Shelter Me (34 page)

“You don’t see this kind of thing anymore,” Janie commented.

“Not unless you have some really elderly friends.”

The living room was home to the only carpet, a hunter green Oriental. “Fake,” he said, when she admired it. There was a cane-seated rocking chair and a tan upholstered couch, both of which faced a huge stone fireplace that Tug had built himself. “I love a fire, even in the summer,” he told her.

By the time Tug had finished showing them the house, and Dylan had inspected every inch of the yard, and Carly had been given a bath, it was dinnertime. Tug grilled chicken that he had marinated that morning back in Pelham, while Janie set the table and assembled a salad from the fixings he gave her. She was chopping red pepper at the kitchen counter when he came in to get a serving plate for the chicken. He rested one hand on the small of her back as he reached up into a cabinet with the other. The feel of his hand vibrated on her back for several moments after he’d gone back out onto the deck. The arousal she felt stunned her.

I’m not ready for this,
she thought. But her back declined to heed this warning and continued to tingle shamelessly.

T
HE KIDS HAD A
hard time falling sleep. “I only sleep at home and Auntie Jude’s,” Dylan informed her. He had already been moved from the twin bed across the room to the trundle attached to Janie’s bed. Carly squawked and gave plaintive calls of “Mama!” when Janie left the room. In the end, there was nothing to do but lie there until they fell asleep, by which time she began to drift off.

“Hey,” she heard Tug whisper from the hall. The child-sized snores told her she was free to go.

Go and do what?
She lay there for an extra moment. Then she became so nervous she started to giggle. Fear of waking them propelled her carefully out of the bed. She went directly into the bathroom, bypassing Tug with barely a glance. She brushed her teeth. Flossed. Washed and moisturized her face. It was almost nine o’clock, no reason not to get ready for bed. She wasn’t tired, though, and she guessed Tug wasn’t, either.

What does he want, for godsake?
She knew what he wanted. He’d been subtle, but clear. And she had responded, she had to admit to herself. She’d stayed up half the night with him, accepted his invitation to a weekend away.
With the kids,
she thought, in her own defense. But the kids, now sleeping soundly, had been quickly reduced to a factor of zero.

It’s just Tug,
she told herself.
He’s on your side.
And she marched herself out to the living room, where a fire licked up around a pile of dry, cleanly chopped logs. Tug was sitting on the couch with a glass of white wine in his hand. Janie’s wine, which she’d only sipped down by half at dinner, had been freshened. She looked at the glass, looked at Tug, raised her eyebrows.

“Not like I need to get a woman drunk…,” he said, laughing at himself.

She laughed, too. It was funny. In a terrifying kind of way. “I am not sleeping with you,” she said.

He nodded, thinking about this for a moment. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“Come on, you didn’t really expect me to.” She sank down onto the opposite end of the couch.

“No. You’re still wearing your wedding ring.”

Janie looked down at her hands. She hadn’t even thought of that. In fact, she had never once considered when she might take it off. It was a part of her hand; removing it seemed akin to severing a finger. She looked back up at him. “Look, something’s happening here, and it’s not all you. I know that.” He was so still, she thought she could almost see dust settling on him. “Tug.”

“Hey, if it’s not…” He shrugged, took another sip of wine.

“Don’t!”

“Don’t what.”

“Pull all into yourself. Don’t go dormant on me.”

“Alright, then. What do you want me to do?”

“Just be patient.”

“Are you kidding me? Like I haven’t been patient? I am more patient with you than I have ever been in my life. You hire me, you fire me, you yell at me and tell me to mind my own business. You apologize, you fight with me some more, you might want to be with me, you might not. Jesus, Janie. I think I’ve proved my patience!”

“Uhhh!” she groaned. “Okay, so you’re Saint Tug! I’ll alert the fucking Vatican!”

“Look, just don’t tell me to be something I already am, times ten.”

“You were the one who said we’re all making it up as we go along. That’s what I’m doing. All I know right now is, if you brought me down here for some big lovefest, I’m not ready.”

“You know why I brought you down here? Because I like to be with you. I like you near. And I knew if I came alone, I’d be thinking about you about fifty times a day. What’s the point of being on the damned Cape if you’re always thinking about something else?” He put his wineglass down on the end table, sloshing
a few drops over the rim. “And if that makes me as pathetic as it sounds, then so be it.”

He stared into the fire trying to pull inward, go dormant, as she’d put it. But his lungs still seemed to require too much air to quiet them, and his face couldn’t quite lock down into blankness. She watched him struggle for composure.
Pathetic? No,
she thought,
not him
. Just unfortunate enough to have feelings for someone who was as much of a pain in the ass as she was, at a time in her life when it showed the most.

She slid her hand under his, grasping it slowly. She remembered how cool and comforting those hands were on her cheeks when she was sick. Now his hand was hot and tense. He wouldn’t look at her. Well, he’d earned the right to ignore her, for a few minutes, anyway.

He was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt, heathered blue with “Cape Cod Baseball League” in gray lettering across the chest. The sleeves had been pushed up to his elbows, exposing that long scar he had on his right arm. The curly auburn hair had grown in around it, but the pale line was still visible, as it always would be.

She did something then that surprised even her. She curled herself around until her back was pressed up against his side, and pulled that arm around her neck, down between her breasts until his hand rested on her hip. She snuggled back against him, and felt him shift to accommodate her. His head turned toward her, breath tickling the back of her neck. His chest expanded against her. He was breathing her in.

But he wouldn’t comment.

She traced her finger up and down the scar on his forearm, exploring it. It was more jagged on one side and slightly wider at the top. “Who did this to you?” she asked.

“Did it to myself.”

“How?”

He shifted again, put his other arm around her. “After she served me the papers,” he said, “I was a terror. Hard on the crew,
pissy with my family. An angry guy with power tools is a bad combination. I got irritated when I was cutting a board one day and the saw bit back.”

“Sounds like me, the day Dylan ran out to see your backhoe. You had told him to get in the truck so he’d be out of the way. Remember how I went ballistic?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “That’s the thing about you. Right from the start you were so familiar to me.”

“You think we’re alike?”

“In some ways. Though, you tend to lash out when you’re threatened, and I tend to go quiet. But…I don’t know. I guess I always felt I could understand you. Even when you were throwing a fit about something, I could see why.”

“Sue wasn’t much of a fit thrower, was she?”

“Nope. Looking back, I wish she had been. Might have helped.”

They sat there in silence, their bodies at rest, except for the cellular-level notes each was making of the other: the precise temperature of her back against his chest, the exact pressure of his arm across her shoulder, the soft tickle of her hair against his cheek, the taste of the air around him.

The wood in the fire burned and fell, the pile of red coals growing larger, the flames licking lower. “Want to throw another log on?” she asked.

“Are you going to be here when I get back?” he answered. She leaned forward and he got up. He put three more pieces in, adjusted them, and came back to the couch. They resumed their position. He kissed the back of her head.

“Here’s the problem,” she murmured. “I’m trying to figure out how to live life on a whole new planet from the one I used to live on.”

“I know,” he whispered.

“I’m not that good at it.”

“You’re doing fine.”

“No, I make a lot of mistakes, and I get frustrated and angry, and it’s a really good thing I don’t own any power tools or I’d probably be limbless.”

“This is some sort of a warning, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she sighed. “If I was one of your buddies, I’d tell you to stay away from me.”

“Too late,” he said. “But thanks for your concern. Buddy.”

J
ANIE WOKE BRIEFLY IN
the early morning. A breeze blew through the window screen, bringing with it the smell of salt marsh grasses. It took a moment for her to realize that the distant rhythmic thumping she felt, more than heard, was the vibration of waves crashing along the shoreline.

Dylan’s face was close to hers, breathing his mysteriously sweet child’s breath toward her. His arms were wrapped protectively, possessively around Nubby the Fur-Challenged Bunny. She pulled the faded comforter up over his shoulders. Then she rolled over and went back to sleep.

When she woke again, Dylan and Nubby were gone, and Carly was calling “Mama!” as she stood and rattled the railing of her port-a-crib. Janie rose, scooped up the impatient toddler, and walked barefoot and bleary-eyed toward the sound of voices in the kitchen.

“Does the hook hurt the fish?” Dylan was asking.

“I’m not really sure,” came Tug’s reply. “I think it might be kind of like getting a splinter, because when you take it out, they just swim off like nothing happened.”

Janie put Carly down on the floor. “Din!” she said and ran to her brother, pressing her face against his thigh.

“Ew! You’re all slobbery!” he scolded her. “Here, eat this,” and he handed her his toast crust.

Tug was frying bacon on the stove. Janie went over and leaned against him. He kissed her cheek. Glancing at Dylan, Janie saw a vague look of interest on his face, like he was trying to gauge the
size of something that wasn’t in full view. Janie shifted away from Tug. “You don’t like bacon?” he asked.

“Not a big fan,” she said. “But I kind of like the smell. Weird, huh?” Tug shot her a little grin, with no particular message other than he was glad to have her near him, and he didn’t much care about her food-related eccentricities. They ate eggs and toast and sat around the breakfast table in their pajamas until the kids got squirrelly and a plan was determined. They would drive to the outer beach and fish, maybe even swim. It was warmer today than the day before, the temperature threatening to reach up and grab onto the 60 degree mark.

When they’d packed and loaded up the truck, they headed for Nauset Beach again, crossing the parking lot to a hardly noticeable dirt road at the far corner. Tug stopped to let some air out of his tires, and then they were off, bouncing along the rutted sand path, Dylan peppering Tug with questions: about the blue boxes (greenhead flytraps); about the fences along the dunes (to stop people from climbing up and eroding the sand); and about the roped-off sections of the beach (piping plover nests—federally protected).

Janie had never driven a car straight onto a beach before, and she had the strange sensation of doing something illicit. “Are you sure this is legal?” she asked him.

“It is if you’ve got a sticker.” He took his fishing pole and tackle box out of the back of the truck while Janie spread out a blanket and set up beach chairs. He showed Dylan how to thread the bait onto the hook and cast the line. They stood together for a long time, Tug on his knees behind Dylan, guiding the pole back and out, releasing the catch, watching the hook plunk into the waves. Eventually Dylan got more interested in chasing the ebb and flow of the minor swells, and Tug stuck the pole in the sand. He poured charcoal briquettes into a little hibachi grill and lit it, the smell of lighter fluid transfusing the briny air.

The afternoon passed at just the right languid pace. They ate hot dogs from the grill and washed their ketchupy hands in the surf. Carly napped on a towel in the shade of the truck. Dylan dug holes until he reached water, just to watch them fill up and slowly obliterate themselves. Then he and Janie tossed a tennis ball around, until a wild pitch from Janie landed out beyond the crashing surf. “Mom!” whined Dylan.

“The waves will bring it in,” she told him. But the little bobbing ball never seemed to make it past the crests, and Dylan eyed it with growing anxiety. Tug pulled his T-shirt off and waded out knee deep. Janie watched his shoulders tense and the muscles clenching in his back.

He turned back toward them. “You sure you need this ball?”

“Is the water cold?” Dylan asked.

“Just a tad.”

“Not too cold for you, though,” Janie teased. She told Dylan, “Tug
likes
cold water. He
always
swims in November.”

“Really?” asked Dylan.

Tug dove in, coming up on the other side of a wave with a pained whoop. He grabbed the ball and made for shore. Janie watched him approach, the water trailing through the hair on his chest and over his hard, flat stomach. He was clearly enjoying this. “Are you going to get me a towel, or just watch me shiver?”

She tapped her chin, pretended to consider the question, and then he was running at her. She turned but didn’t get very far before his arms caught her from behind and his cold wet body pressed against her back. She let out a laughing screech.

In a moment, Dylan was standing beside them, trying to make sense of it. “Mom’s all wet now,” he told Tug. “You got her wet.” Tug released her.

“It’s okay, honey,” Janie said. “I don’t mind.”

“You don’t?”

“No. We were just being silly.”

Dylan took the ball from Tug and went to play in the sand by himself.

T
HEY DID CATCH A
couple of fish, a bluefish and a striped bass. Dylan studied every movement as Tug pulled the hook from the blue’s glossy dark lips, Dylan’s own mouth unwittingly opening wider and wider as the fish’s did. He sprang up and down on his toes, and let out a “Yes!” when it swam away. Tug had intended to keep the striper, but the idea of its demise did not sit well with Dylan. “We’re going to keep it? And
eat
it?” Tug let it go. They stopped at Captain Eldon’s Seafood and picked up scallops for dinner.