Chapter 5 #2
“And you could be playing us right now. Trying to catch us off guard. Make us think we’ve got this in the bag, but then you swoop in and steal it out from under us,” Fletcher said.
“Wow, man. You’ve got some serious trust issues.” Decker tapped his fingers on the table. “I’ve got to get going. You two fellas have a nice day.”
Fletcher leaned back, letting the chair creak. “You do the same.”
“Maybe I’ll stop by the marina. See how Baily’s doing.” Decker nodded once and walked away.
Fletcher pressed his hands on the wooden top and stood.
“Don’t,” Keaton said firmly. “Not worth having to call Dawson here because you let your fists get the better of you, especially because Decker only said that to needle you.” Keaton leaned forward.
“Just like you commented about Baily making you a treat this morning to see if you could rattle him. You’re better than that. ”
“I know.” Fletcher eased back into the chair. “But what I wouldn’t give to feel my knuckles connect with his flesh.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Keaton dunked a fry in ketchup. “That guy oozes snake oil and gym memberships.”
Fletcher snorted, lifting his iced tea. “Yeah, but even snakes strike when the grass gets quiet. We need to find out who that other guy was.”
Keaton wiped his fingers and tossed the napkin onto the plate. “On it. I’ll call Chloe. If she can’t get a line on him, she’ll call her old partner, Buddy.”
They paid their tab and stood, stepping off the porch into the Florida sun, the scent of saltwater and Spanish moss thick in the air.
As Fletcher made his way to his truck, he felt something settle uneasily in his gut. Like maybe the tide was turning—and it wasn’t in their favor.
Baily sat with her legs dangling off the edge of Fletcher’s dock, the soft ripple of the water beneath her toes lulling her into a quiet calm.
The sky was painted in watercolor streaks of lavender and blush, and the sun slipped low behind the mangroves.
The air smelled of brine and wild sage, the kind of scent one could only get living on the edge of the Everglades.
Fletcher sat beside her, knees bent, bare feet resting on the sun-warmed wood. He passed her a cold bottle of sweet tea and clinked his own against it. “To surviving the week.”
Baily smirked. “It’s only Wednesday.”
“Exactly.”
They sat in companionable silence for a minute, watching a gator slink lazily through the channel, its tail swirling gently above the waterline. A heron lifted from the reeds nearby, wings wide, its shadow stretching across the dock.
She’d always loved evenings like this. As a kid, she used to sit on the docks of the marina, watching the sunset, enjoying the quiet stillness that Calusa Cove offered.
This had always been home. She’d never had dreams of seeing the world.
Of being anywhere else. Her friends, including Audra, had spoken of venturing off into lands unknown.
Having wild adventures. Careers that brought them across the globe, offering something that this patch of land couldn’t.
It had been something Baily couldn’t fathom. Still couldn’t.
And it had broken her heart when the man she loved had walked away.
They’d tried to survive it. Muddled their way through boot camp and a few years of writing letters, visits between deployments, which had turned into arguments about the future.
Not so much about her leaving, though there were talks about that, because Fletcher had always believed they could come back.
That someday he’d leave the Navy. But he’d always pushed that date out.
And then, of course, her father had died, changing everything.
“You’re deep in thought,” Fletcher said.
“Just trying to ignore the pending doom and enjoy what makes me love this place.”
“It is magical,” Fletcher said. “No place on earth like it.”
“And yet, you left,” she whispered, keeping her gaze on the alligator—the one everyone called Captain.
She knew it was Captain because he had a big scar on his back, probably from a boat propeller.
He was at least twelve to fourteen feet long and always minded his own business.
The people of Calusa Cove joked that he watched out for their quiet little town.
That he patrolled the waters, a point that seemed to be driven home harder lately, as Captain had been seen more often since Paul Massey and Dewey Hale had turned on the town.
It was as if Captain had grown tired of being betrayed by its own.
Fletcher tilted her face with the palm of his hand.
She blinked.
“Are you really afraid I’m going to pack my bags and take off?” he asked, dropping his hand to his lap.
“That thought does cross my mind sometimes.” At first, she’d kept Fletcher at a distance because she’d blamed him for her brother’s death.
She’d needed someone to point her grief and anger at, and Fletcher had been an easy target.
But as time passed, and the truth behind Ken’s death had been revealed, she hadn’t been able to keep blaming a man who’d suffered, too.
If she were being honest with herself, which she was now, she’d put walls up because everyone she’d ever loved had abandoned her either through leaving or death.
Fletcher included.
“You spent years in the Navy. Years seeing the world. I can’t help but wonder when you might get bored being back here.”
Fletcher drew in a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. “I don’t know what to say to you to make you understand or to feel safe in the knowledge that I don’t want to be anywhere else but here.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to believe that.
Or that in the last two years, I can’t see that.
” She tapped the center of her chest. “Or even feel it. Maybe it’s everything that’s going on, and it’s like I’m just sitting around and waiting for the other shoe to drop, kind of like the ripple effect that happened after Audra’s dad went missing.
You and Ken left for boot camp. Audra took off.
And from there, it was just like one by one, I ended up alone. ”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Fletcher looped his arm around her waist. “You’re not alone. Can’t you see that? We’re all here for you. Me, the guys, Audra, Trinity, Chloe…all of us.”
“I do know that,” she said. “It’s just hard to accept sometimes after years of feeling alone and doing it all by myself.
” She lifted her hand when he opened his mouth.
“Ken was hard on me the last couple of years he was alive. I didn’t understand him anymore.
We’d been close as kids. Sure, we fought and often didn’t get along, but he was my brother, and he wouldn’t, for whatever reason, support me and this damn marina.
His legacy. He was angry about it. And he said the most outrageous things to me.
I often wondered if you supported him in that decision. ”
“I didn’t know he was doing that. If I had, I would’ve said something.” He pressed his finger against her lips. “And before you go and say anything about that, when most of that was happening, you would barely take my calls. You didn’t tell me anything. That is a two-way street.”
“I know.” She nodded. “I just can’t help these feelings and thoughts. Instead of bottling them up and snapping at you all the time, I decided to tell you, since you asked about what I was thinking.”
He chuckled. “I appreciate that. As long as you don’t regret last night or this morning.” He arched a brow. “Because I still lo—”
“I don’t regret it, and let’s not go there, Fletch. I’m not ready for declarations. Let’s just enjoy things and see what happens. Can you do that?”
He nodded. “But I hate being called Fletch.”
“Why?” she asked. “It’s who you were for my entire youth.”
“I don’t know. I think because when I joined the Navy, everyone called me Fletcher or used my last name, except Ken.
But even he started calling me that a few years in.
When I came back, and people here were calling me Fletch, it grated on my nerves.
Especially when you were telling me I needed to grow up.
Which was odd, because I had. So, I thought Fletcher sounded more like a man and not a stupid teenager. ”
“That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” She let out a little laugh. “But Fletcher is a nice family name.”
He burst out laughing. “My grandmother always loved that I was given her maiden name. Thought it bonded us together somehow. She was a crazy old woman. About the only person Silas was afraid of. Then again, she once ran through town after my dad when he first started dating my mom in a housecoat, hair curlers, combat boots, and a loaded rifle. Silas saw the whole thing. He was just a kid, but said it terrified him. Thought my grandma was gonna shoot my old man right there in front of Harvey’s Cabins. ”
“Your grandma was the best, even if she was a little left of normal.”
“She sure was,” Fletcher said.
A few moments of silence ticked by. The sun disappeared, casting an eerie glow over the Glades.
“So,” Baily said, bumping her shoulder into his. “Anything exciting happen in the wild world of Parks and Rec?” she asked, needing something normal. Something to ground her in the present. Something that wasn’t heavy and filled with worry. Something that felt more like her past than her present.
Fletcher grinned. “Exciting is one word for it. Had to mediate an argument this morning between two people from that boat parade about whether or not manatees are just fat dolphins. I had to wonder where on earth these folks were from and if they’d ever seen the ocean before.”
She laughed. “Seriously?”
“Swear on my life. One of them was convinced the manatees were part of a government cloning project gone wrong. Said it with a straight face. Didn’t even crack a smile or lift a brow. The man was dead freaking serious.”
“Oh, Lord.”