Haven Creek (14 page)

He smiled. “Thanks for inviting me.”

Lucas eased back. “You know you don’t have to wait for an invitation. This house is as much yours as it is mine.”

Nate wanted to tell his father it wasn’t his house. It stopped being his home the day he left Cavanaugh Island for college.

He handed Lucas a shopping bag. “I picked up some dessert at the Muffin Corner.”

Lucas looked into the bag. “What did you bring?”

“Strawberry shortcake.”

The older man swore softly under his breath. “They don’t call Lester Kelly the cake man for nothing. You know,” he continued in a normal tone, “I’ve cut down on dessert, but I’m certain Bryce will eat my share.”

Odessa set the roasting pan on a rack in the oven, adjusted the temperature, and closed the door. “Bryce, please introduce your friends to Nate.”

Bryce came to his feet and gave Nate a rough embrace. He was grinning from ear to ear. “Ladies, this is my brother, Nate. Nate, the one in the red is my girlfriend, Stacy Butler. And that’s her sister, Amber.”

Nate extended his hand, shaking hands with Stacy and Amber. He’d found both women attractive, but it dawned on him that he was more estranged from his family than he’d realized. Six months ago he’d finally gotten to know his niece and nephew, and now, for the first time, he was meeting a woman Bryce was dating. He’d missed his brother coming to him to talk about girls and maybe even ask his advice when it came to sex.

He’d stayed in his marriage much too long, and perhaps because of this he admired Stacy for breaking up with Bryce. It was obvious she hadn’t condoned his behavior and she wasn’t going to let him crash and burn, taking her with him. Nate had encountered women who continued to support their incarcerated boyfriends, husbands, and baby daddies even if they were serving multiple life sentences. He understood they didn’t want to completely abandon the men they loved, but the downside was that these men were going to die in jail, and the women should begin planning their own future without them. If Stacy was going to be the catalyst who would help Bryce redirect his life, then Nate had to applaud her.

Odessa wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Why don’t you young folks go and sit on the back porch? It’s going to be at least twenty minutes before we eat.”

“Are you certain you don’t need any help?” Nate asked. Unconsciously, he’d slipped back into the patterns of the past, when he’d ask his mother whether she needed help in the kitchen, especially on occasions when she’d complain that she felt tired after coming home from her position as a school nurse.

Odessa, in a completely unexpected gesture, stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for asking, but I have everything under control. And thanks for bringing dessert.”

Not waiting for the others, Nate walked out of the kitchen and down a wide hallway that led to the back porch, plagued by emotions that swept him up in a maelstrom of confusion. He had become part of a family unit, even though he sometimes wanted to reject it because he felt he was being disloyal to his mother’s memory.

He’d lost count of how many times he’d tried to imagine Manda’s reaction to Odessa marrying her husband. Would she approve? Or would she think of it as an act of betrayal that while she lay dying her childhood friend was in her bed making love to her husband?

For years Nate had blamed Odessa, yet he knew his father shared equally in the blame. After all, he was married, and he had the audacity to fornicate under the same roof where he lived with his children. There was one thing he was certain of, and that was that Kim had never cuckolded him in their bed. She’d been forthcoming when she admitted to sleeping with her lovers in a small apartment she’d kept for her rendezvous in a less-than-desirable neighborhood in East L.A.

Nate slowed, waiting for Amber and Stacy to precede him out to the back porch. He sat on a cushioned love seat beside Amber and gave her a sidelong glance. Upon closer inspection he realized she was older than Stacy, who appeared closer to Bryce’s age. There were tiny lines around her eyes and tightness at the corners of her mouth. Her fingers were bare, leading him to believe she wasn’t married or engaged. There were other things he’d noticed about her. Amber’s skin was reminiscent of a ripe peach, a pinkish gold. It was the perfect complement for her pale hair.

Bryce sat opposite them, his arm around Stacy’s shoulders. “Hey, Nate, Stacy and I are going into the Cove to catch a movie afterward. Maybe you want to come along with Amber.”

Suddenly it all made sense to Nate. It was obvious that Bryce had invited Amber to join the Shaws for dinner because he’d wanted to pair him up with his girlfriend’s sister. “Sorry, bro. I have plans for later on tonight.”

Amber leaned closer, pressing her shoulder to Nate’s. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” he replied.

Amber gave him a wide grin. “That’s where we differ, because there’s no way I’d forget you. I was part of the press corps that covered your wedding.”

Nate found himself temporarily mute. What were the odds that he would meet someone on Cavanaugh Island who’d attended his wedding? “Who do you write for?”

“I’m a freelance journalist. I have a syndicated column that appears in several papers across the country.”

“Did you come here expecting me to give you an interview?”

Amber chewed her lip as if deep in thought. “Look, Nate, I’m going to be truthful. When Stacy called to tell me she’d reconciled with your brother, the name Shaw piqued my interest because I’d remembered that you were born on Cavanaugh Island. Even though she hadn’t met you, Bryce told her you were once married to Kimberly Mason. And when she told me she was planning to eat with your parents I figured I’d tag along, hoping to get lucky.”

“What do you mean by lucky?”

She leaned closer. “I’d like to interview you.”

Nate was annoyed that his brother had attempted to set him up with a reporter looking for a story. “I’m sorry, but I don’t give interviews.”

Amber slumped back, folding her arms under her breasts. “Have you kept in touch with your ex-wife?”

Nate went still. He’d told Amber he didn’t grant interviews, yet she’d persisted. “No comment.”

“You’re really going to make this difficult for me, aren’t you, Nate?”

“It wouldn’t be difficult if you respected my decision not to give interviews.”

“Not even for family?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Amber whispered. “My sister told me she and Bryce are talking about getting married.”

Nate didn’t want to believe Bryce wanted to marry his girlfriend at this point in his life. He was still on probation; he could only leave the island if it was business related; he lived with his parents, and he had only recently begun to draw a regular paycheck. It wasn’t a solid foundation on which to begin married life. However, whatever his brother decided, Nate knew he would have to support him.

“My answer would be the same.”

“Are you always this stubborn?” Amber asked Nate.

He smiled. “I’m as stubborn as you are tenacious.”

She rested a hand on his arm. “We’d make a good team if we decided to hook up. That is, unless—” Her words stopped abruptly when Lucas stuck his head through the partially opened door.

“Y’all come on in now.”

Nate wasn’t certain what Bryce had said to Amber about him, but his brother had to know he wouldn’t talk to anyone about Kim. Even when Bryce had asked about her, he’d told him he didn’t want to talk about his ex-wife.

He walked into the dining room, seated Amber, and then returned to the kitchen to help bring out the serving dishes. Glancing at the clock on the microwave, Nate estimated dinner would last a couple of hours, followed by coffee and dessert.

He knew it was customary to sit after dinner and talk, but this night he would break with tradition. Nate was not only waiting for Morgan to call him, he was also looking forward to seeing her again.

S
unday dinner at the Danes’ had become a relaxed and somewhat festive affair. Rachel was teased because she claimed she didn’t want to know her baby’s sex, and she hadn’t selected names for a boy or a girl. Irene said she’d dreamed of Rachel holding up a fish in each hand and, according to superstition, dreaming of fish translated into a pregnancy. And two fish was an indication that Rachel was carrying twins. All the talk about pregnancy and babies did little to assuage Morgan’s unease, and once dinner concluded she breathed a sigh of relief, claiming she had work to do before meeting with a client the following day. Her assertion was truthful, because she’d promised Nate she would look at his apartment to offer decorating ideas.

Francine’s vision continued to nag at Morgan as she stood on the porch watching the taillights of her parents’ car disappear in the distance. She’d spent a restless night tossing and turning, dreaming about babies. Her friend’s prediction had even hounded her at church, making it difficult to concentrate on the pastor’s sermon, and she’d been so distracted during dinner that even her mother asked her if she was coming down with something. She’d reassured her mother that she was okay, and just had a lot on her mind. When Gussie asked what could be so absorbing that she had to repeat herself several times before Morgan heard her, her daughter offered everyone an update on the Angels Landing Plantation restoration. Both her parents warned her not to get in over her head, and said that if she needed help she should hire an assistant. She didn’t need an assistant as much as she needed to purge her head of Francine’s unsettling prediction, because having Nate’s baby wasn’t even a remote possibility. Becoming a mother was not on Morgan’s wish list.

She reached into the back pocket of her jeans for her phone, then punched the speed dial for Nate’s cell. He answered after the second ring, his low greeting caressing her ear. “How was Sunday dinner?” she asked.

“It was interesting.”

“I can’t wait to hear about it.”

“How was yours?” Nate asked.

“Probably not as interesting as yours, but entertaining enough,” Morgan replied, going inside the house, where she adjusted the thermostat for the air-conditioning and plucked her house keys out of a small sweetgrass basket on the parlor side table.

She smiled when his sensual chuckle came through the earpiece. “Are you ready for me to come and get you?”

Morgan locked the front door. “Forget about coming. I’m on my way. I’ll be on foot.”

“I’ll meet you halfway.”

“Nate—” Whatever she was going to say died on her lips when the cell phone signal faded. Morgan had decided to walk the short distance between her house and Shaw Woodworking. The building was a familiar landmark to anyone living in the Creek and to those who called Cavanaugh Island home. It was visible from the road leading directly into the Creek’s business district.

It was the perfect night for a walk. The sweltering afternoon temperatures had dropped almost fifteen degrees, and a light wind coming off the ocean made it comfortable. Morgan had chided Nate about leaving the Creek to live elsewhere, when at one time she’d been equally guilty of occasionally entertaining the notion.

Whenever she traveled to another state or abroad, she tried to imagine living there permanently. But there was something about Cavanaugh Island that kept pulling her back. There were times when she understood what Al Pacino’s character in
The Godfather Part III
meant when he said he was being pulled back in. Although not prone to bouts of sadness, Morgan realized she’d suffered from some form of melancholy the year she’d lived abroad. It was on the island where she felt alive, inspired.

She moved closer to the shoulder of the road with the sound of an approaching car, then stopped and waited for it to pass. The driver slowed, rolled down the driver’s-side window, and waved to her. Rap music was blasting from his muscle car’s speakers.

“Do you need a ride?” the young man with the colorful tattooed arms shouted over the cranked-up volume.

Morgan shook her head. “No, thanks,” she said to the grandson of the man who owned one of the Creek’s last remaining pig farms.

She wanted to tell the teenager that he’d better lower his music before entering Haven Creek. The mayor was a stern enforcer when it came to disturbing the Creek’s quality of life. He’d persuaded the town council to pass a resolution prohibiting horn honking, except in cases of dire emergency, and loud music. Whether the music came from residences or vehicles, the consequence was the same: an initial warning followed by a hefty fine for the second offense.

She continued walking, and ten minutes into her walk she saw Nate in the distance. A smile parted her lips with his approach. He wore a white T-shirt, ripped jeans, and construction boots. Her stomach did a flip-flop when she noticed skin showing through the torn fabric. As he grew closer she saw the five o’clock shadow on his jaw, knowing Nate would have to shave every day to remain clean-shaven. Her gaze shifted to his forearms and bulging biceps, remembering the rock-hard, solid feel of his body pressed to hers when they’d danced together at the club.

Morgan didn’t want to be this affected by Nate, but the way her body was reacting to the sight of him made it impossible not to be. Her pulse was racing, her stomach muscles were tight, and her throat was suddenly dry. Nate was a living, breathing work of art. He had it all: face, body, and brains. It was no wonder one of the world’s most beautiful women had claimed him as her own, and Morgan knew that if Nate and Kim had had children they would have produced incredibly attractive offspring.

If he were food, he definitely would’ve been dessert: frothy, sweet, and best eaten slowly, while savoring every morsel, a feast of oral gratification.

Heat swept over Morgan’s face and chest with her licentious musings. Either she’d been without a man for far too long or she was lusting after someone beyond her reach. Nate had laid out the ground rules: friendship only. Maybe it was good that he had established the limits for their association beforehand, if only to prove to Francine that her vision was wrong.

Nate extended his hand, taking Morgan’s and pulling her to his side. Dipping his head, he kissed her cheek. “How are you?”

“Good.”

“You look adorable.” She wore a pair of skinny jeans, a tank top, and running shoes.

She laughed. “I look like I should be hanging out at the mall.”

“I love seeing you dressed down. You appear less intimidating.”

“Come on, now, I can’t imagine you being intimidated by anyone.”

He smiled at her. “Maybe I should’ve said you appear more relaxed.”

“Do you think my clients would take me seriously if I dressed casually? It’s very different for male architects. They can wear jeans and a hard hat and no one would think anything of it.”

“Are you speaking from personal experience?”

There came a comfortable silence broken only by the sounds of birds and a rustling in the underbrush bordering the road. This was Nate’s favorite time of the day, when every living thing on the island appeared to slow down to welcome the stillness and solitude that accompanied dusk. Vehicular traffic decreased, and people gathered on front and back porches to escape the heat that came from the kitchen, where they’d prepared Sunday dinner. It was also a time to relax and wind down from weekend activities in an attempt to prepare for the coming workweek. School was out, and that meant children could stay up far beyond their school-year curfews. Many of the older kids took either the causeway or the ferry to Charleston to party without having their eagle-eyed relatives monitoring them.

“I had a problem with a few male clients when I was first hired by Ellison and Murphy. I could’ve filed sexual harassment charges, but that probably would’ve derailed my career. When I approached the partners with what I was going through, they decided I would handle only their female clients from then on. It worked out well, because that’s how I met Kara. She asked how long it would take for me to move up at the firm, and I told her about ten years. That’s when she decided to commission me to oversee the restoration and preservation of Angels Landing Plantation. One of the conditions was that I had to resign my position at E and M and set up my own firm.”

“Good for you.” Nate gave her delicate fingers a gentle squeeze. “Talk about girl power.”

Morgan glanced up at him, smiling. “You guys have the old boy’s club, so we do whatever we can to help a sister out.”

Slivers of waning sunlight coming through the canopy of trees slanted over Morgan’s flawless dark skin. Nate felt as if he’d been punched in the gut when he looked at her face. He couldn’t pull his gaze away. His physical attraction to Morgan was never more apparent than it was the night he’d come to her office. And if he hadn’t been sitting at the drafting table, Morgan would’ve thought him no better than the male clients who had come on to her. Nate couldn’t believe he’d waited to get to this age to find himself lusting after a woman. Even as an adolescent, he’d learned to control his urges.

“I promise not to sexually harass you,” he said glibly.

Morgan made a sucking sound with her teeth. “I’m not worried about you, Nate.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Why would you say that?”

“I doubt if you’d risk dishonoring your family’s name by getting arrested for harassing a woman on the island.”

“You’re right, Mo. I would never bring that kind of disgrace on my family.”

“By the way, how is Bryce doing?” she asked, deftly shifting the conversation to a safer topic. She didn’t want to talk about their relationship.

“He’s okay. He’s working with me now.”

“How did you get him to do that?”

He eased Morgan off the road when he heard a car coming from behind them. They stood closely together under the trees until it passed. “I told him he had two options. Either straighten up or I was going to call his probation officer and have him violated.”

Morgan gave him a wide-eyed stare. “You would’ve done that?”

Nate nodded. “I wasn’t issuing an idle threat. His reckless behavior was also affecting my father and stepmother.”
Stepmother.
It was the first time he’d uttered the word aloud. In the past it had always been “Odessa” or “my father’s wife.” “I remind him constantly that his actions have consequences. He could spend the next two years of his life behind bars for one mistake. It’s not that hard to do the right thing, Mo.”

“You make it sound simple.”

He frowned at her. “You must think I’m a monster.”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?” he shot back.

“For you it’s, like, all or nothing. Don’t you leave room for compromise?” Morgan asked.

“Compromise is for business deals, not for people’s lives or their futures. If my father had died from a stroke as a result of Bryce going to jail, it would’ve impacted all of us, especially Gregory and Gabrielle, who worship the ground their grandfather walks on. It’s not just about Bryce and what he wants, so if I have to play bully badass to keep him out of jail, then I’ll do whatever I have to do.”

Silence descended on them again, and Nate wondered if what he’d said to Morgan would affect their working relationship. He wasn’t as concerned about their professional relationship as he was about their personal friendship. He hadn’t wanted to lie to her about Bryce. There were times when he’d had to threaten or intimidate his brother, but it was for Bryce’s benefit.

There were also occasions when Nate had wanted to lash out or confront his father about what he’d witnessed between him and Odessa, but something wouldn’t permit him to do it. He’d kept all his hurt inside, where it’d festered for years, nearly eating him alive. As he matured he realized he should’ve confronted Lucas instead of living with the demons that wouldn’t allow him to trust anyone.

Crossing the road, Nate led Morgan along the path leading to the workshop. Several hundred feet away stood the newly erected barn. Working alone to put up the structure had offered him the solitude he needed to begin the process of healing and forgiveness. The day he finished putting on the roof, he carved a plaque with words from one of his favorite books of poetry:
Between Tears and Laughter
by Alden Nowlan. He wasn’t certain where it would hang, but it was a constant reminder of how far he’d come in his quest for maturity.

“Why do you keep that old wagon and pickup truck on the property?” Morgan asked as he punched in the security code, unlocking the door.

“My great-grandfather used that wagon to haul the wood that had come from the mainland. The pickup belonged to my grandfather. It was built in 1947 and is considered a classic. If you look closely you can see the words
Shaw Woodworking
painted on the doors.”

“I suppose you keep them here as a reminder of where you’ve come from.”

Nate stepped inside the air-cooled cabin and punched in another code to disarm the security system. Track lighting illuminated the space, making it as bright as daylight. “The first time I mentioned getting rid of them, my father went ballistic. I think I was around eight at the time, but I still remember it.” He smiled when he saw Morgan run her fingertips over one of the half-finished pieces. She caressed it lovingly, and it filled him with pride that she understood his passion, because that was something his ex-wife never appreciated.

Morgan stared at the workshop’s many built-in shelves, from which hung every conceivable carpentry tool. The room also contained a large wooden table with benches on either side, sawhorses, cans of paint and varnish, and finished chairs, tables, and cabinets affixed with tags bearing the names of those who’d ordered the pieces. She noticed a small refrigerator, a table with a microwave, and door in a far corner with a sign indicating a restroom.

“You have a lot of space here. It looks to be about fifteen hundred square feet.”

Nate met her gaze. “You’ve got a good eye. It’s exactly fifteen hundred square feet. My father expanded it to twice its original size because we didn’t have enough room to store the wood we wanted to keep on hand.”