A Self-Made Man (10 page)

She watched it, half-mesmerized by the heat and the motion. Gradually her vision began to discern small distinctions, and she realized that the foam nearest to her was partially made up of a huge tangle of fishing line. Bending carefully, she grabbed hold of the knot and pulled.

It slid toward her, but after she had reeled in a few feet of line it balked, stubbornly refusing to come any further. The line was caught on something. Damn. She lay on her stomach, ignoring the mud against her shirt, and tried to find the obstruction.

She stretched so far her arms began to hurt, but she couldn't reach the problem. She wriggled farther,
hanging over the edge, the jagged rocks sticking into her ribs unpleasantly. But still she couldn't reach it.

The minute she heard the footsteps behind her, she knew who it was. With her luck, who else could it be?
Hell's bells.
Why couldn't he just leave her alone? She sneaked a quick look down at her shirt. She was, of course, a mess.

Lifting herself to her knees, she turned to watch Adam maneuvering his way toward her on the rocks, graceful as a tightrope walker.

He reached her and smiled pleasantly. “Hi. You looked as if you might need some help.”

Her first instinct, of course, was to say “no.” But that would have been unforgivably rude. Not to mention blatantly untrue. Besides, he was no fool. He would know that she said “no” out of embarrassment, out of a need to avoid his company.

“Thanks,” she managed to say politely. “This line seems to be hooked on something underwater, and I can't free it.”

He took the tangle of line from her hands and gave it a careful tug. “It's something pretty heavy.”

With that same innate physical grace, he arranged himself stomach-down along the rocks. “Let me see if I can free it.”

His reach was so much longer than hers. His hands disappeared into the water, then his forearms, as he felt for the end of the line. His entire torso was unsupported—the rock ledge ended just below his waist. The entire picture seemed to defy gravity, and Lacy's breath caught in her throat. It wasn't a long way down, just a foot or two, but
headfirst…

Without thinking, she moved to kneel behind him. She wrapped her fingers around the firm swell of his calves and held on tightly.

He lifted his head, cocking a grin over his shoulder. “Thanks.”

Lacy didn't answer. She knelt there quietly, her palms against the rough denim of his jeans, watching as he stretched his long, finely sculpted arms further down into the water. The muscles along his back bunched and broadened, accentuating the tight, tapering line down to his narrow hips.

He seemed so powerful, so strong—and yet so vulnerable, lying there in a position that seemed strangely intimate. It made her feel odd, almost light-headed. Or perhaps it was just the heat.

She rocked forward and tried to peer around him. “Find anything?”

He grunted in response. She couldn't tell if it was an affirmative or a negative grunt, so she settled back against her heels and held on.

“Here we go. It's wrapped around this…this—” He inched forward a little more. She gripped tighter as she felt every muscle in his body strain to free whatever he'd found. “Damn,” he muttered. “What
is
this thing?”

The muddy bottom must have let go of its treasure with a pop, because even she felt the abrupt release, and the sudden off-balancing of his whole body as he overcame the resistance.

“Okay,” he said, handing her the finally loose fishing line behind his back. “Watch out back there. I'm coming up.”

She let go of his calves and wriggled to the other side of the rock, curious. He had found something—some large, strangely shaped object coated with mud. He rinsed it briefly, then used his free hand to hoist himself back onto the rock and into a sitting position.

With a bemused grin, he stared at his prize. “God.” He turned it over, as if in disbelief. “This just may be the ugliest damn thing in the entire world.”

She had to agree. It probably had once been a ceramic lamp. It looked like a naked woman standing on a hippopotamus. A long metal lamp harp, much corroded, stuck out of the woman's head. Flecks of mustard-colored paint clung in odd places to her body, and the hippo had obviously once been a nauseating shade of green.

“Well.” Lacy cleared her throat. “You can definitely see why they threw it into the ocean.”

Adam met her gaze with a broad smile. “I don't know. I was just thinking it would look mighty nice on your parlor mantel, right next to that lovely picture I bought back for you the other day.”

She tried not to smile. She refused to let herself laugh. But she looked at the naked lady, and the laugh came up anyhow. It came from nowhere, and it spilled into the shimmering summer air like a visible thing. He laughed, too, and propped the lamp up beside him like a trophy.

“I found something else down there.” He held out his hand, and she saw that he had been clutching a pink-veined stone against his palm. “Do you still collect them?”

The stone was small and beautiful. Vaguely heart-shaped. For a moment she couldn't speak. Long ago, he had given her so many of these lovely stones—it had become a tradition to find a new one each time they visited the beach. He hadn't had enough money to buy her expensive gifts, but he had always found these little nuggets of beauty.

“No,” she said thickly. “No, I don't collect them anymore.” Malcolm had been disgusted by them. Couldn't she detect that fishy smell? And what was the point? They were junk rocks, not worth a plug nickel. And so, one day, she had scattered them around her garden, where the turning, decaying seasons had eventually buried them over. She hadn't thought about them in years.

He didn't look surprised. “Well, here.” He pressed it into her hand. “Start a new collection.”

She didn't know what to say. The sensible part of her brain said to refuse it, to reject the stone and whatever implications he thought it carried. But a deeper part ignored that warning and instructed her numb fingers to tighten and close protectively around the stone's cool weight.

“Thank you,” she said. “It's very nice.”

“Lacy—” Adam's voice was low. She barely made out the word. “Lacy, maybe we—”

But whatever it was he had been going to say, she didn't want to hear it. She stood quickly, and with her empty hand she began to brush at the front of her muddy shirt. “Good heavens, I'm a terrible mess,” she said brightly. “And you know, I really should be getting back in to check on Tilly.”

He stood, too. He caught her hand and stilled it. “It's all right, Lacy. Relax. You don't have to run away. It's only a rock.”

She smiled again, but she still didn't look at him. “Of course it is. I know that, Adam. But Tilly—”

“Tell me about Tilly.” He let go of her hand. “She scared the hell out of me this morning. She looked awful. How bad is it?”

“It doesn't have to be bad,” she explained. “Not if she'd just exercise a little discipline, a little moderation. But if she doesn't… If she forgets to eat regularly, or uses too much insulin, or not enough—”

“Then it could be very bad.” He looked grim, and she realized that he had already taken in the implications completely. It was eerily familiar, this easy communication, this quick comprehension. It had always been this way with them. After all, she hadn't fallen in love with him just because he had the sexiest body in New England. She had also fallen in love with his mind.

“And of course our Tilly thinks discipline is a four-letter word,” he said with a half smile. “Which makes it that much tougher.”

“Right.” She sighed, and even she could hear the volumes of weary anxiety that were exhaled on the same breath.

Adam suddenly reached out and put his hand against her cheek. “It must be hard for you, too. But maybe I can help,” he said. “Maybe together we could—”

For a split second she allowed herself to melt into the sweet comfort of his fingers. She allowed herself
to consider letting him help, letting him shoulder some of this burden of loneliness and worry. But immediately the temptation terrified her. She had counted on Adam once before, and look where that had left her. She would never, ever do it again.

She backed away from his touch. “Thanks, but I really don't need any help,” she said.

He raised his brows. “Don't need it? Or don't want it?”

“I don't want it,” she said, enunciating the words as politely and clearly as she could. Maybe it would help to get this out in the open. Say it once, and put it behind them. “It's over between us, Adam. It's been over for ten years. I no longer need or want your help for anything.”

His face was unreadable, though the sun shone on it like a spotlight. “All you want is my name on a check, is that right? A nice, big, fat check for your precious hospital wing?”

She lifted her chin. “That's right,” she said. “Although I can do without that, too, if I have to. Now if you don't mind, I really need to get back.”

But before she could move, a torrent of whooping and yelling came at them from the water. They both looked over to see a tiny runabout skimming through the shoals just beyond the point. Adam's friend Travis, whom Lacy had met earlier, was at the steering wheel, and he chauffeured a boatload of young beauties, all of whom were laughing and whistling at the people on shore.

Gwen was among them. In fact, she was standing on the bow, beer bottle in hand, waving and hollering
something Lacy couldn't quite make out. Suddenly Gwen turned, presenting her backside to Adam and Lacy, and began to wiggle her rear end. Her hands were poised at her hips, as if prepared to pull down her bikini bottom, but Travis's hand shot out and yanked her back.

Gwen collapsed against the blond man in laughing indignation, and then the little boat angled sharply into its own wake and sped away.

Oh, Gwen…
Lacy felt herself flushing.

“I'm sorry about that,” she said. “Gwen is—” She reached up to tighten her hair clip and tried to think of the right word. “She's young. I'm afraid she's still got a few rough edges. Anyway, I'm sorry.”

“Don't be,” he said. He was still watching the water, though the boat was so far away now it looked no bigger than a toy. “I like her.”

Lacy looked at him. Surely Gwen's scattergun approach to flirtation was a little indiscriminate for a man like him?

“Well, the feeling is apparently mutual,” she said sardonically. “I could see that the other night, as I'm sure you could. Gwen doesn't believe in…holding back.”

“No,” he agreed. “She's always out there swinging, isn't she?” Finally he turned and looked at Lacy. The silver scar beneath his eye seemed more pronounced, as if the sun had highlighted it. “But she needs all that spunk, you know. She needs all that fire, because she's chosen to tough it out alone, doing battle with a world that isn't always very nice.”

And because the communication between them was still unusually rapid, she saw where he was leading the conversation. She felt her back stiffen. “You seem to know a great deal about her,” she said icily, “considering you met her only this week.”

“I know a lot about people
like
her,” he corrected. “People who decide to ride out the storm, even when it scares them, even when it hurts. People who resist the temptation to tie up in a safe harbor somewhere far from the real world.”

“You are making assumptions again, Adam.” She squared her shoulders. “And a lot of them are wrong.”

“Are they?” The wind was blowing his hair into his eyes, and the squinting gaze he cast down on her seemed as hard and bright as blue stones. “Are you trying to tell me that when I left you didn't scurry into the first safe harbor you could find? That you haven't hidden there ever since? That you aren't scared to death to do anything spontaneous? Anything a little bit dangerous?”

“I'm not trying to tell you anything,” she answered. Her fist was so tight the stone was growing hot against her palm. “I don't care what you think.”

“Then just answer me, Lacy. Be honest for once in your life—if not with me, at least with yourself.” He took her by the shoulders. “Do you ever, ever act without thinking? Do you ever do something just because it feels good, without asking yourself if it's smart, or safe, or
cost efficient?
”

She heard the insulting emphasis on those last words. She saw the contempt in his eyes. And it hurt.
Like the old days, like a heart breaking all over again, it hurt.

Without thinking, she lifted her hand and slapped him once, hard, across the cheek. And then she threw the little pink stone into the water. It sank immediately, back into the ocean.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Apparently I do.”

G
WEN WAS TIRED
,
and that little girl wailing over in the corner of the lightkeeper's house wasn't helping matters any.

Gwen had been out at Gambler's End practically the whole darn day. She'd arrived before noon, and it must be almost sundown now. The shadows that slipped through the window were long and cool and violet.

She hadn't meant to stay here more than a couple of hours. Just enough to keep the Stepwitch off her back. But it had turned out to be more fun than she'd expected. Travis Rourke was here, for one thing. And Adam Kendall. It was like hitting the Daily Stud Double.

So, naturally, she had hung around. And as it turned out, even the Stepwitch left before Gwen did. Lacy's mood had been so tense and icy that Gwen had felt no impulse to follow her home. Lacy in a
good
mood was scary enough. In a bad mood she could freeze your internal organs to solid ice with one look. Kind of a cross between the Snow Queen and Medusa.

But maybe, Gwen thought, it was finally time to leave. Even Lacy's company might be preferable to
hanging around the keeper's house, now that Adam Kendall was gone, Travis was nowhere to be found, and that little kid was wailing up a storm.

She looked toward the source of the weeping. It was Becky Jared. At about four years old, Becky was the youngest of Silas Jared's four grandkids. She looked cranky as hell. And exhausted.

Annoyed, Gwen glanced over at the Jared adults. Couldn't they see their daughter was pooped? They were busy trying to bust open the last can of paint for the fence. Like the world was going to end if that stupid fence didn't get finished today? Didn't they know a four-year-old kid couldn't handle a day this long, in this heat?

“Becky,” Gwen called, resigned to staying a little bit longer. “Want to see the coolest light in the world?”

Becky paused in her crying. She looked about ready to drop, her eyes swollen and her red curls stuck wetly to her cheeks. “No.”

Gwen shrugged, as if she didn't care one bit. “Okay. I thought we might go look at the light, because sometimes from up there you can see Stormy. But if you don't want to, that's okay.”

Becky hiccuped softly. She kept looking at Gwen, frowning as if torn by conflicting desires—the desire to keep crying, and the desire to see something cool. “What's Stormy?”

Gwen cast an exaggerated sideways glance at the adults, then held her hand over her mouth and whispered. “Stormy is the sea serpent, duh. Haven't you
heard of her? Sometimes, when the sun goes down, she comes and plays in the sound.”

Becky looked out the window toward the western sky, which was deep lavender with big tangerine splotches. “The sun is going down right now,” she said, her eyes widening.

Gwen nodded dramatically. “I know.”

Becky wiped her eyes and stood, cookie crumbs scattering from her shirt onto the floor unnoticed. “I want to see,” she said.

Gwen caught Daddy Jared's eye over Becky's head. He nodded with a smile, mouthed a silent “thank you,” and went back to struggling with the uncooperative paint can. For Becky's sake, Gwen hid her disapproval—but honestly, why did people even have kids if they didn't want to play with them?

Becky tugged at her shirt. “I don't want you to carry me,” she warned, her jaw set belligerently.

Gwen held out her hand. “Good, because why would I? You're not a baby.”

That pleased the little girl. She took Gwen's hand happily and began stomping up the stairs to the lighthouse tower, asking a new question every ten seconds. What did Stormy look like? How old was she? Was she good or bad? Could she talk? What did she eat? Did she have big brothers and sisters?

By the time they reached the top, Stormy was five feet long and emerald green with sapphire blue spots. She wore granny glasses and a pink-flowered ladies' bathing cap. She was a hundred years old—just a kid in sea serpent years. She loved watermelon and choc
olate chip cookies, and had eighteen older brothers. Becky rolled her eyes in sympathy at that sad detail.

Fifteen minutes into the saga of Stormy's life, Becky's eight-year-old brother came to get her. But Gwen was right in the middle of telling how Stormy had saved her family from the ruthless leader of the Stingrays, so Tommy Jared sat down to hear the end of the tale. Fifteen minutes later, the ten-year-old Jared twins joined them, but by then Stormy had been captured by pirates, so they all crowded around the Fresnel lens and listened.

Forty-five minutes into the story, all four Jared grandchildren were standing at the tower window, straining for a glimpse of the sea serpent's pink-flowered swim cap while Gwen told them about the time a tornado picked Stormy up in its funnel and dropped her in the Indian Ocean.

A few minutes later, Gwen noticed that another person was standing quietly at the doorway. Confused, she looked up. Surely there were only four Jared kids…

It was Travis, and he was grinning. Obviously he'd been listening for quite a while. “Hello,” he said. “Tom Jared sent me to find out what terrible monster has kidnapped all his beloved children. Apparently, one by one they were sent up here, and not one of them has been seen since.”

Becky shook her head emphatically. “It's not a terrible monster! It's Stormy the super sea serpent!”

“Oh, I see.” Travis nodded knowingly. “Well, your father will be relieved. Maybe you'd better run on down now, because he's very, very worried.”

The twins, at ten, were old enough to realize they had goofed by not coming right back, so they quickly began herding the smaller ones toward the doorway. Becky resisted the longest, and as the kids clambered down the twisting staircase, Gwen could hear the little girl begin once again to cry.

Travis joined Gwen at the window, still smiling. “So what are you? The Pied Piper or something? Those kids were hanging on every word you said.”

She shrugged. She didn't want him to make a big deal out of it, just to flatter her. “Oh, everyone likes a good sea serpent story.”

He laughed. “Yeah, but still—those kids have been little hellions all day. You had them lined up like chicks eating out of your hand.”

Embarrassed, she nudged him with her hip. “Shut up. You're just trying to score points with me so I'll take you for a ride on my bike.”

He held up his hands, disclaiming vigorously. “Not on your life, Stormy. I don't have enough insurance to risk my life with a madwoman like you.”

She could have insulted him back, but she decided to drop it. Now that the kids were gone, she was suddenly feeling tired again. Which made sense—she'd worked hard all day, something she usually avoided like the plague.

He dropped it, too, and for several minutes they stood at the window in companionable silence, looking out over the peaceful sound. The sunset was in its last, most breathtaking moments, turning the water a rich purple, except where it broke in white, frothy lace around the rocks. In the sky, a couple of pale
silver stars had broken through, and a ghostly three-quarter moon was rising in the east.

Gwen thought Travis looked tired, too. The sun had been brutal today. His tan had deepened to a ruddy bronze, and his hair was bleached almost white in places. Groaning softly, he leaned his elbows on the windowsill, as if his back might be hurting.

He had an awful cute rear end, seen from that angle. She sighed, realizing that she was too tired to flirt. But, strangely, that was okay. It felt nice just to stand here, two tired friends at the lighthouse window, watching for sea serpents to come swimming by.

“You know, I wasn't kidding,” Travis said after a while. “You're really good with kids. I mean
amazing.
You should be a teacher or something.”

Gwen shifted her weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably. She stared out at the stars, which were getting brighter as the sky darkened, like some kind of Disney special effect.

“I thought about it for a while, when I first went to college,” she said. But the minute she spoke the words she regretted them. What the hell was she saying? She wasn't going to be a teacher. She remembered how her father had laughed out loud at the suggestion, then sobered, horrified to discover that she had meant it seriously.

A teacher? Good Lord, Gwen, don't be ridiculous. Do you know what teachers get paid? I didn't rear my daughter to think as small as that!

“Why didn't you do it?”

“I flunked out of college, which is one teeny little problem. And besides, my dad made it pretty clear
the family honor couldn't survive having a lowly schoolmarm in the ranks.”

Travis looked irked. “It's not your dad's life, is it?”

Gwen laughed, and the sound had a slightly brittle edge. “No, but it was his name on the tuition checks, so…” She shrugged.

A small furrow formed between his eyes. “But—” He hesitated. “But hasn't your father been gone a long time now? I mean, Adam told me your dad died about five years ago, and—”

She sighed. “Yeah? So? What's your point? Don't make a federal case out of this, Travis.” She wondered why she sounded so annoyed. “I just said I'd thought about it occasionally. I've also
thought
about being an astronaut, a coal miner, and a stripper. But you don't see me wearing a G-string and pasties, do you?”

He tilted his head, accepting her reprimand with his usual easy good nature. “Well, now, ma'am, as a matter of fact, I don't.” He wriggled his eyebrows. “But I'd be glad to—”

Good grief, he was cute. She swatted him with a laughing exasperation. “Careful, buddy. You think I should be a teacher? Well, I'd gladly teach
you
a thing or two.”

He ducked and grinned. Then he took her hand, just a comfortable, brotherly grip, and began to lead her down the winding staircase. “Let's go, Stormy. I'm whipped, and I need a shower in the worst way.”

“Yes, sir, you do,” she agreed, and he squeezed her hand hard, a playful punishment. If she'd had a
brother, Gwen thought, smiling to herself, she would have wanted one like Travis. A little hassling, a little advice, a lot of affection with no strings attached…

Was he right about the teaching thing?
Maybe.
She didn't like much in this whacked-out world, but she did like kids.
Yeah, maybe.
If things had been different, she just might have made a pretty darn good teacher, after all.

Not that it mattered. It was way too late now. Boston College wasn't interested in a twenty-three-year-old dropout with a one-point-one grade average and a really bad attitude.

Even Stormy the super sea serpent couldn't change that.

 

L
ACY WOKE UP FEELING
wonderful. That was a surprise, because she'd gone to bed feeling rotten—achy from overwork, tender from sunburn, and uncomfortable about having lost her temper with Adam, especially in such a public spot.

What had she been thinking? If anyone had seen her… Pringle Island society was small and inbred. It usually took less than twenty-four hours for a ripe piece of gossip to make its way full circle around the grapevine.

It was going to be a hectic day of doing damage control on her image. But instead of the dread she had expected to feel, she felt strangely invigorated. Almost buoyant. Apparently venting one's emotions was just as healthy as all the pop psychologists said.

She slept well, and she slept late. Before she went
into the kitchen, she turned on the downstairs stereo. It felt like a music kind of day.

But not
that
music. The classical station was playing Mozart's “Requiem,” which might be beautiful but was also, she pointed out to the deejay,
darn depressing.
She turned to an oldies station, which was having a Motown party. Much better. Maybe they'd even play “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”

Though she almost never ate breakfast, today she filled a huge crystal bowl with juicy slices of every fruit in the house—kiwi, apples, strawberries, mandarin oranges, grapes, honeydew, blueberries. And then she sat on the kitchen side of the pass-through counter, feeding bits of cheese to Hamlet, and going through Saturday's mail.

The radio began playing Lionel Ritchie's “Stuck On You,” and Lacy couldn't stop herself from humming along. She pitched a piece of junk mail toward the trash can, and it swished neatly out of sight.

“Nothing but net,” she said. She returned to the mail, popping a red grape into her mouth and humming around it as best she could. Maybe she should slap people more often, she thought, chuckling out loud. It was clearly, in some weird and perverse way, good for her mood.

“Lacy?”

She glanced up to see Gwen standing in the breakfast room doorway, looking half-asleep and completely bewildered.

“Good morning,” Lacy said politely. “Are you hungry? There's plenty of fruit.”

Gwen didn't answer right away. She tightened the
belt to her terry-cloth robe, yawned, and tugged at her hair, which was looking even more electrified than usual. Her father would have been furious—leaving the bedroom in her nightclothes! But of course that was probably why she did it.

“I see that. What—” Gwen shook her head slightly, as if she thought she might be dreaming. “What are you doing?”

Lacy gestured toward the letters and bills. “Sorting the mail. Eating breakfast.”

But Gwen hadn't meant that, and they both knew it. She tilted her head toward the parlor, where the radio had shifted into an old Aretha Franklin song. “I mean, what's with the music? This isn't your usual, is it?”

Lacy gave her stepdaughter a bland look. “I don't know. What is my ‘usual'?”

Gwen snorted. “You know. Beethoven's Sleeping Pill Sonata.”

How would you know what my usual is, Gwen?
Lacy almost spoke the words out loud.
You're almost never here….