The Coast Road Home

by Vickie McKeehan

  “So, there’s no reason for me to feel embarrassed…later?”

  “No. Why would you?”

  “I’ve been told I’m too skinny, too flat-chested. I’ve tried to put on weight, but…nothing I do seems to make a difference.”

  “The ex-husband? He told you that you were too skinny?”

  “Uh-huh. Ewan often threw in the flat-chested part as well. Maybe that’s why his new wife is…” she held her hands out in front of her own boobs to illustrate a much larger size. “Well-endowed.”

  “Good for her.”

  “That’s what I said.” Moving back into the hallway, she headed for the main staircase and descended to the lower level. “Now this is really cool. Your house has massive amounts of character appeal.”

  “What does your ex do?”

  “Ewan? He’s the lead singer for Ashes2Armor. Did you know Malachi Rafferty was the lead singer for Moss Radley back in the 90s?”

  “I did. Seems like last fall Simon Bremmer blew the lid off his secret identity. That’s about the same time Malachi decided to embrace his claim to fame at the local pub and bring his band here from Santa Cruz. Do you think you’re up for that walk on the beach now?”

  “Sure. I thought you’d never ask. Let me get my sweater. And I’ll need to use the bathroom before we go.”

  “Down the hall to the right. I’ll get your sweater.”

  On the walk to the beach, Marley wrapped up in her cardigan, buttoning up like she was chilly.

  “I’ve got a jacket if you’re cold,” Gideon offered.

  “I’m fine. This is balmy compared to twenty-five degrees and a sixty percent chance of snow. I checked the weather back home this morning.”

  “Do you do that often?”

  “Check the weather back home? Sure. Sometimes.”

  Gideon kept replaying the conversation from the bedroom. Strolling side by side, he wondered if he should hold her hand.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Marley noted. “Did I say something that upset you?”

  “No. I’m just trying to figure out your comment when we were upstairs.”

  “Which one? Ah. Let me guess. The one about nudity and how it might tend to embarrass me later that you’ve already seen my body.”

  A head taller, he cut his eyes down to meet hers. “Bingo. It’s a strange thing to say if sex isn’t on the table at some point.”

  “Sex is definitely on the table.”

  “You surprise me.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it? Maybe I haven’t lost my touch.”

  This time he did reach for her hand and veered off to the left, heading past the Fanning Marine Rescue Center. They heard the seals barking behind their enclosure.

  “I’m making it a point to go in there this weekend,” Marley announced. “I want to see how they do things.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m thinking of sticking around.”

  “Really? When did you decide that?”

  “About two hours ago before you sat down on my bench. Having second thoughts about those burgers now?”

  “Not yet. Should I be?”

  “Up to you.”

  They walked in silence until they reached a secluded part of the strand, an area where the beach was rockier and the terrain somewhat rougher and uneven.

  Marley tiptoed past the rocks and kicked off her canvas shoes. She lifted the hem of her dress up before approaching the shoreline.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I thought I might wade out into the water. You know, dip my toes in the surf. I haven’t done that yet, and I’ve wanted to.”

  “Are you crazy? The temperature of that water is roughly fifty-six degrees. Not only that, the surf’s too rough right now. It’s high tide. Look at those whitecaps. The undertow could suck you in.”

  Marley scanned the shoreline before glancing back over her shoulder. “I’d never have pegged you for a chicken.”

  “Me, a chicken? I’m not. Who was it that didn’t want to go down into my creepy basement?’

  “That would be me. As I see it, the creepy basement is way different than dipping your toes in the ocean.”

  “Okay, but for the record, how many waves have you surfed? Come on, tell me. How many times have you gone swimming in rough tides like out there right now?”

  Marley frowned over at him. “I see your point. But I’m not without my adventurous side.”

  “I never said you were. Although I did look up New Glarus on Google. The closest body of water is something called Sugar River. It didn’t exactly look like a fast-moving waterway.”

  “It’s not, more like a quiet, placid stream for trout or maybe kayaking.”

  “See? That’s the reason the surf here is nothing to take lightly. You kayak?”

  Reluctantly, she backtracked from water’s edge and stuck her feet, now sandy, back into her sneakers. “Of course, I kayak. March to October in Wisconsin we’re outdoor people. No need to lecture me about undertow or dangerous currents. I’m up on my riptides.”

  “Okay, then what would you like to talk about?”

  “Why don’t you tell me how you ended up here?”

  “That’s easy. Quentin wanted to get out of his rut back in Tahoma. Since he couldn’t perform surgery anymore, he asked me if I’d be his hands.”

  “Why can’t he perform surgery?”

  “Gunshot wound that severed a nerve in his arm. Lots of therapy later, his hands still won’t work well enough to hold a scalpel. Although he does well enough mimicking the skill with a robotic arm. Hasn’t lost his touch there. We recently learned robotics at Stanford’s Medical Center. Now my turn. Tell me about those scars I saw when I cut off your clothes that night in the ER?”

  “You already know the answer to that. Gunshot wounds usually come from a violent encounter, usually with a nutcase that’s armed himself with a long rifle and thinks he’s making a statement about some crazy thing or another.”

  “Come on, Marley, just tell me what happened. Not the story I read online either. Tell me in your own words what happened that day.” When she didn’t answer, he started to turn to go back to the house.

  She reached for his arm to stop him from leaving. “Why can’t you just accept that it hurts me to talk about it? That’s all I’m willing to say because it’s too painful. I lost my entire life. Everything. Don’t you get that?”

  “I get it.”

  But she could see that he didn’t, not really. “Do you have kids back in Chicago?”

  “No. My marriage lasted about five seconds. And she didn’t want the bother.”

  “Well, I had kids. And some nut who didn’t agree with my assessment of his mental health condition took them away from me. End of story.”

  He motioned toward a boulder, plopping down on the flat surface. “Take a seat. Take me through what happened.”

  “I don’t feel like sitting. Why do you want me to talk about it?”

  “Because I want to understand it better.”

  “There’s nothing to understand. Some disgusting person went out and got an assault weapon and pumped bullets into my babies. I lost my kids. Two beautiful, precious little souls who never hurt anyone. The loves of my life are gone. In the blink of an eye, they’re gone. If that wasn’t enough, he killed my mom and dad. And my brother. Over nothing. The bastard wiped out my entire family.”

  “I’m sorry, Marley. You’re right. I just wanted you to know that I’m here for you whenever you’re ready. I’m told that I’m an excellent listener. I always got high marks for my bedside manner in medical school.”

  “So, I’m just another case study for you, is that it?”

  “No. You’re not. The fact is, some of my patients are my friends. Sometimes all anybody needs is to know there’s someone around who’ll listen. A little understanding goes a long way, to know that someone cares enough to just listen.”

  “I open up to you, and everyone will know.”

  “That’
s not true.”

  “Could we just drop it? Please.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  She let out an exasperated sigh. “My therapist said by not talking about my kids I’m denying they ever existed. It’s not true. I wouldn’t. I’m…it’s just that…talking about them makes me incredibly…depressed and sad.”

  “Then we won’t. Sorry, I brought it up. Have you been up to the lighthouse yet?”

  “No.” Now conversation between them seemed strained, Marley noted. She tried to pick up the threads of something to talk about but found it challenging.

  High tide had eased off, bringing the soothing sound of waves at low tide. She watched the surf lick at the shoreline in its quiet wash over the rocks.

  After a day spent scrounging, the noisy pelicans and gulls had gone somewhere out of sight to roost for the night.

  One by one, the lamp posts winked on along the pier.

  “It’s so peaceful here,” Marley heard herself say.

  “This is the time of day that I like the most. After a stressful day at work, I can come out here and listen to the waves. Just be. You couldn’t do that in Chicago. Whenever I’d try to form some kind of bond with Lake Michigan, I’d always be disappointed. Lakeshore Drive was just too congested with traffic to ever find this kind of solitude.”

  “Nothing’s like the ocean. I’ve discovered that these past weeks in my travels. The coast along Washington and Oregon is beautiful.”

  “You’ve seen Oregon? What was it like there?”

  “I loved it. I especially enjoyed seeing the Willamette Valley and the coastline around Coos Bay. I took photos if you’d like to see.”

  “Sure.”

  She handed him her phone. As she watched him go through the pictures, studying each one with interest, something inside her tore open, like a dam that failed. She sucked in a shaky breath. “You know, I always thought I’d won the lottery having a boy and a girl. I had envious girlfriends. My Leo and Riordan. The day…they…the day it happened, Leo was seven and Riordan had just turned five. Leo was my little athlete, loved baseball, and getting dirty. Riordan was my tiny ballet dancer, the total opposite of her brother. She was all girl. To this day, Ewan won’t even speak to me because he blames me for not having his kids around anymore.”

  “That’s not fair,” Gideon said quietly.

  “It is, actually. Ewan might’ve been a lousy husband. But he loved being a father. He loved his kids as much as I did. And in this case, it was my weekend to have them, to protect them, to make sure nothing bad happened. I mean, we shared custody. Every other weekend we changed off. Our divorce was amicable enough. Very civil, which meant we took turns being with the kids. That weekend, I took the kids to the farm to see my mom and dad. What could possibly go wrong at the farm, right? It was a good place to spend the weekend. Leo wanted to help his grandpa with a newborn calf. Riordan liked to pick flowers from her grandmother’s garden. Spending time at the farm meant we always got joy out of doing the simplest things in life.”

  “How on earth did this guy find you?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? Turns out, Phillip Dealey was one of my patients, a man who showed up out of the blue at the least place he should’ve been. Sessions with Phil were always tense because he was one of those guys who always wanted to bitch about women, his ex-wife, his mother, his sisters, his cousins, you name it, he wouldn’t shut up during those times. I got the impression the man hated everyone. All the signs were there. And I didn’t connect the dots. Oh, I tried a couple of times to get him to see another counselor. He always claimed I wanted to pawn him off on someone else. But for some reason, the guy stuck and never wanted to make the change. He kept coming back to me. I’m not even sure how he found us that day. But it came out at his trial that he’d been keeping tabs on me, following me home, to the market, around town.”

  “He was stalking you.”

  “Yeah. Somehow, he managed to find out where my parents lived. Maybe he followed me. I don’t know. He was probably behind my car the whole way from town to the farm. And I never paid attention. We were singing, you see. The three of us. That morning, I’d downloaded a new song about numbers to help Riordan learn hers, and we were singing along to it. Leo joined in, even though he already knew his. He liked the beat. My God, do you think if I’d known Phillip Dealey was back there, that he was following us, that he was that dangerous, that I would’ve allowed him near my kids? But I led him right to where we all were, where he could shoot everyone I loved.”

  Gideon squeezed her hand. “No one thinks that.”

  “Ewan does. He made no bones about blaming me. Anyone in town who would listen, Ewan would use any venue to point the finger at me.”

  “Even when you were still in the hospital recovering from your own wounds?”

  “Even then. It didn’t matter that I’d gotten shot. Ewan was grieving.”

  “So were you. According to the article online, it says your brother tried to disarm Dealey before he made it into the house.”

  Marley winced at the memory. “That was Aaron for you. My brother spotted the gun almost as soon as Dealey got to the porch. He tried to stop the monster from getting to the rest of us. Aaron was the first one of us shot. Twice, in the head. His wife, Beverly, refuses to have anything to do with me because of it.”

  She let out a shaky sigh. “Back in the kitchen, Mom and I heard the shots. We were back there with Riordan getting ready to bake cookies. Our dog reacted. He darted into the other room before I could stop him. I heard the shots and ran into the hallway toward the front door just in time to see Dealey step into the house. I saw the weapon about the same time Dad came out of the living room. The dog was barking. Dealey shot the dog. Then Leo was right there, he’d followed my dad out into the hallway. But Dealey didn’t even say anything to them. He barely gave them a glance. Instead, he took aim and shot my dad in the head and then turned the gun on little Leo right there in front of me. I tried to run and hustle Riordan and my mom back toward the kitchen. But the guy was way too fast. He knocked me down to get to Mom. Pointed the gun at her and fired. Then he pointed it at Riordan. I stepped in front of her or tried to. But it didn’t matter. He aimed again and hit Riordan anyway. And then he fired at Mom again. I watched them both fall not two feet in front of me, watched my babies bleed out on the floor. The asshole stared at me like he wanted me to see it all. That’s when he shot me again. How does anyone do that, shoot people down like that in cold blood? My parents, my kids, my brother, even the dog. They didn’t do anything to him. Not a thing. His gripe, if he had one, was with me. Why did he do it? My family wasn’t safe in their own home. How does anyone turn a gun on two little kids? Why did he want to kill my entire family like that?”

  By this time, Marley had broken. Her defenses were down, and she was bawling her eyes out. He tried to comfort her, but it made him feel like the biggest idiot. He put out his arm so she could use the sleeve of his hoodie to wipe her nose. “You’re right, taking you through it again was stupid…and unnecessary. I’m sorry.”

  “I tried to tell you,” she began in between sobs. “It doesn’t do any good to talk about it. Nothing will bring them back. Nothing. Not ever. I’m stuck with this…guilt. I should’ve done something about Phillip Dealey. I should’ve protected my family.”

  He brought her closer and placed a kiss on her forehead. He did what he could to thumb away the tears from her cheeks. “Stop it. There’s no way anyone could have predicted Dealey was that kind of a threat. You’re not a mind reader.”

  “And not a very good therapist either. I suck.”

  “Jeez, I’m a great date, aren’t I?”

  “This is a date?”

  “No. No. It can’t be. I’m usually a bit better than this.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’m a little out of practice.”

  “You and me both. Am I forgiven?”

  “For what?”

  “For making you go through it again. Le
t me make it up to you.”

  “How would you do that?”

  He went with instinct and slid his arm around her waist, drawing her into him. This time, with more finesse, he lowered his head at an angle and nipped the corners of her mouth, teasing her lips apart.

  They fell into the mindless pleasure, the intense heat. Letting themselves go, they both felt something stir the blood, deep down.

  He felt her curl against his body, knew the moment she melted in his arms like a soft-serve cone at the fair on a hot summer day. He wanted to explore every curve and nibble away her inhibitions. She tasted like the sweetest honey. And when she gripped his sweatshirt in her fists, it lit fires in him that he couldn’t explain. Maybe he didn’t want to analyze their reaction to each other.

  Pulling back, he took her chin and stared into her golden eyes, now misted over with lust and need. “Right there. That’s why I’m glad sex is still on the table.”

  Breathing hard from the kiss, she rested her forehead on his. “God. I haven’t had sex in three, no, wait, three and a half years, closer to four.”

  “That’s some drought. And I thought things were bad with me.”

  She waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, she prodded, “Well, don’t stop there. I need details. You can’t just say something like that without telling me more.”

  “Not since Chicago, last September. Labor Day. Fireworks at Navy Pier after a concert in Lincoln Park.”

  “And…the woman…?” she lowered her voice and went on, “or maybe it was a man?”

  He lasered his eyes on hers. “Please. The woman was a…longtime friend, a cardiologist.”

  “That’s some friend. When I decided to leave Wisconsin none of my friends stepped forward and offered to send me off with a bang.” She let loose with laughter when he gave her one of his broody looks. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist.”

  “Try harder. It doesn’t have to be tonight, you know.”

  “I figured. You’re not the type of man to push.”

  He tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “Then what’s wrong? Why the long face?”