A hand threaded into his hair. Her arm wove around his waist, her body molding itself to his.
He warmed to her, hungry. His fingers spread across her shoulder blades, crushing the bulk of their jackets between them. He drank deeply, enough to last a lifetime. Good-bye hovered at the edges of his consciousness, ready to devour him.
Rachel’s teeth tugged at his bottom lip. Her fingers branded the skin above the waistband of his jeans.
A hand dropped to her hip.
What was she thinking? What was she doing?
His control hung by a thread.
For too many reasons to count, he refused to go where this kiss was taking them. He relaxed his hold on her, eased his lips, his body from hers, just enough to let cool air pass between them.
Rachel peered at him, starlight shining in her eyes, her fingers still warm on his skin. His hands gripped her shoulders, quaking at what he had to do next.
Chapter 32
Joy percolated to the surface as a breeze off the ocean cooled Rachel’s skin. She’d gathered her courage and packed the kiss with everything she couldn’t put into words. And it had been perfect.
Jake gripped her shoulders in silence, probably sharing her awe. He turned his face, and moonlight caught on tears streaking his cheeks.
Had the kiss touched him deeply enough to prompt tears? She ran her fingers through the wetness on his face. “What’s wrong?”
Jake inhaled a shaky breath. “I—I’m marrying Gabrielle.”
She stared at the anguish in his eyes, not comprehending. Then, the ice blade of Jake’s words penetrated her body. A strangled sob tore from her throat before she clamped shut her mouth. She had been right all along. Jake loved Gabrielle—that’s what she’d suspected until five minutes ago.
“I never thought Gabs would return—much less with my son—demanding we marry. I’m… so… sorry.”
She convulsed from his embrace into a dead run down the beach as though she could outrun the impact of his decision.
Her name tore from Jake’s throat and died in the surf behind her.
The truth knocked her to her knees in the sand, winded. Keening sobs churned in the sound of the surf, and a minute passed before she realized they were her own.
“Rachel!” Jake dropped down and gathered her in his arms, his breaths pulsing in her ear.
She sucked in the scents of sweat and salt between sobs, not having the energy to resist the white pain of his touch.
He kissed her hair, murmuring something between kisses she couldn’t distinguish. Why did he rain kisses on her when he planned to marry Gabrielle?
As she quieted, Jake’s words spilled over her, running in rivulets over her head into her ears, trickling much deeper. “I love you so much. I don’t want to hurt you.”
An errant sob shuddered through her body. “What did you say?” She pulled away, but Jake didn’t loosen his hold.
Jake held her by the shoulders, his eyes piercing into her. “I love you.”
Hope blazed in the dark, then smoldered to a watery grave. “But you’re marrying Gabrielle.”
Jake’s hands dropped from her shoulders. “This isn’t about what I want. It’s about what’s best for Nate. It’s about what God wants.”
How could he sound so noble when her heart was ripping down the middle? She stood and brushed the sand from the knees and shins of her jeans with the last grains of hope. “Since when do you care what God thinks?”
“Since you threw my life in my face at the Ruins.”
Even in the dusky light, she saw the conviction in his eyes. I get the irony, God.
More weary than she’d ever felt, Rachel took a long look at him. “Goodbye, Jake.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand. “Don’t say anything.” She turned her back on him and plodded toward the dying bonfire, her heart discarded on the sand at his feet.
Rachel slammed the car door in the driveway of her parents’ house. Time to quit wallowing in self-pity at Cat’s, face the state of her parents’ marriage—whatever it was—and search online for a crewing job. One thing she’d discovered through this episode of her life—sailing was the desire of her heart. If God had intended for her to become a teacher, He would have skipped the dyslexia or given her enough energy to climb the college mountain. In her heart of hearts, sailing trumped college.
She’d move on with her life—as if the thought didn’t make her hyperventilate.
First she had to face her parents. She drew in a deep breath to fortify herself. She hadn’t seen them since they reconciled. She pushed open the door and stepped in. The screen door slapped against the doorframe behind her.
Mama and Daddy spooned on the couch watching TV.
“Hi, honey,” Mama said as if she’d seen Rachel yesterday instead of a week and a half ago.
“Hey, stranger,” Daddy said, not moving his arm from around Mom’s waist.
She’d felt so rational in the car, but now her veneer of calm cracked.
Daddy was supposed to be in his easy chair—like always. He’d only moved a few feet across the room, but she needed normalcy to hold herself together. Jake’s announcement that he’d marry Gabrielle had sledge-hammered into her, webbing fissures from the blow. The cozy still frame of her parents on the sofa tapped her like a gavel, starting the rain of glass.
Mumbling something about catching up tomorrow, she dashed to the stairs before she shattered.
She curled into a ball on her bed as if that would keep her from breaking into a thousand razor-sharp pieces. Then, sobs overtook her like they had on the beach, but this time Jake didn’t wrap her in his arms and tell her he loved her. She cried harder.
God. Oh, God.
Her vision cleared to the picture on her night stand of herself at seven clutching one-and-a-half-year-old Hall under the backyard banyan tree. Her knee boosted Hall so he didn’t slide out of her arms.
The ache for a baby of her own nearly choked her as she picked up the clear glass frame holding a mother-daughter snapshot taken when she was fifteen. They wore matching New Smyrna Beach High T-shirts silk-screened with pink barracudas in honor of the girls’ basketball team. Mouths open, mid-laugh, they posed as mirror images of each other, Mom’s straight hair the same length as Rachel’s curls. The photo captured the more-clone-than-child link she’d always felt toward Mom.
If it hadn’t been for her irrational fear of losing Mom, she wouldn’t have over-analyzed her parents’ marriage. She wouldn’t have flipped into panic mode when they hit drama that didn’t involve her. She might have accepted Jake’s proposal overlooking the Ohio River. She could be engaged to the only man she’d ever loved.
Anger and regret boiled under the surface. She traced a finger over the glass covering mother and daughter’s loosely linked arms, symbolizing an inviolable connection that, until this moment, had always felt right.
As the anger broke through, she realized it had always been there—since Mama’s affair—squashed under the fear of losing Mama. How could Mama have chosen a strange man over ten-year-old Rachel, four-year-old Hall, and Daddy who only ever loved her? She couldn’t blame her own affair on Mama, but Mama’s choice had frayed the fabric of Rachel’s character.
Now she had Mama, but not Jake. Her thumbs whitened, blotting out the faces. Rage spilled over, and she hurled the picture the width of her room.
It face-planted into the door jam, spewing glass, and plunked to the floor. Good. She let the anger bulldoze her despair. If Mama had just delivered Hall at the hospital like normal mothers did, if she didn’t have a man on the side—
The bedroom door creaked open, and Mama stuck her head into the room. “What happened?” Her gaze fell on the broken picture frame. She bent to retrieve the shattered photo, shut the door, and picked her way through the spray of glass. “What’s going on?”
“Are you in love with Skye?”
Mama crossed her arms. “What’s this have to do with you?”
“Answer the
question.”
“I don’t see how it’s your business.”
“Jake asked me to marry him. Worrying about you and Skye made me turn him down. Now he’s engaged to his ex.”
Mama sunk onto the vanity stool. “I admit being tempted—by an old attachment that never went completely away.”
“You’re still hooked on him?”
“I love your father. I don’t even like Skye. He’s never had your dad’s integrity.”
Silence throbbed in the room.
Mama gripped the edges of the vanity bench. “Skye let me into who he was inside—and I doubt he ever showed that part of himself to anyone else. That’s probably why his marriages failed and he came looking for me.” Mom’s gaze flicked out the window. She’d gone somewhere Rachel couldn’t follow.
Rachel opened her mouth to speak, then shut it. “Have you been seeing Skye all these years?” She didn’t care that bitterness oozed out with her words.
The color drained from Mom’s face. “It was just that once. Biggest mistake of my life. I nearly lost….” She choked up. “The three of you.”
There was more Mama wasn’t telling. But Rachel clamped her teeth together. Did she really want to know?
Mama gripped her hand. “I made an error in judgment and met Skye for coffee. Your father was furious—and now I get why. She shook her head sadly. “When I think how close we came to throwing away our marriage and our love for each other over coffee, it’s unbelievable.”
Rachel tried to pull it away, but Mama held on. “Forgive me for the affair and how it hurt you.”
The picture of begging Hall’s forgiveness sprung unbidden to her mind. She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to forgive Mama—so many years of fear, injuring them all.
Mama’s grip tightened. Her eyes, so like Rachel’s, pled with her.
Rachel didn’t want to remember how desperate she’d been for Hall’s forgiveness. She didn’t want to know exactly how Mama felt at this moment. But she did. Mama’s love fire-hosed at her. Mama didn’t love her any less because she’d lost her way for a little while.
Rachel filled her body with fresh oxygen. “I forgive you.”
Tears ran from Mama’s eyes, and she hugged Rachel long and hard. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too.” The words felt light, buoying her up from a lifetime of fear and bitterness, setting her free.
Mama scooted the stool closer to the bed. Her fingers found Rachel’s hair as they had when she was a little girl. “Tell me about Jake.”
Rachel’s whole body sighed as she launched into the story.
Finally, she sat up, tugging her hair free from Mama’s hand. “He told me tonight he’s marrying Gabrielle to be a father to their son.”
Mama blinked once. Twice. “Oh.”
The waterworks turned on again, and she slumped into Mom’s arms.
“You’ll love again, stronger than the first time. It happened to me with your father.”
Rachel sucked in a quivering breath and sat up. “You mean Daddy wasn’t your rebound?”
Mama’s brow wrinkled. “I did meet your father right after breaking up with Skye, but I fell in love with him, heart and soul—a man of faith, honest to a fault, kind. I love him even when he’s pigheaded and jealous, like recently.”
Mama drew in a deep breath. “You can quit worrying. Your father and I are not splitting up—ever.”
Mama picked up the broken picture and propped it beside the photo of Rachel and Hall. She kissed Rachel and left.
Rachel stared at the picture. Jagged glass covered her image, slicing a line between her image and her mother’s. She wasn’t Mama’s clone. They were mother and daughter, each with her own regrets, her own secrets, that God was working out in each of them.
For the first time, she let go of her stranglehold on Mama.
Jake loved her. In spite of his marrying Gabrielle, the knowledge felt like a divine kindness. It gave her hope that she’d heal. Mama said Rachel would love again, better than the first time. It wasn’t much to hang onto, but it was something.
Jake wrapped Grams’ rings in soft, pink felt and put them away in a waterproof lock box in the bilge. Tim wasn’t sentimental, but maybe Ned would use them. He’d get a safe deposit box tomorrow. No way would he risk sending the rings through the mail.
He rooted through his sock bin until his hand closed on the jewelry store box that held Gabs’ ring. He’d almost sold it to buy the Queen a new engine, something he would never consider with Gram’s rings.
He turned Gabs’ diamond so it caught the sun streaming through the aft cabin porthole. He’d spent way more than he could afford on the ring and worried himself sick that Gabs would consider it cheap. She’d never say so, but he’d always wonder.
The door between the engine room and the cabin swung open.
Gabs walked into the cabin, the baby draped over a shoulder. “I need to go to Little’s Drug Store for a prescription. Would you mind watching Nathan and letting me borrow your ca—” Her eyes honed in on the ring, and she sank to Rachel’s bunk, Nathan sliding into her lap.
How could he tell Gabs he’d marry her while she perched on Rachel’s bed?
“So—?” Gabs peered down at him from her elevated seat, the symbolism raking across his nerves.
He stood. Drawing in a breath, he focused on Nate’s fists jerking up and down in front of his face.
“I may not make enough money for you to live like you did growing up….” He would always be the guy who screwed up her life, who made her live with less.
“You know I don’t care about that. Anyway, parenthood doesn’t change my desire to teach. My parents would help if there were some crisis….”
He cringed. The last thing he wanted was handouts from her folks. “Could we really make a stable home for Nate with a messed up foundation like ours?”
“Plenty of people make arranged marriages work. We spent a year together and got along well. It’s not like we’ll have a volatile relationship.”
Or a passionate one. “Where would we live?”
“I’ve thought a lot about this.”
“And?”
“What do you think about getting a place in town? You could keep your business.”
“We’d be a weekend family?”
Gabs nodded, shot him a hopeful look.
She’d thrown him a hefty carrot. But would weekends be enough dad for Nate? Had he gotten much more than that from Dad or Gramps? Probably not. “When?”
“As soon as we can get a marriage license. My parents said they’d fly out.”
Great. They’d been underwhelmed by him to begin with. Knocking up their daughter would insure he’d never be truly welcome in their family. Now that Gabs held out the key to the club, he didn’t want it anymore.
He’d run out of objections. Except for Rachel. His mouth went desert-island dry.
“Okay.” The word tasted like shell in his mouth.
“Don’t sound so excited about it.”
“Oh, and you’re thrilled?”
“Jake, you’re just the kind of man I wanted to marry—someone hardworking like my father, honest, kind. You’ll be a great dad. I’m attracted to you. I stuck with the engagement as long as I did because I wanted us to work. We will work.”
He pressed the ring into her palm. “It’s the right thing to do.”
She handed him Nathan and slid the ring onto a shaky finger. Her shoulders slumped, mirroring his dejection.
She would never have her doctor, and he would never have Rachel.
He hoisted Nate onto his shoulder and pressed his lips against the baby fuzz on his head.
“Okay if I check on the license tomorrow?” she said. “I can find us a place while you’re out of port this week.”
“Fine. The Explorer keys are hanging beside the main companionway.”
She slid off Rachel’s bunk and stood in front of Jake, too close, in the small space. She wrung her hand
s, her gaze darting around the cabin and landing on Jake.
“Thanks.” She stood on tip toe and pressed her lips firmly against his. “I can’t handle being a single mother.”
He lay the baby down on his bunk. “I know. It’s what’s best for Nate, anyway.”
She gave him a weak smile, and he watched her leave the way she’d come in.
The touch of her lips slammed reality into him. He’d be kissing Gabs the rest of his life. Vanilla kisses. Maybe this was why he’d been able to agree to a long engagement the first time around.
The memory of Rachel’s last kiss flooded him with heat. Then, the chill of loss settled into every crevice of his body.
I can’t do this. God, give me the strength to be a man Gramps would be proud of. He stared at his son. “You’re worth everything.” The truth hung in the cabin with the scent of mildew.
He reached a finger out to the baby, and Nate grabbed hold.
Someday his emotions would catch up with his decision.
Chapter 33
Jake stifled a yawn as Gabs crawled between the sheets on Rachel’s bunk. Reality knifed into him one more time. Rachel belonged here. Gabs had bailed him out by cooking for this cruise, but missing Rachel throbbed with every breath.
Nate whimpered in his sleep, reminding him of his responsibility. Jake glanced at Nate’s crib straddling the open door between the engine room and the aft cabin.
Gabs pulled up the blankets, tucking them under her arms. The soft light from the head they’d left on for night feedings bathed her. “I know this is crazy, but I feel more rested cooking on the Queen this week than I did at home dealing with all my mother’s drama. Nathan sleeps well with the roll of the ship. You’re in the galley a hundred times a day looking for ways to help me, taking the baby when you’re at the helm, sending me off to take naps like an invalid.”
Jake glanced at her, clasping his hands behind his neck on the pillow. “Did I thank you for helping me out this week?”
“Only about sixteen times.”
“I never could have done this alone. Hopefully, I’ll hire a replacement for Rachel this weekend from the ads I placed before this week’s cruise.”
Tattered Innocence Page 25
