Social Graces

by Dixie Browning

  When the boardwalk ended, she puffed up the last steep stretch of slippery white sand. And there it was, wild as any New England seacoast, only different. Without the rocks, the surf lunged up onto the flat, sandy shore, leaving behind trails of creamy foam and dark seaweed. “Oh, my mercy,” she whispered. “It’s…magnificent.”

  And it was. Winslow Homer water beneath a darkening sky that was streaked with all the colors of a Turner palate. Overhead, so close she could see the yellow on their heads, a trio of pelicans followed the row of dunes, taking advantage of the air currents.

  There wasn’t a living soul in sight. No fishermen, not so much as a solitary beach walker. As if by magic, she could feel months of anxiety slide from her shoulders, leaving her oddly weightless. Lifting her face to the wind, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

  Mac remained silent but she could feel his presence. He was a part of it all, even though he was standing several feet below on the seaward side of the dunes. They might have been the only two people in the world. Feeling the cold, damp spray on her face, she licked her lips, savoring the bite of salt. Then, sensing his nearness, she opened her eyes.

  Standing with his back to the wind, he captured one of her hands between his. Hers were gloved. His were bare. It struck her as funny—Lord knows why—and she laughed. He smiled. Moving closer so that his body shielded hers, he shifted his hand to her shoulder and laid a finger across her lips. Over-head, hundreds of birds streamed across the sky in chevron formation, like tiny black ants traversing a gray marble counter.

  Mac tugged off her stocking cap and pointed sky-ward. Listen, he mouthed.

  She listened.

  And then she heard it, the whisper of hundreds of pairs of wings, audible even over the roar of the sea. The kind of awareness that came over her was like the chill she’d experienced once when she’d been touring abroad and she’d happened to find herself alone in the ruined chapel of an ancient monastery. Voices—echoes, whispering through time.

  His face crinkled into a smile as they shared the brief magic moment. Sea oats whipped around her legs. Raw wind rocked her physically, bringing tears to her eyes. “I should have worn sunglasses,” she murmured, embarrassed by the flood of unexpected emotions.

  “Valerie?”

  “What kind of birds were they? Not geese, I didn’t hear a single honk. Ducks?”

  “Cormorants,” he said. And before she could think of something witty, or even appropriate to say, he kissed her.

  Wrapped in the wind, surrounded by the mingled scent of salt and millions of tiny dead organisms washed ashore with the mounds of Sargasso weed, he rocked his mouth over hers, pressing gently until she opened for him. Nothing in her entire life had ever felt so inevitable. His arms, strong, warm and anything but safe, pressed her against him so tightly that layers of clothing seemed to fall away. She felt him. His essence—his heartbeat.

  His erection.

  From far away, a voice whispered, You don’t even know this man!

  Another voice, stronger, far more assured, whispered back, Oh, yes I do. I’ve known him all my life, I just never knew where to find him.

  The kiss ended far too quickly. They were both breathing heavily when he finally lifted his head. He swallowed hard, shook his head as if dazed, and she waited for him to speak. To say something trivial, anything to anchor her in her shaky world again.

  A drop of rain struck her face. In a gravelly voice, he said, “Come on, let’s head back.”

  Six

  They were less than halfway along the boardwalk when the rain struck in earnest. Mac might have grabbed her hand to pull her along, but there was no room on the narrow pathway, so he let her go ahead. When they were nearly at the end, he pointed to a park service facility nearby. Val didn’t ask questions. By now she was breathless, laughing and freezing, her shoes and jeans soaked through.

  The small facility was locked, but there was a covered porch separating the men’s side from the women’s. Leaning against the back wall she laughed until her sides ached.

  “What’s so funny?” Mac asked.

  “I don’t know. Nothing.” He shot her a quizzical look, and she said, “Didn’t you ever laugh at nothing?”

  “Not in the past twenty-odd years. Not while I was sober.”

  Her laughter died and she bit her lip, picturing a much younger John MacBride, a little bit drunk, a little bit vulnerable—not nearly so sure of himself. The stabbing pain she felt in the region of her heart had nothing to do with having run a fast quarter of a mile in the driving rain.

  Who are you? she wondered.

  “You’re freezing,” he said gruffly, and before she could protest he gathered her in his arms and stood with his back to the blowing rain, offering her what shelter he could provide.

  It wasn’t the cold that bothered her. Cold she could handle. What bothered her—frightened her—was the fact that she was wildly off balance, deeply in lust and trying hard to ignore the whisper of common sense that urged her to back off, to run—to forget everything except for the reason she had come here to the island. Her personal needs weren’t important.

  Her obligations were. “I’m not freezing,” she said, inhaling the healthy male scent of his skin. “I’m—I’m hungry.”

  “Me, too.” There was no mistaking his meaning. Not even the layers of clothing that separated them could disguise the fact that he was seriously aroused. Instead of remarking on it, or acting on it—not that there was any way they could under the circumstances, he said, “Tell you what. Once it slacks enough to get to the car, I’ll drive you up the beach for a sub. There’s a place in Avon.”

  She didn’t say a word. Instead, she burrowed her face in the warmth of his throat, clasped her hands around his back and savored the moment, knowing it wouldn’t be repeated. She couldn’t afford the distraction.

  The rain ended as suddenly as it had begun. When he stepped back, she could have cried. Instead, she brushed past him and clambered down the steps. Once she got her directions straight, she marched out in front, setting a faster pace than was comfortable in clinging denim and soggy sneakers. With his longer legs, he had no trouble keeping up with her, even when she broke into a jog.

  Wordlessly, Mac unlocked the Land Cruiser and she grabbed a handhold and swung herself up unaided. Neither of them spoke when he passed the turnoff onto Back Road and followed Highway 12 to the village of Avon, some six miles to the north.

  Not a word, the entire six miles.

  By the time Mac pulled up under the long-limbed live oak tree in the side yard and shut off the engine, he had more or less put things into perspective.

  Okay, so he’d kissed her. He was thirty-seven years old. He’d lost track of the women he’d kissed, including the woman he’d nearly married. So what the hell difference did one more kiss make? It was no big deal.

  She’d kissed him back, too. Sweet, hot and wet, with cold noses pressed against cold cheeks. Sand whipping around their legs, rain blowing in on their backs while he tried to come up with some excuse to shed a few layers of clothing.

  He needed his brain examined for even touching her. Ever since yesterday, or maybe the day before, when he’d walked into the kitchen and seen her with her head in the oven, her shapely little behind wriggling in harmony with her shoulders as she chipped away layers of volcanic ash, he’d been semi-hard. Not a comfortable condition for any man, especially one on a mission of entrapment.

  If that weren’t bad enough, he’d held the back door open a few minutes later when she’d headed outside with a box full of trash. After she’d sidled past him, her firm little butt pressing briefly against his groin, he’d had to go outside and whack weeds with a rusty scythe for half an hour before he was fit to come inside again.

  At this rate he might need to invest in a suit of pikeman’s armor, with the hinged steel apron.

  “I ordered two twelve-inchers,” he told her as he unlocked the front door. She’d opted to wait for him in the car whe
n he’d gone inside to place their order. “You can have six inches tonight, and six tomorrow.”

  Ah, jeez, MacBride, cut it out!

  “Onions?” It was the first time she’d spoken since he’d asked her what kind of sub she wanted.

  She’d said, “Anything’s fine.”

  Now he said, “Onions,” and she said, “Cool.”

  The last thing he felt was cool, despite wet clothes, wet shoes and falling temperatures. He cut her a side-long glance and caught a glint of something like amusement flashing across her face, which he interpreted as a good sign. Any expression at all was a good sign, even if it meant only, Might as well forget that damned kiss, buster. It never happened and it’s sure as hell not going to happen again.

  Of course, being a lady, she might not put it in exactly those terms, but the meaning was pretty clear. “You want a beer?” he asked once they got inside.

  She was peeling off layers, one by one. Gloves, anorak, soggy stocking cap, sweater. He wondered if she was deliberately trying to be provocative. If she stripped all the way down to a G-string and a pair of pasties, he might take that as a sign of encouragement. Anything short of that, no way.

  “House feels toasty, doesn’t it?” she observed brightly.

  The thermometer read sixty-two. “It won’t for long,” he said glumly. He switched on the heater.

  She said, “Thank you,” and offered to make tea.

  He said, “No, thank you.” They were rappelling off each other, neither of them willing to admit that their relationship, whatever it had been before, had undergone a change. “I bought a six-pack earlier today. Want one?”

  She shook her head. He shrugged and opened a bottle for himself. Given a choice between Corona, one-percent milk or hot tea, he’d take beer every time. In moderation.

  They ate in the living room, avoiding by mutual consent the closer confines of the kitchen. She settled in the middle of the sofa, ensuring that there wasn’t quite enough room on either end for another passenger.

  He dragged the heavy, fake-leather recliner over to the coffee table and sat across from her. While he unwrapped his meatball-with-all-the-extras, his peripheral vision took in her flushed cheeks and the way she avoided looking at him. The flush might be weather-related, but not the avoidance of eye contact.

  Back to square one. Employer versus employee. Tenant versus landlady.

  Hunter versus hunted.

  They ate in silence until halfway through the meal when she asked how much she owed him for her supper. He started to swear but cut it off. “My treat,” he said. “Next time you can pick up the check.”

  “Then thank you. It’s very good.”

  He was tempted to laugh, damned if he wasn’t. Whether or not she was ready to admit it, she’d been as turned on by that hot, sweet-salty kiss as he was, otherwise she wouldn’t be sitting there like Lady Whatsername at a tea party. It occurred to him that he might have set his mission back a few days.

  Or maybe not. Maybe now that he’d defused this crazy physical attraction he could concentrate on doing what he’d come down here to do.

  Okay, so there was still some electricity sizzling between them. Roughly enough to light up Shea Stadium. It might help if he could take her to bed and make love until he was cross-eyed, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  It might also help if he could find whatever he was looking for and get the hell out—put a few hundred miles between them—but somewhere along the line, the idea had lost its appeal.

  The rain droned on, accompanied by loud claps of thunder and brilliant flashes of lightning as the storm swept out to sea. Mac awoke with a throbbing head, signaling that a front had passed through during the night. Great, he thought, disgusted. Just what he needed to help him concentrate.

  He switched on the shower, adjusted it to a few degrees below parboil and allowed it to beat down on the back of his neck. By the time he dried off and pulled on a pair of jeans and an old Columbia U. sweatshirt, the pain had settled like a ground-hugging fog. He could function, but by no means at peak efficiency.

  After a pint of coffee and a bagel smeared with peanut butter, he headed upstairs to take apart and clean the trap under the upstairs lavatory. Val had mentioned that it took forever to drain.

  She was nowhere in evidence. Her car was missing, too. Not that he expected her to check with him before leaving the house, but she might have done him the courtesy of leaving him a note.

  He bumped his head on the porcelain bowl, swore and reached for a bucket to catch the sludge. From the looks of it, the thing hadn’t been cleaned out since the Carter administration.

  Where the devil was she, anyway? It was too early for the mail. So far as he knew, they weren’t out of anything.

  Once he’d reconnected the drain, he cleaned up the site and went in search of a screwdriver, a bit of sandpaper and a tube of graphite. The front-door lock was getting almost too stiff to key. Might as well finish up as many small jobs as possible in case he needed to take off in a hurry.

  Her car was still missing when he glanced outside. It occurred to him that instead of cleaning the lock, he should be going through those damned files. He was half tempted to tell her the truth and ask for complete access, including whatever was on the laptop she had yet to unpack. Just because the captain had gone down with the ship, he could argue, there was no reason to take his second in command down with him.

  It was that kiss that had messed up his mind, he told himself as he wiped graphite from his hands. Major mistake, in more ways than one. There’d been a growing tension between them even before that—sexual awareness didn’t wait for an invitation—but at least before he’d kissed her she’d trusted him not to take advantage of the situation.

  Now she was wary for all the wrong reasons. He didn’t know which was worse: feeling guilty because she trusted him when, once he found what he was looking for, it might lead to her being arrested for concealing evidence, or feeling guilty because he was tempted to walk away and let Will handle his own case. Let his lawyer earn his pay for a change.

  It was eating on him. Last night he’d had to take a couple of antacid tablets before he could get to sleep. Could’ve been the meatball sub, but chances were it was this growing conflict between his brain and his libido, between what he’d come down here to do and what he really wanted to do.

  He was out in the kitchen trying to scrub the gray film off his hands when she pulled into the front yard. A minute later she stuck her head in the doorway and said, “Hi. Did I get any calls while I was out?”

  Okay, so they were back to the old footing. Cheerful, but casual housemates. He could live with that. “No calls, sorry.”

  She sighed, and he wondered whom she’d been hoping to hear from. Unless it was a Swiss banker or a big development outfit it was none of his business.

  By the time he put away his tools and reheated the coffee, which by now was roughly the consistency of crude oil, just the way he liked it, she was curled up in the recliner, rattling papers and humming something slow and bluesy. Hell, even her hum was sexy.

  He’d give his new Viking drysuit to know what she’d found that put her in such a good mood. He had a feeling that if it was good for Bonnard, it was probably bad for Will.

  Across the hall in the living room, Val unfolded the Home Depot flyer, scanned it quickly and laid it aside. Maybe later she could afford to get into remodeling. She had a few ideas, but neither the time nor the money to carry them out. Besides, she had too many things on her mind.

  What on earth was she going to do about MacBride?

  She knew what she wanted to do, but it wasn’t going to happen. Even if he happened to be interested, she didn’t have time for an affair. Not even a single session of mind-boggling sex. And she had a feeling it would definitely be that. She was hardly inexperienced, but mind-boggling didn’t come close to describing her relationship with Tripp. Or even with the tennis pro she had briefly fallen in love with the year she’d gradua
ted from college.

  One thing about it—before she indulged in any sex at all, mind-boggling or otherwise, she would have to do something about that mattress. Which meant she was thinking about it.

  Which also meant she needed to find out if Marian had been serious about that job offer. She’d gone out early this morning to ask about it only to find a sign on the door of Seaview Realty saying, “Back at 1:00 p.m.”

  Disappointed, she’d driven on to Conner’s and picked up another can of oven cleaner and some industrial-strength hand lotion. From there she’d gone to the post office to mail the last of her change-of-address cards. Shoving them through the out-of-town slot, she’d wondered who among her closest friends—if any—would be the first to attempt a bit of fence-mending.

  Hopeful, but not really expecting a letter, she’d opened her mailbox and found it crammed full of catalogs and flyers. Disappointed that that’s all there was, she’d stopped short of dropping them into the recycling barrel. Even junk mail was better than no mail at all.

  Only half her mind was on the colorful catalogs, the other half on the man in the kitchen who was opening and shutting cabinet doors and whistling something that sounded like a dispute between a mocking bird and a tea kettle.

  By the time she’d gone to bed last night they’d barely been speaking. Mac had made a few valiant attempts at conversation, but she’d been afraid to let down her guard, afraid he might try to kiss her again.

  Afraid he might not.

  Well, this couldn’t go on, not as long as they were sharing a house. They were both sensible adults, after all. She needed to keep reminding herself of that fact.

  At least, one of them was. “Mac? Did you know you can actually buy wheelchairs by mail?”

  He called through the hall from the kitchen. “Never given it much thought. Why, you in the market for one?”

  When he appeared in the doorway behind her, she flashed him a grin over her shoulder. “No, but I was just thinking—with mail order and the Internet, there’s no real reason why a woman couldn’t live here for the rest of her life without ever having to leave the island.”