Sanctuary Cove

by Rochelle Alers

  “You have books for teens, but not many children’s books.”

  “You’re right,” Deborah said, agreeing with Asa. “A new family just moved to the Cove and they have two kids that are probably in the first and second grade. They’re going to need picture and eventually chapter books. I’m also thinking about teenagers who will need another place to hang out during the summer. Why not at The Parlor for a couple of hours?”

  Before he could respond, they arrived at the town square and found a bench under the sweeping branches of an antique oak tree draped in Spanish moss. Stretching out her legs and crossing her sandaled feet at the ankles, Deborah rested her head on Asa’s shoulder and closed her eyes. The warmth of the sun filtering through the branches of the towering tree, the incessant buzzing of insects and the murmurs of voices lulled her into a state of total relaxation.

  “Debs Robinson. Is that you?”

  Deborah opened her eyes to find Hannah Forsyth standing a short distance away, hands resting at her waist. The librarian was stuck in another era, with her oversized glasses, teased champagne-pink hair, and blood-red lipstick.

  A smirk parted Deborah’s lips. “It sure is. How are you this fine day, Miss Hannah?”

  “Fine to middling,” Hannah answered. “I hadn’t expected to find you out here and with Mr. Monroe at that. Shouldn’t you be home taking care of your babies?”

  Deborah struggled to control her rising temper. She didn’t mind if folks talked about her, but she didn’t want her children brought into something that had nothing to do with them. “I would if I had babies, Miss Hannah. But in case you’ve forgotten my children are old enough to drive. I hope you enjoyed the grand opening,” she continued, not bothering to take a breath.

  Hannah smiled, her mouth a slash of red in her pale face. “It was simply charming.” Her gaze shifted to Asa. “How are you?” she asked Asa, who’d stood up.

  “I’m well; thank you, Miss Hannah. Would you like to sit down?”

  “No thank you. I was just trying to get some walking in, because my doctor claims I need more exercise. Have a good afternoon.”

  “You, too,” Deborah and Asa said in unison.

  Deborah took a deep breath, trying to calm herself as Hannah continued walking. “She’s nosey as hell,” she mumbled.

  Asa sat, staring at Deborah’s strained expression. “What’s the matter?”

  Deborah focused on the vibrant color on her bare toes. “It’s going to be all over the Cove that the town crier saw us together.”

  “It shouldn’t matter, Deborah. After all we do work together.” A beat passed, then Asa’s expression changed. “Don’t tell me you’re talking about us having an affair?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “Since when did sitting in public together translate into having an affair?”

  “Have you ever heard of ‘small towns, small minds’?” she asked.

  There came another pause. “It’s nobody’s business what goes on between us.”

  Deborah laughed. “You’re preaching to the choir, Asa.” She stood up. “Let’s head back.”

  They walked back to the store in no time, spending the next few hours researching websites for the items that would go into their Valentine’s Day gift baskets. In the end Deborah decided she would order an assortment of Godiva chocolates, boxes of mini Baci by Perugina, and Charleston Cookie Company double fudge cookie whoopee pies and mini chocolate chip cookies.

  “I’ll order chocolate-covered strawberries with sprinkles from the Muffin Corner and imported cheese from the supermarket deli. I think one basket should contain sparkling cider, fruit and cheese for those who don’t want a sugar rush. The largest basket will have the champagne and the other a bottle of red and white wine. Let me know if I’m missing something.”

  Asa angled his head. “I think you’ve covered everything.”

  Deborah stared deeply into his eyes. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For bringing me back to center whenever I get excited about a new project.”

  Running a finger down the length of her nose, Asa gave her a tender smile. “You’re like a different person when you get into something. It’s as if I can feel your excitement.”

  “This is all very new for me. The Charleston bookstore was just a store, but this place feels like a real parlor. It’s like coming home.”

  “It could be because this is where you really belong.”

  Her smile faded and her eyes grew serious. “Where do you belong, Asa?”

  “Go home, Deborah.” Suddenly Asa’s face had become a mask of stone.

  She blinked. “All you had to say is that you don’t want to answer the question.”

  “I don’t want to answer the question.”

  “Good enough.” Deborah exhaled an audible breath. She noted the time at the bottom of her computer monitor. “It’s a lot later than I thought. Do you want me to leave the computer on for you?”

  Asa shook his head. “No. I have a Netbook and my BlackBerry if I need to access the Internet.”

  Deborah gathered her papers and the receipt envelope, pushing them into her handbag that occasionally doubled as a tote. She walked to the back door, Asa following. “Thank you again for your help.”

  Pushing her hair behind her ear, Asa leaned over, pressing his mouth to hers. This time it wasn’t a soft brushing of lips. His kiss was a slow, warm caress that left her mouth burning with fire. “I’m sorry. And you’re welcome,” he said, finally releasing her. “Get home safe.”

  She blinked as if coming out of a trance. “Thank you.” Deborah was breathing heavily, like a runner who’d just finished a long grueling race. Her knees were shaking when she walked to her car and got in.

  The rear door to the bookstore closed as she put the car in reverse and backed out of the space. She wanted to lick her lips and taste Asa again, but curbed the urge because her mouth was still tingling from his kiss. If he could do that to just her lips she shuddered to think of what she would do if he kissed her body.

  The smile that tilted the corners of her mouth was still there when she maneuvered into the driveway to her house, coming to a stop next to Whitney’s car. She found Whitney and Crystal on the back porch watching a playoff football game. In the South, it was high school football on Friday nights, college ball on Saturdays, and professional teams on Sundays.

  “Who’s playing?” she asked.

  “The Panthers and Tampa Bay,” Whitney said without taking his eyes off the screen.

  “Who’s winning?”

  “Tampa Bay,” they chorused in unison.

  Deborah knew they were rooting for the Carolina Panthers, so she left, leaving them to their game. Not having to prepare dinner had freed up her time; she could put up several loads of wash and possibly dust and vacuum.

  Her cell rang as she mounted the staircase. Pulling it out of her blouse pocket, she glanced at the display then answered. “How’s it going, Barbara?”

  “That’s what I want you ask you. How was the grand opening?”

  “Quite grand,” Deborah confirmed. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Relaxing. Why?”

  “Come to the Cove and hang out with me.”

  “What about the bookstore?”

  “I close on Monday.”

  “What time do you want me to come?” Barbara asked.

  “Any time is good for me. I’m up early to see the kids off to school. I’ll make brunch.”

  “If that’s the case, then I’ll see you around ten.”

  Deborah stood on the porch, watching Barbara as she mounted the steps. She had covered the wicker table with a floral tablecloth, silver, china, and crystal for two. A serving cart with covered dishes was positioned next to the table.

  They exchanged hugs and air kisses. “Thanks for coming.”

  Barbara flashed a wide grin. “Thank you for inviting me.” She dropped her tote on a cushioned rocker. “Every t
ime I leave here and go back to Charleston I ask myself why I am still living in the city. Don’t get me wrong, Deborah. I love my hometown, but there is something about this place that’s like another world.” She sniffed the air. “It even smells different here.”

  “Sit down and sniff away.” Deborah uncovered dishes with sliced melon, scrambled eggs, an assortment of breakfast meats, and lemony brioche. She also set out tiny jars of apple butter, and peach and strawberry preserves.

  Reaching for a carafe of chilled fresh-squeezed orange juice, Barbara filled her goblet, then Deborah’s. “You look different.”

  Deborah’s hand stopped in midair as she spooned melon into a fruit cup. “Different how?”

  “You look like you did before losing Louis.”

  “How is that?”

  “Relaxed. Content.”

  Deborah smiled. “I am.”

  “Who is he, Deborah?”

  “What makes you think it’s a man?”

  Barbara set down the carafe. “How long have we known each other? A long time,” she said, answering her own question. “You didn’t ask me to come here to keep you company. You asked me because you need someone to talk to. Someone you trust.”

  Deborah nodded. She ladled a spoonful of eggs onto her plate. “You’re right. I need your opinion on something.”

  “I’m all ears,” Barbara said.

  In between bites of food, and sips of juice and coffee, Deborah told Barbara everything about Asa: how he’d helped her get the bookstore up and running, how she had come to depend on him. “I like him, Barbara. I like him more than I should.”

  “What’s wrong with liking him, Deborah? He’s gorgeous, and from what you’ve told me he’s intelligent and a gentleman. In case you haven’t noticed you have wonderful hair, good skin, and an incredible body for an almost middle-aged woman with two teenage kids. And you didn’t have to dip into your kids’ college fund to pay a plastic surgeon to look the way you do.”

  “Thanks for the compliment, but that’s not helping me with my dilemma.”

  Resting an elbow on the table, Barbara gave her former neighbor a long, penetrating stare. “You are creating a dilemma where there is none. You are a single woman, Debs, and from what you’ve told me your Asa Monroe is a single man.” She put up a hand. “Louis is gone, Deborah, and he’s not coming back. And if the situation were reversed I’m certain you wouldn’t want him to spend the rest of his life alone.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why are we having this discussion, Debs?”

  Deborah ran a hand through her hair. “Louis is the first and only man I’ve ever slept with.” The admission was a whisper.

  Barbara slumped back in her chair and gave Deborah an incredulous stare. “You’re kidding?”

  “No. I was in my first year at Bennington when I met Louis. He’d come up to Vermont for a holiday weekend to ski with a few of his MIT classmates. They invited a group of us to their ski lodge for a party. I was seventeen and away from home for the first time, and I was always the nice girl because my parents were well-known attorneys and heaven forbid if I did something to embarrass them. There was something about Louis’s nerdy appearance that appealed to me. I’d had too much to drink and wound up in bed with him. I think he felt worse than I did because he hadn’t known I was a virgin.”

  With wide eyes, Barbara stared. “Did he use a condom?”

  “I wasn’t so drunk that I would’ve had unprotected sex. He kept apologizing and I kept telling him it was all right. We exchanged phone numbers and I thought I’d never hear from him again.”

  “But you did.”

  Deborah nodded. “He called me every other day and whenever he had a break he’d drive up to see me. By the end of my junior year I knew I was in love with him. Instead of returning to Boston for the summer Louis took summer courses, accelerating to graduate in three years instead of four so we could marry. We got married, but decided not to tell anyone.

  “He got a teaching position in Boston and I’d either take the train down or he would drive up to Bennington on weekends. I finally tired of the subterfuge and told my parents. They weren’t too happy, and there was nothing they could do because I was of legal age to marry. The day before my graduation Louis’s aunt and my parents sat us down and told us what they’d planned. My dad, through his connections, asked a Charleston principal to hire his son-in-law, while Louis’s aunt gave us enough money for a down payment on a house as a wedding gift.”

  “You talk about Louis’s aunt. What happened to his parents?”

  “He never knew his father, and when he was nine his mother dropped him off with her sister and never returned to pick him up. His aunt, who was a schoolteacher, petitioned the court to make her his legal guardian. And because he’d been abandoned by both parents his aunt overindulged him. She was gentle, kind, and extremely generous and Louis had adopted her best qualities. He would never have hurt anyone, so for him to have been accused, later, of getting a teenage girl pregnant… it nearly destroyed him. I kept telling him we were going to beat the charge, but I don’t know whether or not he believed me.”

  “Did you ever doubt his innocence?” Barbara asked.

  “Never. Louis didn’t do well with guilt. If he’d slept with another woman it would’ve haunted him until he had to tell me. We’d had a good sex life, so there wasn’t a need for him to go looking for another woman.”

  Barbara exhaled an audible sigh. “I know you may not believe this, but there are men who sleep with other women even though they’re sleeping with their wives.”

  Deborah shook her head. “As much as I enjoyed making love to my husband, that wasn’t happening at the time of the accusation. About a year ago Louis was diagnosed with hypertension. One of the side effects of his medication was impotence. That’s also why he couldn’t have gotten Melissa Perry pregnant.”

  Barbara emitted an unladylike snort. “All he had to do was say he had ED and none of that crap would’ve happened. Why didn’t you say something, Deborah?”

  “I couldn’t. Louis made me promise not to tell anyone. He was one of the good guys, and I’m not just saying that because he was my husband, but in the end he got a raw deal. People are so willing to believe the worst, and that’s what made me so angry. If the principal and the school board hadn’t been so quick to judge him I believe Louis would still be alive today.” A wry smile twisted her mouth. “Now you know everything.”

  “I wish I would’ve known before,” Barbara countered, “because promise be damned I would’ve told that school board where they could stick their bogus accusation. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel the same way about some of the folks Terrell works with. If things were different, then we wouldn’t be talking about your Asa.”

  “He’s not my Asa.”

  Barbara flashed a Cheshire cat grin. “You really like the man, don’t you?”

  Deborah nodded. “Yes. I told you I like him.”

  “Have your kids met him?”

  She nodded again. “Yes. At the grand opening.”

  “Do they like him?”

  “Crystal and Whitney said they did.”

  Barbara leaned over the table. “Invite him to Sunday dinner.”

  Deborah snapped her fingers. “Just like that. I invite him over to my house.”

  “You really are naïve when it comes to men, aren’t you?”

  “I’m inexperienced when it comes to dating. Remember, I had one serious boyfriend, and I married him. I never learned to flirt, because I didn’t have to.”

  “And there’s no need for you to learn. All you have to do is be Deborah. The man has danced with you, kissed you, and massaged your feet. The only thing left is his making love to you. Close your mouth, Debs,” Barbara said when Deborah’s jaw dropped. “I just hope you’ll be able to deal with it when it happens.”

  Deborah thought about Barbara’s prediction. She’d told her everything except that she wanted to sleep with Asa, probably becau
se she had trouble admitting it to herself. “I don’t have a problem sleeping with a man.”

  “What is the problem?”

  She stared at the salt-and-pepper twists framing her friend’s face. “I don’t want to get emotionally involved.”

  Barbara placed her hand over Deborah’s. “You’re no different than most women. We live for love, and once we decide to sleep with a man we not only offer them our bodies but also our hearts. But you’re ahead of the game, because you know Asa isn’t going to stay. If you keep reminding yourself of that, then when he does leave you will have prepared yourself for it. I’ve slept with guys that I never should have even said hello to, and one or two that I’d believed I couldn’t live without. Then I met Terrell and I wasn’t very nice to him, because I felt he had to pay for what I had to put up with all the other scrubs. When he told me he wasn’t going anywhere I knew he was a keeper.”

  “Terrell is wonderful.”

  “So was Louis,” Barbara countered.

  “But, I still love Louis.”

  “And because you do it should make it easier for you not to fall in love with another man. If Asa is offering, then take it. And if he’s not then I want you to take it anyway.”

  Throwing back her head, Deborah laughed until tears rolled down her face. Picking up a napkin, she blotted her cheeks. “You’re unbelievable.”

  “No I’m not. I just believe in keeping it real. You’ve been celibate long enough, and if you don’t use it you’ll lose it.”

  “There are always—”

  “Don’t you dare say the ‘v’ word, Debs Robinson. There’s nothing like the real thing.”

  Deborah sobered, asking, “How would you know?”

  Barbara waved a hand. “Girl, please. There was a time before I married Terrell that I had so many sex toys that I had a name for each of them.”

  “What were their names?”

  “Chocolate Thunder. White Lightning. The Stallion. And my favorite was Timex. It took a licking but kept on kicking.”