by Sarah Remy
“Blue would be perfect.” She bent over and picked up a hammer, turning it in her hand.
“I found her in the weeds. More than half buried. At first I thought I’d just patch her up, wait until next summer to really work on the job.” He ran long brown fingers over sanded boards, and his thumb paused on a knot in the wood, rubbing gently. “I guess I changed my mind.”
“Because you just couldn’t wait to get back out on the water and search for pirate treasure?” She set the hammer on the gazebo, out of the damp.
He smiled, wry. “Tempting as it sounds, no. I was thinking of your boy.”
“Chris.”
“I got to thinking. A boy that age has energy, and time to waste. He needs something to do, to keep his hands busy. To keep him from thinking too hard. I know I did.”
She couldn’t help herself, she softened. “He’d go mad over it.”
“He and I put our mind to it, we could get her out on the water before summer’s over.” As though following Abby’s lead, Everett began stacking tools alongside the hammer. “I’m handy enough with the basics, but if we run into any trouble, well. I’m sure you’ve free advice to give.”
“I’ve always plenty of free advice.”
He turned from the gazebo, surprised. “Are you crying?”
“Of course not.”
But he turned her to face him, and scowled when she snuffled. “I never thought to see you cry, Abby. A childhood of scrapes and bruises and never one tear shed.”
She pulled away, and crossed her arms. “Woman’s prerogative.”
Everett directed his frown at the skiff. “I thought it would be a good thing.”
“It is a good thing, Ev.” She didn’t let herself reach for him. “It’s a very good thing. Chris will be crazy about the idea.”
“And you?” Without looking away from the skiff, Everett spread canvas back over the wood.
“I think it’s a lovely idea.” She swiped at tears, and let her heart warm at the thought of her son and this man working together beneath the stretching shade. “Chris always asked to swim in the Creek.”
“He can swim all he wants.”
“Good. But it doesn’t change my mind, Everett.” She spoke to the back of his head. A trickle of sweat marred the nape of his neck. Abby squashed a fierce urge to stroke it away. “We won’t move into your house, and I won’t be asking Jack to stay overnight again.”
Everett tucked the last of the canvas around his boat, and stood up.
“I need you, Abby.” He said, simply and quietly.
She looked up at the woods so she wouldn’t have to see his eyes. “You’re still running, Everett. Last night was a mistake.”
“Don’t lie to me, Abby. It doesn’t do any good. I can see right through to your heart.”
Chapter Ten
RAIN CAME AGAIN IN THE NIGHT, rushed by the wind into slanting showers. Everett stood in front of the windows in his spacious new living room, and watched streams waterfall from the edge of the roof. Clouds obscured the moon, and only the deck lights kept back the dark. In their yellow fluorescence the storm appeared eerie, unnatural, and angry.
Once the house had leaked like a sieve. Everett remembered damp patches on the ceiling and the steady ooze of wet along the window sills. In the basement, during the worst of the summer monsoons, water had run through cinder block, and made tiny rivers on the floor.
The house had always rattled against even the lightest wind gusts.
It still rattled. Even Abby’s talented hands couldn’t make old bones into new. But somehow the vibrations seemed more cozy than desperate. And as far as Everett could tell, Chesapeake Renovations had managed to banish every drip and leak.
Twelve years gone and she still had the power to lighten the darkest patches of his life.
Everett rubbed his hand over his face, trying to chase the headache from his temples. In the windows his reflection mirrored the action.
He leaned closer. The face in the window was his own. No matter how many times he searched his reflection still he could see nothing of Edward. He often wondered if the years would bring lines and the lines would carve his features into his old man’s.
Blue lightning flickered in the distance, above the grey hump of the woods. It lit the inside of the house like the flash of a camera, and Everett’s reflection vanished.
Narrowing his eyes against the pain in his skull, Everett left the living room and climbed the staircase to the second floor. He didn’t bother to turn on lights. Even restored, the house was still his own and he knew it from floor to ceiling, could probably walk it from front to back with his eyes closed and never stumble or stub a toe.
He paused on the threshold of the master bedroom. The porch light suffused the windows from below, and illuminated the bed at the center of the room. Smooth, carved oak rose in swirls and knobs over a high mattress. The edges of the headboard had been worked to resemble climbing ivy. More carved vines spread their leaves up four tall posts.
Abby had chosen white sheets and a white duvet. Even in the dim light the bed looked far too tempting.
For a second, leaning against the door frame, Everett allowed himself to imagine Abby on the mattress. Abby naked in the sunlight, dark hair spread across white sheets, pale skin flushed in the aftermath of passion.
Abby languid beneath him, open and welcoming. Abby wild, hot and wet as a summer storm, hips working to meet every thrust as he took her again and again. Until he exhausted them both, and she found sleep curled in his arms.
Everett tore his eyes from the bed. Just the thought of her made him hard and ready. He could almost feel the fire of her mouth across his bare flesh. The tight, liquid fit of her body to his. Hear her low moans and husky whispers as he teased her to completion.
Swallowing a groan, Everett closed his eyes, and pressed his forehead against the door frame, willing the urgent, heavy throb of his blood to ease.
He reminded himself that the room had once been Edward’s, dingy and musty, and rank with the stink of beer and smoke and sweat. The carpet had been grey and worn with age. The old man had slept on a sagging mattress, under a soiled wool blanket, year round, summer or winter.
Now, as the house rattled against the wind, Everett inhaled only the lingering scent of gardenias and honeysuckle, and imagined that he could hear Abby’s laughter, easy and free, sharing a secret joy.
She was wrong. There were no ghosts left behind to haunt him. She had chased them all away.
Heat and humidity struck again just before lunch. Bouncing along a rutted road toward the James, Everett kept the air conditioning at full blast, and said a vicious prayer every time the car hit a pothole.
If he’d known he would be chasing away his vacation on Virginia’s back roads, he would have ignored the Spyder’s sexy temptation and picked up a used truck instead. It would have been more practical, and cheaper to boot.
Weeds scraped the underside of the car as Everett turned off dirt and onto gravel. Battery Pier might be the ‘in’ place of the decade, but nobody had thought to pave the road.
Then again, maybe that was supposed to be part of the charm.
He gunned the Spyder up over a steep rise. Gravel splattered. The rise turned into a plateau, flat and brown, weeds and marshland to either side. Further along the road he saw a sign for Battery, and even through the rush of the air conditioning he could smell the James.
James River was, in places, the widest stretch of flowing water on US soil. Wider even than the famous Mississippi, or so the old man had claimed when Everett was a child.
Sluggish and never clear, the muddy river water was almost as full of salt as the ocean it flowed into. The Navy used the river to ferry carriers and destroyers. Beyond one of the deepest bends, just off Carter’s Grove, the government kept a graveyard of military ships, anchored and forgotten.
Along Battery Pier the James was little more than a deep marsh. The pier itself was lopsided, old logs sinking here and there
into the water. The boats in their slips were varied and colorful.
Everett parked his car in a turn around near the back of the pier, and climbed out. Heat struck, a weight across his shoulders. Squinting even through his shades, he crossed gravel, and stepped onto waterlogged cedar.
Battery Pier rocked on the water, but Everett found his balance easily. He increased his pace as a flash of neon swim trunks caught his eye at the end of the pier.
Jamming both hands into his pockets, jingling change, he watched as the boy dove off the edge of the pier. The kid was pale as milk, and his legs were skinnier than a girl’s, but his form was good.
A lazy breeze blew off the water, drying some of the sweat on Everett’s brow. He reached the last square of cedar logs just as the boy cannoned into the water. He stood waiting until the brown head resurfaced.
“Water cold?” He asked, as the kid snorted river from his nose and mouth, and brushed hair out of his eyes.
The boy looked up at him, treading water, blue eyes hooded against sloppy waves or bright sunlight. Everett tried to ignore the shock he felt as those familiar eyes studied him suspiciously.
“Not so much,” Chris Ross said, and spat more water into the James.
“Need a hand up?”
“No.” Chris eeled out of the water and up over logs until he sat on the pier. His wet flesh goose bumped even in the heat.
“Deep enough for safe diving, there?”
“Yes.” Chris eyed Everett with reluctant curiosity. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” Everett sat on his heels. “I need an extra pair of hands to help me with a project.”
“Mom mentioned it.” Chris said slowly, “She said you’d an old boat you wanted to fix up, and that if I helped you I could borrow it sometimes.”
“She’s only a skiff. But if you help me fix her up, she’s yours any time you want her.”
“Why?”
The poignant mix of disdain and hope in that one word made Everett want to reach out and squeeze the boy’s shoulder in reassurance.
He kept his hands on his knees. “I’ve grown too big for her. And I want her to go to someone I know.”
Chris looked doubtful. “Why me?”
“You seem like a kid who needs a boat.”
Everett waited. Chris chewed his lower lip, and swirled his feet in the water. Out over the river a gull screeched and swooped.
“I have a pretty busy schedule,” Chris said at last. “Soccer on Saturdays and Thursdays and debate on Monday and Wednesdays. And pizza night at Jackson’s every Tuesday. Every Tuesday.” A flash of defiance brought pink spots to the kid’s cheeks.
“Okay.” Everett refused to acknowledge a quick burn of jealousy. “How about Friday afternoon and part of the weekends?”
Chris shrugged. “I could do that. How long would it take?”
“Two or three weekends. Maybe four. Couple of hours every weekend. I think we might get it finished up pretty quickly.”
“We’d work at Edward’s place?”
“My place,” Everett corrected. “I’ve got her up on dry land under the gazebo.”
“Okay.” Everett thought he saw growing interest in the boy’s eyes. “Where did you find her? How big is she, really?”
“She was out along the Creek, right where I left her when I was a kid. She’s small, but not too small for someone your age. And she’ll catch speed if you treat her right.”
“Really? How fast?”
“I clocked her once at thirty seconds from the boathouse to the big bend. And that was with your mom as added weight.”
“No way.” A slow smile stretched across Chris’s face. “I know that bend. Thirty seconds?”
Everett grinned at the boy’s enthusiasm. Just one simple smile improved the kid’s looks immeasurably. “Could have been a deal faster without a passenger squirming around.”
Chris snorted, and climbed to his feet. “Can we start this Friday?”
“Certainly. Your mom could drop you off after school.”
The kid’s face fell. “I forgot. She’s got a client meeting Friday. Those usually run late.”
Everett shrugged. “Then I’ll pick you up.”
The boy’s smile spread and those blue eyes lit up. “In your Porsche?”
“Sure. Jefferson, right?” Amused, Everett had the courage to reach out and tussle Chris’s dripping hair.
“Cool. Yeah.” The boy ducked from beneath Everett’s hand. He was nearly dancing in excitement. “Just let me ask my mom.”
He dashed back along the pier, leaving a trail of wet footprints. Chris’s prints were long and wide, a man’s feet on a boy’s body. Soon enough, Everett supposed, Abby’s son would grow to fit them.
Chris stopped halfway along the pier, and scrambled up a crooked slip. Everett watched as the kid hailed a large houseboat. Abby’s head popped up over the stern.
Everett felt the blood rush in his veins, and cursed himself for a fool.
The kid was chattering up a storm as Everett made his way slowly along the slip. Abby gave her son her full attention, and didn’t glance at Everett until he stood alongside the boat.
Her eyes widened, and some of the animation left her face. Everett played with the change in his pocket, and exchanged a wry smile for her stare.
“It’s all right, isn’t it, Mom?” Chris repeated with an air of impatience. “I mean, you said I could.”
“I didn’t mean for Everett to have to shuttle you from school.” Abby frowned, and leaned out further along the rail of the boat.
She wore stained dungarees over a thin blue t shirt. Everett guessed the dungarees were some sort of work uniform. And then he looked quickly out over the river before the slide of denim straps over the faint curve of her breasts turned his body to iron.
“He said it wasn’t a problem. He said he’d pick me up. In his Porsche.”
Abby laughed. The low chuckle sent a spear of longing straight through Everett. He balled his fists in his pockets.
“How can any mother deny her boy a ride in a Porsche? If you’re sure Everett doesn’t mind.”
“Everett doesn’t mind.” Everett said, dragging his gaze from the safety of the water. “I’ll be there after school on Friday.”
“At three.” Chris said.
“At three.”
Everett looked carefully onto the house boat, and saw Abby’s smile. “You want to join us after your meeting?”
Her smile wavered. “I don’t think so.”
“Invitation’s open.” Everett rolled his shoulders. “We could always use an extra pair of hands. Tacos and pie after.”
“Tacos and pie?” Abby tilted her head. “We’ll see.”
Everett closed his eyes and let the heat and humidity wash over his skin. He could hear the creak of cedar logs and the scuff of Chris’s bare feet on the pier, and the slosh of water against the house boat.
He could hear Abby’s breathing, quick and light in the sudden afternoon.
He opened his eyes. “So. Speaking of food. How about lunch?”
“Lunch?” Chris straightened, eager. “I’m starving.”
“I’ve got work to do,” Abby began, but Everett cut her off.
“That’s too bad. Because I’ve gone and hauled a picnic all the way out here over every wretched road in the county, and I’m not hauling it back.”
“A picnic?” Abby echoed.
Everett smiled. “Ham sandwiches and potato salad and chocolate ice cream for dessert.”
“Ice cream? In this heat?”
Everett’s smile grew. “Haven’t you ever heard of blue ice, Abby Ross?”
“Man,” Chris crowed. “Chocolate ice cream. Come on, Mom. I’m so hungry I’m going to wilt.”
Abby brushed damp hair from her cheeks, exasperated. “You just had breakfast.”
“Hours ago!” The boy heaved a long suffering sigh. “Come on, Mom. Please?”
“Yeah, Mom,” Everett murmured. “Ple
ase?”
She flushed to the roots of her bangs, and shot Everett a quick glare, but refused to acknowledge the challenge. She swiped again at her hair. “All right. Fine. But we’re eating on the pier. I don’t want to risk ice cream all over Tina’s boat.”
“Come down, then.” Everett hoped his shades hid the thrill of triumph he felt when she winked playfully at her son. He dug into his pockets, retrieved his keys, and offered them to Chris. “Cooler’s behind the seat. It’s not heavy.”