by Leanne Davis
Seclusion
The Seaclusion Series, Book Four
Leanne Davis
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Other Books by Leanne Davis:
About the Author
Chapter 1
“Angie? Is that you?”
Angie Peters whipped around, startled by the squeaky child’s voice. Her heart stopped, and her palms grew sweaty. Amy Tyler, her eight-year-old daughter— her biological daughter who she had not seen in two years—stood a few feet in front of her holding a little red plastic shovel. Sand clung to her knees, turning her jeans wet and dark where she must have been kneeling in the sand.
Angie had known there was a good chance she’d run into Amy when she came back here to her home town of Seaclusion, Washington. She just hadn’t known it would be this soon. Angie had come to the ocean beach to take in the blue sky over the frothy, rolling surf as she tried to prepare her heavy heart for facing the history here. And most of that history was tied up in the small, blond package peering up at her.
Angie pressed her lips together and slowly expelled a breath. “Hi, Amy. How are you?”
Amy’s golden hair was down to her waist. Her blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight and she was missing a front tooth. Her daughter was tall and skinny for her age, much as Angie had been. They looked painstakingly alike. It twisted her heart in two. How could an accident of biology replicate her so completely? The difference, however, was that Amy was a happy, well-adjusted, giggling little girl who twitched around as she smiled cheekily and said, “Mom and me were making a sand castle over there. Wanna see it?”
“I would love to come see it.” Amy easily inserted her hand into Angie’s and pulled her toward the pile of sand she had shaped into a giant pyramid.
“See, here it is.” She grinned and dropped to her knees, digging at the wet, dark sand to create a moat around it. Reality was easy for Amy. She had known her entire young life that Angie Peters was her biological mother, but her real mother, the mother who counted, was her adoptive mom, Kelly Tyler. Angie was simply a fun, older sister-like figure to her.
Two beach chairs sat back from the sand, protected from the breezy afternoon by the sand dunes. Kelly stood, her long legs stretching as she stepped toward Angie. A slow smile slid over her face. “We thought that was you. Amy has eyes like a hawk. What are you doing in town? Sarah didn’t mention you were coming to visit.”
Kelly embraced Angie. Angie closed her eyes and leaned into Kelly’s shoulder. The eager welcome was something she expected from Kelly. Too bad her own mother would never greet her in such a manner, something that, to this day, broke her heart.
“Sarah and Scott don’t know I’m here. It’s a surprise.” Sarah was Kelly’s best friend and married to Angie’s uncle who had raised her. They were the only real family she had.
Kelly pushed her back, her eyes narrowed, taking in the wet sheen of Angie’s eyes. Kelly squeezed her hands. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Just tired. I finished up finals. I decided to come see everyone. How are you? How is Amy?”
Kelly glanced at Amy with a loving gaze and slight tilt to her lips. “I’m good. Amy’s perfect. She loves second grade, is starting to read chapter books now. It’s pretty hard to get used to. She found her birthday list last year, and could read it before I realized it.”
What would Angie do if she were Amy’s mother? What would she do for her birthday? How would she handle teaching Amy to read? Kelly’s gaze landed back on her. “You don’t seem okay.”
Angie shrugged. “The older I get, the harder it gets.”
“Because now if you were pregnant with Amy you could keep her?”
She should not answer. Amy’s adoptive parents were the most inappropriate people to talk with about her doubts about giving up her daughter. But Kelly saw things, surprising things, and never backed down from confronting them.
“Yes.”
“You know Luke and I could use a night out together. Why don’t you give me a call when you’re settled, maybe you could babysit for us?”
Angie’s gaze touched Kelly’s. “You’d do that?”
“Yes. I’d do that.” Kelly’s voice was so gentle it made Angie’s heart swell. She’d made the right decision in giving her daughter to this woman.
“Thank you.”
Luke and Kelly Tyler had raised and loved Amy as Angie couldn’t, because at sixteen when she gave birth to Amy, she hadn’t had the slightest clue what to do with a baby. And to date, the only role she’d played in Amy’s happiness and well-being was giving her to the Tylers. The rest was all her parents doing. And the way that knowledge twisted up her heart with pain and jealously should have subsided by now. But it hadn’t. It seemed like maybe it never would.
She could have given Amy up to anyone, any couple who lived far away from her home town. She had purposely chosen Luke and Kelly, simply because she’d wanted Amy close. Close but not hers. Close so that she could make sure nothing bad happened to her as a result of who she picked to be her parents.
Amy’s head popped up from her crouched position. “Do you want to help me make a bridge?” Her big, eager eyes were pinned on Angie. Angie glanced at Kelly for permission. Kelly smiled and nudged her forward. “Go ahead or she’ll be at us all day until she gets it just right. Our little drill sergeant.”
That right there, the loving guidance and warmth was everything that Angie’s own life had always lacked, and why she had known, even at sixteen, that she couldn’t raise her baby. She’d never had a motherly influence in her entire life. Her mother, Vanessa Peters, was about as motherly as a fish to its young. Vanessa had always been critical, inattentive, and the last person she ever turned to for anything. Even now, when she came to town, she stayed with Scott and Sarah. She rarely visited her mother.
Scott had saved her life, and saved her from Vanessa. Scott had been her primary parental figure since she was ten years old. He still treated her as one of his daughters, even though she was now twenty-four.
“I’d love to help you with your sand castle.” Angie dropped to her knees and helped Amy pack down sand and scoop out under the precarious bridge structure.
“Hey, is that beautiful blond Angie Peters?”
Angie smiled and turned toward the voice carrying to her from down the beach. She got up and wiped her sandy hands on her jeans. “Hey, Mr. Tyler.”
He grimaced. She couldn’t help it; she could not call him by his name no matter how many times he told her to. Mr. Tyler had been her math teacher for four years of high school. She’d given up her baby to him at the end of her sophomore year. He’d taught her for two more years. It had been stranger than any other relationship in her life. One day he would tell her to do her homework, the next he’d comment on how the daughter she’d given him was doing. Talk about surreal.
“You’re not sixteen anymore. You can call me Luke.”
At forty-three, Mr. Tyler was still blond, blue-eyed and ripped. He didn’t look his age. But Angie could not get to a casual place with him. She shook her head. “No, I can’t.”
>
He smiled. “So, kiddo, what are you doing in town?”
“Just visiting.”
He eyed her. He didn’t believe her either. “Okay. You’ll be sure to visit us?”
She smiled. Nodded. Almost said, yes sir. But stopped herself.
“I’d better get to my uncle’s.”
“Hey, Amy, come give Angie a hug bye.”
Angie almost kissed Mr. Tyler for his kindness, and the casual way he went about letting Amy have a relationship with her. Amy ran up, threw her arms around Angie, kissed her cheek, and then ran off again giggling, smiling, girlish. And okay. She was just fine in her life, and Angie’s place in it.
But what Angie most hated about herself was she should be grateful, when in fact what she felt was jealous. Jealous it wasn’t her who had been able to give Amy any of this.
Angie parked her small car in the long driveway running up to the rambling one-story house that her uncle and Sarah lived in. The bright, blue February sky was a lovely backdrop to the red brick and soft mint green color of the Delano’s house. They lived in a new development, all on one-acre lots that sat on a bluff over the Pacific Ocean. A community trail led down to a private beach for residents of the neighborhood. Trees blocked the ocean view from her uncle’s house, but there was a spot halfway down the trail that overlooked the Pacific—a view she avoided because she hated the ocean.
She should have called before coming here. Hopefully, the Delanos would welcome her, despite the surprise. She jumped out of her car and started up the walkway. Halfway up the drive a car roared up behind her. She whipped around. A cherry red restored Pontiac Trans Am pulled to a stop, shiny and new-like in polished perfection. The motor was so loud she could feel the rumble of it in her cheeks. Her stomach flopped, Sean Langston sat in the driver’s seat.
Sean’s legs appeared first, and then the entire length of him extended from the car. She took a step back. Why did it have to be him? Besides Amy, Sean was the absolute last person she wanted to run into her first day back in Seaclusion. She knew she’d have to face him, but usually she had time to prepare herself for the inevitable confrontation. Being Sarah’s little brother, he was often at the Delano's and therefore, when she visited she had to contend with him. That he was Amy’s biological father only made it a hundred times more awkward.
He was no doubt driving one of her uncle’s cars. Scott restored vintage cars; his business took up the large metal shop that was on the other half of the acre they owned. Scott’s cars could run upwards of a hundred thousand dollars for a single restored car. He had started the business at Sarah’s prompting and now, nearly eight years later, his reputation was well respected all along the west coast. His name was recognized as far off as Seattle and down through San Francisco for the work he did. When Sean turned twenty-one, he had started working for Scott.
Sean was tall and wiry thin. He would be almost model beautiful, if it wasn’t for the fact that he did everything not to be. He kept his brown hair too long and shaggy, his clothes ripped and work-worn. Today he looked even more scruffy than usual with his hat on backwards and the ends of his hair sticking out from a stubby pony tail. She hated his pony tail.
He got out of the car and his gold-hued eyes narrowed as his gaze traveled over her. An insolent smile crossed his lips. “Well, well if it isn’t the prodigal Angie Peters back from her big important life.”
Angie refrained from sighing out loud. She would not let him see how he got to her. That was always his main goal; to get to her. In a crisp, well-modulated voice she answered, “Hello, Sean.”
He leaned back against the car door. “Sarah didn’t mention you were coming to town.”
“Sarah doesn’t know. It was spur of the moment, unplanned.”
His arms crossed over his chest. He stared harder, making her want to fidget, until he finally snorted. “What really happened? You never do anything unplanned or spur of the moment. Especially when it involves coming back to Seaclusion.”
She bristled; hating he knew that of her, that he knew anything at all about her. “It’s none of your business why I’m here.”
“I used to know everything about you. A long time ago. Remember that? Or have you banished all that along with this town?”
“Of course, I remember. Like I could forget it. But anymore? You don’t know anything.”
He straightened off the car. Shrugged. “Sure, believe that. All I have to do is ask Scott or Sarah.”
“They don’t talk about me.”
“I’m family.”
“You’re not my family.”
“Hate to tell you but we kinda are. They don’t think twice about mentioning you to me.”
She wished they didn’t. She hated, hated, hated Sean Langston knowing anything about her. He smirked and pushed past her. “I’ve got work to do. Looks like I’ll be seeing you around.”
She knew he would, but she desperately did not want to. She didn’t want to see anyone. But she had nowhere and no one else to go to. Despite the fact that the Delanos had three kids of their own, ranging from ages one to six, they still considered her their surrogate daughter.
And right now, she longed for the unconditional love and support only they provided her. She hated Seaclusion, but here she was back, and with the intent to stay for a prolonged period of time. Something she never dreamed she’d willingly contemplate. But she had no extra money and so few options. Squaring her shoulders, she turned and walked to the front door, ringing the doorbell. Sarah Delano squealed with delight after opening the door and squished Angie in a tight hug.
Angie burst into tears. She hadn’t expected to, but there was no helping the flood of grief that Sarah’s embrace released. She had screwed up so many times in her past, but this time, it felt bigger and more frightening than ever before. Sarah was the only woman in the world she could let her guard down with.
She’d spent her adolescence in Seaclusion miserable, and now her life had come full circle, bringing her, perhaps permanently, home. She had never intended to come back beyond a brief visit, and certainly not this way, for she was, yet again, pregnant when she didn’t plan to be. It was naive of her to believe she could escape the mistakes she’d spent her late teens and early twenties trying to escape. Why would she be different than her mother? For hadn’t her mother warned her all those years ago that she would end up back here, no matter how hard she tried to get away?
The only thing she’d proven by leaving was that she was coming back no better than the mother she always swore she’d never be.
Chapter 2
Sarah pushed a cup of steaming tea toward Angie. She sat at their kitchen table, despondent, her shoulders hunched in defeat. She did, however, smile, a small smile, at the tea. It was so Sarah. She always served tea, especially when something was wrong. It was a comfort Angie hadn’t realized how much she needed. A comfort she couldn’t have named, until Sarah did it. Tea from her, always meant, sit, relax, tell her what was wrong, and she’d help you fix it. But nothing could fix what Angie had done to destroy her once promising life and future.
After a few moments, Sarah asked gently, “What’s going on, kiddo?”
They always called her that. As if she wasn’t twenty-four, and they thirty-four. Scott and Sarah, who should be her friends, not her caretakers. There was nobody else. Only her Uncle Scott had ever been a positive, stable influence in her life, and Sarah, eight years ago, by default, inherited her.
Angie shook her head as she reined in the pathetic tears. God, as a teen she’d kept her pregnancy a secret for five months. Now she couldn’t hold it in for five minutes? She wanted to admit it all to Sarah, but she couldn’t find the words. It was all so humiliating. So sordid. So not who and what she wanted to be. “Angie?”
Angie glanced up, wiping her eyes. “I was so glad to see you. It’s been so long. And I’m really tired. School was a lot this quarter. I’m fine, really. Just burned out. And I saw Amy at the beach on the way here. That always does
it to me.”
“That’s not stupid, Angie, that’s human.”
“How are your girls?”
“The girls are wonderful. But you know that already. You can’t blow me off that easily.”
“Please? Can’t I? Can’t I just be here? Be glad to be here.”
Sarah paused, her eyes narrowed with suspicion, patience wasn’t high on her priorities. Sarah wouldn’t easily let go of how Angie had reacted when she simply opened the door.
“Of course, you can just be here. Anytime. Always. When we tell you that this is your home, we mean it no matter what, no matter how long. So, of course, you can be glad to be home.”
“I wouldn’t have a home to come to if it wasn’t for you.”
“But you do, and you always will. And you have three little girls who adore you. So be glad about that. Just tell me please, are you okay, Angie? I mean really okay?”
Angie nodded. Sarah’s persistence, the fact she cared so much, helped, even if it didn’t physically change anything. “I’m okay. I’ve been having a little personal crisis of faith in myself, and my plans for my future.”
Sarah nodded, probably pretending to accept Angie’s explanation. Angie was sure she was dying to ask the who, what, where, when, and why of everything Angie was feeling. She had planned out her future years before, and yet now, here she was hinting that her future was making her unhappy. Was it any wonder Sarah didn’t know what to make of her sudden appearance?
Angie had left Seaclusion to go to Seattle where she’d attended the University of Washington for a year. She had gone through a large degree of culture shock going from Seaclusion to Seattle. And found to her surprise Seattle was too big, where Seaclusion was way too small. She had eventually transferred to Western Washington University north of Seattle by about ninety miles in Bellingham, Washington, where she found a small community and culture that was the perfect fit. Finally, Angie Peters had a place she fit into.