Page 59 of Ten Beach Road

The boat slowed and turned toward the beach.

“Let’s pull in over there, Dad!” Jason said.

“Here, you take us in,” Chase said, cutting their speed a notch further as his oldest stepped behind the wheel and rested a hand on the throttle.

Josh opened a rear compartment and pulled out a coil of rope with an anchor tied to its end. Jason slowed the boat further until they were putting slowly toward an empty stretch of beach dotted with stands of palm trees. There wasn’t another human being in sight.

Chase stood between his sons watching, but not intruding, as Jason maneuvered in and aimed directly for the beach. The boat slowed further.

“It’s deep enough right off the beach to pull up onto the sand,” Chase explained from the other side of the windshield. Josh joined them on the bow, quickly tying the anchor line to a cleat.

At Chase’s nod, Jason pulled all the way back on the throttle and cut the motor. A few moments later the bow slid up onto the beach so smoothly Maddie was surprised when the boat stopped. Josh clambered off and set the anchor up on the beach.

“Good job,” Chase said as he clapped Jason on the back, then climbed up on the bow and gave a hard tug on the anchor line. “Just right, Josh.”

His sons beamed at the praise while their grandfather added his own nod of approval. No “but” followed, no suggestion on how it might have been done better, how performance might be improved next time. Maddie liked that and found herself offering Chase and his father her own nod of approval as they handed her and then Kyra down with some ceremony. Avery insisted on disembarking herself and the Hardins made no comment. Jason and Chase brought up the rear, carrying blankets and a cooler.

“I feel like we’re on our own desert island,” Kyra said as she pulled off her T-shirt and stretched out on one end of a blanket. A tiny pouch rose above the top of her neon green bikini bottom and the tiny top rode her burgeoning breasts like triangular band aids. “I think I’m going to catch a little nap.”

Maddie and Avery sank down nearby and Jeff handed around cold drinks. Idly they watched the Hardins pass around a football, then ate sandwiches from the cooler and topped them off with chips and bakery cookies. Chase offered to show them around the old fort, but Kyra was fast asleep and neither Maddie nor Avery could make themselves move.

Maddie felt the band of control she’d been holding on to for the last months loosen slightly. As the warm breeze played over her skin and the wash of waves on sand mingled with the distant buzz of boat motors, her own eyes fluttered shut and she drowsed for a time, surprisingly content.

She might have gone on this way all afternoon if Chase hadn’t suggested they build a sand castle. And Avery hadn’t suggested they choose up sides and turn it into a competition. And Kyra hadn’t roused just in time to retrieve her video camera from the boat so that she could document what turned into the Sand Castle Edition ofSurvivor.

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