Sweet Salt Air (29 page)

“I can’t promise you anything,” she whispered.

“I know.” Lowering his head, he opened his mouth and, done with talk, kissed her until her knees were weak. “Can I drive you home?” he asked in a voice whose huskiness went further.

*   *   *

Fireworks lit the rearview mirror, but Nicole’s house was dark when they reached it. Charlotte felt only a brief hesitation. Nicole wouldn’t be back for a while, and she wanted Leo too much to wait. So she led him up the stairs, closed the door to her room, and quickly undressed.

He watched, not so much waiting as entranced, though there was nothing seductive in what she did. When she was naked, she helped him undress, leaning in to kiss his neck, his chest, his belly as each was bared, and when they joined, they held still for the longest, most trying moment, before breaking into a movement that could only be called fierce. They made love against the door, the floor, the bed, none of it gentle, but this was about truth. It was about needing to be together and needing release. It was as raw as anything Charlotte had ever felt, and it was real.

Afterward, mindful of Nicole’s imminent return, they lay together for only a few minutes before silently dressing and, hand in hand, walking down the stairs and out to Leo’s truck. He was behind the wheel, Charlotte standing on the running board, kissing him again, when he made a noise against her mouth. She drew back.

“I almost forgot,” he said and lifted her to the ground. Climbing down, he went back to the bed of the truck and pulled out a trio of pots, each containing tall, staked stems. Above fernlike leaves on each were clusters of white flowers. “For Nicole’s garden,” he said.

Catching a sweet scent—not arousing like jasmine, quite the opposite—Charlotte leaned in. “Mmmm. What is this?”

“Valerian,” he said. “The root was used during World War I to treat shock. You know, PTSD. You don’t need to touch the roots with these plants. The smell usually does it. I meant it as a peace offering to Nicole, but from the looks of her, it’ll have to be pretty potent to work. I’m not sure even my mother has that much power,” he remarked only half joking, then added, “Plant these in the sun, but don’t worry after that. Cecily will take care of them. She likes you.”

Charlotte might have asked how he knew that, but he was off, carrying the pots around the side of the house, setting them carefully at the edge of the garden before straightening and dusting off his hands.

She followed him back to the truck, kissed him lightly before he climbed inside, then watched his taillights until a cluster of trees blocked their view, and even then she didn’t move.
I can’t promise you anything,
she had said, but feeling a new ache as she watched him leave, she wished it wasn’t so.

Chapter Eighteen

B
Y THE TIME
N
ICOLE PULLED
into the driveway, she was exhausted. Putting on a show was hard work when she was being pulled every which way at once. She missed Julian, but dreaded seeing him. She missed Charlotte, but didn’t want to talk. She wanted to tell all to her mother, but didn’t want to tell the half.

She had never thought of herself as a prideful person, but she was too proud to tell her mother that her marriage was failing. She had never thought of herself as unreasonable, but she couldn’t listen to Charlotte’s apologies. And Julian? She didn’t know where to begin. She had never thought of herself as cynical, but wondered why he had married her; had never thought of herself as mistrustful, but wondered if he had a woman at work; had never thought of herself as
spiteful,
but couldn’t tell him about the cells. She was furious at him, but thought about him all the time. He had called while she was at the Matthews’, which excused her distant tone, but she didn’t offer to call him back.

Letting herself in the front door, she went through to the kitchen. Charlotte’s purse was on the kitchen counter, meaning that she was back but apparently asleep. Nicole would have given anything to sleep. Her eyes were heavy and her thoughts spent, but her body was keyed up. Caffeine with dessert? Not a good idea.

Blog, she told herself. But she wasn’t in the mood. Check for messages from Sparrow, she suggested. But it could wait. Shop online for organic tea, she proposed, but why do that when she already had the best in the cupboard?

After steeping a mug of Cecily’s passionflower tea, she carried it through the Great Room door and, pulling out one of the patio chairs, sat in the dark at the table outside. The ocean soughed gently over midnight sand. She took one deep breath to calm herself, then another, and, puzzled, turned toward the garden. Something smelled good, but it wasn’t lavender. Rising, she followed her nose to the three pots that hadn’t been there earlier. She touched the green fronds and, bending to the white clusters on top, inhaled.

She wasn’t sure what they were, but she was pretty sure where they’d come from, and while a part of her wanted to hurl them into the sea, her better instinct held back. Sitting down on the garden path, white pants and all, she inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled. In time, she felt calmer—possibly from the simple act of breathing deeply, more likely from the plants. She couldn’t be prideful when it came to these. They were definitely medicinal. They were also pretty. And she was tired of being angry.

Reasoning that since she had already benefitted from the tea, she wouldn’t be damned for accepting a second Cole gift, she looked at them and breathed of them until she was calm enough for bed.

*   *   *

Friday had the dubious distinction of starting a weekend that had effectively begun two days before—meaning that the ferry schedule was off, which Nicole didn’t discover until she reached the pier and waited twenty minutes for a boat that didn’t come.

“Not due ’til eleven,” advised the harbormaster, Roy Pepin, as he sauntered toward the dock from the Chowder House kitchen with a take-out mug in one bony hand and a half-eaten cruller in the other. “Ten minutes mow-a. G’won up and see Dorey.”

Nicole smiled, nodded, and was grateful when Roy went on his way. Since there wasn’t much for a harbormaster to do in a harbor as small as this, he tended to talk even more than other Quinnies. Holidays always brought him out, and if he was rarely seen on the pier itself, it was because he was chatting it up at one slip or another.

But Nicole wasn’t in the mood to socialize with Dorey, either. She was trying to gear up for her mother’s arrival, feeling the old pull and push, wondering how much to say when. Before leaving the house, after filling a ceramic ewer with fresh-cut peonies from the garden, she had snipped off a few valerian sprigs. Yes, valerian, Charlotte had said. Taking them from her pocket now, she held them to her nose. That they remained fragrant was a tribute to Cecily. That the scent alone, rather than tea brewed from the roots, brought relief, was also a tribute to Cecily. Nicole refused to credit Leo with this, much less Charlotte—though that anger was less raw this morning. The hurt remained, along with a certain disgust. But breakfast hadn’t been as awkward today. Granted, Nicole had finished her own before Charlotte came down, so it wasn’t a question of having to cook for or eat with her.

Nicole no longer felt she owed Charlotte for coming to Quinnipeague. A few profiles for the cookbook were a drop in the bucket, given what Charlotte owed her. Nicole feel guilty? No more! Still, she was able to ask about the flowers in what she thought was a reasonable tone, and, when Charlotte said they were from Leo, she actually told her to thank him.

She also didn’t ask the impossible—which, in hindsight, was what she had done, expecting Charlotte to approach Rose Mayes on the holiday. She did suggest talking with the minister and his wife, who, being parentless and childless, had no weekend guests and would be eager to talk. Given the number of island events held at the church, they were major players in Quinnipeague’s social scene—not to mention the mean banana-raspberry smoothie the wife kept in reserve as an alternative to popcorn on movie nights.

The wind blew her hair about, and still Nicole held those petals to her nose. When the ferry finally appeared on the horizon, she felt a yearning. She needed her mother here—needed to talk about MS and babies and the future, all of which Julian had forbidden her to discuss. And yes, she needed to talk about Charlotte and Julian. Angie was the mother, and, right now, Nicole the child.

But it wasn’t Angie who stepped off the ferry when it turned and backed up to the pier. It was her stepdaughter, Kaylin. Long dark hair caught up in a ponytail that had lost stray wisps to the wind, she wore jeans, layered tops, and tall UGGs. A large duffel hung from one shoulder, a backpack from the other.

Confused, Nicole ran to her and gave her a hug, but in the next instant she was searching the boat. Other weekenders had debarked. There was no one left.

“Mom was supposed to be here,” she said worriedly, knowing that Kaylin, who had spent so many summers with Angie, loved her, too.

“She’s coming Sunday,” the girl said.

“No. She said tomorrow, which is today.”

“She was planning to,” Kaylin explained, words coming in her typical rush, “but when she saw me at the dock in Rockland, she said you and I needed time alone.”

Nicole didn’t understand. Angie was the one she needed. “So where is
she
supposed to go
?
”

“She’s driving up the coast.”

“Alone?”

“She was grateful to see me. She said she needed more time to gather the courage to come. There’s no cause for worry, Nicki—”

But Nicole was already on the phone and, moments later, heard the same thing from Angie. The call was brief. Angie sounded fine.

Nicole was disappointed but relieved—though she couldn’t dwell on either, because Kaylin said in a frightened rush, “Dad told me he has MS, Nicki. I. Am. Staggered. I mean, thank God I wasn’t at work when he called, because I was a total mess. I don’t know anyone with MS but I’ve heard plenty, and now my own father has it. I can’t believe it, I just can’t
believe
it.”

Nicole took her backpack. “How was he when he called?”

“Tired. I mean, like, I’ve seen his hand shake, but I thought it was too much caffeine. And his balance is sometimes off. I’ve seen him kick at the carpet like it’s the carpet’s fault, which I always thought was just how he was getting older. But he sounded really, really down. He’s been sick for four years, and I didn’t know? What was he
thinking
?
”

“He was trying to protect you.”

“Like I’m ten or something?” Kaylin asked, sounding indignant. She had her father’s dark looks and regal carriage, but her mother’s attitude. “I’m twenty-one. I’ll be graduating from college next year.”

Attitude had served Monica well, propelling her up the corporate ladder, but Kaylin wasn’t quite there yet. “Speaking of which, why aren’t you in New York?” Nicole asked. “You said summer interns don’t get time off.” The girl had landed a plum spot at a major television network, hence no time planned on Quinnipeague.

“I left after Dad called. And I’m not going back. You’re right. We don’t get time off. It’s sweltering in the city, and they have us running all over the place for stupid little things like mauve-and-white polka-dot place mats for this set or a red linen scarf for that personality—which is what my supervisor calls his anchors, though the only personality those people have is on air. They treat us like furniture.”

That fast, Nicole was on overload. She had spent the night preparing to be a daughter and wasn’t up for being a mother. Struggling with the transition, she heard her father’s voice, and, in the void, repeated his words. “It’s called paying your dues.”

“Dad said that, but I’ve been there a month, Nicki. That’s long enough to know what I don’t want. Besides, his being sick puts it all in a new light.”

“He’ll be okay,” Nicole said.

“Not to hear him tell,” Kaylin remarked and, during the drive back to the house, gave a rapid-fire blow-by-blow of the discussion. “He says he’s taking part in a trial,” she ended. “He says it’s his best hope, but it’s dangerous.”

“He told you the risks?”

“He had to. I made him.” Kaylin could be dogged when she wanted something, very Monica at times. More than once over the years, Nicole had been a buffer between father and daughter.

But she felt little sympathy for Julian now. He had made his own bed, which was another of Bob’s pithy points.

Suddenly Kaylin was more frightened than confrontational. “Maybe he was exaggerating the danger. Do you think he was?”

“He was probably talking worst-case scenario.”

“I told him I’d be a donor, but he says umbilical cord cells offer more hope. Is it true?”

In lieu of taking a stand, Nicole shared what she knew. Without quite dissing stem cell treatments, she tried to put the emphasis on more conventional ones. Kaylin, bless her, kept coming back to the other.

When they reached the house, Nicole made fresh lemonade and led the girl to the garden. “Talk with me here,” she said. “I want to plant these flowers.” She needed a little soothing herself, but if the valerian helped Kaylin at the same time, so much the better.

Besides, garden work was therapeutic. Having no garden back home, Nicole only did it here, and then only when George Mayes wasn’t around to put in his tipsy two bits. In passing, she pulled spent blooms from her mother’s red snapdragons and drying leaves from the purple lisianthus, but her goal was those white valerian plants. They were doing just fine in their pots, but Nicole knew they would do better in the ground and, though she doubted the soil was right, Charlotte had insisted that Cecily’s spirit would make them grow.

Okay. So maybe Cecily was trying to butter her up into thinking more highly of Leo and Charlotte. But Nicole could play the game, too. She could pretend she felt better about them as a couple. She was good at hiding things. And she did like these plants.

“Here or there?” she asked Kaylin, indicating the site options.

Never without an opinion, Kaylin pointed. “There. Dad shouldn’t be alone, y’know.”