by Sophie Moss
He was a natural leader, inspiring confidence and trust in those around him. Even Jake, who might not necessarily agree with the career path he’d chosen, clearly respected the man he’d become. She could tell by the way they interacted, the way they anticipated each other’s next move, the way they spoke to each other without having to say a word.
She’d spent the past twelve years working alongside men in uniform—men who barked out orders and expected people to fall in line. She was used to big egos, short fuses, and raunchy senses of humor. She’d only known her new boss for about a week, but she could already tell he was the complete opposite of that.
The next time he reached into the water to scoop up a crab, her gaze drifted to his left hand. His ring finger was bare, which meant he was still single. She wondered how he’d made it this far in life without attaching himself to someone. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would float aimlessly from woman to woman.
Not that he would have any trouble attracting them.
She took in his rugged profile, messy, sun-streaked blond hair, and quiet gray eyes. He was tall, probably around six-foot-two, and the muscles that rippled beneath his T-shirt weren’t the kind that came from the gym. Her gaze dropped back to his hands—those strong, calloused, workingman’s hands—and a flutter stirred deep in her belly.
She didn’t want to be attracted to him. She didn’t want to be attracted to anyone, ever again. Because the thought of being intimate with someone now…
She shuddered, turning her attention back to the task at hand. Over the next few hours, she lost herself in the repetitive nature of the work, in the calming effect of floating. By the time they headed back to the island, the sun was almost directly overhead and they had close to five bushels draped in strips of wet burlap to keep the crabs cool.
They were almost to the marina when a man waved them over from the deck of a neighboring restaurant. Jake shifted direction and cruised up alongside him.
“I see you got the hydraulics working again,” the man said, catching the bowline.
“Finally,” Jake said as the boat drifted to a stop, rocking gently against the rubber tires nailed into the bulkhead.
The man looked under the canopy. “What? No Becca today?”
“She was up late last night prepping for summer school,” Jake said.
“Already?”
“Starts in two weeks.”
The man shook his head. “That daughter of yours works too hard.”
“Takes after her father,” Jake said, and Izzy could hear the pride in his voice.
Hard work, she mused. That’s what they valued here. It was the same message that had been drilled into her head as a child. It was the one truth she’d always been able to depend on—work hard and you can achieve anything.
So much of what she’d believed in had been shattered that night, nine months ago. But what if she could reclaim this one thing? What if he didn’t get to take everything from her?
“My brother’s in town for the weekend,” the man said. “He and his wife want to pick crabs this afternoon. Can you spare a half bushel?”
Jake nodded and Ryan handed the crabs over. The man slipped Jake a cash payment, then started to untie the line from the cleat. “A couple of tourists came by earlier asking where they could buy some crabs. I told them to head down to the docks around eleven and look for you. Big guy with a Steeler’s cap on and a blonde in a sundress.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for ’em,” Jake said as they pushed away from the deck.
The motor hummed, the heavy workboat propelling them forward as they made their way over to the marina. “We try to cut out the middleman as much as we can,” Jake said to Izzy.
Izzy nodded, because it made sense. Looking out at the vast body of water, she thought about how far removed she’d been from the people who’d grown or harvested the food she’d prepared in the Army. Wasn’t that what the farm-to-table movement was all about? Getting to know the people behind your food?
She had never owned a farm, but she had worked on plenty. And she knew firsthand that every migrant worker who picked the fruits and vegetables that ended up in restaurants and dinner tables all over this country had a story. Many of them had families. Most of them were struggling. And every single one of them had a dream.
Or they wouldn’t be here in the first place.
They pulled into the same boat slip they’d left hours ago, before the sun had even begun to rise, and Ryan stepped onto the dock to secure the lines. He tied the knots, looping wet ropes around metal cleats in a rhythm so second nature it was obvious he’d been doing it since he was a child. This time, when he offered her a hand to help her off the boat, she took it.
“Thank you,” she said, thinking how strange it felt to be on solid ground again. How, for the first time in months, when she’d been out there floating, things had started to make sense. “That was…”
He smiled. “I think I gave you the wrong job.”
“What do you mean?”
“How would you like to go out on the boat with my father one day this week?”
“I’d like that,” she said, already feeling a tremor of excitement at the prospect of being out on the water again.
“I thought so,” he said, releasing her hand.
They heard footsteps on the end of the pier and glanced over. A petite brunette in her thirties was heading toward them with a child about Taylor’s age. They were both carrying fishing rods. “Hey,” the brunette called out. “How’d it go out there today?”
“We got five bushels,” Ryan said.
“Not bad for a Sunday,” she said, waving at the two people still in the workboat.
“Hi, Ms. Haddaway!” Taylor said, hopping out with both dogs trailing behind her. “Look what Ryan gave me!” She held up an arrowhead.
“Another one?” the brunette asked.
“Mom’s going to be so excited.”
Izzy looked at Ryan quizzically.
“Taylor and her mom make wind chimes,” Ryan explained. “They’re working on a Native American-themed chime now, with arrowheads and eagle feathers. I found the arrowhead on the shoreline at the farm the other day.” He turned toward Taylor. “You know you still owe me an oyster shell wind chime.”
“I know,” Taylor said, her expression growing serious. “Mom and I are still working on it. We haven’t perfected it yet.”
“I’ll try to be patient,” he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiled. He looked back at the brunette. “We had to loan Izzy a pair of your boots.”
“And the hat,” Izzy said, remembering that it was still on her head. “Is this yours, too?”
Becca took in the camouflage trucker hat and bit back a smile. “No. That’s definitely not my hat. And it’s probably never been washed, so you’re a brave woman for wearing it. I’m Becca.” She held out her hand. “And this is Luke.”
“Are you going fishing?” Izzy asked, after they’d finished the introductions.
Becca nodded. “Luke’s uncle bought him a new lure yesterday. We’re going to test it out, see if we can get a few perch to bite.”
“Can I see it?” Taylor asked.
Luke showed it to her, and she inspected the shiny silver lure carefully.
“Do you want to take the boat out?” Jake asked Becca. “It’ll take me about a half hour to get her cleaned up.”
“No,” Becca said. “We’ll just cast off the end of the pier, keep you company while you work.”
“Can I come?” Taylor asked.
“Of course,” Becca said. “But you have to eat lunch first. Your mom sent sandwiches over from the café.” She started handing them out. “Oh, and Dad? Colin just called. He and Will want to have crabs at the inn this afternoon. Can you hold a bushel for them?”
Jake nodded, setting his sandwich aside until he finished his work for the day.
Ryan turned to Izzy. “Want me to give you a ride back to the inn?”
The
inn? She didn’t want to go back to the inn. She wanted to stay here.
“It was nice to meet you, Izzy,” Becca said, waving goodbye as she and the two children headed for the end of the pier with their sandwiches and fishing rods.
Izzy glanced over at Jake, who was already hard at work prepping the boat for the next day. If she stayed, she’d probably just get in the way. “You know what,” she said, looking at Ryan, “I think I’ll walk.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind running you back.”
“I’m sure,” she said. She needed some time to herself, to think.
“I’ll walk you up to the parking lot. I need to grab a few things from my truck.”
Izzy said goodbye to Jake and they strolled past the row of workboats and pickup trucks to the silver Chevrolet they’d arrived in that morning. She paused, glancing over her shoulder, just in time to see Riley try to steal a bite of Taylor’s sandwich. She heard the child laugh, the carefree sound echoing over the harbor. “She’s really something.”
“She is,” Ryan agreed.
Izzy continued to watch her. “She said something this morning about Riley—that she couldn’t go out on the boat without her. Do you know what that was about?”
Ryan looked back at her, surprised. “You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“About what happened to her.”
Izzy shook her head.
Ryan was quiet for several moments. “I guess if you’re going to be spending the next three months here, you’re going to find out eventually. I might as well tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“Do you remember the shooting that happened at the elementary school in D.C. last year?”
Izzy nodded slowly. Everyone had heard about that shooting. A man had walked into a second-grade classroom and killed seventeen children before turning his semi-automatic weapon on himself. Only one child had made it out alive.
“That was Taylor’s class,” Ryan said. “Taylor’s school.”
Izzy’s jaw dropped.
“I know,” Ryan said. “It’s hard to believe something like that could happen at all, let alone to someone you know.”
Izzy looked back at the child on the dock. Taylor was the sole survivor of the Mount Pleasant school shooting? But she seemed…so normal, so well-adjusted.
“She’s come a long way,” Ryan said, “but she still has setbacks from time to time. Annie doesn’t like her going anywhere without Riley. Whenever she gets upset, the dog calms her down.”
“Is Riley a therapy dog?”
“I guess that depends on your definition of a therapy dog. She’s not trained, if that’s what you mean. She’s just a dog, and like most dogs, they can sense what people need. When Annie moved here last year, Riley attached herself to Taylor. After a while, it was pretty obvious that she’d picked a new owner, so I just let her keep her.”
Izzy looked back at Ryan. “Riley was yours?”
He nodded.
“You gave her a dog?”
Ryan reached down, petting the older, mellower chocolate lab who’d followed them up to the parking lot. “Zoey and I still miss her sometimes, but Taylor needs her more than we do.”
Something inside Izzy cracked open, widened. She thought about how attentive Ryan had been with Taylor out on the boat today, how patient Jake had been, how Becca had greeted the child at the dock with lunch. No wonder Taylor had healed so quickly. With this many people looking out for her, how could she not? “Was Will overseas when it happened?”
“Will wasn’t in the picture then,” Ryan said. “He met Annie last fall, the same time we all did, when she and Taylor first moved to the island. Will just happened to be here, getting his grandparents’ place ready to sell.”
“Taylor’s not his?”
“Well, she is now,” Ryan said. “Will and Annie got married two weeks ago, right before the veterans’ center opened.”
Two weeks ago? Annie and Will had gotten married two weeks ago? And they’d already opened their home to a group of strangers? Still struggling to wrap her mind around all of it, Izzy remembered hearing that Will had recently separated from the SEAL teams after ten years of service. Aside from that, she knew next to nothing about him…despite the fact that she was staying in his house.
A house that, apparently, less than a year ago, he’d been planning to sell.
Why would Will give up a position in one of the most coveted branches of the military to move home and open a veterans’ center? Was it because he had seen what this island had done for Taylor? Was there something about this place that she hadn’t been able—or willing—to see before now?
Ryan held her gaze and she swore she could hear it, the same sound she’d heard that morning—the faintest clinking of seashells over the wind. She’d been so ready to write him off the moment she’d found out he was a farmer. But he wasn’t like any of the farmers she’d worked for as a child. He wasn’t running a soulless operation focused on productivity and the bottom line, ready to exploit its workers at any cost.
He might be running a farm, but he was a waterman at heart. And the men who worked these waters loved these waters. Every one of them had a story to tell, a personal history stitched into this tapestry of tributaries and marsh grasses. All Ryan was doing was trying to stitch a new future into it—one that would last. And she knew exactly how she was going to help him.
She might not be able to reclaim her dream, but she could help Ryan achieve his.
Ten
Bradley Welker could hear the hum of the air conditioner as it kicked on down the hall. The rest of the offices were quiet as most of his staff, including his assistant, took Sunday off. He often worked through the weekend—responding to emails, catching up on paperwork, taking the occasional off-the-record meeting with one of his soldiers who had a personal matter to discuss.
Today, he was meeting with Lieutenant Alicia Booker, an intelligence officer who’d found out, a few days ago, that her ex-husband was suing for custody of their seven-year-old son. She hadn’t told him herself yet, but he made it a point to know what was going on with his soldiers…particularly the women.
If there was one thing he’d learned in his twenty-five-year career with the military, it was that information was power.
Leaning back in his chair, he studied her file. He was fairly certain the purpose of this meeting was to get his approval to defer her acceptance into Ranger School so she could remain on base until the dispute was resolved. He’d been surprised when he’d found out that she’d applied to the program—a grueling eight-week infantry leadership course that admitted a small number of soldiers each year to the elite special operations branch of the Army.
He’d been even more surprised when he’d found out that, once she completed the course, she planned to transfer to infantry. Apparently, she didn’t want to be an intelligence officer anymore. She wanted to fight. And with the increasing number of infantry leadership roles opening up for women, there was a good chance that within a year or two, she could be cleared to lead men into combat.
It was laughable really, the idea of a woman leading a unit on the ground. It was bad enough that so many of them were already tucked away in offices, calling the shots. In the past year, thousands of direct-action combat jobs had been opened up to women. Even the SEALs and the Green Berets had been ordered to open their ranks to the weaker sex.
As if a woman could actually complete those courses without the instructors dumbing them down. He had no doubt that the people running those programs had been given orders to fill quotas, let things slide. He knew a thing or two about following orders. The Army had drilled that message in loud and clear from the day he’d stepped off the bus. He wouldn’t have risen so far in the ranks if he hadn’t learned how to toe a line he didn’t believe in from time to time.
But this…this was taking it too far.
He didn’t know what the hell was going on with their leadership at the Pentagon, but
if no one else was going to do anything about it, he would take matters into his own hands. Someone had to remind women where they belonged—in support roles, caregiver roles, domestic roles. As long as they stayed in their place, the world could continue to function the way it was supposed to.
He closed the file, tossed it back on the desk. It was unfortunate that Alicia Booker had decided to step out of line. But he’d enjoy putting her in her place first, making sure she knew exactly where she belonged.
The same way he had with Izzy Rivera.
Just thinking about the way the fiery Latina had struggled had him growing hard. For seven years, he’d tracked her career, biding his time. For seven years, he’d lived with the humiliation of being saved by a woman. How many nights had he lain awake, wishing the spray of shrapnel from the rocket-propelled grenade had killed him rather than wounding him?
Instead, he’d had to suffer through dozens of interviews, field countless questions from reporters, and shrug off an endless string of jabs from his male colleagues about the female cook who’d saved his life. He’d played the part that was expected of him in public—showering her with praise, giving her all the credit she’d deserved. He’d even flown to Washington D.C. for the awards ceremony and posed for pictures beside her when she’d received her Bronze Star.
But she had paid her price in the end. And she would keep their little secret. He’d made sure of it.
She had no proof. No real evidence. If she ever tried to open her mouth, it would be her word against his.
And no one would believe her anyway.
In public, his record was squeaky clean. He’d been one of the biggest supporters of women in the military—promoting them, praising them, treating them with respect. He knew how to make the people above him happy by checking the right boxes. What happened behind closed doors was another matter entirely. The way he saw it, he was doing the military a service. Nobody wanted women on the front lines. Not really.
He was simply putting things back in order.
