Moondance Beach (15 page)

She shrugged. “I only said it because it’s true.”

“I like you, Lena.”

She sat upright, placed her glass on a side table, and put her cute bare feet back on the porch floor. She blinked at him. “I like you, too, Duncan.”

“You’re an intriguing woman.”

“You’re a complicated man.”

That little voice in his head was now a screaming banshee. Over and over it yelled for his attention. Like a warning, like a mantra . . .
Don’t do it. Don’t say it. Don’t go there.
Duncan ignored the warning and told the banshee that he had the situation on lock.

“Would you like to go to the clambake with me tomorrow night, Lena?”

She stared at him, her face blank.

“Unless you have a date.”

“No!” Lena shook her head, then started over. “What I meant was, no, I don’t have a date. I wasn’t really planning on going.”

“Neither was I.”

“So . . . we’re going to plan not to go, but go anyway? Together?”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Had he lost his mind? Duncan knew there was no other explanation for what had just gone down. He had asked a woman on a date. He had asked Lena Silva, a resident of Bayberry Island, Massachusetts, to go to the clambake with him, where his entire family would be.
What the fuck am I doing?

“I’ll pick you up at six.” The air stuck in his windpipe, making his words barely audible.

“I’ll be ready,” Lena said, not meeting his eyes. “Now, let’s go see the rest of the house.”

Duncan could tell Lena was nervous as she took him upstairs. Her breath was quick, and she drummed her fingers on the banister of the staircase as they ascended. It made sense. It had to be nerve-racking to give a man a tour of the upstairs of a house when, at some point, the tour would surely arrive at the woman’s bedroom door. And then what?

Also, Lena might feel a bit nervous knowing that Duncan was inches away from her backside as she climbed the stairs, and that would be a legitimate concern—he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. It wasn’t like she was dressed in Daisy Dukes. Her shorts were just a few inches above the knee. But Lena had a set of slim and strong thighs, alluring hips, and a nice rounded ass. How was a man supposed to not notice?

Duncan had always believed that women were at their sexiest when they weren’t trying to be, and he had no doubt that Lena’s bare feet, surf shorts, and sleeveless T-shirt were part of her natural habitat. In the last week, he’d seen her in a wide range of clothes—jeans, dressy, casual, a skintight mermaid skirt, and nothing at all. He had to say that aside from the totally naked look, this was his favorite.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Duncan discovered how Lena would handle the bedroom dilemma. “There are only two areas up here,” she said, gesturing to her right. “On that side is my bedroom suite.” Then she gestured to the left. “And on this side is my studio space.”

Duncan’s interest had gone elsewhere—straight up. He leaned his head back and took in the most astounding skylight he’d ever seen. It jutted up and spiraled outward in the shape of a mollusk shell. When he glanced down at Lena, she was smiling.

“I’d bet at night you can reach up and touch the stars.”

“If you like that, then you should see my studio.”

Duncan was looking forward to whatever surprise awaited him next. “I’m ready when you are.”

He was wrong about that. Duncan was not prepared for what he saw when Lena led him halfway down a long hallway and threw open a huge set of double doors.

“Holy shit.”
He took a tentative step inside, aware that his mouth had fallen open. “This place is unreal, Lena.”

He moved into the center of the room, and his reflex was to stretch his arms out wide so he could gather it in. He hardly knew what to look at first. The room was at least a couple thousand square feet. The ocean-side wall was nothing but a series of huge windows, and the ceiling, featuring three skylights, rose twenty-five feet high. The room was alive with warm light, gleaming wood floors, and touches of painted brick. The view was jaw-dropping. With a quick glance, Duncan could see the turreted Safe Haven and the newly constructed Oceanaire Marine Institute growing up nearby. The only other way he knew to get a view like that was on board a private plane or helicopter.

Taking up the center of the room was a giant butcher-block worktable stained with splotches of paint and littered with small easels, canvases, knives, and other tools of her trade. Next to it was a paint-splattered metal stool and a huge contraption that looked like it could adjust
for a whole range of canvas sizes. Duncan bet it had cost a fortune.

He scanned the length of the room, noticing an office area with a desk, computer, sound system, and a minifridge. But his gaze landed on a far wall that held a patchwork of shelving and storage spaces.

“That’s where I stretch and store my canvases,” Lena said. “I paint in a variety of sizes, and sometimes I even get commissions for murals. So I make what I need and stock whatever I’m not using right away.”

Duncan gave her a sideways glance. “It sounds like hard work.”

“It can be. But by this point I can do it in my sleep.”

Lena showed him what she called the “brush room.” The walls were fitted with racks of old pottery jugs used to hold paintbrushes of all sizes. Dozens more brushes were secured on metal strips along the wall and hanging upside down. The room had three sinks and a separate bathroom with a steam shower. The sinks were lined with soaps, rags, and containers of mineral spirits and linseed oil. Just then Duncan noticed there was very little solvent odor. He examined the walls until he located several huge ventilation fans.

“It’s good you’ve got these,” he said.

“I have to. I get terrible headaches if I don’t.”

Duncan wandered toward the center of the studio and once again took in the huge skylight. It was three times as big as the one in the hallway yet far less decorative. “Why do you need a skylight when there are so many windows?”

“Dispersed light from overhead doesn’t cause glare like light coming from one direction through a window. And I can dim or block the light completely by remote.”

He scratched his chin. “This is quite a setup you’ve got here. It’s a much bigger operation than I imagined.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I guess I pictured you perched on a little chair with a brush and a beret.”

That made Lena laugh. “Not hardly.”

“I never envisioned something this . . .
lavish
.”

Lena held up her hands in a Clancy-esque gesture. “Wait a minute. I haven’t always painted in a place like this, Duncan. I spent the beginning of my career in decrepit apartments and a garage or two. This is a dream come true for me.”

“So you designed the studio?”

When she crossed her arms under her breasts, Duncan couldn’t help but notice how it improved the view of her cleavage. It was wrong of him, of course. But he couldn’t stop looking.

“I designed the whole house and hired an architect and a general contractor who could turn my ideas into reality.”

Duncan stood still, letting that statement sink in. This pretty little painter of mermaids had a core of steel. She had the guts to live bigger than anyone else he knew and to do things other people thought were impossible. It just might be that the two of them had more in common than he’d first thought.

“Bravo Zulu, Miss Silva.”

A small wrinkle appeared between her brows.

“That means ‘way to go.’”

“Thanks.” She grinned.

“You go for it, don’t you, Lena?”

Her cheeks reddened. “I . . . yes. I guess I do. You look surprised.”

Duncan shook his head. “Impressed, mostly.”

Suddenly, it occurred to him that he saw no actual paintings in this huge space. “Aren’t you working on anything now?”

She shrugged. “I am. I’ve got a few things I’m fiddling with, but my manager just took two years’ worth of work to Paris for my show.”

“Gotcha.” Duncan’s eye was drawn to the only real piece of furniture in the studio, an antique upholstered lounge chair made of what looked like mahogany. The fabric was so worn in spots that the springs were visible. He was about to give it a closer look when Lena slipped in front of him, blocked his progress, and grabbed a sketchbook that had been on the floor nearby.

“Excuse me,” she said, closing the sketchbook’s cover and pressing it against her thigh. Her chest had broken out in red blotches and she was breathing hard.

“I didn’t mean to invade your privacy.”

Lena shook her head. “It’s fine. It’s nothing.”

“So you don’t like people seeing your work in progress?”

“Uh, it depends on the work.”

For a moment the two of them stood quietly. Lena looked at the floor and Duncan looked at her, the sweet curve of her neck, her soft shoulder, how cute she looked with her hair pulled up like that.

Suddenly, her gaze snapped up. “Well, I’ve taken up a big chunk of your time today. I’ll get my keys and drive you back to town.”

“Are you okay, Lena?” Duncan reached out and touched her upper arm. Her skin was hot and silky, but that annoying banshee was back in his head—
don’t do it; don’t say it; don’t go there—
but he did. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”

She nodded. “You’re quite welcome.”

His body made the next move without waiting for the approval of his mind. He dipped his head and left a soft kiss on her lips. It wasn’t the shock-and-awe kind of kiss from the kitchen, but it was the right kind of kiss for the moment. Besides, he wanted to show her he had another side to him.

“Okay,” she said, way too brightly.

Duncan was not imagining it—Lena was trying to get him out of there. Since he wasn’t one to force his company on anyone, he just smiled and said, “So I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Lena nodded, her ponytail bobbing up and down. “I look forward to it. Just let me get some shoes on so I can drive you—”

“I think I’ll walk.”

And that’s when he saw it.

A small pencil drawing hung on the wall right near the doorway. It was amateurish and definitely not the work of a real artist, but Duncan began to boil with confusion. Why did it look familiar? Had he seen it before? He moved closer, and even as the blood began to pound in his ears, he heard Lena just behind him, mumbling to herself under her breath. No wonder she was hurrying him out.

He came to stand right in front of the drawing. The frayed and wrinkled piece of paper had been carefully matted and framed, as if it were a treasured piece of fine art. As if it had immense value.

At the bottom right corner was the scrawled signature of the artist—Duncan Flynn, circa eighth grade. This was
his
drawing!

Duncan spun around.

Lena kept her dark eyes trained on his but didn’t say anything.

“Why the hell would you keep a drawing I made of you when we were kids?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

Lena tossed the sketchbook to her worktable and crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you truly curious about my reason for keeping it, or do you just want to tell me how pissed off you are that I did?”

Duncan tipped his head and laughed with disbelief. His stupid sketch was hanging on her studio wall, which meant she’d carried it around for twenty years!
Twenty years!
Why was she so attached to such a silly memory? Why was she so attached to
him
? Why had she continued to leave him little gifts?

Duncan’s stomach twisted in knots—it was too much. Her devotion made him deeply uncomfortable; it suffocated him. The situation had gone from promising to a complete cluster-fuck in a matter of seconds.

“You kept it for twenty years.”

“I did.”

“I was fourteen.”

“Yes, and I was eleven.” Duncan saw that Lena was doing everything she could to stop herself from crying. The blotches on her chest had darkened. Her jaw was clamped tight. Her eyes were welling over. And he had no idea why. Why was the sketch such a big deal to her?

“You don’t remember that day, do you?”

Duncan shrugged. “What day?”

“That day.” Lena pointed to the drawing, her finger shaking.

“Not really.”

She nodded, then swiped the back of her hand over her eyes. “If you don’t remember the day, you won’t remember my reason for keeping it.”

Duncan raised his hands in surrender. Seriously, this whole exchange baffled him. “Well, I don’t get it. Sorry. I guess you have your reasons.” He let himself out the door. “Talk to you later, Lena.”

He heard her small voice say, “Thanks again for everything today.”

He didn’t reply.

Twenty years ago . . .

O
n a Sunday afternoon in early October, Duncan didn’t have anything better to do, so he started looking around the house for Clancy. He found him slouched on the couch, watching the National League playoffs.

“Who’s winning?”

“The Dodgers, but they’re going down.”

“How do you know? Are you some kind of psychic?” Duncan plopped down next to his brother.

“No.” Clancy mocked him. “Are you some kind of asshole? Wait—I can answer that. Yes! You’re an asshole!”

Duncan knuckle punched him in the upper arm. “So you want to ride bikes?”

“No.”

“Want to go see if we can get on Da’s computer?”

“No.”

“Want to arm wrestle?”

Clancy let his jaw fall open. “Oh, my God. No, I don’t want to arm wrestle. I am watching the game, butthead.”

Duncan got up. “You’re just afraid to lose.”

“I am not.”

“Sure you are.” Duncan wandered out to the lobby and through the dining room. There were only four guests there that weekend, and compared to the crazy summer they’d just survived, it was too quiet. Even the cute Russian girls who were there to help out during the tourist season were gone.

He pushed open the kitchen door and headed for the refrigerator. He stuck his head inside and looked around.

“Get out of there,” Mellie said. “Dinner is in two hours.”

“But I’m starving.”

“Good, then you’ll have a nice appetite at the table. I’m making turkey tetrazzini.”

“That sounds like a disease.” He grabbed a banana off the counter, too fast for Mellie to swat his hand, and headed out the back door.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lena. As usual, she was curled up on a wicker chair on the side porch, her colored pencils and sketchpad in her lap and her Walkman headphones over her ears. She was wearing one of those stupid scrunchies at the top of her head. All the girls seemed to like them, but Duncan thought they looked like balled-up sweat socks. Who wanted to stick a sweat sock in their hair?

Duncan finished his banana and tossed the peel in a nearby trash can. He threw open the screen door and jumped from the grass to the porch in one leap. Lena gasped and looked up. He must have scared her.

“Sorry about that.”

She couldn’t get the headphones off fast enough. “Hey, Duncan!” She smiled at him the way she always did.

“Hey.” He eased himself into the next chair over and propped his feet on the wicker table. “What did you think of the track meet yesterday?”

“You were awesome. Totally awesome.”

“Thanks.” Duncan leaned back and put his arms behind his head. “So you saw me compete?”

“Oh, sure! We all did—except, you know, during the cross-country race when you disappeared because everyone ran into the woods, but we clapped when you crossed the finish line.”

“Yeah. That’s cool.”

Lena went back to drawing, but she kept her headphones looped around her neck.

“Did you stay for the long jump event?”

“Yeah. Congratulations on winning that, too.”

“Thanks.”

They sat there like that for a few minutes. Lena wasn’t the easiest person to talk to, because she was so quiet sometimes. But he thought it was cool that she went to his track meets. And swim meets. And soccer games. She went to more of them than anyone in his own family.

“What are you drawing?” Duncan leaned forward in the chair and craned his neck over her sketchpad. “Let me see that.” He snatched it from her lap.

“Hey! I’m in the middle of drawing!”

“Man, no kidding. One of these mermaids doesn’t even have a head.”

She clicked her tongue against her teeth and rolled her eyes. “Give it back.”

“Maybe.”

She snatched it from him before he could react, which made him laugh. Lena was all right, even though she was from a younger generation and everything.

“Is that all you do? Draw and paint and stuff?”

She put the pencils on the table and stared at him. “Of course not. You know I do other things, because you used to do some of them with me—you know, walk through the nature preserve, read, play backgammon, listen to music, watch movies . . . talk.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but most of that was from when I was sick, so I don’t do those things anymore.”

Lena smiled at him, but it wasn’t a “funny ha-ha” kind of smile. She almost looked a little sad. “I’m very glad you got better, but I do miss hanging out like we used to.”

She picked up the pencils once more and was about to replace her headphones when Duncan said, “Remember when you used to draw me?”

Lena’s head snapped up. She blinked at him. “Sure. Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I was just thinking that I should draw you sometime. You know, just to see if I can do it. I’m really into challenging myself these days, you know. I want to see how good I am at everything.”

Lena’s eyes got big. “You want to draw me?”

“Sure. Why not? There’s nothing better to do.”

So Lena turned the sketchpad over to a fresh page and asked him what he wanted to use as a medium.

“A medium what?”

She giggled. “You know, do you want to use charcoal, pastel chalk, pencil, ink, colored pencils—”

“God, I don’t want any of that art stuff. Just give me a pencil.”

“How do you want me to pose?”

Duncan was at a loss. “Man, I don’t know. Do what you normally do, I guess.”

“I’ve never posed for anyone before.”

“Why not?”

She laughed. “Because I’m always the one drawing, silly.”

“Oh.” Duncan propped the sketchpad on his knee and signed his name in big, dark letters at the bottom right of the page. For some reason, Lena thought that was funny.

“What’s the problem?”

“You sign it after you’ve finished, Duncan,” she said, smiling. “Signing a sketch is bragging to the world, ‘Hey, look, everybody! I did this!’ So right now you’re basically bragging that you haven’t done anything yet.”

Duncan thought about that for a minute. “Well, I am going to do something, Lena. I’m going to be famous one day, like compete in the Olympics, or play professional hockey, or maybe even be president of the United States. But I’m definitely going to become a Navy SEAL, so this autograph could be worth a lot of money someday.”

She squished her lips together, then said, “If you say so.”

After a few antsy minutes, Lena settled on a pose. She tucked her legs underneath herself and leaned an elbow on the wicker chair arm. He started to draw—but mostly erase, until he discovered that the less he worried about what was coming out onto the paper the better it looked. At one point he asked if she had a sharpener, and she did, of course, because she always carried around a big case for her art supplies. After about a half hour, she demanded to see it.

“Did you make me look like an opossum or something?” She laughed as she grabbed at the sketchpad. She stopped laughing. After a moment she looked up at
him, confused. “I thought you didn’t know how to draw.”

He shrugged. “I don’t.”

“But . . .” She looked down again. “This kind of looks like me. You got the hair right, and the shape of my face, and the nose and mouth, which are the hardest to do.”

“You’re just messing with me.”

“No! Really. It’s kind of good!”

He knew that compared to how good Lena was, his drawing looked like it had been done by a kindergartner. Duncan reached over, yanked the page out of the sketchbook, balled it up, and tossed it over his shoulder.

Lena yelped like she’d been hurt. “What did you do that for?”

“Because it sucked.”

Lena jumped from her chair and snatched the wadded-up paper. She sat down and used the sketchpad to try to press it flat. “You’re too hard on yourself, Duncan Flynn.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She glanced up at him, frowning. “You think you have to be perfect now that you’re not sick anymore, like you have all this stuff you have to prove to the world.”

“That’s stupid. I don’t have anything to prove to anybody.”

“You’re not going to win every single race or every single jump, because you’re not perfect. You know that, right?” Lena’s eyes widened. “Nobody’s perfect, Duncan. No drawing is perfect.”

“Whatever.”

“But . . .” Lena smoothed the paper. “This drawing is good. See?”

Duncan rose from the chair, stood next to her, and
bent down to check out what she was talking about. Lena used her delicate-looking finger to point out the things he’d done the same way she would have. “See how you added shadow here over the eye to give it depth? And how you suggested a lot of dark hair without having to draw it all in?”

“I guess. Sure.”

“But more than anything, you saw me. What I mean is, you drew me, a little bit of my personality, not just some random person. And that’s why it’s good.”

Something snapped in him. He didn’t know what his problem was, but all of a sudden Lena wasn’t just Lena Silva, the little kid who’d been nice to him when he was sick. He suddenly smelled her, and she smelled like rain on summer grass. He felt how close she was to him. And all of a sudden Lena looked different, too. She was pretty, with those nice dark eyes and all that hair and that open smile of hers. She would probably grow up to be a very good-looking girl someday.

Duncan felt a rush of heat all over his body. He didn’t know what was happening to him.

Lena continued to talk about the drawing, and he leaned in closer. Without warning, she turned her head and their faces were almost touching.

Well, what was he supposed to do? Back away and make a big deal about the fact that their lips almost met? Because that would make her feel bad about herself, like she had rabies or something. And he didn’t want her moping around and crying.

So he kissed her. And oh, boy. Lena definitely kissed him back.

Everything went still. His brain began to hum and his legs felt weak. She placed her hand on his chest, and he
almost cried like a baby. He rubbed her back and she arched into it like a cat. And the two of them seemed to hang in the middle of space, just kissing.

Duncan closed his eyes, and as he began to breathe with her, strange and wonderful feelings washed over him. For a second, it really felt like they were the same person, together, discovering stuff that no other two people in the history of the world had ever discovered before.

He pulled away and looked down at her face. Lena was shocked. Her mouth fell open and all she could do was stare.

Now, that was way weird. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, her mouth still open.

“I . . .” Duncan just realized something, and it made him feel like an idiot. “That wasn’t your first kiss, was it?”

She nodded again.

“Oh, man.” Well, that was a buzzkill. How could he have forgotten that she was three years younger than him? What he had done was probably illegal in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. His da would haul him over the coals if he found out. Chief Pollard might even throw him in jail.

The only thing Duncan knew to do was pretend the kiss wasn’t great and it wasn’t special to him. Even though that was by far the best kiss of the seven he’d experienced, he had to convince Lena it was no big deal.

But how do you undo a kiss when it’s already been done?

Obviously, Lena wasn’t going to have any suggestions, since she still sat there and stared up at him like a space cadet.

“We should probably forget this ever happened, okay?”

That seemed to wake her up. “What?”

“This.” Duncan motioned back and forth between the two of them. “I never sat here and drew a terrible picture of you, and we never kissed, okay?”

Oh, man. That made her cry. So after all that, she was still going to mope around and cry anyway. Duncan wondered how long it would be until he understood girls.

He squeezed his head between his hands. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just that, you know, I’m older than you. A lot more mature. I’m in eighth grade. And besides, you’re really kind of like my little sister.”

She didn’t say anything, just blinked, making tears roll down her face.

“Don’t be mad.”

She sniffed.

“I like you, Lena. A lot. It’s just that . . .” He couldn’t stand the way she was looking at him. At that point he realized that it didn’t matter what he said. He wasn’t going to make it any better.

“Okay!” Duncan smiled at her like it was just another day. “I guess I’ll catch you on the flip side, Lena.”

He cleared the porch steps in one leap and never looked
back.