Summer Rental (38 page)

Julia’s glance took in Ellis’s disheveled appearance, the borrowed bathrobe, and the armful of Ellis’s own, damp clothing. “So,” she grinned approvingly. “It finally happens. Ellis Sullivan does the walk of shame. Wish Dorie were here to enjoy it with me.”

“Shut up,” Ellis said happily. “Where is Dorie?”

“You won’t believe it,” Julia said. “Remember that bouncer at Caddie’s last night? Ty’s friend Connor?”

“Ty mentioned him, but I didn’t get to meet him,” Ellis said.

“No, but Dorie apparently did get to meet him at some point last night, and make a favorable impression,” Julia said. “He ‘dropped by’ a little while ago, allegedly to check on our security, but actually to check out Dorie. You should see this dude! Six-four, and bald as a billiard ball.”

“Allegedly?”

Julia’s lips pressed together with barely suppressed mirth. “I realize t
hat you’ve been a little, ahem,
preoccupied
today, but yes, if you’d seen the way he looked at her, you’d know he’s definitely interested in Dorie.”

“Oh, come on, Julia,” Ellis said, leaning on the bathroom doorjamb. “Does everything always have to be about men with you?”

“Me!” Julia said with a wicked cackle. “I’m not the one who snuck out after midnight and came strolling home at noon wearing nothing but a smile and her boyfriend’s bathrobe.”

“Ty’s not my…” Ellis stopped in midsentence. If Ty wasn’t her boyfriend, what was he, and what did that make her, since she had just spent the whole delicious morning in his bed?

“You still haven’t told me where Dorie is,” she said, changing tack.

Julia rolled her eyes. “You haven’t been listening. She’s gone off with Connor Terry. He was driving his county unit, and even though he’s off duty, there’s some kind of rule against civilians riding in a cop car. Unless they’re under arrest. So she was following him in the van. Of course, they left here three hours ago, so God knows where they’ve gone now. Or what they’re up to,” she added hopefully.

“You have a one-track mind, Julia Capelli,” Ellis said primly. “A smutty one-track mind. And I, for one, am headed for the shower.”

“What?” Julia said mockingly. “You and Ty didn’t shower off together?”

Ty had, in fact, strongly suggested a communal shower. But since the garage apartment’s shower consisted of a tiny wooden stall on the deck overlooking the beach, with only a slatted wooden door separating a bather from the beach, and said beach was already teaming with summer sun-seekers, Ellis had firmly assured him that she would just as soon shower at Ebbtide, thank you very much.

“Next time,” Ty had said, reluctantly, his hand just barely brushing her breast as he handed her the robe. “It’s got hot water and everything.”

Ellis shivered with delight at the thought of the next time. And the next. How had she gone this long without sex? And how could she have mistaken what she had with Ben for what she had with Ty? And when could she have it again?

*   *   *

Ellis was slipping a clean T-shirt over her head when her cell phone rang.

“Hey,” she said, feeling unaccountably shy.

“Hey,” Ty said. “Listen, I completely forgot we were supposed to go check on that sea turtle nest you found last night.”

“Oh, my gosh, you’re right,” Ellis said. “I guess, uh, with everything else…” Looking in the mirror over her dresser she saw that her face was in flames.

“Yeah, I guess you could say something came up,” Ty laughed. “And now, damn it, I’ve got to go in to Caddie’s. I can’t afford to turn down a shift right now. So, if I give you the Turtle Patrol number, can you call them and tell ’em where to find it?”

“Absolutely,” Ellis said, scrabbling around in the drawer of her nightstand for a pencil and paper.

“Great,” Ty said. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Okay,” Ellis said.

“You doing anything tonight?” he asked.

“Only if you want to,” Ellis said.

“I want.”

*   *   *

Julia and Ellis were sitting on the porch when Madison came pedaling down the driveway towards Ebbtide.

“We’re gonna go grab some lunch,” Julia said casually. “Wanna come?”

“No thanks,” Madison said, mostly out of habit. And then, “Oh, hell. Who am I kidding? I’m starved. Where did you have in mind?”

“Let’s just cruise down the main drag and see what looks good,” Ellis suggested.

“That place,” Madison said, when they’d driven a couple miles north on Croatan Highway. She was pointing at a roadside diner.
BOB’S GRILL
, the sign said in large letters, and in even larger letters,
EAT AND GET THE HELL OUT
.

“I’ve been riding my bike past that joint for two weeks, laughing my ass off every time,” Madison said. “Breakfast all day. Let’s check it out.”

They ordered Diet Cokes and perused the menus. Ellis decided on
the Southwestern omelet, with sour cream, extra salsa, and bacon, Madison ordered a club sandwich, and Julia, reluctantly, asked for scrambled eggs, one slice of dry whole wheat toast, and a bowl of melon. “I got an e-mail from my agent, and he’s booked me for a JCPenney catalog shoot the first week of September,” she said gloomily. “Holiday and midpriced resort wear. Week after next.”

Ellis felt a pang of panic. Only one more week of August. One more week of Ebbtide. One more week with Ty.

“You don’t sound too excited,” Madison observed.

Julia shrugged and sipped her Diet Coke. “It’s work. I’ve got to make a living. It’s as simple as that.”

“Not really,” Ellis said. “You hate modeling. You told us yourself. Booker wants to marry you. He makes a good living, and he’d support you no matter what you decide to do next.”

Julia looked over at Madison, who was busy shredding her paper napkin. “Would you tell her, please? Tell her what happens when you get married to somebody just to keep a roof over your head? What happens when you sell yourself?”

“Julia!” Ellis said sharply, her face burning with embarrassment for Madison.

But Madison didn’t look angry or embarrassed. “Is that what you think I did?” she asked, rubbing her bare arms absentmindedly.

“Didn’t you? That was the impression you gave us when you talked about Don Shackleford,” Julia said.

“My mistake wasn’t in marrying Don,” Madison said. “It was in falling in love with him. My mistake was lying to myself about what he was, and then, when it became painfully clear what he was, in telling myself that I could change him. My timing really sucked,” she said, laughing ruefully. “I didn’t decide to leave him until the minute he decided he would never let me leave.”

Julia sat back in the diner booth and looked blankly at the woman opposite her. The woman who’d been living in their third-floor bedroom for
the past three weeks, an enigma personified, was suddenly baring her soul as casually as she’d just ordered lunch.

“Deep down, I knew Don for what he was,” Madison went on. “And if I’m being brutally honest, I probably suspected he was married when we met. Even though I always talked the talk about not dating a married man. The signs were there. I just chose to ignore them.”

“That doesn’t make you a bad person,” Ellis said, feeling suddenly loyal.

“Nope, just an incredibly stupid one,” Madison agreed. “I think Amy Shackleford was probably ecstatic I took Don off her hands. She got the money, and she didn’t have to live with him. Smart lady.”

Madison stopped fiddling with her paper napkin. She leaned across the table and stared directly at Julia. “You’re a smart lady too, Julia. If you love this guy, if you want to be with him, and make a life with him, do that. Stop worrying about your mother’s marriage, or mine, or anybody else’s. Life is too damned short.…”

“I’m only thirty-five,” Julia protested. “I’ve got plenty of time.”

Madison raised one eyebrow. “And how old is Booker?”

The waitress arrived with a tray full of food. She set their meals down. Julia took one look at the scrambled eggs and dry toast and handed it back to the waitress.

“Sorry, but I changed my mind,” she said. “I’ll have the breakfast burrito with cream cheese and crabmeat, a side order of country sausage. And a biscuit. A big ol’ biscuit. With butter and jelly.”

She looked at Ellis and Madison.

“I decided you two might be right,” she said simply. “Life’s too short to eat dry toast. I’m still working on the rest.”

Ellis waited as long as she could, and then took a bite of her omelet. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s terrible, with all that’s happened. But I can’t help it. I am truly about to faint from hunger.”

“Go ahead,” Madison said, waving airily. “I’m hungry myself.” She lifted the edge of the top layer of toast, and delicately salted the deep red tomato.

“Not as hungry as Ellis,” Julia said mischeviously. “I think she p
robably skipped breakfast, but I’m not certain, since she never came back home last night.”

Madison picked up a piece of bacon and nibbled. “Why, Ellis!” she said. “Congratulations.”

40

“Well, hello,” Ellis said, propping herself on her elbows and shading her eyes from the low-lying sun. “Where on earth have you been all day?”

Dorie giggled as she spread out a blanket on the sand beside her friend. “I’ve been … everywhere.” She unloaded a
People
magazine, a tube of sunscreen, and a bottle of water from her tote bag.

“Alone?”

“Nope,” Dorie said, “I’ve been with Connor. All day.”

Ellis lowered her sunglasses and peered over them at Dorie. Her hair was windblown and her nose and cheeks were sunburnt. Over her bathing suit she wore an oversized T-shirt with the Dare County Sheriff’s Department logo emblazoned on the front, and she had a black DCSD baseball cap jammed on her head.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it is,” Dorie said. She rolled up a beach towel, propped it under her head, opened her magazine, and began humming.

“Is that…” Ellis strained to catch the melody.

“Don’t bother,” Dorie said airily. “I guarantee you don’t know it.”

“Hum some more,” Ellis ordered. It was an old game she and Baylor played as children on long family car rides. Their own version of
Name That Tune
, even though they were decades too young to have ever seen the old television show.

Dorie hummed another bar. “Give up?”

“Oh, all right,” Ellis said. “What’s the song?”

“‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.’ Miranda Lambert.”

“Country music?” Ellis said in mock horror. “Since when?”

“Since today,” Dorie said. “Connor loves country music. We went for a ride in his boat after lunch, and we listened to a country radio station. But not that old twangy ‘my dawg died and my mama’s in prison’ crap. We listened to Miranda Lambert and Lady Antebellum and Big & Rich.…”

“Hmm,” Ellis said.

Dorie looked up from her magazine. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Just hmmm. I mean, you just met this guy when he came roaring up in his police cruiser this morning, then you spend the entire day with him, and suddenly you’re a country music expert. The next thing we know, you’ll be picking out china patterns.”

“Not funny,” Dorie said, snapping the pages of her magazine. “He’s a nice guy, that’s all. And for your information, I’d met him earlier.”

“How much earlier?”

“At the club,” Dorie said, sniffing. “Ty introduced us when I was coming back from my ninth or tenth trip to the bathroom. He said he loved my Electric Slide, and he wanted to know if he could buy me a drink.”

“And you said…?”

“I said, ‘Hi, my name’s Dorie. I’m not currently drinking alcohol because I’m four months pregnant, but I’m getting divorced. Are you a Virgo?”

“Hmm.”

“Kidding!” Dorie said. “I didn’t even give him my phone number. Anyway, you’re the one who asked Ty to have his bouncer-slash-cop friend drive by the house, so this is really all your doing.”

“Not my business,” Ellis said.

“Look,” Dorie said, slapping the magazine down on the blanket. “I’
m not like you or Julia. Okay? I like guys. Always have. I like talking to them, hanging out with ’em. And I like sex. Always have. That doesn’t exactly make me a dirty girl, you know.”

“I know,” Ellis said hastily. “I’m really not judging you.…”

“Good,” Dorie said. “Connor is a decent guy. He makes me laugh. He’s so different from Stephen. He’s … uncomplicated. He says what he thinks. He loves country music, and riding around in his boat. He’s got a Harley too. He likes his job. Loves his job, actually. I told him I’m gonna be living alone when I get back home, and he’s offered to take me to the firing range and show me how to fire a gun. And I’m going to do it, damn it.”

“You’re sure this is not about being on the rebound from Stephen?” Ellis asked.

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. Look, this sounds conceited, but you’ve known me my whole life. Guys come on to me. All the time. They just do. And you know I’m not doing anything to encourage them. Just since I’ve been up here, I’ve been hit on by the seafood manager at Food Lion, the pimply gross guy at the pizza place, even the pharmacist at Walgreens, for God’s sake, when I was picking up my prenatal vitamins!”

Ellis sighed. “It’s a fact. You’re a man magnet.”

“And I have totally blown off each and every one of those guys,” Dorie said. “Just not interested. Until Connor. He really is different from those other guys. I’m not saying I want to marry him. But I would like to spend time with him, and see what comes of it.”

“Did you tell him…?”

“Yes,” Dorie said, sounding exasperated. She pulled up the tank top and pooched out her tummy. “I really can’t hide it in this bathing suit. And I didn’t want to. I told him the short version. That I’m pregnant, and I’ll be getting a divorce as soon as I get home.”

“What was his reaction?”

“He was so sweet,” Dorie exclaimed. “He’s got a sister who’s exactly the same number of weeks pregnant as me. It didn’t seem to faze him a bit, Ellis. He’s a little bit younger than us, but I swear, he’s way more mature than Stephen could ever hope to be. So that’s where we stand.”

“Are you gonna see him again?”

“As a matter of fact, we’re supposed to have dinner tomorrow night,” Dorie said. “I know it all seems like this is happening pretty fast, but I’m only here for another week. I want to see how this plays out. And so does he. And there’s just one more thing I’ve been thinking about.”