Tattered Innocence Read Online Free Page A

welded on his face. For a moment, hi s pain dislodged hers.
    A speeding Boston Whaler buzzed past their
stern, belching exhaust. Its wake jostled the Queen and
clanged rigging against her masts. Rachel glanced toward the pier.
A boy, maybe a second grader, climbed over a dock box, then
shimmied up a light pole. His tow-headed little sister plunked
somebody’s clam shell collection into the Intracoastal with her
toe. Her laugh rattled the longing for a child inside Rachel like a
noisy sheet of aluminum foil.
    Rachel’s gaze followed the children on their Family Circle exploration of the pier. Behind them, a tall
man with a white buzz cut, who might have played college basketball
forty years ago, s trode up the dock with
an olive-skinned woman in a poodle skirt. She pushed up oversized,
red plastic glasses on her nose and squinted at the Queen ’ s name.
    The man turned up the finger pier. “Whoa
kids. Hold up. This is where we get off.”
    The woman followed him, keeping her gaze
laser-beamed on the kids.
    The man stepped aboard, and Jake held out
his hand. “Welcome aboard the Smyrna Queen .”
    “Lyle and Angela Rosebrock.” He shook Jake’s
hand and tossed a grin toward the children. “And miscellaneous
progeny.”
    “Jake Murray.”
    Rachel nudged an elbow into Jake’s ribs.
    “And first mate, Rachel Martin.”
    Rachel waved at the children who stood on
the finger pier. “You must be Katie and Cole.” She’d read the
twelve names on the passenger list so many times she had them
memorized.
    Katie nodded shyly. “Mamaw, will you hold my
hand so I can get on the big boat?”
    Her grandmother laughed. “After skating up
and down these docks like a hellion, now you’re scared?”
    Cole lay on his stomach and hung his head
and ankles off either side of the finger pier as if he wanted to
examine the barnacles growing on the pilings under the dock.
    Rachel held her hand toward the girl.
    Katie bunny-hopped across the gangplank, all
fear gone.
    Rachel didn’t want much, a couple of kids
like these. Or three or four. She swallowed hard. “Come on, Cole,
I’ll show you the engine.”
    Cole’s legs stopped kicking up and down, but
his chin still hooked over the edge of the pier.
    Rachel talked to the crown of his head.
“You’ll want to make sure the Queen is seaworthy for her
first cruise. We’ll have to flip the steps up to get to the engine
room. Not my favorite job.” When Cole peeked up, she shrugged. “You
can flip the steps if you want.”
    Cole scooted his legs under him and popped
up in one motion.
    Can I keep these two? Rachel tamped
down the longing in her chest. At twenty-three, she had decades
left for having babies. Never mind the years she’d already waited
since tucking in Hall.
    “What?”
    Rachel’s head popped up at the unfamiliar
voice.
    A brown ball of a man lumbered up the finger
pier. “I’m on the maiden voyage?” His mock horror dissolved into a
gale of laughter. He took the hand Jake offered. “George is the
name.”
    “You don’t have to worry about the Queen ’ s seaworthiness. She used to run drugs. Bought
her at auction. She’s a tough old bird.”
    George wiped sweat from his bald head and
face with a wilting handkerchief. “So, all I have to worry about is
the captain’s skill on his maiden voyage, eh?” He squinted at
Jake.
    “That’s right—second mate.” Jake slapped
George on the back. “Always need somebody aboard who knows enough
to worry.”
    George’s chuckle floated toward Rachel as
she took the children below. Okay, so Jake wasn’t always surly.
    Jake’s voice filtered through the open
hatch. “Check out my certification tacked to the bulkhead. I had to
put in seven hundred and twenty sailing days and take seven exams
to get licensed by the Coast Guard.”
    In the engine room, her gaze settled on
Jake’s desk. Rows of books anchored with elastic shock cords lined
the hull—how-to-sail, sailboat repair and maintenance, and
marketing textbooks.