“Oh,” April said, touching the rings. “I am. Or rather, was. Clayton—my husband—died a few months ago.”
“Oh, God, honey—”
“It’s okay, he’d been ill for a long time.” Then she squinted up at the forlorn schoolhouse-style fixture dangling in the center of the room. “That has got to go.”
“And it will, when the flames reach the kitchen.” Mel clanged her iron skillet onto the gas range, turned the heat on high, then returned to the table. “I take it you don’t want to talk about your husband?”
“Not any more than you do the house, apparently.”
“I did talk about the house, I suggested we level it and collect the insurance. That, or turn it into an annual Halloween attraction.” At her cousin’s silence, she frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing, my hiney.” Mel waved the knife in April’s direction. “I remember that look. All too well. That look spells trouble.”
On a soft laugh, April reached across the table to briefly squeeze Mel’s wrist, before grabbing a red pepper slice and nibbling on it. “It’s nice, being here with you again.”
“Ditto. Although … I’m not the same person I was then.”
“Who is?” April said on a sigh. “Even so, despite the clutter and the filth and wildlife I don’t even want to think about, being back here … it’s like time stood still. Not that I feel like when we were kids—and heaven knows I wouldn’t want to—but it’s like the me I am now can feel the me I was then looking over my shoulder. Didn’t expect that.” She paused, then said, “So did you keep up with Ryder or what?” When Mel shot her a what-the-hell look, April grinned. “It’s hardly an illogical question, Mel. Well?”
“No.”
“Really? I mean, I know how close you two were—”
“We were childhood buddies, that’s all,” Mel said, wondering if it was too late to bake something. As if that was a serious question. “Besides, he went off to med school, and Mama and I moved to Baltimore after Dad died, and … we lost touch—”
Quinn bounded into the kitchen—Mel had often wondered if the child had springs on the soles of her feet—and straight to the table to snatch a carrot slice. “When’s dinner? I’m about to expire from hunger.”
“Ten minutes,” Mel said, carting the chopped veggies to the stove to dump them into the sizzling oil. “You can set the table. Dishes are up there.” She nodded toward the cupboard next to the sink. “Used to be, anyway.”
After filching a pepper slice, Quinn swung open the cupboard door, nearly gagging when she pulled down an avocado-green Fiestaware plate that looked like it hadn’t been washed in twenty years. “Gross!”
“Hey,” April said with a laugh. “When we were kids we’d’ve rinsed it off and called it good.”
“And you, child of mine,” Mel said as she stirred, “used to lick the kitchen floor.”
Shock and horror bloomed in Quinn’s blue eyes. “Did not!”
“Got the video to prove it. You apparently have the immune system of an android. Palmolive’s right on the sink, baby. Go for it.”
After dinner, during which they talked, and laughed, and reminisced more than Mel had any idea they could, Quinn disappeared again to poke through those ten thousand books—heaven!—while April and Mel cleaned up. Her hands deep in Palmolive suds, April looked over at Mel, drying the dishes and stacking them on the counter rather than putting them back with their disgusting little friends.
“Dinner was fantastic. You always cook like that?”
“Thanks. And yes. Cooking’s my thing.”
“Really? Huh.” Behind her, Mel heard sudsy swishing. “So … is Quinn’s father in the picture?”
“Nope,” Mel said lightly. “Never has been.”
More swishing. Then: “Is she Ryder’s kid?”
Yeah, she’d expected that. Still, the assumption needled. Especially since there were other people in town who’d be all too eager to leap to the same conclusion. “No. As I said, Ryder and I were friends. Good friends.” She felt a tight smile tug at her mouth. “There was no way anything untoward would have happened between us. He would have never let it.” At her cousin’s silence, Mel turned. “What? You don’t believe me?”
“Oh, I believe you. But I also remember that last summer we were all together, when Ryder took the three of us out on his dad’s boat.” Hauling the clean skillet onto the drainboard, April slid Mel a devilish grin. “I also remember the way he looked at you when he thought nobody would notice.” A wet hand pressed to her chest, she released an exaggerated sigh. “And I thought if a boy looked at me like that? I’d absolutely die of happiness. Die, I tell you.”
“And how many romance novels did you read that summer?”
April belted out a laugh, the sound unexpected from her delicate frame. “Best. Summer. Ever,” she said, and even Mel had to smile, at how they’d discovered their grandmother’s stash of old, yellowing Harlequins in a trunk on the porch, clandestinely stashing them in their beach towels to read aloud to each other as they sunbathed. Damn books were probably still in the house somewhere. If they hadn’t completely disintegrated by now—
“However,” her cousin went on, “I also caught the way you looked at him. And don’t you dare try to deny it. These eyes know what they saw, yes, they do.”
Overhead, Mel heard the floorboards creak. “Fine,” she said with a quick glance toward the ceiling. Either Quinn had changed rooms upstairs or there was a raccoon the size of Cincinnati up there. “So I might have had a little crush on him. I mean, I suppose it was inevitable, considering how kind he’d always been to me.”
April laughed again. And flicked water at her.
“He was my friend, April,” Mel said, zapping her cousin with the damp towel. “And that was the only thing that mattered.”
Wringing out the sponge and laying it on the edge of the sink, April turned to her with a frown. “Then why’d you two stop talking to each other?”
“Because we just did!” Mel slammed the last plate a little too hard on the pile, then shut her eyes, thinking, Yeah, hand her the gun to shoot you with, why not?
She heard April dump the sudsy water into the sink, yank another dishtowel off the old “finger” rack under the counter.
“That’s probably not dry yet,” Mel muttered. “I just washed it this afternoon.”
“It’s fine.” April wiped her hands and hung the towel back up, then leaned closer to the sink to look out the window at the plum-colored sky. “I didn’t mean to upset you, honey. But being back here … guess it’s made me a little melancholy. Like I want to recapture a little of that magic, you know?”
“I do, actually. But it’s not possible.”
“I know. Still, it’s sad. You and Ryder losing touch.” She turned to Mel. “Don’t you think?”
“I don’t. Think about it, I mean.” Or at least she hadn’t until a five-minute phone call once more snatched the rug right out from under her.
“You think you’ll see him while you’re here?”
“Not planning on it. And can we please change the subject—?”