by Lee, Rachel
But truth to tell, the sea had called him the way she always did. Even when he was terrified of her and uncertain whether he could even sail a boat again, he was drawn to her. And the Keys were as close to one with the sea as it was possible to get while still standing on solid ground.
The sea had always been in his blood. As a boy he’d grown up along Tampa Bay, watching the oceangoing vessels come and go. There’d never been a doubt in his mind that he was going to join the navy just as soon as he was old enough.
His dad had owned a gas station, and had never understood his son’s urge to go to sea. His mother, not wanting him to be gone so far for so long, had tried to talk him out of it.
But the sea’s grip was unbreakable. The day he turned eighteen, Chase Mattingly had joined the U.S. Navy. A year later he had volunteered for the SEALs, a decision he still sometimes wondered about. Not that he’d ever regretted it, but he sometimes wondered what had propelled him, whether it had been some kind of insecurity he’d been trying to overcome, or merely the arrogance of a youthful male. If it had been arrogance, the SEALs had taught him more of it. He knew what he was capable of, and knew his limits were far beyond most people’s imaginings.
Which only made his current predicament all the more disturbing. He wasn’t accustomed to seeing himself as weak, but lately he’d been embarrassingly so.
Traffic was heavy and sluggish all the way to Tavernier, but then began to lighten. There was a jam on a narrow bridge where a driver had apparently braked hard and the boat he was towing had slipped forward off the trailer and rear-ended the car. Since the bridge was only two lanes, and there was no shoulder, traffic backed up badly. Chase and a couple of other men helped get the boat back on the trailer and secured so the driver could pull the rig out of the way.
The exertion felt good after spending so much time cooped up in the car. By the time he resumed the drive, Chase was in a better frame of mind, able to admire the vistas of the Gulf to the right and the Atlantic to the left. In the late-afternoon light, the water almost looked as if it had been painted in varying shades of green, ranging from olive to light, minty green, to lime, to deep blue-green farther out in the Atlantic. The patchy color always reminded him of camouflage, except that it was much more beautiful, at times almost iridescent.
It had been a while, he realized, since he had last truly noted the beauty of the sea.
Somehow he had to find the key to making peace with himself so he could start enjoying life again, enjoying moments like these. Somehow he had to find a way to get a handle on these nightmares and strange fears so that he could get on with the business of living. And getting to the bottom of what had happened on that boat just before Jeff found it might be the key he was looking for.
Bill Evers’s report hadn’t said a damn thing useful, and that bothered him. Of course, the legal eagles had already taken their turn at it, and had probably sanitized it considerably. But there was a woodenness to it that troubled Chase considerably. He knew Bill from a dozen dives. Nothing about the man was as flat and dry as that composite report made him sound. There was no way, even in a written report, that he would have been as clinical as that.
Not that he knew Bill all that well personally. They’d done a dozen or more dives together, and had gotten along well enough, but they weren’t close. And since his accident, he hadn’t wanted to see Bill at all, or even talk to him, because he hadn’t wanted to open that nightmare up. He’d been on strict avoidance of anything that reminded him of what had happened.
But that had changed. Now he had a burning urge to speak with the man, and intended to try to reach him again just as soon as he got home.
And somehow thinking of Bill and his report got him around to thinking about tomorrow, and going around to the marinas to ask questions. He wished to hell Callie would let him do it by himself, but he had a feeling she would probably want to kill him if he didn’t take her along. Not that he couldn’t understand that. After all, her brother’s life was on the line, and there was no way she could be sure he’d ask the right questions if she wasn’t with him. But hell. He supposed he could suggest that she might get charged with witness tampering, but would she even listen?
Callie was another complication in his already complicated life, he realized. Part of him wanted to move to another county just to get away from her, and part of him just plain couldn’t stay away. Well, it was nothing to worry about, he assured himself. Every time he turned around, she was blowing up about something he said. If he’d had to make a bet on it, he would have bet she hated him.
The sun was low in the west when he at last reached Sugarloaf Key. The trip had taken longer than he’d anticipated, and the shadows were working their way out from the thick undergrowth. Remembering the seaweed he’d found on his porch last night, he felt his uneasiness spring to life again. There was something going on that didn’t have anything to do with hallucinations. He sure as hell hadn’t hallucinated that seaweed.
But he also hadn’t hallucinated the fact that there was no one and nothing around his house, and other than the seaweed no sign of anything disturbed. So where the hell had it come from? And when? At this point he couldn’t even be certain that it hadn’t been there when he’d come out his door. He hadn’t looked for it. He’d been too preoccupied looking for threats at eye level.
Hell. Maybe he was just utterly and completely losing his marbles. Maybe he was falling into some weird kind of fugue states and had put the seaweed there himself. He’d heard about crap like that. Maybe he was a hell of a lot further over the edge than he realized.
The thought killed his mood completely.
Turning off the highway, he drove down the narrow paved road that led to Lower Sugarloaf Key, passing houses until finally the road narrowed to a single lane and there was nothing on either side of it except the thick growth that covered this part of the island, a hammock full of tropical hardwoods and thick vegetation. There his driveway turned off, plunging through the dense trees and bushes until it opened up right behind his house.
Golden sunlight slanted across the inlet and splashed against the side of his A-frame. It looked so inviting he found himself thinking of getting into his swim trunks and spending a few minutes paddling around in the water. He hadn’t done that since before the accident, and getting into the water again would probably be a big step in the right direction.
Making up his mind, he went inside to change. When he came out wearing only his trunks and carrying a towel, Cal-lie was approaching. He descended the porch steps and waited for her, feeling wary. Every time he saw her, it seemed, she was either getting deeper into trouble or mad at him for his opinions. The sight of her approach didn’t exactly fill him with joy.
But it did cause a deeper, more primitive reaction in him. His body didn’t seem to care that she was a pain in the butt; all it seemed to notice was that she looked good enough to devour. He had a sudden, very unwelcome image of this woman lying naked on the sheets of his bed and smiling up at him.
This would, he thought, be a very good time to remember an urgent errand elsewhere. But he didn’t. Instead he stood glued to the spot and awaited his fate.
“Hi,” she said, as she drew near.
“Hi.” He wondered what new catastrophe had occurred.
“Going for a swim?”
“Thinking about it.” Stupid reply when he was standing there in swim trunks, holding a towel. This woman was killing his brain cells.
“Good evening for it.” She gave him a tentative smile. “Look… I wanted to apologize for getting mad at you earlier. I’m not usually so… quick to anger. This whole thing has really got me on edge.”
“That’s understandable.”
“So, I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted.”
She nodded, and her smile widened a little more, causing a curious tightness in his chest. “Thank you. Do you have snorkeling gear?”
“Uh… no.” He usually got in the water with tanks
on his back and a regulator in his mouth or a helmet on his head. It had been years since he’d last snorkeled.
“I have some stuff. Why don’t you come over, and I’ll get it for you. This inlet is a great place to snorkel.”
He followed her. There was something inevitable about this, he found himself thinking. As inevitable as the waves coming ashore. It was as if the sea, having failed to kill him, was now determined to throw him into the riptide she had made of Callie’s life.
Any sane man would have told him these thoughts were pure lunacy. Unless, of course, that man had lived with the sea.
CHAPTER 9
Callie got the snorkeling gear out of the back room and brought it out to Chase, who’d insisted on waiting on the veranda.
“Thanks," he said, as she passed him the snorkel and mask. “Where’s Jeff?”
“He went to a movie with a friend. It’s better than sitting around here wondering if he’ll go to jail for the rest of his life.”
“A lot better. I went in to Miami today to read the report on the dive to The Happy Maggie.”
Callie’s heart jumped. “Did you find out anything?”
“Only that I was right about the coordinates. Jeff found the Island Dream less than a mile from the Maggie.”
She shivered, feeling suddenly cold despite the warmth of the evening air. “I feel like a goose just walked over my grave.”
“Yeah. It had that effect on me earlier.” He turned toward the water. “Why don’t you join me?”
She thought about it as she watched him walk down to the water’s edge. It was late enough in the day that there wasn’t much good snorkeling time left, but the water looked so inviting.
And so did Chase. She’d been resolutely ignoring how he looked since she’d first set eyes on him in those swim trunks, but she couldn’t ignore it any longer. He had a beautiful, powerful body, tanned from long years in the sun, strong from hard work and lots of swimming. He was dusted with fine golden hairs that caught the late-afternoon light and almost seemed to glow, as if he were carved out of bronze.
She recoiled from the attraction even as she felt it. Mel had taught her the price of being attracted to a man, not only by the way he had wanted her to abandon Jeff, but also by the way he had abandoned her.
That episode had effectively chilled her remaining interest in men. And Chase was just another man, she reminded herself. He’d already made the major mistake of telling her Jeff ought to be taking care of himself—as if he could in these circumstances. Men, she reminded herself, always disappeared when you needed them most, and Chase would be no different. Not if he thought Jeff ought to be handling a murder charge by himself. As soon as the going got tough, Chase would vanish, the way every other man in her life had.
Feeling anger turn her stomach over, she pivoted sharply and went back into the house, intending to start a load of wash. Instead she found herself changing into her blue maillot and getting out another mask and snorkel.
Part of her wondered if she’d lost her mind, but part of her felt drawn to swim in the water as if the sea were sending out a silent siren call she couldn’t ignore. Step by step she walked across the porch, along the seawall, and down the steps to a narrow strip of sandy beach.
In the late sunlight, the water was a deep green, the surface nearly as smooth as glass. It was warm, too, and when she put her foot in, she could feel the tickle of the surface tension, but no discernible difference in temperature.
It was easy, so easy to walk in deeper, rinse the mask, put the snorkel on, and give herself up to the sea.
She had been swimming since childhood, but she no longer trusted the sea, so she stayed in the shallows, gliding over the sandy bottom, pausing to check out shells and watching small fish swim. The day was dying, though, and before too long she began to notice the shadows were growing. Rotating, she put her feet down and stood, looking around the inlet.
The sun was low now, so low it almost glided over the top of the water. The breeze had stirred up little wavelets that splintered the golden light, giving the water a dappled appearance.
Chase was only a few feet away, gliding smoothly along facedown. She wondered if his fear of the dark was beginning to trouble him. It was certainly beginning to seem too late in the day to her to be swimming. Turning, she headed for shore.
Before she had taken three steps, Chase rose out of the water beside her. Shoving his snorkel mask back, he flashed her a big smile. “That was great! Thanks for lending me the snorkel.”
His smile was irresistible and she had to smile back. “You’re welcome.” The golden rays of the sun glanced off the jewel in his earlobe, and without thinking, she reached out to touch it with a finger.
For an instant, time seemed to stand still. She stopped breathing, and found herself looking into his stormy gray eyes. Almost, just almost, he seemed to lean into her touch, and his eyelids drooped.
She caught herself and drew her hand back, regretting the loss of contact, even though she knew it was wise. Men could not be trusted. “Does that mean something?**
“What?”
“Your earring.”
“Oh. Yeah, it does. SEALs all wear them. It’s an old diving tradition to wear a valuable jewel in your ear. The old-timers figured it was a way to be sure somebody would come after their bodies if they got into trouble.”
“Mmm. Gruesome thought.”
He shrugged.
“So you were a SEAL?” That, she thought, probably explained some of his arrogance.
“For nearly ten years.”
“And the navy let you wear earrings in uniform?”
“Yeah.”
“I wouldn’t have thought that.” She was beginning to feel cold as the air brushed over her wet skin, so she walked up closer to the shore, to where the water was shallow enough that she could sit in it. It just covered her breasts, and kept her warm. Chase came to sit beside her.
“It’ll be dark soon,” she remarked.
“Mmm.”
“If you want to go home, feel free.”
“No, I don’t think so. I think I’m going to stick it out for a while.”
“Desensitization?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I just know I’m getting damn tired of being trapped by fear.”
“I can understand that.” She was also impressed that he was so frank about his fear. In her experience, men tended to skirt around such things, at least when talking to women. She wondered if it was part of his arrogance or just that he was honest. Either one could cause him to say things most people wouldn’t.
The water was moving gently, lifting Callie just a little, then letting her settle onto the sand again. It was soothing, almost like being rocked in a cradle.
Chase spoke. “Is Callie short for something?”
“Calypso.”
He looked at her. “I like that.”
“So did my dad. He never called me Callie. And nobody else ever called me Calypso.”
“Which do you prefer?”
“I’m used to Callie. I’m not sure I’d answer to anything else.”
“What happened to your folks? I know you said the sea took your dad…”
“He was washed overboard during a squall. I was standing out there on the point waiting for him. They were two days late, and I knew something was wrong, but I was so wrapped up in Jeff dropping out of school and telling Dad about it that… well, I had myself convinced that Dad had just decided to stay out a little longer because the fishing was good. Finally, I saw the boat coming, and I was so impatient to tell him about Jeff…”
She trailed off and drew a deep breath. “That was four years ago. I still miss him.”
“I know. I still miss my dad, too, and it’s been ten years. He had a heart attack.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s life. Sooner or later, we lose the people we love.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that was a very bitter outlook, but the words die
d stillborn because the truth was, that was how she looked at life, too. Except that when she heard someone else say it out loud, it sounded bitter, cynical, and very unpleasant—and still very true.
“What about your mom?” he asked.
“She died when I was fourteen. I was out with some friends, and when I came in, she was lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. Tubal pregnancy.” Picking up handfuls of water, she ladled it over her shoulders, enjoying its comparative warmth. “The doctors said it happened fast, and there was next to no chance of saving her, even if anyone had been with her when it happened. But for a long time I blamed my dad for not being there. He was at sea.”
“And he went back to sea?”
“Of course. He had to feed us.” She raked her wet hair back from her face, determined to leave the subject there. But from some well deep inside where she kept them buried, the words burst forth on a tide of long-buried pain.
“I was fourteen and became a full-time mother to a child of six. I resented the hell out of that. I couldn’t spend time with my friends anymore, I couldn’t date. I couldn’t do anything because I had to look after Jeff. And when Dad came home, I pretty much had to keep on doing it, along with all the cooking and cleaning because he was always busy getting ready for the next fishing trip, working on the boat, mending the nets…” She unleashed a long breath and closed her eyes, trying to silence herself. He didn’t want to hear all this, and she sounded like such a whiner. Never mind that the memories still tightened her chest until she could hardly breathe. “Well, you do what you have to.”
“Sure. That doesn’t mean you have to like it.”
The water lifted her a little higher this time, warning her that the tide was coming in. The inlet was in twilight now, the last of the sun’s golden rays gone. Overhead, the subtropical sky was beginning to blush a fiery red.
