Low Country Dreams

by Lee Tobin McClain

  “Come every day.” Norma put an arm around her. “But for now, let’s hit the bar down on the water.”

  “Not yet.” Rita flew around the kitchen, putting out dishtowels and pot holders, setting out a plant, arranging a suncatcher so that the light hit it, fracturing into rainbows. This place might be fancy, but it wasn’t yet a home, and Norma deserved a home.

  Norma watched her, shaking her head. “You’re such a mother hen, you should’ve had six kids.”

  Rita froze in the midst of placing salt and pepper shakers in the middle of Norma’s pale pine kitchen table. She looked over at her friend. Then, very carefully, she lined up the shakers and stood upright. “I’m ready when you are,” she said, proud that her voice didn’t shake.

  Because who was to say that she hadn’t had six kids?

  Norma studied her, eyes narrowed. “Don’t think I won’t ask you about that,” she said. “Seems like you might need a drink in front of you to answer.”

  “I just might.” Rita forked fingers back through her hair and followed Norma down the steps that led to a private boardwalk.

  At the bottom, Norma spun around like a ballerina, arms outspread. “This is mine, all mine, can you believe it?”

  “Norma—”

  Too late. Rita watched helplessly as her friend spun right into a tall, suit-clad silver fox.

  He caught her by the upper arms and steadied her, then took a step backward. “As a matter of fact,” he said in a clipped, distinctly Northern voice, “it’s not all yours.”

  “Oh!” Norma, who was never flustered, turned pink. “Sorry to be acting like a fool,” she muttered.

  “Forgiven,” he said, without making it at all believable.

  “Do you live here?” Rita asked, because Norma obviously wasn’t going to.

  He indicated the condo next door. “When I’m in town.” He might have been about to introduce himself, but a trio of bikini-clad teenage girls came rushing along the boardwalk, giggling over a phone, their music loud.

  The silver fox stepped right in front of them, hands on hips. “Excuse me, ladies.”

  Their faces turned into a comical mix of fear, affronted dignity and curiosity. “What’s up?” one of them asked, lifting her chin.

  “There’s a rule about being fully dressed on this part of the boardwalk,” he said.

  Their mouths hung open. “Hello?” said the bold one. “It’s the beach?”

  For snottiness, Silver Fox was every bit the match of a sixteen-year-old girl. “It’s private property,” he said, gesturing at a sign full of detailed small print. “We allow the public to use our boardwalk under certain conditions. No noise, no inappropriate attire.”

  “Who are you calling inappropriate?” That was Norma; she’d obviously gotten over her momentary embarrassment. “These girls are wearing what every other teenage girl wears at the ocean. Carry on, ladies,” she said, waving the girls past.

  “I’ll be reporting this infrac—” The man choked in the midst of speaking to the departing backs of the girls.

  Rita stifled a giggle at the man’s expression, then made a face at Norma. “I never understood thongs.”

  “Doesn’t seem comfortable to me, but...” Norma looked at the Silver Fox’s stunned expression. “If you’re going to wear one, do it when you’re a teenager. Have fun, ladies!” she called after the girls, and one turned back to give her a thumbs-up.

  “Completely inappropriate.” The Silver Fox shook his head. “I’ll speak to the board.”

  Rita glanced over at Norma and tried to keep a straight face. “I’m pretty sure that’s what kids wear nowadays.”

  “And don’t you have better things to do than pick on those poor young girls?” Norma asked. “Come on,” she said to Rita. “I need that drink more than ever.”

  “Selfie first.” Rita grabbed her friend’s arm, and they put their heads together, laughing, ocean in the background. Rita snapped several, and they leaned over the phone together, looking through, deleting the bad ones. “There, that one’s a keeper,” Rita said when they found one with both of them laughing, looking happy.

  She’d lost enough people that she liked to take photos whenever she was with her friends. It was a bit of an obsession with her.

  “Post it,” Norma demanded. “It’ll make everyone back in Maine jealous!”

  “That’ll be the caption,” Rita decided. “Jealous yet?” She typed it in and showed it to Norma before hitting Post.

  Silver Fox made a disgusted clicking sound with his mouth and started climbing the steps to his condo. Moving carefully and holding the railing, Rita noticed.

  “He’s handsome,” Norma said, nodding in appreciation.

  He was, and he seemed uptight, but if anyone could loosen him up, it was Norma. And she wanted her friend to be as happy as she was. “We didn’t catch your name,” she called up to the man, just to be ornery.

  “That’s on purpose,” came his response. A moment later, his door clicked shut.

  Norma rolled her eyes. “Figures.”

  Rita raised an eyebrow at her friend and they continued toward the upscale bar directly beside the condo complex. Her own modest little apartment complex was just fine. Peaceful, compared to this place.

  Once they’d ordered drinks at a table overlooking the bay, with boat lights twinkling outside, Rita studied her friend. “Did it bother you that guy’s going to be your neighbor?”

  Norma waved a hand. “There’s jerks everywhere.”

  “He was a good-looking jerk,” Rita pointed out.

  “Don’t care. I’m not in the market.”

  “You can’t shut yourself off,” Rita protested. “You have a lot of love to give, and you’re still young. And pretty.”

  Norma dropped her chin and glared at Rita. Then she took a long pull on her light beer and looked out across the water.

  Rita knew her well enough to read her mind. She bore the scars from her cancer treatments and didn’t think a man would want her.

  They’d argued about it before, but tonight wasn’t the time to revisit that argument.

  “You’re welcome to him,” Norma said, gesturing back toward the condos. “Although I got the feeling your heart’s otherwise engaged.”

  Rita pressed her lips together to keep from answering. What was happening with Jimmy was too fragile to discuss.

  “Save that for later, then,” Norma said. “I want to hear about your search into your past.”

  “I’m failing.” Rita told her about her aborted trip to the library. “Freaked me out. I did a little research but had to leave before I found anything out.”

  “Still getting weird vibes about the women’s center?”

  Rita nodded. “Every time I walk by, even more when I go in to volunteer. I don’t know how I would’ve gotten from there to the highway where T-Bone found me, though.”

  They ordered more drinks, and appetizers, and talked a little more. “I still feel like you’re holding something back from me,” Norma said.

  Rita bit her lip. She wanted to confide in her friend, wanted her insight, but she didn’t want all the pressure Norma was likely to exert if she knew everything Rita was finding out.

  But knowing Norma, she’d weasel the truth out of Rita sooner or later. It was what made her a great therapist. “There’s this cook at the diner—Abel?”

  Before she could go on, hands on her shoulders and a familiar masculine smell made her insides quiver like she was the age of those teenage girls. “Jimmy!” She swiveled in her chair and sure enough, there was her boss, maybe her boyfriend.

  “You stalking us?” Norma asked. She’d met Jimmy earlier this year and was already comfortable enough with him to tease.

  “I might’ve seen something you posted,” he admitted. Then he leaned down and growled in Rita’s ear. “I could
n’t just drive on by.” His breath was warm on her ear.

  She tilted her face sideways, wanting a little more contact. He ran a finger across her neck, under her hair, and she sucked in a breath. Then he squeezed her shoulder and they moved apart.

  If someone had told her younger self she’d be this physically conscious of a man at age fifty-seven, she wouldn’t have believed it.

  As he leaned over, talking to Norma now, Rita studied him. Heavy beard stubble darkened his face, even though he’d been clean-shaven at work this morning. His biceps strained the sleeves of his Charleston RiverDogs T-shirt.

  “Hey,” came another voice, “checking out the diner’s competition?”

  Rita’s heart gave another big thump. “Hey, Cash,” she said. He was more than twenty years younger than Jimmy, already wealthy from running his own mergers and acquisitions company, but he spoke to a restaurant manager with the same friendly attitude he could have reserved for his elite friends. Spoke to her and Norma the same way. He kept a little to himself, different from his outgoing brother, Liam, or his rough-edged older brother, Sean. But he didn’t seem to have a snobbish bone in his body.

  She’d be proud of him, if she had the right to be.

  Jimmy and Cash said goodbye and walked off together, and Rita watched all the female heads in the room turn. Didn’t matter your age: those were two fine examples of masculinity, and one or the other was sure to appeal to you.

  “You said you’d gotten some inklings,” Norma said. “About your past. Something about that cook, Abel?”

  Rita nodded, still watching Jimmy and Cash as they exited the bar.

  “Like what?”

  Taking another long gulp of her Old Fashioned, Rita looked steadily at her friend. “Abel remembers me,” she said. “From before.”

  Norma’s eyes widened. “That’s huge! What did he tell you? How well did he know you?”

  “Not well at all. He just remembers seeing me once.”

  “Oh.” Norma frowned. “You got me all excited there. Did he have any information?”

  Slowly, Rita nodded. She hadn’t been brave enough to tell anyone yet, but she had to start somewhere. “He saw me in a shop he was working at.” She drew in a deep breath and added, “With three boys.”

  “Three boys?” Norma stared. “Like, kids of yours?”

  Rita nodded. “He said that’s how we were acting. Like mother and sons.” Her throat tightened on the last words.

  She picked up her drink again, but her hands were shaking and her stomach roiled, so she carefully put it back down without taking a sip. Norma was a good friend, but how would she feel about the notion that Rita might have abandoned her children? How would anyone feel?

  She stared down at the table, blinking against the tears that wanted to spill out.

  Norma’s hand covered hers and squeezed gently. “That must be awful hard to deal with. Have you found out anything about them? Do you remember anything?”

  “Like I said, I’ve had inklings.” She looked up then, met Norma’s eyes.

  “Inklings like what?”

  “Like that he—” she nodded toward the doorway “—Cash, that he might be one of my sons.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  MONDAY WAS LIAM’S first day shift. He was working on some of the endless paperwork that would be way too much of his new role when their secretary-slash-dispatcher, Willa Jean, called across the office to him. “Dog attack in the park, man down. And Jenkins is...” She made air quotes. “Busy.”

  He was grabbing his belt when she added, “Sounds a lot like your dog. Big rottweiler mix, right?”

  His heart lurched. “Yeah.”

  He jogged out to his cruiser and hit the lights. If Rio was the dog who had caused the problem, then on the one hand, that was good; although overly exuberant, Rio wouldn’t hurt anyone.

  On the other hand, whatever happened was Liam’s fault for not training the big goof better. But how had Rio gotten as far as the park?

  Minutes later he was at Safe Haven’s bayfront park where several people stood around a ranting older man—who looked uninjured, thank heavens—a downcast, slump-shouldered kid and a giant, happy-go-lucky dog straining at his leash.

  Rio and Rocky. Of course. He waded in and affirmed his initial observation that the older man—Mr. Long, who owned the bowling alley, the dry cleaners and a gas station out by the highway—had no visible injuries. The way he waved his arms and paced revealed that his mobility was okay. And his voice was certainly strong.

  “That beast tried to kill me,” Mr. Long said. “It knocked me down. It should be put down. I’ll get my gun and do it myself.”

  “You yelled at him.” Rocky’s fists clenched. “It’s not his fault. You were mean and you scared him.”

  Rio strained at the leash Rocky held, trying to get to Liam, his doggy face grinning, tongue hanging out. He had no idea he was in big trouble.

  “No need to take justice into your own hands,” Liam said. “That’s my dog, and I apologize for anything he’s done. I’ll take care of it. Now, let’s hear what happened, one at a time.” He got Mr. Long to sit on the bench and ordered Rocky to take Rio over to a nearby picnic table and hold him or tie him up. Then he took Mr. Long’s statement and those of a couple of onlookers.

  What had happened was no big surprise: the man had been eating a pastry and drinking coffee, minding his own business on a park bench, when Rio had come bounding over, knocked the coffee out of his hand, eaten the pastry and, when Mr. Long stood and scolded him, knocked him down and licked his face. Fortunately, there were no burns from the coffee and no ill effects from the fall, thanks largely to the soft grass.

  While Mr. Long called his wife to ask her to come and pick him up, Liam texted Yasmin. Need help with Rocky. Bayfront Park.

  Sweat dripped down the middle of his back. Even summer uniforms were hot in a South Carolina August. He looked over at his dog, now lying on his back for an extended belly rub from Rocky, and sighed.

  The chief would hear about this, no doubt. And Mulligan. Just another stroke against Liam: that he had an unmanageable dog.

  He double-checked Mr. Long’s contact information, apologized again and reassured him that they’d be in touch.

  “You’d better,” he said, but it was clear that he was starting to calm down. “Creatures like that shouldn’t be allowed to run free.” Beneath the bluster, Liam could hear the fear in his voice and the embarrassment. The man must have been humiliated to be knocked down, and at his age, a fall could be dangerous.

  Liam walked with Mr. Long to the car where his wife was picking him up, offered more apologies. Then he turned back and headed toward the picnic table where Yasmin had just arrived—looking gorgeous in a close-fitting skirt and a red T-shirt—and was talking to Rocky.

  “Is he gonna be put down?” Rocky asked as soon as Liam was in earshot.

  The fear in his voice catapulted Liam back to something he’d almost forgotten: Butterscotch, the dog they’d had to leave behind when they’d run from their father. Although he hadn’t thought about it in years, had been only ten when it had happened, he remembered the soft feel of the fluffy mutt’s ears, the way he’d loved throwing a stick for him. Liam had been worried his father wouldn’t remember to feed the dog while they were away from it, and he’d bugged their mother about it until his brother Cash had told him to shut up, that they’d never see the dog again.

  That had proven to be true. The loss had paled in comparison to the loss of his mother, of course, but he suddenly remembered how he’d ached to cuddle up with the dog after losing their mom. Butterscotch was the one being who wouldn’t have judged him for crying.

  He swallowed hard. “No, he’s not going to be put down, but we have to train him. You weren’t supposed to take him off the block. What were you doing way over here?”

  “I got bored
, okay?” Rocky’s eyes were shifting, looking anywhere but at Liam.

  He was lying.

  “Where were you headed with the dog?” Yasmin asked.

  “None of your business!” Rocky jumped off the picnic table, thrust Rio’s leash at Yasmin and took off running.

  Liam stood as Rio practically pulled Yasmin off her feet, trying to run after Rocky. He grabbed the dog’s leash and made him sit.

  Yasmin was focused on Rocky. “I’d better see you back at my place,” she called after the boy.

  Rocky slowed down and looked over his shoulder but didn’t stop.

  “There’s brownies in the kitchen,” she called a little more quietly, more enticing.

  Rocky picked up speed, heading out of the park.

  “Clever,” Liam said. “Think he’ll go for it?”

  “Rewards work at least as well as punishments for kids.” She frowned down at Rio. “This one needs training, Liam. I’m sorry I didn’t keep a closer eye on Rocky, but most dogs would be fine coming to the park.”

  “I know. I just haven’t found time, but that’s on me. I’ll work out a plan tonight.” He had gotten an idea of how to get Rio some training as he was talking to Mr. Long.

  “He needs a bath, too,” Yasmin commented. “He’d make a better impression if he didn’t reek.”

  “True.” Liam sighed and stood. “I’ll do that tonight, too. Hey, do you have any idea what Rocky was really doing over here? He wasn’t telling me the whole story.”

  “I have a good guess,” she said. “A couple of times when he and his mom came to the women’s center, they got sandwiches and brought them to the park. I’d bet anything he was hoping she’d show up here.”

  “Ouch.” They’d put out a description of the woman, had reported her missing just yesterday, but there were no leads. “I’ll take Rio on home and then get back to work.”

  “I’m going home to check on Rocky, I can take him,” Yasmin said, scratching behind Rio’s ears. “Bad boy that he is,” she added, placing a kiss atop the shiny black head.