It was largely as I described (not in Monday’s excerpt… but before that in the book). It was rough… outrageously rough. Nobody fell off the boat, though. And the only red-headed beauty was my wife. But the idea was planted for that part of the story. I actually started writing it while we were still in Kauai.

The second part of the story, which involves a runaway bride was written before that vacation. The excerpt from Wednesday was written before the one from Monday. I had written large parts of both stories, but they both seemed incredibly incomplete and I didn’t know what they needed.

Until I figured out that what they needed was each other.

Over Spring Break, we took a short cruise to Mexico from Miami. One afternoon, while I sat on the Promenade deck, I started feeling out how they could be combined into one story. The characters were very compatible and fit together nicely. I did have to change the Hawaii story to first person and rewrite a bunch of it to accomplish that, but the actions were already laid out.

I haven’t tried writing a full novel in first person, so this became an experiment in that, as well. Writing like that has presented me with new challenges. For one, writing for the female characters has forced me to change my thinking. I know that I will have a lot of revisions when those chapters get to my beta readers… and I’m VERY thankful for the beta readers.

There are two chapters that are written in third person… they are kind of like interludes. The prom and the wedding. There might be another of those third person chapters, since I feel like the book needs another change, and just a little more content before it is done.

“Jax?” I said, my voice hitching in my throat. It had been a decade since I last saw him. And a million miles since I had broken his heart. I had feared I had broken him.

Trim was no longer a word I would use for him. Even in his logo polo, he was obviously cut. I could see tattoos peeking out on the top of his left arm, and around his collar on the left side. He had a thin beard, like he’d not shaved for a couple of days, then trimmed it to perfection. But the most striking thing was his eyes. They held a fire… an intensity that had never been there before. What they didn’t hold was the happiness I’d come to associate with him. They were like blue ice, burning into me.

“Crys… what are you doing here?” he asked, accusation in his voice, as if my presence was only meant to torment him.

I was the one that had left him at the altar but seeing him had me wondering how I could have. I had tried to convince myself there was no other way, and that he’d wronged me by not letting me explain myself. He shut down all contact the moment I made a mistake. He ran from the life we had together… that we were looking forward to… escaped to someplace unknown to anyone that would talk to me. He’d never completely escaped my mind, though, although I had managed to usually confine him to a dim corner. No longer. His eyes accused me and burned me and held me.

“I moved here to launch our new brand. What about you?” I said, matching his tone.

“I ended up here a few years ago. I’ve built a life.” There was still accusation in his eyes. I could see the anger and pain flash in his eyes as he replied to me. “Look, if you don’t want to work with me, I can try to recommend someone else. I would hate for this to be too awkward for you.”

I had trouble recognizing his tone. I thought I knew everything about him, but I couldn’t tell if he was sincere or mocking. His response knocked me back. The last thing I expected was for him to have any regard for my feelings. I was sure that he assumed I had no regard for his, not after the way I left. But then I could feel his pain subsiding… replaced by anger. And something else. Fear. I thought about the budget we had for this photoshoot. Was he more afraid of me or not getting the job? “Did Kate communicate a shot list to you? I just got the email from her and haven’t had a chance to really go over it,” I asked, pushing our personal history aside for a moment. I was still stunned by seeing him and didn’t know what else to do.

“I don’t have a specific list,” he replied. “I know what pieces she likes, and I have seen the mockups for the marketing, so I can piece together what you need. Should I put that together for whoever you use to replace me?”

“I don’t want someone else, Jax. I would rather work with you. I trust you.” I want you to trust me, I didn’t say.

He nodded once and settled into the seat across from my desk and I returned to mine. I pulled up the email from Kate, my boss, and reviewed it while Jax sat across from me, pointedly not looking at me. After scanning the email, we spent the better part of an hour talking over the next steps. He let me know that he would be at the venue the next day to begin shooting. It would be exteriors if the weather was nice, interiors if it wasn’t. He would be ready to start about six in the evening, which was around the time the regular staff left, and gave me a list of what needed to be done for him to be ready.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jax,” I said, leaning across the desk and offering my hand. He barely touched it when he shook it, then turned and walked stiffly out of my office.

“Miss Lake,” Tish said, walking back through the door a moment after he left, “the decorator wanted to speak with you if you have a moment.”

“Please tell him to catch me tomorrow morning. I’ll be in around nine. Right now, I need to get a few things done,” I snapped.

“Yes ma’am,” Tish said, backing out the door.

Perhaps my voice was a little too harsh. I had always tried to foster a casual atmosphere and barking at my assistant wasn’t helping. But I needed her out of my office before the tears came. Of all the things for which I had prepared, seeing Jax… and my reaction to seeing him… was not one. I needed her to leave me because I knew the tears were coming. I couldn’t hold myself together for one more moment.

An hour later I glanced up at my wall clock and noted that it was half-past five. “Miss Lake, there is a call from the photo studio,” I heard over the intercom.

“Thanks, Tish, I’ll take it.”

I tapped the speaker button on my phone. “Yeah, Jax. What do you need?” I asked.

“Crystal, this is Beth Mason… I’m Jax’s business manager. We actually met…”

“Beth, yeah… Prom… thirteen years ago. Wow.” That explained a lot. They had always been close, and I couldn’t blame her for swooping in when I left.

“Yeah. Anyway, I wanted to talk with you for a minute. About Jax. And this job.”

“Sure, Beth.”

“He needs this. He is ready to quit because he doesn’t want anything to be weird, but he really needs this shoot. I think you owe it to him to keep it on track. I don’t know what’s going on in your life, but after what you put him through you need to convince him that he is the person for this job.”

That was when I saw her… ok, I had seen her before we even got onto the boat, and I knew where she had been almost every minute since. I wasn’t trying, but she was hard not to notice. Flaming red hair, tall, sleek and slender; dressed more for a beachy dinner out than for hanging out in the splash zone for a few hours. She wore filmy pants that were glued to her from the spray, and a wrap around her top that was similarly elegant, but simple. She didn’t look like she belonged there, but her smile rivaled the sun as she looked around excitedly. Like me, it looked like she was on vacation with her family. Her green eyes had drawn me in the first time I saw them, just before we boarded the boat. They were in contrast to her smooth, alabaster skin. She had a delicate nose with the slightest turn up, and pouty lips I thought begged to be kissed. She was simply the single most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. And she was so far out of my league that I knew all I could ever do was admire her from afar.

But in the next moment, what I was seeing was her feet flying up in the air and over the side of the boat. It looked like she had been trying to get her sister to shoot a picture of her with a whale tail in the background… then the boat lurched, flipping her over the side.

I tore off the light shirt I was wearing loose over my t-shirt, and pointed toward her, yelling “Man overboard,” to the captain. In three steps I was diving off the rail next to me, flying over the side of the boat, overshooting her as she floated back along the side of the boat. I saw she had been stunned by the fall and came up coughing salt water before disappearing under the waves again. I turned in the water and dove down to grab her. I wrapped an arm around her, just as I had learned and practiced in Scouts, and kicked toward the surface.

I wasn’t driven by heroism, or even the chance to help specifically her. It was instinct. Had it been anyone else on the boat, I think my reaction would have been the same. There was a person in trouble, and I was able to help.

She struggled in my grip, trying to push herself higher out of the water when we broke the surface. I held her tight, knowing people in her situation often panicked. She elbowed me in the eye as she struggled against the terror of drowning. The strike knocked me back, but I kept my arm locked around her. A moment later I grabbed the life ring that had landed only an arm’s reach away.

“Easy,” I told her. “I have you. Hold onto this. Do you know how to swim?”

She shook her head, her eyes still wide with shock and fear. She looked like she was still trying to figure out what had happened. Her struggling slowed.

“Just relax. I’ll pull you to the boat,” I said to her.

I had to pry one of her hands from me and put it on the ring. As we swam, I felt something brush under me, one of the whales we had been watching. She screamed when she felt it brush her foot. I stopped kicking my legs and pulling the ring, and wrapped my arms around her again. She let go of the ring and clutched to me as if I were the only thing between her and death, and I guess in that moment I might have been… although we were in no real danger from the whales.

“It’s just a whale,” I said quietly. “They won’t swallow us like Jonah. We’re ok. Are you with me?”

She nodded and loosened her grip on me, allowing me to start pulling her toward the boat again after putting her hand back on the life ring. She turned and looked at me, still not totally releasing me, then unloaded the complete contents of her stomach right in my face. I dipped under the water after catching all the vomit and rinsed it away without missing a beat. I had been too shocked to react any other way. Luckily, I closed my eyes and had the presence of mind not to breathe as she puked at me. I tried to play it off and ignore it when I resurfaced. I knew she had to be embarrassed, and I didn’t want to add to her discomfort… just like I wouldn’t want someone to pile on me for something I couldn’t control.

As we got close to the back of the boat a crew member was folding down one of the platforms at the back of the catamaran that they used when people snorkeled, to allow them to more easily climb onto the boat. He leaned down with his hand out. I pushed her to the platform and then helped her from the water as the crewman lifted her up. A moment later I followed onto the platform and up onto the back of the boat, now just as wet as my little brother. Applause broke out from those that were able to see her climb back onto the boat in front of me. She was swept away by her parents and her sister, all crying and hugging her. She looked back at me for a moment and smiled, embarrassment evident… then she was gone.

On the skyride (among other things). And there was a girl that I used to give a ride every once in a while. Those parts of the story are true (and not disclosed in the excerpts posted…).

Everything else just took off from there. The car I usually drove to work was a Triumph Spitfire, and indeed, we did enjoy the drive often sans-roof. It would have been cooler to have had an MGA, but I didn’t. And we really were never more than friends. If she ended up being a spy, that’s news to me… it would be pretty cool, though. I should also note that unless something outrageous happens, I won’t be buying a beach house in North Carolina.

Anyway, I took a bunch of liberties with a few real actions, and built a story around them. I didn’t really know where it was going to end up. As far as I had plotted was that Finn was angry with his cheating wife and planning on a divorce. Beth planned on taking advantage of their old relationship, hoping he knew someone that could get her out of her jam.

I also knew that she needed to fall in love with him, and he needed to have a severe lack of trust in her. How that was going to manifest was still a mystery. But, since I like heroes and heroines, they had to be good people at their core. Not so much for the villainous (ex-)wife. And I like a good conspiracy theory, too… so let’s get that in there.

Finally, as I was writing Sniper, with Warren Chestik as the main character, I felt he needed a place, as well as Heather… I don’t want to spoil her place in the series quite yet.

She took his hand and pulled him into the shop outside of which they were standing. She grabbed a fedora and sunglasses and slipped them onto him, then a floppy beach hat for herself, along with a wrap and big sunglasses. She saw a gaudy Hawaiian shirt and slipped it onto him over his t-shirt, patting his chest and smiling up at him.

“Sometimes a little change is all we need. Let’s grab a drink,” she said, pulling him along in her wake. She quickly paid at the register, then pulled him out through another door. “There is a little place around the corner.”

“The Crow’s Nest?” Finn responded. He knew the place well. The place knew him well, too. Carrie would probably know of the visit and his companion before their butts warmed the seat cushions.

“Yeah. That’s the one. We can sit and catch up. It’s wonderful running into you. I can’t believe my luck. I hope you’ll let me buy you a drink. Wow, seeing you again is everything I could have asked for, but didn’t know I needed.”

They walked along the boardwalk, neither hurrying nor tarrying. His hand found the small of her back. The memory gave her goosebumps. It was solid, yet soft. His touch was comfortable, but there were memories that weren’t as happy. Betrayal. Heartbreak. They turned into the inviting doorway. The temperature dropping as they stepped into the shade, then the conditioned air of the small restaurant enveloping them.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Powers. Table for two?” the woman at the hostess stand asked, her eyebrow arched impossibly high.

“Yes, thank you, Colleen. A booth, please. Maybe in back. Out of the way.” He smiled, knowing what would happen.

“Certainly,” she said before grabbing a pair of menus and leading the pair between the tables, her lips pursed and her steps quick.

And so it begins, Finn thought to himself. Colleen would text Carrie, just as she always seemed to do. He didn’t understand how a woman that hated this whole area as much as his wife detested it, could still build such an efficient intelligence gathering network. Finn’s movements on the island seemed to be tracked; Carrie assuming every visit was a clandestine meeting with some woman with whom he was having an affair. Part of Finn wanted that to be the case now. His face warmed with a blush at the thought of an affair with Beth Campbell.

She slipped into the intimate, secluded booth in the back of the small pub. Finn sitting down opposite her. She ordered a white wine, while he ordered up his favorite beer. When Finn laid his hand on the table, she covered it with hers half a moment later. Looking into his eyes, she examined him again. Finn thought back to the kiss they’d shared. His second to last day of work… the last time they had talked. Then, her anger and hurt the next day… the last time he’d seen her. The pain he had caused.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“Texts are being sent at this moment with the reports of my movements and meetings,” he replied cryptically.

As his feet slowed, he realized how surprised he was that he’d stuck it out with her as long as he had. He picked up his pace again, trying to walk off the emotion. The rage. Finn Powers had never felt the level of anger he felt in that moment.

Nothing I ever did was enough for her, he said to himself. No matter the choice, it was the wrong one. If it was exactly what she asked for, I should have known her words weren’t what she meant. Even though I didn’t ever want to marry her, I did my absolute best… for twenty-five years. Twenty-five torturous years. Two and a half decades of fruitless efforts. Frustration. If it wasn’t for the kids…

He didn’t register the happy, sunburned faces that moved past him in the crowd of vacationers. Visible, yet invisible. He didn’t think about where he was going. He just kept moving. Walking. Propelling himself forward along the boardwalk across from the beach. It had been thirty-one hours since the last straw. Thirty-one hours since he had walked out the front door of their house, climbed into his Jeep and driven away. He hadn’t even had to pack. His bags hadn’t made it back inside the house before he left for their beach house. Scratch that, my beach house. She can have everything else, but not my beach house. And my computer… and maybe my clothes. Screw the rest of it.

Three weeks on the road doing book signings and promotions. He had walked through his front door, the one he painted red for his wife because that was what she said she wanted. The same door she has complained about ever since. He had thought he heard a sound coming from the back of the house. Stepping into the family room, he was confronted with the image of his wife, in her little black dress, the one he’d bought for her. The one he’d complimented her on every time she wore. She was leaning over him, handing a drink to her boss. They were mid-laugh when they both heard him and turned in his direction, her hand in his. Her boss sitting in “his” chair, lipstick smeared on his face.

“You’re early,” Carrie said, her voice flat and emotionless. Her eyes betrayed nothing. “That’s inconvenient.” No embarrassment. No remorse.

“I would have thought you’d be at work, four in the afternoon on a Thursday,” he said.

“So, you were going to sneak in and make a pitstop before another ‘book tour’,” Carrie shot back, tossing air-quotes around “book tour.”

Finn reached into his pocket for a moment and pulled out his phone. Before Carrie or Bob realized what was happening, he shot a picture of the pair of them, lipstick and all. “That’s one for the scrapbook.”

“I should probably go,” Robert J. Thomas, Carrie’s boss for the last five years said after an awkward pause. He motioned to rise from the chair.

“No. You stay, Bob. I’ll go,” he said, a barely concealed sneer across his visage. “I’ll send for my things.” Finn turned on his heel and walked from his house… the one he never really liked, but that his wife wanted. He closed the red door behind him, thinking that it had looked so much better when it was green.

Twenty minutes later he was sitting across from the manager of his bank… the one in which he’d kept his “secret account”, opening new accounts and transferring almost everything they had from their joint checking and savings accounts. Aside from his little secret stash, there were “her” accounts and “their” accounts. No longer. An hour after that, his half of the retirement accounts were moved solely into his name. The voice of his attorney permeated the cabin of the Jeep as he effected the rest of the transfers on his phone a few minutes later.