Safe Harbor (15 page)

He had Shelley—his pal, his buddy, his
soul-mate. His friend. Things would get better.

Chapter Seven

HE ROSE EARLY, feeling unusually well rested,
without any aftereffects—no hangover, no recollection of nightmares
tormenting him throughout the night. With a vigor he hadn’t
experienced in ages, he showered and shaved, slugged down a cup of
coffee, and gave the house a close, objective
inspection.

By the end of an hour he’d compiled an
impressive list of projects. The bannisters needed refinishing. The
faucet in the family bathroom sink dripped. The upstairs veranda
had some loose planks. Most of the windows required caulking. His
bicycle, stored in the cellar along with the barbecue grill, the
lawn furniture, the picnic table and a couple of beach umbrellas,
cried out for an overhaul, just as he’d predicted.

Maybe such projects were nothing more than
busy-work, therapy, petty exercises in the art of staying sane. He
didn’t care. He was here and he was going to do things.

The first thing he was going to do was drive to
the supermarket on Ocean Avenue and buy some food. The pizza he’d
eaten last night hadn’t been on a par with what one could buy in
Boston’s North End, but at least he’d perceived a degree of flavor
in his dinner. He would hardly call that proof that he was cured,
but it was a positive sign.

At the supermarket he stocked up on staples,
meat and fish, vegetables and junk food. From there he went to the
hardware store for sandpaper, polyurethane, paint brushes, washers
and lubricating oil. The proprietor looked vaguely familiar, but
Kip didn’t bother to introduce himself. He drove home, put the
groceries away, and carried the hardware supplies down to the
cellar. The rest of the morning he devoted to the resuscitation of
his bicycle.

By lunchtime he was ready for another shower.
Most of the cobwebs he’d cleaned off the tire spokes had stuck to
him; his forearms were covered with grime and his chin was smeared
with grease. He welcomed the dirt, though. Not once in the hours
he’d spent laboring on the bike had he envisioned Amanda. Not once
had he seen her immobilized in the crosswalk on Geary, waiting for
death to steal her away.

What he’d thought about while he worked was
Block Island, the sunny morning that had greeted him, the
distinctive blend of aromas filling the air—late-blooming
marigolds, apples, salt and sand—and the tranquility of the empty
house. In San Francisco he had awakened to the cacophony of
automobile traffic along Pacific Avenue. In Chestnut Hill he’d
arisen to the sounds of his mother bustling about the house,
yammering on the telephone, soliciting volunteers for the Special
Olympics or organizing a fundraiser for Children’s Hospital,
planning a League of Women Voters meeting and blasting Vivaldi
through the stereo speakers.

Here...nothing. Nothing but the low, sweet moan
of the wind arching over the stone walls and spinning through the
leaves of the red maple near his bedroom windows. Nothing but the
friendly creaking of the house’s timbers and the high-pitched caws
of seagulls wheeling overhead.

Once he’d filled the tires with the air pump he
found on a shelf in a corner of the cellar, he lugged the bicycle
up the stairs and out onto the front porch, then went back indoors
to wash up and change his clothes. After downing a peanut butter
sandwich, he took off on a bike ride.

Instinct navigated him along the twisting lanes
he remembered so well, around the corner, over a hill to the tiny
Cape Cod-style cottage that used to belong to the Ballards. It was
pale yellow—when Shelley had lived there it had been brown—and a
shingle hung from the porch railing, with “The Hansens” engraved
into it. It hurt him to see that proud label announcing to the
world that the Ballards had been dispossessed of their summer
house.

Probably it hurt Shelley even more.

He steered away from the cottage, following the
sinuous curves of the island roads until he reached the pharmacy on
High Street. He swung off his bike, chained it to the bike rack,
and entered.

Shelley’s voice reached him from the rear of
the store. Striding down an aisle to the counter, he slowed when he
saw that she was conferring with an elderly man. “I can refill this
prescription only one more time, Ed,” she said as she slid a brown
plastic bottle of pills into a paper bag and presented it to
him.

“And then what am I supposed to do?” the
customer asked.

“Go back to the doctor. He has to monitor your
blood pressure. If it’s improved he may want to change your
prescription.”

“What if it hasn’t improved?” the man inquired,
pulling the bottle from the bag and squinting at the printed
instructions on the label.

“Then the doctor may renew this prescription.
Or he may try something else. Now, if you have any
problems—dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision, anything like
that—you call the doctor right away. Don’t stop taking the pills,
but let him know.”

“Okay.”

“And give my regards to Lucille.”

“Okay. You take care of yourself, Shelley.” He
turned and headed for the door, nodding at Kip as he edged past him
in the narrow aisle.

Shelley smiled at Kip. The moment his eyes met
hers he experienced a jolt of delight. She wore a lavender blouse,
a floral-patterned skirt and her white pharmacist jacket. Her hair
was brushed back from her face, which was devoid of make-up. She
looked fresh and full of energy, not like someone who had already
put in a good four or five hours of work.

Talking to her in the cupola last night had
been cathartic. After he’d run out of words, they’d remained up
there, their legs spanning the room, their backs nestled into
opposite corners. They’d spoken little. Her nearness alone had been
enough to buoy him.

After a while she’d announced that it was time
for her to leave—”Some of us have to go to work in the morning,”
she’d reminded him. He’d walked her down the stairs and outside to
her car. Beside the driver’s side door he’d kissed her cheek and
then gathered her into his arms, savoring her strength, her
comforting warmth.

He had male friends—one or two holdovers from
his youth still living in the Boston area, a few classmates from
Williams with whom he kept in sporadic touch, a couple of buddies
back in San Francisco. But what he felt for Shelley transcended any
other friendship he’d ever known. He treasured her ability to
listen, her refusal to judge him, her unwillingness to lay out a
timetable for his recovery.

If he had admitted to his other friends that he
wasn’t handling Amanda’s death well, they would likely have said,
“Buck up, dude. Let’s sweat it out on the squash court.” What
Shelley had said last night was a confirmation, an affirmation.
What she’d said assured him that she understood, that she accepted
him as he was, without attaching conditions or pressuring him with
expectations. He’d told her he was a mess and she’d told him it was
all right to be a mess. Having her back in his life was a
miracle.

Returning her smile, he sauntered down the
aisle to the counter.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

“Great. I’ve decided to fix up the
house.”

“Does it need fixing?”

He nodded. “Here and there, bits and pieces.
It’s time for me to add some calluses to these yuppie hands of
mine.”

She chuckled. “We’ve got a wide variety of skin
creams in stock if you decide you don’t like dry skin.”

“Do you take a personal interest in all your
customers?” he asked, thinking not of himself but of the elderly
man who’d just left the pharmacy.

Shelley’s chuckle evolved into a laugh. “You
mean, like Ed Burkholtz? He’s not just my customer—he’s my
neighbor. I told you, everybody knows everybody on the island. The
year-rounders are one big happy family.”

For a brief,
irrational moment Kip felt like an outsider. He had no right to be
resentful; he
was
an outsider. He should be glad a member of the big happy
family was willing to treat him as a welcome
visitor.

Footsteps on the plank floor alerted him to the
arrival of another customer. Glancing over his shoulder, Kip
observed a clean-scrubbed man about his age, clad in the crisp
shirt and starched trousers of a Coast Guard uniform, entering the
pharmacy and moving directly to the rear of the store. The man’s
auburn hair was neatly combed above an open, square-jawed face; he
removed his sunglasses to reveal sparkling green eyes. “How’s my
favorite drug dealer?” he greeted Shelley as he approached the
counter.

She acknowledged him with a wary smile. “Hello,
Jack,” she said, then noticed the amiable curiosity with which the
man was eyeing Kip. “Jack, this is Kip Stroud, an old friend of
mine. Kip, Jack MacRae.”

Jack extended his right hand and Kip shook it.
“An old friend, eh? Did you boat over from the
mainland?”

“Yes.”

“Say,” Jack said, turning back to Shelley with
a hopeful grin, “could I earn some points with you by risking my
life to rescue him?”

“He took the ferry,” Shelley told Jack. “He
isn’t a boater.”

“Damn. Those ferries are so safe. I’ll have to
find some other way to become your hero.”

Shelley’s smile relaxed slightly. “I’d rather
you never had to be a hero, Jack. The only time you Coast Guard
guys get to be heroes is when someone is in trouble.”

“Yeah. Life sure is boring when everybody’s
safe.” His grin conveyed that he was joking. He acknowledged Kip
with a nod and said, “Nice meeting you.” Then he pivoted back to
Shelley, effectively shouldering Kip out of the way.

Realizing that Jack wanted to talk privately
with Shelley, Kip wandered over to the DVD section of the store and
spun one of the cylindrical racks. Behind him he heard a muffled
exchange of voices, Jack’s deep and warm and Shelley’s muted and
laconic. Peeking discreetly around the rack, Kip saw Jack leaning
on his elbows on the counter and gazing intently at Shelley, who
stood perfectly straight. She neither bowed toward him nor shrunk
from him. Her smile seemed frosty to Kip, her gaze
restrained.

Kip spun another circular rack and then glanced
toward Shelley again. Her smile had become gentle; she was shaking
her head no. Jack spread his hands palm up and murmured something.
Shelley’s smile widened, and she shook her head again.

Jack pushed away from the counter. He was
smiling, too, but his shoulders appeared stiff to Kip. “Well,” he
said, “I’ll count the minutes ‘til my next shore leave.”

“Shore leave!” Shelley guffawed.

“Ah, you hard-hearted wench. Have a nice
visit,” he called toward Kip as he strolled down an aisle to the
front of the store and exited the building.

Kip watched Jack’s departure, then gravitated
back to Shelley’s post at the rear of the store. “Is he your
boyfriend?” he asked.

Shelley’s smile faded and she rolled her eyes.
“Only in his dreams.”

“He seems like a nice guy.”

“Yes, he does.”

Kip frowned
slightly. The normal response would have been, “He
is
.” Shelley’s words
implied that what Jack seemed and what he was were two different
things. “What’s wrong with him?” Kip asked.

Shelley let her gaze meet his for a second,
then marched to her computer and began tapping on its keys.
“Nothing he can help,” she answered dryly. “I’m just not
interested.”

Now it was Kip’s turn to lean on the counter.
Like Jack, he rested his elbows against it and propped his chin in
his hands, not to be closer to Shelley but simply to see her, since
she was half-hidden behind the computer. “I’ve got to admit, I
wondered how a single woman managed to have a social life on an
island like this,” he said. “I guess there must be guys back on the
mainland.”

“I guess there must be,” Shelley agreed, her
gaze riveted to the computer monitor and her mouth shaping a grim
line.

Kip scrutinized her thoughtfully, taking in her
wistful gray eyes, the determined set of her chin, her proud
posture and the nimble speed of her fingers as they skimmed the
computer keyboard. While far from model-perfect or glamorous, she
was a remarkably appealing woman. Her face had an intriguing
complexity to it and her body was lithe and leggy, not fragile in a
fine-boned way but strong and healthy and capable.

In another frame of mind—in another
lifetime—Kip would pursue her. He’d court her and seduce her and
fall in love with her. Such passion was out of the question for him
now, of course, and given his history with Shelley a seduction
attempt would be way out of line.

But if he were just a man, not an old friend or
a new widower but simply a man, he would have gotten in line right
behind Jack MacRae, eagerly awaiting his chance to become Shelley’s
hero.

“Are you dating someone else?” he asked, still
curious as to why she was “just not interested” in a good-looking,
good-natured, obviously smitten guy like Jack.

Shelley pressed her lips together and stared
obdurately at the screen. “No,” she said after a long
minute.