Hideaway Cove (A Windfall Island Novel)

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October 17, 1931. Windfall Island, Maine.

H
elluva night,” Jamie Finley said as he and his crew loaded the last of the crates on the horse-drawn wagon that would carry the illegal booze to their stash in Hideaway Cove.

Like the others, including his son, Emmett, Jamie’s eyes strayed out to sea, where a pair of ships rode at anchor twelve miles from shore, at what those who flouted the U.S. government’s Prohibition law had come to call the Rum Line.

Two hours before there’d been three ships lit up like Christmas and raging with the wild party that hopped nightly, just out of reach of the Coast Guard, from one deck to the next. Then one of those ships, the
Perdition
, exploded and sank beneath the restless and hungry waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

Like the group on the beach, the other two ships had gone respectfully quiet and dark. Every ship’s captain feared fire at sea, but when a ship was loaded to the hatches with alcohol-based cargo, even the smallest spark took on a whole new threat.

“Da,” Emmett Finley said softly, and when his father turned to him, he opened the flap of his coat to show the face of the baby he held against his chest. The baby they’d found on their little boat when they returned from the
Perdition
with their load of bootlegged booze.

She slept fitfully, her tiny body warm against Emmett’s. Perhaps too warm.

“You’re right, son. We ought to get the babe in out of the weather.”

“What’re you going to do with it?” Floyd Meeker asked.

Jamie bumped up a shoulder. “Laura will know best.”

“You’re going to let a woman decide?” Meeker huffed, disgust digging the normal sour and disapproving lines on his face even deeper.

“My wife is as good as anyone else. Better than most, when it comes down to it.”

“Not on Windfall. It has to go to those who make the decisions for the island.”

“No.” With a speaking look to his son, Jamie Finley stepped over to Meeker, drew the rest of the men away from Emmett and lowered his voice. “The babe can’t be given over to the coppers without putting everyone at risk.”

Meeker jerked his head to where Emmett waited. “That’s a fine blanket wrapped around the child.”

Not to mention the jewel Jamie had seen around the baby’s neck before his son had shown the presence of mind to cover it up. “Her people will be looking,” he said. “She didn’t come from that ship, not to begin with.” Of that he was certain.

“If she’s found here,” Meeker said, “We’ll go into the deepest, darkest hole them Fed bastards can find, and then they’ll use the excuse to tear this island apart.”

“We’re agreed, then. We keep our business this night a secret. All our business.” Jamie made eye contact with each of his compatriots, saw them nod—all except Meeker, who stepped forward.

“I’ll take her, then,” he said. “You have enough on your plate, Finley.”

One of their crew laughed uproariously, incredulously. The other rocked back on his heels, quietly amused.

Jamie just shook his head. “No.”

“But—”

“You haven’t got a nurturing bone in your body, Meeker.”

“I only want—” Meeker began, swallowing back the rest of his objection as the other men turned on him, their intent obvious in their set expressions and fisted hands.

Windfall Island had no sheriff, no law enforcement personnel of any kind. Windfallers dealt with their own, under a code of justice that went back to the island’s first settlers. That justice was swift and unforgiving.

Jamie rested a hand on his son’s shoulder and turned him toward home, leaving the others to ensure Meeker’s silence.

And silence, of a different kind, was what he shared with his son on the long, cold walk. The stars shone bright, sharp points of light in a sky that had gone from cloud-covered to clear in the hours since they’d first set out for the
Perdition
.

They scented the village first, the rich aroma of wood smoke seeming to warm air frosted with winter and ripe with the tang of the ocean. As they rounded a curve of shore, lights shone from windows, comforting as they made their way along the crooked streets to their own little house. And the sound of weeping that sliced through the walls.

“Stay by the door,” he told Emmett when they walked inside. The only light came from the banked fireplace across the room, and although his wife’s tears were stifled now, sorrow seemed to weight the air.

Laura Finley had strength to spare, as much strength as God had ever given a woman. That didn’t mean she’d never shed a tear, and under other circumstances Jamie would have left her to it, as he never knew how to handle such emotions. This time, though his eyes were dry, what moved her to tears broke his heart as well.

“Maddie is bad off,” she said when he joined her by the fire, where she leaned over the crib he’d made with his own hands before Emmett’s birth. Their infant daughter, not yet a year old, lay so still and silent within, her skin pale and translucent as moonbeams.

“She’s a Finley,” Jamie insisted. “She’ll fight it off.”

“Sometimes I have to lean close to make sure she still draws breath.”

“Laura.” Jamie lay a hand over hers, waited until she straightened, then tipped his head to where their son waited.

Emmett opened his jacket, let his mother see the child sleeping in his arms.

“Jamie,” Laura breathed, then her voice sharpened to a knife’s edge. “Take that child out of here.”

“Shhhh, Laura, listen to me,” and he told her what they’d witnessed on the beach.

“I heard it,” she said dully, “I felt it.” Then she bent back to Maddie, and he understood that it had made no impact on her, not with their daughter fighting for her life against an enemy they had no way to defeat.

A measles epidemic had run rampant through the island. The very young and the very old had proven especially susceptible. The rest of them could do little but stand by and watch their loved ones fade.

“Take the babe away before she sickens. Please, Jamie. I couldn’t bear to see another child take ill. Wait,” Laura said as he turned to go. “Can…Can I see her again?”

Emmett came a step or two closer, turning to put the baby’s face into the light from the fire.

“Look how rosy her cheeks are.”

“She’s awful warm, Ma,” Emmett said.

“No wonder, out in all that damp and cold with naught more than a blanket to keep her warm. God willing, she’s only taken a bit of a chill.”

Like his wife, Jamie turned back to their daughter. The difference between the two infants, so close in age, but miles apart in health, drove like a knife into the heart.

Still, many a frail child had come back from death’s door, while a healthy, well-fed one succumbed.

“Go on now; take the child over to the Duncans’. Claire will know what to do.”

“But they’ve sickness there, too.”

Laura lifted her gaze to her husband’s. “It’s over for them.”

“What happened, Da?”

Jamie reached into the child’s blanket and removed the jeweled necklace, depositing it in his pocket. “We’ll find out soon enough, boy.” And out they went, though he hated leaving his wife and child again.

Seeing as the Duncans lived just across the way, it took mercifully few moments in the breath-stealing cold to reach their home. Joe Duncan opened the door at Jamie’s knock, stepping back to invite him and Emmett in. Once a man of high energy and infectious good humor, now sorrow carved deep lines on Joe’s face and stooped his shoulders.

Their daughter Elizabeth had sickened with the measles at the same time as Maddie, but although Jamie searched Joe’s face, he couldn’t read the outcome. When Claire Duncan came out of the back room, though, Jamie knew immediately.

“Maddie?” Claire asked.

“We’ll know soon.” Jamie had to stop, swallow against the band of fear and sadness tightening his throat. “Laura said your wait is over.”

Claire’s eyes filled, and when she reached out, Jamie caught her hand in his own, then clasped Joe’s shoulder.

“Emmett.” Claire dashed her hands across her damp cheeks, then stopped when she realized the boy had his arms full. And what he held.

As Jamie related the bare bones of the story, she flew across the room and gathered the baby up, already clucking about the child being damp and feverish.

“A soaked nappy doesn’t help,” she finished, stripping off the beautiful pink blanket with no more than a quick, envious sigh for its fineness.

“Laura was right to send you,” Joe said, watching his wife hurry out to fetch a dry diaper and some of their own daughter’s clothes. “Claire boiled everything in sight, even swabbed the floors and walls with lye soap. Would’ve boiled me if she could’ve wrestled me into the pot.” He looked down, his jaw working for a second before he managed words again. “I’d’ve jumped in if it woulda meant…” he broke off when his wife came back in, the two of them sharing a long look.

“You tell Laura we’re praying for Maddie,” Claire said. “For all of you.”

“She’d say to tell you she’s returning the favor.”

“No need now.” Claire stared off toward the bedroom before meeting Jamie’s eyes again, working up a little smile for him. “You’ll let me know. About Maddie.”

“I will.” Jamie turned to collect Emmett, and found him asleep on the bench by the fireplace.

“Boy is done in,” Joe said. “Why don’t you leave him here? It might be best, considering…”

Jamie nodded once, pulled his watch cap back on, and slipped out the door to go keep vigil with his wife.

It would be over, one way or another, by dawn.

Present Day. Windfall Island, Maine.

J
essica Randal, Jessi to her friends and family, had been born and raised on Windfall Island, Maine. At the tender age of seventeen, her high school diploma so fresh in her hand that the ink was still wet, she’d found herself pregnant and engaged. Nine short months later, the boy she’d thought her soul mate had left her high and dry and she’d given birth to the real love of her life.

Benjamin David Randal arrived with little fuss or fanfare—a contented, happy baby who’d refused to cry even when the doctor slapped him sharply on the bottom. Seeing as he possessed the dreaded Y chromosome, Jessi knew for certain he’d give her trouble. She vowed he’d be the only man who would—as he’d be the only man in her life.

Most of eight years had passed since that life-altering day, and she’d made a good life for herself and her son. She didn’t have a college degree, but she took enough online courses so that when her best friend, Maggie Solomon, started her charter business with nothing more than a used airplane and a drive to succeed, Jessi had climbed on board and never looked back.

Maggie owned two planes—or had before she’d lost one to the icy grip of the Atlantic—and a helicopter now, along with a pair of ferry boats. She spent as much time as she could in the air. Jessi made that possible.

As ten percent owner and one hundred percent business manager of Solomon Charters, Jessi handled the scheduling, drummed up business, kept the place stocked in everything from toilet paper to aircraft fuel, and juggled the bills to keep the wolves from the door—for the business, and for herself and her son.

All in all, she was pretty proud of herself, satisfied in her work, and fairly content with her personal life.

“Mom?”

She turned toward the sound of that voice and thought,
make that deliriously happy
. Looking into the face of her son, how could she not be?

“What’s up, Benj?”

He paused in the act of loading his backpack. “Where are we going on vacation next summer?”

“I’m not sure.” She gestured to his pack. “Work while you talk or we’ll be late. How about Boston, or maybe Gettysburg?” she tossed out, because summer was a long way off and she hadn’t given vacationing even a passing thought. “What do you think: Freedom Road or battlefield ghosts?”

Benji stuffed some papers in his backpack, flopped in a book, and heaved a sigh. “History stuff again?”

“I thought you liked history stuff.”

“It’s okay.” He sent her a sidelong glance. “They have history in other places.”

“Oh? What other places?”

He shrugged. “Everywhere, even Disney World.”

Jessi bit back a smile. “I don’t know, Benj. Disney World?”

“It’s not just rides and cartoon stuff, Mom. I looked it up in school.” His little voice rose with excitement as he made his pitch. “They have animals, like in a zoo but they get to wander all over and you have to look at them from a train kind of thing. And there’s stuff about countries and presidents and science.”

“And this idea just came to you out of the blue?”

He hunched his shoulders. “Danny Mason is going with his family.”

And Danny was bragging on it to all the other kids in school. Not that Jessi could blame him; Disney World was the Paris of the pre-teen set.

“Auntie Maggie could fly us there,” Benji said, “and some of the hotels are pretty cheap— I mean,” he screwed up his face, “affordable. Some of the places are affordable, Mom, like for families, you know? So we could still stay in the park.”

But there was airline fuel, airport fees, a rental car, admission tickets, and meals for a kid who ate like he had two hollow legs, and souvenirs, because why go all that way and bring back only memories? And she kept those details to herself. Bad enough that Benji had gone to the trouble of researching hotel prices; she wouldn’t have him worrying about money, not at his age.

“You’ve never said anything about Disney World before. Do you want to go just because the Masons are going?”

He thought about it for a second, which made her smile—and tear up just a little. How many seven-year-olds took the time to think through an answer—an answer about a proposal he’d clearly already put considerable thought and study into?

“I don’t know. I want to be a pilot, like Auntie Maggie. I guess that means I kinda want to go everywhere.”

“London? Moscow? Budapest?”

“I’m just a kid,” he said, and though his back was turned she could tell an eye roll went along with the comment. Then he zipped his backpack and turned, giving her a sunny smile. “I’ll hit those other places when I grow up.
We’ll
hit them, Mom.”

And the tears filled Jessi’s throat so she could only smile and ruffle his hair as she nudged him toward the door. The way he assumed they’d always be a unit warmed her heart, and broke it a little, because she knew he’d leave her one day. She intended to do everything in her power to make sure he could and would. Children were meant to grow up and lead their own lives, and it was the task—and burden—of their parents to make sure they were prepared. When the time came, she’d swallow back tears again as she saw him off.

But that day was a long time coming, she reminded herself. For now, for all the days until then, he still belonged to her. Only her. “I’ve always wanted to go to Budapest.”

“Really?” He looked up at her, brown eyes alight with curiosity. “Where is that, ’xactly?”

Jessi sighed loudly and for effect. “It’s a good thing you’re going to school for a few more years if you don’t even know where Budapest is.”

“I can look it up only…How do you spell it?”

Laughing, Jessi gave him the letters after they’d climbed into the car. Benji copied them down on a scrap of paper, barely finishing before they pulled up in front of Windfall Island’s little school.

He stuffed the paper in his pocket and opened the car door, but instead of getting out, he turned to her. “We could get a dog,” he said. “Instead of going to Disney World, I mean.”

Jessi shook her head, amused. “Consolation prize?” He’d asked her for a dog at least a thousand times, but somehow he always managed to find a new angle. “Only you, Benj.”

He gave her a bright, mischievous smile. “I’ll talk you into it,” he said, tossed in a “’Bye, Mom,” and jumped out of the car, too old to kiss her in front of his friends anymore.

She’d gotten used to that, even if she waited until he’d gone inside before she turned the car—and her thoughts—toward work. Best to concentrate on what she could have, what she could do. To remember that while it would be amazing to give her son a once-in-a-lifetime dream, by getting through every day, every week, every year, by sending him to college, she’d be giving him the tools to realize all his dreams.

Windfall Island perched just off the coast of Maine, a long, narrow, unforgiving spit of land edged with rocks too damn hard for even the relentlessly pounding surf of the Atlantic Ocean to wear down. Her people were just as hard, just as unforgiving, and just as moody as the Atlantic—not to mention they ran the gamut from mildly eccentric to downright off-kilter.

Holden Abbot had come to Windfall Island to do a genealogy of the residents. All the residents. According to his research, the island had been settled by those on the fringes of society, sailors who’d jumped ship, men who’d broken laws, and runaway slaves. Fugitives from justice all. They’d left a legacy of insularity, paranoia, and a severe dislike for any form of law enforcement—maybe because, over the centuries, breaking the law had often meant the difference between survival and starvation for the people of Windfall.

Laws weren’t broken on a regular basis anymore, at least not the big ones. Nowadays tourism provided. The season, however, had ended with the falling leaves and dropping temperature. The last tourist had vacated the island long before the wind became cutting and the surf turned deadly.

Hold wasn’t a tourist, but he was an outsider—which had proven even less tolerable to the citizens of the island. At least the male citizens. The women tended to be a lot more welcoming. Rabidly so.

Except for the one he wanted to get to know.

Jessi Randal seemed mostly oblivious to him—friendly, helpful, and sort of vaguely flirtatious without putting any real intent behind it. Without ever saying no, she kept him at arm’s length. Then again, he’d never outright asked her for a date because hearing her say no—well now, that would be a true rejection.

She walked in, petite, pretty, and looking so fresh and so sunny it seemed she brought spring in with her. And there, Hold thought, his blood sizzled, his nerve endings tingled, and a weight seemed to settle on his chest, making it just a little hard to breathe.

“What’s new, Mississippi?” She peeled a puffy coat the color of fresh lemons off her curvy little body, and when she turned and leveled her bright smile and dancing green eyes at him, he couldn’t have kept a thought in his head with duct tape and wire mesh.

“I know you Southern boys like to go slow, but it can’t possibly take this long for you to come up with an answer. You only need one word, like
fine
or
good
.”

Being from the South, Hold generally took his time over, well, everything. Jessi made him feel a powerful impatience; he just didn’t want her to see it. So he sat back, folded his arms and played it cool.

“Unless you’re up to something nefarious and you don’t want to tell me about it.”

“Not me.” Unless, Hold thought, she considered it nefarious to picture her naked. Which she probably did.

“Okaaay, so let me try this again. What’s new?”

“Not a blessed thing, sugar.”

“Well then.” She sat at her desk, and although the phone began to ring, she only looked over at the old-fashioned wall clock, which stood at one minute to eight.

She waited, watched the second hand sweep its measured way around the dial to dead on the hour, then plucked the receiver off the ancient black desk phone and said brightly, “Good Morning, Solomon Charters. Hold Abbot?” She looked over at him, grinning hugely. “Let me see if he’s around.”

Hold slashed a hand across his throat, shook his head, even got to his feet, prepared to beat a hasty retreat before he had to talk to the Windfaller on the other end of that call—probably female and ready with a proposition he’d have to find a non-insulting way to fend off. He’d just about run out of charm, and for a man who hailed from a part of the country where charm was as much a part of the culture as pralines, that was saying something.

Jessi rolled her eyes, but said into the phone, “He’s not here, Mrs. Hadley.” After a “Yes,” a couple of “Mm-hmmms,” and some scribbling, she said good-bye and hung up the phone, holding out a pink message slip. “How about dinner?”

Hold crossed the room to brace his backside against her desk, just near her right elbow. “Sign me up, sugar.”

“Boy, you’re good at that,” Jessi said. “The little lean, the eye contact, and the way you call me ‘sugar’ in that slow, easy Southern drawl. Smooth as Bourbon. Laureen Hadley is a goner.”

“Who? What?”

“Laureen Hadley. You’re having dinner with her tonight.” Jessi handed him the pink message slip. “Eight sharp, which is quite the sacrifice for Mr. Hadley since, according to Mrs. Hadley, eating that late will wreak havoc on his digestion. Mr. Hadley is always one taco away from complete intestinal meltdown, so that’s really no big surprise.”

Hold stared at the slip a minute, then wadded it up and tossed it in the trash. “I’m not having dinner with the Hadleys. I’m busy tonight.”

“Of course you are,” Jessi said in a way that told him she thought she knew exactly what he’d be busy doing. Or rather whom.

She reached into the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a stack of pink message notes and handed them over. “Take your pick.”

Hold dropped them in the trash. “I’m busy then, too.”

“Why do you encourage them if you’re not interested?”

“I don’t encourage them.”

She twisted around in her chair, rolling it back a couple feet so she could stare at him, brows arched. “What do you call flirting?”

“Harmless fun. A way to pass the time, make a woman feel good about herself.”

“Harmless for you, maybe. Around here it’s like making yourself the only bone in a roomful of starving dogs. Once they get done swiping at one another, the last one standing is only going to…”

“Gnaw on me a little while?”

She gave him a slight smile. “For starters.”

“You made your point, Jessica. From now on I’ll only flirt with you.”

“At least I know you don’t mean it.” She rolled back to her desk, pulled a stack of paperwork over in front of her.

“What makes you think I don’t mean it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the fact that you flirt with, oh, every woman between legal and the grave? What would make me any different?”

“I don’t know,” he parroted. “Maybe the fact that I’m attracted to you?”

She rolled her eyes.

“It’s true, Jessica. I’m saving myself for you. Ask any woman between legal and the grave. They’ll tell you I’m all talk and no action.”

“I have no interest in your love life.”

Not for long, Hold thought as he pushed off her desk. And he was running out of patience. Sure, he’d only been there a couple of weeks, and while he’d wanted Jessi from the moment he saw her, he’d decided to give her time to get used to the idea. She was, however, being purposely,
stubbornly
, obtuse.

Or maybe there was something more at work this morning.

Hold slid the stack of papers out from under her unseeing eyes. “Want to share your problem with Uncle Hold?”

“You’re not my uncle.”

He grinned, settled beside her again. “Glad you noticed.”

She shot him a look. “It’s not that big a deal, just something Benji sprang on me this morning that I’d like to make happen.”

“Maybe I can help.”

“It’s something I have to do myself.”