by JoAnn Ross
“It’s a date,” Connie Fletcher said, her own Miss Cotton Queen smile returning Emma’s feigned one. “I’ll give your daddy a call one of these days soon and we can set things up.”
“You’re not going to go out with Mrs. Fletcher, are you, Daddy?” Emma asked as they drove to Still Waters.
“I hadn’t planned to,” Mac responded mildly.
“Good. Because the only reason she was being nice to me is that she wants you to marry her.”
“I think we were just talking about a picnic basket.” When did she get so damn perceptive? Not only was she no longer unrelentingly cheerful, but somehow, before his very eyes, she’d become six going on thirty.
“That’s just what she says. When I was over playing Barbies, I heard Peggy’s mom tell Mrs. Tyler that every single woman in town wants to marry you.”
“I’m sure that was an exaggeration.”
“Kenny’s mom sure was after you. She was looking to trap you the same way people do those crabs they pull up off the dock. You need to watch out,” she warned. “Because having a bad mom would be a lot worse than not having my mom live with us.”
“Is that hard on you?” he asked with a casualness he was a very long way from feeling.
“I miss Mommy sometimes.” Her voice was small and sad, which reminded him of himself so many years ago.
Their situations weren’t exactly the same, but he sure hadn’t talked to any grown-ups about losing his dad. And although his mother hadn’t dated all that much, he remembered resenting any man who’d come to the house. Until Dr. Boyd Buchanan, who had not only possessed the patience to ignore Mac’s less-than-compliant behavior, but had proven to be the real deal.
He might not have been a fighter pilot with a cool uniform and helmet, but he had taught Mac how to build a radio, and encouraged him to follow his own dream instead of going to medical school, like Mac sometimes suspected his mother would’ve preferred.
“I love your grandpa Buchanan a whole lot,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten my first dad. And sometimes I wish he could see what a wonderful granddaughter he has.”
“Poppy says people who die go to heaven and can see everything. So Grandpa Culhane probably knows all about me.” Her small forehead furrowed as she considered that for a minute. “I hope he isn’t disappointed that I hit Kenny.”
“He’d understand. I would’ve done the same thing,” Mac admitted. He wasn’t certain that was the right lesson to teach his daughter, but he’d promised both her and himself that he would never lie to her.
“Poppy always says family’s the most important thing,” Emma said. “And it was wrong what Kenny said.”
“True. But you have to promise me, no more hitting.”
She sighed again in a way that had him wondering if all little girls could be so expressive, or if, just perhaps, he had a budding actress on his hands. More to worry about, as visions of his innocent daughter moving to Hollywood and running into guys like he’d once been flashed through Mac’s mind.
13
Emma loved visiting her daddy’s grandfather. Unlike her daddy and granddaddy, who she knew sometimes got busy and weren’t paying her their total attention, Poppy always leaned forward in his chair, his eyes right on hers whenever she’d tell him things. Sometimes his lips even moved right along with her, as if he knew just what she was going to say before the words came out of her mouth.
“What the blue blazes happened to you, girl?” he’d asked as soon as she walked into his room at Still Waters, where he lived with a lot of other grandmas and grandpas who’d gotten the Alzheimer’s. There were also cats and dogs living there, which sometimes was her favorite part of her visits.
Although her daddy had made her go home and change out of her dirtied clothes and put a Disney Princess Band-Aid on her elbow after he’d washed it and put cream on it, her poppy’s eyes had gone straight to her eye. Her grandpa, who was a doctor, had put frozen peas on it, but she could still feel it swelling up.
“I hit a mean boy. Then he hit me back.”
“Did he deserve it?”
“He said a bad thing about your Alzheimer’s. That it was like chicken pox and people could catch it. So I gave him a bloody nose.” She may have had to apologize, but the memory of that moment still made her smile.
“Good for you,” he said.
“Pops,” her daddy said in that quiet, warning way of his.
“Girl was sticking up for family,” her poppy said. “Which was exactly what she should do.”
Emma beamed as she reached into her book bag and took out the picture she’d drawn for him. “It’s the Fourth of July fireworks,” she said. “I’m sorry you won’t be able to come see them with us. But maybe you can see them from the window.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve never liked fireworks since I was in the war.”
“Really?”
They were one of Emma’s favorite things, right after cats and dogs and Christmas. She loved the music and the way they lit up the sky, and this year was going to be the best of all because her friend Angel had told her that Shelter Bay always ended the fireworks display by shooting off a cannon.
“Why not?”
“Because they remind me of when I was on those ships in the South Pacific during the war and the damn Japs kept trying to sink us,” he said.
“Pops,” Mac repeated quietly.
“Japanese.” Poppy corrected grumpily. “Like you never called that bastard who blew you up names?”
“Not in front of my daughter.”
“Humph.”
“I have a friend who’s Japanese,” Emma volunteered. “Her parents have a tulip farm and grow the prettiest flowers. Her name is Mai, and she’s really nice. You’d like her.”
“If she’s a friend of yours, I know I would. And I’ve bought some tulips at their farm. So your daddy’s right. I shouldn’t have used that bad name.
“But it’s a beautiful picture. Maybe your best yet. So from now on, when I think about fireworks, I’ll think about you,” her poppy said. “Which will probably make me like them now.”
“I’m glad.” Emma grinned and threw her arms around his neck and gave him a big hug. The way he always told her that each picture was her best yet was another reason she loved her poppy.
She could also tell him secrets, and she believed him when he told her that he’d never, ever tell anyone a single thing she told him. Which was good, because she’d had the most exciting idea that she couldn’t wait to share with him. But she couldn’t do that with her daddy in the room with them.
“Daddy,” she said, “I have a something important I need to talk with Poppy about.”
“Okay,” he said.
She liked the way her daddy’s eyes crinkled up when he smiled. Peggy Murray, one of her new best friends, had a big crush on him. Emma still wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Sometimes she was proud to have the most handsome dad of any kid in kindergarten. But other times, when Peggy came over to her house with Angel Tiernan-St. James, her other BFF, and would keep trying to get his attention, Emma would get jealous.
Which was why Angel was her number one BFF, because Angel was going to marry Trey Douchett, so she didn’t make those stupid cow eyes at Emma’s dad.
Sometimes they’d even rehearse how Angel’s wedding would be, with Angel playing the bride, Emma playing the groom, and Peggy being the priest. Once, during a sleepover at Peggy’s, Peggy had insisted that the groom had to kiss the bride. So Emma and Angel had tried to kiss, but had ended up giggling so hard that Emma had almost wet her pink Powerpuff Girls underpants. Peggy got mad, said they were both so stupid neither one of them would probably ever get married, and went to the other side of the room and began playing with her Bratz dolls.
“It’s really, really important,” she stressed now to her father. “An
d private.”
She could tell her dad wasn’t real happy about that idea, but she’d also figured out that if she used the special coaxing voice Peggy had taught her, she could usually get him to go along with whatever she wanted.
Sometimes her grandpa said that her daddy was spoiling her. Emma didn’t understand what the problem was with that.
She liked being spoiled.
“Let the girl have a little privacy,” her poppy said. “I’ll be here to watch out for her.”
Her daddy’s brow furrowed like it sometimes did when he was trying to decide something. “You promise not to leave this room?” he asked.
“Cross my heart and hope to die.” She crossed her sparkly fingertips on the front of her new glittery pink and purple Princess Merida T-shirt that she’d been going to save to wear to her first day of first grade, but when she’d been changing clothes after the playground fight, she’d decided it would cheer her poppy up.
“Okay. I’ll go get some coffee and be back in ten minutes.”
“We’ll be here,” her poppy said. “It’s not like we have a lot of places to go.”
Once the door closed behind her daddy, Emma asked, “Do you like living at Still Waters, Poppy?”
“It’s okay.”
“My friend Peggy said her grandpa is in a home and he says it’s like a jail.”
“It’s not that bad.” He picked up a scrapbook and held it out toward her. “I went to the aquarium and out for ice cream. See.”
“Oh. That’s nice. I saw that octopus when Daddy took me. It’s really big.”
“It is that.”
“Do you think you could have caught it on your boat?”
“Wouldn’t have wanted to,” he said. “But, yeah, I could catch about anything, back in my time. Well, except a whale, maybe.”
“I like whales. They sing. . . . Not like people, with words, but it’s still pretty. Daddy bought me a CD of them when we went to the aquarium. So you don’t want to run away?”
“Guess I won’t today.”
“Okay.” She blew out a breath. “But if you ever want to, I have the bestest place for you to hide out.”
“Where would that be?”
“My friend Angel showed me this cave down on the beach when I went there one day with her family. It’s got diamonds in the walls and when she was a foster kid, she was going to run away and live there with her big brother, but then they got adopted so they didn’t have to.
“So I was thinking, that if you ever wanted to run away from here, you could go there and I could visit every day and bring you food and stuff.”
“That’s an idea,” he said, rubbing his chin, which scratched a bit when he kissed her cheek, but Emma didn’t care. “But you have to promise me never to go down to the beach by yourself. Or even with your friend. Because the sea can be dangerous for little girls, and you never know when a sneaker wave is going to wash up.”
“Okay.” Happy that her poppy wasn’t unhappy and didn’t want to run away, she perked up, reached into her Barbie backpack, and pulled out the paper and crayons she was never without. “Want to color?”
14
“I did something really, really stupid,” Annie confessed to Sedona.
She was planning a card-making party for a book club group to be held at the store, and Take the Cake’s cupcakes always made any occasion more festive. Since they were all alone in the bakery, except for the workers in the kitchen, she felt free to share what she’d nearly called her friend about last night.
“You couldn’t be stupid if you tried,” Sedona said as she put the dozen assorted prettily frosted cakes into a pink box.
“That’s what you think. I called in to KBAY last night and talked with Midnight Mac.”
“You were Sandy, who voted yes for Saturday nights?”
“You heard me?”
“Well, I didn’t realize it was you, since for some reason you’re going to have to explain, you were using a fake name, but, yeah, I was listening and for a second I thought it sounded a little like you.”
The idea that people who knew her might be listening to Mac at Midnight was something Annie hadn’t even considered when she’d impulsively picked up the phone and punched the station’s call-in number.
“I don’t know why I used a fake name, either,” Annie admitted. “When he asked, it just popped out of my mouth.” She didn’t, couldn’t, even with such a close friend, share where that particular name had come from.
“It gets worse. You didn’t hear our entire conversation, because he kept me off the air when it got a little personal.”
“Seriously?” Sedona put down the scissors she’d been about to use to cut a piece of white ribbon. “You talked about personal stuff with Midnight Mac? When it’s like pulling teeth to get you to tell your friends anything about your life before you landed here in Shelter Bay?”
“I tell you stuff.”
Although she’d moved beyond her foster-child days, the previously necessary and now ingrained habit of keeping secrets remained strong. She’d only skimmed the surface of those years last summer, when she’d joined other women in volunteering at the annual camp for separated foster siblings at Rainbow Lake.
And while Sedona, Chef Maddy Chaffee, and Kara Douchett all knew her husband had left her for another woman, Annie admittedly hadn’t exactly gotten into her part in the downfall of her marriage.
“Like how personal?” Sedona asked. “Did he flirt with you? Or, wow, don’t tell me he was risking FCC violations by fooling around with phone sex?”
“Of course not!”
Color flooded into Annie’s face at that idea. Partly because she’d never, ever had phone sex in her life. Nor could she imagine being so emotionally open with anyone. One thing she and her husband had had in common was that neither one of them said anything during sex.
“We were just talking about regrets. And both having been married.”
“Ah. I guess he told you he’s divorced. “
“Yes.”
Although Sedona was nearly as close as a sister, Annie decided against telling her that Mac Culhane felt responsible for the breakup of his marriage. That was so personal, she suspected it wasn’t a story he told everyone. Which had her wondering why he’d shared it with her.
“His little girl is just precious,” Sedona said. “If I wanted kids, she’s exactly the type of daughter I’d want.”
It was Annie’s turn to be surprised. “You don’t want children?”
“It is allowed, you know,” Sedona said mildly as she picked up the scissors again and snipped the ribbon. “Not everyone has to buy in to motherhood.”
“Well, of course it’s allowed.” Another thing Annie had failed to share was her own dismal experience with pregnancy. “It’s just that I’ve watched you with Kara’s and Phoebe’s babies. And from how patient you are when it’s taking kids ages to select a cupcake flavor, I never would’ve guessed you didn’t like children.”
“But I do like children. A lot. Just other people’s.” She tied the ribbon in a bow as perfectly as she seemed to do everything else.
Annie had often thought that even her friend’s cupcakes looked as if they belonged in a museum display. Like the Limoges painted porcelain boxes Annie’s husband had always bought her as gifts. At first she’d loved them. Once she found out it was his assistant who’d simply called the Park Avenue store and had them delivered, they’d lost their appeal.
“If I wasn’t an only child, I’d probably be that favorite aunt who’d swoop in with lots of presents, spoil the kids rotten for a few hours or, at most, a couple days, then leave while still adored.”
Sedona sighed, giving Annie the impression that she’d had this conversation too many times over the years. “It’s just that growing up as the eldest girl in that commune left me being a part-tim
e surrogate mom to a bunch of younger kids. Although I haven’t entirely closed my mind to the idea of motherhood, I’m pretty sure I burned out on the idea of having any children of my own.”
“That makes sense.”
Especially since Annie had often played the same role for younger foster children in some of her placements. Though she’d loved playing the role and had always dreamed of having children of her own.
Different strokes.
“What does he look like?” she asked, bringing the conversation back to its original track. Unlike some of the other station deejays, Mac never seemed to do personal appearances, and there were no posters advertising Mac at Midnight in any store windows.
“Who?” Sedona asked with feigned innocence.
“Mac Culhane.”
“Ah.” An exquisitely shaped blond brow lifted. “You’re interested.”
“It’s just easier to talk with someone when you know what they look like,” Annie hedged.
“He’s tall, about six-two, I’d guess, and lean, but not skinny in any way. I’ve never seen him without a shirt, but some mornings we’re both running on the beach at the same time and I can see he’s really ripped beneath his T-shirt.”
When that comment sent Annie’s unruly mind swirling up a picture of the man she’d run into at Still Waters, she shook off the mental image. He’d been the complete opposite of the warm and caring deejay. “What else?”
“Let’s see, when he runs, his gait is a little off, as if he might have an injured leg. Not enough to be all that noticeable if you’re not looking carefully, but it caught my eye one day when he was running a few yards ahead of me. Well, to be perfectly honest, it was after I noticed his very fine butt.”