Chapter Nine
“YOU ARE AN excellent teacher,” Rick said, reveling in the feel of Desiree, warm and safe against him. “You knew just what we needed.”
She tipped her face up. “Well, that was like recess for me. I’m completely relaxed and ready to talk, but it was more like snack time for you, and probably left you all revved up. I understand if you’d rather not talk.”
He pressed his lips to hers, glad she wasn’t embarrassed after how she’d given herself over to him. “I thought you weren’t a naughty teacher.”
“You bring out the naughty in me. But I kind of left you hanging.”
“Don’t worry about me, beautiful. Pleasuring you is enough for now. I enjoyed every second of it.”
“You’re very generous,” she teased, and moved beside him, lying on her back and gazing up at the stars.
She’d gone through so much emotional turmoil since she’d arrived at the Cape, her resilience astounded him. He laced their fingers together, wanting to do more for her, to be the man to make her dreams come true.
“What’s the one thing you’d like to do while you’re here this summer?” he asked.
“Other than spend time with you?” She met his gaze, and he touched his lips to hers.
“That’s the best answer you could have given.”
“It was honest,” she said softly. “There are things I want to do, like get to know Violet better and figure out what our mother did with all of the money she borrowed.”
“I know you have a lot on your plate, but what do you want to do that isn’t driven by your circumstances?” he asked. “Is there anything you’ve always wished you could have done? For you, not to repair your relationships with them.”
“I’ve always wanted to go out on a sailboat. It seems like the most romantic thing in the world, drifting at sea in the moonlight.”
The sense of desperation that accompanied memories of the night of his father’s death clutched at him.
She touched his cheek. “What is it? Did I say the wrong thing?”
“No.” He leaned into her touch, trying to smile but knowing by the concern in her eyes that he failed. Images of his father flashed in his mind. Buck up, big guy. Nothing in life is worth that look. God, he missed him so much he ached, and he wanted to share the man who meant everything to him with Desiree.
“Being on the open sea can feel like the ultimate freedom. Driven by the wind, with the sounds of the boat slicing through the water, and the flutter of the sails. It’s as much of an emotional rush as it is a physical one. My family used to go sailing a lot.”
“Sounds like there’s a ‘but’ coming.”
He turned on his side again, and she turned with him, gazing into his eyes. She had a calming effect on him that was as strong as her ability to heat him up. He put his arm over her and pulled her closer. Her gaze was warm and her touch comforting, easing the knot in his gut.
“There is,” he admitted. “A big one.”
“Your father?”
He nodded, his throat thick with emotions. “My father used to say that a few days at sea could make or break a family, and it turned out, he was right. We lost him the summer after I turned fourteen. My family was sailing off the coast of North Carolina on our way back home. We’d been on the water for a couple of weeks by then. It was evening, and the sky up ahead was a little gray, but we’d sailed through storms before, and it didn’t look like it was going to be much more than rain.”
He paused, his pulse speeding up with the memory. He ground his teeth together, steeling himself, and forced his words out as fast as he could. “The trickery of Mother Nature is that one minute you’re looking at a clear sky, and the next it’s tar black, with violent gusts of wind. That evening the winds hit hard and fast, sixty-five, seventy miles per hour. We managed to get the jib down, but the mainsail only halfway before the storm was upon us. I can still taste the brackish water, still feel my body sliding across the deck as the boat lurched, heeling into the storm. It all happened fast. My father was hollering for us to hold on. My mother had grown up on boats. Her father was a fisherman. She was hunkered down with Mira in the cabin, and I remember seeing Drake on the other side of the boat. He turned as a swell tipped the boat sideways and water crashed over the deck. He lost his grip. It took only an instant, and he was sliding toward the edge. I dove for him.” He blinked against damp eyes, unashamed of his emotions.
“I caught his arm, and just as he found his footing, the boat lurched again in the choppy water, and I lost mine. We grappled on the deck to keep from being thrown into the water. I turned just as the boom smacked my father in the head, sending him overboard. With the torrential rain and erratic movement of the boat, we couldn’t see ten feet in front of us, and when you’re staring into a black angry sea…It swallowed him so fast. We threw a life vest, but…”
He paused, fighting against the images slamming into him. “Everything kind of blurs together after that. The wind was howling, and we were dodging the boom, shining the flashlight into the water. Drake told me that I fought so hard to go after him, it took all his strength to hold me back. The whole thing lasted ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and cleared as quickly as it hit. But he was gone.”
Tears streaked Desiree’s cheeks, pulling more from him. She threw her arms around his neck.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“Me?” She pulled back and looked deeply into his eyes. “I can’t imagine how you must feel. I’m so sorry.”
“Me too, babe.” More than anyone could ever know. He wiped the tears from her eyes.
“But you’re not afraid of the water? I don’t think I’d ever go in again.”
“I’m not afraid of the water, as you know from the night we met. I powerboat, water-ski, parasail, paddleboard. You name it, I do it. My father wouldn’t have wanted us to let his death stop us from doing the things he’d taught us. But sailing?” He shook his head. “I can’t bring myself to do it. Too many memories. My father used to say the sea was his mistress. He’d wax poetic about the sounds and the way he felt when we were coasting along. Those kinds of memories are hard to deal with, but they don’t come up often. Before we bought the resort, I was working seventy, eighty hours a week in DC, too busy to think about anything but the next deal. I hadn’t been back to the Cape for any extended period of time, just a few days here and there. It was easier to keep the memories at bay that way. But being with Drake dredges them up. He still goes out on the sailboat. We keep it down at the marina.”
“So, he’s moved past it?” she asked. “At least you had each other to talk about it and help each other through.”
Not exactly. “Believe it or not, Drake and I haven’t really talked about it much. It was hard enough getting through every day afterward, and it was easier to bury ourselves in our daily lives. I think Drake’s dealt with it pretty well, though. He had to. He’s only left the Cape for a few months at a time to open his music stores, but his life is here.”
“And you?” she asked carefully.
Leave it to his brave girl to ask the hard questions and get under his skin. For once in his life, he didn’t want to avoid the issue. Had Drake or anyone else asked the same question, he might have scoffed and said he’d dealt with it. But after all Desiree had been through, he wanted to be honest with her.
“I’ve dealt with losing my father. I was pretty angry for a while, and I was a troublemaker. I was the kid who skirted every line. My mother would tell me to be home by ten o’clock and I’d come home at ten oh two. I was that kid. Growing up and moving to DC helped put some distance between that night and my emotions.”
“I can totally see you as a rascally teenager, even if you hadn’t lost your father. You seem to have that way about you.” She touched his hand. “But what did you mean when you said that being around the people who knew you best was the hardest place to be? You don’t think anyone blames you or Drake, do you?”
“No. The sea is a prickly beast. My father had drilled that into our heads. But I see my father in my family, around my mom’s house, and that’s tough sometimes. Drake looks a lot like him. And when I see Mira, I remember my father used to push her out of her comfort zone. He never wanted her to feel like she couldn’t do something, so he showed her that she could. I still remember when he first took us water-skiing. Mira didn’t go parasailing, or anything like that, but she put on a brave face and got up on water skis. You know, in that way, you remind me of her. You face what’s in front of you. That’s weird comparing you to my sister, but…” He shrugged.
“As long as you’re not secretly into incest.” The tease played in her eyes, and he was thankful, because he didn’t want to get swept any deeper into the painful memories or a downer of a conversation.
He tickled her ribs, and she squealed.
“What happened to that sweet, careful girl I was dating?”
“You freed her from her confines with wild kisses and…more. Finish your story. And your mom? How did she deal with it?”
“My mom was a pillar of strength. She had three grieving kids, and she plowed through life taking care of us. She had her ups and downs, but she was focused on making sure we healed. She wasn’t going to let us use our loss as a crutch, and she stepped into my father’s shoes and got us all right back out in the water. She was right there doing water sports with us, and it was just what we needed.”
Her eyes moved over the bright orange lights splashing against fresh white paint, and she smiled. “It’s funny how someone can do one thing, and it can change deep-seated emotions. In my case, years of emotions. I still have uncomfortable feelings toward my mother, but this”—she tapped the bench they were lying on—“it softened me toward her. I didn’t think she understood me or knew who I was, but I think, like your mother knew what you all needed, maybe mine knows more about me than I thought.”
“I hope so, sweetheart. I truly hope so.” She yawned, and he asked, “Do you want me to take off so you can get some sleep?”
“No. I want a slumber party, like we planned.”
He smiled, feeling tremendously lighter than he had earlier. “A slumber party? Does that mean I get to do a panty raid?”
“That would require panties.” She slid down on her back and pulled him down over her. “Kiss me, Rick. Let’s replace all our sad thoughts with happy ones.”