“How about your parents?” he asked.
“My father…he did odd jobs, this and that.” Between his drinking binges. “What about yours?” she asked, hoping to move on and get away from family questions before he got to her mother.
It seemed to work. “Dad worked in Seattle for years as an aircraft developer,” Joe said. “Mom was just here, you know, home when you left, home when you got home. Back then it didn’t seem that important, but now, I know it was everything.”
She couldn’t control a violent shudder. Having a mother like Joe had would have been like a fairy tale to her back then. “It’s so damn cold,” she muttered, tucking her chin into her jacket collar.
They strolled nearer Alex, determinedly stacking debris and loose rocks into a pyramid of sorts by the cliff, the crabs forgotten. Joe stopped by a large rock and leaned against it, the breeze lifting his hair.
She’d never been one to look at a man and have any thoughts of what-ifs. But she did now. What if Joe and she had met someplace else? What if he wasn’t tied to this place, and what if she didn’t hate this place? What if they were on neutral ground, equals in what they wanted, just two people getting to know each other?
She felt her stomach tighten sickeningly as reality intruded. There was just this. Here and now. And that wouldn’t change. She looked away from the man and out to the water again, walking slowly to the spot where waves lapped the sand. “How long do you think the festivities will go on in town?” she asked.
“For days,” Joe said. His voice, right behind her, startled her, and she turned suddenly, nearly falling, but he had her by her upper arm. His hand slid slowly up to her shoulder, then rested there. “I should’ve whistled to let you know I was behind you.”
She stared at him. He was so damn sexy. Those blue eyes, the slight curl of his longish dark hair, that muscular physique. Her reaction was disturbing, and she faked a shiver to break the contact. “It’s just me. This place makes me…” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I don’t know. Jumpy, I guess.” She knew it wasn’t entirely the place that put her nerves on edge.
“Odd. Most people say it’s peaceful. That they like the calm and tranquility here.” His eyes narrowed. “But then again, they usually come here to relax.”
She walked over to the little boy and hunkered down beside the pile of things he’d made. She tried to blot out his father, so near to her. “I bet I know what this is.”
“What?” Alex asked, his blue eyes on her.
She touched some seaweed that he’d laid over rocks and pieces of wood. “It’s a trap. You build it, and when the tide comes in and the water flows behind it, it wears away the sand and leaves a hole.” She smoothed the seaweed back into place. “And if you’re lucky, the hole gets really deep. When you come back later on, there’ll be things in the hole, not aware they’re in a trap…like crabs.”
He clapped his hands. “Yeah!” he said. “Crabs!”
“So I’m right?” The boy’s wide smile touched something deep inside her.
“Yes!”
She stood as Alex happily grabbed more seaweed and rocks to put in place. From behind her, Joe asked, “How did you know that? About the dam and the hole?”
Because that was how she’d played as a child all alone. She remembered coming back to the same spot on the beach over and over again, seeing the hole get bigger and bigger, thinking if she did it enough, maybe the hole would open up and she’d fall through it to another world like Alice in Wonderland. “I did it sometimes as a kid,” she said. “One time four crabs were in my hole, and I made the mistake of trying to carry them all at once.” She’d thought if she took them home for her dad that he’d be happy and they could cook them and be a normal family for a little while. She’d been wrong. “They all bit me,” she said with a grimace.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you to only carry them one at a time?”
“No.” She squinted at the sky. “It’s going to rain again.”
“Seems so,” he said, then spoke to his son. “We need to go back, Alex.”
The boy acted as if he hadn’t heard. He kept pushing stones into the pile, making it wider and higher.
“Alex?”
“Gotta finish,” he said breathlessly as he dumped more rocks on the pile.
To her surprise, Joe didn’t simply pick up his son and cart him away. Instead, he squatted down, reached for some stones, and helped make the dam wider and higher. Finally, he stood up and swiped his hands back and forth. “Okay, now we have to go. If you make it any bigger, the water can’t get around it, and there won’t be a hole at all and the dam will wash away. There won’t be any crabs.”
Magic words, she thought as the boy stood quickly and mimicked his father’s hand-cleaning action. “Okay,” he said, grinning. Then he shot off, running down the beach, weaving toward the water, then back toward the cliffs again and again.
Joe started after his son and she walked along beside. “You’ve got good instincts with kids,” she said.
“No, it’s not instincts,” he replied. “It’s learned. At first, I couldn’t even hold him. He scared me to death, all seven pounds of him.”
“What were you scared of?”
She slanted him a glance and saw he was watching Alex ahead of them. “I used the excuse that he was too tiny and I’d break him.” He paused. “But then I figured it out. I just didn’t want him.”
That stopped her in her tracks. He stopped, too, and turned to her. “You didn’t want him?” The admission didn’t fit the man she knew.
“No, I didn’t.” Joe was dead serious. “He was an accident. My wife and I were about to separate and she got pregnant, so we agreed to stay together until she had the baby, then see what we would do.”
She almost gasped. Her parents had married because her mother had been pregnant. She’d been told that often enough, that she’d never been wanted, and she was sure everyone on the island knew. It made her physically ache to think that the boy with the face of a cherub hadn’t been wanted, either.
Alex laughed right then as he chased a piece of paper fluttering across the sand. “How could you not want him?” she asked.
Joe released a breath on a low hiss. “Yeah, how could I not? He was perfect. A beautiful baby. My son. I should have loved him on sight. I didn’t.”
“Do you love him now?”
“Oh, yes. I can’t even begin to tell you how much. But that didn’t happen until he was probably six months old, and one day, just like that, when my wife told me that she was leaving, I knew I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted him with me. She didn’t seem to care, but I wanted him to be happy and safe and loved.”
His words produced a profound sense of despair in her. To be loved like that. She’d never known it and doubted she ever would. She tried to push away thoughts of her own mother leaving. She’d been six, and she’d known all about it. Alex had been too young to have a memory in his mind of her walking out. “He’s so lucky to have you,” she said simply.
Emotion roughened Joe’s voice when he spoke again. “My mother always said that everybody deserves to have one person in this life who smiles when they enter a room. Alex deserves much more than that.”
One person who smiled when you walked in the room? One person who wasn’t on your payroll or had their own agenda? Just one person. She didn’t have anyone.
JOE KNEW THAT, once again, he’d said something that bothered her. He’d talked about personal things when he was supposed to be extracting information from her. She stopped at the tide line, her arms hugged around herself and the growing breeze playing with her hair. He thought she was staring into the distance, but when he moved closer he saw that her eyes were shut and her bottom lip caught by even white teeth.
“Cold?” he asked. When she nodded, he finished with, “Being from San Francisco, you should be accustomed to damp cold.”
She didn’t respond for a moment, then her eyes opened and she ran a hand over her face. “It’
s not like it is here.” She turned around and walked past him. “I need to get back.”
He called after her, “Would you have dinner with me again? I mean tonight. I know about another place that won’t be full.” He motioned with a hand vaguely down the beach. “Mainlanders don’t know about it.”
She seemed to consider his offer. He hoped she’d agree. Maybe he’d get more information for his newspaper article. “Is the food good?” she asked, taking a step toward him. He had hope.
“Nothing really fancy, but good.”
“We won’t have to wait in line?”
“Absolutely not.”
She glanced down at her clothes. “Do I need to change?”
“No,” he said, thinking she’d look good in those jeans and jacket anywhere. She’d probably look good in a paper bag—or out of it. The thought made him smile.
She eyed him with her head tilted slightly. “What’s so funny?”
There was no way he’d tell her. “I’m just happy, that’s all.”
“Okay, okay,” she said doubtfully. “I’ll get my car and meet you. Just give me directions.”
She probably thought he needed time to take Alex home first. “You don’t have to,” he said. “It’s not far. Right up there, a terrific view of the sound, and some really good wine to boot.”
“Now, you’re intriguing me,” she said. He wished that was true on every level.
“Great,” he said. “Let’s go.”
They caught up with Alex, who darted ahead again. The two of them walked side by side, not stopping till they reached a set of narrow stairs farther down the beach. Joe motioned to them for Alegra. “Up there,” he said. Joe stood back with Alex to let Alegra go up first. When he and his son reached the top step, Alegra stood in the high grass of the bluff looking at his house.
The bungalow looked welcoming, Joe thought. Light spilled out the lower windows onto the wraparound porch, and smoke curled out of the stone chimney into the evening air. Alex was already at the porch steps, scrambling up them, when the door flew open and he disappeared inside.
Joe touched Alegra on the arm. “Come on,” he said.
They stepped up onto the porch. He opened the door and motioned her inside. Following her, he heard his mother greet Alex. “Hello, there, big boy!” Her voice came through the air at the same time Alex giggled. “And hello to you, too,” his mother said. Joe moved closer and saw his mom speaking to Alegra, who had stopped in front of him in the doorway between the kitchen and the mud room.
“Hello,” Alegra said.
“Don’t tell me you found Alex and—”
Then she spotted Joe over Alegra’s shoulder. “There you are,” she said, and Joe was struck by how tiny his mother was, especially holding Alex on one hip. Barely five feet tall, maybe a hundred pounds, she had a delicate look. But that was deceptive. She was as strong as any woman he’d ever known.
“Mom, this is Alegra Reynolds. We met by the old lighthouse.”
Alex squirmed to get down, and his grandmother put him on the floor. As the little boy ran from the kitchen into the living area, Joe started to say something about Alegra, to explain who she was, but that was taken out of his hands.
“Well,” his mom said, smiling, “Joey’s brought home a lot of strays in his time, but bringing home Alegra Reynolds has gotta be at the top of the list.” She moved closer and stuck out her hand. “Alegra’s Closet? Are you that Alegra? I heard you were in town at the Snug Harbor.”
“I wasn’t aware my presence would create any stir,” Alegra said.
“Oh, my, yes. This is a treat. I love your bath-oil line, and those lace teddies—so gorgeous, especially the ones in taupe with the ribbon straps.”
Joe couldn’t believe his ears. His mother? The woman who wore jeans and shirts? Whose nightgowns were full-length flannel affairs? He cleared his throat and touched the small of Alegra’s back, urging her into the kitchen. “Mother, you never cease to amaze me.”
“I might be a grandma, but that doesn’t mean I’m over the hill. At least, your father doesn’t think so.”
No, he would not go down that road, even if his mother was still a pretty woman and his dad a remarkably fit sixty-six-year-old. “Okay, okay,” he said with a laugh. “I believe you.”
“So, Joey met you on the beach?” she asked Alegra. “Let me have your jacket.”
While his mother hung it on one of the pegs by the door, Alegra said, “I wanted to see the lighthouse.” As Joe took off his slicker and boots, her amber eyes turned to him. “This is it, isn’t it?”
He nodded. He’d thought she might not come with him if she’d known the eating place was his home. “The food’s great,” he said, uneasily waiting for her response.
He needn’t have worried. A small smile curved her lips. “And no lineup as you promised,” she said.
He didn’t let himself release a huge sigh of relief.
Alex blasted back into the room just then, making a beeline for Alegra. Before he could stop him, the boy had his arms around her legs, looking up at her. “Come see Mr. Melon, please?”
She hunkered down to his level. “Mr. Melon?”
“Uh-huh,” Alex said. He grabbed her hand and started tugging her.
She looked up at Joe. “Mr. Melon?”
“It’s his cat,” he said.
She gave Joe a long look, then said, “No lineup, just a cat,” and then she smiled. A wide, blinding, genuine smile.
When she left the kitchen with his son, he heard her voice trailing back through the open door. “Oh, nice to meet you, Mr. Melon.”
He was startled when his mom slapped him on the arm. “Joe, what’s the story? Alegra of Alegra’s Closet, coming home with you?” She was grinning. “What’s been going on that I don’t know about? And I need details, all the details.”
He glanced at the doorway, then back at his mother. “I’m doing an interview, a human-interest piece about her stay on the island, what brought her here.”
“Is she here alone?”
“Yes.”
“Married?”
“No.”
“Divorced?”
“I don’t think so.” He held up his hand. “Tell you what, Mother, you can do the interview and I’ll just take notes.”
Christina laughed and shook her head. “Well, son, if you’re around her and only want to take notes, I need to have a long talk with you.”
The sound of Alegra’s laughter filtered in from the other room. He knew at that moment that he had never really wanted an interview with Alegra. That wasn’t even on the list of what he wanted with her.
Chapter Eight
Alegra was still in the parallel universe she’d fallen into on the beach. But now she, Alegra Reynolds, was sitting at a huge dining table with the three-year-old, who was eating spaghetti one strand at a time and getting more sauce on his face and hands than in his mouth. The child’s father was across the table from her, smiling at her when their eyes met, and the man’s parents were friendlier than any people she’d ever met in her life.
On top of all of that, the bucolic scene was actually taking place on Shelter Island!
It was as if she was being given a glimpse of the life she’d longed for but never had. The family dinner, nobody drunk, the doting grandparents with the child, their son across the table, and her sitting in the middle of it all just soaking it in. She lifted her glass to sip some wine when she realized Joe’s father was speaking to her. Joe Senior was the image of his son, just thirty years older. The blue eyes were still direct and filled with questions.
“So what do you think of our island?” he was asking.
She put down her glass and evaded any direct response. “The island is really a different way of life, isn’t it?”
“It sure is,” Joe Senior said, obviously taking her statement as a compliment. “Joey learned the hard way that the world out there isn’t a nice place.”
“Dad—” Joe smiled indulgently at his f
ather “—I’m sure Alegra doesn’t want to hear all about your views on the big bad world.”
“Okay, okay, but let’s drink a toast.” He raised his wineglass. “To the invaders here for the festival. May they not come back for another year.” He flashed a grin at Alegra. “Present company excluded.”
Alegra managed a smile, even though she heard the man’s voice from the past asking if she was okay, right when he’d been protecting her from Sean.
“Hear, hear,” his wife said, lifting her glass.
“I really should apologize for just landing on you like this. Joe said he knew a place that had great food.” She looked at the man opposite her. “That was the truth, but he failed to say it wasn’t a restaurant.”
Christina smiled at Alegra. “We’re happy to have you here. Though I guess it’s not what you’re used to, is it?”
“No, but it’s delightful,” Alegra replied. And the ambience was warm and homey and made her feel almost desperately lonely at the thought of leaving.
Alex dropped his spoon on the floor. When Joe bent to get it, the little boy grabbed at his daddy with spaghetti-sauce-stained hands, leaving a smear of sauce down the back of his father’s shirt and into his hair. Alegra found herself holding her breath, waiting for the anger, especially when Joe jerked up so quickly.
But she had no more reason to brace herself for what Joe would do with the boy than she’d had on the beach earlier. For Joe, after touching his head, actually chuckled at the sauce clinging to his fingers. “What a waste of perfectly good marinara sauce,” he said, then stood. “Excuse me while I go and repair the damage.” He grinned at Alegra, making her heart lurch. “Just let me warn you to stay clear of him. He’s fast and he’s no respecter of persons.” With that, Joe left the room.
His mother was on her feet, too, going around to Alex and reaching for a napkin to wipe his little hands. “We need to make sure our hands are clean before we use them for anything,” she said firmly, but Alegra didn’t miss the twitch of her lips. Christina swiped at his face before dropping the napkin on the table. “Now, that’s better,” she said.
Alegra's Homecoming Page 8