If they kissed like this, imagine, just imagine what they could do…in other situations. She giggled, right in the middle of their kiss. Just a soft giggle, not enough to break the kiss. But when she did it again, he backed away with a cute, questioning look on his face.
“What are you laughing about?”
She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to his. “When we kiss, I feel this tickle in my stomach, and it makes me laugh.”
He stroked the side of her face. “Maddie, you’re too much.”
“Mm,” she said as the last of her giggle came out. “Or maybe you’re my angel after all. Not in a Heavenly way,” she added when he gave her a skeptical look. “But, like you said, maybe Wayne did send you here not to heal me, but to help me heal myself.”
He brushed her hair back from her face. “That would make you your own angel.”
“You can’t be your own angel.” She forced herself to get off his lap, because it felt too good, too natural sitting there. “Maybe…there’s just you and me. For now, for these moments.” She remained standing in front of him.
“For now,” he repeated, that serious look in his eyes again.
“Maybe you’ll come back someday.”
“Don’t wait for me like you waited for that angel. I may not be back depending on what I find.”
She tried really hard not to pout. “But you promised you wouldn’t forget me.”
“I won’t.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “But I don’t know what’s waiting for me when I get back to my life.”
“Like a wife.” She waited when his nod wasn’t convincing. “There’s something else, isn’t there? Something you’re not telling me.”
He rubbed his nose. “You know everything.”
“Tell me.”
“Maddie, I…” He searched her eyes. “I was fighting with someone before I fell off the boat.”
Her heart squeezed at the thought of someone hurting him. “Did you just remember this?”
“No.”
“Then how…”
“When I was pulled out of the ocean, it looked like someone had scratched me. I had bruises on my knuckles. When the clues lead me home, I may not know who I was fighting. If I don’t get any memories from that day, I’m walking into my life blindfolded.”
“Someone pushed you off the boat?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m a violent person. Maybe I was trying to push them off.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut as though he had a sudden headache.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Were you never going to tell me?”
“Probably not.”
She pushed away and started throwing the dishes from dinner into her cooler. “You talk a good game, telling Mom how strong I am. But you don’t believe it, do you?”
He jumped down from the table. “Yes, I do. But you’re still fragile in some ways. You’re not invincible, Maddie.”
She’d grabbed up the cooler and faced him. “You’re right. I’m not invincible. And maybe when you leave, I’ll go back to being Baby again. It’s not a bad place to be.”
She felt like an abandoned child, alone without her security blanket. All those independent, womanly feelings had fled. Because she didn’t know what to say, she turned and left.
And even when she was sitting on the couch with the moping Colleen, and her family all around, Maddie still felt all alone.
Maddie wasn’t one to be easily scared off, Chase realized when she showed up for work Monday morning. But her bravery came and went, not that he could blame her. She wasn’t going to go from being “Baby” to being Maddie-the-woman overnight. At least she was dressed more like a woman in jean shorts and a blue shirt without lace or cartoon adornments.
When she took in the boat, her mouth tightened to a line. Another notch on the sad meter. “Wow, you’ve gotten a lot done.” And she wasn’t happy about it. He didn’t want to think about it being because that meant he’d be leaving soon.
“Thought you weren’t coming back,” was all he’d commit to.
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I thought about not coming back. How much easier it’d be, you know, to just let go and be done with it.” She met his eyes, and he didn’t see any indication of easier in them. “All it took was one day of being Baby again to convince me I can’t go back. All I have to do is figure out who Maddie is now.”
“It’ll be a fun journey.”
“Like finding out who Chase is?”
He felt his face darken, but said, “Right.” Then he busied himself with tightening the gudgeons that held the rudder in place. The memories that were returning were vague and elusive. Each one flashed in and out of his mind, leaving behind more questions than answers. More uneasiness. None of them fit together, but they each painted a picture of a man he didn’t like. The one he’d had last night was the most disturbing.
He’d been fighting with someone on the deck of a boat. He couldn’t see who he was fighting, but he’d heard a woman scream. Was it that day?
“I said I was sorry,” Maddie was saying when he focused back in. “For stomping off Saturday night. I feel confused about things. Mom seemed happier, probably because I was acting normal, or at least normal in her mind. And I didn’t come here.”
“It’s all right.” He focused on his task, but he could see her shoulders slump at his aloofness. He wanted to remain that way, but he couldn’t. “So, we’re still friends?”
Her mouth quirked. “Sure. Just friends.”
She’d laid some extra emphasis on the ‘just’; it was relief he felt, not disappointment.
“Want to go out for a test drive Tuesday?”
She took in the boat. “On this?”
“Sure.”
“It’s…going to be ready then?”
“Just about. Barnie’s working on the cabinets now. The engine’s been delivered. Tomorrow we’ll pull her out of the warehouse and step the mast. Once the spars and standing rigging is in place, she’ll be ready. Since you were part of making this happen, I think you should come along.”
She glanced out toward the bay and shook her head. “I’ll watch.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid to go.”
She lifted one shoulder in the way that was so Maddie. “It could sink. Make sure to take life vests. What if something malfunctions, and it blows up? The mast could fall down and–”
“Okay already. You don’t have to go.”
“That’s it? You’re not going to give me a hard time? No prodding, or calling me a baby?”
“Nope.” He knew, or at least hoped, she’d do that to herself.
“Really.” She ran her hands across the surface of the boat along the divide between blue and white. “I haven’t been on a boat since Wayne left. Too many bad memories. Other than the Dinky, of course.”
“Considering everything you’ve gone through, it’s understandable that you wouldn’t want to set foot on a real boat.”
“It is understandable. If you’d watched your husband…get into an accident right there in that bay, you’d feel the same.”
He kept his focus on what he was doing and not her. “I’m sure.”
“You’re patronizing me, aren’t you?”
“Not at all. If you’re not comfortable doing something, you shouldn’t do it.”
“Since when are you so nice to me? The Chase I know would be taunting me, telling me it’s time to get on the boat and get over my fears. Telling me that being afraid of everything isn’t living at all. That…” Her eyes narrowed. “How did you do that?”
He gave her an innocent look. “Do what?”
“Get me to say what you should be saying.”
He mirrored her one-shouldered shrug. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m going with you. I put a lot of work into this boat.”
“Fine.”
“Giv
e me something to do before I go crazy.” She pointed at him. “And don’t tell me I don’t have far to go.”
He couldn’t help but smile, even though he didn’t feel much like smiling in general. She was the one who was making him crazy.
CHAPTER 14
When Maddie ran through the cold rain and into the warehouse Tuesday morning, she was shocked to see the boat missing. The big metal building looked empty and forlorn without the boat in some stage of creation. Even the sails weren’t laying in heaps near the back.
“They put it in the bay last night,” Barnie said. She looked around until she spotted him hobbling on his crutches toward her from the back corner. “And a beautiful sight it was as it touched down into the water…and didn’t sink.” He rubbed his bristly chin and chuckled. “Aw, Maddie, don’t look so dejected. You knew it had to come. Hell, you helped it come faster.”
“I’m not dejected. Life will be a lot simpler when he’s gone.” She glanced outside and saw the new sailboat docked near The Barnacle. It was rocking in the choppy water. “I’m supposed to go with him on the test run.”
“Nobody’s running today. Squalls predicted out there, lots of rain. Weather bought you another day. Chase’s just making sure everything’s tight.”
“Maybe I’ll see if he needs any help.”
“Maddie, wait.”
She didn’t like the somber look on Barnie’s face. “What’s wrong? Did we mess something up? You said it didn’t sink.”
He glanced out to the boat where Chase briefly came into view. “Found out who he is.”
She thought her heart imploded at those words, then that she must be hearing things. “What?”
“Come here.”
The office was dusty, and the desk cluttered with invoices and orders. On one side he’d set up a bunk that was a heap of sheets and pillows. King of clutter, Mom called him.
“No toe space,” he said. “All the hidden storage you get in a boat, don’t have it here.”
He maneuvered to the desk and lowered himself to the chair, leaving his leg outstretched. The computer came to life. “Got to know Chase over these past few weeks. More so in the last week putting in the late hours. Know there were times when he was ready to turn in, and it was late, mind you. He’d go right back at it. Good worker, honest about his time. Lucky to find him.”
“He found you, remember?
“S’pose he did. Now, then…” He focused on the computer, squinting at the small screen.
She heard the modem start dialing. “The Internet?”
“Yup. Took note of the dates and places he mentioned. He checked libraries for newspaper films, but he never had access to the Internet. Or ID to use it.” He gave her a triumphant look. “But I did.”
Maddie crouched down beside Barnie, anticipation humming through her veins. “He’s been worried about being a bad person. He thinks he might be married.”
He lifted his eyebrow but gave nothing away as he pulled up an article from a Florida sailing publication. “He’d been looking too far in the past. Took a few days of poking around in archives. The Miami press ran a couple of stories about it, but when nothing new came up, it kinda faded away. Especially with all the stuff goes on over there. In any case, he might not want to know.”
She looked at Barnie. “You haven’t told him?”
“Nope. Figured you could do that.”
Maddie’s knees went weak, and she gripped the edge of the desk. Why me? But the big question was, “Who is he?”
“Charleston Augustine.”
“Is he married?”
“Divorced, no kids. Father owns an aerospace parts company in Miami. Brother Patrick runs it.”
“And Chase?” She couldn’t see him at a desk.
“Races sailboats. Is rather good at it, too. Found some older articles about his fully-crewed sailboat named Skidbladnir—whatever that means—which his father, who’s interviewed in the article, claims full credit for. Augustine Aero sponsored it. And our friend is more of a risk-taker than Wayne ever thought of being.”
She hoped that was the bad part, and it was bad. “But he’s been pretty careful of…me. I haven’t seen him take any risks.”
He tapped the screen. “This is who he was. Who he might go back to being.”
And it didn’t matter because she wouldn’t see him after tomorrow or maybe the next day. “You said he was a risk-taker.”
“The difference between Chase and Wayne is that Chase took careful risks. That is to say, he wasn’t reckless. But if there was a problem with something at the top of the mast, say, he had no compunction climbing up there to fix it, no matter the weather. That’s what his former crewmates said, anyway. His ex-wife was quoted as saying he was married to the sea, probably the reason for the demise of their marriage. ‘He would have liked the nobility and mystery of being lost at sea,’ she said. Whenever Chase raced, he finished in the top five. And listen to this.” Maddie braced for the worst. “That son-of-a-b—sorry, that lucky dog sailed in the BOC Challenge. Well, now it’s just called the Around Alone.”
“Which is?” That didn’t sound too bad.
“It’s a race around the world. Alone.”
“No crew?”
Barnie had a gleam in his eyes. “Nobody. Dreamed about it but never got around to doing it. You’re gone for eight months, and unless you’re sinking or in dire straits, you’re in it alone.”
She shivered, thinking of accidents and stormy weather. “The icebergs. He remembered seeing icebergs and feeling as though he were on the edge of the world.”
“Sailing across the Southern Ocean, he would be. If you hurt yourself, have equipment failure or even get dismasted, you’re on your own. Even if you’re capsized or sinking, help’s hours away, usually days. Men die out there, never to be found.” He patted his faded shirt. “Gets the ticker going just thinking about it. That’s risk-taking, not that stupid goofing around Wayne did. Chase might be one of the safest sailors around—and it seems he was—but out there on the ocean, a lot is out of your control.”
Chase was almost a casualty. “But all that’s not too bad. There’s more, isn’t there?”
“There’s more.”
She waited for a moment, then finally asked. “What?” on an agitated breath.
“Maybe this is dumping too much on you at once.”
“Dump, Barnie!”
“When they found Chase’s boat—his personal sailboat, Chase the Wind, floating around on autopilot, no one was aboard. But a woman’s body was found tangled up in the keel.”
Chase stared out at the blustery Gulf and felt something rise inside him. He was the one who’d told Barnie it wasn’t a good idea to take the boat out today, but something irresistible called to him. He could see waves crashing up over the sides of a deck, in his mind.
It was coming back to him, his life, his past. Going out in the storm might be the trigger he needed to put it all together. A gust of wet air slammed into him. He shouldn’t be taking the boat out in this weather, not on its test run. But he knew he could handle it. His fingers curled and uncurled as they imagined the challenge. The excitement. The fear. He singled up the dock lines and started to board.
“Chase!”
Maddie’s voice sounded distorted through the wind and rain. He didn’t need her right now. He felt ugly and on the edge.
She was wearing an oversized yellow raincoat, and all he could see was a little of her face. “I need to talk to you,” she said as she neared the boat. “What are you doing? I thought you weren’t taking the boat out.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Are you nuts? Look at it out there!”
Waves tumbled over one another outside the boundary of the bay, which was choppy in its own right. They called to him like the curling finger of a beautiful woman.
The beautiful woman in front of him looked worried. “Chase, I need to tell you something.”
“We’ll talk later. I need to do this, Mad
die. I can’t explain it.”
She said something that sounded like, “I can,” but it got warbled in the wind. Another gust of rain swept through, and then she started to climb aboard. “I’m coming with you. You said I could.”
“That was yesterday when I didn’t know the weather would be this bad.”
“Well, it’s not stopping you, so I’m coming, too.”
He stood in her way, balancing on the edge of the deck. “No, you’re not.”
She looked cold and wet, and all he wanted to do was take her down into the cabin and warm her up. In a just-friends way, of course.
“You said I should take some risks.”
“I meant as in opening your heart and loving someone.” The look she gave him nearly melted his reserve. Not me, Maddie. “It’s too dangerous for you to come. You don’t know how to sail.” He let the aft line go.
She searched his face, worry creasing her brow. “You’ve got the hari-kari look on your face.”
“The what look?”
“Hari-kari. It’s the same look Wayne used to wear when he was about to get crazy.”
“The difference is,” he said, neatly stepping her onto the dock before hopping back on the boat and pushing away, “I’m not taking you with me.”
She was stomping her foot and yelling, but luckily, he couldn’t hear her.
Once he got out to the bay, he turned into the wind. The Gulf was chopped up in the storm that was supposed to have only drenched them this morning. Conditions had changed overnight, with a low-pressure cold front pushing the storm to the east. He couldn’t see one other boat anywhere. This was crazy, but he couldn’t deny the drive deep inside him. On the other side of this ride was his past.
In some inexplicable way, he felt the air pressure dropping. Waves broke over the deck and soaked him. From the moment the wind had taken hold, Chase was in his element. He belonged here in this chaos, thrived on it. Wind gusts were at least thirty-five knots, and the farther from shore he got, the harder it got. The boat dropped into one trough after another, knocking him and the boat about.
He had no safety harness. That thought spiked through him, followed by a faraway echo of his own voice, both familiar and foreign: What the hell were you thinking, Tom? Always, always clip your harness to the safety jack line!
Heavenly Stranger Page 17
