You're the One That I Want by Susan May Warren Page A

in your life   —or Layla’s. I’m her daddy, not Owen, and maybe I need to come home and start acting like it.”
    Silence; then he heard an intake of breath. “If . . . I mean, yeah, that’s   —of course, that’s what I want. But are you sure   —?”
    “More than sure.” Casper slid off the stool and cradled the phone as he reached into his pocket for his wallet. “I can’t believe I was such an idiot to leave you and Layla for this long. I should be there instead of chasing my ghost brother across the world. He’s probably laughing on some beach in Hawaii right now.” He gestured to the bartender, covering the phone. “Check?”
    The barkeep nodded even as he glanced at the television. Casper followed his gaze, his eye catching on some news story.
    “If that’s what you want, Casper, I understand. Yeah, I think Owen should know he has a daughter, but it doesn’t change anything between us. I love you   —I want you, and Owen is out of my life for good.”
    Casper dug through his wallet for his debit card.
    “Hey, bud,” the bartender said, turning toward him. Casper handed him the card, but Jim shook his head, pointed to the television. “Isn’t that the guy you’re looking for?”
    Casper froze, his gaze on the pictures of a bearded Owen and a woman with long, dark hair   —reminded him a little of Raina, in fact.
    And below their mug shots, a caption. Swept overboard.
    Jim turned up the volume as the reporter finished her segment.
    “The Coast Guard has suspended the search for tonight, the winds too high to attempt a rescue. Searchers say they will resume their hunt in the morning.” She tossed it back to her anchor, her expression grim as they finished the segment.
    Casper couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
    “Casper, are you there?”
    Swept overboard.
    “Casper!” Raina’s voice cut through the disbelief, the fog, yanking him back to reality.
    “Oh . . . my.” No, please   —
    “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”
    “I . . . Raina, I think I found him.” He stepped up to the bar, tried to press his voice through what felt like a crushing hand on his chest. “Oh no, no . . .”
    “You’re scaring me now.”
    Yeah, well, he was scaring himself. He stared at the barkeep, who took his debit card, something of apology on his face.
    It couldn’t end. Not like this. “It’s Owen, Raina. He’s . . . he’s lost at sea.”

A COUNTRY SONG PLAYED through Owen’s mind, something that stirred from the depths of his memory.
    Twangy. Mellow. The music issued from an old transistor, the knobs slathered with white-and-green paint, the speaker overlaid in coarse green fiber. The song blared out from the workbench where his father bent, sharpening his skates.
    “I pretend to hold you to my breast and find that you’re waiting from the back roads . . .”
    Owen allowed himself to sink into the past, to smell his mother’s cookies seasoning the autumn air, to hear Casper and Darek raking the yard and arguing. He heard the crunch of leaves at his feet, felt their curly fingers at his face and down his shirt as he leaped into the pile, scattering them again to the wind.
    He let the song find his lips, added the tune. “‘By the rivers of my memories, ever smilin’, ever gentle on my mind.’”
    “Are you singing?”
    Scotty’s voice urged him to rejoin her in the raft. She knelt near the entrance, where she’d opened the Velcro just enough to let the water from the pump hose dribble back into the sea. Two hours of pumping and she’d just about managed to drain the frigid puddle.
    While he lay in the back of the raft, letting her be the hero. She’d become even more breathtaking as night lifted, her eyes big against the pale hue of her face in the graying light. Her dark hair had dried and now lay in long, midnight curls.
    “Don’t stop,” she said. “It’s nice.” She closed the Velcro, then came over to kneel next to him.
    “I don’t remember all the