Marlin's Faith: The Virtues Book II (17 page)

I nodded against his chest, “I guess it has to be,” I said.

“That’s my girl.” He kissed my forehead one more time and let me go reluctantly.

“Stay here.”

He turned me loose back into the bedroom and went back out toward the living room. He left the door open behind him, which I was grateful for. I didn’t much like closed doors anymore. I went back up the steps and sat on the end of the bed, feeling lighter than I had in a long time, but at the same time, harboring that shadow of ugliness deep down inside. It was like I had purged and the foul little creature, the monster inside my head, needed time to recharge now.

I wondered if I would carry it forever. Probably, knowing my luck, which made me wonder,
why in the world would Marlin want me?

I didn’t know. Maybe he wouldn’t now; we still needed to talk… I guess there wasn’t anything I could do about it one way or another. I would just have to wait and see.

Chapter 21

Marlin

“You’re up,” I said to Hope and she got up off the lounger on the bow of my boat.

“You look pissed,” she observed.

“Yeah, well, I honestly can’t really tell at this point.”

“Tell what?”

“Who I’m pissed at, her or me.”

Hope smiled and knocked me in the shoulder lightly, “Welcome to my world of the last twenty-seven years,” she said and I frowned.

“I don’t get it; I thought you took over as ‘mom’ when she was nine.”

Hope snorted, “Please, our mom was never really a mom. She was too busy trying to be our best friend. I didn’t take over officially until I was eighteen, but I’d been doing it from the day mom turned up pregnant with Faith.” She sighed and it was a heavy, thing.

“So, what I’m feelin’?”

“Yeah, welcome to what it’s like to be a parent.”

“That’s not creepy at all,” I muttered.

“Fine, I’ll rephrase, ‘welcome to what it feels like to be responsible for another human being.’”

I looked at Hope, long and hard, the wheels turning in my head. Maybe that was the problem. There was taking care of someone then there was taking responsibility over some one… Faith needed the first, sure, but she was a big fuckin’ girl…

“You’re thinking awfully hard,” Hope stated sardonically.

I nodded, “Yeah, talk about it later. Right now, she needs a change of clothes and to stop hiding.”

Hope looked me over, carefully considering, “This conversation isn’t over, is it?”

“Not by a long shot, now I’ve got two of those and customers waiting. Johnny will make three if I keep delaying. He’s gotta take a leak.”

“Say no more.”

Hope went down below decks and I went around to the stern where my brother and our two customers were chatting.

“Sorry, Johnny. Go ahead.” I said and Johnny nodded, giving me a look full of weight.

“No problem, be right back.”

He went through the door and down the steps, disappearing into my living quarters. I heard him and Hope exchange a hello and doors open and shut and the rest was quiet. This wasn’t the most ideal situation, but then again, it never was, was it?

I sighed and plucked my sunglasses off the table I’d left them on and put ‘em on my face. Our two customers were a couple of guys in their fifties and teachers from some high school up north. They’d left their wives back in town and had come out to indulge whatever bromance they had going on, having been buddies for however many years.

I checked their lines and made small talk with them, did my job, but I kept getting distracted, letting my gaze stray from the water and my customers to the stairs leading down into my home, waiting for that pretty blonde head of hair to appear. No such luck, it was my asshole brother who showed back up first.

“Thanks, Man,” he grunted and took over as the social one, although these two weren’t bad as far as some of the dudes I had standing on my deck. They’d at least fished before, although fly fishing on a river and deep sea fishing like we were now, were worlds apart as far as fishing went.

Johnny came back up and slapped me on the back of the shoulder, giving me a meaningful look that I couldn’t readily identify its meaning before diving back in with the clients. I turned back when Faith appeared in a long, airy skirt and white tank top. The outfit suited her; modest but cool for the soaring temperatures out here. Hope came up behind her and gave me a dirty look followed immediately with a considering one.

“You girls want to head up to the foredeck?” I asked. It was going to be crowded back here otherwise and if one of the guys –

“Fish on!” one of them cried, and I bowed my head. Of course, why wouldn’t they catch something at the precise fucking time she got up here? All I wanted to do was check with her, and nope, no, no and no.
Motherfucker.

I went up to the grinning fool who’s rod was bending under the strain of whatever was on the other end. Damn, he got a big one.

“Hope, Faith, gonna need you girls to head up to the front of the boat for your safety please,” Johnny told them and nodding, Faith caught my eye, uncertainty radiating out from those aquamarine jewels.

“Go on, I’ll be up when I can. Soak up some sun and try to relax,” I grunted, while helping the dude with the fish on his line into the fighting chair. I could feel the tension in the rod, the dude was putting up a fight and his muscles trembled with exertion already. Still, he seemed determined and if the line didn’t break, or if the fish didn’t slip the hook, he had a good chance of getting it in so long as it didn’t turn into a day long fight.

God I sincerely hoped it didn’t.

Chapter 22

Faith

I was surprised that Hope wasn’t angry with me, at least not about last night. She seemed fairly disappointed in me where Marlin was concerned but instead of one of her classic long lectures on responsibility and how to better behave to her standards, she simply sighed, hugged me, and told me I was on my own to sort it out.

That instilled a whole new kind of hurt and anxiety that I couldn’t quite define. It was like she’d finally given up on me, yet she was still here, lounging in the sun beside me holding my hand. I felt crippled, debilitated, and lost worse than I ever had in captivity. I almost longed for someone to tell me what to do because it was so familiar. I needed familiarity… or did I?

I’d accused Marlin of acting like a crutch as my excuse to set myself apart from him and wow had that backfired on me. I’d hurt him; badly… as was evidenced by his inability to even look at me right now. Every time he had to come up here, to the front of his boat, he would only address Hope, and would try to pointedly ignore me. Of course, it wasn’t like I could speak to him, so embarrassed was I about how I’d treated him. I hadn’t meant it that way, sure, but that was the way it’d come across and as Hope had always told me growing up – that was what mattered. That people wouldn’t always remember what you said, or what you did, but they would always and forever remember how it was you made them feel and I could see plain as day, I made everyone I came in contact with feel awful, despite my best intentions.

I huddled in on myself and stared out over the water, losing myself in the glint of the sun off its surface while the joyful shouts of the men behind us blurred into so much white noise. I had a lot to think about, and Hope pretty much left me to it. Finally, with a sigh, she put down her book and jiggled my hand.

“Lay it on me, Bubbles. What’s going on up there?”

I startled as if coming awake and looked into my sister’s sad, deep brown eyes, “I screw everything up Hope. I don’t mean to, but I do. It’s like everything I touch becomes poisoned and crumbles into so much ash.”

Her face crumbled at that and I scrubbed my face with my hands, “See! That’s exactly what I mean.”

“Oh, Baby, you’re just hurting is all. You’ve been through a lot and we’re all still here, we just don’t know what to do or how to help you.”

“I don’t think there
is
any helping me,” I said dully.

My sister sighed and looked about as helpless as to what to say as I’d ever seen her. She finally licked her lips and sat up, facing me.

“I’ve lectured you, come down on you like a ton of bricks and have just generally been this overbearing parent figure your whole life. I was hard on you because I wanted better for you; better for you and Char both,” she bowed her head and shook it, taking a deep breath, “Charity took to the discipline like I did. Like a fish to water, but you? You’re a free spirit like mom and all I was doing was driving a wedge. I can’t take that back, I don’t know how to fix it… Then you were gone and all I could do was work my ass off to get you back so I could have the chance.”

She looked me up and down, searching my face, “You’re still you in there, Faith. I believe that, and I don’t want to mess up again. I don’t know how to do this.”

“Well,” I sniffed, “It was always your way or the highway.”

She laughed, “Damn fuckin’ straight –” she stopped herself. When we were younger she would have called me a hooker, just joking around, but now, now I guess it was the truth. An awkward silence ensued.

“You’re
you
, little sister. Don’t let yourself become what they tried to make you. If you wouldn’t let me do it, why let them?”

I blinked and tears spilled out. It was one of those perfect moments where what she said made perfect sense. She was right, and I wasn’t about to argue her logic. I reached for my sister and she reached for me and we hugged fiercely. We were a broken little family of three and far from okay, but at least now we had a chance to make it right. That, and if I had ever doubted it before, those doubts were dashed. My sister Hope loved me with a whole lot more than I could have ever imagined. She’d come to the rescue, had never stopped looking, even when I had all but given up; she hadn’t and that spoke volumes. We may not know how to relate to one another, but we were sisters and that was a bond that would never ever break. This whole ordeal was proof enough of that.

We talked a lot after that, and it didn’t go unnoticed that Marlin found a number of small tasks to come to the front of his boat where we were at. Checking on us, I think. I wanted to get my hopes up that maybe I could fix things with him too, but I’d had those dashed so many times in the last couple of years, I found myself fighting down their rise at every turn.

Eventually there was triumphant shouting and cheering from the back, and I found my fingertips grazing the leather and metal wristband around my wrist, wishing it were a time piece. We’d been out here for a really long time. Hours and hours it felt like, and Marlin appeared again.

“We’re headed back in, might want to pick up some. The wind is bound to kick up once we start moving,” he gave me a lingering look, and the hurt and reservation in his sky blue eyes left my heart sinking. I swallowed hard and nodded softly.

“Okay.”

He disappeared as suddenly as he’d come and Hope knocked her shoulder into mine, “It’ll be okay. You just need to talk it out. These guys don’t know when to quit and won’t let anything lie for very long. They like to get things sorted and done fast so they can get back to enjoying life.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m with their leader, and that’s the way he likes it. Marlin is his second in command and I’ve never seen them disagree, so I think it’s safe to assume they’re alike in a lot of ways.”

“How did you find these guys again?”

My sister grinned as she picked up around our area and the boat’s motor rumbled to life, “You sure you’re ready for the whole story? It’s a wild ride.”

I nodded, “We haven’t talked about it much.”

“Okay, so I was looking for that bitch ass roomy of yours that you went to New Orleans with in the first place… She dropped off the radar pretty much the exact same time you disappeared,” she made a face and I did too. That was because the bitch had drugged me and sold me to those fucking animals.

“So anyways, I hired a PI and he tracked her last known whereabouts to…”

I listened to my sister. It was a long story, but by the end, I felt a little more put back together. She had gone to such extremes to save me, all of them had, and I just didn’t understand it. I traced the leather cuff around my wrist and thought about something the boy had told me,
“We aren’t all bad guys… men, I mean. There are some of us out there that have our head mostly on straight. I’m sorry I wasn’t exactly one of them.”
It was the last thing he’d said, before he’d gone out the door and I’d sat in the rank dark of my little cell, clutching his gift in my hands.

We were pulling up to the dock, two of The Kraken’s men standing on it as we did. They looked nervous. Hope and I stood, my sister at the ready while I? I shaded my eyes from the bright Florida sun reflecting off of the boat’s sleek white walls and deck.

“Marlin!” one of them called as we got close, he was stocky and Hispanic, his name was on the tip of my tongue and had to do with a piece of equipment…

“Radar! What’s up, Buddy?”

“We need to talk, Man,” his tone sounded ominous and I found my hand reaching for Hope’s. Marlin eyed his brother in leather and nodded.

“Good deal, give us a hand and we’ll get to it.”

The other man on the dock I knew better. Nothing leapt aboard and nodded in our direction before he set to work helping the men with their gear. They’d taken a lot of pictures with their fish, but ultimately had thrown the catch back into the sea, tired and with a hole in its lip, but otherwise unharmed.

Radar and Marlin wandered up our way, speaking in low and insistent tones, just enough for Hope and I to hear, and the news wasn’t good.

“… was some kind of Senator’s kid or some shit. You beat the brakes off that fucker and he deserved it, for sure, unfortunately the cops are involved in this one and they can’t go away. You need to head out and take Faith with you. They ran her name and she’s got a warrant out for her arrest,” Radar was telling him. I felt myself pale.

“I do?” I asked quietly, “What for?”

“Jumping bond in NOLA. You never answered for your prostitution charge, which was a misdemeanor; the bail jump is a little more serious.”