A Daughter's Story

THE NUMBER OF TIMES Chris had felt grief were so few and far between he could remember all of them. He relived each and every one as he sat at Citadel’s that Friday night and nursed a second glass of not-cheap whiskey. A single shot this time.

Every hurt, every disappointment, every little insecurity he’d ever felt, came back to him as he sat there alone, trying to hold on to faculties he refused to do without.

There was the time his father had called home and asked him to bring his mother to the phone, and Chris, running into her room to get her, had found her beneath a naked man he’d never met in the bed that his parents shared.

He touched briefly on the night Sara had given him back the diamond engagement ring she’d accepted several months before, but didn’t allow himself to linger. The void that Sara’s leaving him had created was soon filled again—by Sara. She was another man’s wife now, but she was Chris’s best friend.

He thought about calling her, telling her about Ainge, and took another sip of Scotch instead. Part of the reason she’d left him was because she couldn’t live with the constant possibility of his death on the ocean. He didn’t need to bring the possibility any closer to home.

Which left Chris with his morose trip down memory lane.

There was the morning he’d received the call that his parents had been killed in a pileup on the freeway just fifteen minutes from home. That was also when he found out they’d been on their way home from a court hearing because his mother, who’d already broken his father’s heart, had filed for divorce.

The last time had come a couple of days ago, when word had spread that Wayne Ainge had gone overboard, when they’d all waited as rescue crews attempted to get the young man up from the bottom of the ocean in time to save his life, and then heard the news that they’d failed, that the boy was dead.

Oh, and there was Christmas Day. He always had invitations for the day, places he was wanted and welcome. But for some reason that day got to him. Which was why he was usually the lone boat out on the ocean on December 25.

Still, only a handful of sad memories in forty years… He was a lucky guy.

“You playing tonight?” Cody was back, tipping the bottle over the top of Chris’s glass. He might have stopped him. Probably should have. Instead, he allowed the younger man to fill his glass and then raised it to his waiting lips.

The piano up on the dais was the reason he was there.

“Yeah,” he answered after he sipped.

Nodding, Cody headed down the bar. Chris was pretty sure he heard him say “Good,” but he could have just imagined it. No matter. He didn’t play for Cody. Or for anyone.

He played because music was good for the soul.

And because he could.

He played because doing so helped ease the tension that came with lobstering every day of your life.

* * *

SHE’D GIVEN ROB twenty-four hours to get out of the house. She’d told him she was going to stay with her mother. She’d known she could. Truthfully, she hadn’t planned anything. Contrary to her normal way, she’d spoken without first analyzing the various ramifications of her decision.

She didn’t have a house to go home to. She’d left her mother’s and she wasn’t going back that night.

Her attachment to her mother was probably part of the reason Rob had cheated on her. A woman with her mother attached to her hip couldn’t be much of a turn-on.

A woman who couldn’t climax probably wasn’t much of a turn-on, either. Lord knew she tried, but her body didn’t seem to be capable of letting go.

And even if her relationship with Rose had nothing to do with any of her problems, Emma needed to be away from her mother long enough to be able to breathe on her own.

First, she needed a place to spend the night.

She’d walked out without packing so much as a toothbrush.

She kept one at her mom’s. Along with pajamas and changes of clothes. Maybe she should go back. It made sense to go back. What was one more night going to hurt?

She could start her new life tomorrow. Right after she changed the locks on her doors.

And what if Rob was at her townhome tomorrow, waiting for her? What if he tried to change her mind? There she’d be, going straight from her mother’s house back to the secure life Rob offered her—albeit a life spent putting up with Rob’s philandering ways.

No, she couldn’t go to her mother’s. She couldn’t show up at home tomorrow, the same woman she was today—the woman who hadn’t been exciting enough to hold her man’s interest.

She couldn’t go home as the woman who settled for safety and security.

If she was going to change her life, it had to be tonight. She had to take a chance. To do something, anything, that wasn’t her norm. She had to be someone different.

Switching from her MP3 player, which was loaded with classics—soft and soothing music that was there to relax her after a day with rambunctious high schoolers—Emma stopped at the first satellite radio station that was blaring a beat.

The LED dash display broadcast the song title and artist in little green letters. She recognized neither and turned up the volume. She’d drown out her thoughts. And if she ever found a song she knew, she’d scream the words at the top of her lungs and pretend that she was singing along.

* * *

THREE HOURS INTO Friday evening, Chris was on his third drink. He wasn’t drunk, but even the ageless hag at the bar was beginning to look a little better.

Awaiting his turn on the piano, he listened to his competitors pounding the keys of the baby grand on the raised carpeted dais that was the restaurant’s centerpiece. The dais turned; the tables surrounding it did not.

The gleaming black instrument shone under professional spotlights and was the only furniture on the stage.

Chris’s number in the single elimination competition was up soon. He’d won the last draw of the night, which meant that he’d be up against the pianist voted by preselected judges as the best of the bunch. Chris liked the spot because he could stay onstage after he’d finished his set and play for as many hours as it took to wipe away the tension from the past week.

He didn’t need another win. He needed relaxation. He needed peace.

He needed to forget the grieving faces of those who’d loved—and lost—a man of the sea.

* * *

THE PLACE SMELLED as heavenly as she’d remembered—a mixture of spices, freshly baked rolls and prime cuts of steak marinated in Citadel’s secret sauce. Locals didn’t usually patronize the glitzy establishments on the tourist strip in downtown Comfort Cove, but a son of one of the teachers at school had played in a piano competition there a couple of times and Emma had accompanied the divorced mother on both occasions.

Now, sitting alone at the bar—something she’d never have considered doing before—she sipped a glass of white wine and concentrated on convincing herself that she could stay right where she was at least until she finished her drink.

Making deals with herself.

If she stayed fifteen minutes, she could make a trip to the ladies’ room to reassess.

If she stayed half an hour, she could think about getting a table. Maybe even order something to eat. If she made it an hour, she’d have to call someone—her divorced teacher friend, probably—and let her know where she was.

If she had more than two glasses of wine she’d call a cab.…

To take her…where?

Raising the heavy crystal glass to her lips, she gulped. She’d figure that out later. There were plenty of hotels downtown.

And because she paid her credit card off every single month, she had plenty of limit to cover whatever exorbitant fee they’d charge.