Tattered Innocence

by Ann Lee Miller

  As she reached inside her blouse, Jake’s eyes darted away and he headed for the companionway.

  “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

  His jaw tensed as he climbed up the steps and grabbed his keys off the hook beside the hatch. “I’ve got to think.”

  Jake pulled into the sand lot in front of the Sugar Mill Ruins beside Rachel’s Escort. He stepped out, guilt, despair, and exhaustion warring against hunger to see her. He surveyed the gray coquina half-walls and arches left over from the early nineteenth century for a splotch of color. No sign of Rachel. Treetops rustled, but thick foliage protected the low-slung ruins from the cool wind.

  He hiked around the corner of a shell-encrusted wall.

  Toasting in the winter sun, Rachel sat on a crumbling block framed by the arch behind her. She turned her face toward him, and the hoodie slid from her hair.

  Air caught in his throat, her beauty slamming him like he hadn’t seen her in a week. But she’d stood across the dock from him just yesterday. He sank down on a half-wall across from her, aching to touch her, but not having the right.

  “I didn’t know I had a son. I wouldn’t have kept something like that from you. I’m sorry. More sorry than you can imagine.”

  Rachel stared at him, her pupils wide with emotion she didn’t put into words.

  Silence hummed back and forth between them.

  Jake cleared his throat, guilt driving him to unburden himself, but shame keeping him silent. “I had no idea that one selfish choice would cause so many people to suffer. My son, Gabs; me, you, our families.”

  “What about Gabrielle’s choice?”

  “Gabs didn’t want to have sex before the wedding. I wore her down. It’s more my fault than hers. Gramps always said the rules were good for me. Now, I get it.”

  He buried his face in his hands. He couldn’t look Rachel in the eye and dump what he had to say. “If I had gone home and spent that summer with Gramps like I promised, instead of staying in Florida because I met a girl with a BMW, I would have been there when Gramps had his heart attack. He wouldn’t have laid there for twenty-four hours till Aunt Zoni went to the farm to see why he didn’t answer his phone. He—he might still be alive.”

  “He could have died anyway.”

  “But at least he wouldn’t have died alone.” He peered up at Rachel. “The truly sick part is I’m glad Gramps isn’t here to see that I have a son. I wouldn’t want to face the disappointment in his eyes.” He leaned toward her. “Help me, Rae.”

  She spread her hands. “There’s only one place to get rid of guilt.”

  “Where?”

  “Jesus.”

  Anger flashed through him. Why hadn’t he seen that coming? “No one’s running my life but me.”

  Rachel stood. “How’s that working for you?” She stared at him as seconds ticked by. Pivoting, she stepped over a shin-high coquina slab and disappeared around the corner of the mill. A few minutes later he heard a door shut and her car drive across the sand onto Old Mission Road.

  That was it—all the help she would give him? Thanks for nothing.

  He picked up a hunk of rock and hurled it at the wall. It smacked against the coquina, spitting a few shell-fragments and thunked to the ground, intact. Like his guilt.

  Chapter 31

  Rachel rolled her Escort to a stop in the back corner of the Walmart parking lot to pull herself together.

  Jake’s text had pinged her after a night spent nose-to-nose with grief, sucking its sulfur breath in and out of her lungs.

  He’d needed her.

  She’d hardly kept from flinging herself into his arms when she saw him round the corner of the crumbling wall at the ruins. But he hadn’t touched her, hadn’t uttered a romantic word—couldn’t with Gabrielle back in the picture.

  A metallic taste filled her mouth. She scrunched her eyes till gray spots danced between her and the windshield. Echoes of their angry exchange clanged around the cavern inside her. Where had things gone wrong?

  Jake’s ire had touched off hers, and instead of coming up with something spiritual, or at least, kind, to answer his guilt, her words turned snarky. Add that to her list of failures.

  She pressed her forehead against the steering wheel.

  Jake sat in the Sugar Mill Ruins where Rachel had left him. The sun passed behind a cloud, chilling his temper. He shivered.

  Rachel’s scorn had bled through her words. His life disgusted her. She wanted her own babies, not another woman’s—a reality check he didn’t have the energy to think about now.

  His life crumbled like the Sugar Mill had. Dad had exited long ago. Gramps. Now Rachel. You never knew which walls bore weight till your life sagged and toppled when one was ripped out from under you.

  Gramps had shored him up when Dad died, but no one lined up to take Gramps’ place.

  Gramps’ words ruffled in the breeze overhead. What about God?

  Good point. At least God wouldn’t get hit by a drunk driver or die of a heart attack.

  Rachel’s question rankled. How was running his own life working for him?

  He’d contributed to Gramps’ death. Jake tossed a rock, and it clunked against the guilt-rock under the arch he’d hurled earlier. He’d fathered a son whose mother he didn’t love. Another rock thudded in the sand beside the first. He’d lost the woman he did love—and his first mate—jeopardizing his business. He lobbed another rock. Gabs wanted marriage. Nathan needed a dad. Two more rocks.

  He didn’t have a clue what to do. How could he make the right decisions about Nathan’s future? Marrying Gabs? The Queen?

  Just thinking about telling his mother what he’d done oozed shame from his pores. She couldn’t say much, having traveled this road herself. But disappointment would dog her, then embarrassment when she told her sisters and the extended family.

  Continuing the way he’d lived for twenty-eight years, he’d probably make some good choices and some bad ones.

  But shedding the guilt and shame? Unlikely. Leaf said to focus on the positive. As if that were possible at the moment.

  With God he had a shot at a lot of things—knowing the right choices, forgiveness he could no longer get from Gramps. Maybe with God he’d have a leg-up on becoming the man Gramps had been, something he hadn’t come close to achieving on his own. A bitter laugh slipped out.

  Jake retraced his thought process before deciding to skip that last summer with Gramps, before sleeping with Gabs. They’d been small, almost innocent, decisions. Was there any hope he’d get life right on his own?

  The realization dawned on him slowly as the sun parted the smoky clouds. He wanted to know Gramps’ God, the God Rachel wrestled. He wanted whatever life he would get back.

  He stood in the ruins and lifted his face to the sun.

  “Yes.”

  His eyes drooped shut, and the sun baked the chill from his skin though his flannel shirt.

  When shadow cloaked him, he opened his eyes. Sun beamed through the arch onto the rocks he’d tossed earlier—the boulder of guilt near the adjoining wall and the smaller rocks of his failures basked haphazardly in the opening.

  Forgiveness before he’d even asked.

  Shoulders still warm, his chin dropped to his chest. Humility, gratitude, awe swam through him. He could almost feel Gramps’ smile.

  He knew from watching Rachel that guilt didn’t evaporate in an instant, but this was a start.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket.

  Text from Gabs.

  Decide.

  Jake passed Gabs in the Queen’s narrow fore passageway, careful not to brush against her.

  She stopped, inches away. “You’re going to have to touch me sometime if we’re getting married.”

  “I haven’t said I’d marry you.”

  Gabs’ hand closed around his forearm. “Seven months ago, you begged me to marry you. Two months ago, you wanted to try again. What’s stopping you from marrying me now?”

  “What if th
ere’s somebody else?”

  Her hands popped off his arm. “Oh?” The word came out like a squeak.

  He expected to see hurt in her eyes, but she brightened.

  “That’s a decision you’ll have to make. I can’t force you to marry me.” Her voice lilted, almost making him think she wanted him to say no.

  He scrounged through his memory of their November phone conversation. She’d said something important he couldn’t remember.

  Jake crossed his arms and leaned against the bulkhead. “Why would you marry someone you don’t love?”

  “For Nathan’s sake. You’ll be a good father, Jake. That was never an issue.” Gabs bent over the crib where Nathan fussed after his nap.

  Pressure bore down on Jake. He needed to choose soon. In three days a fully-booked Queen sailed. God, what am I supposed to do?

  His gaze smacked into the rear view of Gabs as she changed the baby. He bounced his gaze to the galley. Yeah, he needed to make a decision.

  Gabs picked up Nathan with one hand and tugged her shirt free from her waistband with the other.

  Geez. Jake headed for the companionway.

  “Why do you freak out every time I feed the baby?”

  “How long till he eats PB & J?”

  “Ian says breast feeding is a natural and beautiful part of life.”

  “Ian?”

  Gabs’ cheeks pinked, and she glanced down at the baby who ate as if he hadn’t had a drop in twenty-four hours. “The doctor who delivered Nathan.”

  The lost piece of their phone call knocked Jake in the head. “You fell for your doctor? That’s how you knew you didn’t love me?”

  Of course, a society girl, even one like Gabs who didn’t care if she ever stepped foot in a country club, would fit with a doctor. Everything made sense now. Jake’s blue collar roots rose up to bite him once again, but for the first time, it didn’t hurt.

  “He’s not interested in marrying me.” She gazed out the porthole, anguish chiseled into her face. Her bottom lip trembled. “Women fall for the doctors who deliver their babies all the time. Who knows how many hearts Ian’s broken.” She faced him, and he saw his own pain looking back at him.

  The truth lodged in Jake’s gut. Even if she loved someone else, she needed him. She wasn’t the kind of woman who could weather the social stigma of single motherhood for the long haul. Did he have Gramps’ integrity to step up and father his son?

  Rachel zipped up her sweatshirt and joined the people straggling toward the bonfire. She glanced over her shoulder to see who jogged up behind her.

  Hall caught up with her. “Hey.”

  Jusinia waved and joined a girl wrapped in a blanket down by the water.

  Hall stopped and motioned toward the saw grass-covered dunes. “Have a minute?”

  They stood overlooking the fire in the distance.

  Full moon illuminated Hall’s serious, one-hundred-percent-present gaze trained on her.

  Fear skated around her stomach, and she shivered. She couldn’t remember the last time Hall had sought her out. Was this the talk she’d been avoiding for months—where Hall would tell her he couldn’t get past her affair after all?

  Hall leaned forward, his eyes intense, fixed on hers. “I told you I let things go, but it wasn’t that easy. Part of me was still pissed at what you put me through. I’m not proud of it, but I wanted you to pay for what you did.”

  “Looks like I am—things ended with Jake.

  “You’re kidding. What happened?”

  “His ex-fiancé showed up with his baby.”

  Hall whistled. “That sucks!” His forehead wrinkled. “I understand ditching a guy with that kind of baggage, but I’m surprised. You’ve always loved everybody’s babies. You cried for days when the Capanellis and their three rug rats moved to Valdosta. If anybody could love a guy’s kid, you could.”

  “Yeah, I could. But I don’t deserve Jake.”

  “Didn’t Jesus pay for what you did?”

  “You said yourself that you’re still pissed. Why wouldn’t God be, too?”

  Hall leaned back on his hands in the sand. “I thought I was better than you because I haven’t done anything as big-league as you have.”

  Rachel opened her mouth to agree with him, but he cut her off.

  “I was wrong. Falling in love with Jusinia, knowing she loves me, made me see things differently. My scorecard is hardly clean—normal stuff, lust, a little porn, cheating on a test, a lie here or there, fudging on my time card, probably taking things further than I should with Jusinia. But God’s not making me pay. Instead, I get the girl I love. He doesn’t act like we expect Him to act.”

  She froze, even her breath stilling. Her eyes rooted to Hall’s. “I’m asking again—will you forgive me for all the suffering I caused you?”

  “Yeah, it’s past time.”

  She held his gaze. Finally, breath pushed out of her lungs, relief rushed into its place. The balloon of distance flattened between them, and she wrapped her arms around him.

  “Will you forgive me for judging you—thinking I’m better than you are? For holding a grudge?”

  “Of course, but you had cause.” She planted a foot on the dune and reached over to hug his neck. “I love you, baby brother.” She sat back.

  Moonlight blanketed them with white light.

  Hall smiled. “Yeah, love you, too.”

  Rachel slid a look at him. “Enough to help me apply for crewing jobs in Fort Lauderdale and on the Gulf Coast?”

  “After you try to work things out with Jake.”

  She whipped her face toward Hall. “What?”

  “Jesus wiped you clean as a whiteboard fresh from the factory—the first time you asked—like He did for me.” Hall pierced her with his eyes, infusing her with challenge and hope. “Fight for Jake.”

  She stared at her brother’s man-stubbled chin, finally seeing him as the adult he’d become.

  A snippet of a song from the bonfire floated to her. Forgiven… free.

  Did she have enough faith to believe Jake could actually love her? She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. But maybe she had just enough faith to do what Hall asked. “I’ll do it.”

  Jake stood in the shadows beyond the fire scanning the faces. Music floated around him. His gaze halted on Rachel, her face turned away from him as she gazed toward the ocean.

  The music quieted, and Jesse spoke, “God’s mercy is like getting stopped by a cop for speeding and getting off with a warning. God’s grace is, instead of a ticket, the cop handing you the keys to a new Ford Mustang convertible….”

  Rachel turned her face toward Jesse. Tears glistened on her cheeks in the firelight.

  Jake wrenched himself away, striding toward the crashing waves that echoed his frustration. Kicking seaweed out of his way, he jogged into a run for the jetty a mile down the beach. Rachel’s tears slid across his consciousness, bittersweet. Maybe she did love him. But that didn’t mean marrying her was the right thing to do.

  Jake perched on a dry slab of the jetty. His pulse and breathing eased to normal. He spoke into the spray, “What do You want me to do?”

  Purple clouds raced across inky sky, waves smacking against the rocks the only sound.

  If he could do whatever he wanted, he’d marry Rachel—if she’d have him—and somehow also become a regular part of Nathan’s life. He had no idea how to figure out what God wanted him to do. What would Gramps do?

  The light from the lighthouse glimmered across Ponce De León Inlet.

  Gramps would become a dad to Nate. But he’d do the right thing by Gabs, too…. Jake didn’t know if that would include marrying her to protect her from the shame from single parenthood.

  The rumpled opal of the Atlantic lay before him.

  The answer settled on him, jetty boulders piling on his body one by one.

  He’d have to go more than half-way to accommodate Gabs. Nathan’s conception had been more his fault than hers. She wasn’t the kind
of woman who could raise a child on a boat. How had he ever imagined Gabs embracing sailing? Everything clarified in the light of have-to.

  Hadn’t he strived toward her world his whole life? BMWs, country club, a woman with money in her DNA, restaurant Thanksgivings, Christmases on travertine tile, drinking out of crystal. Odd, how the instant he made the decision, his paradigm flipped. Now, the trappings of the club sounded cold and foreign.

  How long would it take to sell the Queen so he could move to Arizona? With all the remodeling and maintenance he’d done, she should raise enough for a fresh start, buy time to dive back into corporate America. His gut clenched.

  His son deserved two parents, a life where his mother could cope.

  He could tolerate all those things, even giving up the Queen and his dream. But how would he go on breathing without Rachel?

  He’d have to.

  “Jake!”

  Recognition slammed him. Rachel stood at the base of the jetty as though his thoughts had conjured her. The cement of his resolve nearly cracked as he monkeyed across the boulders toward her.

  Would she hike down to the jetty if she were still disgusted with him?

  He leapt onto the sand in front of her, breathing hard. The sloppy-soft folds of her sweatshirt begged him to gather her in his arms. He steeled himself against her. He would marry Gabs. Soon.

  Her gaze clamped onto his, and she stepped close enough to kiss. Moonlight reflected off the gloss on her lips. He shouldn’t even be thinking about the possibility. He needed to step back toward the rocks, put more sand between them.

  The wind blew cords of hair across her face and she pushed them away. “You asked me if someday I’d kiss you because I wanted to….”

  She’d tell him that day would never come, and he could start breathing again.

  “…I want to. Now.”

  Shock stilled him. Even his heart seemed to miss beats.

  She stepped closer, not quite touching him. Her fingertips dug into his shoulders. She lifted her face, her eyes never leaving his, and pressed cool lips against his dry ones.