“Is there a young man in your life, dear?”
The abrupt change in subject matter caught Shay off guard. “I—well—yes, sort of—”
Alice smiled. “Good. They’re not all wasters like that Eliott person, you know.”
Shay wondered what Alice would think of Mitch if she knew how he had hijacked her granddaughter to a private beach and made love to her in the sand. The memory of her own responses brought throbbing color to Shay’s cheeks.
“What is his name, dear? What does he do?”
“His name is Mitch Prescott. He’s the man who found you for me,” Shay said, somewhat hesitantly.
Alice did not pursue the matter. “My, but you do look like your father,” she said in a faraway voice.
That evening, after work, Shay drove to the Victorian house she hoped to restore and parked at the curb. The place was derelict, and yet, in her mind’s eye, she could see so many possibilities for it. Suddenly she wanted that disreputable old white elephant with a consuming ache.
She drove home to find Alice happily cooking dinner and Mitch helping. The way the two of them were chattering, they might have known each other for ten years instead of ten minutes. It was crazy, but Shay was just a little jealous of both of them.
“Sit down, dear, sit down,” Alice ordered, gesturing toward a chair at the kitchen table. “You look all worn out.”
Over Alice’s neatly coiffed and blue-rinsed head, Mitch gave Shay an evil wink.
Shay sighed and sat down, grateful for the coffee that was immediately set before her. “You two are going to spoil me if you keep this up. What will I do without you?”
The question, so innocently presented, caused a stiff silence. Mitch gazed off through the window over the sink, but Alice recovered quickly. “I was just telling your young man that I might sell my house and move out here for good. I could get a little apartment, don’t you know.”
Shay’s eyes widened. “You would do that? You would actually move here, just to be near Hank and me?”
“You’re my family,” Alice said softly. “All I have in the world. Of course I’d move to be near you. That’s if you’d want—if I wouldn’t be in the way—”
“Never.” Shay rose from her chair and embraced this woman who had come to mean so much to her in such a short time. “You could never be in the way.”
“Our Mr. Prescott might have a thing or two to say about that,” Alice pointed out with a misty wryness as she and Shay drew apart. “He has plans for you, you know.”
Mitch was no longer looking out the window, and a grin tilted one side of his mouth and lit his eyes. His entire demeanor said that he did indeed have plans for Shay, and none of them could be mentioned in front of her grandmother.
Shay waited until Alice wasn’t looking and gave Mitch a slow, saucy wink.
Color surged up from the neck of his dark blue T-shirt and he tossed Shay a mock scowl in return. “Actually,” he said, “I think Shay needs a grandmother around to keep her in line. I’ve tried, but the job is too big for me.”
Alice chuckled and gave him a slight shove. “Step aside, handsome,” she said. “I’ve got to get these biscuits in the oven or they won’t be ready in time for supper.”
Mitch caught Shay by the hand as he passed her, pulling her out of her chair and into the living room, where he promptly drew her close and kissed her. It was a thorough kiss that left Shay unsteady on her feet and just a bit flushed in the face.
Holding her close, Mitch whispered against the bridge of her nose, “If your grandmother wasn’t in the next room, lady…”
Shay trembled with the delicious feeling of wanting him. In a low, teasing voice, she retorted, “You shameless rascal, how can you say such a thing when you’ve been flirting with another woman under my very nose?”
Mitch grinned. “What can I say? I took one look at Alice and I was smitten.”
“Smitten?”
He pulled her toward the couch, sat down, positioned her on his lap. His hand moved beneath her skirt to stroke her thigh. “Smitten,” he confirmed.
Shay’s breath had quickened and her blood felt warm enough to melt her veins. She slapped away his hand and it returned, unerringly, to create sweet havoc on the flesh of her upper leg.
“So,” he said, as though he weren’t driving her wild with the brazen motion of his fingers. “Have you decided whether or not to take the house Todd showed you?”
Shay could barely breathe. “I’m…waiting for…estimates.”
“I see.”
Again, Shay removed his hand; again it returned. “Rat,” she muttered.
Alice was humming in the kitchen, happy in her work, probably pleased with herself for giving the young lovers some time alone. Mitch continued to caress Shay, slowly, rhythmically, skillfully.
She buried her mouth in the warmth of his neck to muffle the soft moan his attentions forced her to utter.
“You look a bit flushed, dear,” Alice commented, minutes later, over a dinner of chicken, green beans and biscuits, her gentle eyes revealing worry. “I hope you aren’t coming down with something.”
“She’s perfectly healthy,” Mitch replied with an air of authority.
Beneath the surface of the table, Shay’s foot moved and her heel made solid contact with Mitch’s shin. He didn’t even flinch.
After dinner, he and Shay did the dishes together while Alice rested on Hank’s bed. She’d closed the door behind her, but Shay still felt compelled to keep her voice down.
“If you ever do a thing like that again, Mitch Prescott…”
He wrapped the dishtowel around Shay’s waist, turned slightly and pulled her against him. “You can be sure that I’ll do it again,” he muttered. “And you’ll react just the same way.”
Shay knew that he was right and flushed, furious that he had such power over her and yet glad of it, too. Her body was still reverberating with the force of her response to those stolen moments of pleasure. “You are vain and arrogant!” she whispered.
He put one hand inside her blouse to cup her breast, his thumb moving her bra out of place and then caressing her nipple. “I’m going to forget that copy of my manuscript when I leave here tonight,” he said, his lips barely touching Shay’s. “You, of course, will throw up your hands in dismay and tell your grandmother that you’ve got to return it to me immediately.”
Shay shuddered with desire, still held close to solid proof of his masculinity by the dishtowel. His fingers were plucking gently at her nipple and she couldn’t reason, let alone argue. “B-bastard,” she said, and that was the extent of her rebellion.
Mitch slid the top of her blouse aside and bent his head to taste her now-throbbing nipple with an utterly brazen lack of haste. In fact, he satisfied himself at leisure before tugging her bra back into place and straightening her blouse. And then he left.
Shay finished the dishes and then, hating herself, tapped at the door of Hank’s room. “Alice?”
The answer was a sleepy, “Yes, dear?”
“Mitch forgot something here, and I’ve got to take it to him. I’ll be back soon.”
Two hours later Shay returned, hair and clothes slightly rumpled, lips swollen with Mitch’s kisses. Alice was knitting, the television tuned to a mystery program, and even in the dim light of the living room, Shay could see the sparkle in her grandmother’s eyes. The lady was clearly nobody’s fool.
“Did you have a nice time, dear?”
Every part of Shay was pulsing with the “nice time” she’d had in Mitch Prescott’s arms. “Yes,” she said, in classic understatement, and then she excused herself to take a bath and get ready for bed.
Because the last commercial was being taped the next morning and Alice wanted to watch, Shay arrived at work with her grandmother in tow.
The enormous hairy hand towered in the middle of the main showroom, and Shay shook her head as she looked at it. She was given a flowing white dress to put on in the rest room, and Richard’s assis
tant applied her makeup.
At least the showroom had been closed for whatever length of time it would take to get the spot on videotape, Shay noted with relief. Using a stepladder, she climbed into the palm of that hand and stretched out on her side, trying to keep the dress from riding up. Richard followed her up and carefully closed the huge fingers of the hand around her.
Before going back down the stepladder he winked at Shay and told her again that Marvin was going to be proud of her.
“This is really the way Faye Raye got her start, huh?” Shay muttered, trying to be a good sport about the whole thing. After all, this was the last commercial she would ever appear in.
Looking down, Shay saw her grandmother talking with Ivy, but there was no sign of Mitch. Her feelings about that were mixed. On the one hand, she hated to have him see her in such a ridiculous position. On the other, it was always comforting to know that he was there somewhere.
This time the cameras were above her, on the mezzanine, along with an enormous fan. A microphone had been hidden in the neckline of Shay’s chiffon dress.
“Ready?” Richard called from his place between the two cameramen.
Shay nodded; she was as ready as she was ever going to get.
The fan started up and Shay’s dress and hair moved in the flow of air. She practiced her smile and mentally rehearsed her line as the cameras panned over the selection of cars available in the showroom. When she saw them swing in her direction, she beamed, even though the fan was buffeting the air from her lungs, and gasped, “You’ll go ape when you see the deals we’re making at Reese Motors! Come on down and talk to us at 6832 Discount Way, right here in Skyler Beach!”
“Perfect!” Richard exulted, and Shay’s relief was such that for a moment she sank into the hollow of that giant ape hand and closed her eyes. One of the salesmen came to help her out from under the hairy fingers and down the ladder.
“You were magnificent!” Alice said when Shay came to stand before her, but there was an expression of profound relief in her eyes.
“I’m just glad it’s over,” Shay answered, wondering if Alice would tell her friends back home that her granddaughter earned her living by dressing up as a bee or lying in a huge and hairy hand.
“Well,” Alice announced brightly, “I’m off to look at apartments with Ivy’s young man. I may be late, so I took the liberty of setting out one of the casseroles you had in your freezer.” The older woman’s eyes shifted from Shay to Ivy, and they sparkled with pride. “My granddaughter is a very organized young woman, don’t you know. She’ll make a fine caterer.”
The vote of confidence uplifted Shay; she said goodbye to Alice and went into the rest room to put on her normal clothes and redo her makeup. Within twenty minutes, she was so involved in her work that she’d forgotten all about her brief stint as the captive of a mythical ape.
After work, Shay met briefly with one of the contractors providing an estimate on the renovation of the old house. His bid was higher than the one Todd had gotten, but she reviewed it carefully anyway.
Over the next three days, the rest of the estimates came in, straggle fashion. Shay looked them all over and decided to go with Todd’s original choices all the way down the line. She called her friend and, after taking one deep breath, told him that she would lease the house he’d shown her if the option to buy later still stood.
“You’re certainly efficient, Todd,” she said after the details had been discussed. “Alice loves that apartment you found for her. She’s looking forward to becoming a ‘beach bunny,’ as she put it.”
Todd laughed. “She’s something else, isn’t she? I’m glad you and Alice found each other, Shay.”
Shay was glad, too, of course, for her own sake and for Hank’s. What a surprise Alice would be to him when he came home from his trip! Even before her illness, Rosamond had never been very interested in the child, but now he would have someone besides Shay to claim as family.
For all these good things that were happening, there was one dark spot on Shay’s horizon. “H-have you talked to Mitch in the last few days?”
There was intuitive understanding in Todd’s voice as he replied, “He’s working like a madman, Shay. I think he’s got another project lined up for when he’s done with Rosamond’s book, and he’s anxious to get to it.”
Another project. Shay thought of Mitch’s earlier books—she’d skimmed through all four of them during the past few days—and she was alarmed. Good God, did he mean to tangle with the Mafia again? With drug dealers and Nazis and militant members of the Klan? He’d be killed!
She said goodbye in the most moderate voice she could manage, then hung up the telephone with a bang and rushed out of her office, past Ivy’s empty desk, through the deserted showroom downstairs and across the parking lot to her car.
Ten minutes later she was knocking on Mitch Prescott’s front door.
His housekeeper, Mrs. Carraway, answered. “Hello, Mrs. Kendall,” she said warmly. She probably knew a great deal about Shay’s relationship with her employer, but Shay couldn’t take the time to consider all the embarrassing ramifications of that now.
“Is Mr. Prescott at home? I really must see him as soon as possible.”
Mrs. Carraway looked surprised. “Why, no, Mrs. Kendall. He’s away on a research project or some such. I don’t expect him back for nearly a week.”
A week! Mitch was going to be gone for a whole week and he hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye. Shay was devastated and she was angry and she was afraid. So afraid. Had he gone back to the jungles of Colombia, or perhaps to Beirut or Belfast or some other dangerous place? She swallowed her pride.
“Do you know if Mr. Prescott has left the United States?”
The housekeeper’s face revealed something Shay found even harder to bear than surprise, and that was sympathy. “I really don’t know, Mrs. Kendall. I’m sorry.”
Shay muttered something polite and quite insensible and turned away. She should have known better than to get involved with a man who lived his life in the fast lane, she thought fiercely. She should have known better.
When Shay arrived home she found her grandmother packed to leave for Springfield on an early morning plane. Alice was eager to tie up the loose ends of her life in Missouri and get back to Skyler Beach.
Shay didn’t want her to go, even for such a short time. Everyone she loved, it seemed, was either away or about to leave. “If you’d stay just a few more days, you could meet Hank—”
Alice left her packing to kiss Shay’s cheek. “I’ll be back soon, don’t you worry. Besides, the boy will need his room.”
“It isn’t going to be the same without you,” Shay said as Alice went back to the two suitcases propped on the living room sofa to arrange and rearrange their contents.
Alice went on working, but there was gentle understanding in the look she passed to Shay. “You think I’m going to get back there and change my mind, don’t you?”
Shay sank into the easy chair nearest the couch. “Your friends are there. Your house, your memories.”
The old woman gestured toward the stack of photo albums she’d brought with her. They constituted a loving chronicle of Robert Bretton’s life, virtually from birth. “My memories are in my mind and my heart and in those albums over there. And my future is right here, in Skyler Beach. In fact, I’m thinking seriously of renting one of the shops in your building and opening a little yarn shop. I’ve always wanted to do something like that.”
Shay reached out and took one of the albums from the coffee table, opening it on her lap. Lord knew, she’d studied them all so many times that every last picture was permanently imprinted in her mind, but seeing her father’s face, so like her own, was a comfort. “A yarn shop?” she echoed, not really absorbing what Alice had said.
“Robert’s father provided very well for me,” Alice reflected, “and I’ve got no worries where money is concerned.” She closed the suitcases and their fastenings clicked into pla
ce one by one. “In my time, very few women had their own businesses, but I always dreamed of it.”
Shay looked up and closed the album. “You could teach knitting classes, as well as sell yarn,” she speculated, getting into the spirit of things.
Alice nodded. “I’ve arranged for Ivy to come and pick me up, Shay. She’s driving me to a hotel near the airport.”
Shay set the album aside, stung. “I would have been glad to—”
“I know, dear. I know. You would have been glad to drive me to the airport tomorrow at the crack of dawn and interrupt your entire day, but I won’t let you do it.”
“But—”
“No buts. My mind is made up. You’ve been running yourself ragged, what with our talks about your father and your job and those silly commercials, not to mention the catering service. I want you to eat a good supper, take a nice bath and go to bed early.”
Shay couldn’t help smiling, though she felt sad. Mitch was gone, Hank was gone, and now Alice was going, too. “Spoken like a true grandmother. Won’t you at least let me drive you to your hotel?”
“Absolutely not. Ivy and her young man are taking me and that’s final.” Alice lowered her voice and bent toward Shay, her eyes sparkling. “I do believe they’re planning a rather romantic evening; though, of course, I’ll never know.”
Shay laughed and shook her head, but inside she wished that she were looking forward to just such an evening with Mitch.
The call came within minutes of Alice’s departure with Todd and Ivy. There would be no quiet dinner, no comforting bath, no going to bed early. Rosamond had taken an abrupt turn for the worse, the doctor told Shay, and the diagnosis was pneumonia. Rosamond was being taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital.
Shay raced to Skyler Beach’s only hospital, driving so recklessly that it was a miracle she didn’t have an accident and end up in the intensive care unit with her mother.
Rosamond had arrived several minutes before her daughter, but it was some time before Shay was permitted to see her. She looked small and incredibly emaciated, Rosamond did, lying there beneath an oxygen tent, and there were so many tubes and monitoring devices that it was difficult to get close to her.
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