Swept Away (19 page)

Then our lips meet, and his hand tangles in my hair. I stroke the back of his neck, and as the kiss grows deeper, I press against him and move my hands to his back to pull him closer. Our breathing grows more ragged, our kissing more determined, our touches more intense.

We break apart and I take in a deep breath and I hear Oliver do the same. Then he brings his face close to mine and whispers, “Now we have another special place, like the spot by the river.”

“Mm,” I murmur as his mouth moves along my neck. Then we're kissing again and Rocky Point vanishes.

“We, uh, we should go,” I finally say reluctantly. “Mom will be waiting.”

“I guess,” Oliver says with a sigh.

We turn toward the archway and my foot hits something. It clatters down the stairs. “Oops,” I say. “I think that was a flashlight.”

“It really was just luck that we didn't drown today, wasn't it?” Oliver comments wryly. “We're quite the pair.”

I giggle. “Too bad being clumsy is one of the things we have in common.”

Oliver holds up his flashlight. “Should I do the honors? Since you were my eyes in the boat?”

I gesture to the stairway entrance. “After you, fearless leader.”

“I'm only suggesting this because you weigh less than I do. If I trip and land on you, I think it'd be a bigger problem.”

“How about neither of us trip, okay?”

“Works for me,” Oliver says.

“Let's just hope the ghost of Anna Christine doesn't object to our being here. She just might push us down the rest of the way.”

“You didn't tell me Candy Cane is haunted,” Oliver says, sounding gleeful. “Somehow that makes it even more perfect. So who is she? I mean, who
was
she?”

I tell Oliver the sad tale of the young widow waiting for her husband to return. He'd been blown off the rocks as he made his way in a torrential storm to keep the lantern lit. I get kind of goose-bumpy telling the tale as we s-l-o-w-l-y make our way
down the stairs, Oliver in front holding the flashlight, me clutching the back of his T-shirt. Two reasons: One, it's a little hard to see his tiny flashlight beam, and this clues me in to when he's on the next step. And two, if he does start to fall, I can hopefully snatch him back.

A loud clatter nearly topples us in surprise. “What was that?” I squeak.

Oliver laughs. “Anna Christine just tossed your flashlight the rest of the way down the stairs. Using my foot.”

We continue down the circular staircase, the rough stone walls giving off a damp smell, the metal railing cold under my hand. I grip it so tight I'm pretty sure my hand is going to be permanently cramped.

“Made it!” Oliver cheers as we arrive at the ground floor.

I stop and soak in the atmosphere for a moment. “I'm starting to get it,” I say.

“Get what?”

“The . . . I don't know . . . the connectedness people feel when they come here. Why they want to see the lighthouse.” I snort a little laugh. “Ohmigod. Maybe I'm even understanding my mom more!”

“Oh, not possible!” Oliver teases.

“Shut up,” I say with a laugh. “But speaking of Mom, I need to get to the Square. Do you want a ride? Or are you hitching with Lexi and her gang?”

“I'm not sure I can find her now,” Oliver says. “Your mom won't mind? It's kind of out of the way.”

“Are you kidding? How can she not give the boy who loves Candy Cane as much as she does a ride?”

“I think she'll like me even more if I convince her daughter to love Candy Cane too.”

I slip my arm around his waist. “I'm getting there.”

We walk in companionable silence, soaking in the tangy salt air and ocean breeze. We stay close to the shoreline, figuring we'll head inland after checking to see if any of my friends are still at the beach so we can say good-bye. We help each other up and over the uneven rocks, feeling the spray around our ankles as water splashes the boulders.

The parties are all breaking up. People call to one another, parents corral or carry kids, and the booths are being dismantled. We arrive at the dock and continue along the beach, but it looks as if everyone has already left. We link pinkies as we wander slowly among the departing crowds, sand and seashells crunching underfoot.

Suddenly I stop.

“Do you see them?” Oliver asks.

Moonlit night. Oliver. Holding hands. A tiny soft laugh sneaks out of me. We're actually acting out one of my images from the romantic montage that flipped through my brain the very first time Oliver came to Candy Cane.

Amazing.

Reality is so much better.

O
ther people may be in Rocky Point on vacation, but I'm not one of them. I'm back at Candy Cane (mama, not junior) way too early.

Today when I shove open the reluctant door, I'm filled with the memory of last night. How romantic it was. How special. How
Oliver.
But I also discover I'm feeling a weird kind of letdown. Cynthia talks about this—how after a show closes she gets blue. All that work and excitement and build-up and then . . . it's over. And real life begins again.

And me being me, I'm also more than a little worried that despite last night, now that there's no project for us to work on together, Oliver and I won't be . . . well, won't
be
.

I try to shake off my anxiety as people straggle in. From the looks of them, they were up as late as I was last night. But they're cheerful enough and seem to get a kick out of the photos of the various keepers lining one of the walls. Once they move off, I get up and study the keepers too. They all have such interesting faces. “Why did you take this job?” I ask each one of them. None of them answers—which is probably a good thing. In my mom's notes I read about Keeper Abe McCarthy, who couldn't take the isolation and went kind of crazy. Don't want to follow in Abe's footsteps!

I cross back to my desk, trying to picture Oliver. What's he doing right now? I swivel my desk chair back and forth, imagining him . . . where? How
will
he spend his time now that he's not here measuring or at home building? I grin. He's probably measuring and building something new.

I step through the Keeper's Café screen door since I overslept and didn't have time to pack a lunch. I'm startled to see Mrs. Gallagher behind the counter. She shoots me a giant smile. “Hello, Mandy. Loved your boat last night!”

“Thanks,” I say as I take a seat at the counter. “Is Celeste out sick?”

“No, no,” Mrs. Gallagher assures me. She drops a menu in front of me. “It's one of her days off. I volunteered to be her relief.”

“Oh,” I say. A sudden flash of anxiety rushes through me. Could Oliver be with Celeste? I tell myself to calm down, and order a salad.

After lunch, with all the visitors in town for the Fourth, I'm busy enough that I am forced to give up my obsessing. When I close up Candy Cane, there he is, sitting on the bench, a spanking new bike leaning against the picnic table.

“What are you doing here?” I ask forcing myself to not skip across the grass.

He unfolds in that languorous, relaxed way of his and stands. “Habit. I got so used to meeting you after you were done that my feet just took me here.” He gives me a quick peck. “Or maybe it was my lips that lead the way.”

“Ha-ha.” I nod toward the bike. “That looks new.”

“It is. It's a lot faster than walking, and I figured it would be better than asking Mom for rides all the time.”

I unlock the shed and retrieve my own trusty steed. Together we start walking them toward Weatherby.

“All day I felt weird,” Oliver says. “Like there was something I was supposed to be doing. Then I remembered—we already did it!”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“Do you have to go straight home? I thought we could go hang
by the river again.” He gives me a sidelong glance and ­waggles his eyebrows. “Pops made snacks. . . .”

“Well, in that case, how can I say no?”

I give Mom a quick call at the library, and then we ride to Oliver's house. We stash the bikes, he makes a quick trip to the kitchen, then I follow him to “our” spot by the river. Not so long ago I felt so nervous around him, and today I feel at ease in a way that's new to me.

“So what did you do all day?” I ask as we settle onto the flat rock.

“Not much. Got the bike. Ran into Celeste.”

I stiffen. So they
were
together. I wasn't just being paranoid. “Oh yeah?” I say, forcing myself to be super casual. “Where?”

“Over at the bookstore. She was looking for used textbooks. Did you know she's getting an engineering degree?”

“Nope.” Great. Ethereally beautiful and mathematically inclined. I could just picture them bonding over graph paper.

“Were you busy today?” He hands me an aluminum-foil packet.

“Pretty busy.” I keep my eyes on the packet as if it requires great skill to unwrap it. Then my eyes widen, and my head snaps around to look at him. “Is this what I think it is?”

Oliver smiles proudly. “A homemade bloob pocket. I don't know if it will be as good as the ones you get in the booths, but I figured since you didn't get a chance to have one yesterday . . .”

I grin at him, all jealousy evaporating as I take a huge bite. He remembered not only my bloob pocket obsession
and
my nickname for them, but also went out of his way to bring me one.

“Ohmigod,” I say, though my mouth is so full it comes out more like “mowfigumph.” I swallow and ask, “How is this even possible?”

He shrugs. “Pops is a genius.”

I give him a blueberry-pastry-flaked kiss. “
You're
the genius for getting him to make them.”

“Okay, I'll take the credit.”

After some more blueberry-tinged kissing, we lie on our backs, fingertips touching, listening to the sounds around us. I just hope my allergies don't kick in to ruin the peaceful setting. My sneezes have been known to make cats run for cover.

Oliver lets out a long, contented sigh. “This place is really great.”

“How come you never visited before?” This is something I've been wondering.

“Mom and Pops didn't get along. He divorced her mom when she was still pretty young. From what she says, it sounds like that breakup was ugly, and she was really angry at him for a long time. That's probably why she and Dad worked so hard to avoid the usual divorce drama.”

I roll over onto my stomach and pluck a strand of grass from the ground. I split it in two, then pull up another one. “So why now? It doesn't seem like she's really taking time off.”

Oliver flips over onto his stomach too, his shoulder grazing mine. I lean my head against his shoulder, smelling laundry soap, sunblock, and what I now call
eau de California
. “A bunch of things, I guess. My dad's mom got sick last year, and I think that reminded her that Pops is getting up there in years.”

“He looks pretty healthy to me,” I say. “A little creaky maybe.”

“Yeah, he's fine. But, you know . . . I think the whole mortality thing hit her.”

“Is your grandma okay?” I ask.

“Not great, but hanging in.” He rolls away from me and rummages in his sack. Pulling out a bottle of water, he takes a swig then offers it to me. As I take it he adds, “She also . . . I think Mom understands him better now.”

“Because she's grown-up now?” I wonder if once I'm an adult I'll understand Mom better too.

“No because . . . well, Pops split just as he was getting super successful. Which her mother resented like crazy.”

I hand him back the water bottle. “Understandable. She was with him when he was nobody, and once he got famous . . .”

“Exactly. But the same thing kind of happened with us. Mom hit it big and things just soured.”

I sit up. “So you're saying being successful ruins marriages? That would just suck.”

He sits up too. “No, it's not that. It's . . . it's more that it was a huge change. Change makes things . . . complicated. A couple will either work it out or they won't. If there were already serious cracks in that foundation . . .” He shrugs.

“I get it.”

“With Mom it wasn't like ‘Oh, now I'm rich, and I'm going to trade you in for a shiny new model.' It was more that her priorities changed. Pressures changed. Daily life changed. I think she stopped being so angry when she started to look at things from Pops's point of view.”

“Makes sense, I guess. . . .”

“Also Pops wanted to see more of the world, paint different kinds of pictures. Nana was a total homebody. Shy. Never wanted to leave her hometown. Liked it that way. They never compared goals. Until it was too late. I think a bit of that happened with my folks too.”

I swivel around to face him. “You and your mom talk a lot, don't you?”

He shrugs. “I guess. Don't you? With your mom, I mean.”

I tug at the grass. “Mostly she just tells me what I'm doing wrong.”

“Oh, that can't be true.”

“Believe it.”

Oliver stands and holds out a hand to help me up. He pulls me into a hug. “It's easy to talk to you. I've never talked so much to a girl in my whole life.”

“Must be this place,” I say, looking up at the canopy created by the trees and the happy blue sky, and listening to the sound of the water and the drone of unseen insects. Like a tiny little bubble of peace. “Because I've never talked so much to a boy in my whole life either.”

He tightens his hold. “
Our
place,” he whispers as he moves aside my hair and brushes my neck with his lips. I shut my eyes and allow the tingles to spread through me.

After a few more kisses, he says, “Want to go see
Far Far Away
? It's supposed to be really good. It's playing—” He stops when he sees my frown. “Sorry, do you have plans? Am I taking up too much of your time? I always do this—just assume—”