Island

by Mary Davis

  Shane came down the hall. “There you are.” His hooded sweat jacket looked soaked through. It must have started raining again since she had been waiting. He swiped the hood off his head.

  She pushed up against the wall and stood. “Can we talk?”

  “Sure. But the rain’s really coming down out there.” He grabbed the sides of the centered front pocket and shook water off his jacket. “You want to come in to talk?”

  “Thanks.”

  He opened the door and stepped inside. “Well, maybe that’s not such a good idea. There’s not much room in here.” His room was about twice as wide as the twin bed shoved against the wall and about one and a half times as long. And it was chilly.

  She smiled. “You always said you were living in a closet. And you really are.”

  “I kind of like it. I didn’t want a roommate, and this is all that was left. But I have everything I need: a bed, a dresser with a lamp that looks like it might have survived World War II, a nice little window, and a closet rod.”

  The hexagon window above the dresser was hinged on one side and swung in about an inch, the reason for the cool temperature. The covers were pulled up on the bed, but she wouldn’t exactly call it made. And the closet rod was just that, a rod angled across the corner of the room adjacent to the door at the end of the bed, and on it hung a jacket and another sweatshirt.

  “You can leave that open,” he said, pointing to the door. “Have a seat.” He motioned toward the bed. It was the only place to sit besides the floor.

  “This is fine.” She sank down against the open door.

  Shane pulled his wet sweatshirt over his head and tossed it in the bottom of his closet, then put a long-sleeved T-shirt over the one that had to be wet from the rain. After closing the window, he sat on the floor and leaned against the bed. He draped his arms over his bent knees. “What’s going on, Haley? I caught up with Jason today; he said you broke things off with Brent and that you and he were getting close.” He shrugged. “With Jason, that could mean a lot of things. He’ll read something into nothing where you’re concerned.”

  “That’s not exactly the way it happened.” Where to start? “I was upset with Brent and still am—but that’s beside the point—and Jason came along. . . .” Actually Brent was the point in all of this. “It just got complicated.”

  She didn’t want to do this. Lord, can I change my mind?

  Thirteen

  “So something did happen between you and Jason?” Shane’s mouth hung open slightly.

  Haley leaned her head back against the door and stared at her friend. How did she explain what happened without confessing why she was so upset with Brent and revealing she had already known Shane’s secret? Maybe if she started at the beginning. But which beginning? “Yesterday Giff needed some help at the police station, and Harry volunteered me. When I arrived, Brent was there.”

  “Was Brent arrested for something?”

  She could see the concern for her on his face. “No. Why he was there is another issue. As I said, this is complicated. There are a lot of different parts, and they all collide and make a mess.” She pressed her fingers together to represent the different parts and then had them bounce off each other to show the collision. “Does that make sense?”

  “Not really.”

  She waved her hand in the air. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll explain what happened with Jason. I was surprised to see Brent and was mad at him—I’ll explain that in a minute.” She told him how she’d been outside the station when Jason drove by and how she’d hopped on his fray. She told about her crying and Jason holding her and everything she said to him. “I was upset and not thinking.”

  “Leave it to Jason to take that as something significant happening between the two of you. He probably figured if you were on the skids with Brent, then he had an opening.”

  “I can’t even pretend to understand what he is thinking.”

  “When I see him, I’ll see if I can help him understand.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So what happened with Brent? I thought something must have happened when you canceled lunch yesterday. You were all mushy and sweet on him the night before last.”

  “Remember our talk last night—about being used?” He nodded. “Brent used me. The only reason he is on the island is because he is looking for someone and was hoping I could lead him to that person.”

  “What’s the big deal about helping find someone?”

  “It’s how I felt he did it—sneaky and deceitful. He’s a private investigator.”

  Shane’s expression faltered, and he paled slightly.

  Though she knew the answer, she asked anyway. “Who is Justin Mikkelson?” Was it his real name, or was Shane Peters?

  Shane tipped his head back until it was resting on the bed. “This is about Kristeen, isn’t it?”

  “After you and I talked last night, I told Brent today you weren’t the father. But he still wants to talk to you.”

  “Why?” Shane stared at the ceiling.

  “He’s not convinced you’re not the father.”

  Shane pulled his head up off the bed. “I would be if Kristeen would let me. I’d marry her and take care of her and her baby. Her father would never let that happen.”

  Now that sounded like the Shane she knew—taking on someone else’s responsibility. “Why did you change your name?”

  Shane raked his hands over his short blond hair and clasped them behind his head for a moment. Then he released them and raised his head. “I thought it was a good idea?”

  “You don’t sound convinced of that. Why go by Shane Peters if you are really Justin Mikkelson?”

  “As you said, it’s complicated.”

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  “It’s not that.” He shook his head. “Do I start at the beginning and work up to your question or start with answering your question and work backward?”

  She understood that dilemma. “It probably doesn’t matter.”

  “Shane was my big brother and mentor. Not my real brother. You know—the Big Brother program. It was my aunt’s idea when I was fourteen. That’s when she took responsibility for me. Aunt Aimee’s a little ditsy, but she always tries hard. I could finally be a regular kid.”

  “Why did your aunt finish raising you? Did your parents die?”

  He picked at a thread on the hem of his jeans. “Mom’s still alive and probably my dad, too. Aunt Aimee became my legal guardian because no one else wanted me.”

  She found that hard to believe.

  “I should shoot back to the beginning to make sense of this.” He shook his head. “That would take too long and bore you. The short version: I don’t know who my dad is—his name’s not on my birth certificate. My mom is in a mental hospital to keep her from trying to burn herself alive again. And Aunt Aimee stepped in after Mom burned down the apartment building we were living in.”

  Wow.

  He stretched out his legs as much as he could before they hit the wall. “Mom had talked about her little sister, but I thought she was making it up—like an imaginary friend—until Aunt Aimee finally found us. Mom seemed to be normal with her sister there, but I knew she wasn’t. You couldn’t tell anything was wrong. I was hoping for someone to notice my mom wasn’t right, not like other moms. The day after my aunt left, Mom held my face in her hands before I left for school and stared at me. She had tears in her eyes. That was the closest I ever came to seeing my mom cry. ‘Just like him,’ she whispered, then opened the door and said, ‘Have a nice day,’ as if everything was fine.”

  Shane pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “I didn’t want to leave her. I wanted to stay. I had this bad feeling in my gut. I got partway to school, then turned around and ran as fast as I could back home. When I opened the door, my mom stood in the middle of the room with flames all around her. I dragged her out, but she wanted to go back in. She wanted to die in that fire; she wa
nted to die because I was just like him.” He wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  Haley blinked back tears. “Like who?”

  “My dad, I guess.”

  She never would have guessed that was his life. He was such a great guy. “So where did Shane Peters come in?”

  “Aunt Aimee’s idea. She thought I needed a positive male role model in my life. He was great and helped get me on track. I was a mess after Mom was hospitalized. He moved away a year ago, but we still keep in touch. When I came here to the island, I didn’t want to be me anymore. I wanted to be a normal person with a normal life for once. I wasn’t just running away from Kristeen’s dad but from myself.”

  “You are a neat guy exactly the way you are. You don’t have to change your name to be a better person. Whatever you call yourself, you are still the same wonderful person inside.”

  “I think that’s what God has been trying to teach me this summer.”

  “Are you sure there’s no way you can be the father of Kristeen’s baby?”

  “Positive. We were never anything more than friends.”

  “So what do you want to do? Do you want to meet with Brent? I can tell him to go away. We have three docks in town. I could tell him to take a long walk. And if you want to leave the island, then he can look all he wants. I think there’s still a ferry leaving tonight.”

  He smiled at that and released his legs. “Then I can be on the lam, running from myself.” He looked at her sideways with a sly grin. “Is there anywhere I can go where I won’t be there also?”

  “I guess not, but you still don’t have to meet with Brent.” She wanted to help Shane any way she could.

  “I’ll meet with him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He stretched his legs again. “No. But I don’t see a good reason not to. And maybe he can tell me how Kristeen is doing.”

  “I want to be there with you, if you want me to be.”

  “I’d like that.”

  She smiled. “Okay. It’s my turn to play big sister to you, but I can’t miss any more work. Let’s plan for our lunch break in the park.”

  “Are you going to meet him at the dock in the morning and tell him?”

  She shook her head. “No, I have work.”

  “How will he know where to meet us?”

  “He’ll find me.”

  ❧

  Dalton came back into the house sweaty from his workout. “You look awful.”

  Brent was on the couch where he had sat, unmoved, for an hour. “Hey, thanks. I needed cheering up.”

  “You looked like a whipped puppy last night, and I thought you looked about as bad then as you could—but you’ve outdone yourself.”

  He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I saw Haley today.”

  “Didn’t go so well?” Dalton wiped his face with the towel around his neck.

  “It went great. She knows who Justin is and is going to set up a meeting tomorrow. I feel like a heel.” He looked up sideways at Dalton. “What do I do now?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I hate it when people answer your question with a question.”

  Dalton sat in the green recliner. “What do you expect when you ask a question that only you can answer?”

  “And another question?”

  Dalton threw up his hands. “Man, Haley’s worth fighting for. Is it possible to find this boy without hurting her anymore?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You could always take her in your arms and kiss her until she forgives you.”

  He rolled his eyes. “There’s a winner of an idea. She’d probably slap me or worse—and never speak to me again.”

  Dalton shrugged. “I never said it was a good idea.”

  “Do you have any good ideas?”

  Dalton leaned forward. “This boy’s a friend of Haley’s, right?”

  “She said he was.”

  “Then you can either accept her help, thank her profusely, and treat the boy with the utmost respect—which you would do anyway—and therefore gain some of her trust back. Or you could thank her for her offer to help you, then go find the boy on your own, also gaining back some of her trust.”

  He stared at Dalton.

  Dalton raised his eyebrows. “You have to admit those are decent ideas.”

  “They put me right back where I was when I asked, ‘What do I do now?’ ”

  “Okay, so what do you want to do?”

  He laid his head on the back of the couch. “Give up.”

  “That wasn’t one of the options I offered.”

  He leaned forward. “I want to be able to sit down with Haley and reason with her and fix this.”

  “Buddy, let me give you a little piece of advice. I know I’m not a font of wisdom, but I have learned a thing or two being married even for a short time. Women don’t generally want us guys to fix anything—unless it’s something like the garbage disposal or computer. When it comes to emotional things, it’s best just to listen.”

  “If she won’t talk to me, then I can’t listen—and fix this.”

  Dalton shook his head and headed off to the shower.

  He wanted to fix this. He needed to fix it. But he didn’t know how. How could he convince Haley to listen? To understand? He had never felt this bad about Michelle or anyone else. The break with Haley hurt deeper than anything since his dad had died.

  ❧

  Brent woke at three in the morning, pulled his laptop onto his stomach where he was lying on the couch, and switched it on. He flipped through Haley’s file. His heart ached to relive the day they’d spent together there on the mainland. “What can I do to make it up to you, to help you understand?”

  Fourteen

  The early morning service had not yet begun when Haley scanned the inside of the church and found Shane, Jason, and Veronique sitting in a middle pew.

  Jason sat on the aisle. “We can all move down.” He started to stand.

  “That’s okay. I can sit down there.” She scooted past Jason and Shane and sat on the other side of Veronique.

  Veronique leaned over to her. “Did you tell him?” She raised an eyebrow toward Shane, who was sitting next to her.

  Haley nodded. “We’re meeting Brent at noon.” She leaned forward to look past Veronique and touched Shane’s arm. “I’ll meet you on Market Street in front of the post office. We’ll walk over together from there.”

  Shane nodded. “Does he know to meet us there?”

  “Not yet.”

  “How will you tell him?”

  “He knows I drive a carriage. He’ll come.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “He wants to find you.”

  Shane looked a little pale with that comment. Haley knew he wanted to meet with Brent, but it was obvious he was also nervous about it. She hoped she was doing the right thing. But then it wasn’t her decision; it was Shane’s. She was only going to be there to support her friend.

  ❧

  The day was cool and cloudy when Brent stepped off the ferry, but at least the rain from yesterday had stopped. He scanned the people milling around the dock but didn’t see Haley. He had expected her to be at the dock—well, half expected. Had she changed her mind about helping him? He had changed his mind about accepting her help. He was going to do this on his own and show her he wasn’t trying to use her.

  He headed toward the carriage tour site and skimmed as many faces as he could while walking in case Haley was on her way to the dock. He didn’t want to miss her. He stopped across the street from the carriage loading area and waited. The first carriage came and went. And the second. But the driver of the third was the familiar face that made his heart pick up its pace. She wore her hair in braids again. He’d forgotten her hair weapon. He should have brought it to return to her.

  He stepped off the curb and nearly sideswiped a bicyclist. Fortunately the girl was coasting slowly, and he reach
ed out to balance her. “I’m sorry. My fault.”

  The girl looked up at him, and her smile broadened. “No problem.” She pedaled away but glanced back at him.

  He took a deep breath and continued toward Haley’s carriage, circling around the front of the horses. He put his hand on the front of the carriage. “I thought you’d be at the dock this morning.”

  She kept her gaze on the edge of the carriage. “I can’t miss any more work.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “We’ll be at the park at noon or so if you still want to talk to Justin.”

  She strained her voice a little on “Justin.” “That won’t be necessary. I’m going to find him on my own.”

  She looked at him for the first time. “For some strange reason, he wants to meet with you. So we will be there. Please don’t waste his time.”

  He wanted to beg her to reconsider. If he could just talk to her so he could gauge how she felt about helping him; but her carriage was filling up, and this was no place to have that kind of discussion. “I’ll be there. By the statue.”

  She checked for traffic, and he stepped back and watched her pull away.

  So now what was he supposed to do? Look for Justin until noon and hope he found him first? Or do nothing and wait for noon?

  ❧

  Near noon when she rode up the street toward the post office, Shane was sitting on the curb with his hands hanging over his knees, his bike parked near him. She stopped her bike in front of him but still straddled it. “Are you nervous?”

  “My palms are sweaty.” He stood and wiped them down his denim shorts.

  “Just tell him the truth, and you’ll be off the hook. You haven’t done anything wrong. He can’t make you do anything or go anywhere you don’t want to.”

  “What if he’s a cop and is here to arrest me?”

  She swung her leg over the back of the bike and got off. “On what charge? Helping a friend? Lying? They don’t put people in jail for that. And I don’t think he’s a cop.” At least she hoped not. But she had been wrong about him before. She never would have guessed him to be a private investigator looking for her friend either.