That Summer Place: Island TimeOld ThingsPrivate Paradise

by Susan Wiggs

  “So,” he continued, stroking his finger down a lock of her hair, “is this the start of the painfully awkward stage?”

  “That was way too wonderful for me to have regrets so soon.”

  “My thoughts exactly, Professor.”

  Ten

  Late that afternoon the rain stopped, leaving a clear wash of light and fresh shining green everywhere. Rosie, who had been reading The Sheik by the fire, looked out the window and smiled. “Sun’s out again.”

  Mitch took a blueprint pencil from behind his ear. “I forgot to call the deli for dinner.”

  She set aside her book and stretched luxuriously. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. All day she’d had a tousle-haired, full-lipped, well-loved air about her. She made it hard to concentrate, but somehow, he got a lot of work done. Amazing.

  “We’ll make dinner,” she said. “Remember, we’ve got a great bottle of wine to drink with it.”

  “We don’t even have anything to cook.”

  “So we’ll go to town and get something.”

  “It’s a long walk.”

  “No need to walk.” She took his hand and led him to the old carriage house that served as a garage. “I found this while I was poking around.”

  It was a tandem bicycle, slightly rusted around the rims but otherwise in working condition. “I haven’t ridden a bike in twenty years,” Mitch confessed.

  “I’m so surprised,” she said wryly, wheeling the tandem out onto the gravel drive. “Get on. They say you never forget how.”

  She took the front position. “Ready?” she said over her shoulder.

  “I suppose.”

  They took off, wobbling at first but then finding their rhythm and gliding out onto the smooth asphalt road. The deep old-growth forest gleamed with moisture, filling the air with the fecund aroma of evergreen. Sunlight, filtering down through the massive Sitka spruce and cedars, took on a misty greenish glow.

  “It’s beautiful,” Rosie called over her shoulder. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  He looked up from his contemplation of her derriere and studied the forest. She made him see the wild splendor as if for the first time. The glitter of raindrops on lush ferns. The rich red of madrona blossoms. The rise of a pheasant from a grassy field, and patches of sky through the forest canopy. She made him think about it. Cherish it.

  “Yeah,” he said at last, watching the way the wind lifted her hair. “Yeah, it is.”

  The sleepy island village consisted of a chandlery and delicatessen, a tourist shop and clothing boutique, and a small but well-supplied grocery and farmers’ market. Rosie insisted on buying things he had never bought in his life—a bunch of cilantro, local prawns, a sack of masa harina, some homegrown tomatoes and onions, a lime, a pound of butter. She selected Rainier cherries for dessert and a stack of postcards to mail to her family.

  An hour later she was in the kitchen, salsa music blaring, a bossy air surrounding her as she chopped and sautéed, making a huge mess and creating the most mouth-watering aromas. Mitch was relegated to chief gofer, setting the table and hanging around the stove. At eight o’clock she came into the dining room looking adorably disheveled and a little smug. “How about you open that wine, jefe?”

  She laid the table with a stack of homemade tortillas, the grilled prawns and vegetables, and sour cream and salsa. Mitch opened the wine, a little concerned when the cork broke in two.

  “The moment of truth,” he said, pouring some into a glass. He took a sniff, then a sip. Surprised, he handed the glass to Rosie.

  She tasted it, a ruby droplet adorning her lip. “It’s delicious.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He filled his own glass and then his plate, his palate ecstatic over the spicy prawns and nutty-warm tortillas. “My teeth are singing.”

  “Oh, please. Now you’re a poet.”

  “You’re a woman of many talents, Dr. Galvez,” he said, tilting his glass in her direction.

  She laughed. “While everyone else was learning money management, I was learning to cook.”

  There was something simple and pleasant about sharing a meal they had shopped for and prepared together. They lingered at the table, savoring the food and the wine and each other’s company. Even doing the dishes had a comfortable domestic feel to it, and when they were done, Rosie took the bowl of yellow blushing Rainiers from the refrigerator.

  “Ready for dessert?” she asked.

  She was doing it again, looking unbearably adorable.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m ready for something sweet.”

  “It’s nice out tonight. We could have them on the front porch.”

  He took the bowl from her and pressed her up against the edge of the counter. “We could have them in bed,” he said just before he kissed her.

  “Your bed or mine?” she asked.

  Rosie had never had such an interesting time with a bowl of cherries in her life.

  Mitch conceded, in the days that followed, that Rosie had a lot to teach him. He’d never seen the point of lying in the grass and watching the clouds go by—until Rosie. He’d never flown a kite—until Rosie. He’d never watched a spider spin a web—until Rosie.

  She showed him how to thaw out and enjoy the moment. She convinced him to walk barefoot on the beach, to listen to crickets at twilight, to take a nap in the hammock in the middle of the day. From Rosie he learned to roll a kayak and spot a school of fish, how to make tortillas and a chain of daisies.

  Until Rosie, he hadn’t known the meaning of free spirited.

  She wasn’t an employee, Mitch rationalized as he made love to her in the days that followed. He had always honored a personal policy of not getting involved with employees.

  Rosie was someone with whom he’d contracted. For professional services.

  He clung to that distinction because he wanted this affair with her, wanted it more than he could ever remember wanting anything.

  After the day in the attic, an idyllic time began. They did their work, yes, but it was different. A magical glow seemed to gild each moment, and a sense of euphoria filled him when he was with Rosie.

  He explained to her how he worked, and she showed him how to play. Seated at the scrubbed maple table, he helped her put her curriculum vitae on-line so she could start looking for another job. In turn, she took him swimming, fishing, cloud watching, beachcombing. They took long meandering cruises in the Bayliner and anchored in secluded coves where they could make love on the open deck.

  He gave up trying to understand his need for her, his hunger. He’d always had a healthy libido, had always had an eye for a beautiful woman, but it was different with Rosie. She touched him on a level no one had ever reached before. She made him laugh. Made him angry sometimes. Filled him with passion—always. And he realized one day, when she came out of the bathhouse wearing a neon orange bikini and holding a box of snorkeling gear, that she was the first woman he’d ever met who had the power to break his heart.

  The days all slid together into golden ribbons of sensual moments, aglow with the secret laughter only lovers share. The nights were woven of soft black velvet, when all the world seemed to sleep except two restless lovers, who stayed wakeful deep into the heart of the night.

  They talked of everything: her unwieldy raucous family and the scarcity of sandhill cranes. His lonely childhood and her love of romance novels, his dislike of Barbra Streisand movies. Everything seemed important and relevant, everything from the proper amount of foam on a latte to the brand of the Chihuahuas’ favorite dog biscuit.

  In the middle of the third week on the island, as they sat together on the porch swing, the cellular phone rang. Mitch was startled by the sound; almost no one on the island returned calls. Leaving Rosie rocking dreamily on the swing, he answered the phone and was a little disconcerted when the caller asked to speak to Dr. Galvez.

  Mitch brought the phone out to Rosie, then went inside to get some brandy for an after-dinner drink. As he heard the low murmur of her
voice through the screen door, he frowned. He was starting to like this far too much—watching sunsets, sleeping late, hearing her voice as she sat on the front porch. The thought of Seattle—the bustling downtown that used to give him such a shot of energy—now seemed bleak and gray. He couldn’t believe he’d spent so many years in a high-rise. If someone were to hold a gun to his head, he could not have said what color the walls of his condo were painted.

  Strange. He could recite from memory the color of every room in this house, and he’d been here less than a month.

  He poured the brandy and brought it out in two snifters. Rosie still sat on the porch swing, talking on the phone. She wore her red dress, and had one foot tucked up underneath her, the other trailing over the planks of the porch floor, causing the swing to rock.

  “Thank you, Dr. Olsen,” she was saying, a slightly thunderstruck expression on her face. “I’ll have my decision for you by the end of the month.” She listened a moment longer, then said goodbye and turned off the phone.

  Mitch handed her the brandy. “News?”

  She took a gulp, then another. “That was a job offer.”

  Something sank inside him. He had an instant flash of disappointment—she’d just received a dream job offer in the Florida Keys or off the Great Barrier Reef. He took a gulp of his own brandy.

  “And?” he prompted.

  She smiled broadly. “And you’re a genius, Mr. Rutherford. Dr. Olsen saw my credentials on the Internet. He wants me to work for the Puget Sound Underwater Biosphere. Huge corporate funding. I’m dazzled.”

  He went down on one knee in front of the swing. “That’s in Seattle, right?”

  “Yes. Near Pier Seventy-one.”

  He set down his brandy glass and picked up her bare foot in both hands. Bending, he kissed her smooth tanned knee.

  “So are you going to take it?” He pushed up the hem of her dress and nipped at her inner thigh.

  She gasped. “It sounds like…a great position.”

  “Mmm.” He pushed the hem higher. Since they’d become lovers, she’d developed the delightful habit of not wearing any underwear, and tonight was no exception. He teased and then tasted her, coaxing an involuntary cry from her, and he realized that he loved her like this, helpless and open to him while at the same time completely in command of him. The swing made for an unorthodox but fascinating position, one he found wildly exciting. When he could no longer wait, he reversed their positions, sitting on the swing and lifting her up to straddle him. He entered her recklessly, swiftly. She put back her head and he kissed her throat and the valley between her breasts, and the surge of movement created by the swing brought him to a swift searing climax.

  She touched her damp forehead to his and then kissed him. She tasted of brandy and the faint salt of sweat, and he wanted to hold her like this forever, wanted to forget that their time here was coming to an end, that she had to find a job and he had to move on to other projects.

  “So,” she said with a shaky laugh, “do you want to hear more about this job offer or not?”

  He stood, reaching around behind her to unzip her dress. “Later, okay?”

  She sighed. Helpless. Spellbindingly sexy. “Later.”

  Mitch had never considered sleeping with someone a treat before. But with Rosie, it was a sweetness beyond description. He didn’t even mind the Chihuahuas, who showed him scant respect, though they slept curled in balls at the foot of the bed. Rosie was the essence of comfort, soft and warm and sleep-tousled, sighing lightly as she fitted herself against him with a natural ease. When he held her in his arms, breathed in the scent of her and felt the cool whisper of the bedsheets swirl around him, his spirit seemed to uncoil, to relax. He’d never experienced that before—that utter calmness, that perfect contentment to be in the middle of the moment.

  He kept telling himself not to get used to this, not to expect this, not to want this to last forever, but his soul wouldn’t listen.

  Neither mentioned the fact that it was their last week at the summer place, but the reality bronzed every moment with the gleam of desperation. They made love more frequently than ever, sometimes not even getting through breakfast without tackling each other on the window seat or on the old-fashioned fainting couch in the parlor.

  A hot afternoon might be interrupted with a languorous session in broad daylight when the warmth of the sun and the isolation of the place made them aroused and pleasantly drowsy afterward.

  By the time their last day of fieldwork arrived, Mitch had come to a decision. He had only known Rosie Galvez for a month, but he knew her better than anyone else on the planet. And he knew he needed her in his life.

  Since the phone call from the biosphere facility, she’d gotten two other interesting offers—one in Alaska and one in San Diego. Since Mitch got a sick feeling inside each time he imagined life without Rosie, he planned to ask her to accept the Seattle offer.

  It was the only way he could stand to think of the future.

  Rosie had long since stopped trying not to fall in love with Mitch. As she loaded the kayak with gear for the final study of the area, she hummed a tune and let herself savor the heady joy of losing her heart.

  Yes, he was a no-nonsense businessman like the other men who’d disappointed her.

  Yes, it would probably end once they returned to the real world. She’d fallen in love with the Mitch of Rainshadow Lodge, the Mitch who danced to old Victrola records and made love to her on the porch swing and let her dogs sleep on the bed with them.

  The Seattle Mitch was bound to be a different creature altogether. He ran a multimillion-dollar enterprise and worked eighteen-hour days. His secretary kept up with his mother’s birthday.

  She resigned herself to letting this Mitch go, because being with him in Seattle would never work out. The San Diego job offer was too good to pass up, anyway.

  But when Mitch came out of the house, tanned and smiling and ready to launch the kayak, she decided the news could wait. He looked different these past couple of weeks. He’d taken to wearing shorts, instead of creased slacks; T-shirts, instead of golf polos. He looked relaxed, happy.

  The summer place had worked real magic on him.

  “Where to, skipper?” he asked good-humoredly as they paddled out into the main channel.

  “One last tour. Maybe the far side of the cove. Remember, it’s the one we missed the day it rained.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, flashing her a grin that made her want to beach the kayak and attack him immediately.

  “I remember that day,” he said.

  And as they paddled into the cove, she started thinking more about Seattle. Maybe, just maybe—

  “Hey, Rosie. What do you think that is?”

  Mitch pointed his paddle toward an outcropping of rock where the water was shallow, the tide pools crammed with starfish, mussels and urchins. A group of untidy nests made of plant fibers hid in the marsh reeds at the shore.

  “Madre de Dios,” she said under her breath. “I can’t believe you found this.”

  “Found what? What’d I find?”

  “It’s the breeding place of the sandhill crane,” she said. “Most biologists go their whole lives without seeing them in the wild.”

  “Cool. Are you going to take some pictures?”

  She already had her camera out. “The world population of this animal is only 27,000,” she said, fascinated. “This is their nesting ground.”

  “Damn, Rosie. Are we good or what?”

  When they made love that night, Rosie was as ripe and eager as ever, yet she talked less.

  “Are you thinking about tomorrow?” he asked, kissing her temple as she snuggled up against his shoulder.

  “Yes.”

  “We knew the month had to end.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Rosie, I’ve been thinking…”

  “Yes?”

  “I want to ask you something.”

  She stiffened, stopped breathing. He couldn’t
see her face and suddenly wished he could. God, did she think he was about to propose marriage?

  “It’s about your job offers.”

  “What about them?”

  “Have you decided yet?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  And for some reason Mitch stopped there. He didn’t want to push, to probe, to force something to happen that wasn’t ready to happen. It just wasn’t his way. And apparently it wasn’t Rosie’s way, either, for she sighed sweetly and drifted off to sleep without saying another word.

  “We’d better hurry if we want to make the five-twenty-five ferry,” Mitch said, loading the last of their bags onto the boat.

  “I’m ready,” Rosie said. She looked lovely and slightly nervous as she patted her thigh, motioning for the dogs to follow her down the dock.

  “I hope I won’t have any trouble hiring a mechanic to fix my car,” she said.

  “It’s fixed. I had it done right after you got here.”

  She smiled, though melancholy tinged her smile. Once the dogs were aboard, she helped him cast off. Slowly the boat pulled away from the dock.

  Rosie stood in the cockpit, facing back toward the house. Mitch put the engine on idle and went to her, arms circling her from behind, burying his face in her hair.

  “Look at the house,” she said. “Like something out of a storybook.”

  She was right; the old Victorian summer place gleamed on the green knoll, the white scrollwork porch railings brilliant in the afternoon sun.

  “Rosie,” he said, turning her in his arms, “something special happened there for us. Something I don’t want to end.”

  “Mitch—”

  “Wait, let me finish. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I don’t want to stop seeing you.”

  The edges of her smile trembled. “Do you know how badly I’ve been wanting to hear that?”

  “Do you know how scared I’ve been to say it?”