Contents ( 66)
- Cover
- Books by Valerie Fraser Luesse
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Map of Florida
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
- forty-three
- forty-four
- forty-five
- forty-six
- forty-seven
- forty-eight
- forty-nine
- fifty
- fifty-one
- Epilogue
- Keep Reading for a Preview of Valerie Luesse’s Next Book!
- Prologue
- one
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Back Ads
- Back Cover
Just as he was about to climb out, a pickup truck pulled over. It was covered—every inch of it—in seashells. A scraggly man who looked about Finn’s age got out of the truck and, without saying a word, unfastened Peyton’s duffel and saddlebag, tossed them aside, and loaded the bike onto his truck.
“Hey!” Peyton shouted. “Hey, mister, that’s my bike!”
“Finders keepers, losers weepers!” the man shouted back. Before Peyton could get out of the water, the shell-covered pickup drove away. He ran to the highway to see which direction the truck went, but it turned and disappeared onto a side street. For all Peyton knew, it could be on its way back to the mainland.
He felt abandoned—barefoot and bare-chested, covered with itching, painful bites, his shorts dripping saltwater, stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere. Peyton sat down by the highway and put his head in his hands, battling his emotions so fiercely that he was trembling all over. He had worked so hard, and this was all he had to show for it?
A mosquito buzzed around his head, and as he looked up to swat it, he realized he was sitting next to a brightly painted sign that read “Welcome to Key West.” Welcome? WELCOME? To what? A miserable, spiteful, mosquito-ridden island at the end of the world? He picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could at the sign, which stood steadfast and unfazed as the St. Christopher medals softly jingled around his neck.
The rock thrown in anger immediately conjured an image of Uncle Julian. A tantrum was exactly how his uncle would react to Peyton’s situation. He would lay blame on anybody and everybody but himself, howling in anger at the sand and the sea. And if there was one human being on earth Peyton refused to emulate, it was his despicable uncle.
He wrapped his hand around the St. Christopher medals, which brought Gina back to him. What was it she had said? You are not the only one who has felt forsaken. That is how you know you are not. Peyton imagined Gina and Mama Eva standing on either side of him. And he pictured his father in this situation. What would he do? He would take stock of what he had to work with and move forward. Peyton still had his clothes and his tennis shoes, with what money he had left tucked inside one of them. He still had his father’s map. And he still had the aviators, which, for whatever reason, mattered more to him than the money and almost as much as the map.
Returning to the water’s edge, he picked up the sunglasses and slipped them on, then put on his shoes, grabbed his bags, and started walking down the highway.
He couldn’t imagine what he must look like—shirtless, covered in bites and welts, walking down an island road carrying everything he owned as he fought the urge to scratch. Even in the Florida heat, with his mosquito bites itching and throbbing like crazy, Peyton could see that Key West was a different kettle of fish from all the other islands. There was just something about it. Maybe it was knowing you had reached the end of the line—or that nobody from your real life could touch you here. It was just an island like all the other keys, floating in the same turquoise water, connected by the same highway, yet it was nothing like the rest.