Heartbreak Cove (Sanctuary Island) (RE8) (5 page)

Chapter Four

By the time Andie closed her front door behind her, it was hours after her shift was supposed to be over. In those hours, she’d mediated a dispute between neighbors involving a wandering goat and an unfortunate clothesline, reprimanded a teenager for speeding down Island Road, filed a mass of paperwork before it could completely cover the surface of her desk, and fended off Ivy’s far-too-interested questions about Sanctuary Island’s newest arrival.

“I’m just saying, Corinne Larkin, down at the market, well she said she saw him driving past in Jo Ellen’s truck, and Corinne said he she could tell even from a distance that he’s a stone cold fox,” Ivy had eagerly related.

“More like a wolf,” Andie told her, doing her best to be firm. “Seriously, I’ve got a feeling about him.”

Ivy gave a catlike stretch and curled her red mouth into a smile. “If what Corinne said is true, I’m curious what feelings he could give me. Unless, of course, you’re calling dibs.”

Andie had told her dispatcher not to be ridiculous, but deep inside, she was uncomfortably aware that she hadn’t warned Ivy off of Sam for purely altruistic reasons. He might be volatile, but there was something magnetic about him, something that drew Andie’s attention and turned her blood to warm honey.

Determined to put Sam Brennan out of her mind, at least long enough to get a good night’s sleep, Andie unbuckled her heavy utility belt and hung it on the hat rack by the door. She was already fantasizing about a long, hot shower, her fingers on the buttons of her uniform shirt, when her phone rang.

“Oh, no,” she moaned, squeezing her eyes shut. Andie took the space of a breath to wish she were the kind of person who could ignore the phone call, but there was no point wishing for impossible things. It could be work. It could be important. It could be life or death. She plucked her vibrating phone out of the jacket she’d tossed over the back of her sofa.

The unknown Maryland number on the screen froze her in place, every ache and pain forgotten as her mind went blank for the space of a heartbeat.

That was either a telemarketer or … her brother.

When he was on active duty, stationed somewhere out there in the world, his only way of phoning the states was a prepaid calling card, which showed up on caller ID as an unknown number. Andie’s heart raced. Even knowing the telemarketer was more likely, seeing as how she hadn’t had more than a brief email from Owen in almost five years, Andie’s finger still hovered over the “talk” button, paralyzed by fear.

What if it wasn’t Owen, but his commanding officer, calling to let Owen’s next of kin know that he’d been wounded or, God forbid, killed in action?

If that was the truth, she needed to hear it. No matter how much it hurt. Andie hit “talk” and kept her voice firm.

“Sheriff Shepard,” she said, taking strength from her official title and sending up a quick prayer for good news.

The rush of relief that hit her system at the sound of her brother’s voice in her ear weakened her knees. He sounded good. Scratchy and rough, yes, and there was as much background noise as if he were calling her from inside a blender, but it was Owen.

“So you’re a sheriff now? Dad must be over the moon, even if it’s not the Louisville PD.”

Andie made her way to the couch on unsteady legs. “Are you okay?” she demanded, ignoring the reference to their father. There was no way she was wasting this precious chance to talk to her baby brother by getting into the same old argument.

Owen’s stubborn defiance of their father’s wishes—and Andie’s doomed attempts to step into that gap and follow in their father’s footsteps—had caused enough distance between them already.

“I don’t have to be wounded or dying to call my big sister,” Owen protested. There was a short pause where they both considered that. “Okay. Maybe that’s fair, and I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch better.”

“It’s been years, Owen.” Andie wished she could keep the hurt out of her tone, but she’d never been a very good actress.

“Crap. Has it? Sorry. I just…”

He sighed and Andie could picture him palming the back of his neck, the way he’d done as a kid when he was feeling guilty. Completely against her will, her heart softened. She let him off the hook, like she always did—because someone in their dysfunctional little family had to do it, and it certainly was never going to be Dad.

“I know. You’ve been busy. How’s the army?”

“I made the Rangers, Andie.”

She caught her breath and put out a hand to steady herself against the back of the sofa. “Wow. Owen, I’m so proud of you. That’s an amazing accomplishment and I know you worked incredibly hard for it.”

“You have no idea.” He huffed out a laugh she could barely hear over the clatter and static of noise in the background of the call.

“Where are you calling from?” she asked. “If you’re allowed to say.”

“I’m not,” he told her grimly, “and I wish I could tell you I called to catch up, but the fact is, we’re going wheels up in about seven minutes and I have a favor to ask.”

Andie didn’t even hesitate. “Anything.”

He paused for a breath as if she’d surprised him. When his voice sounded in her ear again, it was lower, strained. Owen never did like to let on that he had a heart. “You might regret that when you hear what it is.”

Andie’s chest hurt with how much she loved him. Maybe if they’d grown up with a mother’s tender guidance, they’d be better at saying it out loud. But Andie did the best she could—she showed how much she loved and worried for him through her actions. “Whatever you need. I mean it.”

“I have a kid.”

The world reeled beneath Andie’s feet for a dizzying second. “You got married? When? Who is she? And I have a baby niece or nephew already? Owen!”

“I’m not married,” he interrupted forcefully. “And you have a niece, but not a baby. She’s eight years old.”

Andie swallowed around a huge, painful lump of emotions. Had they really become so disconnected, so estranged, that her youngest brother had been in a serious relationship for almost a decade without telling her? “Owen, what on earth…”

“I didn’t know about the baby.” The words ground out of him, stark and uncompromising. “She never told me.”

Andie took a deep breath. She’d trained to handle crisis situations calmly and efficiently. “Who is ‘she’? The mother?”

“Someone I dated briefly right before I enlisted. I was way out of the picture by the time she figured out she was pregnant … and the thing between us—it hadn’t ended well. I don’t know how hard she tried to contact me or not, and I can’t ask her because she died in a car accident two weeks ago. It took them this long to locate me from what she’d told the kid—I guess she didn’t keep great records.”

“Oh no, Owen…” Andie wobbled around the corner of the sofa and let her knees go, sinking back against the couch cushions to stare up at the swirled plaster of her living room ceiling. The mother, dead. And the father? About to head out on a classified mission with his elite special ops strike force. Basically as unavailable as it was possible to be. “Where is your daughter? Right now?”

“That’s where the favor comes in.” Owen lowered his voice, his desperation seeping through the phone line to raise every hair on Andie’s body. “She’s on her way to Sanctuary Island.”

“I need to sit down,” Andie said faintly. She blinked. “Oh. I’m already sitting down. Maybe I need a drink. Owen, what?”

“Her name is Caitlin, she’s got no other living family, and the army has rules about soldiers who can’t make arrangements for their dependents. I can’t come home right now—I can’t leave my team in the lurch, right before an op—but I have to be able to show I’ve set my kid up somewhere stable and safe. Please, Andie. I need you. Caitlin needs you.”

Working to slow her quick, shallow breaths, Andie tightened her grip on the phone until the plastic bit into her hand. “I don’t know anything about taking care of a little girl.”

“You know more than I do,” Owen argued. “You were one!”

“No, I wasn’t. Not really.”

Andie didn’t exactly mean to say it, but the quiet words dropped into the sudden silence like rocks into a lake. She could almost hear Owen remembering what it had been like to grow up in their spotless row house in Louisville, with no mother and a father so embittered by her loss that he’d dedicated himself to discipline and rules. It was a house without softness of any kind.

Those memories were the current that ran through every conversation she and Owen ever had, no matter how brief.

“I know,” Owen replied, regret heavy in his voice. “And I wouldn’t ask, I’ve got no right to expect help from you, but Andie—if you don’t take her in, they’re going to send her to Dad.”

Andie’s heart stuttered in her chest. Even though she was normally the one defending their father to Owen, the idea of sending another motherless little girl to live in that cold, strict, regimented house … “Oh. Owen, no. Of course Caitlin can come here. I’ll do my best, and it’s only temporary, right?”

“Right! Once this mission is over, I’ve got some leave coming to me. We’ll figure it out in a month or so.”

“A month. Okay. There’s a limit to how badly I can screw a kid up in four weeks,” Andie said, trying to sound sure. Because, priorities. Whatever her worries and fears, however much she wanted to lecture Owen on responsibility and slap him silly for getting some girl pregnant and not even knowing about the baby … they couldn’t deal with all of that now. “Seriously, Owen, don’t worry about a thing. Keep your mind on your mission. All I want you concentrating on is coming home safely.”

“Yeah.” His voice and the background noise faded for a second, as if he’d muffled the phone against his chest. When he came back, he said, “Sorry, my CO is giving me the high sign. I’ve got to go. Thank you for this, sis, from the bottom of my heart. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

“Be safe,” Andie rushed to say, but Owen had already disconnected the call.

Great. She hadn’t even managed to find out when the girl—her niece—Caitlin—might be showing up, or who’d be bringing her. She’d made sure to email Owen her new address and phone number when she moved to Sanctuary Island; she knew that she, not their father, was listed as Owen’s next of kin. Surely that meant they’d be able to find her.

Nervous energy propelled her off the couch. She still needed a shower, and the guest bedroom needed to be made up, her side arm locked in the safe under her nightstand, and what did eight-year-old kids like to eat, anyway? Was the frozen pizza she’d planned to defrost for her supper okay? It had vegetables on it. Green peppers and tomato … and olives counted as vegetables, too, right?

Andie glanced down at her watch. 7:03. But that was useless knowledge. There was no way to gauge how much time she had when she didn’t know where the girl was. But the distant blast of the ferry’s horn, down at the harbor, went through Andie like a gunshot.

The ferry was the only way on or off the island. It ran between Sanctuary Island and Winter Harbor, Virginia, in the morning and evening. Every resident of Sanctuary had the ferry schedule memorized. Seven in the morning and seven at night.

Was it possible Caitlin could be arriving on that very ferry?

Stripping frantically, Andie pitched her dirty uniform into the hamper and leaped into the shower for the fastest scrubdown of her life. She wasn’t going to meet her niece for the first time smelling like an escaped bulldog. Once she was clean and dressed in jeans and a thick navy cable-knit sweater against the chill spring evening, she felt more in control of the situation.

At least until her doorbell chimed. Andie tugged the spare toothbrush from her last trip to the dentist from its wrapping and dropped it into the cup next to her own. Taking a deep breath and rubbing her damp palms along her thighs, she made her way across the living room to open the front door.

On her doorstep stood an older woman in Army Dress Blues with gold stripes on the shoulders and a small cross pinned to her collar. And standing slightly behind her, as if taking cover behind her legs, was Caitlin.

Andie’s throat squeezed tight. She’d never seen this child before, but she would have known her for family instantly. The similarity to the little brother who lived in Andie’s memories was unmistakable. Caitlin had Owen’s serious mouth and way of tilting his head, the freckles he’d lost over the years, and the carroty orange-red hair that had been the bane of Andie’s existence growing up.

When Caitlin ducked a glance from beneath her pale lashes, Andie’s heart expanded like a balloon, filling with helpless, overwhelming love. Connection. Family. Belonging.

This was going to be amazing. Andie imagined herself holding out her arms, imagined her niece running into them, imagined picking her up and twirling them around in the sunshine …

But as Caitlin met Andie’s eyes, the girl shrank back, hunching her shoulders as if trying to make herself invisible. Andie bit her lip and cautioned herself to slow down. She really knew nothing about Caitlin or what her life had been like up until now.

“Sheriff Shepard?” the woman inquired, reminding Andie that she and Caitlin weren’t alone.

“That’s me,” she said, tearing her gaze from her niece to smile at her caretaker.

“I’m Lieutenant Loretta Phelps, Chaplain at Fort Benning. Your brother was there for Airborne School last year, part of his Ranger training. When Sergeant Shepard found out what had happened,” the chaplain said delicately, with a glance down at her silent charge, “he asked me to bring her to you.”

Lt. Phelps was in her thirties, with a sensible brown bob and the sort of plain, kind features that made Andie want to trust her immediately. “And we’re very grateful, Lieutenant. I know Owen would want me to thank you for going well above and beyond the call of duty. Please sit down and be comfortable—I hope you’ll stay the night with us.”

“Thank you, but I can’t,” Lt. Phelps said, with a small, regretful smile. “I’m on leave right now, but I need to report back to base by oh six hundred tomorrow.”

“So soon.” Then all three of them stood there awkwardly on Andie’s carpet, unsure where to look or what to do. She realized she’d been counting on the buffer of another adult’s presence, at least for the first night, but apparently she and Caitlin were soon to be on their own.