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“I’ll always want to leave,” Jimmy vowed.
“Why?”
“Because this place is stupid.”
Grace experienced an unusual twinge of protective loyalty toward her hometown. “No, it’s not, Jimmy. This is where your parents grew up. It should be interesting to you for that, if for no other reason.”
“Do people here hate Dad?”
The question was so unexpected that for a moment Grace couldn’t formulate a response. “Why on earth would you think that?” she asked at last.
He smushed the topsoil bag with his toe, staring intently as he did so. “You do.”
“I don’t,” she said, trying to convince herself that it wasn’t a lie. “Dad and I just can’t be married to each other anymore. There are lots of people I can’t be married to whom I don’t hate.” Luke Stewart came to mind, a little joke from her subconscious.
“Does everyone know he left us?”
It broke her heart that Jimmy felt the abandonment so keenly. If Michael had a bit of heart to go with his good looks, he would have made more of an effort to maintain contact with his son. Since the divorce, though, he’d been in California seven months out of twelve and had only seen Jimmy about once a month when he was around.
“No one knows the details of what happened with Dad.” Of course, everyone knew at least some version of it. She’d heard several variations on the story herself. “You know what? Most people I’ve seen are just so glad we’re here. I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me and said what a fine young man you are.”
Jimmy’s face reddened. “They don’t know me.”
“But they want to. Give them a chance, Jimmy. You might really like them.”
He shrugged.
“And look at all this room you have.” She gestured at the backyard with the trowel she had picked up again. “We didn’t have a tenth of this in New Jersey. I think you’re going to have a lot of fun out here this summer.” She got up and went to him, pulling him into her arms. “I know it’s hard, buddy. It’s kind of hard for me too. But if we stick together and make the best of things, I think we might end up even happier than we were before.”
That much, at least, she believed. It was certainly possible for her to be happier divorced than she’d been with Michael. From the day they’d married, she’d felt a certain sense of this is it? They’d dated in high school and college and everyone had expected them to get married, so they had. They’d moved to the suburbs, bought two cars, had a child, done all the things that were expected.
If she was honest, Grace had to admit that it wasn’t the stuff that fairy tales were made of. In a way, she couldn’t really blame Michael for wanting something new. What she blamed him for was the way he set about getting it, and the way he’d treated his family—his son—in the process.
“There is one thing that might make me happy,” Jimmy said slowly.
Grace frowned. “What’s that?”
“A dog.”
“A dog.” Just as her mother had suggested.
She liked dogs. She’d had one herself, growing up. So why was she so resistant to the idea?
She knew why; it was because Michael was allergic, or at least he’d claimed to be, though she’d never seen him so much as sniffle. She remembered, with some irritation, how, during her teenage years, they always had to put Buff, her golden retriever, in the laundry room when Michael was coming to the house. Before now, a dog for Jimmy hadn’t even been a possibility.
Now it felt as if getting a dog would be the final nail in the coffin of her marriage to Michael.
“I think it’s a great idea,” she said.
He brightened. “Really? I can get one?”
“Are you going to take care of it? Feed it, walk it, brush it?”
“Yes!”
“Then I don’t see why not.” It was so good to see that hope in his eyes again. She smiled and pulled him into a hug again. “Why don’t you think about what kind of dog you want, big or small, and we’ll go to the humane society tomorrow and look.”
“Yes!” He pumped his fist in the air. “I’m gonna have a dog!”
And we’re really building a home without Michael now, Grace thought, without regret.
“Go on in and get ready to go to Jenna’s now,” she said to her excited son. “I’ve got to go back to the school for a couple of hours.”
For once, he didn’t argue. He skipped into the house so lightly she wouldn’t have been entirely surprised to see him click his heels together. She would bet he’d clean his face and hands without being told.
She picked up her gardening tools and dropped them into a bucket by the door before stepping into the cool, air-conditioned house.
“Will you be going out tonight?” her mother asked when she walked into the kitchen to get a glass of iced tea.
“I don’t think so, why?”
Was it her imagination, or did her mother blush? “I might have some company, and I wondered if you would be around.”
“Company? Who?”
Her mother took a cloth and busied herself drying dishes that were already sitting, dry, in the rack by the sink. “Oh, it’s not important. Just a member of my bridge club.”
Grace was interested. “A male member of the bridge club, by any chance?”
Dot set the cloth down and looked at her daughter. “Now why on earth would you ask that?”
Grace laughed. “Because, Mom, you’re acting very cryptic about this whole thing.”
“I certainly am not!”
“Okay, okay. Look, do you want Jimmy and me to get out of here tonight so you can have your friend over? We could go to a movie or something.”
“Grace Ann Perigon, you do not need to leave the house so I can have a friend over! I merely asked because I wanted to plan on how many pretzels to buy if I had company. But, now that I think of it, I’ll probably go out to the movies myself.”
Her mother was definitely hiding something, Grace thought. It was either a boyfriend, plans for a surprise party, or she had joined a cult and it was her turn to host the meeting. Assuming it wasn’t the latter, Grace’s birthday wasn’t for two months, so it had to be a boyfriend. But why hide that?
Grace suspected she knew why. “You know, Mom, if you ever did want to date someone…” What could she say without sounding condescending? It wasn’t her place to approve or disapprove, but she had a feeling her mother might worry that she would feel weird about it. “Well, I just think it would be a good idea.”
“What would be a good idea?”
“You dating. If you met someone. Although,” she added cynically, “who you could meet around this place, I don’t know.”
“There are lots of nice men around here, honey. You’ll meet someone.”
“Who said anything about me?” Three days earlier Roger Logan, who had a wife and four kids, had approached her in the produce section at the supermarket and asked if she wanted to meet him for a drink later. That about summed up the options for Grace here. She wasn’t even thinking about dating for herself.
Her mother smiled and took two glasses out of the cabinet. “This is about you, isn’t it?” She went to the refrigerator and took out the pitcher of iced tea.
“What do you mean?”
Dot poured and handed a glass to Grace. “All this negativity about Blue Moon Bay? Sometimes I think you’re looking for excuses not to like it here.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because it reminds you of the years you spent with Michael?”
And the years she spent before that, years in which she could have been taking a different direction with her life. “You think you’re pretty smart, huh, Mom?”
Dot smiled. “It runs in the family.”
Grace raised her glass to her mother, drank, then went to her room to shower before going to meet Luke. Not that she wanted to impress him; it was just that her pride prevented her from showing up filthy and giving him one more thing to dislike about her.
She stripped her clothes off in the bathroom and looked in the mirror. The strong afternoon sun had toasted her skin, leaving a white impression of her halter top behind. The light in this bathroom had always been flattering, and made her tan look deeper than it was. For a moment, she felt as though she’d time-traveled back to a summer two decades before, when she used to cover her Roxy Music album in tin foil and prop it on her chest as she lay in the sun, wearing no more protection than baby oil. She shuddered at the thought now and wondered how many of the faint lines around her eyes she could attribute to that, and how many to the stress of Michael’s abrupt exit.
She took a quick, cool shower, wrapped herself in a towel and went back to her room. It was only five o’clock. There was time for her to rest for a few minutes before going out, so she lay down on the bed and stared at the faded rose wallpaper.
She remembered when her father had first put it up for her. She’d been eight and had just danced in her first ballet recital. Daddy had told her she was a real little lady now, and he let her pick out new “grownup” wallpaper to replace the zoo pattern they’d put up when she was a baby.
This wallpaper had seen her through a lot. The sketched red flowers had hung there, bright but just a little melancholy, through giggly sleepovers; all-night teenage telephone conversations; delirious first dates and tearful breakups; her dog Buff’s death; getting ready for her high-school prom—and her wedding day.
And if the wallpaper had absorbed anything of her thoughts over the years, it had absorbed more than a little Luke Stewart, especially during one summer when, briefly, their relationship had changed.
Grace and Luke’s association had always been…heated. Throughout their high-school years, it had seemed to be the typical animosity that tended to exist between a guy’s best friend and his girlfriend. They argued over almost everything, from which weekend nights were for Grace to whose fault it was when Michael came over at 3:00 a.m. drunk after a night “with the boys.” Come to think of it, they argued a lot about who was at fault for Michael’s shortcomings.
But right after Grace’s senior year of high school, things had changed. The long, hot summer had stretched by with Michael away looking at colleges. Grace had stayed behind, dutifully spending time with Jenna and being available for Michael’s occasional long-distance calls.
Then one evening Jenna, who pronounced herself sick and tired of Grace’s inactivity, talked her into going to the boardwalk over in Ocean City. Jenna met a guy in a T-shirt shop and disappeared with him, cropping up every half hour or so to promise Grace she’d just be “a few more minutes.”
Grace had waited for an hour and a half, sitting there in her prissy sundress, wondering how Jenna got the nerve to just go off with some guy she didn’t even know and do God-knows-what. Just as Grace was getting ready to give up and call a cab to take her home, Luke had shown up, like some dark knight in a white El Camino. He’d offered her a ride and, telling herself it beat paying for a 40-mile cab ride, she’d accepted.
But that wasn’t entirely true. The prospect of riding all the way home with Luke wasn’t exactly unappealing. In fact, it was sort of…exciting. Thrilling. Maybe even dangerous. Under the boardwalk lights, his dark hair gleaming and his skin tanned to brown, making his pale eyes seem even lighter, Luke certainly looked dangerous. That, contrasted with the unexpected chivalry of his offering to drive her home, had made him irresistible to her that night.
She watched him in the dim dash light as he drove home. His hands strong and capable on the wheel, forearms lean with sinewy muscle, his profile straight and masculine…by the time they made it back to Blue Moon Bay, Grace had kissed him a thousand times in her mind.
Although she could never know the evolution of his thoughts that night, he must have begun to see her in a new light too, because he didn’t go directly to her house when they got to town. And she didn’t ask him to. Instead, they circled the quiet streets by the shore, eventually stopping at the small Jolly George “Fun Park” at the end of the boardwalk, where there were a few ancient rides—a wooden roller coaster and a Ferris wheel, that were open in the summer evenings.
They walked through the park, neither touching nor drawing apart, for what seemed like hours, talking about everything. Grace wondered how she’d never seen this side of Luke before. Granted, he only showed the world his silent, somewhat intimidating, exterior. But she’d never even imagined the sensitivity he had; the fact that he was artistic and liked to draw; the fact that he worried about, and had taken care of, his father since his mother’s death. It was hard to believe, but the guy who had been a thorn in her side since she’d begun dating his best friend was suddenly touching her heart as no one ever had before.
They were by the Ferris wheel when the guy who was running it announced that there would be just one more ride that evening. Grace, to whom Luke had just confided that he’d never gone on the rides here as a child, insisted that he had to go on with her. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.
The Ferris wheel had only taken about five turns when it got stuck, with Grace and Luke at the top. It was the first time she realized she had a fear of heights. It was also the first time she realized that kisses could be more than a bland precursor to pleas for sex and guilt for not complying.
Grace lay on her bed now, aware of Jimmy down the hall but caught up in the honeyed memory of a summer night that she’d stored away in the back of her mind for so long.
She closed her eyes and felt herself back in the cool metal seat next to Luke. It felt as if they were in space, a million miles from the bright lights and popcorn-strewn ground below. It was terrifying. When the wind lifted, the old seat squeaked on its hinges.
“What’s wrong?” Luke had asked, just as she felt the blood drain from her face.
“We’re stuck.” It was stupid. She’d never been afraid of a Ferris wheel before.
Luke must have thought it was stupid too. “So what? He’ll get it going again.”
“Did you see that guy?” Grace’s panic mounted. “Did you smell him? I bet that was a bottle of Mad Dog he had in his pocket.”
Luke shrugged. “Either that or he was glad to see you.”
“Luke, I’m serious.” Her voice rose thinly. “I’m scared.”
“Really?”
“Yes!”
“Shh. It’s okay.” He put an arm around her, a little awkwardly.
“How do you know? This thing’s fifty years old if it’s a day. It has to die sometime. Maybe this is the night.”
“Nah.” He was totally calm. “This happens all the time. These old motors overheat and just give out temporarily. Sparky down there will keep fidgeting with it, pushing the arm on and off, until it cools off some and starts to run again and he’ll think he fixed it.”
Grace laughed, despite her fear. Down below she could see the ride operator doing just that. It made her feel better. “You’re sure?”
“I guarantee it.”
“Okay.” She breathed. Her shoulders relaxed under his arm but he didn’t move it. He probably just forgot, but she was glad. “In the meantime, we’re trapped together,” she said, testing for his response.
He looked into her eyes, making her shiver. “Yeah.”
A moment passed.
“How long do you think it will be?”
“I don’t know. Ten, maybe twenty, minutes.”
“Ugh.” She glanced back down at the flummoxed ride operator and felt woozy.
“Look up,” Luke said quietly, lifting her chin with his index finger, then pointing to the stars. “You’ll feel better.”
He was right. The sky was a deep satin purple, so starry it seemed flecked like a dark tablecloth with spilled salt. She caught her breath. “It’s beautiful.”
“It is,” he agreed, but he was looking at her, not the sky.
A thrill fluttered over her as she pretended not to notice. “It looks like the sky in a children’s picture book.”
“I don’t know where you come up with this stuff,” he said, shaking his head. “Everything’s poetic to you.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing.” He smiled. “But what are you gonna do when you’re out of school and you need to live in the real world?”
“I do live in the real world.”
He gave a completely cynical shrug. “I wish.” Then he looked at her. “For what it’s worth, though, I like it.”
Did he like her? Before tonight, she wouldn’t have thought so. “Maybe I should write children’s books for a living, huh? Avoid the real world entirely.”
He laughed. “Girls like you don’t need to live in the real world. You’ll marry someone rich and do whatever you want.”
For some reason his saying that gave her a small pang. Not that she wanted to be with him or anything, but there was something disconcerting about him pawning her off on some imagined rich guy in her future. “So what happens to guys like you?”
He looked very serious. “I don’t know.”
She wanted to reach out to him. “What do you want?”
His gaze remained steady. “Doesn’t matter.”
She swallowed hard, trying to will away the desire that was snaking through her chest. Instead, she looked back over the edge of the seat. “So. This doesn’t bother you a bit, huh?” She tried to laugh.
“I think you could say I’m bothered,” Luke said softly, his gaze flickering from her face to her hair and back to her eyes, making her tingle as if he’d touched her.
“By the height?” she asked, looking up again so he wouldn’t see the real question in her eyes.
“No.”
Another moment passed, but something pulsed between them.
She turned to face him. “Then what?”
His mouth quirked up just a tiny bit on one side. “Now what do you think?”
“I don’t know,” she lied. She was terrified to say anything else. Terrified that she was wrong, that he wasn’t feeling what she was.
He stared into her eyes for a moment, then shook his head, laughing softly. “You do.”
Electricity worked its way from the pit of her stomach to the center of her being. She shifted in her seat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said haughtily, looking back at the sky.
“Don’t you, Grace?”
“No, I don’t.” Her lips felt full with the desire to be kissed. It was crazy—he hadn’t touched her, but she was experiencing every physical response in the book.
He didn’t say a word.
Instead, she felt his hand on her face, turning it toward him, then he captured her mouth with his, in a kiss so deep that it left her gasping.
“Now that makes me nervous,” he said huskily, his hand still cupping her cheek.
For a moment, she stared at him wordlessly, trembling in the warm night air. Then, following an impulse she’d never even dreamed of, she initiated another kiss.
He responded hungrily, opening his mouth under her parted lips and drinking her in so thoroughly that he might have taken some of her soul.
He moved his strong hands down her ribcage, across the thin cotton of her sundress. She felt safe in his grasp. Warm. Excited. He drove her wild yet at the same time made her feel utterly secure.
She raised her hands, twining her fingers in his thick dark hair, and pulled his mouth still closer, if that was possible. She wanted to stop him from stopping. As her mouth moved against his, she pressed herself against him, begging wordlessly for him to continue, to keep kissing her forever.
It felt as though he would. They groped at each other like the teenagers they were, touching, tasting, fumbling. Their teeth knocked together and they smiled, but only for a moment, before the fever of lust took them over again and they took it deeper, tongues touching, exploring, lingering.
“I hope we stay stuck here all night,” Grace breathed.
“It’ll cool off.” He spanned her lower back with his hands, then slowly moved her legs across his lap.
“I hope not,” she managed to say before drowning in sensation.
Luke’s hand moved across her hip, then her thigh, caressing her in broad, languid movements.
She relaxed her legs, parting them slightly.
He edged his hand higher and higher on her thigh, raising her dress with it, then slipped his hand between her legs, pressing gently against her. Only the thinnest fabric lay between his skin and hers.
Grace tried to catch her breath but couldn’t, arching against him, begging silently for more. She felt him smile against her mouth for a moment, then he complied, artfully touching her as if she were naked.
She might as well have been for the dizzying response she had. She reached for the front of his jeans and felt his hardness behind the thick denim and stiff zipper. With shaking hands, she fumbled with his belt buckle, but froze when he slipped a finger around the cotton crotch of her underwear and plunged a finger into her.
She’d never felt like this before. Never let Michael this close. She didn’t know what insanity was making her allow Luke to do it, but it was too late, she couldn’t stop.
She didn’t want to stop.
His instincts were perfect. He weakened her with every stroke, instinctively knowing when to tease her and when to enter her. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it would burst, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was this moment, this man, this feeling.
And then, in a moment, something exploded inside of her, leaving her clinging to him and shuddering, as wave after wave of pleasure splashed upon the shore of her resolve.
It seemed to go on forever, then slowly the world came back into focus, with just a few shimmering streamers of ecstasy drifting through the sky before her.
“I—” She couldn’t speak. “I’ve never—”
He silenced her with a gentle kiss.
She held herself against his shoulder, burying her face in the crook of his neck.
The wind rose, and the seat creaked again. It had probably been creaking the whole time, only she hadn’t noticed.
“I’ve never done that before,” she said finally, in a rush of breath.
Luke touched her cheek tenderly.
“We shouldn’t have…this is crazy…”
He pulled back and looked at her with sharp eyes. “What?”
“Well, I mean, Michael…”
For a moment, he looked as if she’d slapped him. “Right. Michael.”
Something in her deflated.
“He’s probably been calling, wondering where I am,” she said, trying to think what she’d say to Michael about tonight.
Luke let out a long breath. “We’d better tell him the truth about this.”
“No!” She could imagine his response. He’d be livid. “No, we can’t.”
“It’ll be okay,” Luke said. “You want me to talk to him?”
“Oh, God, no, you can’t. Let me think.” But her mind was blank. Luke had erased everything. It wasn’t that she wanted to maintain her relationship with Michael. After what had just happened, she couldn’t imagine going back to him. She just didn’t want to end it in an explosion of jealousy and accusation. “If it looks like I ran off with his best friend, it will humiliate him.”
“Look, I’ll just tell him I made a pass at you,” Luke said, before she had the chance to tell him what she was thinking. His voice had cooled. “But that nothing really happened. That’s the truth, after all. Nothing much really happened. It’s not like we did it all.”
Nothing had happened? She had been intimate with him in a way she’d never been intimate with anyone, in a way she’d intended to save for her wedding night, but Luke thought nothing had happened?
Shame burned in her cheeks. “That’s right. Nothing happened. So why get Michael involved? He’ll just be mad at both of us, and for no real reason.”
The Ferris wheel jerked to life, easily lowering them to the ground.
“Perfect timing,” Luke noted. “I guess it’s a sign. Come on, I’ll take you home.”
In the end, neither one of them had to tell Michael. Susan Howard, who lived across the street from Grace and who had a massive crush on Michael, told him she’d seen Luke drop Grace off very late one night. It was all he needed to hear. He’d immediately jumped to the wrong—or maybe really the right—conclusion.