by J. L. Berg
Copyright © 2018 by J.L. Berg
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at www.jlberg.com
Cover Designer: Okay Creations, www.okaycreations.com
Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com
Formatting: Champagne Book Design, www.champagnebookdesign.com
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9983912-6-7
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Other Books by the Author
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Within These Walls
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Other Books by J.L. Berg
The Ready Series
When You’re Ready
Ready to Wed
Never Been Ready
Ready for You
Ready or Not
The Walls Duet
Within These Walls
Beyond These Walls
Behind Closed Doors
The Cavenaugh Brothers (includes Within These Walls, Beyond These Walls, and Behind Closed Doors)
Lost & Found
Forgetting August
Remembering Everly
Standalones
The Tattered Gloves
Fraud
By the Bay
The Choices I’ve Made
The Scars I Bare
The Lies I’ve Told
This one is dedicated to coffee. Thanks friend.
Ten Years Earlier
My eyes cracked open, the sun drifting in through the bedroom window as the weight of yesterday’s events hit me full on.
I was a high school graduate.
The moment that rolled-up certificate had passed into my hands, it’d felt like a giant weight had been lifted from my chest.
Freedom.
From the town, from the dark shadow my brother had cast over me since birth.
From everything.
I could finally start anew.
Jumping out of bed, I ignored the slight ache from my head caused from too many late-night beers at the dunes last night, and I headed down the hall. I had only a handful of weeks before I headed off to early enrollment at The University of North Carolina in Greensboro.
I didn’t want to waste a second of it.
June was the start of peak season in Ocracoke. Soon, this island would be filled with pretty, young tourists stuck on family vacations, bored out of their minds, with nothing to do.
And I was just the one to liberate them from the monotony.
Nothing like having your own personal tour guide around the island, right? And I even offered my services for free.
Although tipping was strongly encouraged. Especially the physical kind.
Wearing only a pair of pajama pants, I took the stairs two at a time toward the kitchen in the large, old house where I’d spent my childhood. The hardwood floor creaked as I hit the bottom step with a thud.
No need to be quiet. It was almost noon after all.
Going straight for the cereal, I reached for the largest bowl I could find and poured an embarrassing amount of Apple Jacks into it, but I found myself disappointed when only a handful fell out.
“Hey Ma! Do we have any more Apple Jacks?” I called out.
No one answered.
It was a Saturday, which meant she should be home. She often left the family’s fishing business to a few trusted employees over the weekend, choosing to spend her time with her boys and God. Although, now that we were older, she usually dedicated most of the weekend to the latter.
She still managed to pin us down every Sunday evening for supper though. Not that I minded too much. The woman was a wizard in the kitchen.
Abandoning my half-empty bowl of cereal on the kitchen counter, I wandered down the hall into the living room in search of her. But that proved fruitless as well, so I tried the dining room. No one was there either.
Finally, I heard the sound of chatter just outside on the patio.
Sticking my head around the corner, I caught a glimpse of my older brother, Dean, and the familiar brown curls of my mother as they huddled together over several notebooks spread out over the glass table we sometimes used for cookouts.
Why they were sitting out there in the hot weather was beyond me. It might only be early June, but we were experiencing record heat, and the temperature had probably already surpassed ninety outside. I could see the sweat dripping down my brother’s temples as frown lines creased his forehead. And my mom? The look on her face was grim.
No, not grim. It was devastating.
The kid in me—the somewhat selfish teenager who didn’t want to ruin his fun-filled day of flirting with tourists and sunbathing at the beach—decided to retreat.
Better leave this one to the grown-ups, I decided.
Just as I was about to tiptoe back to the kitchen and make do with my half a bowl of Apple Jacks, Dean noticed me playing Peeping Tom and immediately stood up.
“Damn it,” I cursed under my breath.
There went my plans for the day. No doubt he was going to put me to work, doing one thing or another. Dean was only five years older, but it felt like ten. Without our dad around, he’d taken the older brother role to heart. He’d skipped college to help Mama with the family business, and he took it all really seriously.
Sometimes, I swore, he had been born with a fishing pole in his hands, ready to fill my dead father’s shoes the first chance he got. Me? I didn’t hate it, but I could probably find a dozen other things I’d rather be doing than discussing tides and cleaning fish guts off the decks of a dozen boats.
“What are you doing?” he whispered as he stepped inside, wiping his brow with the bottom of his T-shirt.
“I could ask you the same thing. It’s hotter than the devil’s armpit out there.”
“Charming,” he said, rolling his eyes as he held up his wrist at eye-level. A quick glance at his watch had judgment written all over his face. “You know it’s almost noon?”
“Yeah. So?”
Letting out a disgruntled sigh, he motioned for me to follow him. I’d learned over the years to not mess with my big brother, so I gave into the inevitable and followed him. To do otherwise usually resulted in purple nurples or some other sort of uncomfortable situation.
The disapproving glare only worsened when he saw my cereal on the counter, but he chose not to comment on it. Instead, he went for the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water, and I watched as he drained it in seconds.
“Sit down,” he commanded.
Looking longingly at my bowl, I begrudgingly did as I had been told, taking a seat at the kitchen table as he did the same.
“I was going to wait to tell you this,” h
e said, his gaze shifting to the floor as he let out a huff of air. “Actually, you know what? Just eat your Apple Jacks and go do whatever it was you were going to do today.”
He’d just given me my out. It was exactly what I wanted, but something in the way he said it grated on my nerves. Maybe it was the disparaging tone of his voice or the shake of his head as he cupped his forehead in his hand.
He looked lost.
My brother never looked lost.
“Tell me,” I said. “I want to know what’s going on. Does this have to do with what you were talking to Mom about, all secret-like, outside?”
He nodded.
“Well then, tell me. If it has to do with the family, it has to do with me.”
His brows lifted, as if he finally agreed. “The business isn’t doing so great. We’re having serious financial difficulties.”
“But I thought we were doing better since Abernathy’s Fishing Company closed last year. More fish for us, right?”
His head tilted, and he began to rub his temple like I’d just said the stupidest thing in the world.
Maybe I had. I really didn’t know shit about our business other than what they told me.
“They closed because they had to,” he explained. “And, if we don’t figure something out, we might need to as well.”
“Oh.”
Silence fell between us as I tried to sort all this out.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Abernathy’s has been closed for a while. If we’ve been having problems for so long, how come you’re just telling me now?”
He leaned forward in his chair, his gaze leveling with mine. “Because, up until yesterday, you were a kid Taylor. And you deserved to be a kid for as long as possible.”
“But, now, I’m not,” I said, filling in the rest of what I assumed he was thinking.
I’d woken up that morning, thinking of only one thing.
Freedom.
Adulthood equaled freedom, right? Freedom to wake up when I wanted—well, I’d already done that, I guessed. But what about the freedom to go where I wanted, when I wanted, and the freedom to choose my destiny…
In less than an hour, my brother managed to teach me that, no, adulthood means so much more. I had responsibilities now. My uncomplicated summer plans of picking up chicks at the marina and playing tour guide suddenly felt unimportant next to the possibility of our business collapsing.
How would we live? It wasn’t like there were a lot of job opportunities around here.
“What can I do to help?” I asked, remembering the sad look on my mother’s face as she’d sat outside with my brother in the heat, probably so I wouldn’t overhear what they were saying.
Well, no more, I thought. No more.
It was time I stepped up and took my place.
At least until the summer ended.
Then I’d go fulfill my destiny in Greensboro.
Sorry, ladies. This summer belongs to my family.
Time to get us back on track.
My alarm woke me, as it did every day. The blaring sound of the radio made my eyes spring open, the sun barely breaking over the horizon on a new day.
“Jesus,” Sierra cursed beside me. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s called an alarm,” I said, throwing the covers off me. The cool air hit my bare skin at once, and I immediately missed the warmth of my bed. “It’s what responsible people use to wake up in the morning.”
I heard her groan into the pillow. The sight of her naked body moving underneath those sheets did all sorts of things to me as I dragged myself out of bed.
“I’m responsible,” she argued.
I listened as she rustled out of my bed, and by the time I managed to pick up a shirt and shorts for my morning run, she had found her own set of clothes.
“You’re a fifth-year college student, taking a semester off to spend time with your grandparents on a nearly deserted island.”
She finished pulling her shirt over her head, just in time to give me a hard stare. “I am a double major. That takes longer, and I happen to like my grandparents and this island, even in the low season.”
My brow lifted. I didn’t believe her for a second.
The truth was, she’d broken up with her boyfriend last semester and taken it hard, and she was using Ocracoke—this little blip of a island town where her grandparents had chosen to retire—as a place to hide out while she tried to get over her heartbreak.
I was just someone she used to pass the time, and I was more than okay with our arrangement because, as a guy who didn’t do more than casual dating, low season, as she’d called it, was also a dry season for me—at least in the ladies department.
“Now, what does a girl need to do to get breakfast around here?” she asked, giving me a pouty look that made me all sorts of uncomfortable.
And not in the there’s a naked girl in my bed sort of way.
“Creep back to your Grandpop’s place and make some there?” I suggested. I watched as her pout only deepened. “Come on, Sierra. You know I don’t do breakfast. Hell, I’m already a dead man if Jimmy finds out you’ve been sleeping over at my place. You know he flew me and my mom to the hospital when my brother was nearly killed on that ferry? He’s a good guy, your grandpop.”
“Yeah”—she nodded, her hands going to the pockets of her jeans—“he is.”
“Look, if this is getting to be too much for you, maybe we should just call it quits before anyone gets—”
“No,” she said a bit too quickly. “I’m fine. Really.” A fake smile pulled at her cheeks. “Just hungry. I’ll grab something when I get home, and you’re right. We wouldn’t want Grandpoppy finding out about this. God knows he doesn’t need the spike in his blood pressure. Go ahead and grab your run, I’ll let myself out.”
“Okay,” I replied, knowing full well this wouldn’t be the last time we saw each other—the town was too small for that—but it would definitely be the last time we saw each other like this.
Because, if there was one thing I didn’t do, it was complicated.
My morning jog did nothing to help clear my head, and after I came home to an empty house, I noticed how Sierra had tidied up after herself. The twinge of guilt I felt for even allowing this thing between us to move past drunken flirting only grew as I drove into work.
“Dude, you look like shit, little brother,” Dean said the moment I stepped into the office.
“Thanks,” I replied. “That’s real kind of you. I’d say the same, but…well, you always look like shit.”
He chuckled, shaking his head, as I took a seat at my desk. I looked out over the marina. The sun beat down onto the water which scattered tiny, glistening diamond lights across the bay.
I shook my head.
Damn, it was early.
Too damn early.
“Did you make coffee?” I asked, stretching my back against the old leather chair.
I’d managed to pull this business out of the brink of bankruptcy twice—most recently when my brother’s medical bills from the ferry explosion had nearly crippled us—yet, somehow, we still had these piece-of-shit office chairs that probably predated both of us.
No one could argue that the Sutherlands were excessive with money; that was for sure.
“Of course,” he said. “I have a child who refuses to sleep at night because it’s precious hours she could be learning. How do you think I survive? I’m already two cups in.”
I chuckled, loving that my brother had laid such a fierce claim on his stepdaughter. Honestly, I had too. Lizzie was a keeper for sure.
“Good,” I said.
Wasting no time, I made a beeline toward the counter in the back we had set up for break times. There was a mini fridge and one of those fancy new coffeepots with the individual pods for customers during the slow, winter months when they waited indoors for scenic tours. But, for the two of us, we still relied on the regular drip machine.
“Is there a particular reason y
ou look like shit today, or is it a new look you’re going for?”
Only my big brother could hassle me like this without getting a beat-down.
I let out a sigh, pouring my coffee as he waited for an answer.
“Sierra,” I finally said.
“Jimmy’s granddaughter? That Sierra?”
I nodded, having just added an ample amount of flavored creamer to my giant cup of coffee.
“Man, I thought you were done with that?”
I merely shrugged.
“You know he’ll kill you if he finds out. Like drag your ass onto that puddle jumper of a plane of his and drop you in the middle of the ocean kill you.”
I took a long sip of coffee. It was like liquid fuel to my brain cells, and I instantly felt better.
God, I loved coffee.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Really?” he said, his brow rising in disbelief as both arms folded in front of him.
I had to force myself not to glance in the direction of his prosthetic arm.
Even to this day, I couldn’t help but look.
Up until the night Dean had lost his arm in that ferry accident, I’d always told myself that staying here in Ocracoke was temporary. That one day, I’d finally get out of here and fulfill all those dreams I’d had in high school. I’d go to college, do something other than this. But, the moment I had seen him in that hospital bed—so lost and helpless, my superhero of a big brother—I’d known.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
Ever.
“If it’s no big deal, then why are you chugging down caffeine like it’s whiskey?”
I looked down at my mostly empty coffee cup, realizing he was right. I was already in need of a refill.
“She wanted breakfast this morning.”
A smug smirk tugged at the corner of my brother’s stupid face before it quickly disappeared. He knew breakfast was the kiss of death in my book.
“Have you ever thought about maybe, one of these times, saying yes to breakfast? Obviously not with Sierra because of the whole her Grandpops will kill you thing, but maybe someone else? It is just a meal after all.”
