Firefly Summer (3 page)

C
HAPTER
5

P
iper sat on the mudroom bench, trying to tie her running shoes while Chloe's tail banged against her head. “Hey! You're silly, you know that?” Piper said, pulling her into a hug and making her wiggle even more. “I love you, too,” she whispered, holding her head in her hands and looking into her sweet brown eyes. “Are you ready to go for a run?” Chloe danced around and pushed the screen door open with her nose, making it bang against the house . . . and making Piper wince. “Remind me to fix that later.”

As soon as Chloe got outside, she picked up a stuffed animal that was lying on the porch, gave it an affectionate shake, and began prancing around with it. “I'm sorry, Chlo, but you have to leave Zoe here,” Piper said, eyeing the big floppy toy. Zoe—once a soft, cream-colored stuffed dog with squeakers in her nose and tail—was Chloe's prize possession. When Nat first brought her home, Chloe had immediately fallen in love with her, and ever since then, whenever someone stopped by, Chloe always hurried off to find her beloved stuffed animal and then paraded through the house with her in her mouth, wagging her whole hind end. Unfortunately, Zoe had spent a couple of nights out in the rain and her creamy color had turned a dingy shade of gray. She'd also started to smell a little funky, and in addition to these unpleasantries, her eyes, ears, and squeakers had been surgically removed when no one was looking. Piper didn't have the heart to throw Zoe away, and although Chloe constantly tried to sneak her inside, Zoe was banished to the great outdoors, so whenever Chloe went outside and saw her, she acted as if she'd found a long-lost friend.

“Chlo, leave Zoe here,” Piper repeated firmly and Chloe gently set her down. “Good. Let's go.” Piper started to trot down the driveway, but when she looked back, Chloe had picked her up again. “Leave Zoe,” she commanded, and this time, Chloe set her down for good and trotted after Piper.

Piper glanced back at the house. She'd always loved the lovely Nantucket-style home her parents had left her—as the only unwed daughter, they'd wanted to be sure she always had a place to live—but what Piper loved even more about the house was its location. It was right next to the bike trail and within walking distance of Rock Harbor—one of the best places on the Cape for watching the sun set. In fact, Birdie's husband, David, an ornithology photographer, had often taken a picture of the Quinn sisters every year at Rock Harbor when the sun was setting, and he always teased Birdie, “I'm taking a picture of my big bird today!”

Chloe led the way down the path, and as they neared Bridge Road, sat down and waited for Piper to clip her leash to her collar. The sun was just starting to slip behind the trees, and as they turned toward the harbor, Piper's thoughts drifted to the next day. Nat had called from the marine sanctuary—where they both worked—to tell her there'd been a possible sighting of a loggerhead turtle near First Encounter Beach. He said he'd already been out looking but hadn't seen anything so they'd need to head out first thing in the morning to make sure the turtle—if there was one—wasn't in distress.

Sightings of loggerheads off Cape Cod were rare, but not unheard of—a female, weighing nearly three hundred pounds, had been found on First Encounter Beach two years earlier. Unfortunately, she'd already been in distress for some time—she'd had only one good fin, compromising her ability to swim—and she'd died before they could help her. Twenty years before that, a smaller loggerhead, weighing just a hundred pounds, had washed up onshore in the same area. There were also recordings of leatherbacks—weighing up to seven hundred pounds—in Cape Cod Bay, but the most common turtles in the Bay were Kemp's ridleys, and she and Nat had rescued countless numbers of these smaller sea turtles.

Piper had worked at the Cape Cod Marine Sanctuary ever since she'd interned as a rising senior at the University of New England in Maine. It was during her internship that she first met Nat, the soft-spoken marine biologist, eight years her senior. . .
and
engaged. It hadn't occurred to Piper that Nat might be involved with someone else, and by the time she figured it out, it was too late—she'd already fallen for him.

 

Piper would never forget that first day. Nat had been wearing faded red swim trunks and a snow-white T-shirt, and he was already very tan—even though it was only May. She'd been standing on the dock with the other interns, admiring his sun-streaked chestnut brown hair and carefree demeanor when he looked up and asked if she would hold the turtle he was trying to untangle. Piper had knelt next to him, her heart pounding, and held the turtle—whose legs were churning as fast as they would go—and watched as he carefully snipped the fishing line and gently unraveled it from the little turtle's shell and fin. “Thanks,” he said, smiling at her with slate blue eyes that seemed to see right through her.

“You're welcome,” she said, blushing.

Later that day, when she was heading to her car, he'd called her name. “It
is
Piper, isn't it?”

She'd nodded.

“I don't know if you have time right now, but someone just called in a possible leatherback sighting and I could use a second set of eyes. Want to come along?”

Piper had jumped at the chance, and from that day on, she and Nat had been inseparable. Anytime there was an errand to run, a sighting to check, or a turtle to rescue, Piper had been by Nat's side, learning the hands-on work she'd do—and
love
doing—for the rest of her life, and although she loved every minute she spent with Nat, too, she never told him. Nat, for his part, seemed innocently unaware of her feelings. It wasn't until the end of that summer, when the staff went out for pizza together and Nat drove her back to her car, that she got up the courage to tell him how she felt. They were leaning against the hood of his truck, and she shyly told him she was going to miss him. Nat had put his arm around her, kissed the top of her head, and told her he was going to miss her, too, but then Piper had leaned up and softly kissed him. Nat had pulled away in surprise, but then he'd searched her eyes, and gently kissed her again.

“Are you sure about this?” he murmured when she pulled him against her, and she nodded, and on the last night before she headed back to Maine, the innocent friendship they'd shared all summer spiraled into intimacy.

“Now I'm
really
going to miss you,” Piper murmured, feeling his lingering heat between her legs.

He smiled. “I'm going to miss
you,
too, but you need to focus on your schoolwork and
not
think about me. I'll still be here when you graduate.”

“That's a long time from now.”

“Good things come to those who wait,” he teased.

“Maybe you could come to Maine.”

“I don't have a reason to come to Maine.”

“You could give a talk.”

“That's a nice thought, but I think we'd be asking for trouble.”

“We're already asking for trouble. . . .”

“That's what worries me, Pipe.”

Piper had smiled wistfully, and then he'd pulled her close, kissed the top of her head, and wondered how he'd let it happen.

 

When Piper reached the harbor at the end of Dyer Prince Road, she unclipped Chloe's leash and the big golden raced ahead, loping through the dune grass like a porpoise. Piper followed her down the sandy path, and when she came to the beach, Chloe was standing on the water's edge, waiting. “Okay,” Piper said and Chloe charged into the water.

Piper continued to run along the wet sand, and when she looked back, she saw Chloe, wet and sandy, racing after her. “Oh, no, you don't!” she said, but Chloe raced past, knowing right where, in the tall grass, Piper had hidden a tennis ball. She got there first, picked it up, and pranced around triumphantly. “You beat me,” Piper said, laughing breathlessly, and Chloe dropped the ball at her feet and raced toward the water. Piper picked up the ball and threw it as far as she could, and the golden plowed through the shallows. Time and again, Piper threw the ball, and time and again, Chloe raced after it.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Time to head back,” and the big golden turned on a dime and raced past her. “You are so full of energy tonight. Maybe you should act your age before you hurt yourself,” she said, laughing as the blur of wet fur blasted past her again. Piper trotted along after her wet dog, looked up at the evening sky, blazing with orange and pink streaks, and smiled. “Thank You for
everything,
” she whispered.

C
HAPTER
6

B
irdie sat on the back deck of their old saltbox-style house in Orleans with her sprained ankle up on a chair, watching the birds fluttering back and forth between the scrub pine and the bird feeders. She noticed a flash of bright blue and sat up—an indigo bunting was on the feeder! Indigos were rare on Cape Cod, as were scarlet tanagers and orioles. Birdie opened her laptop, logged in, and entered the sighting—including the date and time—and leaned back to watch. The elusive indigo fluttered down to the birdbath, took a drink, and flew away.

Birdie sighed. “Maybe he'll come back.” She refilled her wine glass and thought about the conversation she'd had with Dr. Sanders that afternoon. She couldn't believe, at this stage of his life, he would start looking for a woman to marry. He was seventy years old, for heaven's sake, and through two-thirds of those years, every single woman in town had tried to get him to go out, but he'd never accepted any of their invitations. She shook her head. He'd also been out of line to imply that she drank too much. She didn't drink nearly as much as some people in their circle, and she could stop anytime she wanted. The only problem she had was that she didn't want to stop. She looked forward to having a glass of wine at the end of the day—it was her way of celebrating, and there was always something to celebrate—a gorgeous sunset, a good book, a thunderstorm, a rare bird sighting, the first snow, finishing her Christmas shopping. The reasons were endless—that's how life was. And having a
bad
day was also a good reason—a glass of wine helped her get over whatever was bothering her.

She took another sip. Even though John denied it, she'd bet anything David had said something to him when they were playing golf that morning. She could just hear her husband:
I'm worried about Birdie
.
She didn't
just
trip on that rug . . . she had a few too many drinks and took a looper!
David never said anything to
her,
though. He didn't have to—she knew what he was thinking. She could feel his eyes watching her whenever she poured a glass of wine, and she knew he kept track of the bottles in the recycling bin. She shook her head. Those two should just worry about themselves. After all, they were the ones who went to the clubhouse for a martini lunch every time they played golf—and that was in the middle of the day! And what about the time David backed into the lamppost? Too many gin and tonics at the Mitchells' clambake, that's what happened! At least she stuck to wine; none of that hard stuff for her—“
headache in a bottle
” she called it—and she'd never backed into anything. She knew when she'd had enough, and she knew when she shouldn't drive. She took another sip and watched a female cardinal flutter from the feeder to a branch where a juvenile was waiting. The female landed right next to him and promptly dropped a seed into his open beak. Birdie smiled sadly. “I would've been a good mother, too,” she murmured, looking heavenward. “If You'd only given me the chance.”

David opened the screen door and an old black Lab with a snow-white face moseyed out and rested her head on Birdie's lap. “Hello, Bailey,” Birdie said, stroking the dog's velvety ears and looking into her cloudy chocolate-brown eyes. “How was
your
day?” Bailey—who was named after the famous ornithologist Florence Merriam Bailey—wiggled her arthritic hind end and Birdie smiled. “No matter how much it hurts, you'll never stop wagging that old tail of yours, will you?” The old Lab licked her hand and then wandered over to a sunny spot, dropped into it like a sack of bones, and proceeded to watch the birds—her name suited her!

David noticed a prescription bottle on the table next to the wine bottle and picked it up. “I thought you weren't supposed to mix alcohol and Vicodin.”

“It's no big deal,” Birdie said, waving him off. “I'm sure the combination will only dull the pain
more
—which is just what I need.”

He looked at the date on the bottle and frowned. “This is from 2010. Did John say you should take this?”

“Motrin wasn't helping and this was in the cabinet.”

David shook his head and sighed. “Shall I heat up dinner then?”

“Yes, there's leftover chicken in the fridge . . . and rice pilaf.”

“The lemon chicken we had last night?”

“Yes. And asparagus, too.”

“Do you want a salad?”

“If you feel like making one.”

David slid the screen door closed and Birdie listened as he puttered around in the kitchen, warming up their supper. It was nice to be able to relax and let him make dinner for a change. She was lucky to have a good husband—a husband who didn't cheat, like Frank; or die, like Jim; Nat was a different story—she couldn't figure out why he and Piper had never married. Nonetheless, even though her sisters had all been blessed with children—even unmarried Piper had sweet Elias—she'd been blessed with a good and faithful man, and Lord knew, a man like that was hard to find. She took another sip of her wine. Yes, having David—even with all his faults—was definitely a reason to celebrate!