Sea Fever Page 4

  They were not connected, he thought. He had merely had sex with her. He had sex with many women.

  And banished the memory of her voice saying, “You’re the first in— oh, a long time.”

  Conn must have taken his silence as dissent, for he said, “You grew up there.”

  Dylan dragged his mind back to the tower and the present discussion. “Many years ago.”

  “Your family lives there.”

  A touchy point. “They are not my family any longer. I am selkie now.”

  The prince regarded him with cool, light eyes. “And yet you keep a human habitation not three miles east of them.”

  Dylan flushed. How much did Conn know? And how much did he hold against him? “The island was my mother’s.”

  “Your father built and furnished the house.”

  He had not known. He told himself it did not matter. “It’s a convenient stopping place, that’s all,” Dylan said.

  “Certainly it will be,” Conn agreed. “You may need to live among them for a time.”

  Dylan’s stomach sank. “After more than twenty years, the islanders are likely to question my sudden reappearance.”

  “Not so sudden,” Conn pointed out. “You were at your brother’s wedding.”

  Something Dylan regretted now. “That’s hardly the same. I didn’t have to talk to them.”

  Or his father. Or his sister.

  Sweat broke out on his lip and under his arms.

  “They will want to know why I am there.”

  “The humans have a story, do they not? Of the prodigal son?”

  “I do not think my brother”—the older brother, the good son, the one who stayed with his father—“will buy that explanation for my return.”

  “Then you will have to offer him another one,” Conn said coolly. “You can think of some excuse that will satisfy him.”

  Unbidden, the woman appeared again in his mind’s eye, her chin raised in the moonlight, her panties balled in her fist.

  “Yes,” Dylan said slowly. “I can.”

  * * *

  Regina counted the twenties under the tray of the cash register drawer. Forty, sixty, eighty . . .

  The lunchtime rush was over, the tourists gone to catch the two thirty ferry to the mainland. The afternoon sun slanted through the restaurant’s faded red awning, warming the vinyl booths and scratched wood floor. Beyondthe plate glass window, the harbor sparkled blue and bright, boats at anchor in the quiet water.

  Margred loaded glasses from an empty table into a dish pan, her movements languid and graceful as the resident cat’s. She and Caleb had returned from their two nights in Portland yesterday.

  “So.” Regina snapped a rubber band around the pile of bills. “How was the honeymoon?”

  Margred showed her teeth in a slow, satisfied smile. “Too short.”

  Regina laughed, ignoring her own wistfulness. “That’s what you get for marrying the only cop on the island in the middle of the tourist season. If you’d waited until September, he could have taken you on a real honeymoon. Hawaii, maybe. Or Paris.”

  “I do not want Paris.” Margred’s smile spread. “And Caleb did not want to wait.”

  Regina fought a pinch of envy. Had she ever been that happy? That desired? That . . . confident?

  “I was surprised to see his brother at the wedding,” she said.

  “Dylan?” Margred cocked her head, leaning forward to wipe the table. “Did you like him?”

  “I barely talked to him.”

  No, she’d just had sex with him on the beach. Really excellent sex. But no meaningful conversation.

  Her face burned.

  She wasn’t looking for meaningful, Regina reminded herself. And neither, obviously, was he. At least, not with her.

  “He seemed to know you, though,” she added.

  Margred’s rag paused. “He is Caleb’s brother.”

  “From before.” Regina wiped her sweating palms on her apron. “He said he knew you before.”

  “Did he?” Margred continued her slow, even strokes on the table. “What else did he say?”

  Regina had a vision of Dylan’s face, black and bitter. “I did not come for my brother.”

  She cleared her throat. “Nothing, really. I just found it interesting. Since you, you know, lost your memory and all.”

  “Ah.”

  Let it go, Regina told herself. Not your problem. None of your business.

  “So, how did you meet him?”

  Margred straightened, rag in hand. “Curious?”

  Regina scowled. “Concerned. Damn it, you’re my friend.”

  My employee.

  Cal’s wife.

  “So I am. And as your friend, I am telling you to leave this alone.”

  Regina closed the register drawer with a short chaching . “Fine.”

  Margred’s expression softened. “I promise, there is nothing in our relationship that Caleb could object to.”

  “Does he know?” Regina asked before she could stop herself.

  “Oh, yes. I have no secrets from Caleb.”

  “Bet the memory loss thing helps with that,” Regina muttered.

  “Excuse me?”

  The bell over the door jingled. Jane Ivey, the owner of the island’s gift shop, entered wearing a lumpy cardigan and the determined look of a woman on a mission.

  “What can I get you?” Regina asked.

  “Here’s the bride!” Jane exclaimed as if she hadn’t spoken. “You looked real good on Saturday, honey.”

  “Thank you,” Margred said.

  “That whole wedding— it was real nice,” Jane said.

  Margred smiled. “Regina did it all.”

  Jane’s tight brown perm quivered as she nodded. “Well, I know that. That’s why I stopped by. The girls are coming home for Frank’s birthday in September,” she said to Regina.

  “That’s . . . great,” Regina said. Was it great? She couldn’t remember how well Jane got along with her absent children. Sons stayed on the island, took over their fathers’ lobstering business or bought boats of their own. But daughters moved Away, seeking education, opportunities, husbands.

  Sometimes they came back.

  “We never thought when Frank had that episode last winter that he’d make it to his sixty-fifth,” Jane said, clutching her purse. “But he did, the old coot. Anyway, they’re all coming, Trish and Ed and Erica and the grandkids. We’re having a big party. And I want you to cater it.”

  Regina felt a spurt of satisfaction, warm and sweet as biting into pastry filling. She knew her food was good. But she didn’t get many opportunities to show what she could do. “Um, I’m not really set up for—”

  “We don’t do catering here,” Antonia said from the kitchen pass through. “We do take-out. You can look at a menu, if you want.”

  “Oh.” Jane’s face folded. “Well . . .”

  “How many guests?” Regina asked.

  “I don’t— thirty?” Jane guessed.

  She could do thirty, Regina thought, excitement balling in her stomach. She could feed thirty in her sleep. As long as Margred was willing to help with setup . . .

  “Talk to the inn,” Antonia said. “The chef there can probably—”

  “I already asked at the inn. Forty-eight dollars a head, he wanted, and twenty-four for the kids, who won’t eat nothing but chocolate milk and hot dogs anyway.” Jane’s soft jaw set. “I want you to do it.”

  “So take a menu,” Antonia said.

  “Frank really liked those little crab cakes,” Jane said to Regina.

  He liked her food.

  She could do this.

  “Why don’t I put together some ideas,” Regina said, already reviewing appetizers in her head. Tiny grilled sausages, that was easy, the kids could snack on those. Canapes. Maybe Gorgonzola with pine nuts? Roasted asparagus wrapped in proscuitto. “I can come by the shop later to talk. Thursday?” Thursdays she worked from lunch until close. “Thursday morning?
”

  Jane beamed, relieved and triumphant. “Thursday morning, sure.”

  “Is that all you came in for?” Antonia asked.

  “Yes.” Jane’s gaze flickered to Margred; lingered on her belly. “And to see the bride, of course.”

  “Well, you’ve seen her. Now we can all get back to work. Real work,” Antonia added as Jane sailed out the door. “Not wasting time and money on Frank Ivey’s birthday party.”

  “It’s not a waste,” Regina argued. “We can do this. We should do this.”

  “We don’t have the staff,” Antonia said.

  It was an old argument, one that started the headache behind Regina’s eyes. They alternated shifts now, mornings and evenings, both of them on during the lunch and dinner hours and Margred filling in as needed. “So we hire—”

  “Who?” Antonia demanded. “Anybody around here wants to pick up extra cash, they get it working the stern on a lobster boat, not scrubbing pots or serving fancy appetizers.”

  “I’m just saying if we developed a catering business— just as a sideline—”

  “We’re doing fine without it.”

  “We could do better.”

  Catering would give her a shot at an expanded menu and more flexible hours. But what Regina saw as an opportunity, her mother saw as a rejection of everything she’d worked for.

  “So now you have a problem with the way I’m running the restaurant?”

  Regina’s head pulsed. “No, Ma. It’s business.”

  “It’s bullshit. Jane only came in here because she wanted to get a good look at Maggie.”

  Regina pressed her fingers to her temples. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m only telling you what everybody’s saying.”

  “What are they saying?” Margred asked.

  “You got married in an awful hurry. Could be—” Antonia paused uncharacteristically before plunging on. “Some folks figure you must be pregnant.”

  “Ma!” Regina protested. Instinctively, she looked for Nick, but he was upstairs in the apartment they had shared since she brought him home over seven years ago: four small rooms with mice in the walls and the smell of garlic and red sauce rising from the kitchen below.

  “What?” Antonia folded her arms across her chest. “Some people find out they’re expecting, they actually marry their baby’s father.”

  Oh, God. Regina’s stomach flipped. Like this day didn’t suck enough already. Her mother couldn’t be content with control of the restaurant, she wanted to run Regina’s life as well.

  “That doesn’t always work out, Ma.”

  Antonia glared. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Margred had abandoned wiping tables to listen.

  “You married Dad,” Regina said. “How many years did he stick around? Two? Three?”

  “At least you got your father’s name.”

  “And that’s all I got. You did everything. Paid for everything. He never even sent child support.”

  “Oh, and you did so much better with the Greedy Gourmet.”

  Frustration closed Regina’s throat. She had never been able to talk with her mother. They were like oil and vinegar, too different to ever really understand one another.

  Or maybe they were too much alike.

  “I wasn’t—” She worried the crucifix around her neck, running it back and forth along the chain. “I’m trying to tell you I appreciate—”

  “He loved us. Your father. Not everybody is suited for island life, you know.”

  “I know. Jesus.” Did they have to exhume every skeleton in the family closet just because Jane Ivey liked Regina’s crab cakes better than her mother’s lasagna? “I’d leave myself if I could.”

  The words hung on the air, thick as the grease smell from the fryer. The hurt on Antonia’s face registered like a slap.

  Regina bit her tongue. Crap.

  “I am not pregnant,” Margred said.

  Antonia rounded on her. “What?”

  “You wanted to know. I would like a baby. But I am not pregnant yet.”

  “You want a baby?” Regina repeated. Remembering her own pregnancy with Nick, when she was sick all the time and tired and alone. “You just got married.”

  Antonia snorted. “Married, hell. They only met six weeks ago.”

  Margred arched her eyebrows. “I was not aware of a time requirement. How long must you know someone before you can get pregnant?”

  Memory swamped Regina: Dylan, plunging thick and hot inside her, filling her, stretching her. Her own voice panting, “I could get pregnant!”

  Her stomach dived. Oh, God. She couldn’t be pregnant. Nobody could be that unlucky twice.

  The bell jangled as a scarecrow figure pushed through the door: thin face, thin beard, dingy fatigue jacket over layers of sweatshirts.

  Not a camper, Regina thought, despite the backpack. The patina of wear, the dirt embedded in the creases of his knuckles and his boots, went deeper than a week in the wild. Homeless, maybe.

  “Can I help you?” Antonia asked in a voice that meant something else. Get out. Go away.

  Regina understood her hostility. World’s End barely had the social services to support its own population. The ferry and the local businesses catered to residents and tourists, not the homeless.

  The man eased the pack from his broad, bony shoulders to thump on the floor. “I’m looking for work.”

  “What’s your name?” Regina asked.

  “Jericho.”

  “Last name?”

  “Jones.”

  At least he had a last name. It was more than Margred had offered when she first came to work for them.

  “Do you have any restaurant experience, Mr. Jones?”

  His gaze slid to meet hers, and her breath caught in her throat.

  Alain used to say the eyes were windows to the soul. Regina figured it was mostly a line to get her into bed, but she knew what he meant. You could tell when nobody was home. But this guy . . . His eyes were crowded, haunted, like he had too many people living in his head, jockeying for position at the windows.

  Schizophrenia? Or substance abuse?

  She didn’t care so much if he was using. Half the staff at Perfetto’s had been addicted to something, booze or drugs or the adrenaline rush of a perfectly performed dinner service. But she wasn’t hiring a crazy to work in her mother’s kitchen, her son’s home.

  “Call me Jericho,” he said.

  She cleared her throat. “Fine. Do you have any—”

  “I washed dishes in the Army.”

  Margred set her bus tray on the counter. “You were in the Army?”

  He nodded.

  “Iraq? My husband was in Iraq.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Regina bit back a groan. Of course he would say that. He’d probably say anything to get a job. Or a handout.

  “We’re not hiring,” Antonia said.

  Margred frowned. “But—”

  Jericho picked up his pack. “Okay.”

  That was it. No resentment. No expectations. His flat acceptance got under Regina’s skin, made them kin somehow.

  She scowled. Nobody should live that devoid of hope. “You want to wait a minute, I’ll make you a sandwich,” she said.

  He turned his head, and she did her best to meet that haunted, eerie gaze without a shudder.

  “Thanks,” he said at last. “Mind if I wash up first?”

  “Be my guest.”

  “He trashes the restroom, you clean it up,” Antonia said when the door had closed behind him.

  “I can clean,” Margred said before Regina could bite back.

  Antonia sniffed. “We can’t feed everybody who walks in off the street, you know.”

  Regina was irritated enough to shove aside her own misgivings. “Then maybe we’re in the wrong business,” she said and stomped into the kitchen to make the man a sandwich.

  She glanced up the apartment stairs as she passed. Nick had a
lready visited the kitchen to eat his lunch and punch holes in the pizza dough. But she could call him down for a snack, shoo him outside to play. Summers were tough on them both. School was out while the restaurant stayed open longer hours. Nick had more free time, and Regina had less.