The man, his hair white, wrinkles embedded in his smile, held out his hand. “Riley Sheffield. It is so good to see you again. Mark and Lauren Rutledge.”
The room wavered as though Riley were being held underwater. A tremor ran through her middle, where Brayden had once grown inside her womb. Resolved not to give away her trembling, Riley held out her hand for Mr. Rutledge to shake. “It is so nice to see you again. You haven’t been back in years.”
Mrs. Rutledge offered a tender hug, which Riley returned. “Thirteen to be exact. When we received the invitation, we just knew we had to come celebrate with Kitsy and see the store. We love this town. It holds so many dear and wonderful memories.”
“Wonderful memories,” Riley agreed. She took two steps backward. “Thank you so much for coming. Excuse me a moment? Hopefully you’ll be here all week?”
The older couple nodded.
Riley sensed she was being rude, yet escape seemed her only option. She allowed Maisy to take over the conversation, and ran up the back stairs. Brayden had already left for the beach and Adalee was gone, too; the apartment was empty. Riley dropped into a kitchen chair. The Rutledges had raised one son, Sheldon. Last Riley had heard, he was in Iraq with the Air Force. Mr. and Mrs. Rutledge had no clue that their grandson was playing with his friends on the beach a few yards away.
With the motions of a deeply ingrained habit, Riley climbed the spiral stairs to the observation tower, where she breathed in the fresh breeze. She needed air—deep gulps of it. The sea spread toward the horizon in a wash of blues with Brayden at its tattered edge. He bent over to pick something up off the sand. His blond curls, his tanned skin and his gangly body seemed a natural part of the sand, sea and waves. This miracle of a child she had kept to herself—her secret. By refusing to name Brayden’s father, she had intended to preserve Sheldon’s freedom, yet she had failed to consider Mr. and Mrs. Rutledge, Brayden’s grandparents.
Brayden was hers to protect. To love. But now, with the Rutledges in the store below, her well thought-out reasons for secrecy echoed hollow, vacant and selfish.
As though he felt his mother’s gaze upon him, Brayden looked up and waved at her. Hey, Mom, his lips mouthed the words—no twelve-year-old boy wanted to be caught hollering at his mom. He turned and threw something into the ocean. Two men approached him: one younger and tall, one older and frail—Mack and Sheppard Logan. Brayden spoke to them, laughed: past and present blurred together.
Riley climbed down the ladder, obligation the moving force now. There were a hundred people downstairs, a New York Times bestselling author on the way to speak and two sisters who needed supervision. She went to the bathroom, wiped her face clean of regret and disorientation, and descended the back stairs to host the evening with warm efficiency.
ELEVEN
MAISY
Maisy watched Mr. and Mrs. Rutledge browse among the bookshelves, pausing occasionally to greet people they knew. What was wrong with Riley, walking away from old family friends?
Maisy greeted each patron with a smile and a slip of paper with a number on it. “You’ll be able to get right in line with this number. Please feel free to enjoy a glass of wine.
“Number thirty-seven,” Maisy said, handing a yellow slip to a woman who was reading a book in line.
The woman looked up with a smile. “Hey, Maisy.” Her hand fluttered.
“Oh, Lucy . . . hi.” Maisy fought her sudden panic. “How are you?”
“Good. You?”
“Great. Just great. It’s wonderful to see you. . . . Can we catch up later? I have to hand out all these numbers.”
“Of course.” Lucy nodded, and gazed after her, the best high school friend who ran away to California practically on her wedding day, leaving her short one bridesmaid.
The line turned around the corner and Maisy handed numbers out to the last patrons. Run. Just run. Her internal voice screamed in furious words that she swore others must be able to hear. She glanced around the room, hoping to see Mack. They’d had a quick lunch that afternoon, like one note in a song she was dying to hear in its entirety. If she found him, she’d grab on to him like a life preserver—wasn’t that what she always used men for? The thought made her dizzy, it was so true. She snatched up a bottle of the Frei Brothers wine.
The storage room doors were unlocked. Maisy slipped inside, slid to the floor against the wall. A few drops of wine spilled onto the floor. She glanced around the room for a plastic glass or Styrofoam coffee cup, but saw only boxes of books, stationery, a chair with a broken leg. . . .
“Great, everything but what I need.” She took a long swallow of wine straight from the bottle and closed her eyes.
This was a nightmare. How had she thought she could avoid Lucy Morgan, Tucker’s wife? She would not hide in here with her pitiful bottle of wine and recoil in fear like the coward she was. This shameful, cringing girl was not the woman who lived in Laguna Beach.
The only decent thing about returning here was Mack. Their lunch today had proved that he was still as she’d remembered. He had looked at her across the table with the same wide-eyed wonder he’d had all those years ago. In a mood of quiet intimacy they had talked about their lives in New York and California. She hoped that maybe this would bond them together—the knowledge that they had experienced a wider world beyond Palmetto Beach.
Maisy swallowed more wine and then took inventory of the room, yet saw only what it had looked like then—the night she’d come here with Tucker. The difference one decision could make in a life, one moronic decision . . .
It was a year after Mack had left; Maisy had graduated in May. Riley had given birth to Brayden in June. Lucy and Tucker were engaged. Months before the wedding, Lucy had asked Maisy to be a bridesmaid and she’d done her duties—helped pick out the dresses, choose the flowers, stamp the invitations. Lucy was the first of their group of friends to get married straight out of high school. The week before the big event, Maisy ran into Tucker at Bud’s. She joined him and his friends, keeping up with the whiskey-laced Coke drinks, which they’d snuck onto the outside patio where the Ping-Pong tables would have to do until they were twenty-one and could go into the bar area. She prided herself on her ability to keep up with the boys; she was one of them.
The night wore on, and the alcohol had settled like a dull haze over her senses. She and Tucker played Ping-Pong until she dropped the paddle to admit she could barely see the ball anymore.
“You excited about the wedding next weekend?” she asked, leaning against the table.
He shrugged. “I can’t believe it’s come up so fast. . . .”
“You’ll be a married man by this time next week,” Maisy teased. She meant it innocently, didn’t she?
They left the bar together, walked toward his home on Ninth Avenue. The floating feeling born of liquor, the closeness of an old friend who was marrying another friend, allowed Maisy’s words to come easy and light as they passed the Logan house.
She pointed at Driftwood Cottage. “He was the only guy I would have married.”
“Pining after a summer love? Doesn’t seem your style, Maisy.”
“My style?” She stopped, stared up at the empty dark house the Logans had put up for sale.
“Yeah, you seem more like the live-and-let-live type, the kind that loves and leaves.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because I’ve known you forever.”
“You don’t know me.” Maisy stamped her foot. “Nobody around this hick town really knows me.”
In the moonlight, in the dark of the night with Mack Logan on her mind, Maisy heard Tucker Morgan say, “I’d like to really know you.”
Until that point she’d avoided loneliness with frenzied partying, but now the emotion settled deeply into her gut. “Then come on,” she whispered. “The house is for sale. Mama’s trying to buy it. Let’s see if it’s open.”
The front door swung inward without resistance. They tiptoed around unsold objects bel
onging to the Logan family. Heartbreak followed her step for step through the living room, past the kitchen, into the front study, where moonlight fell in bands on the sea grass rug. She whispered, “This was Mr. Logan’s library.”
“I wonder why they didn’t come back this year,” Tucker said in a whisper.
“Mama told me that with their last child in college, they didn’t know when they’d ever come back, and they just didn’t want to hold on to it. I’ve never heard from Mack. . . . I guess he’s probably finished his freshman year by now.”
“He broke your heart,” Tucker said.
The truth of his words brought unbidden tears. “I hate him,” she said. “He never called. He never wrote. He left last summer with . . . promises to keep in touch.”
“You only think you love him because he might be the only guy who didn’t chase after you.”
“Not true.”
Tucker came toward her then. “I’m sorry,” he said. “If you want me to go find him and kick his ass, I will.”
“That’ll do me a lot of good.” She smiled at him, and then his hand was behind her head, in her hair, and he drew her toward him. Her first thought was that there was no way she was going to kiss him. The second thought was obliterated by confusion, and then dull desire.
In the Logan study, in the room in which she’d read and hung out with the family, longing replaced rational thought. The desire for Mack was channeled into another and distant yearning—for someone to hold her, to comfort her.
On an old sea grass rug, Maisy lost herself in fantasy that this union was what should have happened between her and Mack. The dark night and the empty house echoed their desire as she and Tucker came together for entirely different reasons.
It was her first time.
The act itself was brief and empty; she regretted it before it was over. She lay on the floor in the quiet night with the painful understanding that no one save Mack could fill the emptiness inside her. When Tucker fell asleep with whiskey breath on her cheek, she cried silent tears and slipped out into the night. She walked for hours on the beach and wished on every star that the night could begin again—that she could erase what had just happened in Mack Logan’s old house with her best friend’s fiancé.
She went home to spend a sleepless night, and the next morning, she knew with an iron certainty that she had to get out of this place, where her worst self lived. She packed two bags with her favorite clothes, her best makeup and all the cash she’d made working at the Beach Club serving overweight businessmen who thought they had a chance with the bikini-clad girls jumping on and off the boats in the marina.
She didn’t call her family until she’d landed in Los Angeles. She imagined the wailing and gnashing of teeth that ensued. Mama went to bed for days; Riley reeled while adjusting to single motherhood—she called Maisy’s cell phone five, six times a day, begging her to come to her senses. By God, she was supposed to be a bridesmaid in her best friend’s wedding. Adalee was only ten years old at the time, and she pleaded with Maisy to come get her, let her live with her in California.
Maisy couldn’t explain to Adalee that she didn’t really “live” in LA yet—she moved among youth hostels while making money as a waitress until she found the town of Laguna Beach and the Beach Chic store, where she’d worked ever since.
Those days seemed a million years gone. A different person existed now. Or so she had thought. Yet here she sat in the same damn room, and she was the same damn person. She hadn’t erased anything; what she’d thought was gone had been waiting here for her.
She leaned against the wall, took another swig of wine and attempted to ignore Riley’s voice calling her. She could not go out there and see Lucy. She’d never heard from her friend except for one brief voice mail full of tears saying she couldn’t believe what Maisy had done; she’d never have expected that of her. Surely, then, Tucker had told her. But they’d married anyway.
“Maisy.” Riley’s voice was closer now, and the door opened. “What in the hell are you doing?” She grabbed the wine bottle.
“Hiding,” Maisy said. “I can’t go back out there.” She sat up.
“Why?”
“Ten million reasons.”
Riley held out her hand to bring Maisy to her feet. “I don’t care what your reasons are. I need your help. The place is packed.”
Maisy shook her head.
“You are so selfish. Whatever your problem is, it’s not as important—”
Maisy stood, planted her hands on her hips. “You’re not gonna say as family, are you? Family? You don’t mean the entire family now, do you, Riley? When you say family, you mean you and Mama. I’m just an extra, an added bonus when you need a helping hand. Because who is all this work benefiting? Not me. This is all about you and Mama and your precious store. Because it sure ain’t about me, or my job, or my life.”
Riley’s face hardened. “I can’t even . . . answer that right now. I can’t . . .” She turned away. “If you need to leave, go ahead, Maisy.” Riley’s back was straight as she walked away; then her head tilted to the right as she greeted someone who’d come through the front door.
Maisy stood in the opening of the storage room, her empty stomach sick from the wine, her heart heavy with her cruel words and crueler memories. She would go grab her bags and return to Laguna Beach right now, get out of here, out of this house, out of this town. She moved in slow motion to the back door, across the porch. She took off her shoes, allowed her feet to sink into the soft sand.
She wiped at her face, felt tears she didn’t know she’d cried. Brayden and two men stood at the water’s edge, their backs to her while Brayden cast a net. In the twilight, they pulled the net in to find a stingray writhing inside the nylon. They released the sea creature, laughter echoing across the beach. She couldn’t see their faces, but she knew the sound: Mack Logan’s laugh.
She smiled, hung on to the thought and image of him to buoy her in the midst of memories that threatened to sink her.
He was here.
Now.
Maisy would stay, all right. But not for the reasons her family thought.
There were enough people in that store to keep her from coming face-to-face with Lucy. She could do it. Absolutely. She was stronger than the girl who had left years ago.
She pulled her hair back, wiped her face, attempted to separate her mashed eyelashes with her pinky nail and walked back toward the bookstore. A man joined her on the porch: tall, dark haired. She hadn’t met him before, yet he looked familiar. They collided as she attempted to open the door to let him in.
He laughed. “Hey, I was trying to open the door for you.” He gave a slight bow. “I was told to come in the back door. . . .”
“Got it,” she said, and held the door open with her foot. “I’m Maisy Sheffield.” She held out her hand.
He shook it. “Nick Martin.”
“I knew you looked familiar. My family owns the store. . . . We are so glad you’ve come.”
“My pleasure.” He gestured for her to walk through.
“Follow me,” she said, and gave him her best smile.
“Anytime.” He laughed, and she looked over her shoulder at him while she led him to the front of the store.
“Riley.” Maisy tapped her sister on the shoulder. “Nick Martin is here.”
Riley turned; she was now a different woman from the one who had come into the storage room and berated her younger sister. “It is so lovely to meet you,” she said, held out her hand. “As you can see, you’ve drawn a huge crowd. We’re ready to get started whenever you are.”
“Let’s go then,” he said. He turned to Maisy. “I always panic when I get close to a signing, thinking this will be the time no one shows up.”
“I’m sure that never happens to you.”
“Hey,” he said. “It happens to everyone.”
She pointed toward the podium. “Once everyone is seated, I’ll introduce you.”
“Great.”
Riley followed Maisy to the podium, whispered, “I was going to introduce him.”
Maisy spun around. “You said you wanted my help.”
Riley held up her hands, whispered in harsh words, “You smell like you’ve been drinking.”
“I had a few sips of wine, that’s all. If you call that drinking, you’ve obviously not been living with Mama.”
“Then go for it.” Riley stepped back, made a gesture toward the podium. “Have fun.”
Maisy tapped the microphone, and the crowd moved to their chairs. “Welcome to the Driftwood Cottage Bookstore event for New York Times bestselling adventure writer Nick Martin.”
The crowd applauded and Maisy gestured toward the author standing behind her. She read from Riley’s typed introduction on the podium, added her own comments, which brought laughter, and then stepped aside for Nick. She took a seat in the first row. She focused on Nick, on his talk about his writing journey and how he’d come to this place. His story was inspiring and funny, filled with witty, self-deprecating descriptions of embarrassing moments on the road.
After he told about a night when he arrived at the wrong bookstore in St. Louis, an older woman stood in the back row. “Excuse me,” she called out.
“Yes?” Nick asked.
“I don’t know why you are up there blathering on about a book you know nothing about. I never meant to flaunt this book about as if it were a show pony. This is a fine piece of literature meant to inspire, not be joked about.”
“Excuse me?” His look of confusion ended with a nervous laugh as he glanced at Maisy, who shrugged.
Riley went to Nick’s side, whispered in his ear. He nodded, then answered the woman. “Well, I, too, believe this is a fine piece of literature. You’ve done a wonderful job.”
Maisy jumped up, realizing it was the same woman who had disrupted the book club earlier that day. Mrs. Lithgow—the lady who thought she’d written all the novels being discussed.
Nick took the microphone out of the stand, and walked toward one side of the room. Maisy saw that the old woman was coming toward him, her heavy shoes clacking on the hard wood. Nick smiled at her, spoke directly into the microphone. “Can you tell us your motivation for writing this novel?”
Driftwood Summer Page 13