Girls of Summer (Shelter Rock Cove - Book #2)

by Barbara Bretton

  “Well, so far he hasn’t had a great deal of luck with his type, has he? I think they’d be a great couple.”

  “No chemistry,” Susan said.

  “You were there yesterday at Kerry’s christening party. You saw the way they were looking at each other. We all did.”

  “Oh, please.” Susan made a face. “Everyone gets sappy at a christening. God, I almost made a pass at Jack.”

  Annie gave her a gentle elbow in the ribs. “You know you love your husband.”

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes—” She caught herself. “Oh, forget I said anything. You’re still a newlywed. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Your brother and I were married a long time, Suz. I think I remember how it felt.”

  “Not you,” Susan said. “You and Kevin were always—”

  Annie shook her head. “Not always. You know that. We had a lot of rough times.”

  Funny how many tricks your memory could play on you. In the years since Kevin’s death, Susan had somehow managed to erase her beloved brother’s many flaws until only a saint remained.

  “Ellen’s car was in Hall’s driveway all night,” Susan said.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” Annie laughed softly. “Tell me something the entire town doesn’t know.”

  “She’s always been very discreet about her love life.”

  “Maybe she still is. Maybe he borrowed her car. Maybe she was home alone all night.”

  “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

  “No, I don’t,” Annie admitted, “but I know what it’s like to be the number-one topic of conversation around town, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone I cared for.”

  “She always seemed so open and forthright. I mean, where did that sister come from? I never heard her mention a sister before, did you?”

  “Further proof that she keeps her private life private. It isn’t a crime, you know.”

  “You used to be more fun,” Susan grumbled. “Scruples never used to hold us back when it came to good dish.”

  “Maybe when we were thirteen,” Annie said. “They’re two wonderful people, Suz. Let them live their lives. Let—” She stopped mid-sentence and shook her head.

  “What?” Susan prodded. “Go ahead. Finish what you were going to say.”

  “Not this time,” Annie said. She hopped down from the counter. “I really should be going home. Sam’s a great father, but I’m still the only one who can breast-feed.”

  “Thanks,” Susan said.

  “Thanks for what?” Annie asked as she pulled her car keys from her purse.

  “For what you didn’t say.”

  “I may not always not say it.”

  Susan grinned. “I know. But thanks just the same.”

  She waved goodbye to Annie, then settled down to wait. They couldn’t stay out there in the garden all evening.

  * * *

  Deirdre didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but the only thing separating the vegetable garden from the backyard was a flimsy vine-covered trellis and a row of rosebushes about to bloom. She probably should have clapped her hands over her ears or joined Stanley and the kids, who were playing fetch, but she was riveted to the spot.

  Not that they were saying anything. In fact, they hadn’t uttered a sound in at least two or three minutes. A lovely warmth spread through her chest. Of course! Where there was heat, there was also passion. It wouldn’t surprise her one bit to find them wrapped in each other’s arms, completely oblivious to the world around them.

  Oh, why not? Just one peek wouldn’t hurt. They weren’t locked away behind closed doors, after all. They were out there in the garden where anyone could see them. God knew she had noticed more than one nosy face peering through the window while she had been sitting there on the back steps. She stood up, brushed off her skirt, then tiptoed closer to the trellis.

  “Deirdre!”

  She practically jumped out of her clothes at the sound of Ellen’s voice behind her.

  Ellen looked a little puzzled, but if her sister had any idea what she had been up to, she didn’t let on. Hard to believe there was any O’Brien blood in Ellen’s veins. Any O’Brien worth her salt would have blocked her way and demanded an explanation.

  “Stanley,” she said. “He was here a second ago.”

  Ellen jerked her thumb over her left shoulder. “He’s with the kids.”

  “Okay. Thanks. I’ll go see if everything’s okay.”

  “Scott came by,” Ellen said. “He dropped off the harp.”

  Her heart did a little two-step. “Hey, terrific! Let me go thank him and—”

  He dropped off the harp, then took off. I asked him in for a while, but he isn’t exactly the most social man in town.”

  The two-step skidded to a stop.

  “Wife?” He didn’t look married. His hair was too scruffy. His shirt had that straight-from-the-dryer look. And he didn’t wear a ring.

  “Not that I know of. Actually I don’t know much of anything about Scott.”

  “I didn’t think anyone in this town managed to fly beneath the radar.”

  “He’s fairly new here.”

  “A real Yankee loner?”

  Ellen thought for a second. “I suppose so. I’ve found him to be polite but distant. Not exactly what you would call a people person.”

  “Good thing he’s a mechanic and not a doctor.”

  “Good thing for all of us.”

  Her sister really was lovely when she smiled. She had the O’Brien crinkle, a starburst at the outer corners of her deep blue eyes, a feature which was shared by Billy and all three of his daughters. Deirdre felt an odd tug of tenderness mingled with a tinge of guilt for eavesdropping on her.

  “Your harp is getting a hit of attention,” Ellen said as they made their way back inside.

  “I’ve been thinking about sending the harp up to Bar Harbor without me. Might do wonders for my career.”

  “Sweeney and a few of the others asked me if you would consider playing something.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “I’d love it.” Again that wonderful crinkly-eyed smile. “I think it would be a great way to make this house feel like a home.”

  That was just about the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her, and the fact that it was her sister who said it made it twice as nice.

  It also made her feel guilty as hell for showing up at Ellen’s unannounced, uninvited, and with a one-hundred-fifteen-pound dog in tow. The least she could do was sing for her supper. Too bad Scott the Mechanic hadn’t bothered to hang around a few minutes. She knew she had sounded like a flake that morning when he towed her car into the shop. She would have liked to show him that her harp was more than the latest fashion accessory among the music crowd.

  The thought made her almost laugh out loud. Oh, yeah, Scott the Mechanic definitely looked like the kind of guy who would get off on harp music. He probably couldn’t wait to put as much distance as possible between him and the possibility of having to listen to her play.

  Well, too damn bad, Scott the Mechanic. She hoped nobody else in the room felt that way.

  * * *

  Hall wanted to escape before the harp music started. Once Ellen’s sister hit the first note, he would be honor-bound to stay for the entire performance, and that wasn’t exactly at the top of his list of things he felt like doing. He would round up Willa and Mariah, say goodbye to Ellen, then head for Cappy’s before it got any later. He went out back to collect his daughters only to find they had slipped into the house to watch Deirdre unpack her harp.

  “That doesn’t look like a real harp,” Mariah said eyeing the wooden instrument. “It’s tiny.”

  “Not too tiny,” Deirdre said, crooking her finger. “Come here and see.”

  Mariah cautiously approached. This time last year she might have popped her thumb into her mouth in a reflexive gesture left over from babyhood. This year that was nothing but a distant memory. Time was s
lipping by more quickly every day.

  “Go ahead,” Deirdre said as Willa, not one to be left behind, joined her sister. “Try to pick it up.”

  They tried and failed.

  “See?” Deirdre eased the base of the harp into what looked like floor protectors. “Angels must have very strong muscles under those pretty robes they wear.”

  “Do you have muscles?” Willa asked.

  Deirdre grinned and flexed a bicep. “You would, too, if you were a harper.”

  “I play the piano,” Mariah confided.

  “You do not,” her sister said. “She’s still learning ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’”

  “I can show you how to play ‘Twinkle’ on the harp, if you’d like.” She looked over their heads at Hall, who saw his last chance at escape slipping away from him.

  “It’s getting late, girls,” he said. “If we’re going to grab fish ’n’ chips at Cappy’s, we’d better leave.”

  “We don’t want to go, Daddy,” Mariah said. “We want to stay and hear Deirdre play the harp.”

  “I thought you wanted ice cream.” Good going, Father of the Year. You’re playing the ice-cream card a little early tonight, aren’t you?

  Willa wrinkled her nose. “I’m not hungry. I had egg rolls.”

  “Me, too,” said Mariah. “And some pizza.”

  Where had he been when they were giving out the pizza and egg rolls?

  She positioned both Mariah and Willa to her left.

  “There’s room for one more,” she said to Susan’s son, but no self-respecting son of an auto mechanic would be caught dead near a harp, no matter how beautiful it was. And this was definitely one of the most beautiful musical instruments he had ever seen.

  Years ago he had had the privilege of hearing Segovia in concert, and the sight of the master cradling that luminous guitar had affected him profoundly. The shimmering gloss of the wood, the graceful curving shape, it stole your breath before a single note sounded. He felt that same exhilarating rush of emotion as he watched his daughters brush the strings under Deirdre’s patient tutelage.

  “Keep your pinkies tucked out of the way,” she told them. “Backs nice and straight. Elbows parallel to the floor, just like this.” She gently nudged Willa’s elbows up a tiny bit and the difference was amazing. Mariah, never willing to be bested by her sister, instantly upgraded her posture and made sure her own elbows were locked in place.

  “Okay,” Deirdre said, “now, here we go.”

  The girls’ faces beamed with delight as the sweet, pure notes filled the room. Sweeney called out “Brava!” which made Hall’s daughters giggle and duck their heads. After another try, Deirdre whispered something to the girls and they hurried back to his side.

  “Did you see us?” Mariah asked, breathless with excitement. “Did you see us play the harp?”

  “I sure did,” he said, ruffling her hair with a gentle hand. “You were terrific!”

  “Me, too,” Willa demanded. “I was better than Mariah.”

  “You were both terrific,” he amended. Nothing wrong with his kids’ self-esteem.

  The low-grade chatter in the room silenced as Deirdre leaned into the harp. Or did the harp lean into her? It was hard to tell. She was all graceful curves, and so was the harp as she wrapped her arms around it in a lover’s embrace.

  In retrospect it was the wrong thing to do. If he had given it even a second of thought, he would have found a way to protect himself, but as the first achingly pure notes blossomed, he looked across the room at Ellen. She was sitting on the arm of the sofa a few feet away from her sister. The resemblance was striking. The auburn curls. The flashing blue eyes. The elegant hands. Except where Deirdre was small and round, Ellen was tall and willowy.

  Ellen met his eyes and the night before rose up between them. Her cheeks reddened slightly, as if she knew what he was thinking, as if she was thinking it, too, and they both looked away. Better to concentrate on the sister with the harp.

  He couldn’t recall ever seeing a harp quite like that before. It wasn’t the tall and elegant instrument played by a woman in a flowing gown on a concert stage, the kind that made you think of heavenly choirs and hosts of angels on high. There was nothing either celestial or angelic about it. Both the harp and the harper were born of this earth.

  A Celtic harp, Deirdre had explained earlier, its magic born of an ancient oral tradition of storytelling whispered and sung by minstrels who roamed the Irish countryside. It wasn’t hard to imagine her on an emerald green hilltop, offering up her music to the old gods.

  He couldn’t help wondering about the man who had fathered two such different women. Deirdre was both fey and dramatic. Ellen was calm and precise. An artist and a scientist. Was it nature or nurture that had molded their personalities, a trick of genetics or the lives they had led?

  Yesterday he would have asked Ellen about it and not thought twice. He had assumed he knew all there was to know about her background. After all, it had been on all of her paperwork, on her degrees, her medical license, everything. Ellen O’Brien Markowitz. The O’Brien, he had assumed, was a gesture toward a close friend of the family or maybe a married Markowitz. He had known enough strangely named infants in his time to not blink an eye at an odd combination.

  Yesterday he would have walked into her office and asked her flat out about the sister, the parents, the name, the whole nine yards. Now he had to wait and wonder if Ellen would ever tell him her family story or if last night had marked an end to their friendship. An end to those late suppers at Cappy’s, those afternoons on his back porch when they dropped their guard and let their fears escape into the darkness. She knew he prayed before each delivery. He knew that she cried after every birth. They had done both on more than one occasion, over more than one woman who battled disease and ultimately lost.

  The music washed over him, clear and haunting and painfully beautiful, cutting deep into the place he hid from the world. Each successive note cut deeper than the one before until it hurt to draw a breath.

  “Daddy?” Mariah whispered in what he thought of as her worry voice.

  He drew her against his right side and stroked her soft blond hair. Willa reached for his left hand and rested her head against his leg.

  He had everything a man could want. Four happy, healthy daughters. Work that mattered. Friends and family who loved him. Over the last few years the gnawing emptiness he had filled with doomed marriages had begun to disappear, so slowly at first that he didn’t notice it until this morning when he felt the familiar ache reappear inside his chest. The difference was Ellen.

  Ellen had come along and filled those empty spaces with her enthusiasm and her dedication and her friendship. She was the one he went to for counsel or advice or a much-needed kick in the ass. She never pulled her punches. She never softened the blows. She said what he needed to hear when he didn’t particularly want to hear it. She was a gifted doctor. A beautiful woman. A passionate lover. And up until this morning she had been his friend.

  As wonderful as last night had been (and he was old enough to know wonderful when he found it), he would trade away the memory if it meant they could go back to where they had been less than twenty-four hours ago.

  * * *

  He came back.

  Deirdre glanced up after a particularly showy glissando and saw Scott the Mechanic standing in the open front doorway and she started to melt. She felt like one of those fast-burning candles they used to display in old Italian restaurants, the kind that melted down the side of an old Chianti bottle and became part of the decor. She was melting right there in the middle of one of Turlough O’Carolan’s planxties, an ode to a wealthy patron in need of a few musical strokes to enhance his standing.

  The man might as well have bad boy embroidered on the pocket of his shirt because there was no doubt in her mind that he had been born to break hearts. He had that untouchable look to him that all bad boys had, that run-while-there’s-still-time aura that most women
found irresistible.

  Most women? Who was she kidding? Bad boys were catnip to her, they were better than a five-pound box of Godiva and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.

  God, what was wrong with her? She had sworn off this kind of romantic nonsense two years ago after Antonio. Every woman needed to experience at least one wildly passionate love affair that ended badly so she would know what she wasn’t missing. Deirdre should have known that three would be pushing her luck. First there was Paul, the actor she had met in London. Paul of the wide shoulders... and the enormous ego that had required as much care as a Thoroughbred pony. She had found him in bed—her bed!—with a twenty-year-old Academy student, and for a few moments there she had almost convinced herself they were just rehearsing.

  And she could write a book about Matthew, the pro baseball player she had met down in Houston in another lifetime. For a little while she had actually believed she might have hit the jackpot, but then he got himself traded to Toronto and forgot to tell her. Chalk up another loser for the little lady.

  And who could forget Antonio? She could still see herself sobbing all over Ellen at the Ritz-Carlton while she tried to figure out why great sex never seemed to make up for the lack of everything else. For a little while it had come darned close, but you still had to do something with the other twenty-three hours of the day. That was what always seemed to get her into trouble.

  Sorry, Scott the Mechanic, she thought as he watched her from the doorway. Next time she found herself crazy enough to consider dating again, she was going to steer clear of bad boys. Next time—if there was a next time—it would be a churchgoing, Bible-studying, loves-his-mama type or nobody at all.

  * * *

  Deirdre’s music filled the house. It spiraled up the staircase. It spun down the hallways. It burst through the windows, then back in again. It turned the house into the home she had dreamed about since she was a little girl. And always, always, it found its way straight into Ellen’s heart.