“Does everyone in town know about that boat?” Lis asked.
“Pretty much. Not much goes unnoticed around here.” He put his arm around her waist. “Like right now, Nita Perry is telling Barbara Noonan to check out Alec Jansen and Lis Parker. The game is always on around here.”
“What game?”
“Telephone. By this time tomorrow we’ll be engaged, and by Thursday we’ll be expecting our first child.”
They reached the middle of the park, where an announcer stood on a wooden grandstand and made announcements. The footraces for the four- and five-year-olds would begin right after the national anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance. A girl in her late teens who’d been a finalist on one of the televised singing competitions sang and the leader of the local grange hall led the pledge.
“Want to watch the races?” Alec asked her.
“Sure.”
They made their way to the makeshift track and cheered for no one in particular, then stayed for the races for the ten- through twelve-year-olds. The temperature continued to soar, and finally Alec told her, “They’re giving out ice cream over by the grandstand if you—”
She didn’t wait for him to finish. “Yes. Anything cold.”
“We don’t have to stay till the last race has been run, you know. We can leave whenever you want.”
“I kind of want to stay, despite the heat. I haven’t been before, so it’s new to me. If you’re bored, though, we can go.”
“I thought maybe you were bored.”
“I’m enjoying it. The kids all seem to be having a great time.” She glanced around at the crowd. “The adults, too.”
After another hour had passed, Alec said, “We can pack it in anytime now. They’re not giving out prizes for staying till the end.”
Lis nodded, and they walked to the back entry to the park.
“If the marsh wasn’t there,” he told her when they came to a stand of cattails, “we could walk straight over to the inn instead of going all the way out to the road and down the lane to get there.”
“It’s a nice walk, now that we’re in the shade. I don’t mind. But I think I should get back to Gigi’s.”
“Why? She isn’t there.”
“She isn’t?” Lis frowned. “How do you know?”
“Because she’s at the inn. Ford was going to pick her up after the parade, but Owen said he’d bring her. I thought you knew.”
Lis shook her head. “When you live with Gigi, it’s one surprise after another.”
“She’ll be at the inn all afternoon, right up to the fireworks. She said she loved fireworks and hadn’t seen any up close in a long time, so my aunt invited her to spend the day at the inn.”
“I didn’t see Owen this morning before we left, so I didn’t know what anyone’s plans were. I wonder if Owen went to the parade.”
“I guess you can ask him. I imagine he’ll stay for the barbecue.”
They reached the end of the marsh and stepped onto the shoulder of the road. Another twenty steps and they were at the winding lane that led to the inn. Already a crowd had gathered on the lawn and the smoke from several large grills was drifting upward. The tennis courts were filled, people were dragging kayaks and canoes down to the water’s edge, and several teenagers sped past them on bikes headed toward the road.
“I had no idea there was so much going on here.” Lis looked around as if she were lost. “And I always thought of the inn as an old building with peeling paint.”
“That was before Dan decided to make it the place to go on the Eastern Shore. There’s a beautiful playground for the younger kids and a lot of activities for the older ones. You can take tennis lessons or learn to sail or take out a kayak or one of the canoes. There are activities for every month of the year. Like in November, the chef runs a cooking class weekend where you can learn to make dishes that use the local catch from that morning. December, Laura from the flower shop comes in and does a wreath-making day.” Alec smiled. “There is no grass growing under my cousin Dan’s feet, that’s for sure. And I should add that since Lucy came back from California, the wedding business here has skyrocketed. There are weddings every weekend, sometimes during the week as well.”
“That accounts for the full parking lot,” Lis observed. “Oh, there’s Owen’s car. He and Gigi must be here already.”
“Then she’s probably on the back patio with Aunt Grace. That’s one of her favorite places to hang out.” Still holding her hand, Alec led Lis around to the back of the building and the covered veranda that stood beneath a long line of magnolia trees.
“Well, there you are.” Lis joined Ruby and Grace. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Slipped my mind, I suppose.” Ruby noted Lis’s and Alec’s joined hands with obvious satisfaction. “Can’t pass up my day with Gracie, and since the Fourth fell on Tuesday, I get to enjoy a barbecue and the view at the same time I get to visit. How was the parade?”
“It was fun,” Lis told her.
Ruby appeared oddly satisfied at this admission as well. “Long time coming,” she said to no one in particular.
Lis couldn’t tell if Ruby was referring to the fact that Lis had finally experienced a St. Dennis parade, or to her changed relationship with Alec, or both.
Just as Alec had promised, there was nonstop activity until late afternoon when, sure enough, he fell asleep on the grass beneath the pines. Lis tried to stay awake, but the heat combined with the barbecued chicken and potato salad she’d eaten made her drowsy as well.
“Must have been the Smith Island cake,” she muttered as she stretched out on the grass next to Alec, her head on his shoulder. Within minutes she was sound asleep, and when she awoke, her head was on his chest and his arm was wrapped around her. She felt momentarily disoriented. It seemed so natural to be lying there, so close together. On the other hand, it felt almost too intimate, and she was trying to figure out how best to extricate herself from his embrace when he said, “Are you awake?”
“I am.”
“Good. My arm’s asleep.”
She sat up at the same time he did.
“Sorry,” she told him.
“Not your fault, and not a big deal. The blood will return in a few minutes.”
Lis smothered a yawn with her hand. “I didn’t realize I was that tired.”
“When I told you that a nap on the lawn was part of the day, I wasn’t kidding. Now, how ’bout we get a couple of beers and check out the sailboat races. They’re probably almost over, but at least we’ll see who crosses the finish line.”
By the end of the day, Lis’s head was spinning. She hadn’t done that much socializing, hadn’t talked that much, in years. They were just getting ready to watch the fireworks when Lis saw her brother. He was seated on the lawn next to Cass Logan.
“Something wrong?” Alec asked when he saw her staring. His gaze followed hers.
“Not really. I was just wondering how Owen ended up here with Cass Logan.”
“Does it matter?”
“Not really.”
“Then let’s get a seat down front for the fireworks. They’ll be starting soon.”
They sat close together on the grass, Alec’s arm around her. When she startled at the first loud boom, he drew her to him almost instinctively, and when the finale filled the sky with exploding colors and one boom after another, they walked together back up the lawn to the inn.
“We can probably get a ride back to the island with Owen,” Lis told Alec. “He’s probably going to take Gigi back.”
“Would you rather ride or walk? I don’t have a preference.”
“Then let’s walk. It’s a beautiful night.”
They said their good-byes and walked leisurely toward the road, their hands entwined, their arms swinging between them. The air had cooled with the setting of the sun,
and a gentle breeze had picked up. Even though they’d spent the entire day together, Lis wasn’t ready to watch Alec drive away. As they strolled across the bridge, fireworks could be heard in the distance.
“Where do you suppose those are coming from?” Alec asked.
“Let’s walk out to the point”—Lis tugged him toward the road—“and you’ll see. It’s my turn to show and tell.”
The walk to the point took another fifteen minutes, but once they’d seated themselves at the very end of the pier, it had been worth it. From across the bay, fireworks spewed huge pinwheels of color far into the sky. The show lasted for close to an hour, each display grander and louder than the one before.
“That was a perfect ending to a perfect day.” Alec stood and reached a hand to Lis to pull her up. “A perfect night.”
“It was. I can’t remember when I—”
Whatever Lis couldn’t remember was lost when he wrapped his arms around her and covered her mouth with his. The last time he’d kissed her, Lis had thought it was the best kiss ever, but that had been before tonight. Last time, she realized, was only the warmup. This was the real deal, deep and hot and soul stirring, and the only thing that went through her mind was more. More of his lips, more of the way his tongue mingled with hers and then teased the corners of her mouth. More of the heat that built up between them. More of Alec.
A last boom from across the bay jolted them both, and Lis pushed back, startled, then they both laughed somewhat nervously.
“I thought for a moment someone was shooting at us,” Lis said, only half joking.
“It could happen.” Alec stared toward the road, at the far end of the property from where they stood on the pier.
Two figures appeared near the road, moving toward them.
“Who do you think that is?” Lis whispered.
“Probably a couple of kids looking for a spot to make out,” he replied.
They watched as the figures drew closer, then stopped. They walked side by side some distant apart, not touching, nor were they hand in hand the way would-be lovers would be, though one was clearly a man and the other a woman. Suddenly the two stopped and stood as if staring at something.
“Alec, they’re stopping at the cottage,” Lis said. “Do you think they’re going to try to break in?”
“I don’t know, though anyone from around here wouldn’t bother. Everyone knows the place is about to fall down.”
“Really?” Her attention shifted from the trespassers at the cottage to Alec. “Really? Is that your final, professional contractor assessment?”
He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t going to say anything until I got the written report from the termite inspector, but I ran into him yesterday morning, and he told me from everything he’s seen, it’s not good. There’s a lot more damage than I’d suspected, and frankly, I suspected there was a lot.”
“But you can fix it all, right? You’ll fix it for me?”
“Lis, sometimes things can’t be fixed. The foundation is rotted and now we’re finding out that the support beams were riddled by termites. It doesn’t look good.”
“So what you’re saying is . . .”
“It’s probably a teardown. I’m sorry. I know it meant a lot to you.”
“Damn it. Why can’t you build a new foundation and replace the supports?”
“We’d have to take up the floor to do that.”
“But you could do that, couldn’t you?”
“We’re talking about a lot of time and a lot of money, and even at that, I don’t know that it would work.”
Lis fell silent, and disappointment bled through her, stronger than she’d imagined.
“Look, we can rebuild it to look like the original. We can replicate the floor plan, but we can make it even better. We can make the rooms larger, put in central air, new windows that actually open and close.”
“It won’t be the same.” She tried not to sound petulant, but she’d had her heart set on moving in and setting up a new studio in a new place that had new energy. In her mind’s eye, she even saw herself creating great works of art there.
He stroked her hair, from the crown to the center of her back, where it had flowed when she took out the elastic that had held it back all day.
“No, it won’t be the same, but we can put in it everything you love about the old place. We’ll reuse as much as we can and we can make it look the same from the outside. You can position it anywhere you want on the point, like closer to the bay with windows overlooking the water, bringing in the bay and the sky. You can have skylights upstairs, more than one fireplace—whatever you want.”
“I wanted Ruby’s place. I wanted the floors she and my great-grandfather walked on and the steps they climbed.” She’d felt such a sense of history, of family there.
“You can have those things,” he assured her. “We’ll take up the floorboards, and the ones that aren’t damaged, we’ll use in the new place.”
“But you can’t re-create the whispers and the tears and the laughter, the emotions that are in the walls and in the air there.” The things that mattered most and could never be duplicated.
“No,” he conceded, “I can’t do that.”
“Well, thanks anyway.” She broke away from him except for her right hand, which sought his. “I guess it wasn’t meant to be. And maybe you’re right, maybe it’s too far gone to fix. I was just hoping . . .”
Alec sighed with resignation. “Look, maybe I can take another look. Maybe there’s some way . . . I can talk to Cameron O’Connor, see if he has any ideas.”
“I knew you’d do it.” Her expression went from sad to smug in the blink of an eye.
“Just understand that it’s iffy at best. I will do whatever I can, but no guarantees. And if you decide you want to rebuild it, I promise you it will be everything you want it to be.”
“My hero.” She wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Don’t get ahead of the game here.”
“I know you can do it. I know you can make it work.” She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him.
Alec sighed. “I’ll give it my best.”
Hand in hand, they walked the length of the pier to the grass. As she and Alec drew closer to the cottage, the couple they’d noticed earlier backed away. A minute later, they heard the sound of a car engine and something small and sleek drove off.
“I guess they were just poking around,” Lis said. “They wouldn’t be the first to drive out here just to look at the place.”
“Probably,” he agreed.
They walked back to Ruby’s along the western side of the island, past the abandoned chapels and the old churchyards.
“Do you have a key for the front door, or do you want to walk around the back?” Alec asked her when they arrived at the old store.
“I have keys to both,” she told him. “I’ll go in here.”
Ruby had left on the porch lights both front and back, so the lock was easy to find.
“I’m glad she’s locking the door these days,” Lis noted while she unlocked it. “For a long time, she never bothered.”
“Even Ruby recognizes that it’s a different world.”
Lis turned the key and added, “She said as much, that change was coming.”
“Did she tell you what kind of change?”
Lis shook her head and pushed the door open. “No, but I’m sure she knows. She always seems to know.”
“Change isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Alec told her. “Sometimes a little change is good.”
“True. At least, it’s been good for me. The change in scenery has been good for my work.”
“Not so many tall buildings to paint around here.”
“I think I might be ready for something else.” She told him about her second-floor studio and the painting of the island she w
as working on for Ruby. “I want to paint her as well,” she told him. “I’ve been working on sketches. Her beauty is so hard to capture on paper. Her bone structure is perfect and her features are classic. There’s no one else who looks quite like her.”
“Does she know you’re doing it?”
Lis shook her head. “I don’t think she does. I’ve been sketching her in bits and pieces but I don’t think she’s caught on that the sketch was the first step to a painting.”
“I’m sure she’ll love it when it’s finished.”
“I hope so. But it isn’t for her. It’s for me. I keep thinking about the time when . . . when . . .” Lis couldn’t make the words come.
“When she isn’t with us anymore.” Alec finished the sentence for her.
“I can’t even bring myself to say it. I know she won’t live forever—none of us will—but I can’t imagine what life would be like without her. It’s one of the reasons why I closed up my apartment and brought a lot of my stuff down here. I want to spend as much time as I can on the island.”
“What are the other reasons?”
Her arms slid around his neck. “I think you can figure that out for yourself.”
“Maybe. But I want to hear you say it.”
“I want to spend more time with you, here. I want to see where this leads.” She kissed him. “Is that what you had in mind?”
“That just about covers it, yes.” He pulled her closer. “I’ve waited a long, long time for you. I didn’t even realize I’d been waiting until I saw you again. We both deserve the chance to see where this goes.”
“And in the meantime, we can work together on my house.”
“Wait. Does this mean you’re only interested in my rehab skills?”
“I’ll bet you really rock your tool belt.”
“So I’ve been told.”
The lights from a car rounded the bend in their direction, and seconds later Owen drove past the front of the store and around toward the back.
“Kiss me good night, Alec, before Owen shows up and ruins the mood.” She stretched to reach his mouth. “Thank you again for an absolutely perfect day. Maybe one of my most favorite days ever.”
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