Tattered Innocence (17 page)

Jake shrugged.

“You’ll get your story. And the
advertising.”

“And I’ll watch for that byline of
yours.”

Thanks, Rachel.

Quill sashayed down the pier, and his brain
flitted to her blue bikini with the palm trees on it. Then, a
picture of Rachel standing on deck in her black Speedo, ocean water
sluicing over her curves, replaced it. The image winded him all
over again. Quill wielded her sexuality like a cast net that would
capture what she wanted. Rachel’s was all the more potent because
she didn’t even try to fish.

Leaf whistled under his breath. “There’s
some nice scenery for a week’s sail.”

Jake looked up from adjusting the fender
between the dock and the
Queen
and moved down the deck,
uncoiling the hose looped over his shoulder as he went. “Nice
scenery every week.”

“Rachel.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know
it.”

Leaf stepped onto the finger pier. “Makin’
any progress on that little project?”

Jake darted a glance through the main hatch
as he unfurled the hose. Hopefully, Rachel had gone forward, out of
earshot, to strip the bunks.

“Lay off, man.” He squeezed the hose
trigger, and water beat against the deck, blocking out Leaf’s
reply.

He’d almost kissed her the other night. But
Rachel wasn’t the kind of girl you kissed just because you wanted
to—even if Bret had. She was all about babies and forever. Things a
guy needed to think long and hard about. Thank God she didn’t own a
bikini.

Rachel hesitated outside the aft cabin.
She’d never returned once she left for the weekend, but she’d
forgotten her textbook with thirty pages left to read by eight a.m.
tomorrow. Her knuckles rapped on the hatch.

“Yo.” Jake slid the hatch open. His brows
lifted. “Since when do you knock?”

“For all I know you could be running around
in your boxers all weekend. I forgot something.”

Jake laughed. “Yeah, your grocery list. I
found it.”

Panic flushed through her. She’d been too
busy reading
Early Childhood Development
to take her usual
care with the list. Her shorthand, honed into her own language over
the years, complete with backward and forward letters, looked like
a preschooler’s.

He stepped out of the cabin and pulled the
list out of his back pocket. “At least, I think it’s your grocery
list. Hurry much?”

She snatched the paper from his hand and
shoved it into her purse. “Thanks.” She climbed into the cabin.

“I couldn’t even make out anything after
grocery list
.”

She grabbed the textbook from her bin.
“Secret code. Next week’s menu is a surprise.” She pasted on a
smile and exited the cabin, placing her body between Jake and the
book. “See you Monday.”

Jake caught her hand.

Her eyes flew to his.

His gaze slid away, but the grip of his
calloused hand didn’t loosen.

Her pulse shifted into overdrive. Was this
solid evidence she wasn’t the only one caught in this attraction,
or was there a meteor headed her way, and he was about to yank her
to safety?

Jake looked down at his hand clutching
Rachel’s. The afternoon sun momentarily paraded white spots in
front of his eyes. He scrambled for a plausible reason for having
stopped her from leaving—other than he didn’t want her to go.

Rachel stood on the deck beside the aft
cabin, her brow wrinkled, waiting for his explanation.

His gaze fell on the five-pound book resting
against her hip, and he released her hand. “What’s the book?”

She held up what looked like a textbook for
him to read the title. “Just something I’m interested in.”

Early Childhood Development.
He
wondered, not for the first time, why someone as intelligent and
motivated to learn as Rachel never went to college.

She crossed her arms and pressed the book
against her chest. “Gotta get going. See ya.” She hustled up the
finger pier and dock as if she couldn’t get away from him fast
enough.

Except for the other night on deck, Rachel
seemed guarded lately, withdrawn. Right now, he’d settle for the
way things had been before Bret came aboard.

A week into September, Jake sat on the aft
cabin splicing a rope. Rachel’s conversation on the stern drifted
to him while he kept an eye on the guest manning the helm. He
glanced at Rachel, thirteen-year-old Will from Canada, and
Philadelphian Maddy, whose oversized straw hat shaded her
Pillsbury-dough-girl face. Their fishing lines trailed through the
flat water behind the
Queen.

Rachel peered under the woman’s hat. “Maddy,
why did you take a cruise? Your skin burns. You’ve never
sailed.”

“Got ditched by a fifth grade teacher for
the hottie, gifted teacher who could discuss long division.”
Maddy’s voice quivered, her pain elbowing Jake in the ribs. “I
gathered my personal days and what was left of my dignity and flew
south.”

How did Rachel get people to dump stuff like
this?

Will’s summer-browned feet stilled from
swinging back and forth over the transom. “You don’t know long
division?”

“I
know
long division. Kindergarten
teachers don’t
talk
about it much.” Maddy tugged on her
line. “The guy could have been one of three generations in my
family who never had to work a day in their lives. I work because I
want to.”

Will flashed an impish smile. “Wanna go
out?”

Maddy swiped Will’s Toronto Blue Jay’s hat
off his shaggy head and whacked him with it.

Will snatched his hat back and wandered,
still chuckling at his joke, toward the bow with his line.

“What am I supposed to do with all this
anger?” Maddy said to no one in particular.

Rachel swiveled her face toward Jake.

What? I don’t have an answer for Maddy.

“Jake went through a break-up recently.”
Rachel’s eyes pled with him. She expected him to spill to a perfect
stranger.

No way.
He flattened his lips into a
thin line.

Maddy turned toward him. “Tell me, O Wise
Captain.”

Jake set down the rope and shot Rachel a
glare.

Maddy waited for his answer.

He sighed. Rachel would hear about this.

“When I got dumped, I kicked things, pounded
nails.”

“That helped?”

Probably not. That night at the bonfire had
been a turning point. “Really, God helped.”

“You were suicidal?”

Jake glanced at Rachel.
Help me out
here.

She stared at him, mouth slightly open as
though he’d surprised her.

“N—not suicidal.” Jake stared at the
Smyrna Queen’s
neat wake beyond Maddy. “I told God I wanted
her back, how I didn’t appreciate His letting this happen to
me.”

Rachel jutted her chin toward him, a tiny
movement, yet he heard her encouragement as though she’d
spoken.

Maddy squinted up at him. “You said that to
God?”

“Yeah.”

“So, after you did the ‘me and my invisible
friend’ thing with God, you were over the tramp?”

Jake’s jaw tightened. “She isn’t a
tramp.”

“Sorry.”

Jake peered under the brim of Maddy’s hat at
her dark eyes and alabaster skin. “Talking to God was new. Rachel
kind of got me started.”
Quiz Rachel, why don’t you.

Maddy wound fishing line around a spool.

Far in the distance, tiny trees poked from
the shoreline.

“So, how about that sailing lesson you
promised me?” Maddy popped up and headed for the cockpit.

Rachel shrugged at him. She stuck her hook
into the wound line in her hand.

His desire to snap at her evaporated. He
grabbed the coil of rope from the top of the hatch and slid off the
cabin.

He stretched a hand toward Rachel where she
sat on the gunwale.

She gazed at him with a puzzled expression,
her iPod ear buds dangling around her neck.

So, he hadn’t offered her a hand-up lately.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t start now.

She slid long fingers across his hand,
shooting heat up his arm, and he pulled her to her feet.

He hung on. “Okay, so that wasn’t so bad. If
what I’ve gone through helps somebody else, then maybe it was worth
talking about it.” His fingers relaxed, and her hand slipped out of
his.

“I think you helped Maddy.” Rachel didn’t
move away. “You prayed?”

He shrugged. “You seem to put a lot of stock
in it. And Jesse yelled at God.” He pressed a finger to the small
of her back, and gave her a push toward the cockpit. “Now that we
all feel better, get back to work.”

Rachel’s laugh wrapped around him like a
hoodie on a damp day. The change between them since Bret’s cruise
felt better this week, as if they were finally getting comfortable
with it.

Rachel inhaled the heavy salt air, Hall’s
voice reading through her iPod about developmental milestones at
eighteen months. Things still seemed distant between them, but Hall
had agreed to read for her.

The last guest on deck, Maddy, had turned in
for the night. A shaft of moonlight reflected off the wavelets.
Jake bent over the bow, the circle of light from his flashlight
disjointed from his body as he checked the anchor. The white ship’s
light glowed atop the mainmast.

Jake rarely stayed up this late. Even half a
ship between them, attraction crackled in her chest—right next to
the snippet of his conversation with Maddy saying he wanted
Gabrielle back.

Jake yelled something, and she yanked the
ear buds from her ears, racing toward him.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her down. “The
shrimp are running!”

Rachel’s heart jogged. Her eyes darted to
Jake, but he bent over the beam of the flashlight on the water, his
hand still clutching her. She followed his gaze to the pop-eyed
creatures the size of a pointer finger shooting backwards through
the water, whipping their tails under them.

He thumped the flashlight, warm from his
grip, into Rachel’s hand and slapped his palm along the length of
the fore cabin. “All hands on deck. The shrimp are running!”

Jake grabbed long-handled nets and a shop
light from below and paced the length of the light beam, chattering
to the shrimp, “Come to Papa, sweet babies.”

He handed Rachel the extra nets and caught
her grinning at him. “What?”

Sparks zinged back and forth between them as
though the shop light had connected with seawater.

Will’s parents, in disheveled nightclothes,
clambered from the cabin followed by the rest of the guests.

A half-hour later, Rachel watched Jake heft
a net full of shrimp into the bucket, sloshing seawater over the
edge. She wrinkled her nose at the ugly creatures. “No way am I
cooking those.”

“What? You owe me after making me spill to
Maddy.”

Rachel curled her lip at the bucket. “I
don’t owe you this much.”

“Okay, I’ll bargain. What do you want?”

“A bonus in my check,” Rachel counted off on
her fingers, “a day off KP, and another backrub.” Geez, had she
really said that?

His grin widened. “Deal on the backrub.”

After uncounted pounds of shrimp guts and
shells had been tossed overboard and everyone had their fill of
warm shrimp cocktail, Rachel washed the last pot.

Jake wiped down the counters at her elbow.
The inside of his arm brushed against her as he reached around her
with the dishcloth. Rachel tensed, her gaze skidding into his.
Brown eyes flecked with yellow stared back at her for one chime of
the ship’s clock. A second chime.

She let her breath out slowly, willing Jake
to do what she read in his tired eyes. Could he have changed his
mind about wanting Gabrielle back?

He smiled softly, leaning in, his lips
inches from hers. “Thanks. You were great tonight.”

“Yeah, I was.”

Will barreled through the companionway,
taking the steps two at a time.

Jake straightened and tossed the cloth into
the dishwater. His speculative look said there would be a next
time.

Maybe God’s forgiveness came with second
chances.

Rachel grinned at Maddy who stood on the
pier, flanked by two new duffle bags. White slacks rolled almost to
her knees and shirttail out, she looked ready to beachcomb, not fly
first class to Pennsylvania.

Jake scooped up the bags and headed for the
waiting taxi.

Rachel crossed the gangplank and shouldered
Maddy’s backpack.

Maddy caught up with Jake. “Did anybody ever
tell you that you look like Brad Pitt with curly hair? If I weren’t
nursing a broken heart, I’d go for you.”

Jake laughed. “Come cruise on the
Queen
when you recover, and we’ll talk.”

Rachel darted a glance at Jake and he winked
at her.

Maddy wrinkled her nose. “Take a number
after ten thousand other single guys in Philly.” She rolled her
eyes and threw an arm over each of their shoulders.

Maddy squeezed them into a group hug. “You
guys make me think God’s not so imaginary after all.” She ducked
into the cab and waved out the window as the car took off.

They stood on the curb until the last flash
of yellow disappeared around the corner.

Emptiness yawned inside Rachel, as if a wave
had run out and not come back. Her e-mail address book fattened
each week—as if she’d write. To her, the good-byes felt like losing
friends, not gaining them.

Jake turned toward the pier. “About that
backrub I promised you—” He planted a hand in the middle of her
back. “Or, maybe I should toss you into the drink for putting me on
the spot with Maddy.”

Rachel tore down the dock toward the
Queen
. Two minutes later, they both slumped in the cockpit
laughing between gasps for air.