He seemed uncomfortable with her praise. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Grandma Jenny was right and Ella Mae will want no part of helping with the fish fry or anything else going on in town. She can be pretty cantankerous.”
“And maybe she just needs to be asked,” Abby said quietly, thinking of how many older people she’d known at the church who had sat on the sidelines desperately in need of a project, of a way to feel useful again. “Did you know that she taught school here for thirty-five years? She’d retired by the time I was in high school, but my parents both took her history class.”
“No wonder she talks about the past with such enthusiasm,” Seth said. “She made a career of making history come alive.”
“That’s certainly what my folks thought. Our house is filled with books about the Seminole Wars here in Florida and biographies of people important to the state’s history. They had a lifelong interest in that because of Ella Mae.”
“I’d like to borrow some of those books sometime,” Seth said. “It’ll give me something to discuss the next time I see her. I know she thinks my education is severely lacking because I was raised in the Midwest.”
Abby regarded him with surprise. “You enjoy visiting her, don’t you?”
“Sure. She reminds me of my grandmother, rest her soul. She could tell stories like no one else.”
“Sounds as if you were close.”
“She took care of me a lot. My mom and dad both worked by the time I came along. My sisters were already in high school and too obsessed with boys to be trusted to look after me.”
“That explains why you get along so well with Grandma Jenny, too,” Abby guessed. “You’re comfortable with seniors. Too many people shy away from them, as if age were contagious or something.”
Seth laughed. “I don’t know about that. I think it’s more about the pace at which everyone lives these days. Older folks have time on their hands. They like to spin out a story while younger people want them to get to the point. I think that’s one of the reasons I like Seaview Key. People here aren’t in such a rush.”
“That’s definitely one of the reasons I was anxious to get back here,” Abby said.
“But you haven’t really slowed down since you got here,” Seth argued. “You didn’t waste a minute jumping all over this rescue boat project, even though you already have a full plate between getting your place cleaned up and the Blue Heron Cove development.”
“Force of habit,” she agreed. “But I’ll mellow eventually. I’m counting on it.”
He didn’t look as if he believed her. “Mellow how? You’ll sit on your porch every afternoon with a book? Maybe wander into town for ice cream after dinner? Sit outside and enjoy the sunrise?”
“Exactly,” she said. “Maybe I’ll take up quilting, so my hands won’t be idle while I laze around enjoying the view from the porch.”
“Ah-ha,” he said, laughing. “There you go, already thinking of productive ways to occupy yourself. The view should be more than enough on its own. That’s the mellow lifestyle.”
“Are you there yet?” she asked curiously, trying to imagine him being still for more than a few minutes at a time.
“I’m working on it,” he said. “Want to give me a test?”
“How?”
“Pour a couple of glasses of iced tea, join me on your porch and we’ll see which one of us gets bored first.”
Abby held his gaze. “You’re on,” she said, accepting the challenge.
And as long as Seth was right there in plain view, she was pretty sure boredom would not be a problem.
* * *
Seth had no idea why he’d uttered a dare to Abby, even one as innocuous as this. Maybe it was because she’d looked so certain that she could attain some sort of Zen status eventually. He’d had his own share of troubles adapting to a more laid-back lifestyle, but the living-on-the-edge experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan had made him determined to succeed. He thought he’d made excellent progress since coming to Seaview Key. Abby still looked fidgety at the prospect of being unoccupied for more than a minute at a time.
He set the rocker he’d chosen into slow motion, closed his eyes and felt himself relax. Beside him, he could hear Abby’s rocker going at an impatient, rapid-fire clip as if she had places to go and things to do and couldn’t wait to get started. He bit his lip to keep from smiling.
“You’ll wear a hole in the porch floor if you keep that up,” he chided eventually.
“What?”
He glanced over and caught a guilty blush in her cheeks. “What were you thinking about?”
The blush deepened. “All the things I ought to be doing,” she admitted. “You?”
“Absolutely nothing,” he said, though the truth was he’d been envisioning taking the woman next to him inside, then tumbling around in her bed with her.
“Seriously?” she said. “You were actually able to empty your mind of everything? How?”
She sounded so eager to figure it out, Seth smiled. “Take a deep breath. Count slowly. Envision yourself all alone on a beach. Given there’s not a soul in sight from where we are right now, it shouldn’t be that difficult.”
Her gaze narrowed. “And that works?”
“Try it.”
She closed her eyes. He could almost hear the deliberate counting going on in her head. Her eyes blinked open and she frowned at him.
“Hogwash!” she said. “You made that up.”
He laughed. “It works for me. I swear. You must have been counting chores on your to-do list, instead of letting your mind empty of everything going on in your life.”
“Well, there’s a lot to do,” she grumbled. “It isn’t going to get done if I’m just sitting around out here staring at the water.”
“I knew it!” he said triumphantly. “You are incapable of total relaxation.”
“And that pleases you why?”
He shrugged. “Something to hold over your head, I suppose. Or maybe because it suggests that I’m beginning to understand you.”
She looked startled by that. “Is there some reason you want to understand me?”
He held her gaze, letting awareness sizzle between them. “I think it’s best if people aren’t strangers the first time they sleep together,” he said quietly.
She swallowed hard at that. “And you think we’re going to sleep together?” she asked, her voice choked.
“I know we are,” he said evenly. “The more important question is whether or not it’s going to be a mistake. Any thoughts about that, Abby?”
She looked completely flustered by the question, or maybe it was the topic. “Are you always so direct?”
“Always,” he said. “There are fewer regrets if everything’s on the table from the beginning. I’ve been attracted to you from the moment we met. I’ve spent a lot of time the past couple of days thinking I was probably crazy, but here we are. I still want you. I guess what I’m asking is whether you think it’s crazy.”
She seemed to be at war with herself. He could read the desire in her eyes, the precise moment when logic overruled passion.
“It would be a mistake,” she said, though she was unable to keep a wistful note from her voice.
“Because?” Not that he hadn’t thought so, too, but he wanted to know why she felt so strongly about it.
“You’re younger than I am, Seth.”
He actually smiled at that. “Try again. We’re adults. We both know the age difference doesn’t make it wrong or crazy.”
“It’s Seaview Key,” she said, as if things might be different in another community—in a big, anonymous city.
“You’re afraid of the gossip?” he asked.
“Aren’t you?” she challenged. “You have a job that depends on community support. Doesn’t it bo
ther you that you could be fired if people disapprove of your personal behavior?”
“I guess I’m giving the people of Seaview Key more credit than that,” he said. “And I’m thinking we’d be discreet.”
“There’s no such thing as adequate discretion in a town this size. Somebody always finds out. I imagine half a dozen people already know exactly how much time we’ve been spending together.”
“In plain sight,” he countered. “Not even a kiss in public, although I’ve been desperate to get another taste of you, one that didn’t involve seawater. What could be more discreet behavior than that?”
She choked on a laugh. “I really did kiss you when you were giving me mouth-to-mouth, didn’t I? I was hoping I’d been wrong about that.”
“You weren’t wrong,” he said. “It got my attention, that’s for sure.”
“Then that’s what this is really about, just a crazy impulse I wasn’t even aware of,” she said earnestly. “Chemistry kicked in. Curiosity. It’s perfectly natural.”
“And none of that kicked in for you? I was the only one affected because, what? I’m a guy?”
“Okay, no. I was affected, too, but it was a heat of the moment thing. Nothing more.”
“Not like it was with you and Luke?” he asked pointedly.
“That was different,” she said at once.
“Because it was Luke?”
“Because we were kids. Adrenaline and hormones got all mixed up together. As you just pointed out, you and I are adults. We know when something is just a fluke.”
“A fluke? That’s what you’re calling it?” he asked, feeling a sudden urge to prove her wrong. Unfortunately, it was evident that she was scared to death of the truth. For whatever reason, she wanted him to be wrong about the heat simmering between them even now.
He looked at her until she met his gaze. “I think I could prove to you it wasn’t any fluke,” he said softly.
She refused to look away, but he could tell by the desire in her eyes that she was waiting for him to do just that. He was the one who broke eye contact.
“And one of these days, I will,” he told her. “Just not today.”
He stood up, bent down and pressed a brotherly peck to her forehead. “See you around, Abby. Work on that relaxation thing, okay? Your pulse seems to be racing.”
He hid his smile as he walked away yet again without claiming what he really wanted. There was time. That was one of the lessons of Seaview Key—that there wasn’t any rush. Good things happened in their own sweet time. And something told him that once he and Abby made it as far as a bed, it was going to be very, very good. After that? Well, maybe just this once he didn’t need to be looking too far into the future or examining all their differences. Maybe he needed to live in the moment.
7
Seth flinched when Luke told him that Ella Mae wanted him to come to her place right away on Monday morning.
“She’s not feeling well?” he asked Luke worriedly.
“I don’t think that’s it. She didn’t call the emergency line. She called the clinic directly and asked for you. She sounded more annoyed than sick.”
Seth relaxed and allowed himself a satisfied grin. “Oh, boy. I’ll bet I know what that’s about. Jenny was going by to see her this morning. I’m guessing my name came up.”
Luke laughed. “No question about it. I’m sure Jenny told her that you were behind this scheme to get her involved in raising money for the rescue boat. You’d better get going. You don’t want to be responsible for one of those spells of Ella Mae’s.”
“I’m supposed to be at the press conference with Abby in an hour,” Seth reminded him.
“Then you’d better hurry,” Luke advised, a glint of humor in his eyes. “Bring Ella Mae along with you. She could probably use an outing.”
“Something tells me she’s barely going to be speaking to me once she’s said her piece,” Seth said. “I doubt she’ll want to go out in public with me.”
“Only one way to find out.”
“You’re taking entirely too much pleasure in this,” he accused his friend. “Next time I’ll just keep my prescriptions restricted to medications.”
Luke’s expression sobered at once. “Don’t do that, Seth. You have good instincts. This plan of yours, no matter what Ella Mae might say to you, was exactly right.”
The praise bolstered Seth as he headed for the older woman’s two-bedroom home set on a small lot with little more than a glimpse of the water through the overgrown shrubs and trees. He couldn’t help noting how much nicer it would be if some of that were trimmed back and cleared away. Maybe next spring, when the island was quiet again, he could get a few people to help with that.
Ella Mae was waiting for him on her porch, her expression sour. “Took you long enough,” she grumbled.
“Luke said it wasn’t an emergency,” he responded, taking a seat next to her. “What’s on your mind?”
“You were the one behind Jenny’s visit this morning,” she said. “Don’t even think about denying it. She admitted as much.”
“Then you don’t need me to confirm it.”
“I thought you were a paramedic, not a meddler.”
“Sometimes the cure for what ails a person has nothing to do with medicine,” he said. “I thought you might enjoy doing a good deed, instead of sitting around here all by yourself.”
“I like being by myself,” she claimed. “I have my books.”
“And, of course, those can’t talk back,” he said.
She gave him a sharp look. “I worked hard all my life,” she told him. “You think trying to cram a little knowledge into the heads of kids who resist at every turn is easy?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then you can understand why I think I’ve earned a little peace and quiet,” she said.
Seth leaned toward her and took her frail hand in his. Hers was trembling just a little. “There’s such a thing as too much peace and quiet,” he suggested gently. “And this rescue-boat fund-raiser isn’t all about you. Seaview Key needs this. Wouldn’t you like being part of making sure it happens?”
“It’s not as if I can go around town knocking on doors,” she grumbled. “No matter what you think, I’m old.”
“And not half as frail as you’d like everyone to believe,” he countered. “Besides, is knocking on doors what Jenny asked you to do?”
“No,” she admitted. “She said something about calling some of the people I had as students, telling them about the fish fry and selling them tickets. Since I taught most of the people on this island at one time or another, she seemed to think I’d have some influence.”
“The way I hear it, a lot of them idolized you.”
She waved off the comment. “More of them were terrified of me. That’s exactly the way I wanted it.”
“Either way works for our purposes, don’t you think? They’ll scoop up those tickets out of respect or fear.”
A sound escaped that might have been a bark of laughter. “You think you’re smart, don’t you?”
Seth ignored the question. “What did you tell Jenny?”
“That I’d do it, of course.” She frowned at him. “Doesn’t mean I’m happy about being bamboozled into it or that I’m going to jump on the bandwagon for every cause the people around here dream up.”
“Of course not,” he said solemnly, feeling triumphant.
“I doubt I’ll even go to that fish fry thing,” she said.
“Not even as my date?” Seth said, determined to get her there.
Pink tinted her cheeks. “Don’t try to sweet-talk me, young man. You’ve gotten your way. I’m going to help. Be satisfied with that.” She gave him a sly look. “Besides, the way I hear it, you have your eye on Abby Dawson.”
/> “Who told you that?”
“I may be leading a life that seems isolated to you, but I still have my sources around this town,” she told him. “You’d do well to remember that. There are very few secrets in Seaview Key.” She studied him curiously. “Is it true? About you and Abby, I mean?”
“We just met,” Seth equivocated.
“That’s not an answer. If you were one of my students, I’d take off points for evasiveness.”
Seth laughed. “Then it’s a good thing you’re not grading me,” he said. “Now, I need to run. The press conference to kick off the drive to raise money for the boat is starting any minute.”
Ella Mae struggled to her feet. “Then we’d better hurry.”
“You’re coming with me?” he asked innocently, hiding yet another triumphant smile.
“Might as well. It’s not as if I have a lot to do,” she said, a twinkle in her eyes. “Besides, Abby’s going to be there. I can get the lay of the land with you two for myself. I was always the first person in town to figure out when two young people were sweet on each other. I was the most hated chaperone at the high school dances because they couldn’t put anything over on me. I never let them sneak off together,” she said proudly.
“I’m going to regret dragging you out of your shell, aren’t I?” Seth said with an exaggerated sigh.
She gave him a surprisingly impish look. “You know what they say about awakening a sleeping beast. Do so at your own peril.”
Seth laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Too late,” she told him.
Seth tucked her arm through his and helped her down the front steps. She walked gingerly to his car and settled in, her shoulders squared regally. She patted the purse in her lap. “I’ve already started my list,” she told him. “I imagine I can sell a few tickets before Abby even finishes making her pitch. I think I’ll make a contest of it. Jenny thinks she can outsell me, but I have other ideas.”
Seth could only hope she didn’t put that same level of determination behind any meddling she decided to do into his life.
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