Seagrass Pier

by Colleen Coble

  So I’m resolving to work on my real identity, a daughter of God. How about you? E-mail me and let me know what you’re working on. I love to hear from you!

  Love,

  Colleen

  colleen@colleencoble.com

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  1. Elin and Marc made a poor choice the night Josie was conceived. When Sara found out she was pregnant, do you think she did the right thing?

  2. Do you know anyone who has had an organ transplant? Have you ever seen any evidence of cell memory?

  3. Sara tried to forget about Josh by dating another man. What did you think of that?

  4. Sara and Elin didn’t believe Josh was guilty of the murder based on how they felt about him. Do you ever make judgments that way? If so, have you ever been wrong?

  5. Having a loved one with dementia is hard. Have you ever experienced it? if so, what was the hardest part for you?

  6. Scents can be very evocative of feeling. Is there any scent in your past that brings a specific time and feeling to mind?

  7. Marc wanted to be part of Josie’s life enough to marry to protect her. Why would that be a tough plan to follow?

  8. Why do you think women can be attracted to bad boys like Ryan Mosely?

  9. The book’s theme is about identity. What do you think identity is?

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’m so blessed to be a part of the terrific Thomas Nelson dream team! Through their tireless hard work and commitment, Rosemary Cottage hit the USA Today bestseller list, which was a super exciting day. They really are my dream team!

  I can’t imagine writing without my editor, Ami McConnell. I crave her analytical eye and love her heart. Ames, you are truly like a daughter to me. Our fiction publisher, Daisy Hutton, is a gale-force wind of fresh air. She thinks outside the box, and I love the way she empowers me and my team. Marketing director Katie Bond is always willing to listen to my harebrained ideas and has been completely supportive for years. Fabulous cover guru Kristen Vasgaard works hard to create the perfect cover—and does. You rock, Kristen! And, of course, I can’t forget my other friends who are all part of my amazing fiction family: Amanda Bostic, Becky Monds, Jodi Hughes, Kerri Potts, Heather McCulloch, Laura Dickerson, Elizabeth Hudson, and Karli Cajka. You are all such a big part of my life. I wish I could name all the great folks at Thomas Nelson who work on selling my books through different venues. I’m truly blessed!

  Julee Schwarzburg is a dream editor to work with. She totally gets romantic suspense, and our partnership is a joy. She brought some terrific ideas to the table with this book—as always!

  My agent, Karen Solem, has helped shape my career in many ways, and that includes kicking an idea to the curb when necessary. Thanks, Karen, you’re the best!

  I’m so grateful for my husband, Dave, who carts me around from city to city, washes towels, and chases down dinner without complaint. My kids—Dave and Kara (and now Donna and Mark)—and my grandsons, James and Jorden Packer, love and support me in every way possible, and my little Alexa makes every day a joy. She’s talking like a grown-up now, and having her spend the night is more fun than I can tell you.

  Most important, I give my thanks to God, who has opened such amazing doors for me and makes the journey a golden one.

  AN EXCERPT FROM

  DANCING WITH FIREFLIES

  BY DENISE HUNTER

  See ya,” Jade told Daniel as she got out of his car. “Thanks for dinner.”

  “No problem.”

  Daniel waited for Jade to enter the rear storeroom door, then continued through the alley. He hated leaving her there. She couldn’t even turn on the showroom lights. He’d moved the old fridge for her and loaned her the office microwave. She was all set up. He still didn’t like it.

  Something buzzed nearby. He stopped at the end of the alley and leaned over the passenger seat. Jade’s phone. Must’ve fallen from her pocket. It lit up with an incoming text.

  APPOINTMENT REMINDER: DR. KLINE MON JUNE 23 9 AM, DOWNTOWN OFFICE

  He set the phone aside and backed down the alley. Moments later, he knocked on the solid metal door.

  “It’s me, Jade,” he called.

  He gave it ten seconds and knocked louder. “Jade. Open up.”

  He could try the office phone, but she’d probably let it ring through to voice mail.

  He knocked again. “Jade!”

  He couldn’t imagine it taking this long to get to the door. Maybe she’d gone next door for a shower. But she hadn’t had time to gather her things and leave.

  He was about ready to kick the door in when it opened. “All right already. What’s the—”

  Her eyes widened, and her lips pressed together. She dashed down the hall. The bathroom door swung shut behind her. The sounds of her vomiting propelled his feet forward.

  She was leaning over the toilet when he entered, shaking. He pulled her hair back, holding it until she finished. A slick sheen of sweat had broken out on her forehead. He wet a paper towel and set it on the back of her neck.

  The text message tickled the frayed edges of his mind. His mind flashed back to the wedding two weeks earlier. Something she’d eaten, she’d said.

  A few minutes later she straightened and flushed, wiping her mouth with the towel. Her pallor frightened him as he connected all the dots. The wedding episode, the doctor’s appointment, and now again.

  “Better?”

  She nodded.

  “Come on.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and helped her to the office, stopping at the fountain where she rinsed her mouth.

  Once there, she sank onto the antique sofa, giving him a wobbly smile. “Better watch out—you had the brisket too.”

  “Don’t even, Jade.” He set her cell on the desk. “You left this in my car. I saw a text about a doctor’s appointment, and now I find you like this, just like at the wedding. What’s going on?”

  She folded her arms, hunching her shoulders. Her eyes studied the floor.

  “Jade?”

  She met his gaze. “You can’t tell anyone.”

  His gut twisted hard at the fear in her eyes. He swallowed hard. “Are you sick?”

  She breathed a laugh, tucked her bare feet under her.

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “I’m not sick, Daniel. I’m—I’m pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?” The word rung in his ears like an echo at Riverbend Gorge. He stood and walked away. He needed to move. Needed to hide a minute while he collected his thoughts.

  He should be thinking about her health, her emotional wellbeing, her financial situation. But instead all he could think of was Jade with another man. Jade smiling at someone else. Jade in love with someone else. Jade making a baby with someone else. A fiery coal burned deep in his gut.

  “Three and a half months.”

  Three and a half months ago she was with another man. Did she love him still? Where was he? Why wasn’t he here, holding her hair while she vomited, helping her find a job, finding a flipping place to live?

  “You can’t tell anyone.”

  “You’re just full of secrets, aren’t you?” He hadn’t meant to sound so harsh.

  “I keep dumping my stuff on you.”

  He had to pull it together. She didn’t need this right now. Didn’t need him to be selfish and jealous. He schooled his features, then faced her. “What about the father?” he asked, careful to keep a neutral tone.

  She no longer looked so pale. Blood had rushed north, blotching her cheeks. “He’s—he’s out of the picture.”

  He shouldn’t feel so relieved. It was pure selfishness. She needed support, financial and emotional. Not jealousy. “You need to tell the family.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Jade—”

  “I was going to. I was going to tell them after Madison and Beckett got back, then Mom had her heart attack and Dad said—”

  “No stress.”

  “You know Nana’s second heart attack killed her. I cou
ldn’t live with myself if something happened to Mom because of me. I just have to wait awhile, until she’s stronger.”

  “You should tell someone. Madison or Ryan.”

  “I’m telling you.” Her eyes met his and held. He felt heady with the knowledge that he was her confidante. It had been an accident, but still. She’d told him. Now she was his responsibility. He had to make sure she was taking care of herself.

  “Do you have insurance? Are you seeing a doctor?”

  She nodded. “Yes and yes.”

  Of course. The text. He wasn’t thinking straight. She looked so little on that old sofa. Had her face thinned out? Were those hollows under her eyes?

  “Have you told your doctor you’re getting sick so much? It can’t be good for you. Or the baby.”

  Baby. The word made it seem so real. Jade was having someone else’s baby.

  “She knows. It’s not uncommon, you know. Otherwise I feel fine, and I have an ultrasound on Monday just to make sure everything’s good.”

  “I’m going with you.” Where had that come from?

  “What?”

  “You need support. If you’re not telling anyone else, I’m it.”

  She tilted her head. “You don’t have to do that, Daniel. It’s only a couple months. Or as long as I can hide it.”

  He wanted to know about the father. He wanted to know who he was, if she’d loved him. But of course she had. Jade wouldn’t have made love to him otherwise. Not Jade. The thought sliced him wide open.

  “It’s a relief, actually, telling someone.” Then she met his eyes, soothing the ache in him. “I’m glad it’s you.”

  His breath left his body. “Me too.”

  AN EXCERPT FROM

  DANGEROUS DEPTHS

  BY COLLEEN COBLE

  ONE

  Leia Kahale rubbed an aromatic salve of crushed ginger, aloe, and other natural ingredients gently into the deformed hand of the old woman seated in front of her. Hansen’s disease was manageable these days, but the scars were not so easily erased. The sight of her grandmother’s missing fingers and toes had ceased to make Leia flinch long ago. To her, Ipo Kahale was the most beautiful woman to ever grace Moloka’i’s shores.

  “That feels much better, Leia,” her grandmother said in a hoarse voice. Leprosy had taken her vocal cords as well as her lips and nose, and her words had a flat, toneless quality. “You should have been a doctor.”

  “My mother agrees with you, Tûtû. I thought you had a pact to always take up different sides of the fence.” Leia put the salve down and stood. She was nearly a head taller than her grandmother’s five feet, and Tûtû was practically skin and bones. Leia stepped out from under the shade of the coconut tree to test the pulp of the mulberry bark she was fermenting in wooden tubs of seawater. The odor of fermentation had been the most distasteful part of learning the ancient art of making bark cloth, but now she barely noticed the sour tang. She stirred the mess, then eyed the strips of tapa, or kapa as the Hawaiian version was called, she’d laid out for the sun’s rays to bleach. They could stand some more time in the strong sunshine.

  “Kapa obsesses you,” her grandmother observed when Leia joined her on the garden bench again. “I was never so driven.”

  “I wish I had your talent for the painting of it.”

  “Already, you’re better than I was, keiki, but you try too hard.” She nodded toward the pots of fermenting bark. “You’re like the unformed cloth, Leia. There is much beauty and power hidden inside you. I grow tired of seeing you shrink back when you should be taking your place in the world. Look forward, keiki, not backward.” Ipo put her deformed right hand over Leia’s smooth brown one.

  “I’m finding my way, Tûtû. I’m finally doing something I love. No more inhaling antiseptic for me.” Leia gave her grandmother a coaxing smile. “I love it here—the quiet that’s so profound it’s almost a sound, the scent of the sea, the strobe of the lighthouse on the point.” Kalaupapa, a small peninsula that jutted off the northern coast of Moloka’i, could be reached only by plane, mule, boat, or a long, strenuous hike down the mountain, but Leia liked it that way. She wasn’t hiding here at all, not really. “Besides, I’m needed here. The residents are eager to try my natural remedies.”

  “It’s a good place for those of us who don’t want to face the stares of curious strangers. But you deserve more than a dying town filled with aging lepers.” Her grandmother caressed Leia’s hand with gnarled fingers.

  “Like what—breathing smog in San Francisco? Besides, you’re wise, not old. Old is just a state of mind. When I watch you, I see the young girl inside,” Leia said. Today was going to be a good day. There was no sign of the dementia that often rolled in and took her grandmother away from her. Leia touched the tiny scar on her own lip. “I just want to learn more about making kapa from you. I like feeling an important part of this little community.”

  She turned and looked toward the sea. Her nose twitched as the aroma of the ocean blew in to shore. Smells ministered to her soul—the scent of brine, the rich perfume of the mass of ginger and plumeria outside her clinic, the sharp bite of the ink for the kapa she made. Sometimes she wished she could guide herself through life by scent alone. Her garden had been taken over by her hobby. Lengths of kapa covered the rocks and tree stumps in the yard, and the wooden shelves attached to the back of the building bowed under the weight of supplies.

  She stood and stretched. Usually by this time, her friend Pete Kone had arrived with a dozen teenagers to learn the process of making the bark cloth from her. The art had recently been revived in the Hawaiian community, and Leia taught a cultural class to eager young Hawaiians. “Where is everyone? It’s nearly eleven, and no one has come in.”

  “Pete must be running late again.” Her grandmother stood and went to the corner of the cottage, where she peered across the street to the beach. “Just look at your sister. Your mother is going to have a fit when she sees her clothes. She’ll have sand all through them.”

  Leia’s cat, Hina, entwined herself around her ankles, then nipped at the speckled polish on her toes. Completely black except for a white spot at her throat, Hina was named after a Hawaiian goddess of the moon, and she carried the attitude of her namesake—she thought she ruled the family. She roamed the Kalaupapa Peninsula like a small panther. Leia moved her feet out of temptation’s way and picked up the cat. She joined her grandmother at the side of the building.

  On the beach, Eva lay on her stomach on the sand with her nose nearly touching a honu, the Hawaiian green sea turtle. Leia watched her sister mimic the turtle’s slow blink and neck roll. Twenty-year-old Eva often took Leia’s breath away with her sheer beauty. Her blonde hair, bleached almost white by the sun, topped a face that looked at the world through the almond-shaped eyes of Down syndrome.

  “I’ll get her.” Leia stepped around the side of the building and hurried across the hot sand. Hina clutched her shoulder hard enough to hurt. “Time to come in, Eva.” She touched her sister’s silky blonde hair. Lost in a world where she was one with the turtle, Eva didn’t respond until Leia took her hand. Her lopsided smile radiated a charm that few could resist. Leia didn’t even try.

  She helped Eva to her feet, then linked arms with her and turned toward the cottage. The noise of a plane’s engines overhead rose over the sound of the surf. Leia squinted against the brilliant sunshine. Shading her eyes with her hand, she gazed at the plane. It surged and rose, then fell once more before rising on the wind again. The engine made a laboring sound, sputtered and whined. A plume of smoke trailed from the engines, then a flash of light superimposed itself on Leia’s eyes, and she flinched. Eva shrieked and clapped her hands over her eyes. She began to moan.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” Leia said, patting her arm. Hina yowled, dug her claws into Leia’s arm, and shivered. Leia, riveted, watched the plane.

  The aircraft began to spiral in a death dance toward the sea. The silver bird separated from a small form that jettisoned from th
e cockpit. The puff of a parachute and the sight of the lone survivor floating toward the water galvanized Leia into action. She raced to her shop and picked up the phone. Dead again. The phone service in this part of the island was spotty. She stepped outside again and ran toward the boat.

  “I’m coming too!” Eva ran after her.

  “Stay here,” Leia told her sister, but Eva thrust out her chin and clambered aboard the boat. There was no time to argue with her. She started the engine of the Eva II, a twenty-eight-foot Chris-Craft her mother anchored in the bay. Scrambling over the deck, she got Eva into her seat then handed her sister the cat to distract her. She flung herself under the wheel and turned on the engines. Leaving Kalaupapa behind, she opened the throttle to full speed and urged the boat in the direction she’d seen the plane fall.

  A sea rescue was always difficult. The reflection of the sun on the water made it hard to see a person in the waves, and she wasn’t quite sure where the plane had gone in. A craft might slip under the waves without leaving any wreckage behind as evidence. She stared into the rolling waves. Several times she thought she saw the pilot, but it was only a whitecap bobbing. The Coast Guard might soon appear if there was a boat in the area, but she couldn’t count on that.

  “Do you see anything, Eva?” Eva could see an ant climbing a monkeypod tree at fifty paces. Her sister had calmed down and was staring across the water.

  Eva shook her head. “Did he drown, Leia?” She pushed a wisp of hair from her eyes.

  “I hope not.” Leia squinted against the glare of sun. A movement caught her attention, and she grabbed a pair of binoculars from where they were stowed in a cabinet. The waves parted, and she caught a glimpse of a face bobbing in the waves. Clad in an orange flight suit and helmet, the man thrashed in the lines of his parachute. He managed to free himself, then ripped off his helmet.