Those Cassabaw Days (8 page)

As fast as she could, she threw them on, brushed her teeth and slipped her feet into her old blue Vans. She was pulling her hair into a ponytail as she made her way down the path that led to the dock. Just as she was walking up, Matt ran the aluminum flat-bottom boat aground.

“Morning,” Emily said. She put her hands on her hips and grinned. “You’re up early.” He was bare from the waist up, and still she couldn’t believe the size of him. Muscles cut across his chest and arms as though air-brushed on. Divots etched into his hips, ridges into his abdomen. She noticed his dog tags, and again wondered what he’d experienced in the marines. Things he’d probably always keep to himself.

Matt gave her a quick glance before he tossed the anchor onto the ground at the bow. “Habit.”

“Want some help?” she asked.

The skeptical look on Matt’s face almost made her laugh. “I got it. Thanks.” He climbed out of the boat, leaned down and grabbed it by the bow and pulled it farther onto land. His biceps, shoulders and back muscles pulled tight with the movement, and Emily noticed something she hadn’t before.

“Whoa,” she said, and stepped closer. Raising a hand, she grazed his shoulder. A large, intricate compass with a prominent North Star in the middle was inked into his skin, complete with
N
,
S
,
E
and
W
. When she looked up at him, he was already staring at her, and she smiled. “That is just magnificent, Mattinski.” As kids they’d add
inski
onto everything—their names, pets, places—whatever crossed their minds, and it was funny, and they did it so much it used to drive Jep completely out of his mind.

A vague movement lifted the corner of his mouth, so Emily knew he remembered. But as fast as she’d noticed the almost smile, it disappeared. “Keeps me grounded,” he answered instead. He inclined his head. “Stay here. Dock’s too shady for two people. It won’t hold my weight and yours.”

“Will do,” she answered. “I’ll stand by with the boat. In case you fall in and need me to rescue you.”

Matt’s brows burrowed into a frown and he didn’t say anything as he turned and sauntered onto the dock, just shaking his head.

Emily kept her eye on him as he slowly inspected the rotted wood slats, the pilings, until he reached the large gap.

Slowly Matt made his way to the end of the dock, then disappeared into the dock house. After a few moments he reappeared once more and stood, hands on hips, inspecting.

Emily admired him. Lord, she couldn’t help it. Even from where she stood Matt Malone cut a sexy figure in the early-morning sun. Broad, thick muscular shoulders and arms tapered to a narrow waist, ripped stomach, slim hips, muscular thighs and calves. All accentuated with that alluring compass tattoo on his shoulder.

It keeps me grounded.
She wondered what that’d meant, exactly?

Suddenly, he’d disappeared. One second Emily had her eyes on him, the next—gone. She waited for a moment, and unlike before, he didn’t reappear.

“Matt?” she called out. “Hey, are you okay?”

No response.

Worry propelled Emily onto the dock, even though Matt had instructed her to stay put, and she carefully but quickly picked her way over the sun-bleached slats. What if something had happened? Maybe Matt was hung up on a piling? Her eyes scanned the water and muck below, and at the same time she searched for Matt.

She’d almost made it to the big gap in the dock when the sound of splintering wood reached her ears. With a yelp she plummeted into the murky low-tide river water.

“Oh!” she squawked, just as her head submerged. The second she popped back up and drew in a lung full of air, Matt was there. And he wasn’t happy.

His dark brows slashed angrily over his eyes. “Dammit, Emily. Are you hurt?”

Emily blinked the water from her eyes and she began to tread. She noticed her shin burning. She must’ve scraped it on the fall down. “I think I’m okay. I thought something had happened to you.”

Matt made a noise deep in his throat that sounded like a growl, shook his head and grasped her by the arm. His eyes flashed, and she noticed the water beading in his buzzed hair. “I told you to stay put.”

Emily’s jaw began trembling. “I d-d-don’t listen well, I guess.” She blew out a puff of air. “Oh, my God, this water is f-f-freezing!”

Again, Matt just shook his head. “Come on.” He tugged Emily’s arm and began swimming back to the bank, pulling Emily right along with him. The water was chilly for late May, maybe because of the early-morning hour. Saw grass swiped her wet skin, and she noticed fiddlers popping in and out of their homes, angrily shaking their big claws at them as they swam by. When she licked her lips, she tasted salt. All familiar things. All things she’d missed.

Finally, she felt the muddy bottom of the creek. She sank into the muck, and trudged through it until they reached the bank. Matt grasped her hand and pulled her out behind him, and quickly his eyes scanned her legs.

He frowned harder and kneeled down, just as his fingertips grazed her shin. “Jesus, Emily,” he said.

She looked down, past the breadth of Matt’s bare wet shoulders, to her shin. A gash allowed a steady trickle of blood to stream down her leg. An enormous splinter stuck out of it.

“Oh, shoot,” Emily said. “No wonder it burns.” She reached with her fingers, ready to pluck the old wood out. Matt stopped her with his hand.

In one motion Matt rose and scooped Emily up in his arms. The muscles in his jaw flexed. As he hurried along, carrying Emily’s soggy wet and muddy self toward the house, he mumbled something unintelligible before glaring at her. “Swear to God, Emily. Next time just listen when I tell you something.” He sighed. “Hardhead.”

Even though her shin stung like crazy, it didn’t stop the smile from stretching across her face as she floated through the air in Matt’s steel-like arms.

Maybe her old friend wasn’t as big of a grump as he pretended to be? And maybe, just maybe, his lighthearted self was still in there, buried, somewhere.

CHAPTER SIX

“
D
O YOU HAVE
an emergency kit?” Matt asked. He sat her down at the kitchen table on one of the small wooden chairs, then rocked back on his heels and inspected her shin. The movement made his dog tags swing and bounce against his chest. A gentle grasp around Emily’s leg belied the true strength in his big hands. He lifted her leg, stared and set it back down, waiting on an answer.

“Er, no, I don’t,” Emily said. She looked at her shin. “It’s really okay, just let me pull that out—”

“No. Just wait here,” Matt instructed gruffly. At the kitchen archway, he looked over his shoulder and glared. “Don’t move. Don’t pull it out. Just sit.” He turned and ran out of the house.

Emily rested her head against the back of the chair. “Fine,” she said out loud. Again she examined her wound. It wasn’t
that
bad. Just a scrape, really, maybe a little deep in one area close to her bony shin. And that splinter. She cocked her head and looked closer. Maybe more than a splinter, actually. Possibly the size of a toothpick. The wood was almost black with age and elements. What would it hurt to just pull it on out?

Just as that thought settled in her mind, the front door slammed and Matt reappeared in the kitchen. He was still shirtless and beads of sweat clung to the rigid lines of his muscles and along his jaw and forehead. But he wasn’t breathless. His eyes went to her shin, and he grunted with what she figured was surprise that she’d done what he’d asked. In his hand was a traditional emergency kit in a white plastic box with a red cross on it.

Silently, he washed his hands at the sink then kneeled in front of her and withdrew several items. Gauze. Peroxide. Rubbing alcohol. Ointment. Tape.

“Were you a medic in the marines?” Emily asked.

Matt didn’t look up as he opened the bottle of alcohol. “Nope.”

“Man of few words now, huh?” she asked.

“I say what needs to be said.” He soaked a square of gauze with alcohol. “Be still.”

Emily did as he asked and watched as he cleaned the skin around the gashy scrape. He did it several times until the area was cleaned of creek muck and salt water. Then he withdrew a pair of tweezers from the kit and gave her a stern glare.

“Don’t move.”

“Why?” Emily asked. “It’s just a splinter.”

Matt let out a frustrated sigh. “You don’t want a piece of rotted dock wood to break off deep into your skin.”

“Oh,” she replied. “Gotcha. Carry on, my wayward son.”

Matt narrowed his eyes and just shook his head. The Kansas song had once been a favorite of theirs. She supposed he’d either forgotten about the song, or had buried it with all the rest of their childhood memories.

He bent to the task of removing the jagged splinter. Carefully, he tweezed close to the skin, grasped the wood and slowly pulled it out. The gash began to bleed more, and he set the tweezers and splinter on the table, picked her up and carried her to the sink.

He turned the water on. “Hold your leg under there for a few,” he said. “Let the blood clean the wound out.”

As she sat on the counter beside the kitchen sink, a steady stream of cold water blending with the blood draining from her shin, she inspected Matt as carefully as he’d examined her wound. A statue-like profile, with a stern jaw and muscular neck, he looked like something Michelangelo himself carved right out of a fresh slab of marble. She could tell he was concentrating because the muscles in his cheeks and jaw flexed.

He looked up. “I’m going to pour peroxide over it. Then you need to shower off the river muck and water before we cover it with a bandage.”

Emily gave him a fake-fierce look. “We used to get cut by oyster shells and you didn’t make such a big fuss about it then.”

“That was before I saw big healthy men lose limbs over a little infection. Go.”

“Yes, sir. Keep an eye out for the movers, will ya? They’re due anytime now.”

Matt gave a slight nod and turned to gather the contents of the kit.

It didn’t take her long to clean up, and when she finished she changed into a clean pair of cutoff jean shorts and a white tank. Pulling her hair into a wet ponytail, she ambled into the kitchen where Matt waited. He sat at the table, still shirtless, still muddy. When she walked in, he lifted his gaze to her.

“I know, I know,” Emily said with a grin, and eased into a chair. “Sit and don’t move.”

Matt grunted and bent down beside her injured leg. With deft fingers and in mere moments he had recleaned Emily’s wound, applied antibacterial ointment and a gauze bandage. He taped it snug to her shin, then rose and looked at her. “Stay out of the river for now, and keep it clean. You can take the bandage off at night.” He gathered everything back in the emergency kit and closed it. “If it gets hot, or red, or painful, you’ll have to see a doctor.”

“Yes, sir,” Emily said, admiring his work. “Pretty good field dressing.”

Matt shrugged and inclined his head toward the door. “I’m gonna get back to it, then.” He swaggered out of the kitchen and in the next second he was off the porch and halfway across the yard, heading back to the dock. No further words. No further glances.

Emily opened the window and just stared as Matt set his emergency kit into the aluminum boat and went about the task of inspecting the lumber on the dock. The sun seeped through the early-morning sky now, a haze of gilded ginger and rose streaking the heavens over the Back River and Morgan’s Creek. Matt climbed on and off the dock, disappearing beneath the water’s surface, pulling himself back up as he examined the timber in dire need of repair. She just stood there, propped against the kitchen sink, watching. It was an easy task, that—watching Matt Malone. Everything he did seemed effortless. Fluid. As if each movement was well thought out and executed precisely. It was exquisite to watch...as well as painful.

Her phone chirped. The caller ID made her pause, then she answered.

“Trent,” she said, surprised.

“Hey, Emily-girl,” he answered. His deep voice resonated through the phone. “How are you? Did you make the drive okay?”

“I did,” she responded. Her gaze stayed on Matt.

“Good, good,” he said. “So how are things?”

Confusion webbed her brain. “Fine—Trent, why are you calling me?”

He sighed into the phone; heavy, almost burdened. “You’ve been on my mind so much lately,” he confessed. “I...just wanted to make sure you made it all right.”

An engine roared up the road, drawing Emily’s attention to the lane.

“I’ve got to go, Trent,” she said hurriedly. “The movers are here.”

“All right, then,” he said softly. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“No, Trent—”

He’d already hung up. Heaving a gusty sigh, she slid the phone into her pocket, pushed Trent’s unexpected phone call to the back of her mind and watched the moving van as it ambled up the dirt path between the azalea bushes. As she stepped outside they were just coming to a stop close to the front porch steps. The driver and passenger exited, slamming the doors behind them. The driver had an electronic clipboard.

“Eh, Emily Quinn?” he said, and took an easy step toward her. “We’re here to deliver your possessions. If you’ll sign right here.”

Emily crossed her arms over her chest and smiled at the big guy. “I will be happy to,” she said, “after everything’s inside, nice and unbroken-like.”

The driver’s coworker barked out a laugh. He was tall and lanky, with a wide friendly smile. “No problem, sweetheart. We’ll be like a couple of ballerinas with your stuff.” He winked. “We might look clumsy but we move like feathery butterflies.”

Emily couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, this I’ve gotta see. Let’s get started.”

The guys moved quickly and carefully, and over the next hour and a half had all of Emily’s belongings unloaded from the van and placed in her specified rooms in the river house. The one skinny guy made sure to do a few pirouettes to show off his nimble ballet butterfly moves, and she laughed every time. Emily didn’t have much furniture; the estate attorney had already informed her that Aunt Cora had left a few old pieces in the house, most of it left by Emily’s parents.