“Mack.” His name slipped past her lips.
“That sounded like a no,” he said.
“Oh, that’s not it. I want to see you. I’d love to see you. Come here anytime you want. But not for . . . me.”
“Why not?” He stepped back in the dark. “I thought maybe . . .”
“No,” Riley whispered, placed her finger over his lips. “You didn’t, not really.”
“You don’t know that. . . .”
“I know where you are, Mack, because I’m there, too. Mom is sick. I’m losing the store. Life is changing and it’s easy to grab on to something familiar and warm, something innocent and blameless . . . like the past. But it won’t get us anywhere. Won’t do us any good. Won’t keep us safe or change reality.”
“Damn, Minnow. Do you have an answer for everything?”
“No.” She laughed. “I don’t have answers for much of anything, but I want you to understand that it’s okay by me to stay best friends. It’s enough for me now. It’s okay. All is well. Mack, I have a son; life is different now. So different.”
“Brayden,” he said. “He’s a great kid.”
Riley nodded, and the truth rose from the darkness inside her, from this sweet moment with her old best friend. “This was a hard week for me in many ways, but one of them was because his grandparents were here . . . and they don’t know about Brayden . . . and Brayden doesn’t know about them.”
Mack held out his hand, took hers and pulled her close again. “Riley, you don’t have to keep everything so close, so secret and tight.”
“Yes, I do.” Her voice shook.
He placed his hand on the back of her head, drew her in to rest again on his chest before he spoke. “It’s Sheldon, isn’t it? He’s Brayden’s father.”
Riley nodded her head under Mack’s hand. He held her for long moments; she heard his heartbeat, smelled the aroma of sea mixed with sweat and sleep. She shivered even in the heat of the summer night and held tighter to Mack until her breath evened out, until he released her. Telling him had unknotted something tangled in her soul. She looked at him. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that. I’ve never told anyone.”
“Yes, you should have told me. Didn’t you just say it—best friends, right? We can tell each other anything.”
She nodded. “I did, and it’s enough, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Minnow. Enough.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Okay . . .” she said.
He walked off into the dark and Riley whispered again into the night, “It’s enough.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
MAISY
Maisy lay on her back in bed and let the emotions of the party wash over her once again. Watching her sisters give to others, Mama with her daughters, Mack coming to say goodbye—a real goodbye this time, one without empty promises. How would she incorporate all of these events into her life?
She rose from bed and stretched. She should be going home now, back to Laguna Beach, but now Mama was sick. “Home.” She said the word out loud, but it sounded hollow.
Where was home? If it wasn’t here in the place she’d left, or there in the place she’d been living, where the hell was it? She sat on the edge of the bed, dropped her head into her hands. She attempted to see her life in Laguna—her white condo, her beautiful store, the long, wide beach, the sunsets on the opposite shore.
When she’d originally left Palmetto Beach she’d believed that Mack Logan was the answer to all her heartache, all her emptiness. Over the years, she realized now, he’d become a fantasy that changed with her need, with the time and season, his image filling the vacant or hurting places. His adolescent adoration had once been enough and she’d attempted to make it last forever. But she’d only been fooling herself.
After taking a hot shower and getting dressed, Maisy stood outside the drawing room about to go in and hear if all this work had paid off, saved the store.
Riley came up behind her. “You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Just exhausted. Aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I want you to know that I couldn’t have gotten through the week without you. I am so glad you came home—I hope it meant a lot of good things for you, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“That you had fun. That you saw old friends. That you enjoyed being here.”
Maisy turned away from her sister, away from the memory of Lucy walking away. Riley opened the French doors and went to their mama, who was propped up in bed in full makeup.
Maisy entered the room, sat in the corner chair. Adalee came running into the room, out of breath, flushed, her hair flying in curls around her face. “Sorry I’m late.”
Riley laughed. “You’re not late.”
“I had so much fun yesterday.” She plopped down in a large club chair, her feet on the ottoman.
“Did you get back together with Chad or something?” Maisy asked.
“Ooooh, no. My older sister taught me that I am too good for him.” Adalee laughed. “Right?”
“Right.” Maisy wondered how she could offer such good advice, but never take it herself.
“So how are my girls?” Mama asked. “I thought you’d sleep all day, considering how hard you worked all week.”
Positive affirmations overlapped; they were all fine.
Mama clapped her hands together. “Okay, girls. I have something to say amidst all this hoopla.” Mama exhaled through pursed lips. “You all did such an amazing job that I don’t even know how to thank you.” She turned to Riley. “I’ll get straight to the point. Did we make enough money to save the store?”
Riley looked from her sisters to her mother. “Not enough, Mama. I’m so sorry. We can repay some of our debts, but not all of them and still make the payroll and mortgage.” Riley dropped her gaze to the floor in defeat.
Mama closed her eyes, leaned her head back on the pillow. “Oh, Riley, I was really hoping we could save the store, but we just can’t keep wishing, hoping and praying for some miracle. Hoping never made anything happen. We have to face the facts, don’t we? We’ll have to sell.”
Maisy was shocked by the resignation in Mama’s voice. It was so unlike her.
Adalee jumped to her feet. “No way. We can’t lose Driftwood Cottage Bookstore. It means too much to this town. There has to be a way to save it.”
Maisy stood also. “I agree with Adalee. We have to try harder to find a solution.”
Mama cleared her throat. “There is no way to keep it. If we can’t balance the books, or pay our employees, we can’t keep it, period. You won’t even be here to know anything about it. . . . You’ll be back to your nice California life.”
Anger flared in Maisy, burst and then simmered. “We’ll figure something out. And I’m staying. Now I’m staying . . . for a while anyway.”
Riley shook her head. “Maisy, of course I’d love it if you stayed, but it can’t be with the crazy idea that you or anyone else can save Driftwood Cottage. This bookstore has been mine to run. I’ve tried for twelve years, and we are too far down the hole to make it work. You can’t ask Mama to support Brayden and me. That is not her job. That is not her responsibility. And it’s not yours either.”
Adalee sat down in defeat. She spoke quietly. “I was gonna ask you if I could eventually open a design shop in the extra storage room.”
Riley went to her, squatted next to her chair. “You didn’t say anything.”
“I was going to wait until the party was over. I mean, I graduate in two semesters. . . . I thought, well, I thought . . . we could work together and . . .”
Mama’s voice filled the room. “Dreaming about things doesn’t change them. Adalee, you can start your design business out of the house. You know that.”
Maisy interrupted. “This is ridiculous. Are y’all going to just let it go?”
“You did.” Mama said the words so sharply that Maisy fell to her chair as though she’d been slapped with an open hand.
“Please stop it,” Riley said. “There is something else we need to discuss.”
When silence fell, Maisy expected Mama to bring up the forbidden topic: cancer. Her insides were cold.
“This morning,” Riley said, “I’m going over to visit Mr. and Mrs. Rutledge.”
Maisy was having trouble following the redirected conversation.
“That is kind of you,” Mama said. “They have suffered a great loss.”
Riley’s clear tones reverberated through the room. “I’m going to tell them that Brayden is their grandson.”
Mama’s shocked inhalation of breath was enough to make Maisy want to rise from her chair and slap her hand over her mama’s mouth. All at once, she knew exactly what to do—she went to her sister and hugged her hard and long. “Oh, Riley, Sheldon was the nicest guy in the world.”
“Yes,” she said, and released her. “That’s why I never told. Or at least that’s why I thought I never told. I didn’t want to ruin his life. Now I also know I didn’t want to share Brayden.”
“I didn’t even know you dated him,” Mama said through tight lips.
“I didn’t, Mama. We spent one night together after I got my heart broken and drank too many lemonade surprises at the bonfire. Can you see why I never said anything? But I can’t hide anymore. And it was cruel to keep Brayden from his grandparents. I’m sorry.”>
“For what?” Maisy asked, trying to assimilate that Riley had slept with Sheldon on the same night she broke up her and Mack. “Why are you sorry?”
Riley looked up. “I’m sorry for keeping this knowledge from all of you. I’m sorry I lost the store. I’m sorry . . . I took Mack away from you that night.”
“Stop it,” Maisy said. “We all, every single one of us, have done things we wish we didn’t do. No more regrets.”
“Isn’t Sheldon”—Adalee hesitated before she said—“dead?”
“Adalee,” Maisy said, the word sharp.
Mama spoke in a soft whisper. “Sheldon Rutledge.”
“Yes,” Riley said.
“Could be worse, I guess,” Mama said, and shrugged her shoulders. “Now I need to get some rest.”
The sisters kissed her one after the other and Maisy stared at Riley, envisioning the night of the last bonfire, their father sprinting onto the beach and pulling her and Mack apart, and she saw another deep bond between Riley and herself: Riley had slept with Sheldon for the same reasons she had slept with Tucker—to forget Mack Logan. One night—one sorrow-drenched night—had altered the course of many lives.
TWENTY-EIGHT
RILEY
The cottage the Rutledges had rented for the week had cedar shingles painted white with bright blue shutters, and a tin roof. On a covered front porch the width of the house were a deep swing and three chairs painted in pastel blue, pink and green. A sign next to the front door read Shore Thing. Riley remembered a time when her uncle from Charleston had rented this very cottage; she’d fallen asleep on that swing.
During those last moments with Mack, when she’d told him the truth about Brayden’s father, Riley had realized that she must also tell the Rutledges. For years she had convinced herself that she was keeping the identity of Brayden’s father a secret for his sake, and that was partly true, but now she had a clearer understanding. If she told the grandparents, she would now introduce a new family into their lives.
She took a deep breath and walked up onto the porch, knocked on the front door.
A panicked inner voice told her to run. Don’t let them into your life. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides; she shook them and held her palms up as if to offer herself the freedom to receive something new.
Mrs. Rutledge answered the door with a dishrag in her hand, a faded blue apron tied around her middle. Her dark brown bob was brushed and hair-sprayed into a perfect Vidal Sassoon look from the nineteen seventies. “Well, hello, Riley. What a wonderful surprise. Come on in, my dear.” She opened the door wide. “I sure do miss those days when all the kids came to our cottage.” She patted Riley’s shoulder, which was higher than her own. “You’ll always be kids to me.”
Riley hesitated, not wanting to enter, but knowing she must. This news wasn’t something one told a woman at her front door with a dishrag in her hand. She followed Mrs. Rutledge through the house, laughed when she passed through the living room. “This cottage is exactly the same as it was years ago when my uncle Sam rented it.”
“It’s a wonderful little place,” Mrs. Rutledge said over her shoulder. “I loved owning our old place, but there sure is a great freedom in just locking up and leaving, in letting someone else worry about wood rot and painting the front porch.”
They entered the kitchen together and Riley breathed in the distinct and comforting aroma of peach cobbler. “Oh, that smells wonderful. It brings back memories.”
“Yes.” Mrs. Rutledge sat in a ladder-back chair at the table, motioned for Riley to sit. “Everywhere I turn I find a memory. It’s what I wanted from this trip, but I don’t think I can do it again.”
Riley closed her eyes and took a sustaining breath. “How many years has it been since you’ve been here?”
“The last time we came was the year Sheldon entered college. How long is that?” She glanced up at the wide plank-board ceiling as if it held the answer. “Probably thirteen years ago. It seemed like such a wonderful decision for him to enter the Air Force after college. Such a great opportunity. Who knew . . . ?”
Riley reached for Mrs. Rutledge’s hand resting on the table, and squeezed it. “I am so sorry about Sheldon. We all just adored him.”
“I know, and thank you.”
Courage faded into panic, and Riley feared she wouldn’t be able to tell the truth.
“If only . . .” Mrs. Rutledge looked into her eyes. “If only God had granted us more children, maybe this wouldn’t be such a hard burden to bear.” She shrugged, wiped her eyes on the dish towel she still held in her hand. “Or maybe not. We never know about ‘could have beens,’ do we?”
“No, we don’t.”
Mr. Rutledge entered the kitchen with a rolled-up newspaper tucked under his arm. His face broke into a wide grin. “Well, well, look who’s here.” Riley stood up, and he enfolded her in a hug, patted her back with his wide hand. “How are you, Riley?”
“I’m well, thank you.”
“That sure was a fantastic party last night. We had such a wonderful time seeing old friends. That boy of yours is adorable. And funny. I enjoyed talking to him.”
“You talked to Brayden last night?”
“Well, yes. We went out to the tent for a while when the store got too crowded. He told me all about the secret places to fish. I pretended I didn’t know them already.” Mr. Rutledge winked.
“He is absolutely obsessed with fishing,” Riley said, unsure what to do with her hands, with her words, with her fear.
“I remember a young girl who was once obsessed with finding the best fishing hole every year. If she didn’t win the summer’s fishing contest, there was hell to pay.”
Riley laughed.
“You still fish?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No time really, sir.”
“What with running that bookstore and raising a son, I’m sure there’s not. But I’d hate to think Riley Sheffield was not fishing out there on Pearson’s Pier with her baseball hat on crooked and her feet dirty, her face stained red from the shaved ice.”
Riley thought of the odd way in which memories were stored, a scent, a sound, a sight teasing the mind. This was Mr. Rutledge’s memory of her: the girl who wouldn’t let anyone beat her at anything, who could bait a hook faster than any boy she knew. And because he remembered that girl, she came alive in Riley. “I need to tell you something,” she said.
They glanced at each other, and Mr. Rutledge motioned for Riley to sit. “Are you okay?”
“I am here to beg your forgiveness for not telling you sooner. That girl, the one Mr. Rutledge just de
scribed, left a long time ago. I don’t know when she moved on, but she left behind a scared woman who was afraid to tell the truth.”
“Forgive me for being a bit confused.” Mrs. Rutledge wiped her dish towel in circles on the pine table.
“I’ll try to explain, but I’m not sure how good a job I’ll do, as I haven’t planned this well. I’ve had my reasons for keeping this secret, but the excuses seem hollow now.”
“What secret, my dear?” Mr. Rutledge continued to stand, as if he knew he’d need to brace himself for what was to come.
Riley took a deep breath. “My son, Brayden, is your grandson. Sheldon’s son.”
The silence that overcame the kitchen ballooned outward into the past, and then into the future, filling in the gaps and spaces of all their lives. Riley waited, as she knew she must, for the verdict of guilt and blame.
“We have a grandson, Mark. A grandson.” Mrs. Rutledge’s awed voice broke as her chair scraped across the hardwood floor.
Riley looked up at the older couple holding each other in the middle of the room.
“A grandson. Sheldon’s son.” Mr. Rutledge spoke in a sure and calm voice.
Riley sat as quietly as she could, wanting to leave these two people alone in their intimate moment. She felt like a voyeur, as if she had stumbled onto a scene that should never be shared beyond husband and wife.
She stood to tiptoe to the back door, which she knew led onto a dirt-and-gravel path that cut through shrubbery and scrubby pines, past two more cottages and then to the beach. This was her goal—the beach, silence.
A hand dropped onto her shoulder before she took two steps. Before she could formulate her response, she was enfolded into the arms of Brayden’s grandparents.
“I’m sorry,” Riley whispered.
Mr. Rutledge stepped back. “You have given us a great gift. How, oh, how can you apologize?”
This grace, this overwhelming grace, was more than Riley could take in. Their forgiveness filled her with joy and emptied her of fear. “I should have told you sooner. I should have told Sheldon, but I didn’t want him to feel forced into doing anything except fulfilling his own dreams. I wanted to protect him . . . and you.”
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