The Great Escape

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  She smiled. “You’re too good to be true.”

  “Afraid not. Just ask Bree.”

  She couldn’t come up with a polite way of saying that Bree never mentioned him, but Big Mike wasn’t quite as clueless as he seemed. “She hasn’t told you about me, has she?”

  “Not really.”

  He unzipped a soft-sided cooler he’d brought with him. “I grew up on this island. Except for college, I’ve lived here all my life.” They bounced on the wake of a passing speedboat. “My parents were drunks—couldn’t help themselves—and I was a big, clumsy island oaf with no idea how to make friends.” He took out a bag of sandwiches from the island deli and set it on a table built into the deck. “Bree was one of the summer kids. Every year I’d count the days until she and her brothers arrived. They were great guys, exactly the kind of kid I wanted to be. Always knew exactly what to say, always fit in. But mainly it was Bree I waited for.”

  He pulled a bottle of sauvignon blanc from the cooler and picked up a corkscrew. “You should have seen her then, so full of life, always laughing, not tense and sad like she is now. Instead of walking from one place to another, she danced.” He pulled the cork. “Star, Toby’s mother, was supposed to be the most beautiful girl on the island, but when Bree was around, I couldn’t look at anybody else, even though I knew she was way too good for me.”

  “She is not.” They hadn’t seen Toby climbing up the swim ladder that hung over the stern, the snorkel mask on top of his head.

  “She’s had a hard time, Toby,” Mike said as he filled a plastic cup with wine and handed it to Lucy. “You need to look at things from her viewpoint.”

  Toby jumped onto the deck, water dripping from his skinny frame. “She never stands up for you. I don’t know why you’re always sticking up for her.”

  Because that’s the kind of man he was, Lucy thought. He forgave the kid who rear-ended him, pardoned his alcoholic parents, and now was defending Bree for not returning the feelings he seemed to still hold for her.

  Mike ripped open a bag of potato chips. “You’d better grab your sandwich before I eat it.”

  Toby and Mike traded jokes as they devoured the chips and sandwiches, along with the cookies Lucy had brought. Toby was a different kid around Mike—funny and communicative, with no traces of his customary sullenness. When they were done, Toby hunkered down on the rear bench and, as the sun began to set, dozed off.

  Mike took the wheel, and they headed back. Lucy sat next to him, sipping her third glass of wine and enjoying the shimmer of the fading sun on the water. Out of nowhere, he said, “I did a crummy thing to Bree when I was seventeen.” He spoke just loudly enough so that Lucy could hear him over the noise of the engine but Toby couldn’t. “She was in love with David, Toby’s father, and I was so jealous I started hating them both.” He backed off on the throttle. “One night I spied on them, then spilled the beans to her mother about what they were doing, or at least what I knew they’d be doing if I’d stuck around to watch. The next day, Bree was gone. She never came back, not until a little over two months ago. So it isn’t hard to see why she can’t stand the sight of me.”

  Lucy curled her fingers around the plastic cup. “Are you still in love with her?”

  He considered the question. “I think real love has to work two ways, and that’s sure not how it is with her. But I don’t like seeing her struggle.” He gave Lucy an apologetic smile. “All I’ve done is go on about myself. Usually, I’m not like this, but you’re easy to talk to.”

  “I don’t mind.” In one afternoon, Mike had told her more about himself than Panda had ever revealed.

  As they approached the harbor, Mike gave a sigh of satisfaction. “I’ve traveled lots of places, but I never get tired of that view. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

  “You’ve got to have second thoughts about that in the winter.”

  “I spend a couple of weeks in Miami every year, but I’m always anxious to get back. Cross-country skiing, ice fishing, snowmobiles. In other parts of the country, people hibernate in the winter. Up here in Michigan, that’s when we come out to play.”

  She laughed. “You could sell sand in the middle of the desert.”

  “People know they can trust me.” He glanced over at her, and unlike Panda’s, his eyes stayed above her neck. “I’m the richest man on the island,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t take that for granted. Anybody who lives here knows if they’ve got trouble, I’ll do my best to help them out.”

  “Don’t people take advantage of that?”

  “Every once in a while somebody takes me for a sucker, but I’ll tell you what … I’d rather have that happen than not be there for a person who really needs help.”

  Which said everything about Mike Moody. What she’d initially regarded as braggadocio was a true generosity of spirit. Unlike Patrick Shade, Big Mike wasn’t afraid to let people see who he was, warts and all.

  PANDA HEARD HER FOOTSTEPS ON the deck. As usual, she was entering the house through her bedroom doors instead of coming in the front like a normal person. His relief at knowing she was safe barely overshadowed his resentment. Worrying about what she was up to had ruined his afternoon.

  He fixed his attention on the paperback thriller he’d propped on his chest and pretended to read. He didn’t look up as the sliders opened, but he could see all he needed to out of the corner of his eyes.

  She looked windblown and happy. The white terry cover-up she wore over her swimsuit had a food stain on the front. She’d tied it crookedly at the waist so that it gaped open over one breast. The way it nestled in her swimsuit top was as erotic as anything the skin magazines could conjure up.

  She took him in as he lay on her bed but didn’t say anything. He crossed his ankles and tilted his head toward the chest of drawers. “I brought my pig along to spruce up the room.”

  “I don’t want your pig.”

  “You can’t mean that. It’s a great pig.”

  “Each to his own.” She tugged at the leg of her suit. She smelled of sunblock and lake.

  He set aside his book and dropped his legs over the side of the bed, casual as all hell. “You were gone a long time.”

  “I told Temple where I was going.” She yawned and tossed her tote in the corner. “I need a shower.”

  He followed her into the bathroom, propped his shoulder against the doorjamb. “She said you were going fishing with Mike Moody. He’s an ass.”

  That pissed her off way too much. “No, he’s not. He only seems that way because he comes on so strong. He’s a great guy.”

  Exactly what he didn’t want to hear. “Yeah, just ask him.”

  She jerked at the tie on her cover-up. “You don’t know anything. Mike is a good man with a huge heart. And unlike you, he’s not afraid to have a real conversation.”

  He snorted. Men didn’t have real conversations with women unless they wanted to get in their pants.

  Lucy puckered her lips, all prim and proper. “Please leave so I can take a shower.”

  They took showers together. She knew that. But he damned well wasn’t going to argue with her about it. “You got it.”

  He shut the door behind him, grabbed the book he had no intention of reading, and left the room.

  He worked at his computer until one in the morning, catching up on paperwork, but he still had trouble falling asleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that damned list of hers plastered against the back of his lids with the words “Sleep around” pulsing away.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE KITCHEN TABLE MOCKED HER as it squatted in its customary spot on the cracked vinyl floor. It looked like a fat green warthog with a broken leg. Lucy slapped at the counter with a dishrag. “Just once, do you think you could make coffee without getting the grounds everywhere?”

  Panda turned from the kitchen window where he’d been scanning the backyard for armed robbers, escaped murderers, or even a rabid skunk, anything that would satisfy his cr
aving for action. “Just once, do you think you could make the coffee instead of me?” he retorted.

  “I’m trying to eat,” Temple said from the table. “Would you both shut up?”

  Lucy turned on her. “And you … Would it kill you to have a box of Cheerios around, or is that too much temptation for Her Majesty?”

  Temple licked her yogurt spoon. “Panda, get rid of her.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “Don’t bother. I’m leaving.” Lucy flounced across the kitchen. “I’m going someplace where I’m appreciated.” She tried to produce a decent burp but failed.

  “I hear there’s a new kindergarten in town,” Panda called after her.

  “You should know.” Lucy slammed the back door on them both and headed for the cottage. The only bright spot in that encounter was how good it felt to act infantile.

  Something had shifted between them, and not just because Panda hadn’t been waiting for her in bed last night when she’d come out of the shower. She’d started feeling a resentment toward him that had no place in a summer fling. Temple knew more about him than she did, and Lucy didn’t like that. She wanted his confidences. His trust. Maybe it should be enough to know he’d take a bullet for her, but not when she knew he’d do the same for Temple, or anyone else he felt responsible for.

  Bree was opening up the farm stand when Lucy got there a few minutes later. As Bree set out the Carousel Honey sign, Lucy inspected the new note cards. They showed an old-fashioned straw skep, the forerunner of the modern hive, sitting under a blossoming cherry tree abuzz with fanciful bees. “These are great, Bree. Your best yet.”

  “Do you think so?” Bree repositioned a small metal table under the shady oak. She painted there between customers.

  “Definitely. They’re going to sell like crazy.”

  “I hope so. Labor Day’s only a month away, and then …” She made a vague, helpless gesture.

  Lucy wished Bree would let her cover the initial printing costs of mass-producing some of the note cards. But even though Lucy had presented it as a business proposal, Bree was too proud to accept. On the positive side, Bree had found a new sales outlet through Pastor Sanders, the minister at Heart of Charity Missionary Church and owner of the local gift shop. He’d just started carrying some of her products.

  “How did your nautical excursion with Mike go yesterday?” Bree said, too casually.

  “Great. I had fun.”

  “Then Mike must have fallen overboard.”

  Lucy pretended not to notice the edge in Bree’s comments. “Nope.”

  “Too bad.” Bree snatched up a bag of tiny sampling spoons and poured them into a basket she set next to a dish of the individually wrapped chocolate-dipped honey caramels Lucy had finally perfected.

  Lucy spoke carefully. “I like him.”

  “That’s because you haven’t been around him long.” She wrenched the lid off a fresh container of comb honey she set out for customers to sample. “I’ve known him since he was younger than Toby.”

  “Yes, he said he wasn’t exactly Mr. Popular.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “I sort of do. He told me what he did to you.”

  She went still. “He told you?”

  Lucy nodded. “He’s an interesting person. Unusual. As open about his mistakes as he is about his accomplishments.”

  “Yes, I’m sure he loved telling you how important he is.”

  “Not really.”

  Bree finished arranging the honeycomb and spoons, along with some stick pretzels for dipping into a cocoa-flavored honey she’d started putting out as an experiment. “I don’t like Toby spending so much time with him.”

  “Mike cares about Toby.”

  “Yes, they have a real love fest going on,” she said bitterly.

  Lucy cocked her head. “Are you jealous?”

  “Of course I’m jealous.” She swatted a fly swooping too close to the honeycomb. “Mike doesn’t have to nag him into taking a shower or going to bed at a reasonable time. Mike only does the fun stuff, and I’m the wicked witch.” She stopped, her expression troubled. “I know I’m right about Mike. People don’t change that much. But …” Another of those helpless gestures. “I don’t know … Things are getting confusing. I’m not even sure why.”

  Lucy had a few ideas about that, but she kept them to herself.

  BREE LOCKED UP THE FARM stand for the night. The frames in the hives were heavy with honey. Earlier today, she’d cleaned Myra’s old hand-cranked extruder, and at dawn tomorrow, she’d start this year’s harvest. The work would be backbreaking, but that didn’t bother her as much as the implications of harvesting honey for next summer. She’d accepted the fact that she had to stay on the island, but she was far from sure she had enough money saved to survive the winter until she could sell this new crop.

  She gazed around at what she’d created—her little fairy castle farm stand with its carousel ribbon trim and Easter egg Adirondack chairs. It shocked her how happy this world she’d created made her. She liked watching her customers settle into the painted chairs and enjoy samples of her honey. She enjoyed seeing them testing her lotions, sniffing her soaps, and pondering her candles. If only she could live in a perpetual summer, with no threat of winter, no obsessing over money, no worries about Toby. She sighed, gazed at what she could see of the sunset through the trees, and headed for the house.

  The first thing she noticed as she stepped inside was that the kitchen smelled delicious, like real food. “Toby?”

  He wore his favorite jeans and T-shirt along with a baseball cap and a pair of red oven mitts with the batting coming out of one thumb. He took a casserole dish from the oven and set it on the stove next to a pair of wrinkled baked potatoes. “I made dinner,” he said.

  “By yourself? I didn’t know you could cook.”

  “Gram taught me some stuff.” Steam rose from the casserole as he pulled off the aluminum foil. “I wanted Mike to come eat with us, but he had business.”

  “He has a lot to do,” she managed, without sarcasm. “What did you fix?”

  “Cowboy casserole, noodles, and baked potatoes. Plus we have the bread Lucy made today.”

  Not exactly carb light, but she wasn’t going to criticize. She washed her hands, avoiding the pan of cold, soggy noodles in the sink, then took two plates from the cupboard. She pushed aside a copy of Black Soldiers in the Civil War to set them on the table. “It smells delicious.”

  The cowboy casserole turned out to be a concoction of ground beef, onion, pinto beans, and, judging from the empty can on the counter, tomato soup. Six months ago, she’d never have eaten anything like this, but despite some undercooked onions and overbrowned ground beef, she had seconds. “A great meal, Chef,” she said when she finally put down her fork. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was. Anytime you feel like cooking, you go right ahead.”

  Toby liked having his work appreciated. “Maybe. How come you don’t cook?”

  Exactly when was she supposed to add that to her schedule? But the truth was, she’d never liked to cook. “I’m not much of a food person.”

  “That’s why you’re so skinny.”

  She gazed around at the kitchen with its dated pickled oak cabinets and yellowing vinyl floor. How odd to feel more comfortable in this shabby cottage than she’d ever felt in the luxurious house her cheating husband had bought. As for the money she’d once spent so freely … Not a penny of it was as precious as what she was earning for herself with her own hard work and imagination.

  “Your mother liked to cook, too,” she said.

  “Really?” Toby stopped eating, fork poised in midair. His eagerness made her feel petty for not talking to him about Star. Just as Mike had asked her to.

  “Gram never told me that,” he said.

  “Sure. She was always trying out new recipes—not just cookies and brownies, but things like soups and sauces. Sometimes she’d try to get me to help, but mainly I just ate what she made.” />
  He cocked his head, thinking that over. “Like you’re eating what I made.”

  “Exactly.” She searched her mind. “She wasn’t crazy about bees either, but she loved cats and dogs.”

  “That’s like me, too. What else about her?”

  She stole the man I loved. Or was that merely what Bree wanted to believe because it was easier to think bad of Star than to admit that David had never really loved her?

  She made a play out of pleating her napkin. “She liked to play cards. Gin rummy.” Star cheated, but Toby had heard enough negatives about his mother. “She loved Janet Jackson and Nirvana. All we did one summer was dance to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’ She stunk at softball—none of us wanted her on our team, but we always let her because she made us laugh. She liked to climb, and when we were younger, she’d hide from me in that big old tree in the front yard.”

  “My tree,” he said with so much wonder that her heart ached.

  She told him what she should have understood from the beginning. “Your mom wasn’t perfect. Sometimes she didn’t take life as seriously as she should, but I can tell you this. She never intended to leave you. She always meant to come back.”

  Toby dipped his head so she wouldn’t see his eyes filling with tears. She reached out to touch him, then thought better of it. “Let’s go to Dogs ’N’ Malts for dessert.”

  His head came up. “Could we?”

  “Why not?” She was so stuffed she could barely move, but just once, she wanted to be the fun person in Toby’s life.

  They climbed into her car, and she drove to town. Toby ordered a super-size concoction of ice cream, M&M’s, sprinkles, peanuts, and chocolate sauce. She ordered their smallest vanilla cone. As luck would have it, Mike showed up not long after they’d sat at one of the picnic tables. “Hey, Toby. Sabrina.”

  Sabrina?

  Toby jumped up from the bench. “Sit with us, Mike!”

  Mike glanced toward Bree. She wasn’t going to be the bad guy, and she nodded. “Sure. Come and join us.”