“That could explain the Anémona,” she said.
“Keep your eyes and ears open, okay?”
“Always.” She nodded. But one look at the thoughtful furrow creasing her brow and Jake knew there was something else on her mind. Most likely, it didn’t have anything to do with business. If he didn’t move fast he’d be getting an earful of—
“There’s something else I need to talk about,” she said.
Damn. Too slow.
“When’re you going to accept Harold as part of this family?”
“Claire, I don’t have time for this.”
“Make time.” She planted herself in front of the door. Though she’d married Sam, Claire had never felt like an in-law to the Rawlings family. She’d been the daughter Jake’s mother had never had, more sister to Jake than sister-in-law, mothering, and sometimes bullying, him all the same. “You’ve disapproved of Harold since Milly’s first date. Are you jealous of him, having a hard time with someone replacing your dad, or what?”
“I’m not thirteen. Give me more credit than that.”
“Is it Harold?”
Jake thought about it. “Now that you mention it, she could do better.”
“You don’t get to choose for her. It’s your mom’s life. Vic’s dead, remember?”
He remembered, all right. “Eight months,” he stated the fact with all the grief and anger of every hour of each and every day piled up inside. “You’d think she could have waited a little longer before running off and marrying someone else.”
“So that’s what’s bugging you? That she didn’t wait long enough?”
“Part of it.” This whole issue unsettled him more than he cared to admit to Claire, Harold or his mother. A man worked hard his whole life, built something from nothing. You’d think his death would have some kind of impact on the world. Instead he was just gone.
Jake looked away and took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. The pungent smell of oil and fuel permeating the air in the small engine room brought forth a flood of childhood memories, memories of his dad smelling like this room if he’d come home after tinkering with an engine. If he’d been on the water, the scent of fresh, salty air had hung on his clothes and in his hair. Sometimes his breath had smelled like coffee, other times whiskey, but to Jake, his dad had always smelled like life, the big, burly, fit-everything-in kind. The kind that would go on forever.
“How long do you think Milly should have waited before getting married?” Claire asked.
Sometimes, Jake wanted to shake her senseless for digging into other people’s business when she should be concentrating on her own. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “You tell me. If anyone should be moving on, it’s you. Sam died almost a year and a half ago, and you still haven’t had a date.”
“Jake, everyone’s different. Sam and I were…I don’t know…two parts of the same soul. Neither one of us remembered a time without the other and he died suddenly—”
“A massive coronary’s about as sudden as you can get. Forty years of marriage, and Dad was gone within days. Is waiting a year too much to ask?” The one good engine rolled over, and the Mañana moved ahead. Jake closed the engine cover to douse the sound.
“I don’t think you have the right to ask anything from her. She gave you, Sam and your dad everything she had. Now it’s time to let her do what she wants. Anyone can see that your mother’s the light of Harold’s life. He’d drop anything to be with her.” Claire set her hands on her hips. “After all those years with Vic, doesn’t she deserve that kind of attention?”
His neck prickled defensively. “Dad loved her.”
“In his own way.”
“You may have practically lived at our house, but you didn’t see everything.”
As a next-door neighbor and somewhere in the middle of a family of eight, Claire had claimed the Rawlings family as her own quite early on. She used to say she got more attention in one day at the Rawlings house, than a week at her own. She’d do her homework at their house, claiming it was quieter. Watch TV in their living room, saying she and Sam enjoyed the same shows. She’d even spent weeks with them out on the boats in the summertime.
“Sometimes an outsider can see things best.” She paused, her mouth pinched with worry. “If your dad ever had the choice of time with Milly or heading off for a new wreck site,” Claire said, “which one did he always go for?”
“What’s your point?”
“The fact that you don’t get it.” Her frown deepened. “Jake, wake up. Your mom spent half her married life without the husband she loved. How happy do you think she was?”
While he’d been growing up, his mom had seemed cheerful and competent, despite raising two boys virtually on her own. The fact that she may not have been happy during that time confused and angered him, put a crack in his foundation. The type of crack he didn’t want to look at, let alone fix. He eyed the door, needing out of this conversation.
“She gave your dad the best years of her life,” Claire continued. “Let her move on.”
Wasn’t his surrogate sister a good one to talk? “Maybe it’s time you quit meddling in everyone else’s life, Claire.” And take a good look at your own, he added to himself.
Her surprised expression turned guarded.
He pushed past her and yanked open the engine room door. “What Mom does is her own business. She doesn’t need your endorsement. Or mine.” Jake reached his cabin and secured the door behind him. Mom unhappy. Was that possible?
He forced the useless musings out of his mind. This was no time for family or personal bullshit. He had more important things to think about, like figuring out if his engine had been sabotaged and, if so, who was behind it. He walked straight to the safe, analyzing the possibilities.
Time to take some precautions.
CLAIRE STOOD ALONE in the engine room, staring at the equipment and sundry tools clamped along the wall, trying to slough off the sting of Jake’s accusation. Milly wouldn’t think she was meddling in everyone’s business. Jake was a jerk, always had been. OEI’s entire staff would attest to that.
She took a deep breath and the truth bubbled to the surface. No, that wasn’t true. As brother-in-laws go, Jake was irreproachable, treating Claire like an integral part of his family. Steadfast and protective, Jake would bend over forward, backward and any which way he could for the people he cared about. Lately though, he hadn’t been himself, a man in need not used to needing. Maybe Ronny was right and she should cut him some slack.
She reached for the door, the boat rolled on a wave and a heavy pipe wrench swung from the wall. Claire, baby. Hand me that wrench. The memory of Sam’s deep, raspy voice filled her head. His image swam before her and loneliness engulfed her, the kind of loneliness that made her chest ache, made her want to curl in her bunk and sleep for a thousand years.
I don’t know how to be without you, Sam. I miss you. Your voice. Your laugh. The way you leaned your forehead against mine and looked into my eyes. The way your neck felt under my lips, my tongue. The sweet way you’d kiss my tummy every time we made love in case we’d made a baby. I wish we’d had a child. I’d have a piece of you. To hold.
Her hand flew to the gold chain around her neck, Sam’s chain, the one she’d given him for his eighteenth birthday.
I miss you. So does Jake. Sometimes I think he’s going to blow from locking up all that pain. And D.W., too, though he won’t talk about it. At all.
Oh,