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

by Barbara Bretton

  This used to be his favorite time of day. He couldn’t get home fast enough after work. The sound of his son playing in the family room. The sight of his wife slicing tomatoes for the salad. The feeling that this was the one place on earth that truly belonged to him. His family. His home. His sanctuary.

  Goddamn it. The whole point was not to think about any of it. To push past it. They were dead. He wasn’t. Nothing he did, no magic words, no bargain with the devil, could change that. Every day they retreated a little deeper into memory, a little further out of reach. He had to think now to recall the way his son’s hair looked in the sunlight or the sound of his wife’s voice when she whispered his name. He thought those things were forever, like a fingerprint or DNA.

  Nobody told him that you had to hold on tightly to every memory because one by one they would slip through your fingers when you weren’t looking.

  * * *

  Deirdre finally slipped her harp back into its travel case and gave up the ghost. Hall Talbot’s two little girls played better than she had this evening. Her thoughts were scattered; her concentration nonexistent. Every sound, from the ocean’s relentless roar to Stanley’s adenoidal breathing, became a barrier between herself and the music.

  Ellen phoned a little bit after seven to say she wouldn’t be home until midnight. She sounded terribly apologetic and Deirdre supposed she could have been more gracious about it—her sister delivered babies, for God’s sake, and everyone knew babies didn’t appear on schedule. But she couldn’t help being disappointed that Ellen hadn’t been able to manage to get home so they could spend some time together before she left for Bar Harbor. Not that she had any right to expect Ellen to jump through hoops and rearrange her schedule. It was just—

  Oh, hell. What was the point? Ellen had a life that didn’t include a freeloading half sister who showed up just so she could find a dog-sitter. She was feeling sorry for herself. That was all. Mary Pat had an uncanny ability to make her feel like an even bigger failure than she really was.

  Somebody should invent a detox program for families. A place where you could go and wash away all of those you’re-no-good toxins that found their way into your head the second you walked through the front door... or answered the phone. Somehow Mary Pat knew all of her weak spots and zeroed in on them with precision. She was almost thirty-five and still alone. She knew her damn biological clock was ticking. God, they could probably hear it in Idaho. She didn’t need her big sister reminding her that everything she had ever tried had turned to shit. All she had to do was look in the mirror, at her ring finger, and at her bank account. No mystery there.

  Once upon a time she had thrived on chaos. The crazier things got, the more her adrenaline used to kick in and carry her through. She supposed that was some of her father’s genes rearing their heads. She had tried her best to keep them at bay over the years, but that wild Irish blood sometimes couldn’t be denied and it invariably led her into trouble. The O’Briens followed their hearts. They always had. With the exception of Mary Pat, the conventional worries of everyday life didn’t exist for them. Little things like unemployment, overdue bills, and a romantic life in a permanent state of chaos didn’t even register on their radar screens. Life was a series of parties and they had invitations to them all.

  Not anymore. She wasn’t sure if it was age or disappointment that was taking the bigger toll—or maybe a particularly nasty combination of them both—but lately she found herself longing for all the things she used to mock Mary Pat for valuing so highly. A permanent address. A credit card that wasn’t maxed out. Somebody who would be there at the end of the day to tell you his stories and then listen to yours.

  She tried to imagine herself in a place like Shelter Rock Cove. She could see the street. She could see the house. She could even see Stanley sitting on the doorstep, waiting for her. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t put herself in the picture.

  There was probably some Freudian explanation for all of it, something to do with Billy and her mother and who the hell knew what else. She wasn’t the analytical sister. Both Ellen and Mary Pat could out-logic her with one lobe tied behind their backs. She relied on instinct, on intuition, for want of a better word. She was one of those people who listened to their gut and made life-altering decisions because they felt right at the moment.

  She was glad she was leaving tomorrow. Like her father, she had no talent for domesticity, but at least she had figured it out before she destroyed a family.

  * * *

  Midway between the lighthouse and Cappy’s was a cliff known as the Widowmaker. Legend had it that Shelter Rock’s only murder had taken place on that spot over one hundred years ago when Amos Cardiff discovered his wife Lilah in the arms of a young sailor named Josiah Wilcox. The two men argued, the argument turned violent, and poor Amos ended up crashing to the rocky shore below.

  Next to Captain’s Landing, it was the place where Scott felt most comfortable. Now that the weather was quickly growing warmer, he had taken to bringing his take-out supper up there where he could watch the gulls and wait for the sky to darken enough for him to head over to the Landing with his telescope. The gulls recognized him and waited impatiently for him to toss scraps of bread to them. One in particular, larger than the others and bolder, circled his head. He half-expected the bird to swoop down and grab the cup of slaw.

  Shelter Rock Cove had turned out to be a good fit. He didn’t bump into his life around every corner. He didn’t see his son skating on the pond near the town square. He didn’t see his wife pushing a cart through Yankee Shopper. He didn’t see himself, head bowed in grief, at the memorial service where all that was left to bury were memories.

  The sun was setting behind him, casting its fiery glow across the flat surface of the ocean. That calmness was deceptive; it hid a vicious undertow at work around Lighthouse Point that had caused the township to outlaw swimming in the immediate vicinity, which in turn made it less popular to tourists and locals alike.

  He polished off his lobster roll, ate the rest of his slaw, then was about to slug down the Coke when he saw two figures approaching from the far end of the beach. It only took him a second to identify them as the harp player and that pony she tried to pass off as a dog. Deirdre wore jeans and a floaty top that seemed to catch every breeze. The dog ran ahead, alternately plunging into the surf, then racing back onto the shore where he shook himself into a frenzy of flying droplets. He found himself grinning at the animal’s exploits. Funny how much he liked the dog from a distance.

  Stanley tore off after a gull and Deirdre’s smoky laugh rose up on the wind. The sound hit him the same way her music had, striking the same chord of emotion he fought to suppress. He knew nothing about her beyond the facts that she liked dogs, played the harp, and was Dr. Ellen’s sister. He suspected she got her way more often than not with men, but there was an uncertainty about her that got under his skin. She wasn’t above displaying some diva temperament, yet that hadn’t stopped him from making an uncharacteristically showy gesture when he offered to drive her up to Bar Harbor tomorrow.

  He still didn’t know where the hell that offer had come from or why he had pushed her into agreement. So what if she had to figure out a way to get to Bar Harbor tomorrow. What difference was it to him if she made it there on time, late, or not at all?

  She bent down near the tide line and picked up a shell, shook it, then held it to her ear. He did that, too, when he was a kid, cupped his hand around a shell and listened to the ocean captured within its folds. She walked on with the shell in one hand and Stanley’s leash dangling from the other. Her hair caught the dying light of the setting sun. It tumbled down her back like waves of liquid fire.

  She stopped again and tilted her head to the right. She glanced behind her, then toward the rocks that led up to the street. Then she looked straight up and saw him.

  * * *

  Deirdre’s heart did a quick thump-thump when she looked up and saw Scott the Mechanic watch
ing her from the top of one of those rocky cliffs the Maine coast was famous for. She hesitated a second—she really didn’t know why—then waved.

  She thought he wasn’t going to acknowledge her wave, then he finally lifted his hand in her general direction. It reminded her of the Continental bounce, that disorienting time lag she used to experience whenever she called home the year she spent in Europe.

  She doubted even Mary Pat would know the etiquette involved in this situation. She barely knew him. He was just the guy who said he’d fix her car, yet they were heading off together tomorrow for Bar Harbor. Was she supposed to scale the cliff like a mountain goat, then make polite conversation between gasps for oxygen, or should she wait down there on the beach for him to join her? Or maybe she was supposed to assume that a wave offered and reciprocated was more than enough.

  “The steps are around back,” he called down in what she assumed was a halfhearted invitation to join him.

  Or maybe not. She didn’t know him well enough to be able to read him. Usually she picked up vibes about a person, strong waves of sensation that either drew her closer or pushed her away. But Scott the Mechanic gave her nothing to work with. He was good to look at, she’d grant him that, but whoever he was beneath the surface remained off-limits.

  Which, of course, was fine with her. She didn’t need to meet his inner child or analyze his dreams. The fact that he had a car and a driver’s license was good enough for her.

  She whistled for Stanley. The two of them found the wobbly wooden steps that had been attached by some strange wizardry to jagged rock. Stanley looked up at her as if to say, “Are you nuts?” He was probably right. She drew in a few deep breaths, as much to calm her nerves as to increase her lung capacity, and climbed to the top, leaving Stanley on the beach with his leash looped around the railing.

  Scott was sitting near the far edge when she reached the top. She instantly noted the empty soda cans, the crumpled paper bag, and that odd feeling inside her chest returned.

  “I didn’t know Cappy’s delivered,” she said as he motioned her to sit next to him.

  “I would’ve saved you a Coke if you’d told me you were coming.”

  “Cheapskate,” she said, sitting down next to him on the narrow rock. “I would’ve hoped for at least some fried clams.”

  “Lobster roll,” he said, turning back to the horizon. “Maine’s PBJ.”

  “Shows how great a Mainer I’d be. Truth is I hate lobster.”

  “Nobody hates lobster.”

  “You’re looking at her. I’d rather eat liver.”

  “I know a place on the way to Bar Harbor that might change your mind.”

  “I doubt it,” she said, then, “So you’re really driving me up to Bar Harbor tomorrow?”

  “That was the plan.”

  “You really don’t have to do this, you know.”

  “You have another way to get there?”

  “No, but—”

  “So I’ll do it.”

  “Why?” The harshness of her one-word question startled her. “I mean, we both know most auto repair shops don’t moonlight as cab services.”

  “I’m going up there anyway to look for the part for the Hyundai. Might as well kill two birds with one stone.”

  Put that way it didn’t sound particularly flattering, but at least it made a degree of sense.

  “Well, thank you,” she said after a bit. “You saved me from having to throw myself on the mercy of my wicked older sister.”

  He looked at her. “Dr. Ellen? She doesn’t seem so bad.”

  “Ellen’s terrific,” she said quickly. “I’m talking about my other sister, the Wicked Witch of Cambridge, Mass.”

  “She was willing to lend you some money?”

  “For a price.” She paused for dramatic effect. “My immortal soul!”

  He laughed right on cue, and she felt some of her slipping-away self-confidence begin to slip back. “You don’t know how much I needed that.”

  “Your immortal soul?”

  “You laughed when you were supposed to. This time tomorrow I’m going to be up there in Bar Harbor, trying to entertain a roomful of aging preppies who think pink dinner jackets and plaid pants should be featured in Armani’s fall collection.”

  He laughed again and she beamed with delight.

  “I’ve got a million of them,” she said. “I’ve been trying to work out some patter for the Crooked Isle set, but I’m not sure we’ll be speaking the same language.”

  “Be yourself,” he said. “That’s plenty good enough for them.”

  She glanced at him for signs of sarcasm or irony, but there weren’t any. What was the matter with the man?

  “Being myself is how I ended up doing a summer gig at the Crooked Isle Inn. Sometimes you have to know when it’s time to compromise.” She shadowboxed a right/left combination. “Believe it or not, I used to be a contenduh.”

  No laugh this time. Maybe he didn’t know the reference. Or maybe he knew the reference and didn’t think it was funny.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked, following his gaze toward the horizon.

  “What do you see?”

  “Water,” she said with a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “Lots of sand, lots of rocks, lots of water.” And the soft blue-gray wash of dusk across everything. Not that he would notice.

  “See how the color’s leaching from the landscape? That’s the first clue.”

  A mechanic who recognized l’heure bleu when he saw it? No wonder her car wasn’t fixed yet.

  “First clue to what?” she asked.

  “Everything.”

  “There’s a nonanswer for you.”

  He pointed toward the southeast. Or was it the northeast? Interior geography had always made more sense to her.

  “In another hour Cassiopeia will be visible over there.” He swiveled his torso and pointed diagonally behind them. “And a little later, you’ll see Jupiter near the Moon.”

  “You’re a stargazer!” She glanced around. “No telescope?”

  He grabbed the crumpled paper bag and soda cans and stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “The truck.”

  Maybe that was a Maine euphemism for peeing. She wasn’t about to ask.

  “Would you check on Stanley?” she called out as he started down the makeshift steps. “He doesn’t like being alone.”

  She felt suspended between worlds, as if the past few days had been lifted from her real life and set aside. Last week she was struggling through Pennsylvania with a dog the size of a grown man, wondering what on earth she had gotten herself into. Now here she was on a cliff in Maine, watching the sky darken from rose to indigo to midnight blue waiting for a stargazing auto mechanic to join her.

  The evening was soft against her skin and she gathered it around herself like a favorite sweater as she looked out toward the horizon. Every so often a band of light from the Point swept across her line of vision, punctuated once by the bleat of a foghorn. The sound made her shiver. What would it be like to sail away on that dark ocean with only the stars to guide you? She had been weaned on sea chanteys, “Cape Cod Girls” and “Irish Washerwoman” and “Barnacle Bill” with verses far too wise even for the child she had been.

  She drew her knees close to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. They had spent their first summer together on Cape Cod. Billy had scored a gig at an Irish pub near Hyannis that came with a small cottage overlooking the beach. Mary Pat had been appalled when she realized the three of them would have to share one bedroom. She had gathered up her stuff and hitched a ride into town, where Billy found her waiting for a bus to take her back to Boston. Ellen locked herself in the bathroom, where she sobbed loud enough that the neighbor in the cottage next door called the police.

  But, despite the terrible start, it had been a good summer. After supper she and Ellen would clamber down the long wooden staircase to the beach, where they would
sit on the huge rock they dubbed the Beached Whale and wait for the stars to come out. Except for the moon, neither one of them could identify a single thing they saw, but the sense of wonder they shared still lingered. She could still hear Ellen’s rolling laughter as she stumbled over the lyrics to “Cape Cod Girls.”

  Cape Cod girls they have no combs,

  Combs their hair with cod fish bones,

  Cape Cod ladies don’t have no frills,

  Skinny and tight as cod fish gills...

  It felt good to remember that it hadn’t all been bad. There had been moments of sweetness when she had been glad they were all there together, even if she knew it couldn’t last.

  * * *

  The sound of her voice surrounded him as soon as he reached the top step. Smoky, filled with yearning as she sang a chantey, her voice seemed to become part of the darkening sky, the roar of the ocean, the beat of his heart.

  He said, Ye may drive him out of your mind,

  Some other young man you’ll surely find;

  Love turns aside and soon cold does grow,

  Like a winter’s morning,

  The hills all white with snow.

  Her back was to him. The sea breeze made her shirt billow behind her like a sail. He watched as she gathered up the outrageous tangle of curls and twisted them into a knot that threatened to spring free the second she let go. With her hair pinned up that way, she looked like one of the sirens of legend, waiting on the rocks for an unsuspecting sailor to come along.

  She stopped singing and turned around as he walked toward her.

  “Don’t stop because of me,” he said. “I like it.”

  “How was Stanley?” With her hair up, he could see the long spirals of silver dangling from her ears.

  He sat down next to her and unlooped the binoculars from around his neck. “He looked cold, so I put him in the truck.”