Variation: A Novel

NYFouette92: Has anyone even seen Alessandra Rousseau since that break? And I don’t mean reused content. I bet she’s hurt worse than they’re letting on. RousseauSisters4

Four months later

Off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts

“Knock it off!” I shouted over the roar of the angry ocean and the incessant, high-pitched screaming of the midforties man whose life I was trying to save.

His screaming I didn’t mind so much.

The way he was trying to drown me—that was getting on my last fucking nerve.

I got another face full of the Atlantic as the guy pushed down on my shoulders, trying to use me as his personal flotation device.

That’s enough. Shoving his hands off my shoulders, I broke free and kicked upward, sucking in a full breath of air before manhandling the flailing guy so his back faced my chest.

“Stop it, or you’ll drown us both!”

“I don’t want to die!” he shrieked.

“No shit, me either!” I locked his arms with mine and kept an eye on his dog—a golden retriever struggling to paddle near the capsized vessel we were dangerously close to. From the timeline of the distress call, they’d been in the water over forty-five minutes, and the dog was barely keeping her head over the waves. “Hold still and let me get you to the basket. Then I’ll get your dog.”

“Fuck the dog!” He clawed at my arm, fighting to break free.

For a heartbeat, I debated the order in which I wanted to rescue these two. Clearly, the dog would be a better choice.

“You’re getting mighty close to the wreck, and we’re running on fumes,” Ortiz said through my coms, but it wasn’t like I could free up a hand to push the button to respond to the pilot hovering to my left.

Instead, I kicked us away from the sinking vessel—what looked to be a twenty-one-foot ski boat—and into the downwash from the helicopter. Water smacked us in the face, which only made the guy flail harder. He wrenched an arm free and elbowed up, catching me in the jaw.

The pain barely registered, but I knew it would later. “Get in the fucking basket!”

He damn near scrambled over me to get there. I kicked free of the line and signaled up to Beachman that the basket was ready to be hoisted.

“Roger,” Beachman answered through coms from his position on the hoist. “Reeling him in now.”

The basket rose from the waves, and I turned back for the boat.

“Just where in the hell do you think you’re going, Ellis?” Ortiz lectured through my earpiece, no doubt glaring down at me from the cockpit.

“Grabbing the dog.” I hit the button to reply, then swam headfirst toward the capsized vessel. The morning light reflected off the showroom-shiny hull—it was obviously a new purchase.

Pretty sure I heard Ortiz grumble “Of course you are” through the radio.

“You honestly going to tell me not to save the dog?” I let go of the button and continued swimming.

“Make it quick. We have maybe ten minutes of fuel.” We’d been out on patrol when the call came in. Otherwise we’d have been able to hover out here another few hours.

I battled the swells to where the dog tried fruitlessly to climb back aboard, and muttered a swear word. She was too close to the boat. Pursing my lips, I forced through a whistle. The dog perked her ears before a swell rose up and swallowed her.

Fuck.

“Don’t even—” Ortiz warned, but I already had my mouthpiece in.

I ducked beneath the surface and swam dangerously near the careening craft, grabbing ahold of the dog’s collar and yanking her surprisingly small frame against mine before swimming back to daylight. I was either wrong about the breed, or she was a puppy.

Lucky for me, the dog took a breath the second we hit air, because I wasn’t exactly certified in canine CPR. I dragged her to my chest, then spit out my mouthpiece and swam backward, away from the ill-fated ski boat that shouldn’t have been taken out of the damned bay. “You did a good job,” I told her.

“Passenger secured,” Beachman announced through the coms. “Sending the basket back for you, Ellis.”

“Roger.” The dog didn’t so much as flinch when we entered the rotor wash, and her breathing was eerily slow. Hypothermia. May wasn’t exactly hospitable to swimmers around here. “Almost there. Good girl.” I ran a gloved hand over the dog’s head.

Once the basket was lowered, I put her in first, then climbed in as gracefully as a guy in flippers could. After I had her in my lap, and a good grip, I hit the coms. “Passenger secured. Ready for extraction.”

“Roger that. Raising the basket,” Beachman replied. A second later, we had a front-row seat to the sinking of the ski boat as the ocean claimed her. I’d seen at least a hundred similar scenes in the last ten years.

“Glad you weren’t on that,” I said, not that the pup could hear me over the noise of the helicopter.

Beachman brought us in, pausing his constant gum chewing to smile wide under his helmet when he saw the dog. “All passengers are aboard.”

“Roger that. We’re headed back to base,” Ortiz responded from the pilot’s seat.

“Heavy one canine,” Shadrick added from the cockpit, looking back over her shoulder and flashing a grin.

“Heavy one canine.” I nodded, then got myself into a seat and more practical footwear—my boots—while Beachman wrapped a blanket around the puppy. Now that we were out of the water, it was easy to see the size of her paws. She looked about seven, maybe eight months old. He quickly handed me the sodden bundle so he could see to her keeper, who stared out the window with a glazed look I’d seen too many times throughout my career.

“Cape Cod station, this is echo six-eight,” Ortiz said over the wide channel. “Incoming with one passenger in need of medical attention. Hypothermia suspected.”

Dispatch responded as I held the puppy against my chest. She struggled to keep her eyes open, even when I rubbed her down to keep her circulation moving.

It was a twenty-minute flight back to the Cape Cod air station, and to my relief, she was still breathing when we got there. Beachman and I got the guy out and headed off the tarmac toward the waiting ambulance, while the pilots ran the aircraft down. “She looks to be about seven months old?” I shouted over the decreasing noise of the slowing rotors once we were far enough from the bird.

“Something like that,” the guy responded, clutching the corners of the blanket around his neon-green polo. “Can’t remember.”

“What’s her name?” I adjusted her in my arms as we approached the medical team—and our commanding officer. Captain Hewitt usually carried an air of annoyance, but today he looked pissed.

“Sadie,” the guy muttered. “Ex-girlfriend named her.” He lifted his gaze to mine. “Any chance we can salvage the boat?”

Was this guy fucking serious?

“No. She’s long gone,” Beachman answered for me before giving the paramedics the rundown on the patient. “There’s a reason this place is called the graveyard of the Atlantic.”

“You risked an aircrew over a dog?” Captain Hewitt asked me, furrowing his bushy silver brows and crossing his arms across his perfectly pressed uniform.

No doubt I was in for yet another lecture on my recklessness, but I’d learned long ago that it was far better to risk myself and come back with a survivor than not.

“Zero risk to the crew. We made it in five minutes shy of Ortiz’s deadline,” I replied before handing Sadie off to the paramedic. Anger reared its ugly head when the patient completely ignored the pup. “She needs a vet.”

The paramedic nodded.

“You outran your fate, little girl,” Beachman said, scratching her head as he walked by. “Or outswam it, I suppose.”

Captain Hewitt’s sigh gave the rotor wash a run for its money. “Any particular reason it’s always your name on my desk, Petty Officer Ellis?”

“Always seem to be in the right place at the right time.” I shrugged. It was my biggest blessing, and sometimes a curse.

“Luckiest bastard I’ve ever met.” Beachman knocked on my helmet. Eric and I had transferred to Air Station Cape Cod around the same time three years ago, and the Californian was my closest nonlocal friend.

Captain Hewitt rolled his eyes. “Get dried off. See you both back in twenty-four.”

Hell yes. A whole day off before we were due back for another shift. “Yes, sir.”

“You coming out tonight?” Beachman asked as we walked back toward the hangar, tucking his helmet beneath his arm and running his hand over his short brown curls. “In case you need the reminder, Jessica’s sister is dying to meet you.”

“I’ll think about it.” And I did, until I opened my locker and saw the text message from Caroline.

Two hours and a change of clothes later, I carried two bags of groceries into my parents’—scratch that—Caroline’s kitchen, coming in through the unlocked side door. My older sister had bought the place off our mom and dad five years ago when they left her the café and moved inland, but I couldn’t seem to stop thinking of it as theirs.

“I’m here!” I called out over the classical music blaring from upstairs and set the bags on the linoleum counter of the island, along with my keys.

The kitchen hadn’t changed since my junior year in high school, when Mom had a serious thing for apples. Apple wallpaper. Apple curtains. Little red-apple drawer pulls. Caroline always talked about changing it, but never did. This place was frozen in time, and I’d felt like an anachronism since coming back three years ago. Nothing fit quite right anymore.

“Thank you!” Caroline hurried into the kitchen, shoving pins into her blond hair to keep it behind her ears. “You’re an absolute godsend, Hudson.” She smashed a kiss on the side of my cheek and tucked in her white button-down embroidered with The Ellis above her heart.

“Any clue where he is?” I curved the brim of my Bruins hat and tried to keep the annoyance out of my voice. Saturdays were money days for Caroline, and Gavin fucking knew it. Not showing up was a dick move.

“Probably sleeping off his night.” She shrugged and reached for the purse hanging by the door. “You know how Gavin is.”

“Right.” Unfortunately, I did, which was exactly why her text this morning hadn’t surprised me. He was about as dependable as one-ply toilet paper. Someone was usually getting shit on because he flaked, and it wasn’t funny anymore.

“If he shows up, just let me know. I’m off at five.” She glanced at the clock, where both the hands were nearly upright. “Can you handle five hours? She’s . . . in a mood.”

“She’s ten.” The three-bulb light fixture above the island rattled, and then the music cut.

“Says the only person my daughter likes. Bet she just saw your car in the driveway, because she’s been blaring that music at me for two hours straight.” Caroline slung her purse over her shoulder. “I swear, she thinks I’m public enemy number one.”

“It might help if you’d just sign her up at Madeline’s.” Given the selection of the tunes, they’d no doubt had yet another argument about dance class.

“And watch my kid turn into one of those spoiled prima donnas?” she scoffed as light footsteps sounded on the stairs behind me, then paused. “No way. It’s bad enough those insipid Rousseau girls turn this place into a circus with that competition every August, but the way the local girls get their hopes up like they have any chance of beating those trained brats who steal all their chances to get a scholarship at that stupid school is just . . .” Her spine stiffened. “Just, no.”

Here we go again.

“Juniper could be really good. You won’t know if you don’t give her a chance.” I ignored her jab at our little town’s most famous vacationers just like I always did, but pressure settled in my chest as I shoved my hands into the front pockets of my jeans. Only one of the Rousseau girls came back every August—Anne. Never Eva or . . . Allie, which was definitely for the best. A step creaked behind me, no doubt the third one that had always given me away as a kid. “And you’ve never complained about all the money those ballerinas bring into Haven Cove with that competition.”

The pressure transformed into an ache. How the fuck was it possible to still miss her like this after ten years? Her whiskey-colored eyes, the way her nose scrunched when she laughed, her smile—the real one, not the polished, fake shit she gave everyone else—the way she’d had the rare ability to really listen . . .

“Their parents’ money. And just be on my side here.” Caroline jabbed her finger at me and lifted her brows. “Between you and Gavin giving June everything she wants . . .” Her shoulders dipped and she sighed, the light hitting her face in a way that highlighted the deep-purple circles beneath her eyes. “I need someone on my side.”

“It’s our job as her uncles. You want someone on your side, call Mom and Dad.” I shrugged unapologetically. Had we both been overindulgent since Sean died and left Caroline a single mother? Sure. But did I regret it? Not one bit. I’d promised Sean on his deathbed I’d try to be the balance to Caroline’s anxiety about everything regarding Juniper so the kid would get to have a little fun, and I was keeping that vow, period.

“What’s in those?” Her head cocked to the side as she spied the grocery bags.

I reached into one and pulled out a bunch of bananas. “You’d better get going.”

“Five hours,” Caroline promised. “And thank you. Really, Hudson, I couldn’t do it without you.” She could, but refused the help Mom and Dad offered over and over. I kept my opinions on that to myself.

“I’ve got this.” I motioned to the door with my head, and Caroline walked out of it, the screen slamming closed behind her. Once I heard her car pull out of the gravel driveway, I turned toward the doorway to the living room. “You can come out now.”

“Uncle Hudson!” Juniper whipped around the post at the end of the staircase’s banister and ran into the kitchen, then threw herself at me in a tangle of gangly limbs and long brown hair.

“Hey, June-Bug.” I caught her easily and hugged her tight for a second before leveling what I hoped was a serious expression on her and setting her on her feet. “You fighting with your mom again?”

“She’s limiting my creative expression.” She shoved her hair out of her face. “What happened to your jaw?”

I gingerly touched the area she pointed to. “Someone hit me while I was rescuing them.”

“What kind of person does that?” She crinkled her freckled nose.

“Fear does strange things to people. What kind of ten-year-old weaponizes Bach on a Saturday morning?”

“It was Stravinsky.” She lifted her brows and gave me the same look Caroline just had. June may have been adopted, but she’d definitely inherited my sister’s no-fucks-given attitude. “From The Rite of Spring. Just because I’m not allowed to take class doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to watch ballet.” She folded her arms across her chest. “It’s a stupid rule, anyway.”

“It’s still her rule.” Juniper was right. My sister’s no-ballet rule made about as much sense as my parents grounding Gavin and me as teens when we had a perfectly good ladder outside our shared room, but I wasn’t the parent here. “Did you text Uncle Gavin?” I changed the subject as June took a seat on one of the two barstools at the island.

“No. I’m not supposed to have a phone.” She bit back a smile and feigned innocence.

“Like Gavin doesn’t know?” I moved the bananas and then unloaded the contraband from the bags. With Caroline working her ass off at the café, the phone seemed the responsible choice to make when it came to Juniper. Not to mention that Gavin would usually pick up for our niece, even if he was ducking Caroline or me.

Juniper’s brown eyes lit up. “Pop-Tarts!” She reached for the variety pack, then clutched it to her chest. “You’re my favorite.”

“Uh-huh.” I ruffled her hair and put the rest of the snack food in the cabinet behind the mixer Caroline never used. Maybe it made me a shit brother to be my niece’s sugar dealer, but I was a hell of an uncle, and I was okay with that.

She ripped open the foil and stuffed half a strawberry pastry into her mouth. “Uncle Hudson?”

“Hmm?” I threw the reusable bags onto the stack on top of the refrigerator and braced for impact, leaning back against the honey-oak cabinetry.

“If there was a way to change Mom’s mind about taking ballet, would you help?” She broke off a small, measured piece of the second pastry, a clear giveaway that she was up to something.

“There isn’t.” I shook my head.

She scrunched her forehead. “But if there was, you’d help me, wouldn’t you? The new session starts in less than two weeks.”

“In the interest of us not going round and round about this, sure. If there was a way to change your mom’s mind, I’d help.” Easy promise, knowing there was zero chance. Juniper had a better chance of talking her mom into a tattoo than stepping foot in a studio.

“Pinkie promise.” She stuck out her hand, curling every digit but her pinkie.

I reached forward and hooked my pinkie with hers in our sacred ritual. “Pinkie promise.”

She grinned, her dimple popping on her left upper cheek, and the hairs on the back of my neck lifted. “See”—she popped a small piece of Pop-Tart into her mouth and chewed—“I think she hates ballet because she hates the ballerinas.”

“I think that’s a logical assessment.” I nodded.

“Because she grew up waiting on all the rich tourists at the café.” She devoured another frosting-laden piece.

“Something like that.” I swiveled toward the fridge and pulled out the jug of orange juice. “Have you thought about taking tap? Or jazz?”

“But you don’t hate ballerinas,” she interrupted, ignoring my attempt to change the subject as I poured us two glasses of juice and put the jug away.

“Correct.” That ache in my chest constricted. There had to be a way out of this conversation. I gulped down half the glass of juice like it would wash away the memories that had nipped at my heels relentlessly since I’d come back to Haven Cove.

“Because you loved one,” June whispered.

My stomach heaved and I nearly spat out the juice, barely managing to swallow it before painting the kitchen orange. “I’m sorry?” The glass clinked on the linoleum as I set it down.

“You loved Alessandra Rousseau,” June declared, throwing around the words I’d never dared to voice as a teenager like they were as common as the seashells around here. “Or at least you really liked her.”

What the hell? Speechless. My ten-year-old niece had rendered me completely fucking speechless. How did she . . . ? Caroline didn’t know—she would have raised hell. Not even Mom and Dad caught on. Only Gavin knew about those two summers.

I was going to fucking kill him.

“And that means she can’t be spoiled or entitled,” June continued, her nostrils flaring like she could smell her victory.

Allie was both of those things, and somehow neither. She was the ultimate oxymoron, self-centered yet selfless for her sisters, spoiled yet kind, driven yet reluctant, an open book of emotion on the stage and an impossible puzzle when off it.

At least she had been at seventeen.

“And if you were even just friends with her, she couldn’t be mean.” June put her hands in her lap. “Which means if Mom met her, talked to her, then she’d see that I could be just like her.” She sighed wistfully, turning those big brown eyes on me like the little weapons they were. “Have you ever seen her dance? She’s so beautiful, and graceful, and is one of the youngest principal dancers in her company’s history. She’s . . . flawless.”

She was all that and more. Allie was born for the stage. Hell, she’d been bred for it.

I had to get a grip on this conversation and nip it in the bud. “Look, June. I don’t know what Uncle Gavin told you, but—”

“Don’t deny it!” She slid off the stool, reached into the back pocket of her jeans, and slapped her hand on the counter, leaving behind a picture.

I glanced at the Polaroid, and the knife in my chest sliced me clean open. It had been years since I’d laid eyes on the picture of Allie and me outside the Haven Cove Classic, my arm around her shoulders, her arms holding the grocery-store bouquet of roses I’d bought on the way to the competition. Ten years later I could recall every single detail of the moment we’d stolen while Lina distracted Mrs. Rousseau so Gavin could snap the picture.

It was the false high in our story, the moment I truly thought anything was possible between us, only for the entire world to crumble beneath our feet a few short hours later.

“You went through my boxes in the attic.” It wasn’t a question.

She pushed the picture toward me. “They were just sitting there. I mean, you’ve been back for years and it’s not like you took them to your house.” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes lowered. “I went through your boxes,” she whispered.

“That would be like me reading your journal. It’s a violation of privacy.” What else had she found?

“I know.” She took what appeared to be a fortifying breath and looked up. “And I’m sorry. Kind of.”

“Kind of?” My eyebrows flew.

“Come on, Uncle Hudson!” She pushed the picture to the edge of the counter, but I didn’t touch the damned thing. “You obviously dated one of the most famous dancers in the world! We can go over to her house and get her to talk to Mom—”

I put my finger up. “One, I did not date her.” She’d been my best friend, and that had made my actions even more unforgivable. “Two, just because the Rousseaus have a summerhouse here doesn’t mean she’s actually in town. And three—trust me when I say this—I am the last person in the world she would ever want to see.” The usual weight of guilt I carried when it came to Allie swelled until I was certain it would crush my lungs.

“She’s been here for a whole week already!” June hopped off the barstool and snatched my keys from the counter. “She was injured in January and came here to recover.”

My eyes widened. She’d been here for a week? “And how would you know that?” Wait, from January?

“Seconds.” Juniper stared at me like I was an idiot. “She has an account with her sister.”

“You have Seconds?” My voice lowered and my eyes narrowed. “I thought there was an age restriction for that!”

“Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes. “I had to scroll a whopping three more years to create a log-in.”

I blinked. This moment right here was why I was nowhere near equipped to be a parent. Fuck, as soon as Caroline found out about any of this, I was going to have my uncle privileges revoked.

“Let’s go,” June urged. “It’s what? A five-minute drive?”

“Four,” I muttered. There was zero chance I was showing up on Allie’s doorstep.

“Even better!” Juniper thrust my keys at me.

I shook my head and said the word I’d sworn I never would after Sean died. “No.”

“You pinkie promised!” She shook the keys and stared up at me with a determined purse of her lips and a plea in her eyes. “You said you’d never break a pinkie promise.”

Fuck my life.

Pinkie promises outweighed my own discomfort.

I held up my finger. “On one condition. If she isn’t there, you put that picture back where you found it and we never speak of this again.” Please God, don’t let her be there.

“Deal.” She grabbed her backpack off the hook and nodded.

Shit. What about—“Did Seconds happen to tell you exactly which of the Rousseaus are here?” If it was her mom . . .

“Just Anne and Alessandra.” She swung her backpack over her shoulders. “Why?”

If she knew Anne’s name, she’d done her research.

Was I really about to throw away ten years of self-control? Face down the biggest regret I had in my entire life? Juniper looked up at me with all the expectation and trust she had in her little body. Yeah. For June, I would. “Let’s get this over with.”

Six minutes later, I pulled my truck off the coastal road that ran alongside the body of water the town was named after, and into the long gravel driveway I’d avoided since I’d moved back. The Rousseau house. House was a quaint term for an estate with seven bedrooms, a carriage house, two acres of prime real estate along the beach, and that coveted pier that had somehow withstood the last two nor’easters to rip through here.

And damn, it looked exactly the same as it had the last time I’d sneaked over and climbed the rose-covered trellis to Allie’s room on the second floor. Same grayish-blue paint job with white trim, same pattern on the cushions of the porch swing. Nostalgia hit with a wicked right hook.

Every muscle in my body clenched when I put the car in park in front of the wraparound porch, forsaking the drive on the right hand that led back to the carriage house. If I didn’t love Juniper so much, if I didn’t treasure her unwavering certainty that I would keep my promises—that someone would—I would have driven my ass straight off the property.

As it was, Juniper was already out of the car and walking up the steps to the covered porch, her purple backpack bouncing with every step. What was with the backpack, anyway? Did she think she was moving in or something?

I shut off the ignition, pocketed the key, and got out of the truck, half expecting Mrs. Rousseau to appear in the doorway to shoo me away from her daughter with threats and poignant insults.

Juniper rang the bell as I walked up the four steps to the porch, uncaring if the wood creaked beneath my feet for the first time. Then she knocked as I moved to stand beside her. Shit, my palms were sweaty, my pulse was pretty much tachycardic, and my stomach seriously considered emptying its contents.

I was seventeen all over again, trying to do the right thing by walking her to the front door, and yet I was simultaneously eighteen, losing her all over again. Darkening her doorstep again had never been in my plans, which left me horrifyingly . . . unprepared. And I was always prepared.

This was officially the most reckless thing I’d ever done.

I counted to thirty, and relief beat out the sting of disappointment. “She’s not here.”

“She has to be!” June jabbed the bell again.

“Maybe Seconds is wrong. She hasn’t been back in years, June-Bug,” I said softly.

Juniper shot me a look that was half dejection and half panic, then spun on her heel. “She has to be here!” she called back over her shoulder, then jumped the steps and took off running around the side of the house.

She had to be kidding me.

“June!” I caught up to her in a matter of seconds, right at the cursed rose-covered trellis that had earned me two of the scars on my hands. “We can’t trespass.”

“She could be in the backyard.” She marched forward. “Let’s just look, please? I have to meet her. I just have to,” she downright begged, using those kryptonite eyes on me.

Fuck, if this day wasn’t one problem after another. I wavered. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d sneaked into the backyard. Besides, at this time of day, Allie would have been in the studio, and given that it was right next to the front door, she would have heard the bell, which meant there was zero chance she was actually here, no matter what the damned clock app said.

“Fine,” I agreed. At least it would put an end to this insanity.

Juniper grinned. “How did you meet her, anyway?” she asked as we passed the corner of the back porch, where I’d sat on the roof for countless hours, stargazing with Allie. “It’s not like you run in the same circles.”

“I was in the right place at the right time,” I said for the second time that day.

“And why aren’t you friends anymore?” June blinked and covered her eyes with her hand as we stepped out of the shade and into the sun of the backyard. The manicured lawn dropped off sharply at the cliff, and a wooden bridge covered the distance down to the beach and pier.

“That part’s . . . complicated,” I answered quietly, scanning the yard with its pool and lush landscaping in full spring bloom, finding it empty.

“Did you do something stupid?” She narrowed her eyes at me, taking Allie’s side in an argument she didn’t even know existed, and she walked toward the cliff steps, leaving me to follow after. “Mom says Uncle Gavin is prone to stupidity, but you’re supposed to be the one who does the right thing.”

Ouch.

“The curse of being in the right place at the right time is that sometimes there isn’t a right thing to do.” We reached the steps, and I turned my Bruins hat forward to block the sun as we looked down at the beach. My gaze followed the line of the pier and caught on the shape bobbing off to the side of it.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Juniper argued.

“Tell me about it.” I leaned forward, my senses blocking everything out but that bobbing figure in the ocean below us. It sank beneath the waves, and I began counting in my head as June lectured me on the finer points of maintaining a friendship with a girl.

When I reached forty-nine, the figure popped up again, only to sink once more.

Every fiber in my being screamed with inexplicable certainty that figure was Allie.

And she was drowning.