single seat.
Rain bounced off the water and made a popping sound on the plastic kayak, falling just hard enough to make the effort completely uncomfortable and the world wet and blurry.
Or maybe her vision was blurred by tears, because without her realizing it, they were pouring out of her eyes.
Just thinking about Guy lost out here, alone and terrified, ripped her heart to shreds. Please, God, please let him be okay.
Dragging the paddle through the water, she squinted at the little mounds of mangroves that made up the islands, a question nagging at her, as incessant as the rain.
When had he started to matter so much to her?
Why did she love a man who had made her life a living hell?
“Because that man is gone,” she mumbled into the rain and breeze. And in his place was a new man who deserved a second chance.
Just like Will.
Maybe Will hadn’t sacrificed his career for her, or come after her when they were separated, and maybe he’d opened his heart and life to a man Jocelyn thought she hated. Maybe Will needed her forgiveness, too.
Maybe Jocelyn needed to let go and love instead of holding on to hate.
There was no maybe about it. But first, she had to find her father.
A loud splash made her jump and almost drop the oar, but she clung to the slippery stick, her eyes darting as she expected to come face-to-face with an alligator. But it was a mighty blue heron who’d made the noise, a helpless fish hanging from its mouth.
“Henry,” she whispered, a sob choking her. “Have you seen my daddy?”
He tipped his head back, devoured breakfast, and stretched his wings to take flight, heading south to disappear in the rain. Without a clue which way to go, she followed, staying close to the shore, her arms already burning from the effort of slicing the kayak through the water.
This was lunacy. He wasn’t out here.
But who had taken the rowboat? a voice insisted.
How had he dragged it across the street and into the water all by—
The kayak hit something hard in the water, pulling another gasp from her throat. What the—
A narrow tip of aluminum stuck straight out of the water. The tip of a sunken rowboat. No, no. Not a rowboat. Their rowboat!
Shoving wet strands from her eyes and tamping down panic, she looked around, zeroing in on a mangrove hammock about twenty feet away. It was the closest island, the only place a person could swim to from here.
“Guy!” she called out, the words lost in the rain. “Guy!”
With every ounce of strength she had, she plowed the oar through the water, reaching the island in about fifteen burning strokes. He had to be here. He had to.
She climbed out of the kayak, stuffing the edge of the oar in the muck for balance, her foot landing on a sharp rock that made her grunt in pain. Dragging the kayak to dry land, she remembered the picture she’d taken from the house and found it pressed to the wet bottom of the kayak seat.
Wanting it with her, she unpeeled it from the plastic and turned to squint into the rain and through the mangroves that lined the island’s edge.
“Guy! Are you here?”
Shoving branches out of her way, she headed toward the middle of a hammock that was not more than thirty feet in diameter. In the center there should be some clear space and—
She spotted him rolled up in a ball under a Brazilian pepper tree.
“Guy!” Ignoring the roots and rocks stabbing her bare feet, she ran to him, falling on his body as relief rocked her. “Oh my God, are you okay?”
He moaned, murmured, and turned slightly, his glasses completely bent from the weight of his head, his poor face marked with bug bites, his teeth as yellow as ever as he bared them in a smile.
“That you, Missy?”
He was alive. Relief rocked her. “Yes, Guy. It’s me.” She folded him in her arms and squeezed her eyes against the sting of fresh tears.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked, as contrite as a kid.
She sat up, tenderly holding his head while she slipped the ruined glasses off his face. “No.” Her voice cracked. “Just tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.”
But she could tell by his gruff, hoarse voice that he wasn’t. He was scared and suffering, and surely wouldn’t have made it out here much longer.
“Did I miss the yard sale?”
She almost laughed, but shook her head, rocking back on the