The Obsession

by Nora Roberts

  But I think I like it—the process of it.

  I saw a bear this morning. Don’t worry, I was more interested in him than he was in me. Picture attached. I couldn’t get one of the whale—I’m sure it was a whale—sounding way out. By the time I got my camera, zoomed out, it was gone.

  I’m happy here. They’re getting to know me in town—enough to say hello when I’m at the market or hardware—my two favorite places right now. Oh, and the pizza place. It’s not New York pizza, but it’s not crap either.

  I’m happy here, despite the daily noise, the deluge of decisions. Kevin says I really have to decide on the tile for the master, and the backsplash for the kitchen. Both terrify me more than a little. But that’s for later.

  Write me back soon—and that goes for you, too, Mason, with more than an all’s good, how’s it going. I’m about to start picking color and designs out for the rooms I’ve earmarked as yours when you visit.

  Before pictures also attached.

  Miss you, love you,

  Naomi

  Once she sent the email off, she ordered herself to work. She had to update her Facebook page, do the Tumblr thing, the Pinterest deal, and write something for the blog. All chores she’d have put off for the rest of her life if they weren’t part of the job.

  An hour later, she took her laptop back to the desk to plug in the charger. And saw the moon riding over the water.

  She grabbed her camera, filters, a second lens, and went out on her deck in the deep night chill.

  She caught the moon along with its reflection in the water. Mirror Moon, she thought, already composing as she took more pictures, changed filters, angles. She’d make a series—cards, which always sold well off her site. If they turned out as well as she thought, she’d set up her mat cutter and board and start sending some art to the gallery.

  But she was doing one for herself. She rose, drew in the quiet, the light, the sense of lovely, lovely solitude.

  She’d hang the best of the best on the wall she’d painted herself.

  Her moon over her inlet.

  It didn’t get better than that.

  —

  Three weeks after demo, Kevin stayed late to finish installing the hardware on the kitchen cabinets. Overwhelmed, Naomi grabbed tools and worked with him while Molly napped by the doors.

  “I can’t believe how it looks.”

  “It’s coming along.”

  “Coming along? Kevin, it’s amazing. I didn’t make a mistake, right, changing up from the idea of the dark cherry cabinets for this sage green?”

  “They’re classy, have character, and don’t look like a showroom—in a good way. With the gray granite, those veins of green in it? You’ve got an eye, Naomi. The beveled glass fronts set it all off.”

  “I think so. I guess I’m going to need something better than paper plates and plastic cups to go in them. I’ve never bought a set of dishes in my life.”

  “Didn’t you have like an apartment or something before?”

  “Oh, here and there, but mostly I stayed on the move. Have camera, will travel. And it was paper, plastic, or secondhand. I never intended to settle.”

  Overwhelmed definitely, she thought, glancing up at her empty cabinets. “It looks like I have, so I’d better think about dishes and glassware. I don’t know where I’m going to find the room in my head for that with faucets and light fixtures and tile.”

  “You should talk to Jenny. That woman loves playing with new dishes.”

  “Maybe I’ll just go with restaurant white, so I don’t have to think about it.”

  “You should talk to her. You know what?” He nudged back the bill of his ball cap. “You should come on out tonight, have a drink with us at Loo’s.”

  “That’s the bar, right, off Water Street?”

  “Yeah, it’s a nice place, though. Good food, friendly. Music tonight, too. Jenny and I have a sitter, so we’re going for a while. Why don’t you meet us?”

  “That sounds like date night to me, Kevin.”

  “Yeah, sort of. The thing is, Jenny’s been after me to ask you over to dinner, and I figure you’ve had enough of all of us by the end of the day.”

  Good instincts, she thought, because truer words.

  “You come out tonight, have a drink, talk dishes with her some, it’s a compromise. Seems like you could use a night off and out, too.”

  “Maybe.”

  He didn’t push, so they fell back to companionable silence as they worked. When it was done, they bumped fists.

  “I’ll see you at Loo’s if you make it,” he said, and she just waved him off.

  She didn’t intend to leave her nearly finished, wonderful kitchen with its empty cabinets and pale gray (hinting toward green) walls. She had dozens of things to keep her busy, including reading the owner’s manuals on her new appliances.

  Settling in, she reminded herself. If she really meant to settle in, no matter how innately unsociable, it required minimal doses of friendliness.

  Otherwise she was that weird woman up on Point Bluff. That just asked for talk and attention. Normal people had a drink with friends now and then. She didn’t really know Jenny, but she definitely considered Kevin a friend.

  Harry would have deemed them simpatico.

  So why not? She’d throw on some halfway decent clothes, slap a little makeup on, and drive into town. Have a drink at the local bar, talk with her friend’s wife about tableware. She’d stay for one set since there was music, and consider any and all social obligations met for at least a month.

  Good deal.

  She opted for black jeans, and because it ran cool at night, a sweater. Not black, she ordered herself, as that was her first choice. She chose the one Seth and Harry had given her for Christmas—worn only once—and in nearly the same shade as her kitchen cabinets. She considered changing her habitual silver studs for something more fun and frivolous, then decided that worrying about earrings was too much for a simple drink with a friend and his wife.

  She took some trouble with her makeup mainly because those needs could come calling—and maybe there was a local boy who could meet them at some point.

  No reason to scare him off, whoever he might be.

  Night had fallen when she set out, so she left the porch light on—new fixture yet to come—and locked up. Alarm system, she thought, installed very soon.

  When she glanced back at the house, she nearly went back inside. It looked so appealing sitting there, so quiet. One drink, she ordered herself, and pushed herself to drive away from solitude.

  She’d never been into town this late—no reason to—and saw that Friday night hopped a bit. She imagined that those strolling along the boardwalk by the marina were tourists, but it was likely a mix with those on the street, poking into shops open late, sitting out with heaters at outdoor tables.

  She knew Loo’s sat a block off Water Street, tucked between a seafood restaurant and a snack shop. She spotted Kevin’s truck, found a parking spot half a block down from it.

  She needed to come back at night with her camera, get night shots of the marina, the old character homes, the bold red door and the blue neon curl of LOO’S over it.

  Music pumped against the door before she opened it.

  She’d pictured a little bar, but it proved bigger—even boasted a small dance floor, packed now as crowd-pleasing rock beat out. She smelled beer and fried food, perfume, sweat. The bar itself dominated one wall in dark, aged wood backed by more than a dozen taps. She heard the whirl of a blender and immediately decided on a foamy frozen margarita. As she scanned, Kevin waved from a table near the dance floor.

  She wound her way through, found her hand caught in Jenny’s.

  “I’m so glad you came! Kevin didn’t think you would.”

  “Couldn’t resist.”

  “Sit, sit. Kevin, get Naomi a drink.”

  “What’ll you have?”

  “I hear the song of a frozen margarita—with salt.”

&n
bsp; “I’m going to get that going for you. It takes a while for them to get to the tables. Jenny?”

  “I’m still nursing this one.”

  As Kevin moved off, Jenny swiveled in her chair. “God, you’re so beautiful.”

  “I . . .”

  “I’m on my second glass of wine. I get loose easy. It’s just I always wanted to be tall, and look what happened.”

  “I always wanted to be petite. What are you going to do?”

  “I looked up your website, your photos. They’re wonderful, really. There’s this one of a water lily, just one water lily with these ripples around it where it floats? I felt like I’d been on vacation just looking at it. And this one of an old gravestone in a cemetery, and you can see the shadow of the church. The dates? She was a hundred and two when she died, and it still made me tear up. I can’t remember the name on the stone.”

  “Mary Margaret Allen.”

  “That’s right.” Jenny’s eyes, nearly the same soft doe brown as her hair, smiled. “What I’m saying—I take a good snapshot. Slices of life, the kids and all, I mean. And it’s important to have the record, those memories. But what you do, it just grabs emotions right out.”

  “Best compliment ever.”

  “It’s a true one. Kevin said you needed dishes and glassware and such.”

  “I do. I was thinking white and clear, and done.”

  “Well, going that way you can jazz it up with napkins and so on. The thing is . . . He took some pictures of the kitchen with his phone, and showed me. I just love the soft green of the cabinets, and the pewter tones of the hardware, the gray of the walls. It’s like you’re pulling the tones and colors from outside in.”

  “I can’t resist that either.”

  Jenny sipped her wine, gave her long, loose hair a push back. “I think it’s just right, if that matters. And it struck me how if you went deep, deep blue with the dishes, like cobalt blue, you’d have that pop behind the glass, and keep with that scheme.”

  “Cobalt blue. It would look great.”

  “I think it would, then you go for color in the glassware, softer, like blues and greens—a mix, just tie it in. I can give you sites to look at, and I’ve got a stack of catalogs. And before Kevin comes back, because I’ll embarrass him, I’m going to ask you to ask me to come over and look at the place, at his work, and what you’re up to. I know he said you took this old glider and chair and redid them. I love doing that kind of thing, finding something someone’s gotten rid of and making it new.”

  “Sure you can come by, have a look.”

  “I swear I won’t be a pest or take advantage.” She beamed at Kevin when he came back with a jumbo margarita.

  “I’ve talked her ear off. Stop me.”

  He set the drink down, sat, kissed his wife’s cheek. “Shut up, Jenny.”

  “I will. Plus I love when they do this number.”

  “I could take a bath in this,” Naomi commented. She took a sip. “But I’ll drink it instead.”

  She angled to look at the band as she recognized the Springsteen classic—and the voice lit the suggestive lyrics of “I’m on Fire” like a slow-burning match.

  He wore black—jeans and a T-shirt, worn motorcycle boots. He stood, the guitar slung low, his fingers working the frets and strings while that voice wrung every drop of sex out of the words.

  She should’ve known.

  “Xander and the band play here every few weeks,” Kevin told her. “They’re the Wreckers.”

  She said, “Oh.”

  And deep inside as those bold blue eyes met hers, as that voice sent out lures and warnings, something inside her said, Oh damn.

  She figured she’d need every drop of that margarita to cool off.

  Eight

  He came over on the break with a bottle of water and an easy swagger. Jenny pointed a finger at him.

  “You know what that song does to me.”

  “You can thank me later,” Xander said to Kevin, and sat—slouched, with his long legs stretched out. “So.” He gave Naomi a slow smile. “How ya doing?”

  “Good. I’m good.” She felt like someone had started a brush fire under her skin. “You’re good, too. My uncles are huge Springsteen fans. They’d have approved your cover.”

  “How many uncles?”

  “Just the two. They took my brother and me to the E Street Band’s reunion tour at Madison Square. Have you ever seen him in concert?”

  “In Tacoma, same tour. Blew the roof off.”

  She relaxed enough to smile. “Yeah, they did.”

  A blonde in a tight pink shirt came up, circled Xander’s neck from behind. “Are you doing ‘Something from Nothing’?”

  “Last set.”

  “How about coming over, having a beer? Patti and I are right over there.”

  “Working, Marla.” He wagged his water bottle.

  She wasted the sexy pout, in Naomi’s opinion, as Xander couldn’t see it with her chin resting on the top of his head. “You could come over anyway. Hi, Jenny. Hi, Kevin.”

  Her gaze tracked over to Naomi. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Naomi,” Kevin said, “Marla.”

  “Visiting?” Marla asked.

  “No, I live here.” And didn’t that sound odd, Naomi realized. She lived here.

  “Haven’t seen you around before. You must . . . Hey, are you the one who bought the old place on the bluff? You’re working there, right, Kevin?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You must be rich or crazy.”

  “I’m not rich,” Naomi said, adding a half smile because the pouty blonde’s statement struck her as more baffled than needling.

  “You know it’s haunted, right? They should’ve told you it was haunted.”

  “I don’t think anyone mentioned it.”

  “I’d be scared out of my mind staying there alone. You take pictures, right? Patti figures you’re looking to open a photography studio.”

  “No. I don’t do studio photography.”

  “What other kind is there?”

  “How much time do you have?”

  “What?”

  “I’ll come over next break.” Xander gave the hand currently stroking his clavicle a pat.

  “Okay. Then maybe . . .” She leaned down, put her mouth on his ear, and whatever she whispered had Xander’s lips curving.

  “That’s a hell of an offer, Marla, but I don’t want Chip coming after me with a hammer.”

  She did the pout again. “We’re divorced.”

  “And still.”

  “Well, you think about it.”

  “Hard not to,” he murmured as she hip-swiveled back to her table.