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“You do care,” Max said, but she softened as she saw the tears glistening in Temple’s eyes.
“Not as much as I care about you,” Temple replied.
Max finally melted, and they were in each other’s arms.
Watching two women exchange such a passionate kiss was a little icky but also completely satisfying. Lucy backed away to give them privacy.
Chapter Twenty-three
WITH THE EXCEPTION OF A man walking with a dog, Lucy had the beach to herself. Smaller and less accessible than the south beach, this spot on the west side of the island was mainly used by the locals, but even though it was Saturday, a thickly overcast sky had kept all but a few away. She’d settled in a sheltered spot at the base of a sand dune, her chin resting on her bent knees. Max had arrived two days earlier, and she and Temple had left yesterday afternoon. This morning, Kristi had taken off. Lucy was going to miss them. Maybe that accounted for her melancholy mood. She was making steady progress with her writing, so she had no reason to feel depressed about her work. By mid-September, she should finally be able to leave the island.
She sensed someone approaching. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw Panda walking toward her. Toby must have told him where she was.
Even though the sun had buried itself beneath the clouds, he wore dark glasses. He was clean-shaven, but his hair had grown wilder in the eleven days since she’d last seen him. It seemed like months. The knowledge she worked so hard to suppress struggled toward the surface. She shoved it back into the darkest recesses inside her where it could do no harm. While her own heart raced, he ambled toward her as casually as a tourist out for an evening stroll.
If he was mad at her for running out on him, it didn’t show. He nodded and took in her shorter hair, no longer quite as dark but still not back to her natural light brown color. She wasn’t wearing makeup, her fingernails were a wreck, and she hadn’t shaved her legs in a couple of days, but she didn’t let herself tuck them under her hips.
They gazed at each other, maybe only a few seconds, but longer than she could bear. She pretended to examine a trio of ladybugs crawling along a piece of driftwood. “Come to say good-bye?”
He stuffed a hand in the pocket of his shorts. “I’m leaving in the morning.” He gazed out at the water, as if he couldn’t stand looking at her longer than he needed to. “I’m starting a new job in a week.”
“Great.”
Another uncomfortable silence fell between them. At the water’s edge, the beach-walker tossed a stick into the lake, and his dog went after it. Whether she wanted to or not, there were things she needed to say before he left. “I hope you understand why I had to move out.”
He sat in the sand next to her and pulled a knee up, leaving a wide space between them. “Temple explained it to me. She said it was because I was an asshole.”
“Not true. If it hadn’t been for you that night—” She dug her toes into the sand. “I don’t like to think about it.”
He picked up a beach stone and rolled it in his palm. The dune grasses bent toward him as if they wanted to stroke his hair. She looked away. “Thanks for what you did.”
“I don’t need any more thanks,” he said gruffly.
She rubbed her arm, her skin gritty beneath her fingers. “I’m glad you told me about your brother.”
“I wanted to take your mind off what happened, that’s all.”
She pushed her feet deeper into the sand. “I think you should tell Bree about Curtis before you leave.”
He dropped the beach stone. “That her old man had no conscience? Not going to happen.”
“She’s a big girl. She knows he screwed around on her mother, and she needs to know about this. Let her decide whether or not to tell her brothers.”
The stubborn set of his jaw told her she was wasting her breath. She poked at a zebra mussel shell, feeling as undesirable as this invasive Great Lakes intruder. “With everything that happened, I never asked why you came back to the bar.”
“To get my car. I was pissed with you.”
“I made such a fool of myself that night. All summer, really, with my badass act.”
“It wasn’t an act. You are a badass.”
“Not true, but thanks.” She sifted some sand through her fingers. “One good thing came out of the experience. I learned that trying to slide into another skin wouldn’t fix me.”
“Who says you need fixing?” He displayed a comforting degree of indignation. “You’re fine just the way you are.”
She bit the inside of her lip. “Thanks.”
Another long silence fell, an awful, unbreachable chasm that spoke volumes about the distance that had grown between them. “How’s your writing going?” he asked.
