CHAPTER TWO | Penn
CHAPTER TWO
Penn
“Well, she took on more damage than I realized.” Randy scratches the back of his head, looking over the hull of The Mary Time, one of the older ships in rotation, named after my mother.
She was one of my father’s first and while she’s been on her last leg for quite some time, I’ve been hesitant to scrap her.
Though after last week’s storm, I might not have a choice.
“Don’t tell me what I already know, Rand. Tell me what it’ll cost.”
“More than you want to pay.”
“What’s your recommendation then?”
“If she were mine, I’d scrap her and sell her for parts. You’ve got more than enough ships to carry the load and this one...” He gestures around. “I’m afraid she’s going to cost more money than she’s worth.”
I squeeze my nape in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure building at the back of my skull, threatening to bloom into a full-blown headache.
“Let me sit on it. I’ve got Patty down at the agency looking for someone new to manage the books temporarily while Janet is on maternity leave. Once I get the numbers straight, I’ll decide from there.”
“Okay. I’ll wait for your call. In the meantime, is there anything else you need me to take a look at before I head out?”
“You and Lori got a hot date tonight?” I poke fun at the older man whom I’ve known basically my entire life.
“Even better. London’s coming home.”
In an instant, the world around me skids to an abrupt stop, the momentum damn near throwing me to the ground.
“Is that right?” I do everything in my power to make my voice sound casual, normal, but in my own ears, it’s anything but. “She finally decided to pop in for a visit?” My way of asking how long she will be here without sounding too interested.
I’m not interested.
Not even a little bit.
Or at least, that’s what I’ll continue to tell myself.
“Even better, she’s here to stay. Well, at least for the foreseeable future anyway.”
My heart kicks violently against my ribs.
London Voss.
The one that got away.
My first love.
The girl who tore me to pieces and didn’t even bother to look back to see the damage she had left in her wake.
That last day replays in my head for the millionth time over the last seven years.
Her telling me she was leaving. So matter-of-fact. I knew she wanted to go to New York one day to pursue dance, but I always assumed that when she did, she’d ask me to go with her, not end our four-year relationship with nothing more than I’m sorry.
That’s what four years of my life were worth to her. An I’m sorry- the most generic breakup line ever spoken into existence.
She wasn’t sorry. Not for a second. If she were, she wouldn’t have left the way she did. Not after everything.
“Oh yeah?” I swallow past the lump in my throat that makes it hard to breathe, let alone speak. “What happened to New York?”
“You know what they say about big-city dreams. They rarely come true.” He’s as vague as ever when it comes to his daughter, on the rare occasion that he talks about her to me at all. Which I get and truthfully, I appreciate.
I don’t care what she’s doing or how she is.
Lies. Lies. Lies.
If I’m being honest with myself, London Voss has been living rent free in my head for the last seven years. I think about where she is. If she thinks about me. If she regrets leaving the way she did. If she’s accomplished her dreams of being a dancer in the New York City Ballet.
But that’s all I’ve done—thought about her.
I haven’t tried to contact her. Haven’t followed her on any social media platforms—not that I have any; I don’t.
Haven’t tried to pry information out of her parents.
At the end of the day, I wasn’t enough for her to stay.
A fact I won’t soon forget, no matter how much time has passed.
“I think that’s true about most dreams,” I finally say.
“Ain’t that the truth.” His shoulders shake with silent laughter. “When I was young, I wanted to be a doctor.”
“What happened?” I ask, too polite to say that picturing him as a doctor is about as comical as it sounds. Not because he’s not capable. It’s just... Well, he’s Rand.
“Couldn’t stand the sight of blood.” This time, he laughs out loud, the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile.
“Well, I wanted to own a custom bike shop. Not that owning a bike shop compares much in the way of being a doctor. But alas, you see how far that’s gotten me.”
“I know this isn’t the life you initially saw for yourself, but sometimes that’s just life.
We don’t always end up where we want, but somehow, it’s exactly where we were meant to be.
And for what it’s worth, your father would be so proud of you.
What you’ve done here...” He gestures around the dock, crowded with boats coming and going.
“You’ve elevated this business beyond anything your father could have dreamed.
As a parent, that’s all we really want. For our children to be better than we were. ”
“I appreciate that, old man.”
“Old.” He snorts. “I’m still in my prime.” He gives me a toothy smile. “You’ll let me know what you decide about the boat?”
“I will. Give me a few days.”
“Take your time. You know how to reach me once you decide.” He leans down to pick up his toolbox.
“I’ll be around tomorrow if you want me to look at Northern Star,” he says, referring to another ship of mine that got a little banged up in the storm, though it didn’t fare nearly as badly as this one.
He doesn’t know it, but Northern Star is actually named after his daughter.
My father let me name her after he purchased her.
It was shortly after London had left, and I was feeling so lost that I didn’t know which way was up or which way was down.
My father told me that whenever I felt trapped in rough seas, just look for the northern star and it would help me find my center and ultimately lead me home.
What I never told him was that London was that for me. My compass, my axis. The one thing that would always ensure I would find my way home. Because my home was her.
She was my northern star. Hell, she was every star in the sky. My entire world. Or at least, she was. But that was a long time ago...
“Will do.” I nod, watching Randy pivot and exit the ship a few short moments later.
I try to refocus on work.
Try to think of anything other than London Voss, but now that I know she’s back, that she’s just a few short miles from where I am at this very moment, it’s the cruelest form of torture.
It was one thing when she was in New York, following the dreams that she didn’t want me to be a part of.
But knowing she’s here, in Wren Cove... I’m not sure how to feel.
Angry. Sad. Excited. Worried. Conflicted. All of the above.
“Why do you look like someone just took a big dump in your Cheerios?”
I glance up to find my brother Alec exiting the bridge. I’d almost forgotten he was here.
By the looks of him, you’d think he slept on the boat with the fish. His white shirt is dirty and stained. His jeans aren’t much better. His normally clean-shaved face has at least a week’s worth of scruff growing, and his short brown hair is standing up on all ends.
“Why do you look like you rolled in said dump?” I fire back.
“Because I spent all night on a fishing boat, and then came here as soon as we docked to look at the navigation system, remember?”
“You need a shower and a shave.”
“Might need to take your own advice, brother.”
“What, this?” I run my hand through my full but shortly kept beard. “It’s a beard. You should try growing one sometime. Better than whatever the hell you’ve got going on.” I poke fun at him, knowing how much he hates that he can’t fully grow one yet. His cheeks still grow in thin and patchy.
“Screw you. It’s not my fault that I was cursed with bad genetics.”
“Pretty sure we have the same genetics. Brothers, remember?” I shake my head knowingly.
My parents had three children, all boys, all vastly different.
Walker is the baby. The athlete of the family. Looks like he spends hours in the gym a day, because he does. And is honestly a bit of a spoiled, entitled brat. Thank you, Mom and Dad.
Alec is the ladies’ man. Tall, naturally good build. Crooked smile that just does something to females. Just an all-around pretty boy who never says no to a good party. Likes to bust my balls at every opportunity and takes almost nothing seriously.
And then there’s me. The oldest. The rebel in my teens.
The one who gave my parents gray hair before their time.
I’d like to think I’ve come a long way since then.
Now my brothers just refer to me as the boring brother.
The responsible one. A title I never saw myself earning when I was younger.
But London leaving changed me. Like lightning to sand, something else was created.
And then my father died and all of this—the company, my brothers, my mom—it all fell on my shoulders.
Not that I’m complaining. I wouldn’t change a thing about my life now.
Well, maybe I’d change a few things, but for the most part, I’m content.
I wouldn’t say I’m an overly happy person—that’s a hard feat when you’re still mourning the loss of a parent—but I’m trying to get there, one day at a time.
“You know what I mean.” Alec huffs out in playful aggravation.
“Randy just left.” I turn the conversation to more serious matters.
His expression fills with understanding.
“Oh, so that’s the reason for the look.” He gestures to my face as he jumps the railing and closes the distance between us.
“What look? There is no look.”
“Oh, there’s most certainly a look.” He smirks. “Now tell me what Randy had to say.”
“She’s toast. He thinks it’ll cost substantially more to fix her than she’s worth.”
“Something we already knew.” He needlessly points out.
“Knowing it and having it confirmed are two different things.” I run a hand through my overgrown, dark hair that’s in desperate need of a trim.
“So what are you going to do?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
“But you know what you should do. You should scrap it and use the money to do some maintenance and repairs on the other ships that are worth saving.”
“I told him I was going to wait and see what the numbers look like once we get someone to fill in for Janet while she’s gone.”
“You already know we can’t afford it. Even if business is booming, some things are just out of reach, and this is one of those things.
I know you want to hang onto her for sentimental reasons, but Dad wouldn’t want you sitting on a ship that’s not worth the money it would take to fix her. You know that, right?”
“I still think it’s worth taking a look at the books and seeing if it’s possible.”
“Your company, brother.”
“No, it’s our company. I’m just the idiot who thought he could run it.”
“Oh, come on, even you have to admit that you’re made for this. When you look at those numbers, why don’t you also look at how we’ve made more in the last six months than Dad did in his last two years.”
“Luck.”
“That’s not all it is, and you know it. But I don’t know why I’m wasting my breath. Broody Penn can’t take a compliment to save his life.”
“I am not broody.” I snort out a laugh.
“Yeah, okay.” Alec dramatically rolls his eyes in response.
“There is something else.” I consider whether or not I actually want to tell him, but given that he might run into her in town, I think it’s best he hear it from me. Otherwise, the second he sees her, he’ll be calling me, losing his mind.
“Well, don’t leave me in suspense, cupcake.”
It’s my turn to roll my eyes.
“London’s back.”
“What do you mean London’s back? Like back in Wren Cove?”
“She came home today. According to Randy, she’s staying for the foreseeable future.”
“Well, hell.” He blows out a breath, his eyes assessing. “How do you feel about this?”
“I’m fine with it. What she does is no longer my business.”
“Now remember who you’re talking to and tell me the truth.” He gives me a knowing look.
Out of my two brothers, Alec has always been the one who can read me best. And given that we’re only two years apart, he was old enough to pick up on how much I changed after she left.
He had a front row seat to the implosion of my life, whereas Walker was only twelve and too self-absorbed to even realize something had happened.
Not that I blame him. What twelve-year-old isn’t.
“I’m okay. Seriously.”
“Liar.”
“She’s back and that’s that. I just thought you should know that I know she’s here, in case you see her around.”
“And what do I do if I do, in fact, see her?”
“Nothing. Say hello. Be friendly. She’s Rand’s daughter, after all.”
“And what exactly will you do if you see her?”
“I guess I’ll figure that out when the time comes.”
Just the thought of seeing her has my stomach filling with so much dread that it feels like I have a thousand rocks sitting at the bottom of it.
But that’s not all I feel. Somewhere buried beneath the weight of uncertainty lies just the smallest hint of excitement.
Though why I would feel even remotely excited is beyond me.
As you can see, I’ve gotten really good at lying to myself over the years.
“Well, your life just got a whole lot more interesting.”
“How do you figure?”
“If there’s one thing I remember about London Voss, it’s that she has a way of turning you on your head.”
“When I was a teenager. I’m a grown man now, and no one, not even London Voss, has the power to turn me on my head.”
“Time will tell, brother.” He grins, clasping me on my shoulder as he passes me. “Time will tell.”
With that, he exits the ship.
“Jackass,” I grumble, following after him, knowing I’ve got way too much to do today to stand around worrying about a girl I haven’t seen in seven years.
She’s stolen enough of my time, and I don’t intend to give her even a second more.