Tattered Innocence

by Ann Lee Miller

  George wiped sweat from his bald head and face with a wilting handkerchief. “So, all I have to worry about is the captain’s skill on his maiden voyage, eh?” He squinted at Jake.

  “That’s right—second mate.” Jake slapped George on the back. “Always need somebody aboard who knows enough to worry.”

  George’s chuckle floated toward Rachel as she took the children below. Okay, so Jake wasn’t always surly.

  Jake’s voice filtered through the open hatch. “Check out my certification tacked to the bulkhead. I had to put in seven hundred and twenty sailing days and take seven exams to get licensed by the Coast Guard.”

  In the engine room, her gaze settled on Jake’s desk. Rows of books anchored with elastic shock cords lined the hull—how-to-sail, sailboat repair and maintenance, and marketing textbooks. Her eyes caught on a dog-eared Bible. A bizarre book for a guy who nearly axed her job for mentioning church.

  Katie’s arms circled her and squeezed. “I like you.”

  Rachel smashed the mommy-ache into a tiny foil ball. Bret sure wasn’t going to daddy-up for the job.

  An hour later, Rachel could almost feel Bret ripping from her like a scab as the Queen sliced through the ocean, the mouth of the Intracoastal shrinking behind them. She clung to a forestay, the salty wind stinging her wound.

  Jake came up behind her. “I need a crewman, not a figurehead.”

  She faced him. “Excuse me for taking a two-minute break for the first time all day.”

  “Take down the jib.”

  “You’re not paying me enough to put up with your lip.”

  Jake’s eyes clamped on hers. “My lip?”

  Breath moved in and out of her lungs too quickly, making her lightheaded. She’d get herself fired before the first cruise ended.

  His jaw clenched. He turned and stalked back to the helm.

  She wasn’t angry with Jake, only provoked enough to zing him. Sparring with Jake was her personal World of Warcraft—good entertainment when she could get it. She loosed the jib halyard and brought down the sail. Sailing and the kids had already rubbed salve into her rending from Bret.

  Two days later, Rachel sprawled on the deck, playing “I Spy” with Katie, who was nearly swallowed up in an orange lifejacket. Cole, his hair sticking out in tufts from under his ball cap, kibitzed nearby.

  “Rachel!” Jake shouted against the wind.

  “What?” she yelled back.

  “Check the depth. The pole is on the starboard foredeck. We draw six feet, but I want eight to ten with all this seaweed.”

  Not taking time to pull a T-shirt over her Speedo swimsuit, Rachel scrambled over the top of the cabin to snatch the pole. She sounded for the bottom with quick jabs of Jake’s world’s-longest-mop-handle.

  They sailed at four knots, she calculated. She called out the measurements notched into the wood, “Seven feet… seven and a half… seven and a half―”

  The pole stuck fast in the mud. In a split-second reflex, Rachel clung to the stick and the Smyrna Queen sailed out from under her feet.

  She felt the pole sink deeper in the mud while she suspended over the ocean like a human shish kabob. “Hey, wait! Jacob Murray, don’t you dare leave me here! You come back and get me this minute!” She slid toward the water, her life-long fear of abandonment freakishly played out. She could feel her rational mind shutting down in slow motion like hitches in a YouTube video.

  Katie jumped up and down on the deck screeching, “Grandpa, Grandpa, Rachel lost the boat!” Rachel caught a fleeting glimpse of Cole’s white face as her feet touched water. “This water is freezing!” she yelled at the Queen’s transom. “It’s your fault, Jake. Your fault. Why didn’t you tell me there was mud down here?” Cold fingers of water climbed her ribs as she inched down the pole.

  In up to her neck and treading water with one hand, her foot kicked against slimy kelp fronds. No one could hear her now. I hate seaweed. Jaws could be hiding in here. Her chest quivered. This was what alone felt like. A chill crawled up her scalp as her hair slurped seawater, morphing into a dozen soggy snakes.

  Water lapped into her mouth and she spit out the salty taste and her fear. She peered over her shoulder at the shoreline. She could swim that far if she had to. In the distance, she saw the Queen’s sails drop. The anchor would be next. At least Jake wasn’t going to leave her. But she knew he wouldn’t start the motor in this shallow water and risk getting seaweed tangled in the propeller. Did he expect her to swim for the Queen?

  Several minutes later she watched him drop into the dinghy and row toward her. “Hurry up, I’m freezing!” she yelled when he rowed into earshot. She counted five seconds, watching the muscles flex across his back and arms as he stroked, until he glanced over his shoulder at her. Eons later, he coasted up beside her.

  He grabbed her forearms and hauled her into the boat, his lips zipped into a white line of anger. Rachel landed in a lump on the bottom of the dinghy. Jake braced his legs and yanked the pole from the ocean in one heave. The pole clattered where he dropped it—one end extended over the bow, the other oozing mud into the water behind the dinghy.

  Rachel wrapped herself into a ball and narrowed her eyes at Jake as he skimmed an oar through the water with powerful strokes, spinning the bow back toward the Queen.

  Before the thought fully formed in her mind, she threw herself at Jake, soaking him with her sodden hair, suit, and skin.

  He fell back off the seat and caught himself before hitting his head on the bow of the boat. “What the―?”

  She untangled herself from his limbs and squatted on the bottom of the boat. “There. See how you like being a cryogenics experiment in this wind.”

  Jake pulled himself back onto the seat, squinting at Rachel as though she’d come totally unglued. She lifted her chin and stared over his shoulder toward the horizon.

  Jake peeled off his T-shirt and flung it at her. He jerked his head. “Come here.” He slid to one side of the bench.

  Rachel pulled Jake’s damp shirt over her head, poked her arms through the sleeves, and crawled onto the plank.

  Jake rubbed her arms as if he were trying to sand off her gooseflesh with his callused hands. “This will warm you up.” He slapped an oar into her hands. “Stroke… stroke… stroke… stroke….”

  Rachel gritted her chattering teeth and rowed. He acted like such an oaf. But maybe she’d warmed a tenth of a degree.

  Applause ruffled across the afterdeck as they approached the Queen.

  “You’ve got a feisty one there, Cap’n. Yes sir.” George heckled. “I wouldn’t get into a fight with her if I were you. Bet she keeps you in line.”

  The others laughed with George while Katie clung to her grandpa’s hand, staring at Rachel as though she’d come back from the dead. Cole flashed his dimples at her.

  Holding fast to the Queen with one hand, Jake propelled Rachel up the ladder with an iron grip under her armpit.

  “Would it have killed you to join this century and spring for an electronic depth sounder?” she muttered. She kicked at him, wishing for a better angle as her toes barely connected with his ribs. The brute. She’d sport a collection of bruises by tomorrow.

  Tremors of embarrassment or chill―she couldn’t tell which―shook her body, forcing her lip between her teeth as she bumbled up the ladder and ducked into the nearby after-cabin. Later, Jake climbed down the ladder into the room.

  She ran the brush through her wet hair, temper cooled, chagrin settling in. “Jake?”

  He grunted through the clean T-shirt he pulled over his face.

  “Sorry about all the drama.”

  He sat on the edge of his bunk and pulled on a sock. “Evidently, our guests find hysteria entertaining.” He finished tying his shoe and stood to leave.

  Rachel studied the pinpoints of black in the brown of his eyes. She knew the whole episode had been an accident, but Jake’s disdain still stung. “Gabrielle wouldn’t have put on a show?”

  He climbed up
the ladder. “Gabrielle’s not here.”

  After cleaning up the galley from supper, Rachel dangled her legs over the gunwale, swinging her feet back and forth over the orange-tinted water rippling against the hull.

  Jake’s voice drifted toward her. “Story from the Captain tonight, kids?”

  Maybe Jake would roll out another facet to his taciturn personality, one she wanted a front row seat to watch. The anchor chain creaked as she stood. The last day of their first cruise sizzled into the Atlantic as she followed Jake’s green and gold University of South Florida Sailing Team T-shirt through the open hatch.

  Jake flicked the label that curled under Cole’s chin. Cole’s inside-out, backward pajama shirt reminded her of Hall at seven.

  “Move over, you heffalumps.”

  The kids scooted down the bunk, and Jake sat beside them.

  Rachel slid between Jake and the bulkhead. Invited or not, she wasn’t missing this. Her bare arm pressed against his. Her eyes darted to his face, but he launched into a story without glancing her way.

  “One day Gramps was hunting in the woods…”

  Rachel leaned forward, breaking contact with Jake, to peer at the kids. Cole’s eyes sparkled, and he looked like he was holding his breath. Katie curled up inside her pink, polka-dotted nightie, wide-eyed, chewing on her fingers.

  The four of them stuffed into the tiny cabin felt like a family. But they weren’t. Rachel blinked back tears, feeling silly, while Jake’s voice filled the cabin with the frantic howls of a man running from a grizzly.

  Jake glanced at her. “What do you think my Gramps did, Rachel?” He shot her a what’s-wrong-with-you look.

  Rachel couldn’t push any words past the tightness in her throat.

  Jake shook his head as if she were a nutcase and went on with the story.

  She wouldn’t be so eager for the next stage of life if she didn’t miss mothering Hall. Even if she hadn’t been MIA from Hall’s life for the last several months, at eighteen, he was long over mothering—even if she wasn’t.

  Jake paused dramatically and finished the story. “He held the bear’s paws around the tree―until the bear starved to death.”

  Katie clapped her hands. “Yay!”

  “Tell us another one,” Cole said.

  “Not tonight, champ.” Jake rumpled Cole’s hair. “Wrestle you for the top bunk?”

  “Cool.” Cole threw himself on Jake while Katie and Rachel cleared out.

  Rachel hoisted Katie to her hip in the doorway and watched Jake and Cole roll around on the bunk. Before Cole could protest, Jake had him snugly tucked into the top bunk, still smiling.

  “And you, squirt.” Jake turned to Katie. “Are you going to let your big brother be the only one tucked in by the Captain”

  Katie’s eyes popped open wide. She slipped out of Rachel’s arms, clambered onto the bunk, and flopped onto her pillow.

  Jake pulled the sheet up to her chin and whispered something in her ear. Cole’s hair got rumpled one last time.

  Rachel felt Jake’s breath on her cheek as he brushed past her in the narrow passageway. A smile played on his lips as he moved into the main salon.

  “Jacob Murray, you would make a good daddy,” Rachel murmured, surprised she’d said it aloud.

  His eyes darkened, and his thick, wheat-colored brows flinched together. “I used to think so.”

  She sat down on the salon bench with a thud and watched him climb up the ladder and out of the cabin. Yeah, I used to think I’d make a good mom, too.

  Rachel took the suitcase George handed up through the hatch. She didn’t want to say goodbye to George or any of their guests. She hadn’t expected to get so attached in five days.

  Cole flew into Rachel’s arms where she stood in the cockpit, displacing the lump of sadness from her breastbone. Rachel peered over his shoulder at Katie and pried herself loose. “You’re hugging the stuffing out of me.”

  Cole clambered onto the cabin. “I had to give you a grizzly bear hug so you’d remember me.”

  “I promise I’ll never forget you, even if I live to be as old as your grandpa.” She winked at Lyle.

  Cole leaped down onto the deck. “Wow!”

  Katie tried to smile, but her lower lip quivered. “Will you remember me, too?” Her blond ponytail bobbed behind her.

  Rachel scooped Katie up and spun her around. “I’ll remember you every time I look in the mirror because we both have the same freckles on our noses.” She set Katie down in front of her, nose-to-nose.

  “I love you,” Katie said.

  “I love you, too.”

  Rachel blinked away tears as she watched the children ricochet down the dock after their grandparents. No matter how many books she struggled through, reading never got easier, but loving kids had never been a challenge. And they loved her back.

  “You’ll make a good mom,” Jake said from where he sprawled in the corner of the cockpit.

  Rachel spun toward him, warmth dousing her.

  Jake mashed his captain’s hat over his eyes and half his curls.

  She lay down on her stomach on the cockpit bench and rested her cheek on the cool seat cushion. “If I admit that motherhood is my preferred career choice, people look at me like I should get in line for welfare for my lack of ambition.” She scrunched her eyes shut. When would she learn to keep her mouth shut?

  “If no one wanted to reproduce, humanity would end with our generation,” Jake said around the broom straw in his mouth.

  She glanced at him, but he hadn’t moved. Jake wasn’t such a bad boss if you overlooked his sour disposition. A workaholic, he always seemed to show up when she needed an extra hand to get a meal on the table or was swamped in dirty pots.

  What kind of man lived under the hurt?

  Rachel’s arm dangled over the edge of the seat. The Queen gently bobbed. I’m glad we met, old gal. She yawned. If you needed a friend to keep you away from the wrong guy, a biker-chick boat was a good choice. Maybe she could get through these two days in port without calling Bret.

  Jake slit open his eyes and peered at the damp lashes resting on Rachel’s face, the thick curls fanning across the cockpit cushion. Gramps would call Rachel a godsend.

  He spit the tip of the broom straw he’d been chewing overboard. The first cruise had been good. Very good. Even the hole Gabs had gouged out of him felt fuzzy around the edges like an artsy photograph.

  A church girl. Had God sent Rachel? With that mouth? Not a chance. He spit another piece of straw overboard.

  At night in the dark, pain packed the silence between them. His pain. Hers. He didn’t know what it was, but he’d bet the Queen Rachel had a story to tell.

  Chapter 4

  After their first cruise docked and Rachel had left for the weekend, Jake bagged up a large margarine tub of leftover spaghetti, stale garlic bread, six brownies, and a tired looking bunch of celery. He crossed the finger pier to Leaf’s Escape and knocked on the cabin.

  A muffled, “Hidey hi,” came from behind the closed hatch, then Leaf’s head poked out.

  Jake handed the plastic Winn Dixie bag through the hatch to Leaf. “Brought you leftovers.”

  Leaf peeked into the bag, popping open the margarine container. “I don’t know if I should keep taking your surplus. That pasta will go straight to my arthritis. And chocolate, oh my—”

  “Quit your moaning. You love chocolate.”

  Leaf laughed uneasily. “Yeah, I do, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for me.” He deposited the booty below and climbed into the cockpit. “How’s the new girl working out?”

  “No complaints.” Jake chuckled, remembering Rachel’s trip overboard.

  Leaf quirked a brow.

  Jake relayed the story. “You should have seen her arms and legs churning up the water like a poodle on its back.”

  “Ten to one she took it better than your high-rent girl.”

  Jake stretched his lips into a flat line. Gabs would have been cured of sailing on t
he spot, but he wasn’t about to admit it to Leaf. “Rachel screamed her head off.”

  “She ‘bout has ‘I heart sailing’ tattooed on her caboose.”

  Jake fought a grin. “If you’re so interested, maybe I should get you to do the hiring next time.”

  “Looks like you did fine with the hiring. Picking a girlfriend is where you need help.”

  “Ouch. Take it easy. I love Gabs.”

  Leaf shrugged. “Don’t know for certain if she’s our kind of folks.”

  “Maybe she was my ticket out of being our kind of folks.”

  Leaf spat overboard. “Might as well sign up for cotillion classes.”

  “My gramps paid private school tuition for me, my sister, and two brothers. I made it through kindergarten and first grade without realizing every other kid in the school was loaded.”

  “That long?”

  “In first grade, all that mattered was Gilford Prep’s playground being ten times better than the one at the public elementary.”

  “Materialistic little cuss, weren’t you?”

  Jake eyed Leaf, weighing whether to share the memory that popped into his mind. “I must have been seven when a kid invited me to Disney on Ice. The guy’s mom took one look at my scuffed Champions and high-waters and made a detour to Dillard’s to buy me shoes, socks, belt, shirt, and a sweatshirt jacket with softer fleece than a stuffed animal. I would have loved that jacket if it hadn’t been charity. That’s when I vowed I’d belong in their world someday.”

  Jake stepped onto the finger pier. “Who says they deserved the swimming pools, Porsches, and trips to Antigua more than I did? I’m good enough to live in their world.”

  “I got more money than I can spend and it doesn’t make me one of them.”

  Jake’s mouth dropped open. He didn’t know whether to believe Leaf or not. The only job Leaf had, so far as Jake knew, was selling hot dogs out of a stand on the beach.

  Leaf shrugged. “Grew up in the Depression. Never did learn how to spend money. All I’m sayin’ is your girl, Rachel, is a better sailor than Miss Country Club.”