Cliff's Edge

by Meg Tilly

  “I just love the way you are, the way you dive into problem-solving mode, the way you attack your painting, the way you sip your coffee . . .” He needed to rein himself in. He was getting way too mushy. He cleared his throat. “Speaking of coffee, I don’t have much more to offer. Haven’t been home for a few months, so the proverbial cupboard is bare.” He walked to the pantry, opened the door. “A couple cans of soup? Oh, I found some salted cashews. Want some?” He scooped up a couple and jingled them around in his cupped hand, then popped them in his mouth. “Ick!” He spit them out. “Never mind. Stale.” He saw a large gift basket stuffed in the corner. “Eureka,” he said, as though he had just stumbled across a pirate’s treasure trove. “Gotta be something edible in here!”

  * * *

  • • •

  IT WAS A glorious breakfast. In the basket Rhys had unearthed a bottle of that delectable Perrier-Jouët Belle Epoque champagne, French brandy truffles, and a large tin of duck confit from Paris!

  Rhys might not know how to decorate, but the man knew what to do with a tin of duck! He found a couple of wrinkly old potatoes and an onion in the fridge and whipped up a delicious duck hash. He topped the whole mess off with an egg simmered in butter, which they divided between them, the soft yolk adding a buttery goodness to the mix.

  “Now,” he said, pushing back from the table, picking up their plates, and walking them over to the dishwasher. “About your debt . . .”

  Eve’s stomach lurched, the duck confit hash turning into a congealed lump of lard in her gut. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Eve,” he said, turning toward her, his eyes dark with compassion. “Clearly you need to.”

  She didn’t reply. Couldn’t. Just watched him as he rinsed the plates and silverware and placed them in the dishwasher.

  “You wouldn’t have gotten so upset if it wasn’t bothering you. I’ve found it’s best to talk things out. Makes them lose their power over you.” He dried his hands, returned to the table, and sat down. His long legs stretched out, bumping gently against hers, the warmth of him infusing her with cautious courage. He didn’t seem perturbed by her late-night confession. He wasn’t running in horror or regarding her any differently, even though he knew about her massive debt. He reached out and tilted her chin up so her eyes met his. Then he took her hand. “Tell me about it.”

  There was something about his straightforward tone, the caring expression in his eyes, that suddenly made her want to tell him. Need to. She took a deep breath and began. “I have a good FICO score. Have always been crazy careful not to overspend, not to buy things I couldn’t pay off, but when Maggie’s fiancé dumped her last year, she was so broken up. I’m her—” Eve paused. She was going to say “big sister.” The lie had slipped off her tongue for so many years, but somehow, to this man, she didn’t want a lie between them. “I’ve . . . I’ve always looked out for her. Protected her. I wanted to help, needed to erase that bruised look from her eyes.” She looked down at their hands, where his thumb was gently gliding across her knuckles. “We decided to go into business together. I had enough money to cover my portion of the down payment, but I had to borrow from the bank for my share of the renovations. And I have a mortgage.”

  “You both are on the mortgage.”

  “No. Just me. Maggie was able to pay her share of the expenses outright.”

  “How?”

  “She got an inheritance from her”—she caught herself just in time—“from my aunt Clare.”

  “And presumably her aunt Clare as well? What kind of aunt leaves money to only one of her nieces?”

  She clamped her mouth shut. Damn the man. He noticed too much.

  “Eve?” He was looking at her inquiringly.

  “I can’t,” she said. She could feel the shutters slam over her eyes, her heart, decades-long loyalty refusing to let her speak. We are sisters, she thought, suddenly angry—at herself, at the situation, and inexplicably at him—because she wanted, so very much, to share the secret with him. We are! In all the ways that matter.

  “Fair enough,” he said, as if she had spoken her thoughts out loud. The fingers of his other hand drummed on the table once, twice. “See, the thing is, Eve, there is nothing to be embarrassed about. You have debt. So what? So does most of America. The difference is, your debt is what I think Suze Orman—finance guru to the world—would call ‘good debt.’ You haven’t mindlessly blown money on things that lose their value. You took on debt to purchase a property and outfit it for what appears to me to be a very thriving business. Does the Intrepid earn enough to cover expenses? Are you making any profit?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “No buts about it,” he said firmly. “Do you know how rare it is for a start-up business to be profitable in its first year? Generally it takes years, if ever, to achieve profitability. You should feel very proud of what you and your sister have accomplished.”

  And just like that, the tension in her chest and behind her eyes dissipated. She felt lighter. Hopeful. Clean again.

  Forty-six

  “ARE YOU OKAY?” Eve asked. Rhys looked pale beneath his tan. He hadn’t spoken for much of the flight, and when he did, there was something unusual in his tone. As if it took a while for her words to penetrate whatever it was he was stewing on.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Rhys.” She reached across the table, hands upward, needing contact. “Pact.”

  He exhaled. “I’m worried,” he said, placing his hand on hers. The solid warmth emanating from it comforted her. “I don’t know what we’re flying back to. I want to keep you safe, to be the hero, but I’m an actor, for Christ’s sake. I feel so ill equipped. I can’t figure out where the dots connect.” His hand tightened around hers. “There’s something we aren’t seeing. Last night, after you fell asleep, I kept turning it over and over in my brain. I feel as if I’m trying to chart a course with blinders on—like the ones they put on the horses pulling buggies through Central Park. I’m plodding down the road in front of me, but there are millions of vital details I’m missing. I know they are there. I can sense them, smell them, but I can’t bloody well see them. It’s frustrating.”

  She traced the pale scar between his knuckles with her thumb. “Rhys,” she said softly. “It’s not your job to keep the world safe. You can do what you can, and so will I, but neither one of us is God. For what it’s worth, I am a fighter. I know how to defend myself. I will not go quietly into the night.”

  “You don’t have to convince me of that,” he said, a rueful smile flickering across his face. “I was the one hog-tied and facedown on Luke’s kitchen floor. Incapacitated with a damned toaster cord, of all things.”

  “So,” she said, her gaze rising from his hand to his beloved face. “If by some freak accident something untoward happens to me, I don’t want you to waste your life blaming yourself”—he opened his mouth to argue, but she placed her fingers over his mouth—“like you do with your mom,” she whispered. “It would hurt my heart to be the cause of such sorrow.”

  “Eve,” he said, his eyes dark, tortured. So she did the only thing she could, rose from her seat, leaned over the table, and silenced him with a kiss. A gentle, barely there kiss, slow and tender and full of all she was feeling but wasn’t ready to say.

  Forty-seven

  “I WILL NOT,” the old biddy said, her voice harsh with suppressed emotion, “allow you to bring that hussy’s things into my dining room.”

  He ignored her. He draped his napkin across his thighs, then opened the oblong blue velvet jewelry box and lovingly removed Eve’s spoon.

  “I mean it.” Her voice was growing more and more shrill.

  “Enough, woman!” he shouted, slamming his hands palms-down on the table. “Stop nattering at me. You are the one who inserted yourself into my affairs. Did I ask you to go snooping around? No. So shut. The fuck. Up.”

/>   She did. Sat there, pale-faced, like she was a ghost already. Sat there silent, fists clenched, and watched him eat his Greek yogurt and bran. Watched him slide Eve’s spoon in and out of his mouth over and over.

  In and out.

  In and out.

  Tears falling in her uneaten food.

  Best breakfast he ever had. It made it so much better to have an audience. The two of them witnessing what he was doing. Knowing what it meant.

  If he had known how good it was going to be, he’d have encouraged her to snoop sooner.

  Forty-eight

  BY THE TIME the Cessna Citation X was approaching the landing field, the migraine had its claws firmly into him. The dark spots and zigzags in his vision were gone, but now the pain rampaging through the left side of his head was excruciating. The change in air pressure wasn’t helping.

  Nausea was also walloping him big-time. He hadn’t brought his damned migraine medicine. Idiot. His eyes flickered open. Luckily, Eve was enraptured by the gorgeous landscape out the window, seeing it up close, the sparkling ocean, tall evergreens, the ground rushing toward them.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she said, her face luminescent, as if lit from within.

  “Mmm,” he said, managing a smile, then let his eyes drift shut again as his hand fumbled in the pocket of his jacket for his sunglasses.

  “Minimums . . . minimums . . .” over the speaker systems. Loud. Too loud, as if someone were clapping his head between two twenty-two-inch crash cymbals. A moan escaped. He couldn’t help it.

  Eve swiveled to face him.

  Damn.

  “You aren’t well,” she said. “You should have told me.”

  He opened his mouth, tried to respond, but his words weren’t cooperating.

  She put her hand on his arm. She was trying to help, but it pulled his focus from managing the pain. His impulse was to shake her hand off, but he didn’t. Couldn’t. She wouldn’t understand. It would hurt her feelings.

  She was talking to him. “Can I get you something? Water? Some crackers?”

  Oh shit . . . The mention of food pushed him over the edge. He yanked off the safety belt and bolted down the aisle to the bathroom at the back of the plane.

  “Mr. Thomas, please, you need to be strapped in!” the steward called.

  No way in hell that’s going to happen. Rhys wrenched the bathroom door open, threw the toilet cover up, and spewed out the contents of his stomach while the plane’s wheels hit the tarmac hard. A couple of bounces, and then gradually the plane came to a stop.

  He heard the pounding of footsteps running toward him. Great. Just what I need, the woman I’m trying to impress witnessing me doing this.

  “Rhys, are you okay?” Her hand settled on his back. The movement caused another bout of vomiting, but his stomach was empty, just dry-heaving acrid air now.

  “Mr. Thomas,” the steward said. “Can we get you anything? Some ginger ale? Dry crackers?”

  “Does he have motion sickness? The flight was bumpy,” Eve said. “Didn’t seem to bother him on the way to LA, but—”

  “Please . . . don’t,” he tried to say, “talk . . . so loud.”

  But they must not have heard him, or maybe he was garbling, because the steward was talking, too. “No, miss. It can’t be that. According to his chart, Mr. Thomas doesn’t suffer from air sickness.”

  “The duck, then,” said Eve. “Must be that damned tin of duck we had this morning. Food poisoning. Didn’t affect me, because I have a cast-iron stomach, but poor Rhys.” She bent down. “So sorry it made you sick.”

  “Migraine,” he croaked.

  “Pardon?” She bent closer. “What did you say?”

  “Not . . . food poisoning . . . Migraine.”

  “Oh!” the steward exclaimed, his voice shrill with excitement.

  I aim to entertain, Rhys thought wryly as another wave of nausea overtook him.

  “I should have guessed! What a dodo brain. My husband, Mike, gets them.” The steward was still yammering on. “Honey, this is what you gotta do. Get that man of yours home. Tuck him in bed, shut the blinds, curtains, whatever. Main thing is to get that room dark.”

  “Okay,” Eve said. Rhys could hear the worry in her voice. “Anything else?”

  “And quiet.” The steward dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “They need absolute quiet when they’re like this. There’s migraine medicine they can take, too. Let me text my husband and get the name of it for you. It works like a charm.”

  “How long will it last?”

  “It’s a mystery,” the steward replied. “It can run the gamut—a couple of hours to a couple of days. But the medicine will help. Trust me. You want to pick some up.”

  Forty-nine

  SHE SETTLED RHYS in his bedroom, blackout blinds down, his phone on vibrate, a glass of water and a plate of crackers on the bedside table. “Text if you need anything,” she whispered so as not to jar his head. “I’ll check in on you every now and then to make sure you’re all right.”

  “Thanks,” he mumbled. His thick lashes flickered open for a second. He gave a ghost of a smile, a wince, and then shut his eyes again. His breath was slow and labored.

  She left the room on silent cat feet, shutting the door quietly, carefully behind her.

  Once in the living room, she called Ethelwyn, explained the situation.

  “No worries,” Ethelwyn said in her growly voice. “We love Samson. Hell, we’d keep him full-time if we could.”

  “Thanks so much. I’m not sure if it’ll be Maggie, Luke, or myself, but one of us will pick him up by dinnertime at the latest.”

  After she hung up, Eve went into the kitchen, scribbled a note for Rhys, and left it by the coffeepot so he’d be sure to see it. Then she grabbed her car keys, reset the house alarm, and slipped out the door.

  * * *

  • • •

  EVE WAS PULLING into the pharmacy parking lot when her phone rang. The glories of Bluetooth, she thought as she pressed answer. “Rhys?”

  “Hmm.” Maggie’s familiar voice came over the speaker. “Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s just the old Magster.”

  “Hi, Maggie.” Eve’s heart filled with gladness at hearing her sister’s voice. “What time are you getting in?”

  “Well, we got a little delayed. There was a huge lineup at the refueling station in Honolulu. Took forever to get back in the air. Anyway, I wanted to let you know, we’ll be landing on Solace in around three and a half hours. I’ve so much to tell you, Eve! Luke gave me the best present ever!”

  “Your hubby is so darn generous. What did he give you this time?” Her sister sounded good. Relaxed. Happy.

  “I’m not going to tell you. I want to see your face for the big reveal. That’s half the fun, but I can tell you this . . . You are not going to believe it!”

  “Maggie, I’m dying of curiosity. Give me a hint at least.”

  “Nope,” her sister said gleefully. “You’re going to have to wait. Where are you, by the way? Your voice keeps disappearing on me.”

  “In the pharmacy parking lot.”

  “Figures.” Maggie snorted. “Notoriously terrible cell reception there.”

  “Well, at least you were able to get through. Anyway, wish me luck. I’m going to try to wheedle a couple of migraine tablets out of the pharmacist. Rhys is at the house with a bad headache.”

  “You’re by yourself?” Maggie said in a stern, lecturing tone that no little sister should ever have access to. “Eve, you really shouldn’t be. Not until we figure this thing—”

  “Maggie darling, I’m parked in the middle of one of Solace’s most happening parking lots. I will walk into our pharmacy, be surrounded by people—”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Eve laughed. “Magpie, the pharmacy. Seriously. You kn
ow how many old people we have living on this island. The pharmacy is always hopping. Anyway, gotta get Rhys some medicine. See you soon. Love you tons.” Eve made a kiss-kiss noise, disconnected the call, and exited her car.

  Fifty

  A COUPLE OF hippie kids were sitting at the foot of the steps that led from the parking lot to the pharmacy and a small cluster of shops. They were strumming their guitars and singing Leonard Cohen’s “Take This Waltz,” their hat on the ground. They actually sounded pretty good. Looked skinny, hungry. The two of them sang so earnestly, it flashed Eve back to Levi in the early days, when music and love were enough.

  So, even though she was counting her pennies, she scooped some coins from the bottom of her purse and dropped them in their hat.

  The young men gave nods of thanks.

  Eve nodded back, wishing she had more to give. She pushed down a nostalgic wave of sadness, for Levi and her younger self. “But he turned himself around. Got clean,” she murmured as she pulled the door open and entered the pharmacy. “So that’s a happy something.”

  The place was hopping. As luck would have it, the first person she bumped into was Rose Shumilak in her blue employee’s smock, restocking the shampoos in the hair care section. She had forgotten Larry’s mother was working part-time at the pharmacy to supplement her retirement income.

  “Hi, Rose. Nice to see you,” she said, trying for a breezy, nothing-wrong-here tone as she attempted to ease past her.

  No such luck. Rose Shumilak’s hand darted out faster than a snake’s tongue and landed on Eve’s forearm. She had a surprisingly strong grip. “He’s still crying,” she whispered, furtively glancing around, not wanting to be overheard. “Wouldn’t touch his buttermilk pancakes, even though I made them special. You gotta let him come back.” Her face was sweaty with desperation.

  “He’ll be back at work soon. I’m sure of it,” Eve said, sending up a prayer that she wasn’t lying. “If it were up to me, he wouldn’t have needed to take a break. However, I’m only part-owner of the Intrepid. You know how protective Maggie’s husband, Luke, is. Why, if the Blessed Mother Mary herself showed up on my doorstep, he’d need to run a security check on her before he’d let her in for tea. It’s just his way.”