The Art of My Life

by Ann Lee Miller

  She wore the short shorts she’d had on the night he discovered her sitting on the dock box, a man’s undershirt, and a sports bra. He’d barely been able to drag his gaze from her body all day while they worked on Henna’s garden.

  He just had to make it to US 1, and the lights and traffic would distract him from the itch to touch her. If he kissed her tonight, chaste wouldn’t describe it.

  He rounded a bend in the road, still a good mile from pavement.

  Missy cleared her throat. “We need to talk about that kiss last night.”

  Just like that, kiss in Missy’s throaty voice snipped the frayed thread of his resolve.

  The road forked, and he jerked onto a path. He maneuvered the truck five hundred yards in and killed the engine. He stared at the pine trunks, stuck in the sandy dirt like perpendicular pick-up sticks. His peripheral vision settled on Missy’s moonlit leg.

  The truck crackled in the tension between them.

  A car scooted by on the main dirt road, Aly or Cal.

  Her orange blossom scent mingled with sweat—his and hers—in the cab. “Please don’t kiss me again.”

  He knew she’d liked last night’s kiss every bit as much as he had. It was ridiculous for her to cut him off. He faced her. “Why? Because you didn’t enjoy it? I can fix that.” His lips captured hers, shutting off her protest.

  He drank hungrily. His arm slid across her back, his fingers clamping around her bare shoulder. He settled his other hand on the curve of her hip. His thumb roamed for the skin between her tank top and shorts.

  A cricket symphony surrounded them. Dew-heavy air puffed through the cracked windows. She tasted sugary like Orange Crush, and he couldn’t get enough.

  Missy softened, yielded. He felt her hands touch down on his ribs. Then, her arms circled him, tugging him closer.

  He moaned, his brittle veneer of control slipping. The kiss morphed into need. His fingers ran over the ribbed cotton of her shirt. He ignored the voice that said maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

  The low growl of Cal’s Jeep rumbled in the distance.

  Missy broke the kiss, smacked away his hand. “Don’t.”

  His breath raced in and out of his lungs. His gaze riveted to the accelerated rise and fall of her chest, the lingering Braille of his touch.

  Missy scooted out of his arms. “I can’t—I just can’t do this.”

  He was a cretin for bringing Missy down to his level—messing with her innocence. He grabbed the steering wheel and looked through the cool glass of the windshield. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. You’re a…. You’ve never….”

  “Technically.” She said the word so softly, he barely heard it.

  Shock, then jealousy one-two punched him. His head twisted toward her. “What?”

  Missy dropped her chin.

  Their labored breathing cut the silence.

  His heart still sped as though he’d run through the woods instead of driven.

  Missy licked her lips.

  His body came to attention.

  She stared at her lap. “After my eighteenth birthday, I was mad at you. There’s an old song, ‘If she’s lonely now, she won’t be lonely long.’ ” Missy met his eyes. “I wasn’t.”

  The information snaked through him. Maybe Missy wasn’t so different from him. God knew he had plenty of regrets. The last fifteen minutes, for example.

  She looked at her hands. “I let God down. And someday I’m going to have to tell my husband I didn’t completely wait for him. I’ve been eaten up with guilt for two years. I’m not doing… anything else till I’m married.”

  Her shame radiated out to him, shame he knew as well as the stink of his own sweat.

  He nudged her chin up with a knuckle. “I’ve done worse.” He sighed from his core, exhaling the desire from his body. “No, I don’t want to mess with that, Mis. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  He yanked his eyes from Missy’s skin that threatened his sanity even now. He shook his head and gave a dry laugh. “My life would be a whole lot easier if you’d shop at Burkas R Us.”

  Missy looked down at herself. “Oh. Oh. Sorry. I didn’t think….” She reached for her sweatshirt on the seat, pulled it on, and zipped it to her chin.

  He reached for the ignition and cranked the truck. As it rumbled to life, awe dawned out of the sea of emotions inside him. She’d trusted him with her worst secret.

  He scooped an arm around Missy and tugged her to his side. “Just sit beside me.”

  Cal glanced out the porthole. Six p.m. and it was already black out. Aly typed on her laptop working on her Internet blog business, oblivious to the Escape’s sway beneath them.

  He’d bled paint every day in the month since torching Henna’s garden till the picture on canvas finally matched the one stuck in his head. It was his crowning work, yet it was more. The vision had kept him sober. True. But pieces of his life had wrestled into place as he painted.

  It was already January twenty-sixth. He missed another probation meeting yesterday—would have tested dirty, twenty-four days since he’d smoked, six days shy of testing clean. He was maybe hours from his getting picked up by the police. Even if the inside of his life was starting to make sense, the outside sucked.

  He let his eyes wander over Aly, confident she was so engrossed in her work, she’d never notice. White computer light bathed her face. Van Gogh curled at her feet, his eyes rolled back in his head as Aly stroked his coat with her foot. Doggie heaven. Yeah, he knew the feeling—adoring Aly.

  He wanted to memorize every detail. This might be the last time he ever saw her.

  She wore no make-up. A blonde strand of hair fell across her face and she raked it back, a graceful movement—so common, so intimate. Her right eyebrow arched higher than her left, the eye appearing slightly larger than the other. He could almost smell her forest scent through the old cushion, fuel, and damp salt smell of the boat.

  His gaze slipped to her tangerine sweatshirt. His memory was photographic, at least in one instance—he saw Aly dripping wet in filmy azure bra and panties standing in the head. A beauty he could never recreate with oils.

  His gaze traced the curve of her jean-clad leg, her sock-covered toes now burrowing for warmth under Van Gogh’s belly. This is what forever could have looked like.

  Showing Aly his tattoo had told her he loved her, but things hadn’t really changed between them. He still didn’t know how she felt. He’d like to know before he said his last good-bye. Any minute now, she’d realize she’d worked through supper and head out.

  She looked up, and his breath caught. This was it.

  “How long have you been sitting there staring at me?”

  His lips stretched into a bittersweet smile. “A while.”

  “Without a sketchpad?”

  “Some beauty can’t be captured.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I’m not laughing.”

  Her forehead wrinkled. “You think… I’m beautiful?”

  Cal sighed and stepped across the cabin to where she sat. He rested a hand on the bench at her shoulder and one on the desk. “Yeah, I do.” He bent and met her lips with his, beauty that tasted like cocoa on a rainy day.

  When he lifted his head, Aly’s eyes pulsed with what had to be love for him. Love he’d kill a second time—no matter whether he chose tonight to run or go to jail. Never more than now did he wish he’d had the balls to stay clean.

  He scooped her into his arms and held her against his heart. “Oh, Aly.” The seconds ticked by, and he knew he had to tell her everything. She deserved to hear it from him, not to come to the marina tomorrow and find the Escape gone, him gone, with no explanation. He leaned back. “I—”

  Someone banged on the outside of the hatch.

  Fish paused in the shadows of Zeke’s Ambition and watched the barrel-chested stranger stride down the dock. A duffle bag big enough for a body hiked over one shoulder. The guy turned at Cal’s boat and walked aboard as thoug
h he’d been there before.

  Fish wasn’t Cal’s keeper. He didn’t know every one of Cal’s acquaintances and business contacts. Fish shook off the chill that crawled under the collar of his coat. It wasn’t his job to worry about Cal.

  Fish glanced back toward Cal’s boat one more time. Some habits weren’t breakable. He buried his hands in his pockets and headed down the dock to grab a Big Gulp from the 7-Eleven. He needed some serious caffeine to get through studying for the first Spanish exam of the semester. What he really wanted was to hang with Missy, but since the night of the weed fire, she’d stonewalled him, but good.

  That was going to change.

  Cal stepped back from Aly. “It’s open,” he called, feeling like he was getting a reprieve from spilling to Aly.

  “You!” He stared, disbelieving, at Vic Franco’s dark eyes as he came through the companionway.

  Van Gogh growled, the fur standing up along his back.

  Aly’s hand latched onto his like a vise.

  “I need another trip to Grand Bahama.”

  Cal shook his head. “You’re crazy. No way. Get off my boat.” He glanced back at Aly.

  The color drained from her face as she stared past him at Vic. Cal spun around.

  Vic pointed a sawed-off shotgun at his chest. “We’re sailing for Grand Bahama whether you like it or not.”

  He stepped between Vic and Aly. “You don’t need her. Just take me.”

  “So she can tattle? You’re both going.”

  “We need to refuel.”

  “You only used the motor in the Intercoastal.”

  “What about food and water?”

  “We’re going, and we’re going now. You get us out of the marina, through the Intercoastal, and into the ocean. I’ll keep an eye on the girl. Do anything stupid and I’ll shoot.”

  Cal picked up Van Gogh. “I’m leaving the dog. You don’t have to worry about him saying anything.” Cal climbed up the companionway without waiting for an answer. He held his breath.

  “Wait!” Franco’s voice boomed behind him.

  He whipped his gaze back to Franco’s, afraid he’d make Van Gogh stay on board.

  “Give me your cell phone.”

  Cal stepped into the cockpit, not releasing the dog. He dug his phone out of his jeans pocket and tossed it through the hatch to Franco’s waiting hand.

  When the guy reached for Aly’s phone, Cal set Van Gogh on the gangplank and turned his back to the open hatch. “Fish,” he commanded the dog.

  Van Gogh scrambled across the gangplank and raced down the dock toward Fish’s boat. Good doggy.

  Aly shut her laptop and stowed it. There’d be no blog post tonight. Her eyes never left the barrel of Vic’s shotgun. Her chest quivered. Her fingernails dug into her palms. She had to find a way to talk him out of harming them.

  Vic’s attention strayed to Cal in the cockpit.

  Her mind ricocheted around the cabin—from the cigarette smell that clung to him, the impossibility of bolting through the hatch before he could get a shot off, to his craggy face which made him look menacing. But his dark eyes, though cool, were more shuttered than ruthless—like businessmen she’d faced across her desk at the bank.

  The guy had so creeped her out on the first trip, she’d barely looked at him. Now, she studied his features.

  With a Hispanic name, dark skin and hair, he was likely Cuban, second generation American, probably Bahamian, since he had no accent and carried Scotiabank checks.

  If she were negotiating a loan, she’d have a bottom line in mind. Life. She and Cal had to get out of here alive.

  His eyes darted to her and she looked away. He seemed on edge, not like a guy who terrorized people for sport. She’d been good at sizing people up. Cal’s was the only loan that came close to defaulting.

  She breathed in a prayer for courage and cleared her throat. She made eye contact like she’d learned to do in banking. “Look, Cal just got out of jail for weed possession. We’re not the kind of people who will turn you in. We’ll get you to Grand Bahama. You let us go. We’ll keep our mouths shut.”

  His eyes narrowed. “There’s only one way to make sure you don’t blab to the authorities.”

  She felt the blood drain from her face. “Drop us off on Bimini. Keep the Escape. We won’t go looking for the boat. Our charter business bellied up, anyway.”

  His gaze skimmed down her body. “There are worse things than dying.”

  A chill crawled over her skin that had nothing to do with temperature. She tasted blood and realized she’d punctured the inside of her cheek. She swallowed.

  His eyes had lingered on her when they met, but not in a you’re-starring-in-my-personal-porn-video kind of way.

  She took a chance that he was just trying to scare her. “I don’t know what you do, but I peg you as a businessman. Going to jail is bad for business. I’m offering you no jail.”

  “Funny. I’m not offering you a choice.”

  Chapter 20

  January 26

  www.The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com

  Fish took a long pull on his Pepsi and stepped aboard his boat.

  Van Gogh bounded at him from the shadows. “What the—”

  The dog whined and figure-eighted around and through Fish’s legs.

  “What is it, boy?” Fish looked at Cal’s slip.

  Empty.

  Cal would never leave Van Gogh unattended. The dog was too excitable, too prone to play in traffic.

  A picture of the hulking guy Fish had spotted boarding Cal’s boat fifteen minutes ago flashed through his mind.

  Shit!

  Starr pulled up her hood and wrapped the bulky sweatshirt more tightly around her. From the dock she watched Jackson and Jesse climb aboard the borrowed Boston Whaler, open up the throttle, and careen into the Intercoastal to look for the Escape.

  Missy paced the length of the pier, arms locked across her waist.

  The marine emergency channel blared from Fish’s radio. He sat in his pilot’s chair swiveling one direction, then the other in a steady rhythm.

  Evie, thank God, was nowhere to be seen. She loved the girl, but she didn’t know if she could handle Evie’s hysterics at a time like this.

  Starr scooted onto Cal’s dock box. The coolness of the fiberglass seeped through her jeans, and she pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. She rested her forehead on her knees.

  Van Gogh’s tags clinked as he trotted past, but she didn’t look up. She just wanted to pray for Cal undisturbed.

  Jackson said every man asks, Do I have what it takes? And she’d told Cal in a thousand ways that he didn’t. No wonder he’d turned to Henna’s unconditional acceptance, flunked out of college, embraced drugs, never tried to find his niche in life or God.

  She wanted a chance to look for the good and praise Cal. A do-over. Terror and twenty-five years of regret pressed down on her back.

  Someone shuffled up beside her, but she kept her head down. Couldn’t a person think in peace?

  She smelled patchouli oil, her mother’s signature scent.

  Starr opened her eyes and glimpsed matted slippers, wool socks, sweats and the shin-length hem of a bird-of-paradise muumuu. Maybe if she didn’t move, Henna would go bother Missy or Fish.

  The dock box creaked as Henna hefted her weight onto it.

  Water lapped against the piling. Damp wind chilled Starr’s hands and wrists, but she didn’t move them to warmth. Inside she begged God to save Cal and Aly.

  Henna’s hand settled on Starr’s shoulder. “Cal has a good heart. He’s going to be peachy cream.”

  Starr didn’t know whether to scream or laugh.

  As though called up by Henna’s peachy cream, snapshots paraded through her head—Cal tending a wounded squirrel, throwing out a hand to keep Missy from stepping into the street when she was small, carrying Henna up the porch stairs when she sprained her ankle, rough-housing with Jesse’s kids.

  “I had Cal dig out the gar
den and get rid of the plants,” Henna’s voice broke into her thoughts.

  Starr’s head jerked up, and she looked at her mother.

  “Leaf was madder than a wet pelican and took off for” —Henna took her hand from Starr’s shoulder and waved it in the night air— “the happy hunting grounds.”

  Starr frowned. Henna could have meant anywhere from Okeechobee to the hereafter.

  “He’ll be back sure as fish poop in the sea. Love makes the planet go ‘round.”

  A hot flash started at Starr’s sternum and radiated outward. She flopped the hood off her head and slithered out of her jacket. “Why did you rip out the garden? You’ve kept it for fifty years.”

  “For you. For Cal.”

  Starr reached out and squeezed Henna’s papery hand. “Thanks, Mama.”

  “I like Mama.”

  Starr’s mouth dropped open. “I thought you wanted to be called Henna.”

  “Leaf’s dim idea.”

  Starr pushed her hands into the arms of her jacket. Henna had done the best she could raising her. Just like Starr had with Cal. Maybe they had something in common after all.

  Maybe it was time she accepted Mama the way she was—along with Cal.

  Jackson and Jesse motored into the Escape’s empty slip, their shoulders slumped, eyes hollow.

  Her heart tumbled to the dock and cracked, jagged, like a broken cement block.

  Evie marched up the pier toward her, followed by Aly’s mother.

  Henna grunted, straining to heft herself from the dock box. “Giddyup, Napoleon.”

  Forty-five minutes after passing through the Flagler drawbridge, Cal’s hope deflated with every bone-jarring hammer fall. After Cal set their course on the GPS, Vic had shut Cal and Aly into the master suite head. Now he pounded enough nails into the door to lock them in the rest of their lives.

  If Cal hadn’t pressed Aly to help him with the business, she’d be safe in her condo now. He might even consider Vic’s boat-jacking a favor—getting him to the Bahamas where he planned to hide out to avoid jail.