Pictures of Emily (16 page)

But the afternoon sunlight crept across the planked floor, catching the tiny crystal kite that hung in the window, its prisms breaking the light into miniature rainbows that flickered around the room. Babbie called them fairies—

The sun moved on, taking Babbie’s fairies with it. And still Sonny didn’t come.

Even though she tried to put it from her mind, one thought kept coming back. What if he’d left the island? What if he’d left her?

No. He couldn’t. Not now. Not after last night.

By four o’clock Sonny still hadn’t come and Emily decided to close early. She put things away, then went into the makeshift kitchen and switched off the light. The bell on the front door jingled and she hurried to the front room, expecting Sonny.

But it was her father who stepped inside, closing the door behind him, bringing along cool air and smells of the salt sea.

The feeling of dread intensified. She hurried to her father. “What’s wrong? Is it one of the girls?”

He removed his seaman’s cap and gripped it tightly in both hands. “No. The girls are fine.”

“Sonny? It’s Sonny, isn’t it?”

He looked at her, his weather-lined face sad. “Sonny’s gone back to the mainland, Emily.”

Denial screamed in her. No. He said he’d be back. He’d looked at her in a special way, a way that had been meant for her alone. “Are you sure?” she managed to ask, her throat tight.

“Aye. I’m sorry, lass. I saw him just before he left. He said to tell you goodbye.”

“Goodbye? But he’s coming back, isn’t he? Did he say when he’d be back?”

Her father looked around the small room, as if he couldn’t stand to face the sadness in his daughter’s eyes.

“Papa—tell me.”

“Ah, Emily.” His shoulders slouched in defeat. “He said he didn’t know if he was coming back.”

“I see,” she said slowly, eyes wide, focusing on nothing. She had to pull herself together, get through these next few minutes, the next few hours, the next few days. “Well… I was just closing up… I have to bring in the kite.”

“I’m sorry, lass.”

“I just need to find the key. Where did I put the key? I had it just a moment ago.”

Her father handed it to her. “Why not come home with me? The girls would like to see you.”

“I’m okay, Papa. Really.”

He walked with her to the wharf, to help her take down the kite. When it was safely tucked under Emily’s arm, he reached deep into the pocket of his wool jacket and pulled out a folded magazine. “No sense in you hearing about this from somebody else,” he said, handing it to her. Then he headed up the lane that led to his gray, two-story house.

On the way back to the point, Emily opened the folded magazine to find Sonny’s face staring up at her.

She tried to swallow the pain in her throat, but it only made it hurt more.

The photo was classic Sonny Maxwell. Sexy. A little tousled, a little unkempt—enough to make women wonder what he’d been doing. And like most of his pictures, it seemed as if the camera had accidently caught something nobody was supposed to see: a haunting bleakness.

She forced her gaze from his face to the article. It wasn’t anything she didn’t already know. But to read it in cold, clipped, journalistic prose made it seem all the more heartbreaking.

It told of his childhood and how his mother had given him away. It told of his poor acting ability, and the way he’d shown no emotion when he’d been told of his mother’s death.
Poor Sonny
.

Poor me
.

By the time she reached the cottage, the sky and ocean were washed in a gray light. The Jeep was still parked near the gate, where it had been this morning. Seeing it there gave her a small burst of hope. Maybe he would be back.

Out off the point, the electronic buoy was back in working order. It almost seemed as if last night had never happened.

As soon as she stepped inside the cottage, she felt the emptiness. It was all around her. It was inside her. Not wanting to go any farther, she sat down on the church pew near the door.

Had he left because of the article? No, he’d planned to leave anyway. He’d said so last night. This morning she’d felt as if they were finally husband and wife. But their night together had meant nothing to Sonny, at least nothing more than other nights spent with other women.

Her tear-blurred gaze fell upon the lighthouse logbook. She picked it up and hugged it to her. Then she began leafing through the stiff pages, hoping to derive some small measure of comfort from the words inside. She turned the pages, not really seeing anything until something unusual caught her eye. She went back to the last ink-marked page and recognized Sonny’s strong, square handwriting. Yesterday’s date was in the left-hand column. Beside it, just below her grandfather’s name, Sonny had added a new entry, the name of the most recent keeper of the light: Emily Christian Maxwell.

The next day Emily used her father’s phone to call Doreen. When no one answered, she tried Martin’s office. He was out, so she left a message with his secretary.

Two hours later Martin called back and Emily explained what had happened.

“I’m going to stick my neck out and get personal here,” Martin said. “As you’re well aware of, Sonny doesn’t talk about himself. In all the years I’ve known him, he’s never said a word about his past. I don’t think he wants anybody to know about it, especially you, somebody he really cares about.”

Emily made a protesting sound, but Martin continued. “Sonny comes from a dysfunctional family. He had no father. His mother was an alcoholic. People from dysfunctional families wear this facade that they don’t want anyone to see behind. Not because they’re private people, but because they’re afraid no one will like the person they are inside. They can give love, they just have a hard time accepting it because they think they’re unworthy.”

“How can you be so sure Sonny is like that?” Then she voiced her greatest fear. “Maybe he just grew tired of me.”

“I know because I’m like him. I came from a similar background. Here I am, supposed to be one of the best doctors in the area, but in my own mind, I’m still that little kid who wet the bed.”

She would never have guessed.

“I have an idea that Sonny saw the article and ran,” Martin said. “We’re always looking for an excuse to say—‘see, you can’t love me. I’m unlovable.’ In fact, I lost my wife because I couldn’t accept her love.”

Martin Berlin, of all people—unsure of himself? He seemed so totally confident. “What should I do?” Emily asked.

“I’d say give him a little time. If he doesn’t come back, you might have to go to him.”

Which meant waiting. And she knew that this waiting would be some of the hardest she’d ever done.

* * *

Somebody was pounding on the door.

Go away.

Sonny shifted his position on the couch, heels of his bare feet propped on the arm. It wasn’t comfortable. But he wasn’t looking for comfort.

He’d briefly thought about going to the cabin, but had quickly dumped that idea. It would remind him of Emily. So he’d chosen his apartment. Emily had never been to his apartment.

The pounding continued.

“I don’t want any!” he shouted.

But it wouldn’t stop.

“Okay, okay.” He levered himself up, trudged to the door and jerked it open.

Doreen. He should have known.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“You look like hell,” she said, shoving past him.

“What do you want?” He slammed the door and followed her to the sitting room.

“You know what’s annoying?” she asked as she shoved a stack of newspapers off a chair. “Even when you look like hell, you look good. Makes me sick.” She sat down. “So, Martin says you and Emily had a little tiff.”

“A tiff? We didn’t have any
tiff
.” He raked his fingers through his hair, then rubbed his stubbled chin. When was the last time he’d taken a shower?

He plopped down on the couch. Stacked precariously on top of the cluttered table were three cans of cola attached to a plastic holder. He tugged one free of the plastic ring. “Is that Ireland job still open?” he asked. He offered a can to Doreen, but she shook her head.

“Sonny, you’re a fool, sabotaging your life like this. Emily is the best thing that ever happened to you.”

“I know.” He took a swig of warm cola, made a face, and swallowed. “The problem is, I’m the worst thing that ever happened to her.” He laughed, his old bitter laugh. “Funny how that works, isn’t it?”

Doreen made a disgusted face. “I could just shake you till your teeth rattle!”

“I’m doing Emily a favor by getting out of her life. Didn’t you hear?” He pointed to the copy of Celebrity World lying on the table. “I’m a loser.”

“Doesn’t Emily get any say in this? After all, she loves you.”

He waved the words away with one hand. “She doesn’t love me. Let’s change the subject. What about that Ireland job?”

“If you’re running—”

“I’m not running.”

“—because of what that rag said, you’re crazy. If you think Emily learned something she didn’t already know, you’re wrong.”

He looked directly at her, ready to come clean for once. “I didn’t want her to know.” It was the closest he’d ever come to a confession in his life.

“Is it impossible for you to believe she might love you in spite of all your shortcomings?”

“Yes.”

“Sonny, I told her about you a long time ago. Not all of it, but most of what I’ve been able to piece together over the years. She knew about your mother and that hellhole you grew up in.”

Not Doreen. He couldn’t believe Doreen would betray him like that. He’d never said it in words, but over the past several years he’d come to think of her as a friend. And now… now to find she’d stabbed him in the back like this…

“Get the hell out of here,” he told her quietly.

“I’ll leave. But before I do, I have something to show you.” She dug through the big leather bag of hers and pulled out some curled black-and-white proofs. She stood, tossing the proofs on the table. “I took those pictures thinking to show them to one of the magazines and possibly get Emily to do some modeling. But when I developed them I realized they were too personal, too revealing. To have allowed anyone outside Emily’s family to see them would have been an invasion of privacy.”

She moved to the door. “Emily has the most wonderfully transparent face I’ve ever seen. It’s as if every thought can be seen in her expression.”

Sonny picked up the pictures. Three in all. All of Emily. They’d been taken at the same time. In every shot, she was watching something off camera, staring into the distance, her hair in sea-damp tendrils about her face. And in her beautiful, magic eyes was a longing so deep and so haunting that he could feel her pain. Feel her love.

“When were these taken?” Sonny asked, amazed that his voice sounded anywhere near normal. He felt sick inside. His stomach muscles tightened as he fought to stabilize his emotions, fought to push aside the grief and deep sense of loss, fought to ignore the jealousy he felt toward the unknown person who had all of Emily’s attention. Who had Emily’s love.

“I took them a few weeks ago.”

He had to ask, had to know. “Who…who is she looking at?”

Doreen turned the doorknob, poised to leave. “You, Sonny. She’s looking at you.”

The weather had turned warm. A breeze blew in from across the ocean, tugging at Emily’s sundress, whipping it around her bare knees as she worked in the garden. Even though her hair was tied back, she could feel damp curls escaping around her face. Absent-mindedly, she pushed them away, only to have the wind push them back.

She was picking leaf lettuce and spinach, laying the leaves in an oblong basket—making a contrast of light and dark green.

As she worked, the smell of damp earth drifted up to her, taking her back to another day, to the day she’d found Sonny planting onions upside down. She’d had a heart full of hope that day. She’d been a child that day.

“I can wait,” Sonny had told her. She’d believed him because she’d wanted to believe him, because she’d needed to believe him.

Martin said Sonny cared for her, but Emily was plagued with doubt. Martin wasn’t aware of what had passed the night before Sonny returned to the mainland. He didn’t know that Sonny might have left for a totally different reason than fear of love.

She was new to love between a man and a woman. And Sonny had known so many gorgeous models. She was afraid that she had seemed an inexperienced child to him.

He’d been gone but five days. It seemed like five months. Martin had told her she might need to go to Sonny, but she wasn’t that kind of person. She didn’t have that kind of confidence. If she could be sure Sonny cared for her, then she would feel differently. But she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure at all.

And deep down she wanted it to be his choice. She wanted him to choose to come back to her.

She straightened, her gaze drawn to the yellow sloping hills that flanked the lane leading to the village. Normally early summer, when the hillsides were covered with huge, teacup-size dandelions, was her favorite time of year. But today the sight of the vivid yellow hills failed to warm her heart.

Far off in the distance, her eye caught a silhouette against the cloudless blue sky. Someone had crested the hilltop and was walking through the yellow field, coming her direction.

Poor Papa.

He came to check on her every day. She hated to have him worry, but there was nothing she could do. It was only natural to worry about the ones you loved.

But as the figure drew nearer, she saw that the stride was not her father’s stride. And the shoulders were not her father’s shoulders.

And then she saw sunlight glinting off sun-lightened hair.

Sonny.

The basket slipped from her fingers. She took a few steps, then stopped, unsure. Why had he come? Was he here to stay? Or was he here to tell her goodbye?

Her heart hammered madly against her ribcage. Sweat broke out on her skin to be instantly dried by the wind.

Wait, she told herself. Wait and see what’s in his heart.