Page 37 of Something Old

Madeline, who’d just shivered with the tiniest chill for the first time since getting into the water, nodded happily and waded back to shore with him.

On the beach, the sparse crowd had thinned even further. If the next small group was closer than three hundred feet, Madeline would’ve been surprised. After enjoying the sheer luxury of space Greenridge and the surrounding area offered, would she ever be able to return to suburban living? She hoped she never had to find out.

“Hungry?” she asked, wrapping a towel around her waist.

“Starving,” Grant said, but his eyes stayed on her towel-wrapping movements and didn’t stray in the direction of the basket.

“Man, you do succeed at making me feel young,” Madeline admitted.

Grant’s voice was serious. “We are young.”

“Okaaaay, right,” Madeline said, but not too, too sarcastically. Young, old, it was all relative. She fetched the basket, and remembering everything she’d packed, she was suddenly ravenous. Her stomach growled audibly, and Grant looked like he was about to tease her, but he got distracted as she started pulling out containers.

They feasted on an assortment of cheeses, fresh cucumbers and tomatoes from the local farmer’s market, cold fried chicken, and a blue cheese and bacon potato salad, which Madeline had been unsure about at first. Now she knew it would be one of her go-to summer recipes.

For dessert, Madeline offered up sliced watermelon and the fattest, juiciest blackberries she’d ever seen, which Gwen had dropped off for her.

When they were finished eating, Grant collapsed on his back on the blanket, patting his non-existent belly. “If this is the kind of treatment it’ll get me, you can kidnap me anytime, Mermaid.”

Madeline laughed at his repeated use of the silly but cute nickname. “More drowned rat than mermaid, I’m afraid.”

“No.” Grant pushed the basket, freshly reloaded with their empty containers, off the blanket. Then he reached up and tugged a strand of Madeline’s now bedraggled and stringy-as-seaweed hair. “Definitely, mermaid. I haven’t had that much fun in the water since I was a kid.”

“Me, neither,” Madeline said, but then was assailed by memories—and for once, they didn’t make her sad. “Or not since I had my own kid, I mean. Lauren loved lakes too. And ocean. Any and all water, actually.”

“Fun,” Grant said softly.

“The funnest,” Madeline agreed.

Around them, the trees started to sway gently in a cool breeze that kicked up from the lake. Madeline noticed small whitecaps forming on the water just as she realized she had goosebumps on her arms and legs. She felt Grant shiver beside her. The sun would be going down soon, and it filled her with indefinable longing. She wanted to watch the sunset. She didn’t want their day to end. She . . . she didn’t know what exactly.

“Cold?” she asked.

“Not too bad,” he said, but she saw gooseflesh rising on his skin too.

Staring up at the sky, which was turning a dusky mauve above the deep emerald canopy, she exhaled resignedly.

“No,” Grant said as if reading her thoughts. “Let’s stay. A little chill won’t kill us.”

“We could put on our clothes, at least.”

“We could, yes—but that’s not as much fun.”

Madeline shook her head, hiding a smile, though deep down, she totally agreed. Then she got an idea. “Quick, sit up.”

Grant complied, eyes curious, and Madeline scooted her butt up to the quilt’s top edge and patted the spot right beside her. When Grant moved, she reached for the bottom of the quilt and folded it up over their legs. Then, leaning over him, she tucked his side of the blanket under his thigh and did the same on her side. They were suddenly sitting very close together, and despite being sure Grant felt just as cold as she did, his legs against hers were toasty warm. She couldn’t resist jigging her cold feet and thighs against him.

“Oh.” She let out a surprised, pleasure-filled sound. “That’s something I’ve missed so much. I totally forgot how nice it feels to warm your cold bits on someone else’s warm ones.”

“That’s funny—because I’d forgotten the reverse. How horrible it is to have someone’s cold feet all over you.”

She laughed. “Lyle always let me put my cold hands and feet on him.” The words were out of her mouth before she even realized she was saying them. But it was true. And sweet. And it was the second onslaught of memory in short succession that brought only pleasure and a smile, instead of cutting agony.

“He was a better man than me then, for sure.”

She elbowed Grant’s ribs. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I was saying. Got it in one.”

He smiled at her, then grabbed a spare beach towel and draped it over their shoulders.