“Like it?”
She nodded. “It’s not at all what I expected. It’s good.”
“I’m glad you like it. But sip it slowly, because that’s all you’re getting tonight.” He was looking into her eyes as he recapped the bottle, but she wasn’t totally sure he was referring only to the bourbon. “Now, maybe we could sit out on your deck again, and you can tell me about your day.”
She told him about offering Dylan a place to live and a job.
“Good for you, Liddy.” He beamed his approval. “There’s a kid who needed a break, deserved a break—and you made it happen for him. You’ll never be sorry for having helped him to keep moving toward his goal. From all you’ve said, this kid has had everything stacked against him, and yet he’s been working his tail off at school. I saw Jason Riley at the drugstore the other day, and we got to talking. He says this kid is the best baseball player he’s ever coached. He has a bright career ahead of him, and with his grades, he’s guaranteed to get into a top school. Him having a stable place to live and a job is going to make all the difference in the world to that boy. You’re an amazing woman, Lydia, and I’m proud of you.”
Somehow Lydia sounded a lot better coming from Tuck than it did from Jim.
Later, after he’d kissed her good night—another zinger—and she’d locked up the house, she lay in her bed and thought about the two men in her life. She and Jim had almost forty years of history, and he’d declared his love for her in no uncertain turns. Tuck had brought her rare bourbon and asked her about her day. Jim had criticized her when she’d told him she hadn’t pressed charges against Dylan. Tuck had praised her for those same actions. As flattering as all the attention was, she’d never been comfortable juggling relationships. Sooner or later, she’d have to choose one.
Two days later, Tuck came into the shop right around twelve thirty. He came up behind her while she was straightening out the mystery section.
“Any chance you could take a long lunch?” he whispered.
Liddy kept her cool. She glanced around the shop as if debating. “Well, we haven’t been really busy today, and Evelyn and Grace are here, so sure. What do you have in mind?”
“How does a picnic on the beach sound?”
“That sounds great.” Not to mention romantic.
“How ’bout I come back for you in about twenty minutes?”
“I’ll be here.”
Her heart pounding, Liddy went back to the powder room in her office and checked her appearance. She’d worn a denim skirt and a white long-sleeved cotton tee, over which she wore a dark-rose cardigan. Tennis shoes. No makeup. She looked at herself closer, then decided a little mascara would be good. She tucked some errant strands of hair back into the bun she wore. She pictured the two of them on the beach at the end of Cottage Street, sitting near the rocks on a patchwork quilt, eating cheese and fruit and drinking wine. Or should she make that bourbon? But no. That was for special occasions. Would today be special? She went back out to the floor and tried to act busy until Tuck came back.
“So where are we going?” she asked after they’d driven past Cottage Street in his truck. She’d assumed that was where they were headed. When she said beach, she meant Cottage Street Beach. Apparently, Tuck had something else in mind.
“We’re taking a ride.” He continued to drive in the direction of the bay. He pulled up in front of the old warehouse he used for the business and turned off the car.
“I thought you said we were going to the beach,” Liddy said, a little confused. A warehouse was no place for an afternoon tryst, if in fact that was what he’d planned. Her hopes were fading fast.
“We are.”
He opened the driver’s door and got out, then grabbed a bag from the space behind the cab. He walked toward the passenger side and pointed to the Boston Whaler tied up at the dock. Delighted, Liddy jumped out of the truck and stared at the boat. It had been years since she’d been out on the bay. Her father had had a catamaran when she was growing up, and she and her sister, Ruth, had spent many an afternoon gliding over the water from the bay to the harbor and back again.
But then she’d grown up and gotten married. Jim got seasick, so eventually she’d sold the catamaran.
“Good thing I wore sneakers today,” she commented as he helped her step over the side of the boat onto the deck. She found her balance easily and felt a stirring of something familiar growing inside. She was happy to be on the water again. She hadn’t even realized how much she’d missed it.
She helped Tuck untie the boat, then watched as he took his place at the wheel.
“You might want to come stand here with me,” he told her. “There’s a good deal of chop further out, so it’s going to get a little rough. Not to mention you will probably get wet.”
“It’s okay,” she said as the boat pulled away from the dock. “I don’t mind.”
He turned the boat toward the open bay, and increased the speed. When their destination became clear, she broke into a grin. He was taking her to Shelby Island.
Water flew up from the sides of the boat, spraying but not soaking her. She wouldn’t have cared if it had. She was out on the water again and, for a few minutes, remembered how it felt to be young and have the wind in your face and not a care in the world. It was exhilarating. As they approached the island, it became obvious it was larger than it looked from the mainland, and what she could see of it was mostly green. She felt like Wendy, getting her first glimpse of Neverland. Tuck cut the motor and let the waves roll him toward the dock, where he tied off the Whaler.
He picked up the bag and jumped off the boat and held his hand out to Liddy and said, “Welcome to Shelby Island.”
She took his hand and stepped off the side of the boat onto the dock.
“Tour first or lunch first?” he asked.
She tried to look like she was thinking it over, though there was really no question. “Tour first.”
“Somehow, I knew you’d say that.” Tuck took her hand, and they walked over a dune where beach grass grew in untidy clumps and beach plums were prolific.
“My grandma used to make beach plum jam,” Liddy told him.
“My grandmother and my mom did, too. A ton of it grew this year. It’s a shame to see the fruit go to waste, but no one has the time to make jam these days.”
They rounded a stand of scrub pine, and up ahead, the house Nicholas Shelby had built for the wife he’d yet to meet came into view. For some reason, Liddy had expected to find it weather-beaten and grayed, the paint worn off by sun and wind, maybe even a sagging front porch. But the large house with all its gables rising beyond the dunes was pristine white, with a door the color of peaches and shutters painted black. Morning glories twined along the front porch, the last few flowers holding on to the hope of a few more sunny weeks.
“It’s beautiful, Tuck.”
“Thanks. It’s a lot of work to keep up. We end up painting the exterior every couple of years, but it’s worth the effort. The old girl’s hung in there for a long time. I don’t want her falling apart on my watch. Come on in and say hi to my dad if he’s awake.”
Inside, the front hall was spacious and cool, the floor a natural wide-plank pine. The stairs from the second floor flowed elegantly from the right side into the foyer. A chandelier hung solemnly, and a vintage piano stood against one wall. She caught a glimpse of the dining room as she followed Tuck into the house, and noted the formal furniture, which she suspected might have been in the house for a very long time. They passed through the kitchen and the sunporch and out through a screened door into the garden, where a man wrapped in a blue blanket sat in a wheelchair. His eyes were fixed on the dahlias swaying in the breeze.