A Trick of the Light

by Tina Wainscott

  “A few months. It took me a long time to get up my courage for even that.” He gave her a wan smile. “I’m a shark in the investment world. I’ve never backed down from a fight, never gave away anything. But the thought of approaching my own son scared me to death.”

  Warmed by his admission, she smiled. “That wall he puts up can be pretty intimidating.” Oddly enough, the thought filling her mind was Dylan holding her through the night. And sometimes squeezing her against him, as though he were afraid to lose her.

  Gypsy became interested in a tiny green inchworm inching across the table. Chloe rescued it and watched it inch across her finger.

  “But he likes you,” Will said.

  This time her strangled laugh was even louder. “You definitely have that wrong.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to like you, but he does. Years after Dylan and I went our separate ways, I met a woman. She meant everything to me. She was the woman I wanted in my life forever. I know the way I looked at her. That’s the way Dylan looked at you the day we first met. Just for a second, but I saw that look.”

  Don’t believe it, don’t even go there. “Must have been a trick of the light.” She let the inchworm travel from one finger to another, then asked, “What happened with your lady?”

  “There was a fire in the building where she worked. She never made it out.”

  Chloe could feel the pain in Will’s voice and caught herself placing her hand on his.

  His brown eyes met hers. “I want Dylan to have that kind of love. But because of what I did, he may not be able to. And …” His voice broke. He looked away and ran his hand down his jaw the way Dylan often did. Just that stupid little gesture made her long for him. “I don’t know how to …” He took a deep breath, and his eyes filled with tears. “fix it.”

  She had no idea how to respond to a man who cried. She merely squeezed his hand while he composed himself. “Loving Dylan isn’t going to change him. He has to learn that giving love is much more important than getting it. Loving is what counts. Maybe Teddy will help him to learn that. And maybe Teddy will teach him to accept someone who doesn’t fit the normal parameters. Teddy is the only one who can do it.”

  “You’ve given up on him, haven’t you?”

  Gypsy had given up on the worm and jumped down to chase a leaf skittering across the grass. Chloe thought about his question as she transferred the inchworm to a nearby potted tree. “I never harbored any hopes of him loving me.” Liar. She cleared away the thickness in her voice. “Dylan epitomizes the boy in school I could never have. The popular, good-looking one who, if he did look my way, hardly gave me notice. And I understand, I really do, about his need to look normal.”

  “Because of his mother.”

  She nodded. “Image is important to Dylan in a far deeper way than it is to other people. It drives him. I’ll never fit into that normal image. Especially not now that my story’s been in all the papers.”

  Will pushed his empty coffee cup aside and stood. “Thanks for listening and not judging.”

  “I learned long ago not to judge people.”

  He gave her a watery smile. “I’ll bet you have.”

  She stood, too. “Don’t give up hope. Maybe he’ll come around. He’s going to need help when Teddy comes home.”

  Will shook his head. “Dylan won’t ask for help. He’s been that way since he was a kid. My fault, too. I was never there when he did ask, so he stopped asking and started fending for himself. And what you said is so true. Loving is so much better than being loved.”

  When they reached her door, he said, “I’ve got to leave in a few days, wrap up a deal I’ve been working on for over a year. But I’ll be back.” He smiled. “Don’t give up on him. He may not know it, but he needs a champion.”

  In some ways Chloe felt better after Will’s visit. At least Will wanted to try, even if Dylan didn’t. Somebody needed to touch Dylan’s heart. She wanted to believe what Will had said about seeing something in Dylan’s eyes. That something had probably been annoyance. That’s what she had to believe to protect her heart. Because she already knew her heart was long gone to the man.

  She loved him.

  Oh, no, it was far worse than she thought. She wanted to nurture him and hold him and give him all of the love she had inside. And she knew he wouldn’t accept it.

  She thought about her words to Will, too. She wasn’t sure where those words had come from, but when she’d said them, her heart had filled with the sudden knowledge that they were true. Now she knew it didn’t matter who loved whom most. The winner loved the most.

  So where Dylan was concerned, she was the winner.

  She dropped down onto one of her large pillows and closed her eyes. Then why did she feel so lost?

  As she lay there, a scene replayed through her mind. She saw the houseboat again, the old man driving, herself paddling to catch up to him. She could see him there at the steering wheel. He looked over at her. And then he morphed into a woman. Chloe blinked, sitting up straight. That hadn’t been part of the scene. And the guy who owned the boat … well, it was a guy. But the image persisted. No, it couldn’t have been Wanda’s mother.

  She tried to push it out of her mind, but the nagging feeling was pounding through her head, insisting that Teddy was nearby.

  “All right, all right,” she muttered, putting on her Keds, calling Shakespeare and heading out the door. “If I have to find that old man and ask if he’s seen Teddy, I will.” She shook arms already achy from paddling. “And I’m going to borrow Lena’s little boat.”

  She watched Shakespeare’s expression to see if he understood. Nothing. He bounded happily beside her, oblivious to her stress. How the heck did Stella do it?

  Three hours later, she was motoring through the back waterways looking for the old houseboat. The guy never went far. Was this another wild bird chase?

  After a prolonged choking sound, her engine petered out and wouldn’t even think about turning over again. “Great.” Half an hour later she caught the attention of a passing boat. “Hi! I need a tow, please. And do you happen to have a cell phone I could use?”

  As the kindly guy tinkered with the engine, she dialed Dylan’s house. Camilla didn’t know where Dylan was. Worse, the woman wouldn’t give Chloe his cell phone number. “But it’s important,” she insisted.

  “Sure, it is. You give me the message; I’ll get it to him.”

  “Have him call — shoot, I’m not home. Tell him the old man isn’t a man at all, it’s a woman, and … oh, forget it!” She knew how crazy it would sound.

  “You’re out of luck,” he said, voicing her thoughts. “There’s something seriously wrong with this engine. Let’s get you towed back.”

  An hour later, her savior delivered her and the boat to Stella and Lena’s boat dock. She tied up the boat and ran the whole way home, with Shakespeare at her side. She was almost afraid to check the answering machine when she saw the blinking light.

  She closed her eyes when she heard Dylan’s voice, and then she jumped up and screamed when she heard the message.

  Joe flew the little Robinson helicopter over the Ten Thousand Islands while Dylan hung out of the opening and searched the maze of mangroves. He spotted Chloe’s house, the Marco Island bridge, and then … the old, blue houseboat crammed into the mangroves.

  “Joe! Down there. Am I really seeing what I think I’m seeing?”

  Joe pushed back his sunglasses and took the helicopter down closer. “You’re seeing it all right.”

  Dylan mapped out how to get there from the bridge. “Take me back.”

  All the way back he couldn’t even speak. All he could think about was finding Teddy at last.

  It felt like hours before he inched his boat close to the houseboat. His boat’s engine ground up sand in the shallow depths.

  “Oh, my God. That’s it.”

  Breathe, breathe, it’s really the boat.

  He dropped the anchor and jumped overboard before
even thinking of taking his shoes off. A chill scattered down his spine when he heard a plaintive voice ask, “Wanda, is that you? Where have you gone? What have you gone and done now?”

  Not Teddy … but Anne. He hoisted himself up over the edge. “Teddy!”

  The little door was open, but it was too dim to see inside. The windows were covered with faded newspapers. It reminded him of the house down in the Keys. Anne stood inside, fear in her eyes while she waited for the intruder. No recognition passed over her expression when she saw him.

  “Anne, it’s Dylan. Wanda’s husband.” She didn’t know about the horrible accident that had taken her daughter’s life yet. His gaze scanned the tiny living area.

  “I was supposed to remember something,” she said as he pushed past her to check the back bedroom. Teddy’s toys were scattered around, but there was no sign of his son. He returned to Anne and put his hands on her shoulders. “Where’s Teddy?”

  Her eyes were blank. “Who’s Teddy?”

  He gave her a shake. “This is important, Anne. Focus. The little boy who was here. Where is he?”

  Slowly the blank expression changed to the pain of trying to remember. “It wasn’t a boy. It was Wanda.”

  “All right, where’s Wanda?”

  Anguish transformed her features. “She jumped.”

  “What?”

  “Out there. She jumped. I don’t remember why. I was scared, so scared, and I couldn’t see her. I kept calling, calling …”

  He rushed out onto the back deck and searched the surrounding area. “Teddy!” He knew Teddy might not respond, but he couldn’t keep from calling him. “Teddy!”

  “So I left,” she said from behind him. “I remembered the keys, I remembered.” She smiled, proud of herself. “I found them and knew I had to get help.”

  “You left?” His heart went cold. “From where Teddy — Wanda jumped?”

  “We were lost there, no one around, and I couldn’t find her by myself.”

  He grabbed her shoulders again. “Where? Do you — oh, God, please say yes — do you remember where you were?”

  She started to say something, but her mouth stayed open and silent.

  “Anne?” She was way too thin. She probably hadn’t remembered to feed herself, much less Teddy. “Anne, you’ve got to remember. Where were you?”

  “So many trees, on and on, everything looked the same …” Her voice was fading, and she walked to the couch and sank down. “Is it teatime yet? I can’t remember the last time I ate. It feels like forever.”

  Had Teddy jumped? Or was she remembering it wrong? “Teddy!” He started tearing the place apart, opening every cabinet, looking under the bed, climbing on the roof. He stopped when he saw the curls of brown hair scattered on the floor. His fingers sifted through the silky strands, then gathered up a lock. He felt them slide against his palm as he continued searching. Wanda had stocked the boat with canned food and cereal. He stopped when he saw the box of Cocoa Puffs, Teddy’s favorite. He found cash tucked under the sink. Why couldn’t she have taken the damn money, all of it, and left Teddy?

  He saw buttons spread across the deck, and then clothes scattered over the back of the deck. He picked up one of Teddy’s shirts. All the buttons were missing. Was his son really that small? He bit his lip and forced back the emotions as he stared at the mangrove islands around him. He wadded the shirt in his hand and pressed it to his mouth. He kept it squeezed in his hand as he continued to search the mangroves.

  When he leaned over the back and looked down, his heart jumped into his throat. “Oh, God. No.”

  His face burned and his eyes stung, but he blinked away the haze and forced himself to look at the houseboat’s propeller.

  There was a shirt wrapped around the blades.

  “They can’t tell whether Teddy was hit by the prop or not,” Yochem said forty minutes later. “The fact that his shirt was caught on it, well, it doesn’t look good. In fact, none of it looks good. A three-year-old with autism who’s been out there…” He nodded toward the islands of mangroves. “for who knows how long …”

  Dylan kicked the side of the marine patrol boat, his body tense with anger and frustration. He couldn’t believe this. No matter what, no matter that his son had been gone for over a week, that he might have autism, or that he was only three, he believed his son would come home alive.

  “I know this is hard on you,” Yochem said, softening his voice. “We never suspected he was on a boat.”

  “But Chloe did.”

  “What?”

  “Chloe said he was in a boat. She kept dreaming about it.”

  “Look, everyone knows that woman has no psychic abilities. And I doubt her aunt does either. I think the two of you got lucky finding that other kid.”

  And unlucky with Teddy. He opened his hand and looked at the locks of brown curls. Anne, or Teddy himself, had cut his hair.

  Just like Chloe had cut her hair.

  “I’ve got to go. My son is out there somewhere.”

  “But it’s dark. How are you going to —”

  Dylan had already jumped overboard and was swimming toward his own boat. The chances of finding Teddy in the dark were minuscule, he knew that. The chances that he was still alive … probably the same. If Teddy had been injured, he wouldn’t have made it very long. Did sharks come in this far from the Gulf?

  “Dammit!” Don’t think about that, don’t picture it, don’t imagine it. But he did, and he’d do anything to put himself in his son’s place.

  Breathless, he pulled himself onto his boat and started the engine. A towing company was maneuvering the houseboat out of the mangroves. Margie had been right; the boat was a junker. He hated the thought that his son’s last days were spent here wondering why his mother or father weren’t coming for him. Agony crushed his chest and made it impossible to breathe.

  He started looking through the mangrove islands. He circled each one, calling Teddy’s name, searching in the shadows of the roots that grew over the water’s surface.

  His boat startled a group of white egrets that took graceful flight into the air. They reminded him of Chloe.

  He had to tell her. Why did that prospect seem so hard, why did his stomach churn?

  He kept searching, trying not to think about her. But as the chance of finding Teddy lessened, she became an ache in his soul, and the need to see her became a gnawing hunger in his heart. The sky was a cobalt blue as he made his way toward Lilithdale. Chloe’s house wasn’t far from where they’d found the houseboat. She’d kept saying he was nearby.

  It was nearly dark when he arrived. The lights were on inside, warm and welcoming. She was waiting on the small dock behind her house. As though she were waiting for him. She came to her feet when she recognized him, her eyes wide with concern.

  He maneuvered next to the dock, and she caught the lines he threw and tied them to the divots. As soon as he climbed onto the dock and saw her standing there in the moonlight, all in white, he knew this was where he had to be.

  He didn’t have the fight left to deny it.

  “Dylan?” she whispered, walking closer. “I got your message. You found him, right?” Her eyes searched his face. “He was on that old houseboat, wasn’t he?”

  “How … how did you know? About the boat, I mean. I didn’t mention it in the message.”

  She shrugged, still studying his face. “What about Teddy? He was there, wasn’t he?”

  “He had been there. But he jumped off. I don’t know when, and I don’t know where.” He wondered if she could hear the crack in his voice. He had a feeling she could, because she went very still.

  “Then he’s probably just on one of —”

  He reached out and put a finger against her mouth. “They think he might have been hit by the propeller. They’re pretty sure he’s dead.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Oh, my God.”

  She looked like she needed to be held, and dammit, he needed to hold her. But he held back, figh
ting the need like he always did.

  “Dylan …” Her lower lip trembled as her watery eyes met his. “Hold me. Please.”

  How much could one man take? He gave in and pulled her hard against him.

  “He can’t be gone,” she said in a teary voice, shaking her head against him. “He can’t be.”

  He closed his eyes as he held her even tighter. She moved closer against him, hands splayed against his back. He felt like a drowning man holding onto a life preserver. He could feel her tremble, and then he heard her sniffle. He pulled back just enough to lift her face to his. Tears sparkled across her eyelashes and cheeks.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a thick voice. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything to find him.”

  “It’s not your fault, Chloe.”

  “It’s not your fault either.”

  He circled her face with his hands and ran his thumbs down over the tracks of her tears. He wanted to bury himself in her, to get lost in her. He wanted to touch and be touched. He needed to connect to another human being, and Chloe was the only human he’d ever felt close to connecting to.

  He kissed her. It started out soft and tender, mouths touching, rubbing against one another. He moved closer, hands still holding her face. Her breasts brushed against his chest, filling him with heat. With life. That’s what he needed too, was life.

  Her mouth went slack beneath his, and he deepened the kiss. She tasted like red wine, and he somehow felt her loneliness. And he felt it inside him, pulling them together, twining their souls. The tightness in his chest dissipated, becoming liquid warmth that flowed through his body.

  He unbuttoned her blouse and pushed it back over her shoulders. Then he unfastened her bra and let it drop to the dock. His hands flowed over her flesh, cool in the night air. It quickly heated beneath his touch. She looked beautiful in the moonlight, all shadows and curves. Like an angel who could ease the pain. He needed to touch her, to keep that connection and feel her against him.

  It wasn’t real, more like a dream, with time flowing like a river. Don’t think, just be lost and connect, he told himself. He did connect with her, and then they were naked, and he drank in the feel of her skin against his, life and warmth, and they stumbled to the chaise lounge, never stopping, just reaching and kissing and then he was drowning, surrounded by her, going under again, coming up for a breath, sliding down again, unable to think or breathe, not caring, seeing waves of blood-red before his closed eyes as he sank for the last time.