He’d always taken a passive stance in life. He knew that. His height made him shy. His parents had left him a fortune. His wife had found him. Lily had always taken care of everything. And Dulcie had basically been on her own since she was twelve. Now it was his turn. He finally had to step up and take care of something.
He hadn’t done a very good job of taking care of Emily so far. Dulcie hadn’t told Emily anything about Mullaby, about what had happened, so Vance was terrified of saying something Dulcie wouldn’t want her daughter to know. When Dulcie left, she’d sworn him to secrecy. Don’t speak of it, she’d said. And maybe it will go away. Maybe one day everyone will forget. He’d let his daughter down in countless ways, so he’d been determined to keep his word about this. And he had, for twenty years. Now he didn’t know what to do. Emily had attracted the attention of the Mullaby lights already. She was going to want answers.
He walked to the kitchen in the darkness. But instead of going into the laundry room to check the dryer, he went directly to the back door and opened it. Sure enough, like Emily said, there was a light in the woods in the backyard, not moving, as if watching the house.
Vance stepped onto the porch, making himself seen. The light immediately disappeared. He heard a gasp, then footsteps on the balcony above. He stepped off the low kitchen porch and looked up.
Emily was standing there, staring out into the woods.
She didn’t see him, so he quietly moved away.
He’d made this mistake once.
He wasn’t going to again.
Chapter 7
Piney Woods Lake was exactly that—a lake in the middle of a thick nest of pine trees. It looked like water in a deep blue bowl, like it could be accidentally tipped out and poured into the surrounding countryside. Julia parked her old black Ford truck, which had belonged to her father, in one of the last spaces in the crowded parking lot above the boardwalk. It had been a long time since she’d been out here. The last time was probably with her father, pre-Beverly. She’d forgotten how beautiful it was. When she and Emily got out, they were assaulted by a cacophony of summertime scents and sounds. Wet sand, coconut oil, boat motors, kids laughing, music playing.
“It’s so loud!” Emily said. “I like it already.”
“Your mother liked it out here, too, as I recall. I remember hearing about a place in the cove where Sassafras would meet and rule over the beach all summer,” she said as she swung her beach bag over her shoulder and led Emily across the hot, gummy parking lot.
They walked down to the boardwalk, and from there to the beach. Because of the crowds, they had to walk in single file. Julia kept looking back to see if Emily was keeping up. Emily smiled the entire way, stopping to take off her shoes, then running to catch up.
They finally stopped at a place halfway between the boardwalk and the cove. There were houses above the beach on this end of the lake, large houses with glass walls overlooking the glittery blue water. As Julia took two towels out of her bag and spread them on the sand, Emily shaded her eyes from the glare of sun and looked around. “Were you meeting Sawyer here?”
“No. Why?” Julia asked as she shimmied out of her white shorts, revealing the bottom half of her red bikini. She left her gauzy long-sleeved shirt on over her red bikini top, though.
“Because he’s coming this way.”
Julia immediately turned to see him walking down the beach toward them. Sawyer stood out too much to blend in anywhere, but the closest he came was here, with the sun and the sand. He was golden. A sun king.
“He’s nice,” Emily said wistfully. “The moment I saw him, I knew he’d have an accent like that. I don’t know why.”
“Some men you know are Southern before they ever say a word,” Julia said as she and Emily watched Sawyer’s progress, helpless, almost as if they couldn’t look away. “They remind you of something good—picnics or carrying sparklers around at night. Southern men will hold doors open for you, they’ll hold you after you yell at them, and they’ll hold on to their pride no matter what. Be careful what they tell you, though. They have a way of making you believe anything, because they say it that way.”
“What way?” Emily asked as she turned to her, intrigued.
“I hope you never find out,” she said.
“You’ve been spoken to that way?”
“Yes,” she said softly, just as Sawyer stopped at their towels.
“Hello, ladies.”
“Hi, Sawyer,” Emily said as she sat down.
Julia sat on the towel next to her and stuffed her shorts into her beach bag. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Julia,” he said. “Bear hunting?”
She squinted up at him. “Is that a euphemism for something?”
He ignored that and sat on her towel at her feet. She could see her reflection in his sunglasses as he stared at her. What was he doing? Why was he being so familiar? The eighteen years of silence while she was gone, along with the year and a half of cold shoulder she’d given him since she’d been back, should have been more than enough to discourage him from sitting on her towel on the beach, inches away from her bare legs.
Yet here he was.
And all because she’d told Stella that she made cakes because of him.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“My sister is in town for the weekend,” he said. “She and her daughter are staying at the family’s lake house. I came to see them.”
“So this has nothing to do with my telling you I was taking Emily out here today?” she asked skeptically.
“Now, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?”
“Everything is easy for you, Sawyer.”
“Not everything.” Before she had a chance to respond, he nudged his chin in the direction behind her. “There’s my niece. Ingrid!” he called.
Julia and Emily turned to see a pretty redheaded teenager change course and walk over to them. Julia seemed to remember Sawyer’s older sister having red hair.
“This is Julia Winterson,” he said to his niece.
Ingrid smiled. “I recognize the pink streak in your hair. I see you sometimes in town when my mom and I visit,” she said. “I love it, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Julia said. “This is Emily. She just moved here.”
“Some kids over in the cove are having a cookout party and they asked me if I wanted to come. I’m going to ask my mom. Do you want to come, Emily?” Ingrid asked.
Emily looked at her blankly. “What is it for?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it a club?”
“It’s a party,” Ingrid said, giving Emily a questioning look as she turned to leave. “I’ll be right back.”
Emily still looked confused.
“You’re making this out to be harder than it really is,” Julia said, laughing as she patted Emily’s hand. “All you have to say is ‘I’d love to come!’”
“Like this,” Sawyer said. “Julia, would you like to go out with me Monday night?”
“I’d love to!” she playacted. “See? Easy. It’s just a party. Didn’t you go to parties at your old school?”
“Well, I helped organize parties with my mom. Usually fundraisers. And some community service clubs at school used to have end-of-the-year parties.”
“What kind of school did you go to?”
“Roxley School for Girls. My mom helped found it. It’s a school based on social activism and global awareness. Volunteering is part of the curriculum.”
There again was that hint that Dulcie might have done some good with her life. Emily had mentioned something about it before, about Dulcie and her causes. As unbelievable as it seemed, Dulcie must have changed when she left here. “Well, there’s no reason for this party. It’s just for fun.”
Emily gave her a dubious look.
Julia laughed again. “You’ll be fine. I’ll be right here when you want to go home. No pressure.”
Ingrid came back shortly and said, “
Are you ready, Emily?”
Emily stood, put on a smile Julia was sure she didn’t mean, and walked away with Ingrid.
“Who would have thought Dulcie would have raised such a decent girl?” Sawyer said.
“She is a nice kid, isn’t she?”
“You’re good with her. And no, I’m not surprised.”
Julia shrugged uneasily, realizing she was alone with him now and she couldn’t run away from what she knew he wanted to talk about. “I figure she needs someone she can turn to until she gets settled. I remember what it was like being that age. And believe me, I’m profoundly grateful to be on this side of it now.”
Sawyer was quiet for a moment as he studied her. She wished he would take off his sunglasses. She didn’t like seeing how uncomfortable she looked.
It was natural, she supposed, to be tense around him. Your peers when you’re a teenager will always be the keepers of your embarrassment and regret. It was one of life’s great injustices, that you can move on and be accomplished and happy, but the moment you see someone from high school you immediately become the person you were then, not the person you are now. When she was around Sawyer, she was the old Julia—the messed-up daughter of a man who hadn’t finished high school and cooked barbecue for a living. Sawyer never did anything to make her feel that way, but it inevitably happened. She could blame a lot of things on him, but not that.
“Why don’t you take off your shirt?” he finally asked.
“I bet you say that to all the girls.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “You know why.” She reached over to her beach bag for a bottle of water, but Sawyer caught her arm.
He held her arm and slowly pushed the sleeve up. It took great effort not to snatch her arm away. She had to remind herself that he’d seen them before. Most people had. She couldn’t hide them all the time.
He trailed his thumb over the scars. Some were as thin as wire, others were thick and raised. It was a surprisingly tender thing to do and it made her heart ache, just a little.
“Who did you turn to when you were her age, Julia?”
You. “No one. That’s how I know.” She slid her arm out of his grasp. “I don’t like to get sun on them. A tan makes them look worse.”
“Did you ever feel like you could turn to your dad or your stepmother?”
“Dad didn’t know what to do with me. And Beverly considered her job taking care of Dad, not being a mother to me. But she was the one who convinced him to send me away to school. I’ll always be grateful for that. Leaving this place probably saved my life.”
“And you can’t wait to leave again,” he said.
“Six months and counting.”
He sprawled out on his side in front of her, his head propped on his hand. “So, what time should I pick you up?”
“Pick me up for what?” she said as she found her bottle of water and took a sip.
“For our date on Monday. You accepted my invitation. I have a witness.”
She snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m serious.”
“No, you’re not. Go coax the shirt off someone else. Your charm doesn’t work on me. I have a force field deflecting it.”
“Please. You’d have no idea what to do if I turned it on full blast.”
“You’re not scaring me.”
“Yes, I am. And that’s why I’m stopping. I want to talk about it, Julia,” he said. “But not now.” He rolled onto his back, the golden hairs on his legs and arms sparkling like spun sugar.
“You don’t get to decide that,” she told him. He didn’t respond. She waited for him to go away, but he didn’t. He might have even fallen asleep.
She took a book out of her bag and moved as far away from him as she could, wondering what pitiful part of her heart actually enjoyed this, his nearness.
The part that would always be sixteen years old, she supposed, frozen forever before everything changed.
THE CLOSER they got to the party, the more nervous Emily became. She wouldn’t have thought twice about it if it hadn’t been for those old ladies. Now she was worried about what everyone would think of her. She kept telling herself that there was no reason why she shouldn’t fit in. She just had a temporary case of new-girl-itis.
The group was assembled away from the beach, in a small grotto formed by the trees at the back of the cove. Music was playing. Some kids were holding drinks in plastic cups. A couple of guys were playing touch football and getting in everyone’s way. There were a few adults there, one of whom was manning the grill and seemed to be master of ceremonies. He was a large, gregarious man with black hair and a booming voice.
Once they got into the thick of things, Ingrid left her alone. Emily walked to the periphery of the party, toward the back of the grotto by the trees. She took a few deep breaths. No reason to panic.
Julia said this was where Sassafras had gathered in the summer. Emily could tell that it had been a popular spot for kids for quite some time, because the tree trunks were covered with carvings of names and initials. One carving in particular caught her eye. It was a large heart with the initials D.S. + L.C. inside. She wondered if the D.S. stood for Dulcie Shelby. That made her smile. It was nice to imagine a boy who had once loved her mother so much that he’d carved their initials into a tree. Her mother hadn’t dated much in her adult life. The few dates she did have were with men she’d met through her work, and they’d all been brief flings. She’d never wanted anything serious. She’d been very open about that with Emily. Always make your needs and expectations known, she used to say. That way no one gets hurt. As far as Emily could tell, the only serious relationship her mother ever had was with Emily’s father, and even it hadn’t started out that way. They’d met during a high-seas standoff with fishermen over the killing of dolphins. They’d spent ten days on a boat together, and Emily had been the result. Her father had died in a Sea Shepherd boating accident two years later, trying to stop illegal whaling. Her mother and father had never married and Emily had no memory of him, so he was like most things in her mother’s past, mysterious and unmentionable.
As she was standing there staring at the tree, her back to the party, she suddenly felt something odd, like ribbons of warmth wrapping around her from behind. It was alarming, and she wanted to fight it at first, to fling her arms and shake whatever it was off. But she stopped herself because she didn’t want to look idiotic in front of all these kids. She waited it out and realized that it didn’t feel bad. Not at all. She closed her eyes and felt almost … comforted.
She opened her eyes again, and something made her turn around.
There was Win Coffey.
He had on long swim trunks, which were dark with water and sticking to his thighs. His hair was wet and dripping into his eyes, and he smelled like warm lake water.
She cleared her throat. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your suit,” she said.
A corner of his mouth lifted, amused. “It’s a different kind of suit.”
“But no bow tie.”
“Hard to swim in. I’ve tried.”
Her eyes went from his lips to his chin, then to the rivulets of water running down his bare chest. Embarrassed, she quickly met his eyes again. It looked as if he’d come right out of the water and made a beeline for her. But how could he have known she was there? How could he have seen her from the water? Over his shoulder, she could see that some kids were watching them and whispering to each other. Win didn’t seem to care. He clearly fit in. It had to count for something, his interest in her. “Do all these kids go to the same school?” she asked.
“Some are summer lake residents who leave in the fall,” he said, not taking his eyes off her. “Some are permanent residents who, yes, go to school here.”
“Mullaby High?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be a senior there in the fall.”
“I know. I will, too.” He ran both his hands through his dark wet hair, slicking it back. It almost made her br
eath catch. “Not that it isn’t nice to see you again, but I have to ask: What are you doing here?”
“Here?” she asked. “You mean at this party?”
“Yes.”
“Trying to blend in.”
“It’s not working. Prepare yourself.”
“For what?” And no sooner did she ask than a dark-haired girl in an orange bathing suit came to a stop beside Win.
“You’re Emily Benedict, aren’t you?” she asked, with the same combination of aversion and curiosity Win had had the first day she’d met him, but with a little more bite.
“Yes,” Win said before Emily could. “Emily, this is my sister, Kylie.”
“You weren’t invited,” Kylie said bluntly. “You’re going to ruin my party.”
“I … I came with Ingrid,” Emily said, feeling a hot prickle of embarrassment.
“You should leave.”
Win finally took his eyes off Emily to give a look of censure to his sister. “Kylie, stop being rude.”
“I’m not being rude. I’m serious. She should leave.” Kylie pointed over her shoulder. Win turned to see that the big man, the master of ceremonies, had left the grill and was slowly making his way toward them.
Win cursed. “Let’s go.” He took Emily by the arm and together they skirted the party, following the tree line. When they reached the regular part of the beach, Win stopped once they were out of sight of the grotto.
She rubbed her arm where he’d held it. The place where he’d touched her felt warm. “I’m sorry,” she said, a little taken aback at how fast that had happened. “I didn’t know it was a private party.”
They faced each other on the crowded beach, hot summer noise humming around them. “It’s not.”
It took a moment to sink in. It wasn’t a private party. That meant she wasn’t welcome. Just her. “Oh.”