by Julia Kent
“I am fluent in Fucked Up. I think my family invented the language, Laura. It is our mother tongue.”
The two shared a long sigh and a wistful laugh.
“I sent the letter to them months ago! I mentioned the kids. I slipped in one picture of the kids. Their faces weren’t even showing. And they never replied. I figured they considered Mike dead to them, and tucked it away in the back of my mind. I never, ever thought they’d just show up—surprise!—and trigger this kind of drama.”
“Drama?” Josie eased back from Laura, who seemed more centered now.
“Mike ran away. Just—ran. You could tell his dad is struggling with how unconventional we are. And his mom was gushing over Jillian, who looks just like Mike.”
“Right. So Mike took off?”
Laura’s shoulders dropped half a foot with another sigh. “Yeah. Like he does when he gets upset.” She looked at Josie, the moon peeking out at the same time, her eyes shining in the light. “But we’re not at home. He doesn’t know these roads or paths. And there are animals outside of the campground. What if something happened to him?”
“I’m sure a bear would consider someone Mike’s size to be a peer, not dinner.”
Laura snorted, then looked guilty, as if she shouldn’t laugh right now. “He’s been gone for longer than this before, running, but this time it feels different. Something feels off.”
Josie knew that gut instinct could be more powerful than reason. If Laura was worried, then everyone should be worried, too.
She gently tugged on Laura’s arm and began walking her back to the campground road. “Let’s go to the camp office and see what they’re doing. It sounds like someone’s organizing a search. Chances are, Mike’s sitting on the shore somewhere watching the waves and he’s lost track of time.”
“He must hate me.”
That made Josie stop cold. “What?”
“He must hate me, Josie! Oh, the look in his eyes when he realized what I’d done! He could barely speak when Big Mike and Mary showed up.”
“His father is Big Mike? That makes your Mike little?” The guy was pushing seven feet tall. There was nothing little about Mike.
And then her mind flashed back to the scene she’d walked in on earlier today.
Yes, indeed.
Nothing on Mike was little.
Laura gave a little shrug. “His dad is shorter than Mike, but not by much.”
Age compressed the spine. Josie knew that from years of working with elderly patients when she was a nurse. Focusing on medical facts was helpful in getting her mind off the fleshfest she’d seen.
“Where are his parents now?”
“With Dylan’s mom and dad, I think. Sandy helped get them a last-minute cabin.”
“I thought all the cabins were booked!”
“That woman could get a crew to build one in two hours if she needed, but it wasn’t necessary. Turns out Mike’s operations manager, Shelly, and her boyfriend, Jamie, offered to sleep in a tent by the ocean.”
“That’s really nice of them.”
Laura gave a sad smile. “I am so sorry, Josie.”
“Why are you apologizing to me?”
“For ruining the wedding. It’s your wedding, too.”
“Look.” She halted and gave Laura a glare. “You owe me zero apologies. My mother was arrested for fucking two hockey players in an airplane bathroom on her way to my wedding. If you think anything can top that, you’re nuts.”
Laura burst out laughing.
“Leave it to Marlene Mendham to top everyone in the event ruining arena. So don’t even think that inviting Mike’s parents and creating a family drama can touch my own family mess.”
“Fair enough,” Laura said, resuming their walk. By the time they reached the camp office, Josie began to really worry.
“We’re keeping this low-key,” Pete said, approaching them from the porch. “Dylan told us he’s the kind of guy who runs it out when he’s stressed?”
Laura nodded. Josie watched Pete carefully, marveling at how quickly these people moved to help.
“I told Laura that chances are good he’s just sitting on the shore somewhere, watching the water.”
Pete smiled, but it was a troubled grin. “This time of year, he’ll probably be okay, but if he was wearing daytime clothing, he might have a problem. It’s already in the low fifties. Probably reach the forties overnight. I wouldn’t want to be outside wearing a t-shirt and shorts right now.”
Josie shivered. Even with a sweatshirt and a windbreaker on, she was getting cold.
Pete finished his descent down the porch stairs and flung a fatherly arm about Laura’s shoulders. “Come inside. You’re shaking. Let’s get you some tea and we’ll pick your brain. Maybe we can figure this out a little faster if we know more about Mike.”
Josie looked at Pete like he was an alien creature, an overlord, a Buddha. His quiet strength gave her pause. She never quite knew how to act around men her father’s age, and had spent so many years wondering what her own dad would have been like had he lived.
She liked to imagine he’d have been like Pete.
As Laura, Josie and Pete walked into the camp office, the warmth was a delight. Summer in central Maine was a completely different animal than Boston summers, and the contrast between the warm office and the cool night air made her feel compassion for poor Mike. Maybe he was just sitting in a bar somewhere, composing himself. Or running, pumping his blood through warmed-up limbs that could handle endurance better than anyone she knew, aside from her own fiancé.
Alex. He was out there with the search party, combing the shore and the woods, entering seamlessly into this instant community. The sense of camaraderie was astounding.
She felt—dare she think it?
At home.
“Any luck?” said a craggy, familiar voice from behind them. Madge stood there, holding Alex’s grandfather’s hand, the two of them in warm coats and hats, carrying flashlights.
“We can help,” Ed added, casting his flashlight aloft.
Pete smiled and invited them in. Madge and Josie shared a worried look. Ed was quiet and neutral. Night time tended to confuse him, his Alzheimer’s in check but slowly eroding his memory. Maybe having a mission helped him to stay more present.
She looked at Madge and Ed’s clasped hands.
More likely, having an anchor of love was the trick.
If only love really could solve everything, she thought, suddenly maudlin again, her arms wrapping around her as Sandy offered her a cup of hot tea. She took it with a grateful smile and stood there, uncertain what her place was in this group, and yet she knew one important fact.
They were all in this together.
Chapter Fifteen
Mike Bournham
Nighttime kayaking wasn’t safe.
Which was exactly why Mike enjoyed it so much.
Jeremy and Lydia were back at the camp office, Lydia running over last minute details with Sandy for tomorrow’s shindig, while Jeremy was probably lounging on a couch playing XBox with Miles, the two of them pretending to help.
Mike, on the other hand, was outside, right where he belonged. Years of living mostly full-time at the campground had given him a deep appreciation for staying outside, even in the height of winter, when Nor’easter snowstorms whipped through the Maine coast and left snowdrifts that covered their new house’s front door. The years he spent working his ass off eighteen hours a day, shuttling from office to limo to gym to home felt like an enormous waste. He should have been outside.
Like this.
Water lapped against the side of the kayak, his wetsuit insulating him nicely from the night chill. His phone was safe in its waterproof pouch, slipped into a bodysuit pocket. Lydia insisted, claiming he was too green on the ocean to handle a riptide or a stray sneaker wave. He needed a way to communicate.
Cell phone service had sucked out here until last year, when a group of townspeople lost their fight to block a local
landowner from leasing his land to a telecommunications company and installing a giant signal tower nearby. Everyone hated the destroyed view, the metal monstrosity plunked at the very apex of a nearby mountain on the shore, but Mike had to grudgingly admit that the improved cell service came in handy sometimes.
He preferred to kayak to the north of the campground, along a set of ragged cliffs that were spellbinding during the day, but at night carried a prehistoric feel to them. Between the lack of human sound, the disappearance of the cell tower from view, and the murky clouds covering the moonlight, the sense that he was witness to a secret world increased exponentially, giving him a solitude that his old life never granted.
Then again, his old life had been lacking in so many ways.
Lydia had changed all of that.
Crazy times in the beginning of their relationship had smoothed out, the mingling of their three lives a much easier transition than Mike had ever imagined possible. As he cut the chopping little waves with the kayak paddle, a sprinkling of water spraying his elbow, the cold, prickly water reminded him of the day he’d been paddling and found Lydia and Jeremy making love by the water, the shock of their illicit coupling an arousing sight, but one tinged with paradox. This wasn’t the same location, but it evoked the memory nonetheless.
Back then, he’d used the campground to hide out from the media shitstorm that his life had become.
Now, the campground was a very different kind of sanctuary.
This wedding rattled Jeremy. Mike could feel it. Lydia teased their partner, but the undercurrent was stronger than she realized. Jeremy had a high need for detachment, so settling down at the campground had forced him to stretch emotionally. While the three of them traveled frequently and spent plenty of time away, Escape Shores had become home base.
Which meant Jeremy had to confront what it meant to be grounded and rooted in one place, with one group of people, and to develop a sense of family.
The idea that another threesome could marry shook Jeremy more. When Lydia first told them about the planned event at the campground, Mike had grinned. Jeremy yelped. Content to go about his days doing virtually nothing but lounge, drink coffee and beer, read and make love with Lydia and Mike, Jeremy had turned out to be about the same as he was in college.
Minus the annoying post-adolescent habits.
Much of their travel concerned Jeremy’s microloan programs, and when he was focused on those projects, his was a different man. Sharp and concerned, strategic and inquiring, he became a man who analyzed and provoked, who tweaked and optimized. The change was remarkable, and it gave Mike pause.
He had so much more to learn about the people he loved.
All of these thoughts floated lazily through his mind as he paddled his way into a small little mini-bay, right by the jagged, sandy cliffs that curved inward toward the land, the pale sand thickening to pebbles and shells as it met the saltwater. Driftwood dotted the shore, the rocks enormous along the water’s edge, and sometimes giant pine trees littered the beach here, swept in so easily by forces of nature that needed to be revered.
A thick, grey cloud covered the moon, leaving Mike to pitch to the left slightly, one arm going under water, chilling him as he used his core to right himself fully. One false move and a man could drown out here. Drown, crack a bone against the rocks on shore, get attacked by a land or sea creature—you name it. If he thought the rat race was a tough place for survival, Mother Nature had something to show him.
Ensconced in the dreamworld of nighttime chill and the endless ocean to his right, Mike wondered what time it was. Lydia would kill him if he stayed out too late, their time planned in fifteen-minute increments for this giant wedding tomorrow. Stealing moments like this, away from everyone, had become increasingly difficult. While Sandy and Pete loved the work and the income from the event, everyone would be relieved when the wedding was over, a topic to fuel winter discussion for the year.
He pivoted, realizing the time was later than he thought, and heard a seal groan in the distance. The sound was odd, making his ear perk to the left. He turned his face toward the shore, curious. The waves rocked him, abs and lower back fighting against the choppy water, and then he heard it again.
Except...that was no seal.
The third time it groaned, he wondered if he were an idiot, so close to shore that a bear could grab him with one swipe. Digging his paddle deep in the water, he hit rocks and skimmed backwards, turning around in a three-point turn.
The groan came from a spot that was marred by shadow, the darkness so complete in this part of Maine that the stars provided actual light when uncovered. He felt blanketed by pinpoints of light from far off places where, he hoped, people were smarter than he was.
“Hello?” he called out, feeling like an idiot. He was just far enough into the water that he could out-paddle a bear, but what if—
“Help.”
The word was clear, a groan and a plea, and Mike’s eyes went wide, the skin around them tight and dry, the night coming into sharper clarity as his eyes adjusted.
“Is someone there?”
“Uuhhhn.”
This time it was fainter, but distinct. Who in the hell would be here? Looking up the cliff, he measured it a good thirty feet from the top to where he suspected the person was located. That was one hell of a drop. Sand and brush would cushion the person, but—
Why was Mike assuming the person had fallen? Maybe they washed up on shore. Maybe they had a broken boat. Perhaps it was a lost swimmer. Strong arms dug down to paddle closer, potential animal threat be damned. He reached for his phone, which he’d turned off for the boating, and activated his flashlight app.
A quick sweep of the area and bam—there it was.
Eyes glittered in the light, a head turned toward him. It was a man, his leg and arm twisted at a strange angle between two enormous beach logs. He looked like a child’s Ken doll, twisted like a pretzel.
“I’m coming in! I got you!” Mike shouted, adrenaline firing like liquid cannons into his arms, his heart beginning to race. In all his years of ocean kayaking he’d come upon people exactly twice. Once, it was Lydia and Jeremy making love in the woods, and now—this.
“Thank God,” he heard the voice reply. Deep and masculine, it was the voice of a large man, and as Mike scrambled out of the kayak, dipping in the water as his land legs came back to him, he flashed the light again at the guy.
Holy shit.
It was Mike Pine, one of the grooms.
His phone buzzed instantly, and he looked down. Twelve text messages, and now an actual ringing phone. Whatever the emergency was, he couldn’t be bothered with Lydia and Sandy’s last-minute wedding tasks.
He had his own very real emergency right in front of him, one that might involve a life-or-death crisis.
Running, dodging giant rocks and sea debris, he reached the long body, horrified to find him covered in sand and brush, just about two feet from where the tide had lapped. Had he been underwater? The ends of Mike Pine’s hair were wet, and he shivered uncontrollably. The temperatures had dipped into the low fifties, and sometimes the forties lately, at night. Cursing himself for only having his wetsuit and water shoes, Mike struggled to find a way to help.
“Where are you hurt?” he asked, flashing the light on the obviously twisted leg. Pine wore shorts, which were fine this time of year during the day, but another couple of hours out here without covering and warmth, and—
He wasn’t going to think about that.
“My leg. Might be broken. Tried to crawl.” Shining the flashlight on the ground around the prone body, Mike saw the evidence, the groove of a man’s dragline in the sand where the water hadn’t reached.
“How long you been here?”
“It was daylight when I fell.”
Mike checked his phone. 9:58 p.m. Damn. That meant a few hours at least. His mind raced to process it all, and then he remembered the tiny emergency kit duct-taped to the inside of his kayak.
He had something that would help. Ripping open the plastic wrap, he unfolded the thin mylar emergency blanket before he reached Pine.
“You sure it’s broken?” He focused the light next to Pine’s head, trying not to blind him. As he opened his mouth to answer, Mike saw his lips peel away from each other, a sure sign of mild dehydration. He couldn’t offer clothing, but in the emergency kit he had water and a protein bar.
“Not sure. Might have broken my pelvis or sprained something. It all hurts, but don’t know what the injuries are.”
Mike cringed. Shit. He looked down at his phone and put a reassuring hand on Pine’s shoulder. “Give me a sec. I’ll call for help after I get the basics settled.”
He began to wrap the man in the mylar blanket, the crinkling sound like warmth in the form of noise. Time was increasingly of the essence. He quickly found water and a protein bar, and as Pine took small sips of water and made a sound of gratitude, he started to dial the campground.
His phone rang before he could punch the contact.
“Hello?”
“Mike! Where have you been?” Lydia barked into the phone. “We need you!”
“I can’t help with candles or flowers or tablecloths right now Lydia. I have an—”
“It’s an emergency!” she cut in. “Mike Pine is missing.”
“Missing?” He looked at Pine. His left arm lay limp and crooked against the shells, a streak of dark blood on the exposed skin. His other arm seemed fine, hand grasping the water bottle and holding it to his lips, drinking greedily at first and then slowing down, resting with a sigh against the cold shore.
“Disappeared while he was running. Dylan and Laura think he got a few miles away.”
Speedy calculations flipped through Mike’s mind. Try nine miles, he thought. By shoreline.
That had been one hell of a run.