Stealing Home

by Harlow Cole

  Something about them looked different. More at ease than I’d expected. Almost peaceful.

  I’d never seen Brayden Ross do peaceful.

  It had to be another trap.

  “If you came here to bully me more and force me to—”

  The other door opened. I watched in shocked disbelief as his passenger climbed out.

  My hand clutched the doorjamb. “Daddy?”

  28

  Moon & Stars

  Ashley

  The hot water felt like heaven. I sighed as I laid my head back against the chair, letting the jets pummel the ache of a double shift.

  I hadn’t stepped foot back at the marina. They were over there, Brayden and my father, acting all chummy and smug. Sketching out big ideas based on my mother’s dream. Poring over permit applications. Resurrecting plans for the Labor Day party.

  I’d doubled up my hours at Foxy’s to avoid them.

  “So, you sat there, across the table from him, and just didn’t speak?”

  “Pretty much,” I replied.

  As I had driven home, I’d noticed the shop light was still on. Soaking my feet in Joey’s pedicure chair was worth putting up with her third degree.

  “I can’t believe your dad invited him to dinner. Just like that,”—she snapped her fingers—“all’s forgiven? Do you even know yet where your dad’s been all this time? How Brayden found him so quickly?” Joey asked. “That’s fishy as hell.”

  “Yep. Stinks to high heaven, doesn’t it? And they both just sat there and acted like everything was hunky-dory. Brayden showed up with a pile of paperwork for us to all sign and a bottle of champagne. Nathan and I just sat there, pretending to eat, while we tried to figure out what the hell was going on.”

  “It’s so mysterious. Your life is so exciting. Nothing like this ever happens to me,” Riley said sadly, plopping down on the technician’s stool beside my chair.

  “Yeah. That’s how this feels. Exciting,” I replied sarcastically. “It would just be nice if one of the bastards came clean with the full story.”

  “Have you ever told him about the note from Coral Lynn?” Joey asked quietly.

  I sat up straighter. One of her brows arched at me from across the room.

  “It wouldn’t matter.”

  “My point is, maybe he’d like to have the full story, too,” she replied.

  “It wouldn’t change anything.”

  She shrugged self-righteously.

  Riley sat forward on the stool, eyes wide. “Tell me. Please. I hate the Taylors. Coral Lynn’s little brother was the first person at school to torture me when my belly started showing.”

  I sighed and glanced back at Joey.

  “Oh Lord,” she said. “Throw the kid a bone.”

  “Coral Lynn sent me a letter about a year ago. She’d been having an affair with one of her professors.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Of course she was,” Joey added dryly.

  “She thought the guy was perfect. Thought they were soul mates.”

  “Hard to have a soul mate when you don’t have a soul,” Riley muttered.

  Joey chuckled in agreement.

  “Yeah, well, he’d promised he’d leave his wife for her. He wanted to marry her once she was done with school. They had this whole white-picket-fence thing going. Then, she walked in on him banging his teaching assistant in the middle of office hours.”

  “Karma,” Joey called out behind her balled up fist and a fake cough.

  “So, why’d she write this all to you?” Riley asked. “So you’d know she got what she deserved?”

  “Her letter said she’d realized then and there what it felt like to walk in on a broken heart. She felt guilty. She wanted me to know the way things looked that night weren’t exactly what they seemed.”

  “He didn’t sleep with her?” Riley’s eyes grew wider.

  “No. They slept together. But not in the way she forced me to picture. She’d found him half-passed out. The room was dark. She took her clothes off and climbed into bed.” I took a deep breath, reliving the image I’d never completely purge. “He thought it was me. He called her by my name the entire time.”

  “He thought he was fucking you?”

  I pursed my lips and nodded.

  “That is messed up.” She punctuated each word. “So, if that chick hadn’t tricked him and let you walk in on it, none of the shit you’ve gone through would have happened. This whole mess is her fault. God, I really hate the Taylors.”

  I listened to her words and let them rattle through my head. A year ago, my reaction had been pretty much the same. I’d raged to Joey. Eventually, I’d allowed myself to cry about it. We’d lit the letter on fire over the vanilla-spice candle she kept burning to cover chemical smells in the shop.

  “She was just another domino,” I replied softly.

  “I still think you should give him a chance. I mean, hell, if a guy got a tattoo that pointed straight to me, I’d be his backup plan. All night long,” Riley added, laughing.

  “Pointed straight to me?” My brows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

  “His tattoo. The compass. Another customer asked him about it the last time he was here. The little numbers shaded above the words. He said they’re the latitude and longitude to the old boathouse on his property. You didn’t know? Isn’t that where . . .” She turned to Joey for confirmation. “That’s where you told me they used to get it on, right? Like some kind of love shack?”

  My mouth fell open. I’d been so interested in the meaning of the scrolling words, I’d never paid close attention to the rest of the details. I closed my eyes and envisioned the dark ink. My mind turned over our conversation about it.

  He’d had it for years.

  I pictured tracing it with my fingertips as we lay in his bed our last morning in New York.

  That memory flipped a switch.

  Another mental picture.

  “Oh God.”

  I stepped out of the tub, tracking wet footprints across Joey’s clean floor.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed.

  I fumbled my way to the front desk, spinning the mouse to light up the computer screen, trying to peck my way through her password. I hit the keyboard in frustration.

  She leaned over me to type. “What are you searching for?”

  “Google that constellation.”

  She looked at me with confused hesitation.

  “Argo Navis. The one I told you about. From the painting. Google it.”

  She typed slowly, bringing up a list of images.

  “That one. There. Zoom in.”

  I stared at the screen. Mute and confused as familiar names danced in front of me.

  “That tattoo. The compass. It’s part of it. The painting left that part out. My God, Joey. They’re all him.”

  “Ash, you’re scaring me. What does this all mean?”

  “I’ve gotta go.”

  I grabbed my purse and headed for the door, still barefoot.

  “Ashley! Wait. Where are you going?” I heard my best friend call after me.

  I didn’t have time to stop. I couldn’t explain.

  Not until I went and demanded the answers for myself.

  * * *

  “It was all you, wasn’t it?” My voice broke into their jovial conversation.

  All four of them looked up. They were seated around the patio table, take-out containers from Lucky’s in front of them. My brother and Brayden were both still sweaty from an evening workout that I knew my father had gone over to watch. Matt sat at the end of the table, the innocent, about to get caught in the fallout.

  “Ash, honey, you’re just in time for some food. Did you eat already?” My father pushed his chair back and started to stand.

  “Answer me.” My eyes never wavered from Brayden’s.

  “The life insurance company. The grant for Nathan’s surgery. My mother’s medical bills. The company you used to buy the marina. Vella Indemnity. Pyxis Inte
rnational Trust. Carina, LLC. A Navis, Inc.” The names spilled off my tongue in one long string. “They come back to the same place, don’t they? A boy pulling stars from the sky. A man with a compass tattoo. It was all you. They’re all parts of the same constellation.”

  He wiped his mouth with a napkin and then balled it up and threw it on his plate. I didn’t miss the slight gesture that accompanied it.

  He glanced up at my father.

  They had a brief, silent exchange.

  “You knew.” It was a statement, not a question, but it still came accompanied by my surprise.

  My father ran a hand across the short beard covering his chin.

  “You knew he was doing it? That’s why you weren’t upset about the marina. You already knew.”

  My father cleared his throat. “I knew about the insurance money. I wish like hell your mother and I’d had the forethought to pay for life insurance. But we would never have had the money for the premiums. Those checks were from Brayden. Yes, I knew.” He looked up at Brayden and nodded. Then, he turned to look at my brother. “I didn’t know about Nathan’s surgery though. Or your mother’s care.”

  My father looked back at Brayden again as his face filled with emotion akin to gratitude and praise.

  Nathan sat completely still, staring down at his forgotten food.

  Brayden pursed his lips and nodded to my father in another silent exchange of thieves who had a plan. He quickly pushed his chair back and stood with a heaving breath of resolve.

  He walked slowly around the table, prowling toward me, like he would if we occupied the room alone. Blue eyes tried unwrapping me. I crossed my arms over my chest, shielding my heart and warding off the intensity of his gaze.

  “I was going to tell you. Once you calmed down.” The words fell out with that assertive, commanding tone he used to hold me in place.

  It reminded me a whole lot of his father.

  “How am I supposed to trust you when everything between us is based on lies?”

  “The only lie between us is you thinking, for one single second, that I came back here for myself. I came back here for you. That’s been my plan since day one. And the sooner you settle down and realize that, the sooner we can get back to where we belong.”

  His hand rubbed across the skin on his biceps, across the coordinates that brought him home to me.

  I thought he’d just washed in with the tide.

  Turned out, he had a map.

  29

  Storm Chasers

  Brayden

  “I love the way this place smells. You know what I mean?”

  “Nothing else like it on the planet,” I agreed, gazing across the field.

  Nathan sucked in a deep breath as he squinted in the same direction. “How are we gonna tell him?” he asked, lightly tossing a ball in one hand before looking down to study the red laces.

  “I’m not sure we can. It might break him. Dillan’s always been the most fragile-hearted among us.”

  “Go figure, for the guy who carries a gun.” He snickered and tossed the ball again.

  We watched as the ragtag bunch of kids finished running between the foul poles and then piled back into the dugout in a pubescent heap of sweat and dirt and loud.

  None of them looked in a hurry to follow their coach’s directions and clean up their shit. They were too busy pouring water over one another. They did that far more successfully than anything we’d watched them do on the field.

  Dillan barked commands at a couple of them before he jogged over toward our spot near the bleachers.

  “So, what do you think? A little rough around the edges, but they’ll come along. Remind you of us once upon a time, huh? Did you see Petersen? He’s making progress, right? I think he’s my starter.” He nodded his head, affirming his own musing without any input. He turned as one of the kids dumped the entire Gatorade cooler. “Shit. Hernandez, stop making a mess.” He stalked back toward his team.

  Nathan turned and stared at me with a blank expression of shock. “He’s kidding, right? Isn’t Petersen the redheaded kid with the unfortunate acne? He can’t hit the broadside of a barn. He’s never even met a strike zone. Probably thinks it’s an app he can buy on his phone.”

  I ran a hand across my mouth, unsuccessfully trying to contain my chuckle.

  “Don’t laugh, man. I’m serious.” Nathan’s own laughter bubbled up. “This team is gonna kill our legacy.”

  “That Dawson kid has a pretty decent arm,” I said, trying to grab some optimism. “Great velocity at least. He knows how to come over the top. Shitty aim, but we could work on that. Maybe we should come again tomorrow and give him some tips.”

  “Swear to God, Dillan is too much of a choirboy for this job. This team needs someone to yell bloody murder at them. They have no respect for the double play. They use their shins to field the ball more than their gloves. And they have no idea how to get a decent lead off the bag. That’s just for starters.”

  “Why don’t you take over as head coach?”

  He cocked his head back and put his hand on his chest. “Me? Are you nuts?”

  “Yeah, you. You always were a slave driver at practice. Made me work twice as hard as I ever wanted to.”

  “You were always a pussy. Still are.”

  A couple of weeks ago, that comment would’ve been hurled my way with the backing of hatred and anger. But, as soon as the remark spilled out, he shrugged his shoulders and smirked.

  While uncovering the truth behind my lies had unveiled more of Ashley’s wounded pride and wrath, it had finally softened her brother a bit. Beneath the cracked veneer of the man who sat beside me, I could finally see some of my old friend peeking out. Every day, a little more of him emerged. I kept holding on to hope, with both my hands knotted into fists.

  We watched as the kids started tumbling out of the dugout, whooping and howling their way toward the parking lot.

  I blew out a breath, mentally preparing for vulnerable crap Doc Wolfe would love. “I feel like a fucking pussy right now. I threw for the first time yesterday.”

  “Yeah? How’d it go? You as bad as Petersen?”

  “Just about. Threw thirty reps from forty-five feet out. Felt like a girl.”

  “That what you were thinking the whole time?”

  I shrugged.

  “Where’s the cocky A-hole who used to think he could do no wrong? That dude who used to go up to bat, pointing fingers at the fence or waltzing up to the mound while eating a candy bar, like he was going to a summer picnic?”

  I snickered.

  I’d forgotten about the day I did that.

  “I think they carved all that out on the operating room table,” I replied.

  Nathan pursed his lips and nodded to himself.

  He smacked both hands onto the arms of his wheelchair before suddenly bursting forward, pushing himself toward the heap of gear left on the infield grass. He leaned over to rifle through an equipment bag, chucking stuff everywhere.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I called out.

  “I got an idea.”

  “The kids just picked all that shit up.”

  “Stand up, and act like you still have two balls intact,” he called back. “My first rule is, there are no pussies allowed on this field.”

  As I stood up and ambled toward him, he started pulling out chest pads. He’d already strapped catcher’s guards to both shins.

  “Hand me that mask,” he said as I stepped closer.

  I tossed one to him, shaking my head at the same time. “You look ridiculous. What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m your new head coach. Second rule”—he waved two fingers—“don’t question me. Get that bucket and count off forty-five paces.”

  I stood, motionless.

  He loudly clapped his hands together. “Let’s go. Stop thinking, meathead. Just throw the damn ball at me.”

  “Nathan, don’t take this the wrong way, man, but this is a really bad idea.” I lo
oked down at the wheels on his chair.

  “What? You so worried you can’t throw strikes, you think you’ll hit me?”

  “Something like that. I could kill you.”

  “Well, you already tried that once. You weren’t that good at it.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “Fuck. Did they cut off your balls and cut out your sense of humor?” He laughed down deep in his gut.

  My eyes opened wide as hope bubbled up in my hands. I knew the smile that lit up his face. My old friend wore it all the time.

  You don’t know how much you miss something you’ve lost until you find it.

  “Stop thinking.” He slammed a ball down into my palm. “Throw. Preferably strikes ’cause, yeah, I don’t really wanna get hit.”

  I blankly stared at him. While he was verbally poking at me, he’d strapped another chest pad across his lap. His chair looked like some kind of storm-chaser-intercept vehicle. The ones those shitheads on cable used to run down tornados.

  He already had his extra hand tucked safely behind his back.

  The dude meant business.

  “You said you thought I could coach. Well, here we go. You’re my first student. God knows, if I can fix you, I might have a chance with Petersen.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered to myself, repeating his expletive.

  If this idea didn’t lead to serious bodily injury, it had the potential to give us both some confidence for the future. How could I take that from either one of us? I sure as hell wasn’t ready to rob him of anything else.

  I picked up the bucket of balls and started counting off paces.

  Dillan stopped dragging the infield to stand and watch. “What the hell are you idiots doing?”

  “Don’t ask,” I said to myself, turning to stare down at my former best friend turned lunatic.

  My chest tightened. I breathed through it, willing the nerves to stay down in my belly.

  He smirked behind the mask he’d pulled down over his head. “Come on, ace. Dazzle me.”

  I chuckled at the familiar line from his favorite movie. He used to say that shit in the front yard. Taunting me till I’d throw harder. Teasing me till I’d gun one into his mitt so hard, his palm would sting.