by JoAnn Ross
11
“Oh, my God!”
As soon as Annie hung up the phone, she buried her face in her hands. What on earth had gotten into her? She had never, ever in her entire life called in to a radio station.
But after being unable to find anything on TV or her DVR that she wanted to watch, she’d taken her glass of wine upstairs to bed, where she’d turned on the radio and listened to Mac at Midnight on KBAY as the moon rose over the ocean, casting the shipwreck outside her window, just beyond Castaway Cove, in a silvery mist that made it look a little like Sir Francis Drake’s pirate ship.
And speaking of pirates . . . Granted, she had no idea what Mac Culhane looked like, but if that deep voice was any indication, Captain Jack Sparrow had nothing on him.
And why oh why had she told him about her failed marriage? Not only did she not call in to radio shows, she never talked about those days. Well, except a bit with Sedona, who for some reason seemed to encourage personal conversations from her. Perhaps it was because Sedona, having grown up in that commune, wasn’t the least bit judgmental.
In the beginning, the CPA-turned-baker was mostly a friendly acquaintance in town who’d been recommended to help her set up a business plan for Memories on Main. But in the past year, they’d grown closer, so much so that Annie often felt Sedona was the nearest thing to the sister she’d always dreamed of.
In fact, they were so close, she was tempted to call Sedona right now. But then, realizing that it was nearly two in the morning, she nixed that idea.
“Which means you have no one to tell,” she said out loud.
Tell what? Even as she said the words into the darkness, Annie had no idea what there was to tell. She’d called up a radio deejay. No big deal. Lots of people did that every day. Or every night, in his case. She heard his regular callers to his show all the time when she listened to the station.
But she’d also mentioned her failed marriage. Though with fifty percent of marriages ending in divorce, a lot of his calls revolved around that topic. The logger who disliked Saturday nights had certainly used his breakup as a reason.
So why did their conversation seem like a very big deal?
Because keeping it off the air, as he’d done, made it more personal?
So why did you lie about your name? And not tell him the name of the store? an argumentative voice in the back of her mind piped up.
Why, indeed?
She was, after all, proud of the way she’d reclaimed the abandoned retail space that had been stripped down to the bare walls by previous tenants. She had turned it into a cozy shop with a classroom where customers could also try out different paper-crafting machines before buying.
The only answer she could come up with was that she’d sensed some sort of emotional connection with Mac Culhane that had made her uneasy. Although it didn’t make an ounce of sense, he always managed to make it sound as if he was talking to each individual listener while on the air; once they’d gone to just the phone, the connection had deepened.
She’d felt her face flush when he’d called her a mystery woman. And had the song he’d played after she hung up—“The One That Got Away”—been chosen for her? Or had it already been on his playlist and was only a coincidence?
Whichever, it had left her feeling edgy, which was more unsettling, since talking with Charlie about marriage and families had already jumbled her feelings.
Deciding that the conversation must have opened old wounds she’d thought were healed—it was the only explanation she could come up with for behaving so uncharacteristically—she reached over, turned out the light, and, exhausted from her roller-coaster day, fell like a stone into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Until sometime just before dawn, when a pirate came to her in the dark. As if possessing the power to read her mind, his midnight voice crooned the exact words she’d so longed for her former husband to say, and his wickedly clever pirate hands touched her in all the places she’d ached to be touched.
Unfortunately, when the sun filtered through the slats of the white wooden blinds of her bedroom window, her dream pirate was gone and except for the feline Pirate, who was sprawled heavily across her legs, Annie was, as she had been even during all the days and nights of her marriage, alone.
12
Although statistics he’d read kept saying that there were more and more stay-at-home dads, Mac had yet to meet another one in Shelter Bay. He always seemed to end up being the only father at the park in the mornings. At first all the mothers had looked at him with suspicion, but after a time, though he still might not have been totally accepted, at least they no longer seemed to be keeping a closer eye on their children whenever he and Emma showed up.
A few single moms had even invited him to dinner, making it clear that they were offering more than pot roast or fried chicken. Although so far he thought he’d been pretty adept at dodging the offers, Barnie Nagle, who ran Barnie’s Barbershop, located at the end of Whale Watch Drive, had said that his wife had told him that there was starting to be some speculation that the bomb blast had damaged more than just his eyes.
Although Mac’s ego had wanted to set the record straight right on the spot, another, more pragmatic part of him had decided that if it kept those playground moms at bay, he could live with the rumors circulating about possible injuries to his junk.
“Isn’t it a lovely day?” asked one woman as she sat down beside him on the blue bench. Connie Fletcher, a newly divorced single mom who’d moved into the summer home she and her former husband—an estate lawyer in Eugene—had bought three years earlier, either hadn’t gotten the memo about his rumored sexual handicap or was perhaps one of those people who had to check things out for herself. Of course, it could be that maybe she was just lonely. Like so many other people, including, he admitted on the days when he let himself get down in the dumps, himself.
“It’s a great day,” he agreed with enthusiasm. “And the weather’s supposed to hold through the holiday.” From all the announcements he’d been given to read on the air, Shelter Bay definitely believed in going all out for holidays. Including the upcoming Fourth of July.
“I know. That’s so sweet of you to promote our women’s group picnic basket raffle.” Her Southern drawl, unusual for this part of the country, brought to mind wide white porches and mint juleps. “I’m on the committee and we’ve been selling more tickets this year than ever. Which I’m sure has something to do with all the promotion you’ve been giving us.”
“Always happy to help a good cause.”
Although he knew that to many people in the cities the idea of people creating picnic lunches to be raffled off to raise money for the school’s arts, creative writing, and music programs might seem like a flashback to the nineteenth century, it was turning out to be one of the most popular of the holiday activities when people called in to say what they were looking forward to.
“I’m making Southern fried chicken, macaroni salad, and since where I grew up you can’t have a picnic without deviled eggs, I’m making my mama’s recipe, but I’ve added a twist with a topping of fresh crab.”
“Sounds like a winner.”
Which was definitely true.
Emma, who’d just raced over from the swings, had now begun scampering up the brightly colored monkey bars.
“And the pièce de résistance is my red velvet cake, which is even better than Sedona Sullivan’s recipe. Not that I’m one to toot my own horn, but it makes sense, since she grew up in Arizona. In that commune.”
The derision in her voice suggested the blond baker could well be Shelter Bay’s sole communist.
“And, of course, there has to be sweet tea. I always make enough for a crowd,” she said significantly as her gaze drifted across the rose garden, past the statue of the woman waiting for her husband to return from sea, to her son, who was currently sitting atop the colorful jungle gym, talking to Emma. Who, Mac noticed, was no longer smiling as she’d been only moments earlier.
“That’s a good idea. Since a lot of people are probably bidding for their family supper,” he said distractedly as his daughter tossed her sunshine-blond head in a gesture he’d come to recognize as a warning of impending temper.
“I was thinking that perhaps you and I, and Kenny and your darling little girl, might like to share it together before the fireworks.”
Before he could respond to that suggestion, his daughter, clad in pink jeans, a pink T-shirt studded with rhinestones that spelled out DADDY’S GIRL, and a new pair of pink sandals, suddenly drew her thin arm back and hit Kenny smack on the nose with a left hook that while totally socially unacceptable, was pretty damn effective. Especially for a six-year-old girl.
Mac’s father had always taught him that you never, ever hit a girl. Although seemingly provoked, Kenny apparently had never had that little life-lesson talk with his lawyer father, since he hauled off and hit her back. Mac cringed as the small male fist connected with Emma’s right eye.
“Emma!”
“Kenny!”
Both parents shouted at once and took off running as the two combatants tumbled to the cork pad beneath the jungle gym and began rolling over the newly cut green grass.
Mac got there first, grabbed his daughter up, and held her tight against his hip even as she squirmed to get away and her fists continued to flail.
Kenny’s mother went the cajoling route, which didn’t seem to be working, since the boy leaped to his feet and charged at Emma.
“That’s enough,” Mac said, even as he lifted Emma higher. He’d pulled out his military voice, which apparently still possessed some authority—Kenny stopped in his tracks and Emma quit swinging. “Stop. Now.”
“She started it,” the boy insisted, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “By hitting me first.”
“Because he said bad things about me and Poppy,” Emma countered. “He said that no one should be allowed to play with me because I could give them the Alzheimer’s. Like chicken pox. I told him Alzheimer’s was not catching but he kept saying that Poppy was dangerous and it was a good thing he was locked away in that home.”
Mac felt his own temper rising and resolutely tamped it down. Kids, he remembered from his own school days, could be unbearably, often casually, cruel. And many, as it seemed Kenny did, knew just what buttons to push to get a response.
“Kenneth Fletcher,” his mother said, her moonlight-and-magnolia-sugar tone sharpening, “that’s a very cruel thing to say. And absolutely not true. What happened to Emma’s great-granddaddy is very sad and you owe her an apology, young man.”
“She hit me first,” he repeated sulkily, wiping his bleeding nose with the back of his hand. “And Peter Potter said that his grandfather has the Alzheimer’s and had to be locked away because he kept getting mad and getting in fistfights with strangers and that he even hit a man in the checkout line at the grocery store. So he was dangerous.”
“Poppy wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Emma insisted. “Just because Peter’s grandfather got in fights with people doesn’t mean my poppy would. He just has a sick head. But his doctor is giving him medicine for it. Right, Daddy?”
“That’s right. Alzheimer’s affects everyone differently and your poppy might get a little grumpy from time to time, but he’s never hit anyone.” Deciding that the combatants seemed to have reached some sort of detente, he put Emma back on the ground.
“See.” Unwilling to totally surrender, she jutted her chin out and stuck both small but surprisingly dangerous fists on her hips. “I told you so.”
“But you still owe Kenneth an apology for hitting him,” Mac said.
Emma stuck out her bottom lip in a pout that he was getting used to seeing. No longer was she the totally acquiescent little girl who’d greeted him with such joy when he’d returned from war. Mac’s father told him that was a good thing, that it meant she was trusting that he wouldn’t leave her again, so she no longer felt as if she needed to be on her best behavior. But there were times, like now, when he wished she didn’t possess such a strong streak of both her parents’ stubbornness.
Not quite ready to wave the white flag of surrender yet, she folded her arms across the front of the grass-stained T-shirt. One elbow, he noticed, was skinned, probably from falling onto the cork below the jungle gym.
“First he has to take back what he said about Poppy.”
“Emma.” Mac had learned that his military tone could roll right off his daughter’s back. “Hitting people is never the way to solve a problem.”
“Sometimes it is,” he heard her mutter beneath her breath.
“What was that?” he asked, giving her a second chance.
Truthfully, he didn’t blame her. If he’d been six years old, and someone had said anything against either of his parents or his grandfather, he’d probably still be rolling on the ground, fists flying.
Her long, exhaled breath ruffled her corn-silk bangs. “I’m sorry I hit you.” Her tone held all the sincerity of a politician trolling for campaign dollars. “But Poppy’s not contagious. He just forgets things sometimes, right, Daddy?”
“That’s right.” Mac decided to try to turn this event into what Dillon Slater, a former EOD-guy-turned-physics-teacher-and-basketball-coach, would have referred to as a teachable moment.
He turned to Kenny, whose nose was still bleeding. The boy’s cheeks were flushed with anger and probably embarrassment at being punched by a girl.
“Not many people know much about Alzheimer’s, so it’s understandable that your friend Peter is confused, but just because Emma’s great-grandfather has it doesn’t mean that she’s going to get it. Or that it’s catching. Because it’s definitely not like chicken pox or the flu.”
“See?” Connie Fletcher’s voice regained its chirp. “You need to let Peter know, so he won’t go on spreading such falsehoods. While I’ll have a little chat with Mrs. Potter and make sure she talks with him. And you must never, ever hit a girl again.”
“Even if she hits me first?” Since his nose was still bleeding—though fortunately it didn’t look broken—Mac could understand the kid’s incredulousness.
“Even then,” Connie said, with a flash of steel magnolia. She turned toward Mac. “I’m truly sorry. My son’s been having a few issues since the divorce.”
“I understand.”
Emma didn’t talk about her mother much, but he often wondered if she missed Kayla more than she let on.
As much as he loved the man who’d adopted him when he’d married Mac’s mother, he’d never forgotten that day the two men in dress uniforms had arrived at the door to tell them that his dad’s plane had gone down. There were still times, years later, when although he’d never seen the crash, he would dream about it.
“Well, I’m glad we got that all settled,” Connie said. She placed a soft, manicured hand on his arm. “My basket’s the white wicker one,” she said. “I distressed it myself and made the big red, white, and blue sequined bow. . . . In case you’d feel inclined to bid on it.”
“It sounds great,” Mac hedged. “And since I think we’ve reached detente, it’s time for Emma and me to go visit her great-grandfather at Still Waters.”
“Of course.” She leaned down and patted Emma’s cheek. “Poor little thing. Having your mama leave you and your daddy, then your dear poppy losing his mind all in the same year. Maybe someday you and I could have a spa day together to take your mind off your troubles.”
His daughter’s shoulders stiffened at that obviously less-than-appealing invitation, which Mac, grandson of a fisherman, knew was a shiny lure to pull him in. But his daughter saved the day by flashing a bright, totally fake smile, and saying, “Thank you, ma’am. Maybe someday.”
As embarrassed as he’d been by the public fight that had drawn the attention of every other mother at the park—within hours they would be spreading the word about what a wild daughter the clueless single father was raising—Mac couldn’t help smiling when he heard his own words, wh
ich he’d admittedly been using to put off getting Emma a pet, now being pulled out to avoid hanging out with the mother of the obnoxious, though understandably troubled, Kenny.
“It’s a date,” Connie Fletcher said, her own Miss Cotton Queen smile returning Emma’s feigned one. “I’ll give your daddy a call one of these days soon and we can set things up.”
“You’re not going to go out with Mrs. Fletcher, are you, Daddy?” Emma asked as they drove to Still Waters.
“I hadn’t planned to,” Mac responded mildly.
“Good. Because the only reason she was being nice to me is that she wants you to marry her.”
“I think we were just talking about a picnic basket.” When did she get so damn perceptive? Not only was she no longer unrelentingly cheerful, but somehow, before his very eyes, she’d become six going on thirty.
“That’s just what she says. When I was over playing Barbies, I heard Peggy’s mom tell Mrs. Tyler that every single woman in town wants to marry you.”
“I’m sure that was an exaggeration.”
“Kenny’s mom sure was after you. She was looking to trap you the same way people do those crabs they pull up off the dock. You need to watch out,” she warned. “Because having a bad mom would be a lot worse than not having my mom live with us.”
“Is that hard on you?” he asked with a casualness he was a very long way from feeling.
“I miss Mommy sometimes.” Her voice was small and sad, which reminded him of himself so many years ago.
Their situations weren’t exactly the same, but he sure hadn’t talked to any grown-ups about losing his dad. And although his mother hadn’t dated all that much, he remembered resenting any man who’d come to the house. Until Dr. Boyd Buchanan, who had not only possessed the patience to ignore Mac’s less-than-compliant behavior, but had proven to be the real deal.
He might not have been a fighter pilot with a cool uniform and helmet, but he had taught Mac how to build a radio, and encouraged him to follow his own dream instead of going to medical school, like Mac sometimes suspected his mother would’ve preferred.
