by Sophie Moss
Grace studied the label of her beer. “I guess if Colin and Will let her into the program, they must have thought she needed to be here. Maybe give her some time.”
Ryan nodded, because he’d been trying to tell himself the same thing all day. But everyone else seemed to recognize how lucky they were to be here. Everyone else seemed eager to make the best of the experience. He had kept a close eye on Izzy throughout the rest of the day and he was really concerned.
She had shown no interest in the business. She had shown no interest in making friends. The few people who’d tried to strike up a conversation with her had been shut down instantly. And yet, every so often, he’d get a glimpse of something, like a spark, deep in her eyes, that wanted to come out, but she was too afraid to let it. “She’s got these eyes, Grace. I’ve never seen anything like them. It’s like…they’ve seen so much.”
“I bet most of these veterans have seen things you and I could never dream of,” Grace said.
“Yeah, but it seems different with her,” Ryan said. “With the other vets, you can see a kind of resignation. There’s a sadness in their eyes, and you can tell they’ve experienced things that will haunt them forever, but with Izzy, it’s like whatever happened just happened yesterday. Like she hasn’t even begun to process it yet.”
“Maybe she hasn’t.”
“But most of our soldiers pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan years ago,” Ryan said, still trying to make sense of it. “If whatever’s bothering her is connected to something that happened overseas, shouldn’t she have at least developed some coping mechanisms by now?”
“I think PTSD can manifest in a lot of different ways. If it’s left untreated, it can only get worse,” Grace said. “Have you talked to Will or Colin about it?”
“I called Will a little while ago. I’m waiting to hear back.”
“Well, there’s a social worker who’s going to meet with them, right? Whatever it is, she’ll be able to help her process it.”
“True,” Ryan said, but he wasn’t entirely convinced. He had a feeling it was going to take a lot more than a few hours of therapy to get Izzy Rivera to open up.
Grace was quiet for a few minutes as they listened to the sounds of the neighborhood—two kids playing catch in the yard next door, the clatter of tools on pavement as a teenager worked on the engine of his truck in his parents’ garage, the occasional bark of a dog wanting to go outside.
When she looked back at her brother, and he continued to stare blankly out at the street, she frowned. “Hey,” she said, tapping the arm of his chair. “Haven’t you got enough on your plate without taking on somebody else’s problems?”
“Yes,” Ryan admitted.
“Then don’t,” she warned. “You need to be able to separate yourself from these people emotionally if you’re going to be working alongside them for the next three months. I know you’ve been working like crazy trying to get everything ready for the launch of this program. When was the last time you took a day off?”
“It’s been a while.”
“Why don’t you come up to D.C. on Saturday? We could go out, check out the new bar that just opened down the street from my place. I’ve got a few single friends I could introduce you to.” She wiggled her brows.
He smiled, but shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Come on,” she urged. “You can’t keep hiding out down here and nursing a broken heart forever. It’s been over six months since you and Julia split up. You need to get out there, start dating again.”
Absently, Ryan reached down to scratch Zoey behind the ears. He knew it was pointless to argue with his sister, because she couldn’t possibly understand. The truth was, he hadn’t been in love with Julia. He’d enjoyed her company, but he was the one who’d broken things off.
Like he always did when things got too serious.
He was starting to wonder if he was capable of opening his heart to a woman in that way. He wasn’t sure why he couldn’t take that next step with anyone. Maybe he’d just never met anyone he’d thought was worth the risk.
At the sound of a screen door opening and closing, he glanced up. Across the street, his neighbor, Tyler Gannon, walked out of his house carrying a bag of charcoal. Tyler emptied the contents into the grill and lit the coals, before lifting his hand in a friendly wave and wandering back inside to join his wife and daughter.
All around the neighborhood, people were doing the same thing—prepping for dinner, talking about their days, chasing their kids around the yard. He was the only person on this street who wasn’t married, who wasn’t even in a relationship.
It was hard to believe he was still single at thirty-three when all he’d ever wanted was to settle down with a wife and a couple of kids.
But maybe some people weren’t meant to have that life.
Maybe some people were destined to be alone.
As if sensing his depressing mood, Zoey rolled over and stretched all four paws up into the air. Ryan smiled and rubbed her belly with his foot until her tongue lolled out of the side of her mouth. This was all he needed, he reminded himself. He had his dog. He had his friends. He had this island. And whenever he got really lonely, he could always distract himself with the farm and the environmental center.
“Fine,” Grace said. “I won’t bug you about your love life, but will you promise me something?”
“What?”
“That you won’t turn into Dad.”
“I’m not going to turn into Dad.” Ryan laughed, clinking the neck of his bottle against hers to seal the deal. But he couldn’t help wondering, as he took a long swallow, if that wasn’t exactly what he was doing.
* * *
By the time Izzy stepped out of the shower, it was close to 1800 hours. She’d managed to scrub most of the oyster muck out of her hair, but her skin still carried a faint scent of the briny filter feeders. It was going to take more than a bar of soap to wash away the smell that had permeated every inch of her body throughout the past twelve hours.
Picking up the cell phone that was lying on her bed, she saw that she had one missed call. It was her probation officer, checking in to see how the first day had gone. Fantastic, she thought, tossing the phone back onto the bed. She couldn’t wait to tell her all about it.
Right now, she had more important things to do.
Slipping her laptop out of her pack, she walked over to the desk beneath the window and sat down. She clicked a few buttons to bring up the spreadsheet of over two hundred female soldiers whose names she could recite in her sleep. Scanning the list on the left, she found the row where she’d left off two nights before, and copied the next name over to Google, preparing to spend the next few hours learning everything she could about Private First Class Jennifer Sanders.
She had been tracking the movements of every woman who’d served under Colonel Bradley Welker for over four months now. So far, she hadn’t found anything that would raise a red flag. Most of the women were still serving, some had been honorably discharged, a few had gone into officer training programs. They all seemed to be living normal, healthy lives. She hadn’t noticed any bizarre, erratic behavior, or anyone else suddenly dropping off the face of the earth.
But she wouldn’t stop looking. Not until she knew, for sure, that what had happened to her hadn’t happened to anyone else. She needed to know that her silence wasn’t putting other female soldiers at risk.
“Yo,” Kade said, opening the door to her room without knocking.
Izzy snapped her computer shut.
He raised a brow. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” she said quickly.
“Then what are you doing up here with your door shut?”
“I’m…decompressing.”
“Well, come downstairs and decompress with the rest of us.”
“No, thanks,” she said, turning back around.
“Come on, Izzy,” Kade coaxed. “It’s not healthy to sit up here all alone. The two guys o
n dinner duty are just starting to cook. Maybe you could give them a few pointers.”
A familiar smell floated up from the kitchen—onions simmering in butter and garlic. She could hear voices downstairs, the sound of knives chopping on cutting boards, the muffled clatter of pots and pans. Remembering how easy it had once been to lose herself in the rhythms and repetitions of preparing a meal, she struggled against a sudden, desperate urge to follow Kade downstairs and ask if there was anything she could do to help. “I don’t cook.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, confused. “You said last night that you enlisted in the Army as a cook.”
“I don’t cook,” Izzy repeated. “Not anymore.”
There was a long pause. “Have you mentioned that to Colin and Will?”
“No.”
“You might want to let them know that before it’s your turn in the kitchen.”
“Thanks for the tip,” she said. “Will you please leave me alone now?”
“Okay,” he conceded, “but whenever you’re done feeling sorry for yourself, you should come downstairs and join us.” He turned to leave, then paused. “Oh, by the way, I checked the board downstairs earlier. We’re on dish duty tonight.”
“I know.”
“Unless, you’ve given up doing dishes, too…?”
She twisted around. “Seriously?”
“Hey.” He held up his hands, grinned. “It was a valid question.”
He walked away laughing, and she noticed that he left her door open again, the same way he had that morning.
“Hey, Rosie,” she heard one of the guys downstairs say when Kade made it to the kitchen. “How was your first day at The Flower Shoppe?”
“It was peachy,” he said dryly. “Thanks for asking.”
“Did you bring any flowers home?” the same guy asked. “Want to make an arrangement for the dinner table?”
A few people laughed before another guy piped in, “Do you have any spare ribbons? Want us to tie one in your hair?”
“Oh, right,” the first guy said. “You don’t have any hair.”
Kade laughed good-naturedly. “I’d rather be bald and working at a flower shop than stink like you three do. What’d you do at the oyster farm all day, roll around in the mud?”
“Hey,” the second guy said defensively, “the farm’s actually pretty cool.”
“Well, good luck getting a woman to go out with you smelling like that,” Kade shot back.
Izzy heard what sounded like chair legs scraping against a wooden floor and imagined Kade settling his big body onto one of the stools. Turning back to face the window, she spotted a circle of people stretching in the yard, getting ready to go out on an afternoon run with Will. One of the men still recovering from shoulder surgery was in the pool with a physical therapist, being coached through a series of exercises. On the other side of the lawn, Hailey was playing fetch with Taylor’s yellow lab, Riley.
More laughter drifted up the stairs, and she looked over her shoulder at the open door that led into the hallway. What would happen if she went downstairs, if she pulled out a stool at the bar and just hung out? What would happen if she went outside and talked to Hailey, who had tried at least a dozen times to strike up a conversation with her today?
As soon as the questions popped into her mind, she felt foolish for thinking them. Even if there was something to this program, even if there was a small chance that she could benefit from it, she shouldn’t be here. She didn’t deserve to be here. The only thing that mattered was making sure that the man who’d attacked her wasn’t planning to hurt anyone else.
There was no way she could live with herself if that happened.
Five
Ryan knew he should heed his sister’s warning, that he should steer clear of Izzy before he got tangled up in a mess he had no business getting involved in, but he couldn’t seem to stay away. He felt drawn to her with the same irrational intensity that he’d felt twenty-three years ago, when he’d snuck out his bedroom window, climbed into his father’s wooden rowboat, and paddled out to Pearl Cove. There’d been a full moon that night.
The same way there would be tonight.
He looked out at the water, at the calm, quiet surface that had nearly swallowed the underside of the pier. He didn’t need a tide chart to tell him that the water level would rise a few more inches before it slowly began to recede, or that, when the moon rose over the Bay tonight, the surface would swell even higher to meet it.
He always knew when the moon was full.
He could feel it in his bones, in his blood, in the familiar restlessness that had plagued him since he was a child. Looking back at Izzy, he watched her gather the materials to assemble the next oyster cage with the same quiet efficiency that she’d devoted to every task he’d given her that week.
She’d barely spoken two words since she’d arrived in the van with the others, but he thought he’d detected a slight shift in her attitude—a tiny crack in the shell she kept so firmly closed around herself. Part of that might have to do with the fact that he’d decided not to push her anymore, not to force her to care about something she clearly had no interest in. Her apathy about the environment still bothered him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was wrestling with a bigger demon than anyone realized.
“Hey, Ryan,” Paul called out from the office across the lawn. “Do you have a minute?”
“I’ll be right there,” Ryan said, bending the flat sheet of coated wire mesh over the side of the picnic table to create the first edge of the cage.
“No, stay where you are,” Paul said. “We’re coming out.”
Ryan smoothed his end of the cage toward Izzy’s until their hands met in the middle, but he was careful to draw his hand back right before their fingertips brushed. It hadn’t taken him long to pick up on the fact that she preferred not to be touched—a preference he found troubling, to say the least.
Helping her flip the sheet around to create the next three sides, he tried not to notice how small and feminine her hands were as they moved along the edge of the cage, how much of the smooth skin of her legs was visible beneath her cotton shorts, or the way her thin T-shirt stretched across her breasts every time she shifted positions.
He’d been trying not to notice those things all week.
When the door to the office opened and Paul and Jeff walked out, Ryan stepped back from the table, grateful for the distraction. “Let’s take a break,” he suggested to Izzy. “Why don’t you grab some water, cool off in the A/C for a while?”
“I’m fine,” she said, reaching for the zip ties to begin the process of securing the top of the cage to the sides.
Of course she was, Ryan thought as he wiped at the sweat on his brow. It wasn’t even midday yet and the temperatures were already climbing into the nineties. It was going to be a scorcher, but the woman across from him seemed completely immune to the heat. She was a hard worker. No one could deny her that.
Leaving her to it, Ryan followed Paul and Jeff over to a neighboring picnic table.
Paul set his laptop down and opened the screen. “I’ve been playing around with the website. I came up with a few design options and wanted to run them by you.”
“Sounds good,” Ryan said, grabbing a bottle of water from one of the coolers and taking a long sip. He was surprised that Paul already had something to show him. He’d assumed this task would take at least two or three weeks.
He sat down in front of the computer and clicked on the first site. Expecting a rough template with lots of blank spaces and placeholders, he was floored to find a fully designed website with an eye-catching home page and multiple tabs, each filled with photographs, headers, text, and a blended color scheme.
Ryan looked up at the man he’d put in charge of marketing only a few days ago. “Wait…you made three of these?”
Paul nodded, watching him apprehensively. Beside him, Jeff was grinning.
Looking down at the screen again, Ryan cl
icked on the other two sites. “This is incredible, Paul. I don’t even know what to say.”
“We’ll work on refining the language later,” Paul said. “This is just about getting a quick first impression on the design. And I want you to be honest—really honest. If you don’t like any of them, it’s no big deal. I can start over from scratch. I just need to get a sense of what you like and don’t like so I know what direction to go in next.”
“I highly doubt I’m going to reject all three of these,” Ryan said, clicking through the three websites.
The first had a modern, sleek feel that focused more on sustainability and science. He might have leaned toward something like that if he were running the farm alone, but he wanted to make sure his father’s heritage as a waterman was respected and the history and culture of the island were firmly woven into the narrative from the very beginning. The second site had a more corporate, streamlined feel, which gave the impression that they’d been in business for years, but it lacked character. The third, Ryan thought as a slow smile spread across his face, was exactly what he’d been looking for.
The entire site was tinted in sepia tones. It had a gritty, nostalgic feel that captured the perfect balance of merging the old with the new. There were candid shots of him and his father working on the water. There were pictures of workboats against marshes, of boots caked in mud, of ropes hardened from years of use, coiled around tilted pilings that had weathered hundreds of storms. Each page drew you further into this world, until you felt like you were there, working alongside the watermen and the farmers, with an emphasis on the quiet beauty and enduring spirit of the Chesapeake Bay.
“This is the one,” Ryan said, sitting back.
“Yeah?” Paul asked nervously. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” Ryan said. “It’s perfect.”
“I told you, man,” Jeff said, clapping Paul on the back. “I knew he’d love it.”
Still not convinced, Paul looked over at the environmental center. “Are Hailey and Ethan around? I want to get their opinions, too.”
