn’t ya? Look where that landed ya.”

Ma huffed. “Well, someone had to clean out the gutters.”

“And I told you I’d do it when I got home, woman.” Da’s face was beginning to tinge red with his insistence.

“Mmhmm… Just like you fixed the antenna? People aren’t going to want to stay at a bed-and-breakfast that can’t even offer them good reception on the television set.”

“Why can’t you just admit that you climbed up there because you wanted to be able to watch your stories? That’s exactly the reason you wouldn’t wait. Damn near killed yourself over it.”

I closed my eyes, knowing what Da said was true, but hoping it wasn’t. “Ma, please tell me that’s not why you did it.” Not that she needed to. She was obsessed with her soap operas. Stonington was one giant, real-life soap opera of its own, sans the cameras, lighting, and sound equipment. And I wouldn’t put it past some of its residents to have some, if not all, of that setup to keep tabs on their neighbors.

Ma turned toward me, and the bruise to her cheek made me cringe. If anything had happened to her…

With a sigh of concession she said, “Well, you know… two birds, one stone and all.”

“Ah, jeez, Ma. I can’t believe you!”

My exasperated chastisement was cut off when a new voice joined the conversation from the door to the room. “What’s that saying about the pot calling the kettle black?”

I knew that voice. It was the sort of deep and gravelly with a smoky undertone that couldn’t be faked or replicated, and its calm strength had given me comfort when I’d most needed it throughout my life. I closed my eyes to gather my wits about me before I opened them again and turned toward the sound.

He stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb with his hands tucked into the front pockets of a pair of faded jeans that knew his body better than he knew it himself. His legs were crossed at the ankles, scuffed logger boots showing the wear and tear of a job that had defined his life. A navy blue button-down was left open to reveal the black T-shirt he wore beneath, clinging to pecs developed by years of lobstering, not time spent in the gym. And the crinkles at the corners of his eyes were etched there by nearly three decades of sun exposure and genuine smiles.

“Casey…” The last syllable of his name sounded like the air being let out of a tire, only the tire was my lungs, and I was completely breathless. My heart raced, punching at my already-constricted chest like it wanted desperately to break free and run into his arms.

Casey’s left cheek lifted with the corner of his mouth for a lopsided grin, which he topped off with a wink that made my breath catch. “Where you been all my life, darlin’?”

Jesus, there was something about Casey Michaels that always made me go weak in the knees and get all girly. It was an involuntary reaction no other man had ever been able to evoke from me. I didn’t hate it, but I couldn’t say I liked it, either. It was fine, maybe even cute when we were kids, but as a grown woman, I preferred to feel like I had at least a modicum of control over my own body’s reaction to a person’s presence.

If the way my feet sent me flying across the room and into his arms before my thoughts could fully process what was happening was any indication, it was clear that control was something I lacked.

Casey caught me – because he always would – and I buried my face in his neck, breathing him in. That familiar aroma of salty air, motor oil, and hard work was a combination that couldn’t be bottled, but would always be home. I was safe, though I was confused as to why knowing that was such a relief. What did I need safety from?

The question I asked him was muffled thanks to the tight hold I still had on him and my refusal to let go for fear he’d disappear if I did.

Casey laughed and nudged me back a little. “I have no idea what you just said, but my answer is yes, darlin’. It’ll always be yes.”

“You will? You’ll have my babies?” My voice was laced with a fake hopefulness that Casey would undoubtedly understand, because he got me like no one else ever would.

My oldest and dearest friend, who just happened to also be the man of my dreams whom I’d chosen to leave behind in favor of a career, looked away with a wince. “Damn, it’s gonna hurt when I try to push them out,” he said, almost contemplatively, before he turned back to me, his mind made up. “But you’re worth it.”

We both laughed, as did Ma and Da.

“Seeing you two together and still acting silly is making me feel so much better already,” Ma said, sitting up.

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Nice try, old woman.”

Ma gasped. “Casey, don’t let her be so mean to her mother,” she said, pouting.