Summer Shadows Page 7

  As she walked past the phone, she noticed the message button blinking. Without thinking, she stopped and hit play.

  “Abby, how could you?” Her mother’s soft voice filled the apartment. The sorrow and hurt oozed over the distance.

  With a grunt that would have done Marsh proud, Abby hit delete.

  Enough was enough.

  Eight

  MARSH DROVE ABBY into town to retrieve her car, taking care to drive down Bay instead of Central, not that she even noticed. Still, he felt wise and insightful that he’d thought to protect her from the accident scene for the second time today. Too bad you couldn’t brag about a thoughtful action without its luster being thoroughly dimmed. Besides, he reminded himself like the seminary prof he was, it was the Lord Christ he served.

  Abby had given him back his sweatshirt all toasty from the dryer in her apartment, and he had it on against the cool wind off the ocean. She had on black jeans, a red knit shirt, and a black blazer. She looked sleek, stylish, intriguing. Too bad she was pushy and independent to a fault. Slightly quirky, too, with all those historical ladies she kept referring to.

  “How come you drive a Taurus?” She rubbed her hand over the gray fabric of the passenger seat.

  He frowned. Now there was a question from left field. “What’s wrong with a Taurus? It’s sturdy, dependable, and reasonably priced.”

  She nodded. “But you own a house on the beach. Doesn’t money like that mean owning a BMW or a Mercedes or something?”

  “Why waste the money when a Taurus does fine?”

  She looked at him, surprised. “A strange if practical statement for a man who just paid a fortune for a house you’ll only live in part-time.”

  He shrugged. “The house is worth every penny.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Are you nuts?” The answer should be obvious, even to someone as trouble prone and flighty as she. “Peace. Quiet. Recreation and regeneration. Ambiance, beauty, the rhythms of nature at your very doorstep. Privacy.” He said the last in tones of reverence.

  She nodded her understanding until his last word. Then she shook her head. “Privacy? With neighbors mere feet away on both sides?”

  “I don’t know them, and they don’t know me.” He set his jaw. “That’s the way I plan to keep it.”

  She looked aghast.

  “Besides,” he added, “they’re vacationers. They’re only here for a week or two tops.”

  “Walker and Jordan are here for the whole summer, like you and me.”

  He made a face. “Great.” All he needed were two little boys peering over his shoulder trying to read as he wrote, assuming, of course, that they could read.

  “Don’t you like kids?” Abby looked at him with suspicion.

  “Sure, as long as they’re someone else’s.”

  She studied him, her dark eyes trying to penetrate his skull to see how he ticked. At least that’s what it felt like. He resisted the urge to squirm.

  “No wonder you’re not married. Who’d have you?”

  He sniffed, stung in spite of her gentle, sorrowful tone of voice. “I could get married anytime I wanted.” As long as she wasn’t like Lane, but how could he ever know that? “I’m too busy to be bothered. And I happen to value my privacy.”

  “So you said. Just you and Fargo against the world.”

  “What’s wrong with that? We like the arrangement.”

  “Uh-huh.” She nodded, obviously finding him deficient. “I bet you two have very stimulating conversations.” She turned to stare out her window.

  He was more than a little miffed at her attitude. “I’ve got stuff to do, important stuff.” He frowned as he heard himself. He sounded pompous and defensive even to his own ears. Defensive he could live with. But pompous? Pompous was his father’s meat and potatoes, not his. Oh, Lord, please don’t let me become him.

  He flicked a glance across the car. What did he sound like to her?

  And why did he care?

  She turned briefly to him, then back to the window. “Yeah, important stuff.”

  He imagined he heard a slight tinge of disdain dripping from her soft voice like melted butter from a hot roll. Her tone reminded him too much of his father’s manner, and in one instant miffed gave way to irate. All his worst qualities rushing to the fore, he became even more defensive and obnoxious.

  “I’ll have you know that I have a Ph.D. in philosophy.”

  “There’s a marketable skill,” she muttered.

  He ignored her. “I also have a D. Min. in practical theology. That’s Doctor of Ministry.”

  “I know.” Her tone was patience exemplified.

  “I teach at Tyndale Theological Seminary in Ohio. I’ve got classes to prepare, papers to write. Haven’t you ever heard of the publish or perish principle?”

  “A seminary professor, huh?”

  Was that a touch of respect he heard in her voice?

  “And of course I’ve heard of publish or perish. I may be a children’s librarian, but I know about big people stuff too.”

  “Well, good for you.”

  “I’ll have you know that it takes brains and staying power to keep up with all the little Sonduks I meet in the course of a day.”

  “What in the world are Sonduks?”

  “Sonduk, singular. She was an ancient Korean queen whose genius was evident even as a child.”

  He stared at her. Quirky. “You know this because?”

  “The story goes that the Chinese sent her father some peony seeds and paintings. She looked at the paintings and said it was too bad the flowers didn’t smell. Her father wanted to know how she knew that fact. ‘No butterflies and bees in the picture,’ she said. They planted the seeds and sure enough, up came scentless flowers.”

  “But peonies have a strong fragrance,” he said, thinking of the beauties his mother used to grow.

  “Well, this variety must not have.”

  Right. “This story about little Princess What’s-her-name proves what particular point?”

  “It shows what a challenge being a children’s librarian is because kids can be so smart.”

  “Of course.”

  “They are.” She folded her arms and glared straight ahead. “And I have an advanced degree too.”

  “A Ph.D. in kiddie lit? Whoa, now there’s a hard field.”

  “A master’s in library science with a specialty in children’s literature.”

  “Children’s literature. Isn’t that an oxymoron? Did you specialize in the reading of those great tomes or the writing of them?”

  “The care and keeping of them, but I’ll have you know that writing kid’s books is no easy task!”

  “Written any?” he asked as he pulled up beside her car. He wasn’t sure why, but he relished teasing her. She rose to the bait every time, and she didn’t fail him now.

  “Not yet.” Her black eyes flashed. “But I will. You just wait!”

  “Until I’m old and gray.”

  She glared at him; he glared back. He knew he could look meaner than she could any day. Little girls with black-eyed Susan eyes and curly hair could never do mean. That was for big men who loomed. He turned toward her and leaned. She squared her shoulders and raised her chin.

  Suddenly the ridiculousness of it all struck him. Here they were, two well-educated, mature adults, playing dare and double dare. He laughed. He couldn’t help it. For a moment she stared at him in surprise. Then she began to laugh too.

  “For two smart people we sound more than foolish about now.” He held out his hand. “Truce?”

  She slid her small hand into his and shook. “Truce,” she agreed with appropriate solemnity. Then she grinned cheekily. “But my dad’s still bigger than your dad.”

  As he laughed, he thought of his father and doubted it. No one was bigger than Senator Marcus Winslow, except maybe the president, and sometimes even that was debatable.

  She reached for the door handle. “I want to thank you for bringing m
e to get my car.” For once she sounded sincere. She batted her big, black eyes at him. “As landlords go, you’re okay.”

  For some reason the compliment both irked and pleased him as he thought of some of the landlords he’d known. “Have you had dinner yet?”

  She looked surprised. “No.”

  “Hungry?”

  She thought for a second or two. “Yes.”

  “Follow me. I’ll take you to the best seafood place in Seaside. It’s a hole in the wall that most tourists miss.”

  She hesitated a minute before she said all right. It wasn’t until after they were seated and given menus that she informed him she didn’t like seafood.

  “What?” He couldn’t imagine anything sadder.

  She placed her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands. “Except shrimp cocktail. I like shrimp cocktail, but only because the sauce drowns the taste of the shrimp. I think that’s what I’ll have.”

  “Sounds good.” He turned back to the menu, which offered so many tantalizing choices that he couldn’t make up his mind. “Do you see anything you want for the main course?”

  “Shrimp cocktail.”

  He looked up. “But that’s an appetizer.”

  She nodded. “But where does it say it can’t be a main course too? Margery Russell and Dorothy Petty would have selected it as a main course if they wanted to.” She turned to their waitress. “A Caesar salad and a shrimp cocktail. Please serve the shrimp and salad together as my main course.”

  “I know I’m going to regret this,” Marsh said as their waitress hurried off with their order, “but who are Margery Russell and Dorothy Petty?”

  Abby grinned. “Margery Russell was an Englishwoman who took over her husband’s import/export business after he died around 1300. When some Spanish pirates robbed one of her ships, she robbed two of theirs.”

  “Ah, just the kind of woman you’d be proud to have as a mother.”

  Abby smiled. “Dorothy Petty was a preacher’s daughter who lived during the Renaissance and sold insurance. She was one of the most honest and successful insurance agents in London.”

  “I didn’t know they had insurance that long ago.”

  “I didn’t either until I found her story.”

  He stirred more sugar into his iced tea. “What do they have to do with you ordering shrimp cocktail?”

  “Nothing. But they have a lot to do with coloring outside the lines. Ordering an appetizer as an entrée is my small scribble outside the lines.”

  Fascinating. “It’s important to color outside the lines?”

  She became very serious. “I must, Marsh, or I’ll die. I’ve been confined to inside the lines my whole life. I’ve got to draw my own pictures!”

  Marsh had heard that same intensity, even desperation, in her comments a couple of other times today. “How did you feel confined?”

  She played with her silverware for a few minutes, and he thought she wasn’t going to answer. He couldn’t blame her. She didn’t know him except in the most superficial way, and he’d asked a very pointed, personal question, one he wasn’t certain he wanted anyone to ask him.

  In that moment his secret life weighed on him like a millstone pulling him under. What did it say about you if you did color outside the lines but went to great lengths to conceal those bold strokes of color?

  “I was always the good girl,” Abby said in a rush. “I was obedient, compliant, and cooperative. Sometimes I think that if my parents had told me to jump off a cliff, I would have.” She shuddered. “I was without a spine, and I didn’t even know it. Then I married Sam right out of college and became his sweet little wife.”

  “That was a bad thing?”

  “In that it meant I was a nonentity, yes.”

  “Maybe it was just that your goals for yourself and their goals for you agreed.”

  She looked up from the invisible design she’d been creating on the place mat with her fork. “Maybe.” She stabbed the fork in his general direction. “But I don’t think so. I think now that I was a girl, then a woman, with no mind of her own. The most criminal part of this whole situation is that I didn’t even realize it until recently.”

  Marsh thought of the feisty woman who had been driving him crazy all day and had a hard time with the picture she was painting. “I hope you’ll pardon me if I say I haven’t seen anything of this sweet, compliant woman.”

  “You haven’t?” She looked like he’d given her a great gift.

  He shook his head and couldn’t resist adding, “Though sweet women can be very restful.”

  She snorted. “Boring. That’s what they can be. At least that’s what I was.”

  “But no more?” He leaned back as the waitress set his flounder stuffed with crabmeat before him. He looked at her Caesar salad and puny shrimp cocktail. “Are you sure that’s enough food?”

  “It’s just what I want.” She tossed the salad with her fork.

  Without thinking he bowed his head and said, “Thanks, Father God, for the food, the kind inside the lines and the kind outside. We appreciate your bounty.”

  Her amen was louder than his.

  He was savoring the taste of his flounder and crab when she said, “Enough about boring me. Tell me about what you teach and why you teach it.”

  He enjoyed the academic life, so it wasn’t hard telling her about Tyndale, his students, and their endless debates on the fine points of doctrine.

  “But the ministry isn’t all doctrine, I tell them. It’s people, and people are messy. So are their problems.”

  “Practical theology,” she said.

  Pleased she remembered, he launched into some of his favorite people tales, and with little effort he soon had her laughing. She had a very nice laugh.

  Dinner passed easily, quickly, and soon she was following him home. They parked side by side and walked to the staircase. He put a hand on her elbow and prepared to help her.

  “No.” She pulled her elbow free and stepped away from him. Her warm smile robbed the movement of any sting of rejection. “I’ve had a wonderful time for my one night of riotous, intoxicating freedom.”

  He shook his head. If dinner at Moe’s was her idea of riotous, intoxicating freedom, she did lead a too-circumscribed life.

  “I thank you for providing such a relaxing ending to what was a very stressful day. But now—do you remember the old ads on TV? Mother, I’d rather do it myself?”

  He nodded.

  She looked up the steps and took a deep breath. “Me too.” Slowly she took herself upstairs. He waited to be certain she made it all right, then went inside. He had to agree with her; it had been an unexpectedly good evening.

  He was floored when she came back down and drove away at eleven o’clock.

  Nine

  CELIA FITZMEYER looked at her sleeping daughter as she lay in her hospital bed, looked at the red brush burns and deep blue bruises, at the pink fiberglass cast on her right arm. A single tear breached the dam of her lower lid and slid down her face. She swiped at it and clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. She couldn’t stop the tremble in her lips no matter how hard she pressed them together.

  So close!

  Karlee lay relaxed, her arm in the cast resting on the white hospital blanket, her scraped face slightly turned in to her pillow.

  So close!

  Celia forced herself to take deep, quiet breaths and turned her face to the window. The last thing she wanted was to frighten eight-year-old Jessica again.

  “Mommy, it’s okay. She’s going to be all right.” A small arm slid over Celia’s shoulders, and a gentle hand patted her back. “The doctor said so.”

  Celia nodded and turned to Jess who stood beside her chair. The girl’s light brown hair hung straight to the center of her back and was riddled with enough knots to give both of them a headache tomorrow when it was time to brush them out. Celia kissed her older daughter’s cheek.

  “I know she’ll be fine, sweetie. She’s just so little,
and every once in a while it hits me how close we came to losing her.” She rested her head on Jess’s fragile shoulder and drew comfort as Jess leaned her head to rest on Celia’s hair.

  “I love you, Jess,” she whispered, her voice catching.

  “I love you, Mommy. And I love Karlee.”

  Jess’s voice broke on her sister’s name, and she began to cry in great, gasping sobs that came from deep in her chest. Celia wrapped her arms around her older daughter and pulled her into her lap.

  “Shush, baby. Shush. You mustn’t cry. It’s like you said. Karlee’s going to be fine.”

  “I kn-kn-know,” Jess hiccupped. She wrapped her arms around Celia’s waist and burrowed her face in Celia’s breast. Her slim shoulders were tense, and Celia could feel her distress.

  She made little circles on Jess’s back, remembering to be easy with the pressure. Jess wasn’t a client at the spa looking for a deep massage. “Isn’t it funny how we sometimes feel worse when the emergency is over? You’d think we’d feel better.”

  Jess took a deep, jagged breath. “I yelled at her last night, Mommy. I told her she was a baby, and I didn’t want her around me ever again.”

  Celia smiled sadly. Poor Jess, awash in guilt. How Celia understood. “You didn’t mean it, honey.”

  “I did then.”

  “You thought you did then, but you didn’t really. You’re too wonderful a girl to ever want anything bad to happen to a person, especially your sister.”

  Jess sighed. “She gets in my things all the time and messes up my Barbies. I hate it when she does that, but I know it’s because she’s little. She’s only four.”

  “She loves your Barbies.”

  “She has her own.”

  Celia heard the proprietary steel in Jess’s voice. Apparently guilt went only so far. “But she can’t make her dolls as pretty as you make yours.”

  Jess nodded. “Of course she can’t. I’m eight.” And that said it all. “I had all my Barbies dressed up for a fashion show. I fixed their hair with barrettes and bows and flowers and everything, and they were wearing their best clothes.” She turned in Celia’s arms until she was looking at her sleeping sister. “She combed all their hair.”