Moondance Beach

  Was it commendable of her to stay true to her heart? Sanders couldn’t say—he didn’t have much experience with such things in his own love life. Was her approach unusual? You bet. But was it stupid? That remained to be seen.

  All he knew was that the night Lena had learned of Flynn’s injuries, she’d fallen apart in a way he’d never seen before. Sanders had caught the next flight to Boston and risked life and limb in a flying Sprite can to get to her little island. He’d stayed for a week.

  Lena sat up and looked Sanders in the eye.

  “He has to come to me. That’s the rule.”

  He smiled at her.

  “He has to figure it out for himself. I’ve known him since I was seven years old. But Duncan has to put the pieces together and make the choice for his own reasons. Otherwise, it won’t work.”

  “I know, Lena.”

  “He’s stubborn and wickedly smart. He’s a fighter, in every sense of the word, and he will need to fight to get me or it won’t work. If he feels he’s been reeled in somehow—like loving me is not one hundred percent his idea—then that’s it.”

  “I hear you.”

  “But time’s running out.” Lena’s dark eyes filled with tears. “He’s doing so well that they’re going to clear him to return to active duty, and he’ll be gone. I can’t help but think this is my one chance.”

  “Can I ask you something, sweetie?”

  She shook her head. “I know what you’re going to ask, and the answer is no—I’m not lonely. I haven’t missed anything while I’ve waited for him. I have a successful career. I’ve had some wonderful lovers. And I’ve seen the world. But I am absolutely certain that if I am to share my life with anyone, it’s supposed to be Duncan.”

  Sanders nodded. “Well, okay, but that’s not what I was wondering.”

  “Oh.” She pursed her lips.

  “My question is, what if he’s not everything you imagine him to be?”

  Lena gave him a calm half smile. “He is.”

  “But—”

  “If I’m wrong about him, then I’m wrong. Done and done. I can move on with my life. Is that the sane answer you were waiting for?”

  Sanders laughed. He had never gotten anywhere with Lena when the topic of conversation was her mythical Duncan Flynn, but if he didn’t try to bring her back to earth—at least temporarily—then who would?

  “Just . . . one more question, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Would you be able to handle it?”

  A little crinkle popped up between her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, could you handle loving a man who’s gone to God knows where, doing God knows what, for God knows how long? Could you deal with knowing he might not come home?”

  Lena looked surprised. “Of course. I already am.”

  * * *

  Duncan needed a little extra proof that he hadn’t been seeing things that night on the beach. He spent a few days studying up on a variety of subjects, including Adelena Silva, of course, and the connection between posttraumatic stress and visual hallucination.

  During his three months at Walter Reed, Duncan had been evaluated for PTSD and had participated in private and group counseling sessions. The docs wanted to know how the deaths of his teammates and his own injuries had affected his mental state, and they’d found that aside from his issues with guilt and grief, which they’d said were to be expected, he was perfectly normal—for a Navy SEAL. His own research seemed to back that up. He exhibited no other examples of psychosis.

  When it came to Lena, there was no question in his mind that she was the woman on the beach. The Adelena Silva he watched in online interviews possessed the same serene expression he had seen that night. She had the same laugh he’d heard at the Safe Haven, and it turned out she was just as exquisite in clothes as she was out of them.

  Lena didn’t sound like a nut job when she was interviewed on camera and in print, which, he had to admit, surprised him. She never claimed mermaids were real. In fact, she never even mentioned the Bayberry Island Great Mermaid legend—an attribute Duncan found outrageously sexy. If that wasn’t enough, Lena Silva didn’t dress like a mermaid or claim that she herself happened to be one.

  All in all, she sounded sane.

  “Reality is subjective,” she told the host of a TV morning show. “If people want to believe there are mermaids in the sea, who am I to say they’re wrong? But my paintings aren’t field studies. They come from my imagination.”

  But in another interview, Lena did briefly wander off into la-la land. She was talking to a women’s magazine about the symbolism in her paintings. “I have always been fascinated by what lies beneath the surface, in the ocean and in people,” she said. “That’s where the magic is. And yes, my underwater scenes are mysterious and exotic—and sometimes a little over-the-top—but then again, so am I.”

  Right.

  Duncan would bet he’d spent a lot more time beneath the surface of the ocean than Ms. Silva had, yet he’d never seen a whole lot of magic down there. The deep was brutally cold, dark, and silent, and it wasn’t a place humans would care to frolic. There was exotic beauty there, to be sure, but only those with adequate equipment and training could survive long enough to see it firsthand. In Lena’s mind, the sea was a playground. For a Navy SEAL, it was a hellish training ground for mastering underwater demolition, combat diving, search and rescue, and your own fears. The ocean was nothing to fuck with.

  So now that Duncan was sure whom he’d seen on the beach, he wanted to understand what he’d seen. Had it been a dolphin? A minke whale? For that he needed to see it again.

  So for four nights in a row, Duncan made his way to Moondance Beach. He came at different times to cast a wide net, arriving between twenty-three thirty-two and zero two fifteen. The first two nights he rested his quads and hamstrings and walked the round-trip. The next night he ran. And the fourth night he decided he was ready to swim.

  Duncan pulled on his wet suit and fins and waded into the ink black water off Haven Cove. It was an immediate rush to be back in the sea. He used a combination of freestyle and combat sidestroke, shooting up the shoreline at a good clip. His legs moved freely, with little pain or stiffness, and he felt himself smile. God, how he’d missed this.

  He knew Haven Cove like the contours of his own face, exactly where the undertow was fierce, where it got rocky and shallow, and where the waves crashed the hardest or rose the highest. This stretch of ocean was where he had found his core. Once puberty had put the brakes on his asthma and bronchitis, this was where the ocean had taught him to trust himself. Distance swimming had taught him there were no limits. It was right here, at the age of twelve, that for the first time in his life Duncan had pushed beyond what anyone thought possible.

  He hadn’t stopped since.

  But after four trips to Moondance Beach, he’d found nothing. No Lena. No fantail. Aside from spending time with slimy seaweed and dead jellyfish—and feeling sand crabs skitter across his face—he’d come away empty-handed. Duncan decided he would give it one more shot, and if nothing happened, he’d let the whole strange episode go, just file it away with all the other weird shit he’d witnessed in his thirty-four years. He was leaving for Virginia in two days, anyway.

  On the night of his last recon, he decided to swim again. It was the last thing he’d expected, but the swim became a kind of meditation. As he cut through the water, each lungful of air propelled him against the current. His body fell into a rhythm. His mind emptied. He felt stillness even as his speed increased. And at some point, about a half mile from Lena’s private beach, his emotions exploded. Duncan sobbed as he swam, never losing his momentum. For the first time since the ambush, he cried for Justin and all his teammates. He cried because of how unfair it was, what a fucking waste of life. Exceptional human beings were dead, and it shouldn’t have happened. But it had.

  As he turned toward shore, Duncan was grateful that he’d had his breakdown i
n solitude, in the dark, in the waves, where no one could possibly hear him and where his flood of tears spilled unnoticed into the Atlantic.

  He hopped the private fence, took his place in the sand, and waited. Nothing. No dolphins, no whales, and no naked women. There was nothing but a gentle July breeze and the in-and-out breath of the waves.

  He woke with a start as the tide began tickling his toes. The sun hummed lightly against his eyelids. Some Navy SEAL you are, he thought, pushing himself to a stand and stretching. He froze.

  All around were fresh footprints—dainty female footprints in the sand.

  Chapter Nine

  Twenty-three years ago . . .

  “Why did Grandmother say you were a witch?”

  Lena’s mother dropped the string bean in midsnap. Her hands hovered over the large glass bowl as if she had forgotten how to move, her eyes staring out the window over the kitchen sink.

  “Mãe?”

  When her mother answered, her voice was strangely flat. “Adelena, I have explained that your grandmother was angry that your father left. She needed to blame someone, so she blamed me. Sometimes people try to make themselves feel better by hurting others.”

  “But why did she call you a witch?”

  Her mother quickly dried her hands with a kitchen towel and lifted Lena off the stool. Her grip felt too tight against her ribs.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Let’s go for a walk.”

  It was an unusual thing for her mother to do in the middle of a summer day. She was always busy at the Safe Haven, but she had been working even harder lately. She said she was afraid she might lose her job because the fishing company had closed. Mother said the Flynns used to be very rich, back in the old days, but weren’t anymore and might have to turn the mansion into a hotel.

  Lena knew this already, because she sometimes heard Mona and Frasier in the first-floor parlor, talking in whispers that could be heard all over the first floor.

  Lena’s mother held her hand firmly and walked to the mudroom, where she grabbed their sun hats. Then they headed out the door and across the lawn. In the last year, Lena had grown used to living in the huge old house by the ocean, but every once in a while, like on summer days as perfect as this one, she would find herself blinking a lot, amazed that this was the place she got to call home.

  She had discovered that if she stood in the right spot, the Safe Haven looked like a castle. It had five skinny, pointy towers. Her favorite was the one that looked in the opposite direction of town. She liked to climb up to the top floor, sit on the dusty wood floor of the empty, circular room, and stare out at the blue water and the wild fields that curved around the other edge of the island. It was a place where hardly anybody lived, which she thought was strange. People on Bayberry were always worried about weeds and uncut grass, because they thought the tourists wanted everything neat. But if Lena were a tourist, she’d rather visit a place that was wild and natural.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the beach.”

  Lena’s head snapped around, and she stared at the side of her mother’s face. In the last year, her mother had stood in the sand just once, and that was because she was in charge of the food for the festival clambake. As much as Lena wanted to ask her mother the reason for the sudden walk on the beach, she decided against it.

  She had a feeling that today would be about listening.

  “I think you are old enough now,” her mother announced, once their feet were in the sand.

  “I’m eight.”

  “I know, menina.” Mother pulled her against her side. She could feel and hear her body let go with a heavy sigh.

  “Do you remember the legend of my village? The one I told you about before we came here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me what you remember.”

  Lena concentrated. “There was a man who went out to fish one day and suddenly knew he had to go to one certain spot, a place he’d never fished before. He fished and fished and didn’t catch anything. Then, just when he was about to go home, he pulled in a net and there was a beautiful, red-haired mermaid.”

  “Hmm. And what did she tell him?”

  “That she had been waiting for him.”

  They walked together along the beach, dodging Frisbees and Nerf balls and letting the water wash over the tops of their feet. “And what else did she tell him?”

  “She said that if he was brave enough to cut out her gills, she would grow legs and become his wife.”

  “Mmm-hmm. That’s right.”

  Lena waited. She thought her mother was getting ready to tell her something, but it seemed like forever before she spoke again.

  “In our village, people thought the women in my family were descended from that mermaid. For more than two hundred years, my female ancestors were accused of having special powers.”

  “Like what?”

  Her mother shrugged. “Well, back then, if a woman was very wise in a certain way—like with using plants for medicine or healing sick people—the people in charge of the church and the town would get uncomfortable.”

  “Why?”

  “Because women weren’t supposed to be in charge of anything back then.”

  “Well, that’s silly.”

  Her mother laughed and hugged her tighter. “Very silly, indeed, Lena. But sometimes it came to a sad end for these women. Some were accused of being seductresses and witches and were hanged.”

  Lena stopped walking. Almost immediately she began to cry.

  “Oh, menina, I know it is terrible, but those sort of things don’t happen anymore. People are smarter now and know more about science and how the world works. But . . .”

  Lena waited, sniffling. “What, Mama?”

  “The women in my family still had to deal with that old story. It followed us around over the years. I was the only girl in my family, and my parents decided when I was twenty that it would be best if I went to America. I did. And four years later, I married your father and moved into his mother’s home. I never would have talked about it with your grandmother, but I did tell your father and he shared it with his family.”

  Suddenly, everything made sense. Lena broke out into a smile. “So it was that old story? That’s what Grandmother was talking about?”

  “Yes. But that is all behind us. You will never have to worry about that because you are not in my village. You are American. And you carry your father’s name. The connection has been broken.”

  Lena stayed quiet for many moments, letting everything sink in. In one way, it was exciting to think there were witches in her family—that she might be a witch, too!—even if they were only pretend witches. But in another way the story made her feel sad for her mother. She had to run away because of the wrong things people thought of her. First she ran to Rhode Island, and then she ran to Bayberry Island.

  Lena felt her eyes widen. “Did you come here because of the mermaid legend?” Lena was half expecting her mother to laugh and tell her what a silly thing that was to say. But how she answered surprised Lena.

  “I think in some ways, yes. I have nothing against stories of mermaids. I think they are beautiful stories. I just don’t want people talking about me being one of them. Trying to convince people you’re not a witch or a seductress gets tiring.”

  “How did you know to come here?”

  For the first time during the walk, Lena’s mother looked down at her daughter and smiled a big, beautiful smile. “I saw a news story about the festival and I thought, now, that looks like a pretty place. Those people seem very full of joy. They have a sense of humor. And I thought that a place with beauty, legends, joy, and a sense of humor sounded perfect for us.”

  “Oh.” They walked for a little longer. Her mother started humming one of her Portuguese songs. And Lena remembered there was one other question she had.

  “Mama? What is a seductress?”

  “Oh my goodness!” Her mother glanced at her watch. “We
’d better be heading back to the house. We have green beans to snap!”

  Chapter Ten

  Rowan was beyond exhausted. It never failed to amaze her how one eighteen-pound, nine-month-old human could rule the lives of everyone around her. All Rowan wanted to do was sleep—plop her face into the exquisite softness of her pillow, curl up next to her husband, and close her eyes.

  Serena had other plans. After sleeping for six hours, she began talking to herself in her crib, which segued into screaming at the top of her lungs so loudly she would wake Ash and the guests. So Rowan left the family’s second-floor apartment near the guest rooms. She came down to the B and B kitchen and closed the doors for sound control. There she would find the tried-and-true antidote to Serena’s unhappiness: the pots and pans. So that was what Rowan was doing at nearly three in the morning on the Wednesday before festival week—pacing back and forth across the big kitchen, with every light blazing, so that Serena could point at, coo, and converse with the sparkling stainless-steel cookware suspended from the pot rack.

  “Aren’t you just the most brilliant baby ever?” Rowan nibbled kisses along her neck and cheek until she squeaked with happiness. Serena began jumping up and down in Rowan’s arms, reaching out so she could touch a sauté pan. She turned to Rowan with shockingly alert blue eyes, pleading, excited, and curious.

  “You win, little girlie. Let’s rock ’n’ roll.”

  Rowan retrieved the pan, along with a stack of plastic storage containers and three wooden spoons, and sat Serena on the kitchen rug to play. As the happy banging began, Rowan shuffled over to the coffeepot, surrendering to the beginning of yet another ungodly early day.

  The pediatrician had assured Rowan and Ash that it was normal for a nine-month-old to wake up and demand stimulation of some kind, and in fact, it was a sign she was reaching a developmental milestone. Rowan filled the coffee filter and hit the power switch, thinking how she, too, was reaching a milestone. Nine months as a mother, and she no longer remembered a time when Serena wasn’t in her life. Or Ash. It was as if she had never been anywhere but with her husband and daughter.