Smooth Talking Stranger

by Lisa Kleypas

  Carefully Lucy arranged and rearranged pieces before pressing them into to a tabletop covered with thinset bonding mortar. The mosaic mix was a jumble of beach glass, broken china, Murano and Millefiori, all of it arranged around a cut glass swirl. She was making a birthday gift for Kevin, a table with a swirl design he had admired in one of her sketches.

  Intent on her work, Lucy forgot all about lunch. Some time in mid-afternoon, Kevin knocked at the door and came in.

  “Hey,” Lucy said with a grin, drawing a cloth over her mosaic to keep him from seeing it. “What are you doing here? Want to take me out for a sandwich? I’m starving.”

  But Kevin didn’t answer. His face was stiff, and he had trouble meeting her gaze. “We have to talk,” he said.

  “About what?”

  He let out an unsteady breath. “This isn’t working for me.”

  Understanding from his expression that something was seriously wrong, Lucy went cold all over. “What … What isn’t working for you?”

  “Us. Our relationship.”

  A rush of bewildered panic caused her mind to go blank. It took several moments for her to gather her wits. “… it’s not about you,” Kevin was saying. “I mean, you’re great. I hope you believe that. But lately it hasn’t been enough for me. No … ‘enough’ isn’t the right word. Maybe it’s that you’re too much for me. It’s like there’s not room in this for me, like I’m being crowded. Does any of this make sense?”

  Lucy’s stunned gaze fell to the shards of scrap glass on the worktable. If she focused on something else, anything but Kevin, maybe he wouldn’t go on.

  “… need to be really, really clear about this, so I don’t end up being the bad guy. Nobody has to be the bad guy. It’s just exhausting, Luce, always having to reassure you that I’m in this relationship just as much as you are. If you could put yourself in my shoes for just a minute, you’d realize why I need to take some time off from this. From us.”

  “You’re not taking time off.” Lucy fumbled for a glass cutter and dabbed the tip of it in oil. “You’re breaking up with me.” She couldn’t believe it. Even as she heard herself saying the words, she couldn’t believe it. Using an L-shaped ruler as a guide, she scored a piece of glass, barely aware of what she was doing.

  “See, this is what I’m talking about. That tone in your voice. I know what you’re thinking. You’ve always been worried that I’d break up with you, and now I’m doing it, so you think you were right all along. But that’s not what this is.” Kevin paused, watching her grip the scored glass with a pair of running pliers. An expert clamp, and the sheet of glass split neatly along the scored line. “I’m not saying it’s your fault. What I’m saying is, it’s not my fault.”

  Lucy set the glass and pliers down with excessive care. She had the sensation of falling, even though she was sitting still. Was she a fool, to be so astonished? What signs had she missed? Why had she just been blindsided?

  “You said you loved me,” she said, and cringed at the pathetic sound of those words.

  “I did love you. I still do. That’s why this is so tough for me. I’m hurting as much as you are. I hope you get that.”

  “Is there someone else?”

  “If there was, that would have nothing to do with why I’m taking a break from us.”

  She heard her own voice, like the edge of something torn. “You’re saying ‘take a break” like you’re going out for coffee and a bagel. But it’s not a break. It’s permanent.”

  “I knew you’d be pissed. I knew this would be a lose-lose situation.”

  “How could it be anything but lose-lose?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. How many times do you want me to say it? I can’t be any sorrier than I am right now. I did the best I could, and I’m sorry that wasn’t good enough for you. No, I know you never said it wasn’t good enough, but I could tell. Because nothing I ever did could make it over your insecurity. And I finally had to face the fact that the relationship wasn’t working for me. Which was not fun, believe me. If it makes you feel any better, I feel like shit.” Faced with Lucy’s uncomprehending stare, Kevin let out a short sigh. “Look, there’s something you need to hear from me before you find out from someone else. When I realized our relationship was in crisis, I had to talk about it with someone. I turned to … a friend. And the more time we spent together, the closer we got. Neither of us had any control over it. It just happened.”

  “You started going out with someone else? Before you broke up with me?”

  “I’d already broken up with you emotionally. I just hadn’t talked to you about it yet. I know, I should have handled it differently. The thing is, I have to go in this new direction. It’s the best thing for both of us. But the part that makes it tough for everyone, including me, is that the person I’m with now is … close to you.”

  “Close to me? You mean one of my friends?”

  “Actually … it’s Alice.”

  All her skin tightened, the way it did when you had just saved yourself from a fall but still felt the sting of adrenaline. Lucy couldn’t say a word.

  “She didn’t mean for it to happen any more than I did,” Kevin said.

  Lucy blinked and swallowed. “For what to happen? You … you’re going out with my sister? You’re in love with her?”

  “I didn’t plan on it.”

  “Have you slept with her?”

  His shamed silence was her answer.

  “Get out,” she said.

  “Okay. But I don’t want you to blame her for—“

  “Get out, get out!” Lucy had had enough. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to do next, but she didn’t want Kevin to be there when she did it.

  He went to the doorway of the studio. “We’ll talk more later when you’ve had a chance to think about this, okay? Because I want us to stay friends. But the thing is, Luce … Alice’s going to be moving in pretty soon. So you’ll need to find a place.”

  Lucy was silent. She waited in shattered stillness for minutes after he left.

  Bitterly she wondered why she was surprised. The pattern had never changed. Alice had always gotten what she wanted, took whatever she needed, without ever sparing a thought as to the consequences. Every member of the Marinn family put Alice first, including Alice. It would have been easy to hate her, except that at certain times Alice possessed a mixture of vulnerability and melancholy that had seemed like an echo of their mother’s quiet sadness. Lucy had always found herself in the position of taking care of Alice; paying for dinner when they went out, loaning her money that was never repaid, letting her borrow clothes and shoes that were never returned.

  Alice was smart and articulate, but it had always been difficult for her to finish anything she started. She changed jobs frequently, left projects unfinished, broke off relationships before they went anywhere. She made a dazzling first impression—charismatic and sexy and fun—but she ran through people quickly, apparently unable to last through the mundane day-to-day interactions that cemented a relationship.

  For the past year and half, Alice had been a junior scriptwriter for a long-running daytime soap. It was the longest time she had ever stayed for a job. She lived in Seattle, occasionally traveling to New York to meet with the head writers about overall story arcs. Lucy had introduced her to Kevin, and they had hung out on a few occasions, but Alice had never shown any interest in him. Foolishly Lucy had never suspected that the borrowing of her possessions would extend to stealing her boyfriend.

  How had Alice and Kevin’s relationship started? Who had made the first move? Had Lucy been so needy that she had driven Kevin away? If it wasn’t his fault, as he had claimed, then it had to be her fault, didn’t it? It had to be someone’s fault.

  She crinkled her eyes shut against the hot pressure of tears.

  How did you think about something that hurt this much? What did you do with memories, feelings, needs, that didn’t belong anywhere?

  Lurching to her feet, Lucy went to
her vintage three-speed bike, which was propped near the doorway. It was a turquoise vintage Schwinn, with a flowered basket on the handlebars. She reached for the helmet that hung on a hook beside the door and took the bike outside.

  Mist had settled on the cool spring afternoon, stands of Douglas fir puncturing a layer of clouds as light as soap foam. Gooseflesh rose on her bare arms as a breeze pressed a damp chill into her tee shirt. Lucy rode with no direction or destination, until her legs burned and her chest ached. She stopped at a roadside turnout, recognizing a trail that led to a bay on the west side of the island. Walking the bike along the rough trail, she came to a line of steep cliffs made of weathered red basalt and pods of pure limestone. Ravens and seagulls picked over the leavings of low tide on the beach below.

  The island’s native population, a tribe of the Coast Salish, had once harvested clams, oysters and salmon in their reef nets. They had believed that the abundance of food in the strait had been a gift from a woman who had long ago married the sea. She had gone swimming one day, and the sea had assumed the form of a handsome young man who had fallen in love with her. After her father had reluctantly given his permission for them to marry, the woman had disappeared with her lover into the sea. Ever since then the sea had offered, in gratitude, rich harvests for the islanders.

  Lucy had always liked the story, intrigued by the idea of such encompassing love that you didn’t mind losing yourself in it. Giving up everything for it. But it was a romantic notion that existed only in art, literature or music. It had nothing to do with real life.

  At least not hers.

  After lowering the kickstand on her bike, Lucy took off her helmet and made her way down to the underslung beach. The terrain was pebbled and rough, patches of gray sand bristling with driftwood. She walked slowly, trying to figure out what to do. Kevin wanted her to leave the house. She had lost her home, her boyfriend and her sister in one afternoon.

  The clouds lowered, smothering the vestigial layer of daylight. In the distance a thunderhead sent rain to the ocean in showers that moved like gauze veils over a window. A raven gained loft over the water, its black wing tips separated into feathery fingers as it rode an updraft and headed inland. The storm was heading this way—she should leave and take shelter. Except that she couldn’t seem to think of anywhere to go.

  Through a salty blur, she saw a green glimmer among the pebbles. She bent to pick it up. Bottles thrown into the ocean from offshore boats were sometimes churned up and washed to the shoreline, tumbled by waves and sand into frosted pebbles.

  Closing her hand around the piece of sea glass, she looked out at the water lapping against the shore in rough frothy blankets. The ocean was a bruised gray, the color of regret and resentment and the deepest kind of loneliness. The worst part about having been deceived the way she had been was it made you lose faith in yourself. When your judgment was that wrong about something, you could never be fully certain of anything ever again.

  Her fist was burning, a knot of fire. Feeling an odd squirming tickle against her palm, she opened her fingers reflexively. The sea glass was gone. In its place a butterfly rested on her palm, unfolding iridescent blue wings. It stayed only a moment before shivering into flight, an unearthly blue gleam as it flew away to seek shelter.

  A grim smile tugged at Lucy’s mouth.

  She had never let anyone know what she could do with glass. Sometimes when she experienced powerful emotions, a piece of glass she had touched would change into living creatures, or at least remarkably convincing illusions, always small, always transitory. Lucy had struggled to understand how and why it happened, until she had read a quote by Einstein—that one had to live as though everything was a miracle, or as if nothing was a miracle. And then she had understood that whether she called her gift a phenomenon of molecular physics, or magic, both definitions were true, and the words didn’t matter anyway.

  Lucy’s mirthless smile faded as she watched the butterfly disappear.

  A butterfly symbolized acceptance of each new phase in life. To keep faith as everything around you changed.

  Not this time, she thought, hating her ability, hating the isolation it imposed.

  In the periphery of her vision, she saw a dog making his way along the edge of the water. He was followed by a dark-haired stranger, whose alert gaze was fastened on Lucy.

  The sight of him kindled instant unease. He had the strapping build of a man who earned his living outdoors. And something about him conveyed a sense of having been acquainted with life’s rougher edges. In other circumstances Lucy might have reacted differently, but she didn’t care to find herself alone on a beach with him.

  She headed to the trail that led back up to the roadside turnout. A glance over her shoulder revealed that he was following her. That jolted her nerves into high gear. As she quickened her pace, the toe of her sneaker caught on the wind-scuffed basalt. Her weight pitched forward and she hit the ground, taking the impact on her hands.

  Stunned, Lucy tried to collect herself. By the time she had struggled to her feet, the man had reached her. She spun to face him with a gasp, her disheveled brown hair partially obscuring her vision.

  “Take it easy, will you?” he said curtly.

  Lucy pushed the hair out of her eyes and regarded him warily. His eyes were a vivid shade of blue-green in his tanned face. He was striking, sexy, with a quality of rough-and-tumble attractiveness. Although he looked no more than thirty, his face was seasoned with the maturity of a man who’d done his share of living.

  “You were following me,” Lucy said.

  “I was not following you. This happens to be the only path back to the road, and I’d like to get back to my truck before the storm hits. So if you wouldn’t mind, either step it up or get out of the way.”

  Lucy stood to the side and made a sardonic gesture for him to precede her. “Don’t let me hold you back.”

  The stranger’s gaze went to her hand, where smears of blood had collected in the creases of her fingers. An edge of rock had cut into the top of her palm when she had fallen. He frowned. “I’ve got a first aid kit in my truck.”

  “It’s nothing,” Lucy said, although the cut was throbbing heavily. She blotted the welling blood on her jeans. “I’m fine.”

  “Put pressure on it with your other hand,” the man said. His mouth tightened as he surveyed her. “I’ll walk up the trail with you.”

  “Why?”

  “In case you fall again.”

  “I’m not going to fall.”

  “It’s steep ground. And from what I’ve seen so far, you’re not exactly sure-footed.”

  Lucy let out an incredulous laugh. “You are the most … I … I don’t even know you.”

  “Sam Nolan. I live at False Bay.” He paused as an ominous peal of thunder rent the sky. “Let’s get moving.”

  “Your people skills could use some work,” Lucy said. But she offered no objection as he accompanied her along the rough terrain.

  “Keep up, Renfield,” Sam said to the bulldog, who followed with apoplectic snorts and wheezes.

  “Do you live on the island full-time?” Lucy asked.

  “Yes. Born and raised here. You?”

  “I’ve been here a couple of years.” Darkly she added, “But I may be moving soon.”

  “Changing jobs?”

  “No.” Although Lucy was usually circumspect about her private life, some reckless impulse caused her to add, “My boyfriend just broke up with me.”

  Sam gave her a quick sideways glance. “Today?”

  “About an hour ago.”

  “Sure it’s over? Maybe it was just an argument.”

  “I’m sure,” Lucy said. “He’s been cheating on me.”

  “Then good riddance.”

  “You’re not going to defend him?” Lucy asked cynically.

  “Why would I defend a guy like that?”

  “Because he’s a man, and apparently men can’t help cheating. It’s the way you’re built. A
biological imperative.”

  “Like hell it is. A man doesn’t cheat. If you want to go after someone else, you break up first. No exceptions.” They continued along the path. Heavy raindrops tapped the ground with increasing profusion. “Almost there,” Sam said. “Is your hand still bleeding?”

  Cautiously Lucy released the pressure she had been applying with her fingers, and glanced at the oozing cut. “It’s slowed.”

  “If it doesn’t stop soon, you may need a stitch or two.” That caused her to stumble, and he reached for her elbow to steady her. Seeing that she had blanched, he asked, “You’ve never had stitches?”

  “No, and I’d rather not start now. I have trypanophobia.”

  “What’s that? Fear of needles?

  “Uh-huh. You think that’s silly, don’t you?”

  He shook his head, a faint smile touching his lips. “I have a worse phobia.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s strictly need-to-know.”

  “Spiders?” she guessed. “Fear of heights? Fear of clowns?”

  His smile widened to a brief, dazzling flash. “Not even close.”

  They reached the turnout, and his hand dropped from her elbow. He went to the battered blue pickup, opened the door, and began to rummage inside. The bulldog lumbered to the side of the truck and sat, watching the proceedings through a mass of folds and furrows on his face.

  Lucy waited nearby, watching Sam discreetly. His body was strong and lean beneath the worn bleached cotton of his tee shirt, jeans hanging slightly loose from his hips. There was a particular look about men from this region, a kind of bone-deep toughness. The Pacific Northwest had been populated by explorers, pioneers and soldiers who had never known when a supply ship was coming. They had survived on what they could get from the ocean and mountains. Only a particular amalgam of hardness and humor could enable a man to survive starvation, cold, disease, enemy attacks, and periods of near-fatal boredom. You could still see it in their descendants, men who lived by nature’s rules first and society’s rules second.