“Yes. One peek. A tiny gander. You won’t be able to sleep at night once you’re introduced to Gordon. He’s depressed, he’s having anxiety issues, and he can’t sleep because he’s starving.”
“Then Gordon and I have something in common, because I’m not sleeping much now, either.” I picked up Troublesome and dropped her on my lap. At least Troublesome hadn’t witnessed the kiss-attack.
“Take a mental break. A break for Gordon. For a hairy old friend who whispered to me yesterday that he’s afraid he’s going to die and he has so much more he wants to do with his life!”
Gina is very passionate about animals. Not only is she a pet communicator, she runs an animal sanctuary on the island. Her grandfather bought tons of land here decades ago, and she inherited it. In addition, she inherited money from her father, a megamillionaire software guy, so her full-time job was taking care of animals that had been used in medical experiments. The labs were actually giving her their animals when they were through with them, and a donation, on condition that she never reveal the status of their health when they arrived.
“I have great fondness for hairy old friends, Gina, but right now I’m painting a cat who bears a sad resemblance to a sick porcupine, and I can’t stop.”
She marched around my studio for a few minutes, her long hair swaying like a horse’s tail as she stared at my paintings. “Okay, Chalese. I’ll make you a deal.”
“No deal.”
“Listen up. If you go with me to take a gander, a peek at this starving, troubled, emotional horse, I’ll make you one of my frozen chocolate, flourless pies.”
My paintbrush stopped in midair. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
I’m a sucker for those pies. “How about two?”
“Agreed. Two for the horse!”
“Done. We’re on.”
Who knew that a few days later I was going to end up with a horse in my dining room?
Chapter Five
“I’m so sorry, Aiden, so sorry. I should never have tried to kiss you.” I could hardly meet the man’s eyes as he stood on my front porch, my wind chimes tinkling in the afternoon wind.
How do you explain to someone that your lust carried you away, and you could not resist them? “I am a clumsy elephant, a ridiculous, pathetic, cloistered writer. I don’t get out enough, I hot-flash, I talk to my dogs and half the time I expect them to answer back, I hang out with Brenda, who is so wild and—”
He held a hand up. “Chalese”—his voice was a bit strangled—“please don’t apologize. Please don’t. I mean it. I was flattered, I was. But…this is my job. You’re my job.”
“Absolutely. I know it. The ox in me will never charge at you again.” I slapped my hands to my face. Why must I speak about animals so much?
He took three steps closer to me. “You’re very…engaging. You’ve got this curious, electric aura about you, this mystery, but at the same time you’re so open about who you are and sincere. And you’re so smart. I can almost hear your brain ticking away a million miles an hour.” He rubbed his neck. “But this is not the time or the place for me to…” He coughed. “To return your…kiss.”
Clearly, it wasn’t, that voice in my head assailed me. He-man Aiden would not ever want to return your…kiss. He was trying to alleviate my total humiliation because he was a nice guy, then smooth things over so he could write the article without me making any more awkward kissy-lunges toward him.
“Hey, Aiden,” I snapped, feeling my face get red, therefore resembling a fire engine. Perhaps I should make the sound of a fire engine? “You don’t have to make me feel better here, okay? I don’t need your pity. Ask me the damn questions you need to ask, and let’s get this over with. I’ll keep my kisses to myself.”
His eyes went bleak all of a sudden, his voice gruff. “That wasn’t what I meant, Chalese, not at all.”
“Sure it is. The frumpy children’s book author made a fool of herself, and you’re trying to let her down easy by saying it’s ‘not the time or the place for me to return your kiss.’ Shove it, okay?”
“The last word I would use to describe you is frumpy, even if you are still in your pajamas.”
“I’m working. This is my work uniform. Got a problem with it, close your eyes.”
“I have no problems with your work uniform, even if you do have pink giraffes on your pajamas. And I don’t pity you, so don’t start with that. We’re going to talk about what happened down there another time.”
“Sure we are. As soon as I grow a third head out my spine. Let me grab the dogs, and we’ll walk down to the ocean.” I shut the door, dove into the shower, yanked my jeans on without the usual force, which was strange, and threw a red sweatshirt over my head.
We got all the leaping dogs on leashes and headed for the ocean, the sun golden and warm, shining through the trees in sparkling rays.
Chapter Six
“I’m still sensing you’re hiding something from me, Chalese,” Aiden said, his voice soft and low and sexy. “What else do you want to tell me?”
I leaned back in the booth of Marci’s Whale-Jumping Café and tried to breathe.
I shouldn’t have been surprised by his astuteness. Aiden was a prize-winning reporter, but I still felt struck, as if an elk had charged at me and the antlers were stuck in my gut.
“No, there’s not anything else I want to tell you.” That was the truth. I inhaled the scent of buttermilk pancakes, bacon, and orange juice and wiped my hot hands on my jeans.
“It would be better coming from you, sweet Chalese.”
I tried not to blush at the “sweet” part.
Our charming village on the island, a mix of very old and medium-old, well-cared for shops, churches, and restaurants, was small, and it hadn’t taken Aiden any time to find my truck parked in front of the café, a place with blue leather seats, windows to take in the view of the ocean behind the café, and a giant plastic whale hanging from the ceiling wearing a white captain’s hat.
“Hey! Chalese!” Reuby, Gina’s son, yelled across the crowded room when I first arrived. “Hear ya got a special friend. If he breaks up with you, are ya gonna climb up on his roof and bust the skylight out?”
Everyone laughed.
“Very funny. Actually, if he broke up with me I would bulldoze his home with a tractor. I like tractors.”
“Is the skylight thing going to be in Brenda’s next movie?” Jefferson Harris called out. He made art out of recycled materials and did pretty well.
“No, it’s not. Brenda and I—”
“And your sister,” Lavender Mercato called out. “Man, that gal’s gonna have five kids quick as a lick and ain’t nothin’ slowed her down since high school. She’s still gettin’ in trouble with you two. Did I hear you three were skinny-dipping again the other night?”
I covered my face as they all cackled. “I’m going to sit here and go to a special place in my own gnarled head, have some breakfast, and pretend I’m alone.”
“I don’t think you’re going to be alone for long,” Fred Mitchell called out, nodding his shaved head toward the door; the snake tattoos on his arm no longer alarming me as they once had. “Your man’s coming in.”
“Lookee who’s here!” Shadow Morrison drawled. Shadow is a financial planner. She wears dresses over skinny black leggings, flowered hats, and sparkly scarves. She’s twenty-six and does almost everyone’s investments. A whiz kid. “I think it’s the special friend.”
Reuby called out to Aidan, “Your special friend is right here, dude. Right here.” Now this was a smallish restaurant, but Reuby still felt compelled to point me out. “She hasn’t ordered yet, but she always has eggs Benedict, sauce on the side, blueberry pancakes, and her own Marion Berry jelly. Her jellies are awesome rad.”
There was loud, general agreement. One of the island’s secret multimillionaires called out, “Jam Lady does it best, man.”
I saw Aiden’s look of surprise at the attention. Then he covered
it, and that easy smile came out. “Well, I’m hoping to eat breakfast with Jam Lady, if she’ll have me.”
I groaned. Torture me further: he was wearing cool jeans, a black sweater, and a white T-shirt. Studly. I was sunk. I knew it.
“Her sister always orders breakfast for dinner,” Reuby said, playing with the ring in his eyebrow. “Pancakes with strawberry syrup and sliced bananas and white wine. ’Cept when she’s pregnant. We all know when Christie’s pregnant, ’cause that’s when she starts ordering the weird stuff. Whole onions fried with garlic butter. Grape juice with her pasta. Guacamole and pink lemonade and sliced apples. She dips the apples in the guac, dude. It’s weird. Plus she sucks down Chalese’s marmalade like its water.”
“Tell him about Brenda,” Shadow called, flipping her blond braids onto her back.
“Yeah, Brenda’s the third sister, but they don’t share no blood. She orders whiskey sours sometimes for breakfast. That’s when she’s hungover. For dinner, she orders a salad with extra olives and pickles. One time she ate a whole pizza by herself and three beers. Those three, man, I dunno. Strange.”
“Strange is good,” Aiden said, his voice low and rumbly. “Who wants a boring woman? I don’t.”
“Cheers to that,” Fred agreed, holding up his coffee cup. “Bring me a high-kicker in red knee high boots.”
Dear me, the joys of living on an island with not very many people…
It took Aiden twenty minutes to walk to my table because everyone had to say hello, welcome him to the island, and then regale him with stories about me, his special friend.
There was the red and pink streamer incident at City Hall (it was a protest, long ago), and the tractor Brenda and I borrowed and drove behind a group of racist skinheads over from the mainland who insisted on having a parade. We kept the tractor one foot from their heels. When they got worried they’d be run over and started jogging, we revved the tractor and followed close so we wouldn’t lose them. They called the police, but we explained we merely were trying to keep up with the skinheads!
Charges dropped. We followed them out of town with the tractor.
“Chalese sells the best jams and jellies ever. She sells to the stores, the restaurants. Probably makes a fortune—that’s our Chalese,” old Mrs. Chittick said. She carefully cultivated the “old, frail lady” image, but I knew for a fact that the woman could split wood faster than you could say “old, frail lady.”
But the Chalese who made the best jams and jellies was all the Chalese I wanted to be. Nothing more.
Not one thing more.
“There is nothing else I want to tell you,” I whispered back to Aiden across the table, pushing what was left of my eggs Benedict aside. “Nothing.”
We shared another one of those gazes. By gosh, why did I feel as if my soul mate was sitting across from me, right past the salt and pepper shakers?
Aiden was clearly disappointed and worried. I was sure there was a miniature goat stuck in my constricted throat. Did he already know something was up? And if he did, how much did he know?
He had another bite of my raspberry jelly. “Everybody’s right. This is incredible.” He rolled his huge shoulders then leaned toward me. “I know you’re hiding something. I can feel it. I’m already searching for it. This is my job, and I will find out what it is.”
I blinked rapidly to clear the tears and the exploding fear. What would my friends here think of me when they knew?
“The article is going to come out, and I can help you if I know the truth.”
“I know the article will be printed, but I’m hoping it will have minimal impact for me here on the island. Maybe the day it comes out we’ll be hit by millions of falling stars and no one will read it.”
“And you can continue to be anonymous? No one will know you and Annabelle are one and the same?”
“Yes,” I hissed.
“That isn’t going to happen, Chalese.”
Good-bye, life.
“I have to go. I’ll see you later.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, you won’t. You make me nervous.”
I got up to leave the booth. He got up to follow me, and I did not miss what he said under his breath. “You make me nervous, too.”
“I don’t know why I make you nervous.”
“Spend half a second in front of the mirror, charming Chalese, and you’ll figure it out pretty damn quick.”
I shot him a glance. “You’re flirting.”
“Not yet. Simply stating a fact.”
I heard Mrs. Chittick and Mrs. Meyerson titter in the corner.
“He’s a romantic!’
“He’s a sex god!”
“He’s got a body identical to Zeus!”
“Yep, a sex-god Zeus.”
“Do you think he’s asked her yet?”
Mrs. Chittick yelled, “Hey, Add-on! Have you asked her to marry you? You know that girl’s never said yes. Not once. Four times men have asked her to the altar. Always a no. Smart, she is. Women live longer if they don’t marry, you know. Husbands stress us out, make us so mad our insides curdle, so frustrated we believe we’re on blipping fire. Better to stay single, if you ask me, but I’d marry you, sexy Zeus god, if you asked!”
“Fifth time’s the charm!” a millionaire announced.
“She’s broken hearts here on the island. Ya gotta watch out for that, Add-on,” Fred the high-kicker said.
I hurried out as another sweat-fest took its time to burn the heck out of me.
I wiped my brow.
“How about a walk on the trail around the island?” Aiden asked me.
“Sure, Zeus,” I said. “Whatever.”
Brenda greeted us back at my house wearing a gold pantsuit, a sparkling silver headband, and fairy wings. She had a date with a businessman from Seattle who was at his weekend house for a few days. I have no idea why she periodically puts on outrageous costumes for her dates; I don’t ask. She gave me a hug, then flapped her arms as she jumped off the porch and into her sports car. I smelled her sultry, earthy perfume.
I grabbed a bag of grapes. Then we leashed two joyous dogs each before heading for the ocean and a nature path around the island. The day was warm and clear, too pretty to miss.
“Aiden.”
He turned his head toward me. Now that was a novelty. Most men listen about as well as they can crack walnuts with their knees. “Tell me about you.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “There’s not much. I was raised by my father. We’re still close. My mother died when I was five in an accident in India. He’s still in love with my mother. That’s why he never remarried. He was an executive, and we traveled all over the world. He continues to work. He’s in Zurich right now. I still have friends from Zimbabwe to Saudi Arabia to London to Toronto. It was a great life. I had much more independence than most kids, but…”
“But what?” I felt so unbelievably sad for the little boy who grew up without a mother.
“Once my mother died, I never felt I had a home.”
“I’m sorry.” I hadn’t had a safe home until Whale Island.
I unleashed the dogs. They leaped into the water. I could almost hear them yodeling, “We’re free! Free!”
He shrugged. “People need a home. They need to know they belong somewhere, that there’s family and friends around, that there’s a place that’s set aside for them to be loved, to laugh, to be themselves.”
“You don’t feel as if you have a home now?”
He thought for a second. “I have a condominium, Chalese. It’s nice. It’s on the water in Seattle, fantastic view, it’s modern, it’s sleek. I have a stove that doesn’t catch on fire and a sink that doesn’t leak, but I wouldn’t call it home. It’s where I live, not where I feel I belong.”
We stepped over a log on the sand, then headed closer to the ocean, took our shoes off, and waded in.
“I felt the exact same way before I came to Whale Island.”
“You feel t
his is home now?”
“I do.” I turned to face him. “I know how it feels to desperately want a home. I don’t leave the island much, because I feel so right here, so safe. Yes, it’s a problem now and then that we all know each other so well, but mostly it makes me…” I searched for the right word. “It makes me feel as if I went on a quest for myself and found myself here. It’s a gift. It’s mostly a good thing, except for when Brenda, the menace, gets me in trouble.”
“Not that that would ever be your fault?”
I laughed with him. “Never.” I tilted my head. “You’ve never married?” I applauded my own daring in asking that question so nonchalantly.
“No. I have worked and travelled constantly, and I have never met anyone I wanted to marry. Fifty years is a long time to be together, and I need to be sure. I’m getting married once, and then the gal’s stuck with me forever. You?”
I grimaced. “Let’s skip that topic.”
He paused. “Let’s not. I want to hear about those marriage proposals you said no to.”
I hung my head, letting my black hair cover the sides of my face. “Let’s talk about biochemical engineering, international economics, or the stock market and skip this part.”
“Too dull. So…have you been married? What about those four proposals?”
“Aiden, I don’t want to talk about that, and I sure as heck don’t want it in your story.” Small, cool waves lapped at our legs until Nutmeg Man galloped on in and splashed us.
He nodded, wiped water off his face with his hand. “This is off the record. A conversation between you and me. It’s personal.”
“I don’t know…”
“Trust me on this, will you?”
“Trust you?” Out in the distance I saw a spray of water from a whale. I was a bit of a head case, that was true, and I had serious, free-ranging trust issues, but for this one conversation…
“Yes. Trust me.” Charlotte, a white mutt missing half an ear, circled our legs, barking.
I took a leap of faith into those green eyes. “I said no because even though all those men seemed right initially—smart, ambitious, interesting, blah blah blah—when I got to know them, their flaws shone like a six-story spotlight. I knew I’d be infinitely happier single than married to any of them.” Plus, I kept seeing a bit of my father in each of them. That was enough to liquify my insides with fear.
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