by Swept Away
Then later, searching for T.J. on the boardwalk, and not finding him, debating whether to call home and risk his stepfather's wrath when he was awakened from a sound sleep, or just walking the twenty-seven miles in the middle of the night and hoping to ease into the house before anyone had realized that he'd been out all night.
Jeremy had stood under a street lamp, jingling change in his pocket, then headed for the phone at the corner. His stepfather would be livid, but at least his mother would know where he was and that he was safe. He glanced at his watch as he listened to the phone ring on and on. It was ten past one.
Odd that no one had answered.
He had called again, just in case he had misdialed the first time, but there was still no answer.
Strange, the thought had niggled, that no one had picked up the phone, as if they had all somehow just disappeared.
Distracted, he had stepped out of the phone booth and into the path of a late-model Pontiac. The driver blasted one short beep on the horn as the car swerved around him, then stopped and backed up. After loudly berating Jeremy for scaring him witless, the driver had offered him a ride, taking him as far as the first of the dirt roads that marked the entrance to the Pine Barrens, where outsiders rarely went and only a native would risk going on foot in the middle of a dark night.
Jeremy remembered listening to the night sounds, the shrieking of owls and something somewhere screaming a protest at having been caught in jaws or in talons. He remembered hearing a rustling now and then behind him, recalled an occasional finger of fear tapping his shoulders as his imagination conjured up the Jersey Devil, even though his intellect knew it was nothing more than a raccoon or a fox.
And back, far back, behind the trees, an orange glow had begun to spread.
Even now, sixteen years later, he could recall every detail of that walk through the pines, and the exact moment when he realized that somewhere deep in the forest, a fire was raging. Smoke began to fill the woods and filtered through the dry undergrowth like a heavy fog. A prick of alarm tickled the back of his neck, but fires in the Pines were common enough events. Didn't every good summer storm set off one or two? But there had been no storm that night, no lightning. And the blaze that rose above the pines and reached into the glowing sky was right about where his family's home would be, a mile or so as the crow flies.
Jeremy shook his head to clear it of the images that arose to haunt him, of the cabin burned almost to the ground by the time he got there, out of breath and his chest hurting from running the distance through the dense smoke. The line of volunteers-uncles, cousins, neighbors-manning a bucket brigade to bring water from the nearby stream in an attempt to put out the fire, for deep in the Pines there were no fire hydrants and no fire trucks.
The young man had not needed anyone to tell him that no one had survived the blaze. His mother, his younger brother, his stepfather… all gone in the blink of an eye.
Jeremy had never really been able to forgive himself for being out having fun that night while his family, overcome by smoke, had been swallowed by fire. He'd been convinced that if he'd stayed home that night, it never would have happened. He would have saved them.
He would have smelled the smoke. He would have put out the fire. They'd still be alive, he was certain of it.
If only he'd stayed home that night…
How could he go as far as Ocean Point, and not complete the journey to Crismen's Well?
He'd once believed that no power on earth could get him back. Yet here he was, sitting on a Maryland beach watching the day fold away, contemplating the very real possibility of doing just exactly that. He leaned back on his elbows and watched a heron cross the horizon on its flight back to its nesting place in the trees somewhere behind the dunes. Unconsciously his fingers traced little circles in the sand, and he tried to think it through.
If he spent the rest of the week at the inn, he could use the time to do some deep-sea fishing. Catch up on his reading. Maybe rent a boat and do a little crabbing out in the bay.
The easy way.
He sighed and thought about just how much the easy way had cost him over the years. An aunt had died, and he had resisted attending the funeral, because it would have meant going back. His old high school had invited him to a special ceremony honoring their star athletes, and he had declined, because it would have meant going back. He thought of those who were still there, back in the Pines, those who, over the years, had remembered him for weddings and christenings, and fought back the feeling that he had run out of excuses to stay away.
And yet, hadn't he somewhere, deep inside, suspected that the day would come when the time would be right and he would, in fact, go back?
Jeremy lay back on the sand, his arms under his head, watching the night turn on the overhead lights as one by one the stars became visible, and wondered if that time was now.
Chapter 4
Jody slipped her feet into turquoise rubber flip-flops and peered into her beach bag to make sure she had not forgotten anything. Sunscreen, a soft blue-and-white blanket, a beach towel, a small radio, a thermal mug of ice water, a package of crackers, flavored lip balm, the book she had purchased the day she arrived and had yet to finish. The long awaited weekend was over. She swung the bag over her shoulder and, locking the motel room behind her, set out for her first full day on the beach in many years.
It was early, not quite ten, when she descended the few short steps from the boardwalk to the sand-early enough that she would get a prime spot on the beach, late enough that the surf fishermen had taken their buckets of bait and disappeared till later that afternoon. She slipped off the flip-flops, wiggled her toes into the warm sand happily, and smiled.The sun was already blazing overhead, and a shift in the wind had banished the flies. She was going to enjoy every minute of this vacation.
Humming as she crossed the beach, she debated her options. Too close to the lifeguard stand and there'd be love-struck girls kicking sand on her as they jockeyed for the optimum positions to be noticed. Too close to the ocean and before noon, she'd be surrounded by toddlers. Selecting a spot that was just the right distance from both ocean and lifeguards, she spread her blanket on the sand and proceeded to make herself comfortable.
First the sunscreen, which she lathered on all those body parts left exposed by the bikini-which had somehow appeared to be more conservative back in Marlene's shop-and on her face. Her fair skin was already pink from the previous two days in the sun, and she didn't want to take any chances. Rolling the beach towel into a tubular pillow, she placed it behind her head, lay back, closed her eyes, and rested for a few minutes.
It was far too quiet. Yesterday and the day before there had been eleven of them there on the beach, laughing and chatting and bec
oming reacquainted. It had been great fun.
She turned on the small radio, found a classic rock station, and settled back down, thinking back over the weekend. How many of the girls had stayed the same. How many of them had changed. Sharon had gained forty pounds-ten pounds with each child, she had laughed self-consciously, waving several inches' worth of baby photographs under Jody's nose, Lindsey, their favorite ditzy blonde, had fooled everyone by not being quite so ditzy after all, having started her own interior design business right out of college and becoming wildly successful. Carla had fulfilled her dreams of law school, Julie had dropped out of college in her sophomore year to marry a navy man and moved to California where he was based. This one had stopped smoking, that one had started. Over the course of the weekend, Jody had waded through endless envelopes of photographs-weddings and babies, mostly, and everyone there had seemed to have a significant other.
Everyone but Jody, that is.
She squirmed a little, repositioning her hips and digging her heels into the sand.
Well, it wasn't that there hadn't ever been anyone in her life. There had been men, now and then, but there had always been something missing, somehow, no matter how handsome or interesting or attractive they had been.
She had tried to explain it to Natalie the night before. It just seemed that, all her life, the men she met had lacked that special something… that spark that made the difference between interesting and irresistible. Between handsome and to die for. Between attractive and I’ll-follow-you-anywhere. Between sexy and sensational.
Natalie had laughed and said that Jody was too picky for her own good.
Jody had tried to explain that what she wanted-what deep in her soul she knew she needed-was a man who could turn her knees to jelly, a man who could make her bottom lip quiver with just a smile. A man who could turn her inside out by merely walking into the room. She'd had infatuations, she'd had one or two short-lived affairs that had left her knowing that there was something more, something bigger, deeper. She wanted passion. She wanted a man who could sweep her off her feet. She wanted to be swept away.
"You want From Here to Eternity," Natalie had nodded knowingly. "We all wanted that, once upon a time. Unfortunately, most of us have had to settle for something less."
"I don't want to settle," Jody had shaken her head. "I've waited too long. I'm not going to settle."
"You could be very old before you meet a man like that," Natalie cautioned.
"I think I already did." Jody had sighed.
"What?" Natalie grabbed Jody's arm. "Where? When?"
And Jody had proceeded to relive that moment when Jeremy Noble had first walked through the big front door of the Bishop's Inn. A few inches over six feet tall, broad shoulders, a lean, athletic body. Brown hair that fell over his collar like fringe, deep blue eyes in a face more rugged than handsome. As a private investigator, Jeremy had walked into the chaos that followed Laura Bishop's disappearance and had taken charge, commanded order, and surveyed the facts quickly and efficiently. With the help or Laura's brother and a family friend., Jeremy had led the search for Laura, had assisted in locating and returning her within twenty-four hours. Jeremy had been a rock, had never hesitated for a moment, had never doubted for an instant that Laura would be returned safely to her family.
Right then and there, Jody had decided that she wanted a man like Jeremy Noble. But then again, what woman wouldn't?
Jeremy, of the easy smile, the quick wit, and the sharp intelligence. Jeremy, who was brave in the face of danger, whose mere presence in the inn had made for several sleepless nights back in June when he'd stayed for a few days after Laura was found and brought home. Jeremy, who was as close to being a real hero as any man Jody had ever met.
Jody's fingers, sifting through the sand to the right of her blanket, located a broken piece of scallop shell, and absently, she began to make little roads with it in the hot sand.
If she'd been a different sort of woman, she'd have made an obvious play for Jeremy that week. But things had been so jumbled, the terror following Laura's abduction, then her rescue from a house that had been set afire, well, it just hadn't seemed like the ideal time to make a major move on one of the rescuers. It would have seemed, well, tacky. Inappropriate. Opportunistic, under the circumstances.
Although Jeremy had seemed interested in her.
Of course, that could have been the crab soup. Or the flan.
Jeremy had loved her flan…
To her left, a small band of teenage girls were claiming their turf, that very spot near the lifeguard stand that Jody had earlier rejected. Their laughter floated across the beach on a brisk sea breeze, and from the distance she watched their antics as they set up their multicol-ored towels, helped one another apply sunscreen, tossed one another paperback books or magazines.
Jody dropped back on her blanket and closed her eyes. The past weekend with "the girls" had brought back memories of summer days they had shared so long ago. From across the years, snatches of conversations drifted with such clarity that she opened her eyes and looked around to make certain that somehow she had not been thrust back in time.
The scent of Coppertone and the sounds of summer blaring on radios all across the beach had remained the same, though the anthems that year had been varied. That last summer they had baked in the hot sun to Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark," the Pointer Sisters' Jump," Steve Perry's "Oh Sherry," and Rod Stewart's "Infatuation," Huey Newton and the News' "The Heart of Rock and Roll," Madonna's "Borderline," and Lionel Richie's "Hello." Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do with It" was getting a lot of air time as the season had drawn to an end. Jody closed her eyes and drifted off, trying to remember the words to Cyndi Lauper's "Time after Time."
An hour or so later, disoriented from dreams filled with faces, snatches of conversations, and songs long forgotten, Jody sat up slowly. Yes, she was in fact there, alone, on the beach at Ocean Point. From her beach bag, she drew out her water bottle and took a long sip. The nap had relaxed her, had brought back that old, languid feeling of lying too long in the sun, oiled and content and having no particular place to go, nothing important to do. Jody had forgotten just how good that feeling was. She'd make it a point to take more time to sun herself when she returned to Bishop's Cove. She'd been spending entirely too much time in the kitchen and too little time on the beach.
Laura had often offered to hire someone to help Jody in the kitchen, but Jody had always resisted. Maybe she should give in and have Laura do just that. If it freed up even an hour or so each day, it would be worth it. She'ddefinitely discuss it with Laura when she went back. Right now, her body having absorbed all the sun it could tolerate, she would st
roll down to the water and perhaps take a dip.
While she slept, the temperature had skyrocketed and the beach had filled in around her with bathers and sun worshippers of every size, shape, and age. She picked her way carefully through the noisy rows of towels and blankets that Uttered the beach, stepped around the sand castles built by busy children, made her way to the water's edge, and walked into the ocean without hesitation. It was colder than she'd anticipated, and she turned her back to the cresting wave that was just about to break. A second, unexpected wave slapped her from behind and she lurched forward. Turning back to face the sea, a third, larger wave broke over her without warning, spinning her around and dragging her out and under, she emerged with a mouthful of saltwater and the top ofher bikini half filled with sand. She sought the cooperation of the next wave to wash out the sand and help her back to shore.
'That's some undertow," noted the middle-aged man who stood about three feet behind her, holding the hand of a six- or seven-year-old girl.
"You can say that again," Jody mumbled as she casually attempted to extract her legs from the ocean's clutches while at the same time seeking to salvage some dignity by pulling up the wayward top of her bikini.