
CONTENTS
For the girls of summer-Cathy, Malena, Carolyn, Eileen, Linda, Bonnie,
Ann (did I miss anyone?)- who still haunt the dunes on Pompano Beach.
Forever young.
A subtle breeze whispered through the stand of bamboo that edged the parking lot, setting the long leafy fingers to stir softly against the side of the dark blue van that was parked discretely in the farthest corner. The last traces of dusk's pale gold and purple sky were visible through the windshield, and it would be but minutes more until the sun would be completely swallowed by the far horizon. The man inside the van checked his watch again and sighed. Eight-thirty. He leaned over to check his camera, set steadily upon the tripod. His client had wanted both still photos and video. Jeremy Noble, of Noble and Dawson Investigations, would give the good senator what he paid for.
A small, older model foreign car slowed at the corner, then made an easy right into the lot and drove straight to the first row before stopping. The car sat at idle for a long minute or so before the engine was turned off and a door opened. A dark-haired young man got out and looked up and down the rows of cars. Apparently not finding what he was looking for, he patiently leaned back against his car, his hands in his pockets.
With the aid of small but powerful binoculars, Jeremy focused on the license plate. Satisfied that this was one of the two parties for whom he was being paid to watch, he took a few cursory shots with the Nikon of the young man leaning against the car. He then turned his attention to the video camera, focusing the lens on the small black car with the Georgetown University sticker on the back window.
Through the eye of the video camera, the investigator could see that the man was even younger than he'd initially supposed, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three. He was handsome, dark-haired, with good clean features. The senator's daughter had chosen a fine-looking man to lose her heart to. It was a shame that her father was intent on making sure that the relationship never went any further.
"I appreciate that you've agreed to meet me on such short notice, Mr. Noble." The senator had offered a hand as he ushered Jeremy into the private study of the palatial Georgetown home earlier that day. "One of my colleagues has highly recommended your services."
Jeremy had not confirmed the identity of his other client-he would never acknowledge for whom he did or did not work-but they both knew the senator's friend-a congressman-was involved in a horrendous custody battle with an ex-wife who, along with her current boyfriend, had kidnapped the congressman's only child and had attempted to take the boy out of the country. Only quick thinking and quicker action on the part of both Jeremy and his partner had prevented the child from disappearing from his father's life. Thanks to Noble and Dawson, the boy was now back with his father where, it was hoped, he would remain.
"We have a bit of a domestic matter that my wife and I feel needs to be attended to immediately," the senator confided, offering Jeremy a chair as he himself sat in a dark green leather wingback. "For the past several years, our daughter has been involved with a young man whom we feel is totally unsuitable. You see, we have long held the hope that she would marry into the diplomatic circle. Why, the son of the ambassador from Greece is head over heels for her. Good boy, good family."
The senator's cigar punctuated the air.
"Now, she tells me that she's not seeing this other boy anymore-he's a teacher. Can you imagine a child of mine living on a teacher's salary? Her mother and I certainly cannot. Anyway, she tells us that that relationship is over. Her mother's buying her story, but I'm not. I have it on good authority that she's been secretly meeting him"-the senator handed Jeremy a piece of paper-"at this address. The boy's license plate number is there, too, and the number of my cell phone. I want photographs. I want videos. I want her to see that she cannot lie to me, that there's no place she can sneak off to where I cannot find her."
Jeremy took the slip of paper, glanced at it before tucking it into his pocket.
"I want you to call me when the boy arrives. And I want to know when my daughter gets there."
"Why don't you just wait for her yourself?"
"I'm expected to attend a reception at the British Embassy. Besides, a man like me-a United States senator!-can't very well be lurking about in vacant lots hoping to catch his twenty-one-year-old daughter in a lie. You'll call me at the number on the card. I'll take it from there."
The senator stood to announce that the meeting was over.
"We love our daughter very much, Mr. Noble. We only want what's best for her. We strongly believe that what's best for her is not to marry a teacher and spend her life in the backwoods of Kentucky. That's not the future we had envisioned for her. She's our only child. I'm sure you understand."
An uneasy feeling had crept over Jeremy then and had stayed with him for the rest of the day. He always hated jobs that involved the manipulation of someone else's life. But the senator was prominent and powerful, and could be a good ally in the suburban Washington marketplace, where surveillance and intrigue services were frequently sought and handsomely paid for.
Well, the job would be over soon enough.
Jeremy watched the little BMW convertible zip into the parking lot and cruise for a place to park The exuberant driver hopped out and all but danced across the macadam to her waiting lover. She spun into his arms, settled momentarily for a long, deep kiss, then danced back toward the BMW, pulling the dark-haired young man with her. Jeremy leaned into the video cam and brought them into sharp focus.
The senator's daughter was not a natural beauty-her features were just slightly too small, her eyes just slightly too far apart-but clearly, her young man was totally captivated. Adoration was written all over his face.
Jeremy watched as they walked to the back of her car, watched as the young man turned her to him and touched her face gently, watched as the young woman looked up at him with eyes filled with love and lifted a hand to smooth his hair back tenderly, as if to reassure. He said something to her that caused her face to crinkle with soft laughter, her eyes glowing and alive with promise and trust-filled with a hot, sudden shot of envy, Jeremy tried to remember when a woman had last looked at him with such loving eyes.
It had been, he conceded, a very, very long time.
Something in Jeremy's gut wrenched as he recalled that his instructions included calling the senator as soon as the young man had arrived. One hand reached for the cell phone, the other into his shirt pocket for the scrap of folded paper containing the number. He looked back at the couple in the parking lot, so filled with each other, so unaware that their happiness was one brief phone call from coming to an end.
The young woman reached into the trunk and pulled out a dark green gym bag, which she swung over her shoulder. Slamming the trunk, she turned again, and in the light of the nearby lamppost, Jeremy could see her dreams, aglow with promise, reflected in her face.
They're running away, Jeremy realized as she locked the car and took the young man's hand.
The small, slim phone lay heavy in his own.
He suddenly recalled another early summer night when the face of another young woman had been caught in lamplight, just so. He'd been a junior at Princeton that year, and had had the world by the tail. He and his date for that weekend had strolled off campus to Nassau Street, down Witherspoon to a coffee shop that was open late and served great sandwiches. On their way back to campus, they had stopped beneath a street lamp and kissed. From behind them had come a sigh, and, startled, they had broken apart. An elderly man, dapperly dressed and leaning on a cane, apologized for having frightened them.
"I'm so sorry," he'd said softly to Jeremy, "but you're so young, and she's so beautiful. Hold fast to nights like this, son... they pass so quickly. Hold fast to it all..."
The old man had stepped closer and kissed Jeremy's date, right at the corner of her pretty young mouth, then stepped away, nodded to them both, and disappeared back into the night.
It had been years since he'd thought of it-or the young woman, whose name and face had been lost to time-but the words came back to Jeremy now.
" Hold fast to it all..."
Jeremy watched the young lovers walk across the parking lot, and he put the phone down. He pulled the film from the Nikon, exposing it, then packed up the video cam.
"Good luck, kids," he said quietly as the small foreign car sped from the parking lot and disappeared into the night.
He took the long way back to his townhouse. He pulled up slowly in front of his garage, parked the car, and contemplated what he'd done. Jeremy had never scuttled an investigation before, never given less than his best on any job, regardless of the difficulty. And this client would be a particularly unhappy man. Well, it was too late to change his mind now. He'd made his decision back in the parking lot, and now he'd have to play it out. The senator would have an easy enough time finding someone else to wreck his daughter's life. But at least it wouldn't have been Jeremy's call that had taken the sparkle from those young eyes.
Jeremy glanced at his watch, then picked up his cell phone and dialed the number he'd been given.
"Senator. Jeremy Noble. I'm afraid I've had a touch of bad luck... my car broke down on 95 outside of College Park. I'm afraid I won't be able to keep that appointment after all..."
Jeremy unlocked the front door, chuckling as he pictured the distinguished statesman whispering angry curses into the tiny cell phone while in the midst of an important gathering in the oh-so-very-elegant British Embassy.
Whistling, Jeremy punched the message button on the answering machine as he went into tine kitchen and turned on the light. Half listening to the messages, he opened the refrigerator door and hunted for something that hadn't expired or grown some life form of its own. Unsuccessful, he checked the freezer. Nothing there either. He poked around in a cupboard until he found a can of soup. That would have to do.
The messages were still running, but so far he'd heard nothing important enough to interfere with his quest for food.
It occurred to him then that he hadn't had a meal at home or a day off in over five weeks. While there was definitely something to be said for steady work, tonight's little episode had reminded him that there were other, more important things in life. He dumped the congealed soup into a pan, then added a little water. It looked disgusting.
Nothing at all like that cream of she-crab soup he'd had at the Bishop's Inn on the Maryland coast back in June. Pale as moonlight, with chunks of crab and deli-cate traces of herbs. Jeremy's mouth watered just to think of it.
And not fust the soup, his tired mind poked at him playfully, the chef was pretty mouthwatering, too...
Ah, yes, Jody.
Jeremy set the pan of soup on the burner and turned the flame on low.
Jody Beckett. Jody with the light brown hair and the long, lanky body and the wizard's touch in the kitchen.
He sat on one of the hard kitchen chairs, pulled another out from under the table and propped his legs up on it, thinking back to the days he had spent at the Bishop's Inn in the beginning of June. He'd been working on a big case that involved Laura Bishop, the owner of the inn, and when it had concluded, she'd invited him to stay on for a few days as a guest, a little bonus for his part in bringing the matter to a successful conclusion. Because of his work schedule, he'd been able to spend only two days and nights there, but every minute had been a treasure. Sun, sand, fishing, great conversation with the inn's other lively guests, incredible food.
And Jody.
If he closed his eyes, he could see her. Clear skin, eyes the color of pale amber, a pert nose that wrinkled when she laughed, a sweet mouth that curved up on one side. Great legs, too. Long and shapely...
It wasn't, he acknowledged, the first time he'd seen that face-or those legs-in his mind's eye. More than once over the past few weeks, something of Jody had seemed to be floating around inside his head, like a snippet of a song he'd yet to learn all the words to.
Hold fast to it all...
Perhaps it was time to take Laura up on her offer to spend a week at the inn.
Jeremy pulled his briefcase across the table and opened it, searching for his appointment book. Things looked pretty tight, he grimaced, trying to figure out which jobs he could switch around or postpone, and which he could pass off to his partner.
If he worked like a demon this week, he might be able to make it by the last week of July.
If his partner pitched in, he could make it in less.
He reached for the phone, wondering just what payment his partner, T. J. Dawson, would extract in return. Whatever it was, it would be worth it for a week at the Bishop's Inn. Long enough, he rationalized. There was something about Jody that had been circling around in the back of his mind like a lazy hawk on a summer morning. Maybe it was time to find out if it was more than just her cooking that was keeping her there.
Jody Beckett leaned against the white porcelain sink that was shaped like a big scallop shell, hoping to bring her face as close as humanly possible to the mirror that hung behind it. Narrowing her eyes, she studied the skin around them, searching for some outward sign that in one short day-just twenty-four more hours-she would turn thirty.
The big three-oh.
Gray hairs and sagging and wrinkles, oh my.
She squinted a little more, wondering if that right there was the start of crow's feet. Crow's foot, she corrected herself, since there appeared to be only one. Turning her face this way and that, she realized that what she had first thought to be a line was merely shadow, the play of early morning light from a nearby window. Jody sighed deeply. She just wasn't ready to be old when it had been years since she had felt really young.
Jody brushed back her hair-summer streaked and just a shade or two from being mousy-and caught it in a yellow scrunchie. A glance at the clock assured her that she needn't hurry, since it wasn't likely that anyone else would be awake just yet, but hurry she did. She liked the tranquil lull that lay about the Bishop's Inn-her home and place of employment for the past three years-at the earliest hours of the day. Pulling on a pair of faded denim shorts and a tee-shirt the color of cornflowers, she slipped her feet into Adidas sandals and tucked the key to her suite of rooms into a pocket. Closing the door behind her, she eased down two flights of steps, the second of which widened into a sweeping curve to the lobby. Once downstairs, she paused and cocked her head, listening, but hearing no telltale sounds of running water or doors closing or feet moving on thick carpet.
Good. She loved having the inn to herself, if only for a little while.
Once in the kitchen, Jody started the coffee-she'd use the big pot today, since they were booked almost to capacity-and turned her thoughts to the breakfasts she would prepare. As the inn's chef and self-proclaimed kitchen queen, she was responsible for working with the owner, Laura Bishop, to plan menus and cook the meals as well. Although Laura employed extra help in the summers and on peak weekends throughout the year, Jody preferred to do most of the work herself. She took great pride in all of her work, but particularly her exceptional regional cooking, which reflected Maryland's history and bounty. There were those who swore her cream of she-crab soup had been devised through magic alone, and others who made trips to the inn several times throughout the season in search of her crab cakes and her beach plum cobbler. Her Lady Baltimore cake had become somewhat of a legend. Over the past eighteen months, more and more happy couples had come to Bishop's Cove to tie the knot there in the lovely gardens of the historic inn, drawn, many claimed, as much by Jody's catering as by the beautiful, romantic location by the sea.
Humming happily, Jody glanced over the worksheet she had prepared for herself the night before. There would be sixteen at breakfast this morning. The Walkers' (the Rose Room) and their friends, the Calhouns' (the Chinese Room), had booked a charter boat for the morning and would be stopping by for a quick cup of coffee only, since the day trip provided a light breakfast on the bay. Jody reached into an overhead cupboard and pulled out a small silver thermos. Gordon Chandler, a long-term guest who was attempting to salvage cargo from a sunken ship off the coast of Bishop's Cove, would be going out early, and he always appreciated the extra cup of coffee that Jody sent with him. He was planning on diving that morning with his crew, she'd heard him mention the night before, and while Jody hummed, she tried to imagine what it would be like to dive into the dark, unseen depths of the ocean, to encounter... who knew what?
She shivered slightly. There had been a time, long ago, when she had been more adventurous, when she would have jumped at the opportunity to dive, to explore a sunken ship and seek its treasures. The passage of time and a total devotion to her job had seemed to banish the thoughts of such daring pursuits from her life's itinerary.
Not completely, and maybe not forever, she told herself as she removed a stainless steel bowl of pale brown eggs from the refrigerator and set it on the counter next to a square tray stacked with bundles of spring-green asparagus. One week from now, I will be stretched out on a blanket on the beach at Ocean Point, New Jersey. Of course, that little trip couldn't compare with the thrill of deep sea diving, but still, it would be a week away from the same old, same old.
She'd planned the trip at the urging of an old high school friend, Natalie Evans, one of the crew with whom Jody had spent many a blissful summer afternoon lying on the beach, greased and oiled and ready to tan. Natalie, who had turned thirty in May, had thought it would be fun to plan a reunion of sorts on their old beach, and had assured Jody that she'd line up the old crowd and they'd spend a long, happy weekend reliving old times. No spouses, no kids, just a bunch of thirty-year-olds who had spent much of their teen years together. Jody smiled just thinking about seeing everyone again. It had been so long...
Of course, it would have been even more fun if she'd been able to rent the house her family used to stay in every summer, but a room in that brand-new motel right there on the beach would be fine, the perfect choice for her first trip back in fourteen years. And there would be other advantages to staying in a motel, she rationalized. She wouldn't have to clean or cook. And as much as she loved cooking, she was taking this long-awaited vacation to get as far away from her real life as she could.
When her father's job transfer to Nebraska midway through her junior year of high school took her from the central New Jersey home where she'd grown up, Jody had been certain that the best years of her life were behind her. Finding it difficult to make friends so late in the year, she found herself spending more and more time at home with her mother and her grandmother, a recent widow, who had come for an extended stay with her only daughter. Grandmother Jenny Rose, a true daughter of the South, was an exceptional cook, and was more than happy to teach her granddaughter everything she knew. By the time she graduated from high school the following June, Jody had discovered that she had more than just a casual knack for cooking.
Scrapping her plans for an accounting degree, Jody enrolled in The Restaurant School in Philadelphia, and it was soon clear that she had made the right choice. She stayed in Philadelphia and went to work with a world-class chef, at first as a low-level assistant, and later, having learned all from him that she could, moved on to what would be her last job in the city. Robert Orloff, the owner of the trendy new restaurant, Flora, took Jody under his wing, where she had remained for several years.
In time, Jody had had enough of the cold, icy Pennsylvania winters. She'd thought to drive south, maybe to Savannah or to Atlanta. Someplace warm. Besides, she'd grown to love Southern cooking, having learned so much from first her grandmother, then from Robert, who'd grown up in the area of Virginia that sat at the very end of the Delmarva peninsula. What would be more natural than a move south? Almost twenty-seven that year, Jody packed up her belongings and her resume, the glowing recommendations to several premier chefs provided by Robert, and the fat file of recipes she had developed over the years, and set out to find adventure-or, at the very least, a place to hang her hat and her pots.
A serious summer storm had forced Jody to seek shelter just as she crossed from Delaware into Maryland, and the shelter she found was the Bishop's Inn. And the rest, as they say, is history. When the inn's cook was unable to make it through the storm to get to work, Jody offered to cook dinner for the small crowd of fellow travelers who were similarly stranded. Laura Bishop had been so impressed with Jody's creativity on such short notice that she had offered Jody a job that very night. When she threw in a suite of rooms on the third floor of the lovely old inn, Jody jumped at it. She had always loved the beach, and the chance to live year-round so close to the ocean had appealed to her. Not that she had much time to spend lounging on the sand these days, but at least she could carve out an occasional afternoon run or early evening stroll along the water's edge.
And come this time tomorrow, I will be on my way to my all-time favorite beach, where I will spend a glorious week. She grinned as she poured cream into a spatterware pitcher for the breakfast buffet. Finally, after all these years- Ocean Point, New Jersey, here I come!
"I left frozen dough in the big freezer," Jody was saying as she stashed her two suitcases and a shoulder bag into the trunk of the sports car-convertible, of course-that she had rented to drive to her destination.
No big, clunky Buick for this trip.
Fearing that her twelve-year-old sedan would not make it to Dewey Beach up the road, never mind all the way to New Jersey, Jody had decided to rent something more reliable for the next two weeks and hang the cost, live a little, a small voice inside her had pleaded when she arrived at the agency's lot, which had been lined with zippy little numbers, their tops down, their leather new, their chrome shiny enough to see your face in.
The urge to feel young, to feel carefree and adventurous, took over her normally sensible nature.
Yesterday morning, she had rented the convertible.
Yesterday afternoon, she had her hair highlighted with subtle blond streaks.
Last night, she bought two bikinis and a little red silk dress that looked like a slightly longer version of the ever popular tank top.
"You got the body for it, babe," Marlene at Dede's Boutique had crowed as Jody stepped from the dressing room in the dark blue bikini. " 'Bout time you showed it off."
And then somehow Marlene had talked her into the red dress.
"Hey, you're going on vacation," Marlene had nodded her head, her beehive hair swaying to and fro. "You might as well live a little. Kick up your heels, Jody. Besides, that dress will look great with a tan."
It was certainly different from anything she'd ever owned in her life. It was feminine. It was sexy. It fit her like a glove, albeit a somewhat snug one.
The practical, workaholic Jody returned the dress to the sale rack and turned her back on it, but still, her little inner voice had pricked at her like a thorn.
This was a dress for a woman who was adventurous and unafraid to take chances. A woman with long, sun-streaked hair who drove a convertible and who had the time to indulge herself with days spent lounging on the beach, soaking up the late July sun. A carefree, confident woman like the one an adolescent Jody had intended to grow up to be.
The Jody who just that day had had her hair highlighted and rented a convertible added the dress to the pile on the counter.
"Jody, we'll manage just fine," Laura was saying as she opened the door of the slick little sports car. "After all, I am a decent cook. Our guests will be well fed. Maybe not quite as well as you might do it, but no one will feel cheated. I promise. Go and have a wonderful time. Visit with your old friends and get reacquainted. Have a life. Have a fling." Laura tucked Jody behind the wheel and slammed the door. "Just don't forget to come back."
"You have the address and phone number of where I'll be staying..."
"I do. And if anyone threatens not to pay their bill until they've had some of your exquisite flan, I'll call." Laura leaned over and kissed Jody on the cheek. "Otherwise, just for one sweet week, I want you to forget that the Bishop's Inn exists. Enjoy yourself. You're long overdue..."
"I am, aren't I?" Jody nodded as if the idea had only just occurred to her.
"Most definitely." Laura stepped back to permit Jody to make a U-turn across Sea View Avenue.
Jody waved as she sped off past the inn, slid her sunglasses on, and headed north.
Sea breezes filled the car every mile of the way along the coast drive, and she reveled in the feeling of freedom, of anticipation.
Life should hold more times like this, she told herself. All work and no play has made Jody a very dull girl. Well, not for the next seven days. From this moment on, I will kick up my heels. I will soak up the sun. And maybe, just for a little while, I will be that exotic creature I used to dream of being...
And oh, to be returning to Ocean Point, after all these years!
She grinned, thinking back to her last summer there, the year she had turned sixteen.
Life began at sixteen, by unanimous decree of parents and Ocean Point tradition.
At sixteen, you could date for real. At sixteen, you could wear a bikini-only the "fast" girls wore them at fifteen, and Lord knew you didn't want to be called that. At sixteen, you could go to Docker's Amusement Pier after 10 P.M., when it would close to the "younger" kids, and you could ride the roller coaster, where you'd sit close to the boy next to you and cling to him like a terrified monkey. At sixteen, you could stay out till midnight every night of the week if you felt like it, maybe even later on the weekends. At sixteen, life had been wonderful, magical, endless fun, full of promise.
Young faces of friends, some she hadn't thought about in years, now appeared so dearly in her mind's eye. What, she wondered, might they look like now, after fourteen years had passed? Other than Natalie, she'd not really kept in close touch with anyone, though over the years she had wondered what had become of those girls she had shared her adolescent dreams with. Well, soon she would find out, would spend an entire weekend catching up.
Jody leaned on the railing of the ferry as she made the crossing from Lewes, Delaware, to Cape May, New Jersey. Off the bow, a gull circled downward to the surface of the bay and emerged with a small fish in its black beak. Several hundred feet away, a small flotilla of sailboats swayed gracefully in the wind, and beyond, the power boats cut choppy grids in tic-tac-toe fashion across each other's wake. Farther out toward the Atlantic, larger boats headed to sea. Straight ahead lay Cape May, and farther up the coast, her destination. Sighing, she turned her face up to the sun to catch its warming rays, to let the sweet salty bay breezes swirl around her.
I wonder if The Osprey is still on the corner of West Bay and Corbin's Lane, if their chocolate milkshakes are still the best on the New Jersey shore... if Carney's General Store is still selling Playboy magazine with plain brown covers... if you can still buy plastic sandals and rough-textured beach towels and garish lipsticks at the drugstore...if the rides on the pier are still as scary as they used to be...
As the ferry began to dock, she pulled a map from her shoulder bag and checked her route for about the fiftieth time in the past two days. Satisfied that she could indeed find her way, she refolded the map and tucked it away. If all went well, she would be in Ocean Point in less than an hour. A tickle of anticipation rippled through her. Having come this far, she was anxious now for the journey to end.
The first thing that Jody noticed as she drove over the old drawbridge that led onto the island was that new marinas had popped up everywhere along the bay side of the town. Driving those first few streets into Ocean Point, it became apparent that the sleepy little seaside village of her childhood memory had been discovered. Developers had strung a line of new townhouses overlooking the marshes and constructed a house on every open lot they could get their greedy hands on. Coming to the intersection of West Bay and South Avenue, she pulled to the side of the road and just sat while she got her bearings.
If this is West Bay, the oldfirehouse should be on that corner, she reasoned, and if that is South Avenue, there should be a park with swings and slides right there.
No firehouse, no park, though the sign clearly announced the street names.
Well, it had been fourteen years...
Jody eased back, into the travel lane, took a right, and cruised down Bay to Ocean Boulevard in search of the Sea View Motel, her home for the next week.
As promised, her room overlooked the ocean. She dumped her luggage on the king-sized bed and drew back the curtains, opened the sliding glass door, and stepped out onto the small, railed balcony to drink in the sight. Directly below her window, round tables shaded by tropically colored umbrellas were placed here and there around a glistening pool of pale blue water the same color as the sky overhead. Beyond the motel's stucco wall, the boardwalk separated the shops, houses, and restaurants from the beach. And the beach itself, well, that was pure New Jersey, with sand slightly darker and just a little coarser than that found on the Maryland shore. Even with the recent years' erosion, the expanse of beach was deeper than the beach in Bishop's Cove, allowing more happy vacationers to lay their towels and blankets side by side and end to end for as far as the eye could see. Here and there the lifeguard stands rose above the crowd, two figures upon the benches where only one had sat in the days of Jody's youth. More bathers, more lifeguards...
And Lord knows, there are more bathers, lined up like sardines in a can, she marveled, shaking her head at the sheer number of people on the beach.
Stepping back into the room and closing the screen behind her, Jody debated what to do first. Natalie and the others would not arrive until later in the day. Her hungry stomach decided for her. She would walk on the boardwalk and find a place to have lunch.
The air on the boardwalk felt dose and hot, being trapped, as it was, between the buildings on one side and the sea on the other. With the stagnant land breeze came nippy little green-headed flies, and more than one person strolling past was swatting at the back of a leg or the top of an arm. Two blocks down, Jody found herself heading into a delicatessen just to escape the ferocity of the flies. She took a seat at the counter rather than wait for a table, and turned toward the doorway to watch the tourists pass by.
While waiting for her turkey sandwich, she picked up a copy of the local newspaper that someone had left on the seat next to her and skimmed through it. Advertisements for bathing suits and restaurants outnumbered the ads for local amusements, but not by much. Fascinated, Jody realized that Ocean Point now boasted not one, but two movie complexes that showed ten films at a time. Years ago, there had not been enough people in town to fill one such theater.
And pizza parlors! There were ads for a dozen or more.
Whale and dolphin cruises on the ocean, a cruise around the island, a cruise to Cape May. Seems as if one could cruise to just about anyplace.
Kayaks, jet skis, wave runners, sailboats, bicycles, inline skates, surfboards-all for rent at convenient locations along the boardwalk.
Fishing tournaments, deep-sea charters, sailboat races, summer basketball and baseball leagues-both male and female-bingo games and buses to the casinos in Atlantic City.
Oyster bars and salad bars, dock bars where one could sit and watch the other patrons arrive in their boats, all the while enjoying dinner and calypso music.
Jody shook her head. What had happened to the peaceful little town she remembered?
She finished her sandwich (a little on the dry side, the bread a commercial brand loaded with preservatives to give it that soft and squishy feel) and side order of so-so cole slaw (too much mayonnaise, not enough onion) and frowned. You'd never get such fare at the Bishop's Inn, but then again, this being a boardwalk deli and the Bishop's Inn being, well, the Bishop's Inn, perhaps, she reminded herself, comparisons were unfair. She folded the paper and left it on the stool where she'd found it, paid her check, and walked back out onto the boardwalk. She'd take a walk, then maybe stretch out on one of those lounge chairs near the pool for a while, the beach being too crowded. Besides, she wanted to be around when Natalie arrived.
Jody had intended to confine her walk to the boards, but finding herself at the very end, decided to venture into town. She was anxious to see some of her old haunts. She went straight down Ocean Boulevard to Townsend, to the corner where the old drugstore once stood. Hands on her hips, she stood on the sidewalk outside and watched the steady flow of tourists as they flocked through the electronic doors of the block-constructed discount store. She wondered if Carney's General Store had fared any better. She headed down the street to the first traffic light and around the corner. Wonder of wonders, the old place still stood intact.
The same weathered brown shingles outside, the same bell over the door inside, the well-scuffed wooden floor underfoot. The old Formica counter where groups of girls gathered to sip sodas and gossip, the neat rows of produce from local farms, the small stationery department, two aisles of hardware, a meat counter, beach toys... oh, it was all so much as it had remained in her memory that for a long moment she thought perhaps she was dreaming.
"Are you being helped?" A young man of about twenty asked.
"Oh..." His voice had stirred her from her reverie. "I was looking for..." she glanced around for something she might need, then, spying the long rack of paperback books at the front of the store, said, "... something to read."
"Right up front," he pointed.
"Thank you," she smiled.
Jody thumbed through this book and that, looking for something that would strike her fancy, all the while pleased and amazed that this little piece of Ocean Point had remained intact while so much else had changed.
"Who owns this store now?" She asked as she paid for her selection, the latest romance by a favorite author.
"The Carney family still owns the store," the pleasant young man replied as he counted out her change.
"Really? Still?"
"Yes. It's been in the family for over eighty years," the boy said proudly.
'Which members of the family are still here, if I might ask?"
"My dad, Steve-I'm Steve, too-and my aunt Beth own it now."
A sudden image of Steve Carney, at nineteen the dream man of all the girls who were sixteen that last year, invaded Jody's memory. He'd been such a handsome thing, and wild, a real daredevil and a great athlete. Steve had been the only one who could swim out to Heron Island and back, no mean feat.
"Did you know my dad?" The young man was asking.
"Umm, sort of," she replied, wondering if daydreams counted. "We used to summer here, a long time ago. My family did, that is."
"Yeah, lots of people come back. They all stop in."
"I was almost surprised to see that Carney's is still here. Everything else seems to have changed.'
"We've had a lot of offers to sell, but my dad and my aunt aren't interested. My brother and I figure that someday we'll be running it with a cousin or two." Steve Junior handed her the bag that held her purchase.
"Then I'll have to make it a point to stop back in about twenty years and see how you're doing." Jody smiled and turned toward the door, wondering what Beth looked like these days. She'd been a short, bubbly chatterbox when their paths had last crossed.
Once outside, Jody debated her options. She could check out that new outdoor mall of shops near the marina. Or she could walk over to the bay side and out onto the old piers and watch the fishermen, or she could grab a towel and see if she could find a vacant spot on the beach. Or she could head back to the motel and soak up a little sun on one of those comfy-looking lounges by the pool.
She tapped her foot, debating, but not for long. It was too hot to shop, too hot to walk to the bay, she reasoned, and the beach had been overly crowded by noon. She'd opt for the motel pool. Tomorrow, she'd venture out early with Natalie and Lindsey and Mary Anne and the others and stake a claim for a prime section of beach where they'd sun themselves on blankets. Right now she had a great new book to read, a brand-new bikini to slip into, and enough of the afternoon left to enjoy both while she waited for her friends to arrive.
Jeremy Noble unfolded himself from his sedan, stretched his legs, and inhaled deeply. Ah, yes, the sea air, the sound of the gulls, the promise of some great fishing, some great meals, some great nights on the beach with the woman whose memory had drawn him here. Who could ask for more?
He smiled to himself as he swung his bags from the trunk of the Maxima. He'd packed light, thinking he'd need little more than casual clothes-perhaps a jacket for dinner one night-and a few good books. And a healthy appetite. Ever since he'd made the decision to book a room at the inn, he'd been dreaming of Jody's cream of she-crab soup, her broiled sea trout, her flan.
Or had it been her face, her legs, her laugh?
"Jeremy!" Laura Bishop met him in the inn's spacious entry. "You're right on time. We've just finished getting your room ready."
"Hello, Laura," he accepted her hug and offered one in return. "How are things?"
"Very well, thank you. I'm so glad you decided to take me up on my offer and spend your vacation with us."
"Well, I really did need to take some time off. I couldn't think of anyplace I'd rather spend a week."
"The fishing's been great this summer, and the ocean's been warm. The weather's been perfect, and they're predicting more of the same for the next few days. You picked the right week." She walked to the reception desk. "Let me get someone to take you up to your room. I'd do it myself, but I'm a little busy right now."
"The room number's on the key," he said. "I can find my way."
"Are you sure you don't mind? I'm afraid we're a little short-handed this week, and we've had some unexpected reservations for dinner tonight."
"I don't mind at all." Jeremy took the key and smiled, thinking about tonight's dinner, wondering what might be on the menu.
He was sorely tempted to ask what was planned for the evening's fare, then decided he'd rather be surprised. Anything that Jody was making would be food fit for a king. And after dinner, he'd ask her to sit with him on the front porch where, over a glass of wine, they could pick up where they'd left off weeks ago. Then maybe tomorrow night they could walk on the beach, or drive out to Pierson's where a blues band played weeknights.
Humming happily, Jeremy took the carpeted steps two at a time, thinking perhaps he'd take a walk on the beach or maybe a stroll around town while he awaited the dinner hour and the opportunity to savor the soup and woo the chef.
"Will you be dining alone?" The young hostess asked when Jeremy walked into the crowded dining room that evening promptly at seven.
"Yes," he nodded.
"Then perhaps you'd like a seat by the window, where you can watch the osprey," she suggested. "There's a family nesting there on top of the telephone pole. Three babies," she said as she led him to his table.
"Thank you." Jeremy took the seat next to the wall where he could watch both the osprey and the room. He frequently dined alone, and watching other diners helped to pass the time. Not that he was in a hurry to conclude this meal.
"Hi," the perky waitress seemed to pop up from thin air. "May I bring you a drink while you look over the menu?"
"All I need to know is the fish of the day," he grinned.
"Red snapper," she replied.
"That makes it easy enough. I'll start with the she-crab soup, and go on to the snapper."
"Ah, you've been here before." The waitress nodded knowingly. "Everyone comes back for the crab soup. Now, can I interest you in a glass of wine to go with that?"
"Absolutely."
"I'll be right back with it."
While he waited, Jeremy amused himself by studying the table manners of a rambunctious three-year-old several tables away. His wine arrived at just about the same time that the harried mother decided that her fellow diners would enjoy their meals more if she and her son took theirs on the porch. She smiled an apology at the waitress as she left the room. Jeremy idly wondered where the husband/father might be. He'd never been either, but he couldn't imagine sending his wife and son off to a lovely old inn on a beautiful, romantic stretch of coast without him along to share the holiday with them.
The waitress appeared with a small white bowl of creamy liquid of the palest yellow. Jeremy dipped a spoon in, raised it to his lips, and tasted heaven. He sighed with contentment, eating slowly, making the most of the experience. He similarly sighed his way through his entree and his dessert. He accepted a second cup of coffee, which he carried with him into the kitchen to pay homage to the cook, the anticipation of seeing her again flickering inside him like fireflies. With luck, she'd be free later in the evening. He wanted to walk with her on the beach, watch the ocean breeze rustle her hair...
"Jeremy," Laura called from behind the long stainless steel counter, "how was your dinner?"
"Wonderful." He enthused, his eyes darting this way and that, scanning the room for its customary occupant. "Fabulous. I just stopped back to thank the chef."
"You're welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed." Laura smiled and went back to seasoning the fish she had just placed in the baking dish.
It took a minute for Jeremy's brain to process this information.
Laura. In the kitchen. Preparing a dinner. And Jody was... where?
"Jody...?" He asked.
"Oh, Jody's not here." Laura waved a hand and bits of dill flew here and there.
"Not here?" Jeremy frowned.
Jody not here? But the soup... the perfectly seasoned fish \_\_
"She's on vacation. Thankfully, she made up several batches of she-crab soup and froze them to tide us over till she got back, and she left me with jars of her special seasoning already mixed for the fish. I hope I don't run out before she gets back." Laura raised her head, and saw the look of disappointment on Jeremy's face.
It was clear that he'd been hoping to do more than give compliments to the chef about her fish.
Laura smiled to herself. Of course. It would have been Jody that brought Jeremy back to the inn. She'd thought she d sensed something running between them the last time he had been there. Laura brushed off her hands, slid the fish into the broiler, and motioned for him to follow her to the old rolltop desk at the back of the kitchen.
"There's a piece or paper under the right-hand edge of the desk blotter that has the phone number on it if you want to call her," she told him. "Would you mind getting it yourself? My hands are covered with herbs."
No, he realized, he did not want to call her. Talking would not be enough. He wanted to see her, wanted to be with her.
Laura peered over his shoulder as he lifted the small slip of paper, then said, "Yes, that's it. The Sea View Motel in Ocean Point, New Jersey."
Jeremy's insides twisted and clenched as if struck by a forceful blow, and his chest constricted tightly. One big hand reached for the edge of the desk and clutched it for support. The fog that filled his mind clogged his senses, and for a moment he could neither see nor hear nor feel.
Ocean Point, New Jersey.
"Jody will be there through next Saturday," Laura continued. "You may not be familiar with Ocean Point-I hadn't heard of it, either-but Jody said it's a small town on one of those little islands off the coast. She used to spend summers there when she was a child. Some of her old friends from high school were having a sort of reunion there over the weekend, and she's meeting up with them. She really did need a vacation, and this seemed like a fun idea. You know, getting together with old friends, looking back on your teen years. I think her girlfriends were staying just for the weekend, but Jody is staying through the week."
Only Jeremy's eyes moved, following Laura as she returned to her task.
Jeremy knew all about looking back. He had spent much of his adult life looking back on his own teen years, wishing he could reach back in time and change things.
Ocean Point, New Jersey.
Jeremy studied the slip of paper, committed the address to memory, and after thanking Laura, left the kitchen through the back door. His legs still slightly wobbly, he paused under the wisteria arbor, then followed the brick path that led around the side of the house to the front walk. As if in a trance, he crossed the street and stood atop the steps that led down to the beach, listening to the crash of the surf. He followed the sound and tried to sort through his options.
He could, of course, wait here until Jody came back.
Or he could leave and go back home, work out the week, and reschedule his vacation for the following week, then come back to the inn when she returned. Equally easy. Equally pain-free.
Jeremy's fingers closed over a large clamshell, and he flung it toward the sea. Of all places for her to have gone!
Ocean Point, New Jersey.
His mouth had gone dry, his lips parched. Jeremy sat down on the sand. He'd sworn he'd never go back. And in all these years, he had not. It was all too vivid in his mind's eye, the colors and sights and smells of that night where, in a matter of a few brief hours, Jeremy's entire world had been tossed upside down.
He squeezed his eyes closed to shut it out, but once it started, the whole thing played through. The argument with his stepfather over taking the car. Leaving home that night with his cousin T.J. Heading for the boardwalk in Ocean Point. Walking the boards and flirting with the pretty girls. Having one of those girls flirt back. Taking her hand and heading off for the amusement pier, where they rode the roller coaster until their throats were raw from screaming. Sitting on the beach watching the fireworks. Slipping off alone to a deserted stretch of beach where the eager young lady had taught him a thing or two.
Then later, searching for T.J. on the boardwalk, and not finding him, debating whether to call home and risk his stepfather's wrath when he was awakened from a sound sleep, or just walking the twenty-seven miles in the middle of the night and hoping to ease into the house before anyone had realized that he'd been out all night.
Jeremy had stood under a street lamp, jingling change in his pocket, then headed for the phone at the corner. His stepfather would be livid, but at least his mother would know where he was and that he was safe. He glanced at his watch as he listened to the phone ring on and on. It was ten past one.
Odd that no one had answered.
He had called again, just in case he had misdialed the first time, but there was still no answer.
Strange, the thought had niggled, that no one had picked up the phone, as if they had all somehow just disappeared.
Distracted, he had stepped out of the phone booth and into the path of a late-model Pontiac. The driver blasted one short beep on the horn as the car swerved around him, then stopped and backed up. After loudly berating Jeremy for scaring him witless, the driver had offered him a ride, taking him as far as the first of the dirt roads that marked the entrance to the Pine Barrens, where outsiders rarely went and only a native would risk going on foot in the middle of a dark night.
Jeremy remembered listening to the night sounds, the shrieking of owls and something somewhere screaming a protest at having been caught in jaws or in talons. He remembered hearing a rustling now and then behind him, recalled an occasional finger of fear tapping his shoulders as his imagination conjured up the Jersey Devil, even though his intellect knew it was nothing more than a raccoon or a fox.
And back, far back, behind the trees, an orange glow had begun to spread.
Even now, sixteen years later, he could recall every detail of that walk through the pines, and the exact moment when he realized that somewhere deep in the forest, a fire was raging. Smoke began to fill the woods and filtered through the dry undergrowth like a heavy fog. A prick of alarm tickled the back of his neck, but fires in the Pines were common enough events. Didn't every good summer storm set off one or two? But there had been no storm that night, no lightning. And the blaze that rose above the pines and reached into the glowing sky was right about where his family's home would be, a mile or so as the crow flies.
Jeremy shook his head to clear it of the images that arose to haunt him, of the cabin burned almost to the ground by the time he got there, out of breath and his chest hurting from running the distance through the dense smoke. The line of volunteers-uncles, cousins, neighbors-manning a bucket brigade to bring water from the nearby stream in an attempt to put out the fire, for deep in the Pines there were no fire hydrants and no fire trucks.
The young man had not needed anyone to tell him that no one had survived the blaze. His mother, his younger brother, his stepfather... all gone in the blink of an eye.
Jeremy had never really been able to forgive himself for being out having fun that night while his family, overcome by smoke, had been swallowed by fire. He'd been convinced that if he'd stayed home that night, it never would have happened. He would have saved them.
He would have smelled the smoke. He would have put out the fire. They'd still be alive, he was certain of it.
If only he'd stayed home that night...
How could he go as far as Ocean Point, and not complete the journey to Crismen's Well?
He'd once believed that no power on earth could get him back. Yet here he was, sitting on a Maryland beach watching the day fold away, contemplating the very real possibility of doing just exactly that. He leaned back on his elbows and watched a heron cross the horizon on its flight back to its nesting place in the trees somewhere behind the dunes. Unconsciously his fingers traced little circles in the sand, and he tried to think it through.
If he spent the rest of the week at the inn, he could use the time to do some deep-sea fishing. Catch up on his reading. Maybe rent a boat and do a little crabbing out in the bay.
The easy way.
He sighed and thought about just how much the easy way had cost him over the years. An aunt had died, and he had resisted attending the funeral, because it would have meant going back. His old high school had invited him to a special ceremony honoring their star athletes, and he had declined, because it would have meant going back. He thought of those who were still there, back in the Pines, those who, over the years, had remembered him for weddings and christenings, and fought back the feeling that he had run out of excuses to stay away.
And yet, hadn't he somewhere, deep inside, suspected that the day would come when the time would be right and he would, in fact, go back?
Jeremy lay back on the sand, his arms under his head, watching the night turn on the overhead lights as one by one the stars became visible, and wondered if that time was now.
Jody slipped her feet into turquoise rubber flip-flops and peered into her beach bag to make sure she had not forgotten anything. Sunscreen, a soft blue-and-white blanket, a beach towel, a small radio, a thermal mug of ice water, a package of crackers, flavored lip balm, the book she had purchased the day she arrived and had yet to finish. The long awaited weekend was over. She swung the bag over her shoulder and, locking the motel room behind her, set out for her first full day on the beach in many years.
It was early, not quite ten, when she descended the few short steps from the boardwalk to the sand-early enough that she would get a prime spot on the beach, late enough that the surf fishermen had taken their buckets of bait and disappeared till later that afternoon. She slipped off the flip-flops, wiggled her toes into the warm sand happily, and smiled.The sun was already blazing overhead, and a shift in the wind had banished the flies. She was going to enjoy every minute of this vacation.
Humming as she crossed the beach, she debated her options. Too close to the lifeguard stand and there'd be love-struck girls kicking sand on her as they jockeyed for the optimum positions to be noticed. Too close to the ocean and before noon, she'd be surrounded by toddlers. Selecting a spot that was just the right distance from both ocean and lifeguards, she spread her blanket on the sand and proceeded to make herself comfortable.
First the sunscreen, which she lathered on all those body parts left exposed by the bikini-which had somehow appeared to be more conservative back in Marlene's shop-and on her face. Her fair skin was already pink from the previous two days in the sun, and she didn't want to take any chances. Rolling the beach towel into a tubular pillow, she placed it behind her head, lay back, closed her eyes, and rested for a few minutes.
It was far too quiet. Yesterday and the day before there had been eleven of them there on the beach, laughing and chatting and becoming reacquainted. It had been great fun.
She turned on the small radio, found a classic rock station, and settled back down, thinking back over the weekend. How many of the girls had stayed the same. How many of them had changed. Sharon had gained forty pounds-ten pounds with each child, she had laughed self-consciously, waving several inches' worth of baby photographs under Jody's nose, Lindsey, their favorite ditzy blonde, had fooled everyone by not being quite so ditzy after all, having started her own interior design business right out of college and becoming wildly successful. Carla had fulfilled her dreams of law school, Julie had dropped out of college in her sophomore year to marry a navy man and moved to California where he was based. This one had stopped smoking, that one had started. Over the course of the weekend, Jody had waded through endless envelopes of photographs-weddings and babies, mostly, and everyone there had seemed to have a significant other.
Everyone but Jody, that is.
She squirmed a little, repositioning her hips and digging her heels into the sand.
Well, it wasn't that there hadn't ever been anyone in her life. There had been men, now and then, but there had always been something missing, somehow, no matter how handsome or interesting or attractive they had been.
She had tried to explain it to Natalie the night before. It just seemed that, all her life, the men she met had lacked that special something... that spark that made the difference between interesting and irresistible. Between handsome and to die for. Between attractive and I'll-follow-you-anywhere. Between sexy and sensational.
Natalie had laughed and said that Jody was too picky for her own good.
Jody had tried to explain that what she wanted-what deep in her soul she knew she needed-was a man who could turn her knees to jelly, a man who could make her bottom lip quiver with just a smile. A man who could turn her inside out by merely walking into the room. She'd had infatuations, she'd had one or two short-lived affairs that had left her knowing that there was something more, something bigger, deeper. She wanted passion. She wanted a man who could sweep her off her feet. She wanted to be swept away.
"You want From Here to Eternity," Natalie had nodded knowingly. "We all wanted that, once upon a time. Unfortunately, most of us have had to settle for something less."
"I don't want to settle," Jody had shaken her head. "I've waited too long. I'm not going to settle."
"You could be very old before you meet a man like that," Natalie cautioned.
"I think I already did." Jody had sighed.
"What?" Natalie grabbed Jody's arm. "Where? When?"
And Jody had proceeded to relive that moment when Jeremy Noble had first walked through the big front door of the Bishop's Inn. A few inches over six feet tall, broad shoulders, a lean, athletic body. Brown hair that fell over his collar like fringe, deep blue eyes in a face more rugged than handsome. As a private investigator, Jeremy had walked into the chaos that followed Laura Bishop's disappearance and had taken charge, commanded order, and surveyed the facts quickly and efficiently. With the help or Laura's brother and a family friend., Jeremy had led the search for Laura, had assisted in locating and returning her within twenty-four hours. Jeremy had been a rock, had never hesitated for a moment, had never doubted for an instant that Laura would be returned safely to her family.
Right then and there, Jody had decided that she wanted a man like Jeremy Noble. But then again, what woman wouldn't?
Jeremy, of the easy smile, the quick wit, and the sharp intelligence. Jeremy, who was brave in the face of danger, whose mere presence in the inn had made for several sleepless nights back in June when he'd stayed for a few days after Laura was found and brought home. Jeremy, who was as close to being a real hero as any man Jody had ever met.
Jody's fingers, sifting through the sand to the right of her blanket, located a broken piece of scallop shell, and absently, she began to make little roads with it in the hot sand.
If she'd been a different sort of woman, she'd have made an obvious play for Jeremy that week. But things had been so jumbled, the terror following Laura's abduction, then her rescue from a house that had been set afire, well, it just hadn't seemed like the ideal time to make a major move on one of the rescuers. It would have seemed, well, tacky. Inappropriate. Opportunistic, under the circumstances.
Although Jeremy had seemed interested in her.
Of course, that could have been the crab soup. Or the flan.
Jeremy had loved her flan...
To her left, a small band of teenage girls were claiming their turf, that very spot near the lifeguard stand that Jody had earlier rejected. Their laughter floated across the beach on a brisk sea breeze, and from the distance she watched their antics as they set up their multicolored towels, helped one another apply sunscreen, tossed one another paperback books or magazines.
Jody dropped back on her blanket and closed her eyes. The past weekend with "the girls" had brought back memories of summer days they had shared so long ago. From across the years, snatches of conversations drifted with such clarity that she opened her eyes and looked around to make certain that somehow she had not been thrust back in time.
The scent of Coppertone and the sounds of summer blaring on radios all across the beach had remained the same, though the anthems that year had been varied. That last summer they had baked in the hot sun to Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark," the Pointer Sisters' Jump," Steve Perry's "Oh Sherry," and Rod Stewart's "Infatuation," Huey Newton and the News' "The Heart of Rock and Roll," Madonna's "Borderline," and Lionel Richie's "Hello." Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do with It" was getting a lot of air time as the season had drawn to an end. Jody closed her eyes and drifted off, trying to remember the words to Cyndi Lauper's "Time after Time."
An hour or so later, disoriented from dreams filled with faces, snatches of conversations, and songs long forgotten, Jody sat up slowly. Yes, she was in fact there, alone, on the beach at Ocean Point. From her beach bag, she drew out her water bottle and took a long sip. The nap had relaxed her, had brought back that old, languid feeling of lying too long in the sun, oiled and content and having no particular place to go, nothing important to do. Jody had forgotten just how good that feeling was. She'd make it a point to take more time to sun herself when she returned to Bishop's Cove. She'd been spending entirely too much time in the kitchen and too little time on the beach.
Laura had often offered to hire someone to help Jody in the kitchen, but Jody had always resisted. Maybe she should give in and have Laura do just that. If it freed up even an hour or so each day, it would be worth it. She'ddefinitely discuss it with Laura when she went back. Right now, her body having absorbed all the sun it could tolerate, she would stroll down to the water and perhaps take a dip.
While she slept, the temperature had skyrocketed and the beach had filled in around her with bathers and sun worshippers of every size, shape, and age. She picked her way carefully through the noisy rows of towels and blankets that Uttered the beach, stepped around the sand castles built by busy children, made her way to the water's edge, and walked into the ocean without hesitation. It was colder than she'd anticipated, and she turned her back to the cresting wave that was just about to break. A second, unexpected wave slapped her from behind and she lurched forward. Turning back to face the sea, a third, larger wave broke over her without warning, spinning her around and dragging her out and under, she emerged with a mouthful of saltwater and the top ofher bikini half filled with sand. She sought the cooperation of the next wave to wash out the sand and help her back to shore.
'That's some undertow," noted the middle-aged man who stood about three feet behind her, holding the hand of a six-or seven-year-old girl.
"You can say that again," Jody mumbled as she casually attempted to extract her legs from the ocean's clutches while at the same time seeking to salvage some dignity by pulling up the wayward top of her bikini.
She d forgotten what it felt like to have the water pull at her like that. Next time she'd be more cautious and wouldn't just rush in.
"Ouch! She exclaimed as a sharp pain sliced through the bottom of her right foot. Balancing on the left, she lifted the foot for inspection and found a gash almost two inches long, running blood. She must have stepped on a sharp piece of shell. As she dipped the foot into the water to clean it off, the little girl behind her yelled, " No!"
"What?" Jody asked.
"Sharks! If you get blood in the water, sharks will come!" The girl began to hop up and down.
"I think it takes a little more blood than..."
"Daddy!" The girl continued to shriek. "Make her stop! She'll make the sharks come!"
"She was watching the shark special on the Discovery channel last night..." Daddy smiled sheepishly, but did nothing to quiet the child.
Jody merely nodded and limped back to her blanket, trying her best to avoid getting sand in the offending cut that left a trail of red splotches across the beach. Plunking her butt unceremoniously on the blanket, she grabbed her water bottle and poured out careful drops to wash the sand away from the jagged wound in the bottom of her foot. Rummaging inner beach bag, she found a tissue, which she held against the cut until the worst of the flow ceased. She took a drink of the now warm water and lay back against the blanket again. Her short battle with the ocean had left her with the ball of her foot throbbing and an irritating sprinkling of sand under her bikini. She shifted uncomfortably and closed her eyes.
The sounds from the blanket to her left-those of a young mother inspecting the morning's collection of shells with her toddler-brought back memories of Jody's last summer as an only child, the summer before her brother Jack was born. Jody had been five that year, and the vision of those days on the beach with her mother returned now with crystal clarity. Jody had had a big yellow plastic bucket, and every morning right after breakfast, she and her mother would comb the beaches for pretty shells and interesting pieces of driftwood that had washed ashore during the night. At the beach, her mother's long, thick, dark brown hair-usually worn loose to fall in unruly curls around her pretty face-would be twisted into a long, casual braid that hung down the middle of her back. Jody had loved to sit behind her mother's beach chair and play with that braid, wrapping it around the back of her mother's head in big concentric circles or just holding on to it to feel its weight, tracing lines down her arms with the fat curl at the end.
It had been a long time since she'd thought about that, Jody realized as the warmth of the sun began to lull her once again. What, she wondered sleepily, had become of all those shells they had collected over the years...
A blast from a passing radio startled her, and she sat up, not quite sure how long she'd been reminiscing, but knowing it must be close to lunch time. Jody debated her options. She could walk up onto the boardwalk and grab lunch-assuring that she'd lose her prime spot on the beach if she vacated it for too long-or she could eat the crackers and drink water. Opting for the crackers, she munched and washed them down with the now very warm spring water. Finishing her snack, she decided to read for a while, turning onto her stomach and opening the book. She missed the chatter of her friends, and wished that one of them had stayed an extra day.
Last night they had gone en masse to the House of Crabs for seafood, where they had sat for hours laughing and talking. Tonight Jody had plans for a gourmet dinner at the highly touted Joanna's-reputedly the best restaurant on the island-at the end of the boardwalk. It was said that Joanna's chef had trained in Paris and made a roue like no other. Like all professionals who excel at their craft, Jody couldn't resist comparison, and planned to order one of his specialties tonight.
At least she'd have a great dinner, she sighed. Of course, after dinner, she'd end up back at her room-alone-where she would probably read until she fell asleep with the book in her hand.
Right now, what she really wanted was to cool off. A swim would be perfect, but a second trip to the ocean with its wicked undertow held little appeal. That left the motel's pool, only a short hop away across blistering sand. Gathering her things, Jody dug her flip-flops from the bottom of her bag and started a slow trek, favoring her cut foot, to the steps. Once back at the motel, she brushed off the irritating grains of sand that dung to her since her dip in the ocean and eased herself into the pool, which was surprisingly empty.
The water was cooling, soothing, and Jody floated easily for a few minutes, leaning her head back to allow her hair to fan around her. She began a languid lap the length of the pool, all the while trying to remember the last time anything had felt better than the water that flowed around her body. Soon she found a natural rhythm, and it carried her back and forth, back and forth. Reveling in the easy motions that took her from one end of the pool to the other, Jody swam until her arms began to ache. When she'd had enough, she walked to the shallow end and up the concrete steps. Grabbing her towel from the lounge where she'd left it, she leaned forward to dry off her hair when she sensed that she was being watched.
Jody glanced around the pool area, noticing that most of the other motel patrons seemed to be sleeping in the shade or engrossed in reading their books or magazines. Shaking off the sensation, she dried her legs, then spread the towel over the lounge. She would sit in the sun and allow it to dry her off while she too read. She slipped on her sunglasses, leaned back against the cushion, and opened her book.
She'd read no more than three pages when she felt it again, the feeling that someone's eyes were on her. This time, however, when Jody looked up, there was a man walking toward her. He was tall with dark glasses and brown hair, exactly like the hero she'd been reading about in her book. A shiver went up her spine. Surely he was a hallucination, a mirage born of sun and heat on the smoldering concrete around the pool. It would have to be so, because he looked exactly like...
"Jody?" The mirage stopped at the foot of her lounge.
Later she would recall thinking that, for a mirage, its voice was awfully deep and rich, much like the hot fudge on the sundae she and Natalie had shared the night before.
"Jody?" Her hallucination repeated, and she smiled, thinking how wonderful fiction was, how it could take you away and almost make you believe that...
The mirage grabbed her by the toe and gave it a tweak. She slid her glasses down onto her nose and looked up.
This had to be a dream.
"Aren't you going to say hello?" He asked, looking mildly amused.
"Jeremy?" She gasped. "Jeremy Noble?"
"Ah, so you do remember me. I was beginning to get a little worried there for a minute." He grabbed a nearby chair and swung it around so that he could sit next to her. Which was, in his estimation, preferable to standing there and looking down on that long, lean body.
Whatever had made him think that Jody was all angles? In her little bikini, she was all curves.
Jeremy sat.
"I hope you don't mind if I join you..."
"No. Of course not. I'm just so surprised to see you."
Had she said surprised? Perhaps dazzled said it better. Or possibly incredulous...
"What are you doing in Ocean Point?" Jody forced a nonchalance she wished she felt.
Jeremy leaned forward, his clasped hands falling between his knees, and he wondered if he should tell her the truth, that he had followed her. Just then she sat up and removed her sunglasses completely, and those amber eyes seemed to swallow him whole.
"I'm on vacation," he told her. That was the truth.
"Why, so am I!"
If she blinked, would he disappear? Was he in fact really there? Were her fellow loungers at this very moment exchanging nervous glances as she leaned forward and addressed what was, in reality, an empty chair?
"And it's been years since I've been to the New Jersey shore..." Also true.
"Me, too. I spent every summer growing up in Ocean Point."
"So did I."
"Why, that's unbelievable! Did we talk about that at the inn?" She frowned. Surely she would have remembered that, even in the midst of the craziness that had colored his stay there in June.
"No, we didn't. I just found myself with a few days off, and I decided to spend them at the inn." He stopped, feeling awkward. "Actually, the truth is that I just wanted to see you, Jody. Laura told me where I could find you. I hope you don't mind that I followed you here."
" You followed me here?" Had he really said that?
"I'm sorry, maybe I should have called you first. To see if it was okay with you. To see if maybe you had other plans. If you don't want me to stay, I can..."
"No. No. No other plans. Of course you should stay. Why shouldn't you stay?" She was totally flustered at the thought that this man had followed her from Maryland. "You should definitely stay."
"Great" He smiled and her heart did a flip-flop. "What are you doing for dinner?"
It was almost eight o'clock when Jeremy knocked on Jody's door.
"I'll just be a minute," she told him.
Just until my hands stop shaking and I figure out a way to keep my knees from knocking together.
It had taken Jody almost an hour to decide what to wear. The red silk didn't seem appropriate, so she'd had to run out to one of the stores along the boardwalk and find something suitable. She hadn't planned on having to dress for dinner with the man or her dreams. The short blue sundress that she found at one of the little boutiques had been just right.
I wished him here, she thought, and the possibility filled her with a sort of power she'd never felt before. I willed him here.
One last glance in the mirror had her feeling like Cinderella about to set out for the ball on the arm of her prince.
"Hi," she said as she opened the door. The look in his eyes made her feel all the more like a princess.
"You look beautiful," he said simply, making her feel that it was true.
"Thank you," she blushed under her makeup and bit her tongue to keep from adding, So do you.
"Your hair..." He reached out a hand to touch the long curls that bore a pale shade of moonlight and drifted around her like a halo.
"I had it highlighted," she nodded, as if he couldn't see that for himself.
"It looks great." He slid his hands into his pockets, the urge to crush those soft ringlets was so strong. He cleared his throat. "Joanna's is just down the boardwalk, isn't it?"
"Yes." She grabbed her purse and checked to make certain her room key was inside, then stepped through the door that he held open for her. "I called and changed my reservations to a table for two. The receptionist here at the motel told me it was only a ten-minute walk."
It was a pleasant stroll along the boards to Joanna's and a picture-perfect night. Gulls cried here and there as they raced each other and the tide for the bits of marine life that landed unceremoniously on the shore, dumped by one wave, carried back out to sea by the next. Tanned children raced by, their parents hot on their heels, anxiously trying to keep them in sight lest they fade into the crowd and disappear before they reached the amusement pier at the opposite end of the boardwalk. A sunburned couple strolled by, their faces looking red and uncomfortable.
"Cute shop," Jeremy nodded to the storefront where large shells and all manner of kitschy things crowded the windows.
Jody glanced at his face to see if he was kidding.
"Might have to stop there on the way back and pick up something suitably hokey for my partner." He grinned.
She stopped in front of the window. "Is he the tacky tee-shirt type or the ceramic mug with obnoxious saying type?"
"Both," Jeremy nodded.
"Ah, well then. I'd say you're in luck. They have a bit of everything in there."
"I kind of like that little rubber hula dancer over on the side there." He leaned a little closer.
"The one that says 'I danced my grass off at Ocean View Beach'?"
Jeremy's laughter flowed through her like warm molasses.
"It's perfect," Jeremy nodded, taking Jody's hand. He doubted he'd find anything better-or worse, depending on how one looked at it-to take back to T.J., who after much protest had agreed to take over that last investigation that Jeremy hadn't been able to get to.
Well, of course he had. Just as Jeremy would have done for T.J. After all, they were almost brothers, weren't they? More or less...
Joanna's was a perfect wedding cake of a house, with a tower overlooking the ocean and a wraparound porch, all set upon pilings that raised the house far above the beach. The underside of the structure was open, which accounted, Jeremy noted, for the fact that the structure had been able to withstand the many storms it must have seen over the years. They took the stairs hand in hand and stepped through a screen door, heavily detailed with fretwork, into the relative cool of the handsome reception area.
"This definitely has atmosphere," he mused as he peered beyond the lobby into a small dining room where round tables were set to overlook the ocean.
"It's also supposed to have the best chef on the island."
"Do you have a reservation?" the hostess, in a white skirt and short-sleeved shirt and sporting a red plaid bow tie, asked.
"Yes," Jody nodded, giving her name.
The hostess scanned the list of reservations.
"Ted," the hostess signaled a passing waiter. "Table three in the Marina Room."
The waiter led them through one lovely room to the next to a table overlooking not the ocean, but the opposite side of the island where, before too much longer, the sun would begin to set over the bay. Having seated them and given them each a menu, he took their drink orders and disappeared.
"What are you having?" Jeremy asked after he had scanned the menu.
"Grilled Chilean sea bass," she told him, "and I'm toying with the idea of trying their crab soup."
"That sounds good. I think I'll have the same." The waiter reappeared with their wine at the precise second they folded their menus, and Jeremy ordered for them both.
Jody looked across the table and fought the urge to pinch herself.
"I still think it's the most amazing coincidence that you used to come to Ocean View," she said. "It's not as if it's a well-known resort."
"Actually, I grew up not far from here."
"Where was that?"
"Just a small town inland a bit."
"Oh? Which town?" She persisted.
"Crismen's Well." Just speaking the name aloud after all these years all but stopped his heart from beating.
"Do you have family there?"
"No, he said softly. "Not anymore."
"Your salad, madam," the waiter appeared, offering a welcome interruption. "And yours, sir. Another glass of wine, sir?"
Jeremy nodded dumbly.
"How long are you planning on staying?" She was asking, mercifully changing the subject.
"Till the weekend." He willed his pulse to return to normal, his palms to stop sweating.
"What are you planning on doing for the week? You don't look like the sunbathing type."
"You're right about that. I never could just lie there on the sand and bake. I thought I'd do some deep-sea fishing one day. The motel desk clerk said you can sign up for a charter down at the marina with just a day's notice. Do you fish?"
"I have, but it isn't something I'd do on my summer vacation. I'm more inclined to bake on the beach."
"Your skin is so fair," he commented, "you must burn easily."
Jody grimaced. "I do. I have to be really careful. I actually got a little more sun today than I'd have liked."
"Are you telling me that you'd spend a whole week at the beach just lying on the sand?"
"And that would be a mistake because...?"
He laughed. "Don't you get bored? Aren't you motivated to do other things?"
"Other things such as?"
"Jody, Jody, Jody," he shook his head slowly. "One would think that, as a veteran shoregoer, you would know that the Jersey shore is more than sand and surf."
She laughed softly, the sound of it burying itself in his gut and digging in.
He smiled and continued. "I could stay here for weeks and never spend so much as an hour on the beach and never do the same thing twice."
"Okay, tomorrow, then. What do you have planned?"
He'd actually not thought to plan anything in advance, but once pressed, he responded easily. "Whale watching."
"Whale watching?" Her eyebrows rose in interest.
"Ever been?"
"Once, in Maryland."
"Did you see any whales?"
"Actually, no, we did not."
"Why not join me?"
"Sure. Maybe we'll even see some whales." She grinned as the waiter brought their soup. "And you're right, there are other things to see. Actually, I can't believe how much the area has changed. I wish I had time to see it all."
"To see what all?"
"Oh, everything. You know, there used to be some small islands out toward the marsh, on the bay side.
We-my friends and I-used to go over there, two to a canoe, and have lunch. I wonder if they're still there."
"You want to see it all, do you? The whole island?"
She nodded as she took a taste of the soup.
"It's wonderful," she sighed.
"Did you taste the little herb rolls?"
"Umm. Excellent."
It was all delicious, the chef living up to his reputation. To end their meal, they shared a slice of perfectly tart mile-high lemon meringue pie and sipped excellent coffee and watched the sun drift into the picture-perfect arms of a harlequin sky reflected in the tranquil bay. When the sun had finally set, Jeremy paid the check and held the back of Jody's chair for her, asking, "How does a walk on the boardwalk sound?"
"Great." She nodded.
Once at the bottom of the outside stairs, she bent over, saying, "Wait... just one minute..." and removed her shoes.
"I cannot tell you how good this feels." She sighed as she swung her shoes over her right shoulder.
Jeremy laughed. "You could have slipped them off in the restaurant, you know. I doubt anyone would have known under that long tablecloth."
"I'd never have gotten them back on. I cut my foot on a shell in the ocean today and it's killing me."
"You should have said something," he told her. "We could have done chili dogs and fries in shorts and bare feet tonight."
"And missed that incredible dinner?" She shook her head. "I don't think so."
"How 'bout some boardwalk fudge?" Jeremy pointed to the little wooden stand overlooking the beach.
Best Sweets on The Boards, the sign over the door announced.
"I couldn't eat another thing," she told him. "I may not eat again until Thursday."
"I'll have to buy some later in the week"-Jeremy pointed back to the fudge shop as they strolled past-"for Mrs. Dane. And she'll probably be expecting some saltwater taffy, as well."
"Who's Mrs. Dane?"
"She's our secretary, T.J.'s and mine."
"Who's T.J.?"
"T.J. Dawson..."
"Ah. The Dawson in Noble and Dawson." Jody nodded. "What's he like?"
"T.J.?" Jeremy slowed his pace while he debated how best to answer, how best to describe the man who was not only his cousin, but his best friend since second grade, who had stood beside him through the worst of times, whose parents had opened their home to Jeremy when he'd had no home to go to, who'd made him part of their family when his own family was gone...
How do you describe a man like that and do him justice?
You didn't. You couldn't.
Jody would meet him, one of these days, and then she'd know. For now, all Jeremy could think to say was, "He's a great guy. You'll like him."
Their hands swung easily between them as they meandered down the boardwalk.
"Oooh! A palm reader!" Jody exclaimed. "Let's have our palms read!"
Jeremy laughed and allowed himself to be pulled by the hand to the open storefront where a woman in her mid-forties with teased red hair of a shade not found in nature sat at a card table filing her nails.
"Have a seat," she said without looking up. "I'll take the lady first."
Jody sat opposite the woman at the card table and dropped her handbag on the floor.
The woman tucked the nail file into a side pocket of her short shorts and pulled a pair of black-framed glasses from a worn cloth case. Slipping the glasses onto her face, she turned to Jody, reached across the table, and, without ceremony, asked, "May I?"
Jody placed both hands on the table, and the woman took both of them in her own.
"I am Anna," she told them. "And if you're expecting me to tell you that I am a descendant of gypsies, you'll be disappointed. But I do have a gift, and I'll share it with you."
For a price, of course, Jeremy mused, but said nothing. As a private investigator, he'd once been involved in breaking a ring of fortune-tellers who were fleecing elderly residents of several small communities in the Baltimore suburbs, and was only mildly curious about the boardwalk palm readers. After all, they were all the same, weren't they?
Anna turned Jody's hands over several times, then concentrated on the left palm.
"It is said," Anna told them, "that the left hand will show what was intended in your life, and the right will show what you have done with what you were born with."
She tilted Jody's hand toward the light.
"You have long hands," she said softly. "They tell me you have tact and sensitivity. The palm and the fingers are the same length, telling me that your instincts and judgment are balanced. Your hands are strong, you work hard, you have a great deal of energy."
She examined Jody's thumb and fingers, and nodded, saying as she went from one digit to the next, "Again, energy, an energetic will. You are ambitious. Prudent. You bring a certain artistry to your work."
You've got that right, Jeremy nodded imperceptibly. Jody's flan is an art form unto itself...
"... and you love your work; you're very good at it and take great pride in your accomplishments. I see that you are independent; you enjoy the freedom to express yourself that you are allowed. You work for someone who encourages you to experiment, do you not?"
"Yes." Jody laughed a tad nervously. "Actually, I do."
"She... it is a woman, I see that... relies heavily upon you. You enhance her business. She admires your creative spirit, your industrious nature."
Jody smiled and glanced up at Jeremy, who raised an eyebrow.
"Now, let's see what else there is here..." Anna's glasses slid onto the bridge of her nose and she pushed them back up with her index finger. "A touch of shyness, I see. Idealistic. A believer in romance, ah, yes, in love at first sight. And you are capable of great passion..." Here she glanced up with a half smile and said softly, "... as yet untested, but it is there. Now let's look at the lines...
"Long life, good character. A heart to be cherished, since it will be given completely but once." Anna lifted Jody's right hand and peered intently into the palm. "You have used your gifts well, you have exceeded your own expectations."
Anna folded Jody's hands, one atop the other, whispering as she did so, "You are entering into a new phase, with new challenges. Trust your heart to lead you, and you will not be disappointed. All you need is within your reach. You need only to take it."
Jody smiled and wondered if Anna really knew what she was talking about.
"And now, sir, if you would have a seat..." Anna gestured to the chair Jody was vacating.
"Oh, I think I'll pass," Jeremy waved Anna off. "Thanks anyway."
Anna smiled. She knew a skeptic when she saw one. Well, then, it would be his loss. "That will be twenty dollars for the lady's reading."
Jeremy pulled a twenty from his wallet and handed it to her. He took Jody's arm and steered her toward the narrow doorway.
Still, Anna couldn't resist.
"Your journey home is nearly at its end."
Her words stopped Jeremy in his tracks, as she had known they would.
"Before the week has ended." She whispered so that only he could hear. Then she nodded toward Jody and said, "For her sake, you'll go."
Jeremy forced a patronizing smile and saluted Anna as he turned back to the door, forbidding himself to dwell on her words. A lucky guess, nothing more. Isn't that the way the fortune-telling game was played? He tucked Anna's comments into a corner of his mind where he kept things he'd rather not think about.
Anna stood in the doorway and watched them walk away, mildly amused. Before the week was over, he'd see...
Jody slipped her hand through Jeremy's arm and asked, "What did she tell you there at the end?"
"Oh, just the kind of stuff they always tell everyone so that you go away thinking that they have some kind of psychic gift."
"I thought she was pretty good," Jody continued. "She certainly had my job situation pegged pretty well."
"Well, you play the odds often enough, sooner or later you'll hit one right on the money," Jeremy nodded, and having decided that a change of subject was called for, asked, "What would you like to do now?"
"Hmm, let's see." She stood in the center of the boardwalk, looking first to the left-toward the big amusement pier with its killer roller coaster and the water slides-then to the right and the more "gentle" rides, the ones suitable for children and adults who have recently had a large meal.
"Shelton's Pier?" She asked hopefully.
"Shelton's Pier it is." Jeremy smiled and took her hand.
Leisurely they strolled to the white picket fence that surrounded the amusement park.
"Oh, Jeremy, look!" Jody grabbed his arm and pointed off to her left. "Teacups! I remember riding the teacups with my mother when I was little. And look there, there's that little boat ride."
Laughing, he allowed himself to be led to the short metal fence that closed off the narrow waterway from spectators. Tiny passengers, strapped into tiny seats, held tightly to the sides of the miniature rowboats as they floated along, dragged by a pulley under the water to keep all moving at the same rate of speed.
"Oh, I remember riding in those little boats! I thought I was such big stuff, because I got to ride alone. You must have ridden in them lots of times, living just down the road."
He shook his head.
"How "bout the merry-go-round?" She asked. "My mother and I used to go on together. It would always be our last ride. Then we'd stop for cotton candy on the way home. Did you use to ride the merry-go-round, Jeremy?"
"Once or twice."
"Ferris wheel?"
"Only until I became too cool for anything less than the big, nasty rides."
"Wait here," she told him.
Jody returned shortly with a string of multicolored paper tickets.
"We need three each for the merry-go-round, five each for the Ferris wheel." She held up the tickets. "Unless, of course, you're still too cool..."
Jeremy laughed and took her hand, leading her to the line for the big wheel.
Ten minutes later, they were strapped into a canary yellow gondola and watching the park patrons on the ground grow smaller and smaller.
"Look, from here you can see the lights from the marina," she said.
"And the lights from the roller coaster." He pointed to the south. "That's one wicked-looking machine, isn't it?"
"Oh, I saw it on Saturday night A few of my friends went on, but I just couldn't bring myself to get on it."
"I'm game, if you are."
"After that dinner, I don't think so." She laughed.
"Maybe tomorrow night."
"Maybe. Look, there's the center of town. Three streets over from that red neon sign, on the bay side, is the house we rented when I was little. If it was daylight, we could probably see it from here. What a fun thought, to see the entire island from up above it all."
"Hmm," he rubbed his chin. "There's a thought..."
"When I was little, I used to think that you could touch the stars from the top of the Ferris wheel." Jody said when the ride came to an end and began its gradual release of passengers, giving each car a minute or so stopped at the very top of the wheel.
Her face was so near, tucked as she was into the crook of his arm, and her mouth was so close, that he never thought about kissing her, he just did. Her mouth was warm and sweet and still bore the slightest trace of lemon mixed with sea air. She tasted so good that he kissed her again, parting her lips with his tongue and tracing the contour of her mouth. Deeper and deeper, seeking more and more of her.
Had any woman ever been sweeter to taste, softer to touch? Had he ever suspected that it would be otherwise?
With her hands on either side of his face, she drew him back to her when she thought he would pull away. She'd never been kissed quite like that, and she didn't want him to stop, pure and simple, and so she kissed him until their car was making its last little swing to the platform where they'd get off.
They wandered around the amusement park, holding hands, but not speaking, until finally, on their third pass of the merry-go-round, Jody said, "There's a big black horse draped in scarlet and gold that's calling my name. Want to ride with me?"
"Sure."
Jeremy helped her to the platform when the ride had stopped, walked with her through the crowd of children and young lovers who were threading their way through the handsomely painted mounts.
"Here's my horse," she said as she climbed atop the black horse to sit sidesaddle. "Are you going to ride? There's a pretty mean looking dragon over there that might suit."
Jeremy laughed and nodded in the direction of the bright green beast.
"I'd hate to have to fight an eight-year-old for him. I think I'll just stand here with you, if that's okay."
The music started and the carousel began to turn slowly.
"Ah, that must be the legendary gold ring," he said as they passed the wooden post where the ring hung from a small dowel. "I'm going to have to go for that, you know."
Lights twinkled on and off, the mirrored back of the carousel reflected the gaily decorated animals as they pranced past, faster and faster until the reflection was little more than a blur of color. As the ride began to slow, Jeremy walked to the edge, and holding onto the nearest post, waited to pass the wooden pole. Jody never did see him reach for the gold ring, but as they hopped off the ride, he slipped it onto the middle finger of her left hand.
"I'm afraid it's a little big," he apologized.
"Oh, you got it!" She laughed, delighted that he had done so. "I never thought that anyone ever actually got one of these things!"
"Beginner's luck." He shrugged, gratified that she was so pleased with so small a trinket. "I spent a lot of time on the boardwalk as a teenager, but I never spent much time riding the carousel horses."
"Not macho enough?"
"Not by a long shot. The Rattler, the Twister, the Sea Serpent-those were manly rides."
"Then I guess the spinning teacups were out."
He laughed and drew her close to him as they walked past the arcade where boys in baggy pants and tank tops fed an endless supply of quarters into the machines.
"Now, how about that cotton candy you were talking about? Isn't that what you said you used to end up your nights on the boardwalk with?
Jeremy purchased two paper cones of the spun-sugar confection, and handing her one, said, "You have to wonder just who thought up this stuff."
"It's awful," she said as nibbled.
"Umm. Disgusting." He agreed.
"It's so simmer," she sighed. "Cotton candy and boardwalk fudge."
"Saltwater taffy and snow cones."
"Boardwalk pizza."
"Boardwalk fries."
"With cheese."
"Uh-uh. Old Bay seasoning."
"Ooh, that sounds good, too."
"Maybe tomorrow night we should just do boardwalk for dinner," Jeremy said as they arrived back at the motel. "And later, we can take on the roller coaster."
"Not after a meal of boardwalk food."
"Hmm, good point."
"Oh, look. People are swimming in the pool there. Want to join them?"
He glanced at his watch.
"Not tonight," he told her. "I have to get up early tomorrow. And so do you."
"I do?" She frowned. "Why?"
"Because there's something we want to do."
"There is?"
He nodded.
"How early?"
Jeremy appeared to be calculating something.
"Well, if we want breakfast first, we should probably meet at the coffee shop here in the motel by about five."
"And if we don't want breakfast?"
"Five-thirty should do it."
"Are the whales up that early?"
"Whales? Oh, no, that's not whale-watching time. That'll be later in the day. This will be something else. Something special."
"What?"
"It's a surprise," he told her. "You'll just have to wait till the morning to find out."
They stopped in front of Jody's door and she handed him her key when he reached for it. He pushed open the door with one hand and turned on the lights for her.
"So. You game? Five A.M.?" He asked as he gathered her in his arms.
"Yes," she told him as his mouth lowered to meet hers. "I'm game."
He kissed her until something inside him told him he'd better stop while he still could.
"I'll see you at the coffee shop at five," he said, closing the door behind him.
Jody dropped her shoes on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed and held up her hand. The thin band of mystery metal on her middle finger gleamed like the finest gold. She lay back across the bed, dazzled from kisses she could still feel, right down to her toes, and wondering what incredible surprises tomorrow might bring.
"Ah, there you are." Jeremy couldn't help but grin as Jody half stumbled into the lobby at 5:35 the next morning wearing gray shorts and a hooded sweatshirt of the same color.
"Here's part of me, anyway." She covered her mouth to yawn. "The rest of me is still sleeping peacefully back in room three seventeen."
He handed her a tall cardboard cup and said, "You'll be wide awake in a few minutes, I guarantee it."
"Is that coffee?" She sniffed and sighed. At that moment, it smelled like heaven. She could have wept. "Bless you. I need this. You're a prince, Jeremy Noble."
"I am indeed." He took her elbow and guided her through the door and into the parking lot.
"It's still dark out. You know, back at the inn, I'm up every day by at least this hour. But for some reason, I just haven't wanted to get out of bed all week."
"That's 'cause you know you're on vacation and you think you should be sleeping late. But trust me. This will be worth getting up early for." He opened the door to the Maxima and stepped back so that she could slide in.
She could have told him that she'd gladly get up at five any morning, just to look at him. Instead, she asked, "What's this'?'r
"You'll see." He grinned and turned on the ignition.
They drove through quiet streets, those same streets that just the night before had been teeming with life. Jody sipped at her coffee, grateful for his thoughtfulness, and tried to guess what surprise he might have come up with.
She hoped it wasn't deep-sea fishing.
"We're almost there." He glanced over and added, "You might need that hood. It might be a little cool."
"Give me a hint."
"Too late. We're there."
He rounded a deep bend in the road and pulled off to the side, to a clearing where several other cars were parked on a sandy lot lined with a narrow row of scrub pines.
"This way," Jeremy motioned to her, and in the growing light she could see that his eyes were dancing-with mischief or pleasure, she wasn't sure which.
Jody followed him down a path leading through the sparse stretch of trees, her curiosity piqued.
"I know. We're going to watch the sun rise." She caught up with him and tucked her arm through his, still holding her coffee cup in one hand.
"Yes." He grinned, and stopping at the end of the path, he pointed straight ahead. "From a slightly different vantage point."
Jody stopped, drop-jawed, in her tracks, and stared at the brightly colored balloon that rose fifty feet above her head.
"It's a... it's a..." she stuttered and pointed.
"Hot-air balloon," Jeremy grinned, taking her hand. "You said you wished you could see the entire island from up above. Well, this morning you'll get your wish."
"From the air," she whispered, horrified as she stumbled along behind him. "I'm not sure that I really meant that I wanted to see it from the air..."
He laughed and squeezed her hand.
"Alan Dember?" He called to the tall, thin man inside the balloon's basket
"Right." Busy checking something near the burner, the man responded without turning around.
"Your ad said first come, first served."
"You're the first," Dember called back over his shoulder. "Climb aboard."
"Climb aboard," Jody repeated dumbly.
"Just swing your leg over. Here, like this," Jeremy demonstrated and helped her over the side.
"We'll be ready for takeoff in just a few," Dember told them.
"You're the pilot?" Jody asked anxiously. "Are you certified or whatever it is you have to be to fly one of these things?"
Dember laughed. "Certified by the FAA, just like an airplane pilot. The balloon is regulated by the FAA, too, so it's subject to inspections and has to meet certain standards, just like a commercial jet. That make you feel any better?"
"Not really," she said under her breath.
"Well, then, if you're ready, I'm ready," the pilot told them, a bit too cheerfully, Jody thought.
How could anyone be that cheerful about going up into the air in a basket held aloft by a balloon?
Jody looked up above her head to where the enormous balloon seemed to fill the sky. It looked like a party balloon. A very large party balloon, but a party balloon all the same. She was just about to tell Jeremy that she'd wait for him on the ground when Dember yelled to the crew, "Untie her. We're going up."
"We're going up." Jody clutched at Jeremy's arm.
"Wait till you see the sun coming up over the water, Jody. It's like nothing you've ever seen, I promise."
"I've seen it from the beach," she said. "I liked it from there."
There was a whooshing sound from the burner, and she felt the basket begin to rise slowly. Panic began to overtake her, and she grabbed the edge of the basket, then made the mistake of looking down, rather than out or up. Below her feet, she could see lights from the cars below.
"Jeremy, we're in a basket," she told him. "You can see through it."
"It's okay, Jody, it's perfectly safe."
"Baskets are for flowers, Jeremy. Potted plants. Newspapers and magazines. Baskets are not for climbing into and flying over the ocean." Jody's eyes were closed, her hands clammy with fear, and it was then that Jeremy realized she was truly afraid.
It had never occurred to him that she might be afraid. He put one arm around her and drew her to him, and with the other brushed her hair back from her face.
"Jody, it's okay. It's safe, I promise."
"Where exactly are we going?" She asked, still not looking beyond Jeremy's chest.
"Wherever the wind takes us," the pilot nodded happily.
"Any idea where that might be?"
Dember laughed. "It isn't quite as random as you think. I get reports on wind speed and direction before each flight."
"Wind direction. Speed. Can't those things change?" she muttered.
Their pilot nodded. "They can. They do, at varying altitudes."
"How do you control this thing?"
"By adjusting the altitude of the balloon," he told her, and realizing that his passenger was more than just a little scared, took her arm and turned her to the burner. "Now, if we need to rise above an air layer, we heat the air inside the balloon a little. If we want to come beneath a layer of air, we vent it, let a little of the air out to drop the balloon. We use liquid propane gas, by the way, just like a barbecue. It burns quickly, to heat the air inside the balloon quickly, which allows me to make it ascend or descend as quickly as I need it to go. It's safe, I promise. I do this every day. I've never lost a passenger yet."
"That's reassuring." She nodded.
"Here now, hold on. We're going up just a little higher."
"More good news..." Jody squeezed her eyes dosed.
"Jody, look," Jeremy said gently. "Look at the sky. Did you ever see anything more beautiful? Colors more glorious?"
She peeked out around his shoulder, and in spite of herself, an "Oh!" escaped her lips.
"It's... it's like floating up into heaven," she exclaimed. "Oh, Jeremy, look at the clouds. And the ocean looks so blue. It looks bluer from here. And look at the boats out there... oh, it's amazing."
Jeremy smiled. He'd hoped that one look would make her forget her fear, and it had.
"And look down there, at the way the waves curl toward the shore..."
Jody was really loosening up.
"Can we go back over the town, over Ocean Point?" She asked the pilot.
"We will, on our way back to the launch pad. My intention is to go on down to the end of the island, then swing back inland a bit, then try to get back to where we started. If the wind cooperates, that's what we'll do. If it doesn't, then our chase crew will meet up with us at another landing site."
"How will they know where to find us?" She frowned.
"Radio," he pointed to the floor where the radio sat between his feet "But so far, the winds have been good. Spectacular sunrise, would you say?"
"Definitely," she sighed.
"Feeling better?" Jeremy asked softly.
"Much," she nodded, and turned in his arms to look into his eyes. "Thank you. This was a wonderful surprise."
"I'm sorry that you had a few bad moments there. I should have asked you first how you felt about hot-air balloons."
"I'm glad you didn't ask. I'd have said no and I would have missed this and I'd never have known what it felt like to watch the dawn over the ocean from the air. It's glorious, Jeremy. Everyone should see this, just once. Thank you so much for sharing this with me."
"You're welcome." He slipped both arms around her and nudged her into leaning against him, thinking that there was so much more he wanted to share with her. So much more he would share with her.
"And over there, off to the left, you can see all those trees there," their pilot was saying above the whoosh of the burner. "That's the start of the Pine Barrens. Of course, most folks around here call it the Pinelands, or just the Pines, since they know there's nothing barren about the area, which covers over a million acres. In 1983, the United Nations designated the Pines as an International Biosphere Reserve, 'cause there are species of plants back in there that are endangered or extinct every place but here. If we were to get close enough, you'd be able to see that the Pines are crisscrossed with a number of slow-moving streams of fresh water. You have your swamps back in there-cedar swamps, mostly American white cedar. Water the color of tea. Sphagnum moss everywhere. It used to be a big business, gathering sphagnum moss to sell. Still is, in some parts."
"You know a lot about the area," Jody turned to the pilot.
"My mother was a Piney," he told them. "Used to be a certain stigma attached to the word Piney, but these days, people are more proud than ashamed of the term."
''Why's that?" She asked.
"I suspect it's just a matter of coming to understand and appreciate the culture for what it is. Ethnically, the people here are a wonderful mix. German, Scottish, Irish, Swedish. Some Quaker, some Catholic. Russians. New England fishermen who came south to follow the whales before New Jersey was even a colony. I've heard even Hessian mercenaries who deserted after the Battle of Trenton came to lose themselves in the wilderness. Some still speak the dialect, back in there." Dember turned to Jeremy, who had been silent during the pilot's recitation, and asked, "You ever been?"
Jeremy had not expected the question, and his eyes drifted over the endless acres of green that now spread out below them like a fan. "Yes. Yes, I have. But not in a very long time."
"Beautiful, don't you think?" Dember's eyes were shining. "It's still wild. People too often think of New Jersey as being, you know, one overpopulated, polluted city after another. If they could only see this, the miles of forest..."
The pilot's voice droned on and on, extolling the virtues of the Pines and its history. And all the while, Jody was watching Jeremy's face.
His eyes followed the sea of green below even when Dember had switched course and had headed back toward the island. His face seemed touched by melancholy, his smile gone, his mouth taut, and he was, for an instant, a million miles-or a million acres-away.
"... but right now, we're over the bridge leading to Ocean Point. You see the bay there, and off to the left you can see the yacht club, the marinas..."
"Jeremy," Jody tugged on his sleeve, "where did you go?"
He looked down at her, a sadness in his gray eyes, and said simply, "Home, Jody. Just for a minute, I went home."
She wanted to ask him where home might be and why the thought of it disturbed him so. Maybe, before the week had ended, she might learn.
"Now, right there's the park..."
"Oh, and Jeremy, look! Down there. Right down there. There's the street where our old rental house was. The third street in from the bay! The house was right in the middle of the block, the seventh one... She counted the rooftops. "There! That one! Back then, the roof wasn't blue..." She tried to bring him back. "Do you see?"
"Yes," he nodded idly, still looking back over his shoulder to the blur of green that was diminishing in size as the balloon headed in the opposite direction.
Later, when the balloon had landed and they had thanked their pilot for a wonderful ride, as they sat in a diner-all chrome and glass-and waited for their breakfast to be served, Jody sensed that he was still not completely with her.
"Seeing the sun over the ocean like that, the colors... that may have been the most unforgettable moment of my life," she said, hoping to draw him back.
He nodded and said, "Good."
"What was yours?"
"My what?"
"Most unforgettable moment."
He stared at her for a very long time, and she began to regret having asked the question when he replied quietly, "I'm hoping it hasn't happened yet."
Jeremy leaned back as the waitress set down a white plate from which an enormous omelet threatened to overflow. "Maybe it will be this afternoon. You up for a little whale watching?"
And just that quickly, he had put it aside-whatever it was-and kept it hidden through the rest of the afternoon.
"This is incredible!" Jody shouted to Jeremy above the loud hum of the boat's engine. "It's been so long since I've been out on the ocean, I'd forgotten how much I used to love it."
Jeremy smiled and pointed to the left of the bow where a dozen or more dorsal fins broke the surface of the water, all at the same time.
"Oh, look at them!" Jody cried, leaning over the side of the boat to trail her hand through the water.
"Miss, try not to touch the dolphin," the weathered old guide told her. "Sometimes we humans have substances on our fingers that can cause skin irritations for them."
Jody removed her hand, but the rest of her remained as it was against the railing. The dolphin swam so close to the boat that she could have touched them, would have, had it not been for the warning. Much to the delight of the passengers on the boat, the dolphin leaped from the water, splashing their audience and playing with gleeful abandon for ten or fifteen minutes before swimming off. Jody turned to watch them, realizing for the first time just how far they were from shore.
"It's only a mile," Jeremy shrugged.
"I feel better when I can actually see land," she told him, looking down into the dark blue green of the ocean and wondering just how far below the bottom might be. Then again, she told herself, there are some things we are better off not knowing.
"There's a whale off the bow!" The shout went up, and all forty passengers rushed to the left side of the boat.
"Maybe now might be a good time to go up to that second level," Jody said nervously as the boat seemed to list to one side.
Jeremy laughed as he took her hand and led her up the narrow steps.
"There, now," he said once they reached the top. "Feel better now?"
"I do. It just seemed a little too crowded for comfort down there. Oh, Jeremy, there's the whale! Look at it! It's as big as a bus!"
"Bigger," he nodded, admiring the creature's agility, in spite of its size, as it turned and dived. "Look, there's a second."
Her eyes followed his finger to the right of the large mammal, where a smaller one had surfaced. In awe, they watched the two enormous creatures frolic before disappearing beneath the dark waters and appearing again some yards away, over and over, until finally they were farther out to sea than Jody wanted to be. She was grateful to hear the boat's engine as the captain prepared to turn the vessel about and head toward shore.
Overhead a gull swooped low to the water, searching, she guessed, for a mid-morning snack. The sun had burned away the rest of the clouds, and she wished she had worn a hat to keep the sun from her face.
A boy of about ten ran across the deck and stood atop the back of the bench seat.
"I don't think that's a very good idea," Jeremy told him calmly. "If the boat lurches, you could get tossed over the side."
"So what? I can swim." The boy said rudely over his shoulder.
"Think you can outswim him?" Jeremy pointed toward the water, and the boy's line of vision followed his finger to the dark fin that had just broken the surface of the water.
Jeremy stood to grab the front of the boy's shirt to pull him down onto the seat and to safety. The child landed with a plop, his face white and his eyes as big as saucers. "That's a shark," he said dumbly.
"That sure is." Jeremy agreed.
"Bobby, there's a shark," the boy called to the thin, dark-haired boy who poked his head out from the doorway.
"A real shark?" Bobby ran to the railing to see. "Hey, everybody, a shark! A shark!"
"So much for tender moments," Jeremy grumbled as the shark circled around and came back towad the boat.
"Hey, mister! How big is that shark?" The boy in the striped shirt asked.
"Maybe fifteen, sixteen feet long. He's a big one," Jeremy told him.
"Wow! If I had fallen in..." his eyes widened even more at the prospect.
"Shark bait," Jeremy nodded.
The two boys exchanged an anxious glance, then headed for the steps and made a noisy decent. Jody laughed. "You scared the bejesus out of them."
"There are some risks not worth taking," he told her as he pulled her closer, mindful of her sunburn, "and there are some that are. You, Jody Beckett, are a risk worth taking."
"What risk..." she managed to ask before his mouth, ever so gently, reached her own.
It was more caress than kiss, more a gesture of longing than fulfillment, but beneath its tenderness there was a promise of something more, something deep and powerful and total. Jody wondered how long she would have to wait before its promise would be kept.
"I can't remember when I had more fun," Jody laughed as she unlocked the door to her motel room. "But, oh, man, that roller coaster is a demon! I thought I was going to pass out."
"That's why they call it the Jersey Devil," Jeremy closed the door behind them.
"Oh, but the worst was the Serpent! Who ever dreamed up that ride should be tortured unmercifully!"
"I could tell you hated it," he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to him. "That's why you had to go on it four times."
Jody's face was still flushed from that last roller coaster ride, her eyes still sparkling from the excitement of that last downhill spiral, her lips still touched with the last bit of pale pink cotton candy. Jeremy could not resist the urge to remove that trace of spun sugar from the corner or her mouth. He licked at it with his tongue, until she turned her head just slightly and parted her lips to meet his tongue with her own and to invite him to taste deeper and deeper.
Jody's arms had found their way to his chest, then to his shoulders, then to the sides of his face. His hands slid down her body, then back again, sending warming waves of keen sensation to ripple through her. Everywhere
Jeremy touched her, she seemed to melt, skin and bones. When his mouth moved to her throat and traced a hot sweet line to her shoulder, the warmth shot straight to her belly and lower. She drew his mouth back to her own and drank him in. Jeremy's hands sought and found the soft swells of her breasts and grazed them once, twice, three times, each successive passing lingering a little longer to tantalize her eager flesh. She took one slow step backwards, then another, then another, until she felt the edge of the bed behind her. His hands slid down to her hips, drawing her body tightly against his own, his mouth possessing hers.
"Jody..." he whispered into her neck. "Jody..." "Don't stop, Jeremy." She pulled him onto the bed with her. "Please don't even think about stopping..." In a heartbeat, he was everywhere, his mouth was everywhere, his hands were everywhere, and Jody was lost on a turbulent sea that spun her around and around and turned her inside out. She shed her clothes, item by item, and Jeremy hungrily devoured every inch of newly exposed flesh. Every bit of her ached with wanting him, every fiber of her body craved him. A soft moan escaped her lips, and she arched her back, demanding yet still more of him, more of the hot sweet rhythm that spurred her on. When his mouth found her breasts, she all but screamed. When finally, he slid inside her, she took him in eagerly. When he began to rock inside her, she urged him on impatiently. And when he had shattered inside her, she wanted him all over again. Jeremy, being a gentleman, did not make her wait.
The alarm on Jeremy's watch went off at four-thirty. A sleepy hand slapped at the top of the bedside table, seeking the source of the irritating sound.
"What time is it?" Jody muttered, her eyes still closed.
"Four-thirty," he told her.
"Didn't we just go to sleep?" She grumbled.
"About an hour and a half ago," Jeremy laughed.
A few minutes later, she asked, "Why?"
"Why what?" His hand stroked her arm gently.
"Why did the alarm go off at four-thirty?" She snuggled into his arms, completely at home there.
"Because I have to run back to my room and change my clothes, then get myself to the marina before five. I have a date with Captain Helmet." He kissed the tip of her ear. "It isn't too late, you know. You can still come with us."
"Captain Helmet," she muttered. "Oh. The deep-sea thing. No, no, thank you. I'll just relax on the beach while you and Ahab chase the giant white tuna or whatever's running this week."
He passed a loving hand over her thigh as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.
"I should be back by early this afternoon," he told her as he stood up and stretched.
"If you catch fish, what will you do with them?" She sat up and opened her eyes. "Keep them in ice in the bathroom sink?"
"Helmet will have your catch cleaned, frozen, and packed in ice when you're ready to go home. That's part of his service."
"That Helmet thinks of everything." She flopped back on the pillow, her hand reaching out to the warm spot next to her where he had been.
In the dark he pulled on his jeans, and in the faint light from the balcony she could see him sliding on the shirt he'd worn the night before.
"Be careful," she said softly. "Don't fall overboard."
"Not a chance." He leaned down and kissed her solidly. "I'm just beginning to really enjoy this vacation."
"Me too."
"Good." He kissed her again. "I'll see you later."
When Jody awoke several hours later, she was humming. She rolled over, a smile on her face, and ran her hand across the pillow where Jeremy had laid his head. The smile widened as she thought back to the night before.
Endless kisses, endless pleasure, endless joy.
Had that really been her, Jody Beckett, behaving in so mindlessly wanton a fashion, doing things she'd once blushed to merely read about? What in the world had come over her?
Jeremy.
Sweet, gentle Jeremy, who had made love as much with his heart as with his body.
Passionate, sexy Jeremy, whose inventiveness and exuberance had kept her up almost all night.
Jeremy, who had stunned her with the intensity of his ardor, captivated her with the depth of his tenderness.
And it had all been so right, so natural.
Well, she grinned as she sat up and stretched her arms over her head, she'd wanted to be swept off her feet, and she had been. Completely. Miraculously.
She glanced back at the dock. Nine-thirty. Jeremy said he expected to be back from his fishing trip by early afternoon. She'd have a leisurely breakfast by the pool, then soak up some sun until he returned. Still humming, she went into the bathroom, wondering if tonight-if any other night-could possibly be as wonderful as last night had been.
The water in the pool had been warmed by a blazing sun until it felt more like bath water, but still, it was wet and much closer than the ocean that lay at the other side of the burning sand. Jody took her second dip of the morning in a futile attempt to cool off, then returned to her lounge to lie on her stomach and read her book. The big clock on the wall that surrounded the pool had told her it was now eleven. Jeremy wouldn't be back for a few more hours.
The next time Jody looked up from her book, the clock said noon. She grabbed a yogurt and a fruit salad from the poolside vendor and tried to resume reading, but the midday heat was stifling. She set the book aside, then walked into the pool again, where she floated aimlessly on her back, her face to the scorching sun. She ducked her head under water several times to cool off a little before she got out of the water and flopped back on her lounge. It wasn't yet one o'clock. She closed her eyes and, lulled by the sun, fell into a deep sleep. Jeremy would wake her when he got back. Which should be soon...
"Hey! Sleepy-head!" The voice seemed to float freely through her dream.
"Jody, wake up."
She opened her eyes to see Jeremy leaning over her.
"Oh." She smiled and stretched languidly. "You're back. Did you catch anything?"
"Big tuna," he grinned and moved her legs to one side of the lounge to make room to sit beside her. "Lots of big tuna. It was an incredible day, Jody. The tuna were running like I've never seen them run before. That's why we're so late coming back in. No one wanted to leave. Helmet said they should all be cleaned and ready to be picked up by tomorrow. I'm thinking we'll ask the chef at the restaurant here"-he gestured to the motel-"if he can bake a piece of it for us tomorrow night. Then maybe we'll take the rest back to the inn. We can share it with Laura and her guests. What do you think? Helmet says I should have about a hundred and twenty pounds after it's cleaned and cut up."
"I think it sounds wonderful." She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. "I just happen to have an incredible recipe for tuna."
"Somehow, I knew you would." Jeremy leaned forward to kiss her. "Now, what would you like to do for dinner tonight?"
"Whatever," she took his hand in hers. "Whatever you want to do. We have hours to decide."
"Not so many hours," he told her. "It's almost five."
"Five!" She shot up to a sitting position. "How could it be five?"
"Now, don't tell me that you lazed the day away," he teased.
"I must have slept all afternoon," she said, a touch of confusion in her voice.
"Well, then, you must have needed the sleep." He leaned down and kissed her again. "And my guess is that you'll be up late again tonight, so it's a good thing that you got lots of rest today."
"What about you?" She draped a lazy arm around his neck.
"I'm used to keeping erratic hours in my work, so it doesn't bother me so much. But I think I will go back to my room, take a cat nap and get a quick shower. How 'bout if we plan on six-thirty, seven, for dinner? One of the other guys on the boat today was telling me about a great seafood place a few blocks into town."
"Sounds great. That will give us lots of time to walk off our dinner afterward and maybe still sneak in a roller coaster ride later on."
"Nah, tonight we're taking on Nessie." His eyes twinkled with mischief.
"What's Nessie?"
"A brand-new, state-of-the-art, guaranteed-to-terrify new ride down in Ocean City. I thought maybe we'd take a ride down after dinner and check out their boardwalk."
"I haven't been to Ocean City in a million years. But wait." She grabbed his arm. "Is Nessie one of those rides where you stand up and get strapped into a harness-"
"Yup." He leaned forward and kissed her mouth. "Upside down and backwards."
Jody collapsed back onto the cushion and groaned.
"We'll save Nessie for the end of the night," he laughed, "and you'll have the drive back to the motel to recover."
"I don't think that the human body was intended to hang upside down and spin around at a high rate of speed, Jeremy. At least, I don't think that mine was."
He laughed again and kissed the end of her nose, then stood up to leave. He seemed to stare at her for a long moment, then removed his sunglasses and appeared to take a second look.
"Jody, how long have you been out in the sun today?"
"Since about ten or so."
"Did you use sunscreen?"
"Yes. I put it on before I even came out. Why?"
"How many times during the day did you reapply it?" He leaned closer and touched a finger to her leg.
"I don't know." She shook her head, trying to remember. She had reapplied it after coming out of the pool, hadn't she?
"You look really red, Jody."
She looked down at her chest. She could see white under the top of her bikini, but she had been in the sun every day for the past few days.
"I had a mild sunburn from yesterday," she told him, not particularly alarmed. "I think I'll just take one quick dip in the pool, then I'll go in and clean up for dinner."
"I'll stop by your room in an hour or so."
"Great. I'll see you then."
Jody watched him walk across the concrete patio that surrounded the pool and sighed. Jeremy looked great from absolutely every angle.
She dove into the deep end of the almost deserted pool and surfaced halfway down the length of it. The water felt cooler now, and she floated, drifting for a few long moments, then hoisted herself out of the pool, pondering what she'd wear that night.
Rousing herself from the water, she towel-dried her legs, noticing for the first time that her skin had taken on an ominously deep shade of pink. How many times during the day had she put on sunscreen?
She reached in her beach bag, searching for the sunscreen. Suddenly she recalled lathering herself with the white cream while she was in the bathroom earlier that morning. In her mind's eye, she clearly saw the tall brown bottle resting on the side of the bathroom sink, right where she'd left it.
Jody stuffed her belongings back into the bag, then followed the patterned carpeting from the poolside lobby to her room, mentally berating herself for being so careless.
I hadn't expected to be out there for so long, and I hadn't intended on falling asleep, she reminded herself as she went into the bathroom to hang up the wet towels. I thought Jeremy would be back earlier...
The sight of her own face and body in the mirror made her head swivel around in surprise. Was her skin really that red? Or was the skin that had been covered by the bikini really that white? She leaned closer, not believing her eyes. Could she have gotten that much sun today?
Maybe on her way back from dinner she'd stop at the drugstore and pick up something for sunburn. She hummed as she showered, hummed as she washed her hair. The humming stopped when her skin seemed to tighten as she began to towel-dry it.
Every fiber of cotton seemed to abrade, as if the towel were made of sandpaper, and she finished drying by patting the towel on her skin. She didn't panic until she looked back into the mirror and saw just how red she was.
Lobster red. Crayon red. Fire engine red.
I must have something with me, she muttered, rummaging in her suitcase for something, body cream, lotion... something that might help.
Jody found a jar of skin-care lotion and soothed a wide white swath onto her arms, but it only seemed to make the skin feel more taut.
Swell, she muttered as she blow-dried her hair. When she finished, she turned her back to the mirror and looked over her shoulder, trying to gauge how badly she was burned on the flip side. Had she even applied sunscreen to her back?
Jody winced as she drew her bra straps over her shoulders. The thin satin straps lay like rough burlap on her tender skin. She ignored the discomfort as she pulled a white top over the bra, then slipped on a short skirt. It took only about thirty seconds for Jody to recognize the truth of the situation. The skirt tightened like a vise around her waist, the pressure more than she could stand. She took off the skirt, the shirt, and the bra, and tossed them on the bed in disgust.
Well, this is a nice kettle offish, she mumbled, standing in the middle of the room in her panties. How can I go out to dinner if I can't put any clothes on?
Her eyes drifted back to the closet inside the motel room door to where the red silk number was pinned to its hanger.
With a sigh, she slipped it off the hooks and over her head. It skimmed her skin like a whisper. And a short-sleeved shirt would provide a little cover, hiding the obvious fact that she was wearing very little under the dress. She slipped her feet into high heels and groaned. Between the still-sore gash on her right foot and her sunburned soles, her feet hadn't fared much better than the rest of her.
Here she had little choice. She had her heels, her running shoes, and her flip-flops. The heels it would have to be. Jeremy said the restaurant was just a few blocks away. She should be fine. And if her feet hurt when she got there, she could slip her shoes off and no one would be the wiser.
Jeremy did a triple take when Jody answered the door. The red silk dress was soft and alluring, feminine yet sexy.
It was also the same color as her face. And her arms. And every other inch of skin that wasn't covered.
They stopped at the corner across from the motel, waiting for the light to turn green so that they could cross. Jeremy's eyes narrowed and he leaned forward. Were those blisters on her nose?
Jody, meanwhile, was trying to ignore the fact that her skin felt like glowing embers and her lips felt as if they were beginning to swell. Inside the high heels, her feet protested every step.
"Jody, that burn looks really painful."
"It is." She bit her bottom lip.
"Did you put something on it?" He touched her arm and she flinched.
"I didn't have anything in my room. I didn't expect to be stupid enough to have something like this happen. I thought we'd stop at the drugstore on the way back and pick up something for sunburn. I'll bet they see lots of sunburn down here."
"Are you sure you want to go out to dinner?" he asked.
Jody nodded. "I'll be fine."
She hoped she'd be fine. She would be fine. She'd waited a life time for a man like Jeremy. She'd have to be fine.
There would be a twenty-five-minute wait for a table, they were told when they entered the restaurant.
"Want to wait at the bar?" Jeremy asked. "It looks as if there are a few stools left there on the end."
"Sure." Jody took Jeremy's hand, and leaned heavily on it as he helped her onto the tall, high-backed bar stool.
Jody leaned against the hard wooden back, then shot forward with a lurch.
"Jody, are you sure you're all right?"
"My back is a little sensitive, that's all." And the soles of my feet are on fire, and my thighs are melting under my skirt. Other than that, I'm perfectly fine.
Jody bit her bottom lip, wondering if she'd be able to sit through an entire meal without spontaneously combusting. Unconsciously, she ran a knuckle across her chin.
Jeremy took her hand away and peered closer. "Jody," he told her, "your face is starting to blister."
"Damn, are you serious?"
He leaned closer still.
"I think your nose is blistering." He traced her lips with one gentle finger. "And it looks like your bottom lip is swelling."
She searched in her handbag for a mirror. Finding a compact, she opened it and found herself peering at a creature with lips as big as saucers and bubbling blisters rising up on her face like tiny volcanoes.
"Oh, no!" she cried. "Look at me! My whole face is starting to swell up!"
"Calm down, Jody, it isn't that-"
"I look like I've had a run-in with killer bees!" She held both hands in front of her face, as if to shield what she perceived as a hideous visage. "Jeremy, look at my lip. I look grotesque."
Jeremy tilted her face to the light. It wasn't his imagination. The blisters were getting larger. Visibly larger.
"Look, how about if we skip dinner, and well go find a drugstore right now and we'll get something to take the sting out."
"There's a pharmacy two blocks in that direction." She pointed in the opposite direction from the motel. "I saw it on Saturday."
"Okay, so well walk..." He paused. She was clearly on the verge of tears. "What?"
"I can't walk two blocks. I'll be lucky to make it back to the motel," she told him miserably. "The soles of both my feet are burned."
"Okay, then, I'll go to the drugstore. You wait right here. I'll be right back." Jeremy signaled to the bartender. "Another dub soda-lots of ice, please."
He turned to Jody and said, "Keep sipping the soda and let the ice rest against your lips. It'll help a little."
She nodded and watched him disappear through the crowd around the front door.
Was this the worst luck in the world? She couldn't recall ever having had a sunburn this bad. It hurt to move. Her feet hurt unmercifully.
And here she was, with the most incredible man in the world. If he touched her tonight, she'd die of pain. If he didn't, she'd die of regret. She prayed he'd find something mighty potent at that drugstore, a wonder drug that could totally anesthetize only the nerves that controlled pain while leaving the pleasure center intact...
Within minutes, Jeremy was striding back into the bar, a plastic bag bearing the name of a chain drugstore swinging from his left hand.
"Aloe," he told her, holding up the bag. "How do you feel?"
"Like I stood too close to a volcano," she told him, adding, "and at the same time, I'm freezing from the air-conditioning."
Jeremy took off his jacket and slid it gently over her shoulders. "Is that better?"
"A little. Thank you." She shifted slightly in her seat. The movement left her slightly nauseated.
"Jody, do you want to leave?"
"I just don't feel very well all of a sudden. I'm sorry."
"Stomach queasy?"
She nodded.
"You might have sun poisoning. Let's get you back to the motel and take care of that burn."
"I can wait till you've eaten."
"No, I don't think you can."
"But, Jeremy-"
"No buts. Let's go." He offered her his hand to help her down from the stool, and she took it gratefully.
She picked her way slowly through the crowd on her screaming feet. Once outside, she removed her shoes and took the steps at a snail's pace.
"You look like you're having a hard time there. Feet really hurt, do they?"
She nodded her head.
"Here," Jeremy started to put his arms around her as if to lift her. "I'll carry you."
"No, don't pick me up." She backed away from him. "My sides, my back, my hips... anyplace that you would have to touch me to carry me is screaming right now. I think I can make it if I walk sort of on the sides of my feet."
"All right, then, let's get you back to your room and cover you in aloe."
The one-block walk back to the motel seemed endless.
"Jody," Jeremy said as he closed the door to her room behind them, "you're going to have to get out of that dress."
"Somehow, that sounded better last night," she tried to joke about her situation.
"And it will again in a few days," he kissed the side of her swollen mouth with great tenderness. "But right now, we have to take care of this burn."
"I'll put my bathing suit back on," she told him.
She ducked into the bathroom and closed the door, leaving Jeremy holding a bag of aloe gel. She emerged a few minutes later, the bikini covering the vital parts but little else.
Jeremy sighed. That sweet body he'd loved the night before-that perfect body that had seemed to fit his like a glove-was fried to a crisp.
"So," she said, clearing her throat nervously. She'd dreamed all day of having those skillful hands of his caressing her body again, but she'd been hoping for a more pleasurable experience than she was bound for this time around. "Should I just stand here and you can pour that stuff on my back?"
"No, I think you need to get a towel and spread it across the bed. Then you can lie on the towel, and I'll pour the aloe on. You're already blistering in places. I'll just keep reapplying it."
Nodding without looking him in the eyes, Jody retrieved a bath towel from the bathroom and spread it on the bed, then painstakingly lowered herself onto it, face down.
Lord have mercy. This was Jeremy's best fantasy and worst nightmare.
So near, he sighed, yet so far.
"Maybe you should start with my shoulders."
Jeremy poured the cool gel into the palm of one hand and gently began to apply it to her shoulder blades.
"Sorry," he told her when she flinched.
"It's just that it's cold. Keep going."
He poured a little aloe directly onto each of her shoulders and smoothed it as kindly as he could down into the small of her back.
"How does that feel?" he asked.
"It's still cold, and my skin's still hot."
Jeremy spread a little over the tops of her hips and she groaned again.
"Want me to stop?"
"No."
He peered at her shoulders. The gel he'd applied had totally soaked into her skin. He reapplied the cooling substance over the entire area.
Jeremy dribbled a few drops of aloe across the backs of her legs, then gently began to rub it in. Jody moaned, and his mouth went dry. Torture. Sheer torture.
"Don't worry-the aloe should help a lot. My grandmother was a great believer in natural remedies. When we were little, it was aloe for sunburn, poison ivy, any skin abrasion, really."
"Who's we?"
His mouth went a little drier as he pondered an answer.
"My brother and I."
"You have a brother?"
He paused before responding.
"I had a younger brother," he said softly.
" 'Had'?" She shifted onto her elbows and looked over her shoulder. "What happened?"
"He died a long time ago."
"Oh, Jeremy, I'm so sorry..." She made a movement to turn over and he stopped her from facing him. He just couldn't go into it right then.
"It was a long time ago," he repeated. "Anyway, my grandmother had no faith in modern medicine. Saw a doctor once in her life, when she had pneumonia and my aunt took her to the hospital. As luck would have it, she picked up an infection while she was there and it killed her. She was eighty-seven and didn't look a day over sixty-five. Never used anything but aloe on her skin."
"Oh, well, then. Pour away. I wouldn't mind looking a few years younger."
"If you looked any younger, I'd be arrested for what I'm thinking."
She laughed for the first time since he had arrived at her hotel room earlier in the evening, and he realized then how much he had missed the sound of her laughter. In that minute he knew he would do whatever it took to drive away her pain and bring that smile back to her face.
"Are you feeling better?" he asked.
"A little. My back and shoulders aren't quite as tight."
"Good." Jeremy dribbled a bit down the back of her leg to the calf, and she shivered under it. With sure hands, he rubbed the colorless remedy into the skin, marveling at the strength and shape of the legs right there under his nose.
Purgatory, he thought. This must be what purgatory is like.
"Okay. Flip side." He tried to force a lightness he did not feel into his voice. How to touch her and not want to make love to her again?
"I think I can take it from here." Jody rolled over and sat up. "Thank you, Jeremy. I'm beginning to feel less like a burnt offering and more like a human being."
He didn't bother to protest.
"I'll just do your shoulders and your face," he told her, "and you can do... well, you can do the rest of you."
He watched silently as she eased the liquid onto her arms, onto her chest, onto her abdomen. She had just reached her hips when he decided he couldn't watch anymore.
"I'm going to run back to my room to get a few things," he told her. "And I'm going to stop in the restaurant and pick up some cool drinks, some ice, and some hot water and tea bags, then I'll be back."
"What's the tea for?"
"Are you aware that your eyes are half closed? If we don't do something tonight, they might be swollen shut by tomorrow morning. We may be able to avoid that if we pack tea bags on your eyes now. And I'm going to stop back at the drugstore. One bottle of aloe is not going to be enough."
He paused, looking down at her, then added, "I'm not sure that we shouldn't make a trip to the nearest emergency room."
"For a little sunburn? No, I'll be fine tomorrow. But Jeremy, you don't have to stay here tonight," she told him, although she wished that he would. "I'm afraid I'm not much company."
"I promise to let you make it up to me." He kissed the top of her head, about the only spot on her body that wasn't glistening with aloe.
"You're very good to me, Jeremy." She watched, through swollen eyelids, as he unlocked the door.
"You have no idea of how good I intend to be to you. But first, let's see what we can do about this sunburn."
The note on the pillow read, Gone for coffee. Be back in 5.
Jody sat on the edge of the king-sized bed and wondered how she could avoid letting him back in.
Despite the fact that her face had been lathered with aloe all through the night, her mouth was still swollen, her chin was still blistered, and her eyelids, while not swollen shut, were puffed. She'd shrieked when she'd caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. How could she face Jeremy with her face so distorted?
The doorknob rattled and she ducked under the pillow. There was no way he was going to see just how ugly she was.
"Jody?" he asked softly.
"Go away," she grumbled miserably into the mattress.
"Jody, what's wrong?"
"I look like a ghoul. I'm not leaving this room. Ever. Go away."
"Sooner or later, you're going to get pretty hungry, you know."
"Promise me that, if I starve to death, you'll make them cover my face before they bring the body out."
"Jody, it's not as bad as all that."
"Yes, it is. I thought you said that the aloe would fix it."
"I said the aloe would help it heal. If your skin was already badly burned, it can't reverse that. What it can do is help it to heal quickly. Open the door," he said patiently.
"No. I can't let you see me like this, Jeremy."
"I already did."
"You didn't!"
"Sorry, but you were right there, next to me in the bed when I woke up this morning."
Jody got out of bed and padded on bare feet to the door to let him in.
Jeremy placed the bag down on the dresser and began to unload its contents. "Coffee, orange juice, an English muffin, and some cantaloupe."
"Jeremy, this is very sweet of you," she said, trying to keep her head down.
Was it possible to eat with your head at such an angle? How did one drink coffee without raising one's head?
With the fingers of one hand he tilted her face up to his. When she tried to turn away, he stopped her, saying, "We might as well get this over with now." He peered closely. "My, my, those blisters are really impressive. And I didn't expect that the swelling would be quite so bad this morning; too bad we didn't get the aloe on earlier."
She pulled away and averted her eyes.
"The blisters will heal, Jody, and with any luck, the swelling will be down by the end of the day," he told her gently, hoping he was right.
"I look hideous."
"If you say so." He turned his back and opened one of the bags. Handing her a cup of coffee, he asked, "Would you rather have breakfast out by the pool? There are a few tables in the shade, so you won't have to worry about getting more sun."
She put the cup down, wanting to protest. She'd never felt uglier in her life. But here was Jeremy, holding out his hand to her.
"I can't believe you'd want to be seen in public with me."
He shook his head. She was, in his eyes, beautiful, the blisters and puffy eyes inconsequential. How did you make a woman understand a thing like that?
"And I hurt. I really hurt." Tears welled in her eyes. "I never knew that sunburn could hurt so much."
"Jody, if you are still in that much pain, I think you should go to the nearest hospital."
"Jeremy, this is sunburn. I'd feel like an idiot going to the hospital for sunburn."
"You'll feel like a bigger idiot if you get really sick, Jody. And people do get really sick from sunburn. You could have sun poisoning."
She sat up and looked at him through slightly swollen eyelids.
"I really think you should let me take you."
Reluctantly, and with the greatest of care, Jody swung her legs over the side of the bed. She gathered elastic-waist shorts and an old, oversized tee-shirt from her suitcase, and walked to the bathroom.
As she closed the door, she said over one shoulder, "Just give me five minutes to get dressed."
The day was overcast, the fog thick as they went from her room to his car, and Jody was thankful for the fact that she needn't fight the sun's rays that morning. She slid cautiously into Jeremy's car, wincing as her sensitive thighs met the leather seat.
They followed the signs for Island Memorial Hospital, just four blocks away. As the sedan rounded the corner to the emergency room entrance, shrill sirens split the morning calm, and Jeremy stopped to allow an ambulance to precede him into the parking lot. He pulled into the nearest parking spot just as the first ambulance was followed by a second, then a third.
"What do you suppose that's all about?" Jody shifted in her seat to watch the last of the ambulances pull into the line that had formed at the doorway to the emergency room.
"Stay here," Jeremy told her, "and I'll find out."
He was back in minutes, his face white.
"There's been a really bad accident out on the Garden State Parkway. A tractor trailer jackknifed, and there was a six-car pileup because of the fog. Apparently there were a lot of severe injuries. You can't get near the emergency room right now. I think there's another hospital farther up the coast, though. We can try that one."
"I'll bet they're jammed, too. There are only three ambulances here, Jeremy. There must be others on their way to every hospital within miles." She nodded her head in the direction of the ambulances that were lined up, and the flurry of activity that had erupted. "Compared to that, a little sunburn seems pretty insignificant."
"Jody, what you have is more than just a little sunburn."
"There's no way that I would expect anyone to tend to me in the midst of what those people must be going through. Let's just go back to the motel, Jeremy, and try a little more aloe." Jody shifted uncomfortably in her seat and tried to smile.
One possibility nagged Jeremy all the way back to her motel room.
It nagged him as he watched Jody walk across the room on swollen feet and smile at him ruefully as she eased onto the side of the bed.
It nagged him as he watched Jody try to sip coffee between swollen lips, and his insides twisted, knowing that she was in pain.
It nagged him as he bit his bottom lip pensively, knowing he had a choice to make, right here and now. Jeremy had hoped that the visit to the hospital would have provided relief for her discomfort, but now, with the hospital personnel concentrating on patients with more immediate, more critical concerns, Jeremy had to face the fact that he had one option left.
Help was less than an hour away, if he was man enough to take that one giant step backwards into his past.
His heart turned over in his chest, and he knew that there was, after all, really no choice to be made. She was hurting, and there was only one person that he knew for certain could help her.
Miz Tuesday, the older-than-the-hills healer from deep in the Pines, could heal wounds in a fashion that never left scars. In his youth, Jeremy had seen Miz Tuesday set bones and cure everything from pneumonia to snake bites with concoctions that had been passed down through generations of healers.
Surely, Miz Tuesday could treat Jody's sunburn, could take away her pain.
Assuming, of course, that Miz Tuesday was still alive.
And if his own wounds were opened, well, he would just have to deal with it, as he always had.
The drive was not a long one, but Jeremy was numbly aware of every mile, every turn in the highway. It wasn't until he pulled off the main road onto the first of the more narrow country lanes that his senses began to come alive. Sights and sounds, smells, some long forgotten, all but overwhelmed him. Forced to slow down once he hit the dirt roads, he found himself surrounded by a half-dozen varieties of pine and as many of oak. Here and there he stopped momentarily to look around, but never spoke. Jody sat quietly, watching his eyes, knowing that wherever he was taking her, he was paying a toll that she had yet to understand. She suspected that before the day had ended, she would learn.
We're going into the Pines," she said finally as the forest deepened around them.
"Yes." He nodded.
"There aren't as many trees as I would have thought."
Jody said. "I always imagined the Pines to be thick with trees and densely overgrown."
"Fires are very common here," he said, sounding detached. "Plants that can't adapt, don't survive. That's why there is so little diversity of plant life here. Some are structurally better insulated from heat than others. Some are better adapted genetically to the conditions. Some seeds germinate more quickly when heated or when they raff onto the bare soil left behind after a fire. Some produce root sprouts that grow more quickly after being exposed to intense heat. Several of the pines that thrive here-the pitch pine, for example-have thick bark and can send up new shoots from the base if the top of the tree is killed."
His voice had taken on the flat monotone of a tour guide who had recited his lines a time or two too many, but she let him continue, since talking seemed to be distracting him from whatever it was that he was trying to avoid winking about.
"The hot-air balloon pilot said there were lots of streams back here."
He nodded. "There's a whole network of them farther in, back in the swamps. I used to know the streams like I know the streets in D.C. now. like the back of my hand."
"You grew up back here."
"That's right"
They drove in silence for a very long five minutes.
"How does a boy from the Pines get to go to Princeton?" she asked.
"It's a very long story, Jody," he answered without looking at her.
She was about to ask when he'd be telling her that story, when they rounded a bend in the road that broadened into a clearing, beyond which stood an ancient cabin of wood that seemed to grow out in all directions from a central square.
All Jody could think of was Hansel and Gretel.
Jeremy stared ahead at the cabin for a long, quiet time, his left hand on the door handle. Jody kept waiting For him to open the door, but he did not. Finally, from around the side of the cabin, an old woman appeared, her Brillo-like gray hair partially hidden by the dark blue scarf around her head. A faded brown dress that must have had a belt at one time hung on her slight frame. She leaned on a thick walking stick of white birch.
Jody's eyes widened. Hansel and Gretel indeed!
Upon seeing the car, she stopped and stared intently at them, her eyes seeming to dismiss Jody's presence as she appeared to focus solely on Jeremy.
"Who is that?" Jody whispered.
"That's Miz Tuesday," he said softly.
"Miz Tuesday?" she repeated.
"My stepfather's great-grandmother." Jeremy pushed open the car door and stepped out without waiting for Jody and walked slowly to where the old woman stood.
Jody opened her own door, and forgetting the bubbly appearance of her face, followed behind.
"Jeremy." The old woman said. " Jeremy."
He nodded slowly, and they eyed each other without speaking.
" 'Bout time." The old woman turned toward the house and pointed the stick in Jody's direction without turning to look at her. "Bring your friend."
Jody touched Jeremy's arm. He looked back over his shoulder at her and said, "She hasn't changed in sixteen years. She hasn't changed at all."
"Are we going inside?"
"Yes."
He held the door for Jody, and she stepped into a darkened parlor. The shapes of furniture loomed here and there around her, but there was no light. Jeremy led her through the dim room into the kitchen, where the light was only slightly better.
"Miz Tuesday, this is my friend, Jody Beckett." Jeremy said as they crossed the worn threshold.
The old woman nodded to acknowledge the introduction but did not turn around.
"I'm makin' you a dish of tea." The old woman told them as she placed a few short pieces of wood into the big woodstove that dominated one whole wall. Thanks, Miz Tuesday."
She nodded that they were welcome.
"You ever get electricity, Miz Tuesday?" Jeremy asked.
"You been away a long time." She turned and smiled slyly. "Even stump jumpers got elec-tricity these days."
Jeremy laughed for the first time that day.
"How've you been, Miz Tuesday?" Jeremy's face softened as he watched the old woman fill a teakettle with water from the spigot of an old porcelain sink.
She nodded her head briskly. "Pretty middlin' smart."
"I'm glad to hear that."
The old woman pointed to the wooden chairs that sat around the old round table in a corner of the room.
"Set there," she told them as she cleaned the dust from mismatched teacups, long unused, and placed them on the table.
He sat where he was told to and said, "You haven't changed much, Miz Tuesday."
"Not much do back here." She nodded. "Roads been science'd, some 'em. 'Bout all. You bein' a Clam Towner, wouldn't know."
"I don't live in Tuckerton anymore," Jeremy told her. "I haven't lived there in a long time."
"Then where?"
"Outside of Washington, D.C."
Her eyes widened. "All that far?"
He nodded.
"Lotsa folks going from here, but me, I beant going nowhere." She sat and leaned back in her chair. 'Our Martha, she bent down to Mays Landing, and her son John, he bent all the way to Trenton, to a school to learn to be a teacher. I always figured him for a weighty man. like you, Jeremy Noble. You grown up to be a weighty man? A schoolteacher? A bookkeeper, maybe?"
"I'm an investigator. I don't know that what I do makes me 'weighty,' Miz Tuesday, but I guess sometimes you have to be smart enough to find people who don't want to be found."
Her eyes narrowed and she studied his face.
After a long minute, she turned and leaned over to cup Jody's face in her hand.
"You're here for a curin'," she said, and underneath her sunburn, Jody blushed.
Drawn in by the unknown drama unfolding around her, she had forgotten just how awful she looked.
Self-consciousry, Jody raised a hand to cover the blisters on her chin.
"Aloe." Miz Tuesday pronounced.
"Tried that."
"Where'd you find aloe in D.C.?" She pronounced the letters as if they were in quotation marks.
"Not in D.C. In Ocean Point. In the drugstore."
" Boughten?" She raised her eyebrows. "From a store?"
"Yes. They sell it in bottles."
"Fancy that." She shook her head. "Next thing you'll be saying they sell turpentine and Jersey lightnin' too."
Jeremy laughed.
Miz Tuesday stood up and went to a cabinet that hung from the wall next to the stove.
"Turpentine and Jersey lightnin'?" Jody whispered. "And what the hell's a 'stump jumper'?"
"Stump jumpers are the backwoodsmen." He grinned. "Turpentine, in one form or another, has been the traditional treatment of choice here in the Pines for any number of conditions. And there are some that maintain that Jersey lightnin'-homemade applejack whiskey-can cure just about anything. If, of course, it doesn't kill you."
Miz Tuesday shuffled back to the table with several small vials in her hand. After reinspecting Jody's face, she turned her attention to the shoulder burns, then to those on her chest. She nodded to herself, then went to the sink, refilled the teapot, and turned the burner back on.
"First thing you need is to get out of that dress. Then you soak in the tub in flower water..."
"Flower water?" Jody mouthed the words silently.
"... then you have salve, then later, some pure aloe." Miz Tuesday gestured for Jody to follow her through a doorway to the right, muttering under her breath, "Boughten aloe. Hmmph!"
"Jeremy, you can cut me some short pieces for my woodstove.' She pointed to a woodpile about ten feet from the back door. "And you can stack 'em right here, near the door."
"Yes, ma'am," Jeremy stood, an amused expression on his face. The lost look he'd had all day seemed to have faded slightly.
"I'll be findin' you an old something of Martha's to put on," Miz Tuesday was telling Jody. "The marigolds might stain your clothes."
' Marigolds?" Jody asked.
"In the flower water." Jeremy heard the old woman say as she closed the door behind them, shutting Jeremy out and leaving him alone here for the first time since he was fifteen years old.
Miz Tuesday wasn't the only thing that had not changed. The old cabin remained exactly as he remembered it. One room had been tacked on to another until the small house was five or six rooms deep or wide. The room where Miz Tuesday had taken Jody had been added two years before Jeremy left, and boasted an old claw-foot tub that John, Jeremy's stepfather, had salvaged from a boardinghouse that had been torn down in Waretown. Jeremy could dose his eyes and recall every detail of the day they had brought that tub into this house. It had taken six of them to carry it in and put it in its place in the newly constructed room off the kitchen. Miz Tuesday had been very pleased with her new bathroom.
He walked to the back door and looked through the carefully mended screen to the small herb garden a step or two to the left, around what they called the door yard back here in the Pines. He pushed the door open and walked outside and drew in a deep breath. The overwhelming scent was, well, pine. Oh, there were flowers that grew wild in the nutrient-poor sandy soil-mountain laurel and wild indigo, sweet goldenrod and goat's rue, and farther down along the waterways, sweet pep-perbush with its fragrant white flowers. But it was pine, above all, that saturated the air. The smell of it brought back a flood of memories from a lifetime ago.
A trail worn in the gray sand parted the shrubs and wound deep into the forest, and without choosing to do so, Jeremy followed it to its end, three quarters ofa mile away.
"Now, what's this?" Jody sniffed at the fragrant lotion that Miz Tuesday was applying to the blisters on her shoulders. The bath had been pleasant enough, and she could almost feel the blisters begin to shrivel under Miz Tuesday's gentle ministrations.
"Flax seed, plantain, maybe. Red clover. Some others. Maybe."
"Maybe?" Jody raised a questioning eyebrow.
Miz Tuesday shrugged. "Sometimes one, sometimes another."
"Umm, not that I doubt that you know what you're doing, of course," Jody looked down at the pale yellow tincture that was being smeared onto her shoulders, then held still while Miz Tuesday patted some on the blisters on her face and tried to be tactful. "But shouldn't it not vary?"
Miz Tuesday just smiled and held up a worn cotton shift.
"This won't rub on your blisters."
"Thank you." Jody took the dress, in style akin to a hospital gown without the back opening, and slipped it over her head. "I really do feel better, Miz Tuesday. Thank you."
"He be the one that bringed you."
Miz Tuesday opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. She was not surprised to find the house empty, nor did she expect to find Jeremy still chopping wood. Neither did she wonder where he had gone. She knew.
He was, in her opinion, long overdue.
Jody watched the old woman return her vials of herbs to the cupboard and asked, "Miz Tuesday, how do you know what herbs to use for what ailments?"
"You just know, sometimes." She shrugged. "My mother and her mother and her mother were healers. They taught me as they did."
"Is that what you are, a healer? Like a doctor?"
Miz Tuesday shook her head. "I don't know about doctors. But I can heal, all right."
Jody was about to ask if Miz Tuesday grew all of her own plants when she glanced out the back window and realized that Jeremy wasn't there.
"Where do you suppose Jeremy went?"
Miz Tuesday rinsed out the small bowls she had used to mix her lotions and debated whether or not to tell her. How might Jeremy feel, after all these years, once he arrived at the end of the path?
She watched Jody out of the corner of a cloudy eye. The young woman must mean a great deal to Jeremy. After all, it was only to seek help for her that he had, finally, come back. Once here, he would deal with all that had been left behind, Miz Tuesday was certain.
She turned to Jody and said, "There's a path through the woods there, out back. It ends in a clearing. He's there."
"And if he's not?"
"Follow the path back here."
But there he'd be, she could have added, watching Jody cross the yard.
The forest spread out indefinitely on either side of the narrow path that was little more than a sandy trail. The trees themselves were spaced somewhat far apart, but the dense shrub layer below made it difficult to see beyond several feet off the trail. Feeling a bit uneasy in the unfamiliar surroundings, Jody picked her way quietly on sandaled feet, wondering if maybe she should have waited at the cabin for Jeremy instead of setting out through the woods like Red Riding Hood.
And she wondered, too, if maybe she should have stolen a peek in that old mirror hanging over the sink in Miz Tuesday's bathroom before going out to find Jeremy. Lord knew just how bad she might look, in the cotton shift, her hair pulled up in an elastic, and her face dotted with Miz Tuesday's ointment, which was, gratefully, pale in color and hopefully would not eat the skin off her face.
Jody had sensed a change in Jeremy the minute they had crossed Miz Tuesday's threshold, a quiet resignation, as if he'd finally exhaled a breath he'd been holding for a long, long time. There was no question that something here was the key to doors that were long ago locked, and instinctively, Jody knew that, if they were to share more than a few fun-filled days at the beach together, Jeremy would not only have to unlock those doors himself, he'd have to share whatever waited behind them with her. She wondered if he could.
The path ended abruptly, and the gray sand with its sparse covering of poor grass spread out around her in a wide clearing mat bore signs of fire from sometime in the past. Fifty or so feet away from the charred remains of a house, Jeremy sat, still as a stone, his back against a fallen log. From the end of the path, Jody waited and watched for some movement on his part, but he appeared to be in a trance.
Jody walked to the log and sat behind him, wrapped her arms around him protectively, and waited.
Finally, he said, "There's nothing left."
"What was here before, Jeremy?"
"My home. My mother. My brother. My stepfather."
"Did you lose them in a fire?"
"If I'd been home that night, I could have saved them."
"How do you know that you wouldn't have been trapped inside with them?"
"I could have saved them," he repeated sadly. "There was no one here to save them."
He leaned back against her, and let her rock him gently, side to side, and he told her what had happened that night, long ago, how he had left home a cocky fifteen-year-old hell-bent on enjoying a wild Fourth of July at the beach with his friends, how he had returned to find that his world had been destroyed and replaced by a nightmare of flames and smoke.
Then, abruptly, he fell silent. It had been so long since he had put his memories into words that he seemed stunned by them.
"Then what happened, Jeremy?" Jody asked to draw him back. "After the fire, where did you go? Where did you stay?"
"I went to live with my aunt-my father's sister-and her family in Tuckerton."
"What happened to your father?"
"He was killed in a boating accident when I was two. My mother remarried about three years later. My stepfather had lived in the Pines all his life. When he was growing up, he picked blueberries in the summer, harvested cranberries in the fall. And he carved decoys-ducks, geese, loons. Mostly, he supported his family by building Barnegat sneakboxes-small rowboats that he'd sell to hunters or fishermen-but he was a real artisan when it came to carving. His decoys were in great demand, the colors and the carvings were so exacting, so beautiful. Whenever I think about him, I remember that he worked very hard. And that he loved my mother very, very much." He cleared his throat, then continued. "Anyway, my aunt had married a high school teacher. They had a son my age, T.J.-"
"Your partner."
"Yes. We'd been close since we were little kids. After I moved in with them, we grew even closer. My aunt never forced me to come back here, and I never did."
"Jeremy, I'm so sorry."
His right hand dragged through his hair. "They never did determine what caused the fire. I have relived every detail of that night a thousand times in my head, trying to piece it together, trying to figure out just what happened. I never really did. Not even after several years of investigative training."
"You mean, training to become a private investigator?"
"No, I mean when I joined the FBI."
"You were in the FBI?" Jody hadn't meant to let her jaw drop, but there it was, almost to her chest.
"I was recruited right out of Princeton."
"May I ask how you managed to get there?"
"T.J.'s father's brother was one of the assistant football coaches there. He came to watch T.J. and me play several times in high school. Our grades were very good, our SAT's were high... and we both applied. I didn't expect to get in, but..." He shrugged. "Anyway, we both graduated and we both joined the FBI."
"This must have haunted you, all these years." Jody said softly.
He nodded. "Every day. I think about it every day."
"But you never came back."
He shook his head. "There really was nothing here for me, Jody, other than some very painful memories. I never wanted to stand in this spot again."
"But you're standing here now."
"You needed Miz Tuesday," he said simply.
He had traded her pain for his own, pure and simple. The knowledge of how much he had paid for Miz Tuesday's floral bath and herbal ointment all but knocked the wind from her lungs. Jody sat back down on the fallen log and waited while he poked here and there about the remains of the house. She watched as he sifted through ashes in the fireplace that stood along what had once been an outside wall. Occasionally he would pick something up and examine it, sometimes pocketing whatever it was that he found, but most often just dropping the object where he'd found it
Finally, after close to an hour had passed, he looked over to where she sat and said, "There just isn't anything here, Jody."
She went to him and took his hand. "Well, at least you finally came back, Jeremy. You can't tell me that you're not glad to be back."
"No. I can't say that I'm not" He sighed and looked overhead to the tall pines that stretched above him. "I never realized how much I still miss this place. I never imagined how much like home it would feel, how familiar it all would be even after so many years."
A bird trilled melodically from a nearby branch, bringing a smile to his face. "That's a pine warbler. I haven't heard one in years."
Jody looked up and followed the small buff-yellow bird as it hopped from branch to branch overhead.
"Are you ready to go back to Miz Tuesday's?" she asked.
Jeremy nodded and took the hand she held out to him. "I guess I should have prepared you for her."
Jody smiled. "I don't know how you could prepare anyone for Miz Tuesday."
She's one of a kind, all right How does the sunburn feel?"
"Much, much better." Jody shook her head. "I don't really know what was in the bathwater, and I'm not sure about what's in the ointment I almost think I'm better off not knowing. But whatever it is, it's taken the fire out of my skin, and I've all but forgotten that I have blisters."
He peered down at her. "They haven't disappeared," he told her, "but they do seem to be drying up a little."
"Maybe I'll get lucky and they won't scar," she said as they walked from the clearing to the path without having decided to do so.
"Well, that was the whole idea."
"You're quite a man, Jeremy Noble," she told him when they had reached the edge of the path and he had stopped to look back at the remains of his childhood home. "I know it wasn't easy, coming back here. I'll never forget that you did this for me."
Jody leaned up and kissed him very lightly on the tip of his chin. It was the best her swollen lips could do at the time. She would, she promised herself, make it up to him later. As often as he would let her.
"How old do you suppose Miz Tuesday is?" Jody asked as they followed the path through the woods.
"Oh, over one hundred."
"You think Miz Tuesday is more than one hundred years old?"
"Sure. I know she is. She was old when I first met her. Old the last time I saw her. And she'll live forever." He grinned. "Everyone in the Pines knows that."
"She's pretty savvy for a woman that old."
"Miz Tuesday is savvy for a woman of any age," he assured her. "I've never met anyone like her. She's a legend around here, you know. When I was little, there was a story going around about how she fought the Jersey Devil over in the cedar swamp and won."
Jody laughed. "Who's the Jersey Devil?"
"Not 'who,' darlin,' what. According to local legend, a Mrs. Leeds, who lived somewhere in Atlantic County-the exact whereabouts depends on who is telling the story-had twelve children. When she learned that she was expecting yet another child, she was said to have proclaimed angrily, 'I hope this one is a devil.' And sure enough, she got her wish."
"She gave birth to a baby devil?"
"So they say."
"And what exactly does this 'devil' look like?"
"Let's see, I think it had the face of a horse-with horns, of course-and a body that sort of resembles a kangaroo. Wings, like a bird. Cloven feet, like a pig. A forked tail."
"And how big is this thing? Just so I don't confuse it with any other horse-pig-bird-kangaroo."
"Well, that, too, depends on..."
"... who's telling the story. Gotcha." She laughed. "And people claim to have seen this thing."
"On and off for the past two hundred years."
"Must have been that Jersey lightnin'."
Jeremy laughed and squeezed her hand.
"What's Miz Tuesday's real name?"
"That is her name, as far as I know," he said as they came to the end of the path, where the subject of their conversation was leaning into her garden and gathering a blossom here, a leaf or two there. "I've never heard her referred to any other way."
"You find what you were looking for, boy?" the old woman asked without turning around.
"I think so," Jeremy told her.
She continued clipping her plants. "Then you'll be going. I'll be giving her"-she nodded in Jody's direction-"some for her bath, some for to keep on the blisters."
"Thank you, Miz Tuesday." Jeremy said softly.
"You won't stay away as long next time. You'll be back twice before Christmas," she told him.
"Will I, now?"
"Yes. The second time, she'll be with you." Miz Tuesday turned toward her cabin and added slyly, "No scars, she'll have."
"If Miz Tuesday says it's so," Jeremy said to Jody as they followed Miz Tuesday down the path of crushed oyster shells, "it's so."
Miz Tuesday handed Jody a small container and said, "This for the blisters. This"-she held up a small bag- "for the bathwater."
"Thank you, Miz Tuesday. I'm very grateful." Jody tucked everything into her shoulder bag. "I don't know how to thank you." Jody reached out to touch the old woman's arm.
"Bring the boy back again." The old woman almost smiled. Just bring the boy back."
The early evening sky had remained cloudy and a bit of a breeze had picked up by the time the Maxima pulled back into the parking lot of the Sea View Motel. Jeremy had been silent for most of the drive back from Miz Tuesday's. Clearly, for him, the trip to his childhood home had been both emotional and cathartic. Jody reached for his hand as they walked to the end of the concrete path that led from the parking lot to the boardwalk. Beyond the nearly deserted beach, choppy waves doused the sand with white foam.
Jody squeezed his hand and asked, "How does a walk on the beach sound?"
He looked off in the distance to where a storm was just beginning to gather and nodded. "I think it's a good day for it."
Jody wasn't sure if he was referring to a walk or to a storm.
"I think I'd like to stop back at my room first and change, though. It was sweet of Miz Tuesday to let me keep Martha's dress, but I think that a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt might be more apropos."
"Mr. Noble," the pretty young desk clerk called to him as they entered the lobby. "A Mr. Dawson has been trying to get in touch with you all day. He said it's urgent that you call him as soon as possible."
'Thank you," he said, then turned to Jody and frowned. "I wonder what that's about. I better stop back at my room and call him."
"I'll go on to my room and change. I'll meet you out by the pool and we can take that walk."
"Okay," Jeremy nodded tersely, already contemplating any number of possible emergencies as he headed up the steps. "I'll see you in a few minutes."
A few minutes turned out to be closer to thirty. Jody was just beginning to think that perhaps she should call Jeremy's room when she looked up and saw him making his way around the pool. In his right hand was his suitcase, in his left, the bag from the shop on the boardwalk where he'd bought T.J.'s tacky gifts.
"Jody, I'm really sorry. I have to leave." His jaw was tight and his eyes guarded.
"Leave?" she repeated.
"There's a case I worked on... something has come up. Sometimes things come up and... I'm sorry, I can't go into detail, but I have to go now." He dropped his bag on the ground and took her into his arms and kissed her.
She stood on her tiptoes and drank him in, savored the curve of his mouth and the taste of his lips.
"I'll call you when it's done." He skimmed the side of her face with his thumb.
"What do you mean, when it's..."
He kissed her again. "I'm sorry, Jody. I can't tell you anything else. I have to go. I promise I'll be in touch as soon as I can."
And in less than the blink of an eye, he was gone.
"Well." She took a deep breath, still trying to understand exactly what had just happened. "That was short and sweet."
Folding her arms across her chest, she stood at the top of the steps leading down to the sand. Only a few souls remained on the beach, and those were now shaking out their towels and blankets and gathering their belongings, heading for the boardwalk, hoping to keep ahead of the tain. Fat plop of water began to pelt the ground, lightning cracked across the ocean, and thunder rattled the sky. Feeling defeated by even the weather, Jody turned back to the hotel and returned to her room.
Dressed in a wide-brimmed hat to shelter her face from the sun, Jody walked the beach close to the wrack line early the next morning. She'd barely slept the night before, wondering if her days with Jeremy had really happened at all. He'd left so unexpectedly, with so little explanation, that she almost felt as if she'd been struck. What could have been so important that he'd leave at the drop of a hat?
Was there really an important job that he needed to tend to?
Maybe he'd just been overwhelmed by his trip back into the Pines and didn't know how to handle it Maybe whatever it was that had been happening between Jody and him seemed, well, insignificant in comparison to standing in the spot where his family had died.
Maybe he just wanted to be alone.
Jody kicked a piece of driftwood and tried to roll a clamshell with her toes. Finding a dry spot on the sand, she sat down and viewed the wreckage left on the sand by the storm the night before. The beach looks the way I feel, she sighed, tossed and confused and devastated.
Overhead a hot-air balloon drifted, and Jody closed her eyes, remembering how it had felt to ride the wind in an oversized basket, wrapped in Jeremy's arms, and to gaze down on the early morning sea.
Maybe some breakfast, she thought, having forgone dinner the night before. After Jeremy left, so had her appetite. She wandered into a small luncheonette on the boardwalk and surveyed the menu, but nothing seemed to appeal. After ordering a coffee to go, she bought a newspaper and took bom in search of an outside table where she could sit and read and stare at the beach; Twenty minutes later, the cardboard coffee cup empty and the paper having been scanned, she dumped both into a nearby receptacle and strolled aimlessly down the boards. She stopped at a newsstand and perused the new paperbacks, but nothing seemed to entice her.
Next, she poked into a series of shops that were just opening for the day, thinking to find souvenirs for Laura and Ally, Laura's daughter, but everything looked the same. Sighing, she kept walking until she found herself at the end of the boardwalk. She followed wooden steps to a sidewalk that led to the main street and walked into town without noticing where she was going.
It was almost noon by the time Jody decided that Ocean Point, without Jeremy, was just another vacation spot, and a very lonely one, at that.
By two, Jody had seen everything there was to see in town. She'd walked to the park and watched young mothers push their little ones on the swings or wait at the bottom of slides to catch the toddlers when they reached the bottom. She'd walked past the house her family had rented, years before, and smiled at the little girl who sat on the front step trying to tie a baby bonnet onto the head of a cooperative dog. Reaching the bay, Jody had gone all the way to the end of the old fishing dock and stood, hands in her pockets, watching the charter boats return from their day at sea. Not knowing what else to do, she sat down on the weathered boards and took off her sandals and dangled her feet over the water. Barnacles grew on the piles of the dock, and if she looked closely enough, she might see a small school of tiny fish darting just under the surface of the water. She just didn't feel like looking for them. She didn't feel like doing much of anything, now that Jeremy was gone.
"I can't even sit in the sun," she grumbled as she rolled down the sleeves of her cotton shirt. "Not until this sunburn heals, anyway."
Jody stood up and slipped her feet back into her sandals. She didn't fish and she didn't crab. She couldn't lie on the beach or swim in the pool. She couldn't do much of anything down here that didn't make her miss
Jeremy. She might as well go back to Bishop's Cove. At least there she had work to do. People to talk to. Things to do.
Might as well, she concluded as she headed back toward the other side of town, thinking that at least she'd had a few good days here.
Who am I kidding? They were great days. Maybe the best days of my entire adult life. Jeremy Noble is the best man I've ever known, and even if I never see him again, I'll never forget...
Unthinkable. She shook her head as she walked along, her pace quickening. That couldn't happen. He said he d call, and he will He will!
There had been too much between them in all too short a time, too much left to explore, too much left unsaid. When he was finished with whatever it was that had taken him away, he'd come back. And he'd know right where to find her.
Certain of it, Jody returned to the motel, packed her bags, and checked out.
"Mommy, will you take me for my dancing lesson now?" Ally, Laura's six-year-old daughter, flew into the kitchen through the back door.
"Is it time already?" Laura frowned.
"Yes. See"-the little girl pointed to the big clock over the stove-"the little hand is on the one, and the big hand is on the twelve."
"So it is, sweetie. Go get your dancing things and meet me out by the car."
Ally cheered and ran like a rabbit up the back steps of the inn.
Laura turned to Jody. "Do you need any help here?"
"No, I'm fine," Jody smiled absently. "Kevin will be here any minute now. He's been a big help. Hiring a couple of students for the summer was a great idea. I don't know why I resisted it for so long."
"Do you have everything you need for dinner? Any last-minute things I can pick up for you?"
Jody grinned, one of the first real smiles Laura had seen since Jody had arrived back at the inn from her vacation several weeks earlier. "I have everything under control, and you know that I always have everything I need before I start to cook."
"Just checking." Laura smiled back.
It was good to see Jody's good humor starting to return. She'd been far too somber when she'd arrived at the inn, several days before Laura had expected her. Jody had sported a wicked sunburn, but Laura couldn't help but think there was more behind Jody's listlessness than a few blisters. Other than to say that her reunion with her friends had been fine, Jody had barely responded to Laura's attempts to discuss it. Whatever had happened during Jody's stay at Ocean Point, it had left her distracted and saddened.
Just the night before, Laura had paused in the kitchen doorway and watched as Jody had chopped onions, constantly wiping her eyes on her sleeves. Somehow, Laura suspected that it was more than the onions that caused Jody's eyes to tear.
And of course, it would have something to do with Jeremy Noble.
That much had been clearly established when Laura asked if she had bumped into Jeremy and Jody had merely nodded in response and changed the subject. Something in her eyes had warned Laura not to pursue it, and so she had not. Still, Laura hated to see Jody so unhappy, and it encouraged her to see a bit of the old Jody flash in that brief smile.
"Mommy, I'm ready!" Ally hopped off the bottom step and, waving to Jody, bounced immediately out the back door.
"Have fun, Ally," Jody called over her shoulder as the screen door slammed.
"We'll be back well before dinner," Laura said as she searched her handbag for her car keys. "Kevin should be here soon."
"Okay." Jody nodded.
The kitchen fell silent except for the hum of the ceiling fan and the chop chop chop of Jody's knife as it ate its way through carrot after carrot. Jody welcomed the quiet, welcomed the solitude. She'd had so little to say to anyone over the past few weeks that it was a relief not to force conversation.
She'd stopped straining her ears to listen every time a phone rang and was answered, stopped thinking that this call would be for her. At a loss to understand why he had left so abruptly in the first place, how he could have forgotten her in three short weeks, Jody tried her best to convince herself to chalk it up as that summer fling she'd never had. It had seemed like so much more than that at the time, but, well, maybe that's how summer romances were. Maybe they all seemed like the real thing.
It was the real thing, she protested. It was.
Well, she sighed, she'd wanted to be swept off her feet, just once in her life, and she had been that. Totally. Completely. Incredibly.
There had been a time when she thought that that would be enough. She had been wrong. One night with Jeremy had not been enough. A lifetime with Jeremy might not be enough...
Jody wiped weepy eyes on the short sleeve of her tee-shirt.
"Hey, Jody," Kevin swung the back door open, startling her. "Since when have we used frozen fish?"
"What?" She frowned.
"Frozen fish." Kevin went straight to the refrigerator, looking, no doubt, for a cold drink. "There's a guy outside, says he's got one hundred and twenty pounds of frozen tuna to deliver."
Jody froze in mid-chop.
"What did you say?"
"I said there's a guy outside with..."
"One hundred twenty pounds of frozen tuna," Jody whispered.
"Yeah."
"One hundred twenty pounds of frozen tuna," Jody repeated.
"Unun... Are you all right, Jody?" Kevin leaned tentatively toward her. Jody's eyes had taken on a strange sort of glow.
"One hundred twenty pounds of frozen tuna!" She ripped the apron off over her head and flew out the back door.
The Maxima was parked next to her old Buick, its trunk standing open and its owner leaning against the driver's door.
"You!" she yelled as she took the steps two at a time. "Where the hell have you been?"
Jeremy stepped forward and caught her in his arms as she hit the bottom step.
"I had a job to do."
"And I suppose there were no phones on this job?" She sought-half-heartedly-to disengage herself.
"No. There were none." He'd taken off his sunglasses, and gray eyes now bore into her own.
"Where were you that there were no phones? There are phones everywhere, Jeremy."
"Have you been watching the news these past few weeks?" he asked patiently, refusing to let her go.
Jody paused.
"Did you watch the news yesterday morning?"
"Yes..."
"What was the big story, yesterday morning?"
These past few weeks the news had been dominated by the kidnapping of a congressman's only son by the boy's mother, who had fled to the Canadian Rockies, taking the child with her. The story had had a happy ending just yesterday, when it was announced that the toddler had been found and returned to his anxious father by Canadian and American law enforcement officers. The rescue team had been led by two unidentified investigators hired by the family to track the child into the wilderness.
"You helped find that little boy," she said softly.
He nodded as he drew her closer. This time, she did not protest.
"I'm very sorry, Jody. I couldn't call. But I came as soon as I could."
"After a quick trip to Ocean Point," she noted, "to pick up your fish."
"Well, yes, but I wanted to drop off some aloe for Miz Tuesday."
" Boughten aloe?" Jody leaned back and stared up at him. "You took boughten aloe to Miz Tuesday?"
"I did."
"What did she think of it?"
"She appeared disdainful at first, but when I told her I'd return it, she wouldn't give it back."
"Was it easier, going back the second time?" Jody asked, watching his face.
"Maybe a bit." He nodded. "There's still a lot I have to work through."
I'll be there with you, every step of the way, she wanted to say. Instead, she merely said, "I'm glad you stopped to see Miz Tuesday."
"So am I. She asked about you. I see the blisters are gone," Jeremy noted as he lowered his mouth to hers for one very satisfying, very long overdue kiss.
"I missed you, Jody. Every day." He kissed her again. "Every night."
"I missed you, too, Jeremy. I was beginning to think that maybe..."
"Don't." He stopped her. "There are no maybe's. I should have explained to you that sometimes I have to go at the drop of a hat, and stay until the job is finished."
"Well, you did say that," she allowed. "I just didn't know that finished could mean weeks."
Jeremy ran his hands up and down her arms, just to feel her skin. She would never know how much he had ached to do just this.
"Do you think Laura has a room for me?" he asked.
"Gosh, I'm sorry." Jody shook her head. "I heard her say just this morning that she was booked to capacity."
"Any thoughts on where I might find a bed for a few nights?"
She slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out her key, which she held up between two fingers before pressing it into the palm of his hand and closing his fingers around it.
"How many nights?" She leaned into him.
"Well, I thought I'd take the rest of that vacation." He bit at her bottom lip. "The one that was cut short a few weeks ago. I was just starting to enjoy myself."
"Some of us might have to work this week. At least, during the day," she reminded him.
"Well, that's okay, since I'll be busy while I'm here."
"Busy with what?" She frowned. "I thought you said you were on vacation."
"Well, it's sort of a working vacation." He leaned back against the car and took her with him. "See, Anna thought it would be a good idea if I..."
"Anna?" Jody frowned.
"The palm reader from the boardwalk." He nuzzled the side of her face.
"You stopped to have your palm read while I was languishing here in Bishop's Cove?" She fought an urge to smack him with one of his own frozen fish.
"Well, she had been right about everything else, about me being near the end of my journey and going home for your sake and all that. I thought she should know that, that she had been right. And I thought I'd see what else she had to say."
"And?"
"She said T.J. and I should think about expanding our business, open another office. She thought a small town on the ocean might be a lucky move."
"Really." Jody grinned. "What else did she tell you?"
"Nothing I didn't already know. That I just couldn't wake up every morning so far away from the woman I love."
"The woman you love..." Jody's eyes went misty.
"Right. Anna told me if I had any sense at all, I'd drive right down here and give you a fitting peace offering."
"You mean the fish? That's your idea of a peace offering?"
Jeremy beamed and nodded happily.
"What ever happened to flowers?" Jody tapped her foot, trying to decide if she was amused or insulted. "Chocolate? Jewelry? What kind of man brings a woman one hundred plus pounds of frozen tuna?"
Jeremy gathered her into his arms. "A man who plans on spending a lot of time with that woman. After all, how long do you think it will take us to eat all that fish?"
"Oh, a long time," she whispered as she lifted her face for his kiss. ' A very long time."
"That's pretty much what I thought," he dipped his head to hers and chuckled. "Besides, how can you argue with a boardwalk psychic?"
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