Covered in dust and dirt, she and Adalee stuffed their finds in the back of Mama’s pickup truck and drove too fast back to Palmetto Beach. They ran through the front door of the bookstore, laughing.
Riley stood at the cash register, waved at them over the crowd, which was double what it had been the night before for Nick Martin. “Look at all these people!” Maisy said.
Together they worked their way to Riley’s side. “Glad you could make it,” she said. “You look . . . great?” She raised her eyebrows, taking in their disheveled appearance.
“Sorry,” Adalee said. “We lost track of time.”
Riley brushed dirt from Adalee’s face, tucked hair behind her ear. “Will you please set up the table for the name tags? I have them ready by the front door. As the women come through the line, write each one’s name and then the name of their book club underneath.”
“Aren’t you exhausted?” Adalee blew a piece of hair off her forehead.
“Tomorrow is a half day—can’t open until after church—we can all rest up for Cookbook Club. They use the café kitchen here every Sunday afternoon to prepare recipes from the cookbook they picked that month. This time we’ve invited the public to come and watch. . . . We sold tickets for dinner.”
“What a cute idea. I didn’t know we had that book club, too. You think of everything.”
“It was Mama’s idea,” Riley said, and turned to Maisy. “Will you please announce that the trivia game will start in twenty minutes? Here are the questions. The book clubs are divided up in those chair groupings.” Riley pointed at the round circles of chairs.
Maisy nodded. “Sure, sure.”
“You might want to go wash your face. . . . Where have you been?”
“The Antique Mart.”
“Ah, okay.” Riley lifted a notebook, tucked it under her arm.
Maisy glanced down at the floor, noticed her flip-flops were covered in dust. She’d lost herself in the thrill of the hunt. Imagining and decorating a room or an entire home caused her to detach from herself, flying high above her own angst, but now she realized she was covered in dirt. “I’m a mess,” she said. “Do I have time to run home and change, get cleaned up?”
“No, but why don’t you use the bathroom upstairs? I’m sure I have something you can wear.”
“I doubt it,” Maisy said.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Riley’s face closed in.
“I just meant that—”
“Go on,” Riley said. “You’re welcome to borrow whatever you want, but you don’t have to. You always look good.” Riley walked away, headed toward Brayden, who was in the back of the Kids’ Corner.
Maisy wished she could take back the words she’d just said—they’d come out all wrong. Often the leftover anger flooded back and Maisy remembered the way Riley had looked when she’d come in to apologize after sending their father onto the beach that night of the bonfire. Standing in Maisy’s bedroom doorway, Riley had looked victorious . . . or it could have been regretful—Maisy had been too distraught to know for sure.
Riley tousled Brayden’s hair. Maisy noticed how her nephew had grown almost as tall as his mom. Mack came over to stand next to Brayden, his laughter resounding.
Maisy’s joy billowed upward, joining the sweetness of the afternoon she’d spent with Adalee. She allowed every sensation she felt with Mack Logan to pass through her: the sound of his voice, his presence here. As though he heard her thoughts, he lifted his head and stared at her. He moved toward her, and she stood still at the counter, wishing she didn’t have dirt on her face, in her hair and on her clothes. He reached her side.
“Maisy,” he said. “Hi.”
“Hey, you.” Her voice came out nervous and shaky. She smiled her best smile, the one with the tilt of the head, the flirty eyes.
He brushed dust off her cheek. “You been crawling around in the dirt?”
“Adalee and I went to the Flea Market.”
“Same as ever.”
“Sort of,” she said. “Yes, sort of.”
An older gentleman whom Maisy recognized as Sheppard walked toward them with Brayden at his side. “You’ve met my nephew?” she asked.
“We’ve been fishing.”
Maisy tore her gaze from Mack’s gray eyes to watch Brayden and Mr. Logan move around the set-up chairs and wooden pillars. She took fast steps toward them, navigated the food table covered in a white cloth and threw her arms around Mr. Logan. “Oh, it is so good to see you.” Maisy hugged him hard, noting the diminished frame beneath her arms. Mack had told her at lunch that he was sick, and as she hugged him, she found herself fighting a feeling of loss, of passing time. This man had once been a tower, a pillar of strength.
His voice came out as strong as she remembered. “Well, well, little Maisy Sheffield. I heard you moved to California or some other such country.”
Her laughter came from the deeper place of contentment: Mr. Logan was here talking to her as if she were still the innocent girl she’d once been. She wasn’t a woman dating a married man, or a woman who slept with her best friend’s fiancé; she was little Maisy Rose.
“Yes, I do live in California, but I’m home for a bit now.”
Mr. Logan took her hand. “It is good that you came home to help your family.”
Maisy could have argued that point, but instead she smiled and squeezed his hand in return.
Riley joined them. “We have to get this night going. Do you want me to do the announcements and trivia game, Maisy?”
“No, no, I said I’d do them and I will.”
Brayden and Mr. Logan walked to the back of the room, leaving Maisy and Riley face-to-face. “You can’t even let me have a decent conversation,” Maisy accused. “All you care about are these freaking parties.”
“What?” Riley had started to walk toward the food table, but now turned and stared at her sister.
“You sent Mack fishing with your son. You’re the same girl, the same jealous girl who took him away from me that night, and used our father to do it. First Dad, now Brayden.”
“What are you talking about?” Riley’s jaw clenched, her hands balled at her sides. “I didn’t send him anywhere.”
Maisy took a deep breath, noticed a tight group of women staring at them. A soft voice said, “Those are the Sheffield sisters.”
Riley exhaled; her shoulders sank and she moved close to whisper, “Maisy, please. That was so long ago. I said I was sorry fifty thousand times in fifty thousand ways. If you wanted Mack Logan, you should have gone after him instead of running to California.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Maisy spoke with closed lips.
“Please drop this. You can go out with him every day and every night. Just please get the trivia game started before the book clubs leave.”
Maisy straightened, brushed dust off her cotton blouse. “Of course.”
Riley joined a group of women calling her name. Maisy turned her thoughts to the one thing that brought her peace: Mack Logan was here, in Palmetto Beach, in Driftwood Cottage.
A quiet but persistent voice reminded her that she didn’t even know how he felt about her. She’d only had a brief lunch with him, caught up on the facts of life. All these years she’d nurtured her own memories, imagining that the last thing he had said to her—I love you—would be the first thing he’d say if she ever saw him again.
Back then, she’d decided to wait for him. She was still waiting.
SIXTEEN
RILEY
For the first time in weeks, Riley didn’t wake up exhausted. The Sunday morning sun had already whispered across her hardwood floors and onto her white chenille bedspread. She stretched and smiled. Last night had gone well. Despite Maisy’s anger and lateness, she’d done a brilliant job as emcee. Adalee had bounced around, greeting every guest like royalty. Her sisters might grumble behind the scenes, but they knew how to be charming hostesses—a Sheffield gift.
The cruel words Maisy h
ad thrown at Riley last night—words about how she was a jealous sister who had used their father and then her son to keep Mack away from Maisy—had continued to eat at her. Riley took a deep breath past the pain of knowing that Maisy was still holding on to the anger of that long-ago night, yet wanting and needing things to be different between them.
She redirected her thoughts to Mack and Sheppard at the party. Father and son had sat, laughed, drunk the free wine and challenged each other over the trivia questions on classic literature. Mack had caught her gaze in the middle of the contest, smiled and mouthed Thank you as though she had done something for him.
And maybe she had. She’d brought Mr. Logan back to his beach cottage.
A loud banging from below sent Riley bolting out of bed. She grabbed her robe and slippers and hurried to Brayden’s room. He was asleep with the covers thrown off. She opened the doorway to the back stairs and stepped so the treads wouldn’t creak. She opened the bottom door to see that the café light was on. Behind the counter Adalee stood watching coffee drip into the coffeepot. “What are you doing?” Riley asked, flicking on another light.
Adalee startled, dropped the mug in her hand. Shards of pottery flew across the hardwood floor, onto Riley’s slippers. “Oh, oh.” Adalee’s eyes overflowed with tears.
“What’s wrong?” Riley dodged the broken pieces, and went to her sister, put her arms around her.
Adalee shook her head. “Nothing. I’m okay. You just scared me, that’s all.” But her eyes were swollen, her face red and blotchy with yesterday’s makeup.
“You don’t look okay. It’s me, your sister. What is wrong? And why aren’t you at Mama’s on Sunday morning? You know she’ll be frantic.”
“I told her I was spending the night with you.”
“Where did you spend the night?”
“Here.” Adalee motioned toward the open door of the storage room. “I used the pillows from the couch in the Book Club Corner.”
“Oh, Adalee, why didn’t you come get me? You could have slept with us upstairs.”
“I didn’t mean to . . . spend the night in there. I thought I was going to be with Chad . . . but when I got to the beach party after the book club celebration, I couldn’t find him. Kimmie told me he left with some girl visiting from Atlanta.” Adalee turned away, her shoulders dropping. “I thought he loved me. I really did.”
“Oh, sweetie. Are you sure?”
“I never saw him at all. He wasn’t there.”
“So you came back here?”
“Yes, I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to go back to Mama’s. Then I started working on some . . . stuff in the storage room and I finally fell asleep.”
“What are you working on? I thought the history boards were done.”
Adalee smiled as if the storm of Chad had passed. “Surprise. Can’t tell you.”
“Come on,” Riley begged, heading toward the storage room.
Adalee sprinted past her, slammed the old library door shut. “No.”
Riley tried to dodge around her, laughing. “This is my house. Show me.”
“Upstairs is your house. This part belongs to all of us.” She smiled. “And today you cannot go in there.”
Riley feigned pulling on the doorknobs. “It smells like paint.”
“Yes, it does.”
Riley dropped her hands from the door. “You win. I’m going up to wake my son and get ready for late church service. Want to go with us?”
Adalee shrugged. “Sure, if it’ll keep Mama off my back.” She glanced around the store. “You’ll tell her I stayed here, right?”
“You did, didn’t you?”
Adalee nodded and then followed Riley toward the café, where they poured themselves cups of coffee.
“Last night went great,” Adalee said. “You must be so happy.”
“What I’m happy about is that the store is closed until one o’clock today. I need some rest, some time with my son and a long walk on the beach.”
They headed up the back stairs together to find Brayden sitting at the kitchen table with a box of opened Pop-Tarts. Riley kissed the top of his tousled head, picked a pastry out of the box and took a bite. “I’m gonna shower. We’ll leave in half an hour.”
Brayden hollered after her, “Hey, those are my Pop-Tarts.”
Riley, Adalee and Brayden stepped out of the church sanctuary into the bright noonday sun, and strolled down the sidewalk back toward Driftwood Cottage. Brayden, walking ahead of them, looked over his shoulder. “Come on, the day is wasting,” he said, mimicking his mother’s oft-spoken words.
Riley lifted her face to the sun. “We need to go see Mama for lunch.”
Adalee groaned. “Oh, Riley, I don’t know how you can stand living here. Her constant demands and need for attention make me crazy. Truly crazy.”
Riley stopped on the sidewalk to look at her sister. “I couldn’t do what I do if it weren’t for Mama. I’m raising a son alone. And I’m doing what I love—running a small bookstore. To do that, I’ll put up with almost anything. Mama is not that bad, except when she feels out of control, which of course she does, sitting in a bed in her drawing room, unable to be here for all the events she’s planned for well over a year. So, I know that she can make us all a bit insane, but just tolerate it for a little bit longer, won’t you?”
Adalee nodded. “Okay. I get it. But can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“It’s sort of off subject.” She pointed to Brayden already halfway down the sidewalk. “Why won’t you tell us who his dad is? Why won’t you tell him? Don’t you think it would make things so much . . . easier? You wouldn’t have to raise him alone.”
Riley stared after her son running toward the cottage. “Why are you bringing this up now?”
Adalee shrugged. “I just thought it would be better to know.”
“Better for who? Me? Maybe. The dad? No. I couldn’t do that to him. I made a terrible mistake and I can’t . . . ruin his life.”
“Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t ruin his life? That he might want to know?”
Riley stared at her sister, sadness running through her like a slow-moving river. As with all her decisions, she’d made this one and moved on. She didn’t like revisiting her reasons or motives. Still, her heart ached at the thought of Brayden’s grandparents here visiting without knowing.
Adalee pointed to Brayden. “If he were my son, I’d sure want to know him. He is the coolest kid ever.”
“It’s more complicated than that, Adalee.”
“I’m sure it is. I wasn’t questioning you. I just always wondered, and well, you never talk about it.”
“And I don’t want to talk about it now, either.” Riley stopped. “And you have your own problems to worry about.”
“Like?”
“Passing your senior year. Will Auburn even let you return?”
“You didn’t go to college. Maisy didn’t either. And you’re both just fine, aren’t you?”
“Fine? Adalee, think of all the other opportunities I might have if I had a degree. Here I am, thirtysomething years old, and trying to decide if now is the time to go back to school.”
“I’m not here to live the life you didn’t.” Adalee stamped her foot like a child refused an ice cream.
Riley sighed.
“I hate, hate, hate when you do that. You look like Mama when you blow your air out like that.”
Riley smiled, withheld her laugh with a hand over her mouth.
“You’re laughing at me,” Adalee said, her voice breaking.
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at me. Exhaling like Mama? Really?”
Adalee plunked herself down on an iron bench along the sidewalk. “Riley, I didn’t mean to fail. I just went out of town for the weekend with Chad, and then stayed a few extra days, and then got too far behind.”
“So what have you been doing with your time?”
“I did ge
t an A in my design class. I’ve made a bunch of design boards. It wasn’t like I wasn’t doing anything. I did work on my portfolio.”
“And hung out with Chad.”
“Yes.” Adalee pouted. “I really, really like him. My friends don’t, but they don’t know him like I do.”
“Oh, Adalee. You let a guy—”
“Don’t say it. I hear it enough from them.”
“Okay. But you have to finish school. Promise me.”
Adalee held up her right hand. “I promise. I can be done in two semesters.”
Riley stood up. “Let’s go.” She glanced down the sidewalk to where Brayden stood with his legs apart and his hands on his hips, impatient for his mom and aunt to get moving. Riley asked her sister, “Do you know where Maisy went or what she did after the bookstore last night?”
Adalee shook her head. “Who knows where Maisy goes, or what she does? I swear, she’s like a wisp of smoke—here and then gone.” She took a few more steps, then laughed. “But we sure do know when she’s here, don’t we?”
Riley put her arm around her little sister. “We sure do.”
SEVENTEEN
MAISY
Maisy awoke with a memory of the previous night: she’d stopped Mack before he left the bookstore to go to the oyster roast at the Murphy brothers’ river house. She’d been nervous, though she made her words casual when she asked him if he’d meet her at the Beach Club for brunch today. She was not going to let Mack leave Palmetto Beach without knowing she’d at least tried to find a way back to the words of love he’d once spoken.
The shower ran hot and hard on her back and thighs. She scrubbed her hair, allowed the conditioner to stay in a few minutes longer before she rinsed. She wanted Mack to see her smiling and shining, not dirty and flustered as she’d been last night. The clock on the bedside table said ten-oh-six. She could only use the time-zone difference as an excuse for so long. Now Mama would be mad as a trapped hornet because she was supposed to be down by nine a.m. to eat breakfast with her, and tell her everything about the previous night: who’d been there, who hadn’t, and how the event had gone, how many books they’d sold.
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