Barefoot in the Rain (46 page)

I’m often asked if the fictional island of Mimosa Key, home to beautiful Barefoot Bay, is based on a real place. Indeed, it is. Although the barrier island is loosely modeled after Sanibel or Captiva, the setting was really inspired by a serene, desolate, undiscovered gem called Bonita Beach that sits between Naples and Fort Myers on the Gulf of Mexico.

On this wide, white strip of waterfront property, I spent some of the most glorious, relaxing, deliciously happy days of my life. My parents retired to Bonita and lived in a small house directly on the Gulf. On any long weekend when I could get away, I headed to that beach to spend time in paradise with two of my very favorite people.

The days were sunny and sandy, but the best part of the beach life were the early evening chats on the screened-in porch with my dad, watching heartbreakingly beautiful sunsets, sipping cocktails until the blue moon rose to turn the water to diamonds on black velvet. All the while, I soaked up my father’s rich memories of a life well lived. And, I’m sorry to say, a life that ended too soon. My last trip to Bonita was little more than a vigil at his hospital bed, joined by all my siblings who flew in from around the country to share the agony of losing the man we called “the Chief.”

My mother left the beach house almost immediately to live with us in Miami, and more than twenty years passed
before I could bear to make the drive across the state to Bonita. I thought it would hurt too much to see “Daddy’s beach.”

But just before I started writing the Barefoot Bay series, I had the opportunity to speak to a group of writers in that area of Florida, and I decided a trip to the very setting of my stories would be good research—and quite cathartic.

Imagine my dismay when I arrived at the beach and it was no longer desolate or undiscovered. The rarefied real estate had transformed in two decades, most of the bungalows replaced by mansions. I didn’t have the address, but doubted I could find my parents’ house anyway; it couldn’t have escaped the bulldozers and high-end developers.

So I walked the beach, mourning life’s losses, when suddenly I slowed in front of one of the few modest houses left, so small I almost missed it, tucked between two four-story monsters.

The siding had been repainted, the roof reshingled, and the windows replaced after years of exposure to the salt air. But I recognized the screen-covered porch, and I could practically hear the hearty sound of my dad’s laughter.

I waited for a punch of pain, the old grief that sometimes twists my heart when I let myself really think about how young I was when I lost such a fantastic father. But, guess what? There was no pain. Only relief that the house where he’d been so happily retired still stood, and gratitude that I’d been blessed to have had him as my dad.

And like he had in life, my father inspired me once again. For one thing, despite the resort story line I had planned for the Barefoot Bay books, I made a promise to keep my fictional beach more pristine and pure than the real one. I also promised myself that at least one of the
books that I’d set on “Daddy’s beach” would explore the poignant, precious, incomparable love between a father and a daughter.

That book is BAREFOOT IN THE RAIN. The novel is, first and foremost, a reunion romance, telling the story of Jocelyn and Will, two star-crossed teenagers who find their way back to each other after almost fifteen years of separation. But there’s another “love” story on the pages of BAREFOOT IN THE RAIN, and that’s the one that brought out the tissues a few times while I was writing the book.

The heroine is estranged from her father, and during the course of the story, she has to forge a new relationship with the man she can barely stand to talk to, let alone call “Daddy.” Unlike my father, Jocelyn’s dad can’t share his memories, because Alzheimer’s has wiped the slate clean. And in their case, that’s both a blessing and a curse. Circumstances give Jocelyn a second chance with her father—something many of us never have once we’ve shared that last sunset.

I hope readers connect with Jocelyn, a strong heroine who has to conquer a difficult past, and fall in love with the catcher-turned-carpenter hero, Will. I also hope readers appreciate how hard the characters have worked to keep Barefoot Bay natural and unspoiled, unlike the beach that inspired the setting. But most of all, I hope BAREFOOT IN THE RAIN reminds every reader of a special love for her father, no matter where he is.