Chapter 29
Lane snuck a glance at Michael, once again up to his elbows in dishwater. He’d refused help when breakfast mercifully ended, insisting the girls enjoy their coffee and make plans for the day. Now, as she stood at the counter waiting for a fresh pot of coffee to brew, dread hit full force. Six days. She had no idea how she was going to fill one day, let alone six. She supposed a tour of the inn was as good a place as any to start. Then later, when it was warmer, they could take a walk down to the lighthouse, though her mother had never been much of a beach person.
Starry Point was hardly a cultural mecca, but there were a few trendy boutiques in the village, and neither of them had ever been able to pass up an antiques shop. They’d do a little shopping, then grab a late lunch—anywhere but the Blue Water. And then what? She’d have to think of something. While she didn’t relish the idea of spending the next six days gadding all over the Outer Banks, the alternative was hanging around the inn, circling each other like a pair of wet cats, while her mother scrutinized every move she and Michael made.
“Coffee,” Lane announced, setting freshly filled mugs on the table and dropping back into her chair.
Cynthia turned from the window and came to join her. She stirred half a spoonful of sugar into her mug, then took a sip. “You picked a lovely spot, Laney. The beach is so quiet.”
“That’s because it’s November and everyone’s gone for the season. I thought maybe we’d walk down to the light later on if you’re up to it.”
Cynthia peered over the rim of her mug. “Was that a crack about my age, young lady?”
“No. I just wasn’t sure you’d want to. You said you were tired.”
“I came to spend time with you, Laney, to be with you. I can be tired when I get home.”
Lane felt a tug of something familiar and uneasy. Her father had complained of being tired just before being diagnosed with renal adenocarcinoma. Ten months later he was gone.
“Are you . . .” Lane’s voice trailed off, hindered by a sudden thickness in her throat. “Have you been—I mean, are you taking care of yourself?”
Cynthia’s gray-green eyes softened with understanding. She set down her cup carefully, stealing a hand toward Lane’s. Her fingers were warm and strong as they squeezed. “I’m fine, Laney, and taking excellent care of myself. I’m afraid I’ll be around to annoy you for years to come.”
“Don’t say that, Mother.”
“Oh, honey, we both know it’s true, so why pretend? You’re not exactly thrilled to see me, but I had to come. I had to know if you were happy. And I think you are.”
The remark left Lane faintly flabbergasted. Since when had her mother cared if she was happy? Accomplished—naturally. Prominently wed—certainly. But happy? That was news to Lane. And yet there was something earnest flickering in the eyes looking back at her, eyes so much like her own. Regret perhaps? An unspoken apology?
Lane was spared a reply when Dally’s signature greeting drifted in from the parlor.
Cynthia’s brows shot up. “What on earth—?”
“Her name is Dally. She helps out a couple days a week,” Lane explained hastily, as she pushed back from the table. If Dally started blabbing about Michael before she got the chance to fill her in, the jig would be up for sure. “I forgot she was coming. I better go talk to her.”
Dally was still juggling her coffee, keys, and iPod when Lane grabbed her by the sleeve and yanked her into the library, mercifully empty since Michael hadn’t settled down to work yet. This was going to be embarrassing enough without him smirking over her shoulder.
“I need your help,” Lane hissed close to Dally’s ear. “My mother’s popped in for a visit.”
“Your mother? Cool!”
“Shhh! And no, it is not cool. It’s anything but cool. She thinks Michael and I are . . . involved.”
“Involved?” It took a moment for the word to sink in. “Oh, involved.” Her dark eyebrows waggled. “And why would she think that?”
Lane wet her lips, not quite believing what she was about to say. “Because I told her we were.”
Dally’s large brown eyes widened. “Are you?”
“No!” Lane hissed back. “I lied.”
“You . . .” For a moment Dally stared, openmouthed. “To your mother? Lane, have you lost your mind? Why would you do something like that?”
“She called one night while Michael and I were out to dinner—”
“You two went to dinner?”
“Yes. No. Not like that. Please, Dally, let me finish! She called and started in again about Bruce. She was driving me crazy, so I sort of . . . fibbed a little.”
“A little?”
“Okay, a lot. And now she’s here—in my kitchen.”
“Well, well, well. And what does Professor McDreamy have to say about all this?”
“He’s loving it, actually. He’s quite the actor as it turns out. I was all set to tell her the truth when he stepped in and started calling me sweetheart. I nearly fell over.”
Dally lifted the plastic lid off her coffee and took a thoughtful sip. “And now you want me to play along, too.”
“Yes. Look, I know this is all very . . . weird. But, Dally, I’m desperate. If she finds out I lied about this—just made up a boyfriend—I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Dally apparently couldn’t hold back her grin another moment. “When I said you should take him on trial, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind. But hey, if this is what it’s going to take to finally get you—”
“Nothing’s changed, Dally. It’s all pretend.” She tried not to think of the kiss they had shared last night—kisses—tried not to remember how it felt to be held again in a man’s arms. In Michael’s arms. “It’ll all be over in six days.”
“Six days, did you say? Do you really think you can pull this off for that long?”
“I don’t have a choice. The alternative is to let my mother go back to Chicago thinking I’m even more pathetic than she realized.”
“Okay, yeah, I think I see your point.”
“Just do me a favor and start upstairs today. It’ll give me a chance to get her out onto the beach. With any luck you won’t even bump into her. I just wanted you to know—in case.”
Dally heaved an affected sigh and shook her dark head dismally. “Far be it from me to point out that all this could have been avoided if you’d just taken my advice and slept with him right out of the gate.”
Lane eyed her darkly. “Are you trying to get me to fire you?”
Dally grinned, then stuck out her tongue. “Try it, and I’ll go straight to the tabloids with everything I know.”
Lane couldn’t help scanning the dunes one more time when she and Cynthia finally stepped out the back door and onto the deck. Eleven o’clock and still no sign of Mary. If she were coming she certainly would have appeared by now. Still, it was a relief to be out in the sunshine, where there was space to breathe and room to avoid her mother’s keen eyes, which seemed to be everywhere at once when Michael was anywhere in the vicinity.
It was a good day for walking, bright and cloudless, with just a bit of a bite in the air. Lane pushed through the gate and out onto the narrow boardwalk, waiting for her mother to follow.
“That’s where we’re going,” she said, pointing down the beach toward Starry Point Light, stark and almost dizzyingly white against the clear morning sky.
If Cynthia was daunted she gave no sign. She did, however, button her jacket to her throat as she fell in step beside her daughter. “I thought this was the south. It’s freezing!”
“Just keep walking, Mother. You’ll be unbuttoning that coat before we’re halfway there. I brought some bread. We can go out on the jetty and feed the birds.”
“Out on the jetty,” Cynthia echoed, trying to sound bright but already sounding breathless in her effort to keep up. “That’ll be . . . fun.”
Lane shortened her stride. It would be no such thing, and they both knew it. Her mother had never been much of an outdoor person, happy to leave things like camping and zoo trips to her father, preferring instead to seek adventure in shopping malls, art boutiques, and smart little cafés. At no time had these differences been more glaring than during family vacations, when she and her father would set out in shorts and sandals for some local point of interest, and her mother and sister, coiffed to perfection, would head for the nearest spa for mother-daughter pedicures.
Lane slowed her pace, then stopped altogether, bending to pluck a small shell from the sand. She turned it over in her palm, ran a thumb over the soft pink striations. “Do you remember the time we all piled in the car and drove to Sanibel Island for vacation?”
Cynthia smiled crookedly. “Your father got sun poisoning.”
“And you had to take me to the beach because he couldn’t go outdoors.”
“Had to take you?” Cynthia shielded her eyes as she regarded Lane. “Is that how you remember it?”
“You and Val were supposed to go souvenir shopping in town. Instead, you were stuck with me.”
“We had fun that day,” Cynthia said, her tone bordering on defensive. “Don’t you remember? We built a sand castle and collected shells.”
Lane ran her tongue over her lips, tasting salt. “You made me throw back the chipped ones.”
Cynthia’s brow scrunched. “What?”
“The shells. You made me throw back the ones that weren’t perfect. You said no one wanted something that wasn’t perfect, that only the perfect ones were worth keeping.”
Something like wariness had crept into Cynthia’s expression. “Laney—honey—where are you going with this?”
“Nowhere, really. It’s just something that’s always stuck with me. Being on the beach with you must’ve brought it back. Forget it.”
“I was talking about shells, sweetheart. About collecting shells.”
Lane shrugged and dropped the shell. If you say so, but it felt like something else. Dusting the sand from her fingers, she turned back toward the lighthouse and set out again at a brisk pace, leaving her mother to catch up.
As predicted, Cynthia had undone the first two buttons of her coat before they reached the halfway mark. By the time they reached the lighthouse, the coat was unbuttoned completely, flapping in the breeze as they picked their way out onto the rough boulders of the jetty.
Lane couldn’t help feeling a pang of admiration. Her mother was almost sixty, and utterly out of her element, but she was doing her best to be a trouper as she moved cautiously toward the end of the jetty, pretending not to mind when the gulls began to screech and swarm. At least the tide was out, no slippery rocks, no spray to dodge.
“You really do this every morning?” she asked when they finally reached the end. “On purpose?”
Lane laughed as she fished a pair of bread-filled baggies from her jacket and handed one to her mother. “I do. It sets the pace for the day. And I think the gulls would be furious if I were to stop.”
To demonstrate, Lane tossed up a handful of stale scraps. The gulls swooped greedily, squabbling among themselves for the bread bits as they scattered in the wind. After a few moments Cynthia opened her bag and followed Lane’s lead. When the bread was gone Lane took her mother’s bag and crumpled it, along with her own, into the pocket of her jacket.
“You belong here, Laney,” Cynthia said quietly.
Lane turned to stare. “Where did that come from?”
A smile flitted across Cynthia’s face. “When you told me you’d bought this place, way out in the wet wilds, I seriously thought you’d lost your mind, that you were just trying to get back at Bruce for . . . well, for everything. But now, seeing you, I realize you were right. You seem . . . happy. And now with Michael—”
Lane felt her shoulders sag. For a moment she’d actually thought her mother was going to give her credit for something. Instead, it had to do with a man.
“I was happy before Michael, Mother. I had a perfectly good life, all on my own.”
“Yes, of course you did, but now—”
Lane closed her eyes, tipped her face to the sun, and counted to ten. Yes, of course. Now there’s Michael—or at least you think there is—so everything’s fine. As long as I’m perfect and he doesn’t throw me back.