Chapter 1

Annie Cameron yanked a suitcase out of the car trunk, smoothed the rolling hem of her denim skirt back into place, then looked to the far end of the dock where a little launch bobbed up and down in the water. A slender, gray-headed boatman waved as if he had known her for years. She waved back, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and leaned into the back seat of the car.

“Charlie? Grandma? Time to get your things together. We’re going for a boat ride.”

As usual, there was no answer or a response of any kind.

“Charlie, honey? Come on now. I don’t think that man on the boat will wait forever, and there’s no other way to the island.”

Her ten-year-old son nodded, pushed his glasses further on his nose, hesitantly unloosed his seatbelt and that of his grandmother, then reached for the door.

“Of course, he’ll wait. That’s his job.” David Cameron exploded from the driver’s side of the car, slammed the door shut then walked to the trunk to wrench more suitcases out. “That man can wait all day with what we’re paying him.”

“I thought you were in a hurry to get back to Atlanta to meet the contractors. That’s what you said.”

“I’m well aware of what I said.”

That familiar tightness formed in her husband’s jaw as they approached the same uncomfortable topics. “You said you had a meeting with the contractors. You meant contractors, didn’t you? Not a meeting with someone else?”

David pulled the last suitcase out. “Do you really want to discuss this now?”

“No, David, I don’t. Not in front of Charlie anyway.”

“You coddle the boy too much, pamper him like a puppy. Always have. That’s why he’s the way he is.”

“That’s not true, and you know it.”

“No, Annie. I don’t know it. All I know is what I see.”

“You’re never home. How can you see anything?”

She caught a motion out of the corner of her eye. Grandma, as frail and brittle as a dying twig, had come around the car to put a protective arm around Charlie. She glared at Annie and David with clarity in her brilliant blue eyes as penetrating as it was rare.

Clearing her throat, Annie changed the subject and forced a lighter tone to her voice. “We’ll be fine down here while the house is being renovated.”

“You won’t recognize the place.”

“And I’ll make sure Charlie keeps up with his school work.”

“What’s that?” David tucked a suitcase under each arm and grabbed for more.

“His assignments. From school. I’ll see to it that he gets the work done.”

A smirk crossed his face then instantly disappeared. “Of course you will. And I’m sure Charlie will be at the head of his class.”

“‘Heigh, my hearts!’” The booming voice commanded immediate attention. “‘Cheerily, cheerily, my hearts! Take in the topsail.’” The man offered a hand to David then to Annie, Grandma, and Charlie. “The name’s Winston Mann, and as soon as we get boarded, we’re ready to go.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Mann,” Annie said, popping to mock attention. “I’m Annie Cameron, from Atlanta, and I think we’re ready now.”

“Well then,” he said with a broad, friendly smile, “let’s to it.” He scooped up luggage into his leather-brown arms and headed to the boat at a brisk pace that equaled his banter. “‘Tend to the master’s whistle. Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough.’ Watch your step. This dock has got to be older than dirt. There you go.”

Stepping easily onto the bobbing craft, he worked effortlessly with the weight of the densely packed suitcases. It was if his slight frame had to be held in check. Standing back, arms akimbo, he surveyed the result of his work and nodded with satisfaction.

“Yup. I think that’ll do it. Let me help you get on, Annie Cameron. Your mother can sit aft.” He winked. “That’s the seat in the back.”

“That seat’ll do just fine, thanks. She’s David’s mother actually. I take care of her.”

Annie glanced at David on the dock, caught the hardness in his gaze, then returned the look and immediately regretted the pettiness of it all. Being cold to others wasn’t in her nature, but somehow, recently anyway, this was a disturbing new wrinkle to her otherwise easy way. She would have to work on doing better and now was as good a time as any.

“Is this seat okay for me and Charlie?”

“Charlie, huh? A name fit for kings. That seat’s fine. Mr. Cameron, you can have the seat right there.”

“No, thanks. I’m not going on this trip.”

Mann paused at this news, glanced at Annie, then David then back to Annie. “That right? Well, you just let me know when we might be expecting a visit—you got my number—and I’ll be here quicker than a June bug on a cow-pie.”

“Soon, I hope,” David said, shrugging. “I’m not sure. I’ll let you know.”

“A long weekend, maybe?” Annie asked. “That would be nice.”

“Maybe.”

And then David was gone, across the old dock, and back to the car without so much as a wave to his son or a kiss on his mother’s cheek.

They watched him go until Mann broke the silence. “You gonna be okay, Annie Cameron?”

She nodded mutely.

“I see.” Mann turned the key to the engine. Nothing. He turned it again. “Errand Two can be as ornery as the wife when she wants to be.”

Or a husband. It was David’s idea, his insistence, that the family stay at another place while the house was being renovated. That meant all of them together, one happy family, and in a place a damn sight closer than four hundred miles and a boat ride away from the renovations, school, and the usual obligations.

She shook her head and decided not to dwell on David’s behavior or the now convoluted reasons that brought her to this place. There was an adventure ahead of them, and adventures didn’t happen very often in her mundane routine, so she was going to enjoy every minute of it if it killed her.

“Errand Two? Does that mean there was an Errand One?”

Mann cranked the engine. A rumble came from under the boat, then a gurgle of water from behind.

“Yup.” He paused as if deliberating whether or not to continue. “She crashed against some rocks in a storm a few years back.”

The engine coughed then roared to life in a cloud of blue smoke. He engaged the gears, and they backed away from the dock and turned parallel to the shoreline of the lunchtime busy town.

“‘…though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstaunched wench.’” He pulled out a baseball cap from the dashboard and wedged it onto his head.

“That line is from The Tempest. One of Shakespeare’s finer plays. You might have noticed I tend to quote from that work when I’m out and about doing boat duty.” He glanced at them. “Or maybe not. Fortunately for us,” he yelled over the din of the engine, “we haven’t had any bad weather to speak of pretty much since. Folks on the island have gone a little soft about preparing for a storm. I guess they think something like that can’t happen again. And maybe they’re—” He stared at the shoreline.

Annie twisted in her seat to follow his gaze.

There, on a park bench that looked over the water, sitting as still as a weatherworn statue, was a woman dressed in moonless, midnight black. She was clothed from the black veil that hid her face to the simple dress, gloves, and opaque stockings that covered her legs and ended in severe pointed black shoes. As the boat passed, she rose slowly, as if by a mere inch at a time, until she had reached her full height and stood tall and unwavering as the wind shifted and blew from inland to island and sea. Her dress rolled gently about her and revealed a body that could be little more in girth than a skeleton. There was no other gesture or sign of recognition on her part, save for the motionless affect of her posture when she stood at their passing.

Mann pulled his ball cap off, rubbed an arm across his sweat-covered brow, and turned the boat away from their sight of the woman and into the inlet that led to the island. “Something like that can’t happen again. It can’t.”

“Who is that woman, Mr. Mann?” Annie asked.

He dismissed an answer with a wave of his hand and pulled the cap back on his head.

“Mr. Mann?” This time there was not even a wave forthcoming. Annie turned for another glance at the woman and saw she was gone. The park bench was occupied by a couple sharing a strawberry ice cream cone. Scanning the waterfront town, she saw nothing but the bustling activity of townspeople on a lunchtime break.

There was no woman in black. Anywhere.

Instinctively she pulled her over-shirt tighter around her and reached for Charlie’s hand. He did not close his fingers around hers as usual but stared at some distant spot that only he could see. If Annie didn’t know better, she would have guessed Charlie was unaware she was there. But she did know better. She knew better than anyone how tenuous Charlie’s hold was on the world. He was wired differently; she explained simply to those who bothered to ask. A definitive diagnosis was impossible to come by, but the end result of losing him forever to his internal world was always a threat.

She saw the old woman’s sweet face a picture of peace by way of a quick doze. Eyelids fluttering, perhaps Grandma was dreaming pleasant thoughts. She shifted slightly in her seat; her lips moved without benefit of sound.

Charlie’s hand twitched in Annie’s.

Grandma mouthed another voiceless word.

Another twitch of Charlie’s hand, and then it stilled.

Annie looked from one to the other then dismissed the act as a trick of fatigue after a long drive. Raising her son’s hand to her lips for a kiss, she mumbled a word of thanks he and Grandma had each other. The two were so fond of each other.

Mann steered the boat into shallow water filled with a maze of marsh grass that broke the brown surface. The scent of salt, of decaying fish, of aged gasoline, and rancid oil punctured the air and left a bitter taste.

A flick of Mann’s wrist on a lever dropped the decibel level of the engine and the speed. Now there was only the tick-tick-tick of the engine as they gently navigated the marsh grass and dark surface of the inlet waterway.

“Gotta be careful here. Low water can be hard on the hull. Not to mention the undercurrent that can creep up. These can be dangerous waters if a body doesn’t know what they’re doing.” He sighed deeply and looked up. “Buttermilk sky.”

“What’s that?” Annie asked.

“Some say it means rain, maybe a storm.”

“A storm?” Annie watched the sky with suspicion. “I don’t like storms.” Nervously she rolled the curling hem of her denim skirt back and forth and brushed away a strand of brown hair that had escaped her ponytail. “Not anytime soon, I hope.”

“Hard to say. On an island in September, it’s always best to expect the unexpected.”

“How often do the unexpected happen?”

“Hard to say, ’cause it’s—”

“Unexpected. I should have guessed not to match words with someone who recites Shakespeare.”

Mann nodded sagely, then cupped his hands around a pipe and tried to light it. “Worse one was a Maritime High. Kinda like a hurricane nearing the offseason. Good news is we haven’t had one of those in an awfully long time. It’s an unusual thing, and very rare, a Maritime High.”

“But you’ve had other storms?”

“Yup.”

“Bad ones?”

“Depends on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you, Mr. Mann,” she said, wrapping her arms around Charlie.

He looked up at the sky again, a buttermilk sky, and then at Annie. “Nah. Maybe a little rain, a soft rain. Nothing more.”

The air turned fresher, a little crisp. The marsh grass became sparse, the water open.

Mann pointed over the front of the boat. “Lullaby Sound is just around that little island up ahead and to the right. In no time, you’ll be able to see Mico Island.” He tried lighting the pipe again then puffed victoriously. “You like horses, Charlie?” There was no answer. “Not much of a talker, are you? Well then, I’ll just have to do the talking.”

Annie smiled. There was no doubt in her mind Mr. Mann relished the idea of being the talker.

“Jekyll Island is to the north of us. That’s where the rich folks used to live before WW Two. Called their summer home a cottage, but the damn things were bigger than any house I ever lived in. Down south of us is Cumberland Island. There are lots of horses there, wild ones, and wild pigs, too. The official term is feral pigs and horses, but that’s too fancy, so we’ll just say wild, okay? Okay.”

Annie smoothed back the hair on Charlie’s forehead and kissed him. “You like horses, don’t you, Charlie? Sure, you do.” She tweaked his nose then looked over at her mother-in-law.

Grandma was awake now and intent on the workings of her hands. Open, close, open, close; she was like a pianist preparing to perform. The blast of clarity in her eyes before she got on the boat had turned empty and hollow again. Her senility was getting worse.

Annie finally recognized the void in Grandma’s eyes for what it was. No amount of excuses, no matter how good they sounded at one time, could hide the sad facts of what it would mean to take care of Grandma. An overwhelming pity surrounded Annie then a nagging guilt at realizing the pity was not for Grandma.

Charlie shifted his position and buried his head deeper into Annie’s shoulder. His eyes never wavered from Winston Mann.

“Yup, Mr. Charlie. Your whole family is running me ragged with conversation. Would you like to hear a story?”

Motionless at first, Charlie just perceptibly nodded then pushed his glasses higher on his nose.

“Okay, then. Did you know there was a King Charles? No? Actually, there was more than one. And I’m kinda thinking that they may have even gone by the name Charlie. Well, maybe not, and none of this really has anything to do with my story, but I did want to get your attention. Have I got it? Good.” Mann pushed the boat into a higher speed now that the water was clear and smooth. “We’re headed to Mico Island, right? Well before you got here, even before me, if you can believe that, there were plenty of others who came to this island. Spanish folks came and built missions, Indians lived here, too, and there were forts built by the English. Now, none of these folks live here anymore, and there’s no forts left, but they were here just the same.”

“How do you know?” Charlie demanded.

Annie’s eyes widened at her son, talking to a total stranger. Why could Winston Mann evoke a response out of Charlie when no one else could?

“Know what?” Mann asked.

“If there’s nothing left, how do you know people were here?”

Mann stroked his chin. “Mr. Charlie, you are one tough customer. People wrote things down, which is a good thing ’cause if we had to remember everything, we might get our facts wrong. The wife insists I do that all the time.” He leaned conspiratorially to Charlie. “Keep that in mind when you get a wife.” Mann nodded slowly then continued, “Anyway, Mico Island wasn’t just for the Spanish, English, and Indians; it was a great hideout for smugglers and other unsavory types who didn’t want to be found. You don’t know anyone like that, do you?”

Charlie shook his head.

“I didn’t think so. Someone with the same name as a king would only know the best people. The Indian Mico, or chief, became good friends with an English king, and so everyone lived happily ever after, and Mico Island finally had a name.”

“That’s some story, Mr. Mann,” Annie said. “I’m not sure the history books would recount it quite that way.”

“Well, Annie Cameron, I don’t let facts get in the way of a good story if I can help it. I guess that means my wife is right. She’ll be so pleased to hear that.”

“Is all that true or not?” Charlie asked.

“As true as I can make it, Mr. Charlie. Ask me about this tomorrow, and I’ll have even more to say on the subject.” Mann chewed on his pipe. “I like a good story now and then, don’t you?”

“I think so,” Charlie said. “I guess so.”

“Good. You’re a man after my own heart.”

Mann slowed the engine down to a crawl as they approached the island, and waved at a very tall fisherman reeling in an empty line. The man waved back then exaggerated the size of a fish he had just missed catching. Mann roared with laughter.

“That there is my old friend, Stretch. Bet you can’t guess why he’s named that, huh? Fine man, Stretch. And he’s our chief volunteer fireman to boot. His wife—Peggy’s her name—is a top-notch woman in her own right.” He glanced over his shoulder at Charlie. “Maybe when you’re all settled in, your mother there, will let me take you fishing. What do you think, Mrs. Cameron?”

“We’ll see, okay?”

“You’re the boss. Okay by you, Mr. Charlie?”

“Yes, sir. I guess.”

“Good.” Mann eased the boat along the shoreline and pointed at the lone dock up ahead. “There’s where we’ll get off. It’s just a spit from here to Manchester Place. You ought to be able to see it real soon.”

Annie narrowed her eyes and scanned the shoreline for sight of the house they would occupy for the next few weeks. There was a small beach that evolved from high water erosion and tidal idiosyncrasies, but it was fine for her. Beyond the beach was a veritable forest of lush underbrush, healthy pines, and majestic Live oaks draped with silver moss.

“I see it!” Annie said. She caught her breath. “It’s beautiful.”

The white-frame house rose from the flat of the land like an eruption. Columns rose from the bottom of the first story to the top of the second. Large picture windows peppered this side of the house for an unobstructed view of Lullaby Sound, and there was even a window from the gabled room that marked the third story.

“It’s the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen. Are you sure this is ours?”

“As sure as I can be,” Mann said, easing next to the dock.

“Look at that porch.” Annie couldn’t take her gaze off the place. “It must follow the entire front of the house.”

“Verandah goes clear around. Watching a sunset from this side is a sight that will change your life, I can tell you.”

“That on top, is that a verandah, too?”

“In a manner of speaking. The one on the far side, with the walls and no roof, is an unfinished room. Old superstition held that a completed house predicted dire misfortune for the family living there. That room makes the place unfinished, you see. On this side is the widow’s walk.”

“Widow’s walk?”

“Yup. Folks say that in the olden times, the wife of a sailor would walk it while waiting for her husband to return from the sea. The guy who designed this place thought it would be a nice touch.”

He looked at Annie, and something flickered across his eyes.

“You can’t get up there even if you wanted to. No door.” He turned away as if concentrating on docking the boat. “It’s just something nice to look at from down here. That’s all.”

A hint of disappointment nagged her. The view of the sound from up there would be something else. Well, it didn’t matter anyway, not when she had all the rest of it, at least for a little while. She smiled. Things were going to work out better than she had ever hoped. Here was a great house on a beautiful waterfront, and it was all hers—she glanced at Charlie and Grandma—it was all theirs. What more could anyone ask for?

“Watch this,” Mann said with a grin.

He pointed at a young man sleeping in a lawn chair on the dock then pumped the boat horn. The sound punctured the air and rocketed the sleeping man out of the chair. Mann laughed uproariously and grabbed his sides.

“Good old Richard. Sleeping on the job, but here just the same. Lawyers, can’t live with him and don’t know what I’d do without him.”

Richard yawned, rubbed a hand across his eyes, and scanned the passengers. His gaze settled on Annie. He smiled at her, hitched at the blue jeans that covered his well-built frame, then grabbed the rope Mann tossed him.

“Welcome to Mico Island,” he said directly to Annie. “We’re glad you chose us as a vacation destination.”

Mann snorted and rolled his eyes theatrically. “That was a fine tourist board presentation, Richard. And if we ever get a tourist board, I’ll be sure to nominate you for president.” He climbed out of the boat and offered a hand to Annie, but was knocked sideways by Richard.

Annie climbed out of the boat without assistance while staring at the great house. Nothing more she could ask for, there was not a thing, except maybe a loving husband to share this with. But that, too, would come in time. She could feel it. This place might even afford the second honeymoon she had always wanted, a starting over of sorts.

She looked up, higher still, at the widow’s walk and the two-hundred-year-old oak that gently caressed the walk with its branches. Things would be different now, she knew.

Things would be different.