Troubled Waters

by Susan May Warren

  She couldn’t get back what she’d lost—and she had to accept that.

  Pete had walked to the door, pulling out his wallet. She went to the kitchen to grab plates.

  She was returning to the family room when she stopped in the hallway.

  Pete stood at the open door with a petite young woman with short black hair, piercings up her ears, and such luminous blue eyes they held Jess captive for a moment.

  “Can I help you?” Jess said, casting a glance at Pete, who seemed frozen in place, just blinking at the woman.

  “Yeah,” she said, frowning at Pete. She turned to Jess. “I’m looking for Sierra Rose. She gave me this address . . .”

  “She’s out of town right now, but you might be able to call her.”

  The woman shook her head. “I tried that. A few times. It keeps going to voicemail. I was hoping to see her before . . . well, um . . .” She sighed.

  “I . . . wow,” Pete said, coming out of his silence. “You look so different from your photos.”

  “I used to have blonde hair,” she said simply. “And now I go by the name Shae Johnson.”

  Jess stilled, her stomach beginning to churn. “What was your previous name?”

  The woman cleared her throat, then caught her lower lip in her mouth. Looked over her shoulder. “Can I come in?”

  Pete nodded and closed the door behind her when she stepped over the threshold.

  Shae stood in the hallway of Jess’s home, glanced at the television on in the other room. Then at Jess. “So, um . . .”

  “I believe we need to get ahold of Ian,” Pete said quietly.

  Jess’s eyes widened.

  Shae nodded. “Yeah, that would be good.” She held out her hand. “Shae Johnson. I used to be known as Esme Shaw.”

  10

  NEARLY TWENTY-FOUR HOURS in the ocean and not a glimpse of land. Of another ship.

  Of hope, let alone help.

  Sierra had been abandoned to the sea.

  She lay in the bottom of the raft, her stomach empty from the last bout of nausea. Overhead, the sun had finally relented, surrendered to the backside of the day and given her mercy. Had she not drawn up the roof of the life raft, she had no doubt she would be nursing a second-degree burn. Why hadn’t she changed into something more appropriate after dinner, like linen pants, maybe a jacket? No, she’d had to wear a sundress—leaving her woefully uncovered from the ravages of the sun.

  Despite the roof, the sun baked her inside the rubber raft. With the morning light, she’d searched the supplies, found a few packets of potable water, an MRE, which she hadn’t the stomach to eat yet, a few flares, a whistle, a couple bailers, a flashlight, and a first-aid kit.

  Almost none of it did she know how to use. For working with a rescue team, she hadn’t a clue how to rescue herself. She’d tied herself to the raft during the night, traumatized by the fear of another rogue wave, wrung out by the last sight she’d had of Ian.

  Ian, sawing at the mooring line, cutting her free from the sinking yacht.

  Cutting her free from him.

  She rolled over onto the bottom of the raft, pretty sure she couldn’t cry anymore. Shouldn’t cry anymore—something about needing the water in her body in order to stay alive reverberated in the back of her mind.

  She should have lunged for him, held on, dragged him into the raft.

  Should have never let him go.

  She pressed her hands to her face, curled her legs to herself. The heat of the day was dissipating, and a breeze was kicking up and sending her into the current.

  “Ian, get in the raft!” She couldn’t escape the thrum of the words inside. The way her entire body shuddered, wrung out, raw.

  And the worst part was, after all these years with Ian, she’d read him so completely wrong. Or she’d just been too angry at him to see the truth.

  Yes, Ian had been controlling and exacting and bullheaded. But he’d given his last breath to save her. To save Dex.

  That same commitment to the people he loved was why he hadn’t been able to give up on Esme. It had felt selfish to Sierra—selfish and not a little bullying.

  When, in fact, it was simply Ian letting his protective instincts get the better of him.

  She caught her breath. Oh, Ian. “I’m so sorry.”

  Outside, the waves nudged her into the horizon. She saw no sight of land on either side. Through the porthole window in the raft roof, she made out a brilliant low-hanging sun against deep magenta clouds, a trail of light across the waves.

  Gorgeous, if she weren’t alone, lost at sea.

  That thought curled a fist in her gut. Lost. Alone.

  Without Ian.

  She didn’t know why the memory walked into her head, why the redolence of the ranch seemed to swirl around her, despite the rubber stink of the raft. Instead, she smelled hay and alfalfa from the fields, and the earthy scent of horseflesh in the heat of the afternoon sun as it sank behind the mountains of the park.

  “It’s all right, Sundancer, she’ll be back.”

  The voice, soft, almost a caress, had stopped her. She’d been heading home—she remembered her satchel hanging from her shoulder. She’d dropped the satchel at the car, drawn by a soft humming, a song she couldn’t place. The tone found her heartbeat, tugging her into the cool shadows of the barn.

  She spotted Ian holding a damp sponge and running it gently down the face of a quarter horse. He held the horse’s soft muzzle in one hand, cleaning around her eyes. “There you go, beautiful. See, you’re okay. We’ll get you all prettied up.”

  She hadn’t seen him for a couple days—he’d been out of town at one of his many board meetings. How he’d sneaked back in under her radar, she didn’t know, but for a long moment she simply studied him. Even from here, she could see he hadn’t shaved, so she guessed he’d gotten up early to travel home.

  His strong hands belied his hours in the office. And capable, the way he calmed Sundancer, as if he knew his way around horses.

  By the look in her eyes, Sundancer adored Ian; she stood perfectly still as he cleaned out her nose.

  Ian dropped the sponge in a bowl of water, then picked up a comb for her mane.

  Only then did he spot Sierra.

  “I didn’t see you standing there,” he said with what looked like embarrassment on his face.

  “Sorry. I heard . . . what were you humming?”

  He held a small section of the mane in his hands and began to comb it. “It’s something my dad used to sing to his horse when he groomed him. An old Travis Tritt song. He loved country music.”

  He picked up a new section of tousled mane. “I loved watching him. My dad was an old-fashioned cowboy—did everything on horseback. Roping, running cattle. He had a language with animals. They trusted him. Him brushing his horse was like a labor of love. I think he would have given his life protecting that animal. I wanted to be like him for a long time.” He gave a wry smile. “Actually, I bought the ranch for him, but he died before he could move up here.”

  Oh. She didn’t know that—she’d only started working for him after his father passed. “I’m sorry.” She moved toward the stall. Sundancer eyed her, and Sierra raised her hand, pushed by the urge to touch her soft, whiskered muzzle.

  Sundancer shook her head, her ears turning back.

  “Just show her your hand, let her see you mean her no harm, and then slowly put your hand on her nose.”

  He said it softly, his attention on his work.

  She did exactly as he said and gently settled her hand on Sundancer’s nose. The horse blew out but didn’t pull away.

  “She likes you.”

  Sierra looked over at him.

  For a moment, the Ian she knew, with his pressed Italian suits and larger-than-life persona, dropped away, and only a cowboy remained. He might have even had hay caught in his hair. But as he stood there, the twilight turning the light in the barn to soft shadow, he looked every inch a cowhand.

  It made her smile
.

  Ache.

  Because he didn’t deserve all life had dished out. The loss of his wife and his son in Katrina. He’d come back, rebuilt, and then brought his niece to live with him. Given her a future.

  Given her this horse.

  Only to have her run away.

  And that only made a fist curl in her gut.

  “When I got this horse for Esme, I did it because when I was her age I longed for a horse of my own. Here I was, a cowhand’s son, and yeah, I could ride, but I didn’t have my own horse. And then we moved to the Triple C and Dex had an entire stable of horses and I vowed, if I ever had a kid, he or she would have their own horse.”

  He drew in a breath. “When Esme comes back, Sundancer will be ready for her.”

  When Esme comes back.

  In the raft, Sierra let out a gasp, covered her mouth with her hands. She should have told him about Esme. Why hadn’t she told him?

  She pushed the heels of her hands against her eyes, wanted to cry out.

  Maybe Ian hadn’t given up the search because it simply hurt too much to quit. She should have had more compassion for him.

  More, she should have told him as soon as she found Esme. Because now Esme would never see her uncle Ian. The man who’d never stopped searching.

  Never stopped loving his wayward niece.

  “I’m sorry, Ian!” The words emerged on a cry, and on the tail end, she heard a scream, or a wail—

  She sat up, her heart thundering.

  A seagull.

  A seagull!

  Sierra rolled to her knees and pulled herself to the edge of the raft, leaning out through the porthole in her tent.

  Overhead, in a wash of gray and magenta, a seagull circled. She shaded her eyes and scanned the darkening horizon. And there, in the winking of the setting sun, she spied land.

  Not a lot of it—she could make out either end of the island, a dark huddle in the distance. But land, all the same.

  She fell back into the raft and scrabbled for the folding paddle velcroed to the inner panel. Then, taking down one side of her tent, she climbed out, straddled the side of the raft, and extended the paddle.

  She would not die out here. Esme might not have Ian to come home to, but she would have Sierra. She would have a home, someone who loved her.

  “I’ll fix this, Ian,” she said. “I promise.”

  The sun was sinking fast, so she kept one eye on the land mass as she paddled. The current worked with her, rushing her toward shore. As the sun dipped lower, the island came into view. No more than a mile long, maybe, with what looked like a bay at one end, coral curling into an atoll that protected the inlet.

  Waves crashed against the reef, white and foamy.

  She just needed to get over that crest of protection without capsizing. Or ripping the raft to shreds.

  Please let there not be sharks. She’d read somewhere how sharks liked to park outside a tasty, nutrient-rich coral reef.

  The waves thundered as the sun disappeared into the horizon. Maybe she should tie herself in. Because if the raft went over . . .

  Except she might be trapped beneath it, tearing her skin on the knife-sharp edges of the coral.

  And sharks liked blood, right?

  The current picked up, and with it, the wind and the cold wash of water on her foot. The thought of sharks made her yank it in.

  She curled into the raft as the waves drove her into the reef.

  Please, God—

  She didn’t know why she hadn’t started praying before. Perhaps it was the shock of losing the yacht and the grieving over Ian. But as the swell of the waves rocked the raft, she lifted the name of Jesus.

  Loudly.

  “Please!”

  The wave swelled beneath her, gathering, and she felt the current take her, drive her forward. Her knees met a jagged, rough bottom. The coral!

  She leaped up toward the edge, but the reef had already shunted her surf to shore, stalled her. She held on as the push of the wave crested over her, lifting the back of the raft.

  The raft flipped. Razor-sharp coral, the swirl of whitewater, the abrupt silence of the sea, then her body was turning, rolling in the current, caught in the wave.

  Crushed by the raft.

  The wave slotted her across the coral.

  Sierra wanted to scream, fought the panic filling her body as the raft pummeled her along the reef. She clung to it, however, her vehicle to salvation as the waves picked it up again and washed it toward shore.

  Then, suddenly, she fell, freed from the coral, the raft floating above her.

  She kicked hard, thrashed toward the surface.

  Broke free, just as the second wave caught her up. Thrust her toward shore—please, let it be toward shore. She was turned around, treading water, drinking seawater. Coughing.

  She’d lost sight of the raft and now fought to keep her head above water.

  The wave crashed over her, and she went down again. Rolled. Felt herself being dragged back to sea. No!

  Then, suddenly, wildly she felt hands on her.

  Gripping her arms, pulling her up.

  She couldn’t breathe. Just let the arms pull her.

  Except, when she broke the surface, she was alone. She treaded water, searching, her heart hammering.

  Then her feet scraped the bottom. A soft swirl of sand. It cupped under her foot, dissolved, and she lost her grip. But she dove with the surf, found her footing again, and this time dug in.

  Land.

  She let the waves carry her in. She was nearly crawling as she hit the shallows, then she dropped onto her hands and knees as she pulled herself to shore.

  She collapsed at the edge of the surf, gasping. Rolled over, still feeling the ethereal grip on her arms. She pressed her fingers into her skin, as if to capture the sense of it even as she stared at the night sky.

  Maybe she wasn’t alone.

  The finest whisper of stars dotted the firmament.

  And the moon had started to rise, pale hope in the vast scope of night.

  “They can’t have just vanished.” Pete stood over a map he’d pulled of the Gulf of Mexico and spread out over the center table in the middle of PEAK HQ. The late-afternoon sun waxed the floor a deep gold, and someone had turned the television to the Weather Channel, hoping to get an update about the missing vessels in the Gulf of Mexico.

  Not only Ian’s. “According to the information from the Coast Guard, they received the EPIRBS distress signal about here, sixty nautical miles from Key West.” He marked the spot with a red pen.

  Jess came up next to him, handed him a cup of coffee. “I don’t get it. They were supposed to be back in Galveston tonight. Why would they go to the Keys?”

  Pete took the coffee and couldn’t help but glance at Shae/Esme seated at the table in the breakfast nook of the PEAK kitchen.

  Shae looked wrung out, wide-eyed, and a little jumpy. He still couldn’t get past the difference between the pictures he’d seen of her—long blonde hair, warm smile, so much life in those pale blue eyes—and the person who’d returned.

  Short, raven-black hair, piercings, a haunted expression.

  He recognized, however, that expression. He’d seen it flash across Jess’s face too often in the past two days.

  Thankfully, the news had given an update last night on Damien Taggert. He was out of surgery, recuperating, and he’d be heading back to federal prison as soon as he recovered.

  Jess had said nothing as she’d watched the recap, and he’d had no words for her. “I choose you,” she’d said. “You, and this life.”

  With everything inside him, he longed to believe her. Wanted to get past her words. “I always thought . . . maybe there would be a way for me to go back.”

  Those words had reached in, wrapped around him like tentacles, squeezed.

  He knew, too well, how it felt to stand at the edge of the life you had, not sure how to push back in, but aching for the chance.

  So yes, she’d
said the words he longed to hear—I love you, I choose you—but oddly it suddenly felt like a consolation prize.

  Now, however, wasn’t the time to pull her away, search those beautiful blue eyes for truth.

  Or propose. Again. Because next time he did, he wanted her to say yes, without regrets.

  Without wearing the hollow expression Shae wore as she stared out the window.

  “Can I get you something?” Jess had walked over to Shae, who sat on a chair, one leg held to herself. He didn’t know what magic Jess had conjured to get Shae to come out to PEAK HQ—she’d been about to turn tail and vanish again this morning when they still couldn’t get ahold of Ian or Sierra. Or anyone on the Montana Rose.

  And when Pete had suggested calling his brother Sam—Ian’s closest friend—Shae had nearly bolted. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m here,” she’d said. “Not until I talk to Uncle Ian. Please.”

  Something about the way she’d said it lifted the fine hairs on Pete’s neck. He’d frowned, glanced at Jess, who’d nodded. As if she understood this sentiment exactly.

  He didn’t know what Jess said to her, but Shae had joined Pete in his truck as they drove out to PEAK.

  Now Shae shook her head and continued to stare out the window toward Ian’s elegant log home in the distance.

  Some welcome home.

  “I have an update from the Coast Guard.” Chet came out of the office, and in the corner, Shae found her feet.

  The boss had nearly suffered a heart attack when Shae walked in. A moment’s hesitation, a frown, a questioning look at Pete, who said, “Yes, I know she looks familiar. It’s Esme.”

  Poor man had tears when he reached out and took Shae in his arms. For her part, despite her bewildered look, she didn’t pull away. Pete gave her points for that.

  Probably she had no idea what Ian—or Mercy Falls—had done to try to find her.

  Jess had filled Shae in on PEAK Rescue and how Ian had formed it in order to search for her as Pete and Chet congregated in the office and called the Coast Guard in Galveston.

  They’d put the deputy commander of the sector on speakerphone when he got to the part about the reports of the rogue wave. “The Montana Rose is only one of a number of ships we’re trying to locate. The EPIRBS is automatically activated at a water depth of three feet. It then floats to the surface and begins transmitting. The transmission registered to the Montana Rose dispatched not long after nine o’clock last night. We sent a search plane into their sector, and they scanned the waters for over six hours and found no sign of the Montana Rose. And no survivors.”