by Giselle Fox
Daisy took a closer look at the rundown, moss-covered cabin, noting the downward tilt of the balcony on one side. “Unfortunate.”
“Fortune, dear sister, will be made once the cove is ours. I think that’s worth roughing-it for a week, don’t you?”
She eyed her brother. “When was the last time you roughed-it, Colin?”
Colin slid his fingers along the top edge of his presentation folder and pretended to flip his hair. “Why, I had a big ol’ bear in my bed just the other night. He was pretty rough.”
Daisy shook her head and laughed. “Stop.”
“You’re supposed to be on vacation right now, are you not?”
“I don’t take vacations. What’s the point?”
“Unwinding. Unplugging. Un… oh, God, who knows?” He smiled back at her. “If anyone can convince Keira Maitland, it’s you. She knows me already. Please, I could really use your help.”
“If she already knows Colin Hunter, she’s bound to smell a rat when his sister moves in next door.”
Colin’s face shifted suddenly. “Do you think you could maybe consider, just this one time…?”
Daisy knew exactly what he was getting at. “No.”
“Please, Daze. You’ll probably never have to say it more than once.”
She shook her head. “No, Colin.”
Colin threw his head back and let out a long, exasperated groan. “Could you, just once more… for the sake of millions of dollars… use your married name instead of Hunter. Otherwise, this won’t work.”
“I’m not married anymore-”
“I know that. But couldn’t you just-”
“You don’t understand what that name means to me.”
“I do, believe me. He hurt me, too. We were friends. I don’t like him any more than you do.”
“Don’t like?” She shook her head. “You have no idea.”
“Millions, Daze. Think about it.”
They had one of their classic sibling stare-offs for a few more seconds until Daisy relented. “Fine.”
His smile returned. “There’s a town meeting on Friday. Go to it. Ask the questions any interested buyer of a remote waterfront property would ask. Is there a plan for services to be put in? Is there a school for your kids to go to-”
“I have kids?”
“No, but you’re a woman, you might have them one day, no?”
Daisy frowned. “You want me to announce in front of the whole town that after I buy the little house of horrors, I’ll be hunting for a local to knock me up?”
Colin grinned. “I’ll sub in for you. With the lights out, he’ll never know the difference.”
“Ha, ha,” she said sarcastically.
Colin’s face got serious again. “Ask what the council plans to do about roads and emergency services, current zoning and building restrictions, all that. We want to get people debating again. Apart from the old hippies on the conservancy, Kirby doesn’t think the rest of the island cares whether Hummingbird Cove is developed since it’s always been privately owned. If the ferry docks there, it’ll keep traffic and line-ups away from the rest of the homes. The locals will benefit from higher land values without having to give up their privacy.”
Daisy rose from her seat and took a step closer to the screen. She focused in on the blurry image of Keira Maitland standing out on her ostentatious wooden dock with her arm and long middle finger extended. “Alright, I’ll leave tomorrow.”
CHAPTER THREE
Keira lifted her head from her desk. A sheet of notepaper stuck to her sweaty cheek. Her mouth was dry. She’d fallen asleep with it open again. Her monitor had fallen into sleep mode, and she caught her reflection in the dark screen. Her hair was pressed up on one side. She looked tired and bedraggled. She moaned when she saw the time.
“Oh, God! Three more hours to go.”
Falling asleep on the job was one thing. Having the nerve to wake up three hours before she was allowed to call it quits was another. She stood up, stretched, took a sip of water, and walked over to the window.
There was fog over the cove. Enough that the cabin on other side was shrouded in white. She flipped an espresso pod into her machine and hit the button. As it hummed away, she pulled open the doors to her deck and stepped out on the damp cedar planks. It felt cold against her bare feet, but the chill helped wake her up. She took a few deep breaths and swung her arms like windmills. “Okay. Words. Words. Words.” Where had she left off? Where was this one set again?
“Right. London.”
Perhaps London hadn’t been the best idea. Or maybe it wasn’t the location at all but the protagonist. What was her name? Callie. Maybe another name? She racked her brain for a few seconds, then gave up. She often changed names at the last minute. There was no sense in getting hung up before she’d even got past the second chapter.
She stepped back inside and picked up her espresso shot, slugging it back in two gulps. She closed the deck doors and walked back to her desk. Reading over what she’d written before she’d fallen asleep didn’t help. Reading anything she’d written in the last nine months had only been excruciating. She had nothing, literally nothing, to say.
“Okay, Callie. Let’s figure out your happy fucking ending.”
If she hadn’t already been morbidly depressed, spending time with herself would have turned her that way. Coffee didn’t help. Wine didn’t help either. Keeping to her usual grueling schedule—plugging away like everyone expected—certainly wasn’t working. She hadn’t heard from Noah since Sydney had taken him, and that was all she could think about.
She hit control-A and deleted everything she’d written for the fourth day in a row. Nothing. Not one word, felt worth keeping. “I quit,” she said and stood up. She flicked off her monitor and walked from the library into her bedroom. It was tidy. Her clothes were folded. The bed was made. All signs that a mentally stable person lived there. It wasn’t enough to fool her, though. She stripped out of her jeans and sweatshirt and pulled on her bathing suit. Might as well keep punishing myself, she thought.
A few minutes later she was standing at the end of her dock, staring down into the cold black water. Never swim alone, every wise person in history had said, but she did it every single day. She hung her robe on the hook and stood in the drizzly fog wearing nothing but her two-piece. I must be crazy, she thought, and dove in.
The chill was always a shock at first, even though she knew exactly what to expect. It hit her like an ice wall, smacking against the front of her body and stealing her breath. She kicked her way to the surface. By then, she was thirty feet out. The bottom plunged over forty feet below her, dropping with every additional stroke. She swam almost halfway across the cove before she did a flip-turn in the water and sprinted back toward the dock.
She slowed her pace, looking out through the foggy haze clinging just above the surface. She rolled onto her back and watched the V-shaped current widen behind her, then flipped onto her belly again as she neared the dock. In three quick steps she was out of the water and standing exposed in the late winter air. She breathed deeply. Felt awake. Painfully awake.
“Aghhhhhhh!” she shouted since she could. There was no one around for miles. The nearest house, the rundown cabin across the cove, was empty. The next nearest house was on the other side of the island. No one would hear her. Not a single living soul.
“Aghhhhhhh!” she screamed again. It echoed off the rocks on the other side of the cove, then banked again off the sandstone face at the point, echoing like a dismembered version of herself. She was freezing, shivering against the damp chill of a late March afternoon. Inflicting pain on herself offered temporary relief from the deeper pain she felt; the agony of having lost a part of her soul. Being cut out of her son’s life, cut off from who she’d been before she’d met his mother.. She felt as though she’d died on the dock so many months before. Whoever she was before, Keira couldn’t remember anymore.
She wandered back up toward the house, up the cold
stone steps. Her bare feet ached from the chill. The sun was trying to break through the clouds. There was color in things. Signs of spring had somehow infiltrated her perception. She stopped for a moment and thumbed a tiny bud. How intricate its layers were. How snug the baby petals were swaddled inside their cocoon. She shivered again. It was time to go inside.
Dressed in merino, denim, cotton, and fleece, she stepped out onto the deck with a mug of steaming lemon water. Callie, she thought again. Who is she? A flight attendant, freshly jilted, abandoned perhaps, no… her lover disappeared. Who was he? A soldier? A wealthy businessman? Or maybe just some married guy leading a double life.
A believable premise, but it wouldn’t sell books—not in the numbers her publisher expected. No, Mr. Right was a spy. A Russian. A double agent, perhaps. Russian and French. That gave Keira an idea. She sat down at her computer again and cracked her knuckles. Dominic Klaus Previn, born in St. Petersburg to a French diplomat and a Russian maid. Raised by his mother, a proud woman that did everything she could to give her son the life she never had.
As a boy, he was shipped off to France to live with his father, a hard, cold man with dubious principles and a vague paternal sense of duty that wore off as time passed. The boy was abandoned again and returned to Russia where his hatred for his father grew into a lifelong passion for revenge…
Nope, Keira thought, and deleted everything she’d just written. Start again. Callie, the flight attendant. Who was she?
If she was being honest, Keira didn’t give a shit who Callie was any more than she cared that the kettle was still boiling away in the kitchen. She got up to deal with it and turned on some music. Bach sometimes helped. No, she thought, something louder. Something reckless. Something that didn’t belong in a silent and pristine cove at the edge of the world. Something that screamed summer and big cities, fast cars, fun, women and-
Another life. Her other life.
She wondered if she was going mad. Isolation wasn’t healthy, everyone knew that. She’d been waiting too long for Noah to return, but he wasn’t coming back it seemed. She needed a friend. She needed Jane.
“How’s the book coming along?” Jane asked.
“It’s, uh…” Keira couldn’t remember what she’d said the last time her agent and best friend had asked that same question; whether she’d told her the truth—that there was no book—or whether she’d lied and told her it was coming along fine. It didn’t matter anymore. She was done lying. “There is no book.”
After a long pause, Jane sighed. “I lined up that ghostwriter again, just in case.”
“I’m really sorry-”
“No, it’s okay-”
“I need help Jane. I think I need to get out of here.”
“Come back to New York.”
“Ugh, I can’t. Not yet. Noah might come back-”
“Has Sydney called you?”
Keira sat down on a deck chair and stared out at the dock, at her speedboat bobbing in the water with nowhere to go. “No, she hasn’t.”
Jane sighed again. “Emailed?”
Keira shook her head. “No.”
“Cunt.”
It was a horrible thing to call someone, but Keira didn’t argue. “She’s his mother.”
“Yeah, and so are you.”
Keira laid her head back on the lounger. “She doesn’t see it that way.”
“Listen, I’m going to come up there.”
Keira lifted her head. “You? Here? You’re not serious, right?”
“I am and don’t try to talk me out of it.”
“Okay, I won’t.” Imagining Jane navigating the wild was enough to bring a smile to her face.
“I could use a break, and it sounds like you could use the company.”
“I could actually. I’m…” Keira squeezed her eyes so tight, she saw stars. “I think I’ve got cabin fever.”
“Shit. Send me your address.”
“Uh, Hummingbird Cove, Read Island, BC, Canada.”
“Jeez, you know it’s nowhere when there are no numbers.”
“You can change your mind.”
“No way. I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
Keira stood up. “Thanks. I owe you one.”
“If we’re talking about books, you owe me a lot more than that, but I’ll settle for one of your cappuccinos.”
Keira smiled. “See you when you get here.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Daisy stepped from the floatplane and onto the dock at Campbell River, expecting to find Kirby Brock waiting with his boat. But once the pilot and two other passengers had walked off, she was left standing alone in the drizzling rain. She looked up and over the embankment toward the main road that ran through the urban center of the small, gray town and spotted a supermarket. It dawned on her, finally, that she would need groceries for her week-long stay on Read Island. She eyed her heavy suitcase and loaded bags and sighed.
She sent Kirby a text to tell him where she had gone. A few minutes later, she was trudging up the harbor walkway toward the only set of traffic lights she could see. A hot spot was developing on her heel from her new waterproof hikers.
Kirby was waiting for her when she finally got back, laden with shopping bags, sweating in her layers of wool, fleece, and Gortex. She was wildly frustrated. Her hair was stuck to her head from the rain. Kirby took one look at her and did the worst thing he could have. Laughed. Daisy despised him already.
She put her bags down and flexed her tired fingers. She ripped the tags from the baseball cap she’d found at the end of aisle seven and adjusted the snap-back to her size. Kirby was finally making himself useful by loading her suitcase into the boat—a beaten aluminum vessel that resembled a small tug. She was thankful to get out of the rain.
“How long is the ride?”
“About twenty-five minutes if we motor,” he replied.
That was twenty-five minutes too long in a confined cabin that reeked of soiled fishermen. Once they were bumping along the water, she focused on the islands in the distance. The ferry was coming in from Quadra Island, the large green mass directly in front of them. Its trip across the passage was a short one.
With the engine running, it was too loud to talk. Daisy had questions, but one whiff of Kirby was enough to keep her from asking them. It took forever to round the southern tip of Quadra and turn north again, but once they had, Daisy could see their destination in the distance. Kirby pointed to it. “We’re over on the east side.”
She nodded and rummaged for a pack of gum in her purse. She took one and offered Kirby the last piece, hoping he would put it to good use, but he put it in his pocket instead. “I’d give you a tour around the island but we’ll have to make it another day. I’ve got business this afternoon. I’ll take you straight in to the cove.”
That was fine with Daisy. She already couldn’t wait to get the week over with.
~~~
Keira heard Ryan’s water taxi before she saw it. She ran down to the dock to wait. Soon, the red and blue Mastercraft appeared around the point. Jane stood up, waved and then promptly fell back again. Ryan slowly idled his boat up to the dock. Keira crouched at the end ready to pull him in. Seeing Jane dressed in bright yellow vinyl made her laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Jane called.
“You. Is that Ryan’s raincoat?”
Jane unzipped the jacket, revealing a slick silver track suit beneath, and handed it back to Ryan. “It appears I left mine on the plane.”
Keira laughed. “I have a spare.”
Jane brightened. “What is that?”
“What?”
“What you’re wearing. I see everyone in it, here. Is it the national costume?”
“Fleece? No, don’t be ridiculous,” she laughed.
“And what are those?” Jane asked looking down at her feet.
Keira looked down, too. “They’re rubber boots. We put our feet in them so they stay dry. I hope you brought something other than high heels.”
Keira gave her a look. “You’ll be crying for rubber boots and fleece in a half hour, just you wait.” She gripped onto the handle of Jane’s suitcase and hauled it out of the boat.
“It’s been raining since I landed. Is that normal?” Jane asked.
“No, it’s still winter. It’s hot and beautiful here in the summer. You should come back then.”
Jane looked around, tight-lipped. “Mmm.”
Keira laughed. “I actually didn’t believe you were coming.”
Jane looked offended. “I told you I was.”
“I know, but I figured once you saw all the trees, you’d turn around.”
“I’m not that lacking in adventure.”
“You hate nature.”
“So what?” Jane looked up at the house and smiled. “Anyway, I do love that. Does it come with wine? If not, I brought some.” She pulled a bottle from her purse.
Keira wheeled Jane’s suitcase into the spare bedroom. “So? What do you think?”
Jane turned from the living room window and gave her one of her sympathetic smiles. “The house is fabulous. You’ve outdone yourself. But-”
“Here it comes-” Keira said.
Jane stepped closer and gave her a hug. “Never mind. It’s good to see you.”
It felt nice to have some human contact again, even if it was just Jane. “Thank you. I really appreciate you coming all this way.”
“I know you do, but I still think you should come back to the city. Be a part of society again while you’re still interesting. We used to have fun. You were funny.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Sell this place. You’ll never have closure until you leave it behind.”
Keira took a seat on the sofa. “Even if I did, I... just don’t feel like writing anymore.”
“You’re just depressed. You’re missing Noah. It’s a shitty stupid fucked up thing that happened here but remember, he’s out there, going to school, probably signing up for little league right now. He’s with people that love him. He’s not gone.”