By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  Who the hell was she?

  Was it possible?

  His mind went tumbling back to a certain midnight in a tumbledown apartment overlooking Narragansett Bay. He'd been lying on his bed, waiting for Sara to come out of the bathroom where she'd been doing things with a diaphragm. He remembered how she looked when she emerged: shy but willing, a feast for him to behold. She had a great body. It was on the old-fashioned side and just made for loving, and he remembered thinking that he was on the verge of having the best night of his life.

  He remembered saying, "You all set, then?"

  But he could not, for the life of him, remember her answer.

  Not her exact words. They had seemed reassuring at the time—but then, she could have said, "Oh, sure; I have a bottle of vinegar in my purse," and he would have been just as reassured. He didn't really care if she was protected or not. All he really cared about at that moment was getting her between him and the sheet. Everything else was just words.

  He raked his memory, trying to dredge up the exact ones she'd used. Uh-huh? You bet? Fer sure? Darn tootin'?

  Just how safe were diaphragms, anyway? Could they pop, like rubbers?

  Could she have lied? Could she have said nothing at all, and could he have made up a lie in his head for her? Had he been that damned horny for her?

  Could sperm wiggle their way home around that kind of barrier? Were diaphragms just a truly lousy concept in birth control?

  Was Abigail Johnson Bonniface somewhere around twelve years old?

  Ben was in a sweat now. He shut his computer down and made himself get dressed and drive to city hall and spend the morning in the dusty, dreary basement there, poring over deeds and assigns, trying to track an ex- spouse's hidden assets, trying to understand how Abigail could possibly think that being a PI was cool.

  By the time he walked out it was raining; by the time he got home he was soaked. He had a simple reason for returning to his apartment instead of trying to cozy up to the neighbors of his client's ex-spouse to find out where the bum might be hiding: he needed to change into dry socks. So he peeled off the wet ones and while he was at it, he turned on his computer. Abigail's e-mail glared at him, demanding action.

  Delete. Delete delete delete her from his thoughts. Whoever she was, she was an unnecessary intrusion into what he laughingly called his life. He didn't ask for the e-mail. He didn't want the e-mail. He had better things to do than to wonder all day who Abigail Johnson Bonniface was.

  He deleted the e-mail, shut the laptop down, and went back out to do his job. He got in his car, turned on the ignition, swore, turned off the ignition, went back to his apartment, and turned on the computer.

  He had to go back and poke through the e-mail trash folder, something he didn't like to do on principal—trash was trash—but he retrieved Abigail's last e-mail and, for whatever reason, hit the reply button. Best not to use her name; best to be simple and to the point.

  Who are you?

  Sincerely,

  Ben McElwyn

  Before he could second-guess himself, he hit the send button. Off it went. At least the damn ball was finally out of his court, and he'd be able to get some sleep.

  Night came, and he tossed and turned.

  ****

  Abigail came home from school and went immediately to her computer to check her e-mail. She hadn't been able to get online for nearly twenty hours, and she was almost sick from the frustration of it.

  She closed her eyes and crossed her fingers as she waited. Please, please, please let there be a bmac5 today.

  She opened her eyes and there he was: bmac5. It was a miracle! She opened the e-mail in a state of ecstasy but was instantly crushed to see such a short message. It was practically rude. She'd done everything she could think of to be intriguing but not clingy, and this is all he could come up with? Six words? He probably had an admin write it for him. It was so insulting. She felt like a panhandler who had just had someone throw a crummy quarter in her cup.

  Deciding to give him a taste of his own medicine, she composed a response:

  I think, your daughter.

  Sincerely,

  Abigail

  She sat back and folded her arms across her chest. How would he like getting that?

  Should she send it? Really, actually send it? It would teach him such a lesson.

  No, she decided, after thinking about it. It was too abrupt. He could have a heart attack or something. Anyway, he hadn't even said if he was the Ben who knew Sara—although if he wasn't, then he probably wouldn't have answered at all. Or maybe he was just plain curious.

  Either way, Abigail resolved not to send the e-mail. She would stick with her original plan. First he had to tell her if he knew Sara. Then, and only then, would Abigail tell him who she was.

  A shave-and-a-haircut knock on her door told her that her stepfather was on the other side of it. "Abby?" she heard him say. "You in there?"

  "Yes! No!" she said, hitting the send button in her panic. Off went her answer through cyberspace, leaving Abigail too shocked to think. She had enough sense to get rid of Ben McElwyn's e-mail, but that was about it. When her stepfather came in smiling, she was speechless.

  An Excerpt from A CHARMED PLACE

  Antoinette Stockenberg

  "Buy this book! A truly fantastic read!"

  --Suzanne Barr, Gulf Coast Woman

  USA TODAY bestselling author Antoinette Stockenberg delivers an original and wonderfully romantic story of two people -- college lovers separated for twenty years -- who have the chance to be happy together at last. But family, friends, an ex-husband, a teenaged daughter and an unsolved murder seem destined to keep the lovers star-crossed, until Dan takes up residence in the Cape Cod lighthouse, with Maddie's rose-covered cottage just a short walk away ...

  ****

  "Oh, pooh," said Joan in a disappointed voice. "He has a woman with him."

  "What? Let me have those," said Norah, snatching the binoculars back from Joan with such vigor that she knocked Joan off balance.

  "Watch it!" Joan snapped. The edge in her usually soft-pitched voice was a clear sign, at least to Maddie, that Norah had gone over the line again.

  He has a woman with him.

  Norah stared intently through the binoculars. After a thoughtful silence she said, "Hard to say. If she's his lover, she's not a recent one. They seem too used to one another. She's leaning against the mud shed with her hands in the pockets of her sundress, mostly listening to him—the wind just blew her dress up; great legs—and nodding once in a while. I get the sense that she's just soaking him up. As if they go back together."

  Norah looked up for a moment. "I'm right that he never married?"

  Joan said, "Not as far as I know. He made People's most-eligible list a few years ago—after the War—but then he kind of faded. So it's possible he went off and did something stupid, but I doubt it. We would've read about a wedding, in People if not in Newsweek. I imagine he was just living with someone. Probably her."

  Joan rose up on tiptoe, trying for the same vantage over the café curtains that Norah had. In heels, Joan was able to manage an inch or two over five feet, but today she was wearing sandals. She was short. Her two best friends were tall. It made her peppery sometimes.

  "Norah, would you mind?" Joan asked in a dangerously mild voice. "They're my binoculars, after all."

  She reached for them but Norah shooed her away with her elbow, the way she might a pesky terrier. Maddie stepped in, as she always did, to keep the peace. She took the binoculars.

  "All right, you two clowns. Have a little dignity."

  With Norah, dignity was always in short supply. She proved it now by nodding slyly toward the lighthouse. "Check it out—if you're not too prim."

  Probably she'd used the exact same line on half the men she'd dated; Norah had no reason to be shy. With her knockout figure, creamy skin, red, red hair and full red lips, she was the kind of woman who made men take off their wedding rings and h
ide them in their hip pockets.

  But Maddie was not, and never would be, Norah.

  "Why are you being such a pain, Nor?"

  "You're abnormal, you know that? Anyone else would look. Prim, prim, prim."

  With an angry, heavy sigh, Maddie accepted the binoculars and aimed them in the general direction of the lighthouse. Her sense of dread ran deep. She did not want to gape at the man and did not want, most of all, to gape at the woman. What was the point? It would be like staring into her own grave.

  "Yes. I see him. Yes. He looks like on TV." She held the binoculars out to Norah. "Happy now?"

  "What about the woman? What do you think?"

  "I didn't see any woman," said Maddie, grateful that a billowing bed sheet hid all but a pair of slender ankles from view.

  "No, she's there, Maddie. I can see her now, even without the binoculars. Look again," Joan urged.

  It was going to be so much worse than Maddie thought. She sighed and tried to seem bored, then took the glasses back for another look. This time she was spared nothing. A slender woman of medium height was facing squarely in their direction, laughing. The wind was lifting her blunt-cut hair away from her face and plastering her pale blue sundress against her lithe body. She was the picture of vitality and high spirits. And the sight of her filled Maddie with relief.

  "It's obviously his sister," she said.

  "Ah, his sister. Wait—how would you know?" Norah demanded.

  She walks the way he does... throws her head back when she laughs the way he does... does that jingle-change thing in her pocket the way he does. Who else could she be?

  Maddie spun a plausible lie. "I overheard it in the post office yesterday. I remember now."

  "I don't believe it. She's half his age."

  "I doubt it."

  The two were five years apart. But the sister looked young for her years, and the brother carried thoughts of war and savagery with him everywhere he went. Joan was right: he looked burned out. Maddie could see it in the apathetic lift of his shoulders after the woman said something. It was such a tired-looking shrug.

  Norah was watching Maddie more carefully now. She folded her forearms across her implanted breasts and splayed her red-tipped fingers on her upper arms. "What else did you manage to ... overhear, in the post office?" The question dripped with skepticism.

  Maddie met her friend's steady gaze with one almost as good. "That was pretty much it. It was crowded. You know how little the lobby is. They took the conversation outside."

  "Who were they? Man? Woman? Did you recognize them from town?"

  "Two women, as I recall. I didn't bother turning around to see who. As I've said, I'm not really interested."

  Norah cocked her head. Her lined lips curled into a faint smile. Her eyes, the color of water found nowhere in New England, narrowed. "Really."

  "Okay, they're getting into the Jeep!" Joan cried. "Now what?"

  "We follow 'em. Let's go!"

  Maddie stared agape as the two made a dash for the half-open Dutch door that led to the seashelled drive of the Cape Cod cottage. "Are you out of your minds? What do you hope to accomplish?"

  Norah slapped the enormous glove-soft carryall she'd slung over her shoulder. "I have a camera," she said on her way out.

  "You're going to photograph them?"

  "If we don't, the paparazzi will!"

  She had her Mercedes in gear before Joan was able to snap her seat belt shut. The top of the convertible was down, of course, the better for Norah to be seen. Maddie watched, boggled, as the two took off in a cloud of dust, Norah pumping her fist in a war whoop the whole time.

  The episode bordered on the surreal: an educated, beautiful forty-year-old woman and an even more educated thirty- eight-year-old one, tracking down a media celebrity like two hound dogs after some felon in the bayou. All they needed was Maddie in the rumble seat and there they'd be: Three perfect Stooges.

  She closed the lower half of the Dutch door, and then, because she felt a sudden and entirely irrational chill, closed the upper half. June meant nothing on the Cape. June could go from warm and wonderful to bone-chilling cold in the blink of an eye.

  June had done just that.