by Noelle Adams
The house and utilities were still in her mother’s name. Maybe Holly had Meg hidden away in a room somewhere.
The thought intrigued him, but it didn’t really jive with what he’d sensed about her so far. He was sure that Holly lived alone.
So why wasn’t the property in her name? What had happened to Meg? And what had happened to Holly that had turned her off other people so much?
There was definitely something here. Cade could taste it.
He mulled over possibilities as he quickly changed clothes and then headed out of the house.
The wildlife reserve was the last left turn before the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Cade had been there several times as a boy—usually on school trips—so he knew exactly where to go.
The parking lot to the visitors’ center was mostly empty, which was not surprising given the time of year. Cade felt an intense wave of nostalgia as he walked through the doors.
The exhibits were all the same. The layout of the room was the same. Even the smell was the same as what he remembered when he’d visited this place as a boy.
There were two old men chatting at the front desk as he entered. They greeted him cheerfully, and he saw as he walked over that the name tag of one said “George” and the other said “Doug.”
Doug was the one he wanted.
“I’m Cade Chesterton,” he said, holding out a hand to one man and then the other.
“Chesterton,” George said. He had glasses and very little hair. “Chesterton. Are you Lola’s boy then?”
“Yes. That’s me.”
“You’re the writer who lives in New York City,” Doug said, grinning at him as if he was half-impressed and half-amused. “You made the big time, I guess.”
If Cade had ever made the big time, he was now hanging on to it by a thread. He didn’t say that, however. He just smiled and said, “I’m doing all right, I guess.”
“Did you come to look at the birds?” Doug asked, looking rightfully dubious.
“No. No, I didn’t. I actually came to talk to you, if you don’t mind. My mom said you might know about Margaret Chaney. Meg Chaney, who used to work at the library.”
“Meg Chaney,” Doug said, his brown eyes widening. “You’re kidding! You want to know about Meg Chaney.” He turned to George. “She was before your time. She was a very pretty girl who used to live in Cape Charles.”
“Yes,” Cade said. “I’d appreciate anything you can remember about her.”
“Why do you want to know?”
Cade hated questions like that, although they were natural, and he would have probably asked the same thing. So he gave the same answer he always gave when people wondered why he was asking questions. “Just something I’m working on.”
Doug clicked his teeth and looked off into the distance, which happened to be at an enormous map of the Eastern Shore, which was displayed on a wall. “Meg Chaney. Yes, she was a clerk in the library for about eight years. She went to college at the girls’ school in Virginia Beach and then came back home to Cape Charles and got a job in the library.”
Cade made a mental note. He never wrote things down when he talked to people. He’d found that tended to intimidate them and make them less likely to open up. So he had to use his memory to hold on to important details. “What was she like?”
“She was quiet. One of those shy bookworms—you know the type. Boys always liked her. They used to come into the library and moon over her, but she was completely oblivious. She never stepped out with anyone.”
“I thought she had a boyfriend.”
“I don’t know that she did. People said she must have had a boyfriend out of town since she never went out with hometown boys, but I never thought she did. She just seemed—I don’t know—above it all. She was into books and she was a writer—like you, actually.”
“Was she? What did she write?”
“Stories, I suppose. I never read any of them, and I never heard she got anything published.”
“Where did she live?”
“With her parents. They had a house on Strawberry Street.”
His mother had said the same thing. Cade made a mental note to look that up. “I thought they had a piece of property on the beach.”
“Oh, they might have. They had plenty of money. They certainly didn’t live there though. They lived on Strawberry Street. Meg lived there until she left town. I guess she was about thirty then.”
“You don’t know where she went?”
Doug shook his head, looking reflective. “They said she ran off with a no-account boyfriend, but that didn’t seem likely to me. She just wasn’t like that. I figured maybe she just wanted to sow wild oats while she could and maybe see the world.”
“How long was she gone?”
“A year or so. She came back with a baby. I was so surprised.” Doug shook his head. “I didn’t think she even knew how kids were made. She was always so… lofty, so above it all.”
“Did she have any friends?”
“Not many. She went across the bay to shop sometimes with Rosie Meldon.”
“Is Rosie still around?”
“She got married and moved up to Maryland, I think. I can’t remember exactly.”
Cade sighed. That was going to be a hard lead to track down then.
He chatted for a few more minutes so he wouldn’t come across as rude, and then he made an escape.
He was more intrigued than ever. Whatever had happened to Meg Chaney twenty years ago was connected in some way to Holly.
He would have to find out more about Meg in order to get the full story on Holly.
Cade changed into a swimsuit before he went down to the beach that afternoon at a little before six.
He had no reason to assume that Holly swam every day at the same time, but it was possible. She seemed to be a creature of habit—always going into town on the same day, always getting a cheeseburger from the grill, always burying dead animals in the same place. It seemed like a fairly good guess that she might swim on a regular schedule as well.
He didn’t want to look too obvious, so he set up his chair on his own stretch of beach, but it was a lot closer to her property than where he’d stationed himself yesterday, and it was farther up toward the bay. She’d be likely to see him if she came down today.
He hadn’t brought his binoculars this time. He wasn’t sure she’d believe him if he claimed to be a bird watcher.
He put on his sunglasses and pretended to read, although most of the time his eyes were focused on where her walkway ended at the beach.
It wasn’t long before she appeared.
He experienced an intense buzzing of interest in his head and pulse points when he saw her take the last step onto the sand. She was too far away to see her face, but she was wearing the same dress she’d worn this morning. It would have dried by now.
It looked like she was carrying a towel.
If she didn’t notice him, then he’d have to walk over to her—as if he was just being friendly and saying hi. He’d rather she make the first move, but there was a good chance that she wouldn’t.
She spent her life alone, and talking to him for one morning wasn’t likely to change that.
He was still pretending to read, holding his breath and trying his best to look casual, when he saw her pause on her walk toward the water.
He still couldn’t see her face, but he thought she might be looking in his direction. She must have seen him.
Now she was deciding what to do.
He let out a breath when she finally turned in his direction and slowly started to walk.
He made sure his eyes were focused on the pages of the book, and he read a sentence about a CIA agent pulling out a gun about twenty times before he could feel her to his left.
He figured this would be the time when he would have naturally noticed her presence, so he turned his head casually.
“Hey,” he called out when he saw she was standing right on the border of her prope
rty, staring at him. “How are you?”
“What are you doing?” she asked. It was strange how she wouldn’t step foot off the part of the beach that belonged to her. He had to guess the location of the borderline by the position of the NO TRESPASSING sign farther up on the dunes, but she seemed to know exactly where the line was, even though the sand on both sides looked exactly the same.
“Reading. What does it look like?”
“Were you waiting for me?” She didn’t sound harsh or suspicious—just careful.
He had to handle this exactly right. “I didn’t know if you’d be back out today, but I thought I’d keep an eye out, just in case.” He smiled at her, although he couldn’t read her expression well with his sunglasses and the distance between them.
“I always swim at this time.”
“Well, go right ahead. It won’t bother me.” If he hadn’t known she’d swum at this time yesterday, he was sure his tone would have sounded exactly like that.
“Were you going to swim?”
“Maybe.” He decided he’d waited long enough for it not to feel pushy for him to get up and walk over toward her. He left the book on his chair and strode over to where she was standing. He smiled at her again as he approached. “Was that an invitation?”
“No.”
There was no reason to expect this to be anything but difficult, but he was still a little frustrated. He was usually good with women. He had no trouble getting them to talk to him, getting them to spend time with him, getting them into bed.
He might have become a failure in every other aspect of his life, but he didn’t think he’d lost his talent with women so quickly.
He searched her face, trying to figure out what she was thinking. “So you don’t want me to swim with you?”
“I… don’t know.”
Well, that was better than a straight-out refusal. Maybe she was tempted. Maybe she had liked the little bit of socialization they’d had this morning. It must be so lonely living on her own the way she did.
“Okay. I get that,” he said slowly. “I can swim with you, if you want, or I can go back to my chair and continue to read. Either is okay with me. I don’t want to crowd you or anything.”
“You’ve already crowded me. Isn’t that what you came here to do?”
She sure had him nailed right. “Not in a bad way. I told you before. I’m interested, but I’m not out to make you uncomfortable.”
Her eyes were narrowed, and she was scanning his face exactly as he was hers, like she wanted to know what was going on in his head as much as he wanted to know what was in hers. It was a strange position for Cade to be in. He found it oddly exciting.
“How well do you swim?” she asked.
“I’m not too bad.”
“I don’t wear much when I swim.”
He made his eyes go wide, as if this were surprising. “Okay. I’m definitely not going to complain about that choice. Would it bother you if I was here?”
She shook her head. “You were ogling me earlier. It won’t be much difference now.”
“So you’re not going to send me away?”
Holly seemed to have made up her mind. “You can swim with me. On one condition.”
“What’s that?” He honestly had no idea. He assumed she’d say he couldn’t ask her a lot of nosy questions or touch her or something like that.
Instead, she said, her eyes running up and down his body from his boat shoes to windblown hair. “You can’t wear more clothes than I do.”
His eyes went wide again—this time for real. “Seriously?”
“It’s the only way we’ll be even,” she said, meeting his eyes very seriously. “I wear a bikini, so you can’t wear more than that.”
He was stunned, and it was a very unusual feeling for him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so surprised. “I don’t have a matching bikini to wear.”
She shrugged. “Then you can swim naked.”
His eyes widened even more. “You want me to swim naked?”
“Unless you have a very small suit. I won’t do it any other way.”
He’d done a lot to get a story—traveled halfway across the world, spent thousands of dollars, broken locks, broken laws—but he’d never taken off his clothes for a story before.
If truth be told, it didn’t really feel like he was entirely here for a story at the moment, but he was pushing those stray thoughts into the back of his mind since they would only be a distraction.
“Okay,” he said at last. His body was decent enough. He didn’t mind a beautiful woman seeing him naked. “We’ll be even then.”
She seemed to be hiding a smile. At first it seemed like she didn’t have much of a sense of humor, but she must have one after all. She thought this situation was amusing.
Maybe it was.
She stood silently, just watching him, until he realized what she was waiting for.
He arched his eyebrows. “Me first?”
Again her mouth quivered with suppressed laughter. “Of course.”
“This isn’t some sort of tease where I take off my clothes and you run off with them, is it?”
Her smile widened, and it looked startlingly lovely—full and natural and sincere. “No. I don’t do that.”
He believed her, and there was nothing else to do, so he started to pull off his T-shirt.
It felt strange. Uncomfortable. Vulnerable.
Cade had gotten naked with many women before. He’d had sex with strangers without even blinking an eye. He had no reservations about his body. Women generally seemed to find it attractive, and it always did what he wanted it to do. He’d even swum naked with a woman in a rooftop pool back in New York one evening, and then afterward they’d had sex on a towel.
This was different. This wasn’t sex—not matter how much he might want it to be.
And the very innocence of it was what he found so awkward and uncomfortable. As he was pulling off his swim trunks, he felt almost like a teenager, bumbling around, trying to impress a girl.
Cade didn’t like feeling that way. He hadn’t felt that way in a really long time.
It was worse because Holly was watching him as he undressed, and her eyes lingered on his groin as he took off his sunglasses and laid them on his clothes on the sand.
He was naked now, with the September sun streaming across the bay to warm his bare skin. And he felt… incredibly uncomfortable.
He did his best not to look that way though. He gave her a significant look. “Your turn.”
She grinned at him and grabbed the fabric of her dress, pulling it over her head in one smooth move.
He was glad for the distraction from his awkwardness when his eyes landed on her lush, nearly naked body. She was wearing the same tiny bikini that barely covered her that she’d worn yesterday.
Then he swallowed hard as his own body started to react to the sight of her firm, rounded breasts, tight nipples visible through the worn fabric, smooth belly, lean, strong thighs. She would be able to very easily see exactly how much he liked the sight of her. He wasn’t sure how she would react to that, although attraction was far easier for him than the vulnerability he’d been experiencing a few moments before.
She didn’t even seem to notice his body’s response. She started to walk out toward the waves, looking over her shoulder at him. “Are you coming?”
“Of course.” He caught up easily and was relieved to discover that the water wasn’t shockingly cold, as he’d half been afraid of.
The waves of the Chesapeake Bay weren’t nearly as strong as the waves of the ocean, but the water definitely wasn’t calm. He hadn’t done much swimming since he was a teenager, and he immediately realized he was going to have to work to keep up with her.
Maybe he’d imagined a light dip in the water before they stretched out on the sand to talk, but he’d been a fool to hope for that, even for a moment.
Holly swam for real. She didn’t pause to talk to him, and she didn’
t change her pattern from what she’d done yesterday, except today she was starting at the far end of her property. She swam laps parallel to the shore, back and forth as she had the day before, and Cade could keep pace with her, but it definitely took some effort.
He was already sore from digging the grave earlier that day, and soon his entire body started to hurt.
He wasn’t going to give up before she did though. This was a challenge as much as anything else. He wasn’t going to complain or try to tease her or engage her in conversation—as she probably expected him to. He was going to swim for as long as she did even if it hurt.
He lost track of time, but he guessed it was about thirty minutes or so when she finally stopped in the water, treading water as she looked at him.
“You done?” he asked, trying not to sound too breathless.
“Yeah. I usually swim longer, but after digging this morning, I think I’ll stop now.”
“Sounds good to me.” He was pleased when his voice sounded casual, unconcerned, not expressing any of the deep relief he was feeling.
They swam back to the shore and then waded their way out of the water. Cade was exhausted, and he felt like an out-of-shape wimp that he wasn’t in better shape than Holly was.
He’d done more digging than she had this morning, but that wasn’t much of an excuse.
“Damn,” he muttered when she started toward her towel on the beach. “My towel is by the chair.”
“Then you better go get it.” She was out of breath too—which was slightly gratifying—but she also sounded amused, which wasn’t.
With a suppressed groan, he pulled on his shorts and walked back across the beach to his chair, aware that Holly was watching him as he did. She was probably looking at his ass, which thankfully wasn’t naked anymore.
Somehow he suspected it was too much to hope for to think she might be overwhelmed with lust as he returned and would just jump him.
As he walked back, he dried his face and chest. When he reached her, Holly was stretched out on her towel, her body displayed in a way that sent a surge of desire through him, most of it centered in his groin. Her suit was pretty much transparent now. The strings and fabric were stretched and thin. That bikini must be twenty years old.
