Every Step of the Way: (Smugglers Cove #1)

by Anna Lindgren

  I mean, jeez, Jake. You’ve known her all of five minutes.

  No matter how much I try to talk myself down. The silly grin across my face won’t be removed. I get changed and grab a cup of coffee from the pot and head toward town. I jump into my old truck, making a pit stop to check in on my mom.

  I pull up out front of her small, one-story home that overlooks the water from a vantage point. I turn the truck off and step into her driveway only to be met by a fierce and ferocious Chester—my mom’s lab who keeps watch over her property.

  “Hey, buddy.” I bend down and rub Chester behind his ears. “Who’s a good boy?” I say in the voice that every normal person has when coming into contact with a dog.

  “Is Mom home?” I ask him, and he howls excitedly with a wag of his tail. I let Chester lead the way inside as he announces my arrival with continued barks.

  “Oh, shut up,” I hear my mom yell toward the front door.

  “Hey, Mom. It’s me,” I call out, announcing my arrival.

  “Oh, Jakey!” She rounds the corner and walks toward me, welcoming me into her arms. My mom’s small fragile stature is the opposite of her fiery demeanor. My siblings and I used to tease her about her name, “Grace with a heavy dose of no-bullshit.” She’d laugh and then scold us.

  “Hey, Mom,” I say as I return her embrace. Her soft face surrounded by her graying hair.

  “What are you doing over here so early this morning?” She adjusts to get a good look at me.

  “I was—”

  “You look awfully frail,” she tsks. “You need to eat more with all that field work you’ve been doing,” she says in her most momming voice.

  “Mom,” I give her a light warning tone. “I’m eating plenty.”

  “Whatever you say, honey.” She reaches up and pats her hand across my cheek. Her eyes crinkle in the corners with skepticism.

  We wander toward the kitchen where she offers to make me breakfast. I oblige. My mom makes the best bagels with lox.

  “What brings you by?” she inquires as she spreads garlic-and-herb cream cheese across the toasted bagel.

  “Just wanted to check in on you. See how you are doing,” I say, avoiding her gaze as she abruptly places the knife on the countertop.

  “I don’t need you looking out for me. I am more than capable of taking care of myself.”

  See, I have already messed up in this interaction. What I should have said was, I just missed you and wanted to pop in and say hello. Instead, I have made her defensive by insinuating that she can no longer care for herself. Although she can now, I worry she won’t be able to someday soon.

  I chuckle as I take a sip of my coffee, placing it gently on the counter. “Mom, of course I wanted to come see you. I’ve missed you,” I say, flashing her a charming smile. “I didn’t want to admit it at my age, but I miss my mom.”

  She looks at me, her facial expression unreadable, her brow furrowed together in a quizzical way.

  “Bullshit,” she says as she picks up the butter knife and points it in my direction. “You think I don’t know you?”

  This causes a bark of laughter to escape my chest. “Alright, alright. You caught me.” I toss my hands up in surrender.

  “You are lucky I’m not kicking you out of my house for all that nonsense.” She lowers her gaze back to the bagel and lox with a small smile across her face.

  “I know you’re strong, Mom, but sometimes I worry. Dad isn’t here to take care of you,” I plead my case.

  “Honey, I don’t know if you know this or not, but your father hasn’t been here for quite some time. I’ve been able to manage all of this on my own.” She waves the knife around in the air.

  “I know,” I admit my defeat. “I’m sorry.”

  She waves me off. “Now eat up.” She pushes a delicate plate filled with food in my direction. The vibrant salmon bright across the off-white-colored cream cheese which is freckled with fresh herbs from my mom’s garden, the red onion sliced across the top and garnished with capers and pickled cucumber.

  My mouth waters at just the sight. I dig in without hesitation. “What are your plans for the day?” my mom asks as I stuff my mouth full.

  I chew fast, slightly frustrated that I don’t get to fully enjoy the breakfast without being sequestered to her barrage of questioning. “I’m going to go out fishing. Do some exploring.”

  My mom nods and takes a gentle sip of her coffee. “Are you and Ryan going out on his skiff?”

  “I’m taking Ryan’s skiff, but I’m actually going to go with Cammie,” I say, waiting for the questions to unload off my mother’s tongue.

  “Oh, and who is Cammie?” The inquiries continue this time with a knowing tune, likely meaning that she knows who Cammie is and knows we’ve been seen around town together.

  “She’s Hilary’s friend. She moved up here from Colorado about a year ago. She’s been working at the Fish House and as a tour guide for Tommy,” I say, giving her the low-down. Only supplying information she has likely already gathered from her sources.

  “Yes, I know all that.” She gives me a knowing look. “Anything else a mother should know?”

  I smile wide. “Well, look at that. The town gossip must not be as riveting as it once was.”

  She shakes her head, meeting my smile with a grin of her own. “Son,” She wanders over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “How do you expect me to enjoy my remaining days if I have no hope for corrupting your little ones one day?”

  I shake my head and laugh at my mom’s insinuation. “Mom!”

  “Don’t ‘mom’ me.” She waves me off. “I’m not getting any younger—or healthier, for that matter. I would like to see my kids settle down and starting families before too long.”

  “Mom, you know I’m not—" I attempt to interject.

  “The happiest years of my life were with your father. He was the balance to my life I didn’t know I needed.” Tears begin to well in her eyes. “Then, when you and your siblings came along…joy. Complete and utter joy.” I see her struggle to swallow down her tears.

  “Mom,” I stand and pull her toward me.

  “Honey, life isn’t about waiting for the most convenient time to settle down and start a family. It’s about grasping love and happiness before it passes by.” I continue to hold my mother and rub a smooth hand across her back the same way she used to do to me after nightmares when my dad passed. My mom always understood me. Understood I couldn’t put words to how I felt, knowing my acting out was a way of processing how out of control I really felt.

  My mom returns to the sink and starts washing dishes. I’m reminded of how frail and fragile she really is. I watch the extra energy she exerts to keep up with mundane tasks, noticing the chores which were once easy are now as if she is summiting a mountain.

  “So, I heard that Samantha is being a real bitch,” she says flippantly as she places another mug up on the shelf.

  I nearly spit my coffee out and erupt with laughter, reminding myself no matter how frail my mother seems to me, the mouth on her never ceases to amaze me.

  “How’d you hear that?” I ask.

  “More importantly, why haven’t you told me about this woman you’ve been seeing?” Her eyebrow arched with suspicion.

  “Nothing to tell,” I take a sip of coffee.

  “Mhm,” she smiles returning to the dishes.

  We finish our breakfast on a much lighter note. She hands me several snacks for my day full of adventure, and I am out the door, giving her one last hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  I start up the engine and drive toward town to pick up Cammie. My mind wanders to Cammie and how hard it must have been to lose her father. It was a milestone in my life when I lost my dad, but it was finite.

  My dad was a pilot and ran his own float plane company. He was one of the most experienced pilots, one that everyone had trusted to make deliveries of goods and products as well as precious cargo, often meaning family members, to those outlying communi
ties.

  He had returned one beautiful afternoon from making a delivery in a smaller community just outside Smuggler’s Cove. The weather changed abruptly, as it often does here in the southeast. The winds shifted, and because he was a more experienced pilot, he was asked to circle so that those with less experience could land before the weather worsened.

  I will never know what happened in those final moments. If he thought of me and my siblings growing up without him as his plane disintegrated into the side of the fjord. If his love for my mom weighed heavy on his heart, knowing that the end was near and he wouldn’t be returning home to her embrace.

  My dad had always poured his love freely, allowing the world to see his passion for those he cared about. The few memories I still hold of my dad are of him dancing in the kitchen with my mom as they cooked, tickling her as we walked through the grocery store, and bringing her flowers and presents on random occasions.

  He would say it was “just because he was thinking of her.” Looking back on it, I feel as though my parents were two teenagers in love, yet they had been married nearly fifteen years when my dad had passed, the passion and desire for one another never wavering. He showed my siblings and me how to give and receive love in all its forms. To be fearless in the face of it, because the alternative, being fearful, could result in losing your one true person.

  Both my parents believed in soulmates. I guess it’s easy to say it when you believe the person you are with is the person you were supposed to find. Watching their love for one another as I grew made me believe in soulmates as well. After losing my dad, the idea of the one was too traumatic. Knowing your soulmate could die, and then what? That hole in your heart never to be filled by another love again.

  My dad’s death was final. My heart aches for Cammie as my warm memories of my father come to a close. I never wondered if my dad would return as the mangled version of his body stays burned into my memory. I never felt like I wasn’t good enough for my dad, and I never felt as though I was the reason he died.

  I wonder if Cammie has ever blamed herself for her father leaving. If she’s ever felt she wasn’t good enough and that was why he decided to walk out. If she’s ever resolved the loss of her father, or if she is still holding out hope that one day he’d return to her, begging for her forgiveness.

  As sick as it sounds, I feel lucky. My dad never chose to leave me. He wanted me and my siblings and my mother. It pains me to think of how worried he must have been in those final moments, alone. My mind continues to ponder over how it would have felt for him to choose to leave and how much more complicated my grief would be. I never wished for my father to die, but I would take that over the alternative of him choosing to leave us, seeming to never look back. At least death I could make sense of, abandonment’s a choice, the pain runs deeper.

  I pull up and park outside of Cammie’s house. I jog through the gate and up to the porch. I knock and am quickly greeted by a warm, smiling face. Cammie’s.

  “You ready?” I ask as I return her smile.

  “Yes,” she says with a nod.

  We move off the front porch, through the yard and lock the gate. The drive to the harbor is short. Ryan’s letting me use his skiff since I haven’t had time to purchase my own boat after returning to Smuggler’s Cove. We bustle through the motions and load the gear and run through a safety checklist. I let Cammie sit in the back of the skiff while I untie us from the dock and jump in, the boat shifting under my weight.

  The weather today is clear skies, the sun shining brightly, the temperature nearing sixty degrees. The wind blowing steadily from the north, which is common here on clear days. Once out of the harbor, I pick up speed, and we head into the wind.

  “What are we doing today?” I hear Cammie yell in my direction, her dark-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail while stragglers wisp out from all sides. Her hair billows in the wind around her burnt-orange baseball cap with the embroidered words Life’s short, play dirty on the front. When I look over toward her, I see her blue eyes fill with excitement and adrenaline.

  I shrug in return, not wanting to break the anticipation. She laughs and shakes her head as she shifts her body forward, tilting her head to the sky, allowing the sun to shine across her fair complexion. As if I’m frozen in time, my breath hitches in my throat and time begins to slow as my eyes catalog the way the light captures her every curve, indentation, and scar. This vision of her here beside me will be etched into my memory.

  Cammie whips her head toward my direction and then to the motor. I smile at her, and then the words she speaks brings me back to reality.

  “I think the motor’s jacked.”

  All of a sudden the slowing of my surroundings makes sense. The motor is slowing us to a stop as it putters out. I look to find water has gotten into the gas can. Thankfully, we have a backup, and it can be an easy fix. I switch the hose over to the other jug, and within minutes, we are back on our way to my favorite shrimping hole.

  “What’s first?” Cammie asks as she rubs her hands together in excitement as we come to a stop.

  “Shrimping,” I say with a smile.

  She stands and walks toward the front of the boat, her legs wobbly as we are lightly tossed in the waves. She grabs a shrimp pot, and as she bends, I allow my eyes to take in her long, toned legs and the swell of her hips.

  “Here you go.” She returns to me, handing me the shrimp pots. We begin to bait them, ensure they are secure, and then I allow Cammie to toss them overboard one at a time. She tosses the rope into the water carefully, hoping to ensure it doesn’t tangle. When she approaches the buoy, she tosses it out into the water as if she were trying to lasso a bull.

  I laugh at her well-done technique. “What?” she asks, her cheeks flushing lightly.

  “That’s one way to toss the buoy.”

  “Are you poking fun at me?” she asks, placing her hands onto her hips.

  “Yes. I sometimes have to remind myself you aren’t born and bred here.” A smile tugs at the corners of my lips. “But when you do stuff like that…” I motion toward the buoy. “I don’t need any reminders.”

  Her jaw drops open, and she clambers toward me at the back of the boat. “Jerk.” She playfully swats my shoulder.

  We get the motor going and make our way over toward Trist Bay, one of my favorite crabbing spots. It takes about thirty minutes from where we set the shrimp pots to get there. We also have to cross through the straight, which can get rough if the wind is blowing just right but since the wind is blowing from the north, we shouldn’t have too much trouble.

  Once we putter into Trist Bay, we toss the crab pots overboard one at a time. Each time, I am greeted with the marvelous view of Cammie tossing the buoy into the water, same as before. I try my best not to laugh, and she takes note of my efforts to suppress it.

  “Oh, just let it out already,” she says, shaking her head with mock irritation.

  I do as she says as the deep rumble of laughter washes over us. She smiles over at me as I roll toward the floor of the boat. She begins to laugh as well.

  “You have a great laugh,” she assures me. “It feels...comforting.” She pauses with hesitation before continuing, “like it holds a certain familiarity.”

  I sit up and look toward her direction and take in her admiration. “You’ve got a pretty great one, too.”

  We stay staring at each other for a moment before she shuts her eyes and turns her attention elsewhere.

  “This spot is pretty amazing,” she says as I reluctantly turn my gaze from hers and admire our surroundings.

  “If you think this is great, you won’t believe what I’ve got planned next,” I say, and the anticipation lights a fire behind those pale eyes of hers. She stands with an eager smile as she returns to her spot situated next to mine.

  We drive slowly up into the head of the cove where a lazy creek flows. I slow the motor and stand, gauging a better vantage point.

  “Do you mind moving toward the bow and lo
oking for any rocks or stumps that the outboard might not clear?” I ask, remaining focused on our surroundings.

  She doesn’t answer, just does as I ask. She crawls her way forward and lies across the bow, perching her head over the front, scanning all directions as she goes.

  “There is a log or something right here.” She points in front of her to our left. I pivot the boat to our right. A little way ahead, she points again then turns to me, concern behind her eyes, “We might have to stop; there is a log across the stream bed. I don’t think we can clear it.”

  I nod as we slowly approach, and I lift the motor from the water as we glide over the top, barely clearing the log perched precariously across the stream bed.

  Cammie doesn’t say anything, but I’m sure she’s impressed. Hell, I’m impressed. I wasn’t sure we would make it. The water becomes shallower the further we progress. Finally, I decide to pull the motor. I take off my sweatshirt and strip down to my shorts. Cammie’s still faced toward the bow, not having realized I’ve killed the motor as we glide upstream.

  I strip down to my briefs and place my Xtratuf’s back onto my feet. This is quite the look, I’m sure. Cammie finally turns around to see me placing my final boot on my foot, and her jaw drops open as her eyes linger across my body. She tries to speak but the words don’t seem to formulate. I smirk before jumping off the side of the boat into the shallow water.

  Damn, that is freezing.

  “Wh, what are you doing?” Cammie stutters but manages to get the words out.

  “It’s too shallow. I have to walk us the rest of the way so we don’t get beached.” I move my body slowly and deliberately toward the front of the boat. “Tides coming in so we won’t have to do this on the way out, hopefully.” I’m standing directly in front of Cammie as she has returned to her perch at the bow of the boat. She smiles over at me.

  “Can you hand me that rope?” I ask as I point behind her. She does so, returning it quickly to my hand. I tie a knot around the cleat and then begin to move forward, letting the rope graze across my shoulder as I begin trekking up the rest of the stream.