offering help where it was needed.
Jake and Carol were on one of the mermaid teams, sitting off by themselves, shaping the sand. Their mermaid wasn’t half-bad. In fact, she was rather pretty, with her curvy figure and flowing hair.
Jake glanced up at Carol, but she averted her gaze. He was molding the mermaid’s breasts, and she was working on the tail, giving it texture. She was also thinking about what he’d said about her being broken. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t seem to forget his unsettling opinion of her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she replied.
“You seem preoccupied.”
“I’m just trying to focus on this.”
“Are you sure that’s all it is?”
She decided to come clean. Otherwise, it would keep affecting her mood. “Do you really think I’m messed up?”
He stopped molding the mermaid and sat back on his haunches. “I didn’t mean it in an offensive way, Carol.”
“Then how did you mean it?”
“I was just saying how losing your family was as traumatic for you as it was for me.” He squinted at her, the sun shining in his eyes. “It’s unfortunate, too, that neither of us had any extended family who could take us in. Or I assume that you didn’t or you wouldn’t have been placed in the system.”
“You’re right. There was no one. Both of my parents were raised by single moms, and they were gone by then. Well, actually, my dad’s mom was still around, but she had cancer and was too sick to step in and help. She died about a year later.” Carol sighed, pushing away the tightness in her chest. “I also had an uncle on my dad’s side, but he was a young man in the military, so he couldn’t raise me. He used to write me letters after my parents died, keeping a connection going, but then he was killed in Iraq.” Another death that had destroyed her all over again. “But I managed to get through it, just as I got through losing everyone else.”
“How? By being overly good and proper? How is that any better than me running wild?”
Irked by the comparison, she defended herself. “I’m not being overly good and proper now. I’m here with you, on this island, sharing your damned bed.”
“My damned bed, huh?” he mimicked her, a slow and sexy smile spreading across his face. “Is this our first fight?”
She rolled her eyes. She even smiled a little. It was silly to make a fuss over it. But that didn’t stop her from being caught up in the past. It didn’t stop Jake, either, apparently.
He said, “I had Garrett and Max to help me through it. I had Garrett’s mom, too. But who did you have, Carol, especially after your uncle was gone?”
She kept her response light, determined to stay strong, rather than dredge up all of that old pain. “Some of my foster parents were really nice people. Of course, some were indifferent, too. So mostly I just learned to do it on my own, to not rely too heavily on anyone else.”
He wiped his hands on his swim trunks. “Yes, but how?”
“By doing everything that I thought was right. By studying in school and getting good grades. By being respectful to my elders. By being as responsible as I could.” She stared straight at him. “I wanted to do the kinds of things that would make my parents proud. I wanted them to be looking down on me from heaven, saying, ‘Look how far she’s come.’”
“That’s nice. Really, truly it is. But it sounds lonely, too. Didn’t you ever want to rebel? To scream and rage?”
“No. Staying calm kept me sane.”
“That would have made me crazy.”
There were plenty of times that she’d cried herself to sleep. But she’d refused to take her grief out on the world, the way he had. “What’s the deal with your extended family? Why wasn’t there anyone who could raise you?”
He returned to the mermaid, absently running his fingers over the areas he’d already shaped. “My dad was an only child, and his parents died before I was born, so that ruled them out.” He spoke slowly, as if he were plucking the memories from his mind. “My maternal grandfather was still around, though, and so was my mom’s sister. Grandpa lived in Ohio, where my mom was originally from, and my aunt was in Arizona, where she’d relocated years before. But at the time of the accident, she was going through a divorce, and the last thing she needed was another kid. She already had two little boys of her own and was struggling to raise them. One of them was a baby, three, maybe four months old, and the other one was a toddler, just barely out of diapers.”
“What about your grandfather?”
“He said that he couldn’t afford to accommodate me. Granted, he was just a working-class guy, but it was more than a money issue. He just didn’t want to get saddled with one of his grandkids. He’d already raised his daughters by himself.”
“When your grandmother died?” she asked, curious about the rest of the story.
A muscle ticked in Jake’s jaw. “She didn’t die. She left him for another man, abandoning him and their daughters when the girls were still pretty young. It tore everyone apart. Grandpa resented being left with the kids, and my mom and my aunt bore the brunt of his anger. They suffered from their mother leaving, too, of course. They were crushed by what she’d done.”
“That’s awful.” Carol couldn’t fathom a woman walking out on her children.
“Needless to say, they weren’t a tight-knit family. Even when my mom was still alive, Grandpa rarely came to see to us. We hardly ever visited him, either. He remained distant with my aunt and her kids, too. He didn’t help them when they needed it.”
“Where is he now?”
“He has Alzheimer’s, so he doesn’t remember any of this, anyway. He’s in a treatment center that looks after him. He’s too far gone to be on his own.”
“Who pays for that?”
“I do.”
She figured as much. Jake didn’t seem like the type of person to turn his back on someone, even if they’d turned their back on him. “So your mom and your aunt weren’t close, either?”
“No. But my mom made up for her upbringing with how loving she was with us. With me and my dad and my sisters,” he clarified.
Carol knew what he meant. “How did your aunt react when your mom died?”
“She was devastated, and guilty, I think, because they hadn’t kept in better touch. She apologized at the time for not being able to take me in. But I understood how bad things were for her. She could barely feed her own children.”
“How is she now?”
“She’s doing fine. I encouraged her to get a real estate license, and now she works for an associate of mine who flips houses in Arizona. I’m putting my cousins through college, too, so they’ll have a chance for a promising future, without being burdened by student loans.”
Carol was still paying on her loans, but she had a good job and a generous boss who provided a discount on her rent. Without Jake, she wouldn’t be making it as easily as she was. “That’s nice of you.”
“Thanks. My aunt appreciates everything I’ve done for her and her kids. But we haven’t bonded, not in a way that feels like blood.” He shrugged it off. “Maybe someday we will. But what matters most to me is my foster brothers. They’re my true family.”
Carol nodded. After hearing the whole story, she understood more about his loyalty to them.
“I still can’t relate to how you handled being orphaned,” he said, bringing the discussion back to her.
She took a moment to