A Father's Pledge

by Eleanor Jones

  “Are we really going to the seaside again?” Tammy asked eagerly.

  Kat tousled her hair. It was hard not to tousle Tammy’s mass of bright red curls. “Not only that,” she told her, “you’re going to come see my new house and have cake.”

  The little girl’s brilliant blue eyes were as wide as saucers. “By the sea? You really live right by the sea?”

  Kat nodded. “Nearly on the shore.”

  “Are we all having cake?” Ben asked, butting in.

  His gruff little voice hid a hint of excitement and Kat felt relieved that Luke wasn’t here to spoil it.

  “Come on, then,” she said, eager to get going. Tammy grabbed her hand while Ben tried to appear nonchalant, as if he really didn’t care either way. The new addition, Millie, who was quiet and well behaved with short brown hair and a sweet, sad smile, followed in their wake.

  As they rounded the corner, leaving the house behind, Kat glanced back. Flight seemed to smile at her, she thought, as if they shared a secret. She suppressed a smile. Luke Travis would think she was quite irresponsible if he knew what sometimes went on in her head. One thing he definitely did not have was an imagination, though she probably had too much of one, if that was possible. Well, she decided, she needed her overactive imagination. Her career depended on it.

  “Come on, kids,” she called. “I’ll race you to the path.”

  * * *

  LUKE GLANCED AT his watch and grimaced. He’d gotten caught up talking to Mike and lost track of time. Apparently, Kat had been pushing him about the animal therapy and she’d also asked for a meeting with Mollie Jackson. He should be the one talking to Mollie; Ben was his son, and Luke was desperate to make things right between them. Somehow he had to make amends for being missing for nine years...if that was even possible.

  Reaching the front hall, he looked around for any sign of Kat or the children. It was only ten past six; surely she would have waited a few minutes. By twenty past, he realized he must have missed them. But he wasn’t giving up that easily. Luke strode out into the evening sunshine, deciding he’d go down into the bay and try to catch up with them. Mike had told him about Kat renting one of the cottages right on the shore, so he guessed they’d be headed in that direction.

  He jogged down the narrow cliffside path, scanning the wide expanse of sea and sand. The tide was coming in, rushing round the perimeter of the bay. Prickles of alarm ran along his spine. Jenny Brown’s Bay was renowned for being dangerous, and these were the exact conditions that could cause serious problems. Apart from the undercurrents that were capable of dragging even strong swimmers out to sea, there were also quicksands. Kat had been here for only five minutes; did she even realize what could happen? The smooth stretches of sand might look harmless, but they could set around an unsuspecting wader’s feet and legs like concrete...and if the tide came in, they’d be trapped in rising waters. He increased his pace. Where were they?

  * * *

  KAT HEADED ALONG the shoreline with the children running ahead. When the tide began to rush in, she settled them safely on the rocks to watch.

  “It’s called the bore,” she told them. “It’s a wave that rushes around the outside of the bay just as the tide starts coming in. Unsuspecting people who have gone out too far can get trapped by the water on the sandbank in the center.”

  Ben looked up with interest. “Will we get caught?”

  She shook her head. “No, because we understand the dangers. Eventually the tide will rise, almost to the edge of the track if it’s a high tide. Today, though, it will probably be lower than the flotsam and jetsam that we’re going to look at in a minute.”

  “What’s flotsam and jetsam?” Tammy piped up.

  Kat gave what she hoped was a mysterious smile. “It’s things cast off from life,” she said. “Things that people have let drift out to sea.”

  “What kind of things?” asked Ben, obviously intrigued by the idea. He looked at her with his father’s eyes and her heart tightened. How come Luke Travis always managed to rattle her, even when he wasn’t here?

  “Who knows,” she said. “Bottles, perhaps, from the other side of the world, maybe even with messages in them. Or toys or pottery, just objects from people’s lives. You can depend on the sea. It comes in every day and goes out again right on cue. No matter what’s going on in the world, the tides never change. You can depend on lots of things in nature—trees and animals and plants just do what they do, year after year. Grow, blossom, bear fruit...and have babies if they’re animals, of course.”

  “Can we see the flotsam and jetsam now?” Ben asked.

  “Of course you can.” Kat smiled. “As long as you promise not to try and go for a swim this time.”

  “He’s not here this time, though, is he?” Ben said quietly.

  For a moment, Kat felt a flicker of sympathy for Luke. He may have done wrong by Ben, but maybe it wasn’t right of her to judge him too harshly. She didn’t know all the details. He was Ben’s dad, after all, and it must hurt to see that the little boy wanted nothing to do with him. “Come on, then,” she urged. “Let’s go see what treasures we can find.”

  She watched in delight as the three children searched for treasure among the rubbish and seaweed that made up the flotsam and jetsam. It was Ben who found a bottle; he picked it up carefully, holding it out to catch the rays of the sun. Despite its time spent being battered by the sea, the glass sparkled.

  “Where do you think it came from?” he asked her, turning it to and fro.

  “Could be anywhere in the whole wide world,” Kat told him. “Spain, perhaps...or France or Scotland.”

  They all peered at it with excitement in their eyes, as if expecting the bottle to suddenly reveal its secrets.

  “No message,” Ben announced sadly.

  “Maybe not,” Kat said. “But it does have a picture on it.”

  The sailing ship embossed in the glass immediately caught the imagination of all three children.

  “What if it came from a pirate ship?” Ben suggested with awe.

  “You never know,” Kat said. “Here...” She held out the bag she’d brought to collect their treasures. “I’ll look after everything until we get home.”

  Twenty minutes later, after Millie found the battered wooden dog that Kat had seen earlier and the kids had gathered several pieces of brightly patterned pottery, Kat began leading them toward her cottage.

  Now that the tide had settled, she gave them permission to wade into the water—just up to their ankles.

  “Look for shells and fish and any other sea creatures that live here,” she suggested. “And beautiful stones, too. They can bring you good luck, you know.”

  Kat was thrilled at the way the three children got into their task, but Ben was the most enthusiastic; Tammy and Millie didn’t want to get their feet wet. Ben found more stones than the other two, and by the time Cove Cottages came into view, Kat was weighed down by all the items in her bag. She was just about to tell them that that was enough for today when Ben started yelling.

  “Look! Look!” he called, waving her over. “What is it, Miss?”

  He was a little farther out in the water than the others, ankle-deep in foam and still wearing his running shoes. Kat waded in to join him while Tammy and Millie stood wide-eyed on the sand.

  “Why, it’s a crab,” cried Kat. “A big one, too. Watch your toes.”

  “Can we keep it?” he asked hopefully. “We could put it in a big bucket with sand and water.”

  “It wouldn’t be happy anywhere else but in the sea. This is its home. Let’s just watch it for a while and see what it does.”

  The crab scrabbled sideways, burying itself in the muddy sand, and in an instant it had disappeared.

  “Where is it?” Ben demanded. “I want it back.”

 
He glared at her, but she ignored his display of anger. “Look, Ben,” she said quietly. “It would have been cruel of us to take the crab away from its home. This is where it belongs, and we need to respect that. We’ll find other crabs, lots of them, maybe even bigger ones.”

  The little boy just looked at her, his golden-brown eyes, so like Luke’s, suddenly sad. “They took me away from my home,” he said. “And that was cruel. They took my granddad away from me, too. So why couldn’t I keep the crab?”

  “Sometimes people do get new homes, for reasons they can’t always understand,” Kat said. “It might feel bad, at first, but in the end, it’s a good thing. Keeping the crab because you want to wouldn’t be fair, and it wouldn’t be good for the crab. You know, hermit crabs get new homes all the time, too. Ones they choose. They find empty shells to live in and have to adapt to new surroundings every time they switch homes. Change can make anyone feel a bit lost at first, but after a while people, and crabs, get used to it. Sometimes it works out even better than before.”

  “I don’t want to get used to it and it can never be better than before!” he yelled. “I want Granddad back how he used to be. So leave me alone!”

  When he took off running along the shore, Kat’s heart sank. “Well, we’re going to my new house to have some cake now,” she called, keeping her tone casual with no trace of anger. “It’s just over there if you want to come and see it... If you don’t feel like it today, then I’ll see you when we get back to Flight. Be careful walking up the track on your own.”

  “Aren’t you going to chase after him, Miss?” asked Tammy. “Or yell at him?”

  “No,” she said determinedly. “He’ll come back in a minute.”

  She led the girls toward the row of cottages, heart in her mouth, keeping Ben in her peripheral vision. The little boy kept on running until he reached a clump of bushes and then he stopped. She heaved a sigh of relief and opened the bright red door, ushering the other two children inside. “Go through into the kitchen, kids,” she said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Ben was walking slowly in her direction, his shoulders rounded. She called out to him, smiling warmly. “Oh, good. I’m so glad you decided to come back. It would be a shame for the cake to be wasted.”

  Just like the last time, when Luke had shouted at him for swimming out too far, Ben took hold of her hand. “Come on,” she said, her heart turning over. “I’ll show you my new house.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LUKE WAITED, TAKING in the wide expanse of clear blue sky and breathing in the sounds and scents of the seaside. Before he came to Flight he’d rarely been near the ocean, but over the past few years he’d come to love its changing faces, coupled with the dependability of the tide. The sea could be dangerous, of course, even frightening at times, and behind its glorious beauty lurked so many dangers—quicksands, sudden storms and the bore. Only a few weeks ago, a tourist had become stranded way out in the bay, stuck in the quicksands. He would almost certainly have drowned if someone hadn’t called the coast guard.

  Luke moved impatiently from foot to foot. Where were Kat and the kids? The sun was sinking slowly down toward the horizon, where sea and sky became one; the water was calm and quiet now, shimmering with a hint of crimson. Surely it was getting late to still be playing by the sea.

  Suddenly, he saw them: Kat, laughing out loud, her dark hair blowing around her face and the three children bouncing along beside her, alight with excitement. They were walking right at the edge of the sea; in fact, pushing the boundaries as usual, Ben was actually in the water wearing his sneakers. He yelled in excitement, waving to the others, and they all went across to see what he wanted to show them. Kat spoke to him and he squared his shoulders, obviously objecting. Luke had become quite familiar with that stance since Ben had arrived at Flight, and as usual it ended the same way. One minute he was talking to Kat and the next he was running down the shore. So much for her special courses, Luke thought. This one certainly didn’t seem to be doing Ben much good.

  Luke watched with concern as Kat and the other two children headed for the cottages. Was she just going to let him go off by himself? He started to increase his pace, but Kat sent the other two children into one of the cottages and turned to Ben, who was standing still now. He started to walk slowly toward her, shoulders hunched and expression impassive. Then she spoke to him and he walked beside her to the cottage. When he took hold of her hand, Luke felt a sudden, irrational lurch of an emotion bordering on jealousy. Of course Ben was going to turn to her when she let him do whatever he wanted; his elderly grandparents had obviously spoiled him, too. He’d had no discipline in his life and no motivation to improve his behavior or do things for himself. Kat’s methods weren’t going to help. If anything, she’d probably just make him worse by letting him have his own way all the time. Ben would play her like he had played his grandparents.

  Luke continued along Cove Road. Kat spotted him as he approached and he could tell by her slightly daunted expression that she wasn’t pleased. Ben was far more obvious.

  “What are you doing here?” he blurted, his face dark with anger.

  “Thought I’d come and find out how it was going,” Luke said, forcing a smile onto his face. Kat stared at him, and he thought, for a moment, that she was going to tell him to leave. Her eyes, framed by her dark hair, were so blue against the light tan of her skin...and so unfriendly.

  “It’s going great,” she said. “Isn’t it, Ben?”

  The little boy nodded, unable to hold back his restored enthusiasm. “I’ve got treasures,” he said. “Lots of them.”

  “We’re going to eat Alice’s cake now,” Kat said. “You can have some if you like...can’t he, Ben?”

  Ben hesitated, indecisive, and Luke gave him what he hoped was a friendly smile. “I guess,” Ben eventually said, but the scowl on his face said otherwise.

  * * *

  KAT HAD BEEN of two minds about how to react when Luke appeared. She wanted to make an excuse, maybe tell him that he was too late for this session and could join in with her next one. Something about the way he stood, though, shoulders slightly rounded and expression bleak, made her change her mind. He looked so like Ben, right down to the slightly confused and troubled expression in his golden-brown eyes. She just hoped Luke didn’t interfere again and destroy all the good work she’d done tonight—and she had done good, she was certain of that, no matter what Mr. High-and-Mighty Luke Travis might think.

  Her plan was to gain Ben’s trust in order to find out what made him tick. Only then could she start to work out his problems. It was becoming clear to her that Ben’s uncontrollable behavior couldn’t just be attributed to his grandparents spoiling him. He was hurting; she could see it in his every move, apart from when he’d been searching for treasure. That had made him forget his worries for a while. She’d promised Mike that she’d try to help Luke and his son to heal their rift, but if Luke kept interfering with her sea therapy, she wouldn’t have a chance to help Ben at all, let alone their father-son relationship.

  The chocolate-and-white cake was huge, with stripy icing on the top and chocolate butter icing in the middle. How Alice had expected Kat to eat it on her own was a total mystery. Perhaps she’d guessed that Kat would share it with the kids.

  The children sat side by side on the bench seat overlooking the bay. They drank juice from the colorful plastic cups Kat had bought and wolfed down large slabs of Alice’s cake. She and Luke sipped coffee in slightly awkward silence.

  “Hey, kids, why don’t you try and count the seagulls while Kat and I have a chat?” Luke suggested after a few moments.

  They started chanting in unison, “One, two, three, four, five,” while Kat squirmed.

  “Well,” she said, straight to the point as always. “What is it?”

  “Do you think the sessions are going well?”
/>   She nodded. “Very well.”

  “Good. It’s just... Well, if you don’t mind me saying... I couldn’t help but notice that Ben tried to run away, and that could have had serious consequences.”

  “It could have but it didn’t,” she retorted. “Is there anything else you’d like to add?”

  He held her blue eyes in his and somehow she couldn’t seem to look away. No man should be that handsome, she thought; in fact, in a way she found it disconcerting—she much preferred quirky-looking men with character.

  “The thing is,” he went on after he made sure the kids were still preoccupied with their counting. “If he had run away or gotten hurt, you’d have been liable.”

  When a flood of pink colored her cheeks, he held up his hand. “Please don’t take this the wrong way. I don’t want to get at you. I just worry that with three children to watch, in that situation, it could be difficult.”

  “So what you are actually trying to tell me,” she murmured crossly, not wanting the children to overhear, “is that you still don’t approve of my sea therapy. And you think I’m irresponsible.”

  “Not disapprove,” he answered quickly. “Just...”

  “Yes?”

  “I just want Ben to be safe.”

  They moved a few steps away from the bench. “Well, Ben’s safety hasn’t concerned you for the last nine years. Why now?”

  His eyes darkened. “I had no choice then,” he told her. “He wasn’t my responsibility.”

  Kat’s thoughts went back to her own childhood. Parental responsibility was a subject way too close to home. Her mum had made the ultimate rejection, and Kat knew how it felt to be unwanted. “He’s your son. Shouldn’t you have made him your responsibility?” she asked.