Smoke on the Water, page 1
Smoke On the Water
Wayward Sons
Book 0
Harper Jackson
Take The Leap Publishing
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Sneak Peek Won’t Back Down
About the Author
1
Hoyt
“You’re going to regret this.”
I ignored the warning in my brother Drew’s voice and grinned at the keys I now held to the two-story shingle-style house that was all mine. Or would be in another thirty years, when I finished making all the payments to the bank. “It’s going to be great.”
“I can’t believe you bought it without doing more than a video tour.”
“There’s not that much on the market in my price range. If I wanted to close as soon as I got back on-island, I had to move quickly or risk being forced to move back in with Mom and Dad while I looked.” While I loved my parents, after five years away, the last thing I needed was my well-intentioned mom smothering me now that I was home. So I’d come straight from the ferry to the lawyer’s office to sign the closing paperwork.
“If you think buying that house is gonna keep Mom out of your business, you’re sorely mistaken. It’s a shithole, Hoyt.”
“I concede it looks kinda rough.” Something I’d willfully overlooked when the realtor had sent me pictures while I was still in Raleigh. “But it’s got good bones. That kind of golden-age construction is worth preserving.”
“It’s a duplex. Are you planning on adding landlord as a secondary occupation?”
“No. I’m gonna turn it back into a single-family home.” It was why I’d come back to Sutter’s Ferry and Hatterwick. To sink some roots and start a family. Even though I hadn’t actually found the woman yet. I figured by the time I was done working on the house, she’d have turned up, and I’d be ready. “I don’t mind living in a construction zone, and with my 24-on, 48-off schedule, I ought to be able to do a solid amount of work on it. No way would I have been able to get that much square footage that close to the ocean without going for a fixer-upper. I was lucky to get this one, as is. The other interested party wanted to tear it down and build something else.” Probably more of the mega-mansions that were popping up like mushrooms around the island as Mother Nature cleared the way and locals lost out to mainland investors who had more capital to sink into such a project.
“I’m not sure whoever that was had the wrong idea. But if it makes you happy, who am I to judge?” Drew clapped me on the shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s get a celebratory drink. With that albatross, I suspect you’re gonna need one.”
“You buying?”
He heaved a put-upon sigh, but I didn’t miss the twinkle in his blue eyes. “I mean, since you just sank everything you have into a house, I guess I am.”
I swung an arm around shoulders that I’d swear had doubled in width since I left the island five years ago. “Good of you, little bro.”
We piled into my truck to make the drive across town from the lawyer’s office to the tavern. Nothing on Hatterwick was far, as the entire island was only thirteen miles long and less than three miles at its widest point. The only actual town was the village of Sutter’s Ferry, so named for the one way on or off the island. That ferry had been running for more than a hundred and fifty years, though it was no longer a Sutter at the helm, which many said was a damned shame. The heiress of that founding family had married some stuffed-shirt muckity-muck the third, who believed he was above the hard work of manual labor. But the senior Sutters still lived in the big house at the north end of the island. So far as I knew, they were still doing their best to support the island economy, such as it was. That had meant adding additional ferry service to nearby Ocracoke to bring in the tourists more easily. Apparently it had worked, because those tourist dollars had allowed the fire department to expand enough to hire me.
I’d been back to Hatterwick a couple times a year for family holidays, but those trips had been fast and focused on home. This was the first time I’d actually paid attention to the changes in the village. On the way through town proper, I spotted a sign at Hook, Line and Sinker, the fishing supply shop, announcing jet skis and paddleboat rentals. Beyond that, a shiny new sign announced the Pelican Point Beach Bistro and Bar, which had still been a construction site when I’d been back at Christmas. There was no sign anywhere of the unresolved tragedy that had shaken the bedrock of the community two years before. Pedestrian traffic filled the sidewalks, moving in and out of assorted boutique gift shops, and there were definitely more vehicles congesting the roads than those of the locals. But it wasn’t until I wheeled into the parking lot of the Tidewater Tavern and spotted a sign announcing OBX Brewhouse that I finally voiced the general “What the fuck?” that had been simmering in the back of my brain.
“Don’t worry. Ed still owns the place. But Bree convinced him to rename it and do a little spiffing up to appeal to the tourist crowd.”
Bree Cartwright had been the talk of the village gossip network when she’d been left with her grandfather as a skinny little eight-year-old. If anybody knew what became of her parents, it wasn’t common knowledge. She was Ed’s, so she belonged to Hatterwick. I vaguely recalled she’d been in Drew’s class, or maybe the one below. I guess that made her old enough to be working at the tavern now.
Seemed like her idea to appeal to the tourists had worked. The place was jumping when we stepped inside, with two-thirds of the tables already full at barely past five. Awning windows lined three sides of the bar, and all of them were propped open to take advantage of the cross breeze off Pamlico Sound. The whole place screamed beach rustic, as it always had, but small touches here and there elevated the decor in some way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Fresh paint and fixtures maybe? It looked nice. Leveled up without being inaccessible to the locals. And Marv, the twelve-foot Marlin that was Ed’s pride and joy, was still mounted above the bar, framed in Christmas lights.
Nice to see they’d kept the heart of the place.
Under Marv’s watchful glass eyes, Bree herself—I assumed the tall, slim blonde with the take-no-shit attitude was Bree—moved behind the bar, filling glasses and chatting with locals, her grandfather at the other end doing the same.
We nabbed the last table by a window, and I plucked up a menu. “You wanna get an appetizer to go with our beers?”
“And risk Mom’s wrath if we don’t show up for dinner hungry? No, thank you.”
“Since when have we ever shown up for a meal not hungry?”
“Not the point. She’ll know. She always knows,” he intoned.
One of the perks and downfalls of living on an island this small? There was no doing anything without everybody knowing about it. Engage in shenanigans at your peril because somebody was inevitably gonna tell your parents. I thought back to when I was about thirteen and I’d been caught trying beer for the first time. My dad had been waiting at home that afternoon, a fresh six-pack in hand. He’d made me drink the whole damned thing, then watched as I’d suffered the inevitable consequences and sicked it all back up again. I never knew who’d ratted me out.
I reached to tuck the menu back between the condiments and napkin dispenser and that was when I saw another blast from my past.
She still had the same glossy dark brown hair I remembered from high school, but she didn’t hide behind it now. The mass of it was pulled up into one of those unaccountably sexy messy knots that left her neck and shoulders exposed. Little silver hoops winked in her ears, and the wash of sun off the sound lit her light brown skin with a golden glow. I itched to touch that skin, to see if my fingers came away covered in gold dust. And that smile. God. It wasn’t even aimed in my direction, and it hit me straight in the gut. My gaze slid down her compact form, taking in the full breasts encased in a Brewhouse T-shirt and the narrow waist with a small apron tied around it. Shapely legs extended from denim cut-offs that framed an exquisite heart-shaped ass she definitely hadn’t had in high school.
I’d always paid attention back then, watching out for her where I could because it was well known that her dad was a piece of shit and likely abusive. But I’d never seen anything actionable, and she’d been too young for me to do anything other than keep my distance.
She wasn’t young now.
Drew twisted in his chair to see what I was looking at. “Ah. Guess you haven’t seen her since she grew up.”
“No. No, I haven’t.” I wished desperately that I already had a glass of water to wet my suddenly parched throat. “How’s the family? I mean… after…?”
My question wiped the smirk off his face. “Not great. The police were never able to prove anything after Gwen disappeared. But the fact that Rios was the last person to see her alive means he’s persona non grata arou
Rios. I remembered her brother. “He’s still on-island?”
“Yeah.”
“Why doesn’t he leave?”
“Doesn’t want to leave his sisters alone with Hector.”
Right. Hector Carrera had always been a bad-tempered fucker. To my mind, the fact that Rios wouldn’t leave his sisters unprotected was a weight on the side of his good character. But the public wanted a scapegoat. How had all that impacted the rest of them?
Before I could ask, a shadow fell over our table, and there she was. Damn if she wasn’t ten times prettier close up.
“Welcome to OBX Brewhouse. I’m—”
“Caroline.”
2
Caroline
He knows my name?
For a moment, I couldn’t speak, as my inner teenage girl had heart palpitations. Lord knew she’d had hours—years, even—crushing on Hoyt McNamara.
Damn, but he’d grown up fine. And he’d been the handsomest boy I’d ever seen, even before he left. Those five years looked good on him, as did the extra width on his shoulders and thick muscles in his arms built from the labor of his job.
I’d known he was back on-island. In a community the size of ours, it was hard not to be aware of all the comings and goings, especially of one of the island’s favorite sons. But I hadn’t actually seen him since he returned to join the newly expanded fire department. Why would I? We’d never been friends. We’d never been anything. He’d just been the completely untouchable older boy who, so far as I’d known, hadn’t even been aware I existed.
And yet he knows my name.
Shaking off the shock, I pasted on what I hoped was a proper professional smile instead of the lovesick puppy look I’d seen so frequently in the mirror back in high school. “Right. What can I get y’all?”
“Just a couple of beers. Thanks, Caroline,” Drew said.
Drew. Right. Who’d been in the class below me and actually knew who I was. Mystery solved. They’d probably been talking about me, the same as everyone else in Sutter’s Ferry. The idea of it chilled all those adolescent butterflies.
“Tap or bottle?”
They each made their requests, and I wove my way toward the bar, checking in on the rest of the tables in my section. A hefty portion of them were tourists. I always preferred the tourists. They had no idea who I was or who I was connected to. Which meant I didn’t have to wonder what they thought when they looked at me, and I usually didn’t have to worry they’d stiff me on tips. Those tips were the key that would grant me freedom, so I was motivated to earn as many as I could.
Bree caught me at the taps. “Well, well. Looks like Hoyt only got better looking with age.”
I rolled my eyes, not bothering to dignify the remark with a response.
She leaned against the bar, a tray tucked under her arm as she watched the McNamara brothers across the room with sharp gray eyes. “What is it about firefighters that’s so sexy?”
“Their willingness to risk life and limb to save other people. And the uniform.” All true, though, that had never been the attraction of Hoyt for me.
“You should totally do something about that.”
I waited for the foam to settle, then topped off each glass. “About what?”
“Locking down the new firefighter.”
“I’m not interested in locking down anyone.”
“Casual’s good, too,” Bree mused. “What’s good for the gander and all that.”
“I don’t have time to date.”
She laughed. “Who’s talking about dating? I’m talking about having some fun. Fun would do you some good.”
Fun? I didn’t have time for that either. My one goal was to save enough money to move out of my father’s house. My baby sister, Gabi, had finally graduated high school and would be leaving in the fall on a full-ride scholarship to UNC Chapel Hill. With her safely away, my brother and I would be free in a way we’d never been before because we’d both stuck in order to protect her. I was so damned close to being able to afford something of my own. Maybe not a lot of something, but anything was better than staying in the same house as him. Once I was safely out from under our father’s thumb, maybe I’d be able to convince Rios to actually leave the island. His life here had been thoroughly ruined by a crime he hadn’t committed. There was nothing left for him on Hatterwick. But I suspected he wouldn’t budge unless I did, and I wasn’t ready to leave the island, despite our father. This was home.
“Speaking of fun, when is Ford getting home?”
Ford Donoghue was a sure-fire means of changing the subject. While he was one of Rios’s best friends, Bree and Ford had been practically joined at the hip since elementary school. She’d always been one of the guys. A position she’d never seemed to mind. But since I’d gotten to know her better the past few years working the bar, I’d started to wonder if there was something more there than friendship. She’d taken his leaving for college hard and the news of his college girlfriend even harder.
“His moms were in for lunch earlier. He’s hooking up with Jace in Hilton Head. Then they’re both coming home next week sometime.”
Jace Hollingsworth was another of my brother’s best friends, much to the disappointment of his parents. I suspected his dad especially hated how close Jace was to all the Wayward Sons—the nickname Rios and his friends had given themselves years before. As the son of a well-respected environmental attorney, the elder Hollingsworths tolerated Ford. But Rios, the son of a boat mechanic, and Sawyer Malone, progeny of a fisherman who spent more time in the bottle than on the water, definitely didn’t pass muster. I loved Jace for thumbing his nose at his parents’ snobbery and maintaining those bonds of forged brotherhood. That would be easier to do now. His parents had moved off-island a couple years ago, after Gwen Busby’s disappearance and his sister Willa’s near drowning. Other than Jace, I didn’t think any of them had been back since then.
I loaded the drinks onto a tray. “Do the boys have big plans for the reunion?”
“I’m sure they do.” The trace of resentment lacing her tone suggested she expected them to ditch her.
I hoped they didn’t. But I also knew the four of them had something together that didn’t include Bree.
“Order up for seventeen and nine!”
Pivoting toward the pass-thru, I added the plates of food to my tray and headed back into the fray to deliver them. The crowd was getting thicker as more people came in from the beaches and whatever afternoon activities they’d pursued. I dropped off the orders and paused to take a few more before I made it back to the McNamara’s table.
“Sorry for the delay.”
Hoyt flashed a smile that had two deep dimples winking in his darkly stubbled cheeks. I ignored the way my stomach shimmied at those dimples. “It’s no problem. Looks like it’s jumping in here.”
I cast a quick glance back at the restaurant, noting we were down to only two empty tables. “Gonna get worse before the night is through. Is there anything else I can get you?”
Before either man could answer, a male voice from a nearby table filled a momentary drop in the din. “Two years later and still no justice for that missing girl… almost like someone got away with murder here.”
I recognized that snide voice. Chet Banks. Holding myself very still, I fought to keep my smile in place as the conversation continued.
“If it was up to me, that whole family would be run right off the island after what the boy did.”
If I’d had any doubt that the McNamaras could hear, it was put to rest as I saw temper flare in Hoyt’s green eyes.
