by Mary McNear
Had she overstepped some boundary? she wondered. A moment later, though, Everett put his arms around her, and drew her to him. She put her head on his chest, and closed her eyes, and he tightened his arms around her. And they lay that way, without saying anything, as the light grew brighter outside the windows, and the birds started stirring in the trees. Birdy, Win thought to herself, listening to their songs, and for a moment she felt unbearably sad. But Everett was solid and warm beside her. She could feel him breathing slow, rhythmic breaths, and she could feel his heart beating, reassuringly, just inches from her ear. They had both seen death, she thought, but they were also both, at this moment, very much alive.
CHAPTER 14
Sam leaned against the front porch railing at Birch Tree Bait and looked out over the lake. It was early evening; the color was slowly draining out of the sky, the feathery clouds were backlit by the coppery glow of the lowering sun, and the pine trees seemed to be gathering their cool, green shadows within them. And everything—the sky, the clouds, and the trees—was reflected in the glass smooth surface of the lake. This was Sam’s favorite time of day. There was a sense of time slowing down, of the day unwinding itself, of evening setting in at its own relaxed, unhurried pace. Across the bay, a lone canoe glided, sedately, over the water, and, above the tree line, an osprey flew in a lazy circle.
Linc and Jordy had finished loading the kayaks onto the storage racks, their laidback conversation drifting over to Sam on the porch, and Justine was gathering up the stray life vests from the dock in an absentminded way that suggested she’d already left work, in spirit if not in actual fact. Poppy was inside closing up the store; Sam could feel the allure of her even from out here on the porch. He resisted the urge to go back inside, though. He needed to think. It was almost a week since he’d kissed Poppy in his kitchen, almost a week since he’d told her, the next morning, that they couldn’t have a physical relationship with each other. But Sam understood now that that conversation had closed one door, only to open another one instead.
And now, looking out over the lake, he replayed that morning in his mind. The first thing he’d done after opening Birch Tree Bait was waylay Margot at the coffee counter and ask her if he could speak to her in his office. What followed were five excruciating minutes during which Sam explained to her, as gently as he could, that he valued her much more as a friend than as a girlfriend. This was true. But it left out some crucial information, like the fact that he wasn’t attracted to her and the fact that the high point of his night with her had been coming home and kissing Poppy. Still, he hoped that she would take it well, and she did. She left his office with her head held high. She was a class act, as far as Sam was concerned, but, as it turned out, she was also human. She hadn’t been back to Birch Tree Bait since then, more proof that it had never been the coffee she’d come for in the first place.
The second thing he’d done that morning was ask Poppy if he could speak to her. “Sure,” she said, almost shyly. She was standing on a step stool, arranging boxes of cereal on a top shelf, but she jumped down lightly and brushed the dust off her hands. “What’s up?”
“Let’s talk in my office,” he said. But by the time he was settled in behind his desk, and she was sitting in the only other chair in the room, he felt as stymied as he had by his conversation with Margot. This would be difficult, too, though for totally different reasons. For one thing, the room seemed too small for both of them, especially after that kiss. He could still smell her hair, and still feel the softness of her lips beneath his.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, finally, looking a little worried.
Spit it out, Sam. Just spit it out. “Everything’s fine. But . . . what happened last night, that can’t happen again.”
“Why?” She had definitely not seen this coming.
“Because it’s not right,” he said, leaning his elbows on his desk. “You’re my employee. I’m your boss. This is a small business, in a small town.”
She nodded, thoughtfully. “Okay. I understand. But . . . what if I wasn’t your employee? What if I quit?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “For one thing, you need this job. You told me that yourself when I hired you.”
“I need a job, Sam,” she pointed out. “If I quit this one, I’ll get another one. It shouldn’t be that difficult. It’s summertime, in a resort community.”
“There’s more to it than that, though. What if . . . this thing,” he said, making a gesture that included both of them, “what if it doesn’t work out? Then you’ve given up your job, and . . .”
She smiled at him. “That’s a chance I’m willing to take. And why . . . why do we have to think that far ahead anyway?”
“You don’t have to,” he said. “But I do.” I have to. And that was why this conversation was so important. He didn’t have the freedom that she had. He couldn’t afford to take the chances that she could take. His life was inextricably linked to his children’s lives, and to the business that paid their bills. And there was something else, too, something that had been bothering him. What did he really know about Poppy? She was beautiful, yes. But what else? Well, she loved Red Vines and loathed low fat mayonnaise. She was the fastest shelf stocker he’d ever had, and that included Justine. She could execute a perfect chin roll with her baton, at least according to Cassie, who adored her. And, once or twice, he’d seen something in her, a fragility maybe, or a vulnerability, that seemed to belie her usually carefree demeanor. It wasn’t a lot to know about someone, he conceded, though it was enough to make him want to know more.
“Poppy,” he said. “What if . . . what if we took some time to get to know each other?”
“You mean, what if we ‘dated’?” she asked, brightening.
“It wouldn’t be dating per se,” he said, carefully. “It would be more like spending time together. You know, hanging out,” he added.
“Yeah, okay,” she said, a little hesitantly. “But what would we do?”
He smiled. “We’d talk.”
And over the last week, that was exactly what they’d done. They’d talked. Their timing, actually, was perfect. The days continued to be hectic, but the evenings, for Sam at least, were unusually relaxed; the kids had been with Alicia in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she took them every summer to visit her family for a week at the end of July. So, instead of leaving Birch Tree Bait at closing every evening, Sam was free to stay late, ostensibly to work on those projects he rarely had time for during the busy season, but in reality, to be with Poppy. And Poppy, who’d perfected the art of hanging back at the end of the workday, always found something that needed doing five minutes before her shift was over. Did the other employees notice this? Did they know that she and Sam conspired to be alone after work? Probably. They didn’t try that hard to hide it. But if this lent an illicit quality to their time together, there was, in actuality, nothing illicit about it. Sam didn’t cross that line again, and Poppy didn’t encourage him to cross it, either.
They couldn’t control everything. They couldn’t control their attraction to each other. That was there, between them, in everything they did. It was the reason why Sam didn’t invite her over to his cabin for dinner. He didn’t trust himself. And it was why he didn’t ask her out to dinner, either. Anything that felt too much like a date was bound to end in trouble. Instead, they hung out at Birch Tree Bait for a couple of hours, until it got late and Sam walked Poppy to her car. Usually, during this time, they sat on the front porch, or down at the dock, or, if the evening was cool, inside at the coffee counter.
Poppy told him about her childhood summers on Butternut Lake, and about how those days were among the happiest of her life. She told Sam stories—some funny, and some not so funny—about her flaky mom and her irresponsible, fun loving, but hard drinking dad. She talked a lot about Win, too, whom she loved like crazy, but whom she worried about. Her sister was definitely a little OCD, she explained to Sam, an
d, despite a new flirtation with a guy named Everett, she still spent too much of her time organizing the things she’d saved from her marriage to her late husband. Poppy’s relationship with her cat, Sasquatch, was much less complicated, she explained to Sam. It, and he, were both perfect.
She also told Sam about the string of unrewarding jobs she’d had. She tried to make some of these sound amusing, but it was clear that they’d invariably left her feeling empty. One thing she was not forthcoming about, though, was her past relationships. On this subject she was vague, and Sam didn’t feel he had the right to press for any more information.
He told Poppy about his life, too. About his own stalwart and responsible parents, and about his two brothers, who had both settled out west and who he didn’t see nearly enough of anymore, but who he stayed in touch with through email and Skype. He told her about college, about opening Birch Tree Bait, and about some of the adventures, and misadventures, he and Linc had shared in the outdoors. He told her his favorite stories about Cassie and Tim and Hunter, and he talked about his own childhood on Butternut Lake. He said that he and Poppy must have crossed paths at some point during the summers she’d spent here as a kid, maybe at Pearl’s, or at the American Legion’s Friday night fish fries. But Poppy pointed out that when she was ten, Sam was eighteen; he wouldn’t have noticed her if they had crossed paths. He didn’t tell her everything, though. He didn’t tell her that the more time they spent together, the more attracted to her he was, and the less likely it seemed to him that the two of them could exist in this kind of limbo much longer . . .
“See you tomorrow, Sam,” Linc called out now, from the parking lot, as he straddled his motorcycle and started the engine. Sam waved to him, thinking that Linc looked like a kid with a new toy, which in fact he was. He turned to go back inside the store to help Poppy close up, but no sooner had he crossed its threshold than he changed his mind. It was too beautiful outside for either of them to be in here.
“Poppy?” he said, finding her near the sunscreen display. She was finishing up some last minute stocking.
“Hey Sam,” she said, “I’m almost done. I haven’t closed out the register, though. Justine hasn’t showed me how to do it yet.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll do it after you leave,” he said, opening the refrigerated case behind him. “Do you want something to drink? We can take it down to the lake.”
“Sure. I’ll have a lemonade,” Poppy said. Sam grabbed one for her and an iced tea for himself, and they headed out the back door and down to the water.
“Your kids are due back tonight, aren’t they?” Poppy asked, as she sat down at the end of the dock. She kicked her sandals off, rolled up her jeans, and dipped her feet in the water.
“Uh-huh. They’ll be here in . . . another couple of hours,” he said, checking his watch. He sat down next to her, leaving a few feet of space between them. It didn’t matter, though. They didn’t have to be touching each other for Sam to feel the incredible charge between them.
“Did they have a good time?” Poppy asked, her eyes following a family of loons swimming along the shoreline.
“They did. I mean, Hunter got poison ivy and Cassie cut her foot on a bottle cap at the beach, but no vacation with children would be complete without a couple of minor disasters. Otherwise, they loved being with their cousins. I mean, you know what that’s like, don’t you?”
“I don’t, actually. I don’t have any cousins. Both of my parents were only children.”
“Well, it’s like siblings, only in some ways, it’s better, because there’s no . . . baggage. You haven’t spent your whole life competing with each other for your parents’ attention.”
She considered this. “That does sound nice. But in Win’s case and mine, our baggage isn’t from competing for our parents’ attention. They ignored both of us equally,” she said wryly.
Sam looked over at her but she smiled and splashed her feet, as though she were kicking the idea away. He’d never had a thing for feet before, he thought, watching her suntanned toes dip in and out of the water, but he decided he could probably develop one for hers. They were so pretty, though, in truth, no prettier than any other part of her, her earlobes, for instance, or her knees, or her wrists. And he suddenly felt a kind of erotic energy between them, a pull that had been there all week, whenever they were physically close to each other, and sometimes, even when they weren’t.
She swayed slightly towards him now, as if in response to his thoughts.
“Sam?” she said.
“Yes?”
“I quit.”
“You quit?”
“Uh-huh. I’m resigning from Birch Tree Bait. Effective immediately.”
“Are you sure about that?” he asked.
“Positive,” she said, a smile playing around her lips.
And he leaned over and kissed her, kissed her the way he’d wanted to kiss her the first time he’d seen her, holding that dusty bottle of wine. And she slipped her arms around him and kissed him back. Poppy. She was so sweet. She tasted so sweet. She tasted like . . . like Red Vines, the licorice candy she was always eating. And she felt so soft, he thought, folding her into his arms. He ran a hand through her hair. He’d wanted to do this, too; he’d felt as if it had been almost begging him to touch it.
The kiss changed now. It was still sweet, but harder to contain. He held her closer, and kissed her more deeply. He ran his hand up from her waist, and it brushed, gently, against the side of her breast. She flinched, and pulled away.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, instantly concerned.
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong,” she said, catching her breath.
“Did I . . . ?” Did I do something I shouldn’t have? Sam wanted to say.
“No,” she said, looking away from him and pulling her hair back in a ponytail. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
But at that moment, Sam’s cell phone vibrated in his back pocket. He pulled it out, checking to make sure it wasn’t Alicia or one of the kids. “It’s Linc,” he said, apologetically. “I should take it.”
“What’s up?” Sam asked, still watching Poppy.
“Nothing’s up,” Linc said. “I just swerved to avoid a deer, and I ended up running my bike off the road.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Just a little scraped up,” Linc said, which Sam knew could mean anything. Linc had a tremendous gift for understatement.
“You’re sure you’re not hurt?” he pressed him.
“No, But my bike won’t start. Could you . . . ?”
“Yeah. I’ll come and get you. Just tell me where you are.”
When Sam hung up, he explained the situation to Poppy.
“Poor guy,” she said. “You better get going, Sam.” She walked him to his truck.
“Can you lock up for me?” he asked, handing her the keys to Birch Tree Bait.
“Of course. I don’t know how to close out the register, though.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll do it in the morning before we open. And, uh, come in tomorrow,” he said, sorry that he had to leave her like this. “You can pick up your last paycheck and we can figure out a time to have dinner or something.” He gave her a quick kiss before he opened the door to his pickup. But something about her expression made him hesitate before he got in. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked her.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, smiling. “Go.” But there was a tremulous quality about her smile that Sam remembered long after he’d driven away.
CHAPTER 15
When Poppy went back inside Birch Tree Bait, the setting sun was filtering in through the shutters, turning the light in the room pink, and casting horizontal shadows onto the walls. It was quiet inside; quiet enough to hear the breeze from the overhead fan ruffling a newspaper someone had left on the coffee counter, quiet enough to hear the alternating buzz and hum of the freezer cases. She’d never been here alone after hours, and she might have enjoyed it—it was stran
gely soothing—if she hadn’t been so full of anger. Not at Sam, at herself. What is wrong with me? she thought, resisting the urge to kick the stepladder that was parked at the end of one of the aisles, and instead dragging it over to a window and sitting down on it. What happened to me down at the dock? She twisted her hands in the hem of her T-shirt, her body taut with frustration. Why did I panic like that? I wanted Sam to kiss me, and to touch me. I’ve wanted it since that night in his kitchen. No, since before that night. So why did I pull away from him? But the answer came back to her almost immediately: For the same reason you’ve always pulled away from everyone.
But Sam was different, wasn’t he? And, more importantly, she was different with Sam. She chewed, impatiently, on her lower lip, and felt her anger recede, a little, only to be replaced by disappointment. She wanted to be close to Sam, in more ways than one. So why couldn’t she just let herself be? Just . . . turn off the part of her that had flinched when he’d touched—no, grazed—the side of her breast. Because it’s not that simple, Poppy. And you know it.
She blew out a long, slow breath, and, bathed in the pink light from the windows, she forced herself to think about all of this. It wasn’t easy. She’d been careful to compartmentalize her life, and her past. And while she might not have Win’s organization skills when it came to kitchen utensils, she had them when it came to her memories. She was good at separating out the ones that were painful, and of relegating them to their own little-used drawer. Of course, they hadn’t always stayed where she’d put them. And sometimes, after she’d cracked the drawer open on them, it was hard to slam it shut again. But tonight was different. Tonight, she would let herself remember, really remember, something she’d spent half a lifetime trying to forget . . .
