“Help?” he cried, sweeping his arms wide to encompass the disaster before him, even as he noticed that one of the soda cans opened on impact, sending a spray of sticky liquid onto his bare feet and all over the expensive blade of his saw. Great, just great. “Why don’t you just punch me in the face next time? You’ll create less damage.”
An annoyed wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows. “Don’t tempt me,” she shot back, clutching the new empty cooler beneath one elbow, her green eyes shining like emeralds with just barely contained anger. “Maybe I should have. You were running around in a panic instead of dealing with the fire.”
Oh, good grief. He wasn’t panicked. He was calm and collected. He never panicked. What was she talking about?
“I wasn’t panicking,” he said. “I was going to get something to put the fire out.”
“By running around like a chicken with his head cut off.” A knowing smirk tugged at her mouth.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
Now she was making him argue like a five-year-old. Unbelievable.
“Glad I was walking by because you clearly needed help. I saved your boat.” She nodded toward the husk of his boat. He glanced down and noticed that she’d also splashed one end, which carried the hint of char on one board, where the fire had lapped dangerously close to his baby.
He dropped to his knees to inspect the board and make sure it hadn’t been damaged. If he had to start the frame all over again... But, no, the damage was surface only, just a small smudge mark he could all but wipe off with his finger.
“I know you meant well, but I didn’t ask for your help.” He knew he was being ungrateful, and he didn’t like it, but she was like a cow skipping through a china shop, destroying everything in her wake and then demanding he thank her for the damage. He knew the woman was trying to help, but now he had to worry about his saw and whether the soda had damaged it.
But first, he inspected Timothy’s shoes, connected by a single string, and thankfully saw no damage. He gently placed them back on the nail, hanging by the particle-board backstop of his worktable. Then he picked up the saw. He unplugged it from the extension cord and wiped it down with a work rag nearby.
If it was damaged, he didn’t know how he’d replace it. And without a saw, what would he do? He’d never finish the boat on time.
Then he heard a sound. A high-pitched crying. A baby. His phone! Somehow, in the chaos, it had been flung into the sand. He grabbed it, noticing that the impact had started an old video of Timothy from when he was just a baby. He was crying, fussy for his nap.
Mark clicked off the video and wiped off the screen, which was covered in dots of sticky soda.
That’s when he realized she was still standing there. What was she doing? Hadn’t he made it clear she wasn’t welcome?
He glanced up and saw that she seemed frozen in place. She glanced at Timothy’s bronze baby shoes and at the phone he still held in his hand, her face a mixture of grief and pain. He felt all those emotions he saw fighting for control behind her sea green eyes. He knew them all—pain, grief and an aggressive, bottomless loss of hope. But why did hearing a simple video of Timothy make her feel this way? What had happened to her? Or was she just unhinged for some other reason?
“Laura,” he said, and then stopped. What was he going to ask her? Are you okay?
She turned then, eyes brimming with tears, and he knew with a certainty that whatever had triggered this grief was still fresh. Before he could say any more, she dropped the cooler and sprinted away from him.
He felt a sudden urge to go after her, but then what? Maybe she wasn’t grieving. Maybe she was just a crazy person. Maybe he was projecting his own feelings on her. What did he know?
Still, he felt guilty. Guilty because somehow he’d made her cry. And guilty because he knew she suffered in some deep, damaged way that only someone who’d lost something truly dear to them would know. It didn’t sit right with him. He felt the need to make it up to her.
“Well, damn,” he muttered beneath his breath as he swiped up the cooler she’d dropped. “Now I’m going to have to do something nice.”
It went against his gruff, no-nonsense, let’s-not-spend-time-talking-about-our-feelings self. He’d never been a touchy-feely guy, but he couldn’t just let her suffer alone. He knew what that felt like.
* * *
LAURA FLED TO her condo and flung herself on the bed, angrily swiping the tears from her face. She hated that she’d become so weak, so completely unstable that a simple video of a baby and some bronzed baby shoes could so undo her in the moment.
It wasn’t right. She should be getting better, and yet, she just seemed to be getting worse. She was a walking sponge, just oozing tears all the time. She just wanted it to stop, all of it. St. Anthony’s was supposed to be the place where she got away from all the things that hurt her, where she could finally heal. After all, the island was named for the patron saint of lost things. And she’d never felt more lost in her whole life.
Why did this happen to her? Why had God seen fit to take her baby away before he could even be born? Why was she the only one mourning him?
But then again, she knew why. She’d been wrong, so very wrong, to be in love with Dean. This was God punishing her, she felt, for the mistake she made: falling in love with a married man.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Dean was a mistake. She knew that. But, the baby wasn’t. No matter what anybody said.
Her sister had told her that she’d have other babies. But Laura didn’t want another baby. She wanted the baby she lost. She glanced down at her flat belly, hidden beneath her flowing cover-up. Now it might never be full.
She wished she could talk to her mother. Get some measure of comfort, but her mother had died years ago.
Feeling lost and alone, her willpower crumbling, she grabbed her phone and dialed Dean’s work cell.
He answered on the second ring. “Hello?” he sounded harried, his voice low.
“Dean?” She hated how angry he sounded that she’d called, how disappointed. He used to always sound happy when he heard her voice. Now he always sounded like she was calling to deliver bad news.
“What are you doing calling me?” he whispered, his voice a furious, low buzz. Then, she realized that he must be at his house. The house he still shared with his wife.
“Dean. I’m sorry... I’m just...” Lost. Alone. Hurting. Wishing that you still loved me...or that you’d ever loved me at all. She hated all the desperate feelings that bubbled up, determined to break the surface. Dean sure had been happy to hear about the miscarriage. Ecstatic, even. Why did she think he’d comfort her now?
Dean sighed, a sound full of patronizing pity, and she felt even worse. “Look,” he said, voice softer. “I’ll try to call you when I get into work, okay?”
She heard shuffling in the background, and then a voice. His wife’s? She felt her stomach tighten with jealousy.
“I’ve got to go. I have to take my wife to the doctor,” he said, louder this time, in a voice that sounded too businesslike, and she knew that Angela was in the room. He was pretending to talk to someone at work.
“Is she all right?” Laura asked, cautious. After all, she wasn’t heartless.
“Well, we were going to tell everyone at the office this week, but she’s sixteen weeks pregnant.”
The words hit Laura like a ton of bricks. She felt all the wind knocked out of her lungs. Pregnant? His wife was...pregnant? Laura was speechless. Words failed her.
“Oh, yes, thanks,” Dean prattled on in a pretend conversation with a coworker who didn’t exist. Completely oblivious or not caring that he’d shattered what was left of her world. “I’ll check in with you when I’m back in the office. Thanks. Bye.”
And then he hung up, the line dead as she clutched her phone in her numb hand. Dean’s wif
e was pregnant. She was going to have a baby.
Sixteen weeks along?
She’d been twelve weeks along just a month ago when she’d lost her baby. That meant...
That meant that he had to have known that his wife was pregnant at the same time Laura was. That also meant that he had been having sex with Laura at the same time he had sex with his wife. The wife he claimed he hadn’t touched in two years, the wife who apparently hated sex. But she didn’t hate it enough to get pregnant apparently, Laura thought bitterly.
She knew Dean had lied, but this...this was a whole other level.
No wonder he’d been so relieved when she’d lost the baby. There was no way he’d leave his pregnant wife. Besides, there was no reason he’d leave his wife, period, not if Angela was actually a loving partner rather than the cold, distant monster he’d described.
Suddenly, she felt a searing rush of rage. She ought to pick up that phone and call his home landline to try to talk to his wife. Or message her on Facebook. Shouldn’t she know she was married to the worst kind of liar?
But then the rage drained out of her and all she felt was pain. She’d been so incredibly stupid. Why had she ever believed a word he said?
And when, oh, when would God stop punishing her? She knew she’d made a mistake, but when would she be forgiven? She’d asked so many times, in church, on the plane here and once again now. Please. I’m sorry. I was wrong.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, but eventually the daylight faded outside and dark shadows covered the length of the condo. She ought to try to get up, find something to eat for dinner, but she couldn’t muster the strength or the will to do it. Why bother?
She heard a soft knock on her door distantly and wondered if she’d imagined it. She lay quietly, listening.
Another knock sounded, followed by silence.
Nope, definitely someone at the door. But she couldn’t muster the energy to get to her feet. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to leave the bed again. She lay motionless, anticipating another knock, but it never came.
Good, she thought. Whoever it was went away.
She felt a sudden urge to move, to get out of the condo. She hated wallowing in self-pity. It just wasn’t her. Maybe going to the beach would clear her head? After all, she’d traveled all this way, paid to be here. What was the use of being on an amazing tropical island if she was just going to stay cooped up inside?
She sniffed, pulled on a pair of jean cutoffs over her bathing suit and stuffed a wad of tissues in her pocket. Then she flung open the front door and found her cooler waiting for her there. The cooler she’d dropped downstairs at Mark’s workshop.
She reached down to pick it up and found it heavier than an empty cooler should be. Laura set it down once more and lifted the hinged lid. Inside, she found her Cokes and four bottles of beer. Along with that was a hastily scribbled note that read:
Sorry about earlier.
Mark
P.S. If you want company while you drink these, you know where to find me.
Chapter Four
AT FIRST, LAURA laughed out loud. Mark expected her to come over for a drink? After how rude he’d been? After he’d practically shouted at her when she’d put out a fire?
Then, after the laughter faded, she reconsidered. It was a nice gesture. Surprisingly nice from a man she could best describe as gruff, and at worst, surly.
The exact opposite of Dean in his heyday. Dean, who used sweet words and bright promises to charm everybody he met. It was why he’d been the director of sales at her former company. He could sell anything to anybody. Mark wasn’t like that. He could barely sell an apology, she reasoned. Sorry about earlier? About when? When she’d saved his workshop from fire and he’d told her he didn’t need her help? Or when he’d implied her thoughts about noise pollution were completely moot?
But, given how Dean turned out, maybe she should give gruff a try. Besides, what was one beer? Part of her didn’t want to be alone right now. She didn’t want to stew in her own misery, to turn over all the ways Dean had betrayed her in his mind, to face the yawning black chasm of her own sadness. Dean would have a baby, all right. Just not hers.
Then again, smooth-talking Dean had turned out to be a liar. Maybe the opposite of Dean was just what she needed right now.
Honestly, she wanted a distraction. Any distraction.
She grabbed the cooler and headed downstairs.
As she stood in front of his metal door, she knocked, the tin plunking sound reverberating in her stomach. The door swung open and Mark greeted her with a neutral expression.
He’d put on a shirt and taken a shower, she saw, as his hair was still wet. The faded T-shirt stuck to his very muscular chest, leaving little to her imagination. This was better than a frown, and yet still she felt like she might be intruding.
“Uh. Just wanted to thank you for this.” She lifted the cooler. He glanced at it, mute. Did he not write the note that invited her to come over for a drink? Was he not going to invite her inside?
She hesitated on his welcome mat, wondering if she’d read the entire note wrong. It certainly seemed like an invitation. “Well, then.” She hated awkward silences. Why was he just staring and not saying anything? “I guess I’ll go.”
She was halfway turned around when his voice stopped her. “Did you want to come in?”
“Uh...sure?” she said, glancing at him over her shoulder. “I mean. If you’re not busy.”
He slowly shook his head, dark eyes watching her. “Not busy.” Then he retreated from the door, leaving it open, and she stepped into his condo.
The place smelled like the open air of the beach and ocean because his patio doors were flung wide open. His workshop and the partially restored boat obscured some of the dark, rolling sea, but she could hear the waves gently lapping against the beach. Outside, the moon rose above the ocean, casting a silver light on the water.
The layout of his place was largely the same as hers, although his kitchen was slightly bigger and newer. Instead of touristy bamboo furniture, his was entirely dark, simple wood and modern lines. Also, his place was twice the size of hers; he’d knocked down a wall and made two condos into one. Somehow his place seemed more masculine, too, yet tastefully decorated. A large photograph of a sailboat hung on one large wall near the kitchen, drawing her eye. The matting said Tanner.
“Your boat?” she asked. She set the cooler on his kitchen counter and walked up to the oversize photo of the impressive sailboat to study it.
“My brother’s now. But used to be, yeah.” He fell silent once more as he whipped the bottles of beer out of the cooler and popped open the caps with an opener. Laura suspected there might be a story there but didn’t push it. Mark was a hard man to read, and she was still feeling him out.
“Is the one you’re building going to be like that?” she asked.
“Kind of,” he said, handing her a bottle.
She took it gratefully, wondering if a little beer would make conversation less like pulling teeth. They clinked bottles and Laura took a deep swig of the cold, fizzy beverage, letting the lager slip down her throat. She’d only just starting drinking her first beer and already she wanted her second.
“Want to sit outside?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered a little too quickly. She took another deep swig of the beer.
“You need another one of those?” he asked her, and Laura realized she’d drank nearly half the beer already.
“Probably.” She sighed, thinking about how lately every day just screamed for strong drinks and lots of them. “It’s been that kind of day.”
“For you, too, huh?”
She glanced at his dark eyes and thought she saw a flicker of pity there. Or maybe understanding. She nodded. “I plan to drown my sorrows in alcohol.”
“Well, then, we’
re going to get along just fine, after all.” Mark reached back in his fridge and grabbed a few more bottles, loading up her small cooler so full that the lid wouldn’t close. “I was going to finish up this beer alone, which probably means I’m an alcoholic. If we do it together, then we’re both just being social.”
He laughed and she joined him.
He lifted the cooler and headed outside. Laura followed, the warm ocean breeze ruffling her short hair as she followed him past his workshop. The full moon hung in the sky and shed a gray light on the beach. He’d set up two beach chairs not far from his shop, facing out to the ocean.
“Beautiful,” she said, staring at the moon, amazed at how many stars she could see here, far away from the lights of the city.
“Yeah,” he agreed. They both sat in the chairs and he laid the cooler between them. “You never really get used to it.”
Laura finished her first beer and Mark handed her a second. He whistled, sounding impressed. “Boy, you weren’t kidding about the alcohol.”
“I don’t know if you have enough beer to make me forget about my day.” Dean was going to be a father. She might never be a mother. “It’s the worst ever.”
“Can’t be, because mine definitely was,” Mark said as he took a sip of beer. “Started with this pretty lady yelling at me for working in the morning, except that it was practically lunchtime and...”
Pretty lady? The compliment didn’t slip past Laura. He thought she was good-looking?
“Okay, okay, okay.” Laura raised her beer bottle like a shield. “Sorry about that. I was jet-lagged. I thought it was early.”
“Uh-huh.” Mark grinned, flashing a teasing smile that somehow looked even brighter in the moonlight. Laura couldn’t help but think how handsome he was when he wasn’t solemn or grumpy. “Well, apology accepted.”
“And what about you, Mr. Grumpy Guy With a Saw, who might also be a pyromaniac?”
“I’m not a...” Mark frowned, but then he pointed his beer bottle at Laura. “You’re teasing me.”
Island of Second Chances Page 3
