by Sonya Blake
© 2020 Sonya Blake
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please contact the author through the website below.
ISBN: 978-1-7351031-1-2
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.
Front cover image by Damonza
Book design by Damonza
www.sonyablake.com
For Emily
TOC
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Part Two
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Part Three
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Part One
Chapter One
Kaia left the highway for a winding road flanked with pines. It followed the edge of land along Maine’s rugged coast, where snow dusted the trees and the dry grass on the roadside, sparkling in the silvery light of the early January evening. As she steered her ailing Corolla eastward to Quolobit Harbor, she appreciated the fact that the car had made it more than a thousand miles from Nashville, Tennessee to here. As long as it got her as far as Foley’s Point and died there, she’d be happy.
As if the car could hear her thoughts, it heaved and sputtered as Kaia turned onto Main Street. She muttered a prayer as it kept chugging past the sleepy wharf, the storefronts, the steepled church. At the sight of the grandiose library, she remembered being a kid in a stroller, pointing at the big stone edifice and asking her parents if it was a castle and whether a princess lived there.
“Lots of princesses live there,” her mother had told her. “And witches. And fairies. And dragons. Sirens live there, too.” Kaia sighed at the memory as the library disappeared from her rearview mirror.
She turned onto the isolated gravel road that would take her to her destination. Up ahead, a line of sky fractured the ragged pines surrounding the long driveway out to Foley’s Point. In the next moment, the house appeared, its cedar shakes scrubbed clean by maritime winds. A rocky finger of land surrounded the house, with the vast majesty of the ocean and the pale winter sky stretching beyond.
Kaia parked near a lopsided garage behind the house and tried to smudge away the tears, but they just kept coming. Maybe she was just exhausted from such a long ride. Maybe it was because she hadn’t eaten since the rubbery fast-food breakfast sandwich that morning. Or maybe it was the fact that her band had fallen apart last summer when she had found her boyfriend-guitarist locked in a storage closet with her best-friend-fiddler between sets, leaving Kaia newly solo on stage and off, and she’d only just learned that the two of them were now expecting a baby. Maybe it was also because last week she’d been fired from her bartending job because the new management wanted to hire skinny blondes with fake boobs and faker smiles. Maybe—probably—she was crying because of all of that plus the looming truth: she had come all the way up to Maine to sell the old house on Foley’s Point. And that meant letting go of the last piece of land her mother’s feet had touched.
It was time. Kaia needed to move on with her life, and not just from working a dumb job at a bar, playing in a band that was going nowhere, or dating assholes. She needed to find real meaning, a purpose, a sense of who she was meant to be. Selling the house on Foley’s Point was the best she could do, for now. It would provide her with enough money to go back to college and find some practical occupation. If her mother were still alive, Kaia was sure it was what she’d expect from her daughter.
Kaia got out of the car and braced herself against the wind that smacked her full in the face as she turned to the water, sending her mop of orangey-red curls flying away from her freckled cheeks. The ocean crashed against the black rocks beyond the house, sending up a wall of white spray. She hooted in surprise when the wind kicked up the wave and carried the spray right to her. The chilled saltwater tingled on her cheeks and in her nostrils as she walked toward the edge of land.
She had forgotten how good the ocean smelled. It had been too long since she’d been back to Quolobit Harbor. After her grandmother’s passing, her father had opened the house on Foley’s Point to summer rentals, supervised by an old friend who still lived in town. Now, imagining all the summer skies and wildflowers dancing in the breeze along the shoreline that she had missed in these long years, she felt burdened by deep regret and a healthy dose of resentment for her father, who had kept her away from such a wild and beautiful place.
A gull cried and took wing into the dimming sky as Kaia crunched through the thin layer of snow. A squall of snow blew out of the clouds, obscuring her view of the churning waves. Turning her back to the wind, she smacked her mess of curls out of her face and gazed up at the house. Though she was starving, though she was bone-tired and barely hanging on to her last thread of mental strength, she couldn’t resist having a look inside the old house before heading back into town for dinner.
The dry old wood of the porch steps creaked as she climbed them. She found the key under the mat where Samuel Lowell, the property manager, had told her it would be; the door swung open easily, cold on its hinges.
Clean and sparse, the house was decorated like a cross between a Shaker farmhouse and a Japanese monastery. And it was somehow so distinctly Maine.
A massive fireplace, flanked by windows overlooking the water, dominated the living room. Puritanical armchairs and a groovy yellow velvet couch from the sixties surrounded the hearth. Kaia gazed down at a mess of ashes and charred wood in the grate. The house had been professionally cleaned at the end of summer, and as far as she kne
w, there hadn’t been any renters after Labor Day—though perhaps the cleaners had forgotten to sweep out the hearth. If so, it was just as well. She’d be building a fire for herself later that evening.
Kaia’s stomach rumbled as she turned back toward the hallway and went into the kitchen to find more old-school charm. A rough oak table stood in the center and everything—the fridge, the stove, the sink—was vintage. Antique, even. She opened the door to the pantry and found it empty of all sustenance except for a dusty can of clams.
“Ew. No thanks,” she said aloud.
A single mug sat upside down in the dish rack on the counter beside the sink, a trace of water glimmering on the glaze. It dripped down the side of the mug when she fingered it.
“Huh.”
Kaia had taken over managing the property rentals five years ago, and even though she oversaw things from afar, she always knew when there were renters scheduled. If her records were correct, no one had stayed at the house on Foley’s Point since September. Yet here was a wet mug, as if someone had recently washed it. And the ashes in the hearth…
Out of curiosity, Kaia opened the fridge and found some cream. She pulled out the squat carton and glanced at the date. Still fresh, apparently. She sniffed it. Smelled good, too. In the cabinet she found a paper bag of locally-roasted coffee, fragrant enough to make her mouth water. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she left the kitchen to climb up the stairs.
“Hello?” she called when she got to the top step. “Is somebody here?”
She was answered only by a gale whining around the eaves of the house.
Several small bedrooms opened off the hallway, with a narrow old bathroom to share between them. No signs of recent activity there, as far as she could tell.
The master bedroom stood at the eastern end of the hall, spanning the seaward side of the house. Kaia approached with cautious, creaking steps. She dragged her fingers on the doorframe as she entered the room and flicked on the light to see a prim, maple four-poster bed stripped of linens.
It was a relief to find the dresser drawers empty and the closet bare. In the attached bathroom, which had a claw-footed tub and a toilet with a pull chain she vaguely remembered yanking on as a child, there was no evidence of life other than a wrinkled hand towel dangling beside the sink.
Moving farther into the master bedroom, she went to an eastward-facing, glass-paned door. Attached to the bedroom, hanging out over the porch, was a sunroom. Kaia opened the door and shivered as she stepped into the colder space. She stopped short, frozen in the doorway.
A mess of paper coffee cups, crumpled paper towels, and plastic shopping bags littered the floor. A stool sat in one corner, accompanied by an artist’s easel with a drop-cloth tangled in its legs, stained with splotches of deep violet, dove-gray, and aquamarine.
Chapter Two
“Dammit,” Sam said, and sucked on his frozen thumb, which he had just jammed against a metal crate of cod. It had been the best day of fishing he’d had in a while, and he’d only caught ten fish. Lobster had been all but gone since the end of December, and though he hated dealing with pelagic hook-and-line gear, it was what he’d have to do to survive till March or April, at least.
“Pretty pathetic, huh?” Sam said to Bobby, his sternman.
Bobby grimaced. “And it ain’t gonna get any better.”
Sam cast him an inquisitive look.
“With that wind farm thing they’re talkin’ about,” Bobby explained as he knotted the rope tethering the boat to the dock. “You didn’t hear about that? ‘Course you didn’t, living out there on your island like a goddamn hermit. I saw some kind of sign at Dunne’s Hardware the other day, and there’s been a town meeting or two. Wind farm. Here in Wapomeq Bay. You think fishin’s bad now…”
Sam shook his head. Yes, he remembered something about a wind farm being mentioned at the last town meeting, but he’d put it out of his head as unlikely, and too far in the future to care about.
“Ya need me t’marrah?” Bobby asked.
“Nah. Storm tonight, it’ll be shit out here.”
“Yap,” Bobby agreed. He gave Sam a salute and stuck a cigarette between his lips as he walked away.
Sam flipped the hood of his coat up against the fine, needling mist and hoisted the crate onto the stern of the Angeline before launching himself onto the dock. He paused, looking out to Wapomeq Bay beyond the harbor.
In the dying light, the water looked soft and gentle. It made him ache, maybe even more than it did in the summer when he could see straight through to the multicolored life thriving there. He yearned for that underwater world. Now, in the bitter cold of January, the water was gray and guarded by slabs of ice. It spoke to him of unreachable shelter and silence.
Sam huffed out a plume of breath as he carried the crate of fish up the pier steps, through the parking lot, and toward the yellow light hanging over the door to the Hook and Anchor. The pub would be empty this time on a Thursday night in the middle of winter. It was too early for dinner and too late for lunch, and besides, there weren’t any tourists to fill it this time of year.
He hiked up one knee to support the crate as he freed his right hand to open the door. Harvey, the bartender, nodded as Sam ducked through the door and kicked it closed behind him.
“What you got for me?” Harvey asked.
“Cod.” Sam glanced up at a halo of bright orange curls at the end of the bar. Odd to see a stranger this time of year. She turned and looked at him, curious.
“You can toss the crate on the kitchen counter,” Harvey said, jerking his head toward the kitchen’s swinging doors. “Matty’s in there, he’ll take care of it.”
Sam ripped himself from the gaze of the woman at the end of the bar and ducked into the kitchen with his catch. Matty, the cook, set down a bottle of beer and greeted Sam with a smile and a pat on the back.
“What’s up, Sam?” He took the crate and peered inside. “Mm, tasty. You want me to fix you up one of these bad boys?”
“Nah. I’ll take a burger,” Sam said, and set about washing his hands at the massive stainless steel sink.
“You’re funny, you know.” Matty slapped a patty of ground beef onto the grill. “Never want to eat what you catch. How can you not like fish, man?”
“I love fish,” Sam reminded him. “I just don’t like it cooked.”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean—like, what the fuck? Who doesn’t like some beer-battered cod?”
“Hey, who’s that out there?” Sam asked.
“The redheaded chick? Don’t you know her?” Matty asked as he flipped the burger. “Harvey said she’s looking for you.”
Sam’s stomach twisted. “Looking for me?”
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to recall if he’d slept with any redheads during tourist season. Not in the past year—not that he could remember, anyway. There had been one the year before, but she had been more of a strawberry blonde, tall and lanky. Of course there was always a possibility he’d been wasted and just didn’t have a coherent memory of the woman. He could’ve knocked her up. Shit, what would Violet say? And would he care what Violet said?
Sam had started seeing Violet in the fall, and though things were still casual between them, she was the first local he’d dated and the only woman he’d ever spent more than a handful of nights with. He wasn’t a player, though he’d been called that; he just didn’t like to share his time and space with anyone else, forget about his emotions. Compared to his typical run-ins with women, this thing with Violet was looking serious.
“Jesus, man,” Matty said, bloodshot eyes widening with concern as he flipped the burger again. “Don’t freak out. I think she’s just the owner of Foley’s Point. Probably wants to talk to you about the property.” His grin widened, too. “She’s got a killer smile and an even better ass.”
A killer smile? An even better ass? Sam shook his head, forever puzzled by mankind. Sure, he had burned through lover after lover in a way he proba
bly ought to be ashamed of, but he had done that out of pure instinct, driven by animal need. Other men objectified and belittled women with the way they talked about them and treated them. Sam knew he likely looked just as bad as the rest of them with the way he slept around, but he had always tried to be respectful and upfront with his partners about his desire to remain uncommitted.
Except for Violet. He hadn’t been too clear with her.
Gritting his teeth against a twisting nervousness still grinding through his guts, Sam hung his coat up by the front door and made a feeble attempt to smooth out the front of his wrinkled flannel shirt as he walked up to the petite redhead at the end of the bar.
“Kaia Foley?” he asked.
One cheek stuffed with food, she looked up at him with round eyes. She hurried to chew and offered him a hand as she slid off her stool, revealing that she was only a hair above five feet tall. Her mass of red curls, cut to a wild bob at her jaw, somehow made her seem bigger, though. And her voice, when she spoke, was enough to fill the room.
“You bet, that’s me,” she said, laughing loudly, her southern twang foreign to his ears. Her blue eyes sparkled up at him and he felt them pass over his mouth, his torso, his hands, appraising him like he was some kind of prize animal at the state fair. “And you are…?”
“Sam Lowell,” he answered, flustered by her frank gaze.
“Oh!” Kaia knotted her brows in puzzlement, all signs of flirtation leaving her face. “My dad told me you were his best friend growing up. I thought you’d be… older. Like, significantly older.”
“That’s my dad he’s talking about,” Sam said, chuckling despite the nervous flutter in his stomach. He couldn’t place what it was about her that had him so worked up. He normally had no trouble talking to women. Pretty ones, even. “My father is, ah, Samuel Lowell, too,” he said, clearing his throat of the lump that had risen in it. “I’m the one who takes care of things over at the Point lately. My dad’s got a bad shoulder, bad hip… plus he moved to Florida.”
“Oh, I see,” Kaia said, her voice soft with concern.