She never looked back to say good-bye.
She hadn’t told me her name, either, but I knew it was Brooke. Brooke who lived on Blackstone Island and worked in the design studio on Hereford Street next door to Starbucks. She was beautiful and witty and feisty. I was more than impressed by her no-nonsense attitude throughout the night with her boss and the patrons. Brooke was no shrinking violet, plus she had the most amazing voice I’d ever heard.
That was all the information I had been able to gather about her, but it was enough to find her again if I wanted to. There was no if. When.
And it was more than plenty.
Brooke
Thank you, Will. I was racing to make it in time,” I said to the captain as I boarded the final ferry crossing to the island for the night.
“Two minutes to spare.” Will Darlington, who ran Blackstone Island Ferry Company, never failed to mention how much time I had left before departure. It was our little running joke. I think he would’ve let me on late if he saw me running for the dock, but so far I’d never missed my boat.
“Ages of time, Will. Two minutes to spare and with running in heels, I feel I’ve been a complete success.”
That earned me a shy smile and a slow shake of his head. “Glad to have you on board, Brooke.” Will was not much of a talker, but he was kind and very serious about captaining his boat. Another one of those hardworking islanders who put in long hours to make a living in a challenging economy. If you loved your work, as I supposed Will did, then all the better.
Once I found a seat inside where it was warm, I let my guard down for the first time in the past three hours. I became suddenly very sleepy, not wanting to think about the arsehole who’d grabbed me, or the fact I’d just left a shit job, or the lack of money, or any of my problems.
So I folded my arms on the table and rested my cheek on the arm of my wool coat.
I closed my eyes and allowed the sway of the boat to rock me to sleep.
A gentle hand to my shoulder and my name being called woke me one very fast hour later.
“Everything okay, Brooke?” Will’s green eyes looked down at me in concern. “We’re here and I have to close her down for the night. Everyone is off the boat.”
“Oh! I crashed. I’m so sorry,” I began. “I’ll get going.” I rushed to get up and gathered my bag.
“No worries at all,” he assured me in that kindly shy way he’d perfected. “You take care driving home.”
“Goodnight, Will.”
“Night, Brooke.”
I sensed that if I’d given any encouragement to Will Darlington beyond friendship, I could’ve had him. He didn’t come on to me and he was always a gentleman in every way, but a girl knows the signs when someone is interested. Will was nice, really good-looking, hardworking, and an excellent catch for any girl, but he wasn’t for me. More accurately, I wasn’t for any man right now. Too soon. Too much. Too hard to imagine being with somebody again when I was still working on finding the person I’d been before. The person I’d been before I’d allowed him the power to nearly destroy me.
He’d very nearly accomplished just that, and I couldn’t—wouldn’t—make that same mistake again.
I made my way to the parking lot and started up Nan’s 1980 Jeep Cherokee, lovingly named Woody due to the faux wood paneling trim on the outside and within. I was always grateful for Woody’s reliability, because even though he wouldn’t deliver the smoothest ride over four miles of bumpy lanes in the dark, he would get me there safely. You had to know where you were going, or you’d be lost in the middle of a meadow or a wood with only one wrong turn. I always took it easy because little creatures had a tendency to leap out in the night and it wrecked me for days if I accidently hit a rabbit or a night bird.
Nan’s cottage stood solid and cozy on her perch at the top of a gentle hill overlooking the sea. It was dark now, but the Fairchild Light illuminated the cape below. The island had a lighthouse for each port—Fairchild Light at the southern end, and West Light on the western shore where most of the mansions and estates were built between the shelter of the island and the mainland, protected from the harshness of the open ocean.
As I parked and went inside, I got that little flip of panic down low in my belly. It was worry about how much longer Nan could remain here in the cottage. I didn’t know that answer. I did know she owned it outright and
that it was the only thing of value my grandmother possessed from her marriage to my grandfather. He’d died when my mum was a baby, so even my mum had never known her father. Nan never remarried after my grandfather died, but instead gave her life to her work at Blackwater estate. Unencumbered with a mortgage and given the land value on a resort island with an unobstructed view, it had to be worth a significant amount. But it was a very small property, and it wasn’t in the exclusive area where the luxury hotels and private estates were located. I couldn’t imagine selling and moving Nan somewhere else. Where would we go? But the money situation wasn’t going to get better and I needed to at least make inquires. I’d make a point to visit Herman and ask for his advice. If anyone would know, it was him. Maybe Nan could take out an equity loan on the cottage and that would get us through.
Who was I kidding? Get us through our financial troubles until we won the Massachusetts State Lottery? Yeah, right.
Frustrated, I set off to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. The hour was far too late for caffeine now, and I needed sleep after the shit day I’d had. I peeled off the boots first. It bothered me that my beloved boots were what prompted my problems this evening. They’d certainly brought me unwanted attention while I was serving. Hadn’t Eduardo greeted me with “those boots are screaming ‘do me ’til I can’t take it anymore’” just this morning? This morning seemed like it had been ages ago now. If I’d been working tonight in my regular uniform clothing, would that heinous man still have grabbed me and said those horrible things to me? I shuddered at the remembrance. The harsh movement and possessive touch of his mean little hands on my body had just brought it all back so quickly. My only thought was to get him off me, because I couldn’t bear being touched roughly anymore.
It was too close to the way he had touched me. And I would never forget how that felt. I wanted to forget . . . I just didn’t know if it was possible for me to forget.
There was a spot of cocktail sauce on the collar of my one-day-old white shirt. Crap. I treated it with a bleach pen and set it to soak in the bathroom sink but figured it was probably ruined since it was white. Something in the sauce made it next to impossible to get out of clothing. I’d ruined clothes before from shrimp cocktail sauce. My stomach took another dive as I realized there were several expensive suits splattered tonight, and my pay from the job wouldn’t come even close to covering the cleaning of designer suits. Hopefully the dry cleaners had a magic solution to remove the stains. It was Martin’s problem anyway. He could find the arsehole who’d caused the whole mess and have him pay.
You broke a man’s nose tonight. Yes, I did. And I would do it again in the same situation—in a heartbeat.
I looked down at my legs.