The dog spotted Shelly first. The golden retriever lifted her head and stared in the direction of the Sea Shanty, and a few seconds later, Shelly appeared in the side yard. She must have come out the rear door of the cottage, and now she was headed for the beach. Rory stepped off the porch, the dog at his heels, and walked quickly toward her. She was cresting the low dune at the edge of the beach as he neared her. There was an otherworldly quality about her as she stood there among the sea oats, and he stopped to simply stare at her. She wore a white bikini, set off by her tan. The bikini bottom was covered by a gauzy white skirt wrapped around her waist. The breeze blew her long, pale blond hair away from her face. What a perfectly stunning creature she was. The Foundling. That’s what he would call the episode on True Life Stories.
“Shelly?” he called, taking a step closer.
She turned and smiled at him. “Hey, Rory,” she said. “I see you’ve got one of Linda’s dogs with you.”
Rory looked down at the retriever, now leaning against his leg. “She seems to have adopted me,” he said. He’d met Linda briefly on the beach the day before. She’d introduced herself to him; he would never have recognized her otherwise. She was now an attractive, big-boned woman with short blond hair and round glasses, and he could not get it through his mind that she was the cul-de-sac’s bashful bookworm from twenty-two years ago.
“Can I join you for a walk on the beach, Shelly?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said. “But Melissa’s not allowed. Go home, Melissa!”
The dog performed an obedient pivot and trotted off down the street.
“Which way do you want to go?” Shelly asked as Rory joined her on the beach.
He pointed south. “You must know that dog well,” he said as they started walking.
“And you must like dogs a lot, because Melissa is Linda’s unfriendliest dog.”
“I didn’t know there were any unfriendly golden retrievers,” Rory said.
“That one is. Though not to me. And not to you, either, I guess.”
They cut through a sea of blankets, beach chairs and umbrellas and began walking along the water’s edge. “I wanted to make sure of something,” he said. “I know that Daria and Chloe worry about me looking into how you came to be on the beach that morning when you were a baby. I need to know that you really want me to do this.”
“Yes, I absolutely do,” Shelly said.
“What if I uncover…if I find out something that would be very painful to you? I might find out, for example, that your real—your biological mother—doesn’t want anything to do with you. She might even wish that you had died that day. How would you feel if I learned something like that?”
Shelly looked down at the ground, where the water rose and fell over her feet with the rhythm of the waves. For a moment, he wondered if she had heard him—or understood him. Then she turned toward him, a small smile on her lips. “Well,” she said, “that would be the truth, and what I really want to know is the truth.”
“Okay,” Rory said, relieved. “But if you change your mind at any point, you just say the word, and I’ll back off, okay?” He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“Okay.”
“Well, then,” Rory said, “tell me what your life has been like.”
“Oh, I’ve had a wonderful life,” Shelly said. “I’ve—” A beach ball suddenly flew across the sand in front of them, and a little boy of about three ran after it, wailing. With a couple of long strides, Shelly grabbed the ball and returned it to the child, patting the top of his head as she sent him back up the beach to his parents. She fell into step once more with Rory.
“Isn’t he adorable?” she asked, turning back to look at the boy. “Isn’t the beach the best place?” She raised her arms out from her sides and tipped her head back to breathe in the salt air. Then she looked at Rory. “I always want to live on the beach,” she said. “It’s where I was born and it’s where I want to die.”
“Isn’t it kind of nasty here in the winter?” Rory asked.
“Oh, I don’t mind the winter at all,” she said. “The only time I ever mind the weather here is when one of those bad storms is coming and they say we have to evacuate. I hate evacuating.” She shuddered at the thought. “I hate going to the mainland.”
“Why is that?” Rory asked.
“I don’t know why,” Shelly said. “All I know is, I feel like I can’t breathe when I’m away from here. I can’t breathe, I can’t sleep, I get real jumpy. Nothing’s right until I get back to Kill Devil Hills.”
He wanted to put a fatherly arm around her shoulders and give her a hug. She was indeed fragile, as Daria had said.
“It’s really windy here, though,” Shelly continued. “Especially in the winter, but really all the time. Daria doesn’t like that, because she says she has bad wind hair. I have good wind hair, though. That’s what I mean. It’s like I was designed to live here.”
He wasn’t sure what good and bad wind hair were, but he got her point.
“There’s Jill!” Shelly said.
He followed her gaze to a heavyset woman sitting on a beach chair, reading a book.
“Jill, from the cul-de-sac?” Rory asked, although the woman looked nothing like the Jill Fletcher he’d known as his next-door neighbor.
“Yes. Let’s go say hi to her.” Shelly was walking toward the woman in the beach chair before he had a chance to say a word.
“Hi, Jill,” Shelly said when they were right in front of her.
The woman looked up, shading her eyes with her hand. She smiled. “Hi, girlfriend,” she said, then looked past Shelly at Rory. Her smile broadened. “Rory Taylor,” she said. “I heard you were here for the summer.”
He wouldn’t have recognized her any more than he had Linda. She’d been a couple of years older than him and had hung around with a different crowd, but he’d seen her nearly every day during the summers of his youth. He remembered her as a little on the skinny side, with very straight, dark hair. Her hair was almost entirely silver now, and it was short and thick and very becoming on her. She was no longer skinny, however. She had to be at least forty pounds overweight, and her breasts formed a deep cleavage above the neckline of her one-piece, black bathing suit.
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 she was doing something crazy; she almost felt as if she was doing something illegal. Grace just isn’t herself.
Suddenly, the front door to Rory Taylor’s cottage opened, and her heart kicked into high gear, skipping a beat or two, alarming her. Had she taken her medication that morning? She couldn’t remember, and now there was no time to worry about it. The man emerging from the front door was almost certainly Rory Taylor. She knew what he looked like; everyone did. He was carrying a beach chair, and she grimaced as he headed toward the beach. Damn. She’d been hoping he would get in his car and drive out of the cul-de-sac so that she could follow him. She’d pictured him driving to the nearest grocery store, where she could “accidentally” bump into him in one of the aisles. But things were not going her way. Nevertheless, she’d prepared for this possibility as well. She wasn’t supposed to be in the sun, but what did a rash or a sunburn matter at this point? Grabbing the beach blanket from the back seat, she got out of her car.
Rory had just finished the first chapter of the paperback he was reading, when a woman spread her blanket on the sand near his chair. He tried to keep his attention on his book, but he couldn’t help staring at her, and he hoped his dark glasses would prevent her from noticing. The woman was very attractive, tall and slender, with light brown hair that reflected the sunlight. Her one-piece, high-necked navy blue bathing suit made her shoulders look sexy. She was very pale, though, as if she hadn’t spent much time on the beach so far this summer. She lay facedown on her blanket, took off her sunglasses and closed her eyes.
She’s going to burn to a crisp, he thought.
It was a weekday, and the beach was strewn with sunbathers, but not really crowded. He could see Zack sitting close to the water, sharing a blanket with a few other kids his age. Zack already had the sort of tan it took most people a summer to acquire, and his hair was several shades lighter than it had been when they’d first arrived. Had Rory tanned that quickly, looked that good when he was Zack’s age? If he had, he’d never known it.
He returned his attention to his book and was in the middle of chapter three when the woman lying near him suddenly let out a yelp and jumped up from her blanket.
Startled, Rory looked up at her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
The woman laughed, her cheeks coloring. “I think something bit me,” she said, brushing her hand over her arm. “Probably just a horsefly.” She had deep bangs that framed her face and accentuated her chiseled features, and she was older than he had first guessed. Late thirties, or maybe even early forties.
“Oh, yeah, there are a few of them around,” he said, although to be honest, he hadn’t seen any yet this summer.
The woman suddenly stood perfectly still,
staring at him, and he knew that he’d been recognized.
“You’re Rory Taylor!” she said.
“Guilty.” He rested his book facedown in the sand, glad to have an entrée to talk with her. “And you’re…?”
“Grace Martin,” she said. She sat down again, brushing her hand over the invisible bite on her arm as she smiled at him. She had one of those wide, straight smiles that was impossible to observe without smiling back.
“I live down in Rodanthe,” she said, lifting her sunglasses from the blanket and slipping them on. “I was visiting a friend up here in Kill Devil Hills, and the day was so beautiful that I decided to relax on the beach awhile before heading back.” Her hands were still shaking from her run-in with the fly, and even her voice sounded a bit tremulous, but the flush remaining in her cheeks made her look very pretty. Her sunglasses were see-through blue, and he could still make out her brown eyes behind them. There was something needy about her, and he felt an unexpected desire to comfort her by taking one of those pale hands in his own.
“What’s the beach like in Rodanthe?” he asked, although he didn’t particularly care about the answer. He just wanted to keep her talking.
“Oh, about the same as this. Not as many people, though.”
“Must be nice,” he said.
“So, why are you here?” she asked. “We don’t usually get movie stars in the Outer Banks.”
He laughed. “I’ve never been in a movie,” he said. People made that mistake all the time. “But to answer your question, my family has had a cottage here ever since I was a kid, right behind us on that cul-de-sac.” He pointed behind him. “I haven’t been back to it in a long time, but recently I’ve been thinking about an incident that happened here many years ago that might make a good episode on the show I produce.”