by Blake, Toni
How much else about her grandmother didn’t she know?
And maybe the bigger question—at least right now—should be: What had changed her mind? About the island? What had made her fall in love with it and happily stay her whole life?
She read on. Entries from days that followed revealed that “Peggy” had gotten her new Elvis record—amazing to think of a time when “All Shook Up” had been brand new—and that snow was indeed predicted for the coming week. “I guess it can snow all it wants,” she wrote, “just as long as it doesn’t get much colder. Too much ice and the ferry won’t be able to get through.”
Yes, Meg knew all about ice and ferries and why the dead of winter was definitely the starkest of times here.
Of course, Zack’s entry into her life had made winters a lot warmer. Ice and bitter cold kept fishermen at home. A season she’d once dreaded had become one that felt more...dependable now, one where she knew what to expect. Nights in his arms. Sex. Cuddling.
He wasn’t there all the time, of course—they maintained separate residences and separate lives and that was fine. She wasn’t the clingy type actually. She just liked consistency. She just liked knowing what tomorrow held.
He could be here with you right now. He’d come back because he wanted that, wanted to show her he cared. That still blew her away, being a first. But she stood by her decision. To watch him sail away in the morning with no more of a promise between them than there’d been the last time, or the time before that, made it feel...empty. Like a slow road to nowhere.
She and Suzanne joked that the road circling the island—more of a wide paved path really, given the lack of cars on it—was just that, a road to nowhere. There were plenty of stops along the way, but ultimately, it led you in a big circle, back to where you’d started.
Suzanne liked that. “No surprises,” she’d said. “I like knowing it will always bring me back, that I know exactly what to expect.”
“I guess what it comes down to,” Meg had replied, “is whether the place it brings you back to is fulfilling enough that you always want to be brought back there.”
And they’d gotten into a philosophical discussion of whether places that never changed were more good than bad, and whether a world with definite boundaries gave you security or hemmed you in. Obviously, from her grandma’s diary, it was a topic that had long been a point of contention here.
And maybe it always would be. Maybe mothers and daughters and granddaughters and friends would be weighing all the pros and cons of it for generations to come. The only real uncertainty in the mix for Meg being whether she’d still be here to take up the discussion or would leave Summer Island in her wake and never look back.
* * *
DESPITE BEING IN his own bed, Zack slept poorly. Or maybe that was the problem—being in his own bed. He’d expected to be in Meg’s, after all. And he’d spent the better part of the night tossing and turning, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he wasn’t, and the confusing reasons why.
He’d thought she’d be happy to see him.
But then, he’d thought she’d be alone, too.
It had never crossed his mind that he’d walk out that door to find anyone but her on the patio. His Maggie May.
There she’d been, smiling, laughing, with some young guy who was too good-looking for anybody’s good. He was like a guy you’d see in a commercial, or a magazine. A guy who could sell stuff to gullible women.
And turned out he’d sold himself to Meg—at least in a manner of speaking.
And Meg was thinking of selling the inn? Leaving? Now, as he walked down the stairs outside his apartment and into Dahlia’s for breakfast, he shook his head, still trying to convince himself he hadn’t somehow hallucinated the whole damn thing.
His aunt opened the restaurant early this time of year—earlier than was probably necessary until the tourists arrived—so he found her there alone. She wore a purple sweater that made her look younger and more stylish than her years. She had a flair about her, Dahlia. And she was blunt as hell. “Well, look what the cat dragged in. And you do look like you’ve been dragged, nephew.” She tilted her head, eyed him from behind her little spectacles that made him think of early seventies hippies. He suspected she’d probably been one. She planted her hands on her hips. “Didn’t you just leave?”
“I came back,” he muttered. His head hurt the same way it would from a night of heavy drinking—without having had the pleasure of the drinks.
“So you weren’t dragged. Just look that way.”
“Didn’t get much sleep.”
She arched a brow. “And not for a good reason, I’m presuming, or you’d be in a better mood.”
“Shouldn’t have come,” he said, trudging past her to a table. “Headed right back out.”
She turned to look at him, but he didn’t return the gaze. “What brought you home?”
He thought about how much to say. As little as possible. But enough to keep her from prying. “Thought Meg was mad about me leaving. Turned out she was doing fine without me.”
It surprised him when Dahlia laughed. “Then you’ve heard she hired some help.”
He raised his eyes, spoke drily. “Don’t really see what’s so damn funny about it.”
Dahlia moved to the drink station, started pouring him a glass of orange juice without asking. “Guess it just amuses me to see you jealous.”
“Well, now, wait just a minute,” he said, holding up a hand in protest.
“No, you wait.” She lowered the glass in front of him. “You may not want to put a label on it, but the fact is, you’re unhappy and Meg taking control of her life without you is clearly the reason why. But considering that you come and go at your leisure, why would you expect her to do anything else?”
What the hell was his aunt babbling about? He had no idea. And his head continued to pound. He squinted up at her. “For your information, I don’t care who she hires to do what, but that guy rubbed me the wrong way. She doesn’t know him from Adam and here he is, hanging out on the patio with her like he owns the place.”
Her wrinkled face twisted into another smirky smile. “Jealous,” she said softly. “Like I said.”
He rolled his eyes. Only then it hit him to ask, “There’s nothing going on between them I don’t know about?”
“Not that I’m aware of. But I doubt Meg would run down here and tell me if there was. And...if there was, would there be anything wrong with that?”
Aw hell. She was backing him into a corner. Because no answer was the right one here—he couldn’t win. So he settled on saying, “I’m not gonna discuss this with you, old woman.”
Her eyebrows shot up critically. “Watch who you’re calling old, nephew, or you won’t get the waffle I know you’re waiting on me to make.”
They both knew good and well the other was teasing—even if the remarks hadn’t necessarily come out sounding that way. “Fine, I take it back. But I’m still not gonna discuss my relationship with Meg.”
She shrugged, then turned toward the kitchen. But as she started to walk away, she paused, looked over her shoulder. “You may not want advice from your old lady aunt, Zachary, but she was hurt when you left. She’s always hurt when you leave. And I think you already know that. But the point is, if you care about that woman, you could just stand to...let her know, that’s all.”
Zack considered the many ways he could reply. He could point out—again—that he’d come back, for God’s sake. He could point out that their relationship was none of Dahlia’s business. But he’d just told her he wasn’t discussing it and he meant it. And he knew she had good intentions, but...hell, his head hurt. “I have the situation in hand,” he said quietly. “And yeah, I would appreciate breakfast.”
She nodded and said in just as calm a tone, “You know I’m happy to make it for you.”
She started toward the kitchen again, and almost against his better judgment, he said, “Dahlia.”
“What?” She looked back once more.
“I meant it when I said the guy rubbed me the wrong way. And not just for the reasons you think. I know there are strangers in the inn all the time—she reminded me of that—but...this just feels different. So, uh, maybe keep an eye on that situation while I’m gone?”
She looked uncertain—whether about the request or his judgment he didn’t know—but finally said, “To the degree that I can. She’s not an incapable woman, though. You know that, right?”
He nodded. “Of course I do.”
And he did. He truly did. And if he’d ever thought she was too attached to him, she’d blown that theory right out of the water last night. He still felt a little off-kilter about it.
An hour later, he’d let Dahlia’s apple-strudel waffles revive him and had shut the apartment back up, ready to leave. As he walked the short distance down Harbor Street to the Summerbrook Inn on a clear morning, he wasn’t sure how to say goodbye. And that was new.
Stepping up on the front porch, he heard music playing, loud, over the also loud sound of some sort of machinery. Since the front door was open, he reached for the screen door handle and stepped inside, hoping to find Meg before he found her handyman.
No such luck. A quick search of the downstairs led him to the kitchen, where the guy he’d seen on the patio last night used a large sander on the newly revealed wood floor. He didn’t notice Zack’s approach amid the various noises, allowing him to walk right past and out the back door—but still no Meg, damn it.
Only when he came back in did the sander go quiet as the stranger’s blue eyes—too blue to be real, he thought; his mother would have called that movie star blue, Paul Newman blue—turned his way. “Mornin’,” the guy said.
At just that moment, Meg emerged from her office, carrying some color swatches as she began, “I was thinking—” And then, spotting Zack, stopped. Like he was interrupting.
“Morning,” Zack said, to both of them. It came out stiff, brusque.
She didn’t quite smile. “Hi.” And despite himself, that stung a little—that not-quite-smile. Usually, she smiled.
“Stopped in to say bye,” he told her. But that came out stiff, too—because he had to announce it in front of this other guy, and it felt awkward, strange. The handyman’s presence put everything out of whack.
In response, Meg—thank God—stepped around the guy and the sander toward Zack. “I’ll walk out with you.” She led the way into the hall, past the nook where the cat lay sleeping in the sun-filled window, and out to the foyer.
Once there, she said, “Be safe.”
He nodded. “Always am.” Then he took in certain details about her. The pale pink of the top she wore, The messy ponytail she’d pulled her hair back into. And mainly...the confidence she gave off. Dahlia was right—she was a damn capable woman. So maybe he shouldn’t worry, should let all this go and assume things were fine. Maybe.
“It was nice of you to come back, Zack,” she said, looking up at him. “I’m sorry...things were weird.”
“I’m sorry, too—if I overreacted.”
“Thank you for that,” she said softly. Seeming sweeter now, but still a little distant. And he had the feeling he’d really messed up somewhere along the way, only he had no idea what he’d done.
Still, maybe he should take Dahlia’s words to heart. “Listen, Maggie May, you know I love you, right?”
She pursed her lips, looked almost sad. He didn’t get it.
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No—of course not. It’s a good thing.”
“Good,” he said, not completely convinced, but he’d take what he could get. And then he followed the impulse to lift one hand to her silky cheek, look into her gentle eyes, and lean down to kiss her. Not a heavy, passionate kiss—no, it was slow, lingering, a connection of mouths that he tried to make last, that he wanted them both to remember after it ended.
He looked back into those green eyes afterward and felt better than before he’d come. And he sort of wished he could stay longer, but just like last night, he knew she didn’t want him to if he was only going to leave. And if he went now, he could lay some more nets on the way back to the Port Loyal coastline and be ready to start bringing in the catch from the ones already there first thing tomorrow.
“I’ll see ya soon, honey.”
She nodded.
He squeezed her hand.
And then he walked out the door.
* * *
MEG STOOD ON the front porch watching as the Emily Ann sailed off through the cold, deep waters of Lake Huron toward its next catch. This time, though, everything felt different.
She wasn’t wearing her grandmother-prescribed sweater, because today no barrier of fog hung between the sun and Summer Island—the days were slowly getting warmer, brighter.
Her heart wasn’t breaking—because she’d stopped letting it. She had projects and plans to see to—things to do, things to fix, things to think about.
And she didn’t know all the coming summer would hold—but one thing it would definitely deliver was answers. Big ones.
As a light breeze wafted across the porch and the boat disappeared beyond the horizon, summer felt a mere heartbeat away.
Part 2
“The true courage is in facing danger when
you are afraid, and that kind of courage
you have in plenty.”
—L. Frank Baum,
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IN THE DAYS that followed, she fell into a routine of sorts with Seth. She welcomed him in the mornings, sometimes with a light breakfast—or not. At lunchtime, she made two sandwiches and they ate together, albeit quickly, usually at the table in the sunroom. She hadn’t offered him dinner, though, since the night Zack had interrupted them—something felt officially awkward about that now. As if she had somehow turned it into a date. Or he had. Or they both had. Wittingly or unwittingly—it didn’t matter. She didn’t want to confuse him. Or herself.
He kept her updated on the work and consulted her on any decisions to be made. The kitchen floor was done within a few days and looked amazing. Now he had started painting the cabinets and would move on to the kitchen table after that. Most of the inn felt quaint and lovely to her, as such a place should—but the kitchen had rocked a bit of a seventies vibe her whole life, and the changes Seth was making would bring the room into sync with the rest of the big, beautiful old house.
While he worked, she did, too—just on other things. More flowers, more planting. Multi-hued verbena and vinca in pots on the back porch, clumps of Solenia begonias in coral, yellow, pink, and cream in shady spots, along with impatiens at the bases of some trees—although they were annuals, she’d had some luck with them coming back, cross-pollinating, taking on the look of wild-growing blooms. She also trimmed the hedges, tidied up bushes in the rose garden, and scrubbed down the patio furniture—and today she had moved indoors to clean guestrooms. Her first visitors of the summer arrived in only a week and there were always a million things to do to get ready. She was giving the rooms a thorough dusting today, one by one, currently the rose room with its classic white furniture and a style just a little more pristine than shabby chic.
Of course, when they ate lunch, they talked about more than just the work.
He flirted. Outrageously. With those eyes of his. And that grin.
“Sure you wanna leave this place, Meg darlin’?” he asked her one day over lunch, grin in place, eyes half-shut, head cocked to one side. The noon sun shone bright behind him, again giving him that angel-with-a-dark-side look.
She regarded him with a small, pleasant smile—a smile she’d learned to reserve for him. It didn’
t flirt back, but it didn’t push it away, either. “No, actually, I’m not—you know that. I’m just considering it. And preparing for the possibility.”
“’Cause it’s none of my business, but something I can’t help thinking, all the time, is that...you fit here.”
She wasn’t sure how to take that, but it made her smile drop away. Had he decided she was boring? Quiet? Old-fashioned? Or...did the leap she made to that conclusion just indicate she thought that about herself? She lowered her chin slightly. “How do you mean?”
It surprised her, though, when his grin faded as well, and he appeared to be thinking very hard. “There’s such a thing as...simple beauty. It...doesn’t try too hard—it just is. This island’s like that. This house is like that. And you’re like that.”
As they looked at each other in that moment, she suffered the oddest, most unexpected, most compelling urge to kiss him. It rose up from deep within her solar plexus like a flower growing as fast as Jack’s beanstalk, and the bloom burst open somewhere around her breasts.
She still thought he was a player, a charmer—by trade in fact, almost as much as he was a handyman—but he was so damn skilled at it that it almost didn’t matter. It was impossible, even in her awareness of such, to know where the charm became the truth. This felt true. Like he really saw that in her. One more reminder of how good he made her feel—with only a tiny bit of effort. Regardless of where the line of truth lay, she couldn’t help thinking his charm made the world a nicer place.
She hadn’t kissed him, of course. She’d simply let that small, practiced smile come back and said, “Thank you,” as a bit of warmth rose to her cheeks. Then she’d picked up both their empty plates and walked away. And now she tried not to feel the memory too much as she cleared the few items off the white dresser and sprayed some furniture polish.
