He leaned over to shake her hand. “Hi, Jill,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”
Jill laughed. “Just don’t go telling me I haven’t changed a bit,” she said.
“You look great,” he said, and he meant it. Despite the weight, she was an attractive woman. She still had those enormous blue eyes rimmed with dark lashes.
“I’ve already met your son,” she said.
“You have?” He glanced around him at the surrounding bodies, slick with tanning lotion, wondering if Zack was nearby.
“Uh-huh. He’s about fifteen, right? Same age as my son, Jason. They met on the beach a couple of nights ago and have been hanging around together. Although I hear your son already has his eye on one of the Wheelers’ granddaughters.”
He did? Rory was definitely out of touch with Zack.
“Probably Kara,” Shelly said. “She is so cute.”
“Daria said you’re in charge of the bonfire this year,” he said.
“This year and every year,” Jill said. “Those bonfires have always been my fondest memory of the summer.”
“They were great,” he agreed.
Shelly suddenly unwrapped her gauzy skirt and dropped it on the sand. “I’m going to take a quick swim,” she said to Rory. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go on without me!”
“I’ll wait.”
“Isn’t she something?” Jill asked as they watched Shelly run toward the water. She offered him a towel to sit on, and he accepted, lowering himself to the sand. “She’s out here every day, walking along the beach like a breath of fresh air.” She looked at him. “I heard you’re planning to feature her on your show,” she said, and he tried unsuccessfully to read the tone of her voice.
“Well, she’s asked me to do a little digging into how she came to be abandoned on the beach when she was a baby,” he said.
Jill kept her gaze on Shelly, who was swimming straight away from shore with long, easy strokes. “I hope she doesn’t come to regret asking you,” she said. “I’ve watched her grow up, summer after summer, and she is a dear, dear soul. Her mother used to call her a gift from the sea.”
“You can’t blame Shelly for wanting to know the truth,” Rory said. “I just need to be sure she’s ready to hear whatever I might uncover.”
“Right,” Jill said. “I’m never sure exactly how much she understands about any given topic.” Jill changed the subject to his sister, and they were still talking about Polly when Shelly returned to the beach, her hair slick over her shoulders. Jill tried to hand her a towel, but Shelly waved it away. “I’m fine,” she said, lifting her skirt from the sand and tying it around her waist. “The sun will dry me off.” She turned to Rory. “Ready to walk some more?” she asked.
“Sure.” He stood up, his knee a bit stiffer than when he’d sat down.
They said goodbye to Jill and began strolling along the water’s edge again. Shelly stopped to speak to a woman who was hesitantly dipping her toes into the chilly water. “It will feel warm and wonderful once you’re in,” Shelly said.
For the first time, Rory understood, and maybe even shared, some of Daria’s concern for her sister. Shelly was open to everyone, friend and stranger alike, and that could indeed leave her vulnerable to being taken advantage of.
“Did you hurt your leg?” Shelly asked when they started walking again.
“I hurt my knee a long time ago, when I played football,” he said.
“Is it very painful?”
“Not too much,” he said. “It’s a chronic pain, so I’m used to it.”
“What does chronic mean?”
“It means ongoing. Not like banging your toe into a table leg. That’s a bad pain, but it’s over in a few minutes, usually. Chronic means it goes on and on.”
“Yuck,” Shelly said, and he laughed.
Shelly reached down to pick up a shell. She examined it, then dropped it on the beach again. “I have a secret friend,” she said abruptly.
“Who might that be?” he asked.
“I’ll never tell,” she teased. Her gaze was still riveted on the sand in front of her. “Daria’s been pretty sad lately,” she said in another rapid change of topic. The way she flitted from subject to subject with no thought of censoring herself reminded him of Polly.
“She has?” he asked. “Why is that?”
“Because Pete—he was her fiancé—broke off their engagement.”
“Oh.”
“I never liked him very much,” Shelly said. “He was one of those he-man types, you know what I mean?”
Rory laughed. “I think so. You mean, sort of macho?”
“Right. He had tattoos on his arms, one of a sea horse.” She wrinkled her nose. “But Daria loved him, and she was really, really upset when he said he wouldn’t marry her. They’d gone out together for six years. He moved away to Raleigh.”
“Do you know why they broke up?” He felt a little uncomfortable, as though this might be information Daria would not want him to know.
“Daria would never tell me,” she said. “She said it was personal, so I figure it must have something to do with sex.”
Rory laughed again. “There are personal issues that don’t have anything to do with sex,” he said.
Shelly looked at him coyly. “Daria likes you,” she said.
“Well, I like Daria, too.” He hoped Shelly was not implying that there might be a romantic relationship between Daria and himself. “She was a good friend when we were little kids,” he said. “I’d like us to be good friends again.”
“You know what, Rory?” Shelly said. She raised her gaze from the beach to look at him.
“What?”
“I have chronic pain, too.”
“You do? Where?”
“No one knows about it,” she said.
“Can you tell me about it?” He felt some alarm. Was she ill?
“Only if you promise not to tell Daria or Chloe. It would upset them to know.”
“I promise,” he said.
“Well, it’s not an arm or a leg that hurts,” she said. “It’s actually all of me. My body and my head and my heart. They all hurt from not knowing who my real mother is.”
Rory looked at her, at those beautiful brown eyes, filled with hope and sadness, and this time he did put his arm around her and gave her a hug. He truly had her permission now.
9
THE HEAT IN THE CAR WAS ALMOST INTOLERABLE. THE DAY WAS not all that warm, and Grace had the windows open, but after sitting in the parked car for nearly two hours, she was beginning to wilt. She’d parked the car at the end of the cul-de-sac, close to the beach road and just two lots away from the cottage she’d learned belonged to Rory Taylor. She’d driven past the cottage before parking and saw the sign: Poll-Rory. Who or what did the “Poll” stand for? she wondered.
She was nervous. She’d been nervous since leaving her tiny apartment in Rodanthe that morning. It had taken her half an hour to drive from Rodanthe to Kill Devil Hills, yet it had seemed an eternity. She knew