Shore Lights (35 page)

 
Hard to believe it was possible, but Aidan's smile grew wider. It was in danger of taking over the kitchen, the pantry, and the back porch. If it grew any bigger, he would need a building permit from the town.

She said “next time.”

She hadn't struck him as the polite-to-be-polite type. She was too direct for that, too straightforward.

Just shut up and answer her, dammit, before the power goes out.

 
IF THE INTERNET had existed when Maddy was a teenager, she never would have left the house. Think of all the embarrassing Friday night dances she could have avoided, the miserable evenings spent praying somebody she wasn't related to would ask her to dance.

There she was curled up in her gorgeous Martha-Stewart-Meets-Madame-Pompadour bed, typing witty missives to a dangerously sexy man who hadn't the faintest idea she was wearing flannel pajamas and woolly socks instead of a few wisps of satin and lace.

Okay, so maybe it was hard to find a suitably languorous position when you were wedged between a toy poodle and your laptop, but in her mind's eye she was draped voluptuously across the pillows while kind indirect lighting turned her pale skin to pure alabaster and her—

Mail!

 
He wanted to take it off her hands? What did that mean? He had probably only answered her note because he still wanted to wrap his grubby paws around that samovar.

And look. He didn't respond to her breakfast invitation. That wasn't a good sign. She'd bet Gina never had to ask him twice to . . .

Oh, wait. Gina said they'd never slept together.

This was getting very confusing.

 
WHY THE HELL did he type that stupid line about taking the samovar off her hands? What kind of dumbass wiseguy garbage was that anyway? It made him sound like he was chatting her up in e-mail so he could snag the teapot away from her.

She was taking a long time to answer. Maybe she'd turned away from the screen in disgust, then logged off.

No, there she was. JerseyGirl, right there in his in box, waiting to tell him where to get off.

 
She seemed to feel he could fend for himself (which rankled a little), but her concern for Kelly touched him more deeply than he might care to admit under normal, non-blizzard circumstances. So he hadn't been kidding himself. They had connected that morning in some way that went beyond teapots and breakfast at Julie's.

He'd been around too long—and seen too much—to be wrong about that.

 
TAP. TAP. TAP.
Maddy almost jackknifed off the bed at the sound of the knock at her door.

“Madelyn, are you awake?”

Rose's voice, soft and curious, floated through the closed door.

Maddy waited for her usual Pavlov's dog reaction to the sound. Normally her stomach would clench, her shoulders would lift up to ear level, and her adrenaline would surge in a fight-or-flight wave of readiness.

Nothing. No stomach pains. No adrenaline. Just an odd little ripple of familial warmth.

“Come in,” she said, just loud enough to be heard. Hannah was a light sleeper who seemed to hear through walls.

Rose opened the door and stepped into the room.

“Did you notice that power outage a few minutes ago?” Rose had washed off her makeup, brushed her hair back into a no-nonsense nighttime look, and changed into a nightgown and robe. She looked twenty years younger than she had any right to look.

“You couldn't miss it,” Maddy said. “I think we'd better make sure the flashlights are all working.”

“Not to worry,” Rose said. She reminded Maddy that there were flashlights with fresh batteries in both night-stands. “And don't worry about Hannah's room. The night-lights are battery-operated. I change them the first of every month, so we're in good shape.”

Priscilla awoke from her deep sleep, noticed Rose standing near the foot of the bed, and began to thump her tail against the mattress in greeting.

Rose's left eyebrow shot up, but her smile was warm as she scratched the puppy under her tiny chin. “You let her sleep in the bed with you.”

“Of course not,” Maddy said, making her eyes all wide and innocent. “Where would you get that idea?”

Rose settled lightly on the edge of the mattress as she stroked Priscilla. “There's a B&B near Kennebunkport in Maine for pet lovers only. Each room comes with a dog or cat of your choice to cuddle with.”

Maddy laughed. “I like that idea. I don't know how we functioned before we found Priscilla.”

“You always wanted a puppy when you were little.”

“And you always said no.”

“I wonder why,” Rose mused. “For the life of me I don't know what my reason was.”

The chime announcing new mail sounded. Rose tilted her head in the direction of the laptop. “One of your West Coast friends?”

It would be so easy to say yes and let it go at that. “No,” she said. “It's from Aidan O'Malley.”

If Rose was surprised she didn't let on. “You two seemed to get along quite well today.”

“I like him,” Maddy said. “What I mean is, we had a common interest in the samovar.”

“It's all right to like him,” Rose said. “He's a very likable man.”

Maddy waited for the punch line, but there didn't seem to be one. “He said the bridge is down. He's stuck at the bar overnight.” She paused a moment. “I said that his daughter is welcome to one of our rooms if he doesn't want her to be alone tonight.”

“Of course,” Rose said. “But how would she get here?”

“I guess I'd walk over to their house to get her.”

“In a blizzard?”

“I don't think it will come to that,” Maddy said, “but it might.”

“That was an impulsive gesture,” Rose observed.

“I know.” As usual, she had blurted out her first thoughts without considering whether or not she could even open the front door against the drifts piling up out there.

“You have a kind heart,” Rose said. “I've always admired that about you. You reach out to people spontaneously, without weighing the pros and cons of a gesture.”

“Right,” Maddy said, turning quickly so Rose wouldn't see her wipe away the tears balanced on the tips of her lashes. “Before I even know if we can open the front door against the snowdrifts.”

“I know you well enough, Madelyn, to know you'd find a way if you had to.”

“I wasn't sure you liked Aidan O'Malley,” Maddy said, steering the conversation away from herself.

“He's not one of my biggest admirers,” Rose said with a small, self-deprecating laugh, “but I think he felt a tad more relaxed with me today.”

“You can be a little intimidating,” Maddy said. “Especially to someone who's in competition with you.”

“Competition? He runs a bar, Maddy, not a B&B. Our clientele is different.” She paused for a moment, lost in thought. “Of course, it needn't be quite so different as it is.”

“Meaning what?”

“An idea,” Rose said, drifting toward the door. “One I've been toying with for a while. I'm going to go make a few notes while it's still fresh. Sleep well, both of you. I'll see you in the morning.”

Maddy was astonished to realize she hated to see her mother leave. “Do you think the roads will be open tomorrow?” She didn't really care, but she wanted to delay Rose a second more.

“Oh, God, please!” Rose said with a theatrical gesture of her hands. “One more night with our four friends, and I'll clear the roads with my bare hands.”

Maddy was still chuckling after Rose closed the door behind her. Things were changing between them. There was no doubt in her mind about that. She wasn't sure if Rose had become softer or she had become less defensive, but they were communicating with each other in a way they hadn't since Maddy came out of the womb thirty-two years earlier.

No doubt about it. From start to finish, this had been an amazing day. And it wasn't over yet.

She settled back against her mountain of pillows, kissed the top of Priscilla's fluffy head, then opened the e-mail from Aidan.

 
Was that a polite kiss-off or an opening for more conversation? She wasn't exactly sure, but her fingers were flying too quickly across the keyboard for it to be much of a problem.

 
He found himself liking her more with each e-mail. She was warm, funny, and straightforward, three attributes you didn't often find in the same person. And she liked his kid. That didn't hurt, either. She didn't take herself too seriously, but she understood what was—or should be—important in life.

If the power ever came back on, he'd answer her e-mail.

 
“Oh, no!”

The battery alarm buzzed a “2% remaining” warning and Maddy leaped from bed to grab for the A/C cord. She scrabbled around on the floor, snaked her hand under the bed, and grabbed for the power brick, then managed to plug the whole shebang in a split second before the room went black, taking Aidan's message with it.

“Come on, you can't do this to me!”

She peered out her bedroom window. The entire street was dark. When was she going to learn to keep her laptop's battery properly charged? She couldn't begin to count the times she'd managed to get herself in trouble with a drained battery and a misplaced A/C cord or, like tonight, a power outage.

Hannah's voice seeped through the wall that separated their rooms and Maddy hurried out into the hall. She inched Hannah's door open a tiny bit and peeked inside. Bless Rose and the battery-operated night-lights that bathed the room in a soft pink glow. Hannah's curls were barely over her beloved Aladdin blanket. How Rose must have mourned when she saw Aladdin featured prominently at the center of her Victorian decorating scheme, but she never said a word.

Maddy tiptoed closer to the bed. Hannah's soft, gentle breathing filled her heart with joy. She leaned over and pressed a kiss to her daughter's cheek and was about to return to her room when Hannah spoke.

“Go back to sleep, sweetie,” Maddy whispered. “Everything's all right.”

Hannah mumbled something, but Maddy couldn't decipher the words. She leaned closer. The rhythm was familiar—rise and fall and rise and fall—and it reminded her of the Russian family who had lived next door to them in Seattle. The condo walls were very thin, and the Grinkovs' conversations came through loud and clear. Apparently Hannah had absorbed the sounds and made them part of her rich fantasy life.