Those Cassabaw Days (21 page)

Matt’s gaze was still on her head, inspecting the hat. “Yep.” He grinned—and it was a sight Emily was getting more and more used to. “He’s even grumpier than me.”

A laugh bubbled out of Emily. “He runs a close second for sure, but he’s really sweet once you get to know him.” She winked. “Kinda like you.”

“Hmm.” He nuzzled her neck, kissed her jaw and glanced at the Jeep’s loaded back end. “Need some help?”

“I do, yes,” she said. Juggling the box of dresses and whatnot in her arms, she nodded to the Jeep. “Let me set this box down and you can help me with that old apothecary chest.” She started up the steps to the veranda and grinned over her shoulder. “I’m going to paint it robin’s-egg blue and set it directly by the front door, on the left.”

Emily let herself inside and set the box down in the center of the living room, and when she turned Matt was already stepping in with the chest in his arms. “Oh! Right here is fine,” she said, and he set it down next to the box on the big braided rug in the living room. “Thanks.”

He scrubbed his jaw and inspected the chest. “Nice piece. What else did you find?”

Emily was having trouble keeping her eyes off the smooth shifting and subtle bunching of muscles in Matt’s back as he bent, inspected, ran his hand over the aged wood. The scars, in various shades of reds and purples, also grabbed her attention, and she had to force herself not to reach out and caress them. What on earth had they done to him? What had he endured?

“Em?”

Emily beamed. “Dresses. A pair of heels. Some more hats, including fedoras for men. And a wonderful pair of high-waist, wide-legged women’s trousers in navy blue.”

He continued to stare but said nothing.

Emily knew him well enough, though, that his silence meant for her to continue with an explanation. So she did. “We’re going to dress up for the grand opening. I’m going to play the roaring twenties and thirties for the patrons. You know, not loud or obnoxious, but subtle, in the background while they take their meal.” She shrugged, smiled and sighed dramatically. “I thought I’d give the Windchimer a memorable, long-lasting Gastby-like opening touch.” Emily cocked her head. “What do you think?”

“I’ll have to hear it before I can make an honest judgment.”

Emily squealed and hurried over to the corner of the living room where she’d set up her record player. Choosing an album of various artists, she pulled the vinyl out of the sleeve and set it on the turntable. Carefully, she set the needle.

“Don’t you just love the old crackling sound that happens as the needle moves closer to the music on the vinyl?”

Matt’s mouth tipped up, and he was clearly amused. “You are so weird.”

The music started, and Emily began to shimmy an old dance. “Takes one to know one. You know what your problem is, Matt Malone?” she teased as she danced a circle around him. “You’re a fuddy-duddy.”

Grabbing his hand, she ducked under his arm as though he were leading her in a dance, when in truth he just stood there, grinning and shaking his head. “I’m not talking about a run-of-the-mill nincompoop, either. Oh, no.” She ducked under his arm again. “I’m talking Grade A, humongous to the nth degree
nincompoop
!”

“Is that so?” Matt said, and spun her fast. “I’ll show you.”

“Ha! Matt!” Emily laughed as the next song began. “The Charleston! Come on! Do it with me. Ple-e-ease!” She batted her eyes. “We used to do it all the time with Jep!”

Matt rolled his eyes. “Emily, I stink like the marsh. I’ve been working on the dock for the past four hours. Besides, I don’t dance.”

“That’s a big fat lie, Matt Malone, and you know it. Please?”

Looking around, Matt grinned, grabbed her hand and spun her out. “If you squeal on me, you’ll be sorry.”

“I swear, I won’t!”

With boxes and appliances still in her living room, she and Matt cut a rug, as Jep would say, as they laughed and went through all of the moves of the Charleston.

It reminded Emily of the scene in
It’s a Wonderful Life
, when George Bailey and Mary Hatch were doing the Charleston in the gym, and the floors opened up into a swimming pool and everyone jumped in. She and Matt laughed, they danced to the old tinny music of horns and trombones and saxophones, and for a swift moment Emily forgot that this was truly the first time she’d seen him dance in, well, forever.

And she liked it.

The song wound down, and they slowed their moves, and a new song began. Emily’s eyes widened and she gasped. “This is my favorite, Matt!” She set a proper slow dance stance between them. “‘Girl of My Dreams,’ by the Blue Steele Orchestra.” They began to move in a slow dance. Emily kept one hand in Matt’s, her other barely resting against his shoulder.

Matt kept his gaze on hers; they danced slowly, he still bare-chested, she in her work clothes and 1930s hat, and listened to the horns and instruments of the song. She looked up and saw Matt’s gaze had darkened—he lowered his mouth and swept his lips over hers. Emily’s fingers dragged over his skin, his back and the puckering scars. As his tongue found hers, her knees weakened, and she didn’t think she could be much happier.

He turned her, kissed and danced her backward to the front door, reached behind to open it and danced her out. A cool breeze wafted on the evening air and caressed her heated skin.

“Better?” Matt asked, looking at her.

“Much,” Emily said. “Except your mouth isn’t on mine anymore.”

Matt grinned, cupped her face and pulled her close. “Easy to remedy.”

And he kissed her until they were both breathless.

“You know what Jep calls this?” Matt asked quietly as they leaned against the rail.

“This what?”

Matt turned her, pulled her back against his chest. “This time of night. He calls it the gloaming hour.” He lowered his mouth to her ear, and his warm breath brushed over her skin, and she shivered. “He says it’s when the magical underground rises out of the sea and hovers over the land.”

He laughed softly, and the sound was rough and raspy and delicate at the same time. “He says his da always used to tell him stories from Ireland in the gloaming hour, from the top of the light station.” He looked down at her, and the warmth in his eyes made her chest tighten. “You remember all those crazy magical Irish stories about the fae folk living underground, and coming topside at dusk. He’s told them to us a thousand times.”

“I always loved hearing them, although sometimes they scared me a little,” Emily confessed. “Especially the ones about the changelings.”

He stood back, pulled her with him and twirled her, and she shuddered, wasn’t entirely sure if it was the memory of the scary Irish fae folk or how near Matt was to her. How safe she felt beside him. How the feel of his calloused hand closing around hers, or slipping to the small of her back made those butterflies beat her insides mercilessly.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said. “I was going to wait—”

“I can’t wait one more second!” she squealed.

“Okay, okay.” Matt held her hand and led to the marsh, then onto the dock. “Keep your eyes closed, Em,” he warned. “I mean it. No peeking.”

“I won’t peek,” she agreed. “Hurry, Matt!”

The familiar scents of the marsh swallowed them up as they walked along the dock. The breeze that shifted the air, moist, damp and filled with salty brine, caressed her skin as they hurried into the gloaming hour.

“Okay, stop, but keep your eyes closed,” he warned, and she did, and he stood close. His hands found her shoulders, and he turned her body around.

“Open your eyes, Em,” he whispered against her ear, and she shivered and did as he asked.

In the fading light of dusk, when the colors of the sky streak heather and gray and ginger and gold, and a silvery veil falls over everything else, she faced her dock house. New red tin roof. New screen. New screened door.

And over the door, on a sanded piece of deck board and painted against a sea-serpent-green background in white vintage letters—
Come Josephine in My Flying Machine
, flanked by two white angel-wing shells. On the inside of one,
Matt
. The other,
Em
.

“I guess it’s kind of arrogant of me to put my name on your dock sign,” Matt said. He reached into the pocket of his khaki shorts and held something between his thumb and forefinger. When Emily drew closer and peered into the fading light, she saw it was the same shell he’d kept on the day she’d left Cassabaw. “But I’ve kept my half all these years. It’s been on all four tours with me in the corps.” The dusky light cast his eyes in a darker shade, darker than moss, darker than sage. “My good-luck charm.”

She looked up into his eyes and she fought tears and memories. “I’ve still got mine, too,” she said. “I wore it on a necklace for quite a long time—until I got scared of losing it.” She smiled, laced her fingers through his free hand. “It’s been in my beloved ballerina treasure box ever since.”

Matt squeezed her fingers gently. “I hated that day,” he confessed. “I hated everything about it. Your parents dying. The shirt and tie Dad made me wear.” He grazed the side of her face with his knuckle. “I even hated your grandparents for taking you away. But most of all I hated you leaving. It was the worst day of my life.”

“You were the only good thing about that day, for me,” Emily confessed. She closed her eyes and leaned into his caress. “And before long it actually hurt to think of you.” She sighed and looked up. “I wanted to come home so bad.”

He looked at her. “I wrote letters, Em. You never answered them.”

She stared, surprised. “I...never got them. I’m so sorry, Matt.”

“Well, you’re home now,” Matt comforted.

“I love the Josephine sign to absolute pieces and back,” she said, and rose on her tiptoes. “I’ll keep it forever.”

He jerked a pinkie toward her. “Promise?”

Emily hooked her pinkie with Matt’s and pulled it to her chest. “Promise.”

Matt grasped her jaw, his fingers sliding into her hair as he pulled her mouth to his, and his lips caressed hers, his hand slid along her throat, and Emily wrapped her arms around his waist as she drowned in his kiss. In his taste.

Drowned in Matt.

Finally, he lifted his head. Darkness had begun to settle over the marsh, but moonshine began to filter through the gray haze of the gloaming. “I’m not sure what this is,” he said as gentle as Matt Malone could say. “With me and you. But I know one thing.”

“What’s that?” Emily asked.

“I’ve dreamed about it for a long damn time.”

Close by, the blow of a dolphin sounded. “Let’s sit on the floating dock and listen to the mermaids.”

Matt gave a single nod. “After you.”

Together they sat, side by side, legs dangling in the warm July water, with Emily’s head resting on Matt’s shoulder. “You’re so different than you were when I saw you that first day. Why is that?”

* * *

M
ATT
SAT SILENT
for a moment while he thought about it. The feel of Emily—and knowing it was his Em—beside him, leaning into him, made his body ache for her. Not just his body, but something way deeper. Way primal. And so exceptionally intimate that it all but made him drunk with sensation. As if he wanted to swallow her up.

“I suppose it’s because I’d lost purpose after the corps. Didn’t know who I was. Thought that I had to be leading a company with a firearm in my hand in order to make a difference in the world.” He lifted one shoulder. “I guess now I see other options.”

“Like what?”

“You, for one. I’ve watched you with people, Em. You’re the same as you were as a little girl. You have a unique ability to make people see light. To see around the darkness.” He kissed the top of her head. “You make people see a different side of themselves than what they perceive in the mirror, or in their heart.” He draped an arm around her, and the feel of her slender shoulder bones, her head resting in the crook of his neck, made him feel as though he was in some sort of dream state—one he wished never to awaken from. “Or different than what others see.”

She laughed lightly, and the sound flicked off the water. “I guess. I really don’t do it intentionally, though. It just...happens. I like people.”

“It shows. And that’s what’s special about you. Special to me.” He gave a low laugh. “Take Catesby, for instance.” He ducked his head, searching her features out in the darkness. “Sweet?”

The tinkling sound that was Emily’s laugh made his mouth tug upward. “Absolutely, sweet. If you look past all the gruffness and loneliness.”

“He’s not an islander. Comes from—”

“Cooper Lake,” Emily said, beating him to it. “Anyway. I like to let people know they’re important in this world. And not by simply telling them I like their hair or they have pretty teeth or their bald head is beautiful, but why, specifically. Like Owen’s lovely skin reminds me of a dull copper penny. Not generic compliments, but real ones. Real to me.”

“And that’s why you reach a place inside of people no one else can.”

“Including you?” she asked.

“Especially me,” he replied.

“So,” Emily began, leaning into Matt, “does this mean you’re asking me to be your girl, Matt Malone? Because I’m old-fashioned, in case you didn’t know. I like to be asked proper and all.”

Matt’s face pulled into a smile. “Oh, I know that. And yes, ma’am—” he linked their fingers together “—I’m askin’.” He turned her head with his knuckle, and the moonlight gave her face an ethereal glow as though she was anything but a normal, everyday human being. Something unique, beyond rare, irreplaceable.

“Then I most assuredly and excitedly, and with utmost pride, accept the title of being Matt Malone’s girl.”

He kissed her then, swept his mouth over hers under the moonlit Back River where they both grew up, and as her mouth moved gentle, sweet, then turned hungry beneath his, he knew this was what he’d been waiting for all along. Why he’d had only a string of one-night stands, never interested in a girl for more than a night, or hadn’t met the right girl.

Emily had been the right girl all along.

As they sat on the end of the dock, a low moon hanging over the marsh and Emily’s mermaids blowing air each time they broke the surface of the water, Matt felt an old fear gnaw at his insides; a new one started to chew, too.