They all climbed in the back, Kate and Margo acting as bookends to Lyle and Lily who were dressed today in green-and-white checkerboard jumpsuits, most of their powdered faces eclipsed by big black Jackie-O sunglasses. Their wide white smiles were a flashing neon banner for joy. It occurred to Kate that these two ladies really knew how to live. Lately, she’d been doing the standby version. Next flight, happiness. Forget about this one. All booked.
Lyle and Lily had obviously figured out there was only one flight.
The driver, a small man in a Nike baseball cap, sang along to the reggae tune quaking through the speakers behind their heads. He took them on a winding road that circled the perimeter of the island, the ocean just beyond the car window.
Kate had seen some beautiful places in her life. Growing up with a father on the Forbes 100 list made traveling the kind of thing that involved Blue Star Jets and islands exclusive to those who could afford a six-digit vacation.
But for sheer physical beauty, none of those places had anything on this one. The sand looked like one long strip of powdered sugar, with graceful palm trees throwing out little canopies of shade. A group of children played tag with the incoming waves, their faces breaking into smiles as the water nipped at their heels.
“It’s breathtaking,” Margo said.
“Indeed,” Lily agreed.
“And what is it about winter that we love so much?” Lyle asked.
“Hard to remember, isn’t it?” Kate said.
As they edged away from the coast, the scenic sand and sea gave way to rolling hills dotted with houses. The ones that sat high up with a view of the ocean were huge, sprawling properties, swimming pools serving as a front yard. But the farther they got from the ocean, the more noticeable the decline in size until, a mile or so inland, the houses had become small metal structures that more closely resembled tool sheds by an American comparison.
Many of them had open fronts and looked something like three-sided lean-tos. In one, she glimpsed four sleeping bags stretched out in a row, the remnants of a campfire still smoldering just outside its opening. A woman wearing a sarong-type dress lifted a kettle from the rack above it, a toddler-age boy propped on her left hip. The quick descent from multimillion dollar homes to this was dizzying. Kate considered the reality of extreme wealth and polar-opposite poverty existing in such close proximity, each having no choice but to accept the other.
“Wow,” Margo said.
“Yes,” Lyle murmured.
No one needed to say anything more. They were obviously all thinking the same thing. They were quiet for the rest of the drive. Ten minutes later, the driver turned onto a narrow street lined with brightly colored storefronts, the green, red and yellow doors each framed by white shutters. This area was clearly created for the tourists on the island, an oasis surrounded by a desert that was almost too painful to look at.
They paid the driver and got out of the car, the four of them standing on the corner as he pulled away in a puff of black exhaust, their previously jovial mood suffering a serious turnaround.
“Well, ladies,” Lyle said. “We can stand here and feel guilty, or we can see what we might have to offer this lovely island in the way of a serious economic infusion.”
“Marvelous idea,” Lily chimed in. “Shall we?”
The two of them each offered Kate and Margo an arm and led them into the first shop they passed. A beautiful woman with skin the color of cocoa and glossy black hair that hung in a long braid down her back greeted them and asked if she might help them with something.
From there, the Granger sisters spotted a case of jewelry made from shells and asked the young woman if they might try on a few pieces. Kate and Margo wandered down an aisle to a table stacked high with beautiful carved wooden bowls. Kate picked one up and ran a finger along its smooth rim. “So you and Harry seemed to have fun yesterday,” she said.
“Yes,” Margo said, a note of wistfulness marking the word. She looked up, shook her head. “That’s not going anywhere, though.”
Kate thought about what Harry had said last night. “He likes you, Margo.”
“But?”
“I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who wants to lead a girl on.”
“He just wants to have fun.”
“Something like that.”
They followed the aisle to a display of sarong dresses. Kate began flipping through them, pulled out a royal blue one and held it up to Margo. “This would look incredible on you.”
She glanced down, smoothing a tentative hand across the skirt. “It’s not really me,” she said. “I’d never have anywhere to wear it.”
“How about here on your vacation?”
“Dad would have a cow,” Margo said.
“Does he get a vote on everything you do?”
Margo looked up, flinching a little at the question. Kate instantly regretted it. “Hey, I’m sorry. That was—”
“No, no,” she said, holding up a hand. “Believe me, I know how it looks. Thirtysomething spinster still living with her father.”
“You’re not a spinster, Margo.”
“Actually, I am,” she said. “Outdated as the word sounds.”
“May I say something?” Kate asked.
“Sure.”
Kate studied her for a moment, not wanting to overstep her bounds. Then realizing that she already had, she said, “You don’t seem very happy.”
“I guess I’m not,” she agreed, running a hand down the length of her arm.
“Then why not change the things that are making you unhappy?”
“It’s not that simple, Kate.” She was quiet for a few moments and then said in a more detached voice, “I was kidnapped when I was six years old. My dad and I were at a mall. Dad was trying on some clothes, and I was playing outside the dressing room. This man asked me if I had seen his daughter, and I walked away to help him look. It was three years before someone thought they recognized me from a newspaper picture of what I might look like at that point and called the police.”
“You were kidnapped?” Kate asked, unable to process the horror of what she’d just heard.
The other woman nodded.
“Oh, Margo.” Kate put a hand on her arm, squeezed once, searching for something to say and coming up with nothing that remotely embraced the pain she and her father must have suffered.
“It took a very long time for me to get to the point where I could make myself not think about it, but I know my dad still thinks about it every day. And even though I’m too old for it, he worries about me.”
Suddenly, Kate saw Dr. Sheldon in a completely different light. Guilt for her own unfounded assumptions settled over her. “Those years when you were gone…they must have been a living hell for him.”
Margo nodded. “The part that makes it unbearable is the not knowing. I think somehow if you know for sure that someone is never coming back, you can start piecing together some kind of life. It’s the waiting that—”
She didn’t finish, but she didn’t need to. Kate could only imagine what it must be like for a parent to lose a child in that way. It wasn’t the first time she had been guilty of judging someone without knowing anything other than what she assumed to be truth. “He’s never gotten over it, then?”
Margo shook her head. “He began suffering from depression during the time I was gone. It’s never really let go of him.”
Kate sensed there was more, asking on instinct, “You don’t blame yourself for what happened, do you?”
“Logically, no,” she said. “But maybe there’s a part of me that does. I knew I wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers—”
“You were six, Margo.”
She nodded. “I know. It’s just that I clearly remember all the talks my dad gave me. Somehow, I imagined a bad man would look like one. The man who took me looked like someone’s favorite uncle.”
“Maybe that’s one of the hardest things to teach children. That sometimes evil looks like good.”
> “Yes,” she said, turning back to the clothes rack. She began flipping through the dresses again, more, Kate suspected, to avoid looking at her than from a change of heart over buying one. “It’s not that simple.”
They browsed a while longer, silent, and then Kate said, “I know what it’s like to feel responsible for someone else’s happiness.”
Margo looked back at Kate then, her expression soft, questioning.
“My situation was very different, but I spent a good part of my life trying to be what my dad wanted me to be. Somewhere along the way, I figured out the load was more than I could carry. I was never going to meet his expectations. So I quit trying. And maybe ended up disappointing us both.”
“How so?” Margo asked.
“By basically doing exactly nothing with my life.”
“That’s a little harsh, I’m sure,” she said.
“No. It’s accurate. Unfortunately. I pretty much wasted the better part of a decade traipsing through Europe trying to convince myself I had what it takes to be an artist. Now, I look back and it’s hard for me to remember why I felt such rebellion for my father’s ways. It just seemed so important that I prove to the both of us that I didn’t need him.”
Margo’s eyes reflected quiet sympathy. Kate hadn’t known her long enough to be certain of anything. And yet, she felt a current of understanding between them that could only come from having known a similar pain. The pain, she thought, of having disappointed a loved one. And the intolerable burden of knowing they would never be able to make up for it. No matter how hard they tried.
CHAPTER TEN
There are two sides to every question.
—Protagoras
FROM THE LEDGE of a rock wall at one end of the shopping district, Cole sat, restless. He pulled out his cell phone, checking the voice mail to make sure he hadn’t missed a message. He tried to keep himself from checking it a hundred times a day, but Sam’s cautious optimism fueled his hope. It was almost easier for him to accept that he might never see his daughter again than to hang suspended in possibility.
If he had to spend the rest of his life looking for Ginny, he would never give up. He was guilty of not realizing what he had until it was gone, and he prayed for the chance to make up for it.
He spotted Kate and the others coming out of a store on the opposite side of the street. Harry had gone inside the market at the corner to get them each a bottle of water. Cole started to call out to the foursome, but then noticed Kate watching a young woman who was holding a small baby. The woman was thin, too thin, her arms bony, her cheeks sunken as if she’d been giving what sustenance she had to her child. She stood behind a small display table of necklaces and bracelets made of colorful wooden beads.
Kate walked over, smiled at the woman and picked up one of the necklaces. She said something, and the woman smiled.
The baby started to cry, and the woman rubbed a hand across her forehead. Even from where he sat, Cole could see the baby’s mouth move in a sucking motion of hunger. He wondered if the mother had anything to feed her.
He glanced at Kate, saw the look of concern on her face and realized she was wondering the same thing.
Kate turned and said something to Margo and the Granger sisters who were standing just behind her. They stepped forward and began to look at the jewelry, trying on first one strand of beads and then another. Within a couple of minutes, they had each decided on their own collection, and when they were done paying, the woman’s tabletop held not a single item left for sale.
She handed each of the women a small plastic bag containing their purchase, her smile grateful.
Harry arrived back with the water, handing Cole one. “Hey, there they are,” he said, pointing across the street.
“Yeah,” Cole said, twisting the top off the bottle and taking a long drink.
“Looks like they’ve bought the place out,” Harry said.
Kate looked across the street just then, spotted them watching her and then lifted her hand in a tentative wave. Cole held her gaze for a moment. And in a way, it felt like he was seeing her for the very first time.
* * *
COLE AND HARRY crossed the street where the four women stood waiting for them.
“Did you find all the shopping you’d hoped for?” Harry asked.
“We’ve made a good start,” Kate said, holding up a quartet of bags.
“Excellent,” Harry said. “Turns out we’re going to have a little more time here than we thought.”
“Is something wrong, Captain?” Lyle asked, looking at Cole.
“We’re going to have to spend the night here,” he said. “The part they need for the anchor has to come from another island. It may get here this afternoon, but chances are, it won’t. I think it’s best to plan on staying. We could spend the night on the boat, or there’s a nice hotel by the beach.”
“The hotel sounds wonderful,” Lily said, turning with enthusiasm to Kate and Margo. “What do you think, ladies?”
“My sea legs could use some relief,” Margo said.
“Actually, I think mine could, too,” Kate agreed.
“The hotel it is,” Cole said.
The woman with the baby walked out of the market across the street. She sat down on the wall where Cole had been sitting a few minutes before, pulling a plastic bottle of milk from her bag, then uncapping it and lifting it to the child’s mouth. The baby drank with an eagerness that attested to her hunger.
Cole glanced at Kate and found her watching the scene as well. She glanced at him then, her eyes liquid with compassion. He nodded once. She looked away, then back at him, a soft, pleased smile lifting the corners of her mouth. He realized that his recognition of her kindness meant something to her. And he was suddenly, undeniably aware that this, in turn, meant something to him.
* * *
THE SIX OF them ate lunch in town at a speck of a place on the far corner of the main street. Size had little to do with quality in this instance, the food being the kind to long for on a day when there was nothing in the refrigerator but past-date milk and wilted lettuce. The menu was family style, and they sat at a large round table on a covered terrace, passing bowls of spicy shrimp and rice and washing it down with oversize glasses of iced tea.
Harry told stories about his family, each saga worthy of its own soap opera. Their laughter rang out against the heat of the day, the sound of relaxation and enjoyment. Kate thought it amazing that only a few days ago, she’d known none of these people, and, already, she had begun to care about them.
She sat next to Dr. Sheldon, who had met them in town, making an effort to look beneath the exterior he showed the world, seeing now the not-quite-truthful sheen of his facade.
Across the table, she felt Cole’s gaze often enough that a low swirl of happiness began to stir inside her. She thought of the way he’d looked at her earlier, admiration warming his blue eyes. It was something she’d felt only rarely in her life, something she’d yearned to see in her father’s eyes. Once she’d realized that was never going to happen, she’d set out to prove him right, and basically lived her life for herself.
She closed her eyes for a moment against this image, wishing she could erase it, and yet knowing she could not. She realized, too, that if Cole could see the real Kate, the admiration in his eyes would disappear in a single blink.
* * *
AFTER LUNCH, they took a cab back to the boat for their things. Cole had made a reservation for everyone at the Ocean Breeze Beach Resort, a charming place with rooms done in earthy taupes and golds. Kate’s room had a ceiling fan that rotated in a lazy whir. A screened-in porch opened off the sitting area with cushioned chairs strewn about.
She’d just finished putting away her things when a knock sounded at the door. She opened it to find Cole standing outside, hands shoved in the pockets of khaki shorts.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
He hesitated, looked away, then brought his gaze back to hers an
d said, “The hotel offers horseback riding. The others wanted to go. Are you game?”
“Ah, sure. I haven’t been on a horse in years, but I’ll give it a try.”
“Okay,” he said with what almost sounded like relief in his voice, as if he’d been sure she’d say no. She had the feeling there was something else he wanted to say, but he backed away, raising a hand. “Great. I’ll see you downstairs then. Fifteen minutes.”
* * *
THE CONDITIONS WEREN’T exactly ideal for riding, the late afternoon heat causing Kate’s white blouse to stick to her back. The horses didn’t seem to mind, though, flicking their tails at the pesky flies with an air of resignation.
From her spot at the end of the lineup, Kate had to smile. They were a strange group. Lyle and Lily beaming atop their squeaking Western saddles. Dr. Sheldon wiping sweat from beneath the thick black rim of his glasses. Margo looking quite elegant riding alongside Harry, who was, of course, regaling her with one of his tales.
And then there was Cole. Noticeably sterner than everyone else. Blatantly ignoring her again. Two steps forward. Three steps back.
Which she now felt somehow unwilling to settle for.
She reached inside the pocket of her jeans, pulling out the water gun she’d bought at the hotel gift shop just before they’d left, thinking it would be a great way to keep cool. Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to her to use it for anything else.
Holding the reins in her left hand, she lifted the gun, taking aim at the center of Cole’s back. The water zinged out in a straight line, making a wet circle on his shirt.
Cole turned and threw her a disbelieving look. “What was that?”
She tucked the gun behind the saddle horn, schooling her features into what she hoped looked like innocence. “What?”
He shook his head, glanced at the others who looked similarly innocent, then said, “Nothing.”
Still too serious, though. Kate waited a few seconds, lifted the gun and fired again. Swoosh. The water hit the back of his head. Not bad for rookie aim.
A Woman with Secrets Page 9
