Sweet Waters (34 page)

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Authors: Julie Carobini

BOOK: Sweet Waters
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Mel lets me out at the top of the stairs. She leans over toward the passenger side. “Do
not
come home before dark.”
I shut the car door with a restrained sigh and head down to meet Josh, whose truck sits near the edge. He's waiting for me on the steps. “Here.” He reaches out. “Take my hand.”
We walk a bit until out of earshot of a few late afternoon beachgoers. Josh ushers me to a secluded cove of sand between two chiseled and towering rocks. His face shows grim. I breathe in. “Did Billy get to see Beth?”
He nods, his eyes squinting against the light. “He did. Actually, I saw her too, briefly.” He shakes his head. “She and I developed this bond . . . can't explain it.”
“You saved her life once. Nothing can shake that out of a person.”
“I've told you before that I don't consider myself a hero.”
My fingers play absentmindedly with smooth stones on the beach. “Yes, you did.”
“I'm not about to take that back.”
“No, I suppose you won't.”
“But I learned something new today.”
He takes in my face with grief-stricken eyes, and my breath catches in my chest. “Josh? You're scaring me. What is it?”
His Adam's apple moves sharply and he breaks eye contact, looking into the sand instead. “The day of the fire, the day I dragged her out of that house—I thought I'd nearly killed her.”
“What? No, no. Josh, everyone in town says you were the hero. If you wouldn't have been there and acted as you did, she might have perished. I heard that she was bleeding . . .” I take in a big, jarring breath. “No.”
“It's called self-injuring, and Beth's been doing it for a long time.”
“And you blamed yourself for her getting so cut up on shattered glass. Oh, Josh.”
“I wasn't on duty that day. I'd gone to a friend's to watch the 49ers play. They won and I decided to celebrate. I wasn't driving, so I had two beers and took off walking.”
“I've never seen you drink before. I thought you didn't.”
He shakes his head. “I swore it off years ago because of all it's done to our family. I broke my own rule that day.”
“Is that when you saw the fire?”
“On my way home. I took a shortcut through your neighborhood and smelled it—I'd know that smell anywhere—it's like destruction. I called it in but couldn't wait knowing that Beth and her son lived there. By God's grace, he wasn't home, but it took me awhile to spot Beth. The smoke was coming on thick.”
I touch his back and instinctively massage him with my fingers, trying to soothe away the tautness from his muscles.
“Once I got her in my arms, the operation went well. The front door was blocked, but I had kicked out a side window and helped her through it. That's when I saw all the blood.” He pauses, hanging his head between his knees. “Rivers of it.”
Nausea climbs my esophagus. I breathe in the sea air, allowing it to fight against my unease. “You saved her from more than a fire then.”
“Don't you see? I'd been drinking, Tara. I figured the beers had affected my ability to be sharp, to move accurately.” His chest visibly expands and contracts. “Just like my dad.”
Scattered dots that have been floating around in my head for the past few weeks connect on Josh's words. I'd understood his embarrassment over his father's public drunkenness, but the fear, deep-seated and raw, obviously ran much deeper. His anger went beyond himself. Josh must have begun to believe he'd fallen prey to the same insidious disease his father had, and that it had affected the job he loved dearly.
“You must've been tortured by the thought. And you've kept this all to yourself?” He nods, gazing out to sea. “Is this why you jump at the chance to take every call—even before finishing a good-night kiss?”
A tender smile stretches across his face, but his eyes reflect regret. “I did that, didn't I?”
I rub my lips together and nod, slowly. “'Fraid so. It's as if you've been trying to atone . . . for something. I didn't see it, but I wondered.”
“You wondered what?”
“Why you were such a daredevil. I mean, I know guys tend to be adventuresome in nature, but you always seem to be in the fray. You . . .”
“Didn't even give you a proper kiss good-night.”
A blush heats my skin. “Something like that.”
A haggard sound drags out of him. “You're right, I guess. I wanted to make up for my mistake that night—or what I thought my actions had caused. Beth's doctor probably could've explained all this to me if I'd asked. But I didn't. I saw the blood and the cuts and was so focused on what I had done wrong that I didn't piece the truth together.”
I lean into his chest and wrap my arms around his waist. His arms slide around me and I feel their strength, and yet it's the fragile part of him lying exposed that I long to comfort.
The deepness of his voice resonates against my ear and sends a quick ripple up my neck. “Nothing could take away the pain Beth must've felt, or all those scars and the image of so much blood, but I've been caught up in trying to make it right. For a long time.” His lips are inches from my cheeks. “I'm sorry I made you feel second best.”
Second best?
I release a slow breath. “Oh, Josh, you didn't make me feel that way. I've just been trying to figure you out, to understand where all the anger and need to prove yourself came from.”
“Other than that, you thought I was a pretty good guy.”
“I knew when you leapt over that counter, and by the way Holly praised you, that you were a pretty good guy.”
“If we're going to be passing compliments, then you deserve to be first. You're the one who jumped in and started serving coffee to strangers.”
“Crazy, huh.”
“No, not crazy—terrific. I saw your heart.”
I blush.
He groans. “And now it's your mind that's got me. You're right, you know. I have been trying to prove something. That I'm not my father and I'm not going to wallow in addiction.”
“Then something happens to make you doubt yourself. Been there.”
He doesn't say anything, but as I lean my head against him once more, his shoulders relax. We're quiet for a long while, and the sea's rhythm lulls us. I roll my gaze upward and he stares at me, his smile rueful. “You've pretty much figured me out, haven't you?”
“I feel like I'm beginning to.”
He scoffs, but his eyes still smile. “Well, it's a start then.”
“Can I ask . . . have you changed your mind about attending your father's special ceremony?”
His smile fades and he groans again.
I pull back. “You're not going?”
“Nothing's changed, Tara.”
“But you just found out about Beth . . . I thought . . .”
“What? That just because I'm not a drunk like my father, I should just get out there and pretend how full of respect for him I am?”
His anger jars the air around us. So much simmers just below the surface. It's frightening. “You don't respect him . . . at all?”
“Even when life was normal in our house, it wasn't, not really. My father wasn't physically abusive, but he knew how to make me feel small and helpless.”
I can't imagine this hearty man ever believing himself as weak.
“Anyway, I didn't have too many friends come around back then, like more normal families always did.”
“Why not?”
“How would it look if they saw their mayor walking around our house wearing boxers and a sappy smile? No, thank you. Just too much shame in that, Tara. Like I said, we weren't really normal. We looked it, but”—Josh shakes his head—“it was a lie.”
I try to put myself in his place, recalling the unshakeable embarrassment that goes along, tongue and groove, with middle school and on into the upper grades. But those years have passed, along with the unearned shame that often attaches itself to the unsuspecting. Josh is a well-respected, accomplished firefighter. Surely he carries no shame for his father's behavior.
“Have you talked with him about his . . . problem? Other than . . .”
“Other than our showdown, you mean?” He shakes his head. “Dad's problem has always been like the elephant in the living room. My mother's in denial and bringing it up has always been frowned on. Like other kids of alcoholics, I've learned to adapt. Just don't ask me to face it anymore. I'm finished with that.”
“So you won't forgive him?”
A muscle in his jaw shifts. “Didn't say that.” He pitches a smooth, flat stone into the water. “Just some things I'm not ready to forget.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Mel yawns as I step into the house. “I left your laptop on for you. I was working on my resumé, but my eyes won't stay open anymore.” She rubs her eyelids. “You're glowing. Sort of.”
“I listened to you and came home late, but I don't know what to think about Josh and me anymore. After our conversation stalled, Josh and I wandered along the rocks until nearly sunset, mostly quiet, our thoughts as far away as the islands to the south. We found a rare abalone suctioned to the side of a rocky ledge and watched as the waters tumbled back in, drenching the endangered creature. When the sun sank into the horizon and cool air had set in, the night sky became a picture of diamonds on a blanket of navy blue, spreading itself before us calm and clear. Unfortunately, our hearts were anything but, so we called it a night.”
My sister leans against the doorway to the hall. “For someone who's become all about setting her mind on what she wants, how can you say you don't know what to think?”
“It's just . . . it's complicated.” She yawns again, so I talk fast. “The more I'm with Josh, the more confused I get. He's strong and handsome and really, really good to me.”
“Yeah, that would be confusing.”
“Good to me, although he did just break our date for the mayor's big celebration. He's got so much anger toward his father. If anyone should get that . . .”
“That would be us.”
“You'd think.”
“You know what I really think, Tara?” She taps the side of her mouth, examining me. “You've changed.”
I cross my arms. Mel, it seems, has rallied against sleepiness and has more of her signature criticism of me to launch. Here it comes.
“You always were a sergeant, that's true. Bossy, bossy.”
My eyes begin to roll.
She raises a hand, as if to tell me to stop my usual reaction. “But a happy one. Carefree, kind of. I was always so jealous of that because even now I have trouble carrying out my plans. Anyway, you got so much done, especially when Dad got sick and Mom, well, you know what an avoider our dear mother can be.” She distracts herself by examining a fingernail. “Then all of a sudden, you turned sour.”
Slowly I uncross my arms.
She shrugs, her mouth a grimace. “Made it a lot easier to keep up with you.”
“What does that mean?”
She looks me square in the face. “I didn't have to work so hard to be you anymore. The new ‘you' had become angry . . .”
“And boring?”
“Trent was dull. Yuk, very dull. And strangely enough, my once adventurous and happy sister seemed to be okay with that.” She wrinkles her brow at me. “It's like you had given up.”
Part of me wants to deny her assessment of me, but another part sees the truth in what she says. Life had become a drudgery. My job—boring. Boyfriend—predictable. Day-to-day life—routine. Yet since arriving in Otter Bay, my emotions have careened over and around one oversized roller coaster, and I've felt a shedding of anger with each fantastic twist. No doubt, despite the astonishing turn of events since the move, less and less anger lives in me.

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