Folly Cove (17 page)

“No! Jesus, Laura. I couldn't get home because I fell off General,” Anne said. “Sebastian found me. Is Lucy all right?” She ignored Sebastian's startled glance in her direction. He obviously hadn't heard about her child, then.

“How did you fall off
General
?” Laura asked. “That horse is like riding a sofa!” Her eyes raked over Anne's appearance, taking in her torn jeans, the bloodied knee Anne hadn't noticed until now. “Why didn't you call me?”

“Because I didn't think you'd come. Is General here? Did he make it back?”

“Yes. But come on, Anne. I would've picked you up if I'd known you were in
pain
.”

“And if I weren't?” Anne shot back.

“Look, this whole thing was my fault entirely, not your sister's,” Sebastian cut in. He pointed to Mack, now lying obediently in the back of the Jeep, pretending to be the best-behaved dog in the world. “My mutt apparently spooked the horse.”

“That horse doesn't spook.” Laura crossed her arms.

“Right. Tell that to General.” Anne closed her eyes, feeling suddenly nauseated. “Is he all right?”

“He's fine. But imagine my shock, seeing him tacked up and wandering loose in the barn, munching hay in the aisle with nobody around.”

“I left a note so you'd know I took him.” Anne's head felt boulder-heavy, her neck barely strong enough to hold it upright. She was exhausted, suddenly, and having trouble forming words.

“I never saw it,” Laura said. “Really, Anne, you must have been in a coma if General got out from under you. You're a better rider than that!”

“Apparently not.” Anne wished people would stop telling her she should be better than she was; she felt like a huge disappointment to everyone. “Look, I need to get back to Flossie's house now.” She turned to Sebastian despite the knifing pain coming up her left side in little bursts of sensation. “Can you drive me?”

“Of course.” Sebastian apologized to Laura again for his dog's behavior, then rolled up the windows and pulled out of the driveway. “I really think you ought to get an X-ray first.”

Anne shook her head. “No. I need to get back.”

“For God's sake. Don't be so stubborn.”

“I
have
to go back,” she snapped finally. “I'm nursing. My baby needs to be fed.”

Sebastian glanced at her. She felt his eyes on her breasts before he yanked off his cap and tossed it into the back of the Jeep. As he pulled out of the stable driveway, they could hear the dog happily scrabbling after the hat.

“Mack will chew your cap,” Anne said.

“I have other hats.”

Sebastian didn't speak again until they'd driven back to Flossie's house. “Need me to help you to the door?” he said then.

“I'll be fine, thanks.” Anne managed to wrestle the Jeep door open,
then had to stop to catch her breath. Sebastian hurried around the car to help her.

Before they'd even made it up the path, she glanced up and saw a note on the door. “I don't think they're here,” she said, suddenly panicked. What if something had happened to Lucy, too, while they were apart? “Please. Read the note. I'll wait here.”

She managed to hold herself upright by pressing one hand to her throbbing side while Sebastian took long strides up the porch steps and snatched the note off its thumbtack.

“They're at the Houseboat,” he said, waving the note at her. “Where's that?”

Anne told him. He helped her back into the car and drove to the other side of Folly Cove.

Once he'd parked in front of the cottage, Sebastian came around to her door again. Flossie appeared on the porch as he helped Anne out of the car. Lucy was in Flossie's arms, wailing; she reached for Anne and nearly wiggled out of Flossie's arms.

“Well, you're a sight for somebody's sore eyes,” Flossie said. “This child is destined for the opera with her lung power.” She raised an eyebrow at Anne's bloody knee. “What on earth happened?”

“I fell off General,” Anne said. “I'm banged up, but I'm okay.”

Sebastian nodded in her aunt's direction. “Hello, Flossie,” he said. “Good to see you again.”

“And you,” Flossie murmured, watching him help Anne hobble up the porch steps.

Anne tried not to wince, knowing that would worry her aunt, but she shook her head when Flossie came toward her with Lucy. “Wait. I can't hold her until I'm sitting down,” she said.

“Yet she wouldn't let me drive her to the ER,” Sebastian said.

“Because I'm
fine
,” Anne said.

“Sure you are,” Flossie said. “Right as rain. Never seen you look better.”

Flossie followed them into the house, still carrying the screeching baby, and waited for Sebastian to lower Anne to the couch before settling Lucy on her lap. Anne lifted her shirt and unhooked her bra, too intent on quieting the baby to care who saw what.

Flossie gathered her sweater and keys. “I'll be off,” she said.

“So soon?” Anne asked in alarm.

“I've got things to do. Call if you need me, but I think she'll go down for a nap after she eats. The little bugger didn't sleep a wink at my house. I'll bring dinner around later.” Then Flossie was out the door.

Sebastian hovered with his hands in his pockets, looking everywhere but at Anne. “I've never been in here,” he said.

“Why would you have been?” Anne leaned her head back on the sofa, watching him through half-closed eyes, finally relaxing now that Lucy was in her arms.

“My grandmother and your aunt were good friends until Nan died last year.”

“Oh. I didn't realize.”

“I don't think many people knew. They were women from very different circles.”

Anne was curious now. “I would think they'd be from the same circles, actually. Your family and mine go way back, right? The Bradfords used to have money, too.”

“My grandfather never approved of Flossie.” Sebastian hesitated, then added, “Flossie is a woman who knows her own mind and doesn't care what people think. A free spirit and a feminist. My grandmother was the sort who ironed her husband's shirts and made sure dinner was on the table at six. Old-school in every way. But she admired Flossie.”

“There's a lot to admire,” Anne said.

The pain seemed more manageable now; maybe it was the effect of the hormones coursing through her body. Lucy nursed so noisily that it was embarrassing. Still, Anne wanted to laugh with relief at the sensation of holding her baby and with the knowledge that she wasn't going to die in the woods, after all, or be paralyzed or suffer any of the other awful things that could have happened to her. What a responsibility, being a mother and having to keep your body intact so your child would survive.

All at once, Anne felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for her own mother. Sarah had coped with raising three children while running a business on her own. How had she done it without falling apart?

She shifted Lucy to the other breast and remembered to tug down her shirt, though probably not in time to spare Sebastian the sight of her bare breast. He had finally looked at her, and now he couldn't seem to look away. She was startled by the depth of longing in his eyes.

“Sit down,” she said gently. Then, remembering, “Is your dog all right in the car? You can bring him inside. He can't hurt anything in here.”

Sebastian went out, then returned with the dog. Mack bounded into the house and went around the corners of its small, tidy spaces, sniffing loudly, making them both smile when he nosed at Lucy, then finally circled at Sebastian's feet and threw himself down with a groan.

“I really am sorry about him,” Sebastian said, gesturing toward the dog. He sat down in one of the chairs across from her, crossing his long legs at the ankle. He was tall. Anne hadn't realized how tall until now.

“It wasn't the dog's fault. Mack was just doing what dogs do.” Anne put Lucy up against her shoulder and patted her back. The baby's head felt hot beneath her chin, bowling ball hard. Her hair was damp and curly, her body heavy and still. She was already drifting off to sleep.

“Of course it was his fault,” Sebastian said. “Mine, too. If I'd had him on a leash, you wouldn't have fallen off. Your sister seems to think you're a great rider.”

“No.
She's
the great rider. I'm the family daydreamer,” Anne said. “That's why I lost my seat. I'd dropped the reins and slipped my feet out of the stirrups. Anything could have caused the horse to spook and I would have gone right off. So dumb. I don't know what I was thinking.” She smiled down at Lucy, who'd fallen asleep, head lolling on Anne's arm, her lips pursed and red.

Sebastian smiled, too. “She's a beautiful baby. How old?”

“Four months.”

He didn't ask about the father, but Anne saw his eyes drop to her ring finger. “Is she the reason you came back from Puerto Rico?” he asked.

Anne shook her head. “No. Lucy's father and I split up. I came home to lick my wounds and get back on my feet.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. That was my fault, too. Even dumber than what happened with the horse. Again, I should have seen it coming.”

“We can never see everything coming our way,” Sebastian said, his expression dark.

His hair was uncombed and he needed to shave. Looking at him across the room, at his wild hair, long legs in jeans, and broad shoulders beneath his flannel shirt, Anne thought Sebastian belonged outdoors, like some feral cat. Even now, his eyes scanned the room, taking in details she'd probably never noticed.

Anne remembered his wife, then, and wondered if it was true that she'd killed herself. What a tragedy, however she'd died. So young.

“What were you doing in the woods?” she asked, hoping Sebastian hadn't guessed what she was thinking.

“A university botany project on invasive species.”

“What kind?”

“Garlic mustard.”

She couldn't help laughing, this sounded so absurd. “Ouch.” She put a hand to her side.

“What?” Sebastian scowled. “It's an important project. The first of its kind to show that an invasive plant can harm native hardwoods like maple and ash trees.”

She was trying to stop laughing—not to spare his feelings, but because laughing hurt—yet couldn't get ahold of herself.

Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, Anne was weeping: from the pain, from the relief she felt at being reunited with Lucy, from exhaustion most of all. She'd never felt so incapable of coping with something as simple as standing up and putting her baby down for a nap.

Sebastian got to his feet and crossed the room in a single long stride, plucked the baby from her shoulder, and said softly, “Where?”

Anne gestured with her chin toward the bedroom, where Lucy's portable crib was just visible beyond the doorway. He carried her daughter—who looked absurdly small tucked against his broad chest—into the bedroom, lay her down, and gently covered her with a blanket. Then he closed the door partway and came back.

“You're tired and hurting,” he said. “Let me get you some ibuprofen, at least. Where is it? Bathroom?”

She nodded. “Cabinet. Top shelf.”

He fetched her two tablets and a glass of water, waited for her to swallow the medication, and returned to the kitchen with the glass. “There. Now I should go and let you rest. Sounds like your aunt has dinner covered.”

“You don't have to leave. I'm fine. Really I am.”

Sebastian smiled at her, the first real smile. His face was transformed. He was handsome. Perhaps even better-looking than he'd been in high school, and that was saying something. “You're not. But you're too thick-headed to let me help you, so I should leave before I make you crazy by trying to talk you into doing something you don't want to do.”

“You wouldn't,” she said.

“Which? Make you crazy, or talk you into something?”

“Neither.”

“You don't know that.” He shook his head. “My wife,” he began, then stopped.

“Your wife, what?” she said.

“Never mind. It doesn't matter.” Sebastian picked up his keys from the table and called the dog unnecessarily: Mack was already on his feet, feathery tail wagging. “Call me if you need help with anything. It's the least I can do.” He reached out and Anne handed him her cell phone. He put in his number and gave the phone back to her. “I mean it. Call me.”

“I'll be fine. But thank you.”

“I'll check on you tomorrow anyway, if that's all right,” he insisted, and bent down to kiss her cheek.

Anne tipped her face up toward his and saw the shock of recognition in his eyes as she felt the brief touch of his warm lips on her skin. It was as if they'd already made love, which they had, so long ago.

But that was before either of them knew what love was, or how it could tear you apart.

W
hen Laura's last afternoon lesson on Friday canceled, she decided to escape for a ride alone and do what she should have done months ago.

She hurriedly tacked up Star, the newest horse in the barn, before she could change her mind. She had bought the four-year-old gelding at auction last month despite knowing his upstart reputation: a veterinarian friend who had examined the horse said, “This one's rock solid, but watch yourself. He's an ornery cuss.”

Laura was intrigued. She had a soft spot for difficult animals and appreciated Thoroughbreds. They could be high-strung, but were usually intelligent and made good show jumpers because of their speed, agility, and height. She had a couple of advanced students who might perform well with Star in the spring shows once she got him settled down. Besides, Star was a beauty, a rich chestnut color with a white mark below his forelock that had earned him his name.

Star stood at seventeen hands, so Laura used a mounting block to get her foot into the stirrup and swing her leg over his back. The horse tossed his head nervously and sidestepped in a half circle. She gentled him with her voice and patted his neck before setting off toward the road along the driveway.

So far she'd ridden him only in the ring, where Star relaxed if she kept him on the fence. He was used to being on the rail because of the
track. Now, without the security of a fence, the horse was startled by every fluttering leaf or snapped branch. It was like riding a four-legged pogo stick.

That was fine with her. Having to keep her seat on a nervy horse forced her to sweep all unnecessary thoughts out of her mind and focus on her mission: she was headed for Halibut Point, determined to end all communication with Tom by destroying her burner phone. She couldn't chance Jake finding it again. Now the phone was tucked into her bra, where the solid weight of it was like a bruise on her skin.

It took twenty minutes to trot along the soft shoulder of the two-lane road to the park, where she turned Star onto a narrow footpath beneath a tunnel of trees, the overhanging branches so low that she had to lean across the horse's neck. The land gradually sloped downhill toward a web of rocky trails leading to the sea. The wind had picked up and the tall yellowing grasses shushed in the breeze, a harsh whispering sound that caused Star to prance with excitement, ears pricking back and forth.

Several times Laura halted the horse, letting Star eyeball his surroundings. The first couple of times, the thoroughbred snorted and tossed his head, angling to get the bit between his teeth, but she kept him firmly in hand.

When Star relaxed, she used her calves to urge him into a trot. Finally they reached the straightaway and she signaled him to canter. Laura leaned low against the horse's neck as the animal flattened into a smooth gallop. The wind made her eyes tear as the landscape blurred by in yellows and reds and golds. The speed let her empty her mind. There was nothing but this moment, this animal beneath her, the landscape whipping by, the sharp sting of salty air on her face. She was blissfully free.

They reached the end of the trail in minutes. Below, the sea was a brooding slate, frothing cream against the rocks. The sun was a red haze to the west, its reflection made up of sparkling gold and pink lights on the water.

Laura reached into her bra and, without letting herself hesitate, hurled the phone into the water. She was done with Tom. With secrets. She was married. A mother. The sort of person who believed in doing the right thing—even if it was the hard thing.

Tears slid down her face as she stared out at the empty horizon. Not even a boat broke the flat gray line delineating sea and sky. Never had she felt so alone.

Laura held Star to a slow jog as they returned through the field. She didn't want the horse to be lathered up at the end of the ride; tonight she and Jake were meeting Melanie and her husband for dinner. She wouldn't have much time to cool Star down.

At least now she could look Jake in the eye across the dinner table with a clear conscience. She had not cheated on him. She
would
not. She was back on track and so was her marriage.

Or it would be, once she saw Anne. Laura intended to apologize for her behavior in the pub. She meant what she'd said to Jake: she was letting the past go. At the same time, she would make sure her sister got the message that she needed to steer clear of Jake if things were going to remain civil.

Anne wisely hadn't shown her face around Laura's house since that stupid stunt the other day, when she'd fallen off General. Laura still couldn't figure out how Flossie's reliable old horse had thrown a rider as experienced as Anne. A baby could probably ride that animal and be perfectly safe.

A baby.

Anne has a baby. Anne has a baby. Anne has a baby.
Laura found herself repeating this chant as she rode back through the state park, where Star shied as a trio of wild turkeys crossed the path in front of them, running through the grass like homely long-necked children.

Did Anne
look
like she'd had a baby? Laura frowned as sweat prickled beneath her velvet riding helmet, trying to remember how Anne had looked the night they'd fought at the pub.

Laura's own body had been completely transformed by pregnancy, and not just by the extra weight. She'd erupted in varicose veins and cellulite, and her breasts had never recovered from nursing. But Anne's waist and hips seemed as slim as ever.

Motherhood wore you down. Exhausted and debilitated you. Laura knew that firsthand. She loved her daughter, but having Kennedy was
the start of the troubles in her marriage. Of Jake's lack of desire and of her own feelings of inadequacy.

“Well, it was a mistake to let your husband watch the birth,” her mother said when Laura, in a fit of weakness, confessed that Jake seemed less interested in making love after Kennedy was born.

“Understandable,” Sarah had pronounced. “No man wants to see that. They don't have strong stomachs like we do. He'll get over it. Jake needs time to forget that awful spectacle.”

It was true that Kennedy's birth wasn't easy. When Laura's water broke, Jake had insisted that they go straight to the hospital even though her labor hadn't started.

The labor hadn't progressed. Finally, the doctor suggested inducing it. Laura had resisted, remembering one friend describing her induced labor as a “bullet train straight to hell.” But Jake sided with the obstetrician, saying they couldn't chance an infection now that her water had broken.

Laura finally agreed. Minutes after she was on the IV, the contractions were slamming her body. They'd given her an epidural to help manage the pain. An hour later, with the baby still not coming, the obstetrician made the call: the baby was in distress. Laura needed an emergency C-section.

When Kennedy was born, Laura was in a surgical theater with bright lights, numb from a second epidural, weeping from anxiety, a sheet drawn up so she couldn't see what was happening to her own body. Jake stood on her side of the sheet, but could see what was happening over the top. When he'd suddenly gasped in distress, Laura cried out, “What's wrong?”

The baby was fine, Jake had assured her quickly. “I just didn't expect so much blood.”

Maybe her mother was right, and that experience had robbed Jake of his desire for her. He had hardly initiated lovemaking since.

Yet Laura was certain Jake loved her. After the baby, he had treated her tenderly, taking over the housework and cooking until she was back on her feet. He'd even encouraged her to take a spa weekend once Kennedy was weaned, and told her to color her hair despite the expense.

She had reached the two-lane road. Laura halted the horse to look for traffic, patting his neck absently, and glanced toward the inn, then at her watch. It was four o'clock. They weren't going to the club until seven.

Plenty of time to ride to the cottage and see Anne. Laura would show up and surprise her.

She'd be civil, Laura decided, turning the horse in that direction. Elly was right: the three of them were going to be sisters forever. They didn't have to like each other, but they could get along if Anne behaved herself. There was Mom's party to get through next month. Then the holidays. Plus, with Anne so unsettled, that poor baby would need her aunts.

A few minutes later, she turned the horse down the gravel drive leading to Aunt Flossie's house and its caretaker's cottage. Lights were on in both; the sun was setting earlier now.

It was the witching hour, that terrible time of day when nothing calmed babies. Kennedy always chose that last hour of daylight to go ballistic, usually when Laura was struggling to make dinner before Jake came home.

Now Laura imagined Anne with a furious wailing infant in her arms, looking pale and distraught as she tried to make the piercing cries stop. She was inexperienced and wouldn't know what to do.

Laura would take over. She would rock Anne's baby across her knees, soothing her. She smiled, picturing this scenario, her sister's eyes ringed in dark circles from lack of sleep. The look of gratitude on Anne's face when Laura quieted the baby with her magic touch.

Then Laura rounded the hedge of beach roses delineating the tiny yard around the cottage—a few pink flowers still bloomed, pink and papery looking—and was startled by the sight of not just one, but two unfamiliar cars. Had Anne bought a car? Who else was here?

Laura rode Star a little closer to the house, squinting in the rapidly diminishing light.

She stopped the horse when she recognized the blue Jeep as the same one Sebastian Martinson had been driving on the day he'd found Anne in the woods and brought her home, like some knight in shining four-wheel-drive. She sat astride the horse, biting her lip and staring at the cottage.

After a few minutes, someone stood up from the couch by the front
windows. It was a woman, but not anyone Laura recognized. Next there was a burst of laughter as the front door opened and people began spilling onto the porch: Sebastian—she recognized his tall, lean frame even at this distance—along with a woman, another man, and several children, followed by Anne holding a baby in her arms.

More laughter, clearly audible over the distant surf. Laura felt ill. A crowd of laughter and love surrounded Anne. She didn't deserve it. Not after stealing another woman's husband to make a baby of her own!

A family
. That's what Anne had created, after being here for only a short time: an entire family made up of Aunt Flossie, Sebastian, Elly, and that couple, plus all those children and her own baby, too.

Laura instinctively felt for her extra phone, her lifeline to Tom, and suffered a sharp stab of loss when her fingers encountered nothing but her own chilled skin through the thin fabric of her clothes.

“Come on, Star,” she said, wheeling the horse around so sharply that there was a spray of gravel.

Back at the house, Elly was cooking—amazing, to see her glamorous Californian sister at the stove, her thick honey-colored hair slicked into a ponytail—with Kennedy chatting at her elbow and stirring something in a pot. Laura had calmed down on the ride home, telling herself,
So what if Anne has friends? Every new mom needs them.

Now, however, she felt a fresh stab of despair, like a sudden wood splinter under her skin. She'd had lots of friends in college, and early on with Jake, too. Where had they all gone? She'd been so busy between the barn, helping out at the inn, and raising Kennedy practically on her own that she'd lost track of them.

She listened in wonder, sometimes, to the mothers who came to the barn to collect their daughters, some of whom she'd known in high school, as they talked about their tennis meets and club lunches, their movie nights or weekends at the spa with girlfriends. Even if she had the money for those activities, where would she find the time?

Laura sat on the mudroom bench and tugged off her black leather boots. Watching the brightly lit scene through the kitchen doorway made her feel like a voyeur spying on another, happier woman's life through a window.

Kennedy was adding salt to whatever was in the tall pot on the stove, giggling at something Elly said. It was a sweet moment, but there might as well have been a glass window between Laura and the kitchen. She could see the light but felt none of the room's warmth.

Elly joked with Kennedy and did her hair in new styles, took her shopping. Kennedy was carrying herself differently, lighter on her feet; she even looked a little thinner. Maybe that was because Elly was helping her choose different clothes. They'd been to dozens of consignment shops, preparing for Mom's birthday bash.

Laura felt pained, thinking that Kennedy was happier shopping or cooking with Elly than doing anything with her own mother. But why wouldn't she be? Her own mother had turned into a scold.

She reached again for her missing phone, then remembered it was gone and had to bite her lip to keep herself from crying out at the unfairness of having to give up the one thing in her life that had been making her feel happy.