Hearts Heal: The Island Book 2 by Declan Rhodes

Author:Declan Rhodes [Rhodes, Declan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-07T16:00:00+00:00

After my experiences with my college swimming coach, I left the team and transferred to a different school. I deliberately stopped following any news about the sport. My explanation to friends and family was a minor injury that wasn’t life-threatening but reduced my ability to swim competitively. I told them that it left me so frustrated that I couldn’t bear to see my former teammates on campus or keep up with my former rivals in the news.

A few times I’d been tempted to look—to watch Olympic qualifying events on TV or read about college events online. Every time I tried to search, my fingers began to twitch and tremble. I quickly gave up on updating myself and returned to a new focus on the rest of my life.

When the work day ended, I was riding high on a level of self-confidence I’d not known for more than a decade. I knew my safety net of Andrew and Gretchen was the primary reason for the change.

After dinner, I opened up my laptop to check my personal email and social media. To my surprise, I had an email message from Brad, my old teammate. It was the first I’d heard from him in years. The subject line read, “Isn’t This Your Island?”

I quickly opened it up and shuddered slightly when I read the note. The first line caught my eye. “Batten down the hatches, I think the old bastard is coming your way.”

We had a fishing tournament coming up on Garfield Island. It was an annual tradition and generally a pretty sleepy event. Unfortunately, a decision by my old coach to attend made it national news. For the first time, I learned that he’d drawn international attention through personally coaching an Olympic medal winner.

I wanted to call Brad, but I didn’t know whether I could make it through a conversation. I’d likely break down and stumble over my words. Instead, I decided to look for other recent information about Coach Strickland.

My new determination kept me from giving up even with my fingers trembling. I typed his name into the search engine and pulled up a few articles about the upcoming tournament. One of the stories described a contentious relationship between the coach and the local sheriff. That wasn’t a surprise to me. Unfortunately, the article didn’t elaborate any further.

The piece included a smug photo of the coach—he’d aged since we last met, but that sinister stare still existed. A wave of nausea passed over me, and I had to put a hand over the photo on the screen to finish reading the words.

My heart started racing. I thought I was away from him forever, and the terror would only return in nightmares, but he was coming to my home island. It was like he was preparing to walk through my front door.

The temperature in my living room suddenly felt ten degrees warmer. I turned on the ceiling fan and closed my eyes and tried to calm down. I couldn’t let his presence anywhere near me ruin my life again.

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