Tattered Innocence

by Ann Lee Miller

  “She’s not my girl.” Jake crossed the gang plank onto the Queen. “Later,” he tossed over his shoulder.

  The conversation with Leaf dredged up a memory he’d rather forget—the Gilford Prep Homecoming morning Summer Moll caught him poised on his ten-speed to fire the newspaper at her doorstep. He’d been high on a soccer win when he snagged a date to the dance with Summer, top contender for Gilford Prep Homecoming Queen.

  She stepped out of her Meridian Street mansion as he wound up for the Hail Mary it always took to land the paper at her door. His right arm froze, fingers gripping the Indianapolis Star. His left hand clenched around the front brake lever, nearly tumbling him over the handlebars.

  Summer marched up the cement path toward him, Angora cat slippers flopping beneath her jeans and cheerleading letter jacket. She stopped ten feet from him. “How long have you delivered our paper?” Her wide, green eyes blinked at him like she’d just learned a bomb had been dropped on Gilford Prep and her mind hadn’t quite processed the information.

  His gut spun, taking up where the whir and click of his wheels had stopped. “Sixth grade.” In five years, she’d never spied him slinging reality against the ivy-covered bricks that guarded her privileged life. Why couldn’t his luck have held for another twenty-four hours?

  Red splotched her round face. Full lips bunched under an adorable pug nose. He had dreamed of going out with her as long as he could remember.

  “I—uh—I have to go to Homecoming with Justin. I promised him a long time ago. We just got back together.”

  She should have just said The Homecoming Queen can’t be escorted by a paper boy.

  Justin Healey’s daddy was a CEO. Justin had gotten a Miata for his sixteenth birthday and drove his Jeep to school when he was slumming.

  Once in a while Mom let Jake drive the family minivan to Saturday soccer practice.

  Jake jerked a pedal backwards into place. “Last I checked the caste system stayed in India. You might regret—”

  “I already do.” She spun, her slippers flouncing against the concrete as she stomped toward the house.

  He rifled the paper past her shoulder, and it smacked against the dark varnish of her front door.

  She jumped.

  “Not as much as I do.” He pumped down the block, hurling papers like wartime grenades from the sack slung across his chest.

  He should have gone to the dance anyway, just to see the look on Summer’s face when Jenna Braithwaite scored Homecoming Queen. But it wouldn’t have done much to comfort him.

  The memory still ate at him over a decade later.

  Gabrielle had given him a glimpse of what it would be like not to spend the rest of his life on the outside looking in. He’d never wanted money from Gabs. He’d pulled down a healthy income in the corporate world for six years. If money was his goal, he never would have bought the Queen.

  He’d fallen in love with Gabs before he had a clue she was old money—that first night he’d seen her at the Sacred Heart Church festival. Surrounded by children in the story booth, she’d been the picture of what he wanted in life—beauty, love, family. He hadn’t realized it until that moment.

  But the first time he met her mother, he knew. The woman reeked old money. The buried hunger to belong to her segment of society—the Gilford Preps who had rejected him—resurrected. He wasn’t proud of it. In fact, Leaf was the only person he’d ever told.

  He’d heard enough snide comments about “new money” to get that money didn’t buy their acceptance. Marriage was the only ticket in. He would have married Gabrielle if she’d grown up in the projects. But her pedigree—one that meant less than nothing to her—was a bonus he would have appreciated.

  The photograph of Rachel’s folks she’d tacked to the bulkhead in the aft cabin showed her mother in a Winn Dixie uniform and her father in a New Smyrna Beach Parks and Recreation work shirt. Rachel had probably never stepped foot into a country club.

  During the day, tasks and socializing crowded out thoughts of Bret, but at night, even after a month with no contact, Rachel’s mind swam in memories. She lay in her bunk wishing she’d stayed topside till her eyes drooped shut.

  The members of the Okeechobee Adventure Club, senior citizens who took offbeat excursions, had long gone to sleep. At eleven p.m., moist July heat still blanketed her.

  Her mind wandered to an afternoon three years ago.

  She’d stopped in after school to drop off the list of swim team warm-ups left over from the previous year. Bret was Mr. Rustin, then, the heart-throb first-year teacher all the teens and staff sighed over.

  She paused outside his classroom, stunned to see his lanky arms pretzeled around a tiny baby in a tan terrycloth sleeper with puppy feet. Reminding her of newborn Hall, the little boy’s tiny fingers curled into fists on Bret’s chest. His eyes blinked as Bret murmured to him.

  Bret silenced when Rachel walked in, his ears turning red. “My wife has a doctor’s appointment….”

  “Here’s the list you wanted.”

  “What? E-mail down again?”

  “Something like that.” He didn’t need to know e-mail tortured her dyslexic brain. No good had ever come from revealing her handicap. “May I hold the baby?”

  He shifted the baby into her arms and she caught the musk scent of his aftershave.

  “He’s beautiful.”

  Adoration washed Bret’s face as he gazed at his child, and Rachel had been hooked ever since.

  Jake listened for Rachel’s regular breathing in the darkness, but heard only the lap of the water against the hull. Even the rigging was silent in the airless night.

  The heat of the night pressed in on him. “You awake?”

  He heard Rachel move. “Yeah. Too hot.”

  “Want to make a Dr. Pepper run?” He stared through the blackness trying to see her, but no moon or starlight came through the hatch. “Months ago, I mapped out groceries and marine supply stores, hospitals along our regular route just in case. There should be a gas station within a mile of shore.”

  Her bunk creaked. “Why not?”

  He grabbed his tennis shoes, socks, and a T-shirt out of the bins under his bunk without needing a light and headed topside.

  The dinghy swayed as he lowered himself onto the center seat. Rachel’s form moved down the aft ladder. He heard her foot slip off the last rung, and he grabbed her arm. She landed with a thump in the bottom of the boat. He let go, his palm and fingers recording the firm, smooth feel of her biceps, his mind trying to forget it.

  The cloud cover passed, revealing stars and a quarter-moon. He threaded an oar into the port oarlock while Rachel inserted the starboard. He dug the oars through the water, his gaze settling on Rachel’s silhouette against the transom and the Queen anchored behind her. The oars crashed through the water in the quiet. He grunted as he picked up speed, aiming the bow toward the lights of the key. His lungs filled and released salty, fishy air.

  Rachel trailed her fingers in the ocean. “This feels like sneaking out of church camp.”

  His jaw clenched. Church and Gabs intertwined in his head.

  “Who’s the other church girl?” she asked as though she read his mind.

  None of your business. “Look for a good spot to land.”

  Rachel pushed up onto her knees and scanned the shoreline behind him. “Mangrove swamp on the starboard.” She pointed over his shoulder. “Twelve o’clock, there, a clear place to land.”

  He turned around to glance at the beach. The dinghy slid into the grainy sand. He pulled in the oars and sprang over the bow.

  Rachel followed.

  In wordless sync, they heaved the boat onto the beach.

  He plowed through the thigh-high saw grass and scattered palmettos.

  Sand spurs raked his ankles.

  Rachel’s footfalls sounded close behind him.

  At last, he stepped onto the dirt road.

  Rachel came up beside him and matched his stride as they walked toward th
e glow of civilization.

  He chuckled and kicked a rock. It veered off into the dense palmetto growth at the side of the road.

  “What’s so funny?”

  He lifted his eyebrows as if she should know.

  “What?”

  “Snuck out of church camp, huh?”

  Moonlight spotlighted her. She shrugged.

  “What are you sneaking out of this time?”

  Rachel’s Converses scuffed to a halt on the dirt road.

  For once, he was the one putting her on edge. “How do you like the back end of a nosey question?”

  She pressed her lips together and started walking again.

  He jogged to catch up. The sweetness of making Rachel uncomfortable whisked away in the breeze. He wanted to know her answer. “What are you running from?”

  Rachel folded her arms across her chest. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  He’d wait her out.

  The moon washed her face and the white of her jersey as they walked. Tiny freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks. Gramps would have said she was easy on the eyes, but he’d rather be in the sticks of Marathon Key with Gabs.

  Determination settled across her features. “Fine.” She hesitated. “I got too close to a co-worker—a married guy—with kids. The guilt piled up and avalanched. Here I am.” The words came out in a rush. Then, she glared at him as if he’d tricked her into spilling.

  He whistled. “And you, a church girl.” He felt like they were nine-year-olds playing Truth or Dare, and he’d just extracted something she’d always regret revealing.

  “It doesn’t come with a get-out-of-stupid-choices-free card.”

  “Stupid, maybe, but you walked away. You did the right thing.”

  He only wanted to get out of one stupid choice. He’d known Gabrielle was religious, that she’d decided to wait for marriage. It wouldn’t have killed him to wait another six weeks. Who knew Gabs would go psycho. He would have been married by now.

  They hiked past a dimmed grocery toward a yellow neon shell on a pole.

  A lone florescent light hummed inside the locked repair bay, and a Pepsi machine glowed red and white around the corner of the building.

  He pulled change from his pocket and dropped quarters into Rachel’s palm.

  “Thanks.”

  But Rachel was the one who had given him a gift—trusting him with something that shamed her.

  They sat on the station’s curb, drinking Dr. Pepper, picking sand spurs off their socks, and tossing them onto the grease-stained cement.

  “So you want to be a mom?”

  Rachel shrugged.

  “Guess this job took you off the playing field.” Not that she’d have any trouble attracting a guy on her days off. But she probably needed time to get the loser out of her system.

  “That’s one way of putting it.” Hurt laced her voice.

  His gaze jerked to her face. “I meant crewing is a hard job when you’re shopping for a husband.”

  “What? Do I look desperate?” Rachel stood and stalked down the road. “Remind me to keep my secrets to myself.”

  Jake jogged to catch up. “If you’d given me a chance to talk instead of going off on me, I was going to apologize for the sacrifice you’re making to crew for me.”

  Rachel stepped off the paved road onto dirt. “Working for you is not a sacrifice.” Her anger winged away as quickly as it had come. “Anyway—” She eyed him. “Your social life is zippo, too.”

  How did she do that—stab a can opener into his gut? Irritation seeped out of the hole—at Gabs, himself, Rachel. He hurled his empty Dr. Pepper can. It landed with a noisy clank and skittered down the road. “My life is crap.”

  Gabs had shoved the United States between them. He hadn’t bothered to visit his family in the year since Gramps died. At twenty-eight he was launching the sailing business he and Gramps had dreamed of for years. Alone.

  Chapter 5

  Rachel peered through the companionway at Jake polishing the ship’s wheel. His curls bounced with each movement. Her gaze returned to the grocery list on the salon table in front of her, the hardest part of her job. She rubbed her neck to stave off the headache that came from over-concentrating.

  Jake had never inspected her list, but he might. Her normal dyslexic shorthand made her look like the village idiot. Even if it took her three times as long, she’d pen perfect grocery lists and menus. Jake would never find out if she could help it. With student assistants and using the phone whenever possible, she’d hidden her dyslexia for five years from the athletic director. She’d certainly learned the hard way that people thought dyslexia shaved points off her IQ. Sometimes they even slowed their speech and annunciated carefully around her.

  July fifteenth. She hadn’t seen Bret in the six weeks she’d been sailing the Smyrna Queen. Perfect sobriety—no calls, no texts, no face time. If Bret had cared for her at all, he would have tried to contact her. Her fingers brushed the locket at her neck. Even if he hadn’t cared, she had.

  She glanced back at Jake as he hefted the cockpit bench to stow his cleaning supplies. Jake and sailing had turned out to be methadone to her Bret habit. But what was the methadone for her guilt?

  A whisper of a memory flitted through her mind—Bret telling her he loved her in the dark on the beach.

  Oh, God. It was almost a prayer. She didn’t want Bret—really—a man with a character flaw the size of Florida. Amazing how much more clearly she thought now.

  An evening she spent with Bret spun in the background of her mind like a CD on constant replay. Thank God crewing kept her busy enough to drown out the scene for chunks of her week. But in quiet moments like this, the memory blared.

  She had swung open her apartment door to Bret standing on the landing. The TV mumbled from the corner of the room, and an apple spice candle burned on the scuffed coffee table. Her roommate, Cat, wouldn’t be home from work until eleven-thirty like every Thursday night.

  “Hey.” Bret’s eyes searched her face. He kissed her, his mustache wisping against her skin, stepped into the living room, then tossed his keys and wallet on the coffee table and dropped onto the futon.

  Rachel shoved the door closed with her foot. “Right on time, seven o’clock.” Their once a week date.

  Bret quirked one light brow. “Like last Thursday?”

  “Something came up.” The interview with Jake, then a solitary walk on the beach.

  Bret frowned. “Maybe you could have stopped by my classroom and told me.” The emergency dire enough to break their no texting, no calling rule would never happen.

  Rachel turned her back on him and gazed out the window at the overflowing dumpsters behind the theatre across the street. “It’s my life.”

  He patted the cushion beside him. “Come sit. Let’s talk about this like adults.”

  Rachel sank down, her back stiff. Wary.

  Bret sat back. “You know I stayed away from you as long as I could. But this thing between us is too strong.”

  Bret scooted toward her and pulled her closer. He nuzzled her neck. “Come on, I haven’t broken my wedding vows, and I don’t plan on it.” He nibbled on her ear.

  She pulled away, and he sighed.

  “Rachel, I don’t think you have any idea how pretty you are—those deep brown eyes, your long, lean lines, your silky hair that curls around my fingers.” He combed his fingers through her hair. “Your hair has strands of milk-chocolate, dark-chocolate, red, blond…Your lips—” He rolled his head toward her. “Did you know I imagined that kiss in the pump house a hundred times before it happened?”

  Excitement knotted under her ribs. “I thought it happened by accident.”

  Bret grinned at her. “Why do you think I asked you to be my assistant swim coach?”

  “That was first semester. You didn’t kiss me until March.”

  “I fought the attraction—since the day you held Colton—we both did. After almost three years of dreaming of that kiss….
But you’re the prettiest female at New Smyrna Beach High. I didn’t have a chance.”

  Her eyes widened, then narrowed to slits. “Right. Guys still call me Legs from junior high when I was a head taller than all of them.”

  Bret chuckled. “Knocking them on their butts on the basketball court probably didn’t do you any favors.”

  Rachel smiled.

  “I, on the other hand, am not threatened by tall, athletic women.”

  “That’s because I never knocked you on your butt.”

  Bret’s lips stretched into a bittersweet smile. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  Oh.

  He took a deep breath. “Yeah, I remember that kiss. It went something like this.” He touched his lips to hers, gently probing. “You’re so sweet.” He leaned in, pressing his lips more firmly on hers. His fingers threaded into her hair.

  Bret had dreamed about kissing her since that first day in his classroom? The seconds ticked by. Delicious warmth curled in her stomach.

  Bret moaned and his hand moved to her hip.

  Rachel broke the kiss and pushed his hand away.

  “You’re killing me, Rachel.”

  She held herself away from him. “You’re the one who says we’re not going to have sex, but I’m the one who always has to slam on the brakes.”

  “Who said anything about sex? I know you’re religious. I respect that.” He ran a hand over his fine, blond buzz. “We’re just enjoying being together. I love you. God knows we have so little happiness, so little time. ”

  “Your mouth says one thing, but your hands say something else.” She hated the petulant tone in her voice.

  Hurt sliced through his eyes. “We’re Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky. We’re Cathy and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights.”

  His English teacher references to books she’d never read, never would read, made her feel stupid. “Would you ever leave Sheri for me?”

  “I want to—with every fiber of my being.” He traced her jaw with a finger, agony flashing through his eyes. “But I made a commitment to her, to my kids.” His finger drifted down her neck, past her collarbone.