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She’s going to burn to a crisp, he thought.
It was a weekday, and the beach was strewn with sunbathers, but not really crowded. He could see Zack sitting close to the water, sharing a blanket with a few other kids his age. Zack already had the sort of tan it took most people a summer to acquire, and his hair was several shades lighter than it had been when they’d first arrived. Had Rory tanned that quickly, looked that good when he was Zack’s age? If he had, he’d never known it.
He returned his attention to his book and was in the middle of chapter three when the woman lying near him suddenly let out a yelp and jumped up from her blanket.
Startled, Rory looked up at her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
The woman laughed, her cheeks coloring. “I think something bit me,” she said, brushing her hand over her arm. “Probably just a horsefly.” She had deep bangs that framed her face and accentuated her chiseled features, and she was older than he had first guessed. Late thirties, or maybe even early forties.
“Oh, yeah, there are a few of them around,” he said, although to be honest, he hadn’t seen any yet this summer.
The woman suddenly stood perfectly still, staring at him, and he knew that he’d been recognized.
“You’re Rory Taylor!” she said.
“Guilty.” He rested his book facedown in the sand, glad to have an entrée to talk with her. “And you’re…?”
“Grace Martin,” she said. She sat down again, brushing her hand over the invisible bite on her arm as she smiled at him. She had one of those wide, straight smiles that was impossible to observe without smiling back.
“I live down in Rodanthe,” she said, lifting her sunglasses from the blanket and slipping them on. “I was visiting a friend up here in Kill Devil Hills, and the day was so beautiful that I decided to relax on the beach awhile before heading back.” Her hands were still shaking from her run-in with the fly, and even her voice sounded a bit tremulous, but the flush remaining in her cheeks made her look very pretty. Her sunglasses were see-through blue, and he could still make out her brown eyes behind them. There was something needy about her, and he felt an unexpected desire to comfort her by taking one of those pale hands in his own.
“What’s the beach like in Rodanthe?” he asked, although he didn’t particularly care about the answer. He just wanted to keep her talking.
“Oh, about the same as this. Not as many people, though.”
“Must be nice,” he said.
“So, why are you here?” she asked. “We don’t usually get movie stars in the Outer Banks.”
He laughed. “I’ve never been in a movie,” he said. People made that mistake all the time. “But to answer your question, my family has had a cottage here ever since I was a kid, right behind us on that cul-de-sac.” He pointed behind him. “I haven’t been back to it in a long time, but recently I’ve been thinking about an incident that happened here many years ago that might make a good episode on the show I produce.”
“True Life Stories,” she said.
“Right.”
“What is the incident?” She cocked her head, and he wondered if she was coquettish or merely curious.
“Well, a long time ago, a newborn baby was found on this beach,” he said, “right about where we’re sitting. A little closer down to the water.” Right where Zack was sitting, actually, he realized.
Grace leaned forward, eyes wide behind the glasses. “You’re kidding?” she said. “How long ago?”
It was genuine curiosity, he thought now, and it was gratifying. He’d wondered if the story would capture the interest of the general public. “Over twenty years ago,” he said. “I was fourteen the summer it happened. My neighbor, a little girl who lived across the street from our cottage, found the baby early one morning.”
“Who’d left it there?” Grace asked.
“No one knew,” he said. “They never found out. So I thought, even after all this time, it would be interesting to try to find out who that might have been. Who did it, what prompted her to do it, how has she lived with herself since then. That sort of thing. And I thought that her answers might lend some insight into the reasons for the rash of abandoned newborns we’re seeing these days.”
“It must have been terrible for the little girl who found the baby,” Grace said.
“Oh, I don’t know. She was a pretty tough little kid,” he said. And a tough grown-up as well. “Her name is Daria, and she was considered a hero. There were articles in all the papers about her. Were you living in the Outer Banks at that time? Maybe you remember reading about it?”
“I was living in Charlottesville twenty years ago,” she said. She looked perplexed. “Why was the girl considered a hero if the baby died?” she asked.
“Oh, the baby didn’t die,” he said. “That’s the exciting part of the story. She—the baby was a girl—would have certainly died if Daria hadn’t found her, but she survived, and Daria’s family adopted her. She suffered some mild brain damage, but she’s beautiful and—” he searched for a word “—charming.”
Grace looked astonished, and he knew the story was even more captivating than he had thought.
“So…where is…I guess the baby would be a young woman by now…” Grace seemed to have trouble putting her thoughts into words. “Where does she live?” she asked finally.
Rory turned and pointed behind them at the Sea Shanty. From where they sat, only the white widow’s walk was visible above the sea oats. “Right there,” he said. “She and Daria live together in that cottage.”
“Right there,” Grace repeated. She stared at the widow’s walk as if lost in a daydream.
Rory spotted Zack walking toward him across the beach. “Here comes my son,” he said with some pride, and Grace slipped out of her daydream to turn toward the boy.
“Hey, Dad,” Zack said as he neared him. “Can I have some money?”
Rory should have guessed Zack was not coming over to him for some father-son conversation.
“Zack, this is Grace,” he said. “Grace, meet my son.”
“Hi, Zack,” Grace said.
“Hi,” Zack said without really looking at her. He was waiting for Rory to answer his request.
“I don’t have any money on me,” Rory said. “My wallet’s in the cottage if you want to help yourself to a five.”
“A five? Don’t want to leave you broke or anything, Dad.” Zack grinned, glancing to his left, and Rory noticed that a teenage girl was waiting for him a few yards away. She was as tan and blond as Zack, and wore a skimpy green tankini and some glittery thing in her navel.
“Make it ten,” Rory said.
“Thanks.” Zack nodded to the girl, and both kids headed up the beach toward Poll-Rory.
“He looks a lot like you,” Grace said once Zack and the girl had disappeared over the dunes.
“He’s too much like me for his own good,” Rory said. “Do you have any children?”
“No.” She looked down at her arms, and he wondered if she realized that she was starting to burn. Should he tell her? She spoke before he had a chance to decide.
“I read about your divorce a couple of years ago,” she said. “I’m recently separated. I guess I’ll be divorced myself soon.”
“I’m sorry,” Rory said, feeling instant sympathy for her. “It’s hell to go through, isn’t it?”
“Just kind of…hard to get back on my feet again,” she said.
He remembered what that was like all too well. The loneliness, the roller-coaster of emotions. He could almost see the pain of starting over etched on Grace’s face. He wanted to know if her husband had been the one to leave. Had there been an affair? Had she, too, suffered that agony?
“Well, I had my work to keep me active and prevent me from thinking too much about it,” he said. “Are you working?”
She nodded. “I own a little shop in Rodanthe. I’m usually there, but my partner is handling things while I’m away today.” She glanced at her watch. “I didn’t realize it was so late,” she said. “I really should call my partner and tell him I got delayed. Is there a pay phone nearby?”
“My cottage is right next to the beach,” he said. “You’re welcome to use the phone there.” Her partner was a he. It was crazy, but that disappointed him.
“I hate to put you out,” she said.
He got to his feet. “No problem. Come on. I should check on my son and his friend, anyhow. Probably shouldn’t leave them alone in the cottage for too long.” He held out his hand to help her up from the blanket, and it seemed to take some effort for her to stand. Her shakiness had to be due to more than a fly bite.
“Are you all right?” he asked, not wanting to embarrass her, but her unsteadiness begged the question.
“Oh, I’m fine,” she said, brushing the sand from the rear of her bathing suit. “I’ve been ill recently, but I’m okay now.” She lifted her blanket from the sand, and he helped her fold it. Her shoulders were quite pink; she would suffer later.
As they walked over the dune to the cul-de-sac, he wondered what illness had left her so tremulous, weak and pale. She walked smoothly across the sand, though, with a fluid ease. Her eyes were on the Sea Shanty.
“You said you’ve met…the woman who was found on the beach?” she asked.
“Yes. She’s a very sweet person.”
“What about the brain damage you said she has?”
“It’s mild. Just makes her seem more childlike than someone her age.” He stepped into his front yard. “This is my cottage,” he said.
“How cute!” Grace said as they neared the front steps. Zack and the girl were just coming out of the door.
“Were you coming to chaperon us?” Zack grinned. The girl punched his arm, obviously embarrassed. “Maybe we’d better stay to chaperon you,” Zack added.
“Very funny,” Rory said. “Grace just needs to use our phone.”
Inside the cottage, Grace made a quick phone call, while Rory put on his shirt and busied himself emptying the dishwasher. It relieved him to hear nothing intimate in her voice when she spoke to her partner. She hung up and turned to him.
“Well, I’d better get on the road,” she said. “Thanks so much for the use of the phone.”
“Where are you parked?” he asked.
“Just at the end of the street.”
“I’ll walk you.” He closed the dishwasher and left the cottage with her.
“So,” she said, glancing toward the Sea Shanty, “will you take…what do you call it? Footage? Will you take footage of the Sea Shanty? Will you have the grown-up abandoned baby on the show?”
They walked side by side down the cul-de-sac toward her car. “I don’t know what shape the story will take yet,” he said. “But I’m pleased that you seem intrigued by the idea. I want to make sure it’s a story that will appeal to the masses.”
Grace laughed, and he realized it was the first time he’d seen true levity in her face. “Well,” she said, “I’m not sure I’m representative of the masses, but I certainly think the story of a foundling is interesting.” She pointed to the sedan parked on the side of the road. “This is my car,” she said.
He couldn’t let her drive away without knowing if he might get to see her again. “Do you visit your friend in Kill Devil Hills often?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “She was just down for the week. She’s leaving tomorrow.”
“Well, now you have a new friend to visit in Kill Devil Hills.” It felt strange to be that forward, yet she looked pleased.
“Why, thanks,” she said, smiling that wide, engaging smile again.
“May I have your phone number?” he asked.
“Sure.” She rattled off the number. Neither of them had anything to write on, or with, but he memorized it. As she drove away, he saw her turn her head to look again at the Sea Shanty, and he knew he had a winner of a story on his hands.
10
“SO,” ANDY SAID, “IF YOU TAKE CARE OF THE WALL UNIT, I’LL make the pantry they wanted for the kitchen. Deal?”
Daria barely heard him. She and Andy were sitting on the Sea Shanty porch, going over the designs for a house in Corolla, but her eyes were fixed on Rory. He and a woman had walked from the beach into his cottage. They’d been in there ten minutes or so, and now he was walking her to her car. He’d been bare-chested from the beach to Poll-Rory; now he wore a broadly striped white and blue short-sleeved shirt. The woman was tall and slim and had the gait of a model. Her dark bathing suit was cut high on her shoulders; her long legs probably bore no trace of cellulite. Damn.
“Earth to Daria,” Andy said. He stood up and slipped the drawings into his portfolio.
Daria smiled at him. “Sorry,” she said. “Yes, I’ll do the pantry.”
“No, you’ll do the wall unit,” he said. “I knew you weren’t listening to me.”
“Was too,” she lied. “I was just teasing you.”
Rory touched the woman’s arm, and Daria felt a strangely familiar sense of loss, the same loss she’d felt when she was eleven and he started hanging around with the older kids. She was losing him again, and she’d never even had him to begin with. She’d be the first to admit this obsession of hers was nuts.
“Do you teach your EMT class tonight?” Andy asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Wish I was in it.”
She smiled at him again. “I wish you were, too,” she said.
“See you tomorrow?” He pushed open the screen door.
“Okay.”
Rory was walking back toward his cottage now, but when he spotted Daria sitting on the screened porch, he waved and turned in her direction.
“Good luck,” Andy said to her with a grin as he closed the door behind him.
God, everybody knew she was in heat.
Rory and Andy exchanged a greeting as they passed each other in the Sea Shanty’s front yard, then Rory opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. He stopped short and smiled.
“I walked in here just like when I was a kid, without knocking first,” he said. “May I come in?”
“Of course,” Daria said, motioning toward one of the rockers. “Have a seat.” She knew he had taken a walk on the beach with Shelly a few days earlier, and she wanted to be irritated with him for it. She should be; he had intentionally discounted her concerns. But how could she be angry with him when he’d sent Shelly home in such excited good spirits? Shelly had talked of nothing else that night other than Rory this and Rory that and how she felt certain he could find her mother. This yearning for her birth mother was brand-new…at least to Daria. If Shelly had been feeling it, she’d kept it to herself all these years. Daria had talked with her sister about the possibility that Rory might fail to uncover anything new—a very real possibility, since Daria was going to do her best to make sure that was the case. Shelly had merely shrugged. “What will be, will be,” she’d said. It was an expression she’d picked up from Chloe, and Daria wondered if Shelly truly understood its meaning.
“So,” Rory asked as he sat down in the rocker, “was that someone you’re seeing?”
Daria was not certain what he meant at first. Then she understood and laughed. “No, that’s Andy. He’s a bit too young for me.” She wasn’t certain exactly how old Andy was, but he couldn’t have been more than twenty-six or-seven. “He’s a carpenter. We work together.”
