CHAPTER 24
“Are you ready?” Birdie called up the stairs.
“Almost,” David called back from behind the closed bathroom door.
Birdie sighed and walked back into the kitchen to refill her wine glass. Then she tucked the bottle behind the coffeemaker so David wouldn’t notice. Someday—if she outlived him—she’d be able to drink to her heart’s content and no one would be keeping track . . . unless she ended up in a nursing home. She took a sip and looked down at Bailey. “Need to go out, ol’ girl?” she asked and Bailey struggled to her feet. Birdie walked over to open the door, and as she followed her outside, she realized how much better her ankle felt. Thank goodness!
“Are we bringing Bailey?” David asked, coming out on the porch behind her and startling her.
“Do you want to?” she asked without turning around.
“Sure. We can take my car since it’s full of dog hair anyway.”
“Okay,” Birdie said, trying not to let him see her glass. “Will you please run back upstairs and grab my sweater?” she asked.
“It’s eighty degrees out. Do you really think you need a sweater?”
“It cools off when the sun goes down, and if we sit outside, I might need it.”
David sighed. “Which one?”
She started to say, “How about the one you just gave . . .” but then she remembered that her new sweater was still in its gift box on the kitchen table and she needed him to go upstairs. “On second thought, how about my pink sweater from Bean—it’s in my cedar chest.”
She listened to him clomp up the stairs and quickly gulped down the last of her wine. Then she went inside, rinsed her glass, and put it in the dish drainer. She picked up the bottle she’d bought to bring with them and the salad she’d made, and headed out to the car. “C’mon, Bay,” she called and the old Lab hurried over to David’s old Volvo wagon—which he affectionately called Tank—and waited, tail wagging. “Hold on,” she said, setting the bowl and the bottle in the trunk. She opened the back door and Bailey eyed the seat as if it were Mount Everest. “Go ahead. You can do it,” she said, but Bailey just gave her a forlorn look. “Okay, get your front up,” Birdie coaxed and Bailey pranced around and then gingerly set her front paws on the seat and looked back at her, waiting. Birdie lifted up her back legs—which immediately folded under her—and set her gently on the seat, but as soon as she got her footing, the old dog turned around and gave Birdie’s cheek a lick.
David chuckled as he came up behind her with the sweater under his arm. “Thanks, Mom,” he said in the voice he always used when he spoke on Bailey’s behalf.
“You’re welcome, sweetie,” Birdie replied, making sure Bailey’s tail was tucked in before she closed the door. Then, as she made her way around the car, she realized, in surprise, that the quick downing of her wine had given her a buzz. She got in, focused on buckling her seat belt, and opened her window.
David looked over. “All set?’
“Yes,” she answered, knowing full well not to talk too much.
David started the car and backed up. “Is everyone coming tonight?”
“I think so.”
“Elias?”
“I hope so,” she answered, glancing into the backseat and noticing Bailey had her nose pressed against the window. “Can you put the back window down?”
David pushed the rear window button and the old Lab stuck her head out, and with her jowls flapping, breathed in all the lovely scents of Cape Cod. “Oh, to be a dog,” Birdie mused. “Life would be so simple.”
“Maybe in your next life,” David said with a smile.
“Maybe.”
They passed the sign for the National Seashore and Birdie smiled. “Do you remember when you came to visit me at the Outermost House?”
David smiled. “It’s one of my favorite memories. I loved waking up next to you in that little house with the ocean breeze whispering through the windows and the summer sunlight streaming in. It was magical.”
“It was magical,” Birdie said softly, picturing David—her young, handsome David—lying naked next to her, lightly tracing his fingers across the curves of her body, and smiling his sweet, mischievous smile.
“What’s wrong?” he teased. “Should I stop?”
“No,” she murmured. “Don’t stop.”
He leaned forward and brushed a kiss across her lips, still running his fingers along her hips and thighs, circling ever closer. “Shall I stop now?” he asked softly.
“No,” she murmured.
And then he eased on top of her and hovered above her, fully aroused. “How about now?”
She looked down and grinned. “If you can,” she teased.
“I can.”
“No, you can’t.”
He raised his eyebrows and eased to her side with the same mischievous smile.
“No, no!” she said, laughing. “I didn’t mean it. . . .”
He frowned. “I thought you wanted me to stop.”
“I changed my mind,” she said, laughing.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes,” she said, pulling him back.
“If you insist. . . .”
David looked over. “A penny for your thoughts.”
“Ha! They’re worth more than a penny!” she said with a wistful smile.