2
“Everything okay?”
Lexie slid a plate into the dishwasher and faced her mother. “Fine. Why?”
“You seemed distracted at dinner.” Annette Clark stowed the butter in the fridge, leaned a hip against the counter, and folded her arms. “You asked Matt twice if he wanted to go down to the wharf later.”
Whoops.
She should have paid more attention to the mealtime conversation instead of letting her thoughts wander to an ex-con who lived in a shack with only a dog for company.
“Lexie?”
At the prompt, she resumed loading the dishwasher. “I’m not distracted.”
Not much, anyway.
“Well, something’s up if you passed on these.” Her mother selected a warm chocolate chip cookie off the plate on the counter and took a bite.
“I ate too much meatloaf.”
“A piece and a half isn’t even a full serving.”
Busted.
“Fine. I’ll have a cookie.”
“I’m not trying to force one on you—but that overactive mind of yours is stuck on some thorny topic. Want to tell me what it is?”
No, she did not.
Especially since she had no idea why Adam Stone was dominating her thoughts.
“Busy day.” She shifted farther away from her mom and took extra care setting the glassware in the dishwasher.
“Is that why you were late?”
“Partly.”
“No more vandalism, I hope.”
“As far as I know, the culprits didn’t strike today.”
“So why were you late?”
Her mother should have been an interrogator with the CIA.
“I, uh, had to make a stop on the way home.” She closed the dishwasher and braced for the inevitable follow-up question.
It didn’t come.
She peeked over her shoulder—to find her mother giving her a speculative perusal. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s not a thing wrong with me.” Her mom finished off the cookie. “You, on the other hand, are very reticent tonight. And given that you didn’t offer any details on your after-work stop, I’m wondering if a man could be involved.”
Good grief!
How had her mother arrived at that conclusion?
“That’s a leap, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
Annette Clark’s razor-sharp maternal instincts hadn’t dulled one iota through the decades.
Better to come clean rather than let her mother’s imagination take wing. It wasn’t as if she was trying to hide some clandestine rendezvous, after all. Adam Stone might be on her mind, but the reason had nothing to do with romance. He was the victim of a crime—and he had a lovable dog.
His mesmerizing gold-flecked brown eyes had nothing to do with her distraction.
“No man was involved . . . at least not in the context you’re thinking.” She took a cookie she didn’t want, bit into the gooey sweetness of warm dough and soft chocolate chips, and gave her mother a cursory account of her visit to Sandpiper Cove.
“That poor man. He’s certainly had his share of misfortune.”
“Most of it of his own making.”
“I’m not condoning whatever he did to get sent to prison—but I suspect his troubles began long before that.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I’ve exchanged a few words with him at church. He doesn’t share much about his past, but from a few remarks he’s made, I got the impression his family situation was the polar opposite of the Waltons. It appears to me he’s trying to make a fresh start, though, and I’m sorry to hear someone is targeting him.”
“He’s not the only victim.”
“I know—but I expect he’s the one with the flimsiest support system.”
Lexie couldn’t dispute that. It was the same conclusion she’d drawn as she’d wandered around his isolated property this afternoon.
However, she had no intention of feeling sorry for him. He might not have come from an ideal background, but a life of crime was a choice.
“He could make friends if he wanted to.”
“I imagine that’s not easy for an ex-con. I’m sure prison life—let alone what came before—can reduce a man’s self-esteem to rubble. And he’ll always carry a certain stigma in some folks’ minds.”
That was true.
But it wasn’t her problem.
Nor would she let it be . . . even if seeing him up close and personal with his lame dog and feeling his almost-palpable aloneness had bothered her more than she cared to admit.
“Mom, can we go now?” Matt zoomed into the room, bristling with the megawatt energy of an almost five-year-old that added life and joy to her days.
“I’m all set.” She grabbed her purse and took his hand.
“Wait.” He tugged free and swung toward the counter. “Where’s the bread for Floyd and Gladys, Mamaw?”
“Right here.” Her mother pulled a plastic bag of scraps out of the pantry. “You tell those seagulls not to fight over this.”
“They never fight. They’re married.”
Her mom’s lips twitched. “How do you know that?”
“Charley told me.”
“Ah. Then it must be true. That man has a sixth sense about all God’s creatures. You two have fun.”
“Me and Mom always have fun.” Matt grinned at her.
Vision misting, she smoothed down the feisty cowlick he’d inherited from his father. Touched the tip of the aquiline nose that also came from paternal genes. Joe had always said it was a sign of aristocratic blood—and had promised to take her to visit the ruined castle in Scotland he claimed had been inhabited by his noble ancestors.
She’d never known for certain whether he was teasing about that trip or not.
Now she never would.
“Hey . . . Mom.” Matt squeezed her fingers, his expression suddenly solemn. “Are you gonna cry?”
“No, of course not.” She forced up the corners of her mouth and willed the pressure behind her eyes to subside. She’d shed her last tear more than two years ago. Made peace with the fact that love and romance weren’t in her future. Learned to live with the loneliness that plagued her even here, in this house she shared with the two people she loved most.
There was no reason for this out-of-the-blue, sweeping surge of melancholy . . . and longing.
“Your face got kind of scrunchy.” Matt tightened his grip on her fingers, his forehead knotted. “Kind of like Darcy’s did at Sunday school when her dad was late to pick her up. I think she was ’fraid he wasn’t gonna come. But you don’t have to worry about being by yourself. You got me and Mamaw.”
“I know that.” She squeezed his fingers. “And what could be better than living in the same house with my two favorite people in all the world? You want another cookie for the road?”
“Yeah!”
“Here you go.” Her mother handed him one, and Lexie let him pull her toward the door. “Be careful, you two.”
“You want to come, Mom?” She tossed the invitation over her shoulder.
“No. I have an emergency garden club meeting tonight. We have to decide what to do about the damaged planters on the wharf.”
They were back to the vandalism topic—reminding her again of the man she’d visited this afternoon.
“I have every confidence you enterprising ladies will come up with a solution.”
“I hope so. And by the way . . . Matt’s right. You do have the two of us in your corner—but there’s always room for one more, should someone special come along.”
“Let’s go, Mom!” Matt gave her another tug.
She followed her son through the door without responding to her mother’s comment.
Because the woman who’d nurtured her for thirty-five years was wrong.
There wasn’t room for anyone else in her life.
Love was too risky.
Even if she felt lonelier tonight than she had since the early days after the tragedy that had changed her world forever.
“May I join you for lunch?”
From his perch on the dike surrounding one of the budding beds at Harbor Point Cranberries, Adam shaded his eyes and looked up at Luis Dominguez. “Sure. I didn’t think you were working this afternoon.”
“I finish early at school, so I come out. This is a big project, and I know BJ needs many hands. After all she has done for me, I do not wish to let her down.”
“Yeah. I hear you.” The construction firm owner had done no less for him than she had for the Cuban refugee who settled onto the dike two feet away. More, in truth. Giving a job to an educated man like Luis, who’d led an upstanding life and endured great hardships through no fault of his own, was a lot less dicey than taking a chance on an ex-con. “How’s school going?”
“Very well. The classes, they are not difficult. It is wonderful to be involved in medicine again.”
Being a paramedic wasn’t the same as being a doctor, though. It had to be tough for a prominent physician from Cuba to accept such a lesser role.
Yet the fortysomething immigrant never complained about his lot in life. Instead, he was grateful for any blessings that came his way.
There was a lesson to be learned there.
“Eleanor fixed you a great lunch.” He motioned toward the man’s hearty meat pie and generous slice of fudge cake. What a difference from the days when he’d packed an extra sandwich for cash-strapped Luis so the man would have more than a piece of fruit for lunch.
“Yes. She is a fine woman. I am fortunate to share her home.” He moved aside some napkins in his lunch pail and extracted a second piece of cake. “She send some dessert for you too.”
The elderly woman often did that—and her kindness toward a man she knew only through an occasional exchange of greetings at church never failed to surprise him.
“Thanks.” He took the cake.
“I did not see BJ at the house site.” Luis dove into his meat pastry.
“She was here all morning, but she had a dress fitting in Coos Bay at lunch. She said she might be a little late getting back.”
“Ah, yes. The wedding dress. Her marriage is getting close.”
“Yeah.” Eleven days, to be precise. A week from Saturday.
“I am happy for her. Eric is a good man.”
“He seems to be.” He and BJ were at church every Sunday, but Adam never lingered long afterward. Charley spoke highly of him, though—and that counted for a lot.
“You would be welcome to ride to the wedding with Eleanor and me. We would not mind picking you up—and I expect BJ will put us at the same table for the dinner.”
Adam ate the last bite of his sandwich and crumpled up the plastic wrap.
Just tell him, Stone. You knew this would come up eventually. Get it over with.
He took a swig from the bottle of water he refilled every morning from the tap and watched Shep and Ziggy chase bog rats in the adjacent bed, their barks echoing in the quiet air. “I’m not going to the wedding.”
In the silence that followed, he could feel Luis watching him.
“You have told this to BJ?”
No. He’d been too much of a coward to decline the invitation to her face. And the response card was sitting on the table in his kitchen, the four-days-away due date staring at him accusingly every time he walked past.
“Not yet.”
Nor had she asked him if he was coming—although she’d dropped plenty of hints she expected to see him there.
“She will be disappointed.”
Like he didn’t know that.
“No one will miss me in that crowd.” The lame excuse sounded hollow even to his ears.
“Each person she invited is special to her. An important part of her life. She will notice you are not there.”
And it will hurt her.
Luis didn’t have to say the words for Adam to hear the man’s implied rebuke.
There was no rebuttal to it, either. His coworker was right. Considering all BJ had done for him, he owed it to her to show up for her wedding.
But he wasn’t fit for a high-class gathering like that.
“I do have a present for her.” That counted for something, didn’t it?
“A present is not the same as your presence.”
The man’s gentle reproach twisted his gut.
He opened the cake he no longer wanted, more to keep his fingers busy than because he had any interest in the treat. “It’s not my scene, Luis.”
“You do not like weddings?”
“I’ve never been to one.”
“Then how can you know it is not your scene?”
He broke off a piece of the cake and popped it in his mouth . . . but even Eleanor’s sweet fudge frosting couldn’t chase away the bitterness on his tongue.
“Look . . . there will be a lot of nice people there. I won’t fit in.”
“You see many of those people at church on Sundays, do you not?”
“This isn’t the same. The reception is a social event, not a church service.”
“You think they will treat you different at a wedding than they treat you at church?”
He had no idea—and he didn’t want to find out.
“People might feel awkward if an ex-con shows up.”
“You are an invited guest. Sometimes you must give people an opportunity to put the faith they express on Sundays into practice.”
That sounded fine in theory—but Adam wasn’t certain it would hold up in the real world.
And he’d had enough rejection to last ten lifetimes.
He switched to a practical argument.
“I don’t have anything to wear to a fancy shindig like that. I’ve never owned a suit and tie, and I’m not about to buy duds like that to wear once.”
“BJ will not care what you wear.”
Maybe not, but others would judge him by his inappropriate attire.
“I can’t go in jeans.”
“Then get some new clothes. When I move in with Eleanor, I did not have much money. She wanted to buy me some better clothes, but my pride would not let me to accept her charity. She did not push—but she left a flyer for a Coos Bay resale shop in my room. They have good clothing at very cheap prices.” He rattled off the name of the store.
Great. Now he was out of excuses.
And he wasn’t going to admit he was afraid.
“I’ll think about it.”
“A wise choice.” Luis started on his cake and motioned to the piece Adam had barely touched. “You must eat that. Eleanor will ask me how you liked it.”
At Luis’s prodding, he tried to do justice to the older woman’s offering.
They ate in silence until both were down to crumbs.
“Please tell her I enjoyed it—and thank her for me.” Adam stuffed the plastic wrap into the brown sack with the rest of his trash.
“I will do that. She may be old, with many limitations, but she still has gifts that can brighten people’s lives. As we all do.”
“Not all.”
“Yes.” Luis fixed him with an intent look. “All.”
“I have nothing to offer.” His voice rasped.
“That is not true. You have many fine qualities. Kindness. Compassion. Strength.”
He snorted, crushing the bag into a tight ball. “Strength? How can you say that, with all the mistakes I’ve made? I’m weak, not strong.”
“You survived those mistakes—and became a better person. That is strength.” Luis’s declaration rang with conviction. “As for compassion and kindness . . . I remember the man who gave me food he could not spare when I was hungry. Who saved a dog no one wanted and nursed him back to health. Who never says no if a charitable group like Helping Hands calls to tell him someone needs assistance.”
“Anyone would do those things.”
“No, my friend, you are wrong. And your actions say a lot about your character. If you give others a chance, they too will see what I see.”
Reverend Baker had offered similar encouragement during their last conversation before he was released from prison.
Yet life had taught him a different lesson—and it was much easier . . . and safer . . . to continue with the solitary existence he’d carved out for himself.
But it was also lonely.
And getting lonelier every day.
“I will be happy to write out the directions to the resale shop for you.” Luis wiped his fingers on a paper napkin and closed his lunch box.
Adam didn’t respond.
Nor did his lunch companion mention the subject again as they worked together during the afternoon—but when Adam finished for the day and returned to his car, he found the carefully written directions tucked under his windshield wiper.
For a moment he was tempted to wad up the slip of paper and toss it into the trash can beside the drive.
But in the end, he tucked it in his pocket.
Just in case he had a change of heart.