Sandpiper Island (The Bachelors

by Donna Kauffman

  He lost track of how long they clung to each other. He slid his arms around the small of her back, holding her to him, holding himself to her. He wasn’t sure who was holding up whom as they both shuddered through the first wave, then rode the first twitch of aftershocks, then the next, then the next, until she finally relaxed, her body no longer bowed. She let go of the ladder rung and slipped her arms around his neck as he pressed her back against the ladder and buried his face in the curve of her neck.

  “Dee,” he breathed, but that’s all he could manage.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, when she finally could control her breathing.

  That had him frowning, tensing, and lifting his head. “For?”

  “I should have—I mean, we should have talked, discussed—I know you think I must, that I’m—that I have had—” She stopped, closed her eyes, clearly trying to draw her scattered thoughts into order.

  He gave her the space because he honestly had no idea where she was going with this.

  She opened her eyes, and found his gaze, held it, then finally got her breath back. “I know there wasn’t really time to talk about protection. I’m on the pill,” she said. “But, more than that, I know I have a reputation, for dating. A lot. And I have.”

  “Dee,” he said, relief washing through him, even as his heart squeezed just a little, that she thought she had to confess anything to him. “You don’t have to—”

  “I do for me,” she said, so he fell silent, and nodded at her to continue. She lifted her hand, pressed her palm to his cheek, and took his gaze just as intimately into her own.

  The squeeze in his chest became a pang. The way she looked at him should terrify him, but it did the exact opposite.

  “I haven’t,” she said. “In a long time. But when I did, I always used protection.” She drilled those beautiful blue eyes into his. “Always. And I make sure I’m healthy, annual checkups. Because I’m not stupid. And . . . when I told you not to . . . that was a first for me. I wanted you to know that.” Now the red climbed into her already flushed cheeks and a smile hovered at the corners of her mouth. “It seemed important. At the time.” She dipped her chin and he slid his hand up and tucked her cheek against his shoulder, then leaned down and kissed the top of her head, keeping his hand on the back of her neck and shoulders, just holding her to him, not sure if the trembling was her, or him, or a bit of both.

  “I appreciate,” he said, at length, “that I mattered enough for you to feel the need to explain.” He pressed his lips against her hair. “That I mattered enough for you to want me, like that. I do trust you. More than you know. More than I even knew I had it in me to trust.” He nudged her until she turned her face to his, until he had her gaze fully on his. “And I’d have taken you if you were going to die tomorrow and doing so would have taken me with you. Do you understand that?”

  Her lip quivered, and her eyes went all glassy. “Ford . . .” she said, on a choked whisper.

  “You said no turning back. I couldn’t turn back, because there’s nowhere else to turn, no one else to turn to. Just you. It’s always been you.”

  She opened her mouth, closed it again, looking stunned as a single tear tracked down her cheek.

  “Don’t—” He stopped, then pressed her cheek against his shoulder again and wrapped his arms fully around her, holding her tightly against him. “You don’t need to say anything to me. I just . . . needed you to know. You needed to know.”

  Chapter 16

  Delia stood alone in Ford’s little circular shower in the main floor bathroom, which was the only bathroom in the central tree house, she’d found out. Her legs were still shaky. As much from Ford’s declaration as from what had happened up against that ladder. She closed her eyes as the hot water beat down on her head and shoulders, willing the steady sound of the water, both inside her little cubicle and the greater rushing sound of the rain now thrumming heavily on the roof of the tree house, to find its way inside her head, and calm her rampantly racing thoughts. What in the hell had she done?

  She hadn’t thought any of this through. Jesus, Delia. She hadn’t just stepped inside the circle, she’d gone and taken a flying leap off a cliff. Ford’s words, so many of them, all of them, played through her mind over and over. And they were just as beautiful, just as powerful, just as devastating, every time.

  How was it that she’d earned something so . . . incredible, so worthy, from a man like Ford? That she felt all those same things in return, could have said all the same words to him, only served to heighten the panic that threatened to send her into a hyperventilating mess.

  She understood, intellectually, what her deal was with relationships. It was a bargain she’d struck with herself a very long time ago. And she’d been quite comfortable with it; that deal had stood her in good stead. She hadn’t suffered the slings and arrows of heartbreak, hadn’t had to pull herself from the depths of despair, to repair her heart, or find the grit, the determination, the idiotic foolishness that would enable her to go right back out and risk it all over again.

  Oh, no. She’d been far too clever for that. Life had handed her a nasty platter of betrayal, tragedy, and loss at a tender age, but she’d learned from it, hadn’t she? She hadn’t marched out there only to suffer through it again and again.

  Only, all along, the joke, apparently, had been on her. She’d spent all that time congratulating herself on avoiding the pitfalls of love and relationships, and somewhere along the line had completely forgotten about the benefits she was also missing out on. It wasn’t that she hadn’t borne witness to countless happy couples, wasn’t that she didn’t believe in a happy ever after. She had, in fact, quite sincerely rooted every last one of them on. Because that was for them, and all the power and joy of it to them, too. It just wasn’t meant to be for her. It was a risk she chose not to take.

  It was true that watching the particularly heart-tugging and grief-surpassing love blossom between her friends Alex and Logan had reached some heretofore hidden spot inside her heart. She’d been thrilled for them, still was, but would be lying if she said that there hadn’t been, for the first time, a little twinge, the tiniest bit of envy. Then Grace had come to Blueberry, and not only had she brought out an entirely new side of their brash Irish import, Brodie Monaghan, she’d introduced the gallant and incredibly sweet and wise Langston into Delia’s life. She’d even forged her own path into Delia’s day-to-day life, as a friend. And then there was Ford. Grace had come to the Cove to reunite with him, had wanted to know all about him, and who better to ask than Delia? Who else could she have asked if not Delia?

  In doing so, that chapter of Delia’s life, so long ago closed and tucked away, had been reopened. Not just the part where Ford had played a starring role . . . but all of it. Losing Henry, losing Tommy, then Gran. Even Ford. How had Delia not seen that that was the beginning, that it was that series of events that had sown the seed of her discontent? How could she have possibly been so blind not to have seen that that was when the hollow ache inside her had begun to yawn wide?

  She understood now why she’d been so resistant to Ford, and it wasn’t the stress, the fatigue, the creeping uncertainty about her life, much less about her diner’s future. It was the opposite. It was that somewhere inside her, she’d known letting him in would mean letting down her walls. And that would lead to her having to confront what was really going on, what it was she really wanted. That what she wanted . . . was him.

  “And now . . . here he is,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut. She should be delirious with joy. She should be doing a little tap dance of glee right there in the shower. She’d gotten what she wanted, hadn’t she? And so very . . . very much more. To want and be wanted in equal measure. “Who could ever ask for more than that?”

  There’s no turning back.

  How prophetic her words were indeed. No turning back, no more being just friends, no more keeping her heart safely tucked away.

  And the very knowledge of that, of the st
ep she’d taken, scared the living bejesus out of her. She’d managed to go all this time, living by her personal code, a code that had worked for her, and then what did she go and do? Hand her heart over to the one person who didn’t just have the ability, the power, to hurt it, or break it . . . oh, no. She’d handed it to the one man who could shatter it. Into a million tiny, irreparable little shards. She wouldn’t recover from losing Ford Maddox. Not like this, not now. Which meant not only was there no going back . . . if she lost him, there would be no going forward, either.

  The shower started to grow cold. “You really have to stop having breakdowns in hot water,” she told herself, and shakily turned off the spigots, then grabbed the towels he’d given her before going out into the storm.

  Because that’s who he is. The man you just up and surrendered your heart to. The kind of man who goes out in a thrashing lightning storm to check on a wounded baby bird. How could I not love a man like that? Dear God, I’m so incredibly doomed.

  Ford’s foray into the thunderstorm had come about after he’d gone to find her something to change into, because her blouse wasn’t exactly wearable, and her pants had seen better days as well. First he’d offered up another one of his well-worn, freshly laundered hoodies and a pair of heavy socks.

  “How many of these do you have?” she’d asked, as he’d handed her the faded navy blue sweatshirt.

  “I live out here year-round. That includes Maine winters.” He’d smiled. “I could probably open up my own secondhand shop.”

  Then he’d gone up to his office and rummaged through boxes of promotional samples that routinely showed up at the foundation offices from companies hoping to solicit souvenir and advertising business. He’d come up with a pair of women’s black sweatpants and a bright green T-shirt, each with a different version of the foundation logo silk-screened onto it, both still in their original plastic wrappers. He’d handed them over, and then announced he had to go out to the hut to check on the puffling. When he’d gone up to his office, he’d noticed that the cam had cut out, and a quick look through the porthole window he’d put in at the office level showed that all the lights had gone out in the rehab hut cluster. “The generator flickers sometimes, especially in hard weather. I just need to check on it, make sure the generator shed is closed up, kick it back on again.”

  He’d pulled on a tarpaulin coat and dragged the hood over his head, and then out the door he’d gone.

  Damp and shivering, Delia tore the plastic wrappers off the clothes and pulled everything on, then toweled her hair a little more. She didn’t look in the mirror, because then she’d never leave the bathroom again. He’d seen her at so many levels of awful by now, crazy hair was the least of her worries.

  She heard the door open and close, and stilled in the act of gathering up the wet towels and the remnants of her previous outfit. She wasn’t ready to go back out there, to do or be or say whatever it was she was supposed to do, or be or say. That was yet another reason why she shouldn’t be doing this. Why she should have kept things casual, easy. Why couldn’t you have stopped at friendly banter? Huh? Why?

  Because when he’d looked at her, so fiercely, so intently, then yanked her into his arms, the first thing that had gone through her stunned mind had been . . . finally! Like after all that time apart, after all the life that had been lived, they’d finally made it to that right place at that right time.

  But now that we’re here . . . what the hell do I do about it?

  She really needed more time to think, more time to analyze and sort through and figure out what this was going to mean and what choices she was going to have to make. Only there was no more time and she couldn’t hide in the damn bathroom forever.

  She opened the door, thinking she’d start by asking where he put dirty laundry, maybe offer to do a load, then hotfoot it back to the kitchen and start the meal they’d never gotten around to having. In fact, it had been the damn cast-iron skillet she’d left on the low burner to temper with oil for the corn bread that had jerked them out of their little postcoital conversation.

  At least in the kitchen she’d have a chance to further collect herself, collect her thoughts. Kitchens were her safe spots, her havens.

  Only she stepped out of the bathroom to find Ford standing just inside the kitchen door, jeans soaked to the skin, tarpaulin coat dripping wet . . . and the baby puffling once again strapped to his chest, under the coat, in the bird sling.

  And any hope she might have had of salvation was lost as her heart tumbled, utterly and completely, right at his feet.

  Delia rushed across the room, setting her damp towels and clothes on one of the kitchen chairs so she could help Ford disentangle himself from wet canvas coat and birdie sling.

  “What happened?” Delia asked. “Is she okay?” She glanced up at him and saw the wind had been at him along with the rain because even with the canvas coat and hood, his hair was damp and his face ruddy from the wet and the wind. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, just frustrated with myself. I meant to check the gas level for the generator but forgot. We didn’t use it much this past season, and it ran out.”

  “Do you need to get more then?”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s fine now, I have it running. But the combination of the light and heat going out and the sounds of the storm must have panicked her pretty good. It’s nothing she hasn’t heard before—”

  “But not while in a metal cage in a strange place by herself.” She leaned down as he unhooked the harness, wrapping her hands around sling and bird so the straps could slip from his body. She pulled the baby bird into her body, but left it tucked in the fabric.

  “I couldn’t calm her down and I was afraid she’d injure herself further, so I figured I’d bring her back here. Maybe we can get her to settle down. I’ve got a few boxes that I think will work up in my office. Just need to dump some stuff out of them.”

  “I’ll hold her,” Delia said, already murmuring to the frightened bird. “She’s scared. You can feel her heart drumming, but she’s not panicking, so that’s a good sign, right?”

  “Yes,” he said, sliding his coat off and hanging it on a peg so that it dripped onto a large mat that had been placed under the row of pegs apparently for that exact purpose. The wellies she’d worn, along with a pair of his hiking boots, were lined up on the mat. “Hopefully after a night or two she’ll be good for release. Did you get hold of Peg?”

  “I did. Thank you for the use of the phone. The storm hit there just a bit ago and she said it was pounding the harbor pretty good. No one is going out in that tonight, so I told her to close up shop and go on home. I don’t know the forecast and didn’t think to ask, but tomorrow is Sunday, so we won’t be busy until after morning services let out, and probably not really busy until closer to dinnertime. Do you think . . . ?”

  He picked up on where she was going before she finished. “Depends on the surf. Even if the storm blows out of here by morning, the surf is likely to be pretty rough for a while due to the wind. I’ll check for small craft warnings in the morning. I’ll know more then. I know that might not be—”

  “No,” she said. “It’s okay. Stowaways don’t get to pick and choose their boarding times. I’ll just need to know for Peg, that’s all. She can handle it. And I seriously doubt Mayor Davis is going to make an announcement of any kind on a Sunday. I happen to know he’s a big football fan and preseason games start airing tomorrow. Most everybody will be home or at the Rusty Puffin all afternoon. It’s more important to make sure we do what needs doing for our little feathered friend there.”

  “Well, I’ll hold out for that Disney ending for you,” he said, an amused smile coming naturally to his face.

  She noted there was a definite light in his eyes, too. Even with the damp hair, the weather-reddened cheeks, and soaked jeans, he looked . . . happy.

  Which made her insides get all jumbled up, so she looked toward the kitchen, used it as kind of a grounding visual spot, and
said, “I was going to get the meal going. I, uh, ended up in the shower longer than I thought. I’m really sorry, the hot water is gone. I should have realized your supply wouldn’t be big—”

  “It’s okay. By the time I get her set up, it’ll be good to go again.” He took the bird back from her in his big, capable hands.

  She’d been in the direct care of those big capable hands and though that baby bird couldn’t know it, she’d lucked out in who she’d gotten as her rescuer. Maybe the same could be said for you, Delia’s little voice added.

  “As for dinner, as long as it’s something hot, I’ll be forever grateful,” he said, turning toward the ladder and his office.

  “That I can do.” She watched him cross the room. “Do you need help navigating her up the ladder?”

  He looked back over his shoulder at her and Delia was pretty sure her heart bounced once, and then came to a complete stop. She’d never seen Ford grin like that. It was pure sex with a little devil on the side. Okay, maybe not so little. There was nothing little about Ford Maddox. Seriously, just go ahead and beg him to take you right here, right now. You know you want to, her little voice taunted. Boy, do you ever.

  “I think if we want to get her set up before sunrise,” he said, a bit of an edge to that voice, just to make the whole package completely lethal, “you and I should probably not be near this ladder at the same time.” It was possible his grin turned a shade more devastating. “Fair warning.”

  “Warning taken,” she said, not at all surprised to hear the breathlessness in her tone. More surprising was that she’d formed words at all.

  He navigated the ladder easily and gracefully, like the overgrown marmoset he was, while Delia gripped the back of the closest chair and tried to put her pheromone-overloaded brain cells back into her head.

  “So,” she murmured, as she made her way to the kitchen counter, then stood there staring dumbly at it. If she’d had any questions about whether or not Ford had been having second thoughts, she supposed she had her answer. “I guess that means I’m not going to have to worry about where I’m sleeping tonight.”