Destiny Bay

by Sarah Abbot

  Cora’s voice collided with the internal racket of his soul. Some sort of shift had occurred, an earthquake of the heart that left him gaping and vulnerable and utterly unprepared for what was happening to him. The walls that cloistered his indignation were crumbling, leaving him exposed to the truth he should have seen long ago.

  He had no right to rob her of her peace. He had no right.

  Cora’s voice sliced through the haze of disbelief that was smothering him, choking him.

  “No son of mine could be so blind to reason!”

  Ryan drew in a steadying breath. Gritted his teeth. He couldn’t say these things out loud—could hardly admit them to himself. “You’re forgetting, Mom,” he said softly, falling back on the mask of anger that had protected him for so long, “I’m not only your son.”

  Cora jolted to her feet, glaring at her offspring. “All your life, you’ve been a magnet to women. I’ve seen them love you. I’ve seen them devastated when you didn’t love them back, but I said to myself, ‘This is his way.’ Even though I felt for the girls who loved you, I would rationalize things. I would say, ‘He’s so handsome, he can’t help breaking a few hearts along the way.’ Yes, I’ve seen you break more than your fair share of hearts, Ryan, but yesterday was the first time I ever saw you break a spirit. It was the first day I wasn’t proud to call you ‘son.’”

  Ryan clenched his jaw, as tightly as a vise.

  “Don’t you have anything redeeming to say?” Cora asked.

  She leaned in toward him, looked at him closely enough to make him wonder if she’d seen the crumbling of resolve in his eyes.

  Had it been that close to the surface?

  Ryan cleared his throat loudly, squared his shoulders. “No, Mom,” he said at last. “I guess I don’t have anything redeeming to say.”

  Cora’s face fell. She shrank back in her seat, staring at her empty plate.

  Ryan ran a hand through his hair, looking at the glorious mounds of food laid out on Cora’s table. Something irrevocable had happened here tonight, and though he couldn’t name it, Ryan felt its very imprint on the air. That something began the moment Abrielle Lancaster arrived in Destiny Bay, and thus far it had snaked through the lives of many—not the least of whom was him— wreaking change and upheaval along the way.

  It was a waste of time to wish she had never come. Maybe all he could do now was pretend that everything was just fine. And maybe if he said it loudly enough, he just might believe it.

  He shoved his chair back, looked down at his mother, and wished he could be more of the person she wished him to be.

  He’d hurt her enough. Not even bread pudding would fix things today.

  Ryan kissed her cheek and walked out the door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Ryan said what.?”

  “Don’t make me say it again, Ronnie,” Abby said, folding her arms tightly around her.

  “Ryan can be harsh, sometimes,” Ronnie admitted, nodding sagely as she followed Abby outside into the gray afternoon light. “But that’s bad, even for him. I’ll be havin’ a word with that boy, believe you me.”

  Abby’s head was throbbing. She’d had nothing but trouble since she’d arrived in Destiny Bay. Between the White Lady, Bartholomew, the strange experiences she’d had at the cottage, the upsetting revelations about her mother and Ryan Brannigan, she was feeling completely overwhelmed. “Don’t bother. I had a word with him last night. Then I slapped him.”

  Ronnie appeared speechless…but only for a moment. “Geez, you’ve got a couple of brass ones, girl!” She stomped on the front step, hollered, “A curse on you, Jack!” and fluffed her hair out without missing a beat, as if cursing pirates every time you left your restaurant was as natural as breathing. “You deserve a stiff drink for that Ryan business—not to mention old Barty, spying through your window and leavin’ you flowers. Did I tell you I just concocted a new shooter? I’m unveiling it at next week’s Chef’s Table. I call it ‘the Heaving Bosom,’ in honor of a steamy new romance I just read, and you’ve just won the honor of being the first taster.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Abby watched as Ronnie paused in front of the bar window, the reflected image one of snug, white capris, jeweled sandals, and a pink gingham shirt— undoubtedly designer, and far too low cut and tight across her ample bust. Her hair glinted shades of red, and her very full lips were a glossy pink. Abby would have described the look as Mrs. Cleaver meets Playboy. It was a look only Ronnie could carry off, and Abby was coming to know it as pure trademark.

  Ronnie linked her arm through Abby’s as they began walking toward the police station for her meeting with officer Flynn. “You sure you’ve got your wee bouquet?”

  Abby patted her shoulder bag. “Safe and sound.” She glanced at Ronnie. “Thanks for coming with me today. I need the moral support.”

  Ronnie’s fuchsia lips pursed as she considered Abby thoughtfully. “Bart’s been known to lurk outside windows, but I never heard of him leaving anything like this. It’s creepy.”

  “My feelings exactly,” Abby said. “I’m hoping Connor Flynn can put a stop to it, though.” But her thoughts were far from Bart, and it was no use denying it any longer. “Part of me feels sick about slapping Ryan,” she said softly, “but there’s a little voice inside telling me he deserved it.”

  Ronnie pursed her lips. “It’s a tough one to call. He was out of line, for sure.” She stared pensively toward the churning, pewter sea. “It’s funny about Ryan. He’s known as this hard, unforgiving man. As someone you’d never want to be caught on the wrong side of, but there’s another aspect to him, you know?”

  Abby’s stomach was tied in knots, and for some reason this revelation only seemed to pull them tighter. “What aspect would that be?” she said, refusing to entertain the notion that Ryan could possibly have another side. “The one that impales his victims on nine-foot spikes?”

  “No,” Ronnie said, patiently as a tormented saint. “The one that cares. I’ll tell you now, there’s no other man you’d rather have in your corner when the chips are down. He’d fight to the death for a friend, and I ought to know.”

  A twinge of jealousy pricked her—though why, she couldn’t say. Perhaps it was the memory of the years following her mother’s death. She was a child—defenseless with an absent father and no mother to love and protect her. There’d been no one willing to fight to the death for her. “Do tell,” she said, squelching the unsettling thoughts.

  They turned down Brigantine Way, a stiff gust of salty air buffeting their faces and making Abby think of beach glass and seaweed.

  “When I was nineteen,” said Ronnie, “I got involved with this guy—he was Ryan’s fleet captain. Very charming man, but he had a dark side, see.

  “The first time he hit me, I told myself that it was my fault. I can be a bit difficult. He even told me as much. By the time I’d been on the receiving end of a few good blows, I was feeling them clear to my heart. He battered the soul out of me, Abby. Made me feel as if that was the best I deserved, and he was doing me a favor by teaching me the error of my ways.”

  Abby’s insides squeezed at Ronnie’s quiet admission. She wanted to shush Ronnie, to tell her that it was all right, that it was all over, but something in the set of Ronnie’s shoulders made Abby hold back. This was a story her friend needed to tell.

  “Anyway,” Ronnie said, “one night I get a knock on my door. I was hiding out because I had a black eye—something I rarely got because he knew how to make things hurt without leaving marks, and he rarely left a bruise that wasn’t hidden by clothing.

  “I creep up to the door and peek through the hole, and who do you suppose was there?”

  “Ryan?” Abby asked quietly, already knowing the answer.

  Ronnie nodded. “He said he’d camp out in the hall if I didn’t let him in. So I did.”

  “What did he do?” She wasn’t certain she wanted the answer, wasn’t certain she wanted to like Ryan, and yet she’d seen something
in him, something deeper than his anger—and it had drawn her to him in a way that was as compelling as it was frightening. There was something of a vulnerable warrior within him, and Abby had no doubt that beguiling mix of contradictions had broken through many a woman’s defenses.

  “He got real red in the face when he saw my eye. He took me to the couch and said that he’d figured out what was going on, and that Steve—my boyfriend—had confessed the entire thing to him.”

  “He confessed?”

  “Well, it helped that Ryan had taken him out to sea, beaten the tar outta him and held him over the ocean by the scruff of the neck until he fessed up.”

  Abby’s eyes widened. “Yup. That would do it.”

  “Ryan told me that he’d personally put Steve on the ferry to the mainland with two hundred bucks in his pocket, and told him that if he ever set foot back on the island, he’d personally see to it that he disappeared.”

  A chill ran down Abby’s spine. “Ryan would kill him?”

  “Oh, I doubt that. It was likely a heat-of-the-moment type of comment. But he’d make his life a living hell.”

  But Abby wasn’t so sure. There was a passion within Ryan that seemed to burn white-hot, and Abby had no doubt that he would be capable of extreme measures when someone he cared about was in danger. “What did you do when Ryan told you?”

  Ronnie smiled sadly. “I screamed at him. Cried. Called him every name in the book. Told him that Steve was going to change. Hit him. Made his lip bleed.”

  Abby gaped. “And what did Ryan do?”

  “He let me do it. He just took it, like he was taking the lumps Steve deserved—letting me hurt him, letting me fight back, letting me get it all out, so there’d be none of Steve’s poison left in me. And then when I was ready, he held me while I cried, told me that I deserved better than Steve, rocked me back and forth.” Her breath was deep and slow. “I loved him that night. And I never stopped.”

  Abby patted Ronnie’s hand as it rested in the crook of her elbow. “That was good of him. And I’m sorry it happened to you. You do deserve better,” she said softly. “Did it work? Was Steve’s poison gone?”

  “Not for a long time,” Ronnie said. “But Ryan was a good friend—though sadly nothing more—and he gave me a jump start.”

  Abby bit her lip. A new, uncomfortable idea was niggling at her consciousness. If Ryan was that loyal to Ronnie, imagine how he would have defended his mother, if he’d had the opportunity. Perhaps all Ryan was doing was fighting back against the last tie to the abusers of his mother—and if that were the case, who could blame him? She shook her head minutely. Empathy for Ryan Brannigan was the last thing she wanted to feel…but like it or not, there it was.

  “Ryan’s had a hard go of it, though you’d never hear him admit it. First there was his father—whom you now know all about—and then his wife…”

  “He was married?” Abby’s cheeks flushed—the words had come out so loudly that Ronnie looked at her with an expression bordering on comical. She tried to smile but her lips felt tight and stiff. It disturbed her that Ryan had been married. Why?

  “Yes, he was married—and a right piece of work she was, let me tell you. She’s moved now. Wouldn’t have the nerve to show her face in town after what she did to him.”

  “What did she do?” Abby asked, suddenly wishing she’d had a chance to sample the Heaving Bosom before they’d left The Surf side.

  “What did she do?” Ronnie stared at her as if she’d just sprouted an extra head. “She left him, Abs. She up and left the man! How could she do that? He’s God’s gift, that man is, and she left him.”

  “Sometimes marriages break up,” Abby said reasonably.

  Ronnie gawked at her. “Maybe so, but a man like Ryan—a man who was born into heartbreak—you gotta love him fierce, or not at all. That’s the only decent way of it, Abby. You gotta love him enough that every hurt he ever had doesn’t matter anymore. You gotta love him enough that he dares to love you back. You’ve gotta love him that much, or bow out. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Ryan’s never been loved that way before. He hasn’t had the rough edges of his heart smoothed over yet. Only true love can do that, Abby, and that woman wasn’t capable of drawing it out of him.”

  Abby stared at Ronnie, momentarily shocked by the swell of protectiveness her friend’s words had stirred within her. In her mind’s eye, she could imagine the boy he had been—a child robbed of his father’s love and protection. It wasn’t, in fact, much different from how she had been all those years ago—and still was—for wasn’t there yet the ghost of the abandoned child secreted away in her heart, looking for the love that was snatched so cruelly from her? And wouldn’t she be willing to bet that the ghost of an abandoned child also hid within the heart of Ryan Brannigan?

  Suddenly, she saw her mother in a whole new light, and it distorted the perfect image Abby had created of her.

  “I feel terrible that my mother took his father.”

  She couldn’t believe this woman she’d thought of as angelic had stolen a man from his child’s cradle, stolen him from the wedding altar, from Cora. She raked her fingers through her hair, brought them back up to rub her temples. “I came here thinking—no, knowing—that I would learn about my mother’s past. I didn’t expect to hate the things I learned. How do I process this?”

  “Coming here was a gamble, Abby. You had to know that.”

  Abby nodded.

  “There’s something I’ve been wondering about,” Ronnie said cautiously. “I mean, I learned something about your mom, and I’m not sure if I ought to tell you or not.”

  Abby’s shoulders slumped. They came to a halt in front of O’Donnell’s Post and Petrol. “I’m not gonna like it, am I?”

  “No.”

  She considered—but only for a second. Abby squared her shoulders. “Tell me.”

  “Right,” said Ronnie, with a firm nod of the head. “Well, it seems the pregnant woman Douglas abandoned—whom we now know to be Cora—encountered your ma on the street and gave her a right talkin’ to. Asked where her sense of decency was, then apparently—and this is according to my Aunty Jane, who was right there buying her newspaper at the time—your ma said she couldn’t leave Douglas, that she loved him more than life itself and he loved her. Apparently she was right teary-eyed over the whole thing. Then, it seems your ma offered Cora money—said to use it to help with the baby, whom we now know to be Ryan.

  “Well, Cora got herself in a fine snit, said no way would she take money from a so-and-so, and that Celeste ought to tell that man she loved so much to get his sorry self to work and support his child.” Ronnie shook her head, seemingly agog. “I’m told it was a right brouhaha, is what.”

  Abby couldn’t take her eyes off Ronnie’s face, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. “What am I supposed to say to that?” she asked at last, her voice hardly more than a whisper, tears teetering on her lashes. “What can I possibly say, Ronnie?” The idea of running away from Destiny Bay was looking more attractive by the minute. She didn’t want to know these things, didn’t want them to be true.

  Ronnie grasped her hand. “Listen, you came here for knowledge, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you got it. Don’t judge your ma, Abby. Just look at the facts. Only the facts can lead you to the truth of what happened to your mother.”

  Abby started walking again. The police station had come into view, and Abby stared at it as if it were a beacon in a shifting sea. “I found something out, myself,” she said at last.

  “Oh? And what’s that?”

  Abby tucked her trembling fingers into her pockets. “The O’Donnells told me that my mother was scorned, called names, robbed…and she had a stalker.”

  “No!”

  Abby nodded. “And if that wasn’t enough, something even worse happened.”

  “Lord help the girl,” she said, shaking her head. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” she sai
d, shoulders falling. “The O’Donnells didn’t even know. But according to them, she just ‘faded away.’”

  “Come again?”

  “My grandmother was the only person who’d ever talk to me about my mother, and she described a very similar thing,” Abby said, staring at the age-old cobbles beneath her feet. “She said one minute, my mother was engaged in everything around her, and the next, it was like she’d vanished inside of herself. She was like a ghost,” she said, echoing the image Mavis had placed in her head. “Whatever happened to make her that way happened here, on this island, and I’m going to find out what.”

  “That was a long time ago, Abby,” Ronnie said.

  “Well, if there’s one thing I know about people on this island, it’s that they have long memories.”

  Ronnie folded her arms and nodded. “Yeah. Until someone starts asking questions. These people invented the code of silence.”

  “There’s more,” Abby said, biting her lip. “I mean, it might be nothing, or it might be something.”

  “You mean more than the footprints in the dirt beneath your bedroom window that may or may not have been left by Simon Gorham, the fact that Old Bart’s been peeking in at you, your coming to blows with Ryan, and the flowers Bart left for you? I couldn’t imagine that would be everything,” she said, her eyebrow lifted eloquently.

  “Yes,” Abby said. “More than all that.”

  “Saints preserve us. Hang on,” Ronnie said dramatically. She fished in her purse and withdrew a silver flask, and after offering Abby a swig—which she refused—downed a healthy portion, herself. “Okay, I’m good.”

  Abby couldn’t help grinning. She considered blurting it out for all of half a second, then reached for Ronnie’s flask, wincing as she downed a stinging mouthful.

  She wiped her tearing eyes. “I saw the Lady,” she said at last.

  “What lady?”

  Abby gave her a knowing look.