“You and your friends sailed when you were young?” she asked, pointing at the young men drinking tea. “Like them?”
He smiled. “Nate and Griff just come for the summer. I sailed with friends who lived here year round.”
“You can’t sail in the winter.”
He shrugged. “You’d be surprised. Wear the right gear, and you can go out in most weather.”
“I hope tomorrow it’s nice though,” said Jason, the young honeymooner. He and his wife Annie were from the Midwest, like Emily. Indiana, though, so they had sailed the Great Lakes, not the relatively small Spirit Lake of Emily’s life.
Mudge—Forrey— turned to the young man and smiled. “It should be a gorgeous day. Good breeze, good sun. Perfect end of summer sail.”
“They have good food, too, I believe,” Emily added.
He looked at her with an odd squint, as if she’d said something odd.
She shrugged. “While I was having lunch, I saw one of the servers at the Sandpiper give some food to her son for The Dawn Promise. Do you know her?
He nodded, guarded. “Her boy’s a good worker. And the Sandpiper food is out of this world.”
“No fish sandwiches, I guess. They won’t keep.”
“Cold sandwiches only, I’m afraid. But they will be delicious.”
“Potato salad?” asked Annie. “I really liked their potato salad.”
“Lots of that.” He smiled at her.
“Beer?” asked her husband, glancing down at his untouched tea.
At that, Forrey laughed softly. “Sam Adams, of course.”
One of the young men, Nate or Griff, Emily couldn’t remember which was which, said, “And Blythe always sends along a basket of her scones and muffins, just for her guests.” He grinned the grin of the young who don’t need to count calories. “My favorite day on the water.”
Blythe smiled at him fondly and refilled his tea from her bone china pot. “I’m making currant pecan scones for tomorrow, just because you love them so much Nate.”
Emily wiggled her eyebrows at Forrey, “Sounds like a feast.”
“Yep.” He nodded. “Hope you don’t get seasick,” he added as he turned, put down his sherry glass, and left Blythe Cove Manor without telling her anything she needed to know.
Seasick. Did she? She’d only been on calm Spirit Lake. Was that experience on calm water enough to know if she were prone to seasickness?
Blythe handed her a glass of sherry. She drank it like a shot, feeling the smooth burn all the way from her throat to her esophagus. Who knew? She actually did like sherry.
She smiled at the other sherry drinkers. She’d have to search out another clue for now. The sailing trip was not until tomorrow.
* * *
“Have you lived here a long time?” she asked Blythe, trying for a casual curiosity that wouldn’t scare the woman off too soon.
“My family has owned this property for over two hundred years,” she said.
Emily tried to imagine living somewhere with such deep roots. Her family had moved often during her childhood. Always in the Midwest, but the longest she’d ever lived in one house was during her high school years.
She looked around the place with new appreciation. These weren’t just things Blythe had gathered together from antique hunting trips to furnish an inn. They were items her family had gathered over lifetimes. Things her mother and father — her grandparents and great-grandparents — had cherished and cared for.
She looked at the sherry glass in her hand. The thin crystal edge was delicate and fragile. Yet it remained unchipped. She thought of the hands that must have held in the past. Family. Friends. Honored guests. And yet the glass was as pristine as the day it was made. Amazing.
The young newlywed wife, Annie, held out her tea cup and exclaimed, “Now I’m afraid to drink from it. How old is it, Blythe?”
The proprietress laughed. “I believe that’s the set my great-great-grandmother Eva brought into the family as part of her dowry. But I’d have to check the book to make sure.”
“The book?”
Blythe nodded. “My family were tidy Yankee types. They kept track of every scrap of fabric, every tea cup, every buggy whip.”
“Buggy whip?”
Blythe smiled. “We still have one, though the others have been recorded as given away or burnt because they were worn through.”
“It’s on the wall of my room,” the school teacher volunteered.
“It is. I believe the best decoration is done with a flourish of history,” Blythe said. She looked at Emily. “Would you like another glass of sherry?”
That acted like an ice breaker, and suddenly everyone was discussing the historic pieces in their own rooms.
Emily asked, “What about the ship in the bottle? Did your great-grandfather make that?”
Blythe laughed. “Oh no. I had two crew members staying with me twenty years ago. It was one of them who made the ship in a bottle for me.”
Emily felt her heart stop. She asked, faintly, “Mudge?”
Blythe chortled. “Oh, no. It was his friend. Sean, I think his name was.” She smiled fondly. “What a character that boy was. Always a smile on his face, always an idea in his mind. The trouble he used to get his friends into back in the day. The stuff of legends.”
Emily desperately wanted to ask her to go on, but her tongue was frozen to the roof of her mouth.
Blythe finished fondly, “He could take anything broken and fix it better than new, though.” She pointed to a grandfather clock against the wall. “He fixed that for me. It hadn’t chimed in a hundred years, until that boy worked his magic on it.”
The conversation moved on to the history of the books on the wall of bookshelves, and Emily resolved to follow up with Blythe privately as soon as she could.
11
Everybody loves you. How could they not? You make their wedding day dreams come true. One day, I hope, you’ll see just how much everybody loves you.
But Forrey did not love her. He didn’t even like her. He made that evident by simply ignoring her when they all showed up for the sail.
To be fair, they were a motley crew: the honeymoon couple, the anniversary couple, the school teacher, and Emily — the wedding planner bride who showed up without her husband. Although, no one but Blythe and the honeymoon couple knew that she was missing her husband.
She wondered if anyone had said anything to the other guests, because the anniversary couple occasionally shot her a sad glance. It seemed more likely that they were just feeling sorry for her not being in a couple, though, since they gifted the schoolteacher with the same glance periodically. Emily remembered feeling that way when she was with Sean.
When you find your other half, you know it. Why fight it, Emily Pepperell?
She shook her head free of Sean’s voice. She had only thought he was her other half. He had made her think that. Had he laughed behind her back at her gullibility?
She looked at Mudge. Would he know the answer to that question? Maybe. But how to ask him? It occurred to her in a flash that she could use the ship in a bottle as a conversation opener.
Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like she was going to get a chance to talk to him at all. Forrey, the man she couldn’t stop thinking of as Mudge, gave them all a general lecture on ship safety as he led them aboard. Then he focused all his attention on the older couple who were celebrating their twenty-fifth anniversary.
He regaled them with the history of the ship, answered their questions, teased them about being married for so long, and pointed out the best spot for them to stand to get photographs when the ship set sail.
He did spare a little attention for the school teacher who was enjoying her last week before returning to the classroom and her newly-minted third graders. He ignored the young honeymoon couple, who only had eyes for each other. But, to be fair, everyone ignored them. More accurately, everyone allowed them to float happily along in their honeymoon bubble built for two.
Emily had seen so many happy couples in her business, but this time watching the newlywed bliss felt different. She’d always trusted she’d have that one day. Now that Sean had ripped that belief away from her, disappearing without a trace… She turned her eyes away from the young couple and focused on the ship’s captain, the man who had answers about Sean that she needed.
The teen Emily had seen in the Sandpiper, retrieving two coolers of food from his mother, boarded with a long, low lope that spoke of strong sea legs.
He bore the two coolers again, and Emily smiled, imagining him breezing into the restaurant, teasing his mother again. He had an irrepressible spirit, so much like Sean, Mudge, and his mother had exhibited in the photos Emily carried with her.
She couldn’t help but wonder what had happened. She needed to get Mudge alone, somehow.
* * *
You have the look of a mermaid missing the sea. Let me show you your long-lost home.
Sean had always proclaimed that she belonged by the sea. That if she once let the sea wet her feet, she’d turn into a mermaid and become her true, free spirited self.
She had always laughed at him when he said that, though his belief that she might be a tiny bit wild pleased her. No one else saw the wild streak beneath the cheerful, dauntless wedding planner.
She found herself slightly disappointed when a splash of seawater did not reward her with a mermaid’s tail. The water was surprisingly cold as it soaked into her sneakers, but she welcomed the cold. If she dived over the side and let the water take her, she would be numb soon. It would have been a relief to sink into the water and leave behind all the pain and trouble that she’d found on land.
The cold water soaked into her sneakers. The breeze had a sharp chill, too, as the ship got underway.
“Careful you don’t go over the railing. Water’s cold for landlubbers like you.” Forrey warned her with a frown.
“Someone I knew used to call me a mermaid stolen from the sea,” Emily replied. She couldn’t use the word husband, though it was true enough. Sean had thoughtfully married her before he abandoned her at the airport.
His frown turned to a scowl, carving deep lines into the creases where dimples would have been on another man not so weathered by the sea. “Mermaids aren’t the sailor’s friend. Their song makes sailors wreck.”
“Always blame the woman,” Emily quipped, adding in the line Sean had habitually responded with, “After all, if we don’t keep the fair sex down, they might just make the world too wonderful for us to live in.”
Forrey looked at her with a hint of suppressed shock. “What did you say?”
She shrugged. “It was just something I heard somewhere. Why? Have you heard it to?” Maybe, she hoped, he’d confide about a friend from the past who’d said the same thing.
It was his turn to shrug. “Probably not.”
Emily toyed with the idea of keeping his attention by doing all the things Sean had taught her not to do on a boat. Putting herself in danger seemed to be the only way to get his attention at all. She leaned over the ship’s railing to watch the wake.
True to form, he warned, “Don’t fall overboard. It’s a long swim home, mermaid.”
And then he headed away from her as fast as he could.
What had Sean seen in this guy? She shrugged. Maybe life had turned him bitter. Maybe Sean had betrayed him, too.
But she still needed answers, so she’d have to try to turn him sweet again, at least until she had the answers she needed.
* * *
The sail was magnificent. They came close enough to a whale to see the spout, saw a dozen seals, and even a small dolphin pod that played with them before swimming off.
Emily would have enjoyed it more if Mudge hadn’t kept himself far away from her the entire trip. It had been deliberate, she was sure. Every time she started toward him, he moved away.
By the time they docked and shuttled off the boat with exclamations of praise and thanks, she knew she needed to make her move now, or lose her chance forever.
She lingered behind the others and then, before he could move away, took Mudge’s arm. “I need to talk to you.” She kept her voice low, so the others wouldn’t notice.
“Not interested.” He tried to break her grip, but she didn’t let go.
“Five minutes. Please. I’m here alone on my honeymoon. Sean, my husband talked about you often, Mudge. You were once his best friend. Think of it as an act of charity.”
“Did you marry a ghost then, Mrs. Stephens? My best friend Sean has been dead for twenty years.”
The truth scorched deep into her brain. “Sean McManus? Was that his name?”
He scowled and nodded. “The one and only.”
“When I married him, he was Sean Stephens. He sailed a boat on Spirit Lake. He talked about you and Aggie. He insisted we book our honeymoon at Blythe Cove Manor.”
His scowl deepened, but he sighed. “Five minutes. Not a second more. But not until I’ve finished closing down here.”
She stood on the dock, watching as he posed for pictures with the anniversary couple and the schoolteacher, did a walk around on the ship making sure his crew had taken care of all the necessary battening down for the night, and otherwise avoided having to answer her questions as long as possible.
She did her own avoiding, too. When the teacher invited her to join herself and the anniversary couple for a drink at the Sandpiper, she said vaguely, “Sounds great. I’ll catch up with you all there. I want to check out the shops first.” She could always claim she’d gotten lost in a memento buying frenzy and lost track of time.
At last, Mudge could put off the conversation no longer. He snapped off the Open sign and joined her on the dock.
He said nothing, and she was suddenly unsure where to begin.
“Clock’s ticking.” His expression was wary and shuttered.
She reached into her pocket and took out the picture of the three teens. She tapped Sean’s face. “This is my husband.”
“Good for you.” He wasn’t going to make this easy for her.
His hard-headedness erased her last lingering reticence to tell anyone what had happened to her. She wanted to beat him with her pain and frustration until he gave her the answers she wanted. “I haven’t seen him since shortly after our wedding three days ago.” She left out the explanation about sitting in different sections of the plane. He was already skeptical enough.
“I’m sorry to hear that. It wouldn’t be the first time Sean did a runner.”
The man was infuriating. “Have you seen him?”
He looked surprised at that. “I thought he was dead. In retrospect, though, I should have guessed he’d just gone underground. Even so, he’d know better than to show his face to me or mine.”
“Sean was the one who chose this place for our honeymoon. I thought I might find him here.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You thought your groom would run away, then show up at the honeymoon spot? Even Sean wouldn’t be that stupid.”
When he put it that way, she realized it had been a foolish thought. Somehow that made the reality of what had happened sink in as it hadn’t done before.
“What do you mean, even Sean? He never seemed stupid to me.” One part of her recognized how ridiculous it was to defend the man who had abandoned her. Still, she had never considered Sean stupid, and she still didn’t.
He gave a quick nod. “You got me there. Sean was never stupid. Just…stupid. You know, the way smart people can be when they ignore the obvious downside while looking for a best case scenario.”
She smiled despite herself. “Now that does sound like Sean.”
“He always had a brilliant idea he wanted to try out.” He smiled, then, as if he realized he had unintentionally lightened up, his smile turned into a scowl again. “The downside usually got him into trouble.”
The downside of marriage was — what? Permanence? Seeing her every day for the rest of his life? Could something so
… stupid … really have sent Sean scurrying away without even a goodbye? “So you think he’s left me for good. Why?”
“Did you have money? Have you checked your bank accounts?”
“No. And Sean never asked me for a dime.”
He looked at her left hand. The engagement ring. The wedding ring. “Who paid for the wedding?”
“Sean.” She added. “But I gave him a big professional discount.”
“Not money then. But he left. Beats me why. I’m just glad he didn’t show up here and try to play the let bygones be card.” He held up his arm and tapped his watch. “Time’s up.” He turned to leave.
“Wait…”
He turned back to her so quickly she knew he had expected her to protest. “You keep asking like you think you want to know the answers. Well, let me tell you, you don’t.”
“How do you know?” Emily didn’t want him to know how right he was.
“Fine. Here’s what you say you want to know: Was Sean always the kind of guy who would leave a woman high and dry? Short answer. Yes. He left my sister when she got pregnant. He got into trouble with the law, took a runner, and she never heard from him again. She didn’t even attend his funeral, if that tells you what she thinks of him.”
Emily had not expected for Mudge to rip the truth out by the roots and wave it in her face. She struggled to think of what to say.
He stopped. Wrinkled his brow. “You pregnant?”
“No,” Emily answered coldly. “Not that it is any of your business.”
He shrugged. “You’re looking for answers. I thought maybe that was a common thread.”
Pushed out of her normal polite zone, she asked bluntly, “So Aggie’s son is Sean’s son?”
For a second she thought he wouldn’t answer. But then he said, “She says not. But she’s always been blind when it came to Sean. Never wanted to see fault in him.”
“It was easy to think he was perfect,” Emily agreed. “Until he wasn’t there at all.”
12
Summer Magic Page 14
