Fire Works in the Hamptons : A Willow Tate Novel (9781101547649) (21 page)

Then we heard voices—both of us heard them this time—ahead of us where the ditches emptied into the bay along a narrow muddy beach. “Hide!”

How do you visualize the concept of hiding? A kid behind a tree? A burglar in an alley? Nothing I thought of made any sense to beetles in a beeline for their friends. Besides, I was distracted by emoting that I wasn't their mama, either.

The smell got worse as we got near the beach. The voices got louder. The swarm got brighter, and closer. Crap.

There were five or six boats, kayaks, canoes, and small outboards pulled up to the reeds, and a bunch of kids who looked to be high school or college age sitting around a driftwood fire, watching the light show. I could hear one of them wondering if they were under attack. “Should we duck?”

Piet left me and ran ahead. By the time I huffed and puffed onto the mudflats, the fire was extinguished. So were the fireflies. And about fifteen adolescent a-holes were staring at their joints and bongs, wondering where the lights went.

CHAPTER 20

“
H
EY,DUDE, WHAT HAPPENED to the fires?” Piet dropped my knapsack, pulled out a flashlight, and shined it in their faces. He held up the canister with Fire Retardant written on it and some kind of official-looking badge. “Shut down by order of the Commissioner for Public Safety. You know that smell out here? It's flammable. The swamp gas can ignite any second and blow up the whole salt marsh. And the vapors are noxious. Our man at the blockades is already suffering the effects. We're evacuating the area.” He pulled my two water bottles out of the backpack. “We only have this much antidote, so you are in danger. And liable for any damage if your fire ignites the protected area.”

The kids were already scrambling to gather up their gear and shove their boats into the water.

“Don't start your engines until you're fifty feet or more away. Paddle or get out and swim, but don't chance any sparks.”

They splashed off, by the light of a nimbus around the moon.

Piet paced around, kicking the charred driftwood apart and picking up a six-pack the kids had left. “See? The bottle opener will come in handy.”

I couldn't joke. Where were the lanterns? What was the smell? Could we go home now?

I heard engines start, then saw floodlights out on the water. The voice on the bullhorn from the Harbor Patrol boat would be Elgin, harbormaster and the best weatherman in Paumanok Harbor. He could forecast better than the Weather Channel, keep storms away from the Fourth of July parade, and make it rain when the fields and underbrush got dry. I bet Al Roker couldn't do any of that.

“Return to port,” Elgin was shouting to the boats that had come to see the fireworks. “There has been a chemical spill. The vapors are noxious. Repeat, leave this area. Do not breathe.”

Piet laughed. I had to smile, despite being alone out on a five-foot-wide patch of muddy sand, in the dark, miles away from the car, with a foul monster somewhere in the marsh. Then Piet took my hand. I wasn't alone.

He led me to a fallen log where the kids had been sitting, pushed the hood of my raincoat back, and kissed me.

The fireworks were back.

No, those were the stars I was seeing. And the heat I was feeling. And that feeling that I was safe, wanted, lo—No, I was not going there. Or here, not on a damp log with the smell of swamp and beer and grass, the illegal kind.

I pulled back. “What was that for?”

“For wanting to all night. For seeing if you tasted as good as you look in your clown costume. For scaring off your monsters.”

“I don't think we scared anybody but some stoned kids and some curious boaters.” But I wasn't half as fearful now, so maybe he was right. He was definitely a great distracter, and a great kisser. “Now what?”

“Now we wait to see if your friends come back and tell you what they want. If not, we call for the Harbor Patrol boat to come get us so we don't have to trudge those miles back to the car. He'll be standing by in the bay waiting to lower the life raft.”

I could definitely get to love this guy who thought of everything, if I let myself. Since that wasn't in my best interest, I scooted over on the log so we weren't touching. I drank some water. Piet had a beer.

“Call them,” he said.

Easier said than done. I tried picturing a meteor shower headed our way, or a rocket, or the aurora borealis. This wasn't the right time of year for an already rare sighting of the Northern Lights in our area, but they were beautiful, and not so paradoxical if anyone saw them. I thought high, higher than Piet's magic.

He was humming. “Damn, I wish I'd thought of that.” So we both sang, “Glow little glow worm, glow and glimmer.” Neither of us could remember the next line so we hummed. And laughed, since neither of us could carry a tune in a bucket, either.

There they were. That glowing nimbus separated from the moon and drifted our way in shimmering bands of color, high overhead.

“Ooh.” That's all I could say.

Piet stopped singing and let out a long breath of awe. Me, too.

“Well, hello, gorgeous,” I whispered, standing to welcome them, to thank them for putting on a display that almost made me weep for its beauty.

The colors came closer, flickering now like a million tiny candles. “No, don't get any near—”

The lights went out, and I felt like my best friend kicked me. I kicked Piet instead.

“Dial it down. You can do it, I know you can. And without thinking dirty thoughts.”

He closed his eyes and lowered his brow in concentration.

The sky stayed dark. “I tried. It won't work.”

Damn it, I had to take one for the team. I pulled him toward me and locked my mouth to his, and teased his lips with my tongue. I felt warm and tingly and damp. Must be the raincoat, the swamp, and the muddy log. Or the fireflies. They were back, dimmer but still visible, and dancing.

Sure, they loved a good mating ritual.

Piet had his hand on the back of my neck, stroking, caressing, asking for more. Too bad I had more important things to do. “Hold the thought while I try to talk to them.”

To make sure he did, I held his upper thigh, not touching anything crucial, but close enough to have him suck in a breath, knowing I could.

“Okay, guys, talk to me. What's going on here, and what's the smell?”

Oh, boy. Was that the only word they knew? “I am not your mama. I'll be your friend and try to help you get home, but I am not adopting you like a litter of kittens.”

Persistent devils. And trying to tell me what I already suspected. “Your mama is here?”

The bands of color shifted again, this time into wiggly lines and intersecting rows.

“Plaid? A chain-link fence? Is she caught in a fishing net?”

The lights got dimmer as Piet's mind switched to the new puzzle. I squeezed his thigh and moved my hand an inch. Now I could see that one square of the grid was filled with the soft flames. “A map of the drainage ditches! That's what it is, isn't it? And she is there?”

The lines danced across the sky.

“But how will we find her? Show me where we are now, in relation.”

Another box in the map grew brighter, then they all went out.

Damn, my firefighter had the attention span of a flea. I tried to move my hand, but he grabbed it with his. His other hand was holding a stick, drawing the map in the mud at our feet. He kept looking up, as if to check his accuracy, but the more he looked at where the Lucifers were, the less chance they had of being seen. I could hear the whirring of their wings and almost inaudible chitters . . . and Piet's teeth grinding.

“Fly high,” I called, and thought and projected. “He can't help himself.”

And I didn't dare kiss him again or we'd be naked in the mud, putting on a peepshow for the pyro-opters. And maybe Elgin, too.

“It's okay. I think I got it.” Piet had his phone out and switched it to camera mode. The flash went off a couple of times as he changed position. He checked the playback, checked our location.

“It's that way.” He pointed up the beach. “And inland, about a mile, I'd guess, judging from the number of drainage ditches.”

“If the guys can count.”

“They didn't have to count, just copy the pattern they saw below them. They got here, didn't they? So they had the map in their heads.”

“Unless they followed the smell.”

He looked up. “Can insects follow a scent like a bloodhound?”

I had no idea. Bees found flowers, mosquitoes found fresh blood in the dark. “But I think the map points to where we first saw the fireball.”

“Me, too. It should be easy enough to find whatever they've got out there.”

“I think it's their mother.” I didn't want to tell him I heard the word in my head. That was too weird, even for me.

“Bugs have mothers? I know bees have a queen who lays all the eggs, but I never heard of any other colony as big as this”—he pointed up—“with one matriarch. And don't fireflies flash to attract mates?”

“These seem to flash to get our attention. I don't know much else about their social system, but I'm pretty sure their mother is out there, in trouble. Maybe the big fish thing has her, or the swamp creature.”

“We'll know when we follow the map. I think we ought to wait until morning to go looking.”

He'd considered the alternative? Hiking another mile of smelly salt marsh in search of something that could eat us, in the dark? Maybe he'd breathed too much smoke after all. “That sounds good to me. We can get Chief Haversmith to send in the cops and the fire volunteers. Maybe the road crews and the Harbor Patrol guys. They can fan out and—”

“And find the lightning bugs' mother? See what no person on Earth is supposed to? If you call out that many people, the rest of the village will know, besides. They'll want to come see what's lost in the swamp. If you turn them back, they'll want to know more. People like your reporter friend.”

“He's not my friend. And maybe he'll leave.”

“And maybe there won't be anything out there in the daylight. Did you think of that? We never see the fireflies during the day.”

I hadn't thought of anything except getting out of here.

“So what you are saying is . . . ?”

“You and me, kiddo. You and me. By boat, so we can count the openings to the bay. By daylight because it's easier. By night if we don't find anything.”

“I vote for daylight.”

“Good, because I have other plans for tonight.”

Me, too, a hot shower being first on the list. “What are your plans?”

He started to pack up everything we'd brought, plus what the kids had left. “To finish what we started here.”

“To map the wetlands?”

He raised an eyebrow. “To do what we both want.”

“Have an ice cream on the way home?”

He pulled me up off the log and tipped my head back so he could kiss my neck and my eyelids and my cheeks. “This.” He kissed my lips. “And this.” His tongue flirted with mine while his hands left a heated path on my back, my ribs, my breasts. Oh, my.

“And a lot more.”

 

I thought about it—especially the lot more part—on the way home, and while I got Elladaire settled in her crib and took that hot shower. Why not? The whole town assumed we were sleeping together, so why not live down to their expectations? It's not as if I am a virgin or anything, or committed to another man. It's not like I sleep with every chance-met stranger, either, like my cousin. Piet was a partner, a friend. We shared secret knowledge and a trek through the wilderness and really, really hot kisses. Most of all, he made me feel good. I knew he could make me feel a lot better.

Now I had to figure a way to tell him I was willing, without having to say the words. Maybe if I paraded around in my sexiest nightgown he'd get the idea. Which was a great idea, except I didn't have any sexy negligees. I gave them to Susan when I decided not to marry Grant or run off with Ty. Wrap my shower towel around me and ask him to check my back for ticks?

Or maybe I shouldn't go down that path. Not the one with the ticks and spiders and poison ivy, but the one that could leave me aching and hurt and twice as alone.

I didn't have to decide. His beeper sounded, his cell phone chimed, my mother's phone rang, and sirens came tearing up our dirt road.

“I came to get you on my way to town,” Mac shouted from the fire captain's car. “The bowling alley's on fire.”

CHAPTER 21