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“No. Not at all.” That’s exactly what she’d thought. “I just didn’t know you’d ever been engaged.”
“We had different values. She didn’t like island life or most of my local friends. But she had good qualities, too.”
“Just not enough for you to marry her.”
He refused to put down his former fiancée. “She took it hard. I still feel bad about it.”
And he would. The adult Mike Moody didn’t like hurting people. Maybe he never had.
He reached up to open his collar button, a simple gesture, but so completely masculine that she felt a little queasy. The sensation threw her off so much that she asked a question she’d never otherwise have posed. “Have there been a lot of women?”
“A lot? No. As much as I enjoy sex, I never slept with a woman I didn’t care about. If that makes me an oddball, I can live with it.”
It didn’t make him an oddball; it made him a decent guy. But she still wished he hadn’t brought up sex. All right, so she was the one who’d brought it up, but he didn’t have to give her any details. She wanted to believe he …
She didn’t know what she wanted to believe, and she was glad when his cell rang.
“A client,” he said, glancing at the display. “I have to take this.”
He retreated to the next room. She studied the untidy pile of books on the table. John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, a couple of motivational books, the Bible. There were some newsmagazines, Sports Illustrated, GQ. Everything looked as though it had been read, and she seemed to remember Mike trapping David into more than one conversation about books.
Through the glass doors, she could see him in the next room talking on the phone. He was the only consistent male role model in Toby’s life, the closest thing Toby had to a big brother. Or a father. She could no longer doubt Mike’s affection for Toby, but would it last? How would Toby react if Mike disengaged himself?
Each day it became more difficult to get her bearings. She could no longer tell what was self-serving about Mike and what was genuine. But she did know what was self-serving about herself … She felt a flush of shame.
He finished his phone conversation and rejoined her, but it quickly became evident that he was more interested in getting back to Toby and the dog than he was in talking to her.
LUCY SAT ON AN OLD beach towel she’d spread under a cherry tree in the neighboring orchards just out of sight of the cottage. For three days, she’d been checking the local news, but she’d seen nothing about bodies washing ashore, so she assumed the thugs who’d attacked her had survived. Too bad. Today she’d cranked the extractor, bottled honey, and cooked, but before she started tonight’s dinner, she’d slipped away to spend a little time here, lying on her back and looking at the clouds through the branches.
One of Bree’s bees landed in a spot of clover not far from her arm and dipped its proboscis into the heart of a flower. As bruises from her attack had begun to fade, everything that had been so murky was becoming clear. For years she’d lived in a skin that didn’t fit her, but the skin she’d adopted this summer had proved to be just as wrong. Had she really thought that slapping on a few tattoos and playing at being fearless would somehow transform her into the free spirit she wanted to be? This summer had been nothing more than a fantasy. Panda was nothing more than a fantasy.
She rolled to her side. Her arm looked different without its rose and thorn ink, like it belonged to someone else. She picked up the pristine pad of yellow paper t
hat lay next to her. This time she didn’t feel like running off to bake bread or take the kayak out. Instead she sat up, balanced the pad on one knee, clicked her ballpoint pen, and finally began to write in earnest.
A lot of what happened that summer, you already know. The way Nealy, Mat, Tracy, and I met has been widely documented by journalists, scholars, biographers, a few novelists, and an awful television movie. But it’s always Nealy and Mat’s story, with me in a supporting role. Since this is my father’s book about Nealy, you might expect more of the same, but I can’t write about my mother without writing about myself …
PANDA STEPPED UP HIS WORKOUTS to mark off the hours until he could finally leave the island. When he wasn’t lifting weights or out for a run, he worked around the house. He repaired the broken screen on the back porch, fixed a couple of rotted windowsills, and talked to half a dozen potential clients on the phone. It was Wednesday. Lucy had only been gone since Friday, but it felt like weeks. He’d driven by the farm stand a couple of times, but he’d seen only Toby or Sabrina West, never Lucy. Every part of him yearned to stalk over to the cottage and drag her back here where she belonged.
He glanced out the window. Temple was down on the dock again. It had been so long since she’d made a snarky remark that he was starting to worry about her. She wasn’t working out as much these days, and she barely spoke. He needed Lucy here to talk to her. To talk to him. For all Lucy’s complaining that he never told her anything, she could read his mind better than anyone.
What if she wasn’t taking care of that cut on her heel? And for all he knew, she might have a concussion. A dozen things could be happening to her over there, none of them good. Bree knew who Lucy was, and he suspected Mike Moody did, too. All either of them had to do was make one phone call and the press would be swarming. He wanted Lucy where he could watch her, damn it. And take her to bed.
He’d always been a serial monogamist. He was used to going long periods without a woman, and sooner or later he’d get used to this. But he didn’t want to. He wanted to feel her moving under him, over him, hear the catch of her breath, the soft moans, the entreaties. He wanted to hold her. Taste her. Make her laugh. He wanted to talk to her, really talk.
That brought him up short. She was too damned softhearted. If he really talked to her, she might start thinking about his well-being instead of her own. He couldn’t allow that to happen.
BREE HEADED BACK TO THE cottage from the farm stand. Lucy had disappeared, and Toby was on duty. He complained bitterly about being overworked, but Bree had turned mean lately, and she’d told him she liked making kids suffer.
“Make sure you don’t get shortchanged,” she’d reminded him.
He’d given her one of his looks, since they both knew he was quicker with numbers, and she was far more likely to have that happen to her.
She’d been halfway down the drive when something had made her stop and call back to him. “Hey, punk!”
“What do you want now?”
“Your mom was really good at math, too,” she’d said.
