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Becca opened a groggy eye. She’d slept like a rock after making love to Hudson, and sometime during that time, the storm had passed. Struggling to sit up, she found him at the foot of the bed dressed only in jeans, his hair dark from a shower, his torso as bare as his feet.
“Weather’s better,” she observed as sunlight streamed through the now unshuttered window.
“Don’t count on it lasting. Supposed to get colder again. Maybe snow in the passes.”
Becca groaned. “What time is it?”
“Nearly ten.”
“Really?” She couldn’t remember when she’d slept so late. She blinked and stretched as Hudson walked to the coffeepot and poured some into a cup.
“Here, this is all that’s left, but there’s breakfast until eleven, so…”
“I’m up!” She rolled out of bed and padded to the bathroom where she got a glimpse of herself and cringed. Her hair was a tangle, her face still heavy with sleep, her makeup long gone. What had Hudson called her? Sleeping Beauty? A bad joke at best.
She showered, slicked her hair into a ponytail, applied minimal lipstick and mascara, then pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. Hudson had already walked Ringo, so they, along with one other couple who looked to be in their seventies, ate a breakfast of a spinach quiche, fruit cup, and cinnamon rolls that, the owner of the establishment confided, were baked at the local bakery.
“You own this place long?” Hudson asked as the tall, lanky man brought them a new pot of coffee.
“Nearly twenty-five years. Will be this September. My wife and I decided to give up the rat race and move here from Chicago. This old house was for sale and we converted it to a B and B. We’ve never looked back.”
At the next table, the woman waved her hand. “Is there any more orange juice?” she asked, and the owner/waiter hurried off to the kitchen. Becca looked out the window toward the ocean, now calm, beams of sunlight bouncing off the restless gray water.
The beach far below was littered with debris, driftwood, seaweed, the shells of dead clams and crabs. Seagulls wheeled and cawed above the small strip of sand. Waves came and went, lapping the shore and leaving bits of thick foam as they receded.
They finished their meal and then Hudson opened a thick sliding door and he and Becca stepped onto a deck that ran the length of the building. Despite the sun, the air was crisp and cold, and though there was no wind, the surf continued to echo against the cliffs. To the south was the bay, a few brave fishing vessels having already slipped over the bar and into the sea, and to the north was a curving peninsula of rocks and trees, a narrow cape stretching clawlike into the ocean. A few black rocks, islands unto themselves, protected the cape’s shoreline. F
arther out, atop a rocky mound, was a lighthouse, a tall spire rising into the heavens. Farther still, an island sat on the horizon, mist shrouded and about a half mile out.
Becca stared at the lighthouse and shivered against a sudden rush of cold air. She turned back inside.
They checked out of the bed and breakfast, packed up the car, then walked into town. It was nearly noon, a few people on the streets. Hudson had the address and knew where the key to the cabin where Renee had stayed was located. The yard was overgrown, the carport sagging a bit, but inside the cottage was cozy, though it seemed to Becca as if she’d stepped back in time at least twenty years. The futon had to have been built in the seventies, and the television was similar to one her parents had bought while she was in grade school.
She noticed the desk, imagined Renee working here, her near-black hair shiny under the tension lamp.
Unexpectedly, her throat thickened and tears burned the back of her eyes. She couldn’t believe Renee was gone. Gone forever. She thought of Hudson’s twin and wondered what Renee might have been doing.
“Feels odd,” he said, his mood matching hers as he walked through the few rooms, his footsteps creaking on the old floorboards.
“Yeah.” Becca noted the faded pictures on a wall of a family decked out in yellow windbreakers while standing on the deck of a fishing vessel, the open sea swelling behind them.
“Okay, I think I’ve seen enough,” Hudson said and they locked up the cabin and walked into the center of town, where, unlikely as it was, Becca felt that same chill deep in her soul, the one that had been with her since driving into the town. A few pedestrians littered the streets, a man walking his dog, a woman jogging behind a stroller, skateboarders weaving along the sidewalk, the hoods of their sweatshirts nearly hiding their faces as they flew past.
The Sands of Thyme bakery was filled with customers, a line for cinnamon bread that had just come out of the oven, the shop filled with the warm scents of spices. The pizza parlor had a sign that said it was closed for the winter and a kite shop, too, was locked up tight.
They bought coffee and walked along the waterfront where beachcombers searched the strand for treasures washed up by the storm.
On their way back to the car, while Hudson tied Ringo to a post outside, Becca wandered through the open door of a shop that smelled of soap and candles, where antique dressers, tables, and armoires displayed smaller items. Everything, including the hanging lights, had price tags attached.
The clerk, a prim woman in her sixties with straight white chin-length hair and a wary expression, sat on a stool near an antique cash register, a half-finished knitting project on a ledge near the window where a calico cat sat, tail curved under its body, as it basked in the sunlight streaming through the windowpanes.
There was one other customer in the shop, a stooped woman with iron-gray hair and gnarled hands who was interested in a case of antique buttons.
Her knitting forgotten, the tight-lipped clerk eyed the woman like a hawk, as if she suspected her of pocketing some of the merchandise.
The old woman was oblivious. “Aren’t they pretty?” she said, looking up at Becca with flat eyes. She was fingering a mother-of-pearl button that glittered under the overhead lights.
Becca eyed the luminescent button. “Yes. Very.”
