Sailing out of Darkness (Carolina Coast Book 4)

by Normandie Fischer

  “Poor thing.”

  “Least yours were grown before Greg lit out.” Rhea paused. “I know it broke your heart.”

  “He said selling the house would give me my freedom. Who wanted freedom?” No, she’d wanted her home, a place for the twins to visit and for grandchildren to find family. “The cottage is better, though,” Sam told the window.

  “Listen to us.” Rhea’s pursed lips poofed out a harsh sound along with a breath. “Moving nearer the coast got you another Samantha’s, it got you Tootie, and it got you that pretty piece of land. And me? I got my baby and you and God. I don’t need nothin’ else.” The ponytail bounced as Rhea made her point. “I know I’m preaching to the choir, but, honey, you and me gotta stop this complaining.”

  “And who started it?” Sam raised her brows then sighed. “I know. It doesn’t matter. We’re both better off. So, you’re right, no more complaining.”

  “Amen. And you’re about to go on a great trip.”

  “Which,” Sam said, “wouldn’t have been so rushed or so necessary if I’d been a stronger, better person.” Her tone turned to disgust as the words again showed up in her head. “I’m pretty sure I taught the just-say-no philosophy. Too bad I failed at follow-through.”

  “We both know why,” Rhea said. “I’m hanging the blame on Jack. He’s the one had two women. He’s the one with those smiling ways that suckered you and her. I don’t care if he did move out of her house. He’s the one ought to have known better.”

  Wouldn’t it be comfortable if Sam could blame Jack for all her woes? But her moral compass should have pointed her away from him. Jack hadn’t pretended to believe. She had.

  Rhea’s turn signal blinked and blipped maneuvered toward the terminal. “You just remember to take care of yourself over there, hear? You’re doing the right thing. Besides, Stefi’s going to be over-the-moon thrilled, her mama coming to visit. It was a good thing, her being able to go, what with Daniel getting married suddenly like that.”

  “She felt kind of lost, didn’t she?” Sam pictured it. Her beautiful Stefi, eyes wide with forced gaiety at the wedding, calling Cindy her sister as if the word had trouble rolling off her tongue. Thank God that the last-minute opening in her school’s Italian program had offered an escape route. Something of Stefi’s own.

  “The twin thing,” Rhea said, as if that explained it all.

  It did. “They were each other’s best friend. It’s hard.”

  Rhea merged into traffic and the airport round-about, eventually zigging the van into a place at the curb. She climbed out and came around to open the side door, saying, “Stefi’ll find her way. Don’t you worry.”

  “I know.” Sam hefted her bag to the sidewalk before pulling Rhea close. “Thank you. For everything.”

  “I love you. You take care, hear? And call me.” Rhea sniffled, trying for a smile.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll check in regularly.” Sam turned quickly so she wouldn’t have to watch the van drive away.

  She leaned against a wall at the boarding gate. She’d tried sitting to wile away the hours before her flight. Had even paced from one end of the concourse to the other to work out some of the kinks. Now she just wanted to get on that plane and get this part over with.

  She studied the folk preparing to fly the friendly skies with her. It sure didn’t look like the world’s economic recession had caused a slowdown here. Kids huddled around their parents, dropping crumbs and spilling juice. Businessmen and women two-fingered keyboards faster than Sam could have typed with ten functioning digits. Thumbs flicked over Androids or iPhones. A couple of grungy-looking youths lounged on their backpacks.

  They called her boarding zone. Her cell phone jangled Daniel’s ringtone as she headed down the ramp, but she ignored it until she’d settled in her seat and tucked away her carry-on.

  This would be the last time she’d be able to use this old phone until she returned to the States. “Mom, get a new one,” had been her children’s litany. “One that actually does stuff.” They called her a technological dinosaur, but she used a computer for all sorts of business tasks every day. She merely refused to send or receive text messages on a phone. That did not make her a dinosaur.

  Blowing stray hairs off her face, she hunched away from the passengers who’d fit themselves in next to her and slowly punched in the familiar numbers.

  Daniel’s voice hiked an octave whenever he was worried. His, “You sure you’re okay?” hit the top end of the tenor range. “You’ve got a place to stay when you get there?”

  She watched out the plane window as a train of baggage carts wheeled past. “I booked a room near the Spanish Steps. I’ll be fine.”

  “And Stefi’s waiting for you?”

  They’d been over this, she and Daniel, at least twice. “She will be,” Sam said. “I’ll head to Florence in a couple of days. I’ve made all the arrangements.”

  “By train? I heard you have to book seats as well as find a ticket.”

  Not by train, but she didn’t say so. Better he think her safely on public transport than loose on the highways. She laughed quietly. “You’ve been searching on the Internet.”

  “Of course. What do you expect after calling me with three days’ notice to say you’re leaving the country?” At least he’d moderated his tone, sounding more like her in-control son. A business major, Daniel liked things to make sense, especially as he’d lost temporary control of his own life this last year. Still, he’d whipped it back into a semblance of order by marrying Cindy.

  That had helped and had given Daniel other things to worry about than his mama. “I’ll be fine,” said that mama. “I have traveled before. And in Europe.”

  “But not for years and not by yourself.”

  A disembodied voice announced that they were closing the airplane’s doors. “I have to go. We’re taking off.”

  “Call me when you get there?” The tenor was back.

  “Soon after. You don’t want to hear from me in the middle of the night.”

  Sam hit End and held the button down to turn off the phone. Then she settled in to read Apennine Angles and the antics of Theo Anderson’s heroine.

  Hadn’t Tootie been cute, hoping Sam would meet her uncle? The likelihood of running into a mystery writer in a country almost twice the size of Florida was so remote that she had played along with the girl’s dreams. As far as Sam knew, the man might live down in Italy’s toe or heel, which were not on her list of destinations this go round.

  She tried to concentrate on the heroine’s romp from the Italian Riviera south as the sleuth followed a thief who’d made off with one of her baubles, but the words swam on the page. The in-flight movie wasn’t worth watching. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. But memories intruded—no matter how much she wanted to squelch them.

  Her life had flipped from flat to jagged to flat and back to jagged faster than she could snap her fingers. She was back in the flat zone now, but jagged had been her modus vivendi for much too long.

  Out of one mess and snap into another. Like a magnet attracting nails, that had been Samantha Ransom.

  She eased her seat back and adjusted the neck pillow she’d brought, then tried to focus on the abruptness of change to distract herself from fantasies of Greg flat on his back in a body cast, of Jack tumbling into the sea, even— please— of Jack’s girlfriend, India, bound and gagged. If she let those in, she’d soon hear an imagined siren’s wail and a jail door clanging shut.

  She needed an expletive. A good, solid curse to shout at anyone listening. But, oh, it was hard flailing against all those years of zipped lips.

  And a plane over the Atlantic, while providing too much time for reflection, also wasn’t the ideal place for an explosion of language. Besides, she was supposed to pray, not blather ugly words.

  Did she even remember how to pray? So far, her attempts to reach anyone in power had accomplished zip, zero, nada.

  Exercise was the only thing that calmed the str
ess pushing her toward an early grave—and that wasn’t hyperbole. Her own mother had worried herself into so many physical ills that she’d orphaned Sam as a babe of twenty-five. No, if Sam didn’t relieve these raw emotions in some healthy manner, she’d end up heading that way too soon. She’d like to imagine her own end would be heaven, but she wasn’t sure she rated an entry pass any longer.

  She popped an antihistamine. Maybe its soporific powers would let her sleep without the after effects of a sleeping pill—and without embarrassing her by being too effective. She’d taken a sleeping pill once on a red-eye across country and awakened to find her mouth open and drool running down her chin.

  Isometrics helped stave off leg cramps, but nothing else. She plugged in her iPod to tune out the caterwauling of the miserable baby in the row behind hers and as a distraction from the seat-kicking of the baby’s brother and the imploring voice of their mother.

  But neither music nor an audiobook corralled her thoughts.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” the attendant asked.

  “Hot water?” She turned down the food tray, but asked for crackers. “Have you got any?”

  “Sorry. Only cookies or nuts.”

  “Nuts, please.”

  The attendant handed her two packages of peanuts and the steaming cup into which Sam dunked the chamomile tea she’d brought along. The task of eating one peanut at a time and sipping the tea very slowly occupied a few moments of brain space, but not enough.

  “Hey, you gonna eat those extra peanuts?” the man next to her asked, pointing to the unopened bag on her tray table.

  Sam looked from the nuts to the man’s belly protrusion. “Help yourself,” she said, surprised into offering them.

  Had she wanted to eat them? Probably. Later. So why couldn’t she have said no?

  Typical. Weak and lily-livered.

  She straightened in her seat. No, that was the old Sam. She wasn’t going be that way any longer.

  She wasn’t? Then what about the peanuts?

  She glanced over at the man. He had the bag upturned over his shiny lips. Now he was chewing. Too late for the peanuts.

  Sam shut her eyes again. You can, you must… She would be strong. She would flee from the old and become a new person.

  She would.

  Her nose started to clog as her eyes fogged. She sniffled and squeezed her lids against any spills.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, would you like something else to drink?” the flight attendant said in a bored voice.

  Sam shook her head, willing him to leave her alone. She didn’t want a soda. She hated sodas.

  Because on that day, that very first and fateful day, Jack had handed her a can of soda, a Pepsi, as they’d sailed Alice. Before he’d kissed her. Before he’d done more.

  Before she’d let him.

  First the soda and then the more.

  With a deep sigh, Sam pressed the seat back, trying to change its angle so the kid’s feet couldn’t land a direct hit. The man next to her readjusted his bulk until his beefy arms pushed hers into her lap.

  His thigh intruded. She edged as close to the side of the plane as she could get, but the thigh followed, oozing under the arm rest.

  She glared at the thigh and switched audiobooks, trying to concentrate on the British reader. When he announced Chapter Three, she realized she’d missed all of Chapter Two. She punched over to music.

  Why wouldn’t that pill work? She wasn’t even drowsy.

  The sky darkened as they sped east, away from her friends and the day-to-day running of her shops.

  Choices. One always had choices. If only she’d run sooner.

  Culpa mea.

  4

  Jack

  Bat’s in the belfry,

  Supper’s on the hook,

  Pigeons taking pot shots,

  Where is one to look?

  Jack Waters didn’t do churches. They made his back sweat and his heart rate surge until blood pounded like a jackhammer in his neck. Which meant he must be a fool, standing in front of this one, thinking about entering its frigid darkness on a day when the sun shone and the breeze blew from the right direction. Sun and breeze didn’t come every day.

  He scuffed the toe of his shoe against a flagstone. Yep, a fool or a coward.

  In or out?

  Sam should have answered her stupid phone. She knew he’d call the moment he arrived. That he had called. More than once. She was playing at hard-to-get again.

  “Excuse us,” a young and very pregnant woman said as she waddled past, followed by a man hefting a diaper bag. And a toddler.

  Jack winced. Obviously, there were worse things than being childless. Poor guy. But a drooling gurgle from the toddler stopped his blood-hammer long enough to let him concentrate again.

  He ought to be on the river, sailing, not standing in front of this ivy-draped stone façade. He was bone tired and deserved a few hours of fun before he had to head out again.

  Muttering a word that didn’t belong on the steps of a church—and would have gotten his face slapped or his ear tweaked if his pop were still alive to hear it (the hypocrite)—he pushed open the heavy oak door and sucked in a deep breath, releasing it slowly as he crossed the threshold. She’d better be inside.

  His eyes adjusted to the darkened entry, then again when he stepped into the sanctuary, where sunlight filtered through the stained glass.

  “Welcome,” a smiling man said as he tried to hand Jack some folded bit of paper.

  Jack narrowed his eyes at the fellow. Either that dark brown rug thing was a toupee or a bad dye job. Still, Jack supposed he ought to say something back to a face that continued to beam at him like he was some long-lost brother. He waved away the extended paper with a, “No thanks,” trying to sound polite, but failing. He cleared his throat. “Sorry.” No sense getting tossed out before he’d looked around.

  A keyboard, guitars, and a set of drums showed off up front. What had happened to the organ and choir? Not that he even liked organ music, but that’s what he remembered from his last visit inside a steepled building. Had to have been thirty-some years ago.

  He waited until the congregation had seated itself and he could see over heads. He picked out Tootie’s orange hair easily enough, but there was no sign of Sam’s brown fluff. His gaze scanned the rows. Wait, was that…? An unknown woman sat up straighter. No, she was too short to be Sam. And there was a kid next to her.

  As the service began, Jack turned and left, his frustration drumming in time to the beat from inside.

  Where was the fool woman?

  He’d been phoning the house for the last week, but she hadn’t answered. This morning, he’d returned to town just long enough to pick up some papers he needed for tomorrow’s sale. The equipment in Pittsburgh had been a dead end, but he was on the trail of a good generator that would hit the auction block in the morning.

  Sam had been a mess the last time they’d talked, blubbering, saying he needed to leave her be. How could he? They belonged together.

  He’d be able to smooth things over…once he found her.

  Well, that would have to wait. She wasn’t working, or at home, or sailing Alice. And she wasn’t at church. She never stayed gone long, not when her house and boat were here. So, he’d be back.

  And then he’d find her.

  It was only a matter of time.

  5

  Samantha

  If ever I were wanting, if ever I were free,

  I’d find myself a Chinese junk and sail up the yellow Yangtze.

  Sam tapped a palm against her thigh, keeping time to the music in her head as she stepped off a curb and crossed toward the Fontana di Trevi. She wedged herself through the crowd to the rail, and there it was, the famous fountain, just as she’d imagined it from the movies.

  This was good. She was in Rome. The sun shone, the water splashed and bubbled, and she finally felt rested.

  She ogled the carved figures and all the coins that visitors had
tossed in the water to bribe one god or another. Ah, but she, Samantha Ransom, would keep her purse closed.

  It wasn’t a day to tempt fate, and—as far as she knew—God couldn’t be bribed.

  Which really was too bad.

  Turning from that thought, she checked directions to the Spanish Steps. Her stride lengthened and her limbs loosened, and she tucked the guidebook away in her bag.

  The scent of baking breads, of garlic and herbs, and of coffee wafted from doors as she passed. Students and tourists perched on the tall steps, some reading, some chatting, some merely basking in the day. Well-dressed women strolled arm in arm. Cell phones seemed permanently attached to more ears than she’d expected.

  Who cared about Jack or home? Not Sam. At least, not at that moment. She had cut loose bonds that had nearly strangled her in Sussex. She imagined flinging them to the wind.

  When her stomach reminded her that the chocolate gelato had long since worn off, she stopped for lunch in a little trattoria.where the waiter spoke English. Lovely waiter. She studied the menu and asked for a recommendation. He brought her a plate with four light, sweet, incredibly succulent mushroom ravioli, dribbled lightly with brown sauce and freshly grated cheese.

  She moaned at the first bite.

  The waiter returned. “La signora is certain she does not wish a small glass of wine to accompany i funghi? Merely the water?”

  Tempted, because, after all, this was Italy, she said, “Do you have a suggestion?”

  “Un momento, signora!” A smile lit his face, and he hurried off.

  The small glass he gave her to sample was a light red, almost translucent. She’d expected white.

  Sipping, letting it roll over her tongue, she wanted to purr. “Please, yes.”

  He filled her glass and stepped back, obviously delighted with himself. Well, she was pleased with him, too.

  When he cleared away her empty plate, he asked what she’d like for the secondo. Four large ravioli, and he supposed she’d want more? “Fine,” she said. “A small salad.”