Tattered Innocence (5 page)

“Ouch. Take it easy. I love Gabs.”

Leaf shrugged. “Don’t know for certain if
she’s our kind of folks.”

“Maybe she was my ticket out of being our
kind of folks.”

Leaf spat overboard. “Might as well sign up
for cotillion classes.”

“My gramps paid private school tuition for
me, my sister, and two brothers. I made it through kindergarten and
first grade without realizing every other kid in the school was
loaded.”

“That long?”

“In first grade, all that mattered was
Gilford Prep’s playground being ten times better than the one at
the public elementary.”

“Materialistic little cuss, weren’t
you?”

Jake eyed Leaf, weighing whether to share
the memory that popped into his mind. “I must have been seven when
a kid invited me to
Disney on Ice.
The guy’s mom took one
look at my scuffed Champions and high-waters and made a detour to
Dillard’s to buy me shoes, socks, belt, shirt, and a sweatshirt
jacket with softer fleece than a stuffed animal. I would have loved
that jacket if it hadn’t been charity. That’s when I vowed I’d
belong
in their world someday.”

Jake stepped onto the finger pier. “Who says
they deserved the swimming pools, Porsches, and trips to Antigua
more than I did? I’m good enough to live in their world.”

“I got more money than I can spend and it
doesn’t make me one of them.”

Jake’s mouth dropped open. He didn’t know
whether to believe Leaf or not. The only job Leaf had, so far as
Jake knew, was selling hot dogs out of a stand on the beach.

Leaf shrugged. “Grew up in the Depression.
Never did learn how to spend money. All I’m sayin’ is your girl,
Rachel, is a better sailor than Miss Country Club.”

“She’s not my girl.” Jake crossed the gang
plank onto the
Queen.
“Later,” he tossed over his
shoulder.

The conversation with Leaf dredged up a
memory he’d rather forget—the Gilford Prep Homecoming morning
Summer Moll caught him poised on his ten-speed to fire the
newspaper at her doorstep. He’d been high on a soccer win when he
snagged a date to the dance with Summer, top contender for Gilford
Prep Homecoming Queen.

She stepped out of her Meridian Street
mansion as he wound up for the Hail Mary it always took to land the
paper at her door. His right arm froze, fingers gripping the
Indianapolis Star
. His left hand clenched around the front
brake lever, nearly tumbling him over the handlebars.

Summer marched up the cement path toward
him, Angora cat slippers flopping beneath her jeans and
cheerleading letter jacket. She stopped ten feet from him. “How
long have you delivered our paper?” Her wide, green eyes blinked at
him like she’d just learned a bomb had been dropped on Gilford Prep
and her mind hadn’t quite processed the information.

His gut spun, taking up where the whir and
click of his wheels had stopped. “Sixth grade.” In five years,
she’d never spied him slinging reality against the ivy-covered
bricks that guarded her privileged life. Why couldn’t his luck have
held for another twenty-four hours?

Red splotched her round face. Full lips
bunched under an adorable pug nose. He had dreamed of going out
with her as long as he could remember.

“I—uh—I have to go to Homecoming with
Justin. I promised him a long time ago. We just got back
together.”

She should have just said
The Homecoming
Queen can’t be escorted by a paper boy.

Justin Healey’s daddy was a CEO. Justin had
gotten a Miata for his sixteenth birthday and drove his Jeep to
school when he was slumming.

Once in a while Mom let Jake drive the
family minivan to Saturday soccer practice.

Jake jerked a pedal backwards into place.
“Last I checked the caste system stayed in India. You might
regret—”

“I already do.” She spun, her slippers
flouncing against the concrete as she stomped toward the house.

He rifled the paper past her shoulder, and
it smacked against the dark varnish of her front door.

She jumped.

“Not as much as I do.” He pumped down the
block, hurling papers like wartime grenades from the sack slung
across his chest.

He should have gone to the dance anyway,
just to see the look on Summer’s face when Jenna Braithwaite scored
Homecoming Queen. But it wouldn’t have done much to comfort
him.

The memory still ate at him over a decade
later.

Gabrielle had given him a glimpse of what it
would be like not to spend the rest of his life on the outside
looking in. He’d never wanted money from Gabs. He’d pulled down a
healthy income in the corporate world for six years. If money was
his goal, he never would have bought the
Queen
.

He’d fallen in love with Gabs before he had
a clue she was old money—that first night he’d seen her at the
Sacred Heart Church festival. Surrounded by children in the story
booth, she’d been the picture of what he wanted in life—beauty,
love, family. He hadn’t realized it until that moment.

But the first time he met her mother, he
knew. The woman reeked old money. The buried hunger to belong to
her segment of society—the Gilford Preps who had rejected
him—resurrected. He wasn’t proud of it. In fact, Leaf was the only
person he’d ever told.

He’d heard enough snide comments about “new
money” to get that money didn’t buy their acceptance. Marriage was
the only ticket in. He would have married Gabrielle if she’d grown
up in the projects. But her pedigree—one that meant less than
nothing to her—was a bonus he would have appreciated.

The photograph of Rachel’s folks she’d
tacked to the bulkhead in the aft cabin showed her mother in a Winn
Dixie uniform and her father in a New Smyrna Beach Parks and
Recreation work shirt. Rachel had probably never stepped foot into
a country club.

During the day, tasks and socializing
crowded out thoughts of Bret, but at night, even after a month with
no contact, Rachel’s mind swam in memories. She lay in her bunk
wishing she’d stayed topside till her eyes drooped shut.

The members of the Okeechobee Adventure
Club, senior citizens who took offbeat excursions, had long gone to
sleep. At eleven p.m., moist July heat still blanketed her.

Her mind wandered to an afternoon three
years ago.

She’d stopped in after school to drop off
the list of swim team warm-ups left over from the previous year.
Bret was Mr. Rustin, then, the heart-throb first-year teacher all
the teens and staff sighed over.

She paused outside his classroom, stunned to
see his lanky arms pretzeled around a tiny baby in a tan terrycloth
sleeper with puppy feet. Reminding her of newborn Hall, the little
boy’s tiny fingers curled into fists on Bret’s chest. His eyes
blinked as Bret murmured to him.

Bret silenced when Rachel walked in, his
ears turning red. “My wife has a doctor’s appointment….”

“Here’s the list you wanted.”

“What? E-mail down again?”

“Something like that.” He didn’t need to
know e-mail tortured her dyslexic brain. No good had ever come from
revealing her handicap. “May I hold the baby?”

He shifted the baby into her arms and she
caught the musk scent of his aftershave.

“He’s beautiful.”

Adoration washed Bret’s face as he gazed at
his child, and Rachel had been hooked ever since.

Jake listened for Rachel’s regular breathing
in the darkness, but heard only the lap of the water against the
hull. Even the rigging was silent in the airless night.

The heat of the night pressed in on him.
“You awake?”

He heard Rachel move. “Yeah. Too hot.”

“Want to make a Dr. Pepper run?” He stared
through the blackness trying to see her, but no moon or starlight
came through the hatch. “Months ago, I mapped out groceries and
marine supply stores, hospitals along our regular route just in
case. There should be a gas station within a mile of shore.”

Her bunk creaked. “Why not?”

He grabbed his tennis shoes, socks, and a
T-shirt out of the bins under his bunk without needing a light and
headed topside.

The dinghy swayed as he lowered himself onto
the center seat. Rachel’s form moved down the aft ladder. He heard
her foot slip off the last rung, and he grabbed her arm. She landed
with a thump in the bottom of the boat. He let go, his palm and
fingers recording the firm, smooth feel of her biceps, his mind
trying to forget it.

The cloud cover passed, revealing stars and
a quarter-moon. He threaded an oar into the port oarlock while
Rachel inserted the starboard. He dug the oars through the water,
his gaze settling on Rachel’s silhouette against the transom and
the
Queen
anchored behind her. The oars crashed through the
water in the quiet. He grunted as he picked up speed, aiming the
bow toward the lights of the key. His lungs filled and released
salty, fishy air.

Rachel trailed her fingers in the ocean.
“This feels like sneaking out of church camp.”

His jaw clenched. Church and Gabs
intertwined in his head.

“Who’s the other church girl?” she asked as
though she read his mind.

None of your business.
“Look for a
good spot to land.”

Rachel pushed up onto her knees and scanned
the shoreline behind him. “Mangrove swamp on the starboard.” She
pointed over his shoulder. “Twelve o’clock, there, a clear place to
land.”

He turned around to glance at the beach. The
dinghy slid into the grainy sand. He pulled in the oars and sprang
over the bow.

Rachel followed.

In wordless sync, they heaved the boat onto
the beach.

He plowed through the thigh-high saw grass
and scattered palmettos.

Sand spurs raked his ankles.

Rachel’s footfalls sounded close behind
him.

At last, he stepped onto the dirt road.

Rachel came up beside him and matched his
stride as they walked toward the glow of civilization.

He chuckled and kicked a rock. It veered off
into the dense palmetto growth at the side of the road.

“What’s so funny?”

He lifted his eyebrows as if she should
know.

“What?”

“Snuck out of church camp, huh?”

Moonlight spotlighted her. She shrugged.

“What are you sneaking out of this
time?”

Rachel’s Converses scuffed to a halt on the
dirt road.

For once, he was the one putting her on
edge. “How do
you
like the back end of a nosey
question?”

She pressed her lips together and started
walking again.

He jogged to catch up. The sweetness of
making Rachel uncomfortable whisked away in the breeze. He wanted
to know her answer. “What are you running from?”

Rachel folded her arms across her chest.
“I’ve got nothing to hide.”

He’d wait her out.

The moon washed her face and the white of
her jersey as they walked. Tiny freckles sprinkled across her nose
and cheeks. Gramps would have said she was easy on the eyes, but
he’d rather be in the sticks of Marathon Key with Gabs.

Determination settled across her features.
“Fine.” She hesitated. “I got too close to a co-worker—a married
guy—with kids. The guilt piled up and avalanched. Here I am.” The
words came out in a rush. Then, she glared at him as if he’d
tricked her into spilling.

He whistled. “And you, a church girl.” He
felt like they were nine-year-olds playing Truth or Dare, and he’d
just extracted something she’d always regret revealing.

“It doesn’t come with a
get-out-of-stupid-choices-free card.”

“Stupid, maybe, but you walked away. You did
the right thing.”

He only wanted to get out of one stupid
choice. He’d known Gabrielle was religious, that she’d decided to
wait for marriage. It wouldn’t have killed him to wait another six
weeks. Who knew Gabs would go psycho. He would have been married by
now.

They hiked past a dimmed grocery toward a
yellow neon shell on a pole.

A lone florescent light hummed inside the
locked repair bay, and a Pepsi machine glowed red and white around
the corner of the building.

He pulled change from his pocket and dropped
quarters into Rachel’s palm.

“Thanks.”

But Rachel was the one who had given him a
gift—trusting him with something that shamed her.

They sat on the station’s curb, drinking Dr.
Pepper, picking sand spurs off their socks, and tossing them onto
the grease-stained cement.

“So you want to be a mom?”

Rachel shrugged.

“Guess this job took you off the playing
field.” Not that she’d have any trouble attracting a guy on her
days off. But she probably needed time to get the loser out of her
system.

“That’s one way of putting it.” Hurt laced
her voice.

His gaze jerked to her face. “I meant
crewing is a hard job when you’re shopping for a husband.”

“What? Do I look desperate?” Rachel stood
and stalked down the road. “Remind me to keep my secrets to
myself.”

Jake jogged to catch up. “If you’d given me
a chance to talk instead of going off on me, I was going to
apologize for the sacrifice you’re making to crew for me.”

Rachel stepped off the paved road onto dirt.
“Working for you is not a sacrifice.” Her anger winged away as
quickly as it had come. “Anyway—” She eyed him. “Your social life
is zippo, too.”

How did she do that—stab a can opener into
his gut? Irritation seeped out of the hole—at Gabs, himself,
Rachel. He hurled his empty Dr. Pepper can. It landed with a noisy
clank and skittered down the road. “My life is crap.”

Gabs had shoved the United States between
them. He hadn’t bothered to visit his family in the year since
Gramps died. At twenty-eight he was launching the sailing business
he and Gramps had dreamed of for years. Alone.