Isle of Hope

by Julie Lessman

  It wasn’t long before she heard the grind of tires on gravel in the paved parking lot, and peeking out the window, she spied her dad’s black Range Rover glinting in the sun. Her heart stalled when only he and Beau got out of the car. Sadly, she’d almost hoped he wouldn’t be alone—one of his fishing buddies or the rare date—acting as a buffer to guarantee a civil response. A shaky breath wavered from her lips as she pulled the cabin door closed like before, and tucking herself out of sight in a dark corner, she waited.

  “Calm down, bud, I’m just as anxious to get on the water as you,” her father said with a chuckle, the sound of Beau’s excited whimpers followed by a gentle rock of the boat when they boarded. Storage doors open and closed several times accompanied by the sound of her dad’s footsteps above as he untied the boat. The smell of exhaust soon infiltrated the cabin when the engine roared, the hull rumbling so hard it was a contest over who was shaking more—her or the Formula. Eyes closed, she felt the sensation of gliding through the no-wake zone, her stomach tightening when the vessel cleared and picked up speed. Between her nerves and the fumes, nausea began to rise and although she’d planned to wait till they were too far out for her dad to turn around, bile clotted in her throat, making her dizzy.

  Peering out the porthole, she saw the O’Bryen’s dock zip by and put a hand to her mouth to stifle a heave. “It’s now or never,” she muttered, and opening the cabin door, she gulped in the sea air to clear the fog from her brain and the fear from her throat. Beau spotted her first, his delighted squeal making her wish she’d brought bacon along with the cookies. With her Tupperware in hand, she crept out slowly, peeking up the galley steps.

  Face averted starboard, her father’s handsome profile tripled her pulse. Sable hair streaked with silver ruffled in the wind while he stood, body relaxed in casual stance, both hands on the wheel. His loose polo flapped wildly against his broad chest, and all at once Lacey’s heart cramped at the image of a nine-year-old girl leaning against that very chest, helping to steer during one of those rare times Daddy acted like he cared.

  Beau danced on his hind legs and barked several times, and the second Daddy glanced her way, his face cemented to stone.

  She slowly ascended the steps, purse over her shoulder and Tupperware offered in truce. “Hi Daddy.” She gave a sheepish shrug. “I brought monster cookies,” she said, hoping against hope that the man would at least crack a smile.

  He didn’t. “What are you doing here?” he said in the same deadly voice he’d used when she was a child. “And who let you on?”

  She swallowed hard, not likely to throw sweet Mark under the bus. “I thought we could talk.”

  His jaw calcified further as he wrenched the wheel to the left, banking the boat so fast, it slammed Lacey against the side. The cookie container went flying, crashing open onto the carpeted fiberglass deck. Before Lacey could even breathe, Beau pounced on the scattered cookies, tail wagging like it was the Purina lottery. Her father swore, and Lacey winced. For all his faults, her father had never been a profane man unless she’d pushed too far. He jerked the throttle back to neutral, and the high plane of the boat crashed back to the water, hull slinking into the river in a slow, ominous glide, as if plunging into quicksand.

  Like her hope …

  “Beau, no!” With a firm yank of Beau’s collar, her father dragged the dog back, pushing past Lacey in an effort to put him into the cabin. He slammed the door closed and turned, the gray pallor of his face not a good sign. “I want every solitary crumb picked up—now—before we get back to the marina.” Without another word he shoved by, bumping her arm on his way to the wheel.

  Few people knew Ben Carmichael had a temper because he always hid it so well. Except with Lacey and her mom, who somehow always managed to ignite it. And true to form, her Dad’s temper had always lit hers as well. Like now, unleashing a once-familiar spark of rebellion, which was tempered—thank God—by her faith. But it was more than enough to put fire in her eyes and grit in her bones. Snatching the Tupperware, she slammed every cookie and crumb back in, her eyes scorching his. “I’ll pick them up,” she said while he glared right back, hand poised on the throttle as if waiting till she was through, “but you need to know, Daddy, that I have no intention of leaving this boat until we talk.”

  “You had your chance to talk.” He restarted the engine with a harsh grind before pushing the throttle forward, “when I begged you to return my calls after your mother died, my letters, my emails.” Anger chiseled his profile while he stared straight ahead, aiming for the marina. “You made your choice then, kiddo, and I have nothing more to say.”

  “Yeah? Well, I have plenty to say to you.” The temper she’d inherited flashed like a Fourth of July finale before she doused it, forcing it to sizzle away. Gorging her lungs with a deep swell of air, she clutched the cookies to her chest, desperate to contain the emotions that itched to explode. The same rebellious emotions that had once been, for her, as common as air. “Daddy, I’m sorry for whatever I did to make you so angry, but I’m trying to make amends here, to apologize—”

  With a sharp jerk of the throttle, he cut the engine and spun to face her, the deadly calm of his voice belied by the clench of his jaw. “I don’t want your apology, Lacey,” he whispered, “I want you to leave me alone.”

  Temper threaded thin, she struggled to contain it, a fragile fiber of faith holding her back. “Daddy, please …” She moved in close to lay a trembling hand to his arm, “I beg you—give me a chance …”

  “Like you gave me?” His gaze chilled her to the bone despite the warmth of the summer night. Blasting out a noisy exhale, he dislodged her hand when he bowed his head to knead the bridge of his nose. “No, we’ve done just fine without each other all of these years, and I have no intention of going back to a life where you give me nothing but trouble.”

  “But I’m not here to give you trouble!” she shouted, “I’m here to give you love!”

  His head lashed up. “You’re giving me trouble now, forcing something that doesn’t exist and never did.” He angled a brow. “I’m the ‘demon father,’ remember? The ‘spawn of Satan you were going to hate till the day you died.’”

  She swallowed hard, the vile sting of her own words condemning her on the spot. “I didn’t mean that,” she whispered, knowing full well she did at the time.

  “Whether you did or not, the fact remains that you and I are too combustible to ever get along, too damaged to heal the scars both of us have inflicted, and I have no stomach to go there again.” He turned the ignition and lanced her with a cold stare. “So I’m asking you nicely once and for all, Lacey, to let it go and leave me alone.”

  She blinked, eyes dry sockets of shock while she stared, hardly able to believe he was rejecting her all over again. Hurt swelled like a river of poison swarming its banks, drowning any reason or restraint. “What kind of monster are you?” she whispered, wanting to wound him like he had wounded her. “A heartless shell of a man who turns his own flesh and blood away!” He seemed to wince before his eyelids briefly closed, as if her own anger had sapped all of his, but she was too far gone to stop. “Why did even you marry my mother, then?” she shouted, her voice as raw as her heart, “only to ruin her life and mine along with it?”

  The twitch of his cheek told her she’d struck pay dirt, the mother lode of guilt, apparently, over his failure as a father, a husband, a man. Even so, his gaze remained fixed on the marina a mere mile away as he steered the boat forward.

  “Tell me!” she shrieked, shaking his arm. But he ignored her, the tight pinch of his mouth telling her he had no intention of giving her anything at all, not even the courtesy of an answer.

  Bitterness buried deep rose like bile while the pain of her past sparked tears in her eyes. Well, he may have gotten away with it for the last twenty-five years, but not anymore. Hurling the container aside, she latched onto his arm like before, only this time she jerked it hard, a rare swear word hissing from her lips. “I w
ant to know why! Why you married my mother if you didn’t love her?”

  “I did love her,” he shouted. He flung her hand away before he gripped the wheel again, slamming the throttle wide open.

  And then it hit her—as hard and biting as the wind that slapped at her face, paralyzing her with an ache so brutal, the air was sucked from her lungs.

  It wasn’t Mom. It was me ... She sagged against the wide captain’s seat, her eyelids flickering closed from the rawest pain she’d ever known. He didn’t just reject her, she’d been a burden he’d never wanted, the poison that had destroyed his marriage. Somewhere a seagull screeched over the rush of the wind and the roar of the Formula, and a scream of her own rose within. A primal cry from a little girl who only wanted her daddy to love her.

  Lids snapping up, she slashed her hair from her face with eyes blazing. “It was me, wasn’t it?” She stared, moisture welling against her will. “I was the one you hated, not Mom.”

  “No!” He jerked the boat to a stop so abruptly, she stumbled against the captain’s seat, fingers digging in while both the boat—and her life—tilted off-center. He was breathing hard, gouging his hair like he used to before his temper would snap. Only this time, the anger in his eyes had given way to an anguish she’d never seen in her father before. “I didn’t hate you!”

  “Well, you sure didn’t love me.”

  “I tried!” he shouted, sweat slick on his brow as he gouged at his temple.

  “Yeah? Well, tell me when, Daddy, please.” Her tone bled with sarcasm, fists clenched so hard, she thought her knuckles would crack. Leaning in, she took full advantage of the regret she saw in his eyes. “When the O’Bryens were around? Because I sure don’t remember unless there were people to impress.”

  “That’s a lie!”

  “No, you were the lie!” she cried. “Pretending to be a father when you were nothing but a stranger.”

  “You weren’t easy to love.”

  “How would you know? You never even tried.”

  “And this is why!” he shouted, the gorge of blood in his cheeks evidence she’d finally tripped his temper. He gouged shaky fingers through his hair as a dangerous tic pulsed at his temple. “From little on, you’ve been nothing but grief.”

  “Then why did you even have me?” she shrieked, striking the seat with her fist.

  “Because you were a mistake!” Eyes wild, he slammed his hand on the wheel, his scream renting the air as much as her soul. Fury scorched his face scarlet while words she had goaded spewed in a violent hiss, his spittle striking like a blow to her chest. “A med student with a bright future, saddled with a kid I wasn’t even sure was mine!” He wheeled around, fumbling with the ignition switch, grinding it as savagely as he had just attacked his only daughter.

  A daughter who now stood welded to the carpet of the fiberglass floor, too paralyzed to move.

  A mistake. That’s all she’d ever been. No matter how hard she had tried to please him, she never could. Her ribcage convulsed in pain. Nor ever would.

  Heart bleeding, she watched with a glazed stare while he hunched over the wheel with a hand to his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice gruff with remorse, “I never meant to say that …”

  No, never meant to say it.

  Never meant to marry her mother.

  Never meant to forget the biggest mistake of his life.

  Her body was numb while dizziness buzzed in her brain and all she wanted to do was flee, to get as far away from Ben Carmichael as she possibly could. Dazed with pain, she absently zipped her purse and moved toward the back of the boat like a sleepwalker, vaguely aware of a voice now edged with fear.

  “Lacey, no!”

  But she didn’t listen. Stepping over the gate to the platform, she leapt into the water, the glug of her descent drowning out her father’s panicked cry. The Skidaway River swirled around her, enveloping her with warmth like her father’s arms never could. No, not my father. A stranger. She surfaced in a gush of saltwater with a dull pain in her chest, and ignoring his frantic shouts, she slashed through the waves in a fury, seawater flushing the tears from her eyes. The rumble of his engine and hoarse pleas drew near, but she shut them out as tightly as she planned to shut him out of her life.

  “Lacey, wait!”

  Wading wildly through the shallows, she stumbled onto the shore, breaking into a dead run. The marshy grass lashed at her legs like needles while her body heaved with breaths as fractured as her heart. Behind her, her father called over and over, panic and pain bleeding into his cries, but she refused to spare even a glance.

  “Lacey, come back—please!”

  But the hurt inside told her she wouldn’t.

  Ever again.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Dusk was Jack O’Bryen’s favorite time of day, especially when he could fish all alone on the dock, his mind free from the clutter of work. He sailed a cast across the rippling water with a quirk of his lips. Not that working with kids at Memorial was “work,” but there was a tranquility he craved that came only from the sound of water lapping the shore or the faraway chirp of an osprey sailing overhead. Somehow the indigo glow of the water against a fuchsia sky always seemed to calm him like few things ever could, willowy grasses swaying and shushing his problems away with a sea-scented breeze. Sperrys firmly planted on the far edge of their dock, he reeled in and cast again, his slow exhale in quiet rhythm with his line as it gracefully looped over the water.

  Problems? What problems? He was a twenty-nine-year-old pediatrician poised on the threshold of a lucrative career in the practice of his choice at a hospital he loved. He was dating the prettiest nurse at Memorial and had the day off. What more could he want?

  Lacey Carmichael, maybe?

  The thought swallowed his good mood as quickly as a fish swallowed his lure, spitting it out before Jack could even reel him in. Expelling a weighty sigh, he ambled over to sink into one of the Adirondack chairs, freshly sanded and painted per his mother’s honey-do list. His toss of the line back into the water was lackluster at best, kind of like his moods tended to be whenever his thoughts strayed to Lacey.

  Fishing rod limp in his hand, he leaned back and closed his eyes, succumbing to the temptation to dwell on the woman who had slowly become his best friend all over again, like years ago, before they’d fallen in love. His lips cocked to the right. Yeah, only for him, the falling in love part was still a hazard, buried deep to keep Lacey from running away, obviously petrified she might be leading him on. She’d made it more than clear that friendship was all she wanted, and with Chase in the picture, that pretty much sealed the deal. So, friends it would be.

  Because when it came to Lacey Carmichael, he’d take any crumbs he could get.

  Mouth clamped, Jack opened his eyes to crank in his line, determined to purge Lacey from his thoughts, at least for the moment, to better enjoy the peace of water and sky. Focusing on fishing, he changed to his favorite bait, rigging his line with shrimp and popping cork before he recast and settled back in his chair. The river seemed almost glasslike, melding into dusk with a hazy layer of fog that slowly rolled over the water, obscuring the faint silhouette of trees on the other shore. The shadows of dusk enveloped him with its familiar peace while the mournful wail of a loon filled the night. A sad smile lighted on his lips as he recalled his mother’s explanation when he was small, that the loon was calling for its mate, “I’m here—where are you?” The memory coaxed Jack’s eyes closed once again while he listened for the return cry. “I’m far away—come find me.”

  Far away.

  Just like Lacey.

  And Jack would give anything to find her again.

  He sat up at the ripple of a splash, brows knit when he didn’t feel a tug on his line. It sounded again, and he turned to squint through the fog, something sloshing down the shore.

  “Jack?” It was no more than a rasp, a voice so out of breath that Jack had no idea who it was until a dark silhouette slowly emerged throu
gh the haze.

  “Lacey?” He shot to his feet, rod and reel clattering onto the dock as he blinked in shock, finally bolting down the ramp to meet her on the shore. Clasping her hard, he held her at arm’s length to make sure she was okay as he took in her sopping clothes and matted hair. “What on earth happened?” he asked, the hitch of air in his chest cracking his voice.

  “Oh, J-Jack …” With one violent heave, she fell into his arms and began to sob, her broken words slicing through him as if her pain were his very own. “D-Daddy and I h-had an awful f-fight, so I j-jumped off his b-boat …”

  His arms swallowed her up, clutching her so closely her wet clothing bled into his, along with her pain. “Shhh … it’s gonna be okay, Lace,” he whispered, palm gently massaging her sodden back. He pulled away to rub her arms, ducking to peer into eyes swimming with both tears and sorrow. “Are you cold? Because we can run up to the house if you need to chang—”

  She shook her head against his chest, body shivering in his arms. “No, Jack, please—can we just t-talk on the d-dock … like we used t-to?”

  Like we used to.

  Love surged in his chest as he pressed a kiss to her hair, his voice and touch tender. “Sure, Lace. Come on—I have an old blanket we can wrap you up in, okay?”

  She nodded, and without another word, he swept her up in his arms, finally depositing her in his Adirondack chair, gut churning over what she’d gone through tonight. Squatting to briskly rub both of her arms, he assessed her with a tender smile. “Are you hurt anywhere—scrapes, scratches, anything that needs immediate attention?”

  “Just my heart,” she whispered, her wobbly smile betrayed by a fresh sheen of tears.

  He pressed a soft kiss to her cold nose. “Well, you’re in luck, Miss Carmichael, because the doctor is in, and he’s all yours for the night.” Jumping up, he fetched the old picnic quilt from the storage closet, then grabbed one of the bottled waters he’d brought, suddenly noticing the slight chill in the air. “You sure you don’t want to get into some dry clothes first?” He bent to carefully tuck the blanket around her. “It’s pretty cool tonight.”