Twenty-One
MJ threaded a worm on Holly’s hook and handed the rod back to her to cast. “Watch your brother’s head.” He figured he better warn her even though he didn’t think any hooking of her brother would be accidental. The two had been bickering all morning.
Sam laughed, pulling MJ’s attention from Holly. Roger held a worm over his open mouth, pretending he was about to eat it. Sam burst out in fits of giggles watching him. MJ smiled, but it felt bittersweet.
Besides the awkward tension that had always existed between him and Roger over Enzo, MJ felt like he was interfering on personal time between Roger and his kids. There was the sharp edge of jealousy, too. MJ would’ve done anything to have a father to go fishing with when he was Sam’s age.
The only person to ever take him fishing was Maddie’s dad. He took them both—MJ and Maddie—just like MJ was his own son. He’d always treated MJ that way.
For a brief summer, MJ thought Mr. Simcoe really would be his father someday.
When Maddie told him on the path earlier that she wanted five kids and then tried to play it off, he knew she wasn’t joking. Growing up, she’d always wanted brothers and sisters. He had too. Being alone in the world was one of the reasons they clung together even though they fought all the time, like Sam and Holly. They’d talked about having kids someday, a big family so their kids would always have each other, always have someone to rely on.
Five kids. He could see it now. She’d probably end up with five girls, all with that bushy black hair and fiery blue eyes of hers.
One of the reasons he fought with guys his age, like the idiots on his baseball team—ex-baseball team—was because he couldn’t relate to their trivial, bullshit lives. They were all shallow douche bags who probably never had a thought about spending the rest of their lives with a woman who made them feel whole. A woman who was home and family and future.
Yeah, he was young and so were those other guys, but he knew what mattered in life and what he wanted. He wanted what he didn’t have growing up. A home. A family. He thought he’d have it with Maddie, but something came between them. He had to know what it was—what to focus his aggression on. What to beat the hell out of to get her back.
He bit the side of his cheek until he drew blood to get his head away from soul-sucking thoughts of Maddie having someone else’s kids.
Holly brought her rod back and MJ ducked. She swung it forward over her shoulder and let the line out over the water. “Nice,” he told her.
MJ shaded his eyes with his hand and watched Holly’s bobber land. His gaze found Maddie, who was lowering herself into a chair across from Rachael at a patio table under a tan umbrella beside the boathouse. Her dark hair blew out behind her with a gentle breeze that shook the saw grass on the bank. There were times, like right then, when he was struck numb by how beautiful she was.
“MJ and Maddie sittin’ in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G!” Holly sang, watching him stare at Maddie. “First comes love. Next comes marriage. Then comes MJ in a baby carriage!”
Holly laughed like a loon, with no idea how much her words tortured him, and Sam joined in. “You kiss her, don’t you?” he asked, making a disgusted face. “I will never kiss a girl.”
“No. Maddie and I are just friends.” MJ ruffled Sam’s hair. “But if you never kiss a girl, you have no idea what you’re missing. Your mom and dad kiss, right?”
“No!” Holly shouted. “That would be the grossest thing ever!”
She’d never seen her parents kiss? MJ glanced at Roger who ignored him and dug another worm out of the bucket. “Well, trust me. It’s not gross.”
Holly shrieked and Sam made gagging sounds, but kissing was instantly forgotten when Holly got a tug on her line. “A fish!”
She started jerking the line violently, and MJ put his hands over hers to guide her as she reeled it in. “Easy. Just like this.”
The fish broke through the water and swung over the canoe like a pendulum. “I got it.” Roger grabbed the line and pulled the fish over where he took it off the hook. “How about that?” He held the fish out for Holly to see. “It’s small, but it’s a keeper.”
Holly clapped her hands together, thrilled, and Sam begged Roger to let him hold it.
MJ watched the three of them and glanced back at Maddie. He would have this for himself. It would be his someday. He wouldn’t accept any less. He wanted it with her, and he’d find a way to get her back.
MJ didn’t have a plan, but he did have a little nugget of leverage over Maddie.
He slid her diamond ring on his pinkie finger and left his room to find her. After they got back from fishing, she went to the pool with everyone else. MJ showered and took some time to gather his wits and steel himself to do whatever he had to do to get her to admit why she’d left him.
At the bottom of the stairs, Beck leaned in the archway from the entrance hall to the kitchen tossing an orange in the air and catching it. “Hey, Junior. I’m taking off to pick up your old man. Want to ride along?”
For a moment it felt like all the air had been knocked out of him, exactly like the night before when he’d tripped and fallen in the woods.
Merrick was coming back.
It wasn’t a big deal, they’d already met and talked and everything was good. But, for some reason it felt like it would be their first meeting all over again. On Merrick’s turf. Would it be different here on Turtle Tear?
“No,” he said. “I’m good.”
“You better go if you’re going,” Joan said, striding around the corner from the kitchen, her blond hair flowing over one shoulder. “There’s a tropical storm headed his way. It’s supposed to be on top of us by nightfall.”
“I’m goin’,” Beck said, brushing her off.
Joan frowned and walked between them, down the hallway toward the lounge.
Beck peeled a hunk of skin from his orange. “Some things are easier to get into than out of, if you know what I mean.” He winked and handed MJ the piece of peel before following Joan. “Nice ring by the way,” Beck called back over his shoulder. “Your boyfriend give you that?”
“F*ck off,” MJ muttered as Beck’s boisterous laugh echoed off the walls and high ceilings.
Deciding he’d rather avoid Beck and Joan, MJ left the hotel through the hulking hacienda door that led to the front of the property. Beams of sunlight filtered through dark, rolling clouds. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The wind blew and he breathed in the scent of citrus.
An orchard of lime trees stood across from a white, crushed shell courtyard with a cluster of huge, brightly painted clay pots in the center overflowing with flowers and vines.
He made his way across, shells crunching underfoot. The limes smelled so sweet, he had to pick one. Not to eat, just to feel its weight in his hand, hold it under his nose and know this moment was real. He was here. His dad was coming. Maddie was here with him.
A sharp crack of thunder rang out and he glanced up as he reached the orchard. The sky was threatening, the air filled with electricity. The hair on his arms stood on end.
MJ reached up and plucked a leaf from a branch in front of him. He tore it into pieces and tossed it to the wind, watched it swirl and drift over the crushed shells. Turning back to the tree and reaching up for a lime, his eyes fell on the woman from the woods.
She stood far within the trees, hidden in the dark watching him. Her white dress had been exchanged for a long, black one, a halter dress without straps. Maddie used to have a blue one just like it. He loved the easy access he had when she used to wear it. Maybe that’s why he was imagining his make-believe woman wearing it.
“Let her go,” the woman called out, her voice deep and raspy. “You can’t trust her.”
“You’re not real,” he said, pulling a lime off of a branch, closing his eyes and inhaling its scent deeply.
The lime was real. The woman wasn’t. She’d be gone when he opened his eyes.
Except she wasn’t.
“Let her go,” she repeated. “She’s a liar.”
“Shut up!” he yelled. “I don’t know you. I don’t trust you.”
“You should,” she said. “Because I know more than you, and I know you can’t be with her. Let her go.”
MJ let out a snort of laughter. “You don’t know anything.” He let the lime roll off his hand and fall to the ground before turning and walking away.
Was she real? Was she a phantom his broken mind kept throwing up in his path? A mythological Fate sent to warn him away from Maddie?
Lightning flashed soundlessly, blinding him from his path for a second, causing him to freeze in his tracks.
Maybe he shouldn’t trust Maddie. She refused to talk to him, to tell him what he’d done to make her leave.
Not trust Maddie? The thought was as foreign as… well, as having his father in his life.
He had to get off this island before every last thread of his sanity unraveled.