Safe Harbor (24 page)

“But nothing.”

“You’re afraid I’ll get in the way.”

“No, of course not. I’m at the pharmacy all
day, and Jamie’s at Alice McCormick’s house. Why do you think you’d
be in anyone’s way?”

“Well...” He shrugged. “This has been your home
for two years. You’ve got your own way of doing things—”

“You know what my way is,” she said, managing a
faint smile. “No toys allowed on the stairs, and I vacuum whenever
the dust bunnies start to resemble an invading army. Laundry twice
a week. If you move in, Kip, you’re going to get stuck with one of
the weely laundries.”

He smiled, too. “I want it clear between us,”
he said, still selecting his words with deliberation, “that my
moving into the house won’t change our relationship.”

Right. They would be reserved and restrained
with each other, all their love and affection directed to Jamie.
Kip would find his relationships elsewhere, and Shelley would have
her precious independence.

“Okay,” she said, averting her gaze.

“I know how you feel about marriage; that’s not
what this is about. Unless, of course, you think getting married
might make things easier.”

Her eyes flew back to him. It wasn’t the first
time he’d proposed marriage, and it might not be the last. But she
knew he was raising the subject—as he always did—only because he
was well-bred and responsible, willing to accept his
obligations.

“No,” she said, her voice low but steely. “I
don’t believe in marriage. It causes more problems than it solves.
I don’t want it.”

He seemed to feel the need to justify himself.
“I mentioned it only because I thought it might simplify
things.”

Her eyes suddenly felt hot with tears, her
vision misting. “I know,” she murmured. “Maybe that’s a good reason
to get married—but it doesn’t sound like much of a reason to
me.”

They lapsed into silence. Outside the wind was
picking up, whispering through the branches of the red maple. From
the east came the moan of the ferry’s horn, announcing the day’s
final departure for Pt. Judith.

Kip wasn’t on that ferry. He was here. Shelley
hugged her arms more tightly around her legs, wishing she could
trust him but knowing she couldn’t. He was a man, and she probably
loved him, and love and trust, when mixed together, were
lethal.

For better or worse, though, Kip was here. She
was just going to have to protect herself.

***

LYING IN BED later that night, he thought about
Shelley across the hall from him. He thought about her climbing
into her own bed and drawing up the covers, thought about her hair
splaying across her pillow. He thought about the way she’d looked
in her swim suit earlier that day—and the way she’d looked naked
one night long ago.

He thought about how swiftly she’d turned down
his marriage proposal, and a cold, heavy resignation descended over
him.

The last time he’d raised the possibility of
marriage had been a little over a year ago. She’d said no just as
swiftly that time. “I appreciate your kindness, Kip,” she’d said,
“but your heart belongs to Amanda. You know that.”

“I know that,” he’d concurred.

If she expressed that assumption now, he wasn’t
sure he would agree. He wouldn’t deny that Amanda was a part of
him. He still felt her presence sometimes, still found himself
wondering what she would think of his child, whether she would love
Jamie as much as he did, whether she would approve of his noble
efforts at fatherhood.

Amanda was a part of him—but so was Shelley.
Lately, when he closed his eyes, the image that filled his mind was
Shelley: the joyous radiance of her eyes whenever she glimpsed her
son. The tall, regal beauty of her body. Her courage, her
competence, her generosity. Her sun-streaked hair and her full,
soft lips.

She didn’t want to marry him. Whatever her
feelings for him, they didn’t include a desire for a permanent
legal commitment. To be sure, he wasn’t sure what the hell they did
include.

Moving into the house with her might turn out
to be one of the most stupid mistakes of his life. But he had to do
it, for Jamie. He had to do it because he wanted his child to have
a complete, stable family. Whatever was right or wrong between
Shelley and Kip, he wanted to be more than a part-time
father.

He shouldn’t have brought Shelley up to the
cupola to discuss his plans—but he couldn’t imagine talking to her
about them anywhere else. The cupola was where they went, where
they’d always gone when they’d had to talk. Ever since they’d been
kids.

The first time he’d really kissed her had been
in the cupola. And the last time he’d really kissed her, she’d been
lying with him right here in this bed.

He wanted her. He wanted her with the same
fierce, unadorned hunger he’d felt as a fifteen-year-old boy
discovering, to his amazement, that his good old summer pal had
breasts and hips and an astonishingly sexy mouth. He couldn’t act
on that hunger, though, not without jeopardizing everything he and
Shelley had built together. He couldn’t even talk about his
feelings, because the only subject of any importance he and Shelley
seemed able to talk about these days was Jamie.

She probably had no idea what he was thinking,
what he was feeling, how difficult it was going to be for him to
coexist in the house with her. Given how much she’d done for him,
he owed her the privilege of remaining ignorant. She would never
have to know his feelings and frustrations. If she ever found out,
she might open her arms to him out of pity. Or she might boot him
out of the house altogether.

Perhaps she was right, perhaps he ought to
forget about marrying her and making their family a legal,
spiritual entity. If he needed a woman to love, he’d find one, and
he’d leave Shelley out of it. What he had with her was too vital
and too fragile to risk on something as painful as love.

Chapter Eleven

SHELLEY AWAKENED to silence.

Bolting upright in bed, she glanced at the
clock on the nightstand beside her: seven-thirty. Sunlight filtered
through the curtains, filling the room with a benign glow. Her
heart began to pound. Anxiety stabbed her like needles of ice,
sending shivers down her back.

Where was Jamie? Why hadn’t she heard him
hollering “Mommy gemme out!” from his crib?

She leaped out of bed, grabbed her bathrobe
from the chair and raced frantically out of her room. The door of
the bedroom across the hall was open. Spotting the unmade bed, she
let out her breath in a long sigh. Kip was here. Although it was
Monday, Kip was here. He must have gotten Jamie out of the
crib.

She shook her head in astonishment at how far
he had come, from his first frantic retreat in response to the news
that she was pregnant until this moment, when he’d moved physically
into the house and taken over the job of rescuing Jamie from his
crib at dawn. She never would have guessed, two years ago, that
someday he would appear at the house and announce, “I want more
time with Jamie. I’m his father and he belongs with me.”

He’d done all the right things back then:
transferring to a new office in Providence, finding Shelley a
doctor at Rhode Island Hospital, meeting her whenever possible at
the doctor’s office and apologizing profusely for her inconvenience
at having to travel to the mainland for her examinations. He’d
purchased his parents’ house and helped Shelley to settle in, and
he’d shipped baby furnishings to her from “America.” He’d arranged
with the Air Ambulance service on Block Island to have Shelley
transported to the hospital as soon as she went into labor, and
he’d sat beside her, holding her hand and murmuring words of
encouragement throughout the ordeal.

But she’d always sensed something automatic and
unthinking in his actions, a definite whiff of obligation. Kip was
a decent man, and he’d done what a decent man was supposed to do
when he got caught. He hadn’t provided Shelley with everything an
expectant mother might need because he loved her. He’d done it
because it had been the proper thing to do.

Or so she’d thought, right up to the afternoon
she went into labor. She’d telephoned his office in Providence to
alert him, and by the time she’d arrived at the hospital he’d been
there—calm, businesslike, completely in charge. The nurses had
helped her to undress while he’d stood on the other side of the
curtain with the doctor, speaking soberly about whether he should
scrub up now or wait a while, whether Shelley should be strapped to
a fetal monitor, whether all the proper health insurance forms had
been filed.

The labor had been long and tiring. Shelley had
cursed and cried, counted breaths and sucked on chips of ice.
Through it all, Kip had been the ultimate gentleman. “Would you
like some water?” he would inquire. “Would you like to try standing
for a while? I’m sorry it hurts, Shelley.”

More than once she’d found herself thinking he
would have done just as well sending her a greeting
card.

At three o’clock the following morning, though,
everything had changed. Especially Kip. At three o’clock, Jamie
arrived.

As soon as she’d heard she’d delivered a
healthy boy, Shelley had collapsed into the pillows in exhaustion,
only dimly aware of the activity at the foot of the bed: the cord
being cut, the baby’s face being washed, his mouth and nose being
cleared of fluid. She’d closed her eyes and gulped in deep,
relaxing breaths, allowing herself a small grin of triumph that
expanded when she’d heard her son’s first tremulous cry. Then she’d
opened her eyes and propped herself up.

The baby had been swaddled in a fleecy
receiving blanket. “You rest,” a nurse had ordered her as she’d
handed the baby to Kip. He’d pulled off his face mask and peered at
the squalling, squirming bundle of life in his arms, and tears had
streamed down his cheeks.

After so many months of stoical self-control,
he’d cradled his son and kissed him and wept.

Shelley hadn’t dared to ask whether his tears
were of joy or of grief and bitterness that Shelley and not Amanda
had mothered his child. She’d assumed they were a bit of
both.

At least he had yielded to emotion. At least
he’d stopped being so composed and circumspect. Kip Stroud—brooding
widower, affluent yuppie, honorable gentleman—had metamorphosized
into a fanatically sentimental daddy.

When he’d returned to the hospital later that
day to visit Shelley and Jamie, his wedding band had been gone.
Shelley had never seen him wear it again.

And now he was here, on the island, moving in.
Becoming a part of the household. Whatever unresolved tensions and
missed connections existed between her and Kip, she would never
stand in the way of what he had with Jamie. He was a dad. He
deserved to be here, and Jamie deserved to have him
here.

She tied the sash of her robe around her waist,
then descended to the first floor in time to see Kip and Jamie
entering from the front veranda. They were both dressed, and they
both looked far more alert than Shelley felt. Kip held Jamie high
in his arms, making the child appear amazingly light and small on
his lofty perch.

“Mommy! We see mitt,” he announced
proudly.

“Mist,” Kip corrected him.

Jamie scrunched his face in concentration,
“Mitt,” he said.

Shelley smiled. One of her favorite things
about Jamie was his sheer enthusiasm for everything, including the
mist that floated eerily above the lawn until the sun burned it
away. He refused Shelley the opportunity to become blasé about the
island’s natural splendor.

“Why don’t you go get dressed?” Kip suggested.
“I’ll start Jamie on breakfast.”

“Thanks.” Still smiling, Shelley turned and
headed back up the stairs. To be able to shower and dress at her
own leisurely pace on a weekday morning was a luxury she couldn’t
resist.

Maybe Kip’s move to the island wouldn’t be so
bad. Maybe his living in the house would turn out better than
expected. They’d been together nearly all the time as kids, and
they’d been wonderfully close. The brief, intense interlude that
had culminated in Jamie’s conception—they’d seen each other every
day then, too, and they’d been intimately attuned to each
other.

Shelley had long ago learned to anticipate the
worst, to trust only herself and assume that men operated in their
own self-interest, without regard for the wreckage they left
behind. But Kip...Kip had always been better than that.

Maybe it was time to start trusting
again.

***

“I WANT WABBOOS,” Jamie whined.

“There aren’t any waffles,” Kip told him,
returning from the pantry with a box of puffed wheat.

“I want wabboos.”

Kip allowed himself a wry smile. A quick survey
of the pantry had informed him that Shelley was a lot stricter than
he was when it came to Jamie’s diet. In Providence Kip served Jamie
waffles or pancakes or took him out to Dunkin Donuts. Judging by
the contents of the pantry cabinets, Shelley fed Jamie only healthy
cereals for breakfast.