Haven

by J D Worth

  “Is that from personal experience?” I ask, wondering who was special enough to capture Mace’s heart. He doesn’t elaborate, only nods at me.

  After a long pause, he says, “Cal’s putting on a bonfire for us. We best be making our way to the beach before he comes back ’round.”

  I laugh. “True, since we don’t want Cal ‘fit to be tied.’” Mace groans, jarring his head at me. “I can’t help myself. Your slang is so much fun to kidnap and bend to my will!” I defend with giggles, and he kisses me.

  “It’s not quite the same in a Yankee accent. Not when you pronounce every damn syllable like there’s a damn period in between each damn word.” Mace feigns a look of contempt and wraps me up with his arms.

  “That’s what I sound like to you?”

  “Your voice comes out in a smoky and sexy tone, so I’m gonna give you a pass,” he says, patting my ass, “for now.”

  Mace helps by throwing several more dry logs on the fire when we join Cal. After tucking me into a chair, he glances to Cal. “I’m gonna head to town. You two stay put, and I’ll be back in a bit.”

  Cal bellows a laugh. “Tonight?” My head swings between the two, sensing they’re up to no good. Grinning at me, Cal’s face lights up and mischief bounces off his eager body.

  “Why not?” Mace offers. “Might be our only opportunity. More often than not, I’ve got commitments these days. I can’t say no to those big offers when they come.”

  Squinting, I attempt to decipher what Mace is talking about. So far, I’ve gathered big offers, burner phones, and serious side trouble. What am I throwing myself into? Mace has been adamant about keeping his troubles separate from me, which means none of this can be good, and I should know better. I thought I wanted a slice of solitude. What I really wanted was to live my life for once. Mace is as close of a chance I’ll get to living on the edge. When he’s around, I can’t help but fly close to the flickering flame, even if I’m going to burn in the end.

  “All right, but I’m pretty much tanked. Don’t know how much help I’ll be.” Cal gives him a slow smile.

  Mace taps the bottle of Jack. “I’m good. I laid off after the second game. You two are good to go all night.”

  “Thanks, Doc. You know I needed to let loose tonight,” Cal replies.

  Mace lets out an amusing laugh. “Princess, you up for another adventure?”

  “Where are you ditchin’ me now, partner?” I ask. Cal’s head flops, snorting at my drunken drawl.

  “You’ll see.” Mace ducks out, leaving me hanging. We pass the time while Cal shares their younger adventures and laughing almost nonstop. Mace returns within a half hour, and Cal puts out the fire. I plant a wide smile on my lips, gazing at the boat now attached to the Jeep in my driveway.

  “That explains why you own a four-wheel drive vehicle. Are we going alligator sighting tonight?” My legs bounce with giddy excitement.

  “This should be good,” Cal says, passing me the bottle. I take a large sip before wobbling into the Jeep with Cal behind me. “What was Jessup up to when you found him? Was he snoozing down at the docks again?”

  “Couldn’t find him.”

  “Who’s Jessup?” I ask as Mace smiles at me.

  Cal replies, “Jessup owns the local boat dealership, Hamilton Boats, in Harbor Bay.”

  “Jessup has no idea that you stole his boat, Mace?” I level my eyes at him. Cal sputters loud laughter beside us.

  “Princess, I’m not stealing when I have permission to use his boats anytime I want. I keep his engines tuned, so I gotta test them out. I can also use them for my own enjoyment.”

  “What about that alibi you stole from me?” I say, only half-kidding. Mace shakes his head, sending Cal a scathing look for his continued loud laughter.

  Cal quiets and asks, “Wait … what alibi?”

  “Princess rambles while drunk. Cal, you giggle like a school girl. Getting the two of you tanked on moonshine wasn’t the best of ideas,” Mace replies. Cal and I break out in snickers that morph into an uncontrollable fit of giggles.

  I ask, “Hey, the two of you introduced me to moonshine. When did you two first try the regional spirits?”

  “I was probably ’round sixteen.” Mace shrugs his shoulders. “My ole man is a drunk, so alcohol wasn’t all that appealing.”

  “I was like twelve, maybe younger,” Cal shares. “My kin distill their own, so the experience was more of a ‘see how this recipe is coming’ thing.”

  “Really?”

  “Hillbilly,” Mace says. Cal spurts out another loud chuckle. Mace cocks his head my way with a wry smile. “They brew moonshine like coffee in the hills.” Cal nods his head in agreement.

  I ask, “What’s life like in the countryside?” I know the crew teases Cal about being a hillbilly, but he really isn’t. He’s more country boy than not.

  “I kinda had a wild upbringin’ with all my crazy kinfolk ’round. I’m sure it was loads more fun than you living in the city, and the strict and proper rules you gotta follow.”

  “This is true. I’ve had to behave like an adult all of my life. I would never go on a spontaneous crazy adventure like this back in the city. Driving my car here was the first fun thing I did in a long time.”

  “Did you ever skip school or explore the city on your own?” Cal asks, pressing his cheek against my seat, listening close to what I have to say.

  “This past year, I blew off my tutor once a month and headed to the Met.” Their faces register confusion. “I mean the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My mother used to take me there. That was one of her favorite places and close to our apartment, so we didn’t need a driver.”

  “I know.” Cal clears his throat.

  I turn in my seat. “Oh, I’m sorry. Of course, you know what The Met stands for.”

  “No, to be honest, I couldn’t tell you what museums are in the big city. I knew Miss Charlotte would take you to see the different art exhibits. She spoke of your art trips fondly.”

  “Really?” I catch a small tear from my eye, and Cal touches me on the shoulder.

  “This is where we differ, Goof,” he says with a mock-earnest expression, “in these parts we go more for thrill-seeking than looking at sissy paintings and thinking how they make us feel.” We break out laughing. “You city folk sure do need to dirty your hands up proper from time to time. Hey, your momma said you were the top of your class in school, so how come you had a tutor?”

  “Our course loads are so challenging that every student needs a tutor. I had three this year. One helped with college admissions. The Ivy Leagues can be daunting all on their own with all the interviews and paperwork. One was solely for school. The other helped with my SATs.”

  “Smart aleck, where did you apply besides Harvard?” Cal is the first to ask that question. I blink several times in the dark vehicle. Where I come from everyone knows the Asters are synonymous with Harvard.

  “I only applied to Harvard,” I say. My fellow classmates applied to all the Ivies, carrying the prestige of getting into at least several. “The Asters will have sent three generations when I join the ranks.”

  Sharing that achievement should be a prideful moment, yet regret swirls while my stomach tumbles.

  There’s a long silence in the vehicle. Mace pulls off to a boat ramp. Cal hops out and directs Mace while he drives in reverse, lining up the boat. Mace shuts the Jeep off once he’s satisfied.

  “Is this part of the alligator reserve?”

  Mace grabs a pair of high rubber boots from the back seat and changes out of his steel-toed ones. “No, this is a marshy river close by, so there should be plenty of gators nesting here. Cal and I haven’t been this way since we were younger, but we always lucked out in this spot. You might wanna stay inside till we get the boat ready.” He helps Cal while I wait. The bright lights on the Jeep and the spotlights on the boat attract a massive amount of mosquitoes and other unwanted nocturnal inhabitants.


  Mace opens my door and I jump. “Are you sure this is fun?” I ask. “There is spooky moss hanging from the trees. There are bats the size of dinner plates, and large flying bugs I’ve never seen before. In fact, there are large quantities of bugs that seem to congregate into masses and are about to swarm me any minute. It’s a trap! This feels like Halloween, which I’ve never liked,” I ramble on. Mace smacks his smirking lips me on the mine while pulling out a bottle of bug spray from the glove department.

  “I’ll protect you.” Mace chuckles, holding out the bottle. “Your rants are funnier when you’re drunk.”

  “Spooky moss.” Cal laughs, shining the spotlight towards a massive oak tree with moss hanging like a giant spider web. “Goof, that’s Spanish moss.”

  “Again, I thought that moss grew where alligators live. Like only in the Deep South.”

  They both say in return, “Yankee.”

  Cal says, “Spanish moss will grow anywhere humid enough. Here on the Southern coast, it surely is. You wait and see. The humidity gets so bad that sweat will be pouring off you from breathing alone. This area is subtropical. That’s why we get bad hurricanes, have poisonous snakes, and lots of gators. Soon, you’ll be dipping in the ocean a couple of times a day to cool off.” The humidity has been rising since I’ve been here, and I’m already doing exactly what he said.

  “Mace, can you pull that moss down so I can feel it?”

  “Can’t. It’s full of chiggers and other bugs. Bats and even snakes been known to hide out in the stuff.” Mace’s mouth dips into another smirking smile while spraying me down.

  My eyes go wide as I shiver, more creeped out than before. “What are chiggers?”

  “Mites that will make you scratch nonstop.” Cal laughs.

  Mace tells me, “Close your eyes.”

  “Why?” My eyes widen that much more, and they laugh at me.

  “Relax, I’m gonna spread this on your face.” Mace tries to hide his smile.

  “You really don’t like the creepy stuff, huh?” Cal chuckles again.

  “Cal, this place is like walking into a horror movie, and I’m the willing victim here. Look how the surrounding shadows stretch into the dark night, looming like claws from the spotlights.” I use wild hand gestures to point to the moss, bugs, and bats flying above us, and all the imposing trees encircling us. “That bug spray smells horrendous. Why not something more pleasant like vanilla?” I tease Mace, closing my eyes.

  He whispers, “If you didn’t smell like a damn cupcake, I wouldn’t have to saturate you.” His gentle fingers rub the spray over my face and behind my ears and neck. “You gotta cover me.” Mace hands off the bottle so I can get his backside.

  Cal shrugs his shoulders. “What’s not to like ’bout Halloween? You dress up silly and get free candy.”

  “Cal, every Halloween I attend a charity event raising money for children.”

  Cal asks, “You never went trick-or-treating?”

  “No, there’s no precedent for rich kids going from mansion to mansion to beg for candy where I grew up.” I let out a chortled laugh. “It’d take little feet all night to only reach five mansions in my old neighborhood.”

  “Goof, you ever dress up in a kid’s costume?”

  “No, however, this past year we had a masquerade ball, so we wore fancy masks.”

  Cal yanks his head back. “What the hell? I even dressed up as a construction guy for Aiden last year, wearing my tool belt and hardhat for him. We take him out every year ’cause it’s something fun we do as a family. Even if he’s too little to remember, it’s a tradition. Ask Mace, he’s more than happy to join us.” Mace nods. I’m stuck in my spot when I assumed he would never do something like that. No, the men of Wall Street wouldn’t take their children out. The citizens of Bell Peninsula have their own decorum they follow for the sake of family and traditions.

  “I do not come from a child-centric world.”

  “Well, this Halloween you’ll be at a place where college kids dress up for the fun of it. I don’t care if it’s Ivy League, they’ll wanna blow off steam too. We’ll have Violet hook you up with something good.” Cal turns to Mace with his finger in warning. “No suggestions from you, Doc.”

  Mace’s grin touches his eyes. “Go as Snow White, you can stay in character.”

  I snort. “Only if you dress up as a giant garden gnome, Doc.”

  “Okay, you two. Let’s get to it.” Cal grabs me and boosts me up on the boat, hopping up behind me. He points to the seat in the middle and shines the light for Mace to see what he’s doing. Mace unwinds a crank that makes the boat descend backwards. He unhitches some kind of strap, freeing the boat from the trailer and gives us a good push forward in the water. Mace joins us from the back and takes over the wheel. Cal adjusts the two spotlights so they shine toward the front of the boat. The swampy banks of the river pass as Mace uses a GPS guiding system, taking us deep into the middle of nowhere.

  After a while, Mace cuts the engine and sits back, lighting up a cigarette. Cal points to the detachable swivel spotlight attached to the side. “Grab one, Goof. We’ll see what we can find.” I follow Cal’s lead to the back of the boat as he takes one side, and I take the other.

  I almost drop the light in the water, falling back on my ass when multiple sets of eerie eyes shine back at me from the tall grassy banks. My heart thumbs against my chest as I catch my breath. “Oh, my gawd!”

  Loud laughter roars from Cal as he wipes tears from his eyes. Mace flicks his cigarette into the water and helps me up, laughing.

  “I wasn’t expecting a herd of alligators!” They erupt in more laughter, Cal slips and falls on his ass beside me. “I thought we’d be lucky to see one!”

  Cal repeats, “A herd.” They crack up again.

  “What do you call a large group of alligators?” I wave my hands in a dramatic fashion towards the banks while Cal’s spotlight shines on the huge collection of lounging reptiles.

  “Princess, you call ’em a bask. Like how they bask in the sun on the shore together,” Mace speaks up, failing to withhold his chuckles. “They seem to like this area here ’cause of how the river bottlenecks, pooling all the fish and critters into this spot.” Mace points the spotlight up and down the narrowed banks, exposing more of the large creatures. Still creeped out, I shiver while eyeing the banks, even if the alligators don’t seem to care about our presence in the boat.

  Cal winks. “Easy pickings, right, Mace?” Mace nods, exchanging a sly smirk with him. I immediately hone in on their conversation. They both seem to gaze off to the murky water. Cal laughs into the darkness. “Man, I love this place. Right here is still the best spot to get rid of a deer carcass.”

  Cal’s remark sinks like the Titanic in my brain. Fuck! If someone fell, thrashing into the water, or was left behind on purpose, no one would ever know. I try to shake the absurd thought, but sinister notions keep crossing my mind. Mace told me straight out he’d kill Pretty Boy if he were still around. How does Mace know for sure he’s not? Mace’s fishing boots were in the back of his Jeep the day we went to Corolla. That was the morning after Chaz disappeared. Mace can access boats anytime and is using me as an alibi.

  I glance over to him as he grins my way. He’s made protecting me his job, and he’s doesn’t seem worried Chaz could be lurking around Haven. Cal warned me that I might hear or see things I can’t decipher. But that’s crazy. I dismiss the notion that Mace, or even Cal, could be a killer.

  A gnawing sensation runs up my spine as I sit down on the deck chair. There are too many threads to unravel. I’m drunk out of my mind, having a hard time keeping my thoughts straight. I need to get out of here, sleep the night off, and put my analytical skills to better use in the morning. “This experience is like moonshine. Once is enough. Can we please go back to my safe, non-spooky cottage now?”

  “Sure thing, Princess.”

  “Is alligator sighting a serious form of fun? How of
ten do you do guys do this?” Keep talking about nothing; keep the other sinister thoughts at bay.

  “It’s been years, right, Mace?” Cal wobbles in his spot and points back to me. “You go to museums for fun.”

  “Yes, you have a point,” I concede. “Most people find that boring, and this isn’t boring in the least bit.” Whatever this is, it certainly isn’t boring. Mace turns us around, and we make the long trip back down the river.

  The night sky gives way to dawn. Orange streaks reflect in the calm morning water when we reach my cottage, relaxing our exhausted bodies in the chairs around the fire pit. I close my eyes. “You’re lucky. Your lives are full of beauty every day,” I murmur with a smile. “Even if there are monsters lurking in unknown parts around here.”

  “You could be lucky too,” Cal says. “Audrey, have you thought ’bout actually staying down here for your college breaks? They put you outta your bedroom anyway, right? You have friends here, and Martin would still manage your property for you.” I open my eyes, barely catching Mace and Cal exchange glances.