Catch of the Day (27 page)

“Hi,” I whisper.

“Hi,” he says.

“Did you carry me to bed?”

He nods once.

“You’re pretty strong, then,” I say, and he smiles, tugging my heart.

He reaches out and pushes a strand of hair back from my face, his smile fading. “Maggie,” he says, his voice as gravelly as the stones at Jasper Beach, “the other night, when you came over…I wasn’t exactly at my best.”

My goodness. An apology. “I think you’re making up for it now,” I tell him.

“Can you spend the day with me tomorrow?” he asks, still playing with my hair.

A date, I think. He wants to take me on a date. Octavio and Judy can run the place without me for a day. It’s been known to happen. “Sure.” My eyes are getting tired again. “Do you want to come under the covers?” I murmur. “It’s pretty chilly.”

The bed squeaks as he gets off it. I hear his clothes rustle, but I can’t keep my eyes open another minute. He slides under the covers with me, minus his sweater, though the jeans and shirt remain. He pulls me against him, and I slip my hand under his shirt against his warm skin. Malone kisses my forehead, and in another minute, I’m asleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY

M
ALONE WAKES FIRST,
sliding out of bed. “Meet me at the dock at seven, okay?” he asks.

“Okay,” I say, rubbing my eyes. He leaves, closing the door quietly behind him.

I get up, trying not to look for Colonel in every corner, and take a quick shower, then throw on some jeans and a sweater. I pause for a minute by Colonel’s bed, kneeling down to pat the fleecy cushion. “Miss you, buddy,” I whisper. Then I call Octavio and tell him I’m taking a day off.

“Sure, boss,” he says. “You deserve it.”

Now while seven isn’t early if you work in a diner, it’s downright late if you’re a lobsterman. Most of the boats are already out, including the
Twin Menace.
Malone’s
Ugly Anne
sits bobbing on its mooring as the tide rushes in. He’s waiting for me by his dinghy.

“So are we going lobstering?” I ask.

“Nope,” he says, handing me into the little boat.

The smell of herring, the bait lobstermen use for their traps, is musty and thick, but it’s a smell I’ve dealt with most of my life. Still, I breathe through my mouth until we get to the
Ugly Anne,
the waves slapping against the hull of the dinghy, spraying me occasionally. “Charming name,” I comment as we approach the boat. Malone’s face creases into a smile. “Who’s Anne?”

“My grandmother,” he says.

“And does she know that you’ve immortalized her this way?”

“Ayuh.” He smiles but offers nothing more, climbing aboard and reaching out his hand to me. “Have a seat,” he says.

A lobster boat is all about work, nothing about comfort. There are no chairs, just an area in the middle where you can sit if you’re so inclined, which the lobstermen aren’t and therefore don’t. The pilot house is crammed with equipment—a couple of radios, the GPS equipment, radar. There are barrels for bait and a holding tank for the lobsters. If Malone was going out to check pots, there’d be ten or twelve extra traps stacked on deck and miles of line coiled and waiting, but each night, the lobstermen unload at the dock, and the deck is clear and empty right now. I sit on the gunwale, not wanting to get in the way.

Malone does his preflight check, as it were, and then starts her up and releases the
Ugly Anne
from her mooring. The wind is brisk as we head out to sea. Malone steers us past Douglas Point, dodging Cuthman’s Shoal. Colorful buoys illustrate the water, so thick you could walk home, as Billy Bottoms would say, and we work our way as if navigating a maze. It takes us about twenty minutes to hit clear water, and even then the Maine coast is loaded with abrupt shoals, tiny islands, currents and tidal dangers. Once we’re out a bit, Malone sets the wheel and glances over at me.

“Are we going to check your traps?” I guess, pulling the hood of my coat on.

“No.”

“Where are we going, then?”

He adjusts the controls, then looks over to where I sit on the gunwale, insecure enough that I’m clenching a handhold. “It’s a surprise,” he says, unscrewing a thermos lid. “Want some coffee?”

He pours me a cup—black—but I don’t complain (or mention the fact that I just
knew
he took his coffee black). Then he turns his attention ahead, and I tilt my head back and watch the seagulls and cormorants that follow us, hoping for some bait. Colonel would have loved this, I think. The smells, the fish…maybe he’d roll around in something foul, a pastime he loved above all others.

The sound of the motor is soothing, and the damp breeze is tinged with salt and the slight smell of fish. The sun flirts with the idea of putting in an appearance, then reconsiders, and strands of fog still hug the rocky, pine-dotted shoreline.

I sip my coffee and study the captain, who seems different out here. He’s at ease, I realize, something I’ve rarely seen in Malone. He checks the instrument panel occasionally, makes adjustments to throttle, steers steadily and with confidence. Because the door of the pilot house is open, the wind ruffles his hair and jacket. “You doing okay?” he asks.

“Sure,” I answer.

Malone points out a group of puffins, the fat little black-and-white birds toddling on the shore of a small island. I ask him a few questions about the boat, but otherwise we don’t talk much. It’s actually kind of nice, being quiet. The dark head of a seal pops up about ten yards off the port side. It watches us for a moment, the silky brown fur gleaming, then slips noiselessly beneath the surface. My hair blows around my face until Malone offers me an elastic, one of the thousands he has to slip over the strong claws of the lobsters. The motor is loud and strong, but not strong enough to drown out the cries of the gulls that follow us, or the slapping of the waves as we cross a wake or current.

After an hour or so, we once again encounter a sea of offshore buoys. Malone slows down, navigating carefully through them, and heads to a wooden dock where about a dozen other boats are tied.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“Linden Harbor.” He doesn’t look at me.

“And what are we doing here?”

He shrugs, looking a little sheepish. “Well, there’s a thing here. A lumberjack competition. Thought you might like to see it.” He secures a line and steps onto the dock, then reaches a hand back for me.

“A lumberjack competition?” I ask, hopping off the boat.

“Ayuh. You know, tree cutting, axe throwing, the like. There’s a little fair, too. Games, craft tent, that sort of thing. Good food, too.”

Is he blushing? He turns for the gangplank before I can tell for sure.

“Malone,” I call.

“Yeah?”

“This sounds suspiciously like a date, you know.” I smile as I say it. “Sounds like you actually planned this.”

His eyes narrow at me, but he’s smiling. “You want me to win you one of those ugly carny toys or not?”

“Oh, I do, I do,” I answer, tucking my arm through his and continuing up the dock. “The question is, can you?”

“Of course I can, Maggie,” he says. “The question really is, how much money will I lose doing it?”

It’s almost surreal, being here with gloomy old Malone. Arm in arm, no less. There’s a bubble of happiness in me, a strange and lovely new feeling as we head toward the tents on the town green. The smell of fish is drowned out with something deliciously cinnamon.

“Looks like the rod and gun club’s selling breakfast,” Malone says. “You hungry?”

“God, I’m starving. Your bait fish was starting to look good.”

Malone orders me a ham and egg sandwich, a cinnamon roll and a cup of coffee, then the same for himself. We take our food and sit at a table, watching people.

“Can’t say I’ve ever seen you eat much, Malone,” I comment around a mouthful of what is surely the best breakfast sandwich ever made.

“Almost every day,” he says. “Come on, let’s walk around.”

For this part of Maine, it’s a pretty big event. We’re too far south to have driven along the coast…it would have taken us hours, but by boat we were able to go in a fairly straight line. There’s a small midway with a few rides. Kids dash from the merry-go-round to the Ferris wheel, tugging their parents’ hands, asking for more rides, more food, more games. The happy sound of a fair washes over us in waves, the music from the rides, screams of kids, laughter of parents. Before I think about it, I slip my hand into Malone’s. He turns his head to look at me, and as the corner of his mouth pulls up in a smile, my heart pulls, too.

“Win a prize for the lady!” calls a carny. “Shoot the target just three times, win a prize.” A row of battered-looking BB guns lines the counter.

“Oh, goody,” I say. “Here’s your chance, Malone. Prove your manliness and win me, oh, gosh, let’s see…how about that blue stuffed rat?”

“You sure? Don’t you want that pink zebra instead?”

“Oh, no. I’m a blue rat kind of girl.”

“Blue rat it is, then.”

Twelve dollars later, I am the proud owner of the ugliest stuffed animal I’ve ever laid eyes on. “Thank you, Malone,” I say, kissing my prize.

“You’re welcome. And I want you to know that gun barrel was bent.”

We pass on the rides, as I’m afraid of heights, and aside from the merry-go-round, the rest look like a quick way to die. Instead, we walk over to see the speed-climbing competition, the men scampering up forty-foot wooden posts with the agility of squirrels. When that event is over, we watch a man carve a life-size black bear from a huge block of wood.

“That would look great in front of the diner,” I say, half serious. Malone laughs.

There’s a crafts tent where quilts and afghans and embroidery hang on display, ribbons fluttering in the breeze. I pore over the baking tables, eyeing the coffeecakes and cookies, the beautiful pies and cheesecakes. Malone buys me a slice. “I like a woman who can eat,” he says, and I punch him in the arm.

“So, Malone,” I say as I take a bite of the creamy, lemony cheesecake. “Are you ever going to tell me your first name?”

“Why do you want to know?” he asks. He doesn’t look at me.

“Because…because I just would.”

“Mmm-hmm. Well, too bad.”

“I could ask Chantal, you know. She has all the public records. I bet your name is listed somewhere. Plus, I won’t give you a bite of this cheesecake if you don’t, and as you can see, it’s disappearing fast. Your chances are dying.”

“Another time, maybe.”

I sigh. “You realize you don’t talk that much, don’t you, Malone?” I say, taking the last bite of cheesecake.

“You talk enough for both of us,” he says. He takes my hand again.

It’s a wonderful day, not painfully cold, not raining, which by our standards means gorgeous. A barbershop quartet sings a corny song from World War II, and apparently some bagpipers will make an appearance later in the day.

By one-thirty, we’ve exhausted the event, having seen every little corner of it, and we walk down to shore. There’s a breakwater made from great slabs of rock, and we walk out on it a way, then sit. The stone is cold, but I don’t mind. Malone puts his arm around me.

“Cold?” he asks.

“No,” I answer. I lean my head against his shoulder. “So, Malone,” I say, “tell me about your family.”

He doesn’t stiffen so much as go completely still. “What do you want to know?”

Of course, the first thing I want to ask about is his daughter. A teenage daughter… What must that be like for him? And, let’s be honest, what would that be like for me? Truthfully, I haven’t dared to picture anything with Malone past what we’ve had thus far, but I want to. Would his daughter approve of her dad having a girlfriend? Would we be friends? Would she hate me, refuse to come visit her dad, stick pins in a Maggie-style voodoo doll? I clear my throat. “Well, you have a daughter, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Are the two of you close?”

“Close as you can be when you live on opposite coasts,” he says neutrally.

“You must miss her,” I say.

“Ayuh.”

I stifle a sigh. The subject of his daughter seems closed. “Did you know I went to school with your sister?” I offer.

“Ayuh.”

I wait, but more doesn’t come. “I seem to remember that you guys didn’t have the best childhood,” I venture carefully. It’s not exactly true—Christy’s the one who remembers, not me—but I hope it will open things up a little.

Malone’s arm drops from my shoulders, and he turns to face me. “Maggie—” His mouth becomes a tight line. “Look. You’re right. It wasn’t great. But it was a long time ago, and I took you here so you could have a nice day, all right? Let’s not talk about this shit.”

“Okay, okay. Fine.” The lines between his eyebrows are fierce.
All in good time, Maggie.
I pick up his hand. “I’m sorry. And I am having a nice day. Very nice.” The lines soften. “You’re being really sweet. In fact, I had no idea you could be such a prince.”