Mrs. O’Hehir, who had been listening from behind the counter, said, “Tell Alex he’s better off without her. And tell him to marry a nice island girl the next time.”
“I think by now all the nice island girls know better,” Sam said, and followed Lucy from the shop. “Look,” he said when they were outside, “I don’t want to be a pest, but I have to make sure you get home safely. If you’d prefer, I’ll follow at a distance.”
“How much of a distance?” she asked.
“The average restraining order, give or take a hundred yards.”
A reluctant laugh escaped her. “That won’t be necessary. You can walk with me.”
Obligingly Sam fell into step beside her.
As they proceeded to Artist’s Point, Lucy noticed the beginnings of a spectacular sunset, the sky glazed with orange and pink, the clouds gilded at the edges. It was a sight that, under different circumstances, she would have enjoyed.
“So what stage are you in now?” Sam asked.
“Stage?… Oh, you mean my postbreakup schedule. I guess I’m near the end of stage one.”
“Sarah MacLachlan and angry text messages.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t get the haircut,” he said.
“What?”
“The next stage. Haircut and new shoes. Don’t change your hair, it’s beautiful.”
“Thank you.” Self-consciously Lucy tucked a long, dark lock behind her ear. “Actually, the haircut is stage three.”
They paused at a street corner, waiting for the light to change.
“At the moment,” Sam remarked, “we happen to be standing in front of a wine bar that serves the best mahi in the Pacific Northwest. What do you think about stopping for dinner?”
Lucy glanced through the window of the wine bar, where people sat in the glow of candlelight and seemed to be having a perfectly wonderful time. She returned her attention to Sam Nolan, who was watching her intently. Something was hidden beneath his nonchalance, not unlike the effect in a chiaroscuro painting. Clair-obscur, the French called it. Clear-obscure. She had the feeling that Sam Nolan wasn’t quite the uncomplicated character Justine had made him out to be.
“Thank you,” she said, “but that wouldn’t lead to any place I want to go.”
“It doesn’t have to lead anywhere. It could just be dinner.” At her hesitation, Sam added, “If you say no, I’ll end up microwaving something out of a box at home. Can you really live with yourself, letting that happen to me?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you’ll have dinner with me?”
“Yes, I can live with the idea of you eating out of a box.”
“Heartless,” he accused softly, but there was a glint of amusement in the vivid depths of his eyes.
They continued to the inn.
“How long are you going to stay at Artist’s Point?” Sam asked.
“Not much longer, I hope. I’ve been looking for an apartment.” Lucy gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Unfortunately the apartments I can afford aren’t nearly as appealing as the ones I can’t afford.”
“What’s on your wish list?”
“One bedroom is all I need. Something quiet but not too isolated. And I would love a water view if possible. In the meantime, I’m staying at Justine’s place.” She paused. “I guess you and I have a friend in common.”
“Did Justine say we’re friends?”
“Aren’t you?”
“That depends on what she said about me.”
“She said that you were a great guy and I should go out with you.”
“In that case, we’re friends.”
“She went on to say that you were the perfect transitional guy, because you’re fun and you like to avoid commitment.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“I said I wasn’t interested. I’m tired of making stupid mistakes.”
“Going out with me would be a very smart mistake,” Sam assured her, and she laughed.
“Why is that?”
“I never get jealous, and I don’t make promises that I would end up breaking. With me, you get what you see.”
“Not a bad sales pitch,” Lucy said. “But I’m still not interested.”
“The sales pitch comes with a free test-drive,” he said.
Lucy smiled and shook her head.
They approached Artist’s Point and stopped at the front steps.
Turning to face him, Lucy said, “Thanks for the new shirt. And for helping me out of the bar. You were … a nice ending to a rough day.”
“No problem.” Sam paused. “About that apartment you’re looking for—I may have an idea. My brother Mark has been renting out his place—a condo on the waterfront—ever since he and Holly moved in with me.”
“Who’s Holly?”
“My niece. She’s seven years old. My sister Victoria died last year, and Mark was named as Holly’s guardian. I’m helping him out for a little while.”
Lucy stared at him closely, interested by the revelation. “Helping to raise her,” she clarified.
Sam responded with a single nod.
“And you let them move into your house,” Lucy said rather than asked.
Sam shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s a big house.” His face turned unreadable, his voice deliberately casual. “So about the condo … the current resident is gone, and as far as I know, Mark’s still trying to sublet it. You want me to check it out for you? Maybe take you for a walk-through?”
“I … maybe.” Lucy realized that she was being hypercautious. A waterfront condo wasn’t easy to find, and it would be worth taking a look at. “I’m sure it’s out of my price range. How much is he asking?”
“I’ll find out and let you know.” Sam pulled out his cell phone and looked at her expectantly. “What’s your number?” He grinned as she hesitated. “I swear I’m not a stalker. I take rejection well.”
He had a kind of easygoing charm that she couldn’t seem to resist. Lucy gave him her number, and looked up into his blue-green eyes, and felt an unwilling smile tug at her lips. It was a pity, really, that she couldn’t let loose enough to have some fun with him.
Except that Lucy was a woman who knew better. She was tired of wanting and hoping and losing. Later, months from now, more likely years, the need for companionship would reawaken, and she would risk getting involved with someone again. Not now, however. And never with this man, who would keep the relationship strictly superficial.
“Thank you,” Lucy said, watching as Sam slid the phone into his back pocket. She extended her hand in an awkward, businesslike gesture. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you if the condo’s available.”
Sam shook her hand gravely, his eyes dancing.
The warmth of his hand, the secure way his fingers folded around hers, felt unspeakably good. It had been so long since she had been touched or held in any way. Lucy prolonged the moment a little longer than necessary, even as a flush of mortified color went from her toes to her scalp.
Sam studied her, his expression turning inscrutable. He used his grip on her hand to ease her closer, his head bending over hers. “About that test-drive…” he murmured.
Lucy couldn’t catch up with her own thoughts. Her heart had begun to thump. She stared blindly at the sunset melting into cool blue darkness. Sam surprised her by easing her against his shoulder, his hand gliding over her spine in a soothing motion. Their bodies touched at intervals, the pressure of him warm and hard and knee-weakening.
Disoriented, Lucy didn’t make a sound as one of his hands came to the side of her face, holding her steady as his mouth descended. He was gentle, easing her into the kiss. She opened for him instinctively, the wrong instincts winning out over the right ones.
The kiss beguiled her, just for a moment, into thinking she had nothing left to lose. This is crazy, she thought, but his tongue touched hers, and her hand slid up and groped for the back of his neck. Sensation flowed into the spaces between her heartbeats.
Sam was the one to end the kiss. He kept his arms around Lucy until she could find her balance. Bewildered and disarmed, Lucy finally managed to pull away from him. She headed up the front steps.
“I’ll call you soon,” she heard him say.
Pausing, Lucy glanced at him over her shoulder. “It wouldn’t be a good idea,” she said in a low voice.
They both knew she wasn’t referring to the condo.
“No one’s going to rush you into anything,” he said. “You call the shots, Lucy.”
A little huff of laughter escaped her. “If you have to tell someone they call the shots, they’re not really calling the shots.” And she went up the rest of the stairs without looking back.
Eight
“It’s too soon,” Kevin had protested, when Alice brought up the idea of marriage. “You just moved in.”
She had given him a long, hard look. “What kind of time line are we looking at?”
“Time line,” he repeated dazedly.
“Six months? A year? I’m not going to wait forever, Kevin. A lot of guys are married at your age. What’s the problem? You said you’re in love with me.”
“I am, but—”
“What else is there to know about me? What’s the holdup? I have no problem with leaving, if you feel like this relationship isn’t the right fit.”
“I never said that.”
But Alice had decided that something big needed to happen for her, especially in light of having just lost her scriptwriting job. A call had come from her agent, who had just talked to the head writer of What the Heart Knows. The show had been canceled. The ratings had been so poor that they weren’t even going to finish out the story lines. It had already been replaced with a couple of game shows. The distributor was trying to shop the show to a cable network, but in the meantime Alice would have to sit tight and live off her limited savings.
Marrying Kevin would solve three problems. It would entitle her to his financial support, and it would prove to Lucy that Kevin loved Alice the most. It would also force her parents to accept the union. Alice and her mother would plan the wedding together, and everyone would get swept up in the excitement. It would make the family whole again. And Lucy would have to swallow her hurt pride and get over it.
As soon as she had gotten the engagement diamond on her finger, Alice called her parents triumphantly. She was stunned to discover that instead of offering congratulations, they were harshly critical.
“Have you set a date?” her mother had asked.
“Not yet. I thought you and I would go over some ideas together and—”
“There’s no need to involve me in your plans,” her mother said. “Dad and I will attend the wedding, if you want us to. But planning and paying for it is your responsibility.”
“What? I’m your first daughter to get married—and you’re not going to give me a wedding?”
“We’ll be more than happy to pay for a wedding when our family is healed. But as things stand now, you’ve gained your happiness at the expense of your sister’s. And in consideration for her feelings, that means we can’t support your relationship with Kevin. That also means that we’re not going to be supplementing your monthly income any longer.”
“I feel like I’m being disowned,” Alice cried in astonished fury. “I can’t believe how unfair this is!”
“You’ve created a situation that’s unfair to everyone, Alice. Including yourself. There are so many events ahead of us … holidays, births, illnesses … things we need to go through as a family. And that won’t be possible until you’ve worked things out with Lucy.”
Outraged, Alice had repeated the conversation to Kevin, who had shrugged and said they should probably put off the wedding.
“Until Lucy gets over losing you? She’ll stay single for the next fifty years, just to be a bitch.”
“You can’t make her start going out again,” Kevin said.
Alice was deep in thought. “As soon as Lucy gets a new guy, she can’t be the victim anymore. My parents will have to admit that she’s gone on with her life. And then they’ll have to give me a wedding, and things will go back to the way they’ve always been.”
“Where are you going to get this guy for her?”
“You know a lot of people on the island. Who do you suggest?”
He gave her a startled glance. “This is getting weird, Alice. I’m not going to fix up my ex-girlfriend with one of my buddies.”
“Not a close friend. Just a normal, decent-looking guy who would appeal to her.”
“Even if I can come up with someone, how are you going to…” Kevin’s voice trailed away as he read her stubborn expression. “I don’t know. Maybe one of the Nolans. I heard Alex is getting a divorce.”
“No divorced guys. Lucy won’t go for that.”
“The middle brother, Sam, is single. He has a vineyard.”
“Perfect. How do we get them together?”
“You want me to introduce them?”
“No, it has to be secret. Lucy would never agree to go out with someone that either of us had suggested.”
Kevin considered how to get two people to go out together without revealing that you were the one behind it. “Alice, do we really have to—”
“Yes.”
“I guess Sam owes me one,” Kevin said reflectively. “I did some ground work for him a couple years back, and I didn’t charge him anything.”
“Good. Call in the favor, then. Get Sam Nolan to take Lucy out.”
* * *
Holly giggled as Sam hoisted her spindly body to carry her through the vineyard on his shoulders. “I’m tall!” she cried. “Look at me!”
She weighed no more than dandelion fluff, her small arms loosely wrapped around his forehead.
“I told you to wash your hands after breakfast,” Sam said.
“How did you know I didn’t?”
“Because they’re sticky, and they’re in my hair.”
A giggle floated over his head. They had made s’mores pancakes, their own invention, which Mark almost certainly wouldn’t have allowed had he been there. But Mark had spent the night at his fiancée Maggie’s house, and when he was gone, Sam tended to loosen up on the rules.
Anchoring Holly’s ankles with his hands, Sam called out to the vineyard crew, who were starting up the Caval tractor. The vehicle was fitted with a huge spool of netting that would cover four or five rows of vines at a time.
Holly wrapped her arms more tightly around Sam’s head, nearly blinding him. “How much are you going to pay me for helping you this morning?”
Sam grinned, loving the slight weight of her on his shoulders, her sugar-scented breath, her endless quick-spun energy. Before Holly had come into his life, little girls had been alien creatures to him, with their love of pink and purple, of glitter glue, stuffed animals, and fairy tales.
In the spirit of gender equality, the two bachelor uncles had taught Holly how to fish, throw a ball, and hammer nails. But her love of bows and baubles and fluffy things remained intractable. Her favorite hat, which she was wearing at the moment, was a pink baseball cap with a silver tiara embroidered on the front.
Recently Sam had bought some new clothes for Holly and put the old ones that no longer fit into a bag for Goodwill. It had occurred to him that Holly’s past with her mother was eroding. The clothes, the old toys, even the old phrases and habits, were all gradually, inevitably, being replaced. So he had set a few things aside to be kept in a box in the attic. And he was jotting down his own memories of Vick, funny or sweet stories, to share with Holly someday.
Sometimes Sam wished he could talk to Vick about her daughter, to tell her how damn cute and smart Holly was. To tell her the ways Holly was changing, and the way she was changing everything around her. Sam now understood things about his sister that he had never thought about when she’d been alive—how tough it must have been as a single parent, how troublesome it was to leave the house whenever you wanted to go o
n an errand. Because when you had to take Holly somewhere with you, it never took less than fifteen minutes to find her shoes.
But there were rewards Sam had never expected. He’d been the one to teach Holly how to tie her shoelaces. All Holly’s shoes had Velcro fastenings, and when they’d bought her ones with laces, she hadn’t known how to tie them. Since she had been six years old, Sam had figured it was high time for her to learn. He had shown her how to make bunny-ear loops and twist them together.
What Sam hadn’t expected was the feeling that had come over him as he had watched Holly’s little brow furrow in concentration as she worked at the laces. A fatherly feeling, he guessed. Damned if he hadn’t gotten misty-eyed over a little girl tying her shoes. He wished he could have told his sister about it. And about how sorry he was for having had so little to do with her or her baby when he’d had the chance.
But that was the Nolan way.
Holly’s light-up sneakers thumped gently against his chest. “How much are you going to pay me?” she persisted.
“You and are I both working free today,” Sam told her.
“It’s against the law for me to work for free.”
“Holly, Holly … you aren’t going to turn me in for breaking a couple of measly little child labor laws, are you?”
“Yep,” she said cheerfully.
“How about a dollar?”
“Five dollars.”
“How about a dollar and a ride into Friday Harbor for ice cream this afternoon?”
“Deal!”
It was Sunday morning, the vineyard still dressed with mist, the bay a quiet silver. However, the atmosphere was disrupted by the rumble of the Caval as it started up and began to prowl slowly between the rows.
“Why are we going to put netting over the vineyard?” Holly asked.
“To keep birds away from the fruit.”
“Why didn’t we have to do it before now?”
“The grapes were still in the beginning part, when the flowers were turning into grape berries. Now we’re in the next stage, which is versaison.”
“What does that mean?”
“The grapes get bigger and they start to accumulate sugar, so they get sweeter and sweeter as they mature. Like me.”