“You’re all the sweetness I need,” he said, utterly unaware of the eons of cliché that phrase evoked to any but himself and his bride.
The couple kissed, and Emily swore silently, reminding herself she was here for the truth. Nothing more. Nothing less. Anything was worth it. Even watching this honeymoon couple look at each other all moony-eyed.
4
My family spawned from the sea, so my Granddad claimed. I could never be content if we did not start our lives there, by the sea where I spent my boyhood.
Emily followed Blythe through the narrow, but nevertheless open-feeling hallway, into a section closed away from the rest of the guests. She fitted the old-fashioned key into the lock and turned it with a flourish. “You’ll be tucked away upstairs,” she said, opening the door to reveal a steep, narrow set of stairs.
Blythe turned to her and explained apologetically, “I generally don’t book this room, as I value my privacy. But every so often I have a special guest, and I’m happy to share. It was kind of you to give up the Honeymoon Suite to that couple.” She opened the door and gestured Emily into the room, which had a roof dormer that limited the space where one could stand upright, but also a bank of windows that no doubt provided a spectacular view in the daylight.
“Thank you.” Emily was surprised to feel real gratitude. The room was small, but it was private, and Emily craved privacy now, more than ever. Best of all, it was not the room Sean had chosen. This was one place his ghost could not haunt her.
Blythe held out the key, the shell dangling like a bell.
Emily took it, and Blythe’s eyes widened. “My, that is a beautiful ring.”
Frozen, Emily stared down at her own hand as if it belonged to someone else. She hadn’t taken her wedding ring off. Why had she left it on?
Blythe said, “Is it your own design?”
“My husband’s,” Emily answered shortly. “He said he wanted something that captured the fathomless depths of the sea dusted with a touch of magic.” Something that captures the way I love you, Em.
“It does that indeed.” Blythe looked at her hesitantly, before asking, “Are you certain Mr. Stephens won’t be joining you?’
“Quite.” Emily suspected she ought to elaborate, but she couldn’t formulate words that didn’t burn in her gut, never mind speak them aloud. To her horror, she felt tears pushing at the backs of her eyes, threatening to spill in front of Blythe. She forced them back.
Emily could see Blythe struggle to find words of comfort, and then relax with a fleeting expression of regret, acknowledging that there were none. “Let me know if you need anything, then,” she said, adding, “Sleep well,” as she turned and headed down the narrow stairs, leaving Emily alone.
When she heard the door close, Emily closed her eyes and took three deep breaths. Then she acquainted herself with the room that would be hers for a week. She stared at the narrow bed tucked under the eave of the roof. The young honeymooners would have been squeezed tight to fit there, but it was perfect for Emily, by herself.
The quilt had corals and greens that spoke of the sea to her. At least, what she knew of it from movies, TV, and Sean’s stories of his boyhood. Some of which may even have been true.
“Sleep well,” Blythe had said.
Not likely. Emily carefully unpacked her suitcase and stacked her jeans and underwear in one drawer, and her tops and socks in another. They looked lonely and inadequate, as if she had forgotten something.
Pack for long hikes, sailing, and bonfires on the beach. The sea and each other, that’s all we’ll need.
Emily had spent hours packing and unpacking, even though there were so many last minute wedding details to take care of. But looking down at these clothes, packed tightly with hopes and dreams for the future, she felt they must belong to someone else.
She closed the suitcase with the special honeymoon lingerie still inside. She wouldn’t be needing it. Would it be tacky to gift it to Annie, the happy young bride who had taken the honeymoon suite? Probably.
She wedged the almost empty suitcase in the space between the wall and the dresser. As she shoved, she unbalanced a glass bottle in a stand on top of the dresser. With quick hands, she caught the bottle before it hit the floor. She took a deep breath of relief, examining the object she had almost broken, glad she wouldn’t have to explain to the kind innkeeper why she’d broken a prized antique the first night of her stay.
It was a ship in a bottle. She’d never seen one before. Something about it caught her eye and she lifted it close so she could see the details of the ship through the glass. It was a ship like Sean had described sailing in his youth.
She had joked that he made sailing sound like hard work, with all the adjustments to the sail and letting the ropes in and out. He’d only smiled and replied, When you love a thing, that kind of work seems more like worship than hardship. Much like loving a woman — like loving you, Emily Pepperell.
Emily blotted the tears out of her eyes with her sleeve and went back to examining the ship. Whoever had made it had shared Sean’s love of the sea. The lines were all there, just as he described. Just as he’d had on the boat he’d plied on Spirit Lake while he’d wooed and won her heart with all his lies.
She tilted the bottle in the light, impressed by the detail. There were three small carved figures on the deck. Two male and one female. She peered closer and then stopped.
No. She shook her head and carefully placed the ship back in its wooden stand. She would not let her thoughts turn fanciful. Now was the time for practicality and investigative skills, not fairytales.
Emily had been happy to accommodate Sean’s desire to show her his boyhood home, even though she’d been perfectly content to live her life in landlocked Iowa. She’d thought the sea romanticized and hyped. She’d thought it dangerous. Something that roiled and foamed and swallowed ships whole. She preferred neat rows of corn and wheat and barley, herself.
She was tempted to pick up the bottle again and examine it, but she didn’t. It wasn’t hers. She looked down at her left hand, where the wedding ring still felt new and odd. She took it off and put it onto the table next to the ship in a bottle. Nothing was hers. A big fat nothing.
She sat her backpack on the bed and unzipped the main compartment. She took out the oilskin folder and unwrapped the cord that held it closed. She spread out the documents on the bed. So little. A birth certificate. A death certificate. Three pictures from fifteen or twenty years ago, when Sean was in his teens. A tarnished gold chain tied in a sailor’s knot. A letter to her that lay, sealed and unread, hiding half of a picture of a young Sean standing with his arm around a young woman.
Clues. She didn’t know what they all meant. Yet. But she would by the end of the week.
She went to the window and saw only the dark. But she heard the sea rolling in and scraping out. Faintly, she thought she saw a few spots of white where the waves foamed. But maybe that was her imagination.
Tomorrow, she would see the ocean from her window for the very first time. Tomorrow, she would begin to uncover the truth, one clue at a time.
5
She went down to breakfast early, assuming that the newlyweds would linger in bed. She wished them well, but she wanted to see as little of them as possible. They were too close to a “what might have been” for her.
The love birds were not about, thankfully, but the other guests were already seated at small tables covered in bright white linen tablecloths in the dining area.
Blythe was smiling and cheerful, serving the scones and taking orders for a real breakfast. She caught sight of Emily and beamed. “Good morning. I’ve saved a table by the window for you.”
She led the way to a table tucked into a private corner, with a beautiful view of the cove. The pictures, either in the brochure, or those Sean’s words had built in her mind, had not done the view full justice.
Emily had an omelet that was as delicate as any she’d ever eaten, with a side of unbuttered homemade
rye toast. She took nothing from the plate of fresh scones and cinnamon buns. Blythe has an Aga stove that’s her pride and joy. Like the child she never had. If you’re lucky, she’ll give you a tour and show it off.
She had no appetite, and had to leave half of the omelet on her plate. Emily considered asking for a tour of the stove, but decided against it. She had work to do, and Blythe was too busy to question now.
She’d have to start with the pictures, try to match them with someplace on the Vineyard, and see where that led her.
She left a five by the side of her plate, wondering if it was polite to tip a B&B owner. She shrugged. She felt like leaving a tip, so she did. She’d scrimped and saved for this honeymoon, why not be generous when she could be?
As she headed for the door, Blythe appeared before her, “Please wait,” she said, disappearing around a corner to reappear with an umbrella. “I believe it is due to rain this afternoon.”
Emily was tempted to refuse the umbrella, but didn’t want to seem ungracious. So she took it with a smile, and said, “Thanks. I’m just going to take a walk through town.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Blythe said.
“A little rain won’t kill me,” Emily replied.
Blythe nodded. “Just in case you find yourself wandering further afield than you meant, we do sherry or tea at six. I hope you’ll join us.”
Emily didn’t want to be impolite, so she smiled noncommittally before heading down the path toward town as quickly as possible. That was the problem with a B&B. People were friendlier. They asked more questions.
On the bright side, Emily could ask questions, too. She wondered, all of a sudden, if Blythe had been running Blythe Cove Manor twenty years ago, when Sean had lived here. Had they known each other? She’d have to ask. She wrinkled her nose at the idea of sherry. She’d have to opt for tea.
In the daylight, there was no denying that Martha’s Vineyard was breathtakingly beautiful. She had to admit Sean had been right. The ocean lovers had been right. Even the sky was bluer than she was used to. She clutched the umbrella awkwardly, wishing she had refused it. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky right now.
She refused to let the fact that the ocean had swept her off her feet as handily as Sean had distract her from her mission. She was a woman who liked her questions answered. And this was the place to make sure that happened.
She slowed, walking like a tourist, looking at everything as if it had been put there for her own amusement. No one watching her would guess that she was scouring the area for landmarks that might tell her this had been one of Sean’s teen stomping grounds.
She stopped at a dilapidated gray building on the edge of a dock. It looked like the equivalent of a garage for boat.
If she weren’t mistaken, this little garage was where she should begin. It looked almost the same now as it did in the dog-eared photo she had found in Sean’s suitcase.
Yes, she decided she would start with Mudge. At least, that was the name she thought was scrawled on the back of the photo. And then she saw a carved wooden sign near the door. Forrey Ackerman, Curmudgeon-in-Chief. Mudge. Ah. Sean’s sense of humor had been as strong back then as it had been when she’d known him.
She wondered if Mudge was the tall tree of a man standing with a puzzled look on his face in front of a rackety old boat that looked older than Noah’s Ark.
She couldn’t take out the picture and double check. Besides, he was a man full grown now, not a teenager. She walked forward, no idea what she was going to say, but knowing if this man had answers to her questions she was determined to get them.
6
You’re a woman who knows how to get things done, Emily Pepperell. I like that about you.
Sean had been good at flattery, but she was no longer under his spell. Without his confidence-boosting whispers in her ear, Emily didn’t feel like a woman who knew how to get things done. At least, not how to get the information she wanted out of Forrey Akerman without letting on that his childhood best friend had left her, not at the altar, but after it. Not a wife, not really a widow. In desperate need of answers.
He looked at her, politely, like a business man, not a curmudgeon. “Can I help you?”
She glanced at the sailboat tied up at the dock. Dawn Promise was neatly painted on the side. Her heart twisted. We’ll have a sunset cruise on the Dawn Promise. Mudge will love you. I know it.
Mudge clearly did not love her. He was starting to show signs of the curmudgeon as the silence stretched between them. Emily blurted nervously, “I was just walking by and saw you, and wondered if you’d like to have dinner with me tonight.”
He stared at her, clearly thinking he had not heard her right.
She couldn’t blame him. Why had she made it sound like she wanted a date with the guy? All she wanted was answers. He didn’t even know her.
Too fast, Emily thought. Was it possible to back pedal? What could she say that would sound even remotely like “have dinner with me tonight” so she could pretend he’d misunderstood her? She didn’t want to bring up Sean’s name. Not yet. Not until she had his full, undivided, attention.
“I’m sorry. I meant I wondered if you had any dinner sails tonight.” There, that was a good cover. The man repaired sailboats, and took paying customers out for a sail. Surely he’d been asked that question before.
“Oh.” He shook his head, his brow retaining a slight curmudgeonly crease. “No. Sorry. We do a picnic lunch, but no dinner.”
“No sunset cruises?” She tried to sound disappointed, and was surprised that she actually did feel a little disappointed. Sean had made sunset cruises sound romantic, perfect, idyllic, and unforgettable. Damn him. Even knowing he was a liar to his toes, she still found that his assertions had wormed their way into her belief system. Damn him again.
“Afraid not.” He pointed to a much more upscale building nearby. “The Carpenters do a great sunset dinner cruise.”
She panicked. This was not how the scene was supposed to go. She was supposed to sit down with him, buy him a cup of coffee, get him to talk to her. Get information about Sean from him. Find answers to some of her questions. From him.
She slipped her fingers into one of the back pockets of her jeans, feeling the pictures. If she didn’t get answers from him, she’d have to talk to her. The woman in Sean’s picture. Aggie.
She considered pulling out the picture of this man and Sean and confronting the man with it. She imagined him looking surprised, and then letting her take him for coffee and ask him all the questions that were bubbling up inside her. She almost pulled out the picture. Almost.
But Sean had told her so many things that were untrue, she couldn’t know for sure whether this man was the same. She wanted the truth. Not more lies.
“What about a dawn cruise? Do you do dawn?”
He crinkled his eyes. “I could. Not too many tourists want to get up that early, though.”
“I do.”
He was openly skeptical. “Great, then just come back with five of your closest friends, and we’ll do a dawn sail.”
She shook her head. “I just want to go by myself.”
He shook his head back. “I don’t do less than six-person cruises. I like everyone else to do the entertaining while I tend to the sailing.”
“I won’t talk to you, I promise,” she lied.
He laughed. “Then you’re the first person, man or woman, I ever met who could keep that promise.”
“Five people?” She asked, wondering if she could just book the sail for six people, and then show up alone.
As if he could read her mind, he said, “Six warm bodies, or I don’t sail.”
One of his workers came out of the garage and yelled, “Hey, Boss. You got a call.”
He nodded a signal that he was coming, gave her a smile of dismissal, and turned away.
“Mudge, wait,” she said. She wanted to tell him, see if it unlocked something guarded in his gaze. But she couldn’t. The secret abo
ut Sean was stuck deep in her gut, unable to come out.
He turned back, shocked. “I’m running a business, I can’t afford to wait. And my name is Forrey.”
She had nothing. She tried to sound lighthearted. “You really are the curmudgeon in chief aren’t you?”
His shock cleared, as he glanced at the sign. “I am.”
She tried one more time, even though his expression was not inviting. “Come on, give me a break. I don’t know anyone here. Can’t you just waive your rule for once? You can throw me overboard if I try to talk to you.”
To her surprise, his curmudgeon crease vanished and he grinned. “Throwing people overboard is very bad for business. That’s why I learned how to tell tourists no, no matter how attractive they are.”
She watched him walk away, completely frustrated with his attitude. Curmudgeon indeed. Although his smile had left her with a tiny shred of hope. He found her attractive, and he drew the line at throwing people overboard.
She turned and walked toward the beach, swinging the unnecessary umbrella a little too freely, judging by the way people gave her wide berth. It was time for her to see what all this hype about the sea was really all about.
* * *
Emily didn’t want to go back to Blythe Cove Manor yet, it was much too early in the day. She did want to find out if Blythe may have known Sean, but first she wanted to experience the sea that Sean had loved so much.
The sand gave under her sandals, and she felt as if she were on a children’s playground as she walked across the beach to where the waves lapped the shore.
The ocean was a trickster, she realized as she stood by, feeling calmed by the wind and the sound of the surf. It was vast and endless, and yet it called to her to come out and play.
People bobbed up and down in the waves. The ones nearest the shore ran and leaped in the shallows, laughing, marked by bright colored bathing suits and the slogans on their t-shirts. The ones farther out, they were just heads bobbing up and down at the mercy of the waves. It was easy to imagine them swimming so far out they’d never be able to return to shore. Emily suddenly had a new appreciation for the dangers represented by the mythical mermaids.
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