Summer Secrets

by Barbara Freethy

  "I asked you because I was desperate," Kate said. "That's why. Because it's not just my father who is missing. Tyler is with him, a man I care very much about. A man I don't want to lose the same way I lost Jeremy. You can hate me, Sean. You can hate all of us. We probably deserve it. But there's an innocent man out on the water who has no idea about any of this. And he doesn't deserve to die because of something that happened eight years ago, something we can't take back no matter how much we want to,"

  Sean stared at her for a long moment, then turned his attention to the water in front of him. "We probably won't be able to find them, anyway. They could be anywhere."

  "But you won't turn back, will you?" Kate asked, holding her breath for his answer.

  "Not yet," he said finally.

  For a few moments no one spoke. The only sounds were those of the increasingly furious storm. Kate, Ashley, and Caroline huddled together, arms linked, drawing strength from one another as they stood behind Sean, their father's fate resting in his angry hands.

  They peered through the darkness. The spotlight running from the top of the boat illuminated patches of water, but it was difficult to see much of anything. The radio continued to relay distress and rescue calls, but none that fit the description of their dad's boat.

  It couldn't end like this. Not like this, Kate prayed. There were too many things she wanted to tell Tyler. And even her father. Too many questions left unanswered. Too many feelings left unspoken.

  "There they are!" Ashley shouted, drawing her attention back to the water. "Look, there's Dad's boat."

  Sean seemed to hesitate. For a split second Kate wondered if he would turn back, leave her father to save himself.

  "Sean?" Kate questioned.

  "I don't leave anyone in the water," he said abruptly, turning in the direction of Duncan's boat.

  When they drew closer, Kate could see Tyler, waving and shouting something, but the wind took away his words. Not that it mattered. Kate could see they were in trouble. The boat was sitting precariously low in the water and going lower by the second. Each swell seemed to push it even farther down.

  Sean steered them as close as he could, but the waves pushed them apart.

  "I need someone to take the wheel," Sean said urgently.

  "I'll do it," Caroline offered.

  Sean hurried out onto the deck, and Kate followed quickly behind him.

  "We'll throw them a line and try to tow them closer to us," Sean yelled to her.

  The rain seemed to pick up as their efforts intensified, creating a thick curtain between the two boats. Kate barely felt the water or the wind. She was too focused on Tyler and her father. She didn't understand why Duncan was just sitting there doing nothing. Why wasn't he helping? Why wasn't he trying to grab the line?

  The first few attempts fell short. Finally the line made it into Tyler's hands. Kate let out a gasp of relief as Tyler tried to tie the line to the boat. But he couldn't do it. The boat was sinking, she realized in horror. Her father and Tyler were going underwater. And her father didn't have on a life jacket. Why not? Had her father gone completely crazy? Unless he only had the one, and he'd given it to Tyler.

  As she watched, Tyler began to shrug out of his life jacket, clearly intending to put it on her father. She clapped a hand to her mouth, realizing that he would be completely vulnerable if the boat went down. "The life preserver," Kate shouted to Sean.

  Sean was already tossing a life preserver to Tyler. Tyler caught it and tried to get it over Duncan's head.

  What was wrong with her father? He seemed completely out of it. Was he drunk? The horrifying thought made her sick to her stomach. Was that why they hadn't come back? Had her father taken Tyler along on some drunken joyride? Damn him!

  "Dad must be hurt," Ashley said as she came on deck. "Or sick."

  "Or drunk," Kate said bitterly.

  "What are we going to do?" Ashley asked as they watched Tyler try to wrestle their father into the life preserver.

  "I'm going in," Kate said decisively. "I'll swim over there and help Tyler."

  "You can't," Ashley said. "Not again."

  The last thing Kate wanted to do was jump into that black, swirling water, but she couldn't stand by and do nothing, not when another man she loved was in danger of drowning.

  "I have to," she said.

  "I'll go." Sean put his hand on Kate's shoulder. "You went after my brother. I'll go after your father."

  "No, Sean!" Ashley screamed, rushing to the side as Sean went into the water. "No, don't go," she cried, sobbing as they waited for Sean to come up.

  "He'll be okay," Kate said, putting her arm around her sister and holding her close. She was relieved to see Sean's head pop out of the water and the beginning of a strong freestyle. But it seemed to take forever for Sean to reach the boat. He was swimming in a life jacket, his movements hampered by the bulky vest, and he had his arm hooked around another life preserver. Despite the fact that he was a good swimmer, the waves kept pushing him back toward their boat.

  "This is just like before," Ashley said. "I was watching you struggle in the water. Dad was trying to save you, and I didn't think I would ever see you again."

  "But you did." Kate pulled Ashley into a tight hug as they both started crying. "And Sean is just as stubborn as I am, probably more so. He'll make it, and he'll save Dad and Tyler."

  Kate looked toward the other boat. Sean was almost there. So close. And then Tyler was leaning over. He grabbed Sean's hand and pulled him onboard. Together, they put the preserver around Duncan's body. But he seemed to be wrestling with them, arguing, shouting something.

  Please, Dad, Kate prayed. Please, just let them save you.

  A huge swell came up, crashing over all three of them. One minute they were on the boat, the next they were in the water, and the boat was gone.

  Kate heard screams. She didn't know if they were hers or her sisters', but they echoed the screams of the past. The storm had returned. The day of reckoning had come.

  "I don't see them," Ashley cried. "Oh, my God, Kate! I don't see any of them."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was just like before. One minute he was there, the next he was gone, Kate thought. She shook her head, wiping the rain and tears from her eyes so she could see better.

  "They can't be gone," Ashley sobbed. "I love Sean. I never told him."

  She'd never told Tyler she loved him, either, Kate realized. She'd let the opportunity pass by, afraid to put her heart on the line, afraid to even admit to herself that she'd fallen for him. Now it might be too late. And what of her father? Had she protected him all these years, only to lose him now?

  Then the clouds suddenly parted. The moon peeked through, lighting up the water next to them like a spotlight on center stage.

  "There they are!" Kate shouted. The bodies drew closer, but she couldn't tell how many. Were there two or were there three?

  Finally they reached the boat, and she could see Tyler and Sean, each with a hand on the life preserver holding her father afloat. She threw the rope ladder over the side and Tyler pulled himself halfway out of the water. Then, with what looked like a superhuman effort on his part, he managed to get Duncan to the ladder.

  Kate and Ashley both reached out for their father. Duncan's movements were awkward and slow. His eyes were open, but he seemed barely conscious or aware of his surroundings, and his body was like a deadweight. With Sean and Tyler pushing him up, they managed to pull Duncan over the side and onto the deck of the boat. Caroline ran up the stairs from the cabin below, her arms full of blankets. While she wrapped a blanket around her father's shaking shoulders, Kate reached out to Tyler.

  He grabbed her hand and she held on tight. She would not let this man go. He would not slip from her fingers. As he climbed up the ladder, their eyes met, and she almost burst into tears, knowing that she could have easily lost him forever. Then he was over the side of the boat and holding her in his arms, his cold lips touching hers in a pas
sionate kiss that warmed them both from the inside out.

  "Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?" she asked, pulling away from him long enough to take a good look.

  "I'm fine." He turned toward Sean, who was wrapped up in Ashley's arms. "Thanks to your friend here."

  Sean drew back from Ashley and stared at all of them, his gaze finally settling on Duncan, who was half lying, half sitting on the deck, his breath still coming in ragged gasps.

  "You should have let me drown," Duncan said, looking at Sean. "It's what I deserved."

  "Probably," Sean agreed. "But, unlike you, I don't let people die." He stomped into the cockpit, ignoring the blanket in Caroline's hand, and a moment later the engines roared to life.

  Kate squatted down next to her father. "He knows everything. We told him on the way out here."

  "And he still jumped into the water?" Duncan asked in bemusement.

  "He's a good man."

  "Just like his brother," Duncan muttered. "I never wanted Jeremy to die, Katie. It was an accident. I didn't like him, but I didn't mean to hurt him."

  She'd heard it all before. But the words of forgiveness wouldn't come. "What about Tyler? Did you mean to hurt him when you brought him all the way out here? What the hell were you thinking? Why didn't you turn back when the weather changed?"

  "Katie, I --"

  "You were drinking, too. Drinking and sailing without a working radio, without two life jackets! It's madness, and you know it. You taught us the rules years ago, but you keep breaking them. Over and over and over again. How many times do you think I can rescue you? How many times can I keep doing this, Dad?"

  He looked at her with intense pain in his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything, for Jeremy, for the cheating, and for the lies I asked you and your sisters to tell." He looked over at Ashley and Caroline. "You girls were the best thing that ever happened to me after marrying your mother. I know I didn't raise you right, taking you out of school and sailing around the world. I made a lot of mistakes. I'm still making them. But I love you, girls. If you don't believe anything else, I hope you'll believe that. And I hope you'll forgive me." His sentence ended with a fit of coughing that turned his face red.

  Caroline came over with a bottle of water. Kneeling down beside him, she took off the cap and lifted it to his lips. "Here you go, Daddy," she said. "Don't talk anymore. You need to rest."

  More tears came to Kate's eyes at the emotional scene. Caroline loved Duncan so much, in spite of everything.

  "I don't know if I can ever forgive him," Ashley said quietly to Kate. "Apologies are fine and good, but what happens tomorrow when he picks up another drink?"

  Kate couldn't give her an answer, because she didn't know. But she did know one thing: Life wouldn't be the same after this night. Sean knew the truth, and, turning her head, she could see that Tyler knew it, too.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Kate and her sisters tucked their father into Kate's bed, then returned to the living room where they collapsed on the nearest available sofa or chair. No one said anything for a long time. There had been too many words spoken already.

  Sean had taken off as soon as they docked. Tyler had headed to the hotel in search of dry clothes. And the McKenna sisters had come home. As Ashley and Caroline looked at Kate, she knew it was her job now to say something wise and reassuring, but for the life of her she couldn't come up with a single thing. Who knew what would happen now that the awful truth was out in the open, and in front of a reporter no less? The story could be all over the newspapers, sailing magazines, and online sailing chat rooms in twenty-four hours. Everyone would know that the McKennas had covered up the death of Jeremy Amberson. And if someone probed further, they might find other discrepancies, incidents of cheating that her father had tried to cover up. She hadn't been aware of that part of it until Jeremy had come onboard and mentioned to her that he thought Duncan was paying off crew members on the Betsy Marie to slow things down. She still didn't know if that was the truth or not; her father had been unwilling to ever admit to that, and no one had ever come forward. Perhaps K.C. still had something up his sleeve, something else they would have to face before this week was over.

  Kate sighed wearily at the thought of more drama. She looked at the portrait hanging over the fireplace and saw her mother's smiling face. Nora McKenna looked beautiful, innocent, happy. What would she have thought of all this?

  Her mother might not have been surprised. She'd lived with Duncan for almost seventeen years; she'd known her husband wasn't all good or all bad. But he'd been different with her, Kate thought. He'd changed after her mother's death, crossed lines that before he'd never crossed. Without Nora, without his anchor, he'd gone adrift.

  What now? Would he change? Would this brush with death finally make him stop drinking? Would he see that it was time to stop racing, that he had to give up the glory days of the past, that he couldn't recapture them? He had to find some other way to be happy, but how? And would he even have the opportunity if the consequences of this night resulted in criminal or civil charges?

  "What do you think will happen now?" Caroline asked, obviously reading Kate's mind.

  "I have no idea."

  "I didn't mean to blurt it all out," Ashley said, a guilty expression on her face. "It just came out. I couldn't stop it."

  "You wanted to tell Sean. You've wanted to tell him for a long time," Caroline said with her usual bluntness. "I knew you couldn't keep it in forever."

  "I tried. And for eight years I succeeded. But tonight with the wind and the rain, all the memories, it just came out"

  "I'm not blaming you," Caroline said "I'm kind of glad, in a way. It's almost a relief. Hopefully the consequences won't be too horrible."

  "I suppose the race victory could be overturned, although it wasn't illegal for Jeremy to be onboard, but we did cover up his death," Kate said. "And I guess his death might be investigated as something other than an accident. If the other allegations of cheating and bribery come to light, then that will make what happened look more sinister."

  "You don't think Dad could go to jail?" Caroline asked in alarm. "It was an accident. We know it was."

  "Sean's family may not be so certain," Kate replied. She offered Ashley a sympathetic glance. "It won't be easy for him, Ash. Jeremy and Sean were very close. The whole family was. They're going to be furious with us, and rightly so."

  Ashley nodded, her face tight, her mouth set in a grim line. "I know. We need to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Amberson as well as to Sean."

  "Tomorrow," Kate said. "We'll do it tomorrow. Well do it together, the way we should have done before."

  "I don't want Dad to go to jail," Caroline said again. "The rest of it I can handle. If we have to give back the trophy, who the hell cares? If we have to find a way to repay the money we won, we'll find a way to do it. But I don't want Daddy to go to jail."

  "We'll do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen." Kate pressed her fingers together, hoping it wouldn't go that far. Her father would never be able to survive such an experience. And in truth, he didn't deserve a jail sentence. He was a lot of things, but he wasn't a killer. Jeremy's death had been an accident. If she had ever believed anything else, she would have made sure her father had paid for it a long time ago. "One thing that surprised me tonight," she said, "was that the two of you blamed yourselves for what happened to Jeremy. Why didn't you ever tell me that before?"

  "You never wanted to talk about any of it," Ashley said quietly. "And who could blame you? You were going to marry him. You had so many plans. Remember all those bridal magazines we bought at every port? Every time you took a break, you were poring over wedding dresses, flowers, and cakes."