Taken by Storm (20 page)

Rachael had no idea the power Enzo Rocha held over them all.

“I
do
love my brother!” Tears rushed down Heidi’s cheeks. “I wanted him to know MJ, to raise his son. My father wouldn’t allow it. He said it would ruin Merrick’s future. He’d never go to college, never become successful. Whatever you think of my father, he only wanted the best for Merrick. He wants the best for MJ, too.”

“Well, that’s clear.” Rachael leaned back and let out a derisive laugh. “He went as far as stealing Merrick’s entire life to prove that point.”

Heidi wiped her cheeks, anger seeping into her eyes. “My father is making sure MJ gets an inheritance. Merrick can’t be trusted to provide for him—for anyone but himself. You should remember that.”

Rachael shot out of her chair and leaned across the table toward Heidi. “I don’t know what you’re implying, but I don’t
need Merrick to provide for me. I’m not some gold-digging whore, thank you. I love him.” Her voice broke on the word love, making Maddie want to stand and wrap her arms around Rachael, to tell her everything would be okay. But would it?

“Then don’t imply that I don’t love my brother,” Heidi said, her voice edged in ice.

Rachael sank back into her chair. “Are there any other secrets about Merrick’s past I should know? Let’s get everything out in the open.”

“None that are mine to tell.” Heidi shoved her chair back and eyed Maddie.

Maddie shrank under Heidi’s gaze and replayed her last statement.
None that are mine to tell.
Did Heidi know Maddie had been guarding a secret for over a year? It sounded that way.

Heidi stormed off down the path back toward the hotel.

It felt like Maddie had been kicked in the gut.

She gazed out over the sun-sparked water. MJ was a miniature in the far off canoe. She could tell he was laughing and holding a fishing pole. He’d been hidden away for so long from his cousins, from his father, from the truth. Being here had to be affecting him more than she could ever realize. He played it off so well, acted like it was normal to go through a situation like this.

“Your mind is racing,” Rachael said.

Maddie cut her eyes from MJ out on the water to the observant, caring brown pair across the table. “I want everything for him. I’d do anything to make him happy.”

Rachael brushed a few lingering seed pods from the table. “What about getting back together? Is that what will make him happy?”

Maddie’s stomach clenched. She needed space. Needed to breathe and think. “I’m going to take a walk. Be right back.”

The tall trunks of the Paperbark trees were shedding, their grainy bark peeling off in long strips. Sunlight dappled through their leaves, lighting on the white, feathery seeds floating down from the canopy.

This island was magical, and Maddie needed magic in her life. Magic or miracles.

She pulled three long strands of bark off a tree and braided them together as she strolled aimlessly over the soft leaves and mulched earth. Her mom always braided her hair when she was little—before her mom left. One long, thick braid down her back. She’d called it Maddie’s horsewhip.

Maddie never got to ask her mom what she knew about horses. Probably nothing, but she’d never know for sure now.

Questions needed answers. If she told MJ what she knew, he could get his answers if he wanted them. At least he’d have the choice. Keeping a secret from him didn’t give him the opportunity she wished she had.

She tossed the braid on the ground. It would be helpful if she knew her own mind, knew what she wanted—what she would do in his situation. She wavered on everything. Always had. Every single decision. Teaching after she got her education degree, searching for her mom, Talan…

She wished she was more like Kara. Like Rachael. They were both so sure of themselves, strong and convicted in what they believed.

Maddie lacked conviction, lacked faith in herself to do what her heart knew was right.

“Leave the island,” a woman’s voice said from behind her.

She darted around. Off in the distance, a woman stood against a tree, watching her. Maddie gasped. “Who are you?”

“Stay away from him,” the woman said, “and leave this place.” She turned and disappeared behind the tree she’d been leaning against.

Maddie jogged in her direction. “Wait! Who are you?” She had the strangest impression that she’d seen the woman before.

It was no use. Maddie stopped chasing her. She was gone.

M
J 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?”

“Fuck 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.