Two Weeks in August (25 page)

Hazy stood thoughtfully while Heather told Mander about the latest mishap on her tricycle.

Mama New came forward then and greeted the guest. “Hello Amanda, how’ve you been, dear?” she said politely. “How’s your mother?”

“Oh, she’s fine,” replied Mander. “Although her headaches are back. Doc Townsend says it’s the high blood pressure medication she’s taking.”

“Well, he’s going to change it, isn’t he?” Her tone was indignant.

Mander frowned and sighed. “I suppose so, but she’s been on this pill about eight years. It’ll be tough switching her to something else.”

“Tell her I’ll stop by and see her next Wednesday when I’m in town.”

She paused and swept her heavy arm toward the bar laden with a steaming pot of shrimp, hot corn on the cob and fresh hush puppies. “You’d best come on an’ join us for a bite.”

Mander looked as though her mouth was watering but she declined the invitation protesting she had to eat with her date. Mama New would not let her leave without a handful of hush puppies, however, and she left happily munching on their steaming, oniony goodness.

“Oh, by the way,” she told Hazy through a mouthful of fried bread. “You may want to prop that door a little better. It looks like it might fall any minute. A gust come along and it’ll be firewood.”

With a wave and a muffled mutter of gratitude for the food, she was gone.

Hazy returned to the bar but the meal was suddenly subdued.

“Mema, what’s wrong,” Heather said in a piping voice as she smeared her half-ear of corn in the pile of butter she’d heaped on her plate. “You look so sad.”

A circle of butter and corn highlighted her lips and Hazy smiled finally as she looked at her. “Nothin’, little bit, you just keep workin’ on that ear there.”

“Hazel,” Mama New stated softly. “There’s somethin’ strange going on here. I think maybe we’d better talk about it.”

Hazy studied her dear round face with gentle eyes. “Soon. We’ll talk soon.”

 
After dinner, Hazy crossed the Channel Haven driveway toward cottage number eight. Nina still had not returned and Hazy was worried.

Eyeing the broken door she felt shame wash across her again. And to add insult to injury, she probably wouldn’t be able to have the door fixed as quickly as she’d hoped.

Perhaps, if Nina didn’t mind, she could work on it later this evening or tomorrow. It might also give her a chance to talk with her about the two of them. A swatch of white on the kitchen table caught her eye and she crossed to pick it up. It was an envelope and had her name written across the front.

Suddenly afraid, Hazy held it in her hands for several moments as she gathered courage, one index finger tracing the letters Nina had penned. Upon opening it, her heart painfully skipped a beat.

The envelope held only money. No note, no explanation. Only money; enough to pay the week’s rental. The money said a lot to her. It said Nina was breaking all ties with her, that she was gone and would have no reason to see Hazy again. The envelope full of money said their business contract was complete.

Hazy hung her head as the gloom of evening descended around her.

Chapter 37

Though Nina thought it was Hazy’s shouting that woke her
  
the next morning, it took only a minute or two for her to realize the shouting came from two adolescent boys who were frolicking just outside her window.

The window. She had forgotten to close the curtains completely last night and now a hot ray of sunlight was slanting across her face, making her body feel heated and sensual. She longed suddenly for someone—for Hazy—to share the sensation but forced the traitorous thought aside.

Slowly she rose to a sitting position and allowed the coverlet to slide off her satin-clad body. Blinking sleep from her eyes, she peered toward the bathroom of the small cottage she had rented from Mrs. Loreli the day before. Even willing herself in the right direction seemed like too much trouble, and Nina let herself relax back onto the bed.

She had just pulled the coverlet back snugly to her neck when the soft accented voice, which so often haunted her dreams, sounded from within the confines of the room.

“I often feel that way meself, first thing in the morning,” Hazy said quietly.

 
Nina sprang back to a sitting position and studied the room. Try as she might, she couldn’t see the rogue.

“I’m here in the chair by the door,” she said with a soft sigh.

“How dare you,” Nina said, the words barely audible in the now quiet morning air. “How dare you enter my room while I’m sleeping? I’ve never met anyone as rude as you.”

“It’s okay, love, I meant no harm. I was actually enjoying watching you sleep. Angelic you are, then. Quite different from when your eyes are open.”

Wrapping the coverlet around herself, Nina swung her feet to the floor. “I can’t believe you’ve broken into one of Mrs. Loreli’s cottages. I hope she strings you up.”

She paused and uncertainly eyed the dark corner where the voice hailed from. “I didn’t leave the door unlocked, did I?”

“No,” Hazy assured her. “I unlocked it and came in.”
  

“Unlocked it? I don’t understand. Mrs. Loreli would never have given you the key to my room.”

Hazy sighed and leaned forward. Now Nina could glimpse the lightness of her hair amid the gloom of the corner. “Emma had no choice. I’m a working woman, Nina,” Hazy said, her voice very low and very soft. “And I choose to make my living off the tourist trade. I have several places here on the island, and I’d hoped to find you at one of them. I’ve been checking registers most of the morning. And here you are.”

“If that isn’t the most low-down, underhanded thing I’ve ever heard,” Nina ground out. “Just because you own a couple rental businesses does not give you the right to go barging into people’s private rooms. That’s what we pay our rent for, you pompous ass. This cottage belongs to me as long as I pay my rent and you have no right coming in here. Now leave!”

“Nina, you don’t understand. I had to see you. This is our last chance to be together. You don’t need Rhonda
or anybody else. You and I belong together, can’t you see that?”

“Yes, I see,” Nina replied hotly. “I see what you’re trying to do.” She paused for breath. “What are you planning to do with me, Hazy? Set me up in some nice little apartment somewhere and come see me when the urge hits you?”

Hazy looked puzzled by her words. “Nina, why do you need an apartment? You have a house already.”

“You are such an idiot!” she shouted as she came to her feet beside the bed.
 
“As if something like that would go on in Grandpapa’s house! Just get out of here and leave me alone. I can’t stand to be in the same room with you. You make me sick.”

“Surely you don’t mean that, ducks,” Hazy replied softly. “Look, let’s pack your things and we’ll go back to Channel Haven and work this all out. We’ve got all the time in the world to clear up these misunderstandings.”

She moved to stand close to Nina. “Please?”
 

Nina was much too aware of her nearness and her own partial state of undress even to think coherently. She inhaled Hazy’s delicious scent and felt the air around her grow warm with body heat as Hazy approached. Feeling herself becoming lost in the sensation of Hazy’s nearness, she reacted to save herself in the only way she knew how. Brutally.

“Go away, Hazy. Do you really believe I could want you? I... have everything now. Rhonda is very rich.”

Her throat choked on the words as she tried to convince herself it was only an implied lie, not a direct one.

Hazy reacted as she’d hoped. She pulled away with a shocked hiss and her anger laddered until it fairly crackled against the walls of the room. It was several more moments before she found her voice but her breathing sounded loud and harsh in the small room.

“All right then,” she said in a voice as cool as Antarctic wind. “Have it your way. Goodbye, Nina.”
 

Hazy walked from the room, slamming the door behind her.

A sudden sense of loss left Nina with weak knees. She wanted to run after her, call her back but felt her legs would not support her weight if she tried to move. She sank back onto the bed and the gulls outside picked up her pitiful weeping and carried the cries, echoing them, to the sky.

Chapter 38

When Nina’s parents found her later that afternoon, she was sitting on top of a sand dune which bordered Little Oyster Bay.

She had been crying off and on for most of the morning and had a blistering headache. The sibilant water of the bay had not helped her mood as she’d hoped, so she had spent the past hour or so wondering where to go and what to do to take her mind off her loss.

She viewed the arrival of her parents as a blessing and a curse. They would distract her, true, but they might also see through her crocodile smiles to the pain underneath. She didn’t relish the idea of explanations, especially to her parents.

“We were worried about you,” said her father as he approached Nina and pulled her to her feet. “I actually thought you might have run away because Rhonda showed up again.”

Her mother stood on his right; a frowning Mrs. Loreli on his left. Nina studied her parents, noting anew what a handsome, happy couple they were. Her father’s tall athletic body always hovered protectively over her mother’s small form and her mother seemed to relish that comfort. Freda’s perfectly coiffed hair was almost solid white now and Nina had a hard time remembering the exact shade of auburn it had been. Throughout Nina’s youth it had been worn braided and wound into a neat coil atop her head. Then, three years ago, she’d had it styled short and rinsed to highlight the white. Nina thought it a lovely improvement, the cut framing her mother’s face and striking green eyes perfectly.

 
Nina smiled bravely and patted her father’s arm to reassure him. “No, we just talked and decided we had nothing in common anymore.”

Patrick Christie grinned. “Hey, I could have told you that if you’d have asked me. I never thought she was the right one for you.”

“Paddy, hush!” said Nina’s mother, “leave the girl be.” Turning to Nina, she embraced her daughter then studied the tear-stained face. “How are you, Nina, are you all right?”

 
Nina wanted very badly to cry in her mother’s arms as she had when she was a little girl, but this was her problem now and Mommy’s arms couldn’t take away the pain as they once had.