Tattered Innocence (34 page)

He stood. Drawing in a breath, he focused on
Nate’s fists jerking up and down in front of his face.

“I may not make enough money for you to live
like you did growing up….” He would always be the guy who screwed
up her life, who made her live with less.

“You know I don’t care about that. Anyway,
parenthood doesn’t change my desire to teach. My parents would help
if there were some crisis….”

He cringed. The last thing he wanted was
handouts from her folks. “Could we really make a stable home for
Nate with a messed up foundation like ours?”

“Plenty of people make arranged marriages
work. We spent a year together and got along well. It’s not like
we’ll have a volatile relationship.”

Or a passionate one.
“Where would we
live?”

“I’ve thought a lot about this.”

“And?”

“What do you think about getting a place in
town? You could keep your business.”

“We’d be a weekend family?”

Gabs nodded, shot him a hopeful look.

She’d thrown him a hefty carrot. But would
weekends be enough dad for Nate? Had he gotten much more than that
from Dad or Gramps? Probably not. “When?”

“As soon as we can get a marriage license.
My parents said they’d fly out.”

Great. They’d been underwhelmed by him to
begin with. Knocking up their daughter would insure he’d never be
truly welcome in their family. Now that Gabs held out the key to
the club, he didn’t want it anymore.

He’d run out of objections.
Except for
Rachel.
His mouth went desert-island dry.

“Okay.” The word tasted like shell in his
mouth.

“Don’t sound so excited about it.”

“Oh, and you’re thrilled?”

“Jake, you’re just the kind of man I wanted
to marry—someone hardworking like my father, honest, kind. You’ll
be a great dad. I’m attracted to you. I stuck with the engagement
as long as I did because I wanted us to work. We will work.”

He pressed the ring into her palm. “It’s the
right thing to do.”

She handed him Nathan and slid the ring onto
a shaky finger. Her shoulders slumped, mirroring his dejection.

She would never have her doctor, and he
would never have Rachel.

He hoisted Nate onto his shoulder and
pressed his lips against the baby fuzz on his head.

“Okay if I check on the license tomorrow?”
she said. “I can find us a place while you’re out of port this
week.”

“Fine. The Explorer keys are hanging beside
the main companionway.”

She slid off Rachel’s bunk and stood in
front of Jake, too close, in the small space. She wrung her hands,
her gaze darting around the cabin and landing on Jake.

“Thanks.” She stood on tip toe and pressed
her lips firmly against his. “I can’t handle being a single
mother.”

He lay the baby down on his bunk. “I know.
It’s what’s best for Nate, anyway.”

She gave him a weak smile, and he watched
her leave the way she’d come in.

The touch of her lips slammed reality into
him. He’d be kissing Gabs the rest of his life. Vanilla kisses.
Maybe this was why he’d been able to agree to a long engagement the
first time around.

The memory of Rachel’s last kiss flooded him
with heat. Then, the chill of loss settled into every crevice of
his body.

I can’t do this.
God, give me the
strength to be a man Gramps would be proud of.
He stared at his
son. “You’re worth everything.” The truth hung in the cabin with
the scent of mildew.

He reached a finger out to the baby, and
Nate grabbed hold.

Someday his emotions would catch up with his
decision.

Jake stifled a yawn as Gabs crawled between
the sheets on Rachel’s bunk. Reality knifed into him one more time.
Rachel belonged here. Gabs had bailed him out by cooking for this
cruise, but missing Rachel throbbed with every breath.

Nate whimpered in his sleep, reminding him
of his responsibility. Jake glanced at Nate’s crib straddling the
open door between the engine room and the aft cabin.

Gabs pulled up the blankets, tucking them
under her arms. The soft light from the head they’d left on for
night feedings bathed her. “I know this is crazy, but I feel more
rested cooking on the
Queen
this week than I did at home
dealing with all my mother’s drama. Nathan sleeps well with the
roll of the ship. You’re in the galley a hundred times a day
looking for ways to help me, taking the baby when you’re at the
helm, sending me off to take naps like an invalid.”

Jake glanced at her, clasping his hands
behind his neck on the pillow. “Did I thank you for helping me out
this week?”

“Only about sixteen times.”

“I never could have done this alone.
Hopefully, I’ll hire a replacement for Rachel this weekend from the
ads I placed before this week’s cruise.”

“Why did Rachel quit?”

His fingers dug into the muscles in the back
of his neck. They’d be husband and wife soon. Didn’t he owe her the
truth? He stared at the wood grain on the underside of the hatch.
“I wanted to marry her—” The words strangled in his throat. He
still wanted to marry Rachel.

“When you hinted there might be someone
else, I thought it was hypothetical.” Her voice drifted off,
wistful.

“Nate has to come first.” The words tasted
like sawdust in his mouth.

“Did you love me?”

Shame lodged the answer in his throat, and
he cleared it. “Maybe, but I think I was half in love with what you
stood for—old money, your niche in society, things I’d been hungry
for since Gilford Prep.” His eyes locked on the porthole over Gabs’
head.

“Ouch.”

“I’m not proud of it. I had a lot of hard
knocks growing up shut out of the club.”

“You’re bitter.”

“Not anymore.”

“I understand being shut out as an unmarried
pregnant woman. Anger that composts into your bones. Some things
are universal.”

Silence stretched out in the cabin for so
long he thought Gabs had fallen asleep.

She propped her head up on her elbow. “I
thought—I thought we could make it work because you loved me…. Does
Rachel love you?”

He didn’t want to answer. “We were just
getting to that when you walked up the dock.”

“Make an educated guess.”

“Probably.”

Gabs fell back on her pillow. “Well, I’m
glad we had this conversation before we got married.”

“I’m just trying to be honest here.”

He rolled over to face the hull as if he
could relax after they’d stirred everything up. Doing the right
thing wasn’t difficult. It was impossible.

God, help me out here.

He sat up.

Eyes open wide, Gabs’ stared at the
underside of the deck.

Jake propped his elbows on his knees. “Look,
the bottom line is that my father died when I was eight, and I’m
going to be there for my son. If that means marrying you, I’ll do
it.”

Gabs rolled her face toward him. “It seems
crazy for us to get married when we’re both in love with other
people.”

A sandpiper of hope beat its wings in his
chest. But he sucked in a breath and made himself say, “I’m willing
to marry you under those conditions.”

“There’s a chance Ian might love me.”

The sandpiper in his chest morphed into a
seagull.

“We spent all our spare time together. He
even kissed me once.” Her eyes drifted shut as if she watched the
film in her head. “But when I told him I was taking Nathan to
Florida to meet his father, he closed down. He didn’t even say
good-bye.” Her last words were so soft Jake barely heard them.

“You didn’t tell him we’re getting
married?”

“Kind of pointless after he blew me
off.”

“You need to tell him.”

God, is it wrong to want this guy to come
through?
“What’s the real reason you put my ring back on your
finger?”

“Since we had sex, maybe we’re already
married in the eyes of God.”

Are we?
He kept asking God for help,
and God kept sliding another fifty-pound weight onto the bar.

“I’ve said a thousand
Our Fathers
,
but I still don’t know if this is the best thing for Nathan.” Gabs
pushed herself up and dangled her legs over the bunk. “I guess if I
had my first choice, I’d give Ian a chance to say he doesn’t want
me to marry you. However this plays out, I want you to be part of
Nathan’s life.” She raked her hands through her hair and it fell in
a gossamer tussle around her face, reminding Jake of why he fell
for her the first time.

“What about you?” Gabs said.

“I’d marry Rachel, if she could accept and
love Nate.”

“If she said no?”

“I was certainly attracted to you before,
and yeah, I’ve felt a spark or two since you arrived. But I don’t
think I’d marry you with Rachel tattooed to my cells. When you
kissed me the other day, I felt—not what I used to feel.”

“Yeah, same here.” Gabs leaned toward him
into the space between the two bunks. “What if—what if we hammered
out custody—”

“I’m willing to sell the
Queen
and
move to Arizona.”

She flung out a hand. “No, the
Queen
has been your dream since you were a kid.”

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but I put
my dream
,
a
nd a
lot of other things, on the line when I chose to sleep with
you.”

Gabs dismissed the idea with a shake of her
head. “Eight months with my mother convinced me we do better on
opposite sides of the country.” Her voice went up at the end with a
quiver of excitement.

“What do you think about aiming for
fifty-fifty custody I could keep Nate from Friday afternoon through
Monday morning.”

Gabs curled on her side facing him. “Jake, I
just don’t know.”

Rachel stood on the cement pier at Marina
Jack’s in Sarasota and stretched the kinks out after a three-hour
drive across Florida and a two-hour interview on the
Key
Breeze.

She glanced back at the forty-one foot
Morgan Classic where it bounced in its slip. She could do the
job—first mate with the probability of moving to captain once she
passed the Coast Guard Captain’s exam and completed another five
hundred twenty-two sailing days. Moving away from home was a step
in her arrested development she was ready to take. Only an idiot
would risk random Winn Dixie encounters with Jake and Gabrielle in
New Smyrna Beach.

Sailing felt like something she was created
to do. Even though the prospect of sailing without Jake felt like a
future with the heart carved out—she’d heal eventually. Maybe
college wasn’t a mountain she had to climb—an
ought
she
could finally cross off her list. She breathed in the familiar,
salty air and let it go, ready to meet her future.

She slipped into her car, rolled down the
windows to release the sun-baked air.

This week felt like the longest week of her
life. On the opposite coast of Florida, Jake would be docking the
Queen
about now. Her chest ached.

Had Gabrielle already taken her place as
first mate? Would they get married this week? She backed out of the
parking space and popped the clutch. A picture of Gabrielle
climbing into Jake’s bunk careened at her.

The car lurched to a halt in the middle of
the parking lot.

Jake’s charm bracelet clinked against the
gearshift.

Jake sat in the cockpit and scrubbed his
face with his hands. He hadn’t slept all night—tossing between Gabs
saying
I do
in front of a judge and Rachel sliding into his
sleeping bag wearing nothing but Gram’s wedding rings.

Invisible and inaudible, God sat against the
transom at the foot of his bunk, waiting to see what Jake would
decide.

Gabs, on the other hand, had slept soundly
till he brought her a hungry Nate around three a.m.

He eyed Gabs as she nursed Nate. “So, what
do you think?”

Now—
after the ring went back on her
finger
—
she draped a blanket over her shoulder and the baby.
“When I floated the possibility of marrying you to Ian six months
ago, he told me I would be doing it for penance.”

“Do you have to decimate my ego to get this
thing done?”

Her eyes lifted. “If Jesus really did take
my punishment on the cross, maybe I don’t have to marry you.”

Relief swam through him. Then, the jaws of
conscience clamped down. This was the logical conclusion to the
discussion they started last night, but was it the right
decision?

She slid the ring off and pinched it between
two fingers, holding it out to him over Nathan, her eyes begging
him to tell her whether she was doing the right thing.

Gabs glanced over Jake’s shoulder down the
dock. Her breath sucked in and she popped up to her feet.

Jake twisted around to see a man in jeans
and a pullover sweater walk confidently up the finger pier. Jake
looked back at Gabs.

Her cheeks had pinked. Jake’s ring still
clamped between her fingers, partially extended toward him.

He tugged the ring free and pocketed it as
the guy strode across the gangplank, grinning at Gabs.

“Hi, kid,” he said to her.

Jake took Nathan from her arms, but she
hardly noticed.

Gabs stepped into the man's embrace as
though she were in a daze.

The man laughed and held her tight.

One arm stayed around Gabrielle, and reached
a hand toward Jake. “You must be Jake. Ian.”

Jake met Ian’s eyes over their clasped
hands. The lines around the corners of Ian’s eyes—honest eyes, Jake
thought—crinkled when he smiled.

“May I?” Ian reached for Nathan. He settled
the baby on his shoulder and patted his back for a burp. “Hey big
guy, your Mama and Daddy have been feeding you well.” He glanced at
Gabs. “He’s gained a good eight ounces.”