Thursday afternoon, outside the Sandpiper Café, in what had become a habit of late, Charlie peered across the square toward the library. At Sawyer Kole and Evy on the library steps.
All the breath went out of Charlie. Something familiar about the pair of them niggled at the back of his mind. Some similarity between them. The hair? The eyes? Were they—?
No, he was being fanciful. And deputy sheriffs didn’t live long on the job by being fanciful. Still, the notion shook him.
He was the one losing it. Unable to trust his legs, Charlie leaned against his truck. Couldn’t be. But what was up with Evy’s fascination with Sawyer Kole? Was Charlie being used to further some secret agenda?
Charlie flung the white bakery box through the open window of the truck. He scrubbed his hand over his beard shadow. What was wrong with him that he always wanted what he couldn’t have?
Detoured from his mission by Honey at the grocery store parking lot, as a last resort he’d placed a call to Dixie. Who met him at the closed diner, which only served breakfast and lunch. Where he purchased a homemade coconut cake. His contribution to book club tonight.
Evy Shaw was going to make him crazy. He hated secrets. After their Sunday afternoon together, he’d started to believe this relationship would be different. That she would be different.
Which only proved he was a bigger idiot than he’d believed possible. Therefore, he wasn’t in the best of moods. After an hour of pacing inside his house, he changed into comfortable jeans and his Virginia Tech sweatshirt.
Cake box in hand, he stalked around the square toward the library. Trying to work off misplaced energy. To no avail.
In truth—something Evy Shaw apparently knew nothing about—he was spoiling for a fight. He clomped up the steps.
He was reaching for the door handle when, midmotion, Evy threw open the door. Her cheeks lifted. Her eyes brightened.
Charlie scowled. To look at her, you’d have thought she was tickled to see him. Which proved just how wrong appearances could be. How wrong a guy like him could be.
“Hey, Charlie.”
She almost made him believe she’d been watching for him. But he was on to her. What kind of a chump did she think he was? He clutched the box to his chest.
“You brought dessert. Aren’t you going to say hello?”
She twirled a strand of blond hair around her finger. The picture of wistful insecurity. Unsure of herself.
But she knew exactly what she was doing. It was a game he was tired of playing.
Charlie thrust the box at her. She staggered a step back in those heels of hers. She had such pretty ankles, he thought, not for the first time.
He glared. She’d probably worn the fluttery pink blouse on purpose. Calculated its effect on him.
She gave him a nervous smile. “Are you okay, Charlie? You seem, uh...”
“Wound a little tight?” he growled. “Wonder why.”
She stepped aside to let him pass. Holding the box in the crook of her arm, she closed the heavy oak door behind him. He marched past the reception desk, beyond the staircase to the meeting room.
“You’re the first to arrive.” She staccato-stepped to keep pace with his long strides. “I’m glad.”
“Why?”
Evy inhaled as she placed the box on the burgundy tablecloth. “Is that coconut?”
She lifted the lid and frowned. “Did you have an accident with the cake, Charlie?”
His gaze moved from her face to the cake. One lop-sided layer had slid halfway off the bottom layer. A victim of an up-close-and-personal encounter with the floorboard of his truck.
“Maybe we’ll leave the cake as-is in the box. People can serve themselves. I’ll get the plates.”
“Why are you glad to see me?”
Evy headed to the small kitchen. “I hoped it would give us a chance to talk. I haven’t seen...” The timbre of her voice changed. “I mean, we haven’t talked since Sunday.” She blushed. “I had a wonderful time. A great afternoon.”
It had been a wonderful day. The best. Or so he’d believed until about five o’clock this afternoon.
He’d spent far too many sleepless nights this week thinking about seeing her again. But conflicted by the secrets he sensed she kept.
Not sure if he should trust her. Not sure if he should trust any woman again. Not sure if he wanted to open himself to further hurt.
Because in the short but intense time he’d known Evy Shaw—whoever she was, whatever she was after—he’d come to realize she possessed the power to truly hurt him. In a way Honey had never been able. Like getting shot while not wearing any Kevlar. A deathblow from Evy from which his heart might never recover.
Charlie bristled. “You want to talk? Then talk.”
Her smile flickered. “I—I missed you.” A little-girl pang in her voice.
Charlie looked into her eyes then. That was a mistake. He started to go under. Drowning in her gaze. A willing victim.
She wore her heart in her eyes. Somebody ought to tell her that. Before...before she blew her own con.
He hardened his heart. “Did you? Miss me?”
The light in her eyes dimmed. He felt like a first-class heel. She placed the plates beside the cake box.
She bit her lip. “I forgot the napkins.”
And as she moved once again toward the kitchen, he felt rather than saw her do that thing. The shrinking, the pulling back, the withdrawing. Raising the drawbridge. Because of him.
He almost reached out to her. Almost. But then Mrs. Davenport and the other ladies arrived. And the moment was lost.
Charlie was afraid suddenly that something much more precious had been lost, as well. He hated the suspicion consuming him.
Her gaze darting from him to Evy, Dixie filled the awkward, tense moment with inane chatter. The way only Dixie could. But she was deeper than most people realized.
There was a lot more beneath the peroxide-blond perm and shoot-from-the-hip, gum-chewing stereotype that Dixie cultivated. She and Bernie had found each other later in life. Past the childbearing years.
The endless crocheted baby blankets she made in her off hours for the neonatal unit at the hospital were a quiet testament to how empty her arms felt. So she adopted strays. Offered Charlie bottomless cups of coffee at the diner since the Honey fiasco and his parents hit the road, too often out of reach.
Had she decided to adopt Evy, too? Who, perhaps, needed a mother like Dixie most of all.
* * *
Evy fought back tears as she called the book club to order. Something was terribly wrong with Charlie. Something terribly wrong between them.
If only she knew what she’d done. If only she knew how to fix it. To return to the easygoing camaraderie they’d shared last weekend.
She’d been disappointed when he didn’t call this week. Leaving her open to raking doubts, striking at the most inopportune moments.
Like anytime she drew a breath. But there’d been a string of burglaries in the usually tranquil county. She figured he’d been busy at work. Mrs. Davenport—who had her finger on the pulse of Kiptohanock via a police scanner—kept her informed.
Evy cleared her throat. “Anyone want to kick off the discussion tonight? What were your thoughts on our reading selection this week?”
Avoiding eye contact with Charlie, she glanced around the semicircle of women. Were any of them what they seemed? More than the image they projected to the outside world?
The young Coastie wife, Kelly, separated from her family by military life, was lonely. Frail Mrs. Evans, whose children and grandchildren lived off-Shore. Ashley, setting aside a flourishing career to fulfill her most important assignment thus far—being a mother. But who still craved more intellectual stimulation than wiping noses and changing diapers every day.
And how many took the time to look beyond Mrs. Davenport’s starched exterior to understand how desperately empty was the life she lived in the brick mansion on Seaside Road? Did anyone bother to look beyond her arm’s-length snobbery to the lonely hours she filled with books and meddling in other people’s business? While her husband did whatever it was he did so successfully somewhere else?
But Evy knew. Because more often than not, she learned more than just people’s favorite authors when they wandered the stacks at the library. People came searching for more than a good book. Old Mrs. Beal, the previous librarian, told her it would be so. And it was.
So like Mrs. Beal before her, she’d given the only thing she had to offer. A listening ear. Her time. And words of kindness.
Evy had created a small community within the library walls of Kiptohanock. Not only for herself but also for others. A safe haven among her beloved books.
Was it enough? She risked a glance at Charlie’s shuttered countenance. It used to be enough.
Mrs. Davenport, ramrod straight in the high-backed chair, balanced a plate on her immaculately tailored slacks. “I think at the heart of this novel lies tension. A tension between what is concealed and what is revealed.”
Charlie’s mouth flattened. “You mean secrets.”
Evy’s gaze flitted to Charlie. “Aren’t people allowed to have private places within themselves that they share with no one else?”
“I think secrets destroy people.” Resting on his thigh, his hand flexed. “And relationships.”
Jolene raised the coffeepot. “Anybody want decaf?”
“Thanks, but I’m fine.” Charlie glared at Evy. “Truly.”
Dixie cut her eyes at Charlie and then at Evy. “In the novel, Elinor goes to great lengths to keep her feelings for Edward concealed beneath a cool exterior to protect their relationship from outside damage.”
Charlie cocked his head. “In refusing to tell the truth, Elinor did that anyway.”
Evy’s stomach turned over. “Did something bad happen at work today, Charlie?” she blurted out.
Their gazes locked. No one said anything.
Mrs. Davenport wiped the edge of her mouth with a napkin. “The secrets were eventually revealed.”
Charlie’s nostrils flared. “They always are.”
“Intentionally or not.” Kelly took a bite of cake. “This is good. Who brought the cake?”
His mouth thinned. “Unintentional revelations often prove the most damaging. And painful.”
Evy’s chest rose and fell. “Everything’s about proof with you, isn’t it, Charlie?”
His eyes narrowed. “Since that’s what I do, Evy.”
Ashley exchanged a worried glance with Mrs. Evans. “In the beginning of the novel, Marianne believed only in love at first sight. That second attachments weren’t possible.”
Dixie chewed her lip. “I think Austen shows through Marianne’s subsequent marriage to Colonel Brandon that people can indeed start over.” She fingered the plastic bangles on her wrist. “Bernie and I are proof of that.”
Proof? Evy withheld a sigh. Et tu, Dixie?
Evy lifted her chin. “So real, lasting love means loving only one person, Charlie?”
He broadened his shoulders. “Do you live your life with more sense or more sensibility, Evy?”
She planted her feet on the floor. “Do you ever wish you could live your life differently, Deputy Pruitt?”
A muscle thrummed in his cheek. “Do you, Miss Shaw?”
She stared into his eyes. “Is something wrong? Is there something you need to say?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” He smirked. “Is there something you’d like to say?”
Evy steeled herself. “Do you believe, if given the opportunity, that Marianne would’ve reunited with Willoughby, her first love? Would you, Charlie?”
“A do-over?” He hunched forward. “I think life rarely gives second chances, Evy.”
His hazel eyes had gone hard. What had she done? Why was he so upset with her?
The wall clock ticked. The refrigerator hummed. Jolene opened her mouth, maybe thought better of it and closed her mouth again.
“I think...” Dixie waited until she had everyone’s attention “...that passion for life—or sensibility, as Austen coins it—does not have to equal one love over the other.”
Peggy, a retired math teacher, nodded. “In my experience, the most remarkable loves are characterized by selfless choices that point others to the greatest love of all.”
Old Mrs. Evans smiled. “Loving others more than you love yourself.”
With effort, Evy broke the laser-like intensity of Charlie’s gaze. He folded his arms across his chest. She knotted her fingers in her lap. For the life of her, she didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t speak past the tears clogging her throat.
Mrs. Davenport rose. “Excellent discussion.” She briefly touched Evy’s shoulder, interrupting her miserable contemplation of Charlie across the circle. “I think we’ve explored this topic as far as we can take it. At least for tonight.”
The grande dame pursed her lips. “Cake, anyone?”