Safe Harbor (27 page)

She shook her head. "Not so. I know what's important. I know that you were adopted by two wonderful people who still care about you. I know you love them very much, or you wouldn't have come here in the first place. What more do I need to know than that?"

"Well—one or two things," he said, sounding much too grave.

She didn't want to hear him sounding much too grave. That's how fathers sounded who took off with very young women.

Determined to counter his tone, she said lightly, "Tell me this, Sam: are there any outstanding warrants for your arrest?"

He smiled and said, "Not any more."

"Are you a compulsive drinker, gambler, womanizer?"

"No. No. And you've just ended a pretty long dry spell."

"Any social diseases I should know about?"

"None."

"There you go, then," she said, nervously twisting a couple of hairs on his chest. "I'm giving you a clean bill of health, physically and morally."

His laugh was soft and low and sad. "It's the latter one that's hanging me up."

She began untwisting the hairs before they hurt him too much. "Oh? Are you a reprobate?"

"Define reprobate."

"Sam.
If you have something to tell me, then just
... tell me," she said, reversing herself. It was a measure of how deeply she had fallen
for
him that she found uncertainty more unbearable than possible bad news.

Their gazes met. "It's about
Eden
," he said.

"
Eden
? What can
Eden
have to do with you and me?" she asked, baffled.

"It's a pretty long story. The telling's overdue."

Holly never heard the knock on the kitchen door downstairs. It was only when Sam jerked his head toward the bedroom door that she realized she had a visitor pounding.

Sam scowled and said, "Hell! Can't we just ignore that?"

"Of course we can, and we will. It's too early for—oh my God! What day is it? Say it's not Friday."

"Okay. It's not Friday."

"It
is
Friday! That's my
mother
down there!" she said, scrambling for the clothes that were strewn around the room. She grabbed the first thing handy, Sam's tee shirt, and pulled it over her bare breasts. "We're supposed to meet Ivy and the kids at the ferry dock in five minutes. How could I have forgotten about that?"

"Do
you
have to be there to meet them?" Sam asked, plainly preferring that she didn't. "We were in the middle—"

"Of course I do! It's a yearly ritual, our month by the sea together. She's my
sister.
And this year the month is only two weeks!"

She thrust one leg through her shorts and began hopping to the bedro
o
m door. "Coming, coming!" she yelled into the hall and down the stairs. After dropping one shoe, she dropped its mate, then picked them both up, knocking her head against the eave in her hurry. She swore, then started down the hall before reversing herself and running back into the bedroom. "Shh—not a word," she said, holding a finger to her lips. "I'll see you tonight. Thank God you're renting the apartment; we have an excuse for your car."

Sam was standing naked as a jaybird at the foot of the bed. She scooped up his khakis and tossed them his way. He caught them and said, "You're not planning to tell her we've been together?"

Holly sucked in her breath. "I can't be happy when she's so unhappy. How would that look? Shh! Stay right here.
Coming
," she shouted down the stairs.

Raking her fingers through her hair, she ran down the steps and then opened the door to her mother, the essence of summer in a floral shift and a big straw hat.

"Holly, for pity's sake, we're late already, and look at you. What have you been you doing all morning?"

"Oh, you know. A little of this. A little of that," Holly said as she glanced around for her bag.

"You're not wearing
those,"
her mother said, staring at Holly's navy-blue shorts. "Have you been painting? You've got some kind of stain on them," she said, giving the shorts a tentative swipe.

Holly looked down at the cloudy-white stain there. Sperm! Oh no! She jumped out of mothering range. "I'll change! Start the car!"

"It's started. Will you hurry up? Cissy and Sally will be crushed if we're not there to greet them."

"The boat'
ll
be late—fog," Holly yelled over her shoulder as she dashed back up the stairs.

"Where are your eyes? The fog is nearly burned off."

"
I
know that," said Holly, but it could have been raining artichokes; she wouldn't have had a clue.

"And put a nicer top on!" her mother yelled from the foot of the stairs.

By now Sam was dressed and leaning against the deep sill of the gabled window that overlooked the drive, waiting dutifully for them to leave.

Bug-eyed, Holly pointed melodramatically to the stain on her shorts. "Next time—khakis!" she whispered, and burst into nervous laughter that she immediately squelched by slapping her hand over her mouth. Too many jolts; she was becoming unhinged by them.

Off went the shorts for the third time in twelve hours. Holly grabbed another pair out of the drawer, yanked them over her tanned legs, switched tops, and grabbed a tube of lipstick from a crystal bowl on the dressertop. One last sprint across the room for a quick kiss from a bemused Sam, and she was bouncing down the stairs again, dabbing lipstick blindly as she went.

In the car, she and her mother talked of preparations for Ivy's arrival, which her mother clearly was dreading. Everyone knew that the absence of Grampa would hit the children hard. Cissy and Sally had been told that their grandfather had an important case in
Providence
, but that maybe later in the month he'd be able to come to the Vineyard. If there was wishful thinking involved in the lie, it was that the children would be having so much fun that they wouldn't miss him as the days wore on.

Her mother suddenly asked, "Why was Sam's car parked in front of your house and not at the barn?"

"Oh, that. He's filling in some of the potholes around the studio, and his car was in the way," Holly said easily.
Liar,
liar, pants on fire, went through her mind.

True on both counts.

"What a nice thing to do," said Holly's mother.

"He's very good with his hands."

"But
... do you really think it's a good idea, having him stay in the loft?" her mother ventured. "I mean, I know you have feelings for him—but he's probably too fixated on this
Eden
business to reciprocate them right now. I just wouldn't want you to get hurt, honey," she added with a worried glance. "You've been—we've all been—so emotional."

"I suppose, but personally, I'm getting past all that," Holly said ambiguously. "It's time to move on."
Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Still true. Both counts.

"So he seemed wretched?" her mother asked.

"Yeah, just all of a sudd—oh, you mean Dad. Oh, yes. Dad was flat-out miserable."

"Well—good. Maybe the fever is running its course."

Holly had made a tactical error the day before by telling her mother how terrible her father looked from the ordeal. She had done it to make her mother feel better, but she'd omitted one little detail: that Eric Anderson's misery was because he thought
Eden
might be dead.

"Look, Mom, we're not too late," she said to distract her. "People are just getting off the boat."

Charlotte Anderson took one glance at the ferry and her face was immediately transformed. Gone was the wear
i
ness, gone was the dread: in their place was a radiant, heartening, grandmother's grin.

"Oh, they're here, they really are here! I can't believe it; at
last
—something happy."

"Quick, let's ditch the car," Holly said, hanging out the passenger window and waving wildly. "I think I see the girls on the upper deck. Yep, that's them; they've spotted the angel whirligig. Look at Cissy, swinging her arms like one; what a little devil she is!"

They parked the Volvo and ran it to the foot of the gangway in time to open their arms in welcome. Cissy, a seven-year-old with her father's charm and fiery red hair, hurled herself at Holly like an Irish setter, nearly knocking her down. Sally, her pretty blond sister, was far too conscious of her French braids, double-pierced ears and decorated fingernails to indulge in such a gauche display in public.

"Oh, my goodness, how you two have grown! How old are you now, Sally? I thought you were nine."

"I
am
nine, Gram."

"Going on fourteen," Ivy muttered in Holly's ear as they hugged. "She's driving me crazy. You don't know how much I need this vacation."

"And look at
you,
Cissy," said her grandmother. "You're so tall! You're catching up to your sister."

Cissy lifted her nose in triumph. "I know
I
am. I already can run faster and even if my bike isn't as big, I can still beat her."

"Because you cheated, that's why. You said count to three, but you went after
two."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Oh, stop;
stop
—or there'll be no beach this afternoon. There's the car; go put my carryall in it," said Ivy.

"I'll do it, Mom!"

"No,
I'll
do it; I'm older."

"Mom, I asked first!"

"Here, Cissy," said their grandmother, whipping off her wide-brimmed hat to distract her. "It's too breezy for this, anyway. Put it in the car for me, would you?"

"Can I try it on?"

"Nuh-uh, you can't, Cissy. It's too big for you and you'd look
dumb
. Wouldn't she, Aunty Holly?"

"It's not too big, Gram. See?" said Cissy, jamming it over her head. "It's like being under your beach umbrella."

"You can't
wear
that, Cissy," said an outraged Sally. "Mom, tell her she can't."

"Can too."

"Mom! She always wants to do everything!"

"Oh, good grief... give me the hat. Get in the car, both of you, and not another word. You're going to give Gram a headache before you've been on the island five minutes.
Go."

Ivy turned to her sister and her mother and said, "This is how it's been, all the way from
California
. I was ready to open the emergency hatch and shove them out of the plane."

The girls shouldered and nudged one another for a few steps and then burst into a race for the car, and it was true: Cissy
was
faster. She turned to the three women she loved best in the world and pounded her chest in triumph. Sally got in the wagon ahead of her and claimed the seat behind the driver, undoubtedly because it had access to the rearview mirror.

"They'll settle down," Holly said to her sister. "They're just excited, that's all."

Her mother smiled and said, "You know who they remind me of, don't you? You two. Holly was forever trying to beat you at something, and you were forever not letting her."

"Ivy beat me at marriage," said Holly, though she hoped to catch up there, too, before long.

"I
had
to get married," her sister said wryly.

"Not your fault; that was genetic," Holly teased, nudging her mother. "Like mother, like daughter."

"Will you hush," said
Charlotte
, reddening. "You're both so loud."

"Sorry, Mother," said Holly, linking her arm through Ivy's. "We'll be good."

****

An hour later Holly and Ivy were sitting in wet bathing suits on the big, raggedy pink blanket that
Charlotte
kept in a wicker trunk just for trips to the beach. The blanket was worn around the edges now, just like the
Anderson
family, but it was soft and familiar and almost unbearably comforting. Holly and Ivy had napped on it under a beach umbrella when they were babies, and so had Cissy and Sally. During an outing, no one would think of plopping her fanny anywhere else but on that pink and precious heirloom.

Ivy stretched out on her back and let the sun do the work of a towel. "This just feels great. The Pacific is still as cold as a witch's tit. Three cheers for
New England
."

Holly nodded toward their mother, shelling with Cissy and Sally at the edge of the gently rolling surf. "Incidentally, I told Mom that I called you late last night, so she knows you know that Dad's staying at the Bouchards."