Once Burned

by Suzie O'Connell

  “I’ve been wondering if there was someone else who’d already caught your eye,” Dan said as he handed her the check and money to pay for it. “He’s a lucky guy.”

  “Thank you, Dan. I really didn’t mean to lead you on.”

  “You didn’t. I get that you were being polite. I was just hoping that if I kept after you long enough you’d give in.”

  Finally, her last table left, and she zipped into the kitchen to hang up her apron and punch her timecard. She drove to her cousin Jasmine’s house to pick up Noah, who was in no hurry to leave. He and Jasmine’s daughter, Jamie, were engaged in an intense Mario Kart race, but Lindsay was in no mood to wait. She had already told him Henry was coming for a visit, and he’d been ecstatic at the prospect of meeting the man he’d talked to a dozen times on the phone and had pestered her endlessly all week about when Henry would arrive and where he would be staying.

  “Noah, let’s go.”

  “Just one more race, Mom, please?”

  “Not tonight, bud. We’ve gotta go.”

  “Why?”

  “Henry’s here.”

  Instantly, Noah’s attention was yanked from the game. “What? Where is he?”

  “He’s not here here. He’s in Indianola getting settled in Aunt Jeanie’s cottage.”

  “The one with the stairs down to the beach?”

  “That’s the one. Come on. I told him I’d bring you over to meet him as soon as I got off work, and we still have to stop by the house to drop off your school stuff. Speaking of which, you did get your homework done before you started playing video games, right?”

  “Uh… not all of it.”

  “Noah!” Jasmine chided. “You said you finished it all.”

  “What do you have left?” Lindsay asked.

  “Just some of my math. I got most of it done, and it won’t take me long to finish, I promise.”

  “Next time, I’m going to check all your homework, young man,” Jasmine said. “Sorry, Lindsay. He said he was done.”

  Lindsay shrugged. She was in too good a mood to chastise her son for either the fib or for not finishing his work.

  “Sorry, Jamie,” Noah said to his cousin. “I gotta go.”

  “See ya, Noah.”

  “Bye, Jasmine.”

  “See you tomorrow, kiddo,” Jasmine replied.

  It was fully dark by the time they cruised into Indianola. Instead of turning right at the intersection by the Country Store toward her parents’ house, she turned left. What did it matter if Noah’s backpack sat in the car while they visited Henry? The cottage was two long blocks up the road rom the store and the Indianola Dock, a retired ferry pier that stretched out into the waters of Puget Sound toward Bainbridge Island. She pulled her sedan in beside Henry’s truck in the house’s short driveway. He must’ve heard her pull up because he opened the door and stepped out onto the narrow porch just as she climbed out of her car. Shyly, she took Noah’s hand and walked carefully along the mossy concrete path to the porch.

  “Henry, this is my son, Noah,” Lindsay said when they reached him. “Noah, this is Henry.”

  “Glad to finally meet you, Noah,” Henry greeted, extending his hand.

  Noah shook it. “Yeah. Good to meet you, too.”

  “Come on inside. Noah, I have something for you.”

  “Henry…” Lindsay groaned.

  “Don’t worry. It didn’t cost me anything but time and a few dimes for gas money.”

  They followed him inside into the open, well-lit living area. Two off-white couches sat in an L to the right of the space, and a golden oak dining set occupied the left side of the room. Big windows and a set of French doors that led out to a wide deck looked out across the water toward Bainbridge Island. Seattle’s glittering lights were also visible in the distance. Nautical was the theme her aunt had chosen for this place, and the gold and navy blue accents matched the white walls and dark-stained hardwood floors of the main living area with an elegance that was also quaintly inviting. Around the corner to left was the small but efficiently organized kitchen—nearly identical to the one in Henry’s house back in Northstar, she realized. Beyond that was the bathroom and a small bedroom. To the left side of the kitchen, a staircase led upstairs to the finished attic that had been converted into the master suite complete with a half bath and French doors leading out onto a private deck on the beach end of the room. Much like Henry’s house, the cottage was small but cozy and very welcoming. If she had the means to do so, she would be very tempted to buy it from her aunt.

  Despite the fact that he looked like he’d stepped out of an issue of Cowboys and Indians, Henry looked like he belonged in this house. After a moment, she realized it was how he moved with the confidence of someone who had inhabited the space for months or years rather than a couple of hours. It was the same self-assurance that had caught her eye when he’d strolled into the Bedspread. The bitterness was gone, however, making him at once ten times more devastatingly irresistible.

  He grabbed a small Tupperware container off the kitchen counter and handed it to Noah. Whatever was inside was wrapped in a paper towel, so Lindsay couldn’t guess what it might be.

  “Your mom said Spencer got into your crystals and either lost or stole some,” Henry said. “So I brought you a few more.”

  The thought behind the gift hit Noah as hard as it hit Lindsay, and the boy impulsively hugged Henry. She hadn’t mentioned it to him again after the incident, so it was impressive he’d remembered. Even if he’d gone out the very next day to find more crystals or taken them from any he might have already had at his house, a month and a half was a long time to hold on to the thought of bringing them to Noah… especially since he hadn’t known he would be making the trip until just a week ago. Unless….

  Lindsay shook her head. She wasn’t going to overthink this. She was going to enjoy his thoughtfulness and the genuine smile of pleasure at Noah’s gratitude.

  “I know you can’t stay long because I’m sure you have schoolwork left to finish,” he was saying, “but I wanted to give you those tonight.”

  “He does in fact have some homework to finish,” Lindsay said.

  She wasn’t ready to leave yet, but it was getting late, and Henry had had a long drive, so she headed toward the door. He walked outside with them, and when Noah continued out to the car, she hung back.

  Sensing her hesitation, he leaned close and murmured, “This isn’t like your trip to Montana. There’s no deadline. We don’t have to cram everything we want to do into a week. We have time.”

  She nodded, not trusting her voice.

  “See you tomorrow?”

  “Not soon enough.”

  With a chuckle, he brushed his lips across her cheek. “Good night, gorgeous.”

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Me, too.”

  For good measure, she took his hand and squeezed it, then turned unwillingly away and strode out to her car where Noah was too engrossed by his new crystals to have noticed his mother’s fleetingly intimate moment with her handsome friend from Montana. While she drove home, she wondered if it should be weird or awkward seeing Henry again, but it wasn’t. On the contrary, it was as if a piece of her that had been missing had been returned.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE WEATHER HAD BEEN dismal the entire week and a half Henry had been in Washington with flat gray skies and unending rain, and while it certainly explained why the western part of the state was so gloriously green, he was glad to have woken up to clear blue skies this morning. He still couldn’t believe the vegetation here, so tall and lush, nor could he quite grasp the fact that he was wearing shorts and flip-flops and heading down a steep set of stairs to a broad, sandy beach on the twenty-third of November. It wasn’t warm by any means, and the perpetually damp air left a chill in his bones that even ten below back home didn’t, but with the sun out and a high of fifty-two, it felt more like May than almost Thanksgiving. When he’d talked to his mother yesterday
, she had informed him that the week’s highs weren’t supposed to break zero, and the overnight lows were hitting as cold as thirty below.

  “Still feeling a bit like a fish out of water here?” Lindsay inquired when they reached the bottom of the stairs. She stepped carefully a cross the rocky, seaweed-strewn shore at the base of the bluff and slipped out of her dainty sandals when she reached the sand.

  Today—Saturday—wasn’t her normal day off, but she’d switched shifts with another waitress when the forecast had called for a sunny day. Henry was glad to spend more time with her and Noah. They’d spent every available moment together, but it wasn’t enough.

  “Not so much a fish out of water as a little kid seeing something new. Denver was definitely different from Northstar because it’s urban, but the climate and vegetation are very similar. This is totally different. It’s incredible.”

  “You sound like I did when I was in Northstar.”

  “I’m sure I do.” He chuckled and kicked off his flip-flops. Noah followed suit, and they set their shoes atop the barnacle- and mussel-encrusted boulder that sat at the edge between the rockier shore and the sand spit. The sand, still packed and damp from the recently receded tide, was cold beneath his bare feet—an entirely alien sensation to a born and bred Montana boy. A long absent, innocent joy saturated Henry, and right then, his spirit was younger and more inexperienced than Noah’s as he jogged a dozen yards to the nearest tide pool. Tiny fish darted through the shallow pool as he ran past, ducking under floating, vivid green seaweed that reminded him of a leaf of lettuce. It was incredible to run for the sheer joy of it. It had been a long time since he’d done that, too, so he lengthened his stride and sprinted around the long, narrow tide pool and back toward his girlfriend and her son. When a long stream of water unexpectedly jetted from the sand inches from his foot and struck him square in the chest, he hit the brakes and turned back to inspect the sand. There was a hole about twice the size of his thumb half-filled with water.

  “Hey, Henry!” Lindsay called. “Catch!”

  He glanced up just in time to see her launch a football at him with a perfect spiral and impressive aim. He caught it effortlessly and lobbed it to Noah.

  “What just squirted me?” he asked, pointing to the hole in the sand.

  “Probably a geoduck,” Noah replied.

  “A gooey what?”

  “Geoduck. It’s a really big clam. Haven’t you ever seen one?”

  Henry shook his head.

  “Come on. I’ll show ya.”

  Lindsay hung back, content to watch her son and lover scavenge the nearby beach for shells and stomp beside more of the telltale holes to get the giant clams to squirt as the retreated deeper into the sand. Occasionally while they hunted, Henry glanced up to see a contented smile gracing her face and couldn’t help but smile in response. He was a bit surprised she wasn’t joining in their play, but he suspected she was gauging their interaction, judging him with a mother’s protective instinct. And since she was smiling, he surmised she liked what she saw.

  “Here’s a shell,” Noah announced, distracting him.

  It was in tact and the largest they’d yet found; the halves of the shell were each as big as one of his hands. “Wow.”

  “How fast can you dig by hand?”

  “Uh… I don’t know. Why?”

  “Wanna try to catch one?”

  “Sure.”

  “All right. Ya gotta be fast, though, because they’re fast. I mean scary fast.”

  “You’ll probably have more luck closer to the water’s edge,” Lindsay remarked, joining them. “The sand’ll be softer and easier to dig.”

  “Can you help, Mom?” Noah turned to Henry. “She’s amazing at catching geoducks. She has a trick. You see, she digs to the side of them and then under them, but you gotta be careful not to move the sand too much because if they sense it…. Poof. Gone.”

  “What d’you say, Lindsay? Care to show a novice how it’s done?”

  Grinning, she slung her canvas bag over her shoulder and sprinted across the wide beach nearly to the water. Noah raced after her, and Henry kept pace with him until they boy cheered and told him to catch Lindsay. Damn, the woman could run. With legs pumping as hard and fast as they could, Henry barely managed to pass her just a few strides before she slowed down on the last sand bar just before the gently churning waves. A broad, smug grin ignited her stunning blue eyes. With her dark auburn hair pulled back in a single braid, no makeup to hide the soft, ivory skin of her face, and casual tan Capris paired with an ice-blue tank top that peeked from the half-unzipped emerald fleece pullover, she was exquisitely and spontaneously beautiful. She met his gaze and laughed breathlessly. Henry, raised at a much higher elevation and still not fully acclimated to the air as sea level, had to concentrate on how much air he sucked in so he didn’t feel like he was choking on it. Who would have thought it would be harder to breathe at sea level? Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

  “How far did we just run?” he asked when he’d caught his breath.

  “This part of the beach is the widest at almost two-tenths of a mile from the bluff to the water when the tide is as low as it is right now.”

  “Incredible.”

  “Feels good to run just to run, doesn’t it?” she asked. “Like being a kid again.”

  “It really does. But I’m guessing you and Noah do this a lot.”

  “Yeah, we do,” Noah answered.

  “You’re a lucky kid to have a mom who loves to play.”

  Lindsay ducked her head shyly at his praise, but Noah offered him a lopsided grin and said, “I know. She’s pretty awesome. My friend Tanner’s mom never runs with us. Never digs for geoducks with us, either. She’s always worried about her hair or her nails or her makeup or getting her clothes dirty.”

  “Speaking of geoducks,” Henry said, “I’m kinda excited to actually see one, so shall we?”

  Lindsay pushed her sleeves up and located a whole shell to use as a shovel.

  “Isn’t that cheating?” Henry inquired.

  “Not if you want to see a live one.”

  Henry and Noah stood back to watch the expert digger. With her feet braced wide over a hole where she announced a geoduck was near the surface, she used the shells—one in each hand—to excavate about eight inches from the creature’s hole. She was quick, moving the sloppy wet sand much like a dog would but with far more skill and precision and soon had a hole deep enough to sink half of Henry’s leg. Then she started digging toward the geoduck’s hole, faster and faster. When water shot out like a tiny geyser, she squealed and shoved her hand into the sand. The way she was positioned with her ear nearly touching the ground and her shapely rear end sticking up into the air was decidedly distracting, but Henry was too engrossed by her activity to pay too much attention.

  Triumphantly, she rose from her awkward crouch with a pile of sand in her hand. Gingerly, she brushed the sand away, revealing the bright white shell, long leathery neck-like appendage, and a rubbery thing that looked like a pale tongue. After she washed the creature in the tide pool on the bluff side of the sandbar, she held it up for inspection. It was, as Noah had said, a giant clam. “Gentlemen, I present to you the elusive geoduck.”

  Henry took the shellfish from Lindsay and marveled at it. It had to weigh close to two pounds, maybe more, and the shell—larger than any they’d yet found—had to be nearly eight inches long. The neck, or whatever it was called, was shockingly phallic, and when he poked the tongue-thing, the animal sucked most of it back inside its shell, but it was so large that not all of it fit. “Fascinating.”

  “That thing that looks like a tongue is called the foot,” Noah explained. “That’s what they dig with. And that gross-looking neck is called a siphon, right, Mom?”

  “That’s right.”

  “They use that to breathe and eat and stuff.”

  “Truly amazing.”

  Lindsay took the geoduck and settled it in the ho
le she’d created, making sure to place its siphon skyward, and gently covered it with sand and water. It slowly retreated into the safety of the earth.

  “I thought you said they were fast,” Henry remarked.

  Brows lifted in challenge, she gestured to another geoduck hole a few feet away. “Go ahead and give it a try, Mr. Hammond. Noah, you probably ought to help our poor cowboy because I’m pretty sure he has no idea what he’s doing.”

  Playfully determined, Henry borrowed her digging shells, and he and Noah got to work. They hadn’t tunneled half a foot before the telltale geyser erupted, and whoosh, the mollusk was gone. They found another hole and again attempted to catch the geoduck inside. Again and again, they failed. Try as they might, they just didn’t have Lindsay’s finesse, and even digging as fast as they could, they couldn’t manage to catch one of the quick creatures.

  Lindsay shook her head, smiling. “Amateurs.”

  They gave up geoduck digging and turned to football for a while. Noah’s intensity during their light-hearted game was proof that he loved the sport as much as his mother, and moments after Henry found himself sprawled and laughing in the sand, artfully tackled by the eight-year-old, he decided Max was an idiot if he believed he could ever chase that passion out of his son. For Noah’s sake and Lindsay’s, Henry desperately hoped Max would stop trying. It did no one any good to try to break such a deep and intrinsic love.

  “All right, boys,” Lindsay said, trotting over. She offered first Noah a hand up and then Henry. “If we want to eat before midnight, it’s time to put an end to our frolicking.”

  Henry eyed her hand, wondering if she realized he was easily sixty pounds heavier than her. Then he shrugged and took her hand. When it required far less effort on his part than he’d assumed it would for her to pull him up off the sand, he shook his head and chuckled.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I think I’ve spent too much time dealing with Mel these last few weeks,” he replied, “because I’d forgotten how strong you are… in every way.”