Break of Day (17 page)

“I don't know. A couple, I guess,” Mom mumbled. Then she looked up at me, eyes fierce. “But I'm not giving that asshole a dime of my money! He violated my civil rights! I want him to pay for that! I want you to put him on TV!”

“Everything okay?”

I whirled around at the sound of the voice, horrified to realize Asher had stepped into the lobby and was now standing behind me. I felt my face turn purple with humiliation. Of all people—I did not want him to see me like this.

“Everything's fine!” I said quickly. “I've got it under control. You can just go back upstairs and finish—”

“
OH MY GOD
! You're Asher Anderson!” my mother broke in. “I watched your father for
years
on the TV. He was the best weatherman ever. I mean, you're no slouch yourself, and you're actually easier on the eyes than your pop, if you know what I mean.” She gave a low whistle. “Asher Anderson. Damn. I'm blushing!”

“Mom,” I hissed. “Can we talk about this later?”

But she was done with me, all of her meth-fueled attention directed at Asher now. “I need your help, Mr. Anderson.
My civil rights have been violated! I need to put this asshole on TV!”

“She's fine,” I said, stepping in between them. “Mom, I will help you. You don't need Asher.”

“What happened?” Asher asked my mother.

She repeated the whole story in one long breath. While I stood there, mortified beyond belief. Asher listened patiently.

When she was done he said, “So you have a new place to live. You just need your things back? Is that the issue here?”

“Well.” My mother huffed. “I guess that would be a start at least.”

“Okay.” He glanced at his watch. “Let's go make that happen.”

“Wait, what?” I interjected. “No! We are working here!”

“I put the script into edit,” Asher argued. “We have time for a quick trip.”

“
Thank
you!” my mother said, beaming up at Asher. “It's nice to know
someone
in this building cares.” She shot me an affronted look. I rolled my eyes.

Asher turned to me. “Are you coming?” he asked.

“You really don't have to do this,” I said.

“Actually I think I do. Do you want to come or wait here?”

“I'll come,” I said, not that I wanted to. In fact, it was the last thing I wanted to do. But I'd be damned if I'd allow my mother to be alone with Asher. Who knew what she would say to him?

We took two cars, Asher insisting that I drive my mother's, which was a good idea seeing as I had no idea how she'd even made it this far in the state she was in. Asher followed behind us in Fiona. As I drove, my mother twisted her body around so she could look out the back window. “Asher Anderson!” she exclaimed again. “What a hottie. I sure wouldn't mind a slice of that bacon.”

“Please, Mom. He's my boss. Try to restrain yourself.”

She turned to me, her wild eyes glittering madly. “I think
he's more than your boss,” she teased. “At least he wants to be. Did you see the way he was looking at you back at the station?”

“No, Mom. I was too busy focusing on you humiliating me and putting my job at risk, actually.”

“This is why you never get a man,” she pointed out, wagging a finger at me. “You're always thinking about work. Guys don't like it when you think about work. They want you to think about sex.” She glanced back at Asher's bus again. “You know, I bet you could totally get with him if you wanted to.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence. But I'm good, thank you.”

“Are you a lesbian, Piper?”

“
What?
”

“I don't know. I was telling David the other day how you never bring guys home. And he says, maybe you're bringing girls home. I told him if you were, I didn't know about it. But I would be okay with it either way. I'm liberated, you know? I have friends who are gay. If you got married, I'd even come to your wedding.”

“Well, that's good to know. But I'm not gay.”

She shook her head. “Then, honey, you must be blind if you don't see the benefits to getting a piece of that Asher Anderson ass.”

I let out a heavy groan. “Okay, Mom. Point taken. Just . . . please for the love of God don't say anything like that to him, okay?”

“Of course I wouldn't.” She giggled. “It'll be our little secret.” Then she giggled again, which told me I couldn't count on it. Sigh. This had better go quick.

We pulled into the trailer park a few minutes later, stopping at the first trailer in the lot, a halfway decent doublewide that the manager lived in. I'd met him before; he wasn't a bad guy. Certainly not a slumlord. Which was why I was worried about how much my mother really was behind in rent. For him to lock her trailer on her—it must have been far more than a couple of months. I tried to mentally calculate
how much was in my bank account. I was making more now, but I'd put down a hefty security deposit on my mother's new apartment, which had drained my savings.

I stepped out of the car, looking around, my heart sinking at the scene laid out in front of me. I thought back to the country club, the yacht club—all the places Asher had taken me. The places in his world with the beautifully manicured lawns, the sparkling lights. Of course there were sparkling lights here, too. Tacky, blinking Christmas lights, half falling down on the side of one rusty single-wide. I groaned, watching Asher get out of the car, heading toward us. We needed to get this over with—quick.

The manager stepped out of the trailer, meeting us on the front porch. His eyes zeroed in on my mother. “Oh no, Miranda,” he said. “I told you not to come back here!”

“You violated my civil rights!” she shot back. “I brought News 9 to investigate!”

He glanced over at Asher, raising an eyebrow. “That's the weatherman, you idiot.”

“Yeah, and he's going to shut you down! You and your—conspiracy to rob good people of their personal possessions!”

“How much back rent does she owe?” I asked the manager with a sigh.

He scowled at my mother. “Six months,” he said. “I've been more than patient. She kept promising me she was getting some kind of disability check in the mail. But it never came.”

“Six months?” I turned to my mother. “Did you even use any of the money I sent you for rent?”

“He's lying. I might have missed a month or two. But not six months! There's no way I missed six months!”

Shit. I started doing the calculations in my head. Six months, four hundred fifty a month . . . Shit.

“What's the total she owes?” Asher asked, stepping in. “Including any late fees you might need to collect . . . for your pain and suffering.”

I watched as the man's eyes raked over Asher greedily, as if assessing his worth and how much of it he'd be willing
to cough up. “I'd say four thousand ought to do it,” he said at last.

“Four thousand?” I blurted out. “But that's—”

“Do you need cash or can you take a check? I'd need to go to the ATM for cash.”

“A check's fine,” the manager declared. “I can tell a check from
you
won't bounce.” He shot my mother a look. “Unlike
some
people.”

“Asher, you really don't have to do this,” I protested, mortified beyond belief. Here I was, trying to dig my way out of the debt I already owed him for the job, and now he was doubling down.

“It's already done,” he said, handing the man a check. “Now how about you go open up the lady's trailer?” He turned to my mother. “I'll call a moving company to come pick up your things. Just write down your new address for me.”

“Thank you!” she cried. “Thank you so much! You're a goddamned hero is what you are! It's nice to know
some
people have decency in this world,” she added, sneering at the manager. He ignored her, his eyes not leaving the check.

I turned back to Asher, surprised to see he'd put a hand on my mother's arm and was leading her away from me. I watched, confused as he leaned in to talk to her. I could see my mom nodding her head vigorously. Then, he pulled out his phone and put it to his ear. A moment later, he walked back to me.

“There's a room open at Safe Harbor. She's agreed to let me take her. She'll sign herself in voluntarily, so I can't force her to stay. But I think we need to be thankful that she's even willing to try it out.”

I stared at him in disbelief. He'd gotten my mother to agree to go to rehab? Just like that—in one conversation? I'd been trying for years to get her into a program, but she'd always refused. Seriously, I knew Asher was persuasive, but this was amazing.

It was also, unfortunately, impossible at the moment.

I swallowed hard. “Asher, that's really great of you. But we can't afford a program like that. Not right now.”

“You don't need to. I got it covered.”

“No.” I shook my head vigorously. “You've already done too much! I can't let you—”

“This isn't about charity, Piper,” Asher interrupted. “Your mother's sick. She needs treatment. If she had cancer would you say no to chemotherapy?”

“No, but . . .” I stared at him, helpless and so damn grateful. “Thank you,” I said at last. “I don't know what else to say. You're a saint.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I'm definitely not a saint. Just a guy who once suffered from the same kind of cancer. If I can help your mom . . . well, maybe I'll finally feel even for what Miguel did for me.”

He held out his arms and I collapsed into them, sobbing in relief against him. He stroked my hair gently and I could feel his heartbeat against my chest. Strong, steady, just like Asher himself.

At last we pulled away. He looked down at me with affectionate eyes. “Now let's get a move on,” he said. “We need to get back to the station and get that piece finalized. My producer's a bit of a slave driver, you know.”

I looked up at him. “Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure you're not half the slacker you pretend to be.”

P
iper's mother was good to her word and three days later she was still residing at Safe Harbor. I'd called my buddy there last night to check in on her, and he told me she was actually already through a good portion of her detox, though she still had a long way to go. He told me she'd been in terrible shape when she'd come in and I'd most likely saved her life by getting her in when I had. I considered telling Piper that, but I didn't want to freak her out too badly. She was already suffering so much—as people did when their loved ones engaged in substance abuse—and I didn't want to add insult to injury. I still remembered all the apologies I'd had to make to various friends and family while going through my steps. I probably had a few more to make, come to think of it.

But it was a start. And now Piper's mother had her start. That was something, at least. In fact, it was a lot.

And my charity, it would seem, was becoming a habit, as I arrived at the beach at the crack of dawn that morning, waiting for Piper and her young charge to show up. I'd hit the surf shop yesterday, picking up a six-foot soft board for
the boy—one of those foam ones that were incredibly buoyant and easier to catch waves with. It was also, the proprietor informed me, very stable, making it simpler for a novice rider to stand up. If the boy didn't have much experience with the water, the first lesson would be more about boosting confidence than actual skill.

I was actually pretty excited about the whole idea. I'd taught people to surf before—mostly hot girls who seemed more interested in strutting around the beach in tiny bikinis than actually learning any moves. But I'd never taught a kid.

I remembered
being
taught as a kid, however. It had started one Sunday morning with me sneaking out of my parents' beach house while they slept off the rager they'd thrown the night before. I'd walked the shore, soaking in the sun and the salt and the sand, until I came to a beat-up old shack—very out of place amongst the multimillion-dollar mansions lining the rest of the beach. There I found an old man, with more wrinkles than hair, sitting on a stoop waxing his board. He'd looked up at me and smiled. He'd been missing quite a few teeth.

I asked him if he'd teach me how to surf. He made me finish waxing his board instead. Then he told me to come back next week. I did. And I waxed his board again. It was like something out of
Karate Kid
—and it took three Sundays before he'd let me in the water. But once I got in, I never wanted to get out again.

Mr. Chang considered surfing more of a religion than a sport. He told me the ocean was where life had begun on this planet and was mother to us all. He said the act of riding a wave allowed a surfer to become part of the collective unconsciousness of planet Earth.

Even today I believed there was truth to that. Over the years surfing had become more than just a passion to me—at times it had been my salvation. The ocean, my church. A place of refuge when things got bad at home. No one could hurt you out on the water. And it was the only place where I could truly feel free.

Which was partially why Piper's water phobia was so
foreign to me. The idea that the very same ocean that had given me so much—had so cruelly stolen from her. The very same waters that had brought me back to life offered her nothing but darkness and death.

When she'd said she would be coming today, I was surprised, and also impressed. It couldn't have been easy for her to do—to push past her crippling fear for the sake of this boy. But she'd agreed to do it anyway, knowing how much it would mean to him. Just like she'd done with Beth at her wedding, putting her own fears aside as best she could, to be there for her friend.

Which said a lot about the kind of person she was. A person I still wanted to know better. I knew she was still completely embarrassed about the whole thing with her mother, even though I told her a hundred times it didn't matter to me. If anything, it had explained so much about her—puzzle pieces I'd been desperate to find, finally sliding into place. She'd been a child, subjected to the one-two punch of addiction and tragedy. Two forces that could have easily defined the rest of her life and excused any shortcomings. But she hadn't let them defeat her. Instead, she had used them as reasons to keep fighting. Which made her even more amazing in my eyes. And made me want to know even more.

It was funny, really. With most girls, I just cared what was under their clothes. Yet with Piper I wanted to see so much more. I wanted to crawl inside her head to see what made her tick. To peel back her layers—to see who she was underneath, scars and all.

My secret hope was that this beach adventure would benefit her as much as the boy. If she could just stand on the sand, a safe distance from the water, her fear might start to ebb with the tide. Not like I expected her to be carving a wave anytime soon. But even sticking her toe in the water might be a start. Mr. Chang believed that the ocean was the world's greatest healer. Able to cleanse a person from the inside out. Maybe Piper's wounds weren't as mortal as she assumed. Maybe with time and patience they could begin to heal.

And maybe—just maybe—I could help her with that.

“Asher!”

Piper's voice jerked me back to the present and I almost choked as I caught sight of her and the boy crossing the sand. Holy crap. What was she wearing? Was a bathing suit like that even legal?

I shook my head, trying to get my mind back on the game. To avoid dragging my gaze up her long legs, taking in the flare of her rounded hips, her trim stomach, the small scraps of fabric barely covering her breasts. Suddenly my mind treated me to a vivid flashback of how soft those breasts had been, cupped in my hands back at the country club, and I let out a frustrated groan. Seriously, how the hell did she expect me to concentrate on a surf lesson with her standing on the shore looking like that? It was cruel and unusual punishment to say the least.

I held up a shaky hand in a wave, trying to calm my libido. “Hey!” I cried. “There you are.”

They stopped in front of me and I somehow forced my eyes away from Piper to concentrate on my new pupil. He was Mexican with large dark eyes and a shock of thick black hair. Stocky, on the short side, wearing a faded bathing suit that looked a few sizes too big. While he looked excited, he also looked a little nervous and his eyes held a trace of suspicion. My heart squeezed a little at that. Piper had told me some of his history—about his drug-addicted mother who was always breaking her promises. About how he would probably remain in the group home until he turned eighteen. I could see why she cared so much about him now. He probably reminded her of herself back when she was a child.

I stuck out my hand. He stared down at it, not reaching out to grasp it until Piper nudged him and he grudgingly obeyed.

“Hey, man,” I said, giving him a firm shake. “You ready to do this?”

“I guess,” he said, staring down at the sand. As if he didn't want to be here. And yet, somehow, at the same time I could
tell that he did. He was excited, but he was wary, too. Like he didn't quite believe this was really happening. That it was some kind of trick and if he showed his enthusiasm, he'd be laughed at and told it was just a joke.

I thought back to what I must have looked like to Mr. Chang that first morning on the beach. An overprivileged white boy who didn't appreciate all he'd been given. That was what most people saw when they looked at me, anyway, and I couldn't say it wasn't true. But Mr. Chang had looked beyond my exterior—to the lonely desperate boy beneath. And in the end, it was
that
Asher he'd taught to surf. That Asher he'd brought back to life.

“Great,” I said. “We're going to start the lesson on land. And then when you're feeling good about the basics we can head out into the water, okay?” I paused then added, “You can swim, right?” I actually hadn't thought to ask that first.

Thankfully he nodded. I slapped him on the back and grabbed the board I'd gotten him out of the sand, pushing it in his direction. “Here you go. Grab your board and we'll head down to the shoreline.”

He took the board from me, holding it awkwardly, as if not sure what to do. Instead of helping him, I grabbed my own board, demonstrating how to properly hold it, then headed down to the beach. I didn't turn around. I didn't wait to see if he was following. If he wanted to do this, he would. If he didn't, well that was okay, too.

But a few moments later he had caught up to me, stepping into place at my side. We walked down the beach, not speaking, as Piper trailed a few yards behind. It took a lot not to ask her if she was okay. But I could tell the kid looked up to her and I didn't want to embarrass her in front of him. Instead, I just shot her a quick look to make sure she wasn't in full-on panic mode. She gave me a weak smile and a thumbs-up. I had to take it.

I turned back to my student, catching him examining his new board with great interest. “This is, like, brand-new,” he blurted out, seemingly despite himself.

“It is,” I agreed. “Piper said you didn't have your own board so I picked one up for you last night.”

His eyes widened into saucers. “This is mine? For keeps?”

“No, Jayden. It's to borrow,” Piper interjected.

“Actually . . .” I gave her an impish shrug. “It's for him to keep. I mean, if that's okay with you?”

Jayden turned to her, an expression on his face that I was pretty sure no mere mortal human being would be able to deny.

“Please, miss? Can I keep it? Please?”

She shook her head, laughing. “I guess so,” she said, holding her hands up in defeat. “But, Jayden, we need to keep it in the locker room when we get back, okay? Away from the other kids. They might not understand.”

“Hell yeah, we're keeping it locked up,” Jayden declared, looking offended that she'd even assume otherwise. “I'm not letting any of those fools touch
my
board.”

The way he said it, the pride in ownership, made my heart squeeze. It also made me remember all those boards I'd gone through over the years, never truly appreciating any of them. I'd busted them, I'd lost them—what did it matter to me? I could always get a new one.

Even yesterday, I had barely even given it a second thought when I'd bought him this board—it was just easier than going to a rental shop. But looking at the light in his eyes now as he ran a hand along the board made me realize it meant so much more than that.

“Just promise me you'll take good care of it,” I said sternly, attempting to channel my former mentor. “A surfer always needs to keep his board clean and properly waxed.”

He nodded solemnly and when he looked up, his eyes were shining with newfound respect. “I will,” he said. “I promise.”

“Excellent. Then let's begin.” I tossed my own surfboard down onto the sand and instructed him to do the same. “Go ahead and lie down on the board,” I told him once he'd done it. “Try to center yourself so this line . . .” I dragged a finger
down the center of the board, where a small stripe had been drawn. “This is the center of your body.”

I waited as the kid complied, dropping down to the board and trying to align his body to the stripe as instructed. In the meantime, I glanced over at Piper. She was keeping her distance from the ocean itself, but looked okay overall.

Okay, fine. She looked more than okay. She looked freaking stunning. But that was beside the point, really.

“Go ahead and scoot down a little,” I said, turning back to Jayden. “You want your toes always touching the back. The sweet spot, they call it.”

I watched as he wriggled his body back. “How's that?”

“Good.” I nodded. “Now, imagine you're in the water. You're paddling really hard.” I mimicked the paddling in the air and he tried to imitate from down on the sand. “You're catching up with the wave, you're paddling really hard—like a hundred miles an hour. And suddenly the wave catches you.” I gave Jayden a questioning look. “What happens next?”

Jayden grinned. “I ride the shit out of that mother.”

“Jayden! Language!” Piper scolded. I laughed.

“That's right, my man,” I said. “You pop up. And you ride like the wind.” I dropped down to my own board to demonstrate. “Put your hands next to your chest. Then push up.” I popped up on my board. “Then, you bring your front foot forward and stand up on your back foot.”

Jayden nodded, following my lead. He popped up then tried to fix his feet. He wobbled and lost his balance, crashing into the sand.

“Aw, man!” he cried, slamming his fist into the sand. “I can't do it.”

“Yes, you can,” I assured him, hopping off my own board to help him. “It just takes practice. Trust me, you should have seen how much I sucked when I first got on a board.” I grinned. “And now I'm totally elite.”

I helped him back on his feet then adjusted him on the board, kicking his feet into proper position. “You want this line to go down the middle of your arches,” I explained. Then
I grabbed his hands and stretched them out so they were over the board in both directions.

“You feel that?” I asked.

He nodded grimly. He was concentrating with all his might to stay in position. I studied him for a moment, then nodded my approval.

“Good. Now drop down and pop up again.”

He glanced over at me. “Are we ever going in the water?” he asked.

I grinned, remembering my own eagerness when Mr. Chang had first taken me on. The kid was lucky I wasn't making him wax my board for the next month. “Not until I see at least five perfect pops,” I told him.

He groaned loudly. Piper shot him another warning look. He rolled his eyes, but got back down onto the board. This time when he popped up, his position was ten times better.