by Rachel Lee
“He recommended both you and Mr. Wilson.”
“Figures.” Drew liked his thrills, too. But then Drew had always been a little bit insane. Dugan liked the sea as much as the next guy, but spending your life studying coral reefs had always struck him as the next best thing to taking up basket weaving.
“Well,” he said, taking care to face Veronica directly, “I hope you have a strong stomach. Butch can be a madman at the controls.”
She shrugged. “Drew warned me. But he said Mr. Wilson was an honest man who could keep a secret.”
“That’s true.” Sometimes he figured Butch kept more secrets than a graveyard.
Orin Coleridge bailed out right after lunch, insisting he needed to rest. Which left Dugan with the lady, who was looking at him as if she didn’t like him any more than he liked her. He was going to have a word with Drew about sending him this crew.
He ordered another beer while Veronica had a fruit bowl for dessert. She wasn’t very talkative, probably for good reason, which left him feeling awkward and irritable. He was used to people who had plenty to say, and conversations that were freewheeling.
“Is your dad going with us on the boat?”
Her head snapped up. “Did you say something?”
“Yes. Is your dad going with us on the boat?”
“I don’t think so. He’s not well and needs a lot of rest.”
“I thought so.” Great. Him, Tam, and this woman. What a happy group they were going to make. Unless he could find some way to make common ground with her, a place where they could talk more easily without ruffling each other’s feathers.
“Why are you so sure you’re going to find this boat in three months?”
“I’m not.”
The answer surprised him. She’d seemed so definite about it yesterday. “You’re not?”
She shook her head.
“Then why the deadline?”
She looked down at her fruit, then pushed it away with something like distaste. She looked at him again. “It’s a long story, Mr. Gallagher.”
“Call me Dugan. Please. And I’ve got time to listen. How about this evening? Have you seen our sunset celebration yet? You don’t want to miss it. I’ll pick you up around six-thirty.”
She looked as if she wanted to say no, but he wasn’t going to let her. The more he thought about it, the more questions he had about this little operation. And the more he wanted to know why a deaf woman and her terminally ill father were so hot on doing this search right now.
“No arguments,” he said, donning his most charming smile. “Six-thirty. I’ll come for you.”
“You don’t know where I’m staying.”
“So tell me. Believe me, you don’t want to miss the celebration. Lots of local atmosphere. A great show.”
She hesitated, then gave him a location on Elizabeth Street. Ten minutes later, when they parted ways, he was at least sixty percent certain that when he appeared at her door tonight, she wouldn’t be there. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been stood up, and he wasn’t particularly attracted to the idea of spending an evening with Veronica Coleridge.
But he did want to hear her story.
Veronica, who’d barely come out of the house since she’d lost her hearing, did something unusual after leaving Dugan Gallagher: she walked around Key West. In the anonymity of the crowds, she didn’t need to hear or to read lips. She could simply wander around without anybody realizing she was deaf, and without exhausting herself by trying to converse.
The level of the noise bothered her, though, and finally she popped her aids out and tucked them into a pocket. She wasn’t fully ready to admit it yet, but there were times when silence was a blessing. Without her aids in, every sound was distant and muffled, as if coming from a very long way away. And many sounds didn’t reach her at all.
It was still unnerving at times to see people laughing and not be able to hear them. For some reason that bothered her almost more than anything else. So she didn’t look at the people’s faces, but contented herself with looking in the shop windows.
She just wished she hadn’t let Dugan talk her into the sunset celebration. Not that he’d exactly talked her into it. He’d steamrolled her. Sort of.
Deep inside, though, at some place where the Veronica she used to be still resided, she wanted to go to the celebration. Wanted to do the ordinary things that other people did. Things she had once taken for granted.
Things she would have done without a second thought, before the accident, and before Larry had left her. Before having a simple conversation with a stranger had become one of the hardest tasks in her life.
She could lipread her father reasonably well, because they’d been practicing it for the last six months. Dugan Gallagher was a lot harder to read, although not nearly as hard as most people she encountered. But because of that limitation, she found it hard to speak with strangers at all, and that’s why her father had come along on this trip. Much as he probably would have preferred to stay home where he could get all the rest he needed more easily, he had chosen to ride shotgun, to be there to deal with all the people who might as well have been babbling, as far as Veronica was concerned.
Everyone from gas station attendants to clerks in the supermarket was a problem for her. Since becoming deaf, she’d realized how little people actually looked directly at the person they were talking to. Usually they looked down or away. And then there were so many people who hardly moved their mouths at all when they talked, leaving her completely at sea about which consonants they were using.
All of which had seriously chipped away at her self-confidence. She was aware of the erosion, but she didn’t seem to be able to stop it. Even a trip to the convenience store had become a task to avoid because someone might speak to her.
Because she was embarrassed and ashamed. Embarrassed to be flawed, and ashamed to have to keep asking people to repeat themselves, or to have to explain she was deaf. She kept telling herself that it was nothing to apologize for, but she kept feeling apologetic anyway, because she could no longer function like the rest of the “normal” world.
And behind her wall of silence, she told herself how little she was really missing. What did it matter if she couldn’t tell that the clerk was saying, “Hi, how are you today?” A meaningless question that demanded no answer other than, “Fine.” Whether she was fine or not. So she was cut off from the banalities and trivialities.
And how many people really had anything worth saying, anyway? When she really needed to understand, she could ask for repetition until she got it. The rest of the time, conversation was all just so much wasted breath anyway.
Or so she told herself.
But she didn’t really believe it. When she was honest, she admitted she missed all that casual talk about nothing important, and that she missed gabbing with her friends about nothing in particular. That she missed, most of all, the long talks she and Larry used to have over their work.
That she missed Larry most of all, even if he was a splay-footed jerk who should hang his head in everlasting shame. Good God, he had been driving the car. He had had too much to drink and lied to her about it, claiming he’d only had one beer. He’d been the one who was too dazed to avoid the other drunk driver who had crossed the median and plowed into them. So how dare he have the nerve to tell her he couldn’t deal with her deafness?
She realized she was getting blindingly angry, and the sensation frightened her. She didn’t get angry like this. She didn’t feel rage so strong that she wanted to rip nails from boards or smash something. This wasn’t like her.
But that was what she was feeling. More and more since coming out of her depression she’d begun to feel angry. Anger at Larry, mostly, for dumping her after she’d lost her hearing and the baby. Anger for her loss. Anger at her father for dragging her out of her depression with the story of her mother’s quest.
The last thought caught her unawares, and stopped her in her tracks. Crowds move
d around her, some people glancing at her as if she were crazy, but she hardly noticed them.
Angry at her father for pulling her out of her depression?
That was insane.
But deep inside she knew it was true, knew it as sure as she knew she was angry that he was dying, and angry that he’d kept the secret for so long.
Angry. That’s what she was. All she seemed to be anymore. Angry at everyone and everything.
God, it had been easier when she was depressed. At least then she’d been able to hide deep inside herself, where nothing but the ache of loss and despair could touch her.
This anger hurt even worse.
A hand touched her arm and she jumped. A stranger had touched her and was saying something. She couldn’t hear him because she didn’t have her aids in, and his mouth was giving her no clue because it was concealed behind a heavy beard.
Embarrassment flooded her. Something about his face said he was concerned about her. She managed a weak smile, then made the humiliating admission: “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. I’m deaf.”
Comprehension dawned on his face. Then he pointed to the nearby bar, and held up one finger. She nodded to him, although she had no intention of waiting to see what he was going to do.
But before she had fully passed the bar, he caught up with her. Into her hand he thrust an icy cold bottle of spring water. She looked up at him, startled. He pointed to her, then wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He was telling her she looked too hot.
From some graveyard inside her, a genuine smile emerged. It felt strange as it lifted the corners of her mouth.
The man smiled back, waved, and walked away, leaving her in the middle of crowded Duval Street with an icy bottle of water in her hand.
Suddenly all she wanted to do was cry. And she didn’t know what the hell to make of the kindness of a stranger.
Chapter 4
Dugan Gallagher was as good as his word. He arrived at the cottage promptly at six-thirty. Orin let him in, looking surprised to see him.
“I’m here for Veronica,” Dugan explained. “I’m taking her to the sunset celebration.”
“Oh.”
“Did she run out on me?”
“Uh, no. She’s here. . . .” Orin looked around, as if not at all certain where his daughter had gone to. “Sorry, I was napping. I think she’s in her room. Just a moment.”
Dugan waited just inside the door as Orin walked down a short hallway and opened a door. You couldn’t knock for the deaf, he supposed, unless you wanted to hammer really loudly.
“Dugan’s here,” he heard Orin say. He couldn’t hear Veronica’s response, although he could hear her voice. He wondered if that was what the world sounded like to her all the time.
“She’ll be just a minute,” Orin said, returning. “I’m surprised you got her to agree to this. She doesn’t much like to go out in public anymore.”
“I didn’t give her much choice.”
A smile creased Orin’s drawn face. “Maybe that’s what it takes.”
“Well, we’ll see how much of me she can tolerate.”
Veronica appeared wearing white shorts and a bright red tank top that Dugan suspected put his blood pressure through the roof. God, what a body, he thought. Too bad she didn’t have the personality to go with it.
She said good night to her father and followed Dugan out onto the street. Elizabeth Street wasn’t a main thoroughfare, so it was quiet despite the crowds of tourists who had jammed every available parking place.
It didn’t take him long to realize that they couldn’t walk and talk at the same time because she couldn’t see his face. And if he turned to look directly at her, neither of them was paying attention to where they were going.
Not good. He paused and touched her elbow. She automatically turned to face him.
“I’ve got us a table reserved at the dock. We can have a few drinks, maybe something to eat if you want.”
“That sounds nice.”
Well, he supposed that was a good start. When they reached busier streets, he automatically tucked her arm through his, and he was relieved when she didn’t seem to object. He was probably being overprotective, he realized, and he wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d informed him that she was perfectly capable of walking down a street without leaning on a man.
But she didn’t, and he wondered if the crowds were intimidating her. It wasn’t exactly shoulder-to-shoulder crowding, but it was close to it. The only reason they were moving as swiftly as they were was because pretty much everybody was heading toward Sunset Dock and Mallory Square for the nightly festivities.
But he had connections, and they had a table waiting for them at the dock. With any other person, he would have placed them both on the same side of the table, looking out toward the west, so they could both enjoy the sunset without craning. But this was not just any other person, so he put his own back to the sunset, facing her.
Veronica still wasn’t sure what she was doing there with him, or why she had let herself be pressured into this. But at the moment, it didn’t seem to matter. The breeze was balmy, the sun was sinking low, and the excitement on the dock was contagious as people gathered for the celebration. The murmur of many voices was becoming a steady drone in her hearing aids, but it wasn’t yet annoying. And she could still hear Dugan when he spoke to her.
“Would you like something to drink?”
Well, no one was driving anywhere, so after a moment’s reflection, she said, “A Tom Collins, please.”
“Sure thing.” At least she thought that’s what he said. He spoke too rapidly, and his head had started to turn as a waiter approached.
She couldn’t make out what he ordered, but she supposed she would find out when it was delivered. She pretended that it didn’t bother her to be cut out of even such minor things, but the truth was it did. She just didn’t want to think about it just then. It was too beautiful there to be tormenting herself with thoughts of things that made her unhappy.
But she wished she could hear the sound of the water lapping against the pier. In her mind, she could hear the gentle sound, and she strained her ears to pick it out from all the other sounds that were bombarding her. She had no luck.
A seagull flying overhead let out a sharp cry, distracting her. Her gaze leapt upward, and she felt a twinge of envy for that bird.
Dugan said something she couldn’t make out, and she looked at him again, the sense of frustration welling in her. It was always like this, and God knew how she was going to learn to live with it. “I didn’t hear you.”
“I know,” he said, speaking slowly and forming his words with care. “But I didn’t want to just reach out and touch you, and talking was the only other way I could think to get your attention.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Sorry for what? Why did she feel so apologetic for something she couldn’t help?
“No need,” he said, smiling. He had the devil’s own smile, she thought, incredibly charming. Just seeing it made her feel warm, and she didn’t like that. Didn’t want anyone to be able to affect her so easily. She had enough other problems in her life.
He spoke again. “I just wanted to know if you’d like some conch fritters for an appetizer.”
“That sounds good.”
He nodded and turned to the waiter who was serving their drinks and gave the order. At least that was what she assumed he was doing. She hated this, always having to make assumptions about what people were saying. She made them every time someone spoke to her, when she had to piece things together, trying to figure out the sense when some of the individual words eluded her. She was getting better at it, but she was also beginning to understand that it would always be this way for her. Always.
The breeze caught her hair, ruffling it, and she had to push it back from her face. Her gaze strayed to the water and the two islands beyond. Boats were making their way down the channel, some of them tall with masts and sails, some motor launches, all headed out to sea
.
Dugan touched her arm and she looked at him. “The boats are going out to watch the sunset.”
She realized she would like to do that. And maybe she would, once they started searching for the wreckage. For the moment, though, she contented herself with watching others do it, including a large schooner. Judging by the number of people aboard, she figured they were paying for the ride.
She sipped her drink, enjoying the tart-sweet flavor of it, enjoying the coldness of it in her hand and against her lips. Dugan was sipping on a beer and looking longingly at the schooner.
She recognized that longing. It wasn’t so very different from what she felt when she saw someone with a newborn baby, or a couple laughing happily together. The things she had lost in a few split seconds one rainy Friday night. The ache that was never entirely gone pierced her anew, and she closed her eyes for a moment.
But closing her eyes now cut her off more than ever before in her life, and it wasn’t long before she opened them again so that she could sort out all the sounds that were battering her through her hearing aids.
“Do you want a schooner?” she asked Dugan, more to get her mind off the direction of her own thoughts than because she was really interested.
He looked at her. “Not really. But I love to sail. Sometimes I think I was born a century too late.”
“Why? You can still get a sailboat.”
“I have a sailboat. But it’s the wrong century for someone who wants to captain a . . . on a voyage to. . . .”
“To where? A what?”
He spoke more clearly. “A clipper ship.”
“Oh.” She had seen pictures of those. “They were fast, weren’t they?”
“Very. Six months to China and back.” He gave her a crooked grin.
“Why did you go to Harvard if you wanted to be a sea captain?”
“Good question.” He laughed, shook his head, and shrugged. “I guess I was being practical. Besides, nobody is looking for a clipper captain anymore.”
“How did you wind up here?”
He cocked his head as if he didn’t quite understand her question. “Wind up here? What do you mean?”
