Island Haven

by Amy Knupp

  Though Gemma had been reserved, she’d come out of her shell enough to answer Gram’s questions as they’d sat around the kitchen table, eating. Gram had been thrilled to meet one of the people her shelter was assisting. Her ability to form a bond with reluctant women was what had made her so successful, and something Mercedes strived to imitate.

  By the time Mercedes had called one of Gram’s daily caretakers for an extra shift so she could get Gemma settled somewhere, Gemma had loosened up considerably and even hesitantly hugged Gram on her way out the door.

  “You said he was going to bed at nine this morning,” Mercedes said lightly. “If he’s still in bed, he gets more sleep than a cat.”

  Gemma stared at the apartment building in silence, looking as if her mind was spinning. Plotting. Unfortunately, based on what Gemma had said about her half brother’s temperament, plotting might be exactly what was necessary.

  “Okay, let’s go charm this guy.” Mercedes spoke with forced confidence, but she knew all too well how it felt to be alone, and hated that Gemma was in that dark place.

  They walked across the steamy lot to the building that, like many on the island, boasted an elevated first floor in case of flooding. When they reached the top of the first flight, Gemma took a left and headed to the end of the outdoor walkway.

  A radio blared from a unit on the opposite side. As Mercedes and Gemma arrived at apartment 6A, a woman flung open another door down the way, yelled something peppered with a fine variety of swearwords then slammed the door shut.

  Mercedes watched the sloppily dressed woman hightail it down the steps as Gemma knocked.

  When Gemma’s half brother finally opened the door, two impressions struck Mercedes right away. One, he worked out regularly. Two, this guy lived hard.

  He was shirtless, his body lean and muscled. It was impossible not to admire his well-defined abs, pecs, arms. When she managed to drag her gaze upward, she registered his dark hair shaved down to almost nothing, as if he had better things to do than deal with too much of it. Though she doubted he was much older than she, his face carried the lines and roughness of either living or witnessing too much trauma.

  His disarming blue eyes, hollowed out by shadows beneath, penetrated hers for a long moment. There was an endearing little-boy sleepiness in them—until he caught sight of Gemma, standing to Mercedes’s left. The chill that instantly veiled his entire face was startling. Intimidating.

  “You? Again?” He directed the accusatory questions to Gemma.

  “Hi,” Mercedes said, stepping forward as if to protect the teenager. “Mercedes Stone. I’m with Ruby Herman Women’s Services.” She extended her hand and was surprised when he shook it, albeit brusquely.

  “Scott Pataki.” He turned back to Gemma. “I thought I put you on a bus this morning.”

  “You dropped me off at the bus depot,” Gemma clarified, unruffled.

  “I gave you a hundred bucks.”

  “I’ll give you the money back.” She opened her purse and started digging around in it.

  “Gemma came into the shelter this afternoon.”

  “So I gathered.” He took the cash Gemma held out to him and shoved it in his back jeans pocket. The movement caused his arm and chest muscles to flex and shift almost artfully.

  Mercedes yanked her attention back to his face. “We’d like to talk to you, if you have a few minutes.”

  “Be my guest.” His manner as he shoved the door open wider wasn’t quite as cordial as his words.

  Mercedes shot a questioning look at Gemma. The teenager had mentioned that Scott wasn’t overly friendly, but Mercedes hadn’t expected the blatant hostility. This was the brother Gemma wanted to bunk with?

  Gemma avoided her silent question as she led Mercedes inside.

  The living room was small, sparsely furnished, and cluttered, with a single bare window. The couch and coffee table seemed to be for show—it was obvious the other end of the room was more lived-in. In the far corner, a flat-screen TV that was practically bigger than Mercedes’s SUV loomed at an angle. Two low chairs that resembled bucket seats sat a few feet in front of the screen. Various electronic components, empty beverage cans and video-game cases littered the floor in between.

  “Gemma tells me you’re a paramedic,” Mercedes said. She and the girl sat on the couch, as Scott directed. He remained standing. “I think I recognize you from the fire department awards banquet last month. I was there as Faith Peligni’s guest.”

  He’d caught her attention from afar that night, as he’d accepted an award. Something about his eyes, even from a distance, drew her in. Now that she was closer, she could see there was a haunted edginess to them.

  Scott nodded. “Faith’s okay. Look, Gemma and I talked this morning. I don’t know exactly what you want from me, but I can’t give it.”

  “Gemma’s traveled a long way to get here. She needs a place to stay for a few nights. We were hoping you could help us out with that.”

  “Why can’t she stay at the shelter? Isn’t that what it’s there for?”

  “We’re at capacity, unfortunately. Your fire department friends came after us once when we had one person more than allowed. Threatened to shut us down. We’re pretty careful now. I put her on the waiting list for a bed, but that could be weeks.”

  “What do you normally do when people show up and you’re full?”

  “Whatever we have to in order to find a place for them. First, we try to track down safe relatives or friends. Sometimes we work a deal on a hotel room. The director has been known to let women stay at her house in extreme circumstances. They come to us when they’re desperate for help. We can’t just say, ‘sorry, the inn’s full.’”

  “And that’s where you think I come in.”

  “Technically, you do fit in the ‘relative’ category.”

  “And you think I’m a safe option?”

  Mercedes tilted her head, attempting to hide how much his comment took her aback. He was messing with her, she realized as she scrutinized him. If he presented any true, intentional danger to Gemma, he wouldn’t have said that. But the minute she was out of his sight, she’d get the lowdown on Scott from Faith.

  “I think you want me to believe you’re worse than you are,” she said.

  “Paramedics are supposed to save lives,” Gemma said. “Not endanger them.”

  “That’s the idea, anyway,” he said, turning away, looking longingly toward what Mercedes assumed was the kitchen. He shook his head slowly before facing them again. “I’m not your guy. I’m leaving town soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “Next month.”

  “Where are you going?” Gemma asked, a quiver in her voice a sign she might be losing her cool for the first time since they’d arrived.

  “Taking a job on a cruise ship as a scuba instructor. Can’t get here soon enough.” He didn’t sound excited, exactly. More…desperate. As if he was running away.

  “We’re just asking for a few days, Scott. She’s pregnant and exhausted. She’s your half sister.”

  His jaw tightened. His face hardened into a wall—a wall that Mercedes realized immediately she wasn’t going to be able to get through tonight.

  She was determined to find Gemma a comfortable place to live, but this was not it. Not right now.

  If Scott didn’t want his half sister to stay with him, she wouldn’t.

  “Okay,” Mercedes said, straightening.

  “Okay what?”

  She halted. “You don’t want her here. We’ll be out of your hair.” She didn’t bother to hide her annoyance.

  “Where are you taking her?” Scott asked.

  “She can stay with me.”

  Gram wouldn’t mind, and would’ve been the first to invite Gemma to stay. Between the two of them, they’d brought home countless “strays,” as Mercedes’s friend Nadia had affectionately called them over the years. Both human and animal. Helping those in need had been her grandmother’s way of life for as
long as Mercedes could remember.

  Scott chuckled in disbelief. “Really?”

  “Of course, really.”

  “All this is in the normal scope of your volunteer work?”

  Irritated by the doubt in his voice, she said emphatically, “There is no ‘normal.’ My role at the shelter is to assist those who come to us in any way I can. Even if I wasn’t a volunteer, I can’t imagine turning Gemma away.” She smiled at the teenager and touched her forearm affectionately, wanting to make sure she didn’t feel like a burden of any kind. “I’d think you would understand that, being in emergency medical services.”

  He stared at her, arms crossed, unswayed by her words. Mercedes shrugged and gestured to Gemma, noting the determination on her face.

  She also couldn’t understand how Scott could reject Gemma, who was still a child in some ways and yet faced such grown-up circumstances. Mercedes would ensure that she was taken care of. If that meant Mercedes and her grandmother had a new roommate, then it was time to make up the guest bed.

  * * *

  AS SOON AS THEY WERE GONE, Scott unleashed a vulgar word into the accusatory silence of his apartment. He entered the kitchen and eyed the bottle of liquor on the counter. Taking a swig straight from the bottle, he closed his eyes as the liquid warmed his throat. It wasn’t enough, though. He needed to burn off…something. Rage. At the women who thought he had some kind of duty to take in a complete stranger. At his deceiving, faithless father. At himself, for being unable to bring himself to help a girl who so plainly needed a break.

  Scott pounded his fist on the counter, making the bottle rattle. He carried it to the bar and settled on a stool to drink away the anger.

  If he didn’t, it was going to eat him alive.

  CHAPTER THREE

  MERCEDES CLOSED HER LAPTOP, sank into the pillows propped against her headboard and groaned to herself, exhausted. It was ten after four in the morning. Higgans, her lazy but devoted orange tabby, yawned and stretched at the foot of the bed, displeased with the disturbance.

  She’d finally caught up on emails—a bunch for work and a few personal ones. She had to start getting to bed earlier, but it seemed she couldn’t make real progress on anything—housework, correspondence, even some of the nonpressing elements of her job—until after ten. Daytime hours were filled with client phone calls and the occasional meeting, planning and carrying out social-media marketing plans, taking care of her grandma and fielding unplanned curveballs. She was perpetually thankful she worked from home and could be flexible. In fact, after Gram’s stroke, she’d put several months of extreme effort into making that a reality.

  She reached over and set her computer on the floor by her bed, too tired to put it away properly. Normally she worked at her desk in the dining room she’d converted into an office, but she hadn’t wanted to creep around in the wee hours and disturb Gemma, who’d fallen asleep as soon as Mercedes had gotten the guest bed made up.

  She turned out the light and relished the sudden darkness. As she rolled over, she heard a faint noise somewhere in the house. She froze and tried to identify what she’d heard.

  The back door clicking shut, she realized.

  Her pulse kicking up, she rolled out of bed, more awake than she’d been for hours. She hurried down the narrow staircase and veered off toward Gram’s main-floor bedroom. Before she got to the slightly open door, she could hear her grandmother snoring, and her shoulders relaxed some, figuring the noise must have been Gemma.

  She crept to the back door and pushed the curtain aside to look out through the screened-in porch to the backyard. It was too dark to see anything, but the door was unlocked. Mercedes let herself out and scoped the pavement surrounding the modest swimming pool. Gemma sat on the edge in her pajamas, her back to Mercedes and her feet dangling in the water.

  “Hey,” Mercedes said in a hushed voice, crossing the few yards between them. “Couldn’t sleep?” When she arrived at Gemma’s side, she sat cross-legged next to her.

  Gemma shook her head. “Cats.”

  “Oh, no, did they wake you up? Wasn’t the door closed?” Higgans was in Mercedes’s room but it was hard to guess where Spike was prowling.

  Gemma sneezed twice and nodded. “I’m allergic.”

  “You didn’t tell me!” Mercedes said. “I’m sorry. They’ve always claimed the guest bed as their domain. It must be full of hair, even though I changed the bedding.”

  “Dander,” Gemma corrected. “It’s okay, I should’ve known. I can’t be in a house with a cat without sneezing my brains out, sometimes wheezing. I was too tired to care. Hoped I’d be okay.”

  “And I have two of the beasts. You don’t stand a chance. I can clean everything, vacuum everywhere. As soon as Gram wakes up in the morning.”

  Gemma shook her head. “It wouldn’t do any good. My mom moved us in with a guy, charming jerk that he was, a couple years ago. He had one cat and I tried cleaning everything in existence. Believe me, that was a job, but it didn’t work. I was on allergy pills 24-7. It’s nice of you to offer, though.”

  “That’s awful.” Mercedes’s mind spun as she tried to come up with a solution. Though they hadn’t discussed how long Gemma would stay, she’d assumed it would be longer than half a night. She sensed Gemma wasn’t done with her half brother, but the last thing Mercedes wanted was for her to feel more pressure. There had to be a way to make staying here work, short of giving up her pets. “We could get a new mattress, get rid of all the old bedding. Keep your door closed…”

  Gemma sniffled and leaned forward to dip her hands in the cool water. “There’s no way to get rid of all the dander, no matter how clean your house is. It spreads. Gets in the ductwork.” She sneezed three more times and followed it with a mild curse.

  “Frustrating.” Mercedes threw her head back and gazed at the stars, cradling her knees to her chest. “I’m sorry, Gem. We’ll figure out something for you.”

  For several seconds Gemma kept her eyes on her hands, still gently splashing. “I know Scott has room. He used to have a roommate, so there has to be a second bedroom. He just needs to be convinced to give me a chance. That would buy me a month.”

  Mercedes stopped herself from saying the first thing that came to mind—namely, that Scott wasn’t nice and she couldn’t understand why she’d want to live with him.

  “You’re a seventeen-year-old girl and he’s—”

  “A twenty-eight-year-old paramedic with a chip on his shoulder.”

  “That sums him up pretty well. He must have a lot of things stressing him out.”

  “One of those things we have in common—a jerk of a father who screwed us over.”

  “Scott doesn’t come across as the type who’s going to sit and discuss what upsets him.”

  “Which works perfectly because I’m not, either,” Gemma said. “I’ve wanted to meet him for a long time. I’ve come all this way. I’m not going to give up so easily.”

  “Why is he so important to you?” Mercedes managed to keep her voice nonjudgmental. “You’ve never even talked to him before yesterday, right?”

  Gemma was quiet for some time. Pensive. “My family has been a mess since I was born, thanks in part to my dad. Scott was in the same situation and was able to walk away. Make his own life. I want to do that, Mercedes.” There was steel beneath her words. “Ever since I learned of his existence, I’ve admired him for getting out. Envied him.”

  “After meeting him, I’m thinking living with him might not be as rosy as you’ve always imagined.”

  “No.” Gemma shook her head adamantly. “I don’t expect rosy. I don’t know… Maybe I kind of like the idea of having an older brother.”

  The words were understated, but the loneliness that drew her features downward yanked at Mercedes’s heartstrings. She sensed it was difficult for this girl to admit needing anyone or anything.

  “Feeling alone is hard,” Mercedes said. “I’d loan you my sister anytime.” She tried to lighten the mood
a little.

  “How old’s your sister?”

  “Four years older than me. Thirty-one. We’re not very close. She’s making her annual visit to Texas in a few days. And in truth, I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  Gemma pulled her hands and feet out of the water and lay on her back on the pavement, gazing up at the sky, her jaw set. “Maybe I’m being dumb wanting to go back to Scott’s, but one brush-off from him isn’t enough to scare me away.”

  Mercedes lightly brushed Gemma’s arm as she studied her. “It’s not dumb if you really want to get to know him.”

  “I didn’t find out about Scott and his mom until I was twelve,” Gemma said. “My dad didn’t live with us and only spent a few days a month with us. They told me it was because of his computer-sales job. That he had to live in Houston because of it. My mom has never been a stellar parent and I used to cling to his time with us. Never questioned the oddity.”

  “I can understand that. My dad died when I was ten,” Mercedes said. “Motorcycle accident. After that, I would’ve given anything to have him back even part-time.”

  Gemma rolled to her side on the pavement and faced her. “That’s rough. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Thanks. It’s been a long time.” Unfortunately, time had never made that hole in her life go away. “So what happened when you found out the truth?”

  “Ugly, ugly blowup. I was pissed at the world. Hated my mom—would you believe she knew he was married the whole time? I detested my dad and wanted nothing to do with him. But when I found out about Scott…” She sat up a little clumsily because of the extra weight in her belly, bracing herself on her hands behind her. “I imagined him as an ally.”

  She smiled forlornly and Mercedes realized that was the first time she’d seen even a hint of a grin on Gemma’s face. She really was a pretty girl when you got beyond the sullenness and stress. Especially once she washed off the dark eyeliner.