Now, with the war over and civilian life returning to normal, she wanted more. She couldn’t say what, in so many words. But something different. Now she was just biding her time until her lease ran out at the end of October. Then she’d box up her possessions, load her car, quit her job, and look for what the world had to offer. A roll of nervous anticipation cascaded through her at the thought of starting over.
His hand brushing her sleeve made her jump. “I’m going to go see if they need any help on deck for when we dock,” he said. “You better get back in your car. You’re the first off.”
“Right.” The ferry’s horn blasted as they neared the port. “Thanks again.”
“Sure.” He paused as if she might say something more, his dark eyes almost black in the fading autumn light. Her lips trembled, wanting to ask how he could be so sure of himself all the time, but she couldn’t. She smiled at him instead, and he turned to saunter off across the deck.
“Wait,” she called. He swung around with a half grin on his face as if he’d expected her to call to him. “Do you need a ride home?”
He shook his head. “Ned’ll drop me off. I’ll see you soon, Shelby.”
Chapter Two
“Full house, my friend.” Adam laid his cards on the table with a snap. He and his three closest friends sat around the poker table in Kyle’s smoky basement. “Beats your pair of tens all to hell.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t come tonight,” Ned grumbled at him, tossing his cards into the pile and stubbing out the remains of a cigar. “Don’t you have something to do after being gone?”
“Couldn’t miss the game three weeks in a row. You boys would have too much extra cash to spend on your wives.” Adam rose, stuffing his winnings in his pockets. The pot was mostly one-dollar bills, with a couple of fives, but cash was cash, especially when he was pouring every dime into the boat.
“More boat money, eh, Gable?” Kyle asked.
“What else would he spend it on? Not like he has a house, car, or woman.” Tommy shrugged into his coat.
“That’s right, suckers. I got no one to answer to.” Adam kept a smug smile on his face. His buddies were all war vets like him, but all married. Tommy even had a kid on the way.
“Awful nice going home to somebody. Nights are getting colder.” Ned pulled his cap down over his eyes.
“I’ll put on an extra blanket. Besides, if I want a woman, I can find someone to keep me warm for a night without attachments.”
“Good women come with attachments.” Ned followed him up the stairs from the basement.
“You oughta know. Maggie’s related to half the damn town. She’s tried to fix me up with three of her cousins.” They stepped out into the cool night air for the walk home.
“See you guys next week,” Tommy called as he passed by them and climbed into his car. “Try to get a girl by then, Adam.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.” Adam yelled after him, pretending to play it cool. Having a woman, especially one like Shelby, would complicate the hell out of his life at the moment.
“How about Maggie’s friend Shelby?” Ned suggested. “You two got pretty cozy on the ferry yesterday.”
“Just keeping her company.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Keepin’ her company.”
“Shut up.” Adam turned down the road, walking along the rocky edge. “Shelby comes with baggage, a lot of baggage.”
“You worried about her husband?”
“Dead husband.” Adam kicked a stone along the berm. “Did you know him?”
“Nope. Far as I know, he never lived here. She came here after he was killed.”
“Lot of guys were killed.” Adam’s older brother came to mind first, followed by a host of men he’d served with. “Can’t compete with a dead guy.” Can’t take his place, either, despite what his parents thought.
“Were you thinking of trying? Maggie’d be happy to...”
“No, I’m not looking for anything serious, especially with Shelby.”
“Why not? She’s pretty enough, kinda small, but...”
“She’s beautiful.” Adam interrupted his cousin, but immediately regretted his admission.
“So that’s the way it is.” Ned clapped his hand on Adam’s shoulder in a brotherly gesture. “She turn you down?”
“For what?” Adam pulled away from Ned.
“A date, dumbass.”
“Never asked. Don’t plan to.”
“You are a dumbass.”
“I’ve got other priorities right now.”
“Boat.” Ned raised one hand up in the air palm side up. “Shelby.” He brought his other hand up as if weighing the two against each other.
“I need the boat.” His future plans depended on the success of this boat. He couldn’t afford a second failure, and he couldn’t afford a woman like Shelby.
“Why? You can work on the ferry, or the railroad.”
“Not good enough. I want something more.” In his irritation, he forgot his cousin and uncle happily made their living on the waters of the bay. “Sorry, Ned. I didn’t mean it that way. They’re good places to work, but I want to build.”
“It’s all right. I get it.”
“Some weird combination of saltwater and sawdust runs through my veins. Building boats is the only way I know to combine it.” They reached the old boathouse where Adam lived. “You want to come in for a beer? I got another coat of varnish to put on tonight. You could help me.”
“No, thanks. I’m going home like an old married man.” Ned nodded at his cottage across the street. Both of their places were owned by Ned’s family, which was a good thing, since that’s all he could afford at the moment.
“Your house is dark,” Adam observed.
“Mags is out with a friend. She’ll be back soon. I’ll start a fire and get the house warmed up for her.” Ned studied the weathered exterior of Adam’s boathouse. “Your place is damn cold, starting this time of year.”
“Froze my ass off last winter, but after three years on the Northern Atlantic, I can suck it up here on the Chesapeake.” Adam’s house was little more than a glorified shed on stilts—a boat slip enclosed with a single layer of wood and an overhead door was the bottom floor. He lived on the upper floor, where the icy wind from the bay was sure to blow through the floorboards and walls.
“Maybe you should find someone warm before winter. Shelby has her own place and car.” Headlights rounded the corner down the street, sending the long shadows of trees and lamp posts across Ned and Adam. “Probably her now.”
“Huh?”
“Shelby. She and Mags went to a movie tonight.”
“Think I’ll head in.” Adam moved toward his door only a few feet away.
“You’re already busted. Maggie eyed us as soon as they got on the street.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Just say hi like a big boy. You can even brag about winning.” The green Packard pulled up in front of Ned’s place.
“I don’t think Shelby would approve,” Adam mumbled, but ambled across the street after his cousin anyhow. Turning tail and running wasn’t his style.
“Did you win for me, honey?” Maggie yanked Ned into a smacking kiss as soon as she stepped from the car. Adam glanced at Shelby still in the driver’s seat. She averted her face when she realized where his eyes were trained.
“Not tonight, with Mr. Lucky back in town.” Ned nodded at Adam.
“Don’t you have some more friends to visit?” Maggie teased him. “Or you could go see your folks in Pennsylvania?” Her voice trailed off with her last words.
“No, fresh out of friends. I better stay here and make some money, instead.” Adam spoke quickly to redirect the conversation. He’d been home to Pennsylvania once in the past year, but his parents could only talk of his older brother’s death. He’d followed in the living shadow of Jack since birth. Even though Jack was dead, his parents still compared Adam to their dead son—and always would.
“How about a drink, everybody?” Ned suggested.
“No,” Adam and Shelby answered together
“I work early,” Adam added, taking a step back and raising his hands.
“I told Natalie I’d take her kids to school first thing in the morning.” Shelby shifted the car into gear. “’Night all,” she called from the window.
“Guess it’s just us, baby.” Ned wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist. Together, they climbed the steps to their cottage. “Get some beauty rest, Adam,” Ned called and thumped the door closed.
Adam sauntered across to his own door, catching a glimpse of Shelby’s tail lights disappearing around the corner. Nice to know she couldn’t get away from him fast enough. He unlocked his door, absent-mindedly searching for the interior light with his left hand.
Although he’d seen her face only in shadow tonight, it was enough to give him the tightness in the chest and slow-motion sensation he always had around her. He wondered which pissed him off more—that he couldn’t brush her off or that she had just brushed him off.
He walked the couple steps down into the boathouse’s lowest floor, where the dark water of the bay came in under the overhead door. His boat sat in its cradle along the right wall. In just a few days, he’d swing the cradle over the water and slowly lower her into the bay. Running his hand over the smooth planking, he felt for any stickiness left from the last coat of varnish. If he got busy, he could get another coat on by two in the morning. By then he’d be tired enough to sleep until six, when he had to rise for work.
Tired enough not to lie in bed and think about Shelby.
****
“You’re early enough for a quick cup of coffee.” Natalie greeted her sister and handed her a steaming mug. “The girls already ate breakfast, and I sent them upstairs to get ready.”
“Thanks.” It was just past seven and barely light. Shelby’d pulled the covers back over her head twice, but she couldn’t sleep anymore, so she’d gotten up early, cleaned her already clean cottage, written a few ideas down in her journal for a story she was writing, and waited until it was a respectable time to arrive at Natalie’s to take her nieces to school. She puffed out an involuntary sigh and leaned against the counter.
“What’s the matter, sweetie?” Natalie stuffed sandwiches into brown paper bags.
Shelby studied her sister for a minute before answering. Natalie was ten years older than she and had seen the good and bad in life but faced almost everything with a smile, a trait she’d inherited from their mother. Shelby could trust her for an honest opinion. Besides, she was a beautician. Women universally confessed their secrets to their hairdressers, and this one was also her sister. Maybe Natalie would have some answers. It didn’t hurt to ask. “Can I date?”
“What do you mean? You are physically able to date, yes?”
“I mean am I allowed to date? Has it been long enough since Leo’s death, or do I still have the ‘untouchable’ sign around my neck?”
Natalie pulled out a kitchen chair for each of them, pointing her younger sister into it. “What’s brought this up? Is there someone you want to date?”
“No, but men run from me for fear I’m going to dissolve into tears and they’ll have to hand me a tissue.” She put her mug on the table. “Or buy me a Coke.”
“A Coke?”
“Yes. On the ferry the other day I ran into Adam.”
“Uh-huh. And he bought you a Coke?” A thumping sound came from overhead as the girls got ready for school.
She nodded. “And it was a friendly conversation after he saved me from getting crushed by my own car.”
“I heard about that from half the women I do hair for. What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know. Anyway, Adam told me all about the boat he’s building. He’s trying to get his own company off the ground.”
“Good for him. So what’s the problem?”
“Last night he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. Raised his hands in the air like he was warding off the plague or something.” She flung her hands up in imitation of Adam’s gesture.
“Aside from your editor, Adam’s the only man you’ve mentioned with any level of enthusiasm since Leo’s death.” Her sister cocked her head to the side, making the coil of her blonde hair slip onto her shoulder. “I know you’re not interested in Mr. McCloud’s rounded belly and beady eyes, but Adam...”
“I’m not interested. Really. I just keep tripping over him, and…” she hesitated to say more, but when her sister gave her an encouraging smile, she continued, “he’s not what you might think.” Her sister’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “He was sweet to me on the ferry, and we had a sincere conversation. Maybe he’s not just a good-looking, charming shell of a man like I’ve been thinking.”
“Is that what you’ve been thinking? Since when?”
“Since Mag’s wedding. Adam kissed me at the reception,” she admitted, although she’d thought plenty about him before that.
“Casual-on-the-cheek kind of kiss?”
“No, the real kind. On the lips.”
“Oh.” Natalie sat back in her chair and looked at the ceiling, where the thumping continued. “I thought you were planning to move on from Cape Charles. Don’t get me wrong. I want you to stay, but isn’t this a funny time to be thinking of a man here? Because the way you’re talking, Adam might be a reason to stick around.”
“I don’t know if it’s anything serious, probably not enough to keep me here. He comes off as so careless, even a little reckless. I think people misread him. I think I did.”
“So is he reckless or not?”
She shrugged. “On the ferry, he seemed more like a man I could talk with. Have some fun with.” She waved the thought away with her hand. “Maybe I imagined it because I was feeling a little broken after a day with Leo’s family.”
“Back up a little. Your impression of him must have been changing before that. How was the kiss?”
“Like a kiss from a man who knows how to kiss and, being Adam, knows he knows.” She couldn’t help smiling when she said it.
“Nice.” Natalie’s brow creased in thought. “When’s your lease up?”
“I can renew it until the end of October. Why?”
“That gives you several weeks.”
“To do what?” It only took her a second to read her sister’s face. “Oh, no, I plan to leave earlier in October. I want to be settled somewhere before the holidays.”
“What’s the harm in delaying a bit? The world’s not going anywhere.”
Shelby raised her coffee mug to her lips, giving her a moment to think before responding. “I suppose. And I have to finish the series of local interest articles I’m writing for the Gazette before my editor will release me from my contract. I only have one left.”
“What’s it on?”
“No particular theme for this last one. McCloud suggested a local businessman.”
“Like someone who might be building boats?”
“Adam? He’s only built one, unless you count the one that sank.”
“Sank? I’d like to hear that story sometime.” Natalie reached over to touch Shelby’s arm. “Why not interview him? He’s practically an entrepreneur.”
“He hasn’t sold any boats yet,” Shelby argued, but she liked the idea, at the same time.
“Maybe the publicity in the paper will help him. Plus it’ll give you an excuse to see if there’s anything worth staying around for.” Natalie hopped up to wipe down the counter. “Personally, I hope he’s Prince Charming in disguise, so you’ll stay here, get married, and live happily ever after.”
“I don’t think happily ever after exists,” she whispered as her nieces, aged seven and ten, came into the kitchen.
“Only one way to find out.” Natalie helped her daughters into their jackets, handing each a sack lunch. “Drop the girls at school, then go present the idea to your editor. I’ve got to get to Mrs. Monroe’s. She gets grumpy if I’m late d
oing her hair.”
Chapter Three
By evening, the light morning breeze had built into nearly gale force winds. Shelby waited on the dock for the six-o’clock ferry to come in, battling to keep her hat in place. Not only had her editor loved the idea of interviewing Adam about his fledgling boat company for the newspaper, it had spun into an idea for a series about returning war veterans a year after the peace.
Shelby cringed a little and hugged her light overcoat closer around her when she recalled the gleam in Mr. McCloud’s eyes at her proposal and the ensuing idea. He immediately appealed to her to stay on a little longer and write the collection of articles. Then, the look on his face when he suddenly remembered her husband hadn’t come home. The normally loud newsroom dropped to a hush and her fellow workers averted their faces while Mr. McCloud stumbled over an apology.
If she needed proof that she had to leave this town, there it was. If only people would stop treating her with kid gloves. She’d grieved for her husband, severely at times in the first year after his death, and then her sister reminded her that she was alive and young and deserved to be happy. It wasn’t until recently she’d convinced herself to try, but moving on from here was a necessity.
The gray hull of the ferry rounded the last curve of the land. Waves slammed onto the deck as the boat pitched downward into the gulley of a wave. She gasped as the ferry rocked up on its side before settling back to level. No cars would be allowed on a day like this, and only the hardiest passengers would make the journey. She was glad to be on shore watching the ferry as it rocked into the channel, where the waves still pushed it around.
She caught a glimpse of Adam’s dark hair near the gangplank as the ferry approached the dock. He gestured wildly to the wheelhouse to reverse, but the ferry slammed into the dock anyway, nearly knocking him off his feet. She covered her eyes with her hand for a second. When she peeked again, he was scrambling over the steel side of the boat and leaping onto the dock, dragging one of the heavy lines to loop over a huge cleat. Despite the dangerous situation, Adam turned and bowed to the wheelhouse with his usual swagger.
Tempted by Adam Page 2