The Right Time (77 page)

The front door opened and steps raced across the floor in the common room. Then Hennessy stood there, her gaze immediately going to Townsend, her beautiful eyes full of confusion.

Townsend almost fell to her knees. Why did she have to look at her first?

“What’s going on?” Hennessy asked, clearly stunned. It looked like she had to physically pry her gaze away to shift to Kate. “I had no idea you were coming down!” She dropped her tote bag and headed for Kate, who stood and pointed a finger at her.

“Goddamn it, Hennessy.” Her voice shook harder than her hand, which trembled noticeably. “I wasn’t sure before, but I am now.” Her whole body swiveled so that extended hand pointed right at Townsend. “It’s her!
She’s
why you won’t marry me.
She’s
why you couldn’t wait to leave Boston.
She’s
why you couldn’t drag your ass home for Thanksgiving. It’s her! It’s
always
been Townsend!”

Staring at Townsend for a fraction of a second, Hennessy got her feet moving, and approached Kate like she would a panther. “Honey, that’s not true. Come on now. Let’s go to my cabin and talk this out.” She reached for her hand, but Kate whipped it away, holding it across her chest, like Hennessy had burned it.

“We’ll stay right here,” she said, her voice rising with each word. “Say it in front of her. Go on! Say it!” she yelled. “You love her! You’ve always loved her! Get it over with, Boudreaux. Stop torturing me!”

Hennessy gave Townsend a pleading look, clearly begging her to leave. Without a word, Townsend took off, running across the common room to fly out the front door, the screen creaking and slamming behind her.

Hennessy dropped to Townsend’s chair, then let her head fall into her open hands. “Oh, Kate,” she sighed, her heart breaking. “What happened?”

Some of her anger had burned off, leaving her drained and pale. She collapsed onto the desk, bent over like she’d been defeated in a brutal fight. “I came down here to tell you I was going to sign with Duke. Good job, good money, good schedule.” Her voice was almost robotic. “Then Townsend started picking at me, telling me everything I’d done wrong. Every one of my many sins.” Her eyes moved to land on Hennessy. “Things she could have only known from you. You betrayed me, Boudreaux. You talked shit about me behind my back.”

“I never did,” she cried, jumping to her feet.

“You did. You’ve been down here a whole year, pouring your heart out to her. Things you should have told me, you told her. Weekends you should have spent with me, you spent with her. Dreams you should have shared with me, you shared with her. You betrayed our love. Time and time and time again.”

“That’s not true,” Hennessy said. “I’ve told Townsend some of the things that trouble me, but nothing I haven’t told you. I swear!”

Kate stood and moved to stand right in front of Hennessy. “Do you love me?”

“Yes,” she pledged. “I do.”

Her voice was just as strong. Just as demanding. “Do you love Townsend?”

Hennessy wanted to leap out the window, anything to get away from Kate’s burning gaze. It was like slugging herself in the face, but she told the truth. “I do.”

Kate’s normally sure, confident voice shook like a leaf in a bad storm. “Choose.”

One word. One simple word that meant everything. Their life. Their plans. Their dreams. She couldn’t choose. Couldn’t look into those tear-filled eyes and deliver another blow. “I can’t,” she sobbed, bending over and holding onto her knees, unable to stand.

“Choose!” Kate demanded. “You can’t have us both. If you want me, you give her up. Today. Forever. You never see her again. We’ll go to Durham, so you can be close to your family, but Hilton Head’s off the table.” Kate put a hand on her cheek and held her head still. “Choose,” she said once again, now determined and forceful.

Their time together flashed before her eyes. Their stumbling beginnings, then years of increasing intimacy, of love, of sex, of sharing everything that meant anything to either of them. Then she looked into those beautiful eyes and said the cruelest word she’d ever uttered. “Townsend.” She sucked in a breath and said it again. “I choose Townsend.”

Before she could flinch, Kate was gone, her arm brushing against Hennessy as she passed, a hint of her perfume lingering in the air. Hennessy fell to the chair, dropped her head onto the desk and cried until she was sick. Then, so weak she could barely move, she pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed a number. “Gramma? I need to come home,” she gasped, her words barely intelligible. “Please bring me home.”

Townsend kayaked for an hour, rode her bike until her thighs ached, then found an afternoon AA meeting and sat in a chair, tapping her foot while her fellow addicts told their stories. All the while, paddling, pumping, or listening, she obsessively checked her phone, waiting for a text, an email—anything to let her know Hennessy was all right.

It was dark when she finally got up the nerve to go back to camp. There wasn’t a car in the visitor’s lot, so Kate was either gone or had moved her rental. Heading to the office, Townsend’s heart beat like she’d been climbing a mountain. The lights were out, the door locked tight. Fumbling with her keys, she got the door open and stood there for a moment, somehow able to feel lingering tension in the room.

After switching on the lights, she walked by a wastebasket in the common room, finding it filled with tissues and a discarded container. Her gut contracted at the thought of poor, sweet Hennessy crying herself sick. If she could get her hands on Kate, she’d…

She had no idea what she’d do.

Kate was blameless in this mess. All she’d done was fall in love with someone any woman in her right mind would want.

Townsend went to her desk, where a legal pad lay right in the center. Hennessy’s usually attractive handwriting had turned into a barely decipherable scrawl.

I’m going home to figure some things out. I’ll call when I’m able to. If I don’t catch you before you leave, I hope you have a wonderful time with Nicole.

H

Townsend dropped into her chair, staring at the note. The “H” was wrinkled, the ink slightly smeared. A fat teardrop had landed on it, and Hennessy had been too torn up to even notice. What in the hell had gone on here? Townsend took the pad and placed it against her chest, hugging it while she cried—fear and sorrow competing for a place in her heart.

When dawn finally broke
, the sky barely lightened up. Hennessy had been sitting on the dock for a couple of hours, bundled up against the morning chill. It was going to be a gloomy morning, but it didn’t smell like rain. She could always tell.

Footsteps slapped against the deck and she looked up to see Daddy, his white plastic boots sliding around on him. Most of the time it looked like he could walk right out of the things, but he claimed he liked them roomy.

He’d come home last night, spent two minutes figuring out that an emotional upheaval was brewing, and took off again. He must have had a woman on the hook, because he didn’t look hung-over.

“Go out with me,” he said, nudging her gently with the toe of his boot. “Do you good to keep your hands busy.”

She looked up at him, seeing the gentle concern she’d always been able to count on as a kid. If he was around, he was good for a hug. Some of her fondest memories were of heading out with him early in the morning, sitting on his lap while he piloted the boat, searching for shrimp. Today, you’d probably be arrested for taking a four-year-old on a commercial fishing boat, but she was darned glad he’d done it. It’d made it clear he was her daddy, and he got final say—a clarification she needed given his frequent, prolonged disappearances. She still recalled Gramma putting her foot down, with Daddy responding by picking her up and putting her on his shoulders, heading for the dock. He had to be important if he stood up to Gramma.

It would be good to keep her hands busy. Daddy was right about that. But she didn’t feel like herself, not certain which way was up and which down. Truth was, sitting around feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to fix a darned thing, so she stood and brushed off the seat of her jeans. “Can I go fetch a pair of boots?”

“Get on with you,” he said, the smile that few women in Beaufort County could refuse revealing his dimples. She’d always wanted the darned things, just so she’d look more like him.

By the time she reached the storage bin he and Grandaddy had built, Gramma was outside, handing her a square plastic tub, the type they used for food storage. “There’s two high-rise biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast and some cornbread and cold fried chicken for lunch. Share the chicken with your daddy. He’s already had his breakfast.”

“Thank you,” Hennessy said, keeping her head down as she searched for a pair of boots that wouldn’t fall right off her feet. The ones she picked wouldn’t make an insurance agent happy, but they were good enough.

As she started to clomp away, Gramma gripped her shoulder and squeezed. “Be a good girl for your daddy.”

“I will,” she agreed, sniffling at the refrain she’d heard since she was able to walk.

Hennessy stood on the dock, casting off once Daddy got the sometimes reluctant engine started. Then she jumped aboard, grasping his weathered, callused hand for safety. After using a long boat hook to guard the stern from bumping into the dock, she set the end of the pole on the deck and leaned on it, enjoying the crisp, sweet yet salty air as it blew in her face. This was the best place to be today. Out on the water, plying the family trade. Her monosyllabic daddy was the perfect companion for a woman who needed to think, rather than talk.

The wind picked up as they motored out, making the boat dip and sway in the chop. It was gonna be a good day for shrimping. Rough water was murky water, and the shrimp jumped right into the net if they couldn’t see it.

They’d gone out a good bit, with Daddy listening to the radio to hear reports from other fishermen. They always mentioned the bad spots, keeping mum on the good ones. But knowing where not to go was a help.

Hennessy stared up at the sky, tracking six brown pelicans flying in a chevron above her head. Never was there a bird so streamlined and sleek in the air yet so bulbous and lumpy on land. There would be gulls, too, multiplying like crazy once they hauled the nets in. Then frigates and cormorants, each with a different tactic for cadging a meal when the by-catch was dumped back into the water. Just about everything was alive when they tossed it in, but a few fish took a minute to get oriented. That minute was plenty long for the opportunistic birds to swoop in and chow down.

Her favorites were the pelicans, even though they were the laziest. They kept their sharp eyes on a wide area, elongated heads swiveling while they loafed on the breeze. But the second they spotted something near the surface they hit it like a dive bomber, then zoomed away, pouch full of fluttering fish. They always looked a little haughty, to her eye. Like they had this game all figured out. If only one of them could clue her in, could somehow offer a little advice to a woman who felt exactly like one of the poor fish, not knowing up from down.

The birds had it easy. They knew just who they were, and just what they were supposed to do with their lives. Few choices, but also few decision points. And she was damned sure they’d never broken a solemn promise. Unlike her.

The knot that had formed in her belly the day before was back, making her want to curl up in a ball to ease the ache. But it wouldn’t go away, no matter what position she got into. It was there for a reason: to remind her she wasn’t the woman she thought she was.

Turning, she caught sight of Daddy, checking in on the radio. He’d probably never made a promise to a woman in his life. Maybe that was the best way to handle things. Play it loose and see who you caught. Keep ’em if you liked ’em, toss ’em back if you didn’t.

Even though there was nothing funny about her predicament, she had to smile at that. Catting around was one trait she hadn’t inherited from her Daddy. No, she was the kind of woman who found the right person, then promised the world. She’d done it twice—and lied twice. She’d forgiven herself for the first breach. She and Townsend were too young, too scared, too co-dependent to even consider making—much less keeping—a lasting promise.

But that wasn’t true with Kate.

Hennessy had been a twenty year old adult, and she’d made the promise to love her with a clear mind. Yet six tiny little years later, she’d thrown her overboard, like a mess of jellyfish littering the deck.

The only thing she’d ever been perfectly sure of was her fidelity. She would have bet her life on her ability to make and keep a promise to the woman she loved. But she would have lost that bet. She’d lied to Townsend, she’d lied to Kate, and she’d lied to herself. Leaning over, she rested her head on her crossed arms, feeling the sea more when she was connected to the rail. She hated to admit it, but lying to herself was the most troubling aspect. If she didn’t know herself, what did she know?