Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (51 page)

He smiled to himself as he swung his bags from the trunk of the Maxima. He'd packed light, thinking he'd need little more than casual clothes—perhaps a jacket for dinner one night—and a few good books. And a healthy appetite. Ever since he'd made the decision to book a room at the inn, he'd been dreaming of Jody's cream of she-crab soup, her broiled sea trout, her flan.

Or had it been her face, her legs, her laugh?

"Jeremy!" Laura Bishop met him in the inn's spacious entry. "You're right on time. We've just finished getting your room ready."

"Hello, Laura," he accepted her hug and offered one in return. "How are things?"

"Very well, thank you. I'm so glad you decided to take me up on my offer and spend your vacation with us."

"Well, I really did need to take some time off. I couldn't think of anyplace I'd rather spend a week."

"The fishing's been great this summer, and the ocean's been warm. The weather's been perfect, and they're predicting more of the same for the next few days. You picked the right week." She walked to the reception desk. "Let me get someone to take you up to your room. I'd do it myself, but I'm a little busy right now."

"The room number's on the key," he said. "I can find my way."

"Are you sure you don't mind? I'm afraid we're a little short-handed this week, and we've had some unexpected reservations for dinner tonight."

"I don't mind at all." Jeremy took the key and smiled, thinking about tonight's dinner, wondering what might be on the menu.

He was sorely tempted to ask what was planned for the evening's fare, then decided he'd rather be surprised. Anything that Jody was making would be food fit for a king. And after dinner, he'd ask her to sit with him on the front porch where, over a glass of wine, they could pick up where they'd left off weeks ago. Then maybe tomorrow night they could walk on the beach, or drive out to Pierson's where a blues band played weeknights.

Humming happily, Jeremy took the carpeted steps two at a time, thinking perhaps he'd take a walk on the beach or maybe a stroll around town while he awaited the dinner hour and the opportunity to savor the soup and woo the chef.

"Will you be dining alone?" The young hostess asked when Jeremy walked into the crowded dining room that evening promptly at seven.

"Yes," he nodded.

"Then perhaps you'd like a seat by the window, where you can watch the osprey," she suggested. "There's a family nesting there on top of the telephone pole. Three babies," she said as she led him to his table.

"Thank you." Jeremy took the seat next to the wall where he could watch both the osprey and the room. He frequently dined alone, and watching other diners helped to pass the time. Not that he was in a hurry to conclude this meal.

"Hi," the perky waitress seemed to pop up from thin air. "May I bring you a drink while you look over the menu?"

"All I need to know is the fish of the day," he grinned.

"Red snapper," she replied.

"That makes it easy enough. I'll start with the she-crab soup, and go on to the snapper."

"Ah, you've been here before." The waitress nodded knowingly. "Everyone comes back for the crab soup. Now, can I interest you in a glass of wine to go with that?"

"Absolutely."

"I’ll be right back with it."

While he waited, Jeremy amused himself by studying the table manners of a rambunctious three-year-old several tables away. His wine arrived at just about the same time that the harried mother decided that her fellow diners would enjoy their meals more if she and her son took theirs on the porch. She smiled an apology at the waitress as she left the room. Jeremy idly wondered where the husband/father might be. He'd never been either, but he couldn't imagine sending his wife and son off to a lovely old inn on a beautiful, romantic stretch of coast without him along to share the holiday with them.

The waitress appeared with a small white bowl of creamy liquid of the palest yellow. Jeremy dipped a spoon in, raised it to his lips, and tasted heaven. He sighed with contentment, eating slowly, making the most of the experience. He similarly sighed his way through his entree and his dessert. He accepted a second cup of coffee, which he carried with him into the kitchen to pay homage to the cook, the anticipation of seeing her again flickering inside him like fireflies. With luck, she'd be free later in the evening. He wanted to walk with her on the beach, watch the ocean breeze rustle her hair…

"Jeremy," Laura called from behind the long stainless steel counter, "how was your dinner?"

"Wonderful." He enthused, his eyes darting this way and that, scanning the room for its customary occupant. "Fabulous. I just stopped back to thank the chef."

"You're welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed." Laura smiled and went back to seasoning the fish she had just placed in the baking dish.

It took a minute for Jeremy's brain to process this information.

Laura. In the kitchen. Preparing a dinner. And Jody was… where?

"Jody… ?" He asked.

"Oh, Jody's not here." Laura waved a hand and bits of dill flew here and there.

"Not here?" Jeremy frowned.

Jody not here? But the soup… the perfectly seasoned fish __

"She's on vacation. Thankfully, she made up several batches of she-crab soup and froze them to tide us over till she got back, and she left me with jars of her special seasoning already mixed for the fish. I hope I don't run out before she gets back." Laura raised her head, and saw the look of disappointment on Jeremy's face.

It was clear that he'd been hoping to do more than give compliments to the chef about her fish.

Laura smiled to herself. Of course. It would have been Jody that brought Jeremy back to the inn. She'd thought she d sensed something running between them the last time he had been there. Laura brushed off her hands, slid the fish into the broiler, and motioned for him to follow her to the old rolltop desk at the back of the kitchen.

"There's a piece or paper under the right-hand edge of the desk blotter that has the phone number on it if you want to call her," she told him. "Would you mind getting it yourself? My hands are covered with herbs."

No, he realized, he did not want to
call
her. Talking would not be enough. He wanted to
see
her, wanted to be with her.

Laura peered over his shoulder as he lifted the small slip of paper, then said, "Yes, that's it. The Sea View Motel in Ocean Point, New Jersey."

Jeremy's insides twisted and clenched as if struck by a forceful blow, and his chest constricted tightly. One big hand reached for the edge of the desk and clutched it for support. The fog that filled his mind clogged his senses, and for a moment he could neither see nor hear nor feel.

Ocean Point, New Jersey.

"Jody will be there through next Saturday," Laura continued. "You may not be familiar with Ocean Point—I hadn't heard of it, either—but Jody said it's a small town on one of those little islands off the coast. She used to spend summers there when she was a child. Some of her old friends from high school were having a sort of reunion there over the weekend, and she's meeting up with them. She really did need a vacation, and this seemed like a fun idea. You know, getting together with old friends, looking back on your teen years. I think her girlfriends were staying just for the weekend, but Jody is staying through the week."

Only Jeremy's eyes moved, following Laura as she returned to her task.

Jeremy knew all about looking back. He had spent much of his adult life looking back on his own teen years, wishing he could reach back in time and change things.

Ocean Point, New Jersey.

Jeremy studied the slip of paper, committed the address to memory, and after thanking Laura, left the kitchen through the back door. His legs still slightly wobbly, he paused under the wisteria arbor, then followed the brick path that led around the side of the house to the front walk. As if in a trance, he crossed the street and stood atop the steps that led down to the beach, listening to the crash of the surf. He followed the sound and tried to sort through his options.

He could, of course, wait here until Jody came back.

Or he could leave and go back home, work out the week, and reschedule his vacation for the following week, then come back to the inn when she returned. Equally easy. Equally pain-free.

Jeremy's fingers closed over a large clamshell, and he flung it toward the sea. Of all places for her to have gone!

Ocean Point, New Jersey.

His mouth had gone dry, his lips parched. Jeremy sat down on the sand. He'd sworn he'd
never
go back. And in all these years, he had not. It was all too vivid in his mind's eye, the colors and sights and smells of that night where, in a matter of a few brief hours, Jeremy's entire world had been tossed upside down.

He squeezed his eyes closed to shut it out, but once it started, the whole thing played through. The argument with his stepfather over taking the car. Leaving home that night with his cousin T.J. Heading for the boardwalk in Ocean Point. Walking the boards and flirting with the pretty girls. Having one of those girls flirt back. Taking her hand and heading off for the amusement pier, where they rode the roller coaster until their throats were raw from screaming. Sitting on the beach watching the fireworks. Slipping off alone to a deserted stretch of beach where the eager young lady had taught him a thing or two.

Then later, searching for T.J. on the boardwalk, and not finding him, debating whether to call home and risk his stepfather's wrath when he was awakened from a sound sleep, or just walking the twenty-seven miles in the middle of the night and hoping to ease into the house before anyone had realized that he'd been out all night.

Jeremy had stood under a street lamp, jingling change in his pocket, then headed for the phone at the corner. His stepfather would be livid, but at least his mother would know where he was and that he was safe. He glanced at his watch as he listened to the phone ring on and on. It was ten past one.

Odd that no one had answered.

He had called again, just in case he had misdialed the first time, but there was still no answer.

Strange, the thought had niggled, that no one had picked up the phone, as if they had all somehow just disappeared.

Distracted, he had stepped out of the phone booth and into the path of a late-model Pontiac. The driver blasted one short beep on the horn as the car swerved around him, then stopped and backed up. After loudly berating Jeremy for scaring him witless, the driver had offered him a ride, taking him as far as the first of the dirt roads that marked the entrance to the Pine Barrens, where outsiders rarely went and only a native would risk going on foot in the middle of a dark night.

Jeremy remembered listening to the night sounds, the shrieking of owls and something somewhere screaming a protest at having been caught in jaws or in talons. He remembered hearing a rustling now and then behind him, recalled an occasional finger of fear tapping his shoulders as his imagination conjured up the Jersey Devil, even though his intellect knew it was nothing more than a raccoon or a fox.

And back, far back, behind the trees, an orange glow had begun to spread.

Even now, sixteen years later, he could recall every detail of that walk through the pines, and the exact moment when he realized that somewhere deep in the forest, a fire was raging. Smoke began to fill the woods and filtered through the dry undergrowth like a heavy fog. A prick of alarm tickled the back of his neck, but fires in the Pines were common enough events. Didn't every good summer storm set off one or two? But there had been no storm that night, no lightning. And the blaze that rose above the pines and reached into the glowing sky was right about where his family's home would be, a mile or so as the crow flies.

Jeremy shook his head to clear it of the images that arose to haunt him, of the cabin burned almost to the ground by the time he got there, out of breath and his chest hurting from running the distance through the dense smoke. The line of volunteers—uncles, cousins, neighbors—manning a bucket brigade to bring water from the nearby stream in an attempt to put out the fire, for deep in the Pines there were no fire hydrants and no fire trucks.

The young man had not needed anyone to tell him that no one had survived the blaze. His mother, his younger brother, his stepfather… all gone in the blink of an eye.

Jeremy had never really been able to forgive himself for being out having fun that night while his family, overcome by smoke, had been swallowed by fire. He'd been convinced that if he'd stayed home that night, it never would have happened. He would have saved them.

He would have smelled the smoke. He would have put out the fire. They'd still be alive, he was certain of it.

If only he'd stayed home that night…

How could he go as far as Ocean Point, and not complete the journey to Crismen's Well?

He'd once believed that no power on earth could get him back. Yet here he was, sitting on a Maryland beach watching the day fold away, contemplating the very real possibility of doing just exactly that. He leaned back on his elbows and watched a heron cross the horizon on its flight back to its nesting place in the trees somewhere behind the dunes. Unconsciously his fingers traced little circles in the sand, and he tried to think it through.

If he spent the rest of the week at the inn, he could use the time to do some deep-sea fishing. Catch up on his reading. Maybe rent a boat and do a little crabbing out in the bay.

The easy way.

He sighed and thought about just how much the easy way had cost him over the years. An aunt had died, and he had resisted attending the funeral, because it would have meant going back. His old high school had invited him to a special ceremony honoring their star athletes, and he had declined, because it would have meant going back. He thought of those who were still there, back in the Pines, those who, over the years, had remembered him for weddings and christenings, and fought back the feeling that he had run out of excuses to stay away.