Mariah Stewart - On Sunset Beach

Carly shot Ellie a withering gaze.

“Thought so,” Ellie said smugly. “So I suggest you make a six-month plan for your directors and your managers, because I have the feeling you’re going to be spending a lot more time here than there.”

THE kayak glided across the water’s surface, following the gentle curve of the Chesapeake into Blue Heron Cove. Ford lifted the paddle and rested it across the hull, content to drift on the waves while they drew him closer to the pebbled beach. It had been years since he’d kayaked this far down the coast, but once upon a time, these waters had been as familiar to him as the paved roads of St. Dennis. Even as a young boy, he’d loved exploring the inlets and coves and rivers, loved the freedom, the solitude, the comfort of being alone on the water with nothing but his thoughts and the local wildlife for company. The stress and conflict he’d been feeling since he arrived at the inn were overbearing, and so he’d sought refuge in the only place where he knew for certain he’d find peace.

Ford closed his eyes and let the kayak drift closer to shore. He’d slept fitfully since he arrived at the inn, and he was nearing exhaustion. His first night home, he’d stood in the shower, the hot water beating down on him like a summer storm until his skin turned red, and even then he’d been reluctant to turn off the water. He’d joined his family in the main dining room and had been treated to the kind of meal he’d only dreamed about: exquisite, delicate crab cakes, twice-baked potatoes, and grilled summer vegetables, all served with beer from Clay’s own brewery. For dessert there’d been Ford’s favorite blueberry cobbler topped with whipped cream. Before eleven o’clock, he’d crawled into bed between soft clean sheets the likes of which he hadn’t seen in years and fully expected to pass out from the rigors of the last few weeks. He hadn’t anticipated tossing and turning through the night.

At one point, he’d gone out onto the balcony and let the warm night breezes wrap around him. The sound of the water lapping against the shore was just as he’d remembered. Through the branches of the enormous pines that stood near the shore, he could see the Bay shining smooth as glass in the moonlight, and every once in a while, he’d hear something rustling in the trees or in the shrubs below his room. Whatever else in his life may have changed, the sights and sounds of the Bay had remained the same. The comfort he’d drawn from those few minutes had lured him back to his bed and finally lulled him to sleep.

He’d been awakened that first morning by a soft rap on the outer door, and thought he’d heard someone moving about in the sitting room. By the time he’d gotten out of bed, wrapped a towel around his waist, and opened the door, whoever had come in had left. Ford suspected that it had been his brother who’d popped in just long enough to leave a tray of goodies on the console table: a carafe of steaming-hot coffee, a plate of fresh fruit, a croissant flaky enough to have floated off the tray on its own. Ford downed two cups of coffee while he leaned on the balcony railing, nibbled on his breakfast, and watched the inn’s grounds come alive. Even at an early hour, there were couples on the tennis courts, kids in the fenced play area, and sailboats out on the Bay. A lawn mower cranked along somewhere on the grounds, and down below, his sister greeted a smiling couple in the parking lot.

Ford dressed in a pair of khaki shorts and a short-sleeved tee and went downstairs. His mother had gone to a meeting, Lucy was still with her prospective clients, and Dan had the inn to run. Ford had slipped out of the inn and walked down to the waterline. Nearby, kayaks were lined up on the grass for the use of the inn’s guests. He’d selected a twelve-footer, walked it into the water, dropped into the cockpit, and headed off into the Bay.

That first foray out onto the Chesapeake had been everything he’d remembered. He’d enjoyed it so much that he’d repeated the excursion every morning since. Being alone on the Bay was the only time his head was clear enough to think things through. How best, he wondered, to transition from where he’d been to where he was and where he was going? And where was he going? How to make sense of the life he’d led in contrast to the life he now found himself in? How to adjust to the peace and quiet of this beautiful place when in his mind he still lived amid the chaos of the past few years?

And ultimately, where did he really belong? Here, or there?

It didn’t help that everyone Ford saw had asked some variation of the same questions: where had he been, how long was he staying, and had he come back to help his brother run the inn?

To the latter, he’d responded that Dan was doing a great job on his own and didn’t need help from anyone, but inside he was starting to wonder if maybe Dan resented the fact that Ford hadn’t been around to help, that he’d been off trying to “save the world,” as Dan had once quipped, instead of helping his family to save their business. As he looked around the grounds now, it was hard to imagine that there had been lean years following their father’s death, years when the future of the inn had been in question and there’d been the real possibility that it might pass from Sinclair hands for the first time in its long history. Only hard work on the part of his mother and his brother had ensured that the inn would remain in the family. Had Dan resented that the burden had fallen on his shoulders, and that neither Ford nor Lucy had stepped up?

Still in high school when their father passed away, Ford had worked at the inn with the rest of the family on the weekends, while Dan, who was seven years older, had taken on the bulk of the responsibility. Grace—and Dan—had been insistent that Ford go to college, as Dan and Lucy had done, but the only way they could afford for him to do so was through the ROTC program. Four paid years of college had obligated Ford to four years of military service, and so he’d gone into the army after graduation, eventually going on to Ranger training. His last assignment had been part of a small, newly formed covert force intended to help protect civilians from al Qaeda–backed rebels in a central African nation that was in the throes of civil war.

“Be our eyes and ears on the ground,” his superior had said, “and try to keep the rebels from taking over the country and wiping out the civilian population while you’re at it.”

Once on the ground, however, he and his cohorts had found that providing security to the small villages against the ravages of the well-armed, well-trained rebels was pretty much a full-time job. There’d been no words to describe the horrors they’d witnessed, no way to assure his family that he, too, would not become a victim of the same forces, and so he’d permitted his mother to believe that he was part of a UN Peacekeeping Mission, which was sort of a truth, though a very thinly stretched one. There were UN Peacekeeping Forces in the area, and his unit had been instructed to have their backs. He knew that if his mother had known the full truth, she wouldn’t have had a day unmarked by worry, and he’d wanted to save Grace from six years of sleepless nights, so he’d stuck to his original story.

Had several members of his own unit not been massacred along with two UN Peacekeepers in a bloody ambush six weeks ago, Ford might still be there. But when U.S. forces took a hit—as they had on previous missions, such as the slaughter in Mogadishu—the remaining troops were withdrawn and brought home, the unit disbanded as quietly as it had been formed. Upon his return to the States, Ford had opted for a discharge and had headed for home … yes, to see his family, but also because he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.

The last thing he wanted was to have people asking where he’d been, what he’d been doing, and what his plans were. He was getting tired of saying, “Here and there,” “This and that,” and “I don’t know.”

All of which was why his stomach had clenched into one great big knot when his mother had announced at dinner on Thursday that she’d invited a few friends to the inn for a little welcome-home party for him on Saturday night. For one thing, Grace’s idea of a few friends and his were two very different things. She’d probably invited half the town, which meant he’d be repeating himself over and over and over all night without once having told the truth. He’d wanted to tell her right then and there that a party was out of the question, but the look on her face was so joyful that he didn’t have the heart. He knew she’d missed him—of course she did; after all, she was his mother—but he hadn’t realized just how much pain his absence had caused her. Now that he was home, he’d do anything to try to make it up to her, even if that meant enduring an evening spent with well-meaning friends and neighbors where he’d be forced to repeat his lies to everyone in town.

Well, at least they’d all hear the same story.

And now it was Saturday, and he was thinking that maybe he should have asked his mother to cancel the party. He’d taken the kayak out early hoping to start the day in a serene state of mind after an hour or so paddling on the Bay. But he’d been out for almost most of the morning and he still wasn’t feeling much better. At Sunset Beach he turned the kayak and paddled in toward the shore.

This had been his go-to place when he was a kid. This was where he’d come to lick the wounds of having lost a school-yard fight or the affection of a girl who decided that he wasn’t so interesting after all. Later that year, his opponent in the fight—which had mostly consisted of rolling around in the dirt—had become his best friend, but the girl, well, he could no longer remember her name. He’d come to this narrow stretch of sand to replay the ball he’d failed to catch in that day’s baseball game or the touchdown pass he’d caught the day before. The beach had witnessed his tears of grief when his beloved retriever, Barney, died, and his heartbreak sophomore year in college when the girl he’d been sure was “the one” had dumped him for a senior.

This was where he’d fled, too overcome with shock and pain to even cry, when he’d learned that his father had died.

What had happened, he wondered, to that boy who’d wanted nothing more than to play sports, to ace a test, to fish with his dad and crab with his friends, to kiss a pretty girl in the backseat of his buddy’s car after a high school dance?

He sat in the kayak, ten feet from shore, and watched the waves break so gently onto the beach that they hardly made a sound. If any part of that boy still existed, Ford was pretty sure he’d find him here—but not today. Some other day, he’d come back and he’d sit on the sand and think about all the things that had mattered to the boy he used to be, and all the things that had brought him to this place in his life, and maybe—just maybe—he’d be able to figure out where to go from here.