Read The Art of My Life Online
Authors: Ann Lee Miller
Tags: #romance, #art, #sailing, #jail, #marijuana abuse
The Art of My Life (28 page)
He grabbed hold of the transom, pulled
the dinghy alongside the ladder, and reached automatically toward
Missy to help her up the ladder. His pearl dangled at her neck. He
pulled his hand back. He’d be damned if he was touching her
again.
They got the
Escape
underway
with a minimum of words, and Fish settled in behind the wheel. He
and Cal had learned to sail on this boat. He didn’t want to think
about that now.
Half an hour later Missy handed him a
heaping plate of corned beef hash, green beans and applesauce she
must have scavenged from Cal’s canned goods.
It felt like days since he’d downed a
bowl of Frosted Flakes in New Smyrna Beach. The food was hot, and
he couldn’t help being grateful Missy had gone to the trouble of
fixing it. “Aren’t you eating?”
Missy took a seat in the cockpit. “Not
hungry.”
Three-fourths of the way through the
plate, he handed it over to her. “Eat something. If you plan on
taking some shifts, you’ll need the energy.”
She picked up his fork and ate without
comment.
Something about her eating after him
without hesitation chipped at the anger he’d been
nursing.
Not that he wanted to talk to Missy,
but her silence felt weird, so different from her normal
personality. She hadn’t said a word in over an hour. He glanced at
her.
Tears leaked from underneath her
sunglasses. She turned her head away from him and wiped the wetness
from her cheeks.
Oh, man.
A knot formed in the
middle of his chest. Even as a little girl, Missy was never much of
a crier. He sucked in a breath and let it go, but the knot didn’t
move. “What’s wrong?”
She tossed her glasses onto the bench,
giving up on holding in the tears. She pulled her knees up and
buried her head in her arms. Her shoulders shook.
He gripped the wheel tighter, keeping
himself from wrapping her in his arms. She didn’t want him touching
her.
She took a shaky breath and looked up
at him. “How could Cal even think about running? Doesn’t he care
about me at all? He’d just walk out of my life without a
word.”
“
It’s not about you. He
didn’t do this to ex you out of his life. He hated jail. You can
understand that.”
“
Yeah, but why doesn’t he
think about how the choices he makes affect all the people who love
him?”
Fish hurt for Cal. He wanted to study
Cal’s case, study the law, and find a way to keep him out of jail.
“I… I think it would be hard to do at a time like this.”
“
I want the brother back
who threatened the kid who dissed me with a baseball
bat.”
“
He’s treated us all
shitty.”
“
Yeah, that’s why you
risked your life to rescue him.”
“
And yours. Don’t remind
me.” But all he could think about was his lips on Missy’s in the
dark cabin, her response. He adjusted the wheel, smoothing the luff
out of the mainsail.
Missy tugged the sleeve of his
sweatshirt. “You’re turning out to be a better brother than Cal or
Jesse. Thanks.” She stood. “I better go below for some sleep if I’m
going to spell you later. Wake me when you need a
break.”
He didn’t want to be Missy’s brother.
He wanted… so much more. He stared across the star-littered sky.
Missy had been proud of him once. Even he had been satisfied with
the guy who shaved every third day. He’d dreamed of becoming an
agent of change in politics—fighting human trafficking, immigration
injustices, over-priced healthcare. His morality seemed poured in
concrete.
Then, his parents and siblings had
ditched him. Anger had jack-hammered his dream, his character, his
relationship with his family, and his spirituality.
Missy forced him to look in the
mirror. He’d been shaving every day for years, and he didn’t like
who he’d become—a guy who piled shame on Missy’s guilt-sloped
shoulders, one who’d come whisper-close to making it with Evie just
because he could.
Cal had shown him that his dream of a
career still lived under his self-created rubble. But instead of
gratitude toward Cal, he clung to anger.
No wonder Missy wanted nothing to do
with him.
At three a.m. Fish went below to wake
Missy for her shift.
She slept on the master bunk in a
puddle of moonlight.
Topside he’d been falling asleep on
his feet, but now his mind flipped fully alert. Beauty. His gaze
strolled over her. A sock-clad foot stuck out from under the
blanket. Thick lashes rested on soft cheeks. He stopped at the pale
skin where her wrist poked from her sweatshirt sleeve. Her fingers
had opened in sleep, revealing his pearl in her palm.
His hand reached toward the riot of
dark silk spread across the pillow. A curl circled his finger, and
his breath caught. “M—” He cleared his throat. “Missy.”
She didn’t stir.
He gripped her arms and gently shook
her. “Wake up. I need you” —the whisper caught— “to man the
helm.”
Orange blossom scent wafted toward him
as she squirmed.
He yanked his hands from her. He
didn’t want a spot on her list, just to deserve one. He’d earn back
her respect.
Cal lay on his mattress staring at the
metal springs of the bunk above him. In three days he’d know
whether the court would go back on the plea bargain because he
hadn’t kept his part of the agreement. Would they incarcerate him
for the mandatory minimum of one year and add time for his
infractions?
Aly hadn’t kissed him back, hadn’t
said she’d wait for him. She was fragile. In a year or five
years—however long he was locked up—someone who would take care of
her heart would come along. Fish. His gut twisted. As much as he
loathed the idea, at least with Fish she’d be in good hands. God,
he didn’t want to go there, picturing Fish’s hands on her body. He
pounded his fist into the mattress.
He touched the cold cement block wall
that separated him from Aly and shivered. Cut off. Alone. Starved
for her. He’d always love Aly. The best he could hope for was that
she would be happy. At least one of them would be.
Sadness cinched him like a
straight-jacket, and he couldn’t move. He wished for the anger that
had deserted him hours ago.
No sooner had he chosen to end his
love affair with weed, than God’s heel poised to crush
him.
He deserved to lose Aly. God’s wrath
marched through his head—the guy struck dead for touching the Ark
of the Covenant, the Red Sea swallowing the Egyptian army, the
Israelites locked out of the Promised Land for forty years. His
mother was right. Life was all about rules and measuring
up.
Fish climbed the ladder and poked his
head out of the hatch just as the fire-yellow sun eased from the
Atlantic. Behind the wheel, Missy’s chin pointed toward the
horizon, sunrise dusting her cheeks.
He’d made it through the night without
touching her. He couldn’t wait to get off this boat and out of
Missy’s orbit. He rubbed the stubble on his face, feeling hung-over
from too few hours of sleep.
Missy smiled, blinding him like the
dawn.
The sooner he got away from Missy, the
better.
“
Go back to sleep for
another couple of hours. You’ve got to work today. I
don’t.”
His mouth tasted like the inside of
the chum bucket. He snagged the apple from his sweatshirt pouch and
took a bite. “I’m up now.” He passed Missy the apple, ripped open a
Pop Tart package and handed her one.
He checked their bearing. “Should get
in by eight a.m.” He looked up from the GPS and froze in the beam
of Missy’s gaze.
He wasn’t an expert in reading people,
but he’d swear Missy was telegraphing
kiss me
with her wide,
trusting eyes. He’d called it chemistry, but it was more like
centripetal force. He coughed and edged away from her, hoping that
at some point the rubber band pulling them together would break,
and he’d be free—maybe at five feet, maybe the length of the
boat.
He walked to the bow and craned his
neck at the jib telltale, shook the mainstay as if they’d sailed
through ninety-mile-an-hour winds and the stay might have loosened.
He headed to the stern, peered at the dinghy trailing behind the
Escape
like a lone duckling.
Missy held the half-eaten apple out to
him. “What just happened—before you took a lap around the
deck?”
He took the fruit, careful to avoid
Missy’s fingers, and bit into it, buying time. He could play dumb,
but he and Missy had always been honest with each other. She’d see
through him. “I almost kissed you.” He held up a hand to stop her
reaction. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do it. I get that I don’t
make the cut for your list.” Leftover anger from her rejection
after the boat-jacking flooded acid into the words.
“
Like you want babies and
a minivan.” Her words dripped with sarcasm.
“
Why are you so hell-bent
on a wedding and procreation?”
“
I can’t help what I want.
And… maybe the guilt will go away.”
The plaintive note in her voice
pierced his own guilt. “Yeah, I get that.” He ran a hand over her
hair, knocking off her hood, coming to rest on her neck. He peered
into her eyes. “Maybe we could figure it out together.”
Missy gave him a shaky smile. “I’d
like that. A lot.”
He kissed her forehead.
“Friends.”
It was past time to set off on a
reconnaissance mission to find the guy he used to be. And the first
thing he needed to do was reconcile with his family.
Cal slid into the seat in front of the
jail visitation video monitor and saw Fish’s face. His heart rate
picked up, and soap bubbles of joy sparkled and popped through the
dread of his fast-approaching court appearance. “Thanks for coming.
I didn’t get to thank you for rescuing me and Aly.”
Fish stared at him, his heart in his
eyes—the heart that had always cared too deeply about just about
everything.
He wondered if Fish would speak at
all.
Fish’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He cleared
his throat. “I hate seeing you in here. Ever since you went to jail
the first time, I thought I could have done better by you than that
yahoo attorney.”
“
No doubt.” But Cal knew
he’d been lucky to dodge the one-year mandatory sentence for over
twenty grams of marijuana. This time, he didn’t expect any such
luck.
“
I’ve been studying the
law and your case every minute since Missy and I brought the
Escape
back to NSB”
“
What about work,
college?”
Fish waved away Cal’s concerns. “First
sick days I’ve taken. Zeke can run his own boat for a couple of
days. Won’t kill him. School—I’ll catch up.” For the next half hour
he spilled every scrap of information he’d dug up including each
judge’s propensity for leniency or severity.
“
Mom says I should go to
drug rehab—thirteen months. Do you think I need it?”
Fish let the air out of his lungs.
“There was a time, toward the end of our junior year when you were
smoking all the time….”
“
And now?”
Fish shrugged. “I haven’t been around
you enough to know.”
“
Is that going to change?
Is that why you’re here?”
“
I don’t know.”
Cal leaned closer to the camera and
peered into it. “Then why did you come?”
“
Because you gave up half
your room and most of your life our senior year to keep me from
bottoming out in depression. That’s gotta be worth something.” Fish
stood. “I’ll see you in court.”
Cal’s eyes dampened and his chest
tightened. “Thanks.”
Fish left him with something he hadn’t
expected to grasp for a long time. Hope.
Cal walked down the center aisle of
the nearly empty courtroom, a bailiff trailing him. Halfway back on
the left sat his parents—shoulders stiff. Before Mom turned her
face toward him, he saw the white slash of her scar. His fear and
pain reflected back at him from her eyes, and he looked
away.
The irons clamped around the legs of
his orange jumpsuit and the hand-cuffs that held his wrists in
front of him completed his humiliation. He wished his parents had
stayed home. He didn’t want them to see him like this.
Fish sat in the row directly behind
the defendant’s table, his unofficial counsel. Though they hadn’t
discussed it, after Fish’s visit, he’d decided to forego the
court-appointed attorney. Fish met his gaze when he walked past,
telegraphing solidarity. Just his presence fortified
Cal.
The judge entered, his black robe
crumpled like it had resurrected from a laundry basket seconds ago,
and took his seat.
A water pitcher and two Styrofoam cups
sweated on a table in front of Cal.
He wasn’t sure whether he heard or
just sensed movement in the back of the room, but the hair on the
back of his neck stood up.
When he turned slightly, he saw Aly
slip into the last row.
A light saber of pain sliced through
him, and he averted his face before she looked up. She, of all
people, he didn’t want to see him in prisoner
restraints.
She’d said she went with him to turn
himself in so he didn’t have to do it alone. But he hadn’t
considered her showing up today.
The judge looked over his half-glasses
at Cal. “I have a letter from your mother suggesting a
religious-based drug rehabilitation program. Do you want to go to
rehab?”
Cal’s voice boomed loud in the silent
courtroom. “No, sir. I do not.”
He could almost feel his mother’s
disapproval shooting darts into his back. But he honestly didn’t
think he was addicted. He’d been clean for weeks now. It was a
gamble. He could pull a sentence longer than the thirteen month
rehab program. But after the conversation with Fish, he decided it
was a risk worth taking.
The judge rattled on about rehab not
being effective when the person didn’t want it. “There’s an offer
on the table for you to wear a wire and do drug buys in exchange
for a commuted sentence.”
Shock coursed through his body. The
possibility of walking out the back doors free ricocheted around
his head. Wearing a wire—
Fish put a hand on his shoulder, and
he turned his head to hear what Fish had to say.
“
They’re going to want you
to wear a wire so they can get your suppliers.” Fish whispered. “Is
that what you want?”
“
It was Henna and Leaf’s
weed in the first place,” He whispered back.
“
That’s what I guessed.”
Fish thumped his spine against the back of his seat and crossed his
arms.
The room seemed to hold its breath,
except for the judge who wore an expression that said his patience
waiting for Cal to answer had nearly run out.
Cal cleared his throat. “No thank you,
sir.”
Maybe he heard a sigh of relief, maybe
he imagined it.
The judge focused a stern parental
stare on Cal. “Since you can’t manage to keep your appointments
with your probation officer, I sentence you to serve three months
at the Volusia County Correctional Facility—at which time your
sentence will be considered served in full with probation no longer
necessary.” His gavel smacked the sounding block.
For a second or two he sat in
dumbfounded warmth. When he turned into Fish’s backslap and looked
for Aly, she’d gone.
