by JoAnn Ross
“J.T. told me a bit about your mom’s relief work. That’s quite a second career.”
“Isn’t it? I worry about her, of course, but she’s so thrilled to be having this grand adventure at this point in her life, I also can’t help being excited for her.”
Doris and Dottie lived up to their promise. In less than five minutes, they had a stack of shoes, bags, and jewelry on the counter and clothes hanging on the door of one of the dressing rooms. In another ten minutes, Mary was out the door, having exchanged her Leon-selected parade outfit for a pair of jeans, a red sweater, and red canvas sneakers.
“Done,” she said.
J.T. swept a glance over her, from the top of her head, which, since it had begun sprinkling again, she’d covered in a baseball cap—which had the town’s name above the whale logo and, below that, A Whale of a Town—down to her feet.
“Except for the touristy hat, you look a lot more like a native than you did a few minutes ago.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“Which is how I meant it. From the looks of all those bags, you’ve probably equaled that store’s yearly sales. I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman who could snag so much stuff in ten minutes.”
“They had a lot of great stuff. And know their customers.”
“You do realize you’re now going to have to buy another suitcase.”
“Easier to just FedEx the stuff back to California.” She grinned and handed over the bags for him to put in the back of the SUV. “I told you I’m a champion hunter-shopper. And not only did I bag this outfit—I scored a lot of other terrific ones, as well. Including a dress to wear to the wedding, a lovely one-of-a-kind blown-glass piece of a bride and groom from this little gift nook they have at the back of the boutique, and running shoes to wear on the beach tomorrow morning.”
He’d just closed the back of the SUV and climbed into the driver’s seat. “What are you talking about?”
“Apparently they’ve been buying sea glass jewelry from a California designer who’s expanded into blown glass, so since the jewelry sells so well, they decided to stock a few of her other pieces, one of which was perfect for a wedding present.”
“I wasn’t talking about the wedding present. I was referring to the running shoes.”
“Oh, them. I run on the beach every morning in Malibu.”
“Don’t look now, sweetheart, but this isn’t Malibu.”
“Aw.” She fluttered her lashes at him. “I knew I’d wear you down eventually. But I never expected to get to the romantic point where you’d be calling me sweetheart this quickly.”
He looked up at the sunroof as if garnering strength. But learning to act for the big screen, where everything is magnified, had taught her nuances. Enough that she could see the faint smile trying to break free at the corners of his mouth.
“A beach is a beach,” she said when he didn’t respond to that teasing statement. “I like to run. And so, apparently, do you. So, I figured we could get out early, before everyone’s up and about, get a few miles in, have breakfast; then I’ll still have plenty of time to get to the first screening.”
“What if it’s raining?” He pulled into traffic, managing to avoid a young woman on roller skates, inexplicably turning circles in the middle of the two-lane street.
“Got that covered. Literally, with a slicker in one of those bags. So you’re going to have to come up with a better reason to get out of it.” She sobered a bit when she realized that for some reason he really seemed against the idea. Surely he didn’t seriously believe she was in danger. “If you’re worrying about protecting me—”
“That’s not it. What I’m concerned about is…Oh, hell. Just forget it.”
He pulled up in front of the theater, where a long line snaked down the sidewalk and around the corner. “Seems it’s time for your close-up.”
The smile was gone. And although the sky had turned the color of tarnished silver, he’d stuck on those damn sunglasses again, keeping her from seeing his eyes.
She wanted to ask him what his problem was. But then people spotted her and began calling out her name, so, straightening her shoulders, she put on her best movie-star smile.
Showtime.
26
The clouds, which had held off until after the parade, began weeping again as Sax drove down the winding drive lined with fir trees from which gray moss hung like ghostly veils. As happy as he was that Kara had agreed to marry him—even knowing that they were perfect together and that “till death do we part” line in the vows didn’t even begin to cover how long he intended to stay with her—when he’d awakened this morning, he’d realized there was something he still needed to do.
He pulled up outside a high iron gate that had been pitted and rusted by years of Pacific storms and rainy weather. The last time he’d been here to Sea View Cemetery was when he’d first gotten home. At the time his ghosts had accompanied him. Although he was relieved—for his sake and theirs—that they’d moved on to wherever ghosts go in the afterlife, at the moment he could’ve used some backup from his former battle teammates.
He sat in the Camaro his father had kept up for him while he’d been away for a long time, hands draped over the steering wheel, listening to Billie Holiday’s “Willow Weep for Me.” The blues singer’s soulful tones brought to mind small, smoky rooms and half-empty whiskey glasses. It also reminded him how much his life had changed since Kara and Trey had enriched it.
Which, occasionally and unexpectedly, would cause a sharp stab of guilt he knew, on an intellectual level, his friend would tell him was misplaced.
He grabbed a bag from the front seat. “Might as well get it over with.”
The tall gate creaked when he pushed it open, causing some birds in the branches of a century-old western hemlock to take to the leaden sky in a wild flurry of wings. The front rows of rounded headstones dated back to when the town was first founded, many of the dates worn away by the salt air and age.
Fog curled around his boots and the damp earth squished beneath his feet as he walked past a stone angel who’d lost a wing to a tree downed by the great Columbus Day storm of 1962. Because he’d been young and crazy, and only Cole may have been bucking for sainthood, bittersweet memories of coming to the cemetery to get drunk with the guys flashed through his mind. Including the night shortly before he’d taken off to the Marines, when Jared had belted out a drunken version of Willie Nelson’s “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.”
A weeping willow arched graceful green branches over the grave he’d come here today to visit. Which, he thought, made the Billie Holiday song that had come onto the jazz station just as he’d arrived at the cemetery both appropriate and ironic.
There was a small display of wildflowers, their petals damped by the misty rain, next to the granite stone. Although he couldn’t name the flowers, since Jared’s parents had left Shelter Bay after his death, he suspected they’d been left by Kara. Proving that once again they were on the same wavelength. Sax had never had any problem with her having loved another man so deeply. On the contrary, her ability to give her heart so fully and so freely was one of the reasons he’d fallen for her so many years ago.
Sax had no problem with Jared having been her first great love. Because she’d chosen him to be her last.
Unlike many of the earlier graves, which bore elaborate epitaphs for the departed, the gray stone had merely been carved with his name, Jared Conway, the dates of his birth and death, and beneath that the words Semper Fidelis—“always faithful.”
Which Sax, who may have been a Navy SEAL, not a Marine, had tried his best to be.
He took a deep breath. In the distance, the sea, which had given the cemetery its name, was draped in a thick blanket of fog.
“Kara’s pregnant, Jare.” He thought about his ghosts and how they’d made vague references to life after death. “But I guess you know that. Although it wasn’t easy, since you’re a really tough act to follow,
I finally managed to talk her into marrying me.”
Even now, with his child growing inside her, and her son, whom he couldn’t love more if he’d been Trey’s natural father, Sax couldn’t quite believe his luck. Which, he reminded himself, was possible only because of this man’s very bad luck to have survived multiple deployments, only to be killed when, as a cop, he’d responded to a domestic abuse call that had gone south.
He pressed his fingers against his eyes. Hard. Took another breath. Damn. Although he’d practiced what he was going to say, it was proving more difficult than he’d ever imagined.
“It’s not that she doesn’t still love you.” He forced himself to speak past the lump in his throat, as Jared’s words, the day he’d climbed onto that bus headed for basic training, echoed from beyond the grave. Take good care of my girl while I’m gone, Douchett.
And then him calling from Oceanside, asking him to take her to their senior prom. Make sure she has a good time. We can’t have her sitting around like a wallflower, feeling sorry for herself.
Which he’d tried his best to do, which hadn’t been easy, since when he’d arrived to pick her up for that prom, her eyes had been red-rimmed from crying when the home pregnancy test she’d taken that morning had proved positive.
Sax wondered now if Jared knew about the impulsive kiss they’d shared on Moonshell Beach later that night. When she’d sobbed in his arms and, in a misguided attempt to make her feel better, he’d kissed her. And she’d kissed him back, and sealed his fate forever.
Not that he would’ve done anything about it. Because although he’d discovered that night that forbidden fruit really was the sweetest, no way would he betray a pal.
“She’ll always love you, and hey, I’m okay with that. It’s just that, believe it or not, she loves me now. And I want you to know that I’m going to continue to work every day to be worthy of that love.
“And that as honestly happy as I am that we’re going to have a baby, and we’re both going to make sure that Trey never forgets his father, and that you’ll always be his hero, I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure I’m a good dad. Because he may not be son of my blood, but”—Sax put his hand on his chest—“he’s the son of my heart.
“I hope you also know that I never tried to take advantage of the trust you put in me. I didn’t mean to fall in love with Kara. But I did.” Major understatement there, but he figured that if Jared, wherever he was, could actually hear him, he’d also know how hard and how deep his friend had fallen. “Though if you’d lived, I would’ve kept my mouth shut and this marriage wouldn’t be happening.
“But you didn’t, and now it is, and I want you to know that you don’t have to worry about her. Because I swear it’s going to work out. We can make each other, and our kids, happy.”
He opened the bag, took out one of the bottles of Budweiser Jared had always brought out here when it was his turn to score the alcohol, unscrewed the cap, and poured the beer on the ground in front of the stone, next to Kara’s pretty flowers. Then opened a second bottle and stood there drinking while the surf roared in the distance and birds sang in the trees overhead.
As he drank, Sax felt the nagging little guilt he’d been feeling since Kara told him about the pregnancy drift away.
“Semper Fi, Jare.”
That said, Sax finally left the last of the past behind him and walked back through the iron gate toward his future with the incredible woman he loved.
27
Since the local video store hadn’t carried the DVD, J.T. hadn’t been able to watch Lady of the Lake, the first movie Mary had appeared in, but viewing it while sitting next to her in the Orcas Theater, he could see the beauty she would grow up to be.
Her expressive eyes had looked huge in her much thinner Irish milkmaid’s face. Although she hadn’t seemed as comfortable with her body as she was now, she was as graceful as a ballerina and there was a sweet, small-town innocence about her that reminded J.T. a bit of Kara, when his brother’s fiancée had been sixteen.
It was no wonder she’d become a star. Her face was heartbreakingly expressive, the camera flat-out loved her, and although J.T. remembered that the teenage girl had appeared on only a few pages, having read the book years ago, he realized why either the director or writer, or more likely both, would’ve decided to expand her part.
J.T. also knew that if he’d grown up in Castlelough, or she in Shelter Bay, he would have fallen in love with Mary Joyce.
The movie was longer than most, running a full two and a half hours, but as much as he’d dreaded this duty, he wasn’t finding sitting next to her in the darkened theater any hardship.
When the heroine, Shannon McGuire, played by Laura Gideon, one of the hottest actresses on the planet ten years ago, pulled a tarp over the baby sea creature, hiding it from the team of ruthless hunters determined to trap it for scientific examination, Mary unconsciously reached out for his hand. Her skin was soft as silk and brought up unbidden thoughts, yet again, of what that delicate, long-fingered hand would feel like on his body.
He heard her sniffle a bit as the heroine began rowing toward the island of Inisfree, determined to save the small green infant its brave mother, the mythical Lady of the Lake, had died protecting.
When the lights came back on again, she reclaimed her hand, reached into her bag, took out a tissue, and dabbed at her moist eyes.
“It’s foolish,” she murmured. “I know that story by heart, but every time I see the film, it makes me cry.”
“It’s not foolish. It’s an emotional story. There’s no shame in being affected by it.”
“Still, I’m supposed to be the professional.”
“You wouldn’t be such a good actress if you didn’t absorb the feelings of the characters. Sort of like a sin-eater.”
The theater professor, whose name J.T. hadn’t bothered to try to remember, was now up on the stage going into a long-winded introduction, which began, unsurprisingly, with his own biography. Because, hey, this festival was all about him, right?
But neither J.T. nor Mary was paying that much attention. Instead, she’d cocked that dark head again, and was giving J.T. another of those long silent perusals.
“I suppose it is a bit like that,” she agreed.
Then, as she heard her name called, she stood up. “Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need it. But…” He gave her a thumbs-up. And touched his fingers to the back of her hand in a way that had those expressive eyes widening. Revealing that she’d felt that spark, too.
She went up on the stage, sitting alone on the stool, answering questions from the audience, many of whom turned out to be theater students at the local community college.
“Do you have any regrets about this film going down in your filmology as your acting debut?” one young man with a goatee asked.
“Regrets?” She looked puzzled. “Lady of the Lake is a beautiful story, its script written with a deft and talented hand, and filmed with the most talented cast, all of whom were so helpful to a neophyte actress. Both the tale of the lady and the cinematography were also obvious love letters to my home country. Indeed, my own town—which would be a sister city to this one—where the lady is reputed to dwell.”
Another earnest young woman dressed all in black popped out of her seat. “Surely you don’t believe that? About the lady?”
“Surely I do,” Mary said mildly. And turned back to the man who’d been interrupted. “Why would you believe I’d have any regrets?”
“Well, it’s a horror movie.” The scorn in his voice was obvious even to J.T., who knew nothing about the movie business.
“Millions of people are entertained by being frightened. Just as others prefer comedies or thrillers or stories about children growing up in a boarding school for witches. That’s the lovely thing about films. There’s something for everyone.”
“Then you agree that Lady of the Lake is a horror film?”
“Some might see it that way,” Mar
y allowed. “But they’d be wrong. It doesn’t take a degree in cinema to understand that the story about the creature in a fanciful city beneath the water is an allegory about prejudice, the overreach of science, and the paranoia that can run rampant in small isolated villages, such as Castlelough, Ireland. Or, perhaps,” she added with that warm smile he’d come to recognize as her professional one, “even Shelter Bay, Oregon.”
“Yet,” the professor, who apparently felt the need to have the spotlight turn back onto him, pointed out, “you can’t deny that it’s a very dark and negative ending.”
“But I can. Is that how you see it?” she asked, with what sounded like genuine surprise.
“It’s obvious that the scientists, who already killed the baby creature’s mother, are not going to give up.”
“Ah.” She nodded, appearing to give the statement serious consideration. “That would be your view. And you’re not alone in your belief. Especially since Quinn Gallagher, the screenwriter, purposefully left the ending ambiguous.
“But, as an optimist myself, after all the sadness and evil the scientists brought upon the creature and the town, because Shannon McGuire, who was quite a formidable person in her own right, teamed up with the wee creature, I view the ending as a message of hope.” Her smile confirmed her words.
More hands shot up at that.
For the next hour, Mary answered questions and shared anecdotes, holding the audience in the palm of her hand. And if there’d been any people in the theater who hadn’t been fans when the lights had first gone down, J.T. knew they’d been converted.
Had Bodhi not declared the time allotted for her question-and-answer period over, claiming that they needed to get ready for the showing of the first entry film in an hour, they probably would’ve kept her there forever.
As she left the theater, programs were thrust at her to autograph. J.T. was not surprised when she didn’t refuse a single request.
It was only when they were in the SUV, driving back to the inn, where he’d intended to drop her off to chill out until it was time to leave for yet another party she was scheduled to be the guest of honor at this evening—this one for people who’d sprung for fifty bucks a ticket with funds going to local youth programs—that she leaned her head against the back of the seat and let out a long, deep, and weary-sounding breath.