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She nodded.
One hand lifted, his fingers beckoning her closer. She leaned down and brought her face farther into the lamp’s dim light, sat still as his bloodshot eyes focused on her face, then roved slowly over her features.
His chin trembled. “My Kit?” He touched her face, two callused fingertips trailing over her cheek, mouth, and chin, searching for the girl he’d last seen fifteen years ago. “My baby girl?”
“Yes.” She smiled wider. Her lips stiffened, and her cheeks ached. “Always.”
He stared a few moments more, and a pained expression appeared, his eyes welling. “So much like your mama used to be . . .”
A tear slipped from his dark lashes, rolled down his lean cheek, and disappeared in his thick beard.
“I’m in pieces,” he whispered. “Viv—my poor Viv. And Mackey. Everything . . . in pieces.”
Kit wiped his wet cheek with her thumb, then wrapped her arms around his shoulders and brought her lips to his ear. “Do you remember what I promised you the day I left?”
He nodded jerkily, his coarse beard scratching her cheek.
“I promise I’ll pick you up,” she said, her own voice catching. She stared at the bamboo urn sitting silently on the nightstand, swallowed hard, and steadied her words. “Tomorrow morning we’ll carry her away from here and set her free. Then I swear I’ll pick us all up and put us back together the way we should’ve always been.”
CHAPTER3
Beau stood in front of Teague Cottage, palmed the card in his back pocket, and weighed his options. The first was easy: Turn around, walk back up the dirt road, and tell Viv, who trudged some distance behind him, that he was sorry, but he couldn’t intrude on a private family matter. It wasn’t his place, and he wasn’t welcome.
He was glancing over his shoulder, contemplating doing just that, when Viv rounded the bend in the road and her unsteady frame emerged from the tree line. She winced as a ray of sunlight hit her eyes, shielded her face with her hand, and swayed on her feet.
Beau dragged a hand over his face and sighed. First hard shot of morning sunlight after an endless night of drinking? That was about right. Viv was in no shape to do this alone, and aside from that, he’d sworn last night on the back deck of Lou’s run-down Lagoon to stick by her side. Had to. It’d been the only way to get her to stop drinking and consider going home.
Stopping, Viv bent over and braced her hands on her knees. “I don’t feel so good.”
Not surprising. After he’d managed to cajole her back to his father’s house, it’d been almost three in the morning. She’d managed to steal three hours of sleep at most before he’d woken her up, placed a hot cup of coffee in her hands, and nudged her out the door to make it to Teague Cottage by sunrise.
Beau retraced his steps until he reached her side. He cupped her elbow, his voice soft. “Nothing about this will feel good. If you want to go back, we will. But I think you made the right choice in deciding to see this through.”
She looked up at him, her cheeks pale. “Why?”
“Closure.” It was the only reason he could think of besides the torn expression on her face last night as she’d wavered between going home to spread her mother’s ashes and refusing to give Kit the satisfaction. “If you don’t follow through today, I think you may regret it later.”
She stared up at him, her mouth trembling. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“I am. Because I’ve been there.” Though he hated to revisit the memory.
Helping Cal say goodbye to Evelyn three years ago had been more painful than he cared to remember. He’d walked his son past his wife’s open casket in the funeral home, hugged him tight to his side, and silenced his own pain as Cal, twelve at the time, cried. Beau had known for months that day would come—had even prepared for it with Evelyn’s gentle encouragement—but that day had still been the longest of his life.
“When today is over,” he said, “you’ll be able to move on. Not right away”—both he and Cal still struggled, even three years later—“but eventually, you’ll be able to put it behind you.”
Or at least . . . he hoped that would happen, not only for Viv but for him and Cal, as well.
The corners of Viv’s mouth turned up, and a dry, humorless laugh escaped her. “Put it behind me?” Her eyes strayed past him toward the spray-painted mailbox at the mouth of Teague Cottage’s driveway.Wild cat. “You know why they wrote that?”
“Yeah.”
Everyone living in Hope Creek did. Although Beau had crossed paths with Sylvie only twice over the course of his life, her name had circulated the island frequently over the years. It was usually mired in a humiliating anecdote filled with enough violent or—in the most degrading retellings—sordid details to turn his stomach. The thought of anyone taking pleasure in Sylvie’s pain had disgusted him. No one should be treated that way, especially not a woman as troubled and vulnerable as Sylvie.
Thewhatof Sylvie Teague’s struggle had been easy to pin down; Sylvie had acted out in public on a regular basis—breaking windows, shouting profane threats at strangers, instigating violent altercations in bars, and maintaining an almost constant state of drug- or alcohol-induced inebriation. Thewhy, however, had been a bit harder to define, prompting neighbors to speculate. Schizophrenia? Bipolar disorder? Hard-core addiction?
But the most prevalent and offensive conjecture had rippled through the small community consistently after each of Sylvie’s arrests:just another trashy Teague.
Viv had borne the brunt of repercussions arising from Sylvie’s meltdowns and had defended her mother’s reputation on a routine basis, her balled fists and defiant glare a landmark on the tiny island, peppering locals’ directions to tourists seeking scenic views:You’ll want to stick to the north side of the island. If you hit weeds and meanness, you’ve done gone too far south.
