Immortal Sea (21 page)
Until the long crest rolled through her like a gathering wave and took them both.
12
ZACK HACKED THROUGH THE SEAMS OF THE CARTON, exposing the soup cans inside. Almost through his first shift. Picking up the price gun, he shot numbers in a row:
two-sixty-nine, two-sixty-nine, two-sixty-nine
.
two-sixty-nine, two-sixty-nine, two-sixty-nine
.
Wiley’s Grocery didn’t have scanners in the checkout lines.
“No need for them,” George Wiley had explained earlier that evening as they were shifting cartons from the back room. “I know my store. This isn’t America, son.”
He meant the mainland.
I’m not your son,
Zack thought.
Zack thought.
A vision flashed into his brain of Morgan, tall and broad-shouldered, standing too close to his mother in the hall. His mom had looked strange, not like a mother at all, her cheeks too pink, her eyes too bright.
Zack’s chest tightened as if he’d been running. He stabbed the gun down another row of cans.
Two-sixty-nine, two-sixty-nine, two-sixty-nine
, and done.
Two-sixty-nine, two-sixty-nine, two-sixty-nine
, and done.
Straightening, he slid the old cans to the front of the shelf and face out. Rotating stock, Wiley called it.
The work was physical. Mindless. Zack didn’t have to think, just follow instructions. He liked that, liked working alone. At the beginning of his shift, he’d had to help Mr. Wiley haul boxes from the afternoon’s delivery to the appropriate aisles. But now Wiley was arranging displays at the front of the store. He was okay, even if he was overweight and going bald and Stephanie’s dad besides.
Zack’s dad, his real dad, Ben, started losing his hair even before the chemo. You could see it in pictures, this dark, W-shaped hairline above a high forehead and warm brown eyes. The details of his father’s face were fading away, blurred by time, overlaid by images of his illness. Zack wasn’t sure anymore what he remembered and what he’d reconstructed from photographs.
A picture of his dad sat on his dresser, taken on a fishing trip to Holden Beach when Zack was ten years old. His dad had one arm around Zack’s shoulders, and they were both squinting at the camera and grinning. Zack’s hair was hidden by his ball cap, and his skin had tanned a golden brown. They looked related, like father and son.
But when Zack looked in the mirror this morning, it wasn’t Ben’s face he saw.
It was Morgan’s.
Hands shaking, he grabbed cans, slung them to the back.
“Last aisle,” Wiley said behind him.
Zack’s hand clenched around a can of chunky chicken soup,
two-sixty-nine
. He faced it out carefully before he turned. “Yes, sir.”
two-sixty-nine
. He faced it out carefully before he turned. “Yes, sir.”
“You did good tonight. We’ll finish early.”
The praise made Zack uncomfortable. He hung his head, staring at his feet. Big feet, like his . . . like Morgan’s. “Yes, sir,” he said tonelessly.
Wiley chuckled. “Southern boy, aren’t you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Calling me sir. Makes me feel damn old.”
Zack didn’t know how to respond. He
was
old, as old as Zack’s mom, anyway. Too old for . . .
was
old, as old as Zack’s mom, anyway. Too old for . . .
Another image of his mother standing with Morgan at the foot of the stairs seared his brain.
Too old for . . .
“Any questions before we call it a night?” Wiley asked.
“No, sir. Um, Mr. Wiley.”
Maybe his mother didn’t feel old either. The tightness returned to Zack’s chest. Maybe . . .
“I need to buy cat food,” he blurted. “Oh, and some litter. To take home.”
“You have a cat?”
“We do now,” Zack said grimly. Morgan’s cat. But they could take care of it without Morgan’s help.
Wiley rubbed his chin. “You can’t buy anything now. I already closed out the register. But you pick out what you need. You can settle up when you come in tomorrow.”
“Sure. Thanks. What time?”
“Be here at twelve. I post the schedule on Monday.”
“Twelve o’clock,” Zack said, committing it to memory. His heart knocked against his ribs. “Is Stephanie working tomorrow?”
Wiley shot him a sharp glance. “Everybody works weekends in the summer.”
Zack swallowed. “I just, um, wondered. Since she wasn’t here tonight.”
Oh, God, could he please shut his mouth?
“She stayed home,” Wiley said. “Some guy coming over, I think. You need a ride?”
Zack’s gut churned. She had
some guy
coming over.
some guy
coming over.
Not him.
Disappointment nipped at him.
Wiley was watching him with astute blue eyes like his daughter’s, waiting for an answer.
“No,” Zack said. “I don’t need a ride.”
Not where he was going.
Liz was breathing. Barely.
She lay cocooned by the hammock, pinned by Morgan’s weight, dazed, sated, satisfied. Her legs were numb below the knee, her mind empty and at peace.
If she could have summoned the energy to smile, she would. For the first time in years, she hadn’t thought like a doctor or a mother. She hadn’t thought at all. She had let herself desire and be desired, let herself feel like a woman again. She was more than relieved. She felt smug. Triumphant.
Gradually her heart rate slowed. Her skin cooled. A chorus of discomforts and doubts crept back, pervasive, persistent as the tree frogs in the yard, and began to compete for her attention. A crick in her neck. A cramp in her thigh. A knot digging into her back. She was wet from sex and nearly naked, hot where Morgan covered her and cold everyplace else.
She ran her hand down his back, savoring the feel of smooth skin and solid muscle. She didn’t want to get up. Didn’t want to let him go. The realization trickled down her spine like ice dripping.
She was a grown woman, she reminded herself. She could have sex—heart-stopping, mind-blowing, jungle-thumping sex in a hammock if she felt like it—without things falling apart. Without falling in love.
She could have Morgan.
She pressed her lips together, staring over his head into the dark. As long as she didn’t think too hard, say too much, feel too deeply.
Life had already dealt her the bitterest blow it could and she’d survived. Surely she could survive . . . she could
enjoy
an affair without romanticizing reality? Without expecting promises or guarantees, without neglecting her children or responsibilities.
enjoy
an affair without romanticizing reality? Without expecting promises or guarantees, without neglecting her children or responsibilities.
Her children.
Her heart jolted with panic. Her mind clicked back into gear. “What time is it?”
Morgan’s lips moved against her neck. “What does it matter?”
It mattered. Her world hadn’t changed, even if for one magical moment the earth had rocked on its axis.
She pushed at his shoulder, dragged her arm from under him to peer at her wrist. The dial of her watch glowed in the dark—10:05.
Her head dropped back in relief. She had time to clean up, to compose herself, before Zack came home.
If she could move. Morgan’s solid weight still pressed her into the webbing.
She poked his upper arm. “You’re heavy.”
He trapped her arms and rolled with her, somehow avoiding overturning the hammock. A quick lurch, and she sprawled against his naked chest, straddled his naked thighs. Her breath caught.
“You are delicious.” His warm mouth captured one nipple. His big hands kneaded her butt.
She trembled in discomfort and delight, trapped between his hot body and cold reality. “I’m cold.”
Conflicted.
He nuzzled her other breast. “I can warm you.”
Yes.
No.
“That’s not . . .” His erection rose against her stomach, hot and hard.
Oh.
She sagged. “The point,” she finished weakly.
Oh.
She sagged. “The point,” she finished weakly.
He ran his fingertip along her jawline, blew his hot breath in her ear.
For one moment, she let herself be tempted, let him drag her into the warm sea of desire. Her body yielded, softened, and flowed over his.
Mistake.
She may have temporarily lost control. That didn’t mean she’d lost her mind. Her perspective. Her heart.
Her breath hissed.
What was she doing?
It was one thing for her to risk her own happiness on a relationship that would not last, on a man who would not stay. She would not compromise her children’s sense of stability.
“I have to get up.” She pushed on his shoulders. Their legs tangled. She blundered from the hammock, knocking over the glass of wine. “Shit. Oh, shit.”
“Elizabeth, what is the matter?”
“Nothing.” All she could see was an image of Zack walking through the house and out the back door to find them. To find her, naked. “It’s not broken, see?” She set the wineglass by the back door, the cool air tickling her bare ass, and tugged on a sleeve of her blouse until Morgan rolled to release it. “I need to get dressed.”
Slowly, he sat upright, watching as she scrambled for her clothes.
Hopping on one leg, she shoved her other foot inside the damp fabric. “Damn, I have to change my pants.”
“Then you will change.”
“Right.” She pulled herself together, summoned control and a smile. “No use crying over spilled wine.”
He eyed her oddly. “Indeed.”
“Thank you.” She buttoned her waistband, bundled his clothes, and thrust them at him. “That was wonderful. You should go.”
“Why?”
A flutter of panic. Because her voice wanted to shake, she sharpened it. “Zack will be home soon. I don’t want him to find you here. To find us together.”
“The one has nothing to do with the other.”
Maybe not. But she couldn’t separate out the pieces of herself, the mother and the lover. And she couldn’t put them together.
“You can say that because you’re a guy. Men can compartmentalize.”
“Zachary is male,” he pointed out.
“Zack is . . .” She bit her lip. “He’s not ready for this.”
She wasn’t ready for this.
“I am here. He must accept that.”
“Not now. Not like this. You said it yourself.”
“Said what?”
What was his problem? Sixteen years ago, he couldn’t roll off her fast enough. Now, when she wanted, needed him to go, he was stalling.
She stuck out her chin and looked him in the eye. “One night doesn’t change anything.”
Zack found the beach, his private cove, even in the dark. There were some advantages to being a freak after all.
He shifted his grip on the grocery bags. Ten pounds of cat litter, seven pounds of cat food, a plastic litter box, and two metal bowls, everything the kitten would need or his mom could want. But he couldn’t face her yet, her anxious eyes, her too bright smile, her questions.
How was work? What did you do? What do you mean, think, feel, want?
How was work? What did you do? What do you mean, think, feel, want?
His throat closed. He couldn’t breathe. He dumped the bags at the foot of the trail where he’d be sure to stumble over them on his return.
He wanted to be left alone. Alone in his bed, listening to his music, with the Victoria’s Secret catalog stashed under his mattress. He grimaced. Not that he could beat off with his mother and Morgan downstairs. If Stephanie . . .
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