by Tijan
it. It made me feel connected to him again. My family doesn’t remember that. I’m Mitch to them.”
Mitch Quandry.
“They call me by my first name.” He chuckled. “It’s like…I don’t even know. I hear that name, and I think of you, because I’m supposed to be called Boone. That’s what our friends called me, but it’s like you claimed it. Boone’s my name from you now.”
“I’m—”
Boone cut in, “Don’t say that you’re sorry. You’re not sorry, Dani. If you were, you would’ve said something to me and not left a goddamn note on the table. I read it when I was drunk, and I thought it was a joke, a horrible, sick joke.” Another bitter laugh slipped free. He gripped the back of his neck. “I kept thinking you were in the bathroom or something. I passed out thinking that.”
Dani took a deep breath and stared at her coffee. The steam had stopped rising.
“What are you doing here?” He expelled a ragged breath. “What are you doing here?”
“I grew up here. This is where my family is from.”
“That’s right. Erica O’Hara. Julia, Kathryn, Mae, Dani. You guys are like the perverted small-town Brady Bunch or something. I feel like I’m drunk again, and I’m reading your Dear John note all over.”
“You have a right to be angry at me.”
“You’re damn right I have a right to be angry.”
She flinched. “I wasn’t right, and you proposed. I didn’t know what to do. Everything was—” Everything was swirling around her as she lay helpless. She didn’t have a grasp of what was going on, but she knew she needed to stop it. “I had to get out. I wasn’t right, Boone. I was barely holding on as it was.”
She was under the surface.
Sinking.
Falling.
Drowning.
It was happening all over again.
A knock sounded on her door, and before Dani could open it, it opened itself. Jonah stepped through, an easy grin on his face that disappeared immediately. He looked at Boone. “Uh…” His eyes held a question for Dani, one that she was still helpless to answer.
She wanted to laugh. This was hilarious, in a sad and twisted way. She woke up with Jonah, was warned off by Jake, then Boone was at her table right now. It seemed fitting that Jonah would come back around, complete the odd circle in a way.
She knew a slight edge of hysteria was in her voice. She held out a hand. “Boone, this is Jonah Bannon. Jonah, this is Mitch Quandry, my ex-fiancé.”
Boone cursed.
“I’ve met your brother.” Jonah’s tone was cold. “His company’s here to build where the mussels are.”
“I don’t know much about it, to be honest.” Boone nodded and shook his head. “Wow. This is all messed up. I—uh—I should get going. This isn’t the time for this.”
Jonah stepped aside as Boone moved toward the door. Just before he stepped outside, he stopped and looked at Dani. “I…” The words died in his throat.
Dani didn’t say anything. She could only watch him back.
“Nevermind.” He shouldered through the door.
It slammed shut behind him, too.
“They’re here because of the mussels?”
Jonah nodded. “It’s a lot of money in those pearls. Everything will go up in worth now.”
She couldn’t digest that, but Jonah didn’t say anything else. There was silence for a beat. Dani inhaled it in like she was starving. Her insides were trembling. The tsunami was back, it was inside of her, and she couldn’t focus for a moment. She only heard the waves, the cries, the screams, then the silence. A gasp for breath. Then nothing again.
Her heart was going crazy. She felt that it actually wanted out of her. She looked down as if to see if it was still there, still inside of her.
Jonah was sitting down. She recognized it in the background, but the sounds were distant. He was saying something. A question. She frowned, trying to concentrate more. Oh, yes—he was asking, “You want to talk about that?”
That was the last thing she wanted. “No.”
“Okay. Come on.” He nodded, then started to lead her toward the bedroom.
“I’m not tired.”
“Liar.” Jonah chastised and he turned back the blankets. Dani crawled in and looked up at him.
Jonah stood, uncertainly, as he held her gaze.
“I don’t want to have the nightmares.”
The decision was made. Jonah toed off his shoes and he slipped in beside her. Dani tucked her head in the crook of his arm and shoulder. He reached down, caught her hand and a moment later, her eyelids weighed down.
Jonah wasn’t there when she woke the next day, so she went for a run, and ended up at the end of Mrs. Bendsfield’s driveway. She wanted to go inside, see if she could find out more answers, but…it was Mrs. Bendsfield. Dani doubted she’d be as open this time around, but still. She found herself migrating there, and she went past the house, right to the milking barn this time. The cats scattered just inside the stable door, and Dani saw the owner wasn’t in her pottery studio that day.
The designs were beautiful and intricately made. Why didn’t she display her work? Why else does an artist create if not for someone else to view?
Her eye caught on one pot in particular. It was large and oval with dolphins carved around the top brim. Lilies and daisies were between each of the dolphins. They were Erica’s favorite flowers. They were her mother’s favorite flowers, and now, Dani remembered that she always saw Mrs. Bendsfield with those two flowers. They were embroidered in her shirts, pants, sweaters, or socks. She had them painted on her van. Even her sign that proclaimed her false age—it had with a border of lilies and daisies.
A memory came back to her. Her mom was hugging her at night, and she whispered, “If you find any lilies or daisies, hold on to them, Dani. They grow with love. Lots of love.”
“What are you doing here, girl?”
Dani heard the harsh voice, but she also heard a slight tremor in that voice.
She turned slowly. Mrs. Bendsfield was there with her chin raised high, a shaking hand on the milking room’s door handle. It was as if the door was for her protection—her way of escape. She wore another over-sized white shirt, stained with paint all over. Her white hair was pulled up in a messy bun.
“Why lilies?”
“Why you wanna know?”
The elderly woman’s eyes were intelligent and clear. Dani knew no hallucinations would give her answers today.
“Why lilies? Why daisies? What do they mean?”
“Just flowers. That’s all.”
They weren’t that easily dismissed. Dani caught the flicker of emotion in the older lady’s eyes.
“Why them?”
She shrugged this time, uneasy. “Don’t matter.” She crossed her thin, aged arms over her chest.
“It matters to me.”
“It don’t to me.”
“Are those your favorite flowers?”
“Not mine. My husband’s.” Her voice was sad.
“What do you mean?”
“They’re just flowers, girl. It ain’t no unsolved mystery. My husband picked those flowers for me. I had them wild daisies and lilies in my bouquet on my wedding day. But, they just flowers.”
Memories weren’t just memories. And anything that stood for a memory, sparked a memory, meant something more.
“My son ain’t your father.” Mrs. Bendsfield surprised her again. She added, “I know what you thought when you left that last time. I know that I wasn’t myself, but my son took off long ago. I ain’t seen or heard from him in over forty years. He’s long gone, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Why’d he leave?”
“Ain’t your business.”
“I think it is.”
“I think not,” Mrs. Bendsfield rasped out. “He’s my son, and I have to mourn his absence every day. I don’t ‘have to’ explain anything, least of all, to one of her rabbits.”
That was the second
time Dani had heard Mrs. Bendsfield call her that.
“Is that what you thought of my mother? That she bred like a rabbit?”
Mrs. Bendsfield snorted. “She might as well have for all the trouble she caused around these parts. Your mother wasn’t alright in the head. Took damn near an earthquake to get her to see reason one time.” Her gaze fell away, clouding over.
Dani jerked in reaction. “You said that you took a shovel to my mother. Did you hurt her?”
“What?” Mrs. Bendsfield looked again, her thoughts in the past, and murmured, “No, no. Just a phrase—that’s all I meant. It might’ve helped if I had taken a shovel.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“My son ain’t your papa. You can believe that!”
“Might so, but you know something about my family, and I want to know what that is. I think I have a right to know.”
“You got no right except to live your life. That’s what all you O’Haras are supposed to do. Just live your lives and leave everyone else in your dust, hurting like my Oscar, like…” Her voice trailed off, then she shook her head. She snapped back to attention. Her hand tightened on the door handle. “My Oscar ain’t your papa. If he were, I’d rather kill myself and dig my own grave afterwards.”
“Would it be so terrible? If your son was my father? Would that really be such a terrible thing?”
She expected anger or hot denial, but the fight seemed to evaporate. Her hand slipped from the door handle. Her shoulders dropped, and her head hung low. She whispered, “Yes. Yes, it would, little Dani O’Hara. In ways you can’t possibly conceive.”
Dani stood still. The world was whipping around her.
Mrs. Bendsfield moved to look out the window.
Dani was transfixed on the lilies and daisies. And the dolphins. Her mother always talked about the magical dolphins and their healing qualities. They were the protectors of the ocean. They guarded everyone.
Her mother talked about the white dolphin that rode atop the white clouds in the sky. She said that when it was your time of dying or healing, that white dolphin would appear and you only had to grasp her fin and she’d pull you home. Dani thought home meant their home.
It wasn’t what her mother meant.
“My mother wasn’t bad.”
Mrs. Bendsfield swung back around and gazed at her, blinking a few times, like she’d forgotten Dani was there.
Dani added, “You talk like my mother was awful, but she wasn’t. She was a good mother.”
“Child.” Mrs. Bendsfield’s eyes were hollow. “I don’t care if your mother was good or not. All I know is that the pain wrecked my family, and that’ll stick with me till my dying day. My Oscar’s gone, and it’s because of your mother.”
“What happened? Tell me what happened.” She insisted, “Tell me what you’re not telling me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Mrs. Bendsfield looked at her as her white hair slipped out of her bun. The strands framed her aged features, and her old eyes seemed to sigh on their own.
She murmured, “It ain’t my secret to tell.”
“It’s not my mother’s. She’s gone. She’s dead.”
“Your mother ain’t the only one in this secret. There are others involved, even though they don’t know it or not. It’s more their secret than mine.” She nodded. “You get it from them. Not me.”
“But—”
“I’ve had enough of your family. I don’t want anything more from anyone with the name of O’Hara.” Mrs. Bendsfield harrumphed, and she took a faltering step toward the door.
“Wait.”
She looked back, right in the doorway. “I know who your daddy is, and he comes around every now and then. He checks in on you three. He was at your little sister’s funeral.”
The milking door, white and rickety, shut behind her.
“He checks in on you three.”
Mrs. Bendsfield was outside, GoldenEye was eating grain out of her hand. Their eyes caught and held, and Dani knew she’d never come back. Whatever secrets were still there would remain there. She’d find out from someone else.
She just had to find out whom that someone else was.
She headed for the cave, knowing she would find Jonah there.
Trenton spotted her first as he popped up from a dive. He flashed a blinding smile, even more striking against the backdrop of his black wet suit. “Hey, Dani, you come to help us dive?”
“Maybe,” she murmured and sat on the edge with her toes dipped into the water. She rolled up the ends of her pant legs and waited as Trenton dove back down, and a second later, Jonah popped up in his stead.
“Hey.” Jonah grinned as he hoisted himself up beside her. “What are you doing here?” He moved his bucket between them and rubbed off the dirt and grime from the mussels. He dunked them in the river to further clean them.
“Jake stopped by yesterday.” He knew about Boone, but they hadn’t talked about her other visitors.
Jonah paused in his washing.
“He said you have a fight brewing. It’s with Boone’s brother, isn’t it?”
“It is.” He nodded, the teasing left in a flash. “But I can’t talk about it. I can talk about how this mussel is going to save our town’s economy. I can talk about how we don’t need to keep exploiting the river, but about that—I can’t. I’m sorry, Dani.”
Dani nodded. She understood.
Jonah frowned. “How’d Jake know about that anyway?”
She shrugged. “He said the police make it their business to know what’s going on, in case they need to protect someone.”
“That’s bullshit,” Jonah cursed swiftly. He kept washing off the mussels. “Jake’s interested because you’re my business. He’s never cared before, and if he says the police are involved, that’s even more bullshit. The police force around this town don’t want anything to do with my ‘battles.’ They want the conglomerates to come into town because it means more money and they can hire more staff.”
“I don’t think Drew Quandry is going to threaten me. Boone wouldn’t want that.”
Trenton broke the surface again. “Man, I just hit another bed.”
“You did?” Jonah transferred the mussel he’d been holding to Dani and jumped into the river.
Trenton dove after him.
Dani spotted a loose pair of goggles and snorkel. She grabbed them without thinking, shimmied out of her pants, and dove in after them. It was dark in the water, but she followed the trail of bubbles, and within another moment, she saw Jonah’s and Trenton’s floating figures as they ducked inside another cave of the river.
Dani kicked her legs and put forth a burst of speed until she was behind Jonah. She tapped on his shoulder, and when he whirled, his eyes widened when Dani pointed to his mouthpiece and her own.
He nodded, took a deep breath from his oxygen tank, and removed it.
Dani expected him to give her the oxygen mouthpiece, but instead Jonah fused his lips over hers and breathed out his air of oxygen. His lips lingered over hers before he gave her the oxygen piece, and Dani drew in enough breaths to tide her over.
He took a few breaths before handing it back over. They traded
