A Month at the Shore Read online

  "Please—wait right there and I'll get you your cane and then carry that inside for you."

  "I can carry it; but, yes, if you would just fetch my stick," she said politely.

  The arthritic woman, whose unfortunate last name sounded so much like "witch"—and who was regarded by the town kids accordingly—had been one of the few to attend the funeral of Oliver Shore. She came, not because of Oliver (who more or less agreed with the kids and had always considered Miss Widdich a little "off"), but because she had formed a quiet but enduring friendship with Corinne.

  It was a natural fit: Miss Widdich was an herbalist, and Laura's sister sold herbs. The affection between the two was so obvious that Laura had felt a little wistful when she witnessed it at the wake. In Laura's line of work, she had little contact with anyone over her own age.

  Laura managed to coax the casserole out of Miss Widdich's grip, after all, and the two women walked into the house together, exchanging chat about the weather.

  "I had hoped to do something about that fog yesterday," Miss Widdich announced. "It can be so gloomy, and I didn't want you children to feel any sadder than you did."

  Do something? As in, control the weather?

  "Well, that's awfully nice of you, Miss Widdich," Laura said vaguely. "But at least we all have one another."

  "For now," said the elderly woman, her smile wistfully sweet.

  An unexpected chill passed over Laura, as it often did when she was in the other woman's presence. She chalked it up to childhood memories and concentrated instead on the woman's kindness. Setting the glass dish on the kitchen counter, she said, "Still warm, and it smells wonderful. Thank you so much; we'll have it for lunch. What's in it?"

  "Cheese; noodles," said Miss Widdich. "A little of this, a dab of that."

  What, like eye of newt and heart of toad?

  "Yum, a secret recipe," Laura said, quailing inwardly. "I can hardly wait to dig in. Speaking of which, I really ought to wash my hands; look at them!"

  She walked over to the sink, mostly to avoid having to make eye contact, and began a hearty scrubdown.

  Although herbs were not her field of expertise, Laura knew enough about them to understand that they could be powerful influences, on personalities as well as in stews. Many herbs were drugs, pure and simple. It was an unnerving and entirely unwished-for thought.

  And a silly one. At her father's wake, Laura had overheard Miss Widdich and Corinne making small talk about tarragon, of all things. Surely their shared interest in herbs was no more than culinary.

  And yet, Corinne seemed so fond, so attached to Miss Widdich ....

  But surely not because of drugs. More likely, Corinne had simply transferred her longing for their mother to Miss Widdich after their mother's death. After all, it couldn't have been easy, living in a house with only Oliver Shore for company. A surrogate mother might have filled a real need in Laura's shy and lonely sister.

  "Corinne should be back here any minute, if you'd like to wait for her," Laura ventured as she dried her hands.

  "But ... don't you hear her?" Miss Widdich cocked her head and fixed her penetrating blue eyes on Laura; the expression in them was intense. "She's talking with someone—somewhere in the house."

  "I don't hear a thing," said Laura, shaking her head.

  "Of course you do, dear. She's talking to a man."

  To humor her visitor, Laura walked out of the kitchen and into the adjacent sitting room of the high-ceilinged, rambling Victorian house and made a pretense of straining to listen in the direction in which Miss Widdich was jabbing her bamboo cane.

  And darned if she didn't pick up faint echoes of her sister talking.

  Seeing Laura's face, Miss Widdich smiled. "Corinne has a very pretty voice," she explained. "I'm very attuned to it."

  "I guess," said Laura, blinking. Miss Widdich might not have the best knees in town, but her hearing was downright preternatural.

  Laura invited her to have a seat while she found out how long Corinne would be, but Miss Widdich waved Laura's invitation away with a flutter of a gnarled hand. "This is a bad time, bad time," she said darkly, and off she toddled, as fast as her knees would let her, leaving Laura mystified.

  Curious about the voices, Laura tracked them down and was surprised to find that they weren't coming from the house at all but from the back porch, a small, utilitarian affair with a wasted view of the Atlantic.

  Built off a summer kitchen that was no longer used, the back porch was merely a place to slough off muddy shoes or hang a wet oil slicker. It was the porch on the front of the house—overlooking the nursery and facing away from the sea—that was large enough to hold their assortment of half-broken beach chairs and the punched-in wicker loveseat.

  Boy, someone had had their priorities so reversed, Laura thought, not for the first time. From the inside of the screen door, she caught her breath all over again at the grand expanse of bright blue ocean. It was the one thing her charmer cottage in Portland lacked, that view of the sea.

  Unwilling to disrupt the conversation between Corinne and her visitor, who together were now strolling away from the house, Laura opened the screen door quietly and let it close gently behind her. She wanted to eavesdrop: it wasn't every day that they had a visitor who came in a suit.

  He was no one she knew. Someone from the funeral home, maybe, asking if they were satisfied with the new headstone? It couldn't be the director. This man was much younger, with thicker hair, broader shoulders, and a more relaxed style, despite his spiffy threads. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, apparently willing to let Corinne do the talking.

  He was nodding, as though he'd heard it all before. They definitely knew one another. Laura couldn't imagine who the guy was; Corinne had never spoken to her about anybody who could have afforded a suit like that.

  Corinne pointed to her right and he followed her direction, partly revealing himself in profile to Laura. She realized that he did look familiar, after all, and yet she wasn't able to place him. Her sense was that he was—and yet was anything but—a local.

  Before Laura could analyze the vaguely negative reaction she was having to him, he turned and gave her a sharp look, as though she'd beaned him on the back of the head with a spitball. Embarrassed to be caught staring, she shifted her gaze to Corinne, who was still blithely chattering away.

  "Sorry to interrupt," Laura said, yanking her sister out of her monologue. "Rinnie, Miss Widdich just stopped by to see you. She was behaving a little oddly, and—"

  She saw the visitor barely suppress a smile; obviously he, too, was familiar with the odd Miss Widdich. Who the hell was he? She marched up to him and, over Corinne's belated effort, began to introduce herself. "I'm Corinne's sister—"

  "Laura. Of course. I'd know you anywhere," he said, his smile broadening.

  When she looked blank, the visitor added quickly, "Ken. Ken Barclay? We went to the same grade school?"

  Laura was speechless. She blinked and stared and finally said, "Kendall?"

  "One and the same. How are you?"

  Skinny, geeky, brainy, rich, and haughty Kendall?

  "You're him?"

  He laughed and said, "Last time I looked at my driver's license, anyway."

  She wanted to see that license. The man standing in front of her was six-foot-something, solidly built, and knockdown, drag-out sexy. Not to mention devoid of braces and a bumpy forehead. Those fierce blue eyes: something about them looked vaguely the same, but even there ....

  Kendall Barclay.

  The effect he had on her was dizzying, almost violent. Laura's cheeks went hot with the recollection of their fateful encounter. Suddenly she was thirteen and ill-dressed, with dirt under her fingernails and surrounded by a group of cruel, taunting boys grabbing and pawing and tearing her shirt.

  No wonder he'd been able to recognize her so easily. Damn it, she still looked the same!

  Her cheeks fired up even hotter with embarrassment when he extended his han
d and she was forced to extend her own, with its bloody, bruised knuckles and dirty fingernails. She kept the handshake firm, though, as she explained, "I'm working the greenhouse detail today."

  "So I see. Nice to have you back. Corinne tells me that you're working like gangbusters on the West Coast as a computer consultant?"

  It was that question mark, coupled with a furtive glance at her clown-sized pants and her belt of rope, that instantly got under Laura's skin. It was so obvious that he found the idea of her success a hard one to swallow.

  "Well, you know what they say about the self-employed," she said, recovering enough to give him a very dry smile. She gestured with both hands toward her pants. "Every day is casual Friday."

  He followed her gesture, looking blank for a second. "Oh. You mean—" He dipped his head in a nod at her getup. "I never even noticed."

  "Well, thank you for that."

  Even worse. To someone like Kendall Barclay, she would always be one of the Shore urchins, beneath notice. It didn't help that his neck was turning red. Clearly he felt that she was putting him on the spot, taking everything to a personal level.

  Which she was. For God's sake, she hadn't actually talked to him in, what, twenty years? Surely she could handle a chance encounter better than this!

  But she couldn't. All she could see was a blurry circle of boys around her, taking turns grabbing at her breasts and at her crotch.

  "Laura? What, um, was it that you were saying about Miss Widdich?" Corinne's voice was faint with fear, as if she were watching her sister standing in a pit with a cobra and poking it with a stick. You are messing with the man who holds the key to our survival.

  Maybe yes, maybe no. In an almost wrenching act of self-control, Laura swept away the memory of the circle of cruel boys and said to Corinne, "I think Miss Widdich would like to talk to you whenever you have time, Rinnie."

  And then, still feeling fierce about the cruel note she'd got from Kendall all those years ago, she said in a fiercely pleasant voice, "Miss Widdich brought us a huge casserole for lunch. Cheese and noodles. You're welcome to join us in our peasant fare."

  He backpedaled from the invitation as fast as politeness allowed. Shooting an arm through the sleeve of his jacket, he glanced at his watch. "Ah-h, thanks very much, but I have another appointment. I'm running a little late as it is, so I'd better get going."

  With a friendly smile to Corinne, he said, "I'll see you on Wednesday, then."

  When he shifted his attention back to Laura, his manner changed. He cleared his throat. Compressed his lips in a tight smile. Gazed doggedly at her chin. "Well. Good seeing you again after all—"

  He had to clear his throat again. "These years."

  It was obvious to Laura: he remembered. He remembered, and he was embarrassed about it. He should be, damn it. If she had not been a Shore, would he have been so arrogant and unfeeling in his note back to her?

  You shouldn't be writing to me.

  Don't do it again.

  And don't ever try to see me.

  Laura was a big girl now, but those scribbled words still cut like razorblades across the thin surface of her self-esteem.

  "Good to see you, too—after all these years. But I'm sure I'll be seeing you again," she said coolly.

  Not only that, but she was already planning what she'd be wearing when she did.

  ****

  As he walked back to his car, Ken pulled irritatedly at his tie: he felt too buttoned up by half. The way his blood was pumping, he was ready to burst a blood vessel.

  And it wasn't because of the heat of the day. Seeing Laura so unexpectedly had set his pulse roaring along, trying to keep up with his libido. Even now, he was at a loss why: she had just done everything but cross her forearms at him.

  Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised. Maybe he should have been willing to let old ghosts lie. But he wasn't. Damn it, he was not willing. One look into her gray eyes—as dark and as threatening as a squall in July—and he was ready to take her on. There were issues here, issues between them that were unresolved.

  One way or another, he planned to resolve them.

  Chapter 6

  In the kitchen, Laura found Snack standing over Miss Widdich's casserole with a soup spoon, helping himself.

  "Who was that in the Porsche?" he asked through a mouthful of food. "He just about ran me down."

  "Mr. Kendall Barclay, our friendly local banker," said Laura dryly.

  "Here because?"

  "He wants Corinne to show up on Wednesday at the bank to make her case."

  "For?"

  "Being allowed to continue losing money hand over fist."

  "Ah. Damn, this stuff is good," he said, shoveling away. "So. Little Kenny holds our fate by the purse strings. No surprise there, I guess. The man owns the only bank in town."

  "Excuse me, but he inherited that bank; it's not as if he earned that bank," Laura said, sniffing. "And| incidentally, little Kenny is not so little anymore," she had to admit. "He's all grown-up and looking ... not that bad."

  She was still in a state of disbelief at just how not-that-bad he looked. Or, for that matter, at how bad she looked.

  Ah, screw it, she thought. She was in Chepaquit. Things always went bad in Chepaquit.

  She got a spoon out of the drawer and dipped it alongside Snack's dug-out trench. He smacked the back of her hand lightly with his spoon and said, "Hey. Stay on your side."

  "Sez you."

  It was like old times. Laura and Corinne had always had to fight for their fair share of the casserole; Snack's boundless appetite, coupled with his baby-of-the-family status, guaranteed that he got dibs on any available seconds.

  Laura butted him in the hip good-naturedly and said, "We'd better save some for Corinne. I'm sure Miss Widdich made it for her, not us."

  "Whoa! This is Witchy's food?" Snack asked, bug-eyed.

  "You bet."

  Snack suddenly choked and gagged melodramatically, dropping his spoon to the floor and clutching his throat. He let his tongue hang out and his eyes roll back as he staggered around the kitchen, gasping for air, all to Laura's amusement.

  Corinne walked in and took in the scene. "Now what?" she asked, grinning in response to her sister's laughter. "Has Snack bit off more than he can chew again?"

  Her brother pointed to the casserole and gasped, "Bell ... belladonna. I'd ... know it ... anywhere." And then he did a complete circle, stiffened, and fell to the worn linoleum floor.

  Laura applauded his inspired performance, but by then the grin had faded from Corinne's face. "Miss Widdich made that for us?" she asked, putting two and two together. In a stern tone, she said, "Get up, Snack. That is not funny."

  Snack continued to lie dead.

  "At least get your poisons straight. Monkshood might have you flat on the floor, or oleander, maybe. Or dog-button. Belladonna would take longer, you fool."

  Snack opened his eyes and looked at Laura. "Since when is she an expert?"

  "She works in a nursery," Laura said quickly.

  "So did I. So did you. Knowing the names is one thing; knowing the symptoms, that sounds like 'Double, double toil and trouble' stuff to me."

  Corinne's face went beet-red. "Don't be such a jerk! Get off the floor and either eat or go to work. You can relieve me down at the shop; the new girl doesn't have a clue how to handle a register."

  It was such an uncharacteristic, Laura-like response to Snack's behavior that he was actually chastened. "Hey, Rin," he said softly, looking up at her, "I was only kidding. Remember? I'm the one who likes to tease? Sorry."

  "Well ... some things just aren't funny," she said, barely mollified.

  It occurred to Laura that this was the first real instance of their working together without their father giving the orders. They were like orphaned wolf pups, playful and snarling by turns, clearly not ready to work seamlessly toward a common goal.

  But they had to try. "How're you coming on the tractor?" she asked Snack as he got t
o his feet.

  "No sweat. I've changed the oil and the filter, and next thing, I'll go into town for a new thermostat. We'll be up and running this afternoon."

  Corinne said, "Oh, you're going to town? Would you mind doing a delivery for us? I just took an order. Mrs. Atkins is out of the hospital and—"

  "Mrs. Atkins!" Snack said. "She's still alive?"

  "Ninety-seven years old and going strong—more or less," said Corinne. "She still asks about you and wants to know when you're going to settle down and get a steady job mowing lawns."

  "Well, there won't be a tip in this one for me, that's for damn sure," Snack said with a snort. "What happened to Billy? Last time we talked, he was still doing deliveries for you."

  Corinne shook her head. "I had to let him go. I just couldn't afford to pay him, even by the job."

  "Geez. After all these years."

  Sighing, Corinne shook her head and added, "I really feel bad about that. Who else is going to give him work? A lot of people are uncomfortable around him. Because he's so big," she added softly. Her cheeks colored, and Laura knew why.

  So did Snack. He said quickly, "Yeah, well, the best thing about Billy is he didn't give a damn if you tipped him or not. Say thank you, and his face would light right up. I can picture that broad, dopey grin right now. Poor dumb bastard. So how is he? Has he found anyone to feed him besides his mother?"

  "I don't think he's seeing anyone, if that's what you mean. But who knows? Billy's not much for small talk."

  Again it felt as if they were talking about Corinne instead of Billy. Snack shrugged and went over to the fridge, holding open the door while he searched inside. "We're out of beer already? I'll pick some up on my rounds. You running a tab somewhere, Rin?"

  "Not anymore. I'll give you my Visa, but..."

  "Yeah, yeah, I know," he said, obviously embarrassed. "Don't go crazy with it."

  Laura interjected herself between Snack and Corinne's credit card. "This trip's on me," she said. "I'll get my purse."

  She took the stairs two at a time so that she could get back down to the kitchen before Corinne could reach her plastic. The purse was on a chair in her bedroom; Laura fumbled with it in her hurry, dropping it to the floor. The wallet fell open; she must have forgotten to snap the closure tab shut. She reached inside for a bunch of twenties—and realized that she had barely a hundred dollars left.