Falling for the Single Dad

by Lisa Carter

  She swallowed, hard. But marriage and motherhood would never be in the cards for her. Not now. Not ever.

  “It’s for the best.” Her voice floated across the empty lab. “Really it is.” She worried her bottom lip in her teeth. “Isn’t it, God?”

  Not expecting an answer, she removed her lab coat, draped it across a stool and made herself walk out of the building to her waiting car.

  With a heavy heart, she soon found herself circling the Kiptohanock square in the SUV. One more time, she told herself. Goodbyes were part of recovery. Necessary for letting go and moving forward.

  Caroline drove past the Sandpiper, where her sisters had taken Max and baby Patrick for a consolation lunch. Because the Shoreside Duers were feeling down about her abrupt decision to return to her old job in Virginia Beach.

  The church steeple pierced the darkening sky. Dad was right. A storm was coming. She’d best quit lollygagging and get herself over the Bay Bridge before driving became hazardous. Yet she idled the car outside the library. Recalling the curious day she met Isabelle Alice Clark. And Izzie’s father.

  Her heart thumped. Only two months ago? Why did it seem like so much longer? As if maybe her life began from that moment.

  “Stop it.” She banged the wheel with the palm of her hand. “Just stop it.”

  Without further ado, she peeled past the library and toward the highway. No need to stop at the cemetery. She’d made her peace with the unchangeable. Her mother and Lindi weren’t there. Just the shell they once needed, but no longer required. Like her hatchlings.

  At the memory of the hatchlings—Izzie’s hatchlings—Caroline’s eyes welled. Izzie was just beginning to break out of her shell, too.

  But so many hazards remained on the way to Izzie becoming everything God intended the intelligent, little redhead to be. Caroline jolted as the car clanked over the small Quinby bridge.

  A process—the thought stabbed anew—she wouldn’t be around to witness. Nor to guide or encourage. Weston would have to navigate the tricky, turbulent waters of the adolescent years alone.

  But perhaps not. She turned onto Highway 13 and pointed the car south. Perhaps Weston would yet find the one, true love of his life. A partner, a helper, a soul mate.

  She blinked against the treacherous tears sliding down her face as rain peppered the windshield. He deserved a good woman to love him as Caroline could not. Someone to be there with him and for him as the years rolled by. Filling the beautiful home he’d created with life, laughter and love.

  Choking hard with sobs, she fumbled to turn on the windshield wipers. How could she be so selfish to begrudge his ultimate happiness? Even if it meant with someone other than her. Because it had to be with someone other than her.

  She took one hand off the wheel to dash the moisture from her cheeks. Her leaving was the right decision for everyone. The only outcome possible given the curse she carried.

  But oh, how her heart ached with every mile separating her from those who’d become dearer than her own life. She scowled. This was what came from loving people.

  She’d believed she’d learned that lesson when her mother died. If you never love anyone, no one can ever hurt you again. But instead she hurt herself.

  A car honked as the SUV accidentally drifted into the adjacent lane. Cringing, she pulled herself together. Was that what she was doing now? Hurting herself by not allowing anyone to love her?

  She readied herself for the certain onslaught of the darkness. Steadied her hands. Prepared to pull off the highway when the panic attack came.

  Emotional stress was her trigger. Entering Northampton County, she gripped the wheel as the farmland and railroad tracks flashed by on either side of the highway. Ready as she’d ever be for the breath-stealing, fear-induced anxiety to commence.

  But nothing happened, although the sadness at her leave-taking remained. An aching, inconsolable hollow in the pit of her stomach, which neither the miles nor the minutes seemed to abate, much less cure.

  Her mouth trembled as she slowed to a stop to pay the Bay Bridge toll. She was better. At least, today. She’d made the right decision in leaving when she did. Hadn’t she?

  She crept forward in line with the other vehicles. Who knew what would’ve become of her if she’d given Izzie and Weston her whole heart?

  Images flashed across her mind of a white dress trailing in the sand below the lighthouse. Her family flinging birdseed at her and a handsome ex-Coastie commander groom. Izzie scattering rose petals to the wind—

  She gasped. Of all the crazy ideas, surely the craziest of them all.

  Get it through your head—she gritted her teeth—there’s no future for you there.

  She cut her gaze to the rearview mirror. She looked a sight. Her red-rimmed eyes puffy, her makeup streaked across her face.

  Pulling up to the attendant in the booth, she fairly flung the money at the woman’s outstretched hand. The woman’s startled look softened as she hit a button inside the booth to lift the bar blocking Caroline’s escape.

  Escape? She chewed her lip. Was that truly what she was doing? Again?

  “Godspeed, my friend.” The attendant’s warm brown eyes held Caroline’s. “Wherever you’re headed, Godspeed.”

  Crossing Fisherman’s Island was a blur. Keeping on her side of the narrow lane in the strip-lit tunnel proved an exercise in willpower.

  At the end of the second tunnel, she emerged into the brightness of the light. Pulling the car out of traffic, she parked in the lot of the Chesapeake Grill on one of the four man-made islands in the midst of the watery expanse. Silencing the motor with a flick of her wrist, she vacated the vehicle. The rain had passed for now. Yet as in life, another squall loomed on the distant horizon.

  Bypassing the restaurant, she headed toward the pier with views overlooking the bay. Seagulls cawed and swooped overhead. The wind whipped her ponytail into disarray.

  Her arms folded across the railing, she peered at the rocks surrounding the immense bridge pylons where the waves crashed. Was this what her return to Virginia Beach was about? Escape.

  Was she still running? Had her life been about escaping her family? Or all along, was she trying to escape herself?

  She laughed. The wind snatched the sound and carried it away. Who was she trying to fool? There was no escape from oneself.

  Her gaze skittered to the rocks below. Nor there, either. A fragment of Scripture floated through her mind.

  If I climb to the sky, You’re there! If I go underground, You’re there!

  One of the verses Reverend Parks had shared with her. One of his greatest comforts, he’d declared in his own struggle against the melancholy. She’d liked the contemporary, everyday version he quoted to her.

  Is there anyplace I can go to avoid Your Spirit? To be out of Your sight? She sighed. If I flew on morning’s wings to the far western horizon, You’d find me in a minute—You’re already there waiting!

  Reverend Parks had encouraged her to memorize the psalm. Part of the mending of her spirit, he said.

  The storm clouds billowed across the sky. She shivered as the wind picked up speed. No matter where she went, she and her problems would always be there.

  But so would God. With her when the next relapse came. Her father’s brusque voice whispered in her mind. If her next relapse came.

  If… Suddenly, a word laden with hope.

  “What should I do? I don’t want to hurt them.” Her breath caught on a sob. “I’m so afraid of being hurt myself.”

  But she’d also inherited more than the depression from her family, she realized. And she gathered the remnants of the courage her mother had displayed in her fight against the cancer that stole her earthly life.

  Caroline garnered the fortitude of her father’s faith, which carried him through the hardest of times—the deaths of a beloved wife and child, through illness both physical and mental.

  As for her faith? She squeezed her eyes shut and swayed as the wind buffeted her
body. Did she trust God enough to risk loving Weston and Izzie?

  She’d turned the car around to head north and just passed through the turnstiles at the toll plaza when her phone buzzed on the console. One hand on the wheel, she frowned as she retrieved the cell, recognizing the number. She’d missed three calls while out on the pier.

  Her father hated modern contraptions like cell phones. He maintained nobody needed to be in touch 24/7. He only used his cell in the direst of emergencies.

  She tucked the cell between her shoulder and neck. “Daddy? What’s wrong?”

  “I know you said you’d call when you reached your apartment. I’m sorry to bother you, but…”

  Her nerves quivered. “That’s okay, Daddy.”

  “I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Know what?” An inexplicable fear took hold.

  “Izzie’s gone missing, Ladybug. She took one of the kayaks, and Weston can’t find her.”

  Her heart drummed in her chest.

  “We figure she’s gone after those turtle babies of hers.”

  Sharp, unrelenting pain stabbed Caroline’s heart.

  Caroline yanked the car off the road and into a gas station lot. “He’s contacted the sheriff? And Braeden at the Coast Guard station?”

  “Everybody’s looking for her. Reverend Parks has organized a team of volunteers to help the sheriff’s department comb the woods between the lighthouse and Kiptohanock.”

  Her father’s voice cracked. “Max is beyond distraught. What if somehow she’s already slipped past them and hit open water?”

  “There’s a storm coming, Daddy,” she whispered into the phone.

  He groaned. “Storm’s already here.”

  With a crackle of static, the call dropped. And the connection bridging the gap between Caroline and her father broke.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You can’t stop looking for her.” Weston grabbed hold of Braeden’s arm. “We’ve got to find her. Suppose it was Max?”

  Braeden’s gaze never wavered. “I’d be going as crazy as you are right now, Wes. But we’ve done everything we can until this storm cell passes. The choppers from Air Station Elizabeth City are grounded and so are we for the duration. I’m sorry.”

  Weston shook his head. “She’s out there.” He gestured toward the sheets of rain pelting the Coast Guard station. “She’s lost and alone. We have to do something.”

  A flash of lightning lit the darkening sky. Weston jolted. Thunder boomed, shaking the building. The electricity flickered.

  “No way we can risk venturing out in this until the worst is over, Wes.”

  He pounded his fist on Braeden’s desk. “By then, it could be too late.”

  Seth touched Weston’s arm. “Braeden’s right. It’s too dangerous for the search party to keep looking right now.”

  Weston gritted his teeth. “I can’t sit here doing nothing while my child is out there.”

  “Izzie is more likely to head home since the storm has intensified. Somebody needs to be there for her.” Seth held up his gnarled hand at Weston’s motion of protest. “Best thing you can do is wait it out at home.”

  Braeden nodded. “I promise you as soon as it’s humanly possible I’ll have my guys back out there searching for her.”

  Seth steered Weston to the station lobby. “I’ll get the Now I Sea on the water, too. Lots of tidal creeks meander off the inlet. It wouldn’t be hard for a youngster like her to get turned around.”

  The waterman clamped a hand on Weston’s shoulder. “She may be only a few miles, as the seagull flies, away from home right now. Hunkered somewhere safe. Taking shelter till the storm passes.”

  Lightning crackled, splitting the sky open in a dizzying array of ozone-charged particles. Weston and Seth both flinched.

  Weston gulped past the boulder lodged in his throat. “And if she hasn’t beached the kayak? If she’s on the water?”

  Seth’s eyes glimmered. “I was wrong before. Best thing you and anyone can do at a time like this is to pray. Pray hard.” He gripped Weston’s forearm. “But none of us will give up looking. Not till she’s safe in her bed this very night, son.”

  *

  Caroline did what she should’ve done fifteen years ago at the first sign of trouble—she went home. From Northampton County through Eastville, Nassawaddox and Exmore, she drove and prayed for Izzie to be found. Radio reports warned of flash flooding on the secondary roads off 13.

  Home. Home. Home.

  The rain beat the refrain onto the car roof. It took her entire focus to keep the car on the highway amid the torrential downpour. Wind gusts rocked the SUV from side to side.

  As summer thunderstorms went, this was a bad one. Hands locked around the wheel, she cringed at the violent shotgun blasts of thunder overhead. When traffic snarled around Painter, she beat the wheel with the palm of her hand.

  “Come on. Come on.” Vehicles ahead came to a halt. “Get out of the way and let me through.”

  The windshield wipers worked at a frenzy. Creeping forward, finally, she reached the turnoff for home. Only to find the tiny bridge at Quinby washed out. Not a good idea to go through water in a car, but she had to get to Izzie. She had to get through. Izzie needed her.

  Caroline clenched her jaw. Why hadn’t she seen it earlier? Izzie needed her, but more importantly she needed Izzie in her life. Sending up a swift plea for mercy, she drove the car into the water. The rear tires spun, losing traction. Her heart raced.

  The car lurched forward. Her breath hitched, but the car climbed out of the water to dry ground on the other side of the bridge. Bypassing Kiptohanock, she soon pulled into the Duer driveway. Yet the house lay dark and appeared deserted.

  Her hands fell from the wheel, and she shrank into the seat. No one was home. She’d been so sure she was supposed to come here, but what now? The rain sounded upon the roof of the car like a hollow drum.

  At the top of the driveway, headlights flashed. Momentarily blinded, she threw out a hand to shield her eyes. But to her overwhelming relief, her father’s Silverado parked alongside.

  The truck cab dinged. An interior light blazed as her dad thrust open the door. Slamming the door behind him, he tromped over to her car. Swathed from head to toe in his neon-yellow water slicker and black Wellington boots, he rapped his knuckle against the window. “Caroline?”

  Catching the handle, she pushed open the door. “Have you found Izzie, Dad?”

  “What’re you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Virginia Beach.”

  Rivulets of rain drenched Caroline, soaking her T-shirt and waterlogging her jeans. “I had to be here, Dad. For Izzie.” She shivered.

  He angled himself to shield her from as much of the rain as he could. “We haven’t found her yet. The search was called off until the storm passes.”

  “Where have you looked?”

  He tugged Caroline toward the deep-planked porch of the inn. “Let’s have this conversation out of the rain.”

  Sheets of rain funneled off the eaves of the house. As her dad outlined the areas already searched, a growing certainty gripped Caroline.

  “I know where she is, Dad.”

  She clutched the sleeve of his coat. “I showed Izzie on the computer the track for Turtle Mama’s PIT tag. Deep underwater, the turtle’s gone stationary to recover her strength as is typical after egg laying.”

  “Out to sea?” Her father shook his head. “If Izzie’s out there… No one could survive out there on a night like this, Caroline. Especially not a nine-year-old ’come here in a kayak.”

  “Not on the open water, Dad. There was a shoal. The last sandbar before the channel widens and spills into the ocean.”

  “High tide’s soon.” His mustache bristled. “That strip of land will disappear with the tide and beneath the storm waves if it hasn’t already. She’ll be trapped if she’s taken shelter there.”

  “I have to go.” Caroline lifted her chin. “I can’t leave her out there.” />
  Her father seized hold of her hand. “You can’t go out there. You won’t make it.”

  “I won’t make it without you. Help me, Dad.” Rain lashed her face like a thousand stinging nettles. “Please.”

  A half smile softened his weather-roughened features. “Never could resist a stray, could you, Ladybug?”

  He raised his chin a fraction, too. “All right, daughter of mine.” Pulling her into a quick, fierce hug, her father kissed her forehead. “Let’s go.”

  Caroline slipped and slid down what had become a mud pit toward the dock. Discarding the flip-flops, she joined her surefooted father on board the Now I Sea. She untied the mooring lines as he cranked the engine. But the motor sputtered and failed. He exchanged a worried look with his daughter.

  She steepled her hands under her chin. “Please. Please. Please.”

  He tried again. The engine whined but sparked to life. And she released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  Not a pleasure boat, the tough little workhorse chugged away from the dock and into the tidal marsh. She stole a glance at her father behind the wheel. Seth Duer knew these waters like the back of his hand. If anyone could get them safely through these extreme conditions to rescue Izzie, it would be him.

  The waves sluiced over the sides of the boat. She staggered and would’ve fallen except for her dad catching her arm.

  “Sit down!” he shouted above the wind as the boat rocked. “Strap yourself in.”

  Caroline sank onto a seat nearest the center mass of the boat and folded her arms around herself against the cold. Buffeted by the rain, he rummaged in a storage locker and tossed a rain slicker to her. “It’ll keep the wind off you.”

  She shuddered every time the lightning cracked across the sky. Struggling to make headway, nevertheless the Now I Sea chugged resolutely onward. Caroline kept lookout as the boat neared the location of the shoal.

  “There.” Her father jabbed his finger at the upside-down kayak floating past the bow. “It’s empty.”

  She bit her lip. “Hurry, Dad. Hurry.”