The alcohol consumption and volume increased in tandem, and the stories got increasingly more animated. And less accurate, no doubt. Sailors never let the facts stand in the way of a good story. I grinned. I loved happy hour.
I was still smiling a moment later when I saw Duke heading my way, carefully holding two plastic cups of wine away from his body as he walked toward me. I’d been absorbed in my eavesdropping and occasional chatting, and I hadn’t noticed him climb off his boat and join the party. He smiled tentatively, looking uncertain of his welcome.
"Hey! Hi, Shelby! Hey! I brought you some wine." Click click click click.
He looked so anxious and nervous that I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t really want it. Taking one of the cups from him, I said, "Thanks. Want to sit here with me for a minute?"
The gratitude and relief in his eyes made me feel that sharp stab of pity for him again. He sat down, shuffling his feet on the dirt in front of the bench.
"Where are you headed from here?" I asked.
"Oh, um, well, prolly up to Virginia, I guess," he said, vaguely, squirming in his seat with a guilty expression on his face. I wondered if he was afraid Matt would come back.
"So how long have you been sailing?"
"Oh, uh, since I was a kid, really," he said. "One of my uncles used to take me out. Me and my cousins." His expression became even more furtive, and he looked somehow ashamed. Huh. I wondered what he and the uncle and the cousins had been doing out there. Drug running? Smuggling? Poaching? I tried to picture poor Duke as a master criminal but couldn’t.
"You must be a really good sailor, since you’ve been doing it so long," I said.
He sat up straighter, flushing with pleasure at the compliment. "Uh, I do okay, I guess. I really like it, you know? Especially now that I got my own boat, and I can go without my cousins. It’s nice out there on the water, by yourself, ya know, no one to give you a hard time cause you’re stupid…" His voice trailed off, and he gave me a quick look. "I mean, hey! You wouldn’t know…I mean, no one thinks you’re dumb. I mean. I’m sorry I said that...it…I—" Click click click click.
"It’s okay, Duke. Your cousins gave you a bad time?"
He flushed.
"I’m sorry. That was rude of me to ask."
"Naw, it’s okay, Shelby. It’s just….they’re not very nice, and…"
Duke gulped down the last of his wine, then started coughing as he inhaled too much, too soon. He bent forward, apparently hoping leaning into the cough would ease it. I reached over and patted his back.
"I’m okay now," he said a moment later. He hacked one final time, then sat up, wiping his eyes. "Thanks, Shelby. You’re…you’re a real nice lady. God, I just wish…I really wish you…aw, never mind, I’m sure everything’s gonna be okay. Yeah, I think it’ll be okay. Look, you have yourself a good evenin, okay?"
He stood up, nodded once to me, then scuttled back toward his boat. I stared after him. What did he mean, everything’s gonna be okay? What everything? What was he talking about?
I was still puzzling over this when Matt came over. The party had mostly broken up by now, and people were drifting back to their boats or toward town for dinner.
Matt sat down next to me, draping his arm along the bench behind my back. "You’re looking perplexed."
"That’s because I feel perplexed." I told him what Duke had just said.
"You want my opinion?" I nodded. He twisted a little so he could look at me. When he moved, his thumb brushed lightly against my back, and I shivered.
"Are you cold?" he asked, surprised, since it was in the nineties.
No, I have a thing for my best friend, so when he accidentally touches me, I go to pieces. Don’t mind my stupid self.
"Nope, I’m fine," I said in my cheeriest voice and using my snappiest comeback line. "What’s your opinion?"
"I think he was getting ready to say ‘I just wish you didn’t have a boyfriend.’ I noticed you didn’t correct him earlier when he thought we were together. It’s kind of obvious he’s got a little crush on you, Shelby."
"I don’t think it’s a crush, Matt. I got the impression that not very many people are nice to him, and he’s just grateful for a little civility. Anyway, that doesn’t explain the ‘everything’s gonna be okay’ part."
"No, I guess it doesn’t. Are you worried about it?"
"Maybe a little," I admitted.
"Well, he looked nervous when he was talking to you. Some guys get like that, talking to a pretty woman, and maybe he got embarrassed when he realized he was on the verge of telling you he liked you."
I could feel my skin getting warm, while at the same time I felt like the world’s hugest fool for having such an adolescent surge of pleasure at Matt’s words. Pretty woman.
Matt nudged my back with his hand. My skin zoomed from warm to scorching hot.
"Listen, Shelby, how about if we go out tonight? Just the two of us, I mean. You and me. We…I…you know I want to talk to you."
My heart hammered. "T-t-tonight? I—"
Just then, Jane hollered from her finger pier, "Hey! Matt! Shelby! Grab Nathan and Alex. Me and my friends want you guys to come to dinner too."
Before I could say anything, Matt called back to Jane, "Shelby and I have some business to talk over tonight. Maybe we can have a rain check on dinner with you?"
Jane looked from Matt’s face to mine, and she grinned like the Cheshire Cat when she said, "You bet." And like the idiot I am, I blushed.
✽✽✽
WE WENT TO a seafood place for dinner and sat out on the deck overlooking the water. A soft breeze made the candlelight flicker, casting moving shadows across Matt’s face.
"So, Shelby, how are you doing? We haven’t had much chance to talk alone lately," he said.
"I’m all right. I think. I feel a lot better, now that Scar G—Rumbar—is in jail."
"I hate that you had to see that. Especially after our last cruise and that episode. Even though the guy this Rumbar killed was no angel."
I thought back to the sorry lump in the car and shivered. "No, it wasn’t something I ever want to repeat."
"I know you're worried about the accomplice, the other person who was there. I've been thinking about that. If this guy—and I assume it's a guy even though you're not sure—is smart, he'll know that you didn't see him, since I doubt that there's been any description of him on the news. At most, there might have been mention of another person. But maybe not, since no one knows who they're looking for. So again, if he's smart, he'll take off, go somewhere else, in case Rumbar decides to rat him out. He's not going to hang around, Shelby."
What Matt said made sense. But still…
"I feel like that's all I've been thinking of lately. Let's not keep talking about it. Let's talk about something pleasant. So…what’s it like, being here again after all this time?"
Matt grinned. "Well, back in the Dark Ages when I was here before…"
"That’s not what I meant."
"…we didn’t even have a boat. We just floated around on rafts that we bound together with ropes of seaweed."
"All right, all right."
"It’s good to be here. I haven’t been this far north on a boat since I crewed, way back when. Driving the Ditch is a lot different from sailing in the Gulf though. I’m guessing you know which I prefer."
I smiled at him. "Hm. Let me guess. Running the engine most of the time, contending with a lot of other boaters, staying in narrow channels, as opposed to raising the sails out on the ocean, going where the wind takes you, with no one to talk to but the dolphins. I’m gonna say you’re missing the Gulf right now."
"Well, open water at any rate. What do you think about us going offshore after we leave Beaufort? Maybe as far as St. Augustine?"
I thought about that as I finished my dinner and pushed my plate away. "I think it sounds great. Alex will be excited. I’m not really sure about Nate."
"Yeah, Nate seems pretty stressed out
lately. It’s hard to tell if he’s enjoying this trip or not. But let’s not talk about him either."
"Okay, what do you want to talk about?"
Matt’s expression turned serious. It made me nervous.
He’d been telling me for a while that he had something he wanted to talk to me about. I’d been worried that he didn’t think our business arrangement was working out. Just a few weeks ago, at the end of our last cruise, he’d reassured me that that wasn’t the case. I’d been relieved, so relieved that I hadn’t pressed the point on what he really wanted to talk to me about.
But now, since he was so quiet and solemn, I felt my anxiety creeping back in.
"Let’s take a walk," he said. We paid the check and made our way outside. The night air was soft and warm, carrying the smell of fragrant flowers. The streets were silent, with only an occasional car passing or the sound of a television drifting through an open window. Matt was quiet. Finally, after a couple blocks, I looked up at him. Taking a deep breath, I asked, "So, what’s on your mind?"
"You, Shelby."
Chapter 5
He took my hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm, leading me along in the soft darkness. It felt like my heart was stuttering loudly enough for him to hear. I was surprised to feel Matt’s arm trembling beneath my hand. He took a deep breath and said, "I’m about to say something that I realize may upset you. Or irritate you. Or make you mad. But I’m going to say it anyway."
Oh God.
"Shelby?"
"Yeah? Go ahead." Mentally, I braced myself.
Matt stopped walking, released my hand, and turned me to face him, standing close. Very close. His fingers traced along my cheek. Now my hands trembled.
"I know you have your Rule, the one about not dating friends."
"Yeah." Yep, that was me, witty as ever. Jeez, Shelby.
"It’s dumb, Shelby."
I laughed, shakily. "Don’t hold back, Matt. Say what you think. Don’t sugar coat it."
"Do you want to know why I think it’s dumb?" He didn’t wait for an answer. "It’s dumb because it’s kept me from telling you how I feel about you. You’ve always been so adamant, so rigid about not crossing lines. So I’ve put off talking to you about this, for far too long, because I was afraid if I brought it up, you’d push me away. But it’s time. I’m not waiting any longer. The truth is, Shelby, I’ve wanted us to be together, for a long time. I’ve wanted you since, God, I don’t even know. We're right for each other."
I felt the heat rising in my body.
"I think I first started realizing it a few years after we graduated from college, and I went back to Junction 98 but you didn’t. I wasn’t sure I was ready to say anything at first. And then you got involved with Kyle. When you were living with him in DC, every time you called, I was afraid it would be the time that you would say you were getting married or something else equally tragic. And when you called, and things weren’t working out so well with him, I felt like a fraud because I’d listen and try to be a good friend to you, but all I wanted was for you to break up with him."
"Why didn’t you say something after we did break up?"
He laughed, ruefully. "I was going to, when you came home for Christmas that year. But I lost my nerve. I thought you really liked living in Washington, where it’s exciting. Not like Junction 98, where everything is the same, day after day, year after year. Then I was worried that you wouldn’t want to be around me if you thought I would pressure you into something you didn’t want, given your insistence on the boundaries and your dumb Rule. Or that you would want something other than the life I have—life in a small town, sailing whenever I can, not having a regular nine to five job. I just couldn’t risk it, couldn’t risk your saying no, or worse, your saying yes and then regretting it, resenting me. So I didn’t say anything. And then you met Joey, and I went through the same thing again. When you broke up—well, when he went to jail—I actually thought I was having a religious experience."
What Matt didn’t know was that I wanted him in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible even as recently as two months ago. My last two boyfriends had revealed major character flaws that were bona fide reasons to break up: Kyle was a paranoid stalker, and Joey was convicted of embezzlement and tax fraud. But, in my secret heart, I’d also realized recently that I’d been subconsciously comparing every other man I dated to Matt. And quite probably, the real reason my previous boyfriends had never measured up, even before Kyle and Joey, was because they weren’t Matt, even though I’d never acknowledged that.
Lately, for some unknown reason, I’d started seeing Matt in a whole new light. Since then, I’d felt confused and weird and conflicted. I wanted him, without a doubt. But there was my Rule, the one I’d made about not dating friends. I didn’t like dating friends because when you broke up, you weren’t friends anymore. At least in my experience. And I hated that.
And I’d hate it even worse if Matt and I got together, then broke up, and I lost his friendship. He’d been my best friend my entire life.
So now, I didn’t know what I wanted to say. Part of me wanted to throw my arms around him, and part of me shrank back in fear.
"Matt, I—"
Just then my cell phone rang, sounding louder and more insistent than normal.
"Ignore it, Shelby," Matt said, looking at me intently, his fingers still soft against my face. "Tell me what you’re thinking."
"I’m thinking that I—"
The ringing stopped, then started again almost immediately.
Matt sighed and dropped his hands, stepping backward. Nodding toward my purse, he said, "Maybe you should answer it. It must be important."
Clumsily, I fumbled in my purse and pulled out the phone, answering it without even looking at the caller ID.
"Hello?"
"Shelby, it’s Trish." Trish was Matt’s favorite sister. "Is Matt there? I need to talk to him. I have bad news."
Chapter 6
I handed the phone to Matt.
"Hello? Hey, Trish."
He was silent for a long moment while he listened.
"Where is he?" Another pause.
"What did the doctor say? How serious is it?" He listened again.
"Okay, I’ll be there. I’ll see if I can get an early flight out tomorrow morning. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Okay, I’ll tell her. Talk to you soon. Bye." He handed me my phone, and I put it back into my purse, my heart thumping, waiting to hear the bad news.
"It’s my granddad. He’s had a heart attack, and he’s in the hospital in Fort Myers."
"Oh, no! Is he—do they know if he’ll be okay?"
"Trish said they’re not sure yet. She just found out. Apparently, he’d been having pains all afternoon, but wouldn’t go get it checked until late. Stubborn old man."
"Matt, I’m so sorry. Do you want me to go with you?"
"No, no. I’d rather you stayed here to help Alex and Nathan. If we’re both gone, they’ll be stuck here. I hate leaving like this and leaving you with all the responsibility though. Especially after everything that’s happened, with Rumbar."
"It’s okay. Don’t worry about that. He’s in jail. I’m fine. But are you sure you don’t want the company?"
He put his arm around me and pulled me close. "Thanks. But it would give me peace of mind if you stayed here and took care of things. If you don’t mind doing that."
"Of course I don’t mind. Whatever you need."
Matt was pretty quiet on our way back to the boat, absent-mindedly holding my hand as we walked. When we got back to the dock, he gave my hand a squeeze. "Trish said to tell you hello. She said she misses you."
I smiled a little. "I miss her too. Give her my love when you see her. And to Henry too. You know I love him like he was my own grandfather."
"I know you do."
We climbed aboard the boat, and I was surprised to find Nathan there alone.
"Where’s Alex?" I asked, sliding onto the settee beside him. Matt sat down
across from us.
"He’s still out with Jane and her friends. He should be back any minute. Sounds like he’s back now, in fact."
We heard voices, then the boat rocked as Alex climbed aboard, laughing and calling goodnight to Jane.
"Hey, guys, you missed a good time," Alex said. "Jane’s friends were great. We heard the best story…" His voice trailed off as he looked at our faces. "Oh, no, what’s happened?" He sat down next to Matt.
Matt said, "My granddad’s had a heart attack. He’s in the hospital, in Fort Myers. They don’t know yet how serious it is."
Alex’s face sagged. "Oh, Matt, I’m so sorry to hear that. I hope he’ll be okay."
"I hope so too. It’s too soon for them to know much. He just went to the ER a little bit ago. And, I’m really sorry to leave you like this, but I’m going to fly back to Fort Myers tomorrow morning to be there in case—to see him."
Nathan said, "I’m sorry too, Matt. That sounds serious. Shelby, are you going too? Back to Florida?"
"No, Matt asked me to stay here with you, so we can keep going."
Alex said, "Oh, you don’t have to do that. We’ll be fine here on our own until you get back."
"No, Matt’s right, I’ll stay here with you. We can’t both just go and leave you in the lurch."
"Where are you flying out from?" Nathan asked. He had his cell phone in his hand and was absently rubbing his thumb along the edge.
Telltale (Shelby Hope Book Two) (Shelby Hope Novels 2) Page 5
