NINE
WOMEN. SETH TOSSED the cooler into the trunk of the car, heaved the hamper in behind it. Just when you thought you understood them, they turned into aliens. And those aliens had the power to change a normal, reasonable man into a blithering idiot.
There was nothing a man could do to keep up with them.
He tossed in the blanket, kicked the tire, then yanked the blanket back out again. He stared over at her house and gave it a satisfactory snarl.
His mutters were a combination of curses, pithy remarks and considerable blithering as he stomped back for his folding table and watercolor paper.
And there she was, sleeping on the red blanket in the dappled sunlight. All long limbs and color, with the face of a sleeping faerie queen.
“I ought to know who I’m attracted to,” he told her as he carefully lifted the painting-in-progress and carried it to the car. “One guy turns out to be a putz, and damns us all?” He laid the paper on the blanket, scowled at it. “Well, that’s your problem, sister.”
Sister, he thought and felt an uneasy jittering in his gut. Why the hell had she put that in his head about Aubrey? It was off, that’s all. It was way, way off.
It had to be.
He loved Aubrey. Of course he did. But he’d never thought about . . . Had he?
“You see, you see?” He jabbed a finger at the painting. “That’s what your kind does to us. You confuse everything until we start questioning our own brains. Well, it’s not going to work with me.”
Because it was more comfortable, he switched back to temper as he finished loading his car. He had nearly made the turn for home when he swung the car around, punched the gas.
“We’ll just settle this thing.” He spoke aloud and nodded at the painting. “Once and for all. And we’ll see who’s the idiot.”
He pulled up in the drive at Aubrey’s house, leaped out of the car and strode to the door with his outrage and temper still leading the way. He didn’t knock. No one would have expected him to.
The living room, like the rest of the house, was picture-pretty, cluttered just enough to be comfortable, and ruthlessly clean. Grace had a knack for such things.
Once she’d made her living as a single parent cleaning other people’s homes. Now she ran her own business, a cleaning service with more than twenty employees who handled homes and businesses on the Shore.
Her own home was one of her best advertisements—and at the moment it was also entirely too quiet.
“Aubrey?” he shouted up the stairs. “Anyone home?”
“Seth?” Grace hurried in from the kitchen. In her bare feet and cropped pants, her hair pulled carelessly back from her face, she looked entirely too young to have a daughter some wrong-headed woman thought he was attracted to.
Jesus, he’d baby-sat for Aubrey.
“Come on back,” she told him with a quick kiss. “Ethan and Deke are out back fixing the lawn mower. I was just making some lemonade.”
“I just dropped by to see Aubrey about . . .” Oh no, he thought, he couldn’t go there with Grace. “Is she around?”
“She plays softball Sunday afternoons.”
“Right.” Seth jammed his hands in his pockets and scowled. “Right.”
“Honey, is something wrong? Did you and Aubrey have a fight?”
“No. No, I just need to . . . talk to her about something.”
“She should be back in an hour or so. Emily, too. Em’s off with her boyfriend. Why don’t you go on out with Ethan and Deke, stay for dinner? We’re cooking out later.”
“Thanks, but . . . I’ve got some things . . .” It felt weird, too weird, looking at Grace’s face, seeing Aubrey in it and thinking what he was thinking. “I gotta go.”
“But—” She was talking to his back as he rushed out the door. Anna was right, Grace thought with a sigh. Something was troubling their boy.
IT was the bottom of the sixth, with two on, two out when Seth arrived at the park. Aubrey’s team, the Blue Crabs, was down by a run to their longtime nemesis, the Rockfish.
Spectators munched on hot dogs, slurped cold drinks from paper cups and hurled the expected insults or encouragements at the players. June was coming on with her usual hot breath and moist hands, making spring a fond memory. Sun poured onto the field and drenched it in heat and humidity.
Steam from the concession stand pumped out as Seth passed it to clamber up the stands.
He spotted Junior Crawford, a billed cap shielding his bald head and wrinkled gnome face, with a boy of no more than three perched on his bony knee.
“Hey there, Seth.” Junior scooted his skinny ass over an inch in invitation. “How come you ain’t down there on the field?”
“Came back too late for the draft.” He scanned the field first and noted Aubrey was on deck as the current batter took ball three. Then he winked at the little boy. “Who’s this guy?”
“This here’s Bart.” Junior gave the boy a bounce. “My great-grandson.”
“Great-grandson?”
“Yup, got us eight grands now, and this one.” Junior’s attention swung back to the field at the crack of the bat. “Gone foul,” he muttered. “Straighten out that bat, Jed Wilson!” he shouted. “Chrissake.”
“Jed Wilson? Is that Mrs. Wilson’s grandson?”
“The same. Affable enough boy, right enough, but can’t bat worth shit.”
“Worth shit,” Bart said happily.
“Now, boy.” Chuckling, Junior wagged his finger at Bart. “You know you’re gonna get me in the doghouse again if you go saying that in front of your mama.”
“Worth shit! Pappy!” Bart bubbled out a laugh, then poked his mangled hot dog toward Seth. “Bite?”
“Sure.” Grateful for the distraction, Seth leaned down and pretended to take a huge bite.
When ball four was called, the crowd erupted, and Junior let out a whoop. “Walked him. By God. You’re in for it now, you stinking Rockfish.”
“Stinking Rockfish,” Bart echoed joyfully.
“We’re gonna see some action now, goddamn it! Now we’ll see what’s what.”
The Blue Crab fans began to croon “Aub-rey! Aub-rey!” as she swaggered to the plate.
“Knock one out, Aub! That girl can do it,” Junior said with such wild enthusiasm Seth wondered he didn’t have a stroke on the spot. “You watch!” He stabbed Seth with the razor point of his elbow. “You just watch her slam that bastard.”
“Slam that bastard!” Bart shouted, waving his mushed hot dog and dripping mustard.
For both their sakes, Seth nipped the boy from Junior’s knee and set him on his own.
She was a pleasure to watch, Seth thought. No question about it. That compact, athletic build. The undeniable femaleness of it despite—maybe because of—the mannish baseball jersey.
But that didn’t mean he thought about her . . . that way.
She scuffed at the plate. There was a short exchange with the catcher Seth imagined was derisive on both sides. She took a couple of testing swings. Wiggled her butt.
Jesus, why was he looking at her butt?
And took a hard cut at the first pitch.
The crowd surged to their feet on a roar. Aubrey shot toward first like a bullet banged from its gun.
Then the crowd deflated, and she jogged back to the plate as the ball curved foul.
The crowd began to chant her name again as she picked up the bat and went through the same routine. Two swings, wiggle the bat, wiggle the butt and set for the pitch.
She took it, checking her swing. And when the ump called strike two, she rounded on him. Seth could see her lips move, could hear the bite of her words in his head.
Strike, my ass. Any more outside, that pitch would have been in Virginia. Just how big a strike zone you want to give this guy?
Don’t refer to the dubious sexual practices of his mother, Seth warned her mentally. Don’t go there and get tossed.
Whether she’d learned some control in the last couple years or his warning got through, Aubrey skinned the ump with one baleful look, then stepped back in the batter’s box.
The chant rose again, feet began to stomp on wood until the bleachers vibrated. In Seth’s lap, little Bart squeezed what was left of the dog and bun to pulp and shouted, “Slam the bastard.”
And she did.
Seth knew the minute the ball met her bat that it was gone. So, obviously, did Aubrey because she held her position—shoulders front, hips cocked, front leg poised like a dancer—as she watched the ball sail high and long.
The crowd was on their feet, an eruption of sound as she tossed her bat aside and jogged around the bases.
“Goddamn fricking grand slam.” Junior sounded as if he was about to weep. “That girl is a fricking peach.”
“Fricking peach,” Bart agreed and leaned over from Seth’s arms to plant a sloppy kiss on Junior’s cheek.
THE Rockfish went scoreless in the seventh, shut down on a strikeout, and a spiffy double play started by Aubrey at short. Seth wandered down toward the dugout as the fans began to drift toward home. He saw Aubrey standing, glugging Gatorade straight from the jug.
“Nice game, Slugger.”
“Hey.” She tossed the jug to one of her teammates and sauntered over to Seth. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Came in bottom of the sixth, just in time to see you kick Rockfish ass.”
“Fast ball. Low and away. He should’ve known better. I thought you were painting the flower girl today.”
“Yeah, well, we had a sitting.”
She cocked a brow, then rubbed at her nose as Seth stared at her. “What? So, I’ve got dirt on my face.”
“No, it’s not that. Listen, I need to talk to you.”
“Okay, talk.”
“No, not here.” He hunched his shoulders. They were surrounded, he thought. Players, spectators, kids. Dozens of familiar faces. People who knew both of them. My God, did other people think he and Aubrey. . . ?
“It’s, ah, you know. Private.”
“Look, if something’s wrong—”
“I didn’t say anything was wrong.”
She huffed out a breath. “Your face does. I rode in with Joe and Alice. Let me tell them I’m catching a lift home with you.”
“Good. Great. I’ll meet you at the car.”
He shifted the blanket and painting to the backseat. Leaned on the hood. Paced around the car. When Aubrey walked toward him, a mitt in her hand, a bat over her shoulder, he tried to look at her the way he would if he’d never met her before.
But it just wouldn’t work.
“You’re starting to get me worried, Seth,” she said.
“Don’t. Here, let me put those in the trunk. I’ve got my stuff in the back.”
She shrugged, passed off her ball gear, then peered into the backseat. “Wow.” Transfixed, she yanked open the door for a better look at the watercolor. “No wonder you’ve been so hot to paint her. This is wonderful. Jeez, Seth, I never get used to it.”
“It’s not finished.”
“I can see that,” she said dryly. “It’s sexy, but it’s soft. And intimate.” She glanced up at him, those pretty green eyes meeting his.
He tried to gauge if he felt any sort of a sexual jolt, the way he did when Dru’s darker ones leveled on his face.
It was almost too embarrassing to think about.
“Is that what you’re after?”
“What?” Appalled, he gaped at her. “Is what what I’m after?”
“You know, soft, sexy, intimate.”
“Ah . . .”
“With the painting,” she finished, feeling totally confused.
“The painting.” The terror in his belly churned into faint nausea. “Yeah, that’s it.”
Now her face registered mild surprise when he opened the car door for her. “We in a hurry?”
“Just because you hit grand slams doesn’t mean a guy shouldn’t open the door for you.” He bit the words off as he rounded the car, slammed in the other side. “If Will doesn’t treat you with some respect, you ought to ditch him.”
“Hold on, hold on. Will treats me just fine. What are you in such a lather about?”
“I don’t want to talk about it yet.” He pulled out, started to drive.
She let him have silence. She knew him well enough to understand that when he had something in his craw, he went quiet. Went inside Seth to a place even she wasn’t permitted.
When he was ready, he’d talk.
He pulled into the lot of the boatyard, sat tapping his hands on the steering wheel for a moment. “Let’s walk around to the dock, okay?”
“Sure.”
But when he got out, she continued to sit until he came around and wrenched the door open. “What’re you doing?”
“Merely waiting for you to treat me with the proper respect.” She fluttered her lashes and slid out of the car. Then, laughing at him, pulled a pack of Juicy Fruit from her back pocket, offered it.
“No, thanks.”
“What’s up, Seth?” she asked as she unwrapped a stick of gum.
“I need to ask you for a favor.”
She folded the gum into her mouth. “What do you need?”
He stepped onto the dock, stared out at the water, and at the osprey resting on a post before he turned back to her. “I need to kiss you.”
She lifted her palms. “That’s it? God, I was wondering if you had six months to live or something. Okay. Jeez, Seth, you’ve kissed me hundreds of times. What’s the big deal?”
“No.” He crossed his arms over his chest, then ran his hands over his hips and finally stuck them in his pockets. “I mean, I need to kiss you.”
“Huh?” Shock registered on her face.
“I need to settle something, so I need to kiss you. Like a regular guy would.”
“Seth.” She patted his arm. “This is weird. Did you get hit on the head or something?”
“I know it’s weird,” he shot back. “Do you think I don’t know it’s weird? Imagine how I feel bringing it up in the first place.”
“How come you brought it up in the first place?”
He stalked down the dock, back again. “Dru has this idea that I—that we—Christ. That I’m attracted to you in a guy way. And possibly vice versa. Probably.”
Aubrey blinked twice, slow as an owl. “She thinks I’ve got the hots for you?”
“Oh, Jesus, Aub.”
“She thinks there’s something like that between you and me, so she gave you the boot.”
“More or less,” he muttered.
“So you want to plant one on me because of her?”
“Yes. No. I fucking don’t know.” Could it be any worse? he wondered. Could he be more embarrassed, more itchy, more stupid?
“She put this damn idea in my head. I can’t work it back out again. What if she’s right?”
“What if she’s right?” There was a laugh burbling in her throat, but she managed to swallow it. “What if you’ve got some suppressed fantasy going about us? Get real, Seth.”
“Look, look.” Impassioned in a way that made her blink again, he took her by the shoulders. “It’s not going to kill you to kiss me.”
“Okay, okay. Go ahead.”
“Okay.” He blew out a breath, started to lower his head, then straightened again. “I can’t remember my moves. Give me a minute.”
He stepped back, turned away and tried to clear his head. “Let’s try this.” He turned back, laid his hands on her hips to draw her against him. Seconds passed. “You could put your arms around me or something.”
“Oh, sorry.” She reached up, threaded her fingers together behind his head. “How’s this?”
“Fine. That’s fine. Come up a little,” he suggested, so she rose on her toes. He bent his head. His mouth was a breath from hers when she snorted out a laugh.
“Oh Christ.”
“Sorry. Sorry.” The fit of giggles forced her to move back and hold her stomach. He stood, scowling, until she controlled herself. “I balked, that’s all. Here we go.” She started to put her arms around him again. “Shit, wait.” Conscientiously, she took the gum out of her mouth, folded it into the old wrapper in her pocket. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do it right. Right?”
“If you can control the pig snorts.”
“Free lesson, sport: When you’re about to tangle tongues with a woman, you don’t mention pork or swine.”
She put her arms around him again, took a good strong hold this time and moved in herself before either of them could think about it.
They stayed locked, the breeze off the water fluttering over them. There was a hum as a car drove by on the road behind them, and the sudden desperate barking of a dog as it chased along behind the fence until the car disappeared.
Their lips separated, their eyes met. The silence between them held for several long seconds.
Then they began to laugh.
Still holding each other, they rocked in a kind of whooping hilarity that would have put either one of them on the ground without the support. He lowered his forehead to hers on a relieved breath.
“So.” She gave his butt a friendly pinch. “You want me, don’t you?”
“Shut up, Aubrey.”
He gave her, his sister, a fierce hug before he eased back. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Anyway, you’re good at it.”
“You too.” He rubbed his knuckles over her cheek. “And we’re never going to do that again.”
“That’s a deal.”
He started to swing an arm around her shoulders, then stopped as an appalling thought struck. “You’re not going to tell anybody about this, right? Like your mom, or Will. Anybody.”
“Are you kidding?” Even the idea of it had her shuddering. “You either. Promise.” She spat into her palm, held it out.
Seth grimaced down at her hand. “I should never have taught you that one.” But resigned, and respectful of the pledge, he spat into his own, then solemnly shook hands.
HE was too restless to go home. And, he admitted, he needed a little more time before he faced his family with the kiss incident still fresh in his mind.
He had half a mind to go back to Dru’s and let her know just how off the mark, how insulting, how wrong she’d been.
But the other half of his mind, the smarter half, warned him he wasn’t in the mood to have a rational conversation with her yet.
She’d made him doubt himself, and it stung. He’d worked hard to reach and maintain his level of confidence, in himself, in his work, in his family. No woman was allowed to shake it.
So they’d just move back a step before things went any further. He’d paint her because he couldn’t do otherwise. But that would be all.
He didn’t need to be involved with a woman who was that complicated, that unpredictable and that damn opinionated.
It was time to slow down, to concentrate on work and family. To solve his own problems before he took on anyone else’s.
He parked at his studio, carted his equipment and the painting up the steps. He used his new cell phone to call home and let Anna know he wouldn’t be back for dinner.
He turned on music, then set up to work on the watercolor from memory.
As with sailing, worries, annoyances, problems faded away when he painted. As a child, he’d escaped into drawing. Sometimes it had been as dramatic as survival, others as simple as warding off boredom. It had always been a pleasure for him, a quiet and personal one or a soaring celebration.
In his late teens he’d harbored tremendous guilt and doubt because he’d never suffered for his art, never felt the drama of emotional conflict over it.
When he’d confessed all that to Cam, his brother had stared at him. “What, are you stupid?” Cam had demanded.
It had been exactly the right response to snap Seth out of a self-involved funk.
There were times when a painting pulled away from him and he was left baffled and frustrated by the image in his mind that refused to be put on canvas.
But there were times when it flew for him, beyond any height he’d imagined he could achieve.
When the light dimmed through the windows and he was forced to hit the overheads, he stepped back from the canvas, stared at what he’d done. And realized this was one of the times it had flown.
There was a vibrancy to the colors—the green of the grass and leaves, the sunstruck amber of the water, the shock of red from the blanket and the milky white of her skin against it. The garden of flowers on her skirt was bold, a contrast to the delicate way the filmy material draped high on her thigh.
There was the curve of her shoulder, the angle of her arm, the square edge of the blanket. And the way the diffused fingers of light fell over the dreamy expression on her face.
He couldn’t explain how he’d done it. Any more than he’d been able to tell Dru what he thought about when painting. The technical aspects of the work were just that. Technicalities. Necessary, essential, but as unconsciously accomplished when he worked as breathing.
But how it was that a painting would sometimes draw out the heart of the artist, the core of the subject and allow it to breathe, he couldn’t say.
Nor did he question it. He simply picked up his brush and went back to work.
And later when, still fully dressed, he tumbled into bed, he dropped straight into sleep with the image of Drusilla sleeping beside him.
“WHAT are you calling it?” Stella asked him.
They were standing in front of the painting, studying it in the glare of his studio lights. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”
“Beauty Sleeps,” Stella suggested. “That’s what I’d call it.”
She was wearing an oversized chambray shirt and baggy jeans with flat canvas shoes that looked as though they’d walked a lot of miles. And when she tucked her arm through Seth’s he could smell hints of lemon from her shampoo and soap.
“We’re proud of you, Seth. Not for the talent so much. That’s God-given. But for being true to it. Being true to what you have and what you are, that’s what makes the difference.”
She stepped back and looked around. “Wouldn’t hurt you to clean up this place some. Being an artist doesn’t mean you have to be a slob.”
“I’ll take care of it in the morning.”
She sent him a wry look. “Now where have I heard that one before? That one there.” Stella jerked her head toward the painting. “She’s neat as a pin. Maybe too neat—which sure as hell isn’t your problem. Worries about letting anything shift out of place. Untidiness confuses her, especially when it comes to her own emotions. You’ve got to figure they’re pretty messy where you’re concerned already.”
He lifted a shoulder in a way that made Stella smile. “I’m putting the brakes on there. She’s too much damn work.”
“Uh-huh.” She twinkled at him. “You keep telling yourself that, boy.”
He wanted to leave that area alone. He didn’t mind messy emotions, but his own were in such a state he couldn’t be sure he’d ever manage to tidy them up again.
“Cam said I should ask you about the zucchini bread.”
“He did, did he? Maybe he thinks I’ve forgotten. Well, you can tell him I may be dead, but I’ve still got my wits. I wasn’t much of a cook. Ray handled that end for the most part. But now and again I stuck my oar in. One day in the fall I got a yen for zucchini bread. We’d planted the stuff, and Christ knows we had more than we could eat in six years. Especially since Ethan wouldn’t touch a morsel. So I got out the cookbook and tried my hand at baking some zucchini bread. Four loaves, from scratch, and I set them on a rack to cool. I was damn proud of that bread, too.”
She paused a moment, tipped her head up as if looking at the memory. “About a half hour later, I walked back into the kitchen. Instead of four loaves, there were just three. My first thought was, well, those boys have been in here and helped themselves. Felt pretty smug about that one. Until I looked out the kitchen window. What do you think I saw?”
“I’ve got no clue.” But he was sure he was going to enjoy it.
“I’ll tell you what I saw,” she said with a jut of her chin. “My boys, and my loving husband, out there in the yard using the zucchini bread I’d made from scratch as a goddamn football. Whooping and hollering and tossing that thing around like it was the Super Bowl. I was out that door like a shot, gonna skin the lot of them. About that time, Phil heaved that loaf high and hard, and Ethan loped over to receive. And Cam—he always was quick as a snake—he streaked over the grass, leaped up to intercept. Misjudged, though. The loaf caught him right about here.”
She tapped just over her eyebrow. “Knocked him flat on his ass, too. Damn thing was hard as a brick.”
She laughed, rocking back and forth on her heels as if her humor had weight. “Ethan snapped up the bread, stepped right over Cam as he sat there with his eyes rolling back in his head, and made the touchdown. By the time I got out to Cam to check him out and give them a piece of my mind, he’d shaken it off and the four of them were howling like loons. They called it the Bread Bowl. Last time I ever baked bread, I’ll tell you that. I miss those days. I sure do miss them.”
“I wish I’d had time with you. I wish I’d had time with you and Ray.”
She moved to him, brushed at the stray tendrils of hair that had fallen over his forehead. The gesture was so tender it made his heart ache.
“Is it okay if I call you Grandma?”
“Of course it is. Sweet boy,” Stella murmured. “She couldn’t cut that sweet heart out of you, no matter how hard she tried. She couldn’t understand it either, that’s why hurting you’s always been so easy for her.”
They weren’t talking about Dru now, he thought. But about Gloria. “I don’t want to think about her. She can’t hurt me anymore.”
“Can’t she? Trouble’s coming. Trouble always does. You be strong, you be smart, and you be true. You hear me? You’re not alone, Seth. You’ll never be alone.”
“Don’t go.”
“You’re not alone,” she repeated.
But when he woke with the early sunlight just sliding through his windows, it seemed he was.
Worse, he saw the folded note under the door. He forced himself to get up, to walk over and pick it up.
Lucy’s Diner, next to the By-Way Hotel on Route 13.
Eleven o’clock tonight.
Make sure it’s in cash.
Trouble’s coming. Seth thought he heard the echo of a voice. Trouble always does.