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
Kate looked out at the morning waves curling and breaking against the shore. They made her think of very different waters, the mystic expanse she and Marshall had crossed together on their honeymoon in the Keys.
She had wanted to drive the whole way, but there was no road to Key West back then—just a railroad track that cars bumped across between trains, and Marshall said it had just about beaten him to death when he crossed it on his bike. So they drove to Miami and caught the train there. Actually, they didn’t make it to Miami right away. They were just outside of St. Augustine when Marshall pulled over and they ran into the dunes with Aunt Gert’s quilt. They stopped again in Daytona and rented a room at a little beachfront inn with a Hawaiian name that Kate couldn’t remember, then spent another night in Coconut Grove before catching the train from Miami to Key West.
Kate would never forget how the rail cars appeared to fly across the water, which was neither blue nor gray but a shade of turquoise so brilliant that it looked illuminated from below.
Marshall took her to the platform outside the coach so she could see the whole of it as they crossed Seven Mile Bridge. “Doesn’t it make you feel so free—like you’re just sailing over the water?” he said.
“Is that what you want, Marshall—to be free?” she said.
“Yes. I want to be free with you.”
He put his arms around her and held her tight as they glided over the ocean, bound for a place as far removed from Savannah as Marshall could get back then.
Kate would give anything to feel his arms around her right now. She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked out to sea, knowing there would be no sign of her husband on the horizon, yet she couldn’t help longing for one. And she knew she always would.
thirty
JUNE 4, 1947
“BIKE BOY” MAKES DARING RIDE
BY ROSA GONZALEZ
SEBASTIAN, FLA.—Alone he rides. Through the wind and the rain and the scorching heat of the Florida sun, which beats down on him with each and every circuitous turn of his bicycle wheels. Where is he going? Key West. Why? To honor his gallant, courageous father.
A veteran who served his country in the Pacific, recently and tragically deceased; a brave boy retracing his father’s long-ago journey to honor his memory—it is a story of family, of honor, of remembrance.
It all began in St. Augustine, Florida. Early on the morning of May 23, as his grieving mother and beloved aunt slept, Peyton Cabot quietly, stealthily pushed his bicycle down the driveway of a charming bungalow—his temporary home during his father’s illness—and said goodbye to all he knew, all that was familiar, all he loved and held dear in his fifteen-year-old heart.
Now, he was alone, solitary, singular. Just a boy, a bike, and a highway. And he remains so, pedaling through the pain—in his body and his heart. Will he make it? Will he turn back? No one knows. Not even young Cabot. And yet he rides. Why? He says it best: “Because it’s the last thing I’ll ever share with [my father].”