“We’ll ambush ‘em,” Nick deadpanned, “then bolt for the door, got it?”
India giggled, and he steered her into the dining room.
“We’ll be back,” Nick announced. “We’re just going to run my tree out to the cabin.”
“Won’t be long.” India waved and backed out of the room.
“But …” August’s protests were lost as, even as she rose to speak, Nick and India were out the front door and closing it behind them.
“Nick?” India asked as he was backing out of the driveway.
“Hmmm?” Nick had turned on the radio and was searching for a song to sing along with.
“Are we really driving all the way out to your place just to drop off your tree?”
“Of course not.” He looked at her as if she was daft. “Are you planning on seducing me?”
“Yup.”
“Nick?”
“Yes?”
“Drive faster.”
Chapter 23
A mean fog had rolled in off the bay and spread like a down quilt through the marsh. Nick had slowed to a crawl on his way up the lane. The sensor lights on the back of the cabin were barely visible as anything other than a dim, opaque glow at the end of the drive.
“This is so spooky,” India whispered as she opened her car door and hopped out. The crushed white stones crunched slightly under her weight, the soft grinding of stone on stone the only sound in the dense night.
“No, no, sweetheart.” Nick draped an arm over her shoulder and ambled gently to the steps leading to the wraparound deck. “Think of it as a low-lying cloud come to wrap us inside. It’s much more romantic.”
Unconvinced, India glanced uneasily behind them as they reached the front of the cabin, their shoes an echoing tap tap tap on the wooden walk, giving her the feeling of being followed. Nick unlocked the back door and held it open for her to pass through, and she did so gratefully.
“It’s cool in here,” he noted, glancing at the thermostat. “Would you like me to build a fire for you?”
“Not in the fireplace.”
She could hear his chuckle in the dark as he relocked the back door. Dropping her jacket on the nearest chair and kicking quietly out of her shoes, she slipped into the hallway and down two doors to where she remembered his room to be. A scarce minute later he followed her.
“Hand over old Otto,” he told her, and from the opposite side of the bed she tossed the bear.
“Careful with the old boy,” Nick said, pretending to scold her. “You know, my mom and dad gave me this bear when I was three. Best Christmas present I ever got.”
She pitched her sweatshirt across the bed and hit him in the chest with it.
“Until this year,” he mumbled, and she laughed, her jeans following the sweatshirt. He met her halfway across the king-sized bed and pulled her down and under him.
“Kiss me, Nicky,” she demanded, drawing his face to hers.
“That’s the very least I plan to do to you tonight,” he promised.
“I will hold you to that.” She sighed as his lips skimmed the tip of her chin to the hollow of her neck. She arched slightly beneath him, inviting him to feast, and he accepted the gift of herself hungrily.
By the time they were sated, the fog had started to recede across the bay, and a moon of majestic proportions had just begun to push its face through the clouds.
“Is it still Sunday?” India asked, opening heavy eyelids and searching for a clock in the unfamiliar room.
“Only barely.” Nick sat on the edge of the bed and placed a tray between them. “Sit up.”
“What is that?” she asked sleepily.
“Dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“Nothing elaborate.” He gestured for her to sit and handed her a plate upon which sat a perfectly golden grilled cheese sandwich and some chips.
“You’d make a great short-order cook.” She wrapped the soft flannel sheet around her chest and sat up a little higher on the pillows. “Nick, this is heaven. It’s wonderful.” She took the tall glass he handed her and sipped at the sparkling water. “You are spoiling me. No one ever served me dinner in bed at midnight.”
“Good. You deserve to be spoiled.” He grinned. “And we should have dinner at midnight in bed often.”
“Oh my gosh! Midnight. I should call Aunt August. She might be worried, with the fog.”
“Relax. I already did.”
“You called my aunt?” India laughed. “What did you tell her? Where did she think I was while you were calling her?”
“She didn’t ask where you were, and she didn’t seem overly surprised that you would be staying. She said she knew the fog was bad, since she had driven the captain home around eight.”
“Aunt August drove the captain home?” Wrapping the sheet more tightly around her, she leaned forward and said, as if to herself, “I’ll bet he’s the one.”
“He’s the one who what?” he asked.
“I’ll bet Captain Pete is the man she left behind when she left Devlin’s Light in search of her romantic scholar.”
“Sounds like there’s a story there.”
“There is. If you give me some of your chips, I might even tell you about it.”
“August and Old Pete, eh?” He plunked a few more potato chips on her plate.
“I wonder if it’s too late to get them back together again.”
“I think they’re probably old enough to decide that for themselves,” he told her, taking the plates and stacking them one on the other on the tray. “You ready for dessert?”
“Umm. I am.” She slid sure fingers under his robe to tangle in the brown curls on his chest.
“On the other hand, this can probably wait.” He passed the tray to a nearby dresser.
“What was that?” She peered over his shoulder at the two bowls, each of which was covered by a white porcelain saucer.
“Ice cream with chocolate sauce.” He nibbled on her bottom lip. “Of course, by the time we get back to it, it will be chocolate soup.”
“Chocolate soup sounds just fine.”
Nick slid under the sheet to join her and he leaned on one elbow to gaze down into her face. “I never wanted anyone the way I want you. And I knew it the first time I saw you.”
“After Ry’s funeral?”
“I think it might have been before that.”
“I never met you before that.”
“I saw you, though. I saw you when you were home one time last spring. You were walking down the street, just sashaying along.”
“I don’t sashay.” she protested.
“Well, you did this day. And your hair was blowing around your face, and I stopped dead in my tracks. I was at Potter’s market looking out the window, and you walked by and I asked who you were. I couldn’t believe you were Ry’s sister.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’d seen pictures of you in your aunt’s house,” he said, caressing her shoulder with a gentle hand, “and they just didn’t do you justice. The camera doesn’t seem able to catch that light in your smile, or the exact color of your eyes, like rain-washed lilacs. Or the way you bite your bottom lip when you think I’m going to kiss you.”
“Like now?” she asked.
“Exactly so.”
“Do it, Nick.” She snuggled against him. “I’ve never been naked in your bed before, and I want to take full advantage of the situation.”
The early morning sun had burned off the remnants of fog, and with the sun came the aroma of something totally wonderful. Tantalized by the smell, India slipped into the soft robe that Nick had left over the bottom of the bed and went into the great room. Nick stood at the stove, his back to her.
“Can’t resist my omelets, can you?” he said without turning around.
“Hmmm.” She wound around him to sniff. “No. I can’t.”
He turned the omelet expertly with one hand and handed her a cup of coffee with the other. She leaned her elbows on t
he window sill and looked out across the bay.
“I love waking up right on the water,” she told him.
“Then we should make it a regular part of your routine.” He grinned and slid the smooth omelets onto two plates, which he placed on the small table near the window.
“Come eat your breakfast.” His hands slid around her waist and he nuzzled the side of her face.
“Nick, do you realize that all we do is eat and make love?” She sat down and lifted her fork.
“What? Are you sure? Damn. And here I thought we were engaged in something meaningful. Something with merit. And now you tell me that all we’ve been doing is making love and eating. Why didn’t you stop me before this got out of hand?”
“Nick”—she laughed—“have you done any work in the last week?”
“Actually, I have. I spent part of yesterday morning making sketches from some slides.”
“Sketches of what?”
“Tiny multicelled animals called rotifers. They look like minuscule hairy pears under the microscope. I’ll show you after breakfast if you like.”
“Where were they?”
“Before they were on my slide? In the marsh. I collected them during the summer, but I’m just getting around to doing the sketches.”
“Ah, yes, life on the bay, seen and unseen.”
“It’s all part of the whole.”
“Ry used to do that when we were little. He used to get a jar of water from the bay or the swamp and put tiny drops on slides.”
“We talked about that. I used to do the same thing when I was little, only I used pond water. It fascinated me. All these things were living in the water—like a secret world—and you couldn’t even see them without a microscope. It was just one of the many things we had in common, Ry and I.”
“I miss him.” India felt the sudden lump rise to swell her throat. “I’m almost dreading Christmas Day. It will be so quiet.”
“Don’t you have a big group on Christmas?”
“No. Thanksgiving is the day we all gather. Christmas is always just the immediate family.”
“India, what would you think of us spending Christmas together? I mean all of us, my mother and sisters and you and August and Corri?”
“I’d love it. I’ll have to ask Aunt August, but I’ll bet she’d be delighted.”
“We could go out to the Light for the bird count and then have dinner. Even Zoey said she was interested in going.”
“I hope she does. I like Zoey,” she told him as she stirred her coffee. “I hope she can make it.”
“She’ll be here. Mother will insist on it. Of course, last week she was thinking about handling show dogs that belong to one of my mother’s neighbors, but that’s subject to change. This week I think Zoey may just be working on being Zoey.”
“I would think she could do just about anything,” India told him. “She’s beautiful enough to be an actress or a model. She seems to have a bit of a dramatic streak. And I’d bet the camera just loves her face.”
“Modeling bored her. And she’s tried acting. It seems that our Zoey has a problem with memorized lines. She thinks the stage should be a little more spontaneous. I’m afraid she ad-libbed a few times too many. Mother keeps insisting that it’s all going to come together in the new year.”
“I’m with your mother.” India stood up and stretched. “I can’t remember when I’ve been this lazy. The last time I was still undressed at ten in the morning.”
“It’s good for you to relax.” He pushed back from the table and patted his thighs, motioning for her to sit on his lap. “Tell me what you’d like to do today.”
“I need to finish my Christmas shopping and help Aunt August finish the decorating. Christmas is in two days. How ’bout you?”
“Guess I’ll do a few more sketches, maybe see if Darla needs help making her deliveries.”
“That’s sweet, Nicky.” India tucked a curl behind her ear. “Do you think she could go with us to the Twelfth Night Ball? I’d hate to think about her home alone with nothing to think about except the great time she and Ry had there last year.”
“If she’d like to go, I think it’s a wonderful idea.”
“We could dress alike. Like my twin great-great-aunts. And we’ll do our hair alike, like we did when we were in high school.” She envisioned it in her mind, she and Darla befuddling the boys at the sophomore dance. “It used to drive people crazy. From the back no one could tell us apart.”
“I’ll remember to be very careful. I could end up embarrassing myself terribly.” To make his point, he patted her rear as she stood up. “Where are you going?”
“I thought I’d take a shower, if that’s okay.”
“It’s okay, if I get to supervise.”
“Nobody supervises when I shower. If you come in, I’ll put you to work.” She twirled the end of the robe’s sash.
“What exactly did you have in mind?”
“You’ll have to wash my back,” she told him, backing toward the hall. “Or something.”
“It’s that ‘something’ that gets my attention every time.” He sighed and followed her.
“Indy, Indy!” Corri’s little face, puffed from sleep and glowing with anticipation, hung over India’s own. “I think he was here!”
“Who was here, sweetie?” India yawned, reluctant to leave the dream she had been having before she’d felt little fingers shaking her shoulder.
“Santa! He was here! I peeked from the top of the steps and the lights are on the tree and it looks like lots of things are under it.”
“Hmm, well then”—India stretched and sat up—“Merry Christmas, sweetie.”
“Merry Christmas, India.”
“Merry Christmas, you two,” August called from the bedroom doorway. “Corri, I was just downstairs and it looks like there are a lot of presents under that tree with your name on them. I think you’d better get down there and see what’s what.”
“Yea!” She whooped and sped down the steps.
“Was I that anxious on Christmas morning?” India pushed the covers aside and stood up.
“Worse. You and your brother used to set an alarm clock for four A.M. and wake me and your father up to open presents. At least Corri let me sleep until six.”
India went into the bathroom to splash water on her face and to slip into an Irish knit sweater the color of clotted cream and a pair of soft olive corduroy jeans. She dug a pair of big black and white tweedy socks out of her dresser and pulled them on over chilly toes. From the stereo in the sitting room the Messiah was just beginning. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee and cinnamon met her halfway down the stairs. Christmas in the Devlin house on Darien Road always smelled exactly the same. At the thought of Aunt August’s sinfully good cinnamon raisin buns, India’s mouth began to water and she quickened her step, following her nose into the kitchen. As quietly as possible, she opened the oven door to peek in.
“India Devlin, get your nose out of that oven,” August scolded from the front of the house, and India laughed out loud. Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she went into the sitting room, where billows of discarded wrapping paper spread across the old oriental carpet like bubbles blown from a magical pipe.
“Indy, wait till you see what I got.” Corri rushed to her. “Look, look! She’s real!”
“Why, yes, I believe she is.” India’s eyes sparkled as Corri gingerly held out the tiny orange tabby kitten.
“I can name her anything I want, Aunt August said so. She’s my very own kitty. My very own pet.”
“Well, you know that having your very own pet is a very big responsibility.” India smoothed back the child’s hair, recalling a Christmas long ago when a similar kitten had waited under the tree for her.
“I will take wonderful, excellent good care of her, I promise.”
“I know that you will, sweetie.”
“Want to hold her?”
“I would love to hold her.” India sat on the floor and looked
into the deep blue eyes of the kitten. “I used to have a kitty that looked just like her. Remember, Aunt August?”
“Oh, I do indeed.”
“What was her name?”
“Mary Francis.”
“You named your kitty ‘Mary Francis’?” Corri eyed her strangely, clearly wondering whatever would possess one to do so.
“Yes.” India laughed. “It is an odd name for a kitty, I agree, and for the life of me I can’t remember why I chose that name.”
“Is that what you called her?” Corri tried to picture India standing at the back door and calling “Here, Mary Francis!” but could not.
“No, I called her ‘Francie.’ She used to sleep on my bed and bring me mice that she caught in the attic.”
“Real live mice?” Corri’s little nose wrinkled up.
“Well, they were real enough, though not so live by the time Francie was finished with them.” August shook her head. “She had the most endearing habit of leaving their little mouse bodies in my shoes. It got so that I had to close my shoes into the closet at night so she couldn’t leave those furry little gifts for me.”
“She was so proud of herself,” India mused.
“Oh, that she was. Francie was an excellent little mouser.”
“What happened to her?”
“She died when I was in high school,” India told her. “Ry said it was because she knew I’d miss her too much when I left for college, but it was just old age. She was fourteen that year, and that’s a pretty good age for a kitty.”
“What did you do with her?”
“We buried her out back, all the way at the end of the yard, where the dune comes in. Where she could hear the birds and smell the sea and rest in the warm sun.” India’s voice caught, remembering.
“I will take very good care of my kitty, India. And if she ever dies, I will bury her with Francie, and they can be together.” Corri, sensing India’s sudden sadness, assured her that Francie wouldn’t always rest alone.
“Well, I hope we have … whatever you decide to call her … for a long time. She’s a dear little thing.”
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