Sweet Salt Air (26 page)

In time, she raised her head. Midnight had come and gone, but she doubted Nicole was asleep. She couldn’t go to her. But she could wait in the Great Room, all night if need be, glad to be a whipping post if that would help Nicole.

She had just started back when the house lights went out. Uneasy, she made her way through the dark to the kitchen door and turned the handle, but the door didn’t budge. She tried the patio sliders, then the front door, without luck.

She was wondering what to do next, when she heard footsteps inside. In a moment of fantasy, Charlotte imagined Nicole throwing open the door, saying that she understood, that people made mistakes, that those stem cells were the answer to a prayer.

The only thing reality brought, though, was the realization that the footsteps had been going
up
the stairs. Nicole had locked her out.

Chapter Sixteen

C
HARLOTTE STOOD IN THE DARK,
wondering what to do. She couldn’t ring the bell. This wasn’t a case of Nicole being distracted. She knew Charlotte was outside and didn’t want her coming in.

Feeling like scum, she sat on the steps in the moonless night, arms around her knees, eyes on nothing at all. She had made a gross mistake ten years ago. It seemed she had compounded the error tonight. In weighing hurt against help, she had misjudged. Everything she had wanted
not
to happen
had.
And now the damage was done.

She thought to drive to the pier and wait there until morning to catch the ferry, but she didn’t have money or even her car keys. Besides, running away wasn’t the answer. She had spent her life running from one unpleasant relationship or another. But Nicole wasn’t an unpleasant relationship. Charlotte loved her like a sister.

Anxious, she jumped up and started to walk. The night was cool. Still in the blouse and shorts she had worn to Rockland, she felt chilled, though she suspected part of it was grief. When easy walking didn’t do it, she walked faster.

Five minutes later, though, she sat down on the side of the road. She had no business going to Leo’s. She didn’t deserve comfort. But she had never felt this alone. Even during the years when she hadn’t seen Nicole, Charlotte had known the Lillys were there—an emotional, if fanciful touchstone. But no more. The loss was crippling.

She didn’t know if Leo would understand. But she had nowhere else to go.

She walked with increasing speed, trying to escape an unspeakable sadness. Distracted, she didn’t see the decaying road until her foot twisted in a rut. She caught herself and limped on, barely slowing, welcoming the pain. Shortly before the Cole curve, she started to run, pushing herself mercilessly down the dirt drive. She didn’t notice the shadows of plants, the scents, the rustle of leaves. Not even the ocean registered.

Running straight to the house and up the steps, she sagged against the door. Her breath came in short gasps; her forehead, palms, and torso braced the wood. Shifting, she glanced at her watch. It was 2:10. All was silent inside.

She shouldn’t have come. But she couldn’t leave. She was cold and shaky, and that was totally apart from her mental state.

With only the faintest move of her hand, she knocked, then paused to listen for sounds from within. Hearing none, she repeated the knock. This time, Bear barked from the back of the house. She knocked again, still softly. The bark came closer.

When the door opened, she nearly fell forward. She caught herself just in time and looked up. Leo’s hair was messed, but he didn’t seem groggy. Though barefoot, he wore a T-shirt and jeans.

She must have looked like a madwoman, with her hair every which way and her face desolate, because he stared at her in stunned silence before whispering a frightened,
“Jesus,”
and pulling her inside.

As soon as the door shut, she slumped against it. In the next instant, her legs gave way and she slid down the wood to the floor. Covering her face, she burst into tears. Uncontrollable, they came in gut-wrenching sobs that went on and on. Mortified, she pressed her face to her knees and covered her head with her arms.

She felt a hand on her nape. “What
happened
?
” he asked.

The connection was enough. Something inside her snapped, and the whole of it poured out. The words were broken, but, like the tears, they kept coming. She told him every last little private thing—about herself, Julian, the baby, Nicole.

He didn’t say anything, just listened. When she ran out of words, he helped her up, led her through the dark house, and put her to bed.

*   *   *

She woke up feeling a wonderful warmth, a heartbeat under her ear, an arm around her back. Not daring to move, she opened an eye. The room was dark. It was a minute before she noticed a sliver of light where the drapes met, another before her eyes adjusted and she realized where she was. She sat up quickly, clutching the sheet to her chest, though she was fully dressed—and looked beside her. Leo half sat against the headboard with pillows at his back. His chest was bare, but he still wore his jeans. The arm that had held her lay empty on the sheet, the other was folded behind his head. His eyes, reflecting that sliver of light between the drapes, were on her.

Everything flooded back—her confrontation with Nicole, her flight here, her blubbering confession—and she was stricken. “My God,” she breathed, thinking of Nicole, who was broken, then of Julian, who would damn her, then, in horror, of Leo. “I can’t believe I told you all that!”

“Why not?” he asked quietly.

“It was private. I’ve betrayed her again.”

“You think I’d tell anyone?”

“I don’t know. Would you?”

He stared at her a minute longer, less relaxed now if the rigidity of his jaw was a clue. She was thinking she had offended him, when he rose from the bed and opened the drapes—and even then, she might have continued to watch him if he hadn’t glanced around the room in daylight, inviting her to do the same.

The bedroom was a surprise. From the looks of the outside of the house, she would have expected something shabby, but nothing here was. The king-sized bed was sleek and black, the walls sleek and white, the carpet a nubby blend of both. French doors surrounded by windows faced the ocean, but there were also built-in dressers, paintings hung floor-to-ceiling, and Bear sprawled beneath a wall that held a huge flat-screen
TV
.

If this had been Cecily’s bedroom, it was no more. Everything here was masculine, definitely Leo’s. Everything in it was new and of fine quality, from the sheets and quilt to the carpet and art—all of which raised more questions than they answered. Confused, she looked back at him.

“We all have secrets,” he said sadly and, opening a door to the outside, hitched his chin. When she joined him, he led her over a planked deck, across a well-kept beachfront, and down a long dock that extended out into the waves. At its end, sails furled, was an elegant sloop of fiberglass and teak.

A bell rang in Charlotte’s head. This was the ghost ship she had seen the first morning she was here.

“Yours?” she whispered, stunned.

He nodded. Far from gloating, though, he seemed troubled. When her eyes asked why, he turned her so that she looked back at the house.

She sucked in a breath, thinking that this couldn’t be the same house she had helped to reroof. That one was old, this one new. That one had peeling brown paint, this one was artfully set stone in myriad shades of sand. That one was two-storied and boxy, this one a single level with high ceilings, a handful of skylights, and an extension on the right that was nestled into the trees as sweetly as if it were part of the woods.

Oh, it was the same house. She could see the cupola up high behind the bedroom roof. But it had been totally rehabbed on this ocean side.

“When…?” she asked, not sure where to begin.

“This year.”

“You did it yourself?”

“I had help.”

“Who?”

“Islanders.”

“They
know
about this?” Being on the remote end of the island, it wasn’t a part of Quinnipeague that they would normally pass.

“Some.”

She hadn’t been able to take her eyes from the house, but at his cryptic tone now, she did. He was chewing on the inside of his mouth, looking nervous, which, of course, made her wonder yet again where he got his money. Her first thought was grand theft, which would have been something a guy might do after he’d quit selling pot. But like the house, this guy wasn’t what he seemed. Insider trading?

She finally had to ask, albeit in a confused hush. “Materials, labor—how did you pay?”

He stared at her with what actually looked like fear, and she might have questioned
that
if it hadn’t slowly faded. Seeming resigned, he walked back down that long wooden dock and set off across the sand toward the room on the right. He didn’t have to wave her along. Desperate for answers, she went.

As with the bedroom, the ocean-facing wall of this room was glass, reflecting the seascape so effectively that Charlotte couldn’t see anything inside until he opened one of the doors, and then, her eyes were on him. He was chewing on the inside of his mouth again, clearly torn. But he did cock his head, gesturing her to pass him and go in.

Even with trees draping the skylights, there was enough sun pouring in over the ocean from the east to show endless shelves packed with a motley assortment of books. The only break in the shelves was for a machine of the copy-fax-scan variety. A large desk stood in the center of the room. Like the shelves, it looked to be cherry. It held a large computer screen that was surrounded by papers, some in neat piles, others not. This was a working desk, she realized and shot him a puzzled look.

He had his hands in his pockets. His jeans clung to lean hips, with his chest an inverted wedge above, but his shoulders seemed slumped. Clearly uneasy, he tipped his head toward one of the bookshelves.

She followed his gaze. The abundance of books was no surprise; he had already said he was a reader. As she approached the shelves, though, she was drawn to a familiar spine. She pulled it out.
Salt.
And it wasn’t alone. There were three other copies—actually,
six,
if you counted three that, glancing around in bewilderment, she saw in the shadows of the copy machine. Eyes whipping back to the shelves, she spotted the title
Salt
on the spines of three others, though these were different. They were paperbacks.

But
Salt
wasn’t out in paperback, at least not yet, or it would have been on sale in the airport.

Curious, she pulled out one, then another. Their covers had different designs, like someone was trying to decide which one to use.

Someone?

In the space of a stunned breath, little things came together—things Leo had said that reminded her of
Salt,
his familiarity with island life, the fact that the boat at his dock was like the one the hero built, even his disdain for the book, which might ward off suspicion.

Her gaze flew to his.
“You?”
she whispered, incredulous. “
You
wrote
Salt
?”

He didn’t speak, didn’t smile, didn’t show a trace of emotion.

Trying to grasp it, she put a hand on the top of her head. “Self-published. Self-promoted.”

“It isn’t rocket science.”

Disbelieving, she looked at the book again, then back. “
You
wrote this?”

A touch of color hit his cheeks. “Is that so improbable?”

“Yes! To hear Quinnies tell it, you’re just a troublemaker who shoots gulls.” Her own suspicion dawned. “None of it’s true, is it. They were protecting you.” That brought another thought. “They all know?”

“Mostly. The guy driving the mail boat sees me getting books and bags of forwarded mail. He’s a gossip.”

“Why ‘forwarded’ mail?”

“I have a P.O. box in Portland.”

“So no one can track you here.”

“I don’t want publicity.”

“Like the kind our cookbook could bring?”

He sputtered wryly. “Looks like I’ve ceded
that
fight.”

Charlotte felt a dull pain. “Maybe me, too. Nicole won’t want me touching it now.” But she couldn’t think about that, with the reality of Leo Cole sinking in. Feeling Bear’s warmth by her leg, she touched his head for balance. “You wrote the hottest book of the year, and the world hasn’t a clue. This is mind-boggling.”

He said nothing. Clearly, he didn’t think it was so mind-boggling. Clearly, he was feeling vaguely threatened that she knew his secret. “Does your publisher know your real name?”

He shook his head. “Everything goes through a lawyer in Boston.”

“Even phone calls?”

“Those, too.”

She scrunched up her face. “You don’t want even a
little
of the glory?”

“No.”

Well, he certainly knew what he wanted on that score at least. Fanning the three paperbacks, she held them out. “Which did you choose?”

“I haven’t yet. The hardcover’s doing well enough so that this won’t come out for a while. Which do you like?”

Charlotte didn’t have to study them. “The blue one,” she said. It was a stylized ocean scene with a boat, though whether at sunrise or sunset, she didn’t know, which added to the poignancy of it. She fitted the books back on the shelf and, puzzled, returned to Leo. “How did you learn how to do this?”

“I didn’t design the cover. My publisher did.”

“No, I mean, writing a book. I agonize over a piece that’s twelve pages.
Salt
is four-hundred and eighty-three.”

His mouth slanted, though not exactly in a smile. “You remember that.”

“Oh, I do,” Charlotte replied, clear-minded on this. “I was loving the reading so much that when I started to worry where it was headed, I skipped to the end. I hated that ending. I haven’t finished the book.”

“Are you angry?”

“Absolutely. You tugged at my heartstrings, then tore them all out and threw them away. I like my fiction happy. Real life is bad enough.” Again, she thought of Nicole. Pushing the thought away again, she approached the desk. Some of the notes there were handwritten, others typed. One of the neater piles held what looked to be letters. “From fans?” she asked.