“So have you.” Bri clasped her hands tight. “You raised me.”
Julie cupped her daughter’s cheek. Bri was her best creation. Nothing could ever compare to her. Maybe that’s why she’d given up on her art all those years ago.
“Mom, I know that you feel stuck. That you can’t move forward. That’s why I’m here. I know it’s scary, but you need to wake up. You’ve forgotten who you are. Dad said you were the best artist in all of Summer Island, Florida, if not in the world.” Bri squeezed her hand. “Do you know what Dad’s greatest regret in life was?”
Julie blinked, fighting her fear to ask but needing to know. “What?”
“That you never lived up to your potential because you would never turn your back on your family. You spent years utilizing your art skills in combination with Dad’s woodworking. When he passed away, you stopped creating anything. You stopped being you.”
Julie knew Bri had a point. She had fallen into a rut. “But I’m going to be fifty. It’s a little late to start dreaming now.”
“Who says? They say fifty is the new thirty.” Bri pulled her to stand. “You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. Take a chance, Mother. You’re healthy, beautiful, and kind. And I believe you have something inside you that needs to come out. It’s time for you to be you again.”
Julie sighed. Sighed because despite the truth of it, she had no clue who she was beyond mother, wife, daughter, store owner. Who was she now that everything had changed?
Chapter Two
The Florida morning sun erupted the heat on the back of Trevor Ashford’s sunburned neck like a flare gun to kindling. After three hours hovering over the old diesel engine, his temper raged. He gripped the wrench tight, hooked it to the stubborn bolt, and turned with all his remaining strength. His hand slipped and he fell forward, sliding his knuckles against the rigid, rusted, ragged metal support beam, slicing his skin open.
He cursed like a sailor he wished he was, snatched the wrench free, and spiked it like a football in the end zone. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop at the end of the deck and tumbled down the sugar scoop steps, over the back of the boat, and plunked into the salty, brackish water.
With his energy drained, he fell back against the hull. He closed his eyes to shield them from the relentless light and grappled with his insane decision to move from the Northwest to the Southeast, all to escape his ex-wife and the constant attention she brought with her.
“You know, you could hire someone to fix that for you.” His friend, Dustin Hawk, leaned over the side and held a cold beer in front of him. “Thought you might need this.” Then he handed him a bottle of water. “And this.”
“Thanks to both.” He took the ice-cold beverages and held one to his cheek and the other to the back of his neck, hunching over in defeat. “You’re right. If I had the money.”
“You would if you hadn’t let that evil witch of an ex take you for everything. You were only married for seven years. She wasn’t entitled to alimony.” Dustin climbed aboard and settled on the sugar scoops next to him, eyeing the sixty-five-foot mast on Trevor’s newly purchased old catamaran. “Wait, that’s right, you gave her everything in your midlife/divorce crisis.”
Trevor set the beer aside, unscrewed the cap on his water bottle, and took a swig. The cool, fresh water soothed his throat. Too bad it couldn’t soothe his wounds. “I didn’t want any souvenirs. I’m not the sentimental type.” Or reminders of her having an affair with his assistant—a man he’d hired so he didn’t have a female in his office in order to soothe Marsha’s jealousy.
A welcomed breeze swept through the tiny two-dock marina as if to promise a little relief from his bad decisions.
“More like you don’t want to look at any reminders from the hell that crazy woman put you through. I’m not one to say I told you so, but…”
“You are exactly the type to tell me that,” Trevor laughed. His best friend since high school had warned him about Marsha, his then-wife-turned-cheating-lingerie-model. “You told me she was the dating, not marrying, kind.”
Dustin raised his own beer in the air. “Here’s to freedom and a new start.”
“How many times are we going to toast to freedom since my divorce? I think this makes about ten dozen.”
“However many times it takes for you to move on.” Dustin took a swig and set his beer down on the deck between them. “Not sure I made the right choice pushing you to leave your old job and life to take a break. Of course, my evil plan was to have you come work for me in the end.”
“No, you were right except for the working for you part. Not happening.” Trevor scanned his motorboat, his sailboat, his shack of a place, the abandoned old motel down the beach, and the docks. “I just decided to follow a stupid passion and waste most of the money I had left on this place. I should’ve followed your advice and found a sports car and a young woman. To date, not marry. I guess the tabloids were right… I’m a sugar daddy chasing his youth.”
Dustin laughed so hard he nearly fell overboard but grabbed the dinghy davits to stay put. Once upright, he took another drink.
“It isn’t that funny.” Trevor wrapped his knuckles in a dirty rag and swiped the blood from the deck with his other palm. He’d have to scrub the boat later anyway if he ever had any clients to take out.
“Sorry, I had a visual of the uptight, moral, practical, business-savvy man I know acting like a midlife stereotype. You are many things, but you are not a cliché.” Dustin pushed up onto his hands and knees and studied the engine bay.
Trevor eyed his friend, who was
