The Summer Girls (30 page)

She saw small groups of female dolphins that included mothers and their young. The young calves stayed close, dorsal fins and glistening gray backs rising and falling together in the water as in a choreographed ballet. One curious youngster swam closer to the boat, its bright eyes gleaming
with curiosity. Carson leaned over the side of the Zodiac, watching with delight and calling to it.

“Sweet baby,” she crooned.

“Don’t encourage him,” Blake called out with a shake of his head. A moment later the mother swam up to steer her calf away, making loud clicking noises that sounded to Carson like she was scolding.

Whenever a dolphin was spotted, Blake killed the engines and grabbed for the camera. Carson eventually got better at sighting the dolphins as they rose and dipped in the water. To her chagrin, she only caught a fraction of the dolphins that Blake did, but when she spotted one, she felt a rush of adrenaline and shouted out the location.

Other times, however, she sat with the roar of the engines in her ears and watched Blake. His boyish enthusiasm was beguiling. More intriguing, however, was that his fervor was for something other than himself. This was in sharp contrast to so many of the men she’d dated before. Wealth, position, power—none of those things mattered to Blake, she realized. He wasn’t looking at what he was going to get—more money, a new car, a vacation, or some fancy bottle of wine. She watched him, his hands on the wheel of the boat as he scanned the sea. Blake was looking at what he could give back.

And that spoke to Carson. Because of Delphine, she could understand what that passion felt like. She put her hand in the water and let it drag in the wake. She felt its coolness and felt connected to this water and everything in it. She gazed up into the infinite sky and felt connected to the birds of the air, the clouds, the grass that surrounded
her, and creatures of the sea. She felt this in her deepest nature. She was part of something so much bigger than herself. And this realization simultaneously made her feel more vulnerable and stronger than she ever had before.

As she bounced along the waterway in the boat, her face in the sunshine and the wind in her hair, Carson looked out at the natural beauty that surrounded her and it dawned on her why Blake had wanted her to see this. He was offering her a window to look and really
see
. Not through a lens, but with all of her senses. To appreciate the significance of what was
wild
.

And in doing so, he was sharing with her a vital part of who he was.

A short while later Blake slowed the engines and brought the Zodiac close to a very small beach, larger than many of the sandy spits they’d passed that morning. The engines growled low as he brought them near, then suddenly all went silent. The Zodiac rocked while Blake hurried with the speed of experience to drop anchor. Carson listened to the sound of the gentle lapping of water against the boat and the creaking of the rope she clung to that ran along its sides.

“Ready for some lunch?” he asked her, offering his hand.

“Starving,” she replied, taking it.

“Do you mind getting wet, or do you need me to carry you ashore?”

Carson smirked and for a moment thought she’d have him carry her, just because she could. The flat bottom of the
Zodiac allowed Blake to get them close to shore. They only had to wade through knee-high water to get to the beach. After all the kite surfing, she’d have been too embarrassed not to wade in this short distance herself.

“I think I can manage it,” she said with sarcasm.

“Careful of the mud,” he cautioned her. “It can be slippery. And deep. I knew a guy who got stuck up to his knees in that slime. Had to lie on his back to pull his legs free.”

Carson, swinging her leg over the edge of the boat, paused. “Are you trying to scare me? So you can carry me?”

“Just being a gentleman,” Blake replied. “And did I mention the critters?”

Carson stiffened and drew her leg a bit farther back into the boat. “Critters?”

“Oh, sure,” he said in a grand manner. “All kinds of insects call this mud home. And snails and fiddler crabs, of course.” He shook his head. “Yep. Countless crabs. What do you think all those birds are feeding on?”

Carson looked down at the mud, squinting as she tried to see if anything was moving under the water.

“Thinking twice about my offer of a ride?”

“No, thanks anyway, Captain.” Carson held firm to the rubber side of the boat and let her other leg swing over. “I’ll take my chances.” She scanned the water beneath her, then, taking a breath, let gravity do its job. She slid with a splash into the water. Her feet sank a few inches into the mud, but nowhere near as deep as Blake had implied.

“Oh, wow, I wonder how I’ll ever make it to shore,” she teased him.

“You never know,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, then laughed. He put his sunglasses on, picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulders, grabbed a large towel and draped it around his neck, then slid off the boat into the water.

They strode together through the muck to where the mud was dry and sandy. Blake chose a dry patch and spread out the towel, dropped his backpack, and indicated she should join him. She sat next to him on the towel and stretched her mud-and-sand-streaked legs out in the sun to dry.

They were enclosed in a private world rimmed with sparkling water and brilliant green grasses and trees. Above them was a vast azure sky dotted with thick white clouds. While Blake unpacked the food, Carson leaned back on her arms and listened to the sound of wind in the spartina grass and the occasional plop that could’ve been air bubbles in the banks, shrimp, or even a fish jumping in the distance. From above she heard the piercing cries of the osprey, and looking up, she saw a black and white fish hawk circling.

“It’s so peaceful here,” she said with a sigh. “I feel a million miles away.”

He smiled, pleased to see she was having a good time, and handed her a brown paper bag from the local island deli. She sat up, surprised at how hungry she was. Inside she found a thick turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread, a large chocolate chip cookie, and an apple. Blake opened a large thermos and poured her cup full of chilled sweet tea.

“I’m surprised you haven’t gone out here before,” Blake said.

“I’ve been out on boats many times, but never in this area.” She looked around uncomprehendingly. They’d journeyed so far and so long. “Wherever we are,” she added with a light laugh. “And it’s been a long time since I’ve been in the lowcountry.” Her voice turned wistful as she gazed out for the thousandth time that day. The view never got old. “I’d forgotten how beautiful it is . . .” She let her voice trail off.

“These waters have always been my backyard,” Blake said, then bit into his sandwich.

Carson chewed and imagined him as a boy out in this great playland. No doubt skinny and as brown as a berry, his wild curls framing curious black eyes. He and Ethan were probably a lot like she and Harper used to be, only, even then, those two ruffians would’ve known every twist and turn of these waterways, where the sandbars were and the shallows. The best spots for fishing, swimming, and as they got older, tossing back a few cold ones. She smiled at the thought.

“What’re you thinking?” he asked.

Startled, she realized she’d been daydreaming. She saw him sitting beside her with a huge sandwich in his hand, his cap over his head and his cheeks slightly pink from the sun, and she could see the boy in the man.

“Were you a rebellious kid?” she asked, a gentle teasing tone in her voice.

Blake barked out a laugh. “Me?” he asked, his eyebrows raised, pointing to himself like the little boy she’d imagined.

“Yes, you,” she replied, laughing.

“Yeah, I guess I was. A little. In a good way. Never broke the law or anything like that.” He took a hearty gulp of his
tea, then wiped his mouth with his hand. “I might’ve bent it a little.”

“I’ll bet,” she said with a chuckle.

“What about you? Were you a wild child? Or were your parents the strict type?”

She drank some of her tea, thinking about how while Blake had been riding the water and kicking up a little dust on the roads, she had been in L.A. taking care of her father, cooking meals, cleaning their apartment, and shopping for food. The wildest it got for her was when she had to rise from her bed late at night, put on a coat, and go out alone to fetch him home from the bar.

“When I was a girl, Harper and I ran amok on the island, but the most trouble we ever got into was for exploring the tunnels of Fort Moultrie by ourselves. I only spent summers here when I was a girl. After that, I was in L.A. I didn’t have much time to fool around. My mother died when I was four. So it was just me and my father. He depended on me.”

Blake’s brows gathered. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

Carson shrugged the apology off, not wanting to spoil the mood. “I didn’t really know her.” Deftly, she turned the subject back to him. “What about your mother?”

Blake settled back and launched into stories about the big and boisterous Legare clan. She listened, mesmerized by the idea of having such a large family. He had the soul of a Southern storyteller. He could embellish colorful details and string her along in his easy cadence, all while she was laughing so hard tears came to her eyes. She could see these people, knew them as she’d known so many good, decent people coming up on Sullivan’s Island. Even though she was
here now, his stories made her feel homesick for the years she’d missed while away.

Carson was wiping a tear of laughter from her eye when she caught Blake watching her, a faint smile on his lips, his eyes as dark and full of mysteries as the creek mud. She felt a shiver, what Mamaw might have called a palpitation, and felt the zing of connection. In the quiet between them she was suddenly aware that she wanted this man, wanted to feel his lips on hers, more than she’d wanted a man for a very long time. Her gaze turned sultry in invitation as she pondered the thoughts that were surely running through his mind at that very moment.

Blake stirred and abruptly looked at his watch. “I guess we’d better be heading back. The clouds are moving in.”

Carson felt a sudden deflation even as a gust of cooler wind stirred her hair and blew grains of sand in her face. She wished they could have stayed longer and talked more. They’d crossed some line and she would have liked to see where it led.

Then she looked up at the gathering clouds and roused herself to action. As she collected their trash and put it into the backpack, he shook the sand from the towel and once again tossed it around his shoulders.

Back in the boat, Blake was all business again, with one eye on the sky. His muscles strained as he pushed the boat off from the mud with a long metal pole. Once it was free, he rushed to the controls and opened the throttle. The big engine roared to life. Carson held tight to the rope and they took off in a spray of water. They rode without stopping, bouncing hard across the choppy water, making it back to
the NOAA dock just as hearty, cool winds gusted through the grasses and the first drops of rain splattered hard, making pockmarks on the water.

Harper paid the cab fare as thunder rumbled overhead.

“That storm is moving in fast,” the cabdriver said, handing her back the change.

“Yes.” She took the receipt. “Thanks.” Harper climbed from the cab and stood for a moment tasting the sweet moisture that always filled the air moments before a storm broke. She let her shoulders lower for the first time since she’d been away and just stood with her arms hanging at her sides, closed her eyes, and let the lowcountry breezes wash over her.

It had been a soul-wrenching ten days in New York. Her mother, in a fit of fury, had thrown Harper’s clothing from her closet onto the floor. She’d ransacked her jewelry box and taken back any of the pieces that she’d given her.

Harper felt a drop of cold rain on her face and her eyes opened. From where she stood in the driveway, she saw the quaint white wooden cottage with its red front door under the arched cupola and the wide welcoming stairs. Though thunder rumbled overhead, Sea Breeze appeared nestled safely between ancient oaks, the boughs of which seemed to cradle the house like the gnarled fingers of some ancient guardian. Harper imagined them beckoning her to come inside, where soft golden light flowed from the windows, inviting her in from the storm.