Stargazey Point (13 page)

“He was kiddin’, wasn’t he?” Millie asked as soon as they heard the front door close.

“I don’t know, Millie. He charmed many a girl in his day. I don’t think he’s lost a bit of that charm over the years.”

Millie felt behind her for a chair and lowered herself slowly to the cushion. “Oh, dear,” she said. “Oh, dear.”

H
e liked her, Cab realized as he watched Abbie dig into the pile of crab legs. He liked her energy. The way her eyes lit up on occasion only to be quickly extinguished, as if she had some sadness that she couldn’t quite escape. It made her interesting.

He no longer thought she was working for a developer. But he also didn’t see her as a weathergirl. She’d said she was between jobs.

“Are you looking for another job as a weathergirl?” he asked.

Abbie froze with half a crab leg shell in each hand. “Weathergirl?”

“You said you were a weathergirl but between jobs.”

“Oh, yeah. I was, but I’m going to do something different now.”

He watched that darkness descend and then dissipate with a flick of her hair.

“Actually, I thought Bethanne might need help when the tourist season starts.”

Cabot stared. She was going to stay in Stargazey? It wasn’t exactly the place to get ahead. And along with the sadness, he’d sensed an underlying energy in Abbie that never seemed to rest. He didn’t see her as being content to make beds for a living. “I’m not sure if she’ll . . . really . . .”

“There’s a tourist season, isn’t there?”

“More or less.”

She’d picked up her beer but put it down with a thud. “What’s wrong with that town?”

“Nothing,” Cab said.

“Look around. These people are going great guns, and as far as I can tell they don’t even have the ocean.”

“And your point is . . .”

“Don’t be obtuse. Stargazey Point has businesses, some anyway, and Crispin House could be a drawing card like the house we saw. Maybe they could do tours or something. There’s a beach . . . It must have something to offer tourists. I know you don’t really care for tourists, but—”

“I don’t mind tourists, but I don’t want it to become another resort that none of the people who live there could afford.”

“Well, that’s a relief. I was afraid you had plans for Stargazey yourself.”

“I do, just not those plans.”

She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. “What kind of plans?”

“Why do you care?” Cab asked, more sharply than he’d intended. She wasn’t just making dinner conversation. She was really curious. Suspicion crept back into his consciousness. He couldn’t help it; suspicion was in his nature.

“Because . . .” She picked at the beer label. “I like the Crispins, and I don’t want to see them lose their home.”

“Neither do I,” he said.

“So what kind of plans do you have?”

He shrugged, attacked another crab leg.

They ate in silence for a few minutes. But Cab sensed a storm brewing across the table. He couldn’t remember knowing someone whose moods shifted so quickly. Bailey had two moods, satisfied and not satisfied, shoes, salads, sex—it was all the . . . He stopped himself, unnerved that he’d been comparing Abbie to his ex-fiancée.

He had barely thought about Bailey in the last few months. An indictment of the happiness of that relationship. Actually Bailey had just been a symptom of his former life. It must be the call from Frank. He’d have to call him back and make up some excuse for them not to come. He didn’t want to share his new life with any of them.

“Coward.”

Cabot knocked his beer over and barely righted it before it spilled over the table.

“Did you just call me a coward?”

“Well, yeah, but I was just trying to get your attention. I guessed it worked.”

“I guess it did.” He couldn’t help himself, he started to laugh. For a second he thought she’d pulled an Ervina on him and was reading his mind.

“So are you going to tell me or is it a secret?”

He studied her face. She didn’t flinch or look away but met his eyes, intense, interested, and suddenly very appealing. “I’ll go you one better. I’ll show you.”

E
rvina peered into the flames even though the smoke from the fire burned her eyes. The storm was a-comin’ right over that horizon. It was beginning.

Oh, Lord, it had begun years ago with Mr. Beau Senior and his heavy-handed ways. He set these things in motion just as sure as he was the puppet master hisself. But now he was gone. His three children were out of his reach. And now this girl.

Ervina smiled through the smoke. Old Mr. Beau be rollin’ over in his grave if he knew what was comin’.

C
ab began to get cold feet on the drive back to Stargazey Point. He’d been rash to offer to show Abbie what he was working on. She might have the same reaction as his friends had when he announced he was quitting the firm. Or as his father and stepmother when they learned he’d given up everything to follow in Ned’s footsteps.

Still, it wouldn’t kill him to try it out on a stranger. He knew the advantage of beta testing. And she was the only new person in town. He tried not to think of how he would feel if she laughed in his face. Or dismissed him summarily like his father and his fiancée had.

And so what if she did? She was just one person. He was doing this as much for himself as for the future of Stargazey Point. It could turn out to be a gigantic failure. Unfortunately for a lot of people, it had become the panacea for putting them back on the map.

It was dark by the time they stopped in front of the community center. The center was dark. Most of the town was dark. Cab got out of the car.

“Look at that moon,” Abbie said.

The moon had risen over the derelict old pier, its light picking the broken boards out in stark relief.

“When I was a kid, there were games on the pier, and food and dancing at night out at the end.” Cab pointed to the remnant of the old pavilion. “It survived a bunch of storms. Was rebuilt time after time. But after a while, most of the vendors moved on.”

“And no one bothered to build it back,” she said.

“I don’t know that it was a question of not bothering. There just wasn’t the need for a boardwalk with Myrtle Beach only a drive away. We just kind of slowly gave up.”

“Hmm,” Abbie said, and he wondered what she was thinking. He didn’t ask. He’d spent a whole day with her, and she knew more about him than most people would in just a few hours, or even in a few weeks. But he knew very little about her. It wasn’t that she was evasive exactly. She just seemed much more interested in the sights he showed her, which was nice, and in him, which was even nicer.

“Is this what we came to see?” she asked.

“What? No. This way.” He led Abbie over to the plywood door, opened the lock, and pulled the panel across the dirt.

“This is yours?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I thought it must be a church or an old meeting hall. You don’t live here?”

Cabot laughed. “Sometimes it seems like it, but no. I have a house a few blocks away.

“It’s kind of dark. I’ll get the switch.” On the other hand, he might as well go for the full effect. So what if he appeared ridiculous. “Close your eyes.”

“What?” she asked nervously. Another of those lightning-fast changes of energy. “This isn’t going to turn out like etchings, is it?”

“Nothing kinky. I just want you to get the full experience. Promise.”

He heard her take a deep breath.

“Are they closed?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, just come this way a little . . . a little more.” He maneuvered her farther into the space, turned her around. Had second thoughts. “It’s not finished. There’s a lot of work left to do.”

“Okay. What is it?”

“Just a second; stand right there. Don’t move.”

He hurried to the old power board. Hoping that he didn’t blow a fuse, which would be a terrible anticlimax to his buildup, he pulled the levers. Lights flickered.

“What’s happening?”

“Just hold on. We’re almost there.” The lights popped on one row after another: white, yellow, red, green. Some were still missing, and one row at the base of the platform was still completely out, where he hadn’t rewired yet.

He moved to the engine. It started on the first attempt. Bless Beau. The platform began to move, the lights refracted into the mirrors. Shining on the painted panels, only half of which had been restored. Not a figure in sight, just metal poles going round and round to their own silent music.

“Okay, open them,” Cab yelled over the engine noise. He stood holding his breath. His stomach was churning so much, he could have been a boy, waiting for his first date, his first kiss, his first time of making love.

She opened her eyes. The anxiety left her features. Her eyes widened, sparkled in the whirring lights, her lips parted.

“It’s a carousel.” She turned to him and smiled. “It’s a carousel.”

He smiled back at her, relieved and gratified. But she was no longer looking at him. She was watching the lights circle past, then slowly she stretched out her arms, and turned with them. “It’s fantastic. It’s yours?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why you aren’t working as an architect anymore? You’re restoring the carousel?”

“Yes.”

“That is so cool.”

It was strange, but all his hard work, his sacrifices, his self-questioning seemed justified when he looked at Abbie’s expression. Okay, she was only one person and she might feel the need to be polite, but her amazement seemed real. Cab was so pleased that if he could carry a tune, he would have sung.

The engine began to clank, and he quickly turned it off. “Still has a few bugs.”

“It’s wonderful. You’ve done all this yourself?”

“Beau and I. Silas and some others have lent a hand now and then.”

“Where are the animals? Did you have to send them out to a carousel restorer? Are there such people?”

“There are, and I had to send some of the most damaged ones out, but most of them are in decent shape. Do you want to see?”

“I’d love to.”

“I keep them in storage. We bring out a few at a time to work on them, then send them back until we’re ready to reassemble the whole structure.” He led her over to a heavy door. “The workroom is climate controlled, concrete, and as hurricane proof as you can get.”

He unlocked the door and turned on a light. “I can only turn on a few lights. With the carousel lights on, I’ll blow a fuse if I turn on the work lights. The whole place needs to be rewired. I have a licensed electrician working on it, but it’s slow going.”

“That’s what all the wire you bought was for. I was wondering.”

“Yep. Careful. You’ll have to come back when I’m running at full speed and get a really good look in the daylight.”

He walked over to the workstation where Midnight Lady lay on her side. Her head and legs were protected by a bed of foam rubber, and she was covered with a tarp. She looked like a bundle of old cloth. He hoped that Abbie could see enough to really appreciate her beauty.

“This one . . . She was my favorite ride when I was a kid. Still is.” Gently, he took the edge of the tarp that covered her head. Lifted it up, carefully avoiding pulling it over Lady’s delicate ears.

He smiled; she always brought a smile and pack of good memories. “This is . . . Midnight Lady.” He turned his smile on Abbie, and it froze on his face.

She was staring at Lady’s head, her face stricken. Her eyes wide beneath questioning eyebrows. As if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“Abbie? What’s wrong?”

Her mouth twisted, her hand went to her throat.

“Abbie, what’s going on?”

She shook her head, took an awkward step backward, then turned and stumbled from the room.

At first Cab could only stare after her. He didn’t understand. She’d been so enthusiastic just a minute before. He looked back at Lady. Her eyes wild and free and powerful. Her mane curving in the air as if a heavy wind danced at her head. She was beautiful.

He caught a glimpse of Abbie as she ran past the carousel and out the front door. And he stood there, torn between two women. Lady was faithful, Abbie was obviously crazy. Bipolar or something. She might be dangerous to herself.

Lady would wait. He rushed out of the room, still careful to close the door behind him, ran across the open hall, and into the night.

It was so dark that it took a second for his eyes to adjust. And then he saw her, a ghostlike figure jumping down to the sand by the pier and running to the waves.

God, where the hell was she going, and what was she going to do? Panic seized him. He called after her, then he started to run.

He was just passing the community center when a specter stepped out of the dark. Cab stuttered to a stop. “Dammit, Ervina. I wish you wouldn’t do that. I don’t have time for hoodoo. I have to go.”

“No, you don’t. You leave her be. She got a sickness inside her trying to get out.”

Cabot turned on her. “Yeah, I get that, but I’d better make sure she’s okay.”

“She not gonna hurt herself tonight.”

“How do you know? The girl’s not stable.” He understood it now. The quicksilver changes from delight to sadness, from fun to anger. “Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have gotten involved with her, but I told the Crispins I’d look after her and I’m going to look after her—at least for tonight.”

“When you gonna start listenin’ to Ervina? You stay away. Mr. Beau will see to her.”

As she spoke a shadow rose from the seawall and moved slowly toward the water. Beau’s gangly stature was unmistakable even in the moonlight.

“Did you know he was sitting there?” Cab asked suspiciously.

Ervina looked hard at him, shook her head. “Ervina got the eye. She knows. Oh, she knows.”

“You creep me out when you talk that way.”

Ervina flashed him a look. Her chill-your-bones look. “It is Ervina’s way.”

“That’s just what I mean.”

Ervina laughed softly, and Cab began to get annoyed. He had one crazy lady running out on the beach at night. And another one standing next to him making arcane statements and laughing like a lunatic.