There's No Place Like Home (The One Series Book 3) Read online

  There's No Place Like Home

  Jasinda Wilder

  Contents

  Part I

  1. [Charleston, South Carolina; October 26, 2016]

  2. [Conakry, Guinea, Africa; date unknown]

  3. [On board The Glory; The Atlantic Ocean; November 9, 2016]

  4. [From a handwritten notebook; date unknown]

  5. [From a handwritten notebook; date unknown]

  6. [From Ava’s handwritten journal; November 16, 2016]

  7. [Conakry, Guinea, Africa; date unknown]

  Part II

  8. [From Ava’s handwritten journal; November 17, 2016]

  9. [Conakry, Guinea, Africa; date unknown]

  10. [From Ava’s handwritten journal; November 18, 2016]

  11. [Conakry, Guinea, Africa; date unknown]

  12. [Conakry, Guinea, Africa; November 21, 2016]

  13. [From Christian’s handwritten journal; November 23, 2016]

  14. [From Ava’s handwritten journal; November 23, 2016]

  15. [On board Le Coureur D’onde; off the coast of Africa; November 26, 2016]

  16. [Dakar, Senegal; December 1, 2016]

  17. [On board Le Coureur D’onde; off the coast of Africa; December 4, 2016]

  Part III

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  THE END

  Also by Jasinda Wilder

  I

  Copyright © 2018 by Jasinda Wilder

  * * *

  THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

  * * *

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover art by Sarah Hansen of Okay Creations. Cover art copyright © 2017 Sarah Hansen.

  ISBN: 978-1-941098-96-7

  Created with Vellum

  1

  [Charleston, South Carolina; October 26, 2016]

  “Are you sure you’re really ready for this?” Delta, my older sister, asks me, for the thousandth time.

  I sigh. “Yes, Delta, I’m ready.”

  We are standing on a dock in a Charleston, South Carolina harbor. In the berth in front of us is The Glory of Gloucester, a deep-sea fishing trawler owned by a man named Dominic Bathory. In just a few minutes I’m going to get on board and depart for a transatlantic voyage, in search of my missing husband, Christian St. Pierre.

  Three people have come to see me off: Delta, Jonny who is Delta’s new love interest, and Alex, Delta’s son, my adorable seven-year-old nephew. Delta holds my arms and searches my eyes—she’s worried about me, for good reason.

  Over eighteen months ago, Christian’s and my baby son, Henry, died of an inoperable brain tumor; Henry never saw his second birthday. The loss of our son and the mountain of grief that followed…broke us. It shattered me, and it crushed Christian. Our perfect innocent little boy, all smiles and joy and warmth, was gone. How do you keep going? Chris and I couldn’t. We didn’t.

  Chris ended up leaving me. He bought a sailboat and sailed away. In hindsight, I understand. Grief as sharp and unbearable as ours causes madness, and the sea was Christian’s sanctuary. When his world collapsed, he went back to the one thing he knew: the Sea.

  But the story doesn’t end there. He and Jonny were caught in a rare, freakishly powerful, out-of-season hurricane which sank Christian’s ship off the coast of Africa. Christian was lost at sea, and Jonny, his best friend and sailing partner, barely survived himself. Christian is still gone, still lost.

  Jonny says it’s possible he’s still alive, but the odds are against it.

  Odds be damned—I feel Christian out there. He’s alive, and I have to find him. I have nothing to go on but the feeling, deep inside my soul, that my husband is alive.

  I also have to find myself; I don’t know who I am anymore. My husband is missing, my son is dead, and my home was destroyed by that same hurricane when it hit landfall in Florida. If Jonny hadn’t come to deliver letters to me from Christian, and found me in the rubble, I would have died.

  The only things I have left are my memories of Christian and Henry…and my determination to find my husband.

  “You hate the ocean,” Delta reminds me.

  “Oh, I know.”

  “And you hate boats.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “You’ve never spent more than a few hours on one at a time,” Delta says. “You’ll be on this trawler for months, with no way off and nowhere else to go.”

  “Sweetie, I know,” I say.

  “You’re the only woman on board.”

  “I have to find him.” I brush her hair away from her face, smiling at her. “I know the odds of finding him are less than zero, but I have to try. I have to know. I have to do this for myself and for Henry. I just…I have to.”

  Delta looks at Jonny for support. “Honey, help me out here.”

  Jonny, tall and dark and quiet, just shrugs. “I can’t talk her out of it, Delta. You can’t either. It’s her decision.”

  Delta groans. “I just…I’m worried, and I’m scared for you, Ava. I understand why you have to go look for him. It’s just…you’ve been through so much already.”

  I hug her. “I’ll be fine.”

  I try to project a confidence and a calm that I don’t totally feel. “I’m looking at this as kind of a…a spirit journey, you know? A chance to think and reflect and maybe write a little bit.”

  “Just promise me you’ll be safe.”

  “Dominic is a great captain,” Jonny puts in. “You’ll be as safe with him as you can possibly be. He’s careful and competent. I trust him—I’d sail with him anytime. And, remember, he’s the guy who saved me.”

  As Jonny has spent literally his entire life at sea, this is high praise indeed.

  Delta lets out a long sigh, and then wraps me up in a tight hug, sniffling. “I’ll miss you. I’ve enjoyed getting to spend this time together, even if the circumstances behind it were less than optimal.”

  For the past several months I’ve been living with Delta and Jonny and Alex on Delta’s tour bus—she’s a country music singer currently touring the US. Being able to spend so much time with my sister has been a gift.

  I hug Jonny and Alex and tell them both, “Take care of her.”

  He nods and looks at Alex. “Don’t worry, we will.”

  A pause, and then Jonny pulls something out of his pocket. “Here, one last thing. I found this when I was digging you out. I never gave it to you because Delta thought we should wait a little longer, for your mental and emotional stability. But…we feel like you should have it, now.”

  Into my hands he presses a tiny square taggy blanket, handmade by Delta when I was pregnant. Embroidered across one corner is a name: HENRY.

  My eyes fill with tears. Henry loved this blanket. It was his “bah.” He would shake it in both hands, grinning, shouting “Bah! Bah! Bah!” and then he would smother his face in the soft, bumpy material, hiding his eyes from me, playing hide and seek with his Bah.

  My heart seizes as I bury my face in the little blanket.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t give it to you sooner,” Delta says. “I was j
ust worried—”

  I cut her off. “No, you were right to wait. I’m not sure I could have handled seeing this along with everything else.”

  I’m still raw, but I don’t say that, and I am a good bit more emotionally stable now than I have been. Thinking about Henry is still incredibly hard. But this blanket…it reminds me that there’s joy to be remembered, too.

  “Ava!” Dominic shouts from the cabin, leaning out the side door. “Time to go. We have to cast off.”

  I hug Delta, and then Jonny, and then Alex. “I love you. Thank you—for the blanket, and for everything. For saving my life, letting me spend time with you, just…everything. I’ll be in touch, okay?”

  “You better be in touch,” Delta says, and then leans in to whisper, tearfully. “You’ll find him. He’s alive, he’s out there, and you’ll find him. I know it.”

  I nod. “I will. I will.”

  “Bye,” Delta says, and then stands watching as I board The Glory, carrying my few pieces of luggage.

  I wave to them as I stand at the rail. We cast off and I feel tears in my eyes as I think about what is to come.

  I’m coming, Christian.

  I know you’re out there, and I’m coming. I’ll find you, I swear.

  * * *

  [On board The Glory of Gloucester; The Atlantic Ocean; November 2, 2016]

  Memory is a harsh mistress: she embellishes the beautiful and serene, yet she also sharpens the edges of pain.

  All I have left of my husband, Christian, are memories. Everything else we shared is gone.

  Our son, Henry, conceived and cherished and born and grown in the fertile soil of our love…is dead. He molders six feet under the black loam of a Florida cemetery. The home we created for ourselves in Ft. Lauderdale is a pile of rubble, demolished by a hurricane. That home, and everything in it, was completely destroyed. Even the rubble, by now, is likely cleared away. Family photographs, my laptop, my books. The thick brown leather guest book, embossed with our initials, containing the signatures of guests at our weddings, as well as the little photo booth photos of our friends in silly poses, wearing wild hats and oversized flowers and sunglasses, flashing peace signs and faux gang signs, couples hugging and kissing, Christian and me in our wedding finery, laughing as I playfully try to bite his neck.

  My rings—even my wedding rings are gone—I’d taken them off to shower, or cook, or something, I don’t remember; I took them off, and then the hurricane hit, and I lost them. I can still see them—they sat together in a small clay dish I made in high school, my wedding band resting on top of my engagement ring. I think Christian’s ring was with them. Or was it? See, there’s that bitch, Memory, messing with my head again: I can see his ring with mine, and then I doubt that memory, instead picturing a fleeting mental vision of him wearing it as he walked out the door the last time. Either way, the loss of them bites deep. I miss my rings. I want them back. I want the reminder of us, of him. Am I mad at him? Do I miss him? Both? Both, probably, but those rings…they symbolized everything we had, everything we were. Us, our family, our marriage, our future, our past. And now they’re gone, and I want them back.

  Just like Christian.

  As I write this I’ve been on The Glory of Gloucester with Dominic and his crew for over a week now. It’s been a week of hell, a week of seasickness, nausea, vomiting, and cursing the Sea, the waves, the wind, the rain, the sky, the sun, and everything to do with life on the open sea. Dominic’s crew is all men—Bully, the mechanic and all-around handyman, Mack, an older man of about fifty or sixty, his teenaged great-nephew, Tom, and Shawn, a massive, sullen, hardworking black man whom I’ve not heard speak a single word. Then there’s me. I’m not really part of the crew, but I am living on board the ship. I have to make myself useful; there’s no room on board a deep-sea trawler for useless passengers. The crew has been using a rotation system for cooking meals—each person cooks meals for everyone for a week at a time. I’m no great shakes in the kitchen, but I can put together decent, edible, healthy meals, so I volunteered to act as the chef while I’m aboard the Glory. This means that I get to stay below deck as much as possible, which works for me as I absolutely hate being topside. I hate seeing the endless expanse of the sea, the reminder of how far away I am from everything, from anything.

  I’m cooking three meals a day for six people—between prepping, cooking, serving the meal, and then cleaning up afterward, I’m working from sunup to sundown, for the most part, with my only downtime being after the last meal has been served.

  In a way, I’m grateful to be so busy, to have so little time free. Because free time means time to think

  And time to think means remembering.

  It’s a bittersweet thing, remembering. I try not to, I try to stay busy, so busy I collapse into bed at night and fall right asleep, but even then, I’m not safe from Memory.

  There’s just no escaping my memories. Because, as I said, they’re all I have left, in many ways.

  Currently, it’s dawn. The boat is never quiet, never still—the engines always rumble in the background, water slaps against the hull, and there are voices at all hours in the hallway outside my tiny berth—literally just a cot attached to the wall in a room barely big enough to stand up in. Dawn is the rousing hour. Shifts change, the nets are readied, and the scent of brewing coffee fills the ship. I’m not an early riser, never have been, but living on the Glory has forced me to become one. When the ship wakes up, so must I.

  I’m woken by my alarm, put on yoga pants and a hoodie, and set about making a fresh pot of coffee and preparing breakfast for the crew—those going off the midnight shift and those going on all pause at sunrise to eat together and discuss the voyage and fishing conditions and weather. Once everyone has eaten and I’ve cleaned up, I gather shower supplies—a towel, my small bag of toiletries, and a change of clothing—and trudge to the shower, which is, thankfully, empty. Another fun part of living on a ship with a bunch of men: the shower room is always closed, and there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to walk in someone in the shower, which doesn’t faze them, but it does me.

  I lock the door—something almost no one else does—then turn on the taps until the water sprays hot, strip, and step in.

  I lose myself in the steam and the heat, and feel Memory taking hold.

  * * *

  [Two weeks before Thanksgiving, three years earlier]

  “Mom and Dad have invited us to their house for Thanksgiving, Chris,” I say, and then take a sip of wine. “I think we should go.”

  Christian sighs, pressing his fingertips to the base of his wineglass and swirling the rich red liquid. “We went last year, and look how that turned out.”

  I cut a bite of the chicken cordon bleu I made for dinner. “I know. But they’re my parents.”

  “I get that, but I’m just not a fan of getting pulled into family arguments, you know?”

  I wince. “It doesn’t have to be like that again.”

  “But it will be.” He takes a bite, washes it down, and then gestures at me with his fork. “There’s a reason you don’t visit them very often, Ava.”

  I set down my fork and knife, dab at my mouth with the napkin. “I know, I know, I just—”

  “You hope, every single year, that it’ll be different, somehow?” Christian suggests.

  I nod. “Yeah, basically.”

  He smiles at me, somewhat sadly. “Unfortunately, babe, I just don’t think things will ever change.”

  I take hold of my wineglass, but don’t drink from it. “So, what? We just stay here, this year? Do the holidays just the two of us?’

  He nods. “Yeah, exactly. We get a turkey and all the fixings, and we cook it together, and we watch football and cheesy movies and we don’t leave the house.”

  “So, a pants-optional Thanksgiving is what you’re suggesting?” I ask, with a smirk.

  He winks at me. “I was thinking more along the lines of a naked Thanksgiving.”

  I feel my ch
eeks heat and my thighs clench together. “Cooking naked sounds risky.”

  “I might allow an apron. Just while you’re cooking, though.”

  “While I’m cooking? What are you going to be doing while I cook our Thanksgiving dinner?”

  “Smoking a pipe, reading the newspaper, wearing a wool cardigan, and calling you my little woman.”

  I frown at him, but it’s hard to hold it in place, as a giggle threatens to escape. “I see. So I’ll be barefoot, wearing nothing but an apron, cooking us dinner. And after we’ve eaten, I’ll bring you your slippers, I suppose?”

  “Followed by knitting in front of a fire. And then we’ll retire to separate beds in the same room.”

  I can’t help laughing. “You’re such an idiot.”

  He quirks an eyebrow at me. “I really do plan on keeping you naked as long as possible.”

  We finish our meal in silence, but it’s a tense, sexual silence, now. His eyes fix on mine, hot and intense and suggestive, and he doesn’t miss the way I rub my thighs together, doesn’t miss the way my nipples poke through the fabric of my bra and shirt.

  When we finish, I move to begin clearing the dishes from the table; Christian reaches out and touches my wrist, stopping me.

  “Let me,” he says.

  He clears our plates and silverware, loads them into the dishwasher—without rinsing them, which irks me, but I let it go—and pours the last of the bottle of red into our glasses. He moves to stand beside me at the table and stares down at me. Neither of us needs to speak.