Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
A month later…
A month ago, Dove would have said she wasn't a dock person.
She'd have said the humidity was oppressive and the bugs were relentless and the sounds the Glades made at night were the kind that kept a person's nervous system alert long past the point where alert was useful.
She'd have said that sitting on a wooden dock in the dark, surrounded by water that contained animals capable of removing limbs, wasn’t her idea of a good evening.
She'd have been wrong.
The sky over Mallor's Landing was doing something she still didn't have words for—the way the stars came out here, without any artificial light to compete with them.
The water caught the reflection and held it, and the entire world turned into something that looked like it had been painted by someone who'd never learned restraint.
Her mother sat beside her in one of Trent's Adirondack chairs, a glass of wine in her hand, her eyes open wide.
"I have to say," Rose said. “This isn’t how I pictured this place. It’s more spectacular than you described.”
"It is," Dove agreed.
Her father, Stanley, had positioned himself as far from the edge of the water as the dock would allow and was doing his level best to look casual about it.
He'd spent eight years in the Army and had done things that would make most people's hair go white.
But he was deeply, genuinely concerned about the alligators.
"They can't get up here," Trent said, for the third time.
"You said that about the bank," Stanley said.
"The bank is different.”
"How?"
"The bank is their territory. The dock is mine." Trent leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the railing with the ease of a man who'd been doing this his entire life. "They know the difference."
“That’s not true.” Stanley looked at the water. Something moved out in the darkness, and he shifted an inch closer to the center of the dock without acknowledging whatever lurked below.
"Dad, Trent's teasing you." Dove pressed her lips together, suppressing a laugh. "The alligators can't climb the bank, and they can't get up on the dock."
"But it's Florida, so where there's water, there are gators.
" Jack sat on the cooler at the far end, a beer in his hand, watching Stanley with open amusement.
In the last month, she'd learned that Jack found most things quietly amusing, and that he expressed this through a particular half-smile he'd clearly passed directly to his son.
Trent chuckled. "Let’s not forget the snakes."
"I can't believe my daughter wants to live in this state," her father said.
"My brother loved it here." Her mom sighed. "He said the wildlife just made it all the more exciting."
That brought Dove thoughts back to everything that had happened.
The last four weeks had been filled with emotions no one knew what to do with.
Trent and Jack had gone through a laundry list of feelings.
One minute Trent would be angry and lashing out at his father as if Jack had purposely abandoned him, and the next minute, Trent would be acting like a teenager demanding his father's attention.
Jack had his own issues. He struggled every day with the fact his wife was gone and that he'd lost twenty years of his son's life.
But together, these two men worked diligently to have a semblance of a father-son relationship.
Most of the time it was like twenty years hadn't passed and they were so much alike.
But they still had a lot to work through.
However, Dove knew they would. The one thing Trent and Jack had that others didn't was mutual respect for the tough decisions they'd made in the name of family.
Dove could see how twenty years apart had affected them. However, every day, they lived and laughed a little more.
The formal charges against Dutton and Courtney had come down three weeks ago.
Conspiracy, obstruction, and a list of federal offenses that the DOJ had been quietly building since her uncle had first handed them the lead.
Edward Kirk—Courtney's father, the man behind Gulf Coast Energy Partners twenty years ago—had been pulled out of his comfortable retirement to answer for his part in it, too. He wasn’t going to get away with anything, and he, too, would face a litany of charges.
Raymond Weiss, the ME who'd signed Jack's death certificate, would be testifying against all three in exchange for immunity. Karl had taken a deal—reduced sentence, full cooperation—and was somewhere in protective custody doing what Karl had always done best, which was looking out for himself.
Sovereign Resources had been shut down. No permits. No mining. No limestone extraction coming to the Calusa Cove watershed or anywhere near it.
The Henderssons had signed formal affidavits, and their testimony would be the final piece that put everyone away.
The town had exhaled. The Glades had kept doing what the Glades always did, which was exist without caring about any of it.
"The party was beautiful," her mother said. "Aaron would have loved it."
"He would've complained about the playlist," Dove said.
Her mother laughed. "He always complained about playlists. That man had opinions about music, and his opinions were wrong. It's why I chose it—just to annoy him in death.”
"Aaron had opinions about everything,” Stanley said. “And he never kept them to himself. Oddly, I'll miss that about him”
“So true.” Her mother turned her glass in her hands. "That was the best part of him—and the most annoying."
Dove looked out at the water. Her uncle's memorial had been at a hall in Fort Lauderdale with a hundred people she recognized and a hundred more she didn't. Someone had put together a slideshow that started with a photo of her uncle at about twenty-two that looked so much like she’d felt when she was twenty-two—all sharp edges and something to prove—that she'd had to look away for a minute and find Trent's hand in the dark.
He'd given it to her without being asked.
She still thought about that. About how Trent was always just there when she needed him and often when she didn’t. He knew her needs and desires, and while they fought like every other couple, he never held on to those arguments. He always apologized when necessary and sometimes when it wasn’t.
For two people who didn't have relationships, theirs was easy. Comfortable. It was like her favorite sweater. A little worn around the edges. Faded in color. But it fit her like nothing else ever would.
"So." Her mother's voice shifted—not dramatically, but enough. Dove recognized that tone. The one her mom deployed when she'd been building toward something and had decided the time had come whether Dove was ready or not. "You mentioned at the service that you had some news.”
Dove glanced at Trent. Boy, did she have some news to share. It wasn’t the news her mother was referring to, but it was the news Dove would start with.
Trent smiled, taking her hand. They’d discussed this with Jack last week. He wasn’t surprised. It’s not like Dove stayed at her house these days at all anymore.
“Trent and I decided to move in together,” she said.
“So, I’ll be living here at Mallor’s Landing from now on.
I even got my landlord to let me out of my lease.
” She spoke so fast she could barely breathe.
But she always did that when she was nervous, and the real news made her want to go find Dolly and roll in the mud with her.
Her mother looked over her shoulder at the moat. Then at the dock. Then, at the cypress trees that closed in on three sides of the property in the dark.
"With the alligators," Stanley said.
"With Trent," Dove said. "The alligators come with the property."
“I’m starting to think she likes the gators more than me,” Trent said. “Same with the land.”
“Maybe,” Dove said, and she meant it in a way that surprised her every time she thought about it.
She'd moved to Calusa Cove for a job, for a change, for the practical reason that Buddy needed someone and she needed somewhere to be.
She hadn't expected to find something that felt like hers.
She hadn't expected to find Trent. To fall in love.
To become all domesticated in a way that made her mother want to knit booties. “I can't imagine being anywhere else."
Her mother looked at her for a long moment—the way mothers looked at a daughter when they were trying to figure out if there was more meaning beneath the surface. If there was something else to be said.
Dove’s throat grew dry. She snagged her water and took a sip.
"Well," her mother said. "It's beautiful, and you two seem very happy.”
"It is, and we are,” Dove agreed.
“I don’t mean to ask a weird question, but where exactly will Jack be?" Stanley asked.
“I’m fixing up the old house my parents used to live in,” Jack said. “Back corner of the property. Far enough that I won't hear things I'm not supposed to hear." He took a long pull of his beer. "Close enough to annoy everyone regularly."
"That sounds about right," Trent said. “I loved having my grandparents so close, but I remember mom complaining every time Grandma showed up in her kitchen.”
“It was my mom’s kitchen before your mother’s,” Jack said.
“We all tried living in that house together until you were two. It was great when you were born. We loved the help, but it was a lot. So, your grandfather turned the old garage where he used to keep his boat, the Margaret, the one he named after your grandmother, into a lovely little home for them.”
“I remember that damn boat. It was a beater, that’s for sure,” Trent said.
“The hull rotted out when you were maybe four, and we replaced it.” Jack looked at the property the way Dove had noticed him looking at it when he often thought of his late wife, like a man reading a book he'd been missing for a long time.
"I'm looking forward to being here when the grandchildren come around. "