First Time in Forever. Sarah Morgan

thanks.”

      “Hey.” Sky’s voice softened. “We made a promise, remember? We are always here for each other. Speak to you later!”

      In the moment before she hung up, Emily heard a hard male voice in the background and wondered again what free-spirited Skylar saw in Richard Everson.

      As she slid back into the car the child stirred. “Are we there yet?”

      Emily turned to look at her. She had Lana’s eyes, that beautiful rain-washed green that had captivated movie audiences everywhere. “Almost there.” She tightened her grip on the wheel and felt the past rush at her like a rogue wave threatening to swamp a vulnerable boat.

      She wasn’t the right person for this. The right person would be soothing the girl and producing endless supplies of age-appropriate entertainment, healthy drinks and nutritious food. Emily wanted to open the car door and bolt into that soupy darkness, but she could feel those eyes fixed on her.

      Wounded. Lost. Trusting.

      And she knew she wasn’t worthy of that trust.

      And Lana had known it, too. So why had she done this?

      “Have you always been my aunt?” The sleepy voice dragged her back into the present, and she remembered that this was her future. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t equipped for it, that she didn’t have a clue—she had to do it. There was no one else.

      “Always.”

      “So why didn’t I know?”

      “I— Your mom probably forgot to mention it. And we lived on opposite sides of the country. You lived in LA and I lived in New York.” Somehow she formed the words, although she knew the tone wasn’t right. Adults used different voices when they talked to children, didn’t they? Soft, soothing voices. Emily didn’t know how to soothe. She knew numbers. Shapes. Patterns. Numbers were controllable and logical, unlike emotions. “We’ll be able to see the cottage soon. Just one more bend in the road.”

      There was always one more bend in the road. Just when you thought life had hit a safe, straight section and you could hit “cruise,” you ended up steering around a hairpin with a lethal tumble into a dark void as your reward for complacency.

      The little girl shifted in her seat, craning her neck to see in the dark. “I don’t see the sea. You said we’d be living in a cottage on a beach. You promised.” The sleepy voice wobbled, and Emily felt her head throb.

       Please, don’t cry.

      Tears hadn’t featured in her life for twenty years. She’d made sure she didn’t care about anything enough to cry about it. “You can’t see it, but it’s there. The sea is everywhere.” Hands shaking, she fumbled with the buttons, and the windows slid down with a soft purr. “Close your eyes and listen. Tell me what you hear.”

      The child screwed up her face and held her breath as the cool night air seeped into the car. “I hear crashing.”

      “The crashing is the sound of the waves on the rocks.” She managed to subdue the urge to put her hands over her ears. “The sea has been pounding away at those rocks for centuries.”

      “Is the beach sandy?”

      “I don’t remember. It’s a beach.” And she couldn’t imagine herself going there. She hadn’t set foot on a beach since that day when her life had changed.

      Nothing short of deep friendship would have brought her to this island in the first place, and even when she’d come she’d stayed indoors, curled up on Brittany’s colorful patchwork bedcover with her friends, keeping her back to the ocean.

      Kathleen, Brittany’s grandmother, had known something was wrong, and when her friends had sprinted down the sandy path to the beach to swim, she’d invited Emily to help her in the sunny country kitchen that overlooked the tumbling color of the garden. There, with the gentle hiss of the kettle drowning out the sound of waves, it had been possible to pretend the sea wasn’t almost lapping at the porch.

      They’d made pancakes and cooked them on the skillet that had once belonged to Kathleen’s mother. By the time her friends returned, trailing sand and laughter, the pancakes had been piled on a plate in the center of the table—mounds of fluffy deliciousness with raggedy edges and golden warmth. They’d eaten them drizzled with maple syrup and fresh blueberries harvested from the bushes in Kathleen’s pretty coastal garden.

      Emily could still remember the tangy sweet flavor as they’d burst in her mouth.

      “Will I have to hide indoors?” The little girl’s voice cut through the memories.

      “I— No. I don’t think so.” The questions were never-ending, feeding her own sense of inadequacy until, bloated with doubt, she could no longer find her confident self.

      She wanted to run, but she couldn’t.

      There was no one else.

      She fumbled in her bag for a bottle of water, but it made no difference. Her mouth was still dry. It had been dry since the moment the phone on her desk had rung with the news that had changed her life. “We’ll have to think about school.”

      “I’ve never been to school.”

      Emily reminded herself that this child’s life had never been close to normal. She was the daughter of a movie star, conceived during an acclaimed Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet. There had been rumors that the father was Lana’s co-star, but as he’d been married with two children at the time, that had been vehemently denied by all concerned. They’d recently been reunited on their latest project, and now he was dead, too, killed in the same crash that had taken Lana, along with the director and members of the production team.

      Juliet.

      Emily closed her eyes. Thanks, Lana. Sky was right. She was going to have to do something about the name. “We’re just going to take this a day at a time.”

      “Will he find us?”

      “He?”

      “The man with the camera. The tall one who follows me everywhere. I don’t like him.”

      Cold oozed through the open windows, and Emily closed them quickly, checking that the doors were locked.

      “He won’t find us here. None of them will.”

      “They climbed into my house.”

      Emily felt a rush of outrage. “That won’t happen again. They don’t know where you live.”

      “What if they find out?”

      “I’ll protect you.”

      “Do you promise?” The childish request made her think of Skylar and Brittany.

       Let’s make a promise. When one of us is in trouble, the others help, no questions.

      Friendship.

      For Emily, friendship had proven the one unbreakable bond in her life.

      Panic was replaced by another emotion so powerful it shook her. “I promise.” She might not know anything about being a mother and she might not be able to love, but she could stand between this child and the rest of the world.

      She’d keep that promise, even if it meant dying her hair purple.

      “I SAW LIGHTS in Castaway Cottage.” Ryan pulled the bow line tight to prevent the boat moving backward in the slip. From up above, the lights from the Ocean Club sent fingers of gold dancing across the surface of the water. Strains of laughter and music floated on the wind, mingling with the call of seagulls. “Know anything about that?”

      “No, but I don’t pay attention to my neighbors the way you do. I mind my own business. Did you try calling Brittany?”

      “Voice mail. She’s somewhere in Greece on an archaeological dig. I’m guessing