Finding Home Again (Catalina Cove)

by Brenda Jackson

  “You can take Bryce’s place with the logbook, Vashti,” Kaegan said, interrupting Bryce’s thoughts. “If you prefer doing something else, just let Elton know. I’m leaving him in charge until I get back.”

  Bryce glanced over at Kaegan. “Until you get back? Isn’t Elton the one taking me back to the dock?”

  He glanced over at her. “No, I am. There are several things I need to do at the office before coming back here with lunch for everyone.”

  “Oh.” Breaking eye contact with Kaegan, she lowered her gaze to the clipboard, needing to record the last bit of information regarding the weight of the netted oysters into the log. Moments later, she glanced up and saw Vashti and Kaegan with their heads together laughing. She remembered those times in the past when the three of them would goof off or share laughter over something they’d thought was amusing at the time.

  At that moment he looked over at her and caught her staring. If she looked away now it would be like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t. For all he knew, she could have been looking at both him and Vashti.

  He smiled over at her. “I’ll be back in a minute. I need to let the guys know I’m leaving, but will be returning with their lunch.”

  “That should make them happy,” Bryce said, trying to sound upbeat but beginning to feel rather nervous at the thought of being alone on a boat with him. Why? They’d spent the last three evenings alone in her house while she studied.

  “Yes, I’m sure it will.” He walked off toward the rear of the huge commercial boat, where Sawyer and a few other men were hoisting nets over the side. She couldn’t help it when her gaze followed him.

  “Hmm, looks like I’m not the only one admiring a nice piece of male flesh today,” Vashti said.

  She rolled her eyes at her friend. “Whatever. Put a man with a great tush in a pair of jeans and I can’t help but stare.”

  “Even if the man is Kaegan?”

  Bryce nodded. “Even if it’s Kaegan.”

  Vashti nodded. “Well, just so you know, I was glad to see you here this morning. I admit I was a little surprised.”

  Bryce drew in a deep breath. “I figured volunteering to help out today was a way to repay him for helping me study.” She paused a moment, then added, “And just so you know, Kaegan and I are officially friends again.”

  She saw the huge smile that lit Vashti’s face and her best friend all but jumped up and down and clapped her hands. Bryce figured she needed to clarify a few things for Vashti, like she had for Willa and Faith that morning. The last thing she wanted was for Vashti to get any crazy ideas. “I said we were officially friends again, Vash. Don’t get anything more into your head.”

  An innocent look appeared on Vashti’s face. “What makes you think that I will do something like that?”

  Bryce gave her a look as if she couldn’t believe she would ask such a question. “Because I know you. You’re in love and married to a wonderful guy. You’re pregnant. You have a son and two daughters. Other than your crazy-ass parents, your life is as close to perfect as it can get, and being the type of friend you are, you want mine to be just as glorious. It’s not.”

  Vashti walked over to her and placed a hand on her arm. “But it can be if you’d take a chance on love again. If not with Kaegan then with someone else. Of course, I’m Team Kaegan. He was wrong in assuming what he did about you and not giving you a chance to explain when you tried doing so, but everybody makes mistakes. You, of all people, know how I felt when Sawyer didn’t believe what I told him about Kia. He all but called me crazy. Yet I was able to forgive him.”

  Bryce recalled that time and how Vashti had called her crying her heart out because Sawyer hadn’t believed her. Vashti hadn’t been sure she could forgive Sawyer for lacking confidence in her after the drama she’d gone through with her first husband, Scott.

  “Yes, Vash, but you didn’t have ten years for your anger, humiliation and pain to fester. There was not a time—years, weeks and months—when you had to go to bed imagining what the man you love had done to another woman just to spite you.”

  “But didn’t Kaegan tell you that he didn’t sleep with that woman?”

  “But he deliberately touched her in front of me. And he kissed her.”

  “That’s what’s hard for you, isn’t it, Bryce?” Vashti asked. “You want to forgive him. You claim you have but you truly haven’t, have you?”

  Bryce drew in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the water and momentarily turning her gaze away from Vashti. When she looked back at her best friend she didn’t care if Vashti saw the tears forming in her eyes. “I forgave him, Vash, but I can’t forget. I’m trying. Honestly, I am. But I’m afraid of letting my guard down. I had loved him so much that even being just friends with him is hard.”

  She swiped at her tears. “Whenever I look at him, study his hands, check out his body, I have to accept that, unlike how things were ten years ago, I’m not the only woman who has had a piece of him. I’m not the only woman he’s taken to his bed. It’s hard to accept what was supposed to be all mine isn’t anymore.”

  “He could say the same for you, you know.”

  Vashti’s words stung. “And what was I supposed to do, Vash? Not live my life? I had to move on to retain my sanity.”

  “And you were right to do so, Bryce. Sorry if it sounded as if I thought you shouldn’t have, and just like Kaegan blames himself for losing you, I’m sure he knows and accepts what all losing you meant. I believe it’s a tortured hell he has to go through.”

  “Good. Let him.” Then she wished she hadn’t said that, but it was too late to take it back because that was how she felt. Bryce could now admit that the only reason she’d hooked up with Marcel was because she’d been desperate to get over Kaegan. “I’m ashamed to admit I never loved Marcel, but at the time I needed to move on in my life. You don’t know how it feels when you’ve been betrayed by someone you loved.”

  “Hey, excuse me. It’s me you’re talking to. Why do you keep forgetting about Scott?”

  Bryce shouldn’t keep forgetting about Scott Zimmons and the pain he’d caused Vashti during their marriage. Nor should she forget about Julius LaCroix, Vashti’s first boyfriend and the guy who’d gotten her pregnant at sixteen. Both men had betrayed her in different ways. The main reason she kept forgetting was because Vashti was so happy now. Sawyer had come into the picture and eradicated all the pain both Scott and Julius had left behind.

  “Maybe that’s what I need, Vash.”

  “What?”

  “A man who can help me forget the pain,” Bryce said.

  “You ever considered that maybe there’s a reason you’re still carrying around all that pain after nearly ten years?”

  Bryce frowned. “Yes, there is a reason. I made the man I loved such a major part of my life that when we broke up, I discovered I no longer had a life. At least not one to call my own. Then six years later, when I thought I was finally getting over him, he returns to town. Do you know what that did to me each and every time I saw him?”

  “I think I do. When I married Scott, I honestly thought he was my forever-after. How do you think I felt when I found out he only married me so his boss wouldn’t find out he was having an affair with the man’s wife? Not only did I feel betrayed, I felt inadequate. For a while my self-esteem took a beating.”

  Bryce remembered that time. She had flown to New York to spend a week with Vashti and had ended up staying for two. Her best friend had needed her. “At least you eventually met someone, Vash.”

  “Hopefully you will, too. What about that guy you were meeting for coffee before class? Do you think you might have given up on him too soon?”

  Had she? She honestly didn’t think so. An attraction between two people wasn’t everything, but in her book it had to be there somewhere. She wasn’t certain why she’d felt no chemistry where Jeremy
was concerned. “I wasn’t feeling anything with him. I told you that.”

  “Yes, but did you give yourself time to feel anything or were you too busy comparing him to Kaegan?”

  Had she been? “You think that’s what I was doing?”

  “Only you can answer that, Bryce. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see you and Kaegan together again romantically, but more than anything, I want you happy. Even if it means being happy without Kaegan.”

  Bryce gave her an appreciative smile. “Thanks, but don’t you think you’re jumping the gun somewhat here?”

  “How?”

  “By thinking Kaegan could even be interested in me that way again? Just like I fell out of love with Kaegan, I’m sure he’s fallen out of love with me. How could he not when he thought the worst of me? I don’t think he’s any more interested in me than I am in him.” She was convinced the night of the ball when he’d suggested they get back together had been nothing more than his libido talking.

  Putting down the clipboard, she said, “Besides, I have a feeling he’ll be dating seriously real soon if Sasha Johnson has her way.”

  “Sasha Johnson? Why on earth would you think that?”

  “Because I heard she has a thing for him. She’s pretty, so there’s no reason he wouldn’t return the interest.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Of course not.” Bryce was about to say something else when she saw Kaegan headed back toward them. She knew Vashti had seen him, too. “We’ll talk some more later.”

  Vashti nodded. “Okay, but I think we need a hug,” she said, moving toward Bryce and wrapping her arms around her.

  “Hey, like old times. Can I join in?” Kaegan said when he reached them.

  They both looked at Kaegan, and Bryce immediately recalled their group hugs. Knowing Vashti wouldn’t give him an answer, especially not knowing how Bryce would feel about it, Bryce said, “Sure. Just like old times.”

  The three friends embraced in a group hug, just like those days when they’d needed it. Kaegan for when he had to deal with his drunken father’s treatment of him and his mother, and Vashti during those times she had to deal with her parents when she’d gotten pregnant. For Bryce, she’d never had parent issues like her two best friends, but she’d had her own inner turmoil. Especially when she’d gotten older and discovered the feelings she’d harbored for Kaegan were turning into more than puppy love. She’d been afraid if he found out that he wouldn’t want to be her friend anymore.

  No one said anything as the hug between friends continued, transcending time and distance. How had the three of them lost this? A closeness that was never supposed to end? At one time she’d known them better than they’d known themselves and vice versa. She had known Vashti was pregnant weeks before she’d told her. And she’d known what days to bring one of her brothers’ clean shirts to school for Kaegan because he’d slept in a boat on the bayou the night before.

  And just like she’d known them, they’d known her.

  At least they should have. Vashti had. Kaegan had proved that he hadn’t. The thought of that had her suddenly pulling away and stepping back, breaking their circle of love. In her defense, Kaegan had broken it first. Glancing over at him, she said, “You can take me to the dock now.”

  * * *

  AS KAEGAN MANEUVERED the boat through the waters of the Gulf, he noticed that an annoying silence had fallen between him and Bryce since leaving the commercial vessel around ten minutes ago. Instead of looking at him, she was staring out over the water.

  He had tried engaging her in conversation, but she’d barely said three words. And all because of the group hug they’d shared? Now she was withdrawing—retreating to where, he wasn’t sure. He refused to let her push him away. He’d been making progress; he’d been certain of it.

  While she studied the water, he studied her. He couldn’t help the way his gaze was glued to her chest. He doubted he would ever forget the first time he’d touched her breasts, run his fingertips across a hardened nipple only to feel it harden even more to his touch. She had always been responsive to his fondling and he’d enjoyed introducing her to passion.

  Passion...

  She had to be the most passionate woman he knew. At least she used to be and there was no reason to think she still wasn’t. In her senior year of high school, when he’d been stationed in Maryland, she would occasionally take the bus on the weekends to visit her father’s aunt, who lived in the DC area. They’d been able to spend a lot of time together. And then when she’d gone off to college, they’d had those weekends together, as well. It suddenly occurred to him just how well they’d masterminded plans over the years to stay close, refusing to stay apart for too long. Yet all of that had come to a crashing end because of him. He now knew he could never apologize to her enough for destroying what they’d had.

  “Aren’t we near Eagle Bend Inlet?”

  “Yes,” he said, glancing over at her. “It’s not too far to the west. Just a few bends away.”

  She still hadn’t looked at him but was staring in the direction of where the inlet was located. He wondered if she was remembering the night they’d escaped from the storm and stayed there all night together. But then, more important, all those other times they’d returned. The last time had been the night before he left for the marines.

  Not wanting to remember the intimate details of any of those times, especially that last one, he thought about the inlet itself. Most locals avoided the small island mainly because you had to travel through the swamps to get to it. Another reason was that over the years there had been numerous stories surrounding the inlet. Of course, most of them were fictitious, although some people thought going to the island for the first time would ultimately be your last time. There were tall tales of alligators larger than most men, bald eagles that could eat you alive and quicksand that could swallow you whole. And he couldn’t forget the tales of the ghosts of several pirates supposedly buried there.

  For years treasure hunters had believed some of Jean Lafitte’s hidden bounty was there and they’d fabricated all sorts of lies to keep people off the island. The quicksand that people had claimed was on the island had merely been holes left uncovered by men digging for the pirate’s treasures. After Hurricane Katrina, the state of Louisiana had decided to sell it, and Reid LaCroix had immediately purchased it with the intent of retaining its wildlife state. The first thing he did was forbid anyone from coming on the island, especially the poachers and treasure hunters.

  When Kaegan returned to town and had made some profit from the seafood business, one of the first things he’d done was to make Reid an offer for the island. The man hadn’t understood why he would want to buy the inlet, but he knew of Kaegan’s love of the bayou and felt he would preserve the inlet and protect the wildlife there. Few people knew that Kaegan now owned the island.

  “Have you been back there since returning to Catalina Cove?”

  Now would be a good time to tell her that the island was his, and because of that reason, he would go there often to not only check on things, but also to just get away. He loved the bayou, and since the inlet was a part of that environment, he loved going there, as well. “Yes, I’ve gone back a number of times, and as you can see, I survived all my visits there. I haven’t gotten eaten by an alligator yet.”

  “And we survived our visits there, too,” she said softly, as if remembering. “Although that time when your dad found us, I think he was tempted to kill us and feed us to one of those alligators.”

  She paused and then added, “I honestly think he was afraid that since we’d been missing overnight that I’d been ‘compromised’ and my parents would demand that you marry me, which was the last thing he wanted.”

  “In a way I wish they had demanded I marry you,” he said, without thinking.

  She held his gaze a moment and then looked away. He wondered what sort of life t
hey would have had if her parents had done such a thing. When silence ensued between them again, he said, “The bunker is still there.”

  She looked back at him. “Is it?”

  “Yes.”

  He’d come across the underground bunker by chance when he’d been only twelve and trespassing on the property while hiding out from his father. Because he’d never believed any of the hype about the island, it had been his secret place. When he’d gotten older, he’d researched the inlet and discovered it was a Cold War–era civil-defense bunker. It had been built back in the 1960s by the government to use as a possible emergency-operations center in case of nuclear war. He would never forget the first time he’d taken Bryce there.

  “I own it,” he then said.

  “You own what?” she asked him.

  “The inlet.”

  She lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “You were able to talk Reid LaCroix into selling you some of the property there?”

  “I bought the entire island from him and everything on it.”

  Her eyes widened and she stared at him, shocked. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, I’m not kidding.”

  Now she looked confused. “But why would you buy it?”

  He shrugged. “Because I always loved it there.”

  Kaegan hoped she didn’t have to wonder why the inlet meant so much to him. For years they’d thought of it as their special place. Their private home. Even when he’d thought he hated her, he would still go to the inlet and remember the times they’d spent there together. He’d convinced himself reliving the memories and being reminded of her betrayal was a way of exorcising her from his mind.

  She tilted her head and looked at him. “Yes, but you own a large section of land on the bayou. Why would you want Eagle Bend Inlet, as well?”

  There was no way he could tell her the real reason why, so he said what he knew was another truth. “Rumors were flying around that poachers had begun roaming the island again, killing a lot of the wildlife. That’s the main reason Reid had purchased it from the state, to protect the wildlife.”