by Nora Roberts
“Oh, out and about, Jule. Got me a taste for lobster roll.”
“You came to the right place.” The waitress, scarecrow-thin with a puff of steel gray hair, eyed Megan craftily. “So, who's this?”
“Megan O'Riley, her son Kevin. This is Julie Peterson. The best lobster cook on Mount Desert Island.”
“The new accountant from The Towers.” Julie gave a brisk nod. “Well, sit down, sit down. I'll fix you up when I get a minute.” She swiveled back to her other customers. “You make up your mind yet, or are you just going to sit and take the air?”
“The food's better than the service.” Nathaniel winked at Kevin as he led them to a booth. “You've just met one of the monuments of the island, Kevin. Mrs. Peterson's family has been trapping lobster and cooking them up for over a hundred years.”
“Wow.” He eyed the waitress, who, to almost-nine-year-old eyes, seemed old enough to have been handling that job personally for at least a century.
“I worked here some when I was a kid. Swabbing the decks.” And she'd been kind to him, Nathaniel remembered. Giving him ice or salve for his bruises, saying nothing.
“I thought you worked with Holt's family—” Megan began, then cursed herself when he lifted a brow at her. “Coco mentioned it.”
“I put in some time with the Bradfords.”
“Did you know Holt's grandfather?” Kevin wanted to know. “He's one of the ghosts.”
“Sure. He used to sit on the porch of the house where Alex and Jenny live now. Sometimes he'd walk up to the cliffs over by The Towers. Looking for Bianca.”
“Lilah says they walk there together now. I haven't seen them.” And it was a crushing disappointment. “Have you ever seen a ghost?”
“More than once.” Nathaniel ignored the stiff kick Megan gave him under the table. “In Cornwall, where the cliffs are deadly and the fogs roll in like something alive, I saw a woman standing, looking out to sea. She wore a cape with a hood, and there were tears in her eyes.”
Kevin was leaning forward now, rapt and eager.
“I started toward her, through the mist, and she turned. She was beautiful, and sad. 'Lost,' was what she said to me. 'He's lost. And so am I. Then she vanished. Like smoke.”
“Honest?” Kevin said in an awed whisper.
Honest wasn't the point, Nathaniel knew. The pull of the story was. “They called her the Captain's Lady, and legend is that her husband and his ship went down in a storm in the Irish Sea. Night after night while she lived, and long after, she walked the cliffs weeping for him.”
“Maybe you should be writing books, like Max,” Megan murmured, surprised and annoyed at the shiver that raced down her spine.
“Oh, he can spin a tale, Nate can.” Julie plopped two beers and a soft drink on the table. “Used to badger me about all the places he was going to see. Well, guess you saw them, didn't you, Captain?”
“Guess I did.” Nathaniel lifted the bottle to his lips. “But I never forgot you, darling.”
Julie gave another cackling laugh, punched his shoulder. “Sweet-talker,” she said, and shuffled off.
Megan studied her beer. “She didn't take our order.”
“She won't. She'll bring us what she wants us to have.” He took another pull of the beer. “Because she likes me. If you're not up for beer, I can charm her into switching it.”
“No, it's fine. I suppose you know a lot of people on the island, since you grew up here.”
“A few. I was gone a long time.”
“Nate sailed around the whole world. Twice.” Kevin slurped soda through his straw. “Through hurricanes and typhoons and everything.”
“It must have been exciting.” “It had its moments.”
“Do you miss it?”
“I sailed on another man's ship for more than fifteen years. Now I sail my own. Things change.” Nathaniel draped his arm over the back of the booth, “like you coming here.”
“We like it.” Kevin began to stab his straw in the ice. “Mom's boss in Oklahoma was a skinflint.”
“Kevin.”
“Granddad said so. And he didn't appreciate you. You were hiding your light under a bushel.” Kevin didn't know what that meant, but his grandmother had said so.
“Granddad's biased.” She smiled and ruffled her son's hair. “But we do like it here.”
“Eat hearty,” Julie ordered, and dropped three enormous platters on the table.
The long rolls of crusty bread were filled with chunks of lobster and flanked by a mound of coleslaw and a small mountain of French fries.
“Girl needs weight,” Julie proclaimed. “Boy, too. Didn't know you liked 'em skinny, Captain.”
“I like them any way I can get them,” Nathaniel corrected, which sent Julie off into another gale of laughter.
“We'll never eat all of this.” Megan stared, daunted, at her plate.
Nathaniel had already dug in. “Sure we will. So, have you looked over Fergus's book yet?”
“Not really.” Megan sampled the first bite. Whatever the atmosphere, the food was four-star. “I want to get the backlog caught up first. Since Shipshape's books were the worst, I dealt with them first. I still have to work on your second quarter, and The Retreat's.”
“Your mother's a practical woman, Kiev.”
“Yeah.” Kevin managed to swallow a giant bite of lobster roll. “Granddad says she needs to get out more.”
“Kevin.”
But the warning came too late. Nathaniel was already grinning. “Does he? What else does Granddad say?”
“She should live a little.” Kevin attacked his French fries with the singleminded determination of a child. “ 'Cause she's too young to hole up like a hermit.”
“Your granddad's a smart man.”
“Oh, yeah. He knows everything. He's got oil for blood and horses on the brain.”
“A quote from my mother,” Megan said dryly. “She knows everything, too.
But you were asking about Fergus's book.”
“Just wondered if it had scratched your curiosity.”
“Some. I thought I might take an hour or so at night to work on it.” “I don't think that's what your daddy meant by living a little, Meg.”
“Regardless.” She turned back to the safer topic of the account book. “Some of the pages are faded badly, but other than a few minor mistakes, the accounts are very accurate. Except for the last couple of pages, where there are just numbers without any logic.”
“Really. They don't add up?”
“They don't seem to, but I need to take a closer look.”
“Sometimes you miss more by looking too close.” Nathaniel winked at Julie as she set another round of drinks on the table. It was coffee for him this time. She knew that when he was driving he kept it to one beer. “I wouldn't mind taking a look at it.”
Megan frowned at her. “Why?” “I like puzzles.”
“I don't think it's much of a puzzle, but if it's all right with the family, I don't have any objection.” She leaned back, sighed. “Sorry, I just can't eat any more.”
“It's okay,” Nathaniel switched his empty plate with hers. “I can.”
To Megan's amazement, he could. It wasn't much of a surprise that Kevin had managed to clean his plate. The way he was growing he often seemed in danger of eating china and all when he sat down for a meal. But Nathaniel ate his meal, then half of hers, without a blink.
“Have you always eaten like that?” Megan asked when they were driving away from the restaurant.
“Nope. Always wanted to, though. Never could seem to fill up as a kid.” Of course, that might have been because there was little to fill up on. “At sea, you learn to eat anything, and plenty of it, while it's there.”
“You should weigh three hundred pounds.”
“Some people burn it off.” He shifted his eyes to hers. “Like you. All that nervous energy you've got just eats up those calories.”
“I'm not skinny,” she muttered.
&n
bsp; “Nope. Thought you were myself, till I got ahold of you. It's more like willowy—and you've got a real soft feel to you when you're pressed up against a man.”
She hissed, started to look over her shoulder.
“He conked out the minute I turned on the engine,” Nathaniel told her. And, indeed, she could see Kevin stretched out in the back, his head pillowed on his arms, sleeping soundly. “Though I don't see what harm there is for the boy to know a man's interested in his mother.”
“He's a child.” She turned back, the gentle look in her eyes gone. “I won't have him think that I'm—”
“Human?”
“It's not your affair. He's my son.”
“That he is,” Nathaniel agreed easily. “And you've done a hell of a job with him.”
She slanted him a cautious look. “Thank you.”
“No need to. Just a fact. It's tough raising a kid on your own. You found the way to do it right.”
It was impossible to stay irritated with him, especially when she remembered what Coco had told her. “You lost your mother when you were young. Ah... Coco mentioned it.”
“Coco's been mentioning a lot of things.”
“She didn't mean any harm. You know how she is, better than I. She cares so much about people, and wants to see them...”
“Lined up two by two? Yeah, I know her. She picked you out for me.” “She—” Words failed her. “That's ridiculous.”
“Not to Coco.” He steered easily around a curve. “Of course, she doesn't know that I know she's already got me scheduled to go down on one knee.”
“It's fortunate, isn't it, that you're forewarned?”
Her indignant tone had a smile twitching at his lips. “Sure is. She's been singing your praises for months. And you almost live up to the advance publicity.”
She hissed like a snake and turned to him. His grin, and the absurdity of the situation, changed indignation to amusement. “Thank you.” She stretched out her legs, leaned back and decided to enjoy the ride. “I'd hate to have disappointed you.”
“Oh, you didn't, sugar.”
“I've been told you're mysterious, romantic and charming.”
“And?”
“You almost live up to the advance publicity.”
“Sugar—” he took her hand and kissed it lavishly “—I can be a lot better.”
“I'm sure you can.” She drew her hand away, refusing to acknowledge the rippling thrill up her arm. “If I wasn't so fond of her, I'd be annoyed. But she's so kind.”
“She has the truest heart of anyone I've ever met. I used to wish she was my mother.”
“I'm sorry.” Before she could resist the urge, Megan laid a hand on his. “It must have been so hard, losing your mother when you were only a child.”
“It's all right. It was a long time ago.” Much too long for him to grieve. “I still remember seeing Coco in the village, or when I'd tag along with Holt to take fish up to The Towers. There she'd be, this gorgeous womanlooked like a queen. Never knew what color her hair would be from one week to the next.”
“She's a brunette today,” Megan said, and made him laugh.
“First woman I ever fell for. She came to the house a couple times, read my old man the riot act about his drinking. Guess she thought if he was sober he wouldn't knock me around so much.” He took his eyes off the road again, met hers. “I imagine she mentioned that, too?”
“Yes.” Uncomfortable, Megan looked away. “I'm sorry, Nathaniel. I hate when people discuss me, no matter how good their intentions. It's so intrusive.”
“I'm not that sensitive, Meg. Everybody knew what my old man was like.” He could remember, too well, the pitying looks, the glances that slid uneasily away. “It bothered me back then, but not anymore.”
She struggled to find the right words. “Did Coco-did it do any good?”
He was silent a moment, staring out at the lowering sun and the bloodred light it poured into the water. “He was afraid of her, so he beat the hell out of me when she left.”
“Oh, God.”
“I'd just assume she didn't know that.”
“No.” Megan had to swallow the hot tears lodged in her throat. “I won't tell her. That's why you ran away to sea, isn't it? To get away from him.”
“That's one of the reasons.” He reached over, ran a fingertip down her cheek. “You know, if I'd figured out the way to get to you was to tell you I'd taken a strap a few times, I'd have brought it up sooner.”
“It's nothing to joke about.” Megan's voice was low and furious. “There's no excuse for treating a child that way.”
“Hey, I lived through it.”
“Did you?” She shifted back to him, eyes steady. “Did you ever stop hating him?”
“No.” He said it quietly. “No, I didn't. But I stopped letting it be important, and maybe that's healthier.” He stopped the car in front of The Towers, turned to her. “Someone hurts you, in a permanent way, you don't forget it. But the best revenge is seeing that it doesn't matter.”
“You're talking about Kevin's father, and it's not at all the same. I wasn't a helpless child.”
“Depends on where you draw the line between helpless and innocent.” Nathaniel opened the car door. “I'll carry Kevin in for you.”
“You don't have to.” She hurried out herself, but Nathaniel already had the boy in his arms.
They stood there for a moment, in the last glow of the day, the boy between them, his head resting securely on Nathaniel's shoulder, dark hair to dark hair, honed muscle to young limbs.
Something locked deep inside her swelled, tried to burst free. She sighed it away, stroked a hand over her son's back and felt the steady rhythm of his breathing.
“He's had a long day.”
“So have you, Meg. There are shadows under your eyes. Since that means you didn't sleep any better than I did last night, I can't say I mind seeing them there.”
It was hard, she thought, so very hard, to keep pulling away from the current that drew her to him. “I'm not ready for this, Nathaniel.”
“Sometimes a wind comes up, blows you off course. You're not ready for it, but if you're lucky, you end up in a more interesting place than you'd planned.”
“I don't like to depend on luck.”
“That’s okay. I do.” He shifted the boy more comfortably, and carried him to the house.
Chapter 6
“I don't see what all the damn to-do's about,” Dutch grumbled as he whipped a delicate egg froth for his angel food cake surprise.
“Trenton St. James II is a member of the family.” Running on nerves, Coco checked the temperature on her prime rib. She had a dozen things to deal with since the cucumber facial she'd indulged in had thrown off her timetable. “And the president of the St. James hotels.” Satisfied that the beef was coming along nicely, she basted her roast duck. “As this is his first visit to The Retreat, it's important that everything run smoothly.”
“Some rich bastard coming around to freeload.”
“Mr. Van Horne!” Coco's heart lurched. After six months, she knew she shouldn't be shocked by the man. But, really. “I've known Mr. St. James for... well, a great number of years. I can assure you he is a successful businessman, an entrepreneur. Not a freeloader.”
Dutch sniffed, gave Coco the once-over. She'd done herself up good and proper, he noted. The fancy-shmancy dress glittered and flowed down, stopping plenty short to show off her legs. Her cheeks were all pink, too. And he didn't think it was from kitchen heat. His lips curled back in a sneer.
“So what's he, your boyfriend?”
The pink deepened to rose. “Certainly not. A woman of my...experience doesn't have boyfriends.” Surreptitiously she checked her face in the stainless-steel exhaust hood on the stove. “Beaux, perhaps.”
Beaux. Ha! “I hear he's been married four times and pays enough alimony to balance the national debt. You looking to be number five?”
Speechless, Coco pressed a hand to her
heart. “You are—” She stumbled, stuttered, over the words. “Impossibly rude. Impossibly crude.”
“Hey, ain't none of my never-mind if you want to land yourself a rich fish.”
She squeaked. Though the rolling temper that caused red dots to swim in front of her eyes appalled her—she was, after all, a civilized woman—she surged forward to ram a coral-tipped nail into his massive chest. “I will not tolerate any more of your insults.”
“Yeah?” He poked her right back. “Whatcha gonna do about it?” She leaned forward until they were nose-to-nose. “I will fire you.”
“Now that'll break my heart. Go ahead, fancy face, give me the boot. See how you get by with tonight's dinner rush.”
“I assure you, I will 'get by' delightfully.” Her heart was beating too fast. Coco wondered it didn't soar right out of her breast.
“Like hell.” He hated her perfume. Hated that it made his nostrils twitch and his mouth water. “When I came on board, you were barely treading water.”
She couldn't get her breath, simply couldn't. “This kitchen doesn't need you, Mr. Van Horne. And neither do I.”
“You need me plenty.” How had his hands gotten onto her shoulders? Why were hers pressed to his chest? The hell with how or why, he thought. He'd show her what was what.
Her eyes popped hard when his hard, sneering mouth crushed down on hers in a very thorough kiss. But she didn't see a thing. Her world, so beautifully secure, tilted under her feet. That was why—naturally that was why—she clung to him.
She would slap his face. She certainly would. In just a few minutes.
Damn women, Dutch thought. Damn them all. Especially tall, curvy, sweet-smelling females with lips like... cooking cherries. He'd always had a weakness for tartness.
He jerked her away, but kept his big hands firm on her shoulders. “Let's get something straight....” he began.
“Now look here…” she said at the same time.
They both leaped apart like guilty children when the kitchen door swung open.
Megan stood frozen in the doorway, her jaw dropping. Surely she hadn't seen what she thought she'd seen. Coco was checking the oven, and Dutch was measuring flour into a bowl. They couldn't have been...embracing. Yet both of them were a rather startling shade of pink.
