“You don’t owe me any explanations.” He found his socks under the bed; where his shoes had ended up was anybody’s guess. “No strings means no strings. It won’t happen again.”
She scrambled to her knees, clutching the bedcovers around her slender torso. “You don’t understand.”
“So what?” he countered. “Doesn’t matter much either way.”
“It does matter.” Her amber eyes were wide and serious. “At least I hope it does.”
He didn’t say anything. His shoes were sticking out from under the window curtains, and he bent down to retrieve them.
“I’m afraid I’m not very good at this,” she said.
He shoved his feet into his running shoes. “You made yourself pretty clear.”
“That’s not what I mean. I—oh, damn it, John. I’ve never done this before, and I’m making a real mess of it.”
He made no attempt to hide his curiosity. “Done what?” She wasn’t a virgin. Even during the heat of the moment, that much had been clear.
“This!” Her gesture encompassed him, herself, the entire room. “I’ve never had an affair.”
He started to laugh, but there was something so unexpectedly innocent about her words that the laughter died in his throat. “You haven’t?” He thought about the obvious wedding band mark on her left ring finger.
She shook her head. “I haven’t.” She met his eyes. “I don’t know the rules.”
What he wanted to do was gather her in his arms and kiss her senseless. What he did instead was sit back down on the edge of the bed. “There are no rules, Alex. There’s just us.”
* * *
Us. The word sent a shiver through Alex’s body. She had the feeling it meant something very different to John Gallagher than it had to her husband.
“I don’t want you to think I expect anything from you,” she said carefully. “Neither one of us knew this was going to happen.”
“I knew.”
She met his eyes. “You couldn’t possibly.”
“I knew the minute I saw you at the Starlight.”
“I didn’t.” She couldn’t withhold a grin. “I thought about it but I didn’t know.”
He ruffled her hair. “So where do we go from here?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me.”
He looked at her as if he could see inside her soul. “What happens next is up to you.”
“This was” —she searched for the right word— “amazing.” He started to say something, but she raised her hand to stop him. “It was so wonderful, John, that it scares me. I moved here so I could learn how it felt to live my own life. If I start depending on you, I’ll undermine my goal.”
“Depending on me for what?”
“For—well, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”
“No,” he said, his eyes narrowing, “I don’t.”
The now-familiar heat spread outward from her belly. “For sex.”
She waited for his reaction. If he laughed, she’d kill him with her bare hands. But once again John Gallagher surprised her.
“Don’t depend on me, Alex.” He sounded weary, as if he knew things she could never understand, and a wave of sadness filled her heart. “We’ll both be a hell of a lot better off if you don’t depend on me for anything.”
It was exactly what she’d wanted to hear, but with one difference: She’d thought it would make her happy. Instead she felt as if something precious had slipped from her grasp before she’d even known it was there for the taking.
* * *
The streets were dark and quiet as John made his way back home. The only sounds were the steady rumble of the ocean and the rhythmic thud of his footsteps as he ran. He couldn’t outdistance his thoughts, but he could damn well give it his best shot.
You got what you wanted, he told himself as he headed south on Ocean Avenue. He’d found a woman who wanted as little from a relationship as he did. Sex with no strings, no hang-ups, no commitments. The kind of relationship most men would sell their Corvettes to find.
Her fierce independence was unmistakable in every move she made. She defended the space around her the way a medieval warrior defended his land. Her boundaries were invisible, but they were every bit as real as mortar and brick and wire. He respected those boundaries. He had a few of them himself.
The woman who didn’t want anything and the man who had nothing to give. Any way you looked at it, they were the perfect match.
Ten
Dee’s son, Mark woke up at five on the morning after Thanksgiving. He climbed from bed and reached for his jeans and a sweatshirt. It was still raining outside, but he didn’t care. The house stunk from turkey and cigarette smoke, and he knew he had to get out of there or go frigging nuts.
He hated Thanksgiving. His mother always invited every old fart in town to have dinner with them, and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, they stayed so long they practically grew roots. He didn’t mind Eddie Gallagher, but the rest of them sucked. All they did was sit around and talk about getting sick and dying. As far as Mark was concerned, it couldn’t be too soon. They all looked at him like it was his fault his mom worked as a waitress at the Starlight, like he’d done something to ruin her life. All he’d done was be born, and he hadn’t had any choice in the matter.
He grabbed himself a quart of milk from the fridge and went out the back door. His mother’s Toyota was in the driveway, and, to his disgust, that stupid SOB’s red Porsche was parked right behind it, blocking the way. Gallagher had been on his way to getting plastered when Mark left. Mark figured he’d probably finished the job, and then been sent home in a cab by his mother.
At least he hoped that’s what had happened.
He’d actually cracked her bedroom door and peered into the darkness to make sure she was alone. Thinking about her with Brian Gallagher made him want to puke. He knew about how she used to go out with the guy before she married his father. His father was a mean drunk who spoke with his fists. Gallagher must have been some bastard if his mother had left him for that.
He thought about it as he walked through the rain to the marina. He liked the rest of the Gallaghers just fine. John had been around a lot the last few years, since his wife and kids had bought it in a car crash. He wasn’t bad, as far as adults went. In fact, Mark realized, he wouldn’t mind at all if his mother fell for a guy like that instead of the string of losers she’d managed to find. If his mother hooked up with John, then Eddie would be his grandfather, and that sounded like a pretty good deal.
Eddie was cool. He’d been part of Mark’s life for almost as long as he could remember. Eddie had taught him how to bait a hook, how to cast a line softly so he didn’t ripple the water, and to toss back the little ones not just because the rules said so, but because it was the right thing to do. Once, when Mark was a little boy, Eddie had taken him out in an old sneakbox, a wide beamed boat of light Jersey cedar, and shown Mark what the Shore was really about.
Mark and his mom had just come back up from Florida. New Jersey seemed like a different world after the bright white sunshine and tropical heat. He’d been scared and lonely until Eddie took him under his wing, inviting him to spend the day learning about his new home. They’d moved quietly along the shoreline, sailing atop the shallows as if they were lighter than air. There were no seats in a sneakbox. You sat on the floor with only your head sticking up, and Mark had had to stand in order to watch the bullheads and helldivers and sea pigeons.
He’d never forgotten that day, and until lately he’d always believed it was one of Eddie’s fondest memories, too. One night Mark had had a fight with his mother, and he’d stormed out of the house and headed where he always headed when he was hurt or angry or scared. He’d found Eddie at the marina, bent over the Kestrel with a sledgehammer lying across his feet. A huge chunk of wood had been whacked from the starboard side, and Eddie’s clothes were covered with splinters.
“Shit, Eddie.” He’d felt stupid tears fill his eyes at the
sight of his old friend sobbing as if his heart would break. “What did you do?”
Eddie had looked at Mark as if he didn’t recognize him, and for a second Mark wanted to turn and run away. But he didn’t. He threw the sledgehammer into the water and brushed the splinters of wood off Eddie’s clothes. When the cops showed up, he even let them think he might have been the one who was responsible.
“You wanna press charges, Eddie?” Dan Corelli, one of the veteran Sea Gate cops, had asked.
Eddie had just looked at Dan as if they didn’t even speak the same language.
That had happened about six months ago, and since then Eddie had taken to walking in his sleep and lots of other scary stuff. Sometimes Mark thought he never wanted to get old, that he’d rather die in a car crash or while sky-diving before his brain and his body failed him.
He pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt as he made his way along the pier. The boards were warped, rotted in places, but he knew exactly where to step and where not to step. The place stunk from fish and saltwater and motor oil, but he didn’t mind. He liked everything about the marina. There was something about the place that made him feel like he belonged. He did his best thinking there at the end of the dock. He liked watching the sun come up over the Atlantic, turning the choppy gray waters to a deep greenish-blue. Sometimes he’d sit there and imagine that he had a real family, the kind you saw on television with brothers and sisters and a father who actually remembered his name. He was lucky if his old man remembered he was alive.
Six years ago Tony had stopped by to see him on his way up from Florida to New York. He’d clapped Mark on the back and muttered something stupid about linebacker’s shoulders, then they’d stared at each other for fifteen minutes until Mark asked if he could go swimming with his friends. Mark had the feeling Tony had been as relieved as he was when his mom said he could go. He’d raced to his room to get his gear, but by the time he reached his door, a huge fight had broken out.
He tried to blank out the words, but some of them had crept into his head anyway and had never gone away.
“Some other guy’s bastard...”
That night he’d asked his mother what that meant, and she’d told him some crap about how adults sometimes said things they didn’t mean and how he shouldn’t pay any attention to it. That had been all a ten-year-old needed to hear. His father left, his mother relaxed, and before long life went back to normal.
But lately he found himself thinking a lot about it. He knew what a bastard was, what it meant. It was bad enough thinking he was Tony Franco’s son, but it was worse thinking he was nobody’s son at all.
“Hey, Mark.” John Gallagher’s hand rested on his shoulder. “How’s it going?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“You seemed a little pissed when you walked out last night.” John leaned against the mooring next to him.
“Yeah,” he said, shrugging. “So?”
“So maybe you feel like talking about it. Your mom was pretty upset.”
“It’s got nothing to do with her.”
“You know that, but I’m not so sure she does.”
Mark watched as a gull circled twice, then landed on a piling. He kept his eyes riveted on that bird. “Why the hell did he have to show up and ruin everything?”
“You’re talking about Brian?”
He nodded. An ugly lump of anger formed in his throat, and he didn’t know exactly why. Or worse, maybe he really did. “Yeah,” he managed. “Nobody asked him to show up. Why didn’t he just stay the hell away?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same thing.”
He glanced over at John. “You don’t like him much, do you?”
“Not a hell of a lot.”
“What about when you were my age? Did you like him then?”
“I tried.” John lit a cigarette, took a drag, then tossed it. The butt made a hissing sound as it hit the water. “He didn’t make it easy, I’ll tell you that.”
“He and my mom used to date each other when they were my age, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, they did,” John said, watching him. “That’s not news, sport. You’ve known that since you were in diapers.”
Sure he’d always known it, but he never really understood until he saw them together yesterday.
“The bad news is Brian’s a pain in the ass,” John aid. “The good news is, he doesn’t live here anymore.”
* * *
Living in a small town had its advantages, Alex thought as she dialed the telephone. She didn’t have any trouble picking a towing service. Sea Gate only had one to choose.
She explained the situation to the man who answered the phone. He sounded a trifle confused.
“It’s really very simple,” she said, switching the receiver to her other ear. “My car stalled out at the corner of Margate and Barnegat. I need you to tow it into the shop and fix it as quickly as possible.”
“A VW wagon, right?”
“Yes, but how—”
“It’ll be ready this afternoon.”
“You know that just by what I told you?”
There was a brief silence. “Your car’s here, lady.”
“That’s not possible. You must have my car confused with somebody else’s.”
“Believe me, I haven’t seen one of these babies in at least ten years.”
She sank down onto a kitchen chair. “Did the police tow it into the shop?” God only knew what kind of fines she’d be facing if they had.
“Hold on a minute.” She heard him cover the phone, then yell a question at someone. “John Gallagher called in the order.”
“What?” There had to be some mistake.
“I’m looking at the order sheet right now. Johnny Gallagher called in around six-thirty. Said it was an emergency.”
She gritted her teeth. “When did you say I can pick it up?”
“We’ll drop it off when it’s done.”
“Did Mr. Gallagher tell you to do that?”
“He sure did.” The poor man had no idea he was speaking to a woman on the verge of an explosion. “Everything’s paid for, too.”
That did it. She managed to thank the man for his trouble, then slammed down the receiver. Who did John Gallagher think he was? She grabbed her jacket from the coat closet and stormed out the front door.
* * *
“Last chance,” John said to Mark. “Once we push off, you’re in for the long haul.”
“I’m ready,” Mark said.
John had been twelve the first time he went out on the Kestrel with his old man. He’d heard all the stories about party boats and figured some of the fun had to filter down to the crew.
He’d figured wrong. Not only didn’t the fun filter down, but also the crew had to work their asses off trying to keep the beer-swilling great unwashed from falling overboard.
The kid was definitely in for a surprise.
“Vince will throw you the line,” he told Mark. “You remember what to do with it?”
Mark nodded.
“Okay,” John said. “Let’s get going before we have a mutiny.” The six Atlantic County lawyers on board were starting to get a little restless, and restless lawyers were ugly lawyers. John knew. He used to be one of them.
He motioned for Mark to follow him around the stern.
“Where the hell is Vince?” he asked, scanning the dock. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Yo, Vince! We’re ready.”
Vince popped out of the office. “You better come down here, Johnny.”
“Whatever it is can wait until we get back. Toss the line up.”‘
“You’re not listening,” Vince hollered back. “You’d better get down here pronto, and I mean pronto.”
Eddie, John thought. What else could it be?
He turned to Mark. “Keep your eye on the lawyers,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
Mark looked as if he was being left alone in a shark tank. “What if they try to trash the boat?”
“If they try that, hose ’em down.”
He vaulted the rail and headed for the marina office. “This had better be good, Vince,” he said as he pushed open the door. “I’ve got half a dozen lawyers on board, and they’ll sue my ass from here to Cape May if I don’t—” He stopped cold. “Alex.”
She was sitting in his desk chair, looking up at him. He’d seen killer bees who weren’t half as angry.
Vince looked from Alex to John. “I think I’ll leave you two kids alone,” he said, then let himself out the front door.
“How dare you,” she said, her voice shaking with outrage. “You had no right.”
What had happened between them had been consensual. At least it had seemed that way to him at the time.
He’d started to frame a defense when she reached into the pocket of her raincoat and pulled out her wallet. He watched, in shock, as she withdrew two crisp hundred-dollar bills.
“There,” she said, pushing them into his hand. “That should cover it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded.
“Must you swear all the time?” she countered. “Your language seems unnecessarily salty.”
“It comes with the territory.” He tossed the money back at her. “If I charged, I’d ask for a hell of a lot more than that.”
Her cheeks reddened. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Payment for services rendered.”
“You arrogant—” She stopped mid-sentence.
“Go ahead. Say it.”
Her amber eyes flashed fire. “The money was for my car.”
“Your car?”
“The repairs,” she said, speaking slowly as if English wasn’t his first language. “You shouldn’t have done it.”
He waved away the money. “A thank-you would be enough.”
“I’m not thanking you,” she said. “It’s my car, my problem.”
“You’re new in town. I figured you wouldn’t know who to call.”
“Not a difficult thing to do,” she said. “Take a look at the yellow pages, John. There’s only one choice in town.”
His impulsive gesture was turning into a disaster. “Look,” he said, “I wasn’t trying to upset you. I gave in to impulse.” He shrugged. “So sue me.”
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