Moore than a Feeling Read online

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  © 2018 Julie A. Richman

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Cover Photo: Eric McKinney/6:12 Photography

  Cover Model: Will Simms

  Cover Design: Jena Brignola/Bibliophile Productions

  Proofreading & Formatting: Elaine York/Allusion Graphics

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  Chapter One - Mid-Summer

  Chapter Two - Four Months Earlier

  Chapter Three - Mid-Summer thru Fall

  Chapter Four – Thanksgiving into Winter

  Chapter Five – Spring thru Memorial Day Weekend

  Chapter Six - July 4th Weekend

  Chapter Seven – Late July thru Labor Day Weekend

  Chapter Eight – Thanksgiving… Again

  Epilogue – July 4th

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Books by Julie A. Richman

  For the Reader

  ~Dedicated to my readers~

  This one is my gift to you.

  Thank you for choosing to be part of my dream

  and for joining me on this journey.

  There will always be Moore.

  xoxo,

  J.A.R.

  2018

  Mid-Summer

  DON’T YOU DARE DIE on me, woman. Schooner Moore issued the order in his head. Don’t you dare. He repeated his thought in case she didn’t hear his cosmic command the first time. If anyone had the balls to defy him, it was her. And that was just one of the many things he adored about her. But what he adored most was the wonderful woman she raised. A woman strikingly similar to herself, who now sat in the passenger seat next to him, lost, as she braced herself, potentially for extreme pain, while trying to remain positive.

  Just a glance told him she was failing at the latter.

  Ocean Parkway was desolate in the hour just before midnight, its haunting and lonely beauty exposed under the unforgiving glare of a waning moon. With the beams from the Land Rover’s headlights bouncing off the ground fog and obscuring visibility, Schooner Moore understood completely why this deserted stretch of beachfront highway had become a notorious locale for unsolved murders, holding tight the muted secrets of its unidentifiable victims.

  Reaching across to the passenger seat, he gently pulled Mia’s thumb away from her mouth, as she unconsciously chewed the skin that surrounded the edges of her fingernail. Bringing her small hand into his lap, he lovingly stroked the area at which she had been gnawing.

  Mia sighed, and in the shadows cast on the car by highway-lining streetlamps that looked like seagulls perched atop weathered, wooden poles that leaned away from the ocean, Schooner could see the tension that rolled through the muscles of his wife’s face. Starting at her cheekbone and moving rapidly to her jaw, a wave of worry inched toward Mia’s mouth, making her lips twitch. Schooner’s gut coiled watching as her tension and fear mounted with each mile they drove.

  “She’s going to be okay, Baby Girl,” he attempted to reassure her, squeezing her hand.

  “What if we don’t get there in time?” There was palpable fear in Mia’s voice and he ached, knowing he was never going to be able to alleviate it. At least not until they were down there.

  “We’re on the earliest flight out in the morning. She’ll still be in surgery when we get to the hospital.” He brought her hand to his mouth, gently kissing her palm. “Lois is not going anywhere, Mia. You know your mother is a force to be reckoned with.” The apple didn’t fall far from that tree, Schooner thought to himself proudly. “I’ll bet you a Serendipity Frozen Hot Chocolate that she is well enough to fly up to New York for Portia’s birthday in September.”

  Mia smiled for the first time since they’d gotten into the car at the Fire Island Ferries parking lot, hastily leaving their beach house after a call from her father, and rushing their two sleeping, young children, Nathaniel and Portia, to the nearby home of close friends, Charles and Gaby Sloan.

  “Ugh. You know I hate Serendipity’s Frozen Hot Chocolate. Make that some hot sex in the shower and you’ve got a bet.” She tried to lighten her dark thoughts.

  “Hmm,” Schooner snickered. Giving her a side glance, “Is shower sex with me ever anything less than hot?”

  “You’ve got a point, so to speak,” Mia conceded, enjoying her own pun and giving her handsome husband’s hand a squeeze as she smiled again, this time at a memory visible only in her head. “It’s going to be good to be in the city, even if it’s only for a night.”

  Mia and Schooner had been out at their beach house with their kids, working from there for over a month and only Schooner’s daughter, Holly, had been in Manhattan, living in their large, sun-drenched SoHo loft.

  “Yes, it will,” Schooner agreed, already picturing melting into the cool, clean sheets, smooth and devoid of sand, on their king-sized bed. He hoped they’d be able to catch a few hours’ sleep before an early morning Uber ride to LaGuardia Airport. With the travel gods on their side, they’d been able to secure seats on the earliest flight down to West Palm Beach, where Mia’s mom, the incomparable force known as Lois Silver, would be undergoing emergency bypass surgery first thing in the morning.

  “Did you hear back from Holly?”

  Picking up his phone from the car’s center console and glancing at the screen, Schooner shook his head. He had left her a voice message and a text to let her know what was going on and that he and Mia were on their way back into the city and staying at the loft for the night.

  “No. She must be out or have her phone turned off. Maybe she’s at the movies with some friends,” he conjectured.

  Heartbroken, Holly had decided not to spend the summer at the beach house on Fire Island with the family, knowing that seeing her ex-boyfriend, even for one more day, in the small, beach enclave where they lived and worked, would be far too painful. Instead, she moved back into the city, where she was very fortunate, that late in spring, to be able to pick up a summer gig at NYU, teaching two classes of English as a Second Language.

  Aiden McManus, the charismatic and handsome manager of Maguire’s Restaurant on Fire Island had captured Holly’s heart, lock, stock and barrel, several summers before. A Long Island boy from a working-class family, Aiden helped pay for his community college education in Hotel and Hospitality Management through enlisting in the New York Army National Guard.

  Holly’s previous love interests had all come from backgrounds similar to her own, well-educated at Ivy League schools with families of means. But Aiden was different, salt of the Earth and willing to get his hands dirty, Holly had never met
anyone his age who was already a man. Aiden McManus definitely wasn’t a boy, and that was the sexiest thing Holly Moore had ever encountered. There was no going back to boys after meeting Aiden McManus.

  Prior to meeting, neither Aiden nor Holly would have ever seen themselves with the other, yet together they were a mutual adoration society. Holly enamored with this handsome, street-smart man’s man and Aiden overwhelmed that this beautiful and brilliant California golden girl would even give him a second glance, nonetheless fall in love with him. And when she fell in love with the dark-haired, dark hazel-eyed Irishman, Holly fell hard, with her entire heart, her feelings deeper and more complex than she’d ever known.

  Their break-up blindsided and devastated her. Coming just a month before Aiden’s reserve deployment to Afghanistan, his harsh words tattered her heart, literally slamming her to her knees.

  “Don’t bother waiting for me, Holly. This is the perfect natural-ending point for us. We’re just too different. So, please don’t kid yourself and wait.”

  “You’re just saying this in case something happens. You’re trying to protect me, Aiden,” countered Holly.

  Shaking his head, his eyes never leaving hers as he delivered the killing blow, “I’m sure that makes it easier for you to handle, but the truth of the matter is, I’ve been wanting to end things for a while. We’re really different. And I’m happier with a woman who’s more like me. I’ve been thinking a lot about my old girlfriend, Janine, and I’d like to see if we can work things out.”

  Holly wasn’t the only one shocked by Aiden’s scathing declaration. Everyone who knew the couple couldn’t believe not only that they had broken up, but how and why or that Aiden would ever treat Holly with such cruelty.

  “I don’t understand,” she cried to her father and stepmother. “How could I be so blind to miss the signs?” She glanced from Schooner to Mia, her tear-stained eyes positively devastated. But neither had an answer for her, because they were as shocked as she was at the sudden one-hundred-eighty-degree turn in Aiden’s feelings and intentions. It just didn’t add up. There had been no signs.

  “It hasn’t been the same without her on Fire Island this summer,” Schooner commented as they drove toward the city. He missed his oldest child. Holly had been the light of his life through some very dark and lonely years, supporting him, and only concerned for his happiness when he and Mia reunited after a twenty-four-year absence.

  “I know,” Mia agreed. Holly was such a delight to be around. She loved her relationship with her stepdaughter. They had bonded immediately over their deep love for her father. “I know Natie and Po miss her terribly, too. Maybe when the summer semester is done, she’ll come back out to the beach. Aiden is already gone, so no worries about running into him.”

  Crossing the Williamsburg Bridge, both Schooner and Mia let out a huge sigh at exactly the same moment, turned to one another and laughed. The collective exhale had been brought on by the lights of the Manhattan skyline beckoning them home with a warm welcome. There was relief in knowing soon that they’d be in their own space to get some rest prior to leaving at daybreak for Florida, and facing the unknown of what tomorrow, and Lois’ surgery, would bring.

  The old freight elevator opened directly into the loft and Schooner flicked on the great room’s lights.

  “It’s good to be home.” Mia looked relieved. “I’m glad we’re staying here tonight.” Home was a comfort to Mia. Whether in the city or out at the beach house, being in her own space provided a level of solace well understood by Cancerians. Schooner always thought of it as her crab shell, a place she could retreat with just a moment’s notice, an environment that was uniquely hers, with all the creature comforts necessary for her happiness and protection.

  Coming out of the bedroom where he’d deposited their bags, Schooner picked up the remote and stood in front of the television laughing for a moment before settling onto the welcoming couch.

  “Baby Girl, Animal House is on,” he called to Mia in the open kitchen. “Come watch it with me.” If anything was going to calm her down and relax her so that she could get a few hours’ sleep, it was a movie that they both could recite line for line.

  “Do you want a bottle of water?” she called back to him.

  “Yeah, thanks. Double-secret probation,” he laughed, already entranced by the show.

  Sinking in beside him, Mia kicked off her espadrilles. With his arm around her shoulder, Schooner pulled Mia’s head into his lap, feeling her tension immediately ease as he gently stroked her hair. Curled up with her feet on the couch, they laughed at the slapstick humor, momentarily trading in their reality for a much simpler one.

  Half asleep, settled into the plush cushions, they were both roused and slightly surprised as the elevator opened to the apartment. They were more than slightly surprised when a couple kissing and laughing, wrapped in one another’s arms, oblivious to the fact that they were being watched, tumbled out of the elevator and into the loft’s great room.

  Squinting, Mia immediately recognized Holly’s long, silky blonde hair. But the man, who was he? Tall, but not as tall as Schooner, he had thick salt and pepper hair, wire-rimmed glasses and from what she could see of him, appeared quite handsome. Neither he nor Holly had yet to realize they were not alone, although the lights were on and the TV was playing.

  Richard Gere. Why is Holly kissing Richard Gere? Mia wondered as she rubbed her eyes. Had she met him at some party? He was very handsome, but he was too old for her, were Mia’s immediate thoughts. And what were they doing here?

  Schooner cleared his throat and the surprised couple returned to reality, breaking apart to face Schooner and Mia.

  The gasp that escaped from Mia’s throat was involuntary and loud. It registered on the man’s face as if she’d tossed him the full weight of a medicine ball, hard.

  It wasn’t Richard Gere that Holly had been kissing. It wasn’t Richard Gere, at all.

  “Mia?” There was surprise in the man’s voice.

  Holly looked at him, quizzically, clearly shocked that he knew her stepmother.

  Mia breathed in deeply, rising to her feet and stood there for a moment, her eye contact with Holly’s companion never wavering.

  Finally, she acknowledged him, verbally. “Tom,” she nodded, the single word, clipped. The loft took on a chill as there was not an ounce of warmth in her greeting.

  Confused, Holly looked to Tom, then to Mia, and then back to Tom. “You two know each other?” She was clearly not processing how the pieces fit.

  “Really, Tom?” Mia ignored her stepdaughter’s question. She might not even have heard it. “You’re older than her father.”

  “I didn’t know.” Tom Sheehan shook his head.

  “Didn’t know what? Didn’t know her age? Didn’t know that she was my stepdaughter? Didn’t know that you were stepping too far over the line?” she screamed at the man.

  “What is going on here?” Holly’s face reddened, as she visibly became more upset.

  “Will you tell her? Or shall I?” Mia’s eyes never left his.

  Tom turned to Holly, “Mia and I were involved,” he stammered, “a long time ago.”

  “Get out of here, Tom, and stay away from my daughter.” Mia took a step toward him, her small frame suddenly imposing.

  Stepping forward, Holly blocked the path between Mia and Tom. “I’m not your daughter,” she screamed at her stepmother. “And this is my home, you can’t kick him out. My father bought this loft.”

  Mia felt a jagged tear in her heart as Holly drew the line. This beautiful young woman, whom she loved as a daughter, had just chosen Tom Sheehan over family, letting Mia know that they would never be blood or share those ties.

  Holly looked to her father, who had been standing there watching this drama unfold as if he were observing a bad Fellini film.

  “Dad?” Her tone was pleading.

  Mia did not need to look at her husband to know the reaction his daughter was about to receive. She
could feel his energy in every inch of her being and said a silent prayer that it didn’t get physical. But one thing Schooner Moore had learned well over the years was how deadly controlled rage could be.

  Not even acknowledging Holly’s plea, his Caribbean blue eyes seared into Tom, a man he had forever longed to meet and one whose path he had hoped never to cross. While the loft had been filled with raised voices and emotion, Schooner Moore very quietly said two words in a tone that was both unimpeachable and deadly.

  “Get out.”

  “You can’t kick him out,” Holly began to protest.

  Schooner shifted his gaze from the man he perceived as his nemesis, to his beloved daughter. Locking eyes with her, he repeated what was not a request, but rather an order, one that also applied to her.

  “Get out.”

  In the silence of the darkened cab, unspoken accusations became increasingly deafening as they hung in the humid, mid-summer night air, separating Holly and Tom on opposite ends of the back seat on what had become a painstakingly slow ride back to his Greenwich Village apartment. The relief was evident on both their faces as they shared an elevator with some of his neighbors, escaping being alone together in the confined space of the metal lift.

  Not thirty seconds had passed after they entered his small flat when Holly turned to him, her face screwed up in anger.

  “Did you sleep with my stepmother?” She choked out the words.

  “It was a long time ago.” He almost added before you were born, but caught the words before they escaped, and made the reality of the situation even worse.

  “When was the last time you saw Mia?”

  “Not in this century.” That was the truth.

  “Did you know? Did you know I was her stepdaughter?” With her hands clenched into fists at her side, her shoulders were bunched with tension.

  With his palms upward, he shook his head, “How would I have known that? My relationship with you has nothing to do with Mia.” Taking two steps toward her, “Babe, this is merely a coincidence. An odd and unfortunate coincidence.”