Moonlight on Monterey Bay

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Sam’s slow smile washed over her. “Well, good. We can let things be, not disturb the rhythm. See what happens.” His eyes moved from her face and roamed around the room. “And I do like what you’ve done here. I didn’t expect it to make any difference. I really didn’t care one way or another what you put in here. I just wanted something to sit on, to sleep on.” He shook his head, his forehead creasing. “But it’s strange—”

  “Strange?”

  “As much as I always liked this place, there was always something missing.” His gaze drifted around the room, touching each piece of furniture, each splash of color and accent, until it rested once more on Maddie’s face. “I used to dream about having a place like this when I was a kid. But it was more a feeling than anything else. And after I finally could afford the dream, I built it, but something wasn’t right. It never matched that young kid’s dream. And now … now I think it’s getting there. Somehow you tapped into the dream.”

  Eeyore accepted the compliment, licking Sam’s leg with enthusiasm and saving Maddie from an inadequate response. His words moved her, and more than was appropriate, she suspected, for a client’s simple appreciation for a job.

  Sam looked at his watch. Nearly six. He had promised the mayor that he’d attend the opening of a new civic theater. He frowned, then looked again at the wonderful, earthy room. He’d go, and he’d do his duty, but the realization hit him forcefully that it wasn’t at all where he wanted to be. He wanted to stay exactly where he was; in fact, there was nowhere on earth he wanted to be but here, in this high, cool room with the slanted rays of sunset falling across his knees. And with Maddie, looking more at home in his house than he did.

  He’d leave, but he’d be back. Soon. And with an understanding that didn’t need words, he reluctantly rose from the couch, touched Maddie briefly on the top of her head, grabbed his shirt, and left.

  SEVEN

  Maddie squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and lifted her foot onto the next rung. There. Finally.

  It had taken her fifteen minutes to climb the ladder that reached up to the ceiling of Sam’s living room. But she had made it, and as long as she didn’t look down, she’d be just fine. She lifted the end of the long vine and threaded it through the last ceiling hook that the carpenters had installed the day before, then released her breath. There. Perfect.

  She had found the flowering tropical plant in a house on Front Street that had been badly damaged in an earthquake and was being demolished. But Maddie knew the instant she saw the aged plant, its thick braided stems trailing artfully across the ceiling of the old house, that there was another home for it—a perfect home.

  “Amazing,” said a voice below her.

  Maddie’s heart leaped up into her throat, then slowly settled back. Although her heart still did a two-step, she was no longer surprised when Sam appeared unexpectedly. For days he had been showing up at the beach house, a casual dropping in to check on things, see if she needed anything, to comment on a carpet or a painting. The day before, he had brought lunch, a vegetable pasta in a lemon sauce that they had eaten on the sun-drenched deck. “No meat,” Sam had said, and the gesture warmed Maddie’s heart.

  “Need any help with that?” he asked.

  She shook her head and moved down the ladder carefully. “It’s all done.”

  “You didn’t grow that plant just for this place.”

  “No.” She grinned. “This plant is nearly as old as you, Sam.”

  “That old, huh? How did it end up here?”

  “Well, Greta—her name is Greta—needed a home.” Maddie looked up at the vine, her hands on her hips. Its roots were planted in a corner pot, and the long green stem wound its way all the way up to the ceiling, then looped from one ceiling beam to the next. Sunlight from the skylights washed over the leaves and fell across the floor in dappled, fanciful designs. “It’s a match made in heaven, don’t you think?”

  Sam wrapped one arm around her shoulders and looked at the plant. “Okay, Greta,” he said, “exactly what are your needs? And who in hell is going to meet them?”

  “Her new owner.” Maddie smiled sweetly. “And besides the basics—water and plant food—Greta needs music now and then, not heavy stuff—light jazz, maybe some Enya.”

  “Enya?”

  Maddie shook her head and sighed. “I can see I have some work to do here. Actually Mozart would be good too. She doesn’t need much water, Sam.”

  “I can probably handle it.” He watched the sunlight play on Maddie’s hair. It brought out highlights—streaks of wine and blue black. He traced the lines with the blunt end of his fingers. “I’ll be down often enough, but whoever cleans the place for me can check on old faithful up there.”

  “Good idea.” Maddie brushed the dust from her long gauzy skirt. “I think you’ll find Greta good company.”

  “That’s something I’m not worried about.” He rubbed her neck. “So, when does the rest of the furniture come?”

  “Monday. Most things should be here by then. The upstairs rooms, the deck furniture.”

  The warmth of his fingers relaxed her neck. She turned slightly, lifted her head, and looked up at him.

  Sam breathed deeply. He’d been pretty good about keeping his desire in check. It flared now and then, when she brushed against him, when their eyes met, when she swept by him and the fresh, clean scent of her body filled his nostrils, but he managed to hold it at bay. But how long could he handle wanting Maddie more than was reasonable, knowing it wasn’t a good idea? “Maddie, I—”

  “Oh, Sam.” She sighed. “Me too.” She raised herself on tiptoe, wound her arms around his neck, and kissed him tenderly on the mouth. Sam reacted immediately, a time bomb at zero hour, and pulled her roughly to him. He nipped at her lip gently, traced it with his tongue, then kissed her fully and deeply until he could feel it in every inch of his body.

  Finally he released her, set her slightly apart. His eyes searched her face, soaked in the flush of desire that spread across her cheekbones and danced in her eyes. “Maddie,” he murmured, “Maddie, I don’t know what the hell is going on.” He raked his fingers through his hair. She’d done it again. Her presence, her smile, her sweet, wonderful touch. It was starting to be a part of his day, his diet, something that if he didn’t have, he’d starve. He shook his head, touched her cheek lightly, drew his finger down the length of her face, up to the lobe of her ear.

  He went on talking, his tone intense and his eyes, glazed with desire, boring into her. “I haven’t been thinking as clearly these days as I usually do—that’s just one of the things you’ve done to me—but one thing I’m dead clear on is that I don’t want to mess with your life. I don’t want to hurt you—”

  Maddie was quiet for only a second. “Then don’t,” she said simply. The corners of her mouth lifted slightly.

  “Life’s simple for you, isn’t it?”

  “No, life’s never been simple for me, Sam. I work hard to make it uncomplicated. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t. But the fact is, every blessed time you and I are together, something goes off. I don’t exactly know what it is either, but ignoring it doesn’t seem to work. I think it’s better to deal with it—”

  “Maybe.” He fingered a strand of her hair that had pulled loose from her braid. “It’s damned hard to ignore, but sometimes the harder way is the better—in the end, I mean.”

  Maddie slipped her hands into the pockets of her jeans and took a deep breath. Then she looked up at Sam. “For a while I thought so, too, because I’m used to protecting myself. But now I’m not so sure. I’ve worked hard at living in the present, Sam. And I realized that since I met you I’ve been doing the opposite. I’ve been thinking about tomorrow, about when this job is done, about avoiding you because you cause me to feel this way or that way. And it’s troublesome … besides being a terrible waste of time.”

  Her voice was so earnest that Sam had to hold himself back from taking her in his arms and soothing her. />
  Maddie looked out at the ocean, then back at Sam. “Maybe we ought to simply enjoy the present.”

  Sam looked at her longingly. “I’m not a good bet, Maddie,” he said softly.

  Maddie touched his cheek. “I know, Sam.” And then she smiled up into his face, a bright, care-scattering smile, and said, “And now, master of this house, how about a little shopping spree? I think it’s high time we spent some more of your money and filled this place with some essentials—like towels and plant food and a decent teapot.”

  With Maddie directing, Sam drove south a few miles to the small beach town of Capitola. Maddie tucked her arm in his and led him down the packed streets and in and out of small, crowded shops.

  “This is new for me, this shopping stuff.”

  “Time you learned. I don’t shop much myself, but I’ve decided when you have to, it’s attitude that makes the difference. You tell yourself you don’t care how long it takes, and you pretend it’s all a big treasure hunt, and then it can be exciting.”

  “Exciting, eh?” He lifted a multicolored candle shaped like the world and held it up to the light.

  “See?” Maddie said, taking the candle from his hands. “That’s exactly what I mean. See what you found? It’s a wonderful candle, absolutely perfect.”

  “For what?”

  “For light, for peace, for all those things. Candles are wonderful.”

  Sam was convinced. If she had said he needed twenty more, all shaped like flamingos, he would have gotten them. The light in her eyes convinced him, and the gentle touch of her fingers along his arm.

  More of Maddie’s treasures found their way into Sam’s arms as they walked slowly from shop to shop. She found joy in a set of colorful cotton place mats and in a tall reedlike vase she discovered in a tiny shop nearly hidden from the street, and in a painting of a sea gull standing all alone at the end of a pier against a flawless California sky.

  And Sam found great joy in her.

  As he took her arm to walk over to the final block of shops, a clear, resonant, female voice stopped them at the curb.

  “Madeline, is that you?”

  Maddie and Sam turned to see a tall, middle-aged woman waving her arms. Immediately the woman wove her way across the street through the bumper-to-bumper cars and rushed over to her. “Oh, good Lord, it’s you, Maddie.”

  “Angela!” Maddie threw her arms around the older woman, hugging her tightly. Finally she pulled away. “It’s been a long time,” she said softly.

  “Far too long, dear,” Angela said. “But you look fine, Maddie. Very fine, indeed.” She took Maddie’s hand and held it tightly.

  Sam watched the exchange. Maddie was happy to see the woman, whoever she was, but it subdued her, and he noticed a touch of sadness in her eyes.

  “Sam,” Maddie said then, turning toward him, “I’d like you to meet—”

  “—an old friend,” Angela said. Her eyes were on Maddie, the words said more to her than Sam.

  Maddie nodded. “Certainly that.” She took Sam’s arm and drew him in. “And this is a client, Angela. Sam Eastland, Angela Patterson.”

  Angela shook Sam’s hand warmly. Sam felt her eyes scrutinize him, sizing him up somehow, as if questioning the client introduction, and wanting to know more.

  “We haven’t seen each other for a while,” Maddie explained. “Angela lives in San Francisco.”

  “And you have settled in Santa Cruz. That’s wonderful, dear. A good place for you to be.”

  “Yes, Angela. It has been.”

  “Married?” Angela asked quietly.

  “No.” Maddie smiled.

  “But your dreams are still intact.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And you shall reach them, Maddie, my dear. You certainly shall. I know it.” She hugged Maddie close and Sam had the feeling they had completely forgotten he was there, or perhaps it simply didn’t matter. A language was being spoken that he didn’t understand, but the two women understood perfectly.

  “Nice lady,” Sam said as Angela walked off down the street.

  “The best.”

  “You’ve been friends a long time?”

  “Angela was my lawyer a long time ago, and we became close friends. Our lives were very entwined at one time, but that was a long while ago. Sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago.”

  A loud growl from Maddie’s stomach scattered the serious conversation and left Sam feeling vaguely empty, robbed of something that was about to be given to him, something important.

  “Sam, I think I have to eat or I’ll die.”

  “And leave me to finish this shopping alone? No way—” He put his arm around her shoulder and led her across the street to the beach, and to a restaurant that provided a view he thought might pull the smile back to her eyes.

  They sat out in back on a dining deck and ordered vegetable salads and iced tea. “You’re making me into a damned rabbit,” Sam grumbled.

  They chatted lightly, and by the time the waiter brought their salads, the light was back in Maddie’s eyes and Sam wondered briefly if he had imagined the whole thing.

  In the distance small multicolored cottages, built on a hilly bank, created the ambience of a Mediterranean village. Sam settled back and thought about other Saturdays spent in offices, club events, meetings. “This is nice,” he said, breaking the comfortable silence.

  “You could use more time to unwind. Look at that furrow in your forehead.”

  Sam touched his forehead and deepened the crease with an exaggerated frown. “Don’t knock this. It’s my signature, Maddie. It turns the competition to mush. I can’t afford to lose it.”

  “You know what I think, Sam Eastland? I think you’re a lot of hot air. Underneath that three-piece-suit facade, you’re nothing but a teddy bear.”

  “You know that about me, do you?”

  She tilted her chin up. “Yes.”

  He leaned his head to one side, looked at her intently. “Sometimes I think I know things about you, too, as if I’ve known you a long time.”

  Maddie grew serious and leaned slightly forward. “I know what you mean, Sam. Sometimes that happens.” She lifted one shoulder. “Who knows, maybe we were friends in another life. Or lovers? Brother and sister?”

  “Another life?”

  “It’s possible. Or maybe it’s something else, the forces around us. I don’t know. I do know I had a feeling about your house, right from the start, even before I really knew you.”

  “What kind of feeling?”

  Maddie rested her chin on her hands. “I had a feeling that it had never reached its potential.” Her eyes were bright. “I know that sounds silly. But I sat there one day, all alone, in a pool of sunshine, and suddenly it was all clear. Your house needed to be one with the world around it, the ocean and artichoke fields and eucalyptus trees.” Her hands lifted, gathering in the air, the sea. Gathering in Sam Eastland. “There are some beautiful homes along the beach that are meant to be showplaces. But yours is different. It was meant to be a nesting sort of place, a place where the sea and the land would meet, where a person’s soul could rest.” She sat back, folded her hands on the table, and grinned. “So there.”

  Sam was entranced. Her cheeks were flushed, and tiny flecks danced like bits of gold dust in the sea-green pool of her eyes. She was alive, vibrant, tugging at him. He took a long drink of iced tea.

  “Anyway,” she said, “that’s what I think. What do you think?”

  Sam laughed. “Frankly I don’t know what I think. You have a way of throwing me off center, Maddie. Hell, half the time you have me believing that houses talk and plants listen to Mozart.”

  Maddie smiled. “You like things more exact. You like to be able to explain things more simply, and to add up two and two and always get four.”

  “Maybe so. I see the world in a more factual, realistic way. You float off sometimes, Maddie.”

  She chuckled, but her expression was serious when she answered. “Sam, my wor
ld is every bit as real as yours. I deal with the reality differently, that’s all. It’s the way I have to do it.”

  Her words were layered, Sam thought. But before he could explore it, she was pushing her chair out, touching his hand, suggesting they leave. “I could sit here and eat all day, Sam,” she said, “but it’s time to get practical and hit the mall.”

  “Mall?”

  “Remember, Sam—” she chucked him. “Attitude.”

  Sam wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but wandering through the airy shopping mall on the edge of the city was one of the best ways he’d ever spent a Saturday afternoon. And he wondered vaguely if it was a kind of witchery at work, one that would also make having teeth pulled or bones set enjoyable. Maddie’s spell was palpable.

  In an hour they swept through the entire Capitola mall and ended up with pots and pans, coffee and teapots, towels, blankets, sheets, kitchen utensils and small appliances. Sam eyed the huge parcels that Maddie was asking Sears to deliver on Monday. “I think in one of those other lives you organized the world.”

  Maddie made a face as she scribbled Sam’s address on the delivery form. “Are you saying again that I’m bossy, mister?” She took his arm and led him out of the store and into a yogurt store. “Okay, so maybe a little. And now we need a reward. Then home. We’re finished!”

  It was nearly dusk when Sam drove slowly down Maddie’s street. The afternoon had passed too quickly, and he hated to see it end.

  He pulled up at the curb and killed the engine, then looked over at her. “Okay, Maddie. What’s next? I think I buy your idea of examining this a little more.”

  She laughed. “I didn’t mean with a microscope, Sam.”

  “Me either. I mean by having dinner together. Going out. Doing whatever people in Santa Cruz do. Hell, we can go to that amusement park on the beach if you like. But I want to be with you. What do you say?”

  “I say it sounds great. But I had plans for tonight, Sam. I’m sorry.” Her voice held red regret.

  Change them, were the words that sprang to Sam’s lips, but he held them back. He had no right, after all. She had a life, maybe even men in it. “A date?” he said lightly.