Reunion at the Shore, page 12
If he found out about her miscarriage...
As if on cue, he tilted his head and leaned a little toward her. “What happened when you got sick, back when you bought the motel? I didn’t know about that.”
“Just...just a bad case of the flu,” she said. Which was no lie; she’d developed the flu concurrently with the miscarriage.
“Got you down, did it?”
“What...what do you mean?”
“The girls needing to cheer you up. That doesn’t sound like you.”
She sucked in a breath. “It’s tough being sick,” she said. “Anyway, do you think we need to do any processing about how they know why we got married now?”
“Probably a subject for family counseling.” He sighed. “There’s no shortage of them, it seems.”
“I wish she hadn’t found out,” Ria fretted.
“I’m glad she did,” Drew said. “Of course, I wouldn’t have told her on purpose. But secrets are toxic.”
The words hit Ria like a hammer blow. Secrets are toxic.
She’d read that, heard it said by people who had major family problems. She’d never thought she would fit into that category herself.
But here she was, trying to keep multiple secrets...from the girls, from Drew.
Footsteps clattered down the staircase, and then Sophia and Kaitlyn came into the room in their costumes.
Ria sucked in a breath.
“What is it?” Drew asked immediately.
“They look...” Ria paused. “Well, Kaitlyn looks great. She’s a...doctor, right?” Kait wore green scrubs and a sterile mask over her face.
“Yep. Easy costume.” Unasked, she went over to Drew and showed him her toy stethoscope and doctor’s bag.
“And I’m a nurse.” Sophia winked at Ria.
Sophia was indeed clad in a white nurse costume, which Ria could only identify by the red cross on her perky nurse cap. Her short skirt, bare midriff and high heels—well, no actual health professional would be caught dead in the getup.
The overall look might very well cause a few heart attacks.
Should she call Sophia out? It really wasn’t an appropriate outfit. On the other hand, she’d seen some teen costumes on social media, and sexy seemed to be the theme. By comparison, Sophia’s costume was almost discreet.
Which didn’t mean she should let her daughter go out that way. “I’m not sure—”
The doorbell rang, and Navy let out a short bark. Ria opened the door to a crowd of trick-or-treaters and immediately forgot everything but how cute they were. “Come in for a minute. We have the big chocolate bars.” She’d always gone all out for Halloween. This year, since they were at Drew’s place, she hadn’t done her usual extensive decorations, but she’d roped the girls in to carving a huge pumpkin, which now graced Drew’s front porch.
The kids filed in and showed their costumes, a mix of traditional princesses and superheroes plus one kid dressed as a box of tissues. She and the girls oohed and aahed over the costumes and described them to Drew. As soon as that group left, another pair came to the front porch, and Ria recognized the Thornton twins. They were dressed as a waitress and chef, and between them was a cardboard table with a covered platter. “Trick or treat! Can we serve you dinner?” the twins chorused, and when she and the girls agreed, they swept the lid off the platter...only to reveal their little brother’s curly head grinning up at them.
They all jumped and shrieked, and then they had to examine the costume to see how the little brother was walking along underneath the table. Ria explained it to Drew, who’d taken on the role of handing out candy. Of course, he gave extra to the twins and their brother for such a creative costume.
More kids came, and in between, they laughed about costumes the girls had worn as kids. Even Kaitlyn loosened up and smiled.
“We should go to the party,” Sophia said finally, during a lull. “I promised Courtney we’d come.”
Drew reached out an open hand and gripped Sophia’s arm, lightly. “Hold on. Will this be okay for both of you, especially Kait? No bullies?”
“It’s an all-girls party,” Sophia assured them. “Nice girls.”
Ria found the all-girls part a little hard to believe, given Sophia’s costume. But then again, girls often dressed up for each other as much as for boys.
“Be back here by eleven,” Drew said. It was his second night of having the girls at his place, and he seemed to have settled into his custodial role with enthusiasm.
“We will, Dad,” they chorused, and then they were gone.
The trick-or-treaters thinned out, and in between, Drew and Ria cleaned up: she carried dishes to the sink, and he loaded them into the dishwasher or put them into a sink full of soapy water, mostly by feel.
“Last dish,” she said, handing him the empty serving plate for the corn bread, which had gotten devoured.
He put it into the dishwasher and then set the thing running, and she marveled at how he could perform household tasks as well as any sighted person.
“That was fun tonight,” he said. “Brought back a lot of good memories. Glass of wine?”
Ria hesitated. Having a glass of wine together after cleaning up the kitchen was a good memory, too, something they’d done a lot in the early years of their marriage and then as young parents.
The trouble was, it seemed so romantic.
He was waiting for her reply, his hand on the wine bottle he’d pulled out of the fridge.
His brow was raised, and there was the tiniest trace of a dimple in his cheek, already bristled with his heavy beard even though she knew he shaved every morning.
She should go home. She should just leave.
But the thought of her empty house didn’t beckon in the same way her handsome ex-husband did. “Sure,” she said, her voice coming out a little breathless. “Just one glass.”
In the living room, there was a moment of silence between them. Ria wondered if they were going to talk—about something serious or something mundane?
“Want to watch a movie?” Drew asked, surprising her.
“Can you?”
“Yep,” he said. “Especially one of the scary Halloween ones I’ve seen a million times. Can you find one?” He fumbled around for the remote and handed it to her, then sat down on the couch.
“I can find one,” she said, “but you know I don’t like scary movies.”
“I’ll protect you,” he said, his voice a low rumble that danced along her nerve endings. Her palms broke out in a sweat that made it hard to hold the remote. She clicked on the first show she saw connected to Halloween and then sat down, a proper arm’s length away from Drew.
As the show’s music came on, a corner of Drew’s mouth quirked up. “Charlie Brown? Really?”
“It’s Halloween,” she said. “And it’s not scary.”
“Do you remember...?” they both said at the same time, and then laughed.
“You first,” Drew said.
“I was just thinking of the Halloween when Kait got scared of the jack-o’-lantern, and you had to take it away and donate it to a neighbor family,” Ria said.
“I remember! They were happy to get it since they didn’t have one, but someone smashed it late that night.”
“And Kait cried,” Ria remembered, chuckling. “I guess she’s always been the emotional one.”
“I was thinking of the first Halloween we spent together,” Drew said.
“What? Oh.” Ria’s mouth went dry.
They’d been married only a month. They’d gone to a party, dressed as a pirate and a serving wench, and Ria didn’t know which one of them had gotten more jealous. The girls had been all over Drew, handsome and rakish, and the guys had kept trying to dance with her, mostly, it seemed, so they could look down her tightly laced bodice and make crude jokes.
She and Drew had sneaked out early, gone home and made passionate love.
Drew’s arm reached along the back of the couch, found her shoulder and gave a little tug. “You don’t have to sit way over there.”
Ria blew out a breath, not sure how to answer. She desperately wanted to slide over next to her warm, handsome ex. She also wanted to jump up and run out of the cottage toward home.
He didn’t push; he just let his hand slide up into her hair, caressing gently.
“Drew, I don’t think—”
“Don’t think.”
She froze, and he did, too.
Did he remember? He’d said that very thing the night they’d made love on the beach. The night she’d lost her virginity; the night Sophia had been conceived.
“Last time you said that, it got me in a world of trouble,” she tried to joke.
“I’m an idiot.” Drew straightened, pulling his hand back to his side. “I shouldn’t have said anything of the sort, then or now.” He hesitated, then added, “But like I told you before, I don’t regret the outcome. Do you?”
She didn’t answer; she couldn’t. Instead, she picked up her wineglass and took a couple of gulps, then set it down. The last thing she needed was to get plastered at Drew’s place. To start thinking that she wanted him back.
She wanted someone who could love and accept her as she was, flaws and all. With Drew, there was too much baggage, too much insecurity, too much guilt. “I should go,” she said. “Thanks for having us over, Drew. The girls really enjoyed it. I could tell.”
“Sure.” He sounded dejected, but that wasn’t her problem, was it? He’d come on to her, in a mild way, and though she didn’t take it seriously, she knew that leaving was the wisest move.
Getting up and walking out the door, though, was one of the longest, hardest journeys of her life.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE TROUBLE STARTED as soon as Drew and Kaitlyn headed for the waterfront, Navy walking along beside them. Drew was in a bad mood to begin with. Last night with the family had been great, just great. He had thought, or at least hoped, that he and Ria could continue the evening, just the two of them. Lately, his body responded to her every move. Finding the discipline to keep his hands off her took up way too much of his energy.
Asking her to sit with him, flirting with her, it had all come so naturally last night.
Natural to him, maybe, but not to her. She had run away as if he had a horrible disease.
And that shouldn’t be a surprise. They had always come from different worlds. He had always felt a little bit inadequate. That hadn’t changed since the divorce.
“How often do you come down here?” he asked Kaitlyn now. He was concerned about his daughter for all kinds of reasons, but one of them was her apparent familiarity with the waterfront. He’d never known a dock area that wasn’t seedy and dangerous, no matter what Earl Greene thought about this one. For his young daughter to be hanging out there didn’t seem right.
“A few times a week.”
Don’t criticize and judge. Part of the point of starting this new volunteer job was to spend positive time with his daughter. “What do you like about it?”
“I like that no one else from school comes down here.” She paused, then added, “A few of the dock kids go to my school, but they’re not really a part of things. They don’t give me a hard time.”
Drew frowned. Kaitlyn seemed to have accepted that the majority of kids were going to give her a hard time. Why? She was a beautiful, smart, good-hearted girl. He just didn’t get it.
“This way.” She slowed way down and then grabbed his arm, stopping him. “Look out—the road is sort of rocky.”
Drew used his cane to navigate the small bumps and dips in the road, but it wasn’t easy.
“Take my arm,” she ordered, then paused. “I know, I know, I’m supposed to wait until you ask for help. Mom keeps drilling that into us. So do you want to hold on to me? And here, I can take Navy’s leash.”
“Thanks.” He took her elbow, wishing he didn’t have to depend on a fourteen-year-old to walk down the street. “I’ll get better at this,” he promised Kaitlyn. “I’m meeting a new orientation and mobility specialist later this week.”
“Sure you will, Dad.” Her voice held doubt, covered over with a too-sweet, encouraging tone that was not Kait’s style at all.
He wasn’t much more enthusiastic about the O&M specialist than Kaitlyn, but for a different reason. His vision was improving a little, and he kept hoping he wouldn’t have to entirely learn to navigate the world as a blind person. Hoped his blindness would just go away, though the odds of that happening were slim. His field of vision was getting wider to include perception of peripheral movement, but none of it was very clear. He saw blurry shapes, but not enough to distinguish landmarks or curbs. In bright sunlight things got a little clearer, but even then, he couldn’t rely on his vision. He was trying to resign himself to the fact that this might be as good as it got.
Seagulls squawked but there was no sound of other people.
Good. He needed all the time he could find to get used to the thought of meeting a bunch of new people, trying to work with them, when he couldn’t see. He felt at a huge disadvantage.
There were so many things that could go wrong, including the downright embarrassing way that people sometimes walked away without him realizing it. There he would be, talking to the air. He remembered doing that himself, sometimes, when talking to someone with a visual impairment. He hadn’t realized how rude it was, or how alone and isolated it would make the blind person feel.
He blew out a breath. The last thing he needed was to focus on his insecurities, so he cast around for another topic of discussion. It wasn’t hard to find. “I’m not sure I like you spending time down here at the docks,” he said.
“It’s fine, Dad. Hey, are you and Mom getting back together?”
That was an obvious conversational dodge, but it worked. “Why do you ask?”
He felt her shrug. “Last night was nice.”
“It was. And we’ll spend more time like that.” Even though it might kill him to be around Ria, knowing he could only get so close and no closer.
“If you guys are fine spending time together,” she said, “then why not...?”
She wanted to know, obviously, why they didn’t just get back together. “It’s complicated,” he said, because he couldn’t explain. Couldn’t tell Kait that her mother just didn’t love him enough.
The smell of brackish water and a fishy odor drifted to his nostrils, and he heard some distant shouts and then some conversation, along with the rhythmic lapping of the water against the shore. The Chesapeake didn’t have big waves, but it could get pretty choppy.
“Hey, Juan. Sunny.” Kaitlyn was greeting people now, but she didn’t pause to introduce Drew. “We’re going to meet Captain Eli first,” she said. “If he likes you, and if Bisky likes you, everyone else will fall into line.”
That analysis must be part of the waterman culture Earl Greene had mentioned. He guessed it was helpful that Kaitlyn knew something about it. No doubt her middle school social radar helped her detect the subtleties of any situation. “I’m not sure I like how you know everything about everyone at the docks. How much time do you spend here?”
“Oh, Dad, I’m fine.” Then her pace quickened. “Come on. There he is.”
Unprepared for her speedup, Drew stumbled and nearly fell. Great, just great. Way to impress a bunch of working guys. His face heated as he regained his balance and held Kaitlyn’s arm a little tighter.
She slowed down, stifling a sigh. A minute later, she came to a stop. “Captain Eli, I’d like you to meet my dad.”
Drew wanted to give the man a good look in the eye, and to inspect him, as well. He didn’t know the man’s age, or how he looked at Kaitlyn. He straightened his shoulders and held out his hand. “Drew Martin,” he said, and when the other man’s calloused hand gripped his, he squeezed hard.
The captain’s grip was firm, but he didn’t respond with a test of strength. “We like your girl,” he said mildly.
“Thanks. Rough place for her to spend time.”
“Dad!” Kaitlyn sounded embarrassed.
He could feel the captain shift his position, and when he spoke, his voice was less friendly. “We’re not any rougher than anyone else down here, especially when there’s a young lady present. We do work hard, though.”
Footsteps approached on the wooden dock and Kaitlyn said, “Hey, Mitch.”
“Kait’s dad,” the captain said. “Look out—he’s a strong man. He’ll squeeze your hand off.”
Drew felt his face heat as sweat dripped down his back. He couldn’t tell whether the joke was friendly or mocking. He shook the other man’s hand, consciously trying not to overdo it. This just stank. Here he was amid strange men with his daughter, and he couldn’t know how they were looking at her, couldn’t know if she was safe.
“Dad’s going to do some interviews. It’s his new job. Miss Mary and Chief Greene set it up.”
“Oh, the project for the new museum,” said Mitch.
“I heard about that,” the captain said.
“Yeah,” Drew replied. “So I’ll be spending time here and Kait won’t, after today.”
“Dad!”
“I just don’t think this is a safe place for you,” he said to her, not caring that the other men heard, actually intending it.
“Might be safer for her than for you, if you come in and talk down our way of life,” Mitch said and stomped off in what sounded like heavy boots.
“Don’t have time to debate about whether the waterfront is more dangerous than some city,” the captain said. “I have work to do.” Then he, too, stomped off.
“Dad!” Kait was almost crying. “You were so rude to them.”
“Just letting them know you have someone who cares about you,” he said.
