Chapter 4
Adam stashed his stuff in his old room and then left the house to walk down the hill to the marina in search of his dad and Mac. The first one he saw, though, was Luke Harris, co-owner of the marina and a longtime friend.
“Look at what the cat drug in from the big city,” Luke joked as he hugged Adam. “Good to see you, man.”
“You, too. How’s everything going around here?” The marina seemed completely full and hopping with people, dogs, bikes, scooters and other forms of chaos occurring on and around the main pier. Adam was relieved to see business as usual.
“Not bad. How about you?”
“I’ll be better when I see the boys. How do they seem to you?”
“Mac acts like nothing happened. From what I hear, Evan is working around the clock to get the music studio open. Your dad is a bit more sentimental than usual.”
“More sentimental?”
Luke laughed at that. “You heard me right. He was profoundly affected by what happened.” Luke sighed and shook his head. “It was a very long day for all of us, but somehow it was worse for him because he couldn’t go out and look for them. The fog was so thick…”
“He must’ve been beside himself.” Adam ached for his sweet dad, who would’ve been tortured by having to wait hours for word about his boys.
“That’s putting it mildly. I had to get between him and the Chris Craft a couple of times that day.” Luke referred to the classic boat he’d restored for Big Mac years ago. “He’s been pissed at me ever since.”
“I know it’s hard, but try not to take it personally.”
“I’m trying.”
The way he said the two words told Adam a lot about how difficult it had been for Luke, who viewed Big Mac as the father he’d never had. “How’s Syd?”
Luke’s entire demeanor softened. “She’s great.”
Adam gave him a nudge as they walked toward the restaurant. “Marriage seems to agree with you, old man.”
“I rather like it.”
Adam stopped abruptly and turned to Luke. “You didn’t mention anything about Grant.”
Luke glanced down at the parking lot. “He’s not doing too well. Something’s not right, but he’s all locked up. We’ve all tried to get through to him, but he’s not talking.”
“I saw him earlier, and I have to agree.”
“Maybe having you around will get him talking. You two have always been close.”
“When we were younger, but not as much now,” Adam said, filled with regret to realize it was true. He’d been so focused on his work that he’d let a lot of important relationships slide while he focused on others that turned out to be less important than he’d thought.
They stepped into the marina restaurant where Grant’s fiancée, Stephanie, appeared to be doing battle with the cash register.
“Adam! Is that really you? You’re just the man we need right now! Come. Quickly.”
Luke sent him a sympathetic smile and gestured for Adam to proceed to the counter.
“Hello to you, too, Steph.” He returned the quick hug she gave him. “What seems to be the problem?”
“This stupid thing keeps rebooting itself right in the middle of transactions. Tell me there’s something you can do.”
“If you give me a minute to look at it, I should be able to tell you.” He reached into the pocket of his cargo shorts and withdrew the glasses that had become necessary for twelve-hour days in front of computers and slid them on.
“Very sexy in a nerdy sort of way,” Stephanie said after careful assessment.
“Gee, thanks. You still want my help?”
“Sorry. I just have no time for this. I need to get back to my restaurant, but I can’t leave them in the lurch. And I need to check on Grant.”
As Adam clicked around behind the scenes on the computer’s hard drive, he said, “I saw him a little while ago.”
“Was he up?”
“Just.”
Her deep sigh said it all.
“What gives?”
“Hell if I know. He’s not talking. He tosses and turns all night. When he does sleep, usually during the day, he wakes up sweating and breathing hard like he’s been running a marathon or something. He’s not working or writing or getting anything done. It’s all very unlike him.”
“So you’re worried?”
“I’m very worried, but I don’t know what to do. Everyone says to give him time, but it’s been a week, and he’s still a mess. Physically he seems fine, so I don’t think it’s that.”
“My mom thinks something happened out there that he can’t bring himself to talk about.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, but it had to be pretty traumatic. Too bad there isn’t a shrink on this island. Seems like we might need one.”
“If he won’t talk to me, what makes you think he’d talk to a shrink?”
“Maybe it’s something he doesn’t want to tell you or any of us because he doesn’t want us to know about it.” With a few more keystrokes, he had cleared the cache on the register’s computer and freed up enough memory to get it running again. “There you go.”
Stephanie’s eyes bugged. “What did you do?”
Amused by her reaction, he tugged off his glasses. “Do you honestly care?”
“No, I absolutely don’t care. I only care that it’s working again. Thank you so much!”
“My pleasure. Hey, so before you run off, let me know what I can do to help with Grant. I’ll keep trying to get him to talk to me, but if there’s something else I can do, call me, will you?”
“I will. Thanks, Adam. I’ll take whatever help I can get at this point.
Mac and Evan don’t want to talk about it either, so they aren’t much help, and Dan is in pretty rough shape.
The ribs are giving him a lot of grief. Janey is so pregnant and hormonal, your mom drives him crazy, and your dad can’t talk about any of it without weeping, which makes it harder on Grant.
” She threw her hands into the air. “You might be exactly what we need.”
“I won’t leave until he’s better. I promise.”
She surprised him when she hugged him again. “Sorry to be so blunt about your family.”
Adam laughed and patted her back. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, and I’m happy to do what I can to help.”
“I have to go, but let me give you my cell number so we can keep in touch.”
They programmed numbers into each other’s phones and were swapping them back when Mac and Big Mac came into the restaurant, both of them grinning widely.
“What’s this we hear about a visitor?” Mac asked.
Their father made a beeline for Adam, enveloping him in a bear hug that brought tears to Adam’s eyes. His father had worn the same aftershave all of Adam’s life, and it was one of the many familiar scents of home.
“So nice to see you, son,” Big Mac said, stepping back to take a close look at Adam. “You look tired. Have you been sleeping?”
“Not so well in the last week.”
“Me either.”
Big Mac looked a little haggard around the edges, but with his usual aviator sunglasses in place over his eyes, Adam couldn’t gauge the true extent of his father’s exhaustion.
Mac playfully nudged their father out of the way so he could hug Adam. “Hey, little brother.” Mac messed up his hair the way he always did, and as usual, it aggravated Adam. “Good of you to come check on us.”
“I’ve got to run,” Stephanie said to them. “See you all later.”
“Bye, Steph.”
“Buy you some chowder, son?” Big Mac asked, gesturing to a free table.
“I won’t say no to that. I haven’t eaten in hours. The boat was kinda barfy today.”
“Imagine it would be with the wind whipping the way it is,” Big Mac said as he signaled to one of the young women behind the counter to bring them three bowls of chowder.
“Coming right up, Mr. McCarthy.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.” Big Mac removed his shades and propped them on the top of his wiry gray hair.
Adam bit back a gasp when he got a good look at his dad’s eyes, which were red and ravaged.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Big Mac growled. “I can’t help that I’ve been a freaking wreck over this whole thing.”
Mac got up from the table and pushed his chair in. “I’m going home to have lunch with Maddie and the kids. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“What’s up with him?” Adam asked his dad when they were alone.
“He can’t stand to see me like this, and I can’t seem to make it stop.” Blinking back tears, Big Mac stared at something over Adam’s shoulder. “It was a very long day. I can’t get past it, no matter how hard I try. All I think about is what could’ve happened.”
Undone by his father’s tears, Adam rested his hand on Big Mac’s forearm, which was already as tan in May as some people would be in August. “Everyone’s safe, Dad. Don’t drive yourself crazy with what-ifs.”
“You’re right, and so is your mother and Janey and Mac. Easier said than done, though.” He shrugged. “Anyway, here’s our chowder. Tell me what’s new in New York.”
“Ah, well,” Adam said with a short laugh. “There’s a story that’ll give you something else to think about.” For his dear old dad’s sake, he gladly told the ugly tale one more time.
Stephanie left the marina and drove a little too fast on the way into town.
Lately she was perpetually rushed, jetting from one job to the other with hardly any time for anything other than work.
She’d known it would be chaotic opening her own restaurant while continuing to work for the McCarthys, but the boat accident had added a layer of stress she hadn’t planned on.
While she wanted to put Grant first, her schedule would be beastly until Race Week concluded and the crowds subsided a bit until Memorial Day weekend, when the season began in earnest. If she could just get through the next few days, she’d be able to focus on Grant and trying to get him to talk to her about whatever was troubling him.
Rather than stop at home, she placed a call to him from the car.
“Hey, babe,” he said as he always did.
She could tell he was making an effort to keep things normal between them, but nothing had been normal since that horrible day last week when she’d spent eight hours thinking about how she’d ever live without him. “Hi, there. How’re you feeling today?”
“Fine.”
“I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t find you.”
“Oh, sorry. I was awake, so I took a walk. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“I seem to be worried about you all the time.”
“Don’t be. I’m fine. Really.”
“Grant—”
“Everything okay at the restaurant?”