Last Kiss

by Luanne Rice

  Why was every question a challenge? Why was every touch a line drawn in the sand? Why did their protected harbor suddenly feel about to be breached by the worst storm in the world?

  Staring down at the beach, she saw Jack standing on the boardwalk. He stared out at Gavin’s boat as if he wished he were on board and could cruise away. Stevie stared at the man she loved and wondered whether this was the summer everything she loved would collapse.

  Because that’s how it felt.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE SQUIRE TOBY TUGGED ON ITS ANCHOR LINE IN the outgoing tide, in the warm breeze of the mid-August night. Gavin was down below, waiting for the rest of the fax to come through. His satellite signal was strong here, and he could transmit and receive just as fast as at the office.

  Judy had offered to come aboard, to help him collate, but he’d said he thought he could handle it; there was only one woman he wanted here. He leaned against the chart table, keeping weight off his foot. He had just started to read the first few pages of the police report on the death of Charles Rosslare when he heard, above the whirring fax, the soft splashing of oars.

  He climbed up on deck, looked across the water. A lone figure steadily rowing an old wooden rowboat came straight out from the end of the beach: Sheridan. He couldn’t believe it; it was almost as if his feelings were so strong, he’d willed her to come. When she drew alongside, he gestured for her to tie the line to the boarding ladder. He gave her his hand as she climbed aboard.

  “How’d you know I was here?” he asked.

  “It wasn’t too hard,” Sheridan said. “I knew it had to involve a boat, and this one arrived at Hubbard’s Point exactly when you did. I can see it from my house.”

  “Hmm,” he said, not mentioning that it worked both ways: he could see her house from here, and he’d barely taken his eyes off it.

  “You always did love the water…”

  “That’s for sure,” he said. “Well, welcome aboard.”

  “She’s pretty,” she said.

  “Let me show you around,” he said, taking her on a tour. He gave her the whole spiel, the fine points of his classic thirty-three-foot Chris-Craft Futura. They went below, and she admired the mahogany he’d recently finished stripping and redoing.

  Sheridan glanced at the chart table, at the bookcases, at the teak floor. Standing in the galley area, she seemed to take notice of the fact he’d pulled out most of the cabinets to install more electronics—including the fax, still pumping out pages of Charlie’s autopsy. Gavin slid them all under a chart before she could see what they were, steering her forward.

  “This is where you sleep?” she asked, peeking into the v-berth built into the bow.

  “Yes,” he said. He watched her gaze sweep through the small space, coming to rest on a photo of her—a beautiful one, taken here at Hubbard’s Point when they were still together—he always kept on the shelf within sight of his pillow. She immediately looked away, pretending she hadn’t seen it. He felt himself redden, and limped awkwardly back through the cabin and onto the deck.

  “You have a beautiful boat,” she said, following him into the fresh air. He pulled out a chair for her, and one for him, and sat beside her under the stars. The sky was bright, but heavy air was moving in. Tomorrow would be muggy, with afternoon thunderstorms.

  “Thanks,” he said. He kept his face impassive, so she wouldn’t get any idea of how often he’d dreamed of this moment, of her coming aboard.

  “Must take a lot of work, keeping her up.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You’ve probably heard the jokes about owning a wooden boat: it’s cheaper and easier to just stand in a cold shower all day, ripping up money. But to me it’s worth it. Chris-Craft used to advertise the Futura as ‘the Jaguar of the Cruisers.’ She’s a great boat, and my home.”

  “You live on board all the time?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “Keeps me mobile—I can go wherever the work is. Might take me a few days, or more, to get there, but once I arrive, I’ve got my home base right there.”

  “No hotels for you,” she said.

  “Nope.”

  “What made you do it?” she asked.

  “Decide to live on my boat?”

  “I mean, become a detective. That’s what you are, right?”

  Gavin shrugged. “I put ‘consultant’ on my taxes. I’m a lot of things.”

  “You work for Vinnie?”

  “Sometimes. You know I do,” Gavin said patiently.

  She glared at him. “What I mean is, do you still work for him?”

  “Well, I still base out of his office, but I’m pretty much freelance.”

  They stared at each other. Sheridan had hired her old friend Vincent de Havilland to get her through what amounted to a messy divorce. She and Randy Quill, Charlie’s father, were married for less than two years, but that didn’t keep him from going after everything Sheridan had.

  They had gotten together not long after Sheridan had broken up with Gavin. He gazed at her now, thinking of the million things he’d done wrong. To him, they were living proof that opposites attract.

  Although they’d both lived on the same side of the railroad line in their summers here at Hubbard’s Point, there was no question about him coming from the wrong side of the tracks. His father had joined the Navy, like his father before him, and had died suddenly, when Gavin was just six, of a burst appendix aboard ship. Gavin remembered his mother crying. He’d tried to comfort her, and deep down he’d remembered what his father had said, before leaving the dock in Newport—that Gavin had to be the man of the family while he was gone.

  It hurt him, seeing how hard his mother had to work to take care of him and be able to keep their house, knowing how tired she was. They’d lived in a working-class neighborhood in Central Falls, Rhode Island, the top floor of a two-family house. The washing machine never worked, so his mother would send him to the Laundromat with all their clothes and a pocketful of quarters. He liked doing it, trying to help her.

  When he was ten, an older kid tried to steal all his money. Gavin had seen him waiting at the corner, a cigarette cupped in one hand, his pocketknife in the other. Gavin knew he should just cross the street, but he wasn’t built that way, and walked right by the kid. In spite of the weapon, Gavin had fought with everything he had. He’d wound up with two black eyes and his cheek sliced by a rusty Buck knife.

  But worse than the physical wounds was the shame he’d felt, the sense of letting his mother—and father—down. The money was gone—three dollars that his mother had worked so hard for. That kid had taken it as if it was nothing—had just knocked Gavin down and stolen every last quarter. That school year, Gavin had seen the kid walking down the hall and had run at him, fists pounding, legs kicking. He was half the older boy’s size, but he’d punched him in the face, broken his front teeth.

  The next summer, his mother sent him to Hubbard’s Point to spend summers with his grandmother. Gavin hadn’t wanted to go—he’d been there before, but never for long. He begged his mother to keep him at home, telling her that his place was with her, that he’d made his dad a promise. But his mother had started seeing someone new, a man from New Bedford, and she told Gavin it was better for both of them if he went away.

  Those words had hurt, almost more than the fights, or even having his money taken. His mother was sending him away—that word haunted him. He knew that as hard as he tried, he still got into trouble sometimes, and that that was hard on his mother, too. He almost couldn’t blame her if she didn’t want him, if he’d let her and his father down so badly, she just couldn’t love him anymore. She drove him to Connecticut, dropped him off. He remembered standing in the front yard, watching her car disappear, wondering whether anything would ever feel right again.

  But his grandmother was very kind, and she made him feel at home—and Hubbard’s Point felt like heaven on earth. The beach, and the tennis courts, and all the gardens, and all the happy families, and, especially Sher
idan. It took Gavin a while to stop fighting and suspecting everyone of wanting something from him. That had been all due to Sheridan. But then again, so had the fight.

  He remembered the day it started. Kids had gathered on the beach. Gavin couldn’t take his eyes off Sheridan—her tawny skin with its light dusting of golden freckles straight from the sun, and the way she smiled at him, as if she knew all his secrets. The strangest thing of all was how he found himself wanting to tell her—his secrets, his stories, tales about the places he’d been. His friends had told him her father had died, too. He knew she’d understand what that was like. They were the same age, and he had the crazy feeling he’d known her his whole life.

  By that time, he’d been in trouble with the cops back home, had been warned that next time he could end up in juvenile hall. There was something so safe and special about Hubbard’s Point—he both loved it here and yet couldn’t stand another minute of it. He was afraid they would find him out, know he was a bad kid, send him away. But something in the way Sheridan looked at him made him believe that she wouldn’t—she wanted him right there.

  “You’re going fishing?” she asked as the kids gathered their snorkels and equipment.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I guess so.”

  She nodded, smiling. He wished he didn’t have to hang around with the boys; he wanted to swim with Sheridan, race her to the raft, lie next to her until the sun dried them off.

  “Hey, Dawson,” Ed called, wading into the water. “Quit talking to Freckle-face and c’mon. We got to get out there before the tide gets too high.”

  “Shut up,” Gavin said, feeling the flashpoint his school counselor had warned him about. Seeing the hurt in Sheridan’s face, hearing the cocky humor in Ed’s voice, he felt himself about to blow. But Sheridan put her hand on his wrist.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Just have fun. I hope the water’s clear, so you can see lots of fish….”

  Gavin had nodded, shocked by the feeling of her fingers on his hand. He’d shivered in spite of the hot sun, dived into the water after his friends. And the day had gone on.

  They’d been spearfishing out at the breakwater, going after blackfish and eels. Gavin had caught the biggest fish, using Ed’s spear. When they got to the beach, Ed—just a big, innocent rich kid with a fancy toy—had waved the spear around, kiddingly pointed it at Gavin’s head. Without even thinking, he reacted, throwing Ed down on the ground.

  Ed’s wrist had snapped. Even though it was an accident, Gavin became a pariah. The other beach kids were frightened of him; he was even scared of himself, of what he’d felt inside at the moment he’d rushed at Ed. But Sheridan wasn’t afraid of him. She’d sit beside him, when the other kids would edge away. She’d ask him if he wanted to go swimming, or for a walk over to Little Beach. He’d tease her, asking her to write him a song, and she’d tease back, saying she would.

  One August night, the summer they were fifteen, she asked him to watch shooting stars with her; no one had ever asked him to do that before. It was the night of the Perseid meteor shower, and they’d lain together on the sand, staring up at the sky. He remembered he couldn’t talk, and the feelings that poured through him reminded him of two summers earlier, when they’d watched fireworks together.

  Lying beside Sheridan, he’d looked up, and he’d felt as if the stars were rushing at them. They burned his skin, made him feel alive, as if he mattered somehow. Then he felt Sheridan rest her head on his shoulder. It lasted just a few seconds. It wasn’t romantic, exactly, or only; it made him feel as if he was important to her, as if she was letting him know that they belonged to each other.

  The next week, she’d played him her song, “First Kiss.” And then he had kissed her.

  Staring at her now, on the deck of his boat, that’s what he was remembering…They were together after that. A couple, all through their teens and into their twenties, all through his years in the Navy and the beginning of her songwriting career. He’d joined the Navy because it was what men in his family did; they’d put him on a submarine, and he’d be gone for months at a time. You’re the man of the family, his father had said.

  He did one tour, then signed up for another before Sheridan could ask him not to. Sometimes he wondered whether he hadn’t engineered that perfectly—he already sensed she was getting really tired of waiting for him.

  Gavin knew about dogs heeding the call of the wild—returning to their atavistic roots when set loose in the woods. That’s how he’d felt in the Navy—as if the old neighborhood had reclaimed him. He could run from his rough beginnings, but he couldn’t stay away forever. Loving Sheridan had kept him tethered to Hubbard’s Point, but it was a sweet life that never felt quite right, that he didn’t honestly feel he deserved.

  The Navy fed his restlessness. He served aboard the USS William Crawford, a 688-class fast-attack submarine designed for stealth and speed while conducting ISR—intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance—missions. Nuclear-powered, the Crawford could travel at top speed to trouble spots; there were a lot of seedy ports, with no shortage of drinking and brawling. In Kowloon, Gavin got tattooed while drunk—a heart with Sheridan’s name in it.

  He made friends with a really good guy, Joe Donovan from Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx. Joe’s dad was a cop, and that’s what Joe would become when he got out of the Navy. On the ship, he kept an eye on Gavin. He pulled him out of a fight in Singapore, where the knife missed Gavin’s heart by barely a single inch, got him back to the Crawford for medical care.

  Joe also listened to Gavin talk about Sheridan—endlessly, miles under the sea, half a world from home.

  During those long talks when Gavin would describe their times at Hubbard’s Point, about lying on the beach and watching shooting stars with her, it had felt almost as if he was making it all up. As if he were telling Joe a story about another man entirely—someone who could love and be loved by a woman like Sheridan. Someone so different from Gavin…

  Gavin drove her away. He knew that now. Maybe it went back to the day that kid had stolen his money, made him feel he’d let his parents down. Or when he stood by while the landlord ragged his mother about late rent, or the times they didn’t answer the phone because of bill collectors. He’d felt like shit, unable to keep his promise to his dad. He hadn’t been able to take care of his mother, be the man of the family. So how could he do that for Sheridan? They’d tried, done their best. But Gavin couldn’t even count on himself to stay on the straight and narrow, and Sheridan knew that if she stuck with him, he’d always be going back to sea, leaving her alone on dry land.

  After the breakup, Sheridan must have felt the need to rebound fast and big-time, because that’s how it happened. She met Randy Quill in Nashville; he was new in town, not well known. He had written a few songs, played in a few bands. Sheridan, optimist that she was, had seen Randy’s potential, wanted to record one of his songs—just as soon as he wrote one anyone could stand hearing.

  Gavin would never forget the brain-searing moment he saw them together; his sub was in port in Virginia, and he took leave and hitched to Nashville. The breakup had been a huge wake-up call, and he was hurting. He knew what he had to do. He wanted to surprise Sheridan and ask her to come back to him.

  She had a show at the Ryman Auditorium, and Gavin showed up with a big bouquet of roses, hoping to win her back, desperate for the chance to set things right with her. He never gave her the roses, though. Right after the show, he started toward the stage and saw Sheridan kissing someone else.

  Turned out to be Randy. Gavin wheeled around, gave the roses to the woman at the ticket window, and hitchhiked back to Norfolk. He got arrested that night—bar fight at a dock near the shipyard.

  Gavin got thrown into the brig for nearly killing the guy; he could barely remember what the fight was about. Some stranger had insulted one of Gavin’s shipmates, but of course the real problem was that he’d seen Sheridan kissing another man, and his wild-dog, old-neighborhood self came out. He put
the guy in the hospital and should have gone to jail for a long time, but instead—thanks to Vincent participating in his defense—he got kicked out of the Navy with a dishonorable discharge.

  Meanwhile, Sheridan and Randy went on. He began accompanying her everywhere. Sheridan employed him, gave him the title of road manager. He had proposed and was angling to become her business manager when three things happened: she became pregnant with Charlie, they married, and then she caught Randy cheating.

  By the time Sheridan called Vincent, she had had the baby and given Randy many more chances. Every time, he promised to be better, stop treating her badly, and every time, things got worse.

  Sheridan left Randy for good. She’d offered him a generous settlement, just to make peace and because he was her baby’s father—and because, in Gavin’s opinion, she was more than honorable. Randy declined, deciding instead to sue her: for alimony, custody of the baby, a cut of her catalogue, and future earnings.

  “I’ve never really thanked you for working on my case,” Sheridan said slowly now.

  “I’m glad I was able to,” Gavin said.

  “I wanted you to leave the Navy,” she said, trying to smile. “Just not in the way you actually did.”

  “I know,” he said. “Me neither. I pretty much wrecked my life, but Vincent hired me. He really took a chance on me.”

  “I remember he told me he was planning to use you, to investigate Randy.”

  Gavin nodded. “He told me you made it pretty clear you didn’t want to hear any details of the investigation. At least any that involved me.”

  “It was tough,” she said, softly. She stared at him, and just having her here, looking into her eyes, was turning him inside out.

  “Tough how?”

  “Well, knowing that you were working with my divorce lawyer; that you’d see the mess I’d made of things after…”

  “After dumping me.”

  They both laughed. “Yeah,” she said.

  “Well,” he said, “I didn’t want you to be happy with any other guy, but you didn’t deserve Randy.”