Now she not only didn’t hate him, she actually cared for him. She—
“Hey.” The door popped open and Lacey’s reddish-blonde curls edged in. “Can we come in?”
Everything in her wanted to scream no. Go away. Leave me alone.
Alone being her default and most preferred place to be. But alone was so—alone. And now she knew how much it sucked to be alone.
“Yeah.”
In a split second, the three of them were in, surrounding her on the bed, cooing, sighing, laying their hands on her back with so much love and support she almost started crying again.
“I’m sorry, you guys,” she murmured. “I should have told you.”
“It’s okay,” Lacey said.
“We understand,” Tessa added.
“You owe us for life,” Zoe teased.
She looked at them, one after another, her heart swelling with love. “Obviously, I’m embarrassed.”
“With us?” Tessa tapped her leg. “There’s nothing about each other we don’t know or haven’t seen. We love you.”
“And”—she took a deep breath—“I don’t want you to hate him. Because when I find him—and I am going to find him—I’m going to forgive him and take care of him for as long as I’m able.”
She braced for the onslaught of judgment and opinions, but got none.
“He’s a different man now,” Zoe finally said.
“He’s forgotten,” Tessa added. “So it’s pretty damn wonderful of you to do the same.”
Lacey rubbed her hand up and down Jocelyn’s arm. “It’s going to be tough, though. Charity’s hellbent and might not keep your secret any longer. She’s pissed that you’re letting him off the hook. You’ll need to face that.”
“I’d face anything if that’ll help find—” Suddenly a thought sparked in the back of her tear-soggy brain, forcing her up. “The media. The tabloids.”
They stared at her.
“Forget a Silver Alert. If I called a press conference to talk about Coco, just imagine how far the message would go. Network TV, Entertainment Tonight, they’d all have to carry the story. And maybe someone saw him, maybe someone knows where he is. Even if”—she cringed at the thought—“even if he is faking it and hiding out or something. I don’t know what’s going on in his head. All I know is I have to find him. What better bullhorn to use than national media?”
They looked at each other, obviously unsure.
“I think those rags are more interested in your dirt than in your dad,” Zoe said.
“There is no dirt,” she said.
“Then you need to tell them the truth and let them know why you’re the fall guy in a marriage you didn’t break up.”
Would she do that? Would she sell out Coco to find her dad? “Maybe I can just not address that.” No, that would never fly.
“Just tell them the truth,” Lacey said softly. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Nothing to me. But Coco.” She fell back on the pillow. She couldn’t put Coco in that kind of danger. She couldn’t hurt poor, sweet, weak Coco who was just so much like another poor, sweet, weak woman that she’d stolen a permanent place in Jocelyn’s heart.
But maybe if Jocelyn had forced her mother’s hand, she wouldn’t have lived in fear.
“I’ll decide in the morning,” she finally said. “Maybe they’ll find Guy overnight.”
“Maybe,” the others agreed.
But no one sounded very certain.
A nasty mosquito nibbled on his neck, but Guy was too tired and too scared to move and slap it. Where was Henry? Shouldn’t he be here to flap his wings and ward off these horrible bugs?
Guy curled deeper into the tiny opening he’d found in the mangrove hammock, the cloying stink of rotten honey from those darn white flowers making him want to puke. The sharp smell of the pepper trees made him sneeze. He sniffed again, then started sniveling like a toddler.
Which he might as well be.
Turning from the stiff tree root that poked his back, he brushed some sand and dirt off the side of his face. Something crawled on his finger and pinched.
Fire ant. Shoot.
He shook it off and tried to get comfortable, back into the place where sometimes, when everything was really quiet, he could clear those cobwebs in his head.
Because some things really did stay in his memory. They got mixed up, sure, and tangled like that cheap red yarn he’d used when he took up knitting. But the gist of the memory was there, so he could close his eyes and imagine the face on that picture.
Oh, that picture. That was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place. He’d wanted to go back and get it, and he didn’t want Missy running after him, telling him to stop and go to some hotel.
If he didn’t get that picture, the Clean House people would throw it away!
And then he’d die for sure because it was his only picture of the girl who called him “Daddy.”
He couldn’t remember her name. Maybe it was the same as her mother’s. It seemed to him it was. But he could remember her face. Brown eyes and a big space where her front teeth would grow in.
But they never grew in, did they? No. Because she—
Tears stung. Jeez. Hadn’t these old eyes dried out yet? Did he have to get all weepy like a woman every time he thought about the child he’d lost?
He didn’t actually remember. He just knew there’d been a girl. A sweet little girl who went fishing with him.
And there’d been pain. A deep, aching, numbing, changing pain because he had lost a child. So…
What happened to her?
Another mosquito buzzed by his ear and something splashed in the water just a few feet away. Oh, boy. Hope the gators weren’t hungry.
How the heck had he gotten out here? He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember what had happened. He’d been so careful not to be seen taking those old back streets.
He’d remembered the way, somehow. But then he got to the house and needed to get in the back door and there was the old boat leaning against the side and—
But now the boat was upside down and covered with water and Guy was all alone.
No William. No Missy. Not even Henry the Heron showed up to keep him company.
His stomach gurgled with hunger and all he could do was swallow some spit to wet his parched throat.
Another splash, only louder this time. Closer.
“Henry? Is that you?”
Maybe it was Missy. Maybe it was William! He sat up and listened, but only cicadas and crickets sang and mosquitoes buzzed.
Guy just covered his face with his hands and let the tears fall until they burned his cheeks. This was it, then. He was going to die tonight, for sure.
And somewhere, way in the back of that clouded up brain of his, he knew the truth. He was just getting what he deserved.
The splash was so loud Guy jumped and called out. “Go away, gator! Go away.”
Nothing.
If only someone were here with him. If only Henry would fly over and lay his head next to Guy for his last night. Because surely this was Guy’s last night, and after this he’d be headed to another place. He wasn’t sure why, but he had a feeling it wasn’t the good place.
He pulled up his legs and wrapped his arms around them, burying his head in the darkness. What had he done? What in God’s name had he done?
He didn’t know. All he knew was how he felt right now. Slowly, he lifted his head and looked at the stars, as deeply into the darkness as he could, to speak to whoever might listen.
“I don’t know what I did, but I know it was bad. And I’m sorry.”
But he doubted very much that anyone heard his confession except the bugs and the gators and the birds that had flown away like his memories.
Chapter Thirty
Jocelyn sat straight up just as the clock radio next to Guy’s bed clicked to 6:00 a.m., the light blanket one of the girls had covered her with shoved to the foot of the bed. Outside, the soft drizzle a
nd pre-dawn darkness cloaked the room in a dreary shroud.
Sliding off the bed, she opened the door, but the house was completely quiet and dark. Where was everyone?
Asleep, she discovered after a quick walk through the house. Tessa and Zoe spooned on a twin bed in Jocelyn’s old room. The sheriff’s men had left. Clay and Lacey had taken Ashley home earlier and must have stayed there.
She went back to Guy’s room, circling the bed and standing in front of the dresser that used to be her mother’s. It was empty now, no perfume bottles or that pretty pink jewelry box with a big embroidered rose Jocelyn had loved as a little girl.
Was that jewelry box gone, too? She hadn’t seen it in any of her cleaning and organizing, but they hadn’t finished the closets. She turned to Guy’s closet, opening the door. The moment she snapped on the light and looked down, she was rewarded with the very thing she’d been looking for. Not only had the jewelry box not been thrown away, it sat on the floor, wide open.
Kneeling down to examine the contents, she lifted an old not-really-gold chain that had turned black with time, and two tiny rings with blue stones, vaguely recalling that they were her mother’s birthstone.
A top shelf lifted out to reveal more space at the bottom, empty but for a picture.
Oh. A piece of her heart cracked and left a jagged edge in her chest as she stared at the snapshot. The edges were worn from handling, the photo almost warm to the touch.
And the memory of the moment so clear in her mind, Jocelyn let out a little cry when she looked at it.
It was her seventh birthday, so January 4, 1986.
January of 1986? That was the same month—
She put her hand to her mouth as pieces fell together. This was the last time they’d gone out in the rowboat. After that, Guy had changed. Life had changed. Everything had changed.
Had Guy been looking at this photo when she’d come to drag him away to Barefoot Bay? Had he realized his “Missy” and this little girl were one and the same? Did he remember that day when they went out on the row—
With a soft gasp she shot to her feet. Had anyone looked for the boat? Had anyone thought to check the islands? She needed to call Slade. They had to search out there right now.
Clutching the photo, she ran down the hall, not bothering to wake the girls. She needed her phone. Turning in circles, she couldn’t remember where she’d last seen it, a low-grade panic and certainty making her whole being tremble with the need to know if her hunch was correct.
She pushed open the garage door and looked around for the rowboat, but she and Zoe had left it outside to dry in the sunshine. Barefoot, she darted across the garage to open the door and run to the side of the house to find the—
“Holy shit,” she mumbled, staring at the empty spot where they’d left the boat. “Is it possible?”
She squinted into the breaking dawn, wiping raindrops from her face.
Was Guy out there in the canals or on the islands alone?
Fueled by that fear, she started to run, slipping in the wet grass and ignoring the chilly breeze that came with the rainy cold front. She didn’t bother to look when she ran across the street, but in her peripheral vision, she saw a car pull out of a parking space up the street.
A fine chill raised goose bumps on her arms. The Silver Alert had gone out hours ago, her name most certainly attached as the next of kin. The wolves waited for her with cameras and microphones.
Fine. If her suspicion was wrong—and, God, she prayed it was—then she’d do whatever was necessary to find her father. Even tell the truth if she had to.
She plowed through some shrubbery in the neighbor’s yard, not bothering with the access path to the canals. How far could he have gotten? Was he out there rowing? Lost? Or—
She let out a soft cry as she reached the water’s edge, the muck squishing through her bare toes. The canal wasn’t deep, maybe four feet, and she could wade or even swim it, but not for long. And not safely.
She turned left and right, thinking hard and fast, spying a bright-yellow plastic kayak leaning against a dock two houses away. She took off for it, a million rationalizations spinning through her mind. But no one called out to stop her when she dragged the lightweight craft down a stone path, used the oar to push off, and hopped into the single seat.
Rain bounced off the water and made a popping sound on the plastic kayak, falling just hard enough to make the effort completely uncomfortable and the world wet and blurry.
Or maybe her vision was blurred by tears, because without her realizing it, they were pouring out of her eyes.
Just thinking about Guy lost out here, alone and terrified, ripped her heart to shreds. Please, God, please let him be okay.
Dragging the paddle through the water, she squinted at the little mounds of mangroves that made up the islands, a question nagging at her, as incessant as the rain.
When had he started to matter so much to her?
Why did she love a man who had made her life a living hell?
“Because that man is gone,” she mumbled into the rain and breeze. And in his place was a new man who deserved a second chance.
Just like Will.
Maybe Will hadn’t sacrificed his career for her, or come after her when they were separated, and maybe he’d opened his heart and life to a man Jocelyn thought she hated. Maybe Will needed her forgiveness, too.
Maybe Jocelyn needed to let go and love instead of holding on to hate.
There was no maybe about it. But first, she had to find her father.
A loud splash made her jump and almost drop the oar, but she clung to the slippery stick, her eyes darting as she expected to come face-to-face with an alligator. But it was a mighty blue heron who’d made the noise, a helpless fish hanging from its mouth.
“Henry,” she whispered, a sob choking her. “Have you seen my daddy?”
He tipped his head back, devoured breakfast, and stretched his wings to take flight, heading south to disappear in the rain. Without a clue which way to go, she followed, staying close to the shore, her arms already burning from the effort of slicing the kayak through the water.
This was lunacy. He wasn’t out here.
But who had taken the rowboat? a voice insisted.
How had he dragged it across the street and into the water all by—
The kayak hit something hard in the water, pulling another gasp from her throat. What the—
A narrow tip of aluminum stuck straight out of the water. The tip of a sunken rowboat. No, no. Not a rowboat. Their rowboat!
Shoving wet strands from her eyes and tamping down panic, she looked around, zeroing in on a mangrove hammock about twenty feet away. It was the closest island, the only place a person could swim to from here.
“Guy!” she called out, the words lost in the rain. “Guy!”
With every ounce of strength she had, she plowed the oar through the water, reaching the island in about fifteen burning strokes. He had to be here. He had to.
She climbed out of the kayak, stuffing the edge of the oar in the muck for balance, her foot landing on a sharp rock that made her grunt in pain. Dragging the kayak to dry land, she remembered the picture she’d taken from the house and found it pressed to the wet bottom of the kayak seat.
Wanting it with her, she unpeeled it from the plastic and turned to squint into the rain and through the mangroves that lined the island’s edge.
“Guy! Are you here?”
Shoving branches out of her way, she headed toward the middle of a hammock that was not more than thirty feet in diameter. In the center there should be some clear space and—
She spotted him rolled up in a ball under a Brazilian pepper tree.
“Guy!” Ignoring the roots and rocks stabbing her bare feet, she ran to him, falling on his body as relief rocked her. “Oh my God, are you okay?”
He moaned, murmured, and turned slightly, his glasses completely bent from the weight of his head, his poor face marked with bug bites, his
teeth as yellow as ever as he bared them in a smile.
“That you, Missy?”
He was alive. Relief rocked her. “Yes, Guy. It’s me.” She folded him in her arms and squeezed her eyes against the sting of fresh tears.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked, as contrite as a kid.
She sat up, tenderly holding his head while she slipped the ruined glasses off his face. “No.” Her voice cracked. “Just tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.”
But she could tell by his gruff, hoarse voice that he wasn’t. He was scared and suffering, and surely wouldn’t have made it out here much longer.
“Did I miss the yard sale?”
She almost laughed, but shook her head, rocking back on the wet dirt and grass with him in her arms.
“We waited for you.” She inched him away to search his face, so battered and bitten, so old and tired. He didn’t even resemble the man of her childhood anymore. Not inside or out. “What happened, Guy? Why did you leave me?”
His eyes clouded as he shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
Really? Was he telling the truth? “You really don’t remember anything, Guy? Not why you left or what your life used to be like or—”
“I wanted this! How did it get here?” He snapped up the wet picture that had fallen to the ground.
“I…” She slid the picture from his fingers, the image so water-damaged that it was almost impossible to make out any details. “It’s mine,” she said.
“You know that little girl?” His voice rose with a mix of fear and hope.
Jocelyn nodded, biting her lip, fighting more tears. Finally, she looked up to meet his gray gaze. “I am that little girl.”
Something flickered in his eyes, a flash of recognition, a split second of awareness, then the fog came back.
“Do you know that, Guy?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head, abject misery in the tiny move. “I forget.”
She cupped his face with her hand. “Then so will I.” She leaned closer so her forehead touched his. “I forget and I forgive.”
He heaved a great big sigh.
She lifted her head, pressed her lips to his wet forehead, and gave him a kiss. “Let’s get you home, Daddy.”
Meet Me in Barefoot Bay Page 62