“Thanks.” Zack nodded to the girl, and both kids headed up the beach toward Poll-Rory.
“He looks a lot like you,” Grace said once Zack and the girl had disappeared over the dunes.
“He’s too much like me for his own good,” Rory said. “Do you have any children?”
“No.” She looked down at her arms, and he wondered if she realized that she was starting to burn. Should he tell her? She spoke before he had a chance to decide.
“I read about your divorce a couple of years ago,” she said. “I’m recently separated. I guess I’ll be divorced myself soon.”
“I’m sorry,” Rory said, feeling instant sympathy for her. “It’s hell to go through, isn’t it?”
“Just kind of…hard to get back on my feet again,” she said.
He remembered what that was like all too well. The loneliness, the roller-coaster of emotions. He could almost see the pain of starting over etched on Grace’s face. He wanted to know if her husband had been the one to leave. Had there been an affair? Had she, too, suffered that agony?
“Well, I had my work to keep me active and prevent me from thinking too much about it,” he said. “Are you working?”
She nodded. “I own a little shop in Rodanthe. I’m usually there, but my partner is handling things while I’m away today.” She glanced at her watch. “I didn’t realize it was so late,” she said. “I really should call my partner and tell him I got delayed. Is there a pay phone nearby?”
“My cottage is right next to the beach,” he said. “You’re welcome to use the phone there.” Her partner was a he. It was crazy, but that disappointed him.
“I hate to put you out,” she said.
He got to his feet. “No problem. Come on. I should check on my son and his friend, anyhow. Probably shouldn’t leave them alone in the cottage for too long.” He held out his hand to help her up from the blanket, and it seemed to take some effort for her to stand. Her shakiness had to be due to more than a fly bite.
“Are you all right?” he asked, not wanting to embarrass her, but her unsteadiness begged the question.
“Oh, I’m fine,” she said, brushing the sand from the rear of her bathing suit. “I’ve been ill recently, but I’m okay now.” She lifted her blanket from the sand, and he helped her fold it. Her shoulders were quite pink; she would suffer later.
As they walked over the dune to the cul-de-sac, he wondered what illness had left her so tremulous, weak and pale. She walked smoothly across the sand, though, with a fluid ease. Her eyes were on the Sea Shanty.
“You said you’ve met…the woman who was found on the beach?” she asked.
“Yes. She’s a very sweet person.”
“What about the brain damage you said she has?”
“It’s mild. Just makes her seem more childlike than someone her age.” He stepped into his front yard. “This is my cottage,” he said.
“How cute!” Grace said as they neared the front steps. Zack and the girl were just coming out of the door.
“Were you coming to chaperon us?” Zack grinned. The girl punched his arm, obviously embarrassed. “Maybe we’d better stay to chaperon you,” Zack added.
“Very funny,” Rory said. “Grace just needs to use our phone.”
Inside the cottage, Grace made a quick phone call, while Rory put on his shirt and busied himself emptying the dishwasher. It relieved him to hear nothing intimate in her voice when she spoke to her partner. She hung up and turned to him.
“Well, I’d better get on the road,” she said. “Thanks so much for the use of the phone.”
“Where are you parked?” he asked.
“Just at the end of the street.”
“I’ll walk you.” He closed the dishwasher and left the cottage with her.
“So,” she said, glancing toward the Sea Shanty, “will you take…what do you call it? Footage? Will you take footage of the Sea Shanty? Will you have the grown-up abandoned baby on the show?”
They walked side by side down the cul-de-sac toward her car. “I don’t know what shape the story will take yet,” he said. “But I’m pleased that you seem intrigued by the idea. I want to make sure it’s a story that will appeal to the masses.”
Grace laughed, and he realized it was the first time he’d seen true levity in her face. “Well,” she said, “I’m not sure I’m representative of the masses, but I certainly think the story of a foundling is interesting.” She pointed to the sedan parked on the side of the road. “This is my car,” she said.
He couldn’t let her drive away without knowing if he might get to see her again. “Do you visit your friend in Kill Devil Hills often?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “She was just down for the week. She’s leaving tomorrow.”
“Well, now you have a new friend to visit in Kill Devil Hills.” It felt strange to be that forward, yet she looked pleased.
“Why, thanks,” she said, smiling that wide, engaging smile again.
“May I have your phone number?” he asked.
“Sure.” She rattled off the number. Neither of them had anything to write on, or with, but he memorized it. As she drove away, he saw her turn her head to look again at the Sea Shanty, and he knew he had a winner of a story on his hands.
10
“SO,” ANDY SAID, “IF YOU TAKE CARE OF THE WALL UNIT, I’LL make the pantry they wanted for the kitchen. Deal?”
Daria barely heard him. She and Andy were sitting on the Sea Shanty porch, going over the designs for a house in Corolla, but her eyes were fixed on Rory. He and a woman had walked from the beach into his cottage. They’d been in there ten minutes or so, and now he was walking her to her car. He’d been bare-chested from the beach to Poll-Rory; now he wore a broadly striped white and blue short-sleeved shirt. The woman was tall and slim and had the gait of a model. Her dark bathing suit was cut high on her shoulders; her long legs probably bore no trace of cellulite. Damn.
“Earth to Daria,” Andy said. He stood up and slipped the drawings into his portfolio.
Daria smiled at him. “Sorry,” she said. “Yes, I’ll do the pantry.”
“No, you’ll do the wall unit,” he said. “I knew you weren’t listening to me.”
“Was too,” she lied. “I was just teasing you.”
Rory touched the woman’s arm, and Daria felt a strangely familiar sense of loss, the same loss she’d felt when she was eleven and he started hanging around with the older kids. She was losing him again, and she’d never even had him to begin with. She’d be the first to admit this obsession of hers was nuts.
“Do you teach your EMT class tonight?” Andy asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Wish I was in it.”
She smiled at him again. “I wish you were, too,” she said.
“See you tomorrow?” He pushed open the screen door.
“Okay.”
Rory was walking back toward his cottage now, but when he spotted Daria sitting on the screened porch, he waved and turned in her direction.
“Good luck,” Andy said to her with a grin as he closed the door behind him.
God,