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“What will you add?” she asked.
“Me?”
“It’ll be yours one day.”
I hadn’t thought about that. My father had been an only child, and while I wasn’t, since my brother was gone, I guess technically, I was. I bent my neck and looked up at the house that always seemed too grand for our family.
Along with its eight bedrooms, it had nine bathrooms and indoor and outdoor kitchens. Besides the daybed, Dad had added a saltwater pool and a large pool house. That had been at my mother’s request.
The house sat on five sloping acres fronting Cape Cod Bay and had its own salt pond. Almost every room afforded a spectacular view, either of the water or the rolling marshes; even the master bathroom’s whirlpool tub—something else my dad had added—looked out on the bay.
I sighed, wondering what would come of it once my parents passed away. There was no way I’d be able to handle the upkeep involved in an old house like this, and the likelihood of me marrying someone who could, given my track record, was a flat zero. It made me too sad to think about.
“Are you okay?” Nora asked, reaching over to take my hand in a gesture that spoke of a friendship older than a few days.
“I’ve a lot on my mind.”
She followed my gaze to where Lynx sat on the sand, looking our way.
“He adores you.”
“He doesn’t know me.”
“That,” she said, pointing at him with no apology, “is not the look of a man who doesn’t know you.”
Lynx smiled and then fell backward into the sand when one of the little girls climbed all over him.
“And he’s a good sport,” she added.
“His life is in England.”
Nora was quiet for so long I thought maybe she hadn’t heard me.
“When Stephen and I first started…seeing each other… he was a resident at the hospital where I worked.” She stopped talking and waved at her husband when he blew her a kiss.
“The way we started out was…unconventional, but the important part of what I want to tell you is, when we first got involved, he’d only planned to be in the States a few more months. In fact, while we were seeing each other, he returned to England for a job interview. I was heartbroken, but had convinced myself it was for the best.”
I knew where she was going with this, and my heart wanted me to stop her. It wasn’t the same. Lynx and I had sex. That was it. There was never a time we were “seeing each other.” We’d had a couple of nights of sex and nothing else.
“I should backtrack. When I met Stephen, Brian and I were living on our own. My husband, Brian’s father, was killed in a car accident when our son was six years old.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks. Anyway, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m older than Stephen. Five years older.”
“It doesn’t appear to matter.”
“It did to me, especially in the beginning.” She cocked her head and smiled. “I’m taking too long to get to the point.”
“You’re fine.”
“Stephen was renting a room from me, and…one thing led to another and…we started having sex. It was far more complicated than that, but that’s what it was. We wrote each other these letters…” She smiled and shook her head. “That isn’t important. What is important is that I convinced myself that Stephen and I would never have a conventional relationship. He was a playboy-doctor, and I was a mom. And look at us now.”
“Yes, look at you now. What happened?”
“We fell in love, and then Stephen realized he wanted to be with me more than he wanted to live the rest of his life in England.”
“Lynx is with MI6,” I blurted and then realized I probably shouldn’t have.
