Island of Second Chances

by Cara Lockwood

  “But Dave leaving,” he began. “I mean, I don’t even know if it’s a good plan anymore.”

  “You’re going to give up this easily?” she challenged him. “The very first bump in the road and you’re throwing in the towel?”

  He hadn’t thought of it like that before. Was he capitulating too soon?

  “Look, you need this. I need this. And I’m going to make your life a holy hell until you agree to at least let me try. You saw me the other night. You know I can.”

  Mark suddenly had an image of her running drunk down the beach shouting, “Build that boat!” and knew she was right. The woman was stubborn, he’d give her that. She might be small, but she was unbreakable. An unbreakable pebble, the kind that got in your shoe and bugged the heck out of you.

  “You really want to get your hands dirty?” he challenged her.

  “Just try me,” she said, raising her chin in the spirit of defiance.

  Chapter Seven

  OVER THE NEXT WEEK, Laura learned that while she might know a thing or two about software development, she had no idea how to build anything with her hands. She bungled the nail gun, she sawed off the wrong edge of a plank of wood and she nearly botched the sail she was trying to sew together. It was one mistake after another.

  To his credit, Mark never lost his cool. He just kept moving her from one project to another, hoping she could find her stride.

  That morning, Mark sat her down on top of the new wooden deck with several sanding blocks.

  “I’m a disaster,” she admitted, feeling despondent. “You really trust me with something new?”

  “I think you can do this. I really do. There’s no cords, no on-off switch, just this and elbow grease,” he said. He sanded a bit of board and then slid his hand across it. “There? You feel how that new part feels?”

  She ran her hands down the now-smooth wood, nodding.

  “That’s what the entire deck needs to feel like.”

  She glanced up at the twenty feet of deck and suddenly felt the monumental nature of the task. “Every board?” she asked, swallowing hard. That was going to take forever.

  “Every board,” he told her. Then, studying her a bit, he quirked an eyebrow in challenge. “We could always quit.”

  Laura shook her head fiercely. “No, we won’t,” she said. She wouldn’t. Even if she had to sand this boat and ten others. This project had become too important. And she feared what would happen if her hands weren’t busy anymore.

  “I can handle this,” she said, meaning it, even as a flicker of doubt crossed his face. She couldn’t blame him. He climbed down the ladder at the side of the boat and busied himself repairing the huge white sail that would go on the rigging, while she, on hands and knees, got to work sanding the deck.

  “Wax on, wax off,” she joked to herself, as she began sanding tiny circles on the massive new deck.

  After just a little while, her arms began to ache, then her shoulders and finally even her hands, as she scrubbed the deck endlessly, smoothing out the unfinished wood. She worked so hard that sweat dripped from her nose to the boards she was sanding. She simply swept over the wet marks.

  The Caribbean sun beat down on her shoulders. She took off the sweatshirt she’d worn for the cooler morning breeze and let the warmth blanket her skin laid bare in a simple tank top. She’d slathered her normally alabaster skin in sunscreen, but already her shoulders looked pink with bits of tan emerging from the burn.

  Time passed and her mind went blank. Thankfully, wonderfully blank, as she focused on leveling the splinters and smoothing the surface. She was in the present, feeling the tired muscles of her arms and back, moving to the rhythm of the gentle scratching of the sandpaper on wood.

  “Missed a spot,” Mark said behind her as he studied the sanded wood. “Here...and here.”

  She rocked back on her heels, adjusting the blue bandanna she wore tied over her hair, her dark bob curled around the edges. She glanced back, a little alarmed, but then Mark gently took the sanding square from her hand and bent down, scrubbing a little at an angle. “See? Try it this way.”

  She turned, positioned herself on hands and knees and took the sanding sponge he offered, trying his new technique. Laura felt suddenly very aware of the proximity of Mark’s body next to hers. “Like that?”

  “Perfect,” he declared, and she felt a little warm glow inside. She’d gotten it! She was getting it. She wasn’t all thumbs, after all. Laura felt a little bubble of pride grow in her chest.

  “You’re picking this up pretty fast,” he said, nodding his head in approval.

  She grinned. “Thanks.”

  Mark took a swig of the water bottle in his hand. She felt a little streak of warmth flit through her belly as she watched his lips meet the bottle’s opening. Full, determined. Then he offered it to her.

  “Water?” he asked, and she suddenly felt the intimacy of the moment, sharing a bottle, putting her lips where his had been.

  She took it and gulped it down, feeling the delicious simplicity of quenching her thirst. This is what she needed from this little sabbatical. Getting back to the simple things. Refocusing herself. Living in the moment.

  “Thank you,” she said, glancing at Mark’s tall frame. He’d long since lost his shirt in the midafternoon heat, and sweat glistened on his shoulders. She tried not to stare at his bare chest, but it was hard not to notice the tanned muscles working as he lifted the last board to be laid on the deck.

  “Can’t have you dehydrated,” he said and shrugged.

  “Not for the water,” she said quickly. “I mean, for letting me help you. This is...perfect. Just what I needed.”

  Mark barked a laugh as he plunked down the board and straightened. The sunlight hit his dark, short hair, glinting on gold highlights. “It’s slave labor, you mean. You’ve been working hard all week. And for no pay.”

  “I’m just glad to keep my hands busy. To take my mind off everything that happened.” And, she realized, as long as she kept her hands busy, she didn’t think about what to do next or when she might need to start thinking about heading home. She had the boat and the race to think about, and that’s all that mattered.

  Mark nodded. “I know what you mean.” He sat down near her cross-legged as he took another swig of water. “I’m sorry about your baby. Really sorry.”

  Tears rushed to her eyes. She swallowed hard. He was the first person she realized who’d been sorry, truly sorry, about her loss. He was the first not try to tell her this was all a good thing. That her baby’s death was something she should celebrate, not mourn. “Thank you.”

  “It can’t be easy to explain to people,” he said, as he glanced up at the blue sky above them, dotted with wispy white clouds. “When you lose a child, it’s not just the loss of your baby. It’s the death of your dreams for them, the death of your hopes for the future. A little part of you dies with them.”

  A single tear slipped down Laura’s cheek and she angrily swiped it away. “You’re so right,” she said, realizing that he’d put into words what she’d been feeling for so long but couldn’t articulate.

  “It’s so true. So many people kept trying to tell me I should be grateful. Dean and even my sister said I should be thankful I lost the baby.”

  “No,” Mark said, shaking his head vehemently. “Don’t ever let anybody tell you to be grateful for losing a baby. Babies are wonderful. They’re miracles, and the loss of a baby should never be a relief. Never.”

  “But, the father was married. I’d...” I’d broken one of the Ten Commandments. I’d sinned and committed adultery and brought this all on myself.

  “It doesn’t matter. None of that matters. You lost a baby, for goodness’ sake. It doesn’t matter how you got that baby.” Mark shook his head. He glanced at her. “Want to talk about it? What happened? I mean, I’m a great listener when
I’m not being grumpy.”

  Laura smiled. “You are grumpy a lot.”

  “Hey.” He gave her a playful shove. “Listen, it’s good to talk about it, though. Get it out. Don’t hold it inside.”

  Mark seemed so sincere, so open. Laura decided to give it a chance.

  “Dean hated the idea of me being pregnant. He wanted...” She almost couldn’t say it. “He wanted me to get rid of the baby.”

  “An abortion.” Mark’s tone lacked judgment.

  Laura nodded. “I couldn’t do it. I mean, I thought about it. I did. Being a single mom and Dean not wanting the baby and not even wanting to admit his paternity, but...I just couldn’t do it. For me. I get that other people make different decisions and I am not judging them, but for me, this is what I decided.”

  “I get it. Nothing about that decision is easy.”

  Laura shook her head. “No. It’s not.” She glanced upward at the clear blue sky above them. A seagull swept by overhead. “At the twelfth week mark, the end of my first trimester, I went in for my regular checkup with my ob-gyn. She couldn’t find a heartbeat, and so she sent me to the hospital next door so they could run an ultrasound. She told me everything was probably fine. Not to worry. Not yet.”

  Laura remembered that day. She’d felt concerned but not overly so. Miscarriage hadn’t even entered her mind. But when she got the ultrasound in the very quiet, dark place where she’d been taken, where the technician didn’t say a word, then she’d known something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

  “They didn’t find a heartbeat. It was awful.” So much more than awful. “My doctor told me the baby had died a week before, maybe even longer. The worst part was that I went all that time and I didn’t even know.”

  Mark leaned into her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He said nothing, but she could feel the comfort in his embrace.

  “The bleeding began a few days after that, but then it didn’t stop and I had to go to the hospital. I have this disorder, something or other, that the doctors said meant that they had trouble stopping the bleeding once the baby...well, detached.” She looked at him. “I nearly died. I got two blood transfusions.”

  “That’s horrible. I didn’t even know that could happen,” he said.

  “Neither did I.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t die.” He squeezed her shoulders.

  “Me, too.” She leaned into him.

  “You know, it just proves my theory. Mothers are strong.”

  Mother. The very word made her want to cry harder. “But I was never a...” She swallowed, not trusting herself to actually say the word out loud. “My baby was never born.”

  Mark took a deep drag of water and then wiped the back of his mouth. “Doesn’t mean you weren’t a mother. Did you care for that baby inside your body while it was alive? Did you give up alcohol? Did you think about your baby?”

  Laura nodded. She remembered how careful she’d been after she knew she was pregnant. No alcohol, not even a drop of caffeine—and she loved coffee. She’d eaten more green leafy vegetables and taken her prenatal vitamins religiously. She’d already been picking out names and trying to figure out where she’d put the crib in her cramped San Francisco apartment.

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts. You were a mother. For that time. You cared about your baby. You put the baby first. That’s what mothers do.” He glanced at her with knowing, dark eyes. “That means you were a mother.”

  “I never thought about it like that.”

  “You should,” Mark said. He said it so simply, so definitively, as if there could be no other truth.

  The thought felt like a revelation. Mothers were supposed to be people who carried to term, who had something to prove for their efforts.

  “But I don’t have a baby. I mean, to show for it. I never had one.”

  “You had one. Inside you,” he said. “And am I less of a father because my son isn’t alive anymore?”

  “No! Of course not.” She wasn’t about to take that away from him. “You’ll always be a father. No matter what.”

  “Well, then, you’re a mom. Simple as that.”

  More tears flowed, and she couldn’t stop them even as she tried to wipe them away with the back of her hand. He took a clean work cloth from his back pocket and scooted closer. Their knees touched as he handed it to her. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

  Laura blew her nose once more and the trumpeting sound made both her and Mark laugh a little. “I guess you’re right.”

  “I know I am.” Mark glanced at her. She felt transfixed by his dark, knowing eyes, by the way they saw her and seemed to understand everything about her. She could feel the current of electricity running between them and wondered if he could feel it, too. If he leaned forward right now and kissed her, Laura would welcome it, she realized with a start. The current intensified between them. Intimacy, she realized. They’d bonded over their losses, and in some way, she felt like he’d offered her a way forward.

  It’s not that she’d never be a mother. She’d already been one. She always would be one.

  The understanding dawned and all she wanted to do was kiss Mark. He understood, but more than that, he’d shown her an escape route from her depression. She was a mother.

  “Mark...” She put her hand on his forearm, his strong, tanned arm, and leaned closer. She wanted to kiss him now, to show him how amazing he was, how he’d changed her life in this very moment. He seemed transfixed by her, too, sitting very still next to her. Would he let her kiss him? Should she try? She wanted to.

  Her body made the decision for her as she inched ever closer. All she could think about was what his lips might feel like against hers. She was just inches away from him, when abruptly he pulled away, whipping his arm away from her touch, standing up suddenly.

  The movement seemed so jarring, so out of the blue, that all Laura could do was sit there, a bit stunned. She craned her neck up at him and watched him awkwardly fidget.

  “Got to get back to work,” Mark said, uneasily, refusing to look her in the eye. “Sunlight won’t last much longer.”

  She felt white-hot embarrassment flush her cheeks. She’d misread him. He wasn’t interested, not in that way. He was just being kind. Nothing more, nothing less. She watched him as he scuttled off the deck of the boat and shimmied down the ladder away from her. He couldn’t get away fast enough.

  At least she hadn’t actually kissed him. What a nightmare that would’ve been. She felt herself squirm at the very idea that he’d push her away or look disgusted. Then she would’ve really been horrified. Now at least, she could just pretend she’d never intended to kiss him. Not at all.

  I’m never going to try again, either, she thought. He’s made his feelings clear.

  With nothing else left to do, she bent her head and went back to work, trying to ignore the sting of rejection.

  Chapter Eight

  MARK SPENT THE rest of the day and night kicking himself. He knew he’d made a mistake the minute he’d turned away from Laura and seen how she’d stiffened. But he just wasn’t ready for...a connection.

  Not that the fear stopped him from wanting to taste her. Hell, every inch of his body screamed for him to take the delicate little woman into his arms and kiss the life out of her, right now, but that shouldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen.

  Not when she was leaving in a couple of weeks.

  Not when he wasn’t ready to get involved with someone; not when his heart was still broken.

  When he’d seen the intent look on her face, the desire as she’d moved closer to him the day before, he’d panicked. Actually, he could still feel the panic deep inside him, the anxiety that rose up any time he thought about getting involved with another woman. Because he knew women didn’t do things halfway. Not any woman he’d ever known.

 
Hell, he’d only slept with one woman since Elle, and after just a single night of sex, the girl had been practically picking out curtains for his condo. No, he didn’t need that right now. Didn’t need the drama women inevitably brought with them. The emotional roller coasters, the hurt feelings that he never seemed to understand, the endless emotional need.

  Elle had been beautiful but stormy, always mad at him for something, but he had no idea what. She’d kept a running tally of all the things he’d bungled. Her not-quite-perfect birthday gift, him forgetting their first-date anniversary—the woman had a calendar laid out of the first time they’d even gotten ice cream together, which he didn’t even know was a thing you were supposed to track. Her moods shifted quicker than the weather on the ocean, except even the storms out there could be forecast. Her moods were 100 percent unpredictable.

  At first, it excited him, but then, after they lost Timothy, all he could see in her was a child who refused to take responsibility—for her feelings or her mistakes.

  That morning, Mark realized he was in for a different kind of storm when Laura arrived, acting a little more businesslike, a bit colder to him as she went about finishing the sanding of his deck. Mark worried Laura was too much like Elle. She burst into tears when he just mentioned the word mother. She was a walking bundle of pain and emotion, wild and volatile.

  He kept his emotions bottled up, but just because he didn’t rant and rave didn’t mean he lacked emotion. His feelings ran deep, like still water.

  Mark wanted to kiss Laura. He wanted to do more. But he knew the minute he did, she’d begin to demand things from him and he had nothing to give. He was still in mourning, and the only way he knew how to deal with it was to go off sailing around the world—alone. Sailing was dangerous, and he already knew that if the trip killed him, that would take care of two birds with one stone. Maybe even part of him hoped he didn’t come back. He couldn’t ask Laura to accompany him on a trip that he half hoped ended with his boat at the bottom of the sea, him joined with his boy forever.