The Rattled Bones(55)

I nod. “I’ll head in.”

“I’ll follow behind.”

“Sounds good.” Despite the terrible things Reed said, I know he just wants me safe. No different from Gram.

Sam takes me to the Rilla Brae and I climb aboard. “Will you be ready to fish tomorrow?” I ask.

“Will you?”

“Gotta be.”

“Then I’m in.”

“Five a.m., okay?”

“Okay, but I’ll meet you at your house.”

“Why? So I’m not alone on the water?” Gram has him watching me, I know. They’re all trying to keep me safe.

“No. Because I’m a normal person who likes sleep, and driving to your house will give me about thirty more minutes of it.”

I smile. “Fair enough. See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

I head to the wheelhouse, but turn. “Hey, Sam?”

I want to tell him that so many things are better because of him too. Instead, “Thanks again . . . for yesterday.”

He winks. “Gotta watch those lines, Rilla. Balance is a tricky thing on a boat.”

I smile. A deep one. One I can feel in my chest. “Good to know.”

I watch Sam head toward Malaga and feel lighter than I have in weeks. Sam knows about the girl and doesn’t question my sanity. It’s a start.

I’m soothed by the roaring churn of the Rilla Brae’s engine as she rumbles to life. I check all my instruments and head toward home. When I look back at Malaga, Sam’s already hiking to the dig site. His figure looks blurry from here, almost shimmering in the sun. And I don’t realize what I’m seeing until he breaks hard right, moves toward the stand of spruce trees.

The girl is behind him, following his every step.

Only inches behind him.

I want to scream to Sam. I turn my wheel toward Malaga, an overwhelming need to protect Sam pulsing through me. Did the girl hear my words? Is Sam in trouble now that I’ve revealed her existence?

Reed’s air horn blows two quick bursts behind me and I jump. “Gotta get home,” he yells.

I can’t tell Reed that I see the girl or that Sam might not be safe. Reed wouldn’t be so understanding; he’d tell me again that I was too much like my mother, and that’s something I can’t hear right now.

I throw a wave to Reed, and when I look to the island again, Sam’s still hiking but the girl has vanished. I let go of a deep breath, so deep it feels as if actual weight leaves my body.

I turn my course toward Fairtide.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


As Reed and I walk the lawn to Fairtide, he reaches for my hand. I let his fingers spider into mine, but he squeezes me too tight. “I’m sorry about what I said, Rilla. About your mother. I shouldn’t have called you selfish either; I didn’t mean it.”

I know. “I know.”

“It’s just that you’ve been different lately.”

I stop, turn to him. “How so?”

“I had to hear at the wharf about your accident? Word is, you got really hurt.” His free hand balls into a fist at his side. “The old Rilla would have wanted to see me, tell me about it in person.”

“I didn’t call you because I was exhausted. I didn’t have a chance to talk to anyone.”

“You had time to be with that guy.”

I uncurl my fingers from his, cross my arms at my chest. “I won’t have this conversation again.” Reed grabs my arm too hard, and I swat him away, whip fast. “Do not grab at me like that.”

He throws up his palms. “Sorry.” He rakes at his hair. “Sorry.”

Reed and I promised tenderness between us always. Reed’s house is filled with people pushing loved ones too hard, throwing things that don’t want to be thrown. “Let’s just go inside so I can see Gram, and then we can talk, okay?”

“Okay.”

He lets go a deep breath. Reed reaches for my hand again. I’ve held Reed’s hand so many times in the aftermath of his father beating on him. Or his grandfather. Reed never talked about the bruises that showed up on his face, ribs. It was like he couldn’t talk about what had happened even if he wanted to, and he didn’t want to. Holding his hand seemed like the only comfort I could give him, even the most recent times, when his knuckles were raw from fighting back. I don’t forgive the way he’s treated me lately, but we have two years between us, our lives overlapping. I bend my fingers into his.

Gram is at the deck table sorting bulbs. “Flames.” She holds up a cluster of tubers. They’re only dirt-caked roots now, but they’ll grow into the thick orange bloom I found on my boat.

On the girl’s tongue.

On my sill.

“My mother had these in her garden nearly a hundred years ago. Every year she’d dig them up and store the plants in our cellar.”

“Like mother, like daughter.”

Gram winks. She separates a dirty clump of roots, splitting the plant, which will double the blooms. “These were some of my mother’s most precious plants.”

She has my full attention. “How come?”

Gram shakes her head but doesn’t raise her eyes from her task. “They were a gift from someone she’d lost.”