Autumn Secrets

by Katie Winters

  Elsa pressed her lips together. “The island felt shrouded in tragedy at the time. I remember thinking that death was, even more, a part of life than, well, living was.”

  “That’s such a difficult thing for a teenager to face,” Nancy breathed.

  “It’s just natural that we didn’t have much compassion for Stan Ellis at the time,” Carmella countered. “But now that he saved our lives during the hurricane, I’ve given real thought to how lonely that man has probably been over the years. The Lodge is practically perfect for him. He needs it much more than a lot of the women who pass through do.”

  Nancy’s phone began to buzz. She lifted it from her robe pocket, then returned it. She didn’t recognize the number and knew better than to answer strangers. But in a few moments, the phone rang again, and her curiosity flourished.

  “Whoever that is, they really want to chat,” Elsa teased.

  “I’ll just tell them I don’t want whatever they’re selling,” Nancy said as she lifted her phone once again. “Hello, this is Nancy Remington speaking.”

  For a sharp, strange moment, silence filled the other end. Nancy’s instinct told her to remove the phone from her ear and end the conversation. But just as she drew the phone from her ear, a voice rang out— powerful, confident and terrifically hot.

  “Nancy Remington. I wondered if I would ever hear that voice again.”

  It was as though a hand wrapped itself around Nancy’s heart and stopped its beating. Then, with a jolt, she remembered those eyes along the darkness of the waterline that night of her granddaughter’s wedding. Maddox had awakened something within her that she’d long since put to rest. He had reminded her that she wasn’t dead, not yet. So, naturally, she’d assumed that he had run off the island, never to think of her again. Yet here he was.

  “Maddox, I presume?”

  “Oh, you’re presuming, now? I thought that was only something Bond girls did,” Maddox teased her.

  Nancy’s heart now quickened to the speed of a rabbit’s.

  “What can I do for you, Maddox?”

  Both Elsa and Carmella had yanked themselves around to gape at their stepmother. Carmella mouthed, “The guy from the wedding?” while Elsa pressed her hands together and did a little dance. Nancy playfully scowled at them and turned toward the window. She had to remain cool, calculated.

  “I happened to just be flicking through the news here in the city. Then, low and behold, a beautiful woman I met at a wedding appeared on my screen. It felt like fate.”

  “You know better than to believe in fate,” Nancy told him.

  “Do I? Because I think I’d rather live in a world where I believe in all of that stuff. Fate. Destiny.”

  “I never imagined you to be anything but pragmatic,” Nancy told him.

  “You’d better start thinking of me differently, Nancy Remington.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I’d like to ask you out. That’s why.”

  Nancy’s heart leaped into her throat. She jumped around and gaped at her stepdaughters, now totally at a loss. She felt like a middle schooler, without a single experience under her belt. Sometimes, men who mattered made you feel that way; she knew that. Or, she’d once known that.

  Plus, in the wake of all those tests, she’d never envisioned that anyone would ever ask her out again. Not in this life, at least.

  “How did you get my number?” Nancy asked, careful to keep her voice measured.

  “I have my ways. I am a very rich and connected man.”

  “You say that as though I should be impressed,” Nancy returned.

  At this, Maddox erupted with laughter. “I say it because I know you aren’t. You’re much too clever for something like that.”

  “You hardly know me,” Nancy said softly now. She leaned against the cool wall of the kitchen and, for the first time, allowed herself to dream.

  “Just tell me you’ll meet me in three days,” Maddox told her. “Tell me you’ll give me a single chance to show you something amazing. You deserve it after everything you’ve been through.”

  “And what do you get out of it?”

  “Probably nothing,” Maddox said. “Just the pleasure of a very beautiful and intelligent woman’s company. I don’t know that there’s much more in this life to look for.”

  When Nancy hung up the phone, both Elsa and Carmella screeched with such overzealous joy that Janine hustled into the room, fully panicked, her eyes nearly popping from her skull.

  “What is it?” she demanded.

  Nancy clutched her phone to her chest. She hardly had words, so Carmella explained.

  “I assumed he’d forgotten all about me,” Nancy stuttered.

  “Nancy. How could that ever happen?” Elsa said with a laugh. “You’re one of the most memorable creatures on this planet, with more stories than you even know what to do with. Maddox is lucky you’ve agreed to share air with him a second time. You know that.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Late September sunlight peeked its head out from a faraway cloud. Nancy stood in a fluttering cream-colored blouse on the far end of the Edgartown docks as the breeze swept through her hair. Only five minutes before, she and Janine had hovered in Janine’s car as Nancy had smeared the last of her lipstick over her lips and inspected her reflection in the mirror.

  “Ridiculous. I haven’t been on a date in over twelve years,” she’d said, mostly to herself.

  “You’ll call me if you need anything?”

  “Look at us. We’ve reversed roles,” Nancy had teased, just before she’d leaped out into the glow of the seventy-degree, late September day. “I’ll see you later, Jan. Don’t stay up for me.” She’d winked playfully, like a teenager up to no good.

  “I’m getting bad flashbacks of Alyssa and Maggie’s high school years,” Janine had laughed as she’d turned on the engine and eased slowly down the road.

  Maddox had orchestrated a plan for the day ahead. This seemed very much up his alley. He was the sort of man who knew what he wanted, when he wanted it, and had the money to back up his every whim. Now, for whatever reason, Nancy had aligned with his current “whims.” She gripped the railing on the docks as her eyes scanned the horizon. “I’ll sail in like some kind of pirate and whisk you off to undiscovered lands,” he’d told her on the phone the previous evening. She’d teased him about this afterward. “Will you be wearing an eye patch? Will you make me walk the plank? Should I turn you into the relevant authorities? I’m pretty sure pirating isn’t legal.”

  But when his boat appeared, Nancy’s heart thudded on warp speed. He stood out on the bow of the boat in a navy blue jacket, a pair of white khakis, and perfect boat shoes. The wind caught his salt-and-pepper hair beautifully, and his smile glowed with a mix of adventure and secrecy. Nancy was reminded of old books she’d read as a child— ones that had described scenes just like this: man whisks woman off to greater lands beyond her wildest dreams.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” she told him.

  Maddox laughed. It was a ridiculously handsome laugh. Someone should have recorded it and sold it.

  “Let me help you,” Maddox said, splaying his hand out as the boat bumped against the dock. Nancy slid her hand into his and allowed him to guide her into the belly of the boat. She’d gone sailing countless times with Neal over the years and found herself immediately trusting Maddox’s instincts on his own boat. Neal had taught her enough that she immediately fell into action. Maddox whistled, clearly impressed.

  “Somebody’s done this before,” he said.

  Nancy hovered near the stern and adjusted one of the sails as they whipped out away from the docks and headed for the open waters of the Nantucket Sound. “I’m no islander, but I’ve been trained in the art of the lifestyle.”

  “I have a feeling you’re that type of woman. You can fit wherever you want to fit,” Maddox offered.

  Nancy beamed as she considered this. She could now visualize herself in count
less locations, in various eras across her life: Nancy in Bangkok, on the adventure of a lifetime; Nancy as a young mother, seventeen and with hardly two pennies to rub together; Nancy, out on the open road, her heart shattered in a million pieces as she left her daughter behind.

  And now— this version of Nancy held a potentially life-threatening illness, yes, but she was also a brave version. One that was open to the opportunity of spending a glorious day with this handsome stranger. Somehow, despite what she’d told him about her fears of the unknown, he had remembered her enough to want to include her in another era of his own life.

  For a long time, Maddox and Nancy were both so focused on the intricacies of sailing that they didn’t say anything but the necessary dialogue two sailors needed to make it across the waves. It was when they reached a calm spot on the western side of the island, near to the Aquinnah Cliffs Overlook, that Maddox stalled the sails and dropped himself against the edge of the sailboat so that his toes skimmed the water.

  “Wild to me that autumn is here,” he said. “But the air is beautiful today. Almost good enough for a swim.”

  “Almost?” Nancy waggled her eyebrows and then whipped off her dress to reveal her one-piece suit beneath. She then squeezed her nose and dropped into the water. There was just soft, dark silence as she sank down and down into the depths of the Vineyard Sound. Years ago, she and Neal had had a small competition to see how long they could hold their breaths. They’d dunked themselves down in the water just off of Neal’s mansion and held one another’s hands as they’d shifted around in the darkness, their eyes closed against the salt. Now, as Nancy dropped down and down, her eyes closed again, she searched for some sign of Neal around her. Was he watching her? Did he know how much she dreamed of him?

  A bit after that, there was an eruption through the waves as Maddox leaped in. This tore through Nancy’s reverie. She swam up toward the light and burst up, flashing her hair behind her. When she caught her breath and opened her eyes, she found Maddox’s beautiful eyes peering back at her just above the surface of the water. She had the sudden desire to fling herself into his arms and kiss him with reckless abandon. Something held her back, though.

  Maddox gripped the railing of the boat. His muscles bulged out over the waves as he regarded her. Nancy continued to tread water, grateful for her strength.

  “It’s a funny thing to meet someone like you so late in my life,” Maddox said then.

  Nancy couldn’t speak. Everything felt tremendously heavy.

  “Maybe it would be easier for me if I could pretend we had all the time in the world,” he continued.

  “What would we do with all that time?” Nancy asked.

  “Well, since we’re twenty-five years old, we’re a bit reckless with ourselves,” Maddox said.

  “Sounds about right.”

  “One day, I come home to our rickety apartment...”

  “It’s cockroach infected, I assume?”

  “Oh, yes. We can’t get rid of them,” Maddox affirmed. “And I come home to find you there, and you tell me you’re tired of the city, tired of seeing all the same old people all the time. You’re tired of the same old humdrum conversations. And you look at me and you kiss me and you say, Maddox, take me away from this place.”

  “Oh, do I?”

  “You do. So we pack up a little suitcase, drop it in the trunk of my convertible—”

  “How can you afford a convertible? Shouldn’t we have upgraded apartments by now?” Nancy asked.

  “My father gave it to me when he disappeared with that gang of circus performers, and I can’t bear to part with it,” Maddox explained.

  “Oh, of course. I understand.”

  “Plus, there’s no way I’m taking the beautiful Nancy Remington across the country in anything but this baby blue convertible. Even in the first stretch of our journey, I get jealous of everyone for looking at you. Everyone flirts with you: the gas station attendant, the owner of the diner, even the guy who helps us change a tire at the side of the road. And you’re just so charming that you can’t help it. The world just wants to wait on you, hand and foot.”

  Nancy’s grin widened. She loved living in his daydream. She could have fallen into its light for the rest of her days.

  “Where do we go?”

  “We drive from the city to Memphis, Tennessee, because you tell me your first love was Elvis and I want to show you I care,” Maddox continued. “We arrive at Graceland, and I ask you to marry me outside beneath the shimmering Tennessee sun, and you tell me no, not yet. I know you’ll make a game out of this. You’ll make me ask you over and over again. And I tell you I’m ready to do it. I’m ready to go to the ends of the earth if only you decide to spend the rest of your days with me.”

  Nancy cackled. “I never took you for a big romantic.”

  “Oh, but I am. And I load you back in the blue convertible, and we drive onward, toward the Rocky Mountains. In Denver, we climb to the top of a mountain and up there, again, I ask you to marry me. Again, you say no, but I can see it in your eyes. I’m wearing you down.”

  “Probably, I’m just annoyed with you.”

  “Maybe so, but what else can you do? I’m your only ride.”

  “I’m sure I could make a new life here in Denver,” Nancy teased. “I could marry a bar owner or a businessman or a mountaineer.”

  “You really could. We both know that. And we’re only twenty-five. We have our whole lives ahead of us. I know I have to work every day to convince you to stay with me for the rest of our days. But I’m ready for it.”

  Nancy laughed again. He continued his story— stretching them all the way to the Pacific Ocean, where a gang of circus performers steals his car, and they eventually meet up with his father, who has mastered the art of the trapeze and teaches Maddox how. Up there on the high wire, he calls down to Nancy and asks her, yet again, to marry him. Yet again, Nancy says no.

  “I’m really at the end of my rope at this point. But then, one morning, you turn to me, and you tell me that you’re pregnant, and I know, once and for all, I’ve got you. I’ll show you and our baby that I can be the best man in the world. And we’ll raise our child on the open road, open-minded and open to endless possibilities.”

  Nancy allowed the silence to fill the space between them. Her heart thudded loudly beneath the calm waters. She finally gripped the edge of the sailboat, suddenly exhausted.

  “It’s a beautiful story,” she said.

  “It’s a real story,” Maddox said. “In another reality— another life.”

  Nancy wasn’t sure why, but she wanted to cry. She pulled herself out of the water and wrapped herself up in a towel. Maddox joined her. He grabbed a bottle of wine from a cooler and poured them both glasses. When Nancy drew up the courage to look into his eyes again, she saw a hint of loneliness.

  “Did you ever find someone to have that kind of story with?” she asked him as the waves gently knocked against the boat.

  Maddox’s eyes grew shadowed. “I think I was too proud to ever fall in love properly. I was obsessed with my career. I was obsessed with status. So I never learned how to be intimate with anyone. Maybe I regret it. I don’t know. But I suppose you can’t regret anything because you don’t know how different your life might have been.”

  Nancy sipped her wine and blinked out across the waves. She then inched her way toward Maddox, who drew his large legs out on either side of him and allowed her to lean her back against his chest. She was tucked safely in his arms, as they shared a vision of a false reality— nothing they could ever have, which was all the more beautiful because of its fiction.

  “I’m really glad you called me,” Nancy said as Maddox filled their glasses again with wine. “Knowing you for this brief time has reminded me of something within myself. Something I thought I’d lost a long time ago.”

  Maddox considered this. “I feel the same. You know that I’ve worked with your ex-son-in-law a great deal. Men like Jack in the city are a dime a
dozen, it seems like. Cruel men who’ve been handed every good card in the deck. Yes, I’ve been lucky, but I’ve been grateful for all of it. And I’m grateful, now, to see this other side of life— something bigger and grander and more meaningful. I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know if you ever want to see me again. But if you want to explore these newfound elements of ourselves together—”

  Nancy’s heart felt squeezed. Everything in the world now weighed heavily on the results of her medical tests.

  But instead of pointing to this ominous fear, she just nodded. She smiled and felt a glow of youth and vitality fall through her.

  “I would like that,” she whispered. “And maybe, if it doesn’t work out, we can have a wild and rash breakup. A public one. Screaming in the streets.”

  “Like teenagers. Yes,” Maddox said, stringing his fingers through hers. “Now you understand. I just want a dramatic story.”

  “I think I can do that for you,” Nancy whispered. She then leaned her head back heavily against his chest and listened to the soft bump-bump of his sixty-year-old heart. Time was unkind, but it was also beautiful in its earnest ability to teach you who you really were and what you really wanted. Nancy promised herself to squeeze whatever life she could out of the moments she had left. It was all she could do.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Nancy and Janine sat in the front seat of Janine’s car about a block away from the Oak Bluffs ferry dock. The engine hummed, and the radio flicked and spat with the weather report. Above, clouds grew ominous, curling into grey and tapping down big raindrops over the windshield. It wouldn’t be a tropical storm, just a healthy autumn rain. Nancy exhaled all the air from her lungs and then reminded herself to keep breathing. Within the next eight hours, she would know the truth.

  Everything always happened at once. The previous night, Maggie had called Janine to say she was back from honeymoon number one and wanted to come down for a visit. Of course, Alyssa wanted to tag along, as well. “Are you already sick of being married?” Nancy had asked when the phone had been passed to her. Maggie had just laughed and said, “I swear, he snores more than he used to, now. Should I get the marriage annulled?”