A Charmed Place

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Dull.

  Norah was right. On the whole, Maddie preferred things dull. Dull was the opposite of murder. Dull was the opposite of drink and drugs and teenage sex. Dull was the opposite of ... Daniel Hawke.

  Damn it!

  She realized, suddenly, the real reason she'd been going round and round tonight, never stopping for long to talk with anyone. She was searching for Dan Hawke, and the longer she went without seeing him, the more adrift she found herself feeling. Something had started up on Cranberry Lane on the night before. They'd reached across the darkness to one another and made some kind of emotional contact. She wanted—needed—to make that contact again.

  There was only one thing to do, Maddie told herself grimly.

  Use his bathroom.

  She made her way through the crowd one more time. It was nearly dark. She could hear the murmurs of anticipation: the fireworks would be set off any minute. She didn't have much time.

  Maddie knew what she wanted now. She wanted to watch the fireworks with him. It became incredibly important to her that she watch the Very Special Display with no one else but Dan Hawke. Why this was so, she had no idea. She was going on instinct now, headed straight for the lighthouse like a sailor for a beacon at sea.

  "Maddie! For God's sake, I've been looking all over for you."

  Her heart sank.

  "George? Ah. You made it. Hi, Claire; how's baby? Hi, Mom." Maddie hugged her mother, then hugged Claire and patted her nicely swollen belly. ''Traffic was that bad, huh?''

  "Where did you set up?" her brother asked. "I'm wiped. I've got to get a beer."

  "I didn't set up any chairs," she said with an apologetic look. "There was no place to park this year, as you probably just found out, so I couldn't bring my car."

  "What the hell are we supposed to do? Stand?"

  Claire jumped in to justify her husband's bad temper. "You wouldn't believe the jam-up on the bridge. We were hoping the heavy traveling would be over by now. That was naive. And you're right about the parking; George ended up leaving the car at Rosedale."

  Claire rolled her eyes in the direction of Sarah's mother, tipping Maddie off that Sarah Timmons was having a hard time tonight as well.

  In fact, Sarah was on a different wavelength from all of them—distant and sad. "Maddie, honey," she told her daughter in a gentle, tired voice, "I'm too beat after that battle with traffic to enjoy craning my neck at the sky for half an hour. I think I'll just walk back to Rosedale now."

  She did look stiff and more bent over than Maddie had seen her before. And even in the dark, her hair seemed more silver than gray. Sixty-eight—bent and silver? It didn't seem possible.

  "Mom, no, don't leave. It's going to be three times better this year. I've been shaking down contributions from every store and business around. I—"

  "Oh, I won't miss anything; don't worry about that. I'll watch it all through an upstairs window."

  Ah, no.

  "Watch it here!" Maddie insisted. She came up with a desperate plan. "You know what? Tracey and a couple of her girlfriends have a blanket. You could sit with them!"

  Maddie saw that the idea, awful as it was, had some appeal.

  "That might be nice," her mother agreed. "I never see Tracey except on the fly anymore. Where is she sitting?"

  Maddie gave her precise directions and then a gentle nudge. That left George and Claire. George was adamant about having a beer before they shut down the stand, and Claire wanted to stay with him, so they agreed that just this once, it would be every man for himself.

  "Are you sure?" Maddie asked her sister-in-law, feeling a vague surge of guilt about her condition.

  "Maddie, you act as if I may give birth on the sand. I'm only seven months gone. I just look nine."

  "Yes, but it's all very localized, isn't it?" Maddie said, grinning. "You look great, Claire."

  "And I feel it." Something in Maddie's manner made Claire suddenly say, "Now go. You're obviously in a hurry to be somewhere."

  Claire, lovely Claire. Maddie kissed her perceptive relative and ran to join—she couldn't believe it—the line for the bathroom in the keeper's house. It was shorter now; people were positioning themselves for the fireworks. Trixie, flaunting her power, spotted Maddie and directed her to use the upstairs bathroom instead.

  Perfect! Maddie took the stairs two at a time, hardly bothering to take in the shabby state of the house, and came to a halt on the dimly lit upstairs landing. There were five doors on it, all of them closed.

  She threw open the first door to a room with two metal beds, both unassembled, their stained, worn mattresses stacked up vertically against the wall. The room was dank and had an unpleasant smell, which wasn't surprising. The house had been rented to all manner of free spirits over the years. Not all of them were first-rate homemakers.

  The second door opened onto a room that might have been used for a dressing room; it was too small for a bed.

  Third door: the bathroom itself, which she ignored.

  Fourth: a pleasant room facing the sea, with a neatly made- up bed and sheer curtains on the window. It wasn't a room that looked lived in. Probably a guest room. Not that he ever had guests.

  That left what she knew was Dan's room, the one that faced Rosedale cottage, the one whose lamp blinked a mournful code every night, a code she could not fathom. Maddie took a deep breath, prepared to be lost and looking for the bathroom, and boldly opened the door.

  Opened it to Norah, looking smashing in a red slip dress and sitting in a reading chair with her legs crossed and a glass of white wine in her hand.

  Her presence there seemed so reasonable.

  Her presence there seemed so shocking.

  "Norah! Hi! I'm looking for ... the ... room," Maddie stammered, her rehearsed little speech all shot to hell.

  "The bathroom?" Norah said with a wary smile. "It's downstairs."

  "No, it's full. Trixie said to come here."

  Trixie said? Pathetic!

  "In that case, Dan's bathroom is two doors down on the right. The switch is on the outside wall."

  "Okay." Maddie began to close the door, then opened it again.

  Still there.

  "Norah—you wouldn't by any chance be waiting for the lighthouse committee to convene here, would you?"

  Norah laughed and said, "Nope."

  "I didn't think so. Okay."

  Maddie closed the door again and tiptoed away, aware that she had just seen Norah in a whole new mode. This was nothing like everyday flirting Norah. This was Norah hot on the trail. She reminded Maddie of a cat, sleek and taut and entirely focused on the hunt. To Norah, Maddie had obviously been little more than a passing car in her peripheral vision.

  Maddie wanted to resent her old friend, but somehow she couldn't, any more than she could resent her cat for hunting birds. Norah was doing what the Norahs of the world were born to do: tracking down men and pinning them to mattresses.

  Downstairs, Maddie waved her thanks to Trixie, who'd begun the process of shutting down the line for the bathroom, and then she beat a retreat. She stood outside at the top of the stairs, surprised to see how shaken she was by the encounter with Norah, and ran through possible scenarios.

  The good news was, Norah was more scrupulous than most. She'd never take a married man to bed; her rules about that were rigid.

  The bad news was, Dan wasn't married.

  The good news was, Norah would tire of him soon and shoo him back out to join the rest of the walking wounded.

  The bad news was, Dan might not be able to hobble away.

  The good news was, Norah was becoming a better, kinder, more thoughtful person as she looked forty in the eye.

  The bad news was, she might decide not to shoo Dan away.

  Oh, damn, oh, damn, oh, damn.

  The sinking feeling was new and scary. Dull was one thing, excitement another, but this was neither. It was wrenching and painful and it left Maddie breathless with anxiety.

  Where w
as he?

  "Hey."

  She whipped her head to the right. There, at her elbow, he was there. After all this, he was right there, close enough to kiss.

  Chapter 14

  "Hey yourself," Maddie said softly.

  Dan said, "I've been looking all over for you."

  The relief in his voice was obvious, even to her. Joy bubbled up through her smile. "And now you've found me. They tell me you're a local hero."

  "Neither local nor hero," Dan said, deflecting the compliment with his own smile. "Just connected."

  "And here I thought you were a loner."

  "I will be," he quipped, "unless you agree to watch the fireworks with me."

  And fly to the moon right after? You bet.

  Maddie glanced around, trying to seem offhand. "Well, somehow I seem to have got separated from everyone else, so ...."

  She shrugged and said, "Sure. I don't mind. Do you want to walk a little farther down the beach?''

  "The farther the better," he said in a new, low voice.

  Jittery from the sound of that voice, she explained, "It's easier to view the fireworks from a little distance; you don't get such a stiff neck. I feel sorry for my poor m—"

  No. Not now. No one else now. Only him. Only her.

  They fell in step, and almost immediately the crowd dissolved into a swarm of softly buzzing nighttime sounds. Maddie heard no talking, saw no bodies.

  Only him. Only her.

  She said, "Really, thanks for getting the charcoal. Mickey Baretsky is so impressed."

  Dan laughed and said, "When someone that big says 'jump,' you don't say no, you just ask how high."

  "Right."

  I like this, she thought. I like walking on the beach with him. A lot.

  And suddenly she knew why: she had done it before, on the same beach, with the same man. Their first kiss was on that stretch of beach.

  The crowd had thinned out by now, with only occasional dark shadows moving around to remind them that they weren't alone on some island.

  He said, "You know what I was just thinking?"

  "Maybe," she said, still smiling.

  "I was thinking that this is how we started."

  "Me too."

  "I was thinking how much I'm enjoying it this time as well."

  "Me too."

  "I was thinking..."

  He paused, and she did too. "What?" she whispered.

  "This," he said, taking her in his arms. His mouth covered hers in a kiss of surpassing tenderness, a kiss that had both less and more than passion in it, a kiss that wrapped itself around her soul and claimed her for its own.

  Had she been kissed like that in the last twenty years? No ... and maybe not ever.

  When he released her at last, she said nothing, but only sighed. It was all that was left of her soul; he might as well have that too.

  He leaned his forehead onto hers. His voice cracked with emotion as he murmured, "I've waited ... so long ... for that. My whole life. Maddie ... my whole life."

  She tried to say something, but her own voice was much too torn by longing, a hopeless rag of a voice. So she cradled her hands around the back of his head and drew him to her for another kiss, to express the thoughts she could not say.

  The second kiss simmered, then began to churn, then boil, then ended abruptly in a jolting cacophony of thunder and light, color and din.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  The fireworks had begun.

  They broke away with awkward laughs, his more forced than hers.

  "Post-traumatic stress syndrome," he quipped. "I've covered too much combat."

  "I didn't know that," she said, but the rest of her thought was drowned out by the overture on the beach.

  They dropped where they were to watch. Dan planted himself solidly on the ground, the way men do: legs pulled up, knees aimed skyward, feet flat on the sand. His forearms were looped over his knees, and his hands dangled idly from there. Maddie, who'd watched so many fireworks displays in her life, opted for a more comfortable position. She folded her legs beneath her and leaned back on her hands, angling her upper body to be in line with her head and neck.

  Here it was, the show of shows. Was it worth the work and the wait?

  Yes. The overture itself was spectacular: Roman candles shooting off their stars of fire; Catherine wheels tumbling in blue circles high in the air; suns radiating fire-red sparks out and out and farther out still; pastilles spiraling frenetically upward through them all; and high, high above everything—a magnificent skyrocket, exploding in a colossal burst of silver raindrops over all the color and noise below it.

  Welcome, folks, the fireworks said. We hope you have a nice time.

  Maddie felt a wide grin of delight plant itself firmly on her face. "Oh! This is fabulous!" she said, though she knew that Dan couldn't possibly hear her.

  She stole a quick glance at him and was astonished to see that he was watching her and not the overture. Heat rolled through her, adding inexpressible pleasure to the ground swell of emotions building up inside her.

  This is it—what I want. Finally, this is it.

  After firing off the sensational sample of their wares, the Domenico Brothers settled down to play a symphony for their entranced audience. The theme was simple—red, white, and blue—but the number of variations on it was dazzling. Ripples of pleasure washed over Maddie with every subtle play of suns and rockets, every rollicking mix of pinwheels and pastilles.

  Like everyone else, she sighed and gasped and continually clapped her hands in joy. The pleasure was so fleeting, so intense—each burst of brilliance hardly subsided before it was replaced by the next one—that Maddie became almost frustrated in her bliss. If she could just stop the moment, any one of them, how perfect life would be.

  Did Dan feel that way too? "You're not watching," she chided during a spectacular burst of color.

  "Oh, but I am," he said, hooking her hair behind her ear.

  She laughed shyly and said, "The fireworks, I mean."

  Leaning over to kiss her, he said, "Does it matter?"

  She was amazed to realize that it did not. All that really mattered was that she was there with him.

  Under a shower of radiant silver, they kissed for the third time in two decades. Maddie closed her eyes to the fireworks, to savor the taste of him after all the years without him. His mouth covered hers, his tongue sought hers in an exquisitely familiar way.

  "Maddie, Maddie," he murmured, dropping random soft kisses on her cheek, her chin, her mouth again. "It's the same as before, isn't it. Tell me it is."

  "Yes," she whispered, "oh, yes ...."

  And then she caught her breath. "But ... it isn't," she said, suddenly distressed. "How can it be?"

  He kissed her again, more insistently now, holding her close with one arm while bracing himself in the sand with the other. His lips parted hers, his tongue sought hers, all with new urgency. Suddenly he broke off the kiss, his voice hoarse, compelling. "Tell me it is," he said, half in a moan. "Maddie, it is!"

  "How can it be, after what happened?" she said in a low cry, averting her mouth from his. "Dan ... it can never be the same," she forced herself to say. "We have to accept that."

  He turned her face back to his and tried to kiss away her objections, but she said, "No, no, wait, please wait—don't you see? It can't be the same, any more than you can put your hand in the same river twice."

  Why was she trying so hard to break the spell cast over them? She thought it must be from a sense of guilt. But it hardly mattered, because in that instant the Domenico Brothers decided to wrap up the show. They fired off their grand finale, a tempest of blinding colors, riotous displays, and eardrum-shattering sounds, all of it mixed with the wild cheers and whoops of the crowd that was itself whipped into a frenzy of enthusiasm by the explosions and starbursts above and around them.

  It looked and felt like the end of the world, and in a way, it was. Because when Maddie looked away from Dan in confus
ion and anguish, she found herself face to face with an outraged witness to their torrid encounter: her ex-husband, once a friend of Maddie and of Dan, now estranged from them both.

  He was standing not more than ten feet from them. He'd been walking away from the fireworks, and he'd obviously stopped, frozen in midstride, when he saw them. In the bright, blinding burst of the final skyrocket Maddie saw him clearly, saw the demonic fury in his face.

  Which meant he must have seen the torment and agony on hers.

  She turned back to Dan, already tense from the mass launching of firepower. His gaze was fixed squarely on Michael.

  And then the last bright rocket died away, plunging the three of them headlong into a shadowy hell of uncertainty.

  The beach was dark now, but alive with humanity on the move. Maddie was just able to make out Michael turning abruptly on his heel and melting back into the crowd.

  Dan was obviously affected by the encounter as well. "I didn't expect a handshake from him," he said as he helped Maddie to her feet, "but I could've done without the evil eye."

  "He's angry; he can't understand how—"

  "You can have anything to do with me?"

  Maddie bowed her head. "Something like that."

  Dan tucked his forefinger under her chin and lifted her face to his. "I'm far more amazed than he is," he whispered, and then he lowered his mouth to hers in another, more hesitant kiss.

  But the image of her infuriated ex-husband was still too vivid for Maddie to be able to respond.

  Dan sighed, then released her and said softly, "We'll go somewhere. Where?"

  "Oh, Dan—nowhere. I promised—"

  "Ah, right, Tracey. Of course."

  "No, Tracey has her grandmother with her. It's Norah. She's having a late-night fundraiser at her house, and I'm doing part of the presentation."

  "Then I'll go with you," he said simply.

  Maddie remembered Norah sitting in Dan's bedroom and sipping wine. Norah would be heading home now, wondering where he had got lost.

  "I don't know if that's a good idea."

  His laugh was wry. "It's a godawful one. So what? I can't let you go now, Maddie. I can't."