Dockside (24 page)

“Way ahead of you, Mom,” Sonnet said. “Daisy already e-mailed me pictures. He’s a complete hottie but Daisy claims they’re just friends. For the time being, anyway.”

Nina watched them for a moment, their shadows fused into one that lay huge upon the sloping lawn. Their heads were inclined together as they talked. “Just friends,” she agreed. That was all they could be, under the circumstances. Watching them, she remembered being young and pregnant, missing out on the chance to date and stay out late and do stupid, irresponsible things. By the age of fifteen, she’d done more than her share.

“Mom?” Sonnet prodded. “You got quiet on me there.”

“Oh. Sorry. Bad connection. How was Wiesbaden?”

“Incredible. Except Kara and Layla whined the whole time we were at the castle, because they were bored.” When Sonnet spoke of her two younger half sisters, her tone changed to one of exasperation. “I swear, sometimes I just want to smack them.”

“In my family, we just went ahead and did that.”

“Did it work?”

“Temporarily.”

“Then I might have to try it.”

Nina laughed. “But other than that, everything’s okay?”

“Totally.”

“I mentioned to Greg that you’ll be seeing Daisy’s mom when you go to The Hague. I figured he should know. He’s fine with it, of course. Even encouraged you to contact her. Although that doesn’t matter. What matters is you—”

“Mom.”

“I mean, she’s the obvious person to show you around, since she’s a local there, and works at the ICC—”

“You’re babbling.”

“Oh. Sorry. Long day, I guess. I’m keyed up.”

“I don’t blame you. I’m excited for you. And I miss you. I miss home.”

“Everybody misses you.” She felt a squeezing sensation in her chest. Of everything in Nina’s life, Sonnet was her one true thing. Without her, there was nothing to mask Nina’s desperate loneliness.

“But I need to go now.”

“I know, honey. I can’t believe you got up so early just to call me. You’re the best.”

“I just wanted to be the first to say congrats again on the opening. I’ll see you before you know it,” Sonnet said.

“Can’t wait.” Nina turned off the phone and sighed, leaning against the railing of the deck. The hotel grounds were empty now. Daisy and Julian had gone somewhere else. In the silence following the phone call, she felt a tug of yearning for her daughter. Sonnet was coming back for the Bellamy wedding. Nina couldn’t wait to see her again, and she refused to think about the fact that Sonnet would be leaving for college right after the wedding.

She took a deep breath of the sweet night air and reminded herself that she had to get up early tomorrow. She ought to go to bed. Wandering inside, she discovered that she was too restless, so she opted for putting a Tony Bennett CD on the stereo and pouring a glass of wine. Then she wandered back outside, drawn by the cool stillness of the night. Sipping her wine, she swayed gently to “Because of You,” drifting softly through the screen door. This was more like it, she thought, feeling her nerves uncoil, massaged by the music and the wine. She didn’t need anyone or anything except this—a pleasantly cheesy song, a glass of merlot, a little peace and quiet to savor the victory of a day that had gone well.

The quiet lasted maybe thirty seconds. Then she heard footsteps on the stairs. The motion-activated security light flickered on.

“Greg,” she said, feeling a hard-to-deny quiver of reaction. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he said, stepping onto the deck.

“Daisy?” she asked, unconvinced that “nothing” had brought him here.

“She and Julian are on the computer, working with some pictures she took.”

They stood awkwardly for a moment. Tony Bennett warbled “Love Look Away.” Nina had no idea what to make of this visit. Nothing was the matter, and he’d come to see her. He glanced at her wineglass. “Drinking alone?”

“I think today warrants a glass of wine. And I was just on the phone with Sonnet.”

“I’m not sure that counts.” He glanced around. “You look pretty alone to me.”

She scowled at him. “You don’t have to rub it in.”

“I’m not. I’m alone, too,” he pointed out.

She nodded. “So have you heard from Max? How was his trip to Holland?” Accompanied by his grandparents, he’d gone to see his mother. Nina sensed that Greg had mixed feelings about his son being away, because she had been experiencing the same thing with Sonnet, all summer long. On the one hand, the freedom from moment-to-moment responsibility was exhilarating; on the other hand, the child’s absence left a hollow spot where doubts had a way of flourishing.

“His trip was fine, and we talk every day,” he said. “We talk, but I have no idea how he’s doing. He says he didn’t mind the overseas flight. Sophie’s parents are great with him.”

“How long will he be away?”

“A couple of weeks. I hate to see him miss his Little League practices and games, but I guess it’s more important for him to spend time with his mother.”

It was, she knew, the age-old dilemma of a divorced couple. She didn’t envy him.

“Max seems to handle this well enough, but there are definitely times when I know he’s completely messed up about the divorce and I feel like shit.” Greg’s candor was disarming.

“He is a typical kid,” she assured him. “Everybody has their ups and downs.” It sounded like an empty platitude, though. For a child of divorce, life could be complicated. For Max, visiting his mother entailed an intricate journey and precise scheduling, a lining up of helpful adult relatives.

“When we first split,” Greg said, “Sophie thought both kids would move overseas with her. She had a school all picked out, a house…but they had trouble right away and the kids begged to live in the States. They chose this town, this life. I don’t pretend it was me personally. Given the way things worked out for Daisy, I sort of wish—”

“Don’t,” Nina advised. “That’s completely pointless.”

“I just hate the thought that I’ve made a mistake, let them down. Max has kind of gotten lost in all the drama about Daisy. In a lot of ways, he’s a typical kid—all boy, all mischief, all the time. Some days, he seems happy, having this idyllic small-town boyhood—the lake, the ball field, the family summer camp up the road. Other days, he acts as though being here is torture.”

“Which is why you should be fine with letting him visit his mother.”

“Yeah, good point.”

“So listen, can I get you—”

“I hope you don’t mind—”

They both spoke at once, then both stopped. Greg laughed. “After today, I was just too wired to sit still, so I thought I’d pay you a visit.”

She was ridiculously pleased to hear it. “I admit, I’m a bit keyed up, too. Would you like a glass of wine? Or I have beer.” She bit her lip. Beer was so unsophisticated. She shouldn’t have mentioned it. She always felt so out-classed by Greg. She wondered if he noticed.

“Thanks. A beer would be great.”

She hurried inside and opened a longneck bottle of microbrew. At least it was a boutique beer. “Would you like a glass?” she called.

“Straight from the bottle’s fine.”

Nina Romano, what the heck are you doing? she asked herself. Then she stifled the little voice in her head. She brought him the beer, angled her wineglass in his direction. “To a great start for the inn.”

“I’ll drink to that,” he said. “We did great today, both of us.”

Nina felt an odd tension between pleasure and disappointment. “So all the hard work was worth it.”

“Yep.”

“You didn’t ever feel like giving up?”

“Before the place opened? No way,” he said.

“Suppose you get tired of all the work and hassle.”

He gave a soft, velvety chuckle, which she found far too appealing. “Not an option,” he said simply, and took another swig of beer. “What, you expect me to pick up my toys and go home? I’m not a quitter. I had every advantage growing up but it didn’t spoil me. I like to work. I don’t shy away from things just because they’re hard. And you worked damn hard for this place. Why would you expect me to bail?”

Observing him these past few weeks, she recognized that giving up was not his way. He was hard-wired for success, no matter what he did. Maybe that was why he took his divorce so hard, she speculated. Maybe one day, she’d ask him about that. No, she thought. That was far too personal. This—her relationship with Greg—was about the inn, a business enterprise. She reminded herself to focus on that. She imagined their guests comfortably ensconced in rooms where she’d sweated every detail, from the fresh rose in the bud vase at the bedside table to the thick terry robes and shea butter soaps. In their advertising literature, they promised “uncommon luxury,” and Nina meant to give it to them.

“Well,” he said, finishing his beer, “I’d better get going.”

“See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, listen, about tomorrow night—I thought maybe we could go to dinner.”

“You mean like a date?” Nina was incredulous. She thought their kiss had been a fluke. A crazy impulse. She thought they’d gotten past it and moved on.

“No. I mean, yeah. A date, whatever. A date between friends.”

“I can’t date you, Greg,” she said, surprised at the sharpness of the regret she felt.

“Why not?”

The regret deepened. She wondered if it was possible to forget about business and rivalry, forget the fact that he was a Bellamy and simply enjoy his company.

“I just…can’t,” she said. “It’s a bad idea, any way you look at it. We talked about this before.”

“No, we didn’t. I kissed you and you spent the next week pretending it didn’t happen and refusing to talk about it.”

Ouch, she thought. “All right, suppose we hit it off. Suppose we want to keep seeing each other.”

“Then it will be really easy,” he assured her, “since we both live on the premises.”

She shuddered—with excitement? Nervousness? She couldn’t be sure. “Think about it. How much would it suck to work together after we’ve broken up?”

At that, he laughed aloud. “We’re not even dating and you’ve already got us broken up.”

“I just like to think things through to their logical conclusion.”

“And the logical conclusion to the two of us dating is that eventually we’ll wind up at each other’s throats.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Nah. Just trying to figure out the way your mind works.”

No one had ever bothered to do that before. She wasn’t sure she liked it. She was in danger of letting Greg own her heart as well as her career. And because she had always taken care of herself, the idea of giving so much to a man scared her.

“Tell you what,” he said. “How about we go to dinner tomorrow and just see how it turns out.”

“Maybe I already have a date,” she said suddenly.

Though it was too dark to see his face, she could see his shoulders stiffen. “Maybe you do? What, did you just remember it?”

Actually, it was a standing offer—Nils had said there would always be a lane for her at the bowling alley on couples night.

“I do,” she said decisively. “I’ve got a date.”

“You could’ve told me that when I brought it up and spared us this whole conversation.”

“You caught me off guard,” she admitted.

“Right,” he said, heading toward the stairs. “You’re never off guard, Nina.”

R
unning the inn was everything Nina expected it to be—exciting, frustrating, challenging, rewarding. It was also as close to her dream as she had ever been. She loved the ever-changing array of visitors, from an elderly couple who remembered their courtship days here to newlyweds on a honeymoon. She also appreciated that the work kept her as busy as she cared to be, certainly too busy to be preoccupied with thoughts of Greg Bellamy. For whole days at a time, she managed to coexist with him while avoiding any further discussion of personal matters.

At breakfast, Sarah Moon had requested some maps and an area guide. Spying Sarah and her husband, Jack, on the lawn overlooking the lake, Nina decided to deliver them in person.

They were an incredibly good-looking couple. Jack seemed filled with a brash, almost cocky, self-confidence. Sarah was lovely and quiet, a dreamy sort who didn’t—at least on the surface—seem like a match for her husband. Maybe they complemented each other, Nina speculated. She seemed to have discovered in herself an inordinate interest in couples, and she refused to ponder the reason for that.

Jack was dressed for tennis and talking on a mobile phone while Sarah relaxed in an Adirondack chair, drawing or writing in an oversize spiral-bound book. Nina handed her the brochures and maps of Ulster County and the Catskills Wilderness. “I highlighted a few suggestions,” she said.

Sarah beamed at her. “That’s so nice of you. We’re really enjoying our stay.”

Jack had moved away to continue his phone conversation. To Nina, it seemed borderline rude, but Sarah smiled indulgently. “He never stops. Just can’t seem to get away from work, poor guy.”

“Is he some kind of doctor?” Nina asked. She figured saving humanity was worth a few minutes of a man’s vacation.

“Building contractor,” Sarah said. “He’s doing this luxury-home development outside Chicago called Shamrock Downs. Equestrian community—it’s a real juggling act, dealing with all the subcontractors.”

A few minutes later, he flipped his phone shut and offered a smile that made Nina blink. His long-lashed eyes were as bright as the sky. “Sorry. Had to take that call.”

All right, so he was
that
guy, Nina conceded. The hunky, charismatic guy who knew how to use his assets to advantage. Even she was going soft, watching him turn on the charm.

“Maps,” Sarah said, waving them at him. “We can go to a state park or a flea market or…wow, are we really that close to the original Woodstock?”

“The one and only,” Nina assured her. “There’s not much to see, but the town’s fun.”

“We’ll go this afternoon if you want,” Jack said. “I’ve got a tennis match set up this morning. Right now, in fact.”

He’d paired himself with another guest. Kimberly Van Dorn stood at the top of the lawn, waving at him. In crisp tennis whites, she looked like the embodiment of every man’s dream and every woman’s nightmare—long, silky red hair caught in a high ponytail, big boobs, supermodel legs.

Nina glanced nervously at Sarah, but she smiled up at her husband with a complete lack of concern about his choice of tennis partner. “Have fun—but don’t overdo.”

“I always overdo,” he said with a grin. “Isn’t that the point?”

She laughed. “Sure, Ace. Give the poor woman a drubbing.”

He loped toward Kimberly like an obedient Doberman. Sarah was absorbed in her book again, sketching studiously with a Pantone marker. Nina was impressed by Sarah’s ease with the situation. Either the marriage was so solid, she didn’t care who her husband played tennis with, or she was clueless.

“You’re not into tennis?” Nina asked.

“Athletics isn’t my thing. Jack lives for sports, though. I’m just so happy to see him doing something he loves…He can play with Paris Hilton, for all I care.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean—”

“I know you didn’t.” Sarah laughed again. “It’s probably hard to believe, but not so long ago, we weren’t sure Jack would even be around to play tennis at all.” She paused, then said, “The fact is, he just finished treatment for cancer.”

“I’m so sorry—I didn’t know.”

“He’d be delighted to hear that. He hated looking like a patient.”

Nina turned to watch him holding open the gate to the tennis court. “He definitely doesn’t look like a patient.”

Sarah beamed at him. “This is our first vacation since before he was diagnosed. We came here to get to know one another again, post-treatment. Away from all the hospitals and labs and doctor visits.” Her smile was a thousand watts strong. “We really want to reconnect as a couple.”

So why was the husband off playing tennis? Nina didn’t allow herself to ask. This was simply further proof that she wasn’t cut out for relationships. She tended to read them all wrong.

“You picked a beautiful place to reconnect,” she said, indicating the brochures. She directed Sarah to the most scenic drives and the best shopping in the area. “In Phoenicia, you don’t want to miss the Mystery Spot—the most amazing collection of antiques and ephemera I’ve ever seen. If you like going out to breakfast, try the pancakes there, at Sweet Sue’s. However, I’m biased toward Avalon. There’s plenty to do right here. Be sure to hit the Camelot Bookstore. The Apple Tree Inn is best for fine dining. And the Sky River Bakery is probably the best in the state—maybe the whole country.”

“Thanks. You’re a walking chamber of commerce.”

“I was the mayor for four years,” Nina explained. “Assistant to the mayor before that.”

“You’re kidding. That’s really impressive.”

“It’s a small town with a salary to match,” Nina said. “People weren’t exactly beating a path to the door of the mayor’s office. But it was a stable job, and I needed that while my daughter was in high school.”

Sarah gave a short laugh. “Now I’m completely intrigued. You have a daughter in high school?”

“Not anymore. She graduated in May.”

“You look like you’re just out of high school.”

“Sonnet’s off to college at the end of summer, and I’m facing an empty nest.” Nina wondered if saying so would ever get easier. “It’s not that I’m not completely happy for her. She’s all about study and travel. She’s living a life I never did.”

“What, the travel? The studies? You could be doing that now. It’s not too late.”

“The funny thing is, I didn’t have to go anywhere in order to figure out that the life I want is right here.”

“Well, you’re lucky. Sometimes people feel like strangers in their own lives.”

Nina suspected Sarah was directing the comment at herself. “Can I see what you’re drawing?”

Sarah turned the sketchbook toward her.

Nina was impressed. The pictures were cartoons, but some how Sarah had managed to express an array of human emotions through the stylized, comical figures. “Ever read a comic strip called ‘Just Breathe’ with Lulu and Shirl?” Sarah asked.

“Lulu and Shirl? They’re in the
Avalon Troubadour
every day.” The characters were a quirky mother and daughter, a long-time divorcee and a younger woman whose marriage was teetering on the verge of failure. “You mean you’re the creator of Lulu and Shirl? I’ve never met a cartoonist before.”

“I told Jack I didn’t care where we went for our getaway, but it had to be in a place where the local paper carried my strip. I found the Inn at Willow Lake on the Web in a search for romantic hotels. Romantic hotels in towns where ‘Just Breathe’ is available. That definitely narrowed down the options. The Web site is beautiful, by the way.”

“I think so, too,” Nina agreed. “The photography was all done by the owner’s daughter.”

“She’s very talented.”

“She’ll be thrilled to hear that, especially from a fellow artist.” Nina made a mental note to pass on the compliment. She knew from experience that a girl in Daisy’s position needed all the positive reinforcement she could get.

“So are you working on your comic strip?” Nina asked Sarah.

“Sort of. I’m doing some preplanning for a future storyline, so it doesn’t feel like work.” She flipped a page of the sketchbook and turned it toward Nina again. The character known as Shirl was studying a pregnancy-test stick, a cross-eyed look of intense concentration and hope on her face.

“I’m praying life will imitate art,” Sarah explained. “Jack and I both want children so badly, and…well, the sooner the better. After his illness, it hit me that the future’s so uncertain. We shouldn’t put off something we want. Now, hold still and I’ll make a sketch for you.”

“Really? Thanks.” Nina thought about Sarah’s unquestioning devotion to her husband. Maybe this was Nina’s trouble with relationships. She wanted everything just so. She not only wanted those long-lashed eyes, she wanted them trained on her and her alone. She probably wanted something—someone—who didn’t exist. Maybe it was better that way. If she wanted someone who didn’t exist, she wouldn’t waste her time looking.

Which was one of the more pathetic notions she’d had. She was supposed to be living the single life, dating, being carefree, going out with friends.

Watching Sarah draw, Nina wondered what it would be like to yearn for a child with such fervor. Although Nina had the unasked-for gift of a daughter, she didn’t know what it was like to hope and plan and ache for a baby.

Sarah Moon was a reminder to Nina that life’s journey could include overwhelming hardships, and that love wasn’t always easy. Sometimes there were terrible things like a cancer diagnosis or infertility. Still, it was clear that facing trouble with someone you love made the burdens bearable and the joys sweeter. Too bad her husband was an ass, Nina thought. Then she felt guilty for her cynicism.

Sarah finished the sketch. Even though it was a caricature, it made Nina look smart and good-humored, and she felt guilty for her critical thoughts about Sarah’s husband. “This is fantastic,” she said. “And you put the inn in the background. It’s a wonderful keepsake, Sarah.”

“Then I insist that you keep it.” She signed it with a flourish and ripped it out of the book.

“I’m getting this framed,” Nina promised her.

Sarah gathered up the maps and area guides. “I’m flattered. And I’m glad we found this place. This feels like another world.”

“I’ve always thought so. It’s always felt like
my
world.”

“So have you lived here long?” she asked.

“Every minute of my life—so far. I don’t ever want to live anywhere else.”

“Well, I don’t blame you. I woke up this morning and thought to myself, what a great place to get pregnant. And then of course, Jack was gone on his morning run, so I don’t think he had the same thought.”

“I can safely say, no guy in the history of the world ever had that thought,” Nina assured her.