The House on Mermaid Point (21 page)

“He really looked up to you, didn’t he?” she asked gently.

William’s sigh was long and sad and filled with regret. “I was as close to a parent as he ever had. But there was a sweetness to him, a softness. He didn’t belong on the road or in the world we ended up in.” He slipped the T-shirt back in the pile and reached for something that lay on the nearest chair. “You can probably get some real money for this.” He picked up the fly-fishing rod that she’d found in his closet, still in its fabric sleeve. “Hud probably has a better idea of its current value, but now that Jose is gone, I’m sure it’s worth close to fifteen hundred dollars.”

Maddie was already shaking her head. “We can’t take this.”

“I’m offering it as an apology for our encounter. And with thanks for helping me reach out to Tommy. It was a kind of feeble attempt, but it wouldn’t have happened at all if you hadn’t been there.”

“No.” Maddie pressed the rod back at him. “You keep it. It means a lot more to you than whatever its monetary value is. The network’s playing with us. We appreciate the donations, but the rod, no. The rod needs to stay with you.” She had a thought as she studied his face. “Speaking of Tommy, when do you plan to see him next?”

She saw his surprise at the change of topic. “I guess the next time he comes to Mermaid Point to see how things are progressing.”

He was such a
guy
. “You should call him. Now.”

“Oh, no. I don’t think so. I’m sure he’s busy.”

She stifled a laugh at the alarm on his face. “What are you doing for the Fourth?”

“Hud and I are going fishing for a few days.” He clearly had no idea where this conversation was going.

“Did you invite Tommy to go with you?”

“No.” His face registered surprise at the very idea. Really, the man didn’t seem to have a clue.

“Why not?” she asked innocently. “Don’t you like to be with him?”

“It’s not that,” he began, then stopped. “I was a crappy father and as he pointed out I didn’t see him much when he was little and we were always on tour.” He hesitated, but she waited him out. “After my brother died and then later Tommy’s mother . . .” He looked at Maddie imploringly, but she continued to wait. “Well, I was in a fog for a lot of years. After my first stint in rehab I tried to, you know, reach out. But Tommy had been at boarding school a couple of years by then and he made it clear that he wasn’t interested. I’m sure the fact that he didn’t have a single positive memory of me didn’t help.”

She was touched that he’d shared this with her and she felt for him, really she did. But his relationship with his son would never improve if he didn’t reach out and make it happen.

“And how many years ago was that?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “You didn’t get to where you did in the music industry without taking risks and putting yourself out there. And whether you’ve noticed it or not, your son isn’t a teenager anymore. And he hasn’t exactly disappeared or come out recently and told you to take a hike.”

He looked skeptical, but she could see that he was thinking about what she’d said. She fought off the urge to comfort him; this was not the time to let him off the hook.

“Let me tell you something, Will.” He stilled, and she realized it was the first time she’d called him anything less formal than William. “I’m a mother and I’m telling you that no child, no matter how old, is completely disinterested in a parent’s attempt to show affection. You have to do it more than once; regularly is ideal. And frankly, there’s no time like the present.” She handed him the phone, which he stared at numbly.

“Do you need me to dial the number for you?”

“I’m sure he’s already got plans. Everybody’s got plans by now. Don’t you?” He set the phone down on the table.

“No,” Maddie replied. “Actually, I don’t. And I don’t believe your son has anything so important planned that he wouldn’t rather be with you.” She picked up the phone and handed it back to him.

“Jesus. You look so harmless but you’ve got some fairly large cojones.”

Maddie felt ridiculously pleased by the comment. “Thank you.” In fact, the compliment made her somewhat reckless. “Here.” She commandeered his phone and began to scroll through his contacts, trying not to react when she saw Mick Jagger’s, and Paul McCartney’s phone numbers. When she got to the
T
’s she located Tommy’s number and hit “dial.” When she was sure it was ringing she handed the phone back to Will.

He stared stupidly at it for a moment and she reached out, grasped the back of his hand, and lifted it up so that the phone was pressed to his ear.

For a moment, she worried that he would just hang up at the sound of Tommy’s voice.

But when he cocked his head and finally began to speak, she realized that Tommy must have answered. “Hi. Yeah, everything’s okay.” William hesitated. “Um, you?”

He nodded while he listened to Tommy’s answer. Then: “No. Nothing special. I was just . . .”

Maddie could have laughed. Wild Will looked and sounded like Andrew just after his sixteenth birthday when he’d spent close to an hour working up the courage to ask a girl he’d been crushing on out on a date. She shot William the same look she’d shot Andrew at the time then mouthed, “Ask him.”

“So . . . well . . .”

Maddie turned and walked toward the sliding door to give him some privacy.

“So, I was wondering if you’d like to go on a fishing trip with Hud and me over the Fourth. Just for a couple of days. Unless you’ve already got plans.”

There was a pause and she turned. Just as his head jerked up and surprise lit his face. “You would?”

He listened intently, but Maddie could see the pleasure in his eyes. The clarity of his smile pierced her to the core. “Great,” he said, no longer hiding his enthusiasm. “I’ll let you know the details after I talk to Hud.”

She gave him a big thumbs-up and he flashed her a smile that could have rivaled Max Golden’s megawatter. She turned to leave, not wanting him to see how moved she was. He was still talking as she slipped out through the sliding glass door. The last words she heard were, “That’s great, Tommy. I’m really glad you can come.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Nicole stepped gingerly into the Jon Boat that idled at the dock, holding on to Deirdre’s hand for balance.

“I think so.” Maddie squinted into the sun and drew a deep and, she hoped, calming breath. They’d assumed that Hudson would drop them at Lazy Days just north of Bud N’ Mary’s on the ocean side, where Deirdre had made a reservation for dinner. But he’d had plans with a client and Will was already off the island, presumably with the absent Troy and Anthony trailing behind him. Their only choice had been staying on Mermaid Point instead of going out to dinner. Or taking the boat out themselves.

Maddie might have wimped out except that everyone had already been dressed, made up, and eager to go. She’d managed to get the motor started. Now her hand was clamped tightly around the tiller. Butterflies sloshed around in her stomach. “Avery?” Her voice broke and she had to clear it. “Can you untie those lines?”

“Aye, aye, Captain!” Avery, who’d been seated in the bow, stood and unwrapped the rope from the cleat then saluted smartly.

“Deirdre?” Maddie turned to the woman seated beside her in the stern, on the other side of the motor. “Can you untie the other one and push us off?”

Kyra stood on the dock with Dustin’s hand in hers, both of them waving. “You go have a girls’ night out,” she’d said when they tried to get her and Dustin to come. “Just make sure you don’t party so much that you can’t find your way back. I don’t think bread crumbs hold up that well in seawater.”

They were ridiculously overdressed given their mode of transportation, but they’d all been desperate to get off the island. Nicole wore a sleeveless dress with a pair of heels; Deirdre wore a cream linen suit with a bright orange shell beneath it; her heels were more kitten height. Even Avery had put on dressy capris and strappy wedge sandals. Maddie’s white slacks and off-the-shoulder white peasant blouse were the dressiest things she’d brought; the seat of her pants already felt damp.

She drew another breath and bit her lip as she carefully turned the tiller to ease away from the dock and out into the channel.
You can do this
. More to the point, Hudson had told her she was ready to do this and she was going to have to trust that he hadn’t simply been being kind.

When she was squarely in the channel she twisted the throttle. The bow rose slightly as the skiff picked up speed. Nerves and excitement teased at her as she guided the boat south to stay in the channel and go under the bridge into the bay.

“Oh, it’s so gorgeous!” They were full on to the sun, which glowed low directly ahead of them, heavy with golden light and warmth. Maddie cut to idle speed so that they could float gently and watch it make its way toward the water. It looked as if it might splash down right in front of them. They watched it in awed silence as it appeared to melt, spreading a golden glow across the surface.

“It’s so different watching it on the water,” Avery said. “So up close and personal.”

Maddie drew the salt-tinged air into her lungs and felt the play of the warm breeze in her hair and across her cheek. A white heron winged through the sky. With her back turned to U.S. 1, the bay and its canals branching out toward mangrove-covered spits of land made civilization seemed far away.

She turned the boat and headed north, keeping carefully between the markers that bounded the relief channel, then ducked under the bridge to Bud N’ Mary’s just as Hudson had shown her. From here she headed east at a sedate pace through the no-wake zone, heading toward the open water.

“Isn’t the restaurant back that way?” Nicole pointed back toward the marina and U.S. 1, which was now behind them.

“Yes, but I have to go up to that last channel marker”—she pointed just ahead—“then I make a U-turn so that I can head straight in to the beach at Lazy Days.”

She did this more slowly than she might have liked, and way more cautiously than she wished she felt. This first outing without Hudson’s patient presence and calm instruction was equal parts liberating and terrifying.

They were coming up on the spotlit beach, with its tiki torches dotting the sand and tables that seemed to spill out of the open first floor of the building. The upper story was rimmed with people.

Nicole craned her neck to see as they drew closer. “Where do we park?”

Maddie didn’t want to tell them that she’d chosen not to dock at Bud N’ Mary’s and walk the short way to Lazy Days because her docking skills were so sadly undeveloped and untested. “You see those boats up to the right?” She pointed toward two boats that had been anchored to the beach, their sterns floating in the shallow water. “I’m going to cut the engine at just the right moment, then I’ll tilt the motor up and we’ll slowly skim the bow up onto the beach and secure it with the anchor.” Maddie said this as if it were no big deal, but her heart had started pounding. Her hand felt frozen on the tiller.

“Seriously?” Nicole looked skeptical.

“Have you ever done this before?” Avery had gone up on her knees on the seat and was clutching the rail as if already bracing for impact.

“Not exactly.” In truth Maddie had never had a chance to practice the maneuver; she’d only listened to Hudson explaining the steps and she wasn’t entirely sure whether the motor was supposed to get tilted up before or after she nosed the boat onto the beach, but she didn’t want to worry them. Surely this would be easier than docking—a skill at which she did
not
excel.

She chose the opposite end of the beach from the other boats, just in case she miscalculated. Then she did her best to tune out everything but the speed of the boat and the rapidly approaching sand.

“Here goes,” she muttered as she cut the engine and then held her breath as the boat continued under its own momentum. She may have briefly closed her eyes and offered up a brief silent prayer as she grasped the lever that enabled her to tilt up the motor. She was still praying silently, but fervently, as the bow of the boat encountered land. And then gently, mercifully, and quite miraculously it slid up onto the beach and stopped just as she’d hoped, er, planned.

“You did it!” Nicole crowed.

“Way to go, Madeline Singer!” Avery pumped her fist.

Maddie raised both arms into the air like an Olympic runner bursting past the finish line. Satisfaction and adrenaline coursed through her. From above on the upper railing of the restaurant there was a round of applause.

“What happens now?”

Maddie reined in her jubilation. “Grab the anchor next to your feet. We need to use it to secure the boat to the beach.”

Avery bent down to pick up the anchor while Nicole scrambled out of the boat. The short dress and high heels didn’t help. When she finally made it over the side and onto the beach, one heel sank deep into the sand. There was a chorus of appreciative whistles from the second-floor balcony as she bent over to pry it loose.

Avery made it off with slightly more dignity and plunged the anchor into the sand.

Maddie climbed off the bow and offered Deirdre a hand, all of them far too aware of their audience. But as she and Avery let out enough rope so that the boat would float just offshore, Maddie flushed with satisfaction. They settled at a table on the beach. Maddie chose a seat with a view of their boat and across the water to Mermaid Point. As they ordered a bottle of wine and selected appetizers, she let go of her anxiety about the return trip.

As the designated driver, Maddie didn’t partake of the first bottle of wine or the round of shooters that arrived with the conch fritters, crab cakes, and coconut shrimp.

“Here’s to Maddie, our fearless captain.” Nicole raised her shot glass. “You did good!”

“To Maddie!” they chorused as they clinked glasses.

Maddie smiled and bowed regally as the others downed the shots and slammed their empty glasses on the table.

Maddie read through the menu and slowly sipped the wine spritzer she’d allotted herself, analyzing the individual dishes. “I’m eating only conch tonight,” she declared when the waiter appeared to take their orders. “Conch chowder to start.” She waffled between main dishes of cracked conch and lazy conch and feigned disappointment that there was no conch pie for dessert.

“You’ll be ready for Key lime pie by then,” the waiter promised.

The restaurant hummed with good cheer. Music filtered down from upstairs. The crowd was diverse, with everything from sun-leathered locals to sunburned tourists. “Everybody looks so happy to be here,” she marveled.

A second round of shooters appeared in front of them.

“Courtesy of the gentlemen over at the bar.” Their waiter pointed to a group of men, who raised their glasses to them. An open bottle of wine stood on the table, their second of the evening.

“Well, I’m happy to be here!” Avery raised her shot glass.

“Ditto!” Deirdre clinked her glass to Avery’s.

“It feels so good to be off the island!” Nicole raised hers.

Maddie smiled and raised the remains of her spritzer, but as much as she was enjoying herself, she was looking forward to getting back to Mermaid Point. She’d been stealing glances at the island. Palm trees stirred lightly on the northeastern edge. Through them she saw a light flicker on, on the upper floor of the main house. She peered at her watch and wondered if that meant that Will was home from wherever he’d gone. He’d refused to commit to cooking on camera in the new outdoor kitchen the next morning, but Maddie refused to believe he’d leave them in the lurch.

Their dinners arrived and the others were already digging in when she tuned back in.

“Is Chase going to come down for the Fourth?” Deirdre had asked Avery.

Avery shook her head. “He doesn’t feel like he can leave his dad. Apparently Jeff’s gotten kind of ornery at not being able to work or deal with things anymore. And the boys are playing baseball in a local tournament.”

“Then you should go up there. Absence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder, you know,” Deirdre said. “Sometimes it just lets people forget about you. Or want to, anyway.” She sighed. “You know, of course, that I speak from experience.”

“I get it.” Avery took a sip of wine. “But we’ve got too many subs coming in right after the holiday and far more work to cram into way too short a time frame. I don’t want to be gone that long.” She hesitated. “I might run down to Key West—Chase has a friend with a B and B that he converted in Old Town who offered a room and a tour. You’re welcome to join me if you want.”

“Thanks.” Deirdre flushed with pleasure. “That would be great.” She shot a thoughtful look at her daughter. Maddie, who was far more sober than the rest of them, imagined she could see the wheels turning in the woman’s head.

“Don’t you just love the name ‘cracked conch’?” Maddie set down her fork and munched on a French fry. “I still can’t believe how many ways they can prepare it.”

“Maybe we should get Will to cook a little conch in the video tomorrow morning.” Avery dabbed at the side of her mouth with a napkin. “Assuming he shows up.”

“He’ll show up,” Maddie said with more certainty than she felt.

“He has to show up,” Deirdre said. “The sponsor is counting on it.”

“Well, if he doesn’t you could put your lessons to use and cook something fancy,” Avery said to her mother. “Maddie could assist.”

“I’m not cooking in the video.” Maddie’s eyes strayed once again to Mermaid Point and the light that flickered through the palms. “I’m just going to stand there and encourage William. You know, kind of hold his hand if he needs it.”

“Well, you’ve held his underwear. I’m sure his hand will feel pretty tame in comparison.” Nicole raised her wineglass in Maddie’s direction.

All of them grinned at her.

“Very funny.”

“Drinks definitely taste better out of a glass than they do out of a Coke can,” Avery observed.

Maddie watched them raise their glasses, grateful to Avery for changing the subject but not as happy being the only sober person in the group.

The sky was velvet black with stars twinkling like diamonds spread across it. The moon was almost full and on the rise, its glimmering reflection on the water an arrowed path that led to Mermaid Point.

Once again, Maddie had to pull her thoughts back to the conversation going on around her.

“When are you driving up to Giraldi’s?” Deirdre had posed the question to Nicole.

“I’m going on the third. His family arrives that morning.”

“Is that a problem?” Avery asked.

“No, not exactly.” Nicole laced her fingers around the wineglass stem and sloshed the little bit that remained in her glass. “But it’s . . . awkward. They don’t seem to understand that it’s possible for two people to enjoy each other’s company without needing to get married.”

A brief, shocked silence fell. All eyes fixed on Nicole.

“Which one of you doesn’t need to get married?” Avery asked.

For a moment it looked as if Nicole wouldn’t answer. Then she sighed and said, “That would be me.”

“Seriously?” Deirdre asked.

“You’ve turned down an offer of marriage from Joe Giraldi? Special Agent Joe Giraldi?” Avery asked. “The one with the gun and the badge and the rock-hard abs?”