Ocean's Touch (2 page)

To be honest, she was still daunted by the task he’d set her. But she’d done her best and over the last five years had become nearly as expert as Teddy in what she needed to know to be his right arm on earth. She knew he’d be proud of her.

“Well, you shouldn’t be worried, Meredith,” Ron said, interrupting her reverie. “You’re as good as Teddy ever was at these matters. You’ve settled very firmly into his shoes. It’s like he’s still with us when you’re here.”

At Ron’s words, Meredith felt a lump in her throat. She should be proud hearing such things; she should be thrilled that people thought her a replacement for Teddy. But for some reason, at hearing Ron articulate what she’d thought was her greatest wish, all Meredith felt was dread.

Chapter Two

If this doesn’t make me feel better, nothing will
, thought Meredith, as she set fire to the kindling in her beach’s little fire pit. Once it had caught alight, she sat back in her chair, wrapping the blanket more firmly around her legs. Wearily, she reached for the plastic tumbler of wine nestled safely in the pebbles next to her right foot, careful not to knock over the bottle that sat behind it.

“Ah,” she breathed, after she’d taken a long draught. Delicious.

Meredith leaned farther back, her face upturned to the stars. All day, after her conversation with Ron, she’d felt out of sorts. What he’d said had bothered her, although she had no idea why.

It’s what I wanted
, she thought plaintively. To be a help to Teddy, to continue his work…
I’m doing a good job
. Suddenly, she blinked back tears.

So why do I feel so empty?

The stars above winked their cold and distant light, refusing to answer her question.

Dylan watched the woman build her fire—an almost nightly ritual that he knew gave her pleasure. She’d sit in front of the flames, wrapped in a blanket, and enjoy a single glass of wine while gazing up at the night sky. When the fire died, she’d head back to her cold house and her colder bed.

It’s a shame for such a fine lass to be alone as she is. It makes no sense.

She nestled further back in her chair, but he doubted she was cold, despite the crispness of the fall air.

After all,
he thought,
she’s swaddled like a mummy in all those clothes…

As usual, Meredith was wearing what Dylan thought of as her “uniform”—a long skirt over thick tights and knee-high boots on the bottom, a long-sleeved turtleneck underneath a cable-knit sweater on top, and all of that gorgeous dark hair pulled back into a rather severe French twist. Dylan had lived a long time, and had seen human fashions go through innumerable changes, but he knew that Meredith dressed in a way suitable only to elderly matriarchs or Puritan colonists.

What are you hiding, lass?
he thought. Then, struck by the thought that now was as good a time as any to begin finding out, he moved forward, up the beach toward her, gathering his sealskin and his glamour around him tightly.

Meredith nearly fell out of her chair when a strange man walked into the puddle of light cast by her fire pit’s small blaze. Instinctively she reached for the bottle at her feet, grasping it by the neck. After all, she’d seen old cowboy movies, and she was as ready to break the end off the bottle and brandish it as any cowpoke in the Old West.

“Are you all right, lass?” the stranger asked.

Meredith blinked at him, tightening her grip on the bottle.

Meanwhile, Dylan forced himself to keep a rein on his glamour. With one push of his mind, he could convince Meredith that they were the oldest of friends, or lovers, or even husband and wife. But that’s not what he wanted from her—nothing coerced or forced. He wanted the real woman, not what he’d make her into. So he kept his glamour limited to making himself look human and clothed—women in this century didn’t seem to appreciate a man dressed in a sealskin cloak and nothing else nearly as much as they should.

“Who are you?” Meredith demanded.

“I’m sorry, lass. I’ve scared you. I was out walking and I saw the fire. Came to see that everything was all right. I mean no harm.”

“This is private property,” Meredith said, refusing to notice just how handsome the stranger was—how large and dark his eyes, how broad the sweep of his shoulders. “You don’t belong here.”

“Ack, I’m sorry. I had no idea the beach was private. I’m not from here, as you probably ken. I was just passing through. But I’ll leave, and I’m very sorry to have disturbed you…”

Meredith frowned, suddenly feeling rather guilty. “Look, I’m the one that should be sorry. That was no way to treat a stranger. You just scared me, is all.”

“No bother. I shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that. I’m called Dylan,” he said, moving closer to her with his hand outstretched.

Meredith let go of her death grip on the bottle, feeling a bit sheepish as she extended her own hand toward him.

“I’m Meredith. Please, feel free to join me. I don’t have another glass, but…”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to be a bother. You looked like you were thinking, just the now.”

Meredith smiled her sad smile, and Dylan again felt that aching loneliness she carried around with her.

“No, not thinking. Just relaxing. Please, do sit.”

Meredith couldn’t help but return the brilliant smile the dark, young man gave her as he settled himself in the closest of the other three chairs that surrounded the small fire pit.

“So, Dylan,” she said. “Where are you from, anyway? You sound Scottish…sort of? I’m sorry, I can’t quite place that accent…” To Meredith’s well-traveled ears, Dylan did sound vaguely Scottish. But there was something even rounder about his vowels and a slightly more accentuated lilt to some of his pronunciations.

“Oh, I’m from around that area, yes. And yourself? Have you always lived in Maine?”

“Me? No. I grew up in the Midwest, actually. Near Chicago. I came to Maine with my husband; he is…well, was, from here.”

“Was?”

“He died.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Dylan said, and Meredith believed him when he said it.

“It was a long time ago,” she replied, suddenly wanting to soothe him as much as he clearly wanted to soothe her.

“Aye, but some wounds never heal,” Dylan said, bowing his dark head. It was hard to get a very good look at him in the flickering light of the fire, but Meredith could see dark hair, dark eyes, and a very fit body. Not that she admired such things, of course, but she prided herself on her keen sense of observation.

“So what brought you to Maine?” Meredith asked.

“I travel a lot,” Dylan said. “You could say that the sea’s my home.”

Meredith couldn’t help but smile at that image. Having grown up landlocked but for occasional glimpses of Lake Michigan, she’d been an instant and thorough convert to oceanside living. She couldn’t imagine waking up to any other odor but the smell of the sea, or to any other sound and scenery but the rough, crashing waves of the frigid Atlantic.

“And is that your great house then, up there?” Dylan asked.

Meredith blushed. “Yes, I’m afraid it is. It was my husband’s. I rattle around in it, to tell you the truth.”

Why did I just say that?
she asked herself.
That’s Teddy’s home. I love living in Teddy’s home.

“Well, I rattle around in the ocean, so together we’re like a pair of maracas,” Dylan joked, giving her a roguish wink. To her horror, she actually giggled. She covered her embarrassment by noisily slurping her wine.

You don’t giggle, Meredith!
she reminded herself.
Control yourself!

After swallowing another gulp of wine, she forced herself to breathe. “I do love the ocean,” she told him. “I didn’t live anywhere near the sea growing up, obviously, but now it’s become a part of me.”

“It does that,” Dylan said, staring out at the water as affectionately as a child would his mother. “But I reckon you belong close to her,” he said, turning both his attention and his liquid-dark eyes toward her.

She felt color rise to her cheeks again as she flushed hot. “Why?” She asked.

“Your name is of the sea,” he said. “
Mer
…like
sea
.”

She smiled. “But no one calls me Mer. I’m always Meredith.”

In reality, she had been called Merry, and sometimes Mer, before she’d met Teddy. Ironically for someone who always went by his own nickname, he’d forbidden her to use anything but Meredith.

You’re a grown woman, never use such a childish name,
she remembered him saying. In fact, one day only a few months into their dating, he’d turned to her after she’d introduced herself to his colleague as “Merry.”

“From now on, you’re Meredith,” Teddy had said. And she had been.

“Well, as you like the sea, why not claim it as your own?” Dylan said, still favoring her with that devilish smile. “May I call you Mer?”

For a second she considered saying no, then thought that was silly. He was a stranger, after all, only passing through. What harm did one evening’s nickname do?

“Fine,” she told him. “You may call me Mer.”

“Aye, then. Mer,” he said, his eyes locked on hers. Suddenly, she felt the blood rush to her head, and she felt almost tipsy. She remembered old legends of the power of names in ancient cultures, and for a moment she believed them true. But then she shook her head, and the sensation faded.

No more wine for me
, she thought, placing her tumbler firmly down, back into the pebbles at her feet.

“So what do you do, Dylan?” she asked, forcing herself to look directly at him. There was something about that hawkish nose and high cheekbones that she found disconcerting. Not to mention the intensity of his gaze.

“Me? You could call me a fisherman,” he said. “And what about you, Mer?”

“Oh, I work for my husband’s estate. He was a very important man. He left me with a lot to do to keep busy.”

“Ah, I see. But what do you do?” he asked, his anglicized pronunciation of
you
startling after the previously snipped vowels of his accent.

“What do you mean, what do I do?”

“You’ve told me about your husband’s work, but not about your own. What do you do, for yourself?”

“Do you mean like hobbies?”

“Aye. Hobbies, work, whatever you do for yourself.”

Meredith thought about that. “Um…I run. And I do yoga.”

“And?”

“Um…I attend functions…”

“With your friends?”

“Of course. With my friends and my husband’s friends.”

“So you go to parties?” Dylan asked.

“No, not parties, per se. They’re functions.”

“That sounds like work, not fun.”

“Well,” she said, a bit defensively, “not all of us get to have fun. That house might look grand, but it comes with a lot of responsibility. Just like that ocean might look tempting, but swimming in it has its consequences.”

Dylan had been somber talking to her, but at her words his face lit up. “The ocean?” he asked, with a cheeky grin. “The one over there?”

“Yes,” she said, feeling both exasperated and amused. “The rather large body of water in front of us.”

“Oh, that one. An’ what sorta consequences does she have?”

“You’ll die if you swim in it right now, for one,” Meredith replied.

“Fiddlesticks,” Dylan said. “I swim in her all the time.”

“No you don’t,” she said. “Nobody can swim in that sea, especially now.”

“Fiddlesticks,” he repeated. “I tell you, I swim in her all the time.”

“No you don’t.”

“Aye, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Aye, I do. I was just in there, matter of fact.”

“Dylan!” she barked, finished playing. “There’s no way you were just swimming in that sea. Just stop it now.”

“Stop what? I’m only telling the truth. In fact, I can take you with me, if you like.”

She blinked at him. “That’s absurd.”

“Are you chicken, then?”

“I’m not chicken, Dylan,” she said, feeling as exasperated with herself for entertaining such nonsense as she was with him.

“Then why don’t you come swimming with me?”

“Because it’s freezing. Hypothermia freezing. And I don’t even know you.”

“Have you never done anything impetuous, then? Something you were afraid of, but you did anyway, and it was glorious?”

Meredith remembered lots of things like that—Merry had been a devilish girl—always quick to take a dare, perform a prank, or instigate trouble.

But Merry’s gone, and Meredith doesn’t do such things,
she thought.

She stood, gathering her blankets around her.

“It was nice meeting you, Dylan,” she said. “But it’s time for me to go inside. I’m assuming you’ll have moved on by the time morning comes.”

Dylan stood with her, cursing his impetuousness.
You shouldn’t have pushed her
, he told himself.