Look for Me: Second Chance Christian Romance Novel with a Side of Suspense: Encounters in Key Largo (Vacation Sweethearts Book 4)

by Jan Thompson

  “I’ll help.”

  “If you want. But I can’t pay you.”

  “I take double desserts.”

  “Have all the desserts you want!” Pete led him inside the houseboat.

  As Martin stepped onto the wooden deck, he recalled talking with Corinne here at this very spot a year before. It was a sunny Sunday after church, and several church members had gathered here for lunch. Angelina had cooked spaghetti, and Corinne brought her daughter.

  Martin wondered where Corinne was these days, whether she had moved on. There was still the matter of the college fund he had started for her children. How would he be able to tell her about it?

  And yes, he wanted to tell her in person. Not to brag, but to see her face, to let her know he really cared, even if they weren’t meant to be together.

  One year later, and Martin couldn’t move on.

  There was no way he could move on.

  Corinne would always be in his heart, and memories of her would be everywhere in Key Largo.

  He felt like he was grieving someone. Truly, it felt like Corinne had died, and he would never see her again.

  “Whoa! Have you gained weight?” Angelina shrieked.

  “Nice to see you too.” Martin laughed. “Well, yes, I have gained about twenty pounds, but I blame Thanksgiving pies and Christmas cookies.”

  “And here you asked for double desserts.” Pete laughed from inside the houseboat.

  Martin followed Angelina through the door, half-wishing that Corinne was there.

  She wasn’t.

  The small living space looked more cluttered now, with the armchairs and sofas pushed closer together to one another. And across the rug from a big screen television was a giant leather recliner.

  “Have a seat!” Pete plopped himself down on the recliner, as if saying, “Anywhere but this chair.”

  “Turn the TV off,” Angelina told him.

  “I haven’t turned it on,” Pete replied.

  “You were going to!”

  Martin laughed. “What are you watching?”

  “Nothing since she sent me out there to wash my truck.” Pete there his arms up.

  “You had the news on, and you were getting upset by the minute,” Angelina said from the open kitchen. “I didn’t want your blood pressure to go up.”

  Martin walked past Pete toward Angelina. “May I help?”

  “Yes, you may.” Angelina sounded pleased that someone offered to help. “You can help me set the table.”

  “Tell me where the plates and silverware are.” Martin washed his hands at the sink.

  “I’m glad you washed your hands…unlike some people.” Angelina laughed.

  “I heard that!” Pete said from the other side of the peninsula.

  All Martin could see was his head over the recliner. He had turned on the television—in spite of Angelina’s protests—but he switched over to YouTube.

  “Turn it down,” Angelina said.

  Pete dutifully did so. “I’m going to see what news I missed.”

  Martin could see the television from where he was standing by the small dining table. He set three place settings. Then he filled three goblets of cold water.

  “…is now behind bars as he awaits trial…”

  Martin ignored it. Same old news every day. Crimes everywhere. So what’s new?

  “Did you hear that, Martin?” Pete asked.

  “What?”

  “It’s Flavian’s associate.”

  Martin nearly dropped the last goblet of water on his way to the dining table.

  Flavian.

  Corinne’s ex-boyfriend.

  For Flavian’s eternal sake, Martin hoped that he had somehow accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior before he passed away. Even if he couldn’t speak, but had made the profession of faith in his heart, it would be enough. From his heartfelt plea to God’s ears.

  Otherwise it would be a very dark eternity for him.

  Once again, Martin wondered how Corinne was doing.

  Well, I’ll never know.

  Carefully, he placed the last goblet on the dining table and went to the living room. “What’s happening?”

  Pete pointed to the screen with his remote. “They caught Oscar with no last name in Cuba. He was an associate of Flavian and Nikos. It was all coming out now that they were a trio of diamond smugglers. Oscar’s job was to convert the diamonds into weapons for terrorists.”

  “No kidding.” Martin had to sit down. “Wow.”

  Corinne had been in way more trouble than he had thought.

  “I wonder what Corinne went through those years she had been with his ex,” Pete said.

  “We won’t talk about the past any more.” Angelina’s voice cracked. “All we can do is pray for Corinne and her babies. Her newborn must be at least four months old by now.”

  “I do miss them,” Pete said.

  “Me too,” Angelina chimed in.

  And I miss her most of all.

  Spaghetti lunch was served, and Pete asked Martin to say grace before their meal. Martin made a short work of it, but he ended it with a prayer for Corinne.

  “Lord, I know You’re watching over Corinne and her two children, but I want to keep praying that You would not let any harm come to them. If those criminals and diamond smugglers are gone, I pray that she will be free again. Above all, I only want Your perfect will to be done in her life. In Jesus’ Name I pray. Amen.”

  Everyone else said amen.

  Their lunch conversation turned to their present-day life, and Martin realized that the two of them were living in poverty.

  “What do you mean you don’t have health insurance?” Martin asked.

  “We have Medicare,” Angelina said. “But Pete here put his life savings and the profits from the sale of his house into an investment fund that went under.”

  “Oh, no.” Martin felt sorry for the man. “You lost money.”

  “All of it.” Pete barely nodded. “I thought my nephew was… Well, I shouldn’t have trusted him.”

  “So now he needs to get a job,” Angelina added. “You know anyone who could use a retired mechanic who can’t see straight without trifocals?”

  Martin didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Pete said. “Angelina talks too much. It’s not as bad as she’s making it.”

  Martin ate his spaghetti quietly. Angelina kept giving him more. By the time he had three helpings, he was too full to eat any dessert.

  “I made coconut macaroons,” Angelina said.

  “Well, I’ll have one.” Martin laughed.

  When Angelina passed the tray to her, Martin took four or five. They looked too delicious to pass up.

  As he chewed, he turned his attention to Pete. “If you wear your trifocals, you can still see, right?”

  “Sure.” Pete straightened up. “I can see fine. Angelina just worries about me.”

  “You can’t even afford to get your eyes checked and get new glasses.” His wife patted his arm.

  “Why are you saying all these things in front of our guest?” Pete chided her. “It’s not polite.”

  “I was hoping he’d offer you a job at his car place.” Angelina looked at Martin.

  Martin hadn’t thought about that, but if Pete qualified, there was no reason not to hire him. If he knew enough about classic cars to be useful, he could be helpful to Dad.

  “In Savannah?” Pete asked his wife. “I don’t know.”

  “If you go to our website and search for the Careers tab, you can find the job openings,” Martin said. “Dad handles that part of the company. He’s the personnel director. I mostly deal with paperwork and taxes and such.”

  Pete looked embarrassed.

  “You’ll have to move to Savannah though,” Martin said. “There are fewer hurricanes there.”

  “We’d have to sell this boat,” Pete said. “Or rent it out.”

  Angelina nodded. “Maybe I’l
l get a job there too.”

  “At MacMuscles?” Pete’s eyebrows rose.

  “No, silly.” Angelina laughed. “In Savannah. Or on Tybee Island. We’ll still be by the Atlantic Ocean.”

  Martin remembered her skillset. She was good with details. Suddenly he remembered something he heard at church on Sunday while he was chatting with his friend, Hunter Jacobs. His aunt ran a campground, and was looking for someone to help her in the office a few days a week.

  “I can’t promise anything, but I heard about a job at a campground office. It’s part-time, but it could be a start,” Martin said.

  “Where?”

  “Tybee Island. It’s not on the beach, but near it.”

  “Pete, go apply to MacMuscles and see if they hire you and I’ll apply to this place.” Angelina turned to Martin. “Campground? They rent cabins and such?”

  “I think they have yurts.”

  “Yurts?” Pete helped Angelina put away their plates. “If we sell this houseboat, we could buy an RV and live on the campground. Save some money.”

  “If God wants us to do this, we’ll do it,” Angelina said. “I almost forgot to say we need to pray about this first, but then again, we have been praying for God to deliver us from our financial difficulties.”

  “Yep. And in the middle of it, we got a call from you, saying you’d like to come down here for a few days, for old time’s sake.” Pete nodded to Martin. “I’m glad you could have lunch with us. I know it’s hard for you since it’s been a long year, but I hope you found our friendship comforting to you.”

  “Thank you for inviting me.”

  “And that we haven’t unloaded our personal issues on you.” He glanced over to Angelina, loading the dishwasher.

  “If you don’t ask, you don’t get,” Angelina quipped.

  “That’s for sure.” Martin carried two goblets back to the kitchen. “We do have a turnover of mechanics. So apply for the job and see. I will mention this to Dad, but I won’t sway him one way or another.”

  “I don’t expect you to.”

  “He already knows that you helped Corinne when she was here in Key Largo. Dad appreciates compassionate people.”

  Pete nodded. “I still can’t get used to her being called Corinne.”

  “She will always be Dinah to me.” Angelina chuckled. “But what’s in a name? God knows our real names.”

  “Indeed.” Martin asked Angelina if she wanted him to pour the rest of the iced water from the goblets on a plant or something.

  “Your mother taught you that?” Angelina asked as she told him about her container plants on the deck outside the living room.

  “My stepmother, actually. She doesn’t waste.”

  “That’s good.”

  Martin went outside and poured the ice out onto a rosemary bush and a tomato plant. They looked healthy and well-watered. The tomato plant hadn’t flowered yet.

  Under the containers, the small deck floated on top of the waterway. Beyond the waterway, the water flowed toward the ocean, which Martin couldn’t see from here. A couple of boats chugged by, and Martin waved to them.

  Key Largo was a nice place to visit, but could he live here?

  Even as he asked himself that question, he knew he couldn’t without Corinne.

  Not without her.

  Then again, he knew he had to let her go.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  It didn’t take much time for Pete and Angelina to pack up, sell their houseboat, buy a recreational vehicle, and move to Tybee Island. They parked their RV at Jacobs Landing Glamping Camping, and Angelina found a job at the manager’s office working for Delilah Jacobs, who ran the campground.

  Martin knew about the campground because some of the Jacobs family members attended Riverside Chapel. Delilah’s nephew, Hunter, was once in the same Sunday school class as Martin before Hunter married and switched to a class for young marrieds. Apparently, Hunter had been the one to make his aunt drop the apostrophe in the name of the campsite if Delilah refused to call it Jacobs’s Landing.

  Regardless of Delilah’s grammatical issues, she had shown only kindness to Pete and Angelina. Delilah discounted their extended stay on account of their age, and invited them to the Super Seniors Bible study group at church.

  During the week, Pete turned out to be a hard worker at MacMuscles Classic Car Restoration and knew so much about engines that Martin’s dad had taken a liking to the man. It helped that they had both been in the service, and they were about the same age. Both were grandfathers with grandkids out of town.

  By September, Pete and Angelina had settled into their new life in Savannah and Tybee Island, with a little help from Martin. Forever grateful, they often invited Martin over for dinner on random nights. Martin wasn’t always available, but he tried his best to eat with them once a month.

  This time, they had postponed dinner twice. Angelina twisted her ankle walking on the uneven grounds at the campground, tripping over a tree root. They had to cancel dinner so that Angelina could rest.

  Martin only agreed to the raincheck because Pete promised to grill hamburgers. Frankly, Martin was getting tired of spaghetti every time Angelina cooked. How many ways could she cook spaghetti?

  Tasked to bring a dessert, Martin picked up a pecan pie from Piper’s Place in downtown Savannah on his way to Tybee Island. The pie wasn’t very big, but it was enough for three people to have seconds.

  Martin was late by a few minutes because he had a business meeting with Dad about the feasibility of opening a small branch of MacMuscles in Miami. Dad pointed out that Martin was grasping at straws if his thought of Miami and that part of the region had anything to do with an ex-girlfriend.

  Corinne had been gone for over a year. In fact, thirteen months, two weeks, and a few days.

  No one had heard from her or of her. In fact, Agent Tanaka had also vanished. When Martin tried to contact her at the FBI regional office in Savannah, he was told that no such agent worked in the FBI.

  Basically, just go away.

  Perhaps Tanaka had been fired. Perhaps she had gone incognito. Perhaps she was even dead.

  What about Corinne?

  Martin parked the SUV in front of Pete’s RV, but didn’t get out of the car.

  “Lord, please take care of Corinne and her children. I know You have, You do, and You will. Just let me—teach me—to trust You and not be so worried out of my mind.” Martin leaned back against the headrest. “I mean, is she even alive?”

  He willed himself to get out of the car. After locking it, he dragged himself to the door of the RV. Before he reached it, Pete appeared around the back of the RV. He was wearing a brightly colored apron.

  “Glad you could make it.” Pete waved with his spatula.

  “Ah, I forgot the pecan pie in the car.” Martin went back to get it.

  “See you around back where the grill is.”

  “Okay.” The smell of hamburgers wafted over and around the RV into Martin’s nostrils, and suddenly he was famished. After getting the pecan pie out of the backseat and locking his vehicle door, he quickly followed the smell of food.

  “Hello, Martin!” Angelina was limping around a folded table under a canvas canopy, putting condiments in the center of the table. There were no chairs around the table, but there were four camp chairs under a string of lights.

  Four chairs.

  Martin freaked out a little, wondering if the fourth chair was for…Corinne?

  His hopes were dashed when an old ginger cat leapt up into the chair and settled down, going to sleep.

  “A cat chair.” Martin handed the pecan pie to Angelina.

  “Yep.” Pete flipped the burgers. “He came wandering into our RV one day when the door was open and that was it. He hasn’t left.”

  “A stray cat?”

  “Delilah said he usually comes and goes but rarely stays.”

  Angelina stroked the cat’s head. “This time he chose us.”

  “How old is he?”
/>
  “At least ten or fourteen. I don’t know.” Pete chuckled. “Angelina named him.”

  “He came to us when there was a heavy downpour, and it looked like the campground was going to be flooded,” Angelina explained. “So we called him Sunshine.”

  “Better than Umbrella,” Martin said.

  “Umber for short. Hmm.” Pete turned to Angelina. “Hand me a platter, will you, my dear?”

  Soon they were sitting down on their camp chairs. Even though Pete asked Martin to say a blessing over their dinner, Angelina didn’t say amen when Pete was done.

  “And Lord, please watch over Corinne and her two children, Dahlia and whatever his name is,” Angelina prayed. “In the mighty, powerful, all-sufficient Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.”

  “Amen,” everyone else echoed.

  “How do you know the baby is a boy?” Pete asked.

  “I’m guessing. I think she wanted a boy.” Angelina smiled. “Martin, if you ever have children, would you want boys or girls?”

  “Anyone God provides.” Martin realized too late that he had answered quickly.

  “Oh, you’ve thought about it.” Angelina gave him a sly smile.

  “Not really.” He backtracked. “My sister, Tina, has three kids. When I visit her in Atlanta, I spend a lot of time with her kids. I’m their favorite uncle—their only maternal uncle.”

  “That’s good practice for you.”

  “I don’t know.” Martin felt he was saying it honestly. “I might be a bachelor the rest of my life.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Angelina tipped her head up. “I think you’re the marrying kind.”

  “What on earth does that even mean?” Pete laughed.

  The rest of the evening, they made small talk all the way thorough dinner and dessert, surrounded by citronella candles holding back mosquitoes. It was September now, but the mosquitoes were still out.

  Martin noticed that Angelina was quieter than usual. Perhaps her twisted ankle was still giving her problems. Perhaps she was on medication. Perhaps she was simply tired from all that work at Delilah’s office.

  “Thank you for the dinner.” Martin wiped his lips. “That was an excellent hamburger.”

  “Welcome,” Pete and Angelina said in unison. “Want more?”