Tattered Innocence (26 page)

Rachel’s teeth clenched. She jerked her chin
out of her mother’s grasp. She hated the weakness for affairs they
shared. Rachel stood, the old pain slicing into her. “I need to get
back to work.”

Mama grabbed her fingers. “This has nothing
to do with you.”

“Of course, it has to do with me. I love
you.”
Don’t leave Dad.
She turned her palm and gripped
Mama’s hand.

“I don’t want to lose you.” Her chest
constricted and she knew tears were close behind. She released
Mama’s hand and beelined toward the engine room.

The terror of losing Mama had stalked her
since Hall’s birth. At least her fear of abandonment had a cause.
Maybe Cat was right; she needed therapy.

The engine room door snapped shut behind
her, secreting her in the
Queen’s
dim bowels. Sobs broke
loose from her chest. Mama said she wouldn’t run away with Skye.
But Rachel knew better. She’d sworn to quit seeing Bret a dozen
times, and saw him anyway.

She ached for the comfort she’d found
throwing herself into Daddy’s arms to cry as a little girl. But
this was something he couldn’t fix. Or could he?

She sucked in a deep breath of grease and
fuel-laden air and released it, palming the tears from her face.
She pulled her phone from her pocket, checked for cell coverage,
and punched in Daddy’s speed dial number.

Rachel finished scrubbing the aft head and
stepped into the cabin to strip the bunks.

Mom’s taut voice drifted through the open
hatch. “I thought you said if I left on Monday, we were done.”

Rachel recognized the sound of Daddy
clearing his throat. So, he’d come down to the boat after all.

“I want to know what you decided,” Daddy
said. “Call me a masochist, but at least you owe me that.”

“Obviously, I didn’t go with Skye.”

“Yet.”

“I’ve been with you twenty-six years. Give
me credit for not leaving on a whim.”

“Twenty-six years, minus a week and a half
fourteen years ago and this week.”

“I didn’t have an affair with him. I had
coffee.”

“This time.” Daddy spat the words low and
harsh, a tone Rachel had never heard.

“Just because there’s a permanent bond deep
down, doesn’t mean I have to feed it. Do you think I wanted this…
curse? I’ve prayed God would take it away. I want to love you with
my whole heart.”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted, Cindy. Is it
even possible after all this time? I can’t live like this
anymore.”

Rachel inched up the aft cabin steps
straining to hear her father’s soft words. She shouldn’t listen,
but she couldn’t help herself.

The gangplank creaked and she pictured Mama
crossing to the finger pier where Daddy stood. “I’ve lived without
Skye for a quarter of a century. Sometimes he doesn’t cross my mind
for months. I don’t
like
Skye. He’s not half the man you
are. I’ve realized this week that God rescued me from a life with
him. It’s… you I can’t live without.”

“You were ready to live without me five days
ago.”

“I was angry, Stuart. Try to understand.
Then, I got on Rachel’s boat to get my head together. And I have. I
want you. Forever. I don’t care how many more marriages Skye goes
through. There won’t be coffee again.”

Rachel strained to hear something in the
silence.

Finally, her father spoke. “I can’t do
this.” Sadness, defeat as deep as the ocean, hung in his words.

Rachel sank onto Jake’s old bunk, numb, and
stared at the bulkhead as minutes ticked by.

Leaf’s voice floated down to her. “Whoo wee,
there’s a commercial against marriage.”

She heard Jake’s footfalls move along the
deck toward the aft cabin. “Those are Rachel’s folks. Watch
it.”

“I’m just sayin’ maybe they shoulda taken a
lesson from me and my old lady and never gotten married. Does
wonders for a relationship.”

“You can’t tell me there weren’t times you
wished you’d married your… old lady,” Jake said.

What did you call Leaf’s seventy-something
partner and mother of his child? Girlfriend? A snicker popped out
of Rachel in spite of her mood.

Jake ducked his head through the aft hatch.
“You okay?”

“Doing a little better thanks to the comic
relief,” Rachel said.

A smile flitted across Jake’s mouth. He
lifted a hand to Leaf and swung into the cabin. “I heard the whole
thing.”

She’d held back till now, but tears squeezed
out of her eyes.

Jake sat on the bunk beside her. His hand
covered hers. “I’m sorry.”

She sucked in a shaky breath, damming up the
tears. “I’ve had nightmares about losing my mom all my life, for
the past decade about her running away with the guy they argued
about.”

“Wow. Your family seems so happy. Healthy….
Do you think they’ll pull it back together?”

She shook her head helplessly. “I… I need
them to. I called Daddy and told him Mama was with us and when we
would dock. What more can I do? It all seems so hopeless.”

Jake nudged her chin up with his knuckles.
“You’re a praying girl, right?”

Jake’s touch and words catapulted her from
despair and she grinned.

“What?”

“You just helped me believe God will step
in.” She leaned over and hugged his neck.

Jake thrust out a hand to catch himself from
toppling over. “Gotta love that positive reinforcement.”

Excitement quivered in Jake’s gut as his
fingertips guided Rachel up the concourse toward the Indianapolis
International Airport terminal. He didn’t know which he anticipated
more, showing Rachel off to his family or his family to Rachel.

He’d never had the balls to bring Gabs home.
He still wondered whether they would have accepted each other. Gabs
had always been proud of her father’s career as a mechanic even
though enough money had been handed down from his grandparents to
support two generations, even if they never worked a day in their
lives. But Jake’s family could be reverse snobs—thinking blue
collar was somehow more noble than being born with money.

As they passed the security checkpoint,
Nikki hurtled at them, blond curls trailing after her. Her husband,
Dillon’s, long strides kept him at her side. Tears leaked down the
freckles on her cheeks. Behind her, Ned, Timmy, and Mom approached,
grins lighting their faces.

He’d stayed away too long.

“Jake!” Nikki collided with him, a tangle of
arms, elbows, and hands.

“Whoa. I missed you, too.” Jake laughed and
held on.

“You must be Gab—” Nikki’s muffled voice
said.

“Rachel,” Jake corrected as he released
Nikki. He connected with Ned’s hand, and pulled him into a hug.
“Everybody, this is Rachel,” he said over Ned’s shoulder.

Nikki’s breath sucked in. Mom’s brows made
perfect upside-down vees. Tim stared.

“You could have told us you were bringing a
girl home—” Nikki clapped her hand over her mouth.

“Ned didn’t tell you? Geez, Ned!”

Jake’s gaze speared Ned and panned to his
mother. “Rachel started working for me in May. One thing led to
another, and here she is.”

Nikki hugged Rachel. “Welcome to the fam—”
Nikki shot a confused look at Jake.

Ned stepped between Nikki and Rachel,
reaching a hand to Rachel. “Nice to meet you. You should really
think about marrying my sorry brother and taking him off our
hands.”

A speech for Ned. And if he didn’t know
better, he’d think Ned knew he was into Rachel.

“Hey, my turn.” Timmy hugged Rachel. “I’m
Tim.”

“Watch it, Tim-meister,” Jake said as Mom’s
kiss landed on his eyebrow. “I love you, too, Mom.” Her bony arms
and familiar perfume wrapped around him. Home.

Mom broke away from Jake to hug Rachel. “I’m
Joanne. Welcome, welcome.”

Rachel glanced at Ned, a dark-haired version
of Jake, in the driver’s seat and Joanne across from him in the
glow of the Indianapolis freeway. Jake had wedged her under his arm
as if he wanted to make room for two more people on the middle seat
of the minivan. The youngest of Jake’s stair-step siblings, Timmy
and Nikki—who hadn’t stopped talking since the terminal—along with
her silent husband, sat in the rear.

Nikki’s words flowed over Rachel requiring
little response—something about her and Dillon saving for a house
and an extra ski jacket.

Jake’s rib cage smashed up against her arm
with every breath.

The surrealism of her first flight and the
foreign industrial and office buildings dotting I-465 distanced her
from Mama’s camping out in the storage room off the carport,
Daddy’s walking around like a zombie, but not from the fear of what
she’d face when she returned home.

Jake watched through the kitchen doorway as
Rachel washed a colander and chatted with Mom and Nikki. They’d
only walked in the door from the airport a couple hours ago. Rachel
fit into his family already. Her laughter danced around him,
celebrating the life that had shamed him as a kid, urging him to do
the same.

Yeah, it was time to let go of all the
Gilford Prep snubs from his childhood and enjoy his family. Summer
Moll and the rest had wounded him, but he’d wallowed in the hurt
long enough. Time to forgive them all, and put their slights behind
him for good.
God, You deal with them. I’m done with the
bitterness.

He felt lighter, as though the ballast he’d
been lugging around most of his life had lifted from his shoulders.
He jumped up from the couch. “Timmy, you still the weekend
custodian at the junior high.”

“Yeah. What do you think, they’re going to
promote me to principal?” He tossed
Car and Driver
magazine
onto the coffee table. “Lay off the ‘Timmy,’ would you?”

Jake grabbed him in a headlock. “Baby
brother isn’t ‘Timmy’ anymore?” He rubbed Tim’s shaggy brown head
with his knuckles.

What had he been thinking staying away for
almost two years?

“Hey!” Tim jabbed an elbow into Jake’s
gut.

Jake grabbed his stomach. “Let’s go shoot
some hoops if you’ve got the keys to the gym.” Nothing like playing
ball to normalize things with his brothers after being apart. And
it wouldn’t hurt for Rachel to see him play her sport.

Ned jogged down the stairs. “I’m in.”

“Not me,” Nikki called. “Dillon and I
promised to help Mom bake Christmas cookies.”

“As if—” Tim said.

“Let me play.” Rachel poked her head into
the living room. “We could play two on two.”

Tim and Ned’s faces panned toward her.

“It’s okay, guys,” Jake said. “She played
ball in school.”

Tim shot her a skeptical look.
“Whatever.”

Jake followed Rachel upstairs and into his
room.

She eyed their luggage he’d stacked side by
side under the window, then swiveled toward his double bed. “Jake,
I—”

“We slept in the same room for six months.
What’s another week?” He pulled socks, shorts, and a T-shirt out of
his suitcase. “Not a big deal.”

“Yeah, but—”

“My siblings all have single beds.”

“What will your mother say?”

“I was born six months after my folks got
married…” He shrugged. “You want to know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think you’re afraid you can’t keep your
hands off me.” He shot her a grin and stepped into the hall.

“Is that so?” Rachel sputtered.

“Yep.” He shut the door. He’d been teasing
her, but maybe Rachel was afraid she’d lose control. He’d glimpsed
her passionate temperament in a dozen ways—this aspect, by far, his
favorite. But she didn’t need to worry. He’d already lost one girl
by pushing her boundaries. That wasn’t going to happen again.

Inside the gym, the lights came up slowly,
bathing Rachel in ethereal light. How had he ignored her beauty
until half way through the summer? He bounced the ball with one
hand, then the other, as he shook off his coat. Beside him, Tim
tied his laces.

Rachel ditched her warm-ups and rubbed the
goose bumps on her arms. “It’s cold in here.”

“Wanna take the car home?” Tim dangled his
keys in front of her. “We’ll walk home when we’re done.”

“Not on your life,
Timmy
.” She bent
to stretch out her calf muscles.

Rachel could handle his brothers, no
problem. Jake shot her a grin. His eyes caught on the meager amount
of leg showing below her basketball shorts—leg he hadn’t seen in
months. He grounded the ball to enjoy the scenery.

Rachel continued her stretches, an uncertain
smile tugging at her lips as if she wasn’t sure what to do with his
attention.

Tim and Ned took off toward the closest
basket.

“We always play shirts and skins. What’ll it
be?” he said to Rachel.

“Very funny.”

“First one to make a basket gets to pick his
teammate,” Jake yelled, dribbling the ball.

Rachel jogged toward the hoop. With
lightning speed, she snatched the ball from him, pivoted, and
neatly sunk a three-point basket.

She grinned at the shock on their faces.
“I’ll take Ned. He’s the tallest.”

For a split second no one moved.

“Come on, boys, let’s play ball.” She tossed
the ball to Jake. “You take it. We’re going to whip your tails
anyway. Right, Ned?”

Ned jogged over to cover Tim. “Anything you
say, sister.”

The sound of bouncing reverberated off the
walls, mingling with grunts and groans, the squeak of shoes on the
floor, breathing. They fell into the rhythm of the game.

Guarding Rachel gave Jake a close-up view of
her skill. Granted, at sweeper, he hadn’t been the fastest player
on the soccer field, but he sure hadn’t been slow. On the
basketball court, Rachel was at least as fast as he was, and a
better shooter. He shouldn’t be surprised. Or annoyed.