by Ella M. Kaye
“Only trying to make you feel guilty for being here with me, she is. Never mind, Em. You deserve the day off.”
“In other words, you want me to stay.”
“Aye I want you to stay.” He pressed against her body. “But you know I am right about your mum. She thinks I have led y’ to a sinful life and she knows good and well what I want t’ do with you tonight.”
“How about we leave my mother out of this discussion?”
He grinned and raised his hand higher, to her waist. “I have not taught you the rumba yet, as I promised. I would say it is time.” Scanning her curves and near naked skin as he backed away, Fillan stepped inside the open door just long enough to turn the music on. All he had was the playlist on his laptop and the sound wasn’t good, but it worked.
Starting with a song only to tease her about saying she liked it the other day when some kid drove past blaring it out her car window, he put on Luke Bryan’s Shake It For Me. She gave him that look, the one that said she was trying to convince him he wasn’t funny, but he gripped her around the waist and sang the chorus as he moved them together in a samba roll. She’d learned samba rolls quickly and did them well.
“The rumba...” Fillan moved her left hand to behind his shoulder, put his right hand just under her shoulder blade, and caught their free hands together, elbows bent and near touching. “Simple steps. Follow me. Right foot steps back. Left foot to the side. Right in to meet left.” He took it slow, in half time to the music since it was too fast to learn with the beat. “Now left forward, right to the side, left to meet. And repeat from the top.”
He let his body brush against hers as often as possible without throwing her steps. “Now double time.”
She laughed as she stepped out but jumped right back in with him until the end of the song.
“Nice, Em. I could have you doing competitions with me before you know it.”
“I don’t do competitions.” She moved up against his body and released his hand to drop her arms over his shoulders. “And you’re not staying. But thank you. For thinking I could.”
“You could. Let’s try it with the right music.” He backed away gently and went to put on the song that reminded him of her. As Edwin McCain sang I’ll Be, Fillan took her back into the rumba pose and moved her into the dance. He had a terrible singing voice, he knew, but at the last repetition of the chorus, he sang it to her.
As the song ended, she met his lips, slid her hands along his bare sides, and pressed a bare leg up between his, against his crotch, her leg wrapping back around him.
“You are supposed to do that from the outside of my leg.”
“Am I?”
“I cannot dip you backward like this. We’ll fall right into the sand.”
“I think that would be okay with me.” She moved away, slowly, grabbed her towel from the chair, and spread it over the sand. Lowering onto it, she untied her mesh wrap up and tossed it to the chair. “We should have come out here sooner. It’s nice. Remote.”
“Private.” He lowered in front of her, nudging between her outstretched leg and the one pulled up.
“Yes.” She reached up behind his head and pulled him closer. “Fillan, yes.”
Under the dark sky and the small torches flickering with the salty ocean breeze, Fillan took far more time than he had been allowed before. They were alone other than the blue heron calling from the shore line and waves splashing over the rocks. And he had to leave her in the morning. The tightening of his heart told him it was wrong to leave her and he covered his thoughts by running his lips down her body, slowly, taking as much time as she would allow. Leaving her with as nice a memory as he could manage.
Emma opened her eyes to the herons calling in the distance and cuddled closer to Fillan as they lay naked other than the light blanket. In his bed. With the screen door closed against insects but the wood door open to let air in. She never would have imagined sleeping with an open door. She also never imagined she would make love outside, uncovered. Or want so badly to stay right there in the little beach shack with him for ... for as long as he would allow.
And she couldn’t. He was leaving.
With a sigh and brushed-away moisture from her eyes that she wouldn’t let him see, Emma kissed his chest and then his neck. “Fillan.” He stirred and she kissed him again, his neck, then his lips. “We have to get up.” She checked her watch. “Soon. Not quite yet.”
With a sound she wasn’t sure was a groan or her name, he rolled over and pressed her onto her back. “Morning, luv. It is nice t’ wake up t’ you this way.” He slid a hand along her body.
Returning the favor, Emma found him hard and ready and urged him closer.
“Again?” He threw that charming grin she loved.
“Once more. Before I send you home.”
“Trying t’ get as much of me as y’ can?” He nipped at her lips with his teeth.
“Yes. Mind?”
Obviously, he didn’t. Much faster than the night before, he was still just as fully passionate and she could hardly make herself get up after they were both spent to run through the lukewarm shower. He’d said it was never better than lukewarm. In the summer, she supposed that was good enough. In the summer, a lot of things could happen that wouldn’t normally and it was fine. Before real life returned and left only the memories of the incredible warmth and the freedom of bare feet, bare shoulders, long swims through cool water, and bare naked passion on the beach. Or in a beach shack.
Chapter 16
Fillan trekked over the slippery rocks in the light rain, carefully, making his way to the lighthouse. He had heard the main story of how it was built for the owner to be able to get his supplies from the Galway ferry. He liked the other story better, that the owner’s wife had it built as a beacon to draw her pub-crawling husband home safe again each night.
Either way, there was something Fillan loved about Ballycurrin Lighthouse. Against his better judgment, and apparently he was back to himself again since setting foot in his native Ireland, he climbed the narrow stone steps curling around the outside of the 20-some foot stone tower and sat at the top, hands clenching the metal rail at his head, feet dangling down over the rocks. Looking out over Lough Corrib, he spotted two small fishing boats anchored at the edge and thought of Emma’s stories of Pilgrims and the early Long Point fishermen who floated their houses across the bay from Provincetown as they left the little arm peninsula the Mayflower had sailed around to dock.
Three weeks he had been home and he was entrenched in his job at his father’s dock. He liked it better than he’d expected. Of course he was in charge this time instead of being a peon following anyone’s orders who decided to give him orders. It always made a difference.
He still found time to do research on anything that might help Patty, on new dance movements he could put on quick video and send along to Emma. He had yet to do as much, but he thought of doing it.
Tell yourself the truth, Fillan. You will not do it. You have a hard enough time talking with her over Skype because it hurts so to see her face and know you cannot touch it till summer comes round again.
He scratched at the stubble on his chin that was only allowed on weekends when he did not have to work. His father was a tyrant about being neat and clean and punctual. Not that Fillan found a thing wrong with that. At least these days, he found not a thing wrong with it. These days, he was supervisor of a busy fishing dock. He had to fit the part. And he did well enough.
Even if his heart and soul were back in Provincetown, across the Atlantic, with Emma and Patty.
Get a hold on yourself, mate. Y’ cannot leave here for good and you know it.
He looked out over the lough and thought of how he’d asked her to do the same, to leave her home and move with him. A right fool he was to think she would. She had more of a career than he had, at least at the time, and she had a niece, now a daughter. How could he have asked it of her?
He sat up there until the rain grew heav
ier, colder, and made his way back down, across the rocks, down the little road alongside the estate. He could ask her to come stay over the winter holiday. Rent the little two bedroom cottage at the estate. Show her one of his favorite lighthouses as a returned favor and kiss her at the top. If she would dare climb out over the rocks to get to it. She was easily smarter than he was himself and likely would not. And it would be frigid in December. But then there was the Jacuzzi in the main bath of the cottage to warm up in again. He knew only because a relative had come to stay, to visit without being too close, and his cousin of some sort had asked him in. A rough morning, the next one was, with his head ringing and thumping and swirling all at once. And the hives covering his body. It had been the last time he had made that mistake. He did learn. Not always fast enough, but he did learn.
If he were to ever marry, they would have to toast with sparkling wine instead of the real thing. Some Irishman he was when he couldn’t drink even a spot without getting hives.
Ah well, there were worse things to have to avoid. Such as the girl. Who had come back. And who was offering herself far too easily and far too openly. She was proud of him for taking his father’s offered job. She could stay with him if was finally going to be a “real man” as she had said. He hadn’t given in. His memories of Emma were far too fresh.
And he wanted only her.
Closing the door of his old but trusty auto against the rain and turning the heater to high, Fillan dropped his head to the steering wheel. He only wanted Em.
Chapter 17
Stepping out the school’s front door, Emma shivered at a gust of wind and pulled her jacket tighter. The end of September already. Nearly six weeks since she’d seen Fillan and nearly two weeks since she’d heard from him. She’d expected it. He’d gone on back to his life as he’d warned her he would. She was okay with it in general. He’d given her something so precious, she couldn’t ever be too melancholy that he wasn’t there. She simply remembered their days together, his eyes smiling into hers, his gentleness and passion for her. And for Patty. He’d done so much for Patty. The girl grabbed her dance video every day the moment they walked in the door.
Emma was often too tired for it. The beginning of the school year was always the hardest while her students still remembered their summer freedom and had trouble settling in to the routine again. She agreed with them. At least this year she did.
Still, she couldn’t turn Patty down. The movements were calming to her, as well. Late at night when Patty was asleep, Emma often turned her own music on low and practiced the dances Fillan taught her, in class, and alone. She imagined him in her arms, his voice instructing, praising. Always upbeat. Never critical.
Such a beautiful man.
She heard some student yell a goodbye and waved in that direction with the learned smile. But her thoughts remained on him. She wanted to ask how his job was going, how it was working with his father. Mostly, she wanted to know if that girl had come home, if he was back with her. Anyway she thought she wanted to know. She supposed that could be why he was never available when she checked to see if he was online.
If he was with her, Emma hoped the girl would be worth his second chance and he would be happy. A little bitty tiny part of her wanted to punch the girl in the jaw and tell her to stay away, but most of her wanted Fillan just to be happy.
She jolted back when she realized she’d walked right into someone while her thoughts were distracted. “I’m sorry...” A man. Familiar scent. She looked up ... at Mark’s smirking smile.
“Must have been deep in thought.”
“Yes, I... What are you doing here?”
“Asking you to dinner. Had enough time to get over your Irish dancer yet?”
“Go away, Mark.” She swerved around him but he blocked the door to her car.
“Come, Emma. You know it’s for the best.” He reached out to touch her hair.
She stepped back. “Move.”
“Look, I know what it’s like to need something ... different from time to time and I can’t hold that against you, now, can I? Considering everything. At some point, though, you have to realize when it’s time to throw your hands up. Go to dinner with me, Emma. Let’s talk.”
“No. Move away from my car.”
He closed in. “Just one uninterrupted talk. If you don’t change your mind...” He put a hand on her thigh. “Then... I’ll leave it alone.”
“Leave me alone now.”
“Emma.” He pressed closer.
She pushed him back.
“Everything okay?”
She looked over at the woman’s voice on the sidewalk. From the dance class. The one who thought Emma hadn’t recognized her as mother of her student, one she couldn’t wait to get out of her class. Wonderful. “It’s fine. Thank you. I was just leaving.”
Mark backed away enough to be decent and it gave her just enough room to turn and unlock her door as the woman asked about Patty and kept talking until Emma threw a rushed goodbye, slipped inside, and closed the door, locking it immediately.
She started the car and rolled her window down only half an inch. “Don’t bother me again.” Shoving the gear in reverse, she wasn’t sure she’d care if she ran over his feet. He was at least smart enough to stay back far enough she didn’t.
Are you over your Irish dancer? The nerve of the man. Couldn’t hold it against her. Jerk. Of course he couldn’t. They were divorced. She at least hadn’t had something different while she was still married.
He wouldn’t let up. She knew... Unless she threatened to talk, to take him back to court for harassment, to talk about his other women, make it public. She wouldn’t. She wanted not one thing from Mark Turner.
Including his name. Time to change it. She’d go back to her maiden name and then it would be the same as Patty’s. That should give him enough of a hint.
By the time she stopped to pick up her daughter, Emma was shaking with fury. How dare he? And why was he in Provincetown again, which he said he hated? It’s why she’d had to live in Boston, which was too big for her, too busy. Worse than even the Cape in tourist season. Nice to visit, not to live. It was his city. Why was he there bothering her?
She calmed easily when Patty gave her a big smile and trotted over to meet her. Patty smiled far more than she had before. Emma was afraid that would stop when Fillan left since she loved him so. The girl had pouted for a week, heavily, but the first time he Skyped with them, she perked up again. Now and then she slapped her hand on Emma’s laptop and asked for Fillan. Emma tried when she did, so Patty would know she was trying. And every time, she would brace herself for the meltdown she expected when he wasn’t available. It hadn’t come yet.
“How about some ice cream today? I feel like being bad.” She rubbed a hand down Patty’s hair.
“Ice cream is good. Not bad. I want ice cream.”
Emma tried to hide her shock. She had stopped talking when Fillan left and even before it had never been that much. Helen had told Emma she could. She’d said over and over the girl talked well when she chose to but she just chose not to. It was wonderful to see her equalizing again, and she’d give Patty darn near anything to continue that direction. “You’re right. It is good. Let’s get a lot of it. Okay?”
Another smile.
Emma had to turn away as she closed the door behind her daughter to wipe moisture from her eyes. Her phone rang as she got in. Lance. What in the world did he want? Was Mark there with him?
Her sudden good mood spoiled again, she opened the phone and closed it, then headed down Commercial Street to Lewis Brothers. It would bring back memories of Fillan sitting there with them, acting nearly orgasmic over the homemade ice cream, of Patty grinning slyly at him for acting like such a little boy. But it was okay. She wanted the memories. She cherished them.
The phone rang again as they pulled up and parked. Lance. Rolling her eyes, she answered her brother but didn’t bother to be nice about it. “What do you want? If Mark’s there,
tell him to leave me the hell alone or I’ll file a ... a ... leave me alone complaint.”
“You mean a restraining order?” Lance sounded amused and arrogant at the same time. “Why? What’s he done now?”
“Is he with you?”
“No. Haven’t seen him since I told him to go back to Boston and stay there after the funeral.”
“You what? Didn’t you side with him about ... about matters that I can’t discuss right now?” Emma set a hand on Patty’s arm to make sure she didn’t jump out by herself and head toward her ice cream shop. She was glad the girl was also sitting in the front with her now, at least at times.
“I haven’t sided with that jackass about anything since he left you, Emma. Is that what you think of me?”
“He said...”
“I think he’s said a lot of things the past several years he shouldn’t have, that weren’t true.”
“Oh. A hell of a lot. But...”
“Emma, where are you right now? Do you have Patty?”
“Yes, she’s right here. We’re about to have some ice cream. Join us if you’d like. Bring the kids. They’d love it and ... we need to talk, I think.”
“Yes. We’ll be there in about ten minutes. Go ahead and order.”
“I think I won’t have much choice. She’s waiting but she’s getting impatient.”
A light chuckle came through the line. “Tell them to add it to my tab and I’ll take care of it when I come. Get her whatever she wants.”
Lance had told Mark to go back to Boston? A shudder tried to make its way through her body but she couldn’t allow it. Patty would notice. And this was a fun day. Or at least a fun afternoon and evening. They had changed their schedule, Patty’s routine, and she was fine with it. She wasn’t staring at the floor or table. She was looking around at people. Curious. Emma could hardly keep herself from jumping up and down in between eating her luscious chocolate and almond topped peppermint ice cream sundae.