Persuaded

by Misty Dawn Pulsipher

“I love you,” she murmured against his mouth. “And I can’t wait to marry you. But we don’t need to rush, do we?”

  Derick glared down at her. “I think there is some difference of opinion about that.”

  Hanna smiled, even though she felt more like growling. “Let’s meet for breakfast tomorrow when we’ve had some rest, and we can talk more then.”

  Derick gave her a doubtful look before allowing himself to be distracted by her kiss . . .

  Hanna turned onto her side, sending the standing tears in her eyes over the bridge of her nose and onto the bed sheets. It had seemed like a good idea at the time: step back, take a breath, try again when their eyes were unclouded by moonlight. But breakfast never happened. Hanna went to the restaurant at the appointed time, waited for over an hour. Each time she tried Derick’s phone his voicemail picked up on the first ring. Finally, she became so worried that she drove over to Brookings Harbor, terrified of coming upon mangled bodies among car wreckage along the way. Her fears turned out to be unfounded, for which she was initially relieved, then irritated. If Derick was okay, why hadn’t he shown up? With a growing sense of unease, Hanna parked her car and walked down to the slip where the Laconia had been moored. The only trace of Derick or his sailboat was a note that was staked to the beam at the end of the dock.

  Now, Hanna removed the ring from its slot and lifted the underlying foam casing. There, lying innocent and untouched as new snow, was the time-dulled paper that held the words Hanna had memorized but not yet come to understand. It had been folded again and again until it would fit in the box. As Hanna uncrinkled the note, she felt herself coming undone like the paper, thinning and ripping along each pleat and seam. She didn’t need to read the words—she knew them by heart, but seeing Derick’s familiar script sprinkled salt on her freshly tenderized heart.

  Hanna—

  Call me crazy, but I don’t want my future wife so easily persuaded by others, while remaining so unmoved by me. Keep the ring—I doubt anyone else would appreciate it and I’d rather not have such a painful reminder of you.

  Derick

  She had worn the ring faithfully at first, some part of her clinging to any wisp of hope that all was not lost. As the days turned into weeks, she finally took it off and set it atop her dresser. When weeks gave way to months, the ring finally went back into its box, where it gathered dust until it was moved to Hanna’s unmentionables drawer. For the first few years, she had taken it out on the anniversary of the day she’d received it, allowing herself to wallow in what might have been.

  It had been ages since she’d last opened that box. Though it remained out of sight, it was never out of mind. She had, of course, stumbled on it packing for her trip. She certainly hadn’t planned on bringing it with her to Old Lyme, but when it came down to it, she found that she couldn’t leave it behind. After all, it was a ring made of precious stones, and while they weren’t worth as much as diamonds, she didn’t like the idea of leaving anything of value behind in her empty apartment.

  Even now, years later, she couldn’t account for the words of his note. What did he mean about her being easily persuaded by others? She had entertained every possible scenario, each one more unlikely than the last, and still had no clue as to what really happened. She might have kept trying to call him, tried anything to decode the mystery, had her pride not gotten the best of her. If Derick could sail off like that, leaving nothing more than a sullen “keep the ring” in his wake, then maybe he wasn’t the person she wanted to spend her life with anyway. After D-day, as she’d come to think of it, she didn’t see or hear of him again. At least, not until last year.

  Mary’s husband, Charles, was an avid sports fan. In Hanna’s mind there were only three kinds of people in the world: those who didn’t care one way or the other about the outcome of the Super Bowl, those who morphed into sports fanatics only during the Olympics—and Charles. He never missed a televised sporting event if he could help it. Something was always on, and he was always watching.

  It was on just such an occasion, when Charles and Mary had been passing through town and Hanna’s television happened to be tuned to one of the ESPN channels it so rarely showcased, that she saw him.

  The buzz of the sports commentators was something Hanna could tune out easily enough, until one of them spoke the name that sent a jolt of energy down her spine. Derick Wentworth, they said, was to the sailing world what Tiger Woods was to golf, what Kobe Bryant was to basketball. Hanna sat and listened in stunned silence to the praise, watched as the United States catamaran cut across the finish line and the tall, strawberry-blonde figure punched the air in victory. A sort of numbness came over her as she watched Derick hoist the Auld Cup, the coveted prize for the America’s Cup competition. At first the sight of him gave her a dislocating shock, and her surroundings seemed to dissolve in the pain of it. But each subsequent interview and magazine article took a bit more of the edge off; seeing him smarted a little less each time. But at the initial sight of his face or sound of his voice, there was always that nanosecond when she felt as if she’d been slapped—hard.

  Finally the media hysteria died down, at least until the following competition two years later, when Derick led Team USA to victory again. And then again.

  Deciding she would simply avoid all television every other year during the months of July through September, Hanna tried to forget, tried to make the best of things. But when the famed Captain Wentworth pulled out of last year’s competition without any explanation, the media went wild. It didn’t matter if Hanna stayed away from Sports Center, because his face was everywhere. She couldn’t go to the grocery store or to the dentist’s office or to the DMV to renew her driver’s license without catching some little snippet of media speculation on his whereabouts. Someone saw him at a nude beach in Europe, at a night club in Vegas, coming out of an AA meeting in L.A., wearing sunglasses and a beanie to disguise his shame.

  Of course, she put no stock whatsoever in the hearsay. Derick had never been the kind of person to tangle himself in anything of the sort. Hanna refused to admit the possibility that his celebrity status, his money, or his success had fundamentally changed him.

  Now, even with all of the misery that her stroll down memory lane had created, Hanna couldn’t help feeling a wretched sense of victory on Derick’s behalf. The world was searching high and low for their champion, leaving no exotic stone unturned, and all the while he was holed up in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

  SEVEN

  ELLA ENCHANTED

  What was it to her if Frederick Wentworth were only half a mile distant, making himself agreeable to others?

  —Jane Austen, Persuasion

  Early the next morning, Derick set out on another run, sincerely hoping that this one would end differently. He couldn’t help glancing at the house from yesterday as he sprinted past, the one where she was staying. Needing a distraction, he put on a burst of speed and didn’t slow down until he reached the marina. After checking that his Laconia was still floating undisturbed, he headed back to Kelynch. When he came to the breakwater he thought it might be the perfect time to explore. He paused before going out, stretching his arms above his head and then bending to touch his toes.

  It was then that he saw two tan, shapely legs suddenly in front of his face. Startled, he looked up and met the bright green eyes and infectious smile of Barbie girl from the day before. At least she was alone this time.

  “Sorry!” she gushed, “I didn’t mean to scare you!”

  Straightening up, Derick shrugged. “You didn’t.” As he looked at the girl he couldn’t help smiling back at her. She was positively beaming—and strikingly attractive.

  A nervous laugh escaped her as she tucked her long, dark hair behind an ear. “I just wanted to thank you for your help yesterday, with my sister-in-law.”

  So that was the relation. Stashing his curiosity over how that other person fit in, he shook his head. “Yeah, of course. I’m glad I happened to be in the right place a
t the right time.”

  “Me too! Hanna and I could never have gotten Mary into the house ourselves.”

  The name sent a bolt of adrenaline through him. He absolutely hated the sensation. “It would have been entertaining to watch you try, though.”

  If possible, Barbie girl’s smile grew. She was looking at him in that breathless way that he’d come to associate with one’s being starstruck. That, or she’d been running. Hopefully it was the latter, though the likelihood of her not recognizing him was slim.

  “I’m Ella, by the way,” she said, twirling her hair around a finger. “Ella Musgrove.”

  “Derick,” he answered.

  “Does Derick have a last name?” Her eyes twinkled flirtatiously.

  Was she always this happy? “Just Derick,” he answered, earning a tinkling laugh in return.

  A beat of silence passed, and then Ella said, “I didn’t mean to interrupt your run . . .”

  “Oh, no, I was done. Just heading back,” he answered, gesturing toward Kelynch and stamping to be continued on his plans to explore the Lymelight.

  “Me too,” she agreed, falling into step beside him. “Are you staying on the beach?”

  “Yeah, a few doors down from you, actually. Kelynch.” He gave a little shake of his head, and Ella questioned him with her eyes. “I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the house-naming thing.”

  “Yeah, it’s different, but I guess I’m used to it. I’ve been coming here my whole life, so it doesn’t seem weird to me.”

  “You own the house, then?” He couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice—Ella didn’t look old enough to drink legally, let alone own beachfront property.

  “No,” she laughed, “it’s my parents’ house. We come every year. What about you?”

  “I’m a first timer. My sister and her husband took a house for the summer.”

  When he didn’t offer any other explanation, Ella said, “That was nice of them to invite you.” She really did have an amazing smile—she could have easily been a Colgate model with her straight, bright white teeth. But the rest of her appeared to be equally flawless on first glance, so he supposed she could have her pick of gigs.

  Realizing he was staring at her, Derick rallied. “So, how is your sister-in-law feeling? Mary, right?”

  Ella rolled her bright eyes and made a snorting noise. “She’s been in bed since yesterday.”

  Derick raised his eyebrows in concern.

  “Oh, trust me—she’s fine. Mary’s one of those people that call in sick over a sneeze. You know what I mean?”

  Derick nodded but said nothing for a moment, his pent-up curiosity getting the better of him. “The other girl with you yesterday—she’s a friend?”

  “That’s Hanna—Mary’s sister. She’s really good at getting Mary out of her sickbed, and none of the rest of us have the stomach to coddle her the way Hanna does.”

  Again, the adrenaline. Again, the loathing. “How long is she here for?”

  “For the summer, I think. If I was a school teacher, the last thing I would do is spend my break with the kids, but that’s Hanna for ya.”

  Derick tripped slightly, but Ella didn’t seem to notice. Hanna’s career choice didn’t surprise him; it was the reference to the “kids” she would spend her break with that caught his attention. “How many kids does she have?” Keeping his tone careless was hard work.

  “Oh, they’re not her kids. Hanna’s not married! She’s, like, thirty or something,” she finished in an obvious tone, as if thirty was synonymous with death.

  “Twenty-eight,” Derick corrected under his breath.

  “What did you say?” Ella asked, leaning in for clarification.

  “I’d say she looks closer to twenty-eight . . . ish.”

  Waving a toned, brown arm, Ella said, “Anyway, Hanna’s the sweetest thing in the entire world. It’s too bad she never had the chance to get married.”

  Oh, but she did. Derick winced at his acrid mental tone. Looking up, he saw that they were nearing Kelynch, and he slowed.

  Ella looked around, her eyes widening. “Is this you?” she asked, pointing at the house. “I didn’t realize we’d passed Uppercross.”

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, Derick kicked at the sand.

  “So, do you run every morning, then?” Ella queried in a hopeful tone.

  “Most of the time,” Derick said. It was a good thing Ella Musgrove was so easy on the eyes—it softened the edges of her curiosity.

  “Maybe I’ll run into you again! I’ll try not to scare you next time.”

  “I’ll get some pepper spray, just in case.” He finished off with a wink.

  “See you later!” Ella said, walking backward and beaming her Colgate smile before turning and sprinting off down the beach.

  Back at Kelynch now, Derick’s thoughts were a jumble as he shed his sweat-soaked clothes and turned on the shower. Bracing his hands on the counter, he faced his reflection as the air filled with steam. To a bystander it might have appeared that Derick was admiring himself in the mirror, but his thoughts were far from himself. He was thinking about one thing and one thing alone: Hanna Elliot.

  So, she wasn’t married. This information didn’t surprise him. Marriage required all kinds of sacrifice and compromise, and even though he had thought Hanna was in love with him ten years ago, she certainly hadn’t been willing to give anything up for him.

  All these years later, he felt only a fraction of the anger that had governed his actions back then. It was just a pinch of annoyance that shadowed the memory now. As he saw to the menial tasks that a shower requires, his mind wandered off, back into the past that he had sealed up and sworn never to enter. Time had a way of skewing memories, especially memories that had been voluntarily repressed. The recollections were like yellowing photos, compressed matter cracking as it filled with air and released into the present . . .

  Derick sat in his car in her driveway, wondering why he wasn’t leaving. She’d said yes. The ring was on her finger, and they were engaged. So why did he suddenly have the feeling that none of it was real? That it was artificial? He should be happy, floating, flying, soaring—but he felt none of that. Do what she said, Derick. Get a good night’s sleep and work out the rest tomorrow, his inner voice instructed, but his arms wouldn’t move to put the car in reverse and back out. It was as if some invisible magnetic force had stuck his tires to the pavement. At length, he decided the only thing that would make him feel better was seeing her face again. Seeing the ring on her finger and holding his future wife in his arms.

  He couldn’t account for it, but as he took the stairs to Hanna’s apartment, his heart slammed violently against his bones, as if begging him to stop. Voices filtered out through the open window, Hanna’s subdued tone and a snappy British accent that belonged to Maude. Derick wasn’t a fan of her, but as she was the closest thing Hanna had to a mother, he kept his opinions to himself. His finger was poised to ring the bell, but the blood froze in his veins, paralyzing him at the words.

  “I don’t know what to do, Maude.”

  “Yes, you do. You’re just afraid to do it.”

  Silence.

  “But I’ll lose him. He won’t understand . . .”

  “Because he’s young. You both are. Truthfully I don’t see what the fuss is about. No one should be getting married at eighteen. If your mother was alive—”

  “She would want me to be happy.”

  “Not like this, poppet. He has no job, barely any education, no family to fall back on. Where are you going to live? His boat? I’m telling you, if you run off with him right now, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!”

  Derick’s blood boiled as he anticipated what Hanna would say in his defense, but as the seconds stretched into minutes, his feeble hope expired. How could she listen to that without responding? When she did answer, whatever warmth he had left in him leaked away, as if he were bleeding out on the ground.

  “I know, Mau
de.”

  He stood on the porch, frozen with shock for what seemed like eternity. Maude said something about tea, and the voices moved off, into the kitchen, Derick guessed. The unseen power that had held him there evaporated, and he stumbled down the steps and threw himself behind the wheel of his car . . .

  Stepping out of the shower, Derick wrapped a towel around his waist and squeezed a glob of paste onto his toothbrush. He realized now that he had acted rashly at the time, that he only caught part of the conversation, that the whole thing was out of context. He could admit now that pulling up anchor early the next morning and leaving nothing behind but a break-up note had been a bit hasty—as had chucking his phone into the water as he started the first leg of the race. He didn’t need a cell phone. He had a radio for emergencies, a compass, and plenty of maps. The rush that came over him when he’d sent his phone to its watery grave, detaching all lines that held him to the land—and more importantly, to her—had driven him like a man possessed. The next six months he worked tirelessly, assuring that his was the first boat to cross the finish line.

  After he won the race, people of consequence took notice and he was offered a spot on the U.S. America’s Cup team, which he gladly accepted. When he wasn’t training or competing, Derick would sail to all the nooks and islands he hadn’t been able to see during active competition.

  Hanna Elliot had been all but stamped out of his mind. Sure, he thought about her occasionally, especially on cloudless nights when he lay on the bow of the Laconia looking up at the stars. He hoped she was happy, that she had grown a backbone and begun to make her own choices instead of letting Maude run her life. As time went on, Derick began to feel grateful that it hadn’t worked out. He couldn’t picture Hanna, or anyone else for that matter, fitting into the chaotic life that had taken him after that first victory. And one thing was certain: if Derick ever settled down, it would be with someone who knew her own mind, who went after the thing she wanted without hesitation, and without allowing herself to be persuaded otherwise by anyone.