She’d always been a pretty girl, but she’d blossomed into a beautiful woman.
And he didn’t need to focus on that. “So this is your school,” he said as they walked in.
She flipped on the lights and gestured toward the glassed-in office. “Yep. My joy and my frustration. I’m not even going into my office, because I know there’s a ton of paperwork waiting for me there.” She sounded a little breathless, and he wasn’t sure what that was about. “We’re getting ready for a new school year. Come on, we can use my daughter’s classroom.”
They climbed the central staircase. Kid-friendly pictures and posters decorated the walls, and when they went into the classroom, he was taken with the bright primary colors and tiny chairs. He put the pizza down on the big teacher’s desk and walked around the room, looking at everything—the different play areas, the easels, the bright carpet with a rocking chair in front of it for story time.
Meg rummaged in the cupboards until she found paper plates, forks and napkins. She brought them to one end of a long table and served up pieces of pizza. “Dinner’s ready,” she joked.
He started over and then a bulletin board of photos caught his eye. One was labeled Miss Kayla, and he studied it for a moment. “She’s really grown up, isn’t she?”
“It happened too fast.” Meg looked wistful as she handed him pizza and one of the sodas they’d picked up. “She was the center of my world for so long. I miss having that closeness, that sense of purpose.”
He wanted to know whether she dated, whether there’d been anyone serious since she’d been widowed. She was the kind of woman who should have a boyfriend at least, maybe a husband.
She touched his back as she moved past him to grab a soda for herself, and the heat of her hand traveled right through his shirt to his skin, and then to his heart. What was wrong with him?
“You never had kids, did you?”
He shook his head. “I’m not the fatherly type.”
“Any regrets?” She was looking at him, really looking. Like she cared about the answer, and it was refreshing. He hadn’t realized how bored he was with his usual young, self-centered dates until this moment.
“Sometimes I have regrets.” And he didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to feel this warmth in his chest, this out-of-breath sensation. He took a bite of pizza, still standing, and scanned the room. “Let’s use this big whiteboard. You have markers?”
“Um, sure.” She handed him one.
He’d go into the teacher mode he used when he taught creative writing. That was the way to do it: keep things impersonal, professional. “Now, tell me anything you know about your story.”
“I know nothing,” she said, setting her plate aside and slumping, crossing those pretty legs. “I’m never going to be able to finish this thesis, especially in the short time I have.”
He wanted to put his arms around her, comfort her. To clasp her against him and see how well they fit together. “Don’t think about the time. Not to be all Zen about it, but just be here now with me.” He stood at the board, marker poised. “Just one thing you thought you might not mind putting into the story.”
“Don’t you want to eat your pizza?”
“You’re stalling.” He took another bite and wiped his hands. “I’m used to eating and working. Tell me one idea.”
She sipped her soda and traced lines in the condensation with the tip of a finger. “Well... I thought of writing about a girl with scoliosis, like Kayla had.” She looked at him quickly and then went back to the finger painting, as if she was scared to know what he thought.
“Great idea.” He wanted to encourage her, and would have tried to be positive about anything she said, but that was a great idea. Straight from her warm heart. He focused on writing it down, because he didn’t need to be thinking about Meg’s warmth and all her other assets. “What interests you about that?”
She was watching him, studying his face, and her own cheeks went pink. Like she’d forgotten what she was about to say. Like he had an effect on her, similar to the one she was having on him.
He restrained the yes! and the arm pump he felt inside, stood still, looked at the whiteboard. Like a teacher, waiting; not like an average ordinary guy who wanted to take her out on a real date.
She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure exactly what happened to Kayla, but middle school was a misery. Peer pressure and bullying. She’s never opened up about it.”
He wrote all that down. “Would she tell you if you asked?”
“I don’t think so. She doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“Would she do a sensitivity read?” He saw her puzzled look and explained. “That’s when you’re writing about someone different from yourself, usually someone of a different race or age or ability level. You get someone who’s in that group you’re writing about to read it and tell you what you got wrong.”
“You know... I bet she would do that.” Meg sat up straighter. “Maybe that’s why I’ve been so blocked. I didn’t want to make her feel bad or infringe on her territory or be a helicopter mom. And I want to get it just right.”
She cared so much, and he admired that about her.
He couldn’t resist walking over to rub her shoulder a little. Just to relax her, he told himself, but the feel of her arm underneath his hand made him want more. A lot more. He covered his totally inappropriate feelings with a chuckle. “Yeah, an idea that close to home would be enough to block anyone. But if you don’t have those things in the way, what could be elements of the story?”
The ideas poured out of her then. A dog, a mean girl, a support group. Coming of age, dealing with puberty at the same time you discovered you’d have to wear a brace for several years.
They carried on brainstorming until the whole whiteboard was covered with notes. At some point she grabbed another marker and stood at the board with him, adding lines and arrows to link ideas.
It was good working with her, fun. More fun than he’d had in a long time.
When they finally wound down, she studied the whiteboard and then reached over and patted his arm. “You have no idea what this means to me. You’ve fixed it!”
She was standing right in front of him. If he stepped forward a couple of inches, he could pull her into his arms, embrace her from behind.
With iron control, he took a step backward. Another. “Don’t be premature. You still have work to do. You brought your laptop, right?”
She looked over her shoulder at him, nodded. Her eyes were half-closed. Had she been thinking about him the way he was thinking about her?
“Get it out.” He kept his voice steady. Be professional. “We’ll put things in order now. Then we can give you a task for each day.”
The dreamy look fell from her face and was replaced by anxiety. “I have two weeks.”
“You can do it.” They kept working, and by the time he handed back her computer, there was a rough outline of the story. Which made him happy, because he’d helped her. For other reasons, too, reasons he didn’t want to name, so he stood and started cleaning up the remains of the pizza. The feelings he was having about Meg were disturbing. He wanted, no, needed, for them to stop.
She studied the screen, her earlier anxious expression replaced with relief. “I can do it. You’re a miracle worker.” She stood and threw her arms around him.
He hesitated, then returned the hug, then wished he hadn’t because of how great she felt in his arms. He loosened his grasp quickly, leaned back with his hands still on her arms and studied her happy face. “Glad to be of help.”
Her color was high and her eyes went dark. He expected her to push him away, but she didn’t. Instead, her gaze dropped to his lips for the shortest instant.
His chest felt tight. Up this close, he could see her thick lashes and the gold flecks in her green eyes. His pulse hammered.
> He leaned forward. It would be a mistake, but he really, really wanted to kiss her. He couldn’t fight it anymore.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs. “Who’s there? The school is closed. I have the police on speed dial...” A silhouette appeared in the door, then the overhead lights switched on. “Mom! What are you doing?”
CHAPTER THREE
“YOU WERE KIND of rude to him,” Meg said to her daughter. After they’d left the school, all three of them, Finn had headed back to the duplex. Meg and Kayla were strolling by the bay.
The sun was setting, casting a golden light. Clouds dotted the horizon, gray lined with silver, and all of the beauty was mirrored in the bay. Fishing boats, dark shapes now, poked their masts into the sky, and a squat Chesapeake Bay lighthouse stood like a friendly sentinel over the town.
Meg inhaled the salty bay air. The lonely, haunting cry of a loon echoed, and she huddled into her sweater, more for the comfort than the warmth.
She was concerned about her daughter, who’d never seen Meg in even a slightly romantic situation before. That was because she hadn’t been in one, but clearly it was long overdue. She’d really wanted Finn to kiss her. Her skin still felt hot, her heart rate elevated, her stomach full of butterflies. Who knew she had it in her to feel this way, after so long, and at her age?
But her daughter was her priority. She glanced over at Kayla. Good. The bay was working its magic on her, calming her down, mitigating what Meg thought she’d seen.
Then Kayla’s eyes met hers and Meg realized they were as stormy as the bay was calm. “Maybe I was rude, and I’m sorry for that,” she said, “but you were kissing him!”
“Not quite.” Meg didn’t want to get into the intricacies of what she had and hadn’t done. The truth was, she and Finn had been about to kiss. Meg had wanted to, and surprisingly enough, Finn had seemed to share the feeling. The desire in his eyes had been a balm for the part of her that still hurt, so many years after Randy’s death.
“He was helping me with my thesis,” she explained. “You know how blocked I’ve been, and he’s such an experienced writer.”
Kayla narrowed her eyes. “C’mon, Mom. You expect me to believe that?”
Meg blew out a sigh as they continued to walk along the bike path. No bikes were out this late, but a few couples strolled ahead of them. They were nearing the tiny downtown of Pleasant Shores. Up ahead, the door of the Gusty Gull opened, light and noise and laughter spilling out as a happy, tipsy group emerged.
This was the trouble with grown children: they thought they knew how their parents should act and live. Plus, for all these years, it had been just her and Kayla. No wonder Kayla was upset at the thought that her mother might get involved with someone she didn’t like.
Meg studied her daughter. Her long blond hair blew in the bay breeze. She wore casual shorts and her usual loose T-shirt, almost as if she were trying to hide her pretty figure. She was uncomfortable around men and shied away from relationships. Part of it had to do with her scoliosis, which had put a crimp into her experience of high school, when most girls started to date. But was part of it from something negative she’d sensed from Meg and Randy’s marriage?
“There were a few sparks between us—you’re right,” she said. “Nothing that’ll amount to anything, but I’ll admit, it felt nice.”
“I don’t trust him. He’s a lawyer.”
“And a novelist,” Meg said, “and very successful at both.” In an effort to soothe the awkwardness, she’d gotten permission from Finn to tell Kayla about his pen name.
Kayla hadn’t been impressed. “He was hiding something about Dad,” Kayla said now.
That startled Meg. “What do you mean?” There was a lot Kayla didn’t know about her father, or at least, Meg hoped she didn’t know it.
Kayla waved a hand and looked away. “Just a sense I had. Anyway, doesn’t he date all kinds of women, younger women? You’ve shown me a couple of pictures over the years of him at charity functions, and he was always with a different woman.” Her voice was troubled.
Her daughter’s words hammered at the pleasure Meg had felt being close to Finn, sensing his interest and desire. Had it all been for show, a practiced routine? “He had a coldhearted family, honey,” she said. “Maybe that’s why he never committed to one woman. Which is sad, but it’s really not for us to judge. He’s here for two weeks, to finish a book, and that’s all.”
They turned and headed through downtown, past Goody’s ice cream shop, doing a brisk business. The toy store and the bookstore, Lighthouse Lit, were both still open at this hour, the proprietors catching the last few weeks of summer business.
“Oh, Mom,” Kayla said, taking her arm and drawing close as they walked. “I want you to be happy. I really do. If you want to date, date! I’d never stand in your way unless I thought you’d get hurt. I just don’t think he’s the right man.”
Meg hugged her daughter. “I appreciate your taking care of me. I really do,” she said gently. “And this little flirtation with Finn isn’t important. But you know I have to make my own decisions and live my own life.”
Kayla pulled away. “I still feel like he’s hiding something,” she said.
Meg lifted both hands, palms up. “You’re welcome to ask him any questions you like while he’s here. In fact, maybe you should, for your own peace of mind. But as for me, I’m just grateful he got me unblocked on my thesis, and I’m going to spend the next two weeks writing it.”
And trying not to think about the handsome man on the other side of the wall, clacking away at his noisy typewriter. The man who’d almost kissed her.
* * *
THE DAY AFTER he’d nearly kissed Meg, Finn found himself in the passenger seat of her car.
It wasn’t what he intended. He shouldn’t be here.
But he’d had to check on her this morning, hadn’t he, to make sure she and her daughter weren’t at odds after Kayla had burst in on them—fortunately or unfortunately, Finn kept alternating.
She’d waved off his worries and introduced him to her round sausage of a dog, Oscar. Of course he’d had to sit down and get to know the chubby fellow—he liked dogs—and they’d ended up talking about her book a little more. He was pleased that she was finding inspiration in the work they’d done last night.
He’d started to leave, explaining that he wanted to get out into the country and gather some impressions for his novel. He planned to set up shop and write for a couple of hours at a nearby nature reserve. “Good inspiration,” he’d said.
“That’s interesting.” She’d looked thoughtful. “I should do that sometime, too, since I’m setting my story around here.”
What could he do except invite her to go along? She’d hemmed and hawed, saying she needed to walk the dog, but she’d finally agreed. And then insisted on driving, saying that she saw the sights and sounds here every day while he was less familiar.
So here they were, cruising along the narrow highway that ran up the coast. Overhead, the sky was a variable gray, light peeking through in spots, clouds moving rapidly from east to west. The bay, when he glimpsed it through the trees, was gray and choppy.
A rusty pickup passed them, its engine loud, a refrigerator unit on the back suggesting a haul of fish.
“Lots of traffic today,” she remarked.
He looked back, then forward. The truck that had passed was disappearing in the distance, and there were a couple more cars behind them. Nothing coming the other way. “This is traffic?”
She smiled. “Okay, city boy. It’s a lot of traffic for us, for a weekday.”
They rode in comfortable silence for a couple of miles, but something was bothering him.
“You’re sure Kayla wasn’t too upset?” he asked.
Meg smiled wryly. “I talked her down. Felt like she was the mom and I was the guilty teenager.”
“That’s how I felt, too.” They both laughed, but his own laughter was nervous, and hers sounded that way, as well.
Talking over Kayla’s reaction was one thing. Talking about how close they’d come to kissing each other...that was what they were skirting.
He knew that bringing it up could evoke more of the same feelings, and he couldn’t do that. He’d never been especially wise about women, but even he knew it would be a mistake to actually kiss her.
He couldn’t get close to her when he knew something so awful about her late husband, something he had to conceal. And anyway, Meg was different. She wasn’t a flavor-of-the-week date. She was the kind of woman you stuck with, only Finn couldn’t stick.
“Here we are,” she said, turning off the highway to a dirt road and driving back through a stand of pines. She parked by a rustic pavilion that held several tables. “This okay?”
“Perfect. Thank you for driving.”
When he got out, the soft, humid salt air seemed to wrap around him. Birds chirped steadily, interspersed with the occasional loud caw-caw-caw. Interesting, he thought, taking a quick video with his phone to capture the sights and sounds. He’d have to find out what types of birds nested here, their habits. A breeze rustled through the leaves and long-needled pines, cooling the sweat that had instantly formed on his skin.
It didn’t feel like home, no. He’d only visited this part of the shore now and then. But it did feel welcoming, hearkening back to a simpler time before his world had filled with clients and cases and deadlines. He’d been raised for responsibility—“to whom much is given, much will be required” was his father’s favorite explanation of his own hard work despite the family wealth—but the weight of Finn’s work had grown heavier on his shoulders. Especially his legal work.
And especially since the fiasco of Randy’s unusual orders just prior to his death.
They settled down quickly, Finn at a picnic table, Meg in a folding chair she’d pulled out of her trunk.
Finn swatted at a fly, then winced as another one bit him.
Secrets of Summer Page 2
