Heavenly Stranger Page 3

  She skirted the deck outside Sugar’s where tables were empty, and chairs were stacked under an awning. She searched for the rainbow again before stepping onto the dock. It didn’t end above Barnie’s boat at this angle, but it was still there in all its double glory.

  She shifted her mint-green gauzy shirt when she felt a cool raindrop on her shoulder, but her shirt slid off her other shoulder. She untwisted the straps on her flowered overalls and hoped she looked presentable. With a deep intake of breath, she walked to the end of the dock. The Barnacle was a stately old sailboat that, like Barnie himself, needed some repairs. She remembered going down into the cabin the first time and being enraptured by the novelty of him living on that boat. She missed listening to Barnie’s tales while she waited for Wayne to return from fishing with his buddies. She remembered how it felt when she first spotted his boat coming in. He said he loved finding her at the dock waiting for him. She missed his smile, missed him right down to the center of her soul. She didn’t want to stop missing him; she just wanted the excruciating ache to go away.

  The boats squeaked against white rubber bumpers as she made her way to the end of the dock. An old Rolling Stones tune floated over the damp air. Wayne’s favorite song was coming from The Barnacle. Appropriately enough, it was “Miss You.” She clutched at her throat. The boat rocked slightly from movement on the other side of the cabin trunk. All she could see of the guy was his back, since he was kneeling.

  He hadn’t seen her, and that was all right because she couldn’t breathe, which made talking rather difficult. He wore a faded black T-shirt with the words Sagres, a nossa selecção on the back in white letters. Colleen hadn’t said anything about him being foreign. His jean shorts were frayed at the edges and almost faded to white. They contrasted with legs tanned a honey brown. The sleeves of his shirt were cut off, and his muscles moved as he used a screwdriver to pry loose the frame of a cabin porthole. No naked woman adorned his left arm. Must be on the other one.

  She thought stepping aboard would get his attention, but with the small waves already rocking the boat, he didn’t notice.

  His hair wasn’t that long really, just to his collar. When he turned slightly, she caught his profile. The eye patch must be on the other side, too.

  She would have been more comfortable with someone who looked like the ceramic angel on her dresser, a beautiful blond woman with a serene expression, or perhaps a Gabriel-like man. This man was…well, too much of a man. He had a lean, muscular build. She didn’t want to be this aware of him on a physical level. She didn’t want to notice the blend of male sweat and deodorant or the line of muscling down his legs.

  She was about to step closer and initiate a conversation when he stood so fast that it knocked her off-balance. He looked startled too, but he instinctively reached for her hands. Just as quickly, he let them go.

  “Jeez, you always sneak up on people?” he said, surprise turning to annoyance. Well, at least he spoke English.

  What did one say to an angel? “You don’t have an eye patch,” wasn’t on the top of her list of witty openers, but that’s what came out.

  “No,” he answered, drawing the word out. “I don’t.”

  There was something exotic about his looks. If he were a regular person, he might have American Indian or even Eskimo in his background. He had a long face, a small nose, and a hint of shadow on his jaws and upper lip. And he had gorgeous eyes, two of them, as brown as coffee with a slant to them that made them look warm.

  Her gaze went to the arm she couldn’t see before. No tattoo, though she kept that observation to herself. And she could see no gaps in his white teeth. That darn Colleen.

  “Can I help you?” he asked in a voice that captivated her with its deep richness, as though he were telling her something personal and intimate.

  “Of course, you can. Took you long enough to get here.”

  He had nice eyebrows, and he arched one of them. “It only took a day.”

  “Time must sure be different where you’re from. Well, you can start right now. Doing what you’re here to do, I mean.”

  “I start tomorrow. He said I could take today off to settle in.”

  He. Wow, a direct line to God. “You talk to Him a lot?”

  “No, just once before I headed over, and then when I got here.”

  “Oh. You’re new at this then?”

  “I know enough to get by.”

  The drizzle started up again, the cool, fresh breeze washing away the smells of fuel. “How much did He tell you about what you’re supposed to do?”

  He picked up a rag and ran it along the edge of the cockpit, though his gaze never left her. “Not much. He’s going to give me instructions as I go along.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s okay, I guess. I never gave up, you know. But it’s been so long.” Now all the words were spilling out. “I don’t know how this works,” she said, gesturing to him and her. “This is my first time. What do we do, exactly?”

  He stopped wiping with the rag and asked, “What, exactly, are you talking about?”

  She laughed, though it died down to something like a gargle in her throat as she stared into his eyes. “You know. You’re supposed to…” She tilted her head. “Don’t you?”

  His eyes searched hers. “Do you know me?”

  “Not by name. I just knew you were coming. Wayne told me.”

  “Who’s Wayne?”

  “My husband. He used to own this place, and he…went away and asked you to come.” She gulped a quick breath. “Didn’t he?”

  The wind shifted, ruffling his hair. At least Colleen had gotten the dark hair right. And the hot part. She pushed her own hair aside as it blew across her face.

  She’d expected her angel to waltz in, announce her—or his—intention and go about fixing her heart. She’d never considered how he would do it, except for vague fantasies about a wave of a hand and quoted scripture. Or like in the old show, Touched by an Angel, her angel would appear as a gentle soul who stepped in to help. Then again, she hadn’t thought it would take a year for him to arrive either. God always had a plan, isn’t that what Reverend Hislope said whenever something happened to test one’s faith? Like when Wayne was taken away. The Reverend said healing wouldn’t be a dramatic event like the appearance of an angel. It would be a gradual process of small triumphs. Maddie was too impatient for small triumphs.

  When she moved closer, he backed up. “Why are you making this so hard?” “I’ve been waiting all this time for you to come and do whatever it is you’re going to do to me, and you’re not even a woman or old or anything like I expected, and you don’t seem to know what’s going on. Hasn’t your Boss told you what your job is?”

  He put the large wheel between them, taking her in with a wary look. “My boss said he needed to get some supplies before we could begin our work. I get my instructions tomorrow.”

  So maybe he didn’t know his mission yet. “What kind of supplies?”

  “C-Flex, fiberglass, and resin.”

  “You are kidding…aren’t you?” She put her hand over her chest. No way was he using resin to mend her broken heart! “What do you intend to do with that?”

  She saw a mixture of annoyance and curiosity on his expression. “Um…I’m going to build a boat for Barnie Danbury.” He seemed to brace himself. “What are you talking about?”

  “Barnie…Barnie is the boss you mentioned?”

  “For the new few weeks anyway.”

  “Oh, boy.” A warm flush of embarrassment washed over her face. “So, you really don’t know who I am?”

  “Look, you’ve obviously mistaken me for someone else. It’s okay. But I need to reseal this porthole before the rain kicks in.”

  She glanced up at the rainbow. Maybe this guy didn’t know he was her angel. Maybe what scraps of faith she had left were to be tested further. She laughed that nervous laugh she hated because it sounded so obvious. “Sorry.” She held out her hand. “I’m Maddie Schaeffer. Barnie�
�s my uncle,” she added as though that would lend some credibility. Then, picturing her scruffy great-uncle, decided maybe not.

  He nodded and said absolutely nothing. Worse, he eyed her hand speculatively before reluctantly taking it in his. She shouldn’t have to work this hard at being healed!

  His palms were rough and warm. She wondered how they’d come to be so work-worn, then realized she was rubbing her thumb against his palm as she contemplated. She jerked her hand back. “So…where are you from?”

  “Here and there.”

  Well, what had she expected? He couldn’t just come out and say, Heaven, could he?

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Chase.”

  “I’m Maddie.” Then that awful, nervous laugh again. “I already said that, didn’t I?”

  The first drop of real rain hit her nose. Not a big drop, but a portent of more to come. He pushed his dark hair back from his face in a useless gesture since the breeze blew it right back. “Listen, I know I’m some kind of oddity, being a stranger and all, and maybe you local girls need a…diversion. But like I told the blonde earlier, I’m not here to romance anyone. Could you pass the word, which seems pretty easy here, that I’m not interested?”

  More raindrops hit her, but she was too busy putting his words together to notice them much. He thought she was hitting on him! That came first, and then the blonde, well, that had to be Darcy, and boy, couldn’t she see Darcy in her tightest jeans flaunting a real chest and not the miniature version Maddie had. She laughed then, a laugh worse than her nervous one because this one sounded like the bleating of sheep. “I’m not hitting on you! Oh, my gosh, if you knew…” He should know. But he didn’t. Maybe he had sins to atone for, and that atonement meant having to figure out what he had to fix. Apparently, he thought it was Barnie’s boat.

  She squinted in the rain, crossing her arms, then uncrossing them. “I’ll tell them.” Happy to.

  He was covering the porthole with a piece of tarp, working as though she wasn’t standing there, as though the rain wasn’t sprinkling his shirt with dots. She wondered if rudeness was one of his sins.

  “Okay, bye then.” She thought he nodded in response but couldn’t be sure. If rudeness wasn’t a sin, it ought to be. “I’m…going now.” She spun around and started walking.

  Go, go, go, you’ve made a big enough fool of yourself for the day.

  Chase watched Maddie Schaeffer pick her way across the wet boards as rain pelted her from a sideways angle. He shouldn’t be watching her at all, shouldn’t be tensing when her feet skidded across that slick spot near the ramp. Certainly shouldn’t spend an ounce of energy noticing how cute her skinny little butt was, because he was fairly certain he didn’t even like skinny anything. And when that little butt was connected with a woman clearly on the edge of nuttiness, even more reason not to notice that her blonde hair was plastered to her head, and that it made her ears stick out, and somehow even that was cute.

  What he didn’t need was another complication in his life. Just the one was plenty.

  He was crouched on the deck in the pouring rain trying to make sense of their conversation. Had she thought he was a gigolo or her handyman?

  He grabbed up his tools and stepped into the cabin, which smelled musty even though he’d scrubbed it down. Barnie wasn’t exactly picky about cleaning. Still, he was grateful for a space of his own, and this one far exceeded most of the places he’d been sleeping. After hanging up the tools, he settled on the tiny couch with a can of Dr. Pepper. He pulled out an old copy of Moby Dick he’d taken from a Laundromat after leaving his last read, Lord of the Flies, in its place. He knew they were considered classics but couldn’t remember if he’d read them. The patter of rain was comforting as it echoed throughout the cabin. And familiar. He sank into it, searching his mind for clues.

  Rain.

  Thunder.

  Fear.

  Just a thrum of it, but he reached, tried to grab onto it as a man might grasp for a wet railing…and fail. He could see the analogy so clearly, just a flash.

  The book was open to the place he’d marked with a napkin, but he was staring out the window. So, what the heck was that all about?

  Maddie had slipped back into his mind again, nudging Ahab out of the way. Eyes and mouth too big for her face, a long, graceful neck. Cute, in an odd-duck sort of way. He could still hear her nervous laugh and the way she cleared her throat when she couldn’t think of anything to say. Was it normal to remember so many details of a woman you’d only talked to for a few minutes?

  Then again, was it normal for a man to forget who he was?

  Definitely not. It was an odd feeling, knowing you were someone, yet not knowing who that someone was. Not even your own name.

  Chase was a possibility. He’d been wearing an expensive watch with the inscription on back: Chase, well done. Dad. He could be Chase. Or he could be some guy who either bought the watch or stole it from Chase. All he knew for sure was that he possessed an innate sense—and passion—for boating. He was pretty sure that he’d been on a boat right before he’d lost his memory, since he’d been found in the waters of the Bermuda Triangle. Chase figured the bump on the head came from the accident that sent him overboard.

  He stretched out his legs, wishing he could be up on the deck. But the rain had grown even harder in the last couple minutes. He knew, though, that he’d spent many hours below deck, hunkered down because of weather. Or a need for sleep.

  The freighter that had fished him from the sea had saved his life, spotting him clinging to a broken, abandoned refugee raft. He had few memories of even that time, however many hours or days it had been, floating like ocean debris.

  That the ship was Portuguese, that hardly any of the people aboard spoke English, well, that was just one of those tricks of fate.

  When his health returned, he merged into their routines, communicating in a mixture of gestures and sounds. He knew things about life, that he was, for instance, American, what peas and potatoes were, and that standing on the deck during a thunderstorm wasn’t a great idea. He knew a sort of comfort at being on the ocean, felt a vague familiarity. And a gnawing feeling of loss.

  When they finally arrived in Lisbon, they couldn’t alert the authorities because, as one of the crewmates obliquely implied, they were carrying cargo they didn’t particularly want to bring anyone’s attention to. So, while in port, he was a virtual prisoner on the ship, though he could hardly object since they’d saved his life.

  When the ship left with a new load of their mysterious cargo two weeks later, Chase faced the problem of getting into the country without papers. He didn’t ask them how they knew about sneaking a man into the U.S. when they came up with a plan.

  Even through the language barriers, he’d forged tentative bonds of friendship with some of the men on the ship. Frederico, one of the men aboard, had found books at the library on amnesia, then translated them as best he could. Others had donated faded uniforms, blue jeans, and T-shirts. Another crewmate had given him a backpack and stashed some bags of chips and slices of bread inside. They committed their meager American dollars to his cause. And in the dark of the night, they put everything he had in plastic bags sealed with duct tape and sent him over the side of the ship to swim to Block Island near Rhode Island.

  The plan was for him to contact the authorities when he “washed up on shore” with no memory of how he’d gotten there. But by the time he’d come ashore, he decided to stay under the radar and figure out who was on his own.

  Another two months had passed while he’d traveled down the eastern coast searching for something to spark a memory. In every town, he stopped at the local library and looked up the recent newspaper articles on microfiche around the time he might have gone missing. Without an ID, he couldn’t use their computers. His watch had netted him enough money to live on for a while, but that was running out. He’d intended to continue southward, sure that his home was somewhere on the East Coast. H
e still wasn’t sure why he’d ended up in Sugar Bay, Florida, a small bit of a town on the West Coast. He knew how it had happened: he’d been reading a maritime publication, looking for another odd job on his next stop.

  A guy walked up and said, “I know a job if you’re looking.”

  “Sure.”

  “Barnie Danbury needs someone to help him finish building a twenty-six-foot one-off sailboat. It’s on the other coast, Sugar Bay.”

  “That’s out of my way, but thanks anyway.”

  The guy gave him a confident smile. “It’s a good place to find yourself. Besides, Barnie’s a nice guy, and he’s stuck.” And he’d rattled off a phone number.

  Chase had been stuck on the finding yourself part, but he’d written down the number anyway. “Thanks…” When he’d looked up, the guy was already heading down to the docks.

  Chase was on the phone before he could even question whether the job was worth going out of his way for. But it was a job, which meant luxuries like eating and hopefully having a warm, safe place to sleep. Better yet, Barnie, who had broken a leg and was obviously in desperate need of help, would pay in cash. Chase bluffed about his qualifications like he bluffed about all questions regarding his background. It wasn’t that hard, actually. While he couldn’t think of one recent memory, couldn’t remember if he had a woman he loved (no wedding ring anyway), he knew boats. For the past few months, he’d been swabbing decks and doing maintenance for yachts along the coast. The prospect of building one was the first thing that breathed life into the dark hole of his life.

  The second was Maddie. And he wasn’t going to do a damn thing about that one.

  CHAPTER 4

  Maddie walked into the cavernous metal warehouse where Barnie was staying in the office in the back. The scent of sawdust filled the air. Fiberglass panels let in some light, but on a dim day, the interior was barely visible. She wasn’t sure if he was awake or not. With Barnie, you never knew. He slept in four-hour increments throughout the day. Unless you kept a chart, who could keep up with his schedule?