Chapter 20

Dec

Another day passed where I saw very little of Kenna. Her mother and best friend kept her busy, and while I wanted to pout at being ignored, seeing her eyes dancing when one of them did something ridiculous and Kenna pretended to be mad, I kept my mouth shut. I had a whole year with her. I could share her for a week.

She stepped out of her house and waved, shielding her eyes from the morning sun flooding her front porch. Kenna, in her bright green tank top and denim shorts, the tiny straps of a swimsuit underneath showing through, looked nothing like the woman I'd met at the beginning of the summer. Whatever magic had taken hold of her here in Sunshine Key was not something I wanted to disturb.

"Beautiful women, those Ryans," Pops mused, sitting next to me in my truck as we waited for everyone to arrive.

I turned in my seat to pin him with a stare. "Don't you think it's time we talk about what's happening there?" Pops had been with Mona practically every day since she'd arrived. I'd never seen my father with another woman, in all the years he'd been a widower.

Pops wore an even wilder shirt today, a button-down with tiny pink flamingos sporting sunglasses and flip-flops. The cargo shorts and water shoes in neon green shouted retired Floridian from a mile away. He flipped his sports sunglasses on top of his balding head.

"Yes, son, let's talk about it. What are your intentions with Kenna?"

My glare had no effect on him. "I meant you and Mona."

"You tell me about you and Kenna first and I'll tell you everything you want to know about me and Mona." His gloating smile was annoying.

I huffed my disgust and got out of the truck. "I'll get the girls."

Pops's laughter trailed me up onto the porch where I placed my hand on Kenna's waist and leaned in for a quick kiss. My thumb swiped under her shirt and I got a feel of the soft skin below. Her little shiver in response was what I lived for apparently.

"Ready?"

She put her hand on my chest and gazed up at me, looking like she was also suffering with the lack of contact we'd had since Liz arrived. "Think we can ditch them all and have our own afternoon on the island?"

My grin was predatory. "Like the day we went out on my boat and you fell in love with my captain's chair?"

Her cheeks went pink while I grinned. She remembered exactly what I did to her in that chair, an act I intended to repeat just as soon as I could get her alone.

"Did you remember sunblock, Kenna?" Mona dug in her oversized bag, coming out the door and disturbing our moment.

"I put it in your bag, I promise." Kenna rolled her eyes. Her mother wasn't worried about Kenna getting burned, she was worried Kenna hadn't packed proper supplies for her own selfish needs. I'd have to watch Pops more closely. I didn't want Mona putting unfair pressure on my disabled father. The woman needed to learn how to grow up and take care of herself, but that wasn't really my business. Unless, of course, the burden trickled over to my father.

Another truck pulled up to the curb and Harley honked the horn once. He had Char and Laurie with him, right on time. I'd be taking Kenna, Mona, Pops, and Liz in my truck. We would take my boat over to Goat River Key, one of the larger keys a few miles away. There, we'd rent tandem kayaks and float through the mangroves before picnicking on the beach. The resort there had gladly rented out their cabanas to our party, given that tourist traffic was slow this time of year.

Everything went surprisingly well, considering it was like herding cats to get them onto the boat. Mona insisted on wearing a life jacket the entire ride out to the key. Liz stood precariously on the bow to reenact the scene from Titanic until Kenna enticed her down with a thermos of bloody Marys. Harley laughed his ass off and didn't help one bit as I prepared to pull away from the dock. Even the gator boys had steered clear when they heard our group coming down the dock.

But we finally made it to the Goat River Key and there were plenty of tandem kayaks for our group. I insisted Kenna go with me, Pops assured me his arms were strong as an ox and he could man the kayak with Mona, even when I told him oxes didn't have arms and I wasn't coming to save his ass if he got lodged in the mangroves. He and I both knew I was lying. Char barnacled herself to Harley, so that kayak was easy to figure out. Liz and Laurie were the only two people left, so they shrugged and shared the last kayak.

Once we'd all put on our hideous orange life jackets and grabbed our paddles, the tour guide gave us a brief safety rundown at the launching ramp.

"The full route will take you about forty-five minutes to over an hour, depending on how fast you paddle. If you see a gator, just keep all limbs in the kayak and float past. They don't normally cause a fuss."

"What the Florida?" Kenna hissed next to me. "You didn't tell me there'd be gators!"

"It's Florida, baby. Of course there's gators," I responded. It was simply a way of life here.

"Oh! We should do a kids' book with gators, Kens!" Liz gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up and promptly dropped her paddle, which clattered to her feet. "Wait, do gators have genitalia?" The instructor lifted an eyebrow, but went on with his spiel, though I noticed he kept a close eye on Liz after that.

Kenna and I went first, Kenna in the front of the kayak and me in the back. The cushioned seats had a comfortable webbed backing to support our seated position. The tour guide grabbed the front of the kayak and hauled the plastic into the water. I put my paddle in the river and pushed off the shallow bottom. The kayak rocked a bit and Kenna yelped.

"Just remain seated and I'll do the heavy lifting, okay?" I started paddling gently, getting us out of the way so the tour guide could launch the next kayak. The mangroves got thicker the further we went into the tunnel.

"Wow. This is so pretty. I had no idea." Kenna's head was on a swivel, taking in the tangle of brown roots and green trees shooting up to create a canopy. It was cooler here in the dense thickness of the mangroves. Birds flitted through, looking for worms and eyeing us like we were disturbing their breakfast. It was almost as peaceful as a morning fishing on my boat. Except for Mona clacking her paddles against Pops's and then Pops yelping when she splashed him with water.

It was three-quarters of the way through the route that disaster struck. Kenna's back went stick straight and she yelled. "Gator!"

Straight ahead was a pair of eyes and gnarled forehead sticking out of the water. He was floating to the other side of the bank, eyeing us with caution, but otherwise, harmless. That is until Kenna in her panic began to paddle to the other side of the bank, her oars splashing water everywhere.

"Kenna! Stop!" I shouted, but she didn't hear me.

The people in the other kayaks behind me all murmured varying degrees of concern. The gator now stayed right there in the middle, having halted his migration to the other side, probably wondering why the hell this large thing in the water was splashing so much and could it be his lunch.

"Kenna!" I barked again, leaning forward to grab her paddle and force her to be still.

She abandoned the paddle, giving me exactly half a second of relief before she stoodup. The woman fucking stood in the kayak, making it rock dangerously side to side. With two paddles in hand, I tried to balance the rocking hunk of plastic, sweat now bleeding through the bill of my hat.

"Sit down right now, Kenna!" Harley hollered, fear tinging his tone.

The gator changed course, swimming toward our kayak. Somehow seeing the predator straight on got through to Kenna. There was nowhere to go but through and her chances in a kayak were better than being defenseless in the water. She plopped her ass down so fast we almost tipped over again, but I somehow managed to steady us.

Kenna let out a whimper as the gator came within a foot of our kayak, the two having some sort of staredown.

"Don't fucking move," I growled under my breath.

Pops and Mona's kayak bumped into us from behind, shooting our kayak forward. Kenna let out a high-pitched keen, but our kayak just floated right over the gator who'd wisely ducked under the water. I twisted my neck to see him behind us now, so using one oar, I gently dipped it into the water to paddle away as quickly and gently as I could. Pops and Mona were still as a statue, as were everyone behind them. Eventually, Laurie and Liz, in the last kayak, hollered that they were clear. Kenna slumped in her seat.

"I think I peed myself," she whispered, staring straight ahead.

I thought about how badly the kayak had rocked when she stood up. How close we both came to tumbling into the water with a gator. "I think I did too."

And then she began to laugh, the unhinged kind of laugh that was more to do with releasing adrenaline than actual humor. All eight of us dipped our oars in and booked it back to the launching ramp.

After that adventure, the picnic in the luxury cabana was a relief. We were done with sun and most definitely done with the wildlife of Florida. The resort provided drinks and charcuterie items that we all devoured. Apparently fear works up quite an appetite.

Liz, holding her second mango margarita and swaying to the country music playing from the speaker in the corner of the cabana, turned to Kenna, who was snuggled as close to me as she could get without actually being in my lap and causing eyebrows to rise. It had taken an hour before Kenna's tremors had faded away from the gator incident.

"Remember when we went to that concert, Kens? The country artist that vanished off the face of the earth? What was his name?"

I stiffened.

"Debogglan! I loved him!" Kenna shifted on her lounge chair to face Liz. "I had several of his albums."

Harley swiveled his head to stare at me, but I ignored him. There was a buzz in my ears and an uncomfortable feeling sliding under my skin.

Liz laughed. "I remember you listening to him over and over again. I was so bummed you didn't get to meet him backstage."

Kenna slapped her thigh. "I know! We waited in that long line and I had to pee so badly." She turned to her mom and Pops. "I literally ran to the bathroom while Liz held my spot, but by the time I got back, they'd called off the meet and greet. Said he refused to see anyone else. I was crushed."

I could barely breathe. Memories of that day pounded in my brain. I could feel Harley and Pops staring at the side of my head, but I couldn't get myself to say anything.

"And the security was so mean!" Liz went on, oblivious to my internal meltdown. "They practically pushed us out and you dropped your gift."

Kenna groaned. "I literally cried the whole way home. On my charm bracelet was this medallion with a four-leaf clover. It's supposed to be an Irish good luck charm. I read that Debogglan was Irish, so I had the charm strung up on a men's cord and wanted to give it to him as a gift. But somewhere in the shuffle, I dropped it and didn't realize it until it was too late."

Liz sat on Kenna's lounger, handing her another bottle of water. "I honestly think that was the day your bad luck started."

Kenna made a noise in the back of her throat. "Agreed."

"What do you mean?" Mona asked.

Liz shrugged. "Well, her life was kind of charmed. She graduated college, a newlywed to the fraternity president, and she just landed her gig at Morgan Dudly. It's not a stretch to see that she went to give away a good luck charm, lost it, and then her life went downhill from there."

Char waved her hand in the air. "I don't know if I believe in that kind of thing. We make our own luck."

"I don't know. There are things beyond sight and sound that can affect our life," Laurie added.

Harley coughed loudly. I snapped out of it long enough to glare at him. My hand was on the black cord around my neck before I knew what I was doing. It had a story behind it, just like the one Kenna had told. I didn't believe in coincidences. I had a feeling that Kenna's charm was the same one I'd worn around my neck for so many years it finally broke off. My security had found it in the scuffle of that night and given it to me. I'd kept it, desperately clutching onto any good luck I could find after what happened that night. The charm, a round pendant with an etched four-leaf clover on it, was currently nestled in the back of my drawer at home.

I didn't hear much of what was said after that. I was lost in my own memories, rehashing everything that had happened to change the trajectory of my life.

Pops clapped me on the shoulder, leaning in close to whisper, "Let it go, son. Get us home and then we can talk."

I blinked, realizing that everyone was packing up, ready to end our beach day. The sun was still in the sky, but it was lowering quickly. I stood, feeling like I was living outside of my body right now. Once we were on the boat, Kenna came up to my side, a line of worry between her eyebrows.

"You're quiet."

I tried for a smile, but it felt wooden. "Just trying to be the responsible party for these animals."

Kenna grinned, eyeing the way Liz, Laurie, Harley, and Char were still dancing at the front of the boat. Pops and Mona were snuggled in the back, talking and laughing.

"It's been a good day," Kenna said quietly, eyeing the horizon as the wind whipped at her hair.

I swallowed hard and nodded, steering us toward home.

There were so many reasons why I didn't get involved with women, the biggest of which had come to a head today. I liked Kenna, enough to think for a second that there could be more between us. But now I couldn't tell her who I was, what I'd been, and how our lives had somehow become intertwined years ago.

I couldn't tell her I'd been the one to steal her good luck.