Storm Force. Meredith Fletcher
Everglades City when the first chance presented itself. Her sisters and brother couldn’t wait to be somewhere else and seldom visited. Janice and Carol were married and lived in Atlanta, Georgia, and Doug was in the navy. Kate and her dad only had each other these days.
During Kate’s younger years, her dad had worked as a hunting and fishing guide through the Everglades, managing big-game expeditions as well as deepwater fishing. Kate had gone everywhere with him.
Her dad had gotten to where he couldn’t stomach the tourist clientele coming in from northern Florida and out of state wanting to fish and hunt in the Everglades wilderness. These days, he worked as a marine consultant, specializing in shallow-water recovery and occasionally dabbling in treasure hunting. Her dad was always and forever finding some new trade or learning a new skill. He’d passed part of that restlessness on to all of his children, and he blamed himself because they’d all left.
“You gotta get out of the guide business, baby girl,” her dad said.
Kate smiled and shook her head. She was twenty-eight years old, divorced for three years, and running her own business shepherding hunters, fishermen, tourists and the occasional university professor through the Everglades. She hadn’t been anybody’s “baby girl” in a long time.
“Not all of us can get certified to do marine salvage,” Kate responded. She checked the road up ahead and saw a big white bus. The rear of the vehicle had Everglades Correctional Institution stencilled across it in blocky black letters. Department of Corrections was written below in smaller letters. She could barely distinguish the passengers but she imagined the hard-eyed men in shackles and orange jumpsuits inside the bus. Everglades Correctional Institution was over in Miami proper and she wondered what the bus was doing traveling the back roads.
“I could get you certified for divin’ and recovery,” her dad offered. “Be no problem at all.”
“Dad, I don’t want to be certified. You like diving. I don’t. Being underwater makes me feel like I’m drowning.”
“Marine salvage is doin’ good business,” her dad said. “And now that we’re in hurricane season again, I’m bettin’ there’s gonna be a lot more business. There’s a storm movin’ in. Should be here by tonight.”
Kate looked up at the eastern skyline. Darkness already roiled on the skyline. By this afternoon the Miami coastline would start feeling the fury of Hurricane Genevieve.
“Why, if I had a little bit of paint and knew you were interested,” her dad continued, “wouldn’t be no trouble at all to add and Daughter after Garrett Marine Salvage.”
Just like you added and Daughter to everything else you were doing when I was growing up. In addition to the guide business, Kate had also spent time overhauling boat engines, replacing decks and coaming, and piloting airboats. Her childhood hadn’t lacked for something to do.
When she’d been growing up, though, she hadn’t felt the need to stand on her own two feet. Now, with the divorce behind her and only visitation with her kids granted instead of custody, she wanted to be her own person. More than that, she needed to be independent.
“All I’m sayin’,” her dad went on, “is that you should think about it. There’s more money in salvage work than in the guide business.”
“I’m doing all right for myself.” Kate bristled slightly. Her ex had pointed out her inability to care for their children in the manner to which they’d become accustomed—expensive summer camps, nannies and international vacations—every time she’d scraped together enough money to hire a lawyer to make an attempt to adjust the visitation. But she’d returned to what she had known, to what she had loved. There was nothing like being out in the wilds of the Everglades away from civilization. She just hadn’t been able to convince her kids of that.
“You got some almighty prideful ways,” her dad said.
“I wonder where I got that,” Kate replied.
“And did anyone ever tell you that stubbornness was unattractive in a young woman?”
“I prefer to think of it as determination.”
Kate slowed as she caught up with the D.O.C. bus. Her dad meant well. She’d never had a person stand by her like her dad did. Through thick and thin.
“Maybe you could just do marine salvage part-time,” her dad suggested.
“We’ve been over this,” Kate said. “You travel too much. How could I maintain a home for Steven and Hannah if we lived and worked off a boat together?”
“We’d find a way, baby girl,” her dad said in his rough, prideful way. “You and me, we’ve always found a way.”
A lump formed at the back of Kate’s throat. “I know, Dad.” She paused, looking around at the thick forests and the sweeping plains of sawgrass that hid the cypress swamps. Mangroves grew in salt water and cypress grew in fresh water. Big Cypress Swamp was all fresh water until the sea invaded it during the occasional tropical storm.
“And that boy of yours,” her dad said, “why he’d love a chance to play at being a pirate lookin’ for lost treasure.”
Maybe with you, Dad, Kate thought. Steven remained distant from her despite her best attempts to get closer to him. Every time he looked at her, Kate got the feeling that she just didn’t measure up, that he faulted her for leaving.
Looking back on her marriage and divorce, Kate had to admit that he was right. She’d never belonged in Bryce Colbert’s world. He was computers and international deals, long business trips spent in Europe and interviews in Forbes and Money.
She’d always been her father’s daughter. At home in the small towns in southern Florida with the bush and mosquitoes. Tall and athletic, she didn’t look like the tiny fashion dolls Bryce seemed to prefer. She was five feet ten inches tall, had curves that turned the heads of most men, and a thick mane of auburn hair she wore past her shoulders that had humbled the hairdressers in several New York salons. Freckles scattered over the bridge of her pug nose couldn’t be hidden by cosmetics. Her eyes were such a dark green they sometimes looked black.
This morning, since she was going to be in the brush, she wore heavy khaki pants, a black T-shirt under a tan Banana Republic vest and hiking boots. Wraparound amber-tinted sunglasses protected her eyes and she wore her hair tied back. Back when she’d met her future ex-husband, she’d been dressed much the same. She was definitely not Bryce Colbert’s kind of woman.
But Bryce had blown into her world like a hurricane and swept her off her feet. He’d been ten years older, with one marriage already in flames and a string of jilted lovers behind him. Kate hadn’t known that then.
Nine years ago, Bryce had hired Conrad Garrett to lead him and a small party through the Everglades on a hunting expedition. Bryce had brought a woman with him, but she didn’t take to the rough living conditions and the fact that he was paying more attention to Kate than to her. The woman left in a hurry.
At that time, Kate had felt a glow of pride that she was able to turn the head of a man like Bryce Colbert. He was so confident and so sure of what he wanted. Kate hadn’t responded to Bryce’s advances at first, which had only seemed to increase his desire for her. In the end, though, she’d been thoroughly captivated by Bryce’s charm and he’d been driven to win her. That kind of infatuation, and she knew now that’s what it had been, was nothing but trouble.
Shortly after the marriage, Kate had gotten pregnant with Steven. The marriage started falling apart almost immediately, but Kate busied herself with raising her child. There was nothing in the world that she loved like her son and daughter. For the first time she’d known what had prompted her father to set his life aside for her till she was grown.
During the six years of her marriage she’d lived in New York and tried to fit in. She’d worn the dresses Bryce had bought for her, gone to the salons he’d pointed her to, and taken classes to learn how to entertain in his home. Only later did she realize how