Carolina Girl (11 page)

They hugged. Cynthie even smelled the same, like cloves and cigarettes. “It’s been forever, right?” Cynthie said. “It’s like homecoming week around here. You know Sam Grady’s back on the island now, too.”

“I . . . Yes.” Meg had gotten used to the anonymity of New York, where no one noticed you were gone or remarked when you came back. Here, the web of connections tangled you up. “Matt told me you gave him a hand at the inn while Mom was in the hospital. Thank you.”

Cynthie waved her thanks away. “What are neighbors for? It was just a part-time thing anyway, helping out on the weekends. Hey, Taylor.”

Taylor bobbed her head.

There were two little girls with Cynthie, one Taylor’s age, the other a few years younger with a puff of hair like a seeding dandelion.

Meg smiled at them. “Are these your . . .” Her mind stuttered again.
Daughters?
She and Cynthie weren’t that old, were they?

“These are my girls,” Cynthie said proudly. “Madison’s in Taylor’s class. And this is my baby, Hannah.”

“Hi,” Meg said. “So how’s . . .” She tried to remember the name of Cynthie’s high school boyfriend.
Donald? Dennis?
“Douglas?”

“I guess he’s fine.” Cynthie’s pleasant voice turned flat. “He lives in Charlotte now. We’re divorced.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

Meg’s own life plan had never included the get-married-out-of-high-school-and-have-babies scenario. She wanted to go somewhere, do something, be somebody, before she had to live her life for the convenience of other people. Okay, so her career-first strategy hadn’t saved her from disappointment. But at least she didn’t have to worry about kids.

“Don’t be. I was kind of tired of him sitting on my couch and using my credit cards anyway.” Cynthie smoothed a hand over her younger daughter’s hair. “How about you? You married that New York guy yet?”

The island grapevine, Meg thought, wincing. Everybody knew everybody else, and even years later, they thought they knew you, too. No question was too personal, no topic off-limits.

“I’m not in any rush.” Which was what she always told herself and anyone else who asked. In college, she had chosen to study, work, and date unfettered by a serious boyfriend. It was only in the past few years, with Derek, that she’d started to long for a deeper connection, a more conventional commitment. “We’re waiting for the right time.”

“Or you’re waiting for the right guy.” Cynthie grinned ruefully. “You always were smarter than me.”

Meg’s mind flashed back to New Year’s eighteen years ago. To Sam. “Not always. So . . .” She glanced into Cynthie’s cart, seeking a way to change the subject. “Are you shopping for Halloween?”

“Yep. We’ve got the candy. Not so sure about the costumes,” Cynthie confided. “Madison’s at that awkward age.”

Madison looked mortified. “Mo-om.”

“Too old for trick-or-treating?” Meg asked. That would explain Taylor’s lack of enthusiasm.

“You’re never too old for free candy. But she’s too old to be a princess, like this one, and I won’t let her dress up like a hoochie mama, so . . .” Cynthie shrugged. “Here we are. Too bad I don’t have time to take them to the mainland. Everything on the shelves is Batman and Jason.”

Meg looked from Madison’s sulky face to Taylor’s carefully disinterested one, an idea slowly forming in her mind. In the week that she’d been home, she’d never seen another child come over to play. Taylor needed friends her own age, a companion other than a big shepherd-Lab mix.

“You know, I just left my parents in a pile of pirate swords and eye patches. Lots of costume options there.”

“Pirates are boys,” Madison said.

“Not all of them,” Meg said.

Cynthie nodded. “That’s right. Remember the rooms at the inn, Maddie? Anne Bonney and . . . What’s the other one?”

“Mary Read,” Meg said. “That’s my room, actually.”

“There’s a picture of her.” Taylor looked at Madison. “With an ax.”

Madison’s eyes widened.

“Well.” Meg took a deep breath. She could coordinate a major PR campaign for a Fortune 500 company. Surely she could finesse a simple play date between two ten-year-olds. “Maybe Madison would like to come over and look through costumes. If that’s all right with you.”

Madison’s gaze fell to her shoes. Taylor scowled.

Meg’s stomach sank.

“I want to come,” Hannah said.

“You’re too young,” her sister said.

“I’m not. I’m eight. Mom, tell her I can come, too.”

“Well, I don’t know . . .” Cynthie looked at Meg.

“Let her come,” Taylor said unexpectedly. “We got lots of stuff.”

Meg smiled. “And we’re making popcorn balls. Plenty of work for another pair of hands.”

“Your mama always had the best treats,” Cynthie said. “When I was little, the inn was my favorite place to go trick-or-treating.”

“We’re making caramel apples, too,” Taylor said to no one in particular.

Madison nodded. “Nuts or no nuts?”

“Both,” Taylor said proudly.

“Why don’t you all come?” Meg invited recklessly. Taylor wasn’t the only one who needed friends her own age.

Cynthie sighed. “I’d love to. But I’m working at the Fish House, four to eight. Soon as we’re done here, I’m dropping the girls off at Mama’s.” She watched the two girls, her expression almost wistful. “Sorry.”

It couldn’t be easy, Meg thought, juggling shifts at the Fish House with parenthood. “Why don’t you leave them with me for the afternoon,” she suggested. “I’ll bring them to your mother’s in time for dinner.”

Cynthie hesitated. “I don’t want to impose.”

“Please, Mom?”

“We-ell . . .”

“What are neighbors for?” Meg said, and at the echo of her own question, Cynthie’s face relaxed.

“That’d be great,” she said. “Thanks.”

It
was
great, Meg thought as she loaded the girls and the groceries into the car.
She
was great. She could be a great aunt.

At least until she went back to New York.

Ten

“Y
OU LOOK GREAT,”
Tess said to Meg the following night.

Meg laughed and fingered the ruffle on her shirt as she came down the stairs. Carefully, in her best black stiletto-heeled boots, but inside she was dancing. Big gold hoops dangled from her ears, and she’d tied a bandanna rakishly over her hair. “What the well-dressed pirate is wearing.”

“It’s not your costume. Though I think it’s wonderful that you dressed up to take the girls trick-or-treating. It’s you. You look . . .” Tess tilted her head to one side as she considered. “Happy.”

Meg grinned. “I am.”

Tess raised her brows. “Good phone call?”

Meg’s smile dried out at the edges. The problem with feeling good was that it never lasted. What should she say? She still hadn’t told her parents about getting canned at work. She needed to tell them . . . Something. Soon. But not now, when she was on her way out the door. “Yeah, it was, thanks.”

Tess made that hum, the one that expressed polite disbelief while keeping the lines of communication open.
It must be a mom thing
. “Everything all right with Derek?”

How did she
do
that?

Meg had finally gotten hold of Derek last night. The phone call had not gone well. Their conversation had been brief and unsatisfying, with too many failed connections and awkward pauses. It wasn’t so much that Derek had dissed her day’s accomplishments—finding a friend for Taylor, making practically perfect popcorn balls. He was simply profoundly uninterested. Kids and cooking had never been part of their daily vocabulary. And when Meg had tried to move the discussion to work, Derek had been almost abrupt.

But all that would change now, she told herself. Now that she really had something important to share.

She shook her head, making the gold hoops swing. “That wasn’t Derek. It was Bruce. You remember, from work?”

“What did he want?”

Some of the good feeling came back. Bruce wanted to consult with Meg about a project. It was contract work, not a job offer. But it would get her back on the radar, back in the game.

“He wants to see me.”

“And who wouldn’t,” Tess said.

Meg rolled her eyes. “It’s business, Mom.”

“I know that. I’m just saying it’s nice to be needed. Will you have to go back to New York?”

“Just for a day.”

At least initially. Bruce wanted her to meet with the management team on Friday. And the client. An author.
You did say you’d be open to projects outside of financial services
, he’d reminded her.
A change of pace.

A challenge. Meg almost bounced in excitement.

He was e-mailing her the author’s background information, so she could prepare. She wanted to do her own client assessment. She needed to make airline reservations, Meg thought, her mind skipping ahead. At moments like this, she really missed her oh-so-capable assistant, Kelly.

She pulled her thoughts back to focus on her mother. “Are you going to be all right home alone? Tonight, I mean?”

Tess smiled. “Hardly alone. I have your father and a hundred or so trick-or-treaters to keep me company.”

“Speaking of trick-or-treaters . . .” Meg glanced toward the kitchen. “Where’s my pirate crew?”

Yesterday, the girls’ initial stiffness with each other had dissolved during the sweet and sticky process of making popcorn balls. After washing their hands, they had dived into the inn’s pirate store. Taylor and Madison were now fully tricked out as fierce female pirates. Even eight-year-old Hannah had insisted on adding a cutlass to her princess finery.

“They’re waiting out front with your dad.” Tess’s smile spread. “He’s showing off his special effects.”

“Yo ho ho,” Meg said and went out to join them.

The light from the hall cut across the porch. She closed the front door quickly behind her so she didn’t ruin the scene for the three girls staring wide-eyed from the front walk. Red spotlights bathed the figure of Blackbeard at a giant ship’s wheel and the Jolly Roger hanging from the inn sign. The air was full of prerecorded sounds, creaking ropes, and the wash of waves. A deep voice intoned, “‘There will be no survivors. All your worst nightmares are about to come true.’”

Meg grinned as she recognized the movie line from
The Princess Bride
. The little girls gasped and giggled.

A tall, spare figure in a long hooded cape stood beside a control board hidden in a fake barrel of rum.

Standing on tiptoe, Meg kissed her father’s cheek. “The Dread Pirate Roberts, I presume?”

Tom pushed back his cowl and winked. “Retired now. You girls heading out?”

Meg nodded. “I’m taking them through the neighborhood down to the quay. Cynthie gets off her shift at the Fish House at eight. I figured we’d meet up with her there and then hit the shops along the waterfront.”

“Don’t forget your flashlights,” Tom said. “And watch out for cars.”

He talked to her as if she were still Taylor’s age, Meg thought, with amused affection. “I will,” she promised. She saw the first trick-or-treaters shuffling up the walk, a butterfly clutching a plastic pumpkin and a very short Spiderman holding his father’s hand. “Have fun.”

“You, too, babe.”

Meg walked the “plank” that led from the porch to the front yard. Behind her, the Dread Pirate Roberts boomed, “‘My men are
here
! I am
here
! But soon
YOU
will not be
here
!’”

Right. Meg squashed a squiggle of discomfort as she joined the girls. Because she was going to New York.

* * *

“W
ELL,
I
DON’T
know, Sam.” Walt Rogers, head of the town zoning board, frowned thoughtfully into his beer. While other barrier islands fell to the tides of tourism and development, the Town of Dare had taken the unusual step of incorporating. They had their own police department now and the zoning board, both intended to protect the island’s residents against outsiders. “Nobody wants to see a big condo development go up on that end of the island.”

Sam kept one eye on Walt’s glass and one on the noisy dining room. It was still early in the evening, more about free candy at the hostess station than paying customers in the bar. Webs of orange twinkle lights cast amber sparks on bottles and glassware. The sound system vibrated to Michael Jackson’s
Thriller
. The servers, all in costume, threaded their way through tables of excited family groups and sunburned fishermen.

He leaned his elbows on the bar. “Not condos, Walt. A mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly community.”

“I don’t see the damn difference.”

“More green space,” Sam answered promptly. “Public beach access. Priority given to folks who hold jobs on the island. Service jobs especially, teachers, firefighters, with a break on property taxes.”

Walt set down his mug. “Lower property taxes mean lower revenues for the town.”

“We’ve got plenty of wealthy summer residents paying their share,” Sam said. He signaled to Cynthie to refill Walt’s mug. He wasn’t trying to get him drunk. He just wanted to get him to listen. “What we need to sustain a year-round economy is affordable housing for the people who live here the rest of the year.”

He sounded like a damn politician, Sam thought, disgusted with himself. Talking points might work in Raleigh. But they wouldn’t impress the Dare zoning board. Experience had taught the islanders a deep distrust of government experts with their studies and theories, regulations and fishing quotas. The only way to win Walt’s support was to remind him that Sam was one of them.

“You say ‘we’ like you live here, son,” Walt drawled. “But it’s your daddy’s property we’re talking about. Your daddy’s development. And there are some who think we’ve listened to your daddy too many times.”

“His property. My project.”

Walt grunted. “Most of us reckoned you’d be working for him eventually.”

Sam’s shoulders tightened. “Yeah, that’s what he reckoned, too. He wasn’t happy when I took off to start my own company.”

“But he bankrolled you anyway.”

“No,” Sam said, surprised. “I went outside for the startup money. My business, my risk.”

Cynthie, in a shimmering mermaid corset, delivered Walt’s beer. Walt took a pull, looking around the restaurant. “That’d be about the time Carl opened this place.”

“The year before,” Sam said shortly.

It had been the last straw for twenty-six-year-old Sam.

The Fish House used to be an actual fish house, the place where local fishermen brought their catch to be cleaned. But as changing times threatened the fishermen’s livelihood, Carl Grady had figured there was more money in feeding tourists than in dealing fish. He’d converted his valuable waterfront property into a restaurant.

And Sam had finally quit, walked out, turned his back on his father’s money and ideas of progress.

“Can’t stop progress,” Walt said in an uncanny echo of Sam’s thought. He took another sip of beer. “All we can do is try to slow it down some.”

Sam felt a little leap of pulse, like a poker player drawing an inside straight. He needed an ally. Would Walt back him with the zoning board?

“You can’t stop progress,” he said cautiously, testing. “But you can turn it to your advantage.”

Walt lowered his drink. “Your daddy’s always been good at that. Can’t say the rest of us have always benefited from his projects. A lot of people were hurt when he closed the fish house.”

Sam took a deep breath. “Dare Plantation has deep water access. You can let it go to individual homeowners to put up private piers. Or you can rezone the parcel for mixed use and apply for funding, maybe a government grant, to establish a fishermen’s co-op. Reopen the fish house in a new location so boats could offload their catch here instead of having to burn fuel all the way to Swans Ferry.”

“A new fish house,” Walt said. “That in the plans?”

Sam nodded.
All in
. “It will be. I met with the architects on Monday.”

Walt’s eyes were bright as grommets in his leathered face. “What’s in it for you?”

A house, Sam thought.

A place in the community.

A stake in the island’s future.

A vision flashed through his brain of Meg, standing on the empty lot against a background of sea and yellow flowers, her blue eyes shining, strands of hair sticking to her forehead, her warm, sure voice encouraging him. Challenging him.
Why don’t you do it?

Sam had always figured he’d be back one day. But he’d wanted to return to the island as his own man, on his own terms. His father’s heart scare had forced him to change his timetable.

Six months
, the old man cackled in his head.
Get it through zoning, show me backers, and we do it your way. If not, you’ll work for me building spec houses.

If Sam made this work, if he pulled this off, he’d have something to show for himself. Something to offer.

If
he pulled this off.

If he couldn’t, he’d be stuck working for the old man for the next three to five years, building expensive boxes on the beach and trying to sell them as “rental investments.”

He shuddered.

“I’m still figuring that out,” he said truthfully. “But it’s a better plan than chopping up the waterfront for more mansions that nobody needs.”

Walt sucked thoughtfully on his upper lip. “We’ve heard promises before. I’d need to see something on paper.”

Sam grinned, sharp and quick. “I’ll get you an economic proposal and an environmental impact study,” he promised. “Along with the plans from the architect.”

He glanced toward the hostess station as another party of trick-or-treaters came through the door.

His heart stopped for a breathless beat before it began furiously pumping all his blood south.

It was Meg. But Meg transformed, Fantasy Meg in skintight jeans and high black boots and a ruffled blouse with a plunging neckline. Her mouth was red and wet with a wicked tilt, and she’d done something different to her eyes to make them appear bolder, bigger, more exotic.

His mouth went dry. Not that he cared that much about the wrapping on her package. He wasn’t as shallow as Meg thought. He liked her loyalty and her humor. He admired her fearlessness and her never-say-die determination and . . .

Her really excellent ass.

So sue him.

She had kids with her, he noticed. Her niece, Taylor, and Cynthie’s two little girls, all armed to the teeth and cute as bugs. Cynthie approached the front of the house and the five of them engaged in some complicated female ritual that involved lots of hugging and you-look-amazing type squeals. When Meg leaned over to say good-bye to the little Lodge girl, her tight jeans clung to her rounded butt like paint.

The resulting rush left Sam light-headed.

“She’s a pretty thing,” Walt said.

Sam stared at him blankly.

“Tom’s girl,” Walt supplied helpfully. “Heard you’d been driving around together. Nice to see you young folk moving back, settling down.”