Tattered Innocence (4 page)

The pole stuck fast in the mud. In a
split-second reflex, Rachel clung to the stick and the
Smyrna
Queen
sailed out from under her feet.

She felt the pole sink deeper in the mud
while she suspended over the ocean like a human shish kabob. “Hey,
wait! Jacob Murray, don’t you dare leave me here! You come back and
get me this minute!” She slid toward the water, her life-long fear
of abandonment freakishly played out. She could feel her rational
mind shutting down in slow motion like hitches in a YouTube
video.

Katie jumped up and down on the deck
screeching, “Grandpa, Grandpa, Rachel lost the boat!” Rachel caught
a fleeting glimpse of Cole’s white face as her feet touched water.
“This water is freezing!” she yelled at the
Queen’s
transom.
“It’s your fault, Jake. Your fault. Why didn’t you tell me there
was mud down here?” Cold fingers of water climbed her ribs as she
inched down the pole.

In up to her neck and treading water with
one hand, her foot kicked against slimy kelp fronds. No one could
hear her now.
I hate seaweed. Jaws could be hiding in here.
Her chest quivered. This was what alone felt like. A chill crawled
up her scalp as her hair slurped seawater, morphing into a dozen
soggy snakes.

Water lapped into her mouth and she spit out
the salty taste and her fear. She peered over her shoulder at the
shoreline. She could swim that far if she had to. In the distance,
she saw the
Queen’s
sails drop. The anchor would be next. At
least Jake wasn’t going to leave her. But she knew he wouldn’t
start the motor in this shallow water and risk getting seaweed
tangled in the propeller. Did he expect her to swim for the
Queen
?

Several minutes later she watched him drop
into the dinghy and row toward her. “Hurry up, I’m freezing!” she
yelled when he rowed into earshot. She counted five seconds,
watching the muscles flex across his back and arms as he stroked,
until he glanced over his shoulder at her. Eons later, he coasted
up beside her.

He grabbed her forearms and hauled her into
the boat, his lips zipped into a white line of anger. Rachel landed
in a lump on the bottom of the dinghy. Jake braced his legs and
yanked the pole from the ocean in one heave. The pole clattered
where he dropped it—one end extended over the bow, the other oozing
mud into the water behind the dinghy.

Rachel wrapped herself into a ball and
narrowed her eyes at Jake as he skimmed an oar through the water
with powerful strokes, spinning the bow back toward the
Queen
.

Before the thought fully formed in her mind,
she threw herself at Jake, soaking him with her sodden hair, suit,
and skin.

He fell back off the seat and caught himself
before hitting his head on the bow of the boat. “What the―?”

She untangled herself from his limbs and
squatted on the bottom of the boat. “There. See how you like being
a cryogenics experiment in this wind.”

Jake pulled himself back onto the seat,
squinting at Rachel as though she’d come totally unglued. She
lifted her chin and stared over his shoulder toward the
horizon.

Jake peeled off his T-shirt and flung it at
her. He jerked his head. “Come here.” He slid to one side of the
bench.

Rachel pulled Jake’s damp shirt over her
head, poked her arms through the sleeves, and crawled onto the
plank.

Jake rubbed her arms as if he were trying to
sand off her gooseflesh with his callused hands. “This will warm
you up.” He slapped an oar into her hands. “Stroke… stroke… stroke…
stroke….”

Rachel gritted her chattering teeth and
rowed. He acted like such an oaf. But maybe she’d warmed a tenth of
a degree.

Applause ruffled across the afterdeck as
they approached the
Queen
.

“You’ve got a feisty one there, Cap’n. Yes
sir.” George heckled. “I wouldn’t get into a fight with her if I
were you. Bet she keeps you in line.”

The others laughed with George while Katie
clung to her grandpa’s hand, staring at Rachel as though she’d come
back from the dead. Cole flashed his dimples at her.

Holding fast to the
Queen
with one
hand, Jake propelled Rachel up the ladder with an iron grip under
her armpit.

“Would it have killed you to join this
century and spring for an electronic depth sounder?” she muttered.
She kicked at him, wishing for a better angle as her toes barely
connected with his ribs. The brute. She’d sport a collection of
bruises by tomorrow.

Tremors of embarrassment or chill―she
couldn’t tell which―shook her body, forcing her lip between her
teeth as she bumbled up the ladder and ducked into the nearby
after-cabin. Later, Jake climbed down the ladder into the room.

She ran the brush through her wet hair,
temper cooled, chagrin settling in. “Jake?”

He grunted through the clean T-shirt he
pulled over his face.

“Sorry about all the drama.”

He sat on the edge of his bunk and pulled on
a sock. “Evidently, our guests find hysteria entertaining.” He
finished tying his shoe and stood to leave.

Rachel studied the pinpoints of black in the
brown of his eyes. She knew the whole episode had been an accident,
but Jake’s disdain still stung. “Gabrielle wouldn’t have put on a
show?”

He climbed up the ladder. “Gabrielle’s not
here.”

After cleaning up the galley from supper,
Rachel dangled her legs over the gunwale, swinging her feet back
and forth over the orange-tinted water rippling against the
hull.

Jake’s voice drifted toward her. “Story from
the Captain tonight, kids?”

Maybe Jake would roll out another facet to
his taciturn personality, one she wanted a front row seat to watch.
The anchor chain creaked as she stood. The last day of their first
cruise sizzled into the Atlantic as she followed Jake’s green and
gold University of South Florida Sailing Team T-shirt through the
open hatch.

Jake flicked the label that curled under
Cole’s chin. Cole’s inside-out, backward pajama shirt reminded her
of Hall at seven.

“Move over, you heffalumps.”

The kids scooted down the bunk, and Jake sat
beside them.

Rachel slid between Jake and the bulkhead.
Invited or not, she wasn’t missing this. Her bare arm pressed
against his. Her eyes darted to his face, but he launched into a
story without glancing her way.

“One day Gramps was hunting in the
woods…”

Rachel leaned forward, breaking contact with
Jake, to peer at the kids. Cole’s eyes sparkled, and he looked like
he was holding his breath. Katie curled up inside her pink,
polka-dotted nightie, wide-eyed, chewing on her fingers.

The four of them stuffed into the tiny cabin
felt like a family. But they weren’t. Rachel blinked back tears,
feeling silly, while Jake’s voice filled the cabin with the frantic
howls of a man running from a grizzly.

Jake glanced at her. “What do you think my
Gramps did, Rachel?” He shot her a what’s-wrong-with-you look.

Rachel couldn’t push any words past the
tightness in her throat.

Jake shook his head as if she were a nutcase
and went on with the story.

She wouldn’t be so eager for the next stage
of life if she didn’t miss mothering Hall. Even if she hadn’t been
MIA from Hall’s life for the last several months, at eighteen, he
was long over mothering—even if she wasn’t.

Jake paused dramatically and finished the
story. “He held the bear’s paws around the tree―until the bear
starved to death.”

Katie clapped her hands. “Yay!”

“Tell us another one,” Cole said.

“Not tonight, champ.” Jake rumpled Cole’s
hair. “Wrestle you for the top bunk?”

“Cool.” Cole threw himself on Jake while
Katie and Rachel cleared out.

Rachel hoisted Katie to her hip in the
doorway and watched Jake and Cole roll around on the bunk. Before
Cole could protest, Jake had him snugly tucked into the top bunk,
still smiling.

“And you, squirt.” Jake turned to Katie.
“Are you going to let your big brother be the only one tucked in by
the Captain”

Katie’s eyes popped open wide. She slipped
out of Rachel’s arms, clambered onto the bunk, and flopped onto her
pillow.

Jake pulled the sheet up to her chin and
whispered something in her ear. Cole’s hair got rumpled one last
time.

Rachel felt Jake’s breath on her cheek as he
brushed past her in the narrow passageway. A smile played on his
lips as he moved into the main salon.

“Jacob Murray, you would make a good daddy,”
Rachel murmured, surprised she’d said it aloud.

His eyes darkened, and his thick,
wheat-colored brows flinched together. “I used to think so.”

She sat down on the salon bench with a thud
and watched him climb up the ladder and out of the cabin.
Yeah,
I used to think I’d make a good mom, too.

Rachel took the suitcase George handed up
through the hatch. She didn’t want to say goodbye to George or any
of their guests. She hadn’t expected to get so attached in five
days.

Cole flew into Rachel’s arms where she stood
in the cockpit, displacing the lump of sadness from her breastbone.
Rachel peered over his shoulder at Katie and pried herself loose.
“You’re hugging the stuffing out of me.”

Cole clambered onto the cabin. “I had to
give you a grizzly bear hug so you’d remember me.”

“I promise I’ll never forget you, even if I
live to be as old as your grandpa.” She winked at Lyle.

Cole leaped down onto the deck. “Wow!”

Katie tried to smile, but her lower lip
quivered. “Will you remember me, too?” Her blond ponytail bobbed
behind her.

Rachel scooped Katie up and spun her around.
“I’ll remember you every time I look in the mirror because we both
have the same freckles on our noses.” She set Katie down in front
of her, nose-to-nose.

“I love you,” Katie said.

“I love you, too.”

Rachel blinked away tears as she watched the
children ricochet down the dock after their grandparents. No matter
how many books she struggled through, reading never got easier, but
loving kids had never been a challenge. And they loved her
back.

“You’ll make a good mom,” Jake said from
where he sprawled in the corner of the cockpit.

Rachel spun toward him, warmth dousing
her.

Jake mashed his captain’s hat over his eyes
and half his curls.

She lay down on her stomach on the cockpit
bench and rested her cheek on the cool seat cushion. “If I admit
that motherhood is my preferred career choice, people look at me
like I should get in line for welfare for my lack of ambition.” She
scrunched her eyes shut. When would she learn to keep her mouth
shut?

“If no one wanted to reproduce, humanity
would end with our generation,” Jake said around the broom straw in
his mouth.

She glanced at him, but he hadn’t moved.
Jake wasn’t such a bad boss if you overlooked his sour disposition.
A workaholic, he always seemed to show up when she needed an extra
hand to get a meal on the table or was swamped in dirty pots.

What kind of man lived under the hurt?

Rachel’s arm dangled over the edge of the
seat. The
Queen
gently bobbed.
I’m glad we met, old
gal
. She yawned. If you needed a friend to keep you away from
the wrong guy, a biker-chick boat was a good choice. Maybe she
could get through these two days in port without calling Bret.

Jake slit open his eyes and peered at the
damp lashes resting on Rachel’s face, the thick curls fanning
across the cockpit cushion. Gramps would call Rachel a godsend.

He spit the tip of the broom straw he’d been
chewing overboard. The first cruise had been good. Very good. Even
the hole Gabs had gouged out of him felt fuzzy around the edges
like an artsy photograph.

A church girl. Had God sent Rachel? With
that mouth? Not a chance. He spit another piece of straw
overboard.

At night in the dark, pain packed the
silence between them. His pain. Hers. He didn’t know what it was,
but he’d bet the
Queen
Rachel had a story to tell.

After their first cruise docked and Rachel
had left for the weekend, Jake bagged up a large margarine tub of
leftover spaghetti, stale garlic bread, six brownies, and a tired
looking bunch of celery. He crossed the finger pier to Leaf’s
Escape
and knocked on the cabin.

A muffled, “Hidey hi,” came from behind the
closed hatch, then Leaf’s head poked out.

Jake handed the plastic Winn Dixie bag
through the hatch to Leaf. “Brought you leftovers.”

Leaf peeked into the bag, popping open the
margarine container. “I don’t know if I should keep taking your
surplus. That pasta will go straight to my arthritis. And
chocolate, oh my—”

“Quit your moaning. You love chocolate.”

Leaf laughed uneasily. “Yeah, I do, but that
doesn’t mean it’s good for me.” He deposited the booty below and
climbed into the cockpit. “How’s the new girl working out?”

“No complaints.” Jake chuckled, remembering
Rachel’s trip overboard.

Leaf quirked a brow.

Jake relayed the story. “You should have
seen her arms and legs churning up the water like a poodle on its
back.”

“Ten to one she took it better than your
high-rent girl.”

Jake stretched his lips into a flat line.
Gabs would have been cured of sailing on the spot, but he wasn’t
about to admit it to Leaf. “Rachel screamed her head off.”

“She ‘bout has ‘I heart sailing’ tattooed on
her caboose.”

Jake fought a grin. “If you’re so
interested, maybe I should get you to do the hiring next time.”

“Looks like you did fine with the hiring.
Picking a girlfriend is where you need help.”