Dreams Adrift (A River Dream Novel) Read online

  Dreams Adrift (A River Dream Novel)

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Epilogue

  DREAMS ADRIFT

  A River Dream Novel

  D W Davis

  DREAMS ADRIFT

  Smashwords Edition

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copyright © 2013 Douglas W. Davis

  Cover photograph © Fotosearch.com

  Published by

  River Sailor Literary

  Post Office Box 458

  Pikeville, North Carolina 27863-0458, USA

  All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of the author.

  ISBN: 0983355649

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9833556-4-9

  This work is a work of fiction. The characters, places, and events portrayed in this book are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Acknowledgments

  DREAMS ADRIFT brings my River Dream Trilogy to a close and as I bid adieu to Michael, Maeve, and Rhiannon I want to take a moment to acknowledge again my most ardent fan, my harshest critic, and my constant source of inspiration - my lovely wife Karen.

  Karen, and our sons –Alex and Zack – have patiently (usually) and supportively acted as my proofreaders, sounding boards, and cheerleaders throughout the long process from the first draft of RIVER DREAM through the final edits of DREAMS ADRIFT. I could never have done this without them.

  Every author needs an editor and I have been blessed with an awesome editor in my dear friend Jeanie Sherman. Thanks to her advice, support, and constructive criticism my readers have enjoyed much more entertaining books than I could have produced on my own.

  And finally, to all the River Dreamers out there who have encouraged and supported me; thank you for helping me realize my personal River Dream.

  Prologue

  The grass strip at River Dream looked brown and forlorn through the wind screen of our new Cessna Skylane as I lined up to land. The wind sock showed a stiff wind out of the northwest. Northwest winds promised a cold weekend on the river. Maeve and I would be glad for the woodstove once I got a fire going and it started putting out its dry, comforting heat.

  My preference would have been for a light north wind for my first attempt at landing the Cessna at River Dream. The fine folks at Cessna had assured me the landing gear on the Skylane was rugged enough for the twelve-hundred-foot grass runway at River Dream, and that the runway was plenty long enough to handle the Skylane.

  The Cessna was a late Christmas present for Maeve. As attached as I was to my old Piper Cub, Maeve convinced me we needed something with a greater carrying capacity than the little two-seater could manage. The Skylane, while still being able to land at River Dream, could carry the two of us in the cockpit as well as two passengers and two hundred pounds of baggage. I found a good home for the Piper Cub at the Air and Space Museum.

  Our first trip to River Dream in the Cessna would be the first of many cold, wet weekends at River Dream that rainy winter. Cold in Coastal Carolina may not be like the cold of a New England winter, and it has nothing on a cold day around the Great Lakes, but we were spoiled by the relatively mild winters with which our part of the world was normally graced. The chilly, damp, gray winter we endured between our October marriage and our June wedding was not the kind of winter to which Maeve and I were accustomed.

  Our weekdays that winter and spring were consumed with class work, homework, wedding plans, and the details of daily life. We spent our weekends at River Dream recharging and rediscovering our passion for one another.

  At long last, winter, like a reluctant stray resigning itself to the idea that it wasn’t wanted, gradually gave way to the warmer days of spring. With its green leaves and scent of honeysuckle, it was the kind of spring that reminded folks why they loved living in the South.

  Eventually, summer weather, if not technically summer itself, arrived in eastern North Carolina, and the date for our June wedding - eight months after our marriage at the Magistrate’s office - drew close. When classes were done and the wedding was only a week away, Maeve and I decided we needed one more weekend at River Dream before the big event.

  One

  A crosswind set the grass on the landing strip swaying - reminding me it needed to be mowed - and buffeted the Cessna as I lined up for a landing at River Dream. We had one good bounce before I could keep all three wheels on the ground, and for a moment I feared we wouldn’t stop before reaching the end of the runway. It wasn’t one of my better landings. Maeve, who’d become a fair pilot herself, let me know it.

  “Don’t you know the old saying about landings?” I asked, after I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Which old saying would that be?” Maeve said, raising an eyebrow in my direction.

  “Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing,” I quipped as I climbed from the cockpit.

  “Then I guess that qualifies as a good landing, barely,” she said.

  Using a lawn tractor, we towed the Cessna into its new hangar before climbing into the Jeep.

  “It’s a good thing we left the doors on,” Maeve said as, on the short drive to the house, large drops of cold rain began to splatter on the hood, turning the dust on it to mud. Leaves left over from the fall were kicked up by the wind and stuck to the wet windshield. The weatherman had predicted a strong cold front moving in from New England overnight. Winds out of the northeast always made for interesting conditions along our stretch of the Neuse.

  “I think we should check on the boats before we get comfortable inside,” I said, “while it’s still light.”

  Maeve glanced at the darkening sky. “That’s a good idea. We’ll get soaked, though.”

  I nodded. “Then I guess we’d better hurry.”

  We parked the Jeep and made our way carefully down the rain-slick dock to the boats. Geddaway, our twenty-six foot cruising sailboat, was up on the lift and looked secure. Riverscape, the nineteen-foot day sailor, needed some tightening up on the spring lines. The twenty-foot Grady-White fishing boat was riding fine.

  Maeve was right. By the time we were done, we were soaked.

  I smiled when I looked at Maeve in the fading light. “We’d better get inside,” I said. “I’ll put some water on for tea while you dry off and change.”

  “Good idea, Mike,” Maeve said, running her fingers through her wet hair.

  When we got to the porch, it took me a moment to dig the house key out of the pocket of my soaked jeans.

  Maeve pressed herself against me, shivering. “It’s a good thing we’re not expecting company,” she said.

  I finally got the key in my hand and opened the door. We hurried inside. The house was still warm from the heat of the day but would cool quickly as the rain and wind pulled the heat away. I hurried to the kitchen and filled the copper tea kettle. Maeve headed straight for the bedroom to change into dry clothes. After lighting the burner under the kettle, I went to the living room and started a fire in the wood stove.

  “What’s the matter?” Maeve asked. She was wrapped in her fluffy pink terrycloth robe, a matching towel around her neck. “You're not cold,
are you?”

  “I’m not cold, sweetheart,” I responded, smiling at her over my shoulder, hoping she couldn’t hear my teeth chattering, “but I thought you might be chilly.”

  “You’re so thoughtful, Michael,” she said with a smirk. She pulled the lapels of the robe closed and shuddered. “Actually, I was starting to feel cold.”

  Looking at Maeve in her robe, her wet hair plastered down on her head, I couldn’t get over how beautiful she looked even so.

  “Michael,” Maeve said, a light blush coloring her cheeks. “I must look awful.”

  “No,” I said, as I stood up and reached out to take her hand, “you look beautiful to me. You always look beautiful to me, Maeve.”

  A shy smile lit her face as I took her in my arms. Just as my lips covered hers, the tea kettle whistled.

  “I need to get that,” Maeve said.

  “It’ll wait,” I told her.

  I held her to me, pressing my lips once more to hers. The tea kettle whistle intensified in counterpoint to the rising passion of our kiss.

  When, at last, we parted to draw breath, Maeve pushed me away playfully and said, “I really need to take care of the kettle before it burns up.”

  Reluctant to release her, I replied, “Hurry back. I’m burning up, too, and need to be taken care of.”

  Maeve smiled, kissed me quickly, and sashayed out of the living room toward the kitchen, her robe swirling about her, giving me an enticing glimpse of her trim, toned legs.

  The rain continued through the night and all day Saturday, finally blowing on out to sea in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Maeve and I spent the time enjoying having nowhere to go and nowhere to be. When Sunday dawned cool, clear, and relatively calm, we decided to sail Riverscape to Oriental for lunch at the Wharf. We called my folks to let them know we’d decided to stay home another night and would fly back to Wilmington Monday morning.

  My mother was not happy to hear about our change in plans. “What about final arrangements for the wedding?” she asked.

  “There’s nothing that can’t wait until we get home Monday,” I told her. There weren't any arrangements that hadn't already been checked and double checked that I knew of.

  It was a short walk from the Wharf to the market. I was in the mood to grill some steaks for supper. Maeve agreed, and we picked up the fixings for steak, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes. The market had some fresh-baked apple pies, so we added one of those and some ice cream to our list. At the last minute, we remembered to get some ice for the cooler on Riverscape. The ice cream wouldn’t have made it far otherwise.

  Theresa, the girl working at the register, smiled when she saw our choices.

  “It looks like someone’s planning to grill out,” she said. “At least the weather's nice enough for it today.”

  Smiling as she slid her arm around my waist, Maeve replied, “Oh, I don't know. We haven't minded the rain.”

  Theresa gave Maeve a knowing look. “I know what you mean. Sometimes it's nice to be stuck at home with nothing to do.”

  The wind had moved from the northwest to almost directly west as we headed back to River Dream. We were able to make good time on a close reach, only having to tack once before dropping sail and motoring the last little way to the dock.

  I walked out onto the back porch to get the grill going and realized I didn’t know if we had any charcoal. Fortunately, we did, just enough to cook the steaks. While I was busy cleaning the grill, Maeve put the potatoes in the oven and then came out back to shuck the corn.

  Watching her brush the silks off the corn, I asked, “Do you know how happy I am being your man?”

  She stopped and looked up at me. “If you’re half as happy being my man as I am being your wife, then yes, Michael, I know how happy you are.” She smiled and went back to shucking the corn. “What brought that on?”

  Picking up the grill I’d been cleaning to get a better look at it, I said, “This weekend did, I guess. I think I’ll always remember this weekend in a special way.”

  Maeve turned that lovely smile on me. “I think you’re right, Mike. But we’ll have years and years of weekends like this.”

  “I know,” I said, satisfied the grill was as clean as I could get it. “But somehow I think this one will be that weekend.”

  Maeve nodded her understanding and announced she’d finished shucking the corn. “I guess I’ll wait to start this,” she said. “Those potatoes will take a while.”

  Setting down the bag of charcoal I’d just picked up, I said, “Then I won’t start the grill just yet. What should we do in the meantime?”

  Maeve took my hand and looked toward the house.

  “Sweetheart,” I said, “I love how you think.”

  We did get around to grilling those steaks and enjoyed a nice supper over in the screened room, by the river. After dinner we sat in the swing. Maeve reminded me of the first time we spent an evening together in that screened room.

  “I helped you come up with the name for Riverscape, remember?”

  “Oh yes, I remember.”

  “Do you remember what I said to you after we'd come up with the name?” she asked coyly.

  “Trust me sweetheart, I haven't forgotten.”

  Maeve turned her head up and said, “Then are you going to kiss me, or what?”

  Very gently, I slid my hand behind her head, the softness of her hair caressing the skin on my hand, and leaned forward, covering her lips with mine.

  The next morning we got up, cleaned the house, double checked the boats, and headed back to Wrightsville Beach. There were still some final preparations for the wedding we had to take care of.

  Two

  With the wedding only two days away, I went to the Wright Isle Resort, at Maeve’s insistence, to make sure no last-minute details had been overlooked.

  “Michael,” Hernando said as we walked back to the hotel from the spot on the beach where the ceremony would take place, “everything is ready for your special day. I have overseen the preparations myself. It will be wonderful. You have my word.”

  “I know you’ll take good care of us, Hernando,” I said. He was an excellent resort manager. “But you understand, Maeve sent me to check one more time.”

  “I think, Michael,” Hernando said with a grin, “perhaps she wanted you out of her hair more than she was worried about the arrangements here.”

  “I’d agree with that,” I said. We shared a laugh. “Hernando, I’ll let you get back to work.”

  “I’m looking very forward to Saturday, Michael,” Hernando said before turning to go back to his office.

  As I walked across the lobby on my way out, I was stopped cold by a voice softly calling my name. A chill ran down my spine as I turned around.

  “Hello, Michael,” Rhiannon said softly.

  My chest tightened until drawing a breath took conscious effort. I felt at once chilled and as if the lobby was suddenly too warm. I stood there, wide-eyed, dumb-struck, trying to take in the fact that Rhiannon was standing there in front of me. She was even more beautiful than I remembered. The question running through my mind was why is she here now?

  “Are you surprised to see me?” Rhiannon asked hesitantly, taking a step towards me.

  Finding my voice, I said, my tone cold as dry ice, “I am surprised to see you. I honestly never expected to see you again.”

  “My folks told me you were getting married. I dropped everything to get here. You wouldn’t believe what I had to go through. I couldn’t believe you were getting married, Michael,” Rhiannon said. She took another step.

  We’d sent an invitation to her parents. They’d known me all my life. They were close friends of my parents. Of course we invited them. Then another thought hit me, Doesn’t she know we’re already married?

  Then I thought, My getting married was enough to get her to come home, but my clinging to life in a hospital bed wasn’t.

  “Aren’t you glad to see me?” she asked quietly, moving another s
tep closer.

  Was I glad? No. The chill that had come over me on first seeing her was being burned out by the heat of long-suppressed anger. I strained to keep my voice even. “Why did you come now?”

  The acid tone in my voice stopped her. She was close enough that I could see the tears brimming in her eyes.

  “I’ve missed you, Michael. I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Then why wait until now to come back?” I snapped at her, unable to bridle my anger.

  “Michael…” Rhiannon started.

  “Where were you all those months I was in the hospital? Where were you all that time I was in rehab learning to walk again?”

  “Michael, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there,” Rhiannon said, tears starting to run down her face.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry too. I’m sorry for all those hours I spent waiting for you to come, just knowing in my heart that the next person to walk into that room would be my Rhiannon. But my Rhiannon never came. She had something more important to do than be with me.”

  “Michael, I wanted to come, but I couldn’t. Those people needed me. I was doing important work.”

  “It was more important for you to be one more volunteer digging a well in some God-forsaken country than to be there for me when I needed you most,” I said. I could see how my bitterness hurt her, and I didn't care.

  “Michael, I’m sorry, I made a mistake. How many times must I say I’m sorry?” She was sobbing.

  My face became a cold mask. “You never have to say it again, Rhiannon. It’s too late for that now.”

  She choked off the sobs and challenged me. “You want me to believe you don’t love me anymore? I don’t believe it.”