Island of Second Chances

by Cara Lockwood

  “What is it? You look like you just found out your dog died.” Mark dropped his spatula on the kitchen counter. “Come on. Spit it out.”

  Dave laughed, a nervous little bark. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you always were a lousy actor,” Mark said. He turned the stove off, the smell of freshly cooked scrambled eggs filling the air.

  Dave looked like he was about to face a firing squad. He glanced once more at Laura.

  “Look, she can hear whatever it is you have to say,” Mark said, suddenly not caring. “We decided we don’t have secrets.” He winked at her and she smiled shyly.

  “I don’t know how to say this.” Dave glanced down, looking ashamed.

  Fear and apprehension rose in Mark’s chest. He remembered what his brother had told him about trusting his friends. Had Edward gotten to him? Had Dave been bought?

  But they’d been good friends for years, worked side by side on winning boats for the last three years. Sure, Edward had been part of that, but Mark always thought of Dave as his friend first. After all, Mark had been the one to find him in Florida and recruit him to come sail the Tanner boat in the race.

  Dave had helped the Tanner brothers win prize money that they ultimately put into Tanner Boating. Dave, of course, had his own money, after inheriting a multimillion-dollar corporation from his dad. He largely lived off a trust fund, using his free time to sail, which had become his life’s passion. Edward couldn’t bribe Dave. It’s one reason Mark had been so certain Dave would be on his side.

  “I can’t race with you.”

  “What do you mean, ‘can’t’?” Mark felt the panic rise in his throat. Why couldn’t Dave race?

  “You know Katie and Elle are friends.”

  Elle, Mark’s ex-wife. Yes, he knew Elle and Katie were friends—good friends. Best of friends, actually. The four of them had been nearly inseparable when they’d been a couple. But since the separation and then divorce, Dave and Katie had worked hard to befriend them both. “Yes,” Mark said carefully. “But so are we.” He paused, suddenly wondering if that were still true. “Aren’t we, Dave?”

  “Of course, we are. You know that. It’s just...”

  Mark wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what came next.

  “Listen, you know that I’m on your side,” Dave said. “But Katie is pregnant, and so is—”

  “I know,” Mark interrupted, holding up his hand. He didn’t want to talk about how Elle was expecting his brother’s baby. Dave suddenly couldn’t look Mark in the eye. “She feels that she’s got to take Elle’s side, and she’s asked me—” Dave swallowed hard “—not to race with you.”

  “What?” Mark felt the betrayal like a sharp jab to the gut. He felt irrational anger flare up in his chest. Why would she ask him to do that? And where were Dave’s balls? Was he just going to roll over because his wife said so? Mark had done a lot of good things for Elle and Dave, and he’d been good friends with both of them.

  In the living room, Laura sat stock-still, just listening, eyes wide. But he had more important things to worry about than what she thought of this mess. The eggs he’d just cooked were getting cold, but he didn’t care. Breakfast hardly seemed important. “But what about the boat for Timothy? What about sailing around the world?”

  He felt his plan slipping away. He needed that plan. He’d been counting on it.

  “I’m sorry, Mark. But I won’t be able to help you finish it or race with you. If it were just up to me, then I’d be with you, man. But I’m in a tough spot here.” Dave’s eyes begged for mercy. “If I don’t do this,” Dave added. “I think Katie might seriously leave me.”

  “After all Elle did to me? She ran off with Edward!” She’s having his baby.

  “You know she wasn’t the only one who made mistakes.” Dave let the accusation hang there. Sure, throw that in his face, now that he was down.

  “That’s not fair.” Mark felt the need to defend himself. He knew they all took her side, even though she’d done the unthinkable with Edward. But his son had died. How else was a father supposed to act?

  “What about your brother? Is Garrett with you?”

  Dave shrugged. “I don’t know, man. You’ll have to ask him.” He paused. “I’m sorry. I am, but this is my wife. Maybe after the baby comes, she’ll calm down a little about all this.” Dave sounded more hopeful than Mark felt. He also looked miserable, caught between his wife and best friend.

  Mark knew then that it went deeper than just keeping peace at home. This was about prioritizing your wife above your friends, and on some level, Mark had to respect that. He didn’t have to like it, but he’d have to live with it.

  “Look, I don’t want to come between you. I know how much you love each other.” Mark did. But he couldn’t look his friend in the face now, either. He knew their friendship was irrevocably damaged. He also knew he couldn’t ask his friend to give up his wife for him.

  “Thanks, man.” Dave clapped his friend on the shoulder, but Mark only felt the sting of the slap. He knew he was doing the right thing, but it still felt rotten. He was losing one of his closest friends. And he just assumed Garrett would be a lost cause. The two were brothers, and blood was thicker than water.

  “I won’t ask Garrett to choose, either,” Mark said. They’d lost one crew member, so what was one more? The two of them couldn’t race alone anyway. “So that leaves me on my own.” Mark couldn’t help but state the obvious. The words left a bitter taste in his mouth, but then why should he be surprised?

  He was always on his own. Nobody but him. Since Timothy had died. Since even before then. If there was one thing this world had taught him, it was don’t rely on anybody else. “It’ll be a shame, two of the best sailors on the island sitting this race out.” Mark meant it as a statement of fact, but it came out sounding bitter.

  “Listen, Mark. I...” Dave stopped. There was nothing more he could say. Not really. “I guess I’ll go.”

  “I think that’s best,” Mark agreed, feeling bitter disappointment settle in his stomach.

  Dave didn’t offer his hand and Mark didn’t either as Dave slowly walked to the door. Mark felt like the last hope for his boat, for his promise to Timothy, walked straight out the door.

  Chapter Six

  “WELL, THAT WASN’T very neighborly,” declared Laura, at a loss for what else to say. She’d heard of friends taking sides in a divorce, but she’d never seen a guy bail out of a friendship faster than that before. And especially not when his friend lost his son. What kind of friend did that?

  “No, it wasn’t,” Mark agreed, but the dark cloud was back at him again, the lighthearted banter gone.

  “Was he going to help you restore the boat, too?”

  Mark nodded. “Not that I’ll even be able to finish it now.” He turned abruptly then and stalked out onto the back patio.

  Now would probably be a good time for Laura to leave. After all, she’d already intruded too much, and her head still felt like it was in a vice. Yet, she wasn’t about to leave him like Dave had. She knew what it felt like to be abandoned.

  She followed him as he walked out to his workshop. He crossed his arms and glared at the boat’s hull.

  “What if I help?” she asked, not even sure if she could. Her head still distantly throbbed from her hangover. Still, what was a headache compared to losing a child?

  She knew the boat was his way of dealing with losing his son, and well, she couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.

  He scoffed, keeping his back to her. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I know what it feels like to lose hope,” she said. “If this boat can bring back yours, then we need to do this.” Laura never felt more certain of anything in her life. Yes, Mark was prickly and sometimes hard to deal with and teased her relentlessly, but if she could help him overcome his grief for his son,
then she’d do it. She’d want the same for herself.

  He paused, and his shoulders shrank a little.

  “But what about racing it? I need at least three more sailors.”

  Laura frowned as she glanced at him and then the boat. “But you’re going to sail the world by yourself?”

  “Racing is a different animal, because everything is about speed. That’s why you need more hands—literally—on deck.”

  Laura nodded, still in problem-solving mode. “Do you know other sailors on the island?”

  Mark seemed to consider this. “Maybe. Not as good as Dave.”

  “But, can’t we find other sailors? There have to be some on the island.”

  Mark shook his head. He put his hand on the hull of the boat. “Look, Laura, I appreciate you trying to help. But this isn’t your problem.”

  “Mark.” Laura wanted to help. She needed to help. She felt it in her bones. This was the first time since her miscarriage she’d actually cared about something.

  “No. Laura. Just...” Mark waved a frustrated hand. “Just go. Please.”

  “But—”

  Mark let out an exasperated sigh. “Go,” he growled. The force in his voice surprised her. She was on her feet, her heart thudding in her chest. Why was he turning her away?

  He stomped away to the beach, leaving her staring after him, wondering why he was so angry and why he didn’t want her help.

  * * *

  WHY WAS THIS so hard? Mark kicked the sand in front of him with his bare toes, watching it go scattering across the beach the very next morning. He’d spent the night tossing and turning, unable to think of a way to replace Dave, not knowing how he could even restore the boat by himself.

  His dreams were dashed. He couldn’t even be mad at Dave, exactly. He got that he had to stand by his wife, but why was Katie taking Elle’s side? She’d slept with his own brother, hell, run off with him, and Mark was the bad guy?

  But then again, he knew why. He blamed her for Timothy’s death. There’d been the accusation of neglect. Of why she’d let him walk into the ocean that day.

  The words bubbled up in him still, a seething indictment of his ex-wife’s careless mistake. Anger still burned in him. If he’d been on the beach that day, maybe things would’ve been different.

  But he hadn’t been.

  And they weren’t.

  And now, the one thing he’d been clinging to for months, this race and this boat, weren’t even an option anymore.

  He got about halfway down the stretch of beach near the condo and then slumped into the sand, suddenly drained of all energy. He watched the blue-green waves wash up on the shore, the sea foam bubbling against the wet sand, and wondered if he ought to just walk out to sea himself.

  The waves rolled in endlessly to shore, and Mark let his mind wander once more to that dark place. Why wait until his trip around the world to get closer to Timothy? He could just get up on his feet and walk right into the ocean. Then all of this pain, all of this grief and loss, would end.

  He pulled himself to his feet, not bothering to dust the sand from his shorts. Why bother? He whipped off his shirt and dropped it listlessly to the sand. Would someone find it? Would anyone even notice he was gone? Who would come looking for him?

  Edward?

  Laura?

  The thought of Laura’s bright green eyes stopped him a second. He didn’t know why. He’d just met the woman. Yet something made him pause.

  Her loud laugh? The way she’d run, drunk, down the beach away from him, her white, pale legs pumping hard as she sprinted away from her troubles?

  But even she wasn’t enough. No boat. No race. No Timothy. It all felt so overwhelming and hopeless.

  This time, he’d do it, he thought as he took a step forward into the warm Caribbean, the water lapping at his tanned toes. He took another step and he found himself ankle deep. Another two steps and the water lapped above his knees, warm, inviting. The solution to all his problems. If he couldn’t sail on the ocean to be closer to Timothy, then he’d get closer this way.

  Did his boy walk out from this very spot? he wondered. He could have, midway between the condo and the natural, sloping dunes ahead of him.

  Mark heard the seagulls calling and looked up, seeing the birds circling above him in the clear blue sky. Had that been the last thing Timothy had seen before he’d gotten swept under the waves?

  Another step and he was waist deep. He could feel the sandy bottom with his toes, knew the drop off was coming soon, where it went from three feet to eight in a matter of inches. Tiny little silver fish swam around him in the ocean, glinting in the sun. Had Timothy gone after one of them? Delighted by their shine? Completely unaware of how dangerous the ocean could be, the water that would keep coming. The boy was too young to float. His life jacket had been abandoned on the beach, on the towel where his mother lay, eyes closed, drifting off to sleep.

  Mark was about twenty feet out now. He took another step and the sandy bottom of the ocean floor fell away from him, and he sank, his head dipping below the water, his body buoyed by the cool salty waves. Water rushed into his ears and his nose, though he clamped his mouth shut on reflex, holding his breath. He slipped downward, below the sparkling surface, below the sunlight that beamed through the top of the water.

  He reached the sandy bottom, still holding his breath, the surface just a few feet above his head. He held his breath until his lungs ached, and then he released it, the bubbles floating upward to the surface and the sunlight. He looked up, his lungs burning, as each second increased his need to draw air, his lungs angrily protesting the lack of oxygen.

  He tried to keep himself still, but his arms and legs defied him, and eventually he kicked frantically to the surface, exploding upward and drawing in a huge breath.

  He was alive.

  And he was a coward.

  I can’t even do this, he thought. Even his own body defied him. He simply wasn’t able to keep himself below the surface. How unfair, when Timothy would’ve fought against the waves uselessly, his arms not strong enough to keep himself afloat without his life preserver. Mark turned back to the shore.

  He saw Laura standing there, waving. This day she wore a gauzy, flowered sundress that just hit her knees. Her legs were still pale, almost as white as the small white flowers in the print.

  Was she shouting something at him? Impossible to tell with the waves in his ears, the sound of water rushing all around him. He swam away from the deep, and eventually hit soft sand again as he walked toward her. What did she want?

  Had she seen him try to kill himself? Had she seen him fail?

  “Are you all right?” she asked him, green eyes concerned as she looked him up and down.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” he snapped, defensive.

  “I saw you walk out there, and then you just...disappeared.” She pointed to the roiling waves. “It’s like you...I don’t know...like you sank on purpose.” She shook her head, her dark bob shaking back and forth. She bit her lip, clearly not ready to call him suicidal. Did she suspect?

  “Just cooling off,” he lied, not wanting to get into it, not wanting to burden Laura, or to open up the door to a million questions he couldn’t answer. “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” she said, meeting his gaze with determination. She looked like she was about to give him a lecture. What had he done now?

  “You found me.” He grabbed his shirt from the sand and shook it off, then he used it as a makeshift towel, wiping the stinging salt water from his face.

  “You need my help.”

  Did she mean to prevent him from killing himself? His heart rate ticked up. “With what?”

  “Your boat. Restoring it. Sailing it.” She swept her arms wide.

  He scoffed. “Do you know how to sail? How to restore a boat?”
r />   “No. But you can teach me.” She crossed her arms across her chest, determination in the bent of her brow.

  “Look, Laura, I appreciate the help, but...” How could she help him? It would take longer for him to teach her how to restore the boat than to just do it himself.

  “No.” She shook her head, lips pressed into a thin line. “You don’t understand. You’re not going to put me off or tell me thanks but no thanks. I’m not going away.”

  “I’m not even sure we can restore the boat in time, and even if we did, we’d need three more people to help race it.”

  “We can find them.” She was so stubbornly hopeful. Why?

  Mark let out a long breath. “Why are you so determined? This isn’t even your project.”

  “I need this,” she said. “You don’t know why I’m really here.”

  “Because your affair with Dean the Prick ended badly,” Mark said, remembering her drunken tirade from the other night.

  “That’s not it. Not really.” She took a deep breath and hugged herself tighter. “I’m here because I got pregnant. By Dean. I lost—” Laura sucked in a deep breath, the emotions seeming to overwhelm her “—the baby. I don’t even know if I can have another one, or if I ever will.”

  Mark stood stock-still. He recognized the grief in her face, in the tremble of her voice. He’d known all along she suffered a loss. Maybe not like his, maybe different, but loss all the same. The pieces all fell together then. That’s why she fell apart when she saw Timothy’s baby video. Grief.

  “And, I need something, like you need something,” she continued, swiping angrily at the tears that sprang to her eyes. “I thought cashing in my 401(k) and coming here would be enough but it isn’t. It isn’t enough. I need something. I need to put my hands to work, like you. I need to find something to take my mind off this...god-awful loss. Or I’m going to lose it.”

  Mark knew the feeling. It’s why he began restoring his father’s old boat; it’s why he hatched this plan. Putting his hands to work was a defense against the grief, against the black hole of darkness that threatened to suck him in and never let him out.