Chapter 2
Two
Finn Chaffey was not in the habit of carrying women—especially ones he hadn’t officially met. One of the many clueless Newfoundland dogs on his farm that didn’t want to go back to where they were supposed to be? That was a regular occurrence. Pretty tourists soaked in harbor water? Not once.
But the moment he had helped her stand, he knew she wasn’t going to make it far. Certainly not the twenty-minute walk to his place on the far side of the three-way intersection, across from the dairy farm. With each hobbling step, she cringed, her shoulders hunching beneath his shirt.
She’d probably twisted her ankle when she fell into the water. After bumping into him.
He’d been too busy reining in Joe Jr.—who was far too excited about their daily walk—to notice her until it was too late. Until she’d bounced off him and gone airborne.
Her predicament wasn’t entirely his responsibility. Just mostly.
Not that he’d have left her to fend for herself even if he hadn’t been at fault. He liked to think he’d have gone in after her if Joe hadn’t been there. The dog couldn’t learn to find a piece of Limburger cheese in an open barn. But underwater rescue was in his blood.
He reached out to give his buddy another head rub, and Joe Jr. was right there, still a little damp despite his energetic shimmy.
The swimmer hadn’t been able to shake off the water as easily, and her whole body continued to shiver.
One steadying hand on her elbow, Finn quickly scanned the scene. Mike and Bobby had returned to their boats, finishing the day’s work. Most of the others were headed in that direction. His truck was at home, and if the girl had a car nearby, her key fob probably wasn’t going to work after that dunking.
He knew one family on Harbourview Drive that wouldn’t balk at him showing up with a half-drowned stranger.
“Think you can make it about ten minutes down the boardwalk?”
She nodded, then stumbled on her next step, grabbing at his arm.
Yeah. This wasn’t going to work.
“Do you mind?” He wasn’t quite sure what he was asking, and the raise of her eyebrows said she didn’t know either.
But there wasn’t a smooth way to put it into words. At least not into words he knew. So he leaned down to hook his arm behind her knees, but she hobbled back, stuffing her fist to her mouth to muffle a low groan.
“I’m all right. I can make it.” The pinched lines around her lips contradicted her words.
Putting his hands on his hips and staring her down like he would an ornery goat, he said, “At the rate you’re going, it’ll be a lot longer than ten minutes.”
Her shoulders twitched, and she crossed her arms, hunching in on herself.
“You’re cold and wet. Let me get you somewhere warm, and then we’ll figure this out.”
She opened her lips, and he was sure she was going to make another argument. Nobody had time for that. Instead of waiting for her, he scooped an arm around her back and the other under her knees, lifting her against his chest.
She let out a soft “eep” and pushed against his shoulders. His grip slipped, and he nearly dropped her. With a cry, she slung her arms around his neck. Whole body trembling, she leaned into him.
“You’re warm.” She sighed and pressed her face into his neck.
Not for long. He could feel the icicles forming where the wind met the damp tracks she left around the collar of his white T-shirt.
“Let’s get somewhere we can both be.” He started toward the boardwalk, careful not to jostle her. This wasn’t exactly the walk he’d planned, though he took this path through the dock and around the harbor most days.
Before he got more than a few steps, she croaked, “My backpack.”
He paused to make sure Joe Jr. was pulling his weight, and the dog indeed had her bright orange bag between his teeth. The top flap hung open, and water still dripped a trail as Joe trotted along. Everything inside had clearly been doused in salt water, and anything electronic was probably ruined. So he said only, “Got it.”
She sagged against him, letting out a loud sigh.
Two minutes of silence shouldn’t have been awkward, but it was. He’d never been this close to a stranger. Was rarely this close to personal friends. The last girl he’d held against his chest had been Jessie Sloan—aged fifteen months. And that was only to make sure she didn’t run off while her mom rounded up the others from Sunday school.
Clearing his throat, he said, “I’m Finn, by the way. Finn Chaffey.”
She nodded into his neck. “Cretia Martin.” She emphasized the last syllable with a long e , the mumbled name almost sounding Spanish.
Good. Introductions out of the way.
“Thanks,” she said. The single word was more breath than sound, and he almost missed it.
“You’re welcome.”
“I thought your dog was a bear.”
“A lot of people do.” He chuckled. “Guess he just has one of those faces.”
She giggled too, the sound low and throaty. Maybe her laugh always sounded like that. Or maybe it was a by-product of swallowing half the harbor. He had a sudden desire to know for sure. But that would have to wait.
“Almost there.” He jogged up the steps from the boardwalk to the road above, holding her a little tighter to keep her from bouncing too much. Joe Jr. had no such concerns, bounding up the steps and racing across the road, not even bothering to look both ways. He leapt into the front yard of the two-story blue house with the white porch and bright door.
“Joe Jr.” Jack, Marie and Seth Sloan’s eldest, raced down the steps from Rose’s Red Door Inn and dove into the dog’s side. Joe happily dropped the load he’d been carrying, letting his tongue hang halfway to the ground as he slobbered all over the boy. Jack had to be seven or eight, but the dog was at least twice his size. And a total sucker for a good ear scratch. Jack had his number, and Joe wiggled and writhed in the grass as he basked in the attention.
The front door opened, and Marie poked her head out. “Jack, what are you—” Her eyes swung from her son, and her eyebrows shot beneath her dark curls. “Finn? What happened? Who’s—”
“This is Cretia. We had a little accident in the harbor.” He offered a helpless shrug.
“Come in. Come in.” She waved them into the Victorian-staged foyer and past the round wooden entry table with a perfectly fanned spread of travel magazines, not even a word about the sporadic drips in their wake that marred her perfect floor.
Ignoring him, Marie put a hand on Cretia’s shoulder. “Are you hurt?”
“R-r-rice.”
“You’re hungry? I can make you something warm to eat.”
Cretia shook her head, more water falling onto his arm from her long black ponytail. “My bag. My electronics.” Her teeth resumed chattering as soon as she stopped speaking.
Marie’s forehead wrinkled as Finn turned back toward the yard, where Cretia’s backpack had landed with an audible squish when Joe Jr. let it go in favor of little-boy hugs and belly rubs. Whatever was in that bag probably wasn’t going to make it. But he wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.
Thank God for Marie Sloan, who had never met a situation she couldn’t take charge of.
“We’ll take care of that after we make sure you’re all right. Come into the kitchen.” Marie wasn’t even a step in that direction when she angled her head and called down the hallway, “Julia Mae, will you bring me some big towels? Now.” She paused and gave them both a quick once-over. “Lots of them!”
They took a quick path across the dining room, weaving between a few of the mismatched four-top tables. They weren’t set with tablecloths or place mats at the moment, but the rich white wainscoting and deep blue paint on the walls reminded him how stunning the room could be dressed up in its Sunday best. As they flew through the swinging door that led to the kitchen, the little jingle bell above the door rang its greeting.
“Let’s sit you down here,” Marie said, pulling out a wooden stool from along the middle island and leaning in close to Cretia’s face when he set her there. “Where does it hurt?”
Cretia wrapped her arms around her middle and curled in on herself, shooting an uncertain glance in his direction. Could she feel his absence too? It was an unusual tingle deep in his chest, not strong, just ... present. A noticeable change. Cold where they had managed to keep each other tolerably warm together.
Only it was cozy in the house. Maybe the real chill came from being apart. He crossed his arms in a losing attempt to ward off the strange feeling.
“Julia, where are you?” Marie called.
“Coming!” The voice of the little girl was muffled behind a stack of neatly folded beach towels taller than her head. But she moved quickly, nearly running into the corner of the island counter.
Putting a hand on her dark curls, Finn stopped her before she could do any real damage and grabbed two of the towels off her stack. “Thanks, squirt.”
He whipped one to full size and threw it around Cretia’s shoulders, then rubbed up and down her arms from shoulders to elbows and back. She still twitched and quivered, but maybe not so much from the cold as the adrenaline that had likely coursed through her. And the rush of it leaving her body.
He didn’t stop, though. A bit of contact might be comforting.
To her or himself, he didn’t know.
Either way.
Marie spread another white towel over Cretia’s lap and then threw one at him. Finn raised an eyebrow, but Marie only gave him a roll of her eyes. He swung it around his neck and patted at a few wet spots on his shirt before turning back to Cretia.
Slowly the tension in her shoulders began to ease, and the clacking of her teeth slowed. After a few more minutes, she took a shaky breath.
“I’m sorry to be such a bother.” She inhaled again, raising her shoulders and posture. “I’ll—Let me clean up your floor.”
Marie bent slightly at the waist until her face was directly even with Cretia’s line of sight. “I’ll handle that later. First, are you all right?”
Cretia tried to pull the towels off and move to stand, but Finn put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “She must have hurt her leg when she fell in. She couldn’t walk on it.”
Cretia shot him a hard look, which softened as soon as she turned back to Marie. “I twisted my ankle. Before. On the boardwalk. I was a little off-balance and ran into a column or something when I was getting some footage on the dock.” She waved the phone still in her hand. There was no way it had survived the ordeal, but she didn’t look ready to let it go, her fingers holding it like a vise.
Finn chewed on his lip and dragged a hand through his hair. She hadn’t exactly run into a column. “Um, actually...”
“Finnegan Chaffey.” Marie’s voice turned all things mom. “Tell me you didn’t push this poor thing into the harbor.”
“Of course not! I was just trying to wrangle Joe Jr., and she bumped into me.” He shot Cretia what he hoped was an apologetic grimace. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to send you over the edge.” Literally.
Her dark eyebrows pulled together. “I ran into you?”
He offered a one-shoulder shrug, the best he could do at the moment.
“But I didn’t even ... You weren’t ... I didn’t see you there.”
“I didn’t see you either. Until it was too late.” He tried for a smile. “Maybe we’re even?”
Marie harrumphed. “Not likely, mister.”
Yeah. He knew she was right. “What can I do?”
“First things first.” Marie ran a towel over Cretia’s dripping hair. “A shower and some dry clothes.”
Cretia’s eyes flashed wide and fearful. “My carry-on. Did you see it?”
Finn cringed. “It’s in the harbor. Somewhere. But if it had any sort of buoyancy, the waves could have carried it halfway to Newfoundland by now.” Maybe not quite that far, but their only real hope of recovery was if a lobster boat crew mistook it for a buoy. Not real likely. Though she did not need to hear that at the moment.
“That’s ... that’s everything...” Cretia struggled to find her words and her breath, which came out in quick pants. Her wide eyes turned even more wild. Her smeared eye makeup had been funny at first, but combined with the unhinged look in her eyes, she was more than a little bit terrifying.
Marie shot him a look that seemed to ask just who he’d brought into her home, and he could only shrug. He had no idea.
“Do you have another suitcase?” Finn leaned in, offering a reasonable solution. Surely, she had some other clothes somewhere. “Did you leave it at your hotel in Charlottetown? I can help you get that back.”
Little lines appeared between her gently arched eyebrows as she began to shake her head. “No. That’s—Everything I own is in my carry-on and backpack.”
Marie sucked in a quick breath, and Finn backed up so fast that he bumped into the white-tiled counter that ran the length of the wall.
“Everything?” he asked slowly. He had to have misunderstood. No one carried all of their earthly belongings in two bags. Next to large bodies of water.
Cretia merely dipped her chin, her gaze dropping to her folded hands in her lap.
“I’m sure we can find you something to wear while we wash your clothes,” Marie said. With a hand under Cretia’s elbow, she guided her toward the back stairwell.
“Please. Can you rice my electronics?” Cretia thrust her phone at him.
Finn accepted the metallic blue device and glanced toward the front yard where Joe Jr. had dropped her bag, but it didn’t help to make sense of her words. “Rice?”
“Put them in uncooked rice. Cover them all the way. It might pull the water out.”
“Sure. Yeah. I can do that.” He nodded toward Marie. “You go clean up, and I’ll ... rice your electronics.”
Cretia’s features pinched tight for a moment, but finally she allowed herself to be ushered away, limping with each step.
Finn flipped the phone over in his hand a few times. It looked fairly new, one of those ones with a fancy camera and a huge screen. Then again, he didn’t have much to compare it to. He still used a flip phone that required old-school texting techniques. Not that he texted much. Or did anything but take business calls and reach out to his parents every now and then.
He was certainly no expert, but one of the guys in town had dropped his fancy phone in the harbor once. Brandon had complained for weeks that the so-called water-resistant feature was a scam because his phone never did turn on again. The screen on Cretia’s was mostly black, save for three small patches that flickered neon colors and two horizontal cracks that it had probably sustained either going into or out of the water. He had a feeling that elaborate features wouldn’t save this phone from the trash bin. Rice or not.
Still, he set the phone down and jogged toward the front yard to find Jack and Joe Jr. playing a game of tackle tag, Joe’s happy barks mixing with Jack’s squeals of laughter.
“Jack, can I leave Joe with you for a minute? I’ll be right back.”
Jack looked up as Joe Jr. pushed him to the ground. “Sure, Mr. Finn!” he said from somewhere beneath the furry beast, who looked up with a dumb grin.
“Be good, Joe.”
The dog answered by letting loose a big dribble of slobber.
Finn could only laugh as he picked up the squishy backpack and set it on the porch before jogging down the road toward the town grocery. He made the trip past the harbor in half the time it had taken with Cretia in his arms and crossed the street at the three-way stop. In the store he picked up six bags of white rice.
Jasmin Brandy, who had been in the same grade as him, raised her eyebrows when he plopped the bags down at the checkout. “The church having a potluck I didn’t get invited to?”
“No. I have to rice some electronics.”
“Rice? Is that a verb?”
“Apparently so. You think this is enough?”
Jasmin chuckled. “I don’t even know what that is.”
At least he wasn’t the only one out of the technology loop. But her response didn’t answer his question. “Hang on. I’m going to get some more.” He ran back to the shelf and grabbed the last three bags. Just in case.
“You going to need a sack for these?”
He looked at the twenty pounds of rice and frowned. “Yeah.”
Jasmin rang up a green reusable grocery bag—just like the five he had at home—and filled it.
Swinging the bag over his shoulder, he waved and headed back to the inn. On the front porch, he picked up Cretia’s backpack and headed for the mudroom, where he quickly found a plastic bucket. After filling it halfway with the long-grain white rice, he shoved her phone in until it was covered. Then he opened her backpack.
Digging through a stranger’s personal effects felt like an invasion of privacy, so he peeked inside first.
Each of the three sections in the main pocket were carefully organized. The sleek silver laptop in the middle sloshed when he pulled it free, and he grimaced. He didn’t see how rice could combat that, but he shoved it into the bucket anyway. Then came a tablet about three times the size of her phone.
Next was a stick with a claw on one end and an elbow of some sort in the middle. It didn’t look like any piece of electronics he’d ever seen. But better not to risk it. He shoved that into the rice too. And every charging cord he could find in the main and smaller front pockets.
When he reached into the front pocket, his fingers brushed something that wasn’t electronic and that felt a whole lot like soggy bread.
Jerking his hand away, he peered in. Water-logged white paper outlined the shape of a dark blue passport. With precision pinching to avoid the paper, he pulled the passport free.
He had no business opening it, but he did anyway.
Lucretia Sonora Martin. Hometown: San Luis, Arizona, USA.
Every wrinkled blue page was covered in colorful stamps. At least, they had probably once been identifiable as stamps. Now they were smeared, ink running and blending together into a messy watercolor.
Thankfully the passport was made of better stock than the mushy printer paper he’d come in contact with. Carefully smoothing the pages, he hung it over the edge of the bucket, praying it would dry enough that it wouldn’t need to be replaced.
He didn’t even know the closest place she could apply for a new one. Certainly not on the island. Maybe Halifax. But that was a full-day trip.
To make sure he got all the electronic equipment out of her bag, he turned it upside down and dumped out everything else, which clattered to the mudroom floor.
The fob for her rental car—thankfully the kind that had a physical key snapped inside so she’d be able to drive it back to the airport in Charlottetown. A stainless-steel water bottle, which clanged and bounced and then rolled away. A soggy pair of rolled socks and a wad of fabric that looked suspiciously like underclothes.
Not that he was in the habit of looking at women’s unmentionables.
With a nudge of his boot, he pushed them all into one pile, including a wet clump of paper. It looked like the island map given out at the airport rental car counter.
He gave the bag another shake, but nothing else broke free, so he poked his head inside one more time. There had to be more in there. A purse of some sort? Keys to her home? Lip gloss? A snack, maybe?
The only thing inside was a single photograph—an old-school Polaroid. The woman in the picture looked like an older version of Cretia, but the setting didn’t make sense. She appeared to be sitting on a recliner, a giant cat curled up in her lap. But something was piled up on her right. And her left. And behind her.
The more he stared at it, the less the photo made sense.
Suddenly the Polaroid was snatched from his fingers.
“Who said you could look through my things?”