Ten Good Reasons (17 page)

And since that was the only sure thing in her life these days, as sad as that seemed, she thought she’d hang on.

He turned to watch the jazz guitarist he pretended to like, and she did the same.

*   *   *

Dinner went on forever, although it was as good as Lia had promised.

It was held in the next room over, inside the newly funded Ocean Museum, and there were plenty of things to look at and focus on, thankfully, to keep his mind off his boorish behavior and the way the light hit the sparkles of Lia’s dress and accentuated every one of her curves.

There were speeches, a short documentary, plenty of applause, four courses, too many utensils, tanks of starfish and seahorses lining the back wall that caught his attention, a whale skeleton that hung from the ceiling and demanded his scrutiny when he was being good, and—of course—Lia’s curves when he wasn’t.

As dinner ended, she pulled out a checkbook and scrawled out a hefty donation from her company.

“Ready to go?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He should’ve left two hours ago. Sometime before that kiss.

They said good-bye to Stevens, verified the time of the charter, then stood awkwardly as Stevens introduced them as “the captains” of the upcoming charter to four or five silver-haired patrons who were, apparently, going to be aboard. The patrons all acted impressed and asked good questions about the whales, begging Evan to tell them what he knew about Valentine and walk them through an explanation of the ceiling skeleton. Evan gave them longer answers than he probably needed to. Their silver-headed nods and serious expressions were strangely comforting. He sometimes forgot that other people really loved the ocean as much as he did.

By the time he and Lia headed up the sidewalk along the marina shops in the cool night air, he had to admit to himself that he’d had a good time.

Except the kiss.

That
had made him feel guilty.

“You don’t have to walk me to my car,” she said. “I know where it is.”

“Chalk it up to military training.”

She stiffened as they marched toward the parking lot.

“I promise I won’t try another kiss when we get there,” he said, glancing once to make sure she took that as a joke. “Sorry again. It was a stupid impulse.”

She gave a perfunctory nod.

The wind whipped off the water and blew the banners into a bit of chaos—all shouting “Whale Festival!” from every light post along the marina.

“This place is going to be crazy tomorrow.” Lia shivered as she walked against the ocean breeze.

Evan slid his jacket off. “I remember how it gets. Here.” He held the jacket open.

“It’s okay.” She pushed it away. But then, as another gust came up through the narrow rows of shops, she succumbed, letting him settle it over her shoulders.

“It’s probably even bigger than when you saw it last,” she said. “Are you going to be okay with these crowds, doing the weekend tours? I’ll be coordinating Drew’s booth, and I’ll take any help Douglas or Cora want to give, but I don’t plan to be on the boat. But if you need me . . .”

The phrase rang through his brain like a distress call. “Need” was something he hadn’t thought of in a while, and the “need” going through his mind right now, relating to this woman, was surprising him. And probably not what she was talking about.

Why couldn’t he have experienced this with someone else? Someone, maybe
available
? And damn it, how about someone Drew didn’t know?

“I’ll be fine,” he lied.

“Here’s my car,” she said. “Do you have a place to stay tonight? They’ll be watching the harbor closely for sneakaboards with this many people around.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded.

“You’re staying at the motel?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want a ride?”

“I have to go back to my boat first.”

“Do you . . . Do you want to stay at my place?”

The idea buoyed him for a flash of a second, but then he noticed how carefully she avoided his eyes.

“Given the circumstances, I don’t think that would be a good idea,” he admitted.

She nodded her agreement.

He watched her get in the car—her curves, her yellow Cinderella hair, her understanding eyes, her delicious lips, her upbeat attitude that was lifting him in ways that suddenly and mysteriously now called to mind the word “need.”

And then he watched her drive away.

He might have just screwed up the best thing that had happened to him in two years.

CHAPTER

L
ia awoke the next morning and planned her day in her head as she stared at the late-February light across her ceiling.

After she’d returned home last night, as she’d slithered out of her sequined dress and tried not to think too much about Evan’s eyes sweeping over it, she’d left a message with the Vampiress, announcing that the charter was still on.

While she’d wiped her makeup off, she’d verified with Douglas, Stewey, and Cora that they could make it onto the
Duke
for the weekend tours and would each work the booth for a few hours.

Then she’d left a message with Mr. Brimmer about his website, fed Missy, and left two more messages with clients to catch them up until Tuesday.

So today could be all about the festival.

She watched the white winter light play across the ceiling and let her mind color in the lines from the evening before: Evan stepping around the bird of paradise bush in that gorgeous suit; the way his eyelids had lowered when he’d told her she made him forget about his dead wife; the feel of his arms around her; the scent of mint and longing on his breath; . . . and . . . glory,
that kiss
 . . .

Lia sighed at the way his velvet lips felt, the way his bandaged hand came up around the back of her neck, the way he seemed to unleash a torrent of emotion that he’d been tamping down for so long. She’d had many kisses in her life, but that was different. That was passionate. That was
aching
. That was pain and longing and lust and memory and hope and grief all tied up at once. She reran it like a movie until Missy leaped onto the bed and pushed her head under Lia’s palm.

“You hungry, Miss?”

Lia crawled out of the covers, sad to leave the Evan movie behind, and padded into the kitchen to start the coffee.

But Evan kept returning. First every delicious physical part of him—his lips, his arms, his hands, his . . . um . . . private areas that were still hovering in her memory. And then the dead wife he loved, the protectiveness he learned in the Coast Guard, the obvious longing to reconnect with Drew that he didn’t even seem to recognize, the loyalty that went with all those things, the emotion he’d kept bottled for so long, the surprise he showed when it surfaced . . .

She jostled the thoughts out of her mind, stabbed with guilt because of Forrest. Her coffee sloshed over the rim of her cup.

She fed Missy, then took her coffee, rattling on a saucer, into her room to get ready for the day. It was best she wouldn’t see him much this weekend. They might pass each other when he was boarding the first tour at noon, but she assumed he’d sleep in and stay away from the early morning festival.

Forrest
. Marriage material. Who she didn’t spend nearly this much time thinking about. In fact, she’d forgotten to check her messages again, but she’d do it right after her shower.

While the hot water steamed up the bathroom, she forced herself to think about work, pushing thoughts of Evan aside every time they tried to resurface.

Which was an embarrassing number of times.

While getting dressed, she caught sight of the newest shoe boxes in the entryway and thought that might be a good distraction.

As Missy darted around her legs, she tried on one set of blue high heels after another. She’d bought every width, height, and toe shape in every shade of blue. She just didn’t have time to wander around a mall. And even if she did, the
last thing she’d wander a mall for were high heels. Especially these dyed-satin ones. The Vampiress required that the women and men in her office dress up every day—the women in high heels, the men in ties. Period. Lia spent what felt like half her paycheck on heels that were well made enough to be comfortable, then kicked them off as soon as she got home, wishing she could spend the money on plane tickets instead.

But these bright blue shoes were particularly loathsome: mostly because they went with the bright dresses that served as some kind of alarm in her head that the days were ticking toward her thirtieth birthday, a date when she thought she’d have white bride’s heels in her closet, not more bridesmaid colors.

She buckled a pair of strappy ones and sauntered around the living room. She hadn’t even realized how much she’d wanted to get married until recently. As her thirtieth birthday loomed, and the bridesmaid dresses started piling up, she realized she was off her original “schedule.” She’d always assumed she’d be married by thirty. Or thirty-one, at the latest. She thought she’d have two babies by the time she was thirty-five. She’d imagined an adoring husband, a great career, nannies, beautiful children, a lovely home with a lamp-lit walkway through bright green grass, a Christmas tree in the front bay window, a jogger stroller to push around the neighborhood, and nice comfy walking shoes lining her closet so she could chase around after children all day.

But she was as far from that as she could imagine.

Her career wasn’t even close to set. She wasn’t even in the right number of digits for a down payment on a house. She had never had a boyfriend for longer than a year. And her doctor had stopped smiling when he asked if she was thinking of having any children anytime soon.

“
You know, your eggs are best before the age of twenty,
” he’d begun saying, clicking his pen calmly, as if he hadn’t just turned up the alarm on her biological clock.

Forrest, in the last six months, had appeared as a glimmer of hope. He was urbane enough for her sensibilities. He made a good living. He wanted kids. He liked being around family. He liked the idea of a big house, and a Christmas tree in the bay window. He liked feeling settled. He wasn’t wild and crazy, or passionate and sexy, but he’d be a steady father. He
was the Norman Rockwell painting of “family man” Lia had always imagined.

She tossed the strappy blue shoes back in the box and tried on a pair of simple royal blue pumps. As she wandered around her living room, her phone sang out a Gershwin tune she hadn’t heard in some time.
Forrest!

She scrambled for it. “Hello?” she said, leaning over another three shoe boxes against the entryway table.

“Lia!” His voice crackled over the phone.

“Forrest! I haven’t heard from you! I was getting worried.”

“Yes, I know. I hope . . .
static, static
 . . . going . . .
static
 . . . byway.” Or did he say “my way”?

“Forrest, it’s hard to hear you. I can’t make out what you’re saying.”

“Yes, the connection is . . .
static, static
 . . . always, so we’ve encountered . . .
static
.”

“Can you call me back?” she shouted into the phone. “I can’t make out half of what you’re saying.”

“Yes, I’ll call . . .
static
 . . . if you could . . .
static
 . . . text from the messages. Did you . . .
static, static
.”

“Call me back!” she said.

The phone went dead.

She stared at it, disappointed she didn’t have a fonder reaction to his voice. She’d hoped to have a soaring in her chest when she heard his voice again—something like they would show in a Lifetime movie. But right now, all she could think of was that his voice sounded so thin.

The royal blue pumps went back into the box and she dug out the next pair, glancing intermittently at her phone. They were a high-heeled robin’s egg Mary Jane. They pinched her toes immediately, but she gave them a spin, Missy in tow. Then they went into the “no” pile and she looked at her phone again.

By the time she got through all the boxes, had them separated into “maybe’s” and “no’s,” and had checked her phone about a billion times to no avail, it was time to get to the festival.

No text from Forrest.

She tugged on her sandals, slipped on a cute floral dress she loved, and headed out the door, trying to ignore the
buoyant feeling she got every time she thought of seeing Evan in a few minutes.

Man. She was a disaster.

*   *   *

Evan padded down the misty dock in his bare feet, one set of clothes in his arms like some damned vagrant, and leaped onto his boat through the morning fog.

He’d made his way down the hill from the motel, weaving through early morning runners who were participating in the “It’s Not a Fluke” 5K; past the syrupy scents of flapjacks in a booth near the start of the race; and around a series of floats, horses, tuba players, Boy Scouts, and clown cars that were apparently getting ready for the “Whale of a Tale” parade. The sticky scent of cotton candy already permeated the air.

Closing his cabin door to the cacophony, he threw his clothes into a corner and crawled on top of his sheets. The boat rocked gently. It would be good to have one morning in his own bed.

He woke again a little after ten, to the sounds of bands and cheers and Model A cars honking.

And to the sweet memory of another dream about Lia.

He rolled over and tried to figure out which was insult and which was injury.

His arm lay heavily over his eyes while he let himself remember the real previous night, especially the shimmering, sequined hourglass shape of her body, which had later become a key feature of his dream.

But, as horrified as he’d been last night at his boorishness, and the fact he’d kissed her so hard he’d practically had her bent over a cocktail table, there was one detail he hadn’t let himself think of until right now: She’d kissed him back.

He sat up and rubbed his face. Sure, she’d looked a little stricken. Sure, she’d looked a little insulted. Sure, she’d accepted his apology and had straightened her dress and reapplied her lipstick. But in the moment—when he’d had her pinned against the cocktail table—she was kissing him back.

A shock of disbelief swam through him. A Model A car honked its
a-ooogah
from high up on the hill, as if snapping
him out of his foolishness. He rubbed his face again and let the guilt fill his chest. Even if Lia did feel something back, he shouldn’t be noticing. Renece was dead only two years. He’d let her down in a horrible way. He’d let her
and
Luke down. And now he was just going to go on with his life? What kind of asshole did that?

Finally rousing, he yanked the covers aside and talked himself into the day. He needed to talk to Joe the Mechanic about getting a new water pump. His boat wasn’t moving at all now. But once the charter was finished on Monday, he needed to hightail it out of there, away from Lia and her ability to make him forget Renece; away from everything she was reminding him he wanted; away from Drew and memories of how much Evan had screwed up. Evan just needed to sail the fuck away.

Twenty minutes later, Evan popped his head into Joe’s shop. A boy sat behind the counter.

“Joe here?”

“He’s at the festival,” the boy said. He was about thirteen, with a mop of long surfer hair and a beanie keeping it secure. From the looks of his long nose and close-set eyes, he must be Joe’s son. “Why aren’t
you
there?” the boy asked. “Everyone in Sandy Cove is.”

Evan shook his head. “Not my thing.”

“Me neither.”

At the boy’s conspiratorial glance, Evan felt the stab. The one that hit him every time he thought of his dead son. This was what he was going to miss—relating to Luke, having things in common, understanding him on a level only another introvert could. When Evan had seen Luke sitting off to the side of his classmates, coloring by himself, a ribbon of recognition and understanding had woven around his heart. His boy was just like him, and they’d be bonded forever.

Except not forever.

Evan tried to catch his breath. He wanted his son back.

He wanted more kids.

The last realization hit him like a forty-knot gale, and he stepped back, into a rack of Sandy Cove sweatshirts.

“You okay?” the kid asked.

“Yeah. I’m . . .” Evan waved his hand to dismiss the concern, then turned and stared at the sweatshirts.

“When will your dad be back?” he asked gruffly.

“Probably not until late—sometime after the band tonight.”

“There’s a band?”

“Band in the Sand. Starts at seven. Goes ’til about eleven.”

Swell.

“All right, thanks. I’ll catch him later.” He threw a pack of beef jerky and a couple of bottled waters onto the counter and paid, then headed back into the noisy marina and escaped to his boat.

Sandy Cove was making him think strange thoughts.

He really had to get the fuck out of there.

*   *   *

Lia handed out brochures and whale-shaped bookmarks to visitors who came by the booth, chatting with several about Drew’s whale-tooth displays.

Kids came by with festival sweatshirts tied around their waists—it ended up being one of those warm February days. They jumped up and down at the huge bowl of blue and white M&Ms, and she scooped small piles into their hands, asking how many whales they thought came by Sandy Cove every year.

When the last set of children passed under the bright midday sun, Lia scooted her chair farther under the shade of the booth umbrella, smiling at Cora.

“You look good,” Cora said, offering her a bite of sno-cone.

She shook her head at the sno-cone and smoothed her dress. “Thanks for the compliment. You sound surprised.”

Cora laughed and took a bite out of the brightly colored treat. “I don’t usually see you looking so relaxed, is all.”

“As far as work days go, this is a good one.”

“I’ve missed having you on the boat,” Cora said. “I think someone else did, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean a dark, brooding, tall drink of water might have missed you, too.”

“Douglas?”

Cora laughed. “Dougie might be a short, stubby highball glass of water, but he’s all right, too.” She wriggled her eyebrows.

“Cora! You have a thing for Douglas?”

Cora offered a wink that belied her sixty-something years.

“Why don’t you say something to him?” Lia asked.

“Oh, it’s not that easy.”

“Sure it is!”

“No it’s not.”

“It is!”

Cora threw her a stern look to knock off the obvious nonsense.