Devlin's Light

by Mariah Stewart

  “I see you’ve been to the beaches for the spawning.” She pointed to a photograph tacked to the corkboard by one large green pin, in which the sky was blackened with swirls of indistinguishable shapes. Only one who had witnessed the phenomenon would recognize the shadowy forms as an endless flock of birds.

  “It’s one of the things that drew me to Devlin’s Beach,” he told her, sliding into his chair. “I had, of course, read about the massive migration of birds from the southern hemisphere flying north to breed in the Arctic, how they come to the Bay to feed on the eggs of the spawning horseshoe crabs. How those two events coincide perfectly.”

  “My father always said there were no coincidences in nature.”

  “I agree with him.” He nodded. “But it wasn’t until I actually experienced the sight: millions of birds, thick as fog, swirling around the beaches, most of them little more than bone and feather at this point in their long journey … gobbling up the eggs laid on and under the sand by thousands and thousands of spawning crabs. It was the most truly primitive thing I’ve ever witnessed. I half expected some prehistoric beasts to appear on the dunes.”

  “It is something to see.” India recalled the countless times that she and Ry had watched, from the top of the dunes or the top of the lighthouse, while millions of birds— from Brazil and Guyana, from Tierra del Fuego and Belize—fed like gluttons until they had regained their strength and added enough extra body fuel to take them the rest of the way north to their Arctic breeding grounds.

  “It’s been said that up to eighty percent of an entire species can be found here at one time,” he said, twirling a paper clip around on a pencil point. “It’s staggering to watch.”

  “Exciting, though,” she added, “in a very primal way.”

  “Very primal.” His eyes, the softest, palest brown and very flecked with gold, sparked mischief.

  India backed slightly toward the door as other equally primal forces were beginning to stir within her. The room was growing smaller by the minute and was suddenly far too small to contain both her and Nick.

  “I had, of course, read about the phenomenon long before I’d witnessed it,” he continued, leaning back against the edge of the desk to indicate he was in no hurry to follow her to the door. “Did you know that the birds leave their southern homes at a precise time each year, navigating through the night by some internal compass, to arrive at this exact spot at the exact time when the horseshoe crabs are hauling themselves from the bay to the shore? And that the birds will continue to fly until some of them literally drop from the sky in fatigue?”

  “Yes. I’d heard all that.”

  “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, about how many of our instincts are preprogrammed from another time, just how much is inherent in our species. And I know I for one certainly have a healthy respect for that urge to survive and to procreate.”

  “I’ll just bet you do.” She nodded.

  “What?” His brows knit together.

  “I mean, studying all the species here on the bay, and watching firsthand, as you do, all the adaptations that have occurred to ensure their survival…” She was rambling, backing into the hallway, away from those eyes that seemed to narrow and darken somewhat, as if they were teasing her and enjoying the joke.

  “Hmm. Right.” He rose and started toward her.

  “So. I don’t want to keep you from your work.”

  “I had just stopped for lunch when you arrived. Why don’t you join me? I make a wicked grilled-cheese sandwich.”

  “I, ah, promised Corri I’d pick her up at school and take her shopping this afternoon.” India continued to back down the hall, hoping she didn’t look like she was fleeing from him, though she knew she was. He probably knew it too, but she couldn’t help it. He was too close and she was too unprepared for the likes of Nick Enright.

  “How is she doing?” He took the now empty cup from her hands as they passed from the dim hallway into the large and airy great room.

  “She’ll be okay.” India frowned. “At least I think she will be. She has a lot of adjustments to make, but overall, I think we’ll be able to work it all out.”

  “You know, of course, that if I can do anything for you, anything for Corri, that I am always available. Anything at all, India.”

  “I appreciate that, Nick, I do.” India had backed herself to the door and there seemed little to do at this point but open it and go right on through.

  “Well, if I can’t talk you into lunch, how ’bout dinner?”

  “I promised Corri I’d take her to dinner when we finish shopping.”

  “Then how ’bout dessert and coffee afterward?”

  “Well, I …”

  “It’s a full moon tonight, India. Didn’t you want to come out and sit on the deck and try to re-create the scene by the light of a full moon?”

  “Yes. Actually, I did.” She frowned again. Who knew how long it would be before she was in Devlin’s Light for another full moon? “You’re on. I’ll drive out after I get Corri to bed. Probably by eight-thirty or so.”

  “Great. I’ll have the coffee on.” He reached around her, his hand grazing her hip as he reached for the doorknob to open it for her.

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “Right. Thanks.” She followed her feet down the steps to the bottom of the dock. As she untied the small boat and racked the oars, she made the mistake of looking back up to the cabin where he leaned against the jam of the open door, looking all too adorable with his hair falling across his forehead almost to the top of his dark glasses. All too adorable indeed.

  “Indy, I can’t decide.” Corri frowned, looking down at her feet, where one foot wore a gray leather Buster Brown strap shoe, and the other a black-and-white oxford that tied.

  “Let’s get them both,” India said, nodding to the sales-woman that they would take both pairs of shoes as well as the sneakers and the soft black leather dress shoes. “Tappy shoes,” Corri had called them, for the sound the heels made on the tiled area of the otherwise well-carpeted floor.

  “Wow. Really?”

  “Really. Sure.” India handed over her American Express card at the cash register and watched the sales assistant slide the four boxes into the open mouth of a shopping bag. “Now, let’s see, what else do we need?”

  “Nothing. Aunt August took me out right before school started and bought me some stuff.”

  “Are you sure you don’t need anything else?”

  “I’m sure.” Corri fairly danced from the store opening into the mall proper. “Can we eat now?”

  “Sure. Any place in particular you like?”

  “The Brown Cow.” Corri pointed across the mall.

  “The Brown Cow it is.”

  “So, what was the best thing that happened at school today?” Indy asked after they had been seated in a comfy brown-and-white plaid booth and had placed their orders.

  “Ummm … Kelly shared her cookies with me at lunch.”

  “What kind?”

  “Chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips.” Corri pulled the white paper tube from her straw and blew bubbles in her chocolate milk, sneaking a peek at India to see if she would object. India was busy squeezing a lemon into her diet Pepsi.

  “Yum. That sounds very gourmet.” India nodded.

  “Her mom made them. She makes all kinds of neat stuff. Sometimes she bakes stuff and sells it to Mrs. Begley and she sells it in her shop with Darla’s stuff.” Corri leaned back to permit the waitress to place a plate holding chicken fingers and fries before her on the table.

  “Oh.” India bit her lip and drizzled low-fat salad dressing on her small bowl of greens, wondering how many of the other moms sent their kids off to school with home-baked goodies.

  “Kelly’s mom knows how to make doughnuts,” Corri told her, as if in awe of the feat.

  Trying not to sound peevish, India said, “Well. It sounds as if Kelly’s mom is quite the baker.”

  “She is, Indy.” Cor
ri nibbled on the end of a fry.

  “I’m sorry that I’m not home to do things like that for you,” India told her, all of a sudden feeling sad. Sad and guilty. She was not there to bake for Corri. Corri had to share other kids’ homemade snacks. She was overwhelmed with guilt, was two beats away from letting the lump in her throat erupt into tears.

  “It’s okay, Indy. You do important stuff too.” Corri nodded, seemingly unaffected by India’s shortcomings. “And besides, Aunt August bakes neat stuff too.”

  Of course, Aunt August would. The Devlin honor was intact.

  India thought back to days long past, when she and Ry would arrive home on frosty afternoons to find a freshly baked treat newly sprung from the oven and waiting for them.

  “Does she still make raspberry cobbler?”

  “Umm-hmmm.” Corri nodded. “And peach and apple too.”

  “Well then, I don’t feel as badly now.”

  “Why do you feel badly, Indy?”

  “Because I don’t do enough for you. Because I’m not here when you need me.”

  “But I like the stuff Aunt August bakes. And she shows me how to do things. Do you know how to not let pie dough crawl up your arm?”

  India suppressed a laugh, as Corri’s expression was so serious. “No. How?”

  “You make your arms and your hands all white with flour and the doughy stuff won’t stick to your skin.” Corri coated her arms with imaginary flour, then added proudly, “And I know how to punch down bread dough when it’s rising too.”

  All the things Aunt August had taught me when I was a little girl, India mused, wondering if Corri would develop more proficiency in her domestic skills than India had.

  “Well, it sounds as if you are learning very important things.”

  “I am. And Nick said he’d teach me how to kick a soccer ball.” Corri stabbed at a circle of catsup on her plate with a fry.

  “He did?”

  “Yup. So I can play with the Girls Club again.”

  “You’re only six.”

  “Last year I played when I was five.” Corri got quiet all of a sudden. “Ry took me. And Nick said if I wanted to go again this year he would take me.”

  “Do you think maybe you should go with Ollie and Darla?” India frowned. Funny, Nick had not mentioned that he had joined in the group effort to raise Corri.

  “All the parents pitch in to do stuff for the team. Nick thought that maybe Aunt August wouldn’t want to, since practice is on her card night, so he said he would.”

  “That was very nice of Nick.” India felt the lump returning to her throat. It seemed that everyone was taking an active part in Corri’s day-to-day, except for her. “Corri, you know that if I was here all the time, that I would take you to soccer? That I would do more things with you?”

  “Now I know. I wasn’t so sure until this time when you came home. But I am now.”

  “I just wish there was some way for me to spend more time with you. Right now I am committed to following through with something I started months ago.” She thought of Alberto Minchot, awaiting trial behind the steel bars of Paloma’s finest accommodations.

  “But if I needed you, you would come, wouldn’t you? If I really did?” Corri’s eyes were wide and guileless.

  “Absolutely.” India responded without hesitation, knowing it was as true as anything she had ever known.

  “And when you’re all done, doing important stuff, will you always come back to Devlin’s Light?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I guess it’s okay.” Corri shrugged and went back to the cabin she was building out of leftover fries.

  India pondered the situation. Aunt August had been a fine mother substitute for her and for Ry. She was, India knew, a woman whose heart had no boundaries, who dished out love with the same generosity of spirit as she dished out cherry cobbler at the church suppers. August was a wise disciplinarian, a wonderfully pleasant companion, and she possessed a sharp sense of both humor and fair play.

  But it seemed as if Corri had twice lost out on having a real mom, the first time when Maris died, the second time when Ry died and Corri’s hopes of being able to share Ollie’s mom vanished. Now she looked to India to fill the empty spot all the leavings had left in her little heart. Afraid to ask for too much, Corri tried to be content with whatever India saw fit to give of herself. In her heart, Indy knew it hadn’t been near enough. In the coming months, she would, one way or another, find a way to change the glass from half empty to full.

  Chapter 9

  The stones crunching rudely under the tires of India’s car as it wound up the narrow lane from the main road to Nick’s cabin disturbed the nocturnal marsh in the same manner in which the crackling of paper would disturb the silence of a chapel. She hadn’t remembered the road being this long or this dark. Rolling down the window to let in the sounds of the night, she crept along, careful to keep the car straight on the road—if this carpet of stones could be called a road—and off the soft shoulders from which a slide into the ooze of the tidal marsh was just a poorly calculated turn of the wheel away on either side. She approached a small wooden bridge that stretched across a meandering stream, braking to avoid taking it too quickly and perhaps missing a turn up ahead and finding herself in need of a tow out of the thick black goo that lined the bottom of the swamp.

  It was still warm enough that a few mosquitoes, that scourge of the New Jersey coast, made their presence heard. And felt. India slapped at an overly eager specimen that had seemingly bitten her arm immediately upon its landing there. With her index finger she flicked its crushed corpse through the open window as she reached the end of the lane. Parking behind Nick’s white Pathfinder, she cut the engine and stepped into the light cast by the sensor-activated spot mounted on the back of the cabin, which served to illumine the entire flat parking area.

  From the stand of pine that formed a border between the lane and the woods just to the left of her car she heard a rustling sound. Raccoons, most likely, she thought, or perhaps foxes. Off in the distance, the shrill high scream of something, caught in the talons of an owl or perhaps a night heron, protested its plight. The sound rang up her spine like a bell struck too hard. It jarred her nerves and sent her just a little more quickly on her way toward the deck, which wrapped around to the front of the house to face the bay.

  “Nick,” India called from the doorway.

  “Come on in,” he called back, and she pushed open the screen door to the small porch at the end of the deck. The interior door was open, awaiting her arrival.

  “Something smells outlandishly good,” she told him as she walked into the great room and dropped her sweater on the back of the sofa.

  “India Devlin, you of all people should immediately recognize the aroma.”

  “Hmmmm.” She closed her eyes and sniffed the air with purpose, then groaned with pleasure as she identified the scent. “Aunt August’s deep-dish apple pie.” She whispered the words as if in awe.

  “Damn, you’re good,” he told her. “Only took you one sniff.”

  “When did she bake this?”

  “I am truly crushed to the bone!” He laughed. “August’s recipe. My pie.”

  “You baked that?” She peered down at the perfect crust, golden and flaky, which hid the tender slices of apples lightly tossed with raisins, sugar and cinnamon.

  “With my own two hands.” He grinned.

  “Nick, is there anything you can’t do?”

  “Sure. Lots of things.” He turned his back and proceeded to fill the glass coffeepot with water, giving India an opportunity to take a long hard look at the flip side.

  Never had a pair of Lee Five Button jeans looked so good.

  “How ’bout you?” He turned suddenly, catching her in the act of staring at his posterior.

  “How ’bout me what?” She blinked innocently, all the while reddening at having been caught giving him the same once-over he had earlier in the day given her.

  “I�
��d have thought you would have all of August’s recipes down pat.” He was grinning, clearly enjoying her discomfort.

  “I have them all written down”—she leaned on the counter, giving her an excuse to look out the window toward the bay—“but I’m afraid I haven’t cooked in weeks. Months, maybe.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” He poured the water into the top of the coffee maker.

  “Nope.”

  “What do you eat?”

  “Whatever I can whenever I can,” she told him truthfully.

  “That’s one hell of a schedule you have, lady.” From the small dishwasher he removed the same red mugs they had used earlier in the day and set them on the counter.

  “Somehow it only seems really horrendous when I get away for a few days and look at it from a distance.”

  “And how often is it that you get away for a few days?”

  “Not very,” she admitted.

  “Where’d you go on your last vacation?” he asked.

  “Here,” she replied. “Devlin’s Light.”

  “Now India, you know what they say about all work and no play…” He leaned over, close to her, and for a split second she thought he was going to kiss her. When he did not, she felt a pang of disappointment she had not anticipated.

  “What about you?” She tried to turn the tables. “I’d say it would appear that you work a lot.”

  “All the time. Every day.” He nodded. “And I love every second of it.”

  “I love what I do too.” She wished she did not sound so defensive, so insistent.

  “I take time off. I take several breaks a day, as a matter of fact. How ’bout you, Indy? How often do you get a break?”

  “During the day? Are you nuts?” She frowned at the thought of it.

  “That’s what I thought. Don’t you ever want to just lean back and put your feet up for a few minutes?”