Chapter 24
Zoe
This week has been a tornado.
Between Lucky’s coup, Dad’s panic attack, me being fired, and the whirlwind that is my relationship with Landon, Siren’s Call feels like another nail in the coffin of who I used to be.
Dad’s coming home from the hospital today. As I sit in Pine Ridge Medical Center’s parking lot staring at the rectangular facade, the conversation I hope to have with Dad races through my mind.
For too long I’ve been his Baby Girl.
But I can’t be that girl anymore.
I’m a grown woman.
I’m in love.
I need to choose the future I want, not the one Dad decided for me before I was born.
I toss my phone and my car keys in my purse, step out of my car, and head inside. Dad sits in the hospital bed in his room staring out the window when I arrive.
“I brought you clothes.”
A soft smile pinches the corner of his weathered cheek. “Thanks, Baby Girl.”
Pleasantries press against the back of my throat. How are you feeling? Can I get you some water? Did you eat breakfast? What do you want for dinner?
But if we start with pleasantries, I’ll never say what I need to say.
“Please don’t call me Baby Girl anymore.”
He flinches at the conviction in my voice. It’s not a temperament he’s used to from me. Amenable, accommodating, a servant to my friends and family. Those are the words he uses to describe me.
But that’s not who I am anymore. Not entirely, at least. I will always be here to help him, but I can’t put my life on hold because of his unwillingness move on.
“You’ll always be my Baby Girl. No changing that.”
The nickname grates across my skin. “It doesn’t feel affectionate. It’s demeaning and it hurts my feelings, especially because the rest of the town disrespects me by mimicking your term of endearment with their snide side-eyes.”
“Don’t listen to them. They’re jealous.”
“What do they have to be jealous of? That I’m stuck in your shadow trying to live up to unreasonable expectations?
That no matter what I do or how hard I work, nothing is ever good enough for you?
You should have retired as soon as you had your heart attack, but you didn’t believe I could fill your shoes, so you just kept pretending.
You forced me to lie to everyone. I won’t do it anymore.
You are sick. You need to retire. I can’t be responsible for your wellbeing anymore. It’s not fair to me.”
He shakes his head. “Your mom would be heartbroken to hear you speak to me in that selfish tone.”
“Mom’s not here. She hasn’t been here for almost two decades. And I think she’d be appalled to find me exactly where she left me. We both need to grow up.”
“You want to chase that man around the world? You think he can give you a better life than I can?”
“I don’t want the life you want me to live.
I have opinions and ideas, but you never want to hear them.
You think you always know better, so you shut me down before you hear anything I say.
That’s not how life is supposed to be. No one gets to pick what I want to do with my life, who I want to love, except me. ”
“Years of experience tell me I know what I’m doing.”
“You’re killing Rainwater Bay. The economy is dead. I found a way to fix everything and undo your years of active neglect.”
“Baby Girl, what makes you think you can do the job better than me? If it weren’t for this infernal heart, I’d be mayor until the day I die.”
The conviction on his face turns my resolve into sludge. He gave me my job as his assistant not so he could groom me to become mayor like I thought, but so he could keep me under his control.
I sink into the bench seat next to his hospital bed.
“It’s never been about me not being capable.
It’s always only been about you. You can’t handle that Mom died, so you force everyone to live in the past. You can’t handle that you’re getting older and haven’t taken care of yourself, so you pretend you’re healthy and make me lie for you.
You can’t handle that I’m a grown woman, so you call me Baby Girl and tell me to mind my place and stay silent.
” I shake my head. “I’m done pretending.
Deal with your issues, but don’t expect me to carry your baggage anymore.
” I hand him his clothes. “I’ll be in the hallway when you’re ready to drive home. ”
He grinds his jaw, never meeting my eyes.
Fine. You act like the child you accuse me of being.
Once the discharge paperwork is complete and Dad’s settled in the passenger seat of the Jeep, I start the longest thirty-minute drive of my life.
We’re silent. A heavy silence that confirms our relationship is broken.
He broke it, though I revealed the cracks.
When he expected me to always be the six-year-old girl who took over cooking meals and ironing his ties when Mom died. The one he expected to stand silently in the background and tell him he was my hero.
You can’t be a hero if you force people to stay small and insignificant.
When we arrive at the house, I shift the car to park and carry his stuff inside.
He settles in his recliner and flips on the TV.
“Do you need anything else?” I ask.
“I’m fine.”
Perfect. Still sulking. “I’m running for mayor.”
His forehead pulls together. “You don’t want anything to do with me, so why bother?”
“I’m going to fix what you broke. Starting with renovating the estate and bringing businesses back to Rainwater Bay. Our community will thrive despite your fear of progress.”
“Baby—I mean Zoe, that estate is heartache. Bulldoze it to the ground.”
“It will be what Thomas and Harriette Reeves always wanted it to be—a beacon of hope and love. Mom’s legacy.
The Reeves’s legacy. It will be mine and Landon’s as well.
I’ll make Rainwater Bay the jewel of the Pacific Northwest.” The finished house sparkles in my imagination.
Rows of rose bushes, tables at the overlook to watch the sunset, and laughter filling the halls. And that’s just the beginning.
Dad changes the channel to a baseball game. “Don’t kid yourself. The only thing you’ll accomplish is spending your fancy boyfriend’s money and ending up right where I knew Rainwater Bay should be. Focused on tradition and community. No outsiders messing with things they don’t understand.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I don’t restrain myself when I slam the door.
Landon
Saltwater crusted hair, tanned skin, and librarian glasses perched on the tip of her nose, Margot Davis leans closer to the camera on her laptop, and her face fills my zoom screen. “Show me the crest again.”
I hold up the bottle with SC pressed into the red wax seal. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”
Margot is my family’s go-to for nautical archeological discoveries. With degrees from Berkeley, Oxford, and Harvard, she’s a savant who has never met an artifact she couldn’t authenticate or debunk.
“I need to get my hands on the pieces. I’m in Portugal for the next three months. I’ll send you the address.”
“I’m not shipping anything. I need you here. There’s more. This is big.”
Her manicured eyebrow lifts. “Everyone thinks their discovery is the most important, the next big, earthshattering find of the century. TL; DR, it’s not. It’s likely a bunch of bottles grandpa hid from grandma.”
“You know I’ll pay you well.”
“Never a doubt, but I’m also a woman of my word. I gave my word I’d salvage and authenticate this schooner, so either you wait, or you send me a bottle. Your choice, Landon.”
“One bottle?”
She bobbles her shoulders. “Three would be better…and the manifest. You said you found them in a cave under your new house?”
“We think they’re linked to a shipwreck from the 1920s. Bootleggers who crossed paths with the wrong people.”
She squints. “Why does the find matter? What’s so urgent?”
“The family who owned the ship needs answers. Their dad and sister are missing and we think it’s related.” Part of Zoe’s plan to revitalize Rainwater Bay hinges on the truth of the Reeves legacy.
“You think the bottles will lead you to the shipwreck? That’s unlikely.”
“It’s what we have.”
She harrumphs. “You always did like long odds.”
“So you’re in?”
“I am. Send me what you’re comfortable with, and I’ll be there when I’m done in Portugal.”
We end the call, and Zoe slips out of her kitchen. Sleep rumpled, wearing my button-down shirt, she’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen. I pull her into my lap and nuzzle my nose into her neck. “You smell delicious.”
“ I smell like sex.” She snuggles into me. “Why are you up so early?” She turns my wrist. “Two a.m.?”
“Margot’s an early riser. I needed to get to her before she was on the water all day.”
“She’s coming, then?”
“Eventually, as long as Collin and Archer are okay with me shipping her some of the artifacts.”
“We promised we’d find their sister and dad.”
“I called my security team. They’re starting an investigation as well.”
“Thank you for doing all of this. You don’t have to. They aren’t your friends.”
I shrug. “I’m growing on them, so I doubt they still want to run me out of town.”
“No, I mean…” She braces her forehead against mine. “Thank you for everything you’re doing, but I’ll do this on my own if you don’t want to help. You have a million other business projects to attend to. If this is too much of a distraction, please don’t sacrifice your other responsibilities.”
“You are my priority. That’s what love means. I put you first. Always. You need to get used to me taking care of you. If that means bringing you coffee in bed or finding your friends’ missing sister, everything I am, everything I have is yours. Can you get used to that? Let me love you, Comet.”
“It will take me a while to get used to all of this.”
“Being pampered? Or having me underfoot?” I draw circles on her thigh.
“We never talked about what’s next for us.
If you don’t want me staying in your home, I’ll move back to Pine Ridge until the house is complete.
” We’ve spent every night since the night we played poker wrapped around each other in bed.
I never asked her permission or if she’s comfortable.
It just…became a habit. “I don’t want to take advantage if things are moving too quickly. I don’t want to leave, but I will.”
“About that.” She scrambles off my lap and jogs down to her bedroom.
I follow her with my heart in my stomach. “Zoe, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She meets me in the doorway, bottom lip tucked between her teeth, hands behind her back. “I think…”
I press my thumb to her lip and cradle her jaw. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed. We’re moving too fast. I get it.”
She lifts a key from behind her back. “You’re moving in, so stop babbling.”
I grip the key. “I’m moving in.”
“We’ll need to rearrange the closet because goodness knows you are a clothes whore and all of your cashmere T-shirts need their own little shrines, but yeah, I think we can make it work.”
I pin her against the wall. “I love it when you’re bossy.”
“I know. Now…” She threads our fingers together, key secure between our palms. “Take me back to bed.”
“Tired?”
“Not exactly.” She fingers the buttons on her shirt. “I had something else in mind.”