Chapter 5
As the first boat off the island cleared the South Harbor breakwater and headed for the mainland, Shannon made his way to the bow, his favorite place to stand during the hour-long ride.
He stood at the rail, letting the spray from below wash over him every time the big ferry crested a wave.
With his cousin at the helm, Shannon relaxed and took in the scenery as they traveled along the island’s rugged north coastline.
He loved this job and the island and the life he’d found there with Victoria, Seamus, Carolina and their vast circle of friends.
After a year, Gansett felt like home in a way that Ireland hadn’t for quite some time.
When he’d accompanied his aunt Nora on her trip to visit Seamus, he certainly hadn’t expected to stay when she left to go home.
But he also hadn’t expected to meet Victoria his first night on the island. Two weeks later, he’d been nowhere near ready to leave her. He still wasn’t, which counted as the biggest surprise of the last year.
Nine years after losing his beloved girlfriend in an act of senseless violence, he was a shell of the man he’d once been.
But lately, since he met Vic, to be precise, things had been better.
The dark moods didn’t come on as often as they used to, and he had new reason to get up in the morning, to function, to put one foot in front of the other and carry on.
She’d been perfect for him, a wonderful, sexy companion who didn’t ask more of him than he was capable of giving.
She would never know how much he appreciated that.
She was off delivering yet another baby.
He hadn’t heard the phone or her early morning departure.
He greatly admired her professional competence and her devotion to her patients.
The island’s female population was lucky to have her, and they knew it.
She was forever coming home with flowers or other gifts her grateful patients had given her.
“Gonna be another scorcher.” Shannon immediately recognized the sound of home in his cousin’s voice.
“What’re you doing up here? You’re supposed to be at the helm.”
“One of the new captains was hitching a ride back and offered to relieve me. He needs the experience, so here I am.”
“Does he know what he’s doing?” Shannon asked, eyeing the bridge warily.
Seamus barked out a laugh. “I only hire the best. Not to worry.”
“If you say so.” His cousin was nothing if not meticulous when it came to running the company owned by Carolina and her son, Joe.
“Vic came to see me yesterday.”
Shocked to hear that, Shannon stared at his cousin, almost afraid to ask. “How come?”
“She had some questions.”
“About me?”
Seamus nodded.
Shannon’s chest felt like it was being compressed by something heavy and unforgiving, the way it had in the days that followed Fiona’s death. “What did you tell her?”
“What she needed to know.”
“Seamus! Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“Relax. I only gave her the big picture. None of the details.”
His mind raced as he tried to absorb the implications. So that was why she’d been so tense last night. “You had no right.”
“I had every right. She cares about you. She wants to understand you.”
“It’s not your place to fill in the blanks for her.”
“Whose place is it, then? You’re never going to do it.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s been a year, Shannon, and she’d never heard Fiona’s name.”
White-hot rage ripped through him. “And now she has?”
“Now she has.”
“It wasn’t your place! I can’t believe you’d interfere in my life this way! What gives you the right?”
“The woman who loves you asked me. That’s what gave me the right.”
“She doesn’t love me. She enjoys fucking me. Big difference.”
“You’re a bloody fool if that’s what you think. Open your goddamned eyes and look at what’s right in front of you before she gets tired of competing with a ghost she didn’t even know about and walks away.”
Shannon didn’t think before he reacted, punching his cousin in the face so hard that pain radiated from his hand up his arm.
Seamus went flying backward, falling hard against one of the benches and landing on the deck. For the longest time, he didn’t move, and for a brief, terrifying second, Shannon feared he’d killed his cousin.
Filled with unreasonable terror, Shannon leaned over him. “Seamus, I’m sorry!” He shook his shoulder. “Seamus! Wake up!” They’d attracted a crowd of curious onlookers, including several of Shannon’s fellow deckhands. “Please wake up.”
“Quit yer bellowing,” Seamus said without opening his eyes. The left side of his face was already swelling and turning purple.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… I don’t know why…”
Seamus held up his hand, opening the eye that still worked. “Stop talking and help me up.”
Shannon took hold of his cousin’s hand and hauled him to his feet, grasping his shoulder when Seamus wavered.
“Show’s over, folks,” Seamus said. “Move along.”
“Go get some ice,” Shannon said to one of the guys he worked with. “Hurry.” He helped Seamus onto the bench. “I’m really sorry.”
“I heard you the first time.”
His colleague Mark returned with a bag of ice that he handed to Seamus, who applied it to his face. “Sit yer arse down,” Seamus said to Shannon when they were alone again.
Shannon sat next to him on the bench.
“You’ve put me in an awkward situation here. Because half the crew saw you hit me, I have no choice but to suspend you for three days for disciplinary reasons. An official note will be placed in your employee file. In this company, it’s two strikes and you’re out—cousin or not.”
Knowing he’d fucked up, Shannon took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay.”
“I want to say something else, and I want you to listen to me.” Seamus removed the ice from his bruised face.
“For nine long years, we’ve stood by you and tried to support you as best we could through an unimaginable tragedy.
In the last year, I’ve seen you come back to life, back to the man you were before you lost Fi.
That’s because of Victoria. You lost Fiona through no fault of your own.
If you push Victoria away because she’s gotten too close, that’ll be your own tough shit. ”
Taking the ice bag with him, Seamus got up and walked away.
Filled with despair the likes of which he hadn’t felt so deeply in years, Shannon watched him go.
“I’m seriously in awe of you,” Luke said to Syd late that afternoon, after Victoria had declared both ladies to be in perfect health and left them alone to care for their new baby. Lily—he had a daughter named Lily—was asleep in her bassinette next to their bed.
“Is that right?” Syd said with a saucy smile. Before Victoria left, he’d helped Sydney take a shower and gotten her settled back in bed while Victoria watched the baby.
Though Sydney was exhausted, her eyes were alight with joy. “Mmm,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “That’s right. You amaze me. After months of planning and me stressing out about all the things that could go wrong, you go and give birth without even leaving our bed.”
Sydney laughed. “Well, that wasn’t exactly the plan.”
“I’m still allowed to be amazed.”
“I’m just glad she’s here safely, and we didn’t have to leave the island to have her.”
“Do you think she’ll always be so accommodating of her parents?”
“Doubtful. I expect her to be a strong-willed girl like her sister was.”
“That’d be fine with me, as long as you promise to protect me during the teenage years, when my little princess turns into a demon child.”
She patted his head. “I’ll run interference. Don’t worry.”
“Sometimes I still can’t believe…” His throat tightened and his eyes filled. He’d been an emotional disaster all day.
“What can’t you believe?”
“That you came back. That you actually love me and agreed to marry me and have given me a daughter. I was so alone for such a long time… And now…” He caressed her face and gently kissed her. “Now, I have everything.”
“I don’t even like to think about what I’d be doing if I hadn’t come to the island or if you hadn’t come to find me.”
“Don’t you mean if I hadn’t spied on you?” he asked with a chuckle.
“It doesn’t count as spying if I knew you were there. The scrape of your boat landing on the beach was one of the most familiar sounds in my life back when we were first together. I used to listen for it every night.”
“Best thing I ever did was row my boat to your beach, baby,” he said with a lascivious grin.
Sydney laughed at the double meaning behind his words. “You’re going to make sure I’m not a total freak show with her, right?”
“Of course I am.”
“I don’t want her to grow up to be afraid of everything the way I am now.”
“You’re not giving yourself enough credit, honey. Look at what you’ve already done to prove you’re not afraid of what might happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“You married me. You had the tubal ligation reversed. You allowed me to knock you up, which was a great pleasure, I might add. You’ve given birth to a new baby. To me, all those things indicate your tremendous courage, not debilitating fear.”
“That’s nice of you to say, but the fear is still there. Maybe I just hide it better than I used to.”
“I’m not just spewing platitudes here, Syd. I mean it when I say you’re not giving yourself enough credit. You aren’t the same fearful person you were when we first got back together. You’ve come a long way from there. Maybe you can’t see it, but I do.”
“If that’s true, it’s because of you. Your love has given me the strength to go on, to be optimistic and hopeful and joyful and all the things I thought I’d never be again after I lost Seth and the kids.”
Luke leaned in to kiss her. “Whatever I’ve given you is a fraction of what I’ve gotten back in return.”
Her smile lit up her gorgeous blue eyes. “I was thinking…”
“About?”
“This one went pretty well. Easy conception, uneventful pregnancy and delivery…”
His heart stopped beating for a second. “What’re you saying?”
“Maybe we ought to do it one more time so Lily doesn’t grow up alone.”