Shore Lights (6 page)

So much for working on the Web site. She could always check the upstairs bathrooms and see if they needed some spot cleaning. Rose's standards were higher than the ones imposed by the Board of Health, and it took a lot of hard work to maintain the place to her satisfaction. The rewards, however, were undeniable, and Rose deserved all of the credit for the Inn's overwhelming success.

She clicked on her e-mail program and was instantly rewarded with six invitations to repair her credit history; three reminders that it really was time to lose that excess weight; and one promise that she could (pick one) enlarge either her breasts or her penis in forty-eight hours simply by popping a magical herbal preparation made from powdered Siberian goat tails.

And there was a note from FireGuy.

 
She read the note twice, then started to laugh. The guy had a lot of nerve, but she couldn't help admiring his style. Any man who wanted to make his daughter happy was a winner in her book. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. The spellcheck hiccupped on “fuhgedaboudit,” but that was only because it wasn't programmed to speak Jersey. She bypassed the error message, pressed Send, then waved goodbye to FireGuy.

 
AIDAN WAS IN the bar kitchen adding more of his special spice mix to the huge vat of chili bubbling away on the stove when he heard the bell that signaled new mail. Wiping his hands on the dishtowel looped into the waistband of his jeans, he made for the laptop on the table.

Point. Click. Damn, he was getting good at this. Next thing you knew he'd be asking Santa for a pocket protector and a laser pointer.

JerseyGirl hadn't wasted any time answering him. She must have some kind of office job where she could play around on the Internet and still look like she was working.

 
The
fuhgedaboudit
was a nice local touch. He limbered up his index fingers and started pressing keys.

 
“Poor FireGuy,” she said to the screen. “You're spending way too much time at the keyboard.”
Unemployed
, she thought as she started typing. Who else would have so much free time? Probably an ex-dot-comer like herself who suddenly found himself on the outside looking in. If she didn't want the teapot for Hannah, she'd almost be tempted to sell it to him.

For a small profit, of course. She was, after all, her mother's daughter.

 
HE DIDN'T BOTHER getting up to check on the chili or mix a batch of blue cheese dressing for the Buffalo wings. JerseyGirl would be sitting in his in box before he reached the stove.

He grinned at the sound of the new mail chime. He grinned even wider when he read her response.

 
He clicked on Reply and started typing. Who knew you could type so fast with just two fingers? (Who knew he had so much to say to a stranger?)

 
FIREGUY DIDN'T DISAPPOINT her. She fiddled with the screen brightness, deleted a half-dozen spams, then started grinning like a fool when the new mail icon started flashing.

 
Her reply seemed to appear on her screen by magic. She hadn't had this much fun since her senior prom. She hit Send, then leaned back to wait for his answer.

 
She had a four-year-old child.

He stared at the screen as the fizz went out of the enterprise. If she had a four-year-old child, she probably had a thirty-four-year-old husband.

He caught himself and laughed out loud. What difference did it make? All they were doing was exchanging some e-mail banter about an old samovar. They weren't flirting. They weren't baring their souls. It didn't matter if she was twenty-five or seventy-five, married or single, mother of eight or not mother material at all. The only thing that mattered was the fact that she had won the auction and he hadn't.

He glanced up at the clock. He'd wasted enough time already. Slayney would be there any minute with a delivery, and once that was squared away, he needed to get the wings started and the ribs ready. The late lunch crew wandered in around two o'clock, followed by the happy-hour gang from the docks around five, who paved the way for the serious benchwarmers who began streaming in around eight and stayed until closing.

Still, he couldn't leave her hanging like that. He wasn't sure what exactly e-mail etiquette entailed, but it seemed to him that dropping the ball now was a lot like not returning a phone call. Besides, there was nothing wrong with keeping the lines of communication open. There was always the possibility that her kid might turn up her nose at the bucket of rust, and JerseyGirl would turn to him to bail her out.

He clicked on Reply and was about to start typing when Slayney's voice rattled the rafters.

“O'Malley! Get your ass out here! I got six other stops and there's snow coming.”

Walt Slayney was standing in the doorway, looking pissed as hell.

“Hey, Slayney,” he said with forced geniality. “Gimme a second. I need to send something out.”

“Quit screwing around on the goddamn computer. If you want your Guinness, you'll get your ass out here now.”

He muttered something Slayney could probably sue him for, then got up to join the man out back.

Sorry, JerseyGirl. It was fun while it lasted
.

 
WHERE WAS HE?

Six minutes had passed since she had hit the Send key and still no reply from FireGuy. Was it something she'd said? She had been enjoying their rapid-fire exchanges and wouldn't have minded volleying a few more notes with him. FireGuy, however, had apparently exhausted the limits of e-mail chat and vanished into the ether whence he came.
Easy come, easy go
. When it came to men, she could give Houdini a run for his money. She was great at making them disappear, and she didn't need a magic wand and a Vegas stage to do it. She had inherited her mother's chin and her bad luck with men. Traits shared by all four DiFalco sisters and most of their descendants.

She fussed around with the Web site, but her heart wasn't in her coding and she screwed up twice and had to start over from scratch. Thank God it was nearly two o'clock. Hannah's preschool let out at two-thirty. At least when her daughter was around, she and Rose had a common interest beyond business.

At her feet Priscilla let out a whimper, followed by a frantic scratching motion that Maddy instantly recognized as trouble.

“Oh, no, Pris, no mistakes today!” She swooped the puppy into her arms and dashed for the back door, pausing only long enough to grab her jacket and shoulder bag from the brass coat stand in the corner.

Priscilla hated being leashed, but the days of neighborhood dogs running wild on Main Street were a thing of the past. “Good thing you're a pedigree,” she said as she snapped the lead on the poodle's tiny collar. “Before long they'll be passing a law against mutts.” She slipped into her jacket, then grabbed the pooper-scooper and bag she kept stashed behind the trash bin near the garage.

Priscilla made straight for her favorite spot by the stand of dogwoods. A sharp wind whistled between the house and the garage, nearly lifting the puppy off her paws. She looked up at Maddy with an expression that managed to be simultaneously forlorn and indignant. Who could blame her? Maddy was a fan of indoor plumbing, too.

“There you are!” a male voice boomed behind her.

She turned to see a short, round man in a Philadelphia Eagles windbreaker bearing down on her. He seemed familiar. Where had she seen him before?

“I've been looking all over for you.” He completely ignored the fact that she was standing there with a loaded pooper-scooper in one hand and two pounds of growling poodle in the other. “The wife needs more towels tonight. She's planning to wash her hair after dinner.”

It took her a few seconds, but she finally realized where she had seen him before: coming out of the second-floor bathroom. “Mr. Armagh,” she said, jiggling Priscilla to stem the growling. “You and Mrs. Armagh are in the Ocean Room, right. I'll make sure she has plenty.”

“Make sure you knock twice,” Mr. Armagh said with an exaggerated waggle of his thick gray eyebrows. “We're on our second honeymoon.”

Which definitely fell under the heading of Too Much Information.

Maddy disposed of the pooper-scooper and its accessories, then checked her watch. Hannah's bus would be at the corner in fifteen minutes. She considered popping into the kitchen for a quick glass of milk and a chocolate chip cookie, but the thought of another round with the DiFalco girls was a strong deterrent. She'd do without the cookies; her thighs would thank her for it.

She bent down and deposited a reluctant Priscilla on the sidewalk in front of the Candlelight. Priscilla sniffed the concrete delicately, took two hesitant steps forward, then slammed on the brakes.

“Sooner or later, you're going to walk,” Maddy said as she once again scooped up the puppy. “We all do.”

The dog looked appropriately smug as she cuddled against Maddy's chest and closed her eyes.

Paradise Point's Main Street ran parallel to the shoreline. Five blocks of wide sidewalks, tall trees, and a score of quaint gift shops, boutiques, and craft stores redesigned with the tourist trade in mind. A glittering crown of B&Bs reigned supreme over the south end of the street, benevolent despots that set the tone for the entire town. With the expansive porches and gingerbread trim, the beautifully restored Victorian ladies served as time machines that invited visitors to step back into a more gracious era.

Gone were the days when you could park on the street and race up the lawn to the front door. Now you had to drive around back to a tiny eight-car lot near the garage and pray the paying customers hadn't taken all the best spots. It was like living in an upscale Motel 6, except if she were really living at Motel 6 she would be able to park at her door and somebody else would be worrying about clean sheets and fresh bath towels.

The B&Bs soon gave way to a block of charming single-family dwellings that whispered old money. No taking in boarders for those houses, thank you very much. They were holding the line between the raffish charm of the north end of Main Street and the upscale trendiness of the south end and doing it quite well. She crossed the street in front of Upsweep, her cousin Gina's hair salon, and joined the knot of women at the corner of Main Street and Paradise Point Lane. She was related to almost every single one of them by either blood or marriage, and the ones she wasn't related to she had gone to school with.

“Hey, cuz!” Gina greeted her. “Were your ears burning? We were just talking about you.”

“Nothing awful,” her cousin Denise quickly added as she rocked the stroller back and forth while her son slept. “You look like we jumped you in an alley somewhere.”

“Bad day,” Maddy said, placing an unwilling Priscilla on the sidewalk by her feet. “A really bad day.”

“Uh-oh,” said Gina. “This might change the odds.”

She didn't like the sound of that. “What odds?”

“They were taking bets,” Joann Colarusso said with a laugh as she patted Priscilla's furry head. “How long until you buy a one-way ticket back to Seattle.”

“So far it's split evenly between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve,” her second cousin Delia Sweeney offered. “Personally I think you'll be gone a week from tomorrow.”

Maddy opened her mouth to say something she probably shouldn't, but was saved by Claire's arrival.

“Advil,” Claire said with a loud groan. “My kingdom for an Advil.” She placed a hand against her cheek and rolled her eyes.

“Cramps?” Gina asked, digging through the pockets of her down jacket.

“Root canal.” She groaned again. “I'm telling you, childbirth was easier.”

The knot of mothers burst into laughter, and Maddy felt some of her tension ease. It felt good to stand there on the corner in the brisk winter wind with a group of women she'd known and loved forever. The only one she hadn't grown up with was Claire, but they had already formed an easy waiting-for-the-school-bus relationship that she enjoyed.