Sandpiper Island (The Bachelors

by Donna Kauffman

  Smiling at the whimsical concept of having a bedroom at the top of a tree house, wondering if that felt like sleeping up among the stars, she walked back over to the kitchen before he looked down and caught her spying up at him.

  She took a moment to check out the kitchen itself, marveling that it wasn’t some kind of abbreviated camp stove kind of thing, but an actual fully functioning kitchen. “The wonders of modern technology,” she murmured. She supposed with the right kind and number of generators and gas-powered gizmos, a person could build anything, anywhere. She paused beside the door that led out to the deck and her smile widened at the small, red-and-yellow-striped pot buoy that hung there, with various and sundry key rings hanging from the hooks. Pot buoys were how lobstermen marked their pots out on the water, but they’d also become a symbol of the fishing traditions that were such a big part of Maine’s history. You couldn’t drive a block through town without seeing a cluster of them hanging here or there, as kind of a talisman of that proud heritage.

  She wondered if there was a story behind Ford’s buoy. She’d have to ask him. She reached out and rubbed her hand over the heavy trunk of the pine tree that formed one of the corners. She supposed if she’d pictured his place, she’d assumed the tree would run up through the middle with the house built around it, something, she supposed, like Eula March’s shop, built around her oak tree. But she saw now the wisdom of using naturally spaced trees as he had to distribute the burden of the weight of the structure itself, along with the people and things that were inside it.

  She was quite certain if she asked him about any aspect of the construction of the place, he would be able to give her the same in-depth, encyclopedic rundown of what was entailed in much the same way he’d told her about the seabird colonies and their mating and migratory habits.

  Her smile widened at the thought, and she went back to the kitchen to start on the evening meal. She started with the fridge, opening the door of the small unit. Bigger than dorm size, it was as tall as she was, but narrower. “And no freezer,” she noted, when she opened it.

  “I have a freezer chest built into the shed that sits below the house,” Ford said, and she whirled to find him standing behind her.

  “I swear I’m going to hang a bell around your neck,” she said, “and don’t think I won’t.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, in his best military polished tone. “Begging your pardon, ma’am.”

  She rolled her eyes at that, which made his serious soldier face break into a smile, and she was happy to see him look a little more relaxed. So what if his smiling soldier face made her heart do that little stutter step inside her chest again? She’d just have to find a way to manage that. At least for the next twelve or so hours. Good thing you’ll be sleeping for most of that time.

  “I could say I’d like to see you try,” he added, “but if there’s anyone who could accomplish that it would be—well, you know, now that I think about it, I’d have to say Peg maybe—probably—then Eula; Grace would just wheedle me until I begged her to put it on me; but then you next after that. Definitely.”

  Delia laughed. “I’d say I was insulted at not even breaking the top three, except I’m pretty sure you’ve got the pecking order right on that one.”

  He flashed a brief smile, and she realized that he’d smiled more today with her than she could remember him doing, well . . . ever. It did put that bit of light in his eyes she’d wondered about, and the effect was downright mesmerizing. So much so she got caught up in them for a moment, then blinked and quickly turned back to the open fridge door. Because it was that or run across the small kitchen area and jump him. Come on, cold refrigerator air, cool me down. Cool me way down. “So,” she said, probably a shade too brightly, as she rummaged. “You know Eula March? How did that come about?”

  “Maybe I was in the market for some nice antiques,” he said, trying to sound insulted by the question, but there was obvious amusement in his tone.

  Which was another new thing. A new thing that also increased his jump me quotient. By a lot. She started moving things around on the narrow shelves so she could see what was behind them, praying for something to distract her. “I’d say okay, except I don’t know that I recall Eula having old oak wine barrels as part of her inventory.”

  “Well, she should. I think they’d be a big hit in coastal décor.”

  She laughed again, and thought, I am such a goner. Unless he did or said something incredibly insensitive or stupid, it was only a matter of time before she did something embarrassing.

  As a young soldier returned from war, he’d been all alpha strong, with tragic grief giving him that vulnerable edge that had made him irresistible to her oh-so-young, recently broken heart. As a special forces veteran of the kinds of missions she’d never be able to fathom, even if she tried, he’d been reclusive, wounded, but searching, and her thirtysomething heart had melted once again.

  Now . . . now, however, he was a man more fully evolved, one who’d managed to put his life into sharp perspective, and had come out the other side with a new path, a new mission. He was a man who knew what he wanted, and—more important—was sincerely good with what he’d found. He was solid, and strong and, to her surprise, a lot more open and relaxed with her than she’d ever anticipated him being. Rather than making him less interesting, or less desirable, it made him quite the opposite. He was more even keel, steady, and stable, yes, but he still had an edge, still exuded that raw masculinity, that instinctively protective, I’ll-do-battle-for-you vibe. And that particular combination was . . . well, it was perfect. To her.

  You are in so much trouble here.

  She realized then just how true that was. She didn’t merely want Ford in the jump-his-bones, no-strings, casual, let’s-not-get-too-serious kind of way she’d turned into an art form. Maybe it was finding out that a lasting friendship with Langston deVry was even more satisfying than a short-lived physical fling would have been, but her concept of relationships with the opposite sex had started to undergo a change over the past summer. Grace’s coming to the Cove, and pulling Delia into her reunited family situation had started to change things, too, especially since the other part of that family unit was Ford. The dreams had started. So had that little seed of disquiet. And with that, everything else had started to change, too, she realized. Winstock’s devious end run to steal her diner out from under her had just brought it all bubbling to the surface where she was forced to confront it, forced to figure out what the hell it was she really wanted.

  She just hadn’t known what was wrong, what that disquiet was all about, the internal sense of something . . . missing. Not a family of her own, she’d determined, so she’d assumed it had to be professional, that maybe she needed to rethink what she was doing with her life, and what, maybe, she should be doing instead. Something to fill that sudden emptiness she felt growing inside herself.

  Now as she looked at Ford, an entirely different realization started to blossom. Maybe what she was missing wasn’t family, wasn’t a new occupation, or hobby or . . . anything like that. Maybe it was something as simple, and as terrifying, as wanting there to be someone in her life to share the journey with. Wherever that journey might lead.

  She closed her eyes and pictured Ford Maddox as he was now, as he’d been with her today, and knew that the possibility of actively wanting to develop something more with him was very much up for consideration. And she honestly didn’t know what to do about that. She had spent her entire adult life actively avoiding such connections.

  “Actually,” he said, completely unaware of the profound epiphany she was having while moving milk cartons and sifting through wrapped packages of lunch meat. “I went into her shop when I got interested in building a tree house. I wanted to see how she’d built around the one in her shop.”

  Delia forcibly shut down the mental track her brain had taken, and tried to ignore the slight tremor in her hand as she moved a bottle of salad dressing. She jerked herself back to the
conversation, proud of the sardonic look she managed to shoot him over her shoulder. “And how’d that work out for you?” See? Friendly banter. That’s what they were. Friends. Who bantered. She should be thankful to have that much. Was thankful.

  “About as well as you can imagine,” he said sardonically. “She actually accused me the other day of dropping by to make ‘googly eyes’—her words—at her oak tree.”

  Delia smiled, having no problem whatsoever imagining the eccentric shop owner saying exactly that. She moved a pitcher of iced tea, frowned at the bottle of what looked like green juice that was behind it. Juice should never be green. Then smiled again when she found a half carton of eggs. She added it to the wrapped block of sharp cheddar cheese and another of mild Swiss she’d already moved to one side to start her meal-making stash. Food, just focus on the food. You can analyze life epiphanies later. Food you understand.

  Then his exact words sank into her brain and she straightened and looked over her shoulder at him. “So you’ve been by Eula’s shop since you came back to the Cove to help me? Still trying to lure magic oak tree secrets out of her?” She’d added that last part so he’d think her interest was casual, and . . . she wasn’t sure what her interest was, to be honest. It just seemed an odd pairing, the two of them.

  He held her gaze for a disconcertingly long moment, and she’d turned back to the fridge when he finally said, “Actually, if you want to know the truth, I went there to talk to her about you.”

  Delia had just slid open the small plastic bin drawer and found mushrooms and green peppers. She said “Bingo!” as her brain scrambled to figure out what she should say to that little revelation.

  “There’s some bacon under those, I think,” he said.

  “And there is a God,” she breathed as she did, indeed, find a half a rasher of bacon under the peppers. She straightened, juggling her bounty against her chest. “I’m about to whip up an omelet that will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about breakfast food. Do you have corn meal?”

  He stepped forward to help her with her stash, and frowned at the question. “For an omelet?”

  “No, for the corn bread I’m going to make to have with it.” At his continued skepticism, she added, “Bacon corn bread.”

  His eyebrows rose. “I make it a rule to never say no to bacon.”

  “Right?” she agreed. And we’re bantering. But . . . God, he smelled good. She noted he’d changed clothes, and wished she could have done more than just pull off the hoodie she’d worn while scrambling over rocks and bellying into a puffin burrow. There will be no more taking off of clothes. Smell the bacon if you want, but leave the man-smelling alone.

  He took the eggs and the bacon from her grasp and let her juggle the cheeses and vegetables to the short butcher-block counter that was wedged between the sink and the stove. “Where did you find these not quite miniature but not quite full-size appliances?” she said, striving to say something, anything, that would take her mind off how close he stood . . . and, dammit, he really did smell amazing.

  “Houseboat manufacturers,” he said. “You’d be surprised how similar houseboat living is to tree house living.”

  “Hunh,” she said, wondering if he’d mind if she just leaned into him and took a deeper whiff. “Never thought about that, but I guess it makes sense. Handy market for appliances. Smart thinking.” She smiled at him as she took the bacon and eggs from him with her now empty hands. “Did they teach you that in doctorate school?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

  “Only until I say something that hands you similar ammo, and then we’ll draw up a treaty and never speak of either again.”

  “Something to keep in mind,” he said dryly.

  She started going through cupboards, pulling out a mixing bowl, a cutting board, a cast-iron skillet. She felt her nerves calm as she gathered her tools, sort of like getting into the zone. “Knives?” she asked. “Sharp ones?”

  He gestured to a drawer, but let her have room to work. “So,” he said at length. “You’re not going to ask me why I went to Eula to talk about you?”

  “Well,” she said, finding matches on the back of the stove and lighting the pilot light so she could turn on one of the burners. She coated the cast-iron skillet with oil and put it on a low flame to temper it, then pulled the cutting board over and started going through the mushrooms and green pepper. “I’m not sure I want to know, to be honest. That’s between you and her. Do you have a grater? A potato peeler will do in a pinch.”

  Instead of telling her where it was, he stepped over and opened another drawer, then moved next to her and set it by her cutting board. Then he didn’t move away. She slowed her chopping before she clipped off something important. Like all four of her fingertips.

  “I wanted to know how to help you,” he said quietly. “It was the morning after I first came back, after we’d talked in the diner’s kitchen. I guess I thought maybe she’d know someone I could call or ask to step in and fix the lease thing.”

  Delia stopped chopping. “That was . . . incredibly kind of you. Above and beyond. Especially considering I wasn’t exactly welcoming.”

  “You were . . . overwhelmed. Have been for a while now. I told myself I pushed because I didn’t want Grace hassling me, but the truth was I didn’t like seeing you that way.” A note of amusement crept into his tone. “So, in typical male fashion, I wanted to fix it.”

  Delia smiled a little, then let out a sigh, and caved. “So, what did Eula say?”

  “That the person I needed to talk to was you. I told her I had. So she told me I had to stand up. I said I was there in her shop because I was standing up for you. She corrected me and said I had to stand up for myself.”

  Delia looked up at him then. “What do you mean? Or . . . what did she mean?”

  “I wasn’t exactly sure at first. She said a few other things and managed to piss me off a little, which is pretty much par for the course for our conversations.” His expression grew more serious. “She cares about you. A lot.”

  “Me?” Delia was honestly surprised. “I don’t even know her all that well. Gran spent time with her over the years, I think, but I only know her in passing. She’s only occasionally come by the diner. She’s not all that social, really.”

  “Maybe it’s more that she respects you, respects what you’ve done with yourself, with the diner. I’m not sure. I think what she was trying to tell me was I had to stand up for what I wanted. Not for what I thought other people wanted. That, I guess, it wasn’t what Grace wanted me to do, or even what you wanted me to do, or not do, as the case may be. But what I thought it was best to do.”

  “And what was that? I mean, I know you stayed in town, but—”

  “Grace and I scoured legal texts and more town documents than I ever want to see again. Then she had that talk with you, and came and told me that you weren’t sure what you wanted, and I wasn’t sure then what we should be doing. I didn’t want to be out there trying to save the diner if what you were looking for was a way to get out from under it. So I did what Eula told me I should do. I went to talk to you.”

  “And I fell apart all over you.” Delia didn’t know what to say about all that he’d done for her. She felt humbled, and grateful and, well, stunned. “I didn’t know—you shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble, not when you have so much work—”

  He took her by the elbow and gently turned her to face him. “I wasn’t doing it because I thought you wanted me to, or to score points. Or because I owed you a debt. I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do. I did it because I care what happens to you.”

  She dipped her chin and felt her heart start up a good tattoo inside her chest. “I—thank you.”

  “You’d have done the same for me,” he said. “At least, I think you would. So look at it like that.”

  “I would have, and . . . you’re right.” She glanced up at him, a hint of a smile cu
tting through the seriousness their conversation had taken on. “I’m thinking you’d have given me an even harder time than I gave you, so suddenly I’m not feeling all that bad.”

  If her humor registered, it didn’t show in his expression, which was still intent, still serious. “Well, it didn’t matter in the end, because it looks like there is no loophole.” He ran his hands up her arms and a shiver of keen awareness raced down her spine. “And you’ve got more on your plate than worrying about your diner.”

  If you only knew, she thought, and hoped he didn’t feel the tremble that had started to shake her legs.

  “After you went renegade and hitched a ride out here, I could see the tension leaving you the farther out to sea we got. I hoped that maybe coming to Sandpiper would be a chance to take a step back, find some perspective. I’m guessing with rescuing the puffling, you really haven’t had much chance to—”

  “Actually, I have,” she said, nervous now, unsure whether she should take even the smallest step in that conversational direction. Her realizations were still fresh and unexamined and he was standing so close, the feel of his warm, wide palms circling her arms was sending a riot of sensation through her body.

  He lifted a questioning eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “Not about the diner,” she said. “Actually, until I got back here and started looking into what to make for dinner, I realized I’d gone almost the whole day without thinking about it.” A smile wavered on her lips. “I wouldn’t have thought that possible, probably because I spend most of my waking, breathing moments there.”