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For my goddaughter Emma with much love
One
Isabelle Scott kicked her legs, propelling herself to the ocean surface with a final burst of adrenaline even as her lungs screamed for air. Breaking through the waves, she looked around, focusing on the tiny stretch of North Carolina coastline that she had called home for the last fifteen and a half years. Harborside Beach was still packed at 5 pm. She could see couples lounging on beach blankets while their kids dug in the sand or attempted to bodyboard, but beyond the roped-off swim area, Isabelle was flying solo. She had always preferred it that way. But that was before she’d met Brayden Townsend. As if on cue, he paddled his surfboard toward her.
“Go ahead and gloat, Iz,” Brayden said, not sounding the least bit out of breath, even though he had just paddled over the breaking waves. He pushed a beat-up surfboard toward her. His favorite black wet suit, the one with the pirate skull on his chest, looked barely wet even though they’d both been in the water for almost half an hour.
Izzie, or Iz, as Brayden called her (only her grandmother called her Isabelle, when she called her anything at all), rested her arms on the bobbing board. She couldn’t help but smirk at Brayden. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to,” Brayden grumbled even though his blue-green eyes were playful. Salt water dripped from his short, light brown hair and he wiped it off his face. “You win, Iz. I’m man enough to admit you can swim faster than I can paddle out here, but,” he added before she could gloat, “let’s not forget that I was carting two boards, and pelicans were nose-diving at my head.”
Izzie tapped her chipped purple nails lightly on the board, the bathlike water lapping at her upper back, which was the only part of her torso not covered by the unflattering blue Speedo she wore for her job as a lifeguard. After four, she was off-duty, but unlike some of the other guards she worked with, she didn’t change into her own suit before going for a dip. Why waste time? When she wasn’t working, there was no place she’d rather be than in the ocean. Brayden was the first guy she’d met who seemed to feel the same way. They’d only been friends since mid-July, but they had been meeting up practically every day since, and this was the best time of day to do it. By 5 pm, the soupy North Carolina heat had started to subside and there was even a light breeze. The sun was still bright, but low enough that they didn’t need sunscreen, and the water wasn’t overly crowded with kids goofing around or adults twice her size who could barely swim. Five PM was “me” time, and when me time included Brayden, it was that much better.
“It only took you half of July and all of August to realize I pretty much know everything there is to know about being in the water,” Izzie teased, staring at his woven rope necklace that had a pirate coin dangling from it. “You surfers are all alike. Cocky.”
“Hey,” Brayden argued even as he smiled an extra-adorable grin. “It’s not cocky; it’s called confident. There is a difference. You lifeguards seem to forget that.”
Izzie coyly pushed her wavy, shoulder-skimming brown bob out of her hazel eyes. “It’s kind of hard not to when we’re pulling you guys out of a rip current at least once a day.”
Brayden gave her a sharp look. “I told you a million times, I was fine.”
“You didn’t look fine,” Izzie reminded him, wrinkling her freckled nose at the memory. “You were going—”
“Against the current instead of with it,” Brayden interrupted, and shook his head. The dimple in his left cheek began to form. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”
“Nope,” Izzie said, feeling at ease, like she always did around him. They were just friends—friends in a teasing, sort of flirty way—but for some reason it didn’t matter. Well, it mattered a little, but they had such a good time together that she almost forgot he wasn’t her boyfriend. She knew practically everything there was to know about him, from how much he loved to surf to his favorite iPod playlist. They liked the same bands, preferred water over dry land, and would take a slice of pizza over a hot dog any day. Maybe that was why she was beginning to dread the thought of school starting in two weeks. When would she see Brayden then? They hung out only at the beach. She wasn’t even sure where he lived. Whenever she asked, his cryptic answer was always “Nearby.”
Brayden looked at the shore as he bobbed up and down on his board, and Izzie tried not to ogle his toned arms. “So, ready to try surfing again? Maybe you can actually stay on the board today.”
Izzie pulled herself up on her board and floated next to him, their tan knees touching. Brayden’s, she noticed, were beaten up and bruised from some crash landings. “Do we have to keep doing this?” she groaned. “Why do I need to know how to surf?”
“I told you—so you can do it with me. Let’s try this again, okay?” Brayden instructed, his square jawline set. “I’ll make you a deal. If you can manage to get up this time, I’ll buy at Scoops.”
Izzie grinned. “You’re on, surfer boy.”
She reached down and attached her board’s leg strap to her ankle. She’d learned her lesson about being untethered last week when she had to swim after a runaway board. Then she paddled after Brayden, trying to remember his instructions—when to stand up, how to lean left or right into the wave for balance, how to hold her legs. Brayden had given her this board after he bought one that had a pirate ship on it. The gift had come with one condition—that Izzie keep both boards in the lifeguard hut for him. Brayden said his board didn’t fit in the back of his Jeep. He had just turned sixteen and his parents had bought him the truck for his birthday, which led Izzie to assume that Brayden didn’t live that close to Harborside, because she lived there and no kid she knew owned a car, let alone a new one.
Izzie looked for the balance point Brayden had marked with wax and tried not to “cork” the board, as he’d called it. Something about too much weight in the back. She watched Brayden almost fifteen feet ahead of her—the proper safety distance—and saw him effortlessly stand up on the board as a wave began to crest. She tried to remember what he’d said as she got closer to the waves and pushed up on the board, keeping her legs on the stringer and gripping the board with her feet. She was supposed to look like a sumo wrestler, and it was working. She was up! Was Brayden seeing this? Even her feet were in the right positions! Then two seconds later, she fell and cursed herself for looking down, which is what Brayden had told her not to do. The surf was swirling around her, and as she swam to the surface, her board whacked her in the head. She dragged the board behind her as she hit the beach a few minutes later with a scowl on her face.
Brayden watched her as he stood next to two kids playing in the sand with plastic army men. His board was staked next to him, giving him the appearance of a guy who had just won a Teen Choice Award surfboard. Brayden probably could win, for looks alone, if he lived twenty-five hundred miles away in California and was discovered by a film agent. Robert Pattinson’s mug had nothing on Brayden Townsend’s.
“I can’t believe you looked down, Iz! It was going so well!” Brayden said, as if she needed reminding.
Izzie rubbed her head. “I know, I know, and I’m going to pay for it with a big, fat headache.”
Brayden put his arm around her, smelling li
ke a mix of coconut and salt water. His black wet suit hugged his taut stomach and Izzie felt her breath get stuck in her throat. “You’ll get it eventually, lifeguard. Or maybe not.” He rubbed her head like she were a kid brother. “Tell you what: I’ll buy even though you screwed up.” She started to protest. “You save that paltry salary of yours.”
Fifteen minutes later, after they had both toweled off and Izzie had pulled on frayed jean shorts and a tank top over her suit, they flip-flopped across the crowded boardwalk toward Scoops, where her friend Kylie Brooks worked. Izzie knew it sounded silly to have such deep affection for a place, but almost everything she loved about Harborside was on these planks. She’d learned how to play Dance Dance Revolution at the arcade, scored her first hole in one with her mom at the Mermaid Putt-Putt, made pizza with Grams at Harbor’s Finest, held her first job at Scoops, and had her first kiss on the amusement park roller coaster. But what she still loved best about Harborside Pier was the community center. Sandwiched between the boardwalk and the main drag, the community center had been her family ever since her mom died. And Izzie had very little family to speak of.
“Look who’s here! The beach bum and the lifeguard!” Kylie yelled as a tiny bell on the door announced Brayden’s and Izzie’s arrival at the homemade-ice-cream parlor. Kylie’s loud voice startled some of the customers eating at the tiny tables. Izzie and Brayden walked up to the long counter, where Kylie was making an ice-cream sundae. “So what are you guys having?” Kylie asked. She slid the sundae over to the startled customer and leaned toward Izzie, her long blond hair falling in front of her face.
“Um, hello?” said a cool voice. “I believe we were next.”
Izzie noticed a well-dressed couple in their twenties at the other end of the counter. The guy nudged the girl, who gave him a sour face. “What? You wanted homemade ice cream, right?” she whispered. “And I want to leave this boardwalk before some pickpocket dips into my Tory Burch bag.”
The guy rolled his eyes. “Hannah, you’re overreacting.”
“You heard what the taxi driver said,” she said in hushed tones. “I know you like to ‘keep it real,’ but I’m not hanging out all night on some dodgy boardwalk when our hotel has a private beach.”
Harborside Pier may have been as popular as it ever was, but it was dogged that summer with stories about teen gangs and how shady the area had become. One of the pier shops had been broken into and robbed, and a knife fight earlier this summer between locals and gang members had turned ugly. No one Izzie knew had been involved. Her friends hung out under the boardwalk at night, but they weren’t thieves or hoodlums. There just weren’t a lot of places for them to hang. Izzie knew she didn’t live in Beverly Hills, but she also knew Harborside wasn’t unsafe if you knew how to navigate it. She wished she had the nerve to tell the customer that.
“Kylie, you should help them first,” Izzie said instead. “They were waiting.”
Kylie rolled her eyes and pulled at her stained white Scoops tee. “Whatever.” Like most of Izzie’s friends, Kylie didn’t mask her feelings, even if they stung. “What do you want?”
Brayden glanced at his diver’s watch. “I’ve got to check in at home. Order for me?” he asked Izzie, then winked. “She’ll give you extra toppings.” He pulled his phone out of his orange backpack and walked outside as Izzie scanned the day’s ice-cream flavor chart.
When Kylie was done serving Miss Uptight her kid-size fat-free vanilla cone, she planted herself in front of Izzie and grinned slyly. “So?” she said meaningfully.
“So what?” Izzie repeated slowly.
“So have you told Mr. Hot Surfer Dude that you want to be the topping on his soft-serve cone yet?” Kylie asked.
Izzie felt her face flush. What if Brayden had heard Kylie say that? She turned around slowly and to her relief saw Brayden’s butt leaning against the glass window as he talked on the phone outside. “Kylie, geez!” Izzie said, her color returning to normal. “I told you a million times. We’re just friends.”
Kylie gave her a knowing look. “You don’t act like just friends.”
Izzie looked down at the ice cream under the glass counter and stared at the Cookies-and-Cream tub. If she looked at Kylie, her face might give something away. “Well, we are, so would you lay off? Besides, I don’t have time for a boyfriend.”
“That’s true,” Kylie said, walking away to wash the ice-cream scoopers in the small sink. “I don’t even know how you have time to sleep between work, swim practice, taking care of Grams, food shopping…”
Izzie shrugged and pushed her still-damp hair behind her ears. “It’s no big deal.”
“It’s a huge deal,” Kylie disagreed, and then smiled slowly. “Which is why I think you need a little fun.” She looked at Brayden’s butt and sighed. “And Mr. Hot Surfer Dude definitely looks like fun.”
“Kylie,” Izzie said, starting to feel both annoyed and uncomfortable. “Drop it.”
Kylie rolled her eyes again. “Fine. You should snap that boy up, though. If you don’t, believe me, someone else will.”
The bell hanging from the door jingled, and Brayden walked back in, his flip-flops making a scuffing sound against the sandy floor. “Did you decide what you want yet?”
“Oh, she knows what she wants,” Kylie said, staring at Izzie intently. “She just hasn’t figured out how to order it.”
“A scoop of Oreo, a scoop of Marshmallow Supreme, and one of Butter Toffee,” Izzie said quickly, “with gummy bears.” Brayden looked amused. “I’m a growing girl.”
“No complaints here,” he said. “I like a girl who eats.”
Izzie tried to think of the appropriate comeback, but before she could, she felt her cell phone vibrate in her pocket. She didn’t recognize the number, but she picked up anyway. “Hello?” She instantly regretted her decision. “No. I’m at the beach.” Pause. “Nope. I have to stop at the community center first. I forgot my swim meet registration forms.” Her smile slowly faded, and the room began to spin around her. “Yeah, I can be there at six thirty. Bye.” She snapped the phone shut, her eyes blinking rapidly, and grabbed the counter to steady herself. This couldn’t be happening. “I’m going to have to take you up on that free ice cream offer tomorrow,” she said quietly, not looking at Brayden.
“Everything okay?” he asked, his brow wrinkling with worry.
“Did Grams lock herself out of the house again?” Kylie asked as she finished Izzie’s order and slid it toward her.
Izzie pushed it back. “No, I just have to get home.” She avoided their stares.
“Let me drive you,” Brayden suggested.
Great. For the first time, Brayden was offering her a ride, and she had to say no. “I’ve got to go to the center first,” Izzie explained, looking up at him. He had to be at least six foot two. “Besides, I’m only a few blocks from there. You stay and hang out. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Brayden grinned. “Okay, because you, my friend, seriously need some more surf lessons.”
Izzie forced herself to groan playfully. “Don’t I know it? See you, Kylie,” she managed with a smile even though she felt like the floor was going to fall out from under her.
Leaving Scoops, Izzie unlocked her dirt bike from the rack and raced down the boardwalk bike path, feeling the wind whip her hair around her face as if she were at the top of the Ferris wheel. Then she slowed down her pedaling and reminded herself of the truth: She wasn’t on the Ferris wheel. She would soon be on her way home, where her social worker, Barbara Sanchez, was waiting.
The questions ran through Izzie’s head almost too fast for her to keep up. Was Barbara there to push foster care again? Barbara and Grams had been discussing the idea ever since Grams’s health started going downhill last year, but Izzie was still vehemently against it. When Grams remembered things (which felt like ages ago now), she had said another option was to find a distant relative to take care of Izzie, but Izzie hated that idea, too. She had lived with her grandmother ever
since her mom brought her home from the hospital as a baby. Izzie had never met her dad. Her mom hadn’t even told anyone who the guy was. So it was Grams who became Izzie’s legal guardian when her mom died in a car crash a few years ago. Now that Grams was sick, it was Izzie’s turn to return the favor. Grams was the only family she had left, and she wasn’t going to let the state of North Carolina take that away from her.
Izzie pressed hard on her dirt bike brakes, the tires squeaking loudly to a halt in front of Chicken, Ribs and More. She let the familiar smell of barbecue sauce and crisp sweet-potato fries wash over her as the reasons behind Barbara’s house call began to overwhelm her. Izzie’s thoughts were darker than she would have liked, and she shut her eyes to block out the scenarios. Without thinking, her feet went back onto the bike pedals, and within minutes she was in front of the Harborside Community Center.
HCC wasn’t much to look at. Weeds poked up around the cracked, aging stucco, and the windows had a permanent film from years of neglect. As rundown and forgotten as it looked from the outside, though, once Izzie walked through the glass doors, the building had a different story to tell. The community center was bustling, loud, and as cheerful as the cinder-block walls that had been painted in vibrant yellow-and-blue beach scenes. Hanging from corkboard strips were bright flyers and banners screaming things in large print like upcoming samba lessons, teen bake sales, Xbox Kinect tournaments, and directions to the next swim meet. Summer camp was winding down for the day just as some of the adult evening classes were starting, and the halls were a mix of young and old voices. Izzie knew most of them and said hello or waved as she walked down the hallway toward the pool.
Mimi Grayson wrapped her tiny wet arms around Izzie’s waist as Izzie passed her. “Are you done saving lives, Izzie?” Mimi wanted to know.
Izzie patted the top of her curly hair. “For today.” She gave her a mock stern look. “What about you? Have you been practicing your lifeguard training today, too?”