Ten Good Reasons

by Lauren Christopher

“She needed help.”

  Lia tentatively reached out for him again. “Evan.”

  “I let her down, Lia.” His head whipped toward her, his eyes frantic. “How could I have let her down? This mother and baby . . .”

  Lia reached for the knife but he shouldered her back and slashed at the net.

  “How could I have let them down . . . both of them . . . so badly?”

  The pain in his grim expression, the desperation in his voice—needing to understand himself, but needing someone to understand him, too—gripped her like a vice. She knew who he must be talking about. Not just the whale, of course. The pain in his voice was too great, too raw, too untouched for her to mistake whom he meant.

  She managed to reach for the knife. “Evan, let’s . . . let’s pull this aboard now.”

  He shook her off with his shoulder, leaning forward to cut more savagely into the net. He slashed seven or eight more times, severe slashes tackled with grunts, then, finally, his shoulders slumped. He leaned on the edge of the boat.

  She slipped the knife from him—his fingers relaxed reluctantly—and he stood, frozen.

  “Let’s get all this pulled up,” she said.

  He dropped his head, breathing heavily. She let him pause, let him absorb what he needed to absorb, didn’t try to fill the silence with meaningless words. She closed the knife and put it away. And finally, together, they tugged the rest of the cut netting aboard. The nylon was sharp and cutting against her fingers. The dead whale bobbed about ten feet away, then eleven, then twelve, as they pushed the stiff netting across the deck for the next fifteen minutes and untangled themselves from it.

  After the net was in a white heap in the center of the cat, he stopped, hanging his hands off his pockets and scowling toward the ocean. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I just . . .” He made a feeble motion toward the water. “I wish I could have saved her.”

  “I know.”

  She stepped toward him. The urge to soothe him came on strong—this enormous man, who seemed strong as a mast, yet had these same vulnerabilities like mere mortals: a desperate love, an enormous loss, a feeling of guilt, an uncertainty about going on. . . .

  She put her arms around him.

  First he stiffened, pushing himself away. But she hung on. Then, within another fraction of a second, she felt his resolve weaken, his spine loosen, his arms go loosely around her waist.

  They stood that way in the deep ocean, swaying with the rocking boat, the only sound the light rise of the waves. They comforted each other for a full, quiet minute, mourning Valentine; mourning Evan’s lost wife; mourning their inability to make life go the way they wanted; mourning their inability to save who they wanted to save; and mourning old lives they were going to have to leave behind.

  Lia thought she felt a tear slip down her shoulder.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty

  Lia glanced up at Evan, sitting in the bridge as they rode quietly back to shore. One of his feet was up on the rail, his arm flung over his knee and the other loosely touching the wheel. His head was permanently turned away from her, his sunglasses pointed toward the sun on the horizon. He was clearly lost in thought, lost to her, lost to everyone for a while. . . .

  Lia stayed on the lower deck, cleaning up as much as she could in her dress and sandals, but soon she couldn’t stand it any longer. She wanted to make sure he was okay. Such a quiet man, who had been sailing around the world alone for so long, must have experienced a lot of his grief alone, maybe not talking it out with anyone. She watched his averted face, his limp hands. He seemed trapped in a silo of guilt.

  “I wanted to see if we could find the baby,” he mumbled when she crawled to the top. He leaned forward, his face still turned away. “It’s unusual for the baby to leave so quickly.”

  His sudden worry and something he’d said earlier hit her with full force. “Evan, when we were pulling up the net, why did you say you let ‘them’ down?” she asked quietly.

  “Sorry about all that, Cinderella. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Probably grief.”

  He didn’t even turn in her direction.

  “Maybe grief you haven’t let yourself express.”

  He watched a family of pelicans skim the ocean’s surface. For a second, she thought he was going to let her in. Maybe open up to her a bit, like he had at the charity event. But then a shadow crossed his face and he looked out toward the horizon. “This wasn’t on our approved topics list,” he said.

  The pelicans flew in a swift dip, then a rising arc over the quietly lapping waves.

  She took a seat on the bench next to him and thought maybe she could find another way in. “Speaking of our approved topics, you never told me about Drew,” she said.

  Evan stood. “I don’t see the baby anywhere. But we’re getting pretty far out.” He pulled the boat wheel all the way around.

  “Is it a long way back?”

  His biceps strained against the wheel as he pulled them all the way around, the wind pushing them back, making Lia clutch one of the rails. Once they straightened, Evan stepped back to join her in the seat.

  “Long enough that I can tell you the whole story, if you insist.”

  Lia took in his puckered eyebrows, his grim mouth, his worn expression, and knew she could give this to Evan as a gift. He needed someone right now.

  “I’ll make us some coffee.”

  * * *

  Evan didn’t really want to knock around stories about him and Drew, but it beat acknowledging all the feelings that were stirring about Renece and Luke.

  The feelings had overwhelmed him when the murders first happened, so much so that he learned to ram them down, somewhere deep, somewhere they couldn’t have an effect. And he’d been okay that way—the pain had never gone away, but it wasn’t allowed to surface.

  But meeting Lia had stirred everything: interest, intrigue, want, need.

  The “need” that had surfaced yesterday was exploding into something that felt much larger and more complicated than he’d first imagined, solidified by how good it felt to simply hold her, and be held by her. To be somehow absolved. To be somehow understood. By this tiny woman who stood bravely when she needed to, and who only saw positive things. But letting himself feel anything at all meant facing the painful feelings, too.

  “So you were watching Drew’s friends get on the boat . . .” she prompted, handing him a cup of coffee. “This isn’t going to be as good as Cora’s, but it’ll do.”

  He took a sip. It was terrible. But the warmth felt good. “Yeah.”

  “And then what happened?” She scooted to the side of the captain’s bench to give him space. She had one of Drew’s jackets pulled over her shoulders.

  “I noticed a girl he’d invited.” He finally took a seat next to her.

  “A girl?” Lia grinned over the top of her coffee. “Now we’re getting somewhere. So who was this girl?”

  He reached forward to tilt the wheel with his other hand.

  “Renece,” he said. It felt weird to say her name casually, without the pain that normally jabbed his chest.

  “Was that your wife?” Lia asked on a whisper.

  Evan nodded. “And it turned out Drew was in love with her.”

  Her brows furrowed. “I think I missed something.”

  Evan told her about their childhood, keeping his eye on the horizon. He told her how he and Drew were separated in the divorce, how he’d missed key things like the fact that his brother was crushing on a certain girl ever since puberty. He told the whole story, ending with the black eye and wedding and the silent treatment Drew had given him ever since.

  “So he’s never forgiven you for stealing who he thought was his girl?”

  “I guess.”

  “Well, that doesn’t seem fair. I mean, he introduced you. And he hadn�
�t said he was serious about her.”

  “That was my take.”

  “I can’t believe he’d still be mad about that.”

  “Well, then for letting her die.” Evan’s shrug belied the difficulty of admitting that.

  Lia’s lips parted. She lowered her head and stared at her empty coffee cup. “I’m so sorry, Evan. How did she die, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  He did. But he’d come this far now. Somehow it felt good to tell Lia this. He didn’t know why, but Lia was looking at him through this falling afternoon light with an understanding, a kind of verification that maybe Drew had been unreasonable and maybe Evan wasn’t such a jerk. And Lia’s understanding was unfolding into a type of forgiveness that he’d never been able to give himself.

  “She was murdered. In a mass shooting.”

  Lia’s eyes went wide.

  “She was in a fast-food restaurant with our son.”

  Lia’s lips opened into an O as if she were going to say something, but then she pressed them together. Her hands shook as she smoothed her dress. He didn’t mean to shock her, but there was never any other way to say this.

  “You had a son?” Her voice was strangled.

  This was the part that always caused the lump to form in his throat, so he forced himself to skim over it. “Yeah. Luke . . . Luke the Duke.” He tried to smile at the nickname. “He was five.”

  Lia swallowed several times and stared at the ocean. He could see her mind putting together the name of Drew’s boat and Drew’s nephew—could see the exact moment the levels of sadness, the degrees of loss, probably occurred to her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You said you wanted to know.”

  “Thank you for telling me.” Her words came out scratchy. She cleared her throat. “I feel . . . honored . . . that you told me.”

  “Honored?”

  “That you trusted me enough to share.”

  He nodded. It did feel good to tell her. It did feel good to tell someone who wasn’t judging him. Even his parents, his cousins, his closest friends from boyhood—they all knew Drew, too, and he always sensed they took his side. It made him feel as if he were the devil incarnate. But Lia knew Drew also, and wasn’t looking at him like that at all.

  “Is that why you took off for the open sea?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Drew and I had just inherited some money from my grandfather, and Renece and I were going to buy a house in San Diego. I’m sure Drew used his money to buy this.” He waved his hand over the deck. “So when . . . everything happened . . . I just pulled the money back out and bought a sailboat and took off. I wasn’t sure . . . I just wasn’t sure how to handle anything. It was easier to be alone.”

  “Is that why . . .” Lia swallowed. “Is that why you sleep with that gun?”

  He looked up sharply at her. He’d forgotten she saw that. It felt desperate and weak, and he had to look away. “All boat owners keep a firearm on board, Cinderella.”

  “Do you feel guilty because you think her death was your fault?”

  He wanted to be irritated that she was seeing right through him, but for some reason it felt like a relief.

  “I was used to protecting people. I spent eight years in the Coast Guard, saving lives every week, and the two lives I most wanted to protect . . . I wasn’t even there.”

  “But Evan.” Her hand slipped over his forearm. He stared at it because it felt good. But she seemed to notice his attention, and moved it away. “It was a senseless and unpredictable crime. What could you have done?”

  He shook his head. No one really understood this part. “Just have been there. It took me four days to get back in from Alaska. Her parents had to identify the bodies. I was her husband. His father. And yet his grandparents had to identify them. . . .”

  The afternoon light hit the water in a way that sent golden rays across the tiny whitecaps.

  “Thank you for telling me,” Lia said quietly. She stood abruptly and headed down the stairs.

  As quickly as the relief had come moments earlier, now came embarrassment and regret.

  He watched Lia retreat down the staircase and remembered why it was better to keep things to himself.

  * * *

  Lia pulled Drew’s jacket over her shoulders and used the long brush to sweep some of the excess water from the netting to the deck drain the way she saw Douglas do.

  She couldn’t believe Evan had lost a son, too. Just five years old. . . . She could feel the tears welling up, and had made a quick retreat before she burst into tears and made him feel even worse.

  No wonder he’d looked so terrified of the children on the boat this week. No wonder he’d stared a hole into Avery’s forehead, and gawked at her little boy when he almost fell from the bridge. Lia thought back to the picture frame Evan had shoved into his drawer in his cabin that first morning, the gun, the scotch bottles on the floor. . . . Tears threatened again and she swiped beneath her eyes and then swept harder with the broom.

  She wasn’t going to tell him about Forrest breaking up. Her little problem seemed so small compared to his loss. But the more she was learning about him today, and the more she remembered his comment before he kissed her, the more she wanted to be with him.

  Would it be so terrible?

  For two people who were not interested in a relationship, would a single night—a simple temporary comfort—be so wrong? One night of absolution in each other’s arms? Comfort between two strangers who had shared an emotional week?

  Lia sighed. She’d never had a one-night stand. She didn’t even know how this worked. Sex had always been a way for her to express emotion, although she had never had the crazy sort of passionate sex she’d seen on TV. She’d never even had an orgasm like she’d seen on TV. She thought that might be for pole dancers, or something, or maybe yoga instructors. They must possess some kind of gene or G-spot she didn’t have. Or maybe they just didn’t have the control issues she had. She could never relax enough to enjoy herself.

  Yet—she had to admit—every time she looked at Evan, and every time he gave her that half smile that revealed that deep dimple, as if he were thinking about something he didn’t want her to know, she felt that rise in her blood temperature that she associated with pole dancers. Maybe she did have the gene. Maybe she’d just been with the wrong men.

  “Lia!”

  She stepped into the orange sun to look up at the bridge.

  “Leave that,” he yelled, not looking at her.

  But she ignored him. She wanted to help. She wanted to do any little thing that might help in any small way. Getting rid of today’s loss—the netting and the reminder of the death of Valentine—seemed like a start.

  She resumed her sweeping where he couldn’t see her, pushing the puddles as quietly as she could to a starboard drain.

  “Lia!” he yelled again.

  She stopped but didn’t go into the sun this time.

  “Get up here!”

  His bossiness could really be annoying. She quieted her movements but, within minutes, the motor stopped, and Evan’s footsteps fell heavily on the narrow stairwell behind her.

  Seconds later, she felt the broom being lifted out of her hands.

  She whirled on him.

  “Did you hear me?” he asked. The deck was now bathed in gold and reflected in his sunglasses.

  “Of course I heard you.”

  “I’ll do this.”

  “I want to help.”

  “I don’t want you sweeping.”

  “Why not?”

  His teeth pressed together as he seemed to search for an answer. “You don’t even have the right shoes.” He frowned at her open-toe sandals, which were, indeed, getting too much saltwater sloshing through them and probably ruining them forever.

  But she could buy more shoes. She yanked the broom back. “I wa
nt to help. And I’m tired of you telling me what to do.” She resumed her work.

  The gentle sound of sweeping water became rhythmic after she sent long strokes of water off the deck. She could feel him practically vibrating behind her.

  “Why are you so stubborn?” he asked through clenched teeth.

  “Why are you so bossy?”

  He sighed and pulled the broom back over her head. “Maybe because you don’t listen to me.”

  “This isn’t the Coast Guard, Evan. You don’t need to boss everyone around.”

  “I don’t boss everyone around.”

  “You do me.”

  “That’s because I want to protect you. And I know I can’t.”

  The admission seemed to surprise him as much as it did her. He backed away, about a foot, as if he were backing away from his own shocking comment. The ocean water lapped the fiberglass as they both stilled.

  “You don’t need to protect me,” she whispered.

  “It’s my nature.”

  Lia could see that now. She could see that Evan’s impulse to help was not judgmental, which was how she’d been reading it. It wasn’t about the person he was helping. It was about him, and the way he simply reacted to life. He wanted to protect wildlife, kids, his wife—the people and things he loved.

  When she suddenly realized the wonderful company she was in, her heart began to race. Having this simmering man stare down at her like this—this 180 pounds of pent-up passion, whose jaw muscle was dancing and whose chest was heaving, who was fighting guilt against a lost wife but finding Lia desirable enough to challenge it—was causing her knees to want to buckle. Lia locked them just in case.

  Evan yanked off his shades, bringing his fingertips up to press the bridge of his nose.

  “Look, Lia.” His voice dropped to a strangled whisper. “I feel guilty for every feeling I have. I feel guilty for every minute you make me forget about my wife. And it’s been a lot. Of minutes, that is . . . It’s been hours . . . days. I don’t know what it is about you, but . . .” He shook his head and stared at the ocean for a minute. “I haven’t even thought about anyone else since she died. I’ve had a deadness in my chest.” His hand went there. “I like it there. It reminds me of where she is. It keeps me with her, in a weird way. But when I met you . . .” He shook his head.