Summer Beach Reads 5-Book Bundle: Beachcombers, Heat Wave, Moon Shell Beach, Summer House, Summer Breeze (194 page)

After Morgan stormed into her house, Bella and Natalie stood helplessly while the peach Bellini drizzled down the table onto the deck.

Bella grabbed her napkin and tried to soak it up.

“Morgan can hose it off,” Natalie told Bella. “Still, what a mess.”

Bella added softly, “All kinds of messes.”

Natalie sank back down on the side of her chair. “I don’t know how I let Josh’s secret out. It was just the heat of the moment.”

“Maybe it’s best that she knows.” Letting her napkin fall, Bella sat down facing Natalie. “I wouldn’t want my husband keeping a secret like that from me.”

Natalie flinched. “You think I should have told Morgan right away?”

“I’m not saying that. I don’t know what I think, actually.” Bella looked miserable, too.

“I’m sorry about Slade,” Natalie told Bella.

“It’s hardly your fault. Besides”—Bella opened her hands, as if offering an explanation—“Slade has a sweetness about him, Natalie. Truly.”

“If he wants to,” Natalie agreed with reservation. “Bella, Slade can act the wounded baby bird if it will get him laid.”

Bella cringed. “Charming.” Narrowing her eyes at Natalie, she asked, “Did you ever consider that perhaps you’re possessive of your
brother? That you go around warning women off him so he won’t choose a woman who will be more important in his life than you?”

Natalie gawked. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Bella stood her ground. “I know your father left you. Slade is the man in your family now. Slade—”

“Oh, stop this.” Natalie rolled her eyes. “You think
I
made Slade come on to Morgan? You think I was behind that seductive Victorian settee whispering, ‘Go, boy, go’?”

“That’s disgusting.”

“No more disgusting than what you’re saying!” Natalie reached over to take Bella’s hand. “Bella, I would be
thrilled
if Slade fell in love and married and had someone who was truly his. I’d be over the moon if he had a family. You’ve gotten way off track here. Slade is hardly the man in my life. I scarcely saw him in New York. It was only after I moved into Aunt Eleanor’s that he started staying with me.”

“So maybe he
is
interested in me,” Bella said.

“Maybe he is,” Natalie agreed. She paused, seeming to think her words over. Slowly, she pieced together her thoughts. “Bella, you warned me about
Ben
. How he’s got a one-track mind, he’s the absentminded professor, he’s consumed by his work.”

“True.” Bella squeezed Natalie’s hand. “Perhaps Ben will be different with you. I hope so.”

“I hope so, too. So maybe I’m wrong about Slade, Bella. Maybe he’ll be different with
you
.”

“Has he said anything about me?” Bella asked hopefully.

Natalie thought. “He did, several weeks ago. We were out in the boat. He told me he liked you.”

“Liked me.”

“That’s a huge thing for Slade to admit. I’d forgotten that. And it’s true, he’s been around here, helping you all the time.”

The two women looked at each other. A flash of white caught their eye as a neighbor sailed his boat out onto the lake. Overhead, birds chirped, endlessly cheerful.

Natalie looked toward the glass door leading into Morgan’s house. “I wish Morgan would come back out.”

“Bella!” Next door, Bella’s father appeared on the Barnaby deck, waving a newspaper at her. “The paper’s here! The review!”

“Coming, Dad,” Bella called back. “Want to come, too?” she asked Natalie.

“You couldn’t keep me away.”

They went down the deck steps, across Morgan’s lawn, and up the Barnabys’ steps to their deck.

“Let’s sit inside,” Dennis suggested.

They all gathered around the kitchen table: Louise, Dennis, Bella, and Natalie listened while Dennis read the review from the
Hartford Courant
.

“Oh.” Bella slumped in her chair. “Rural.”

“He does end the review on a negative note, Bella,” her father told her, “but the rest of it is pure praise!”

“Poor Shauna Webb,” Louise mused.

“Raffiné?” Natalie snorted. “Who even knows what that means?”

“All the raffiné people know,” Bella groaned. “Whoever they are.”

“We still have the
Daily Hampshire Gazette
article.” Louise patted Bella’s hand. “That will come out in the Style section next Sunday.”

“It’s always more fun to be critical than approving,” Natalie reminded Bella.

Bella just nodded, considering the consequences of the review.

“Bella.” Louise squeezed her daughter’s hand. “Let’s have some dinner before we think about this anymore. It’s easy to get discouraged on an empty stomach.”

“I’m not discouraged, Mother,” Bella said. “I’m not hungry either. I’m just … thinking.”

Natalie understood exactly where Bella’s mind was. She’d been there many times herself. “I’m going to head home.” She stood, kissed the top of Bella’s head, and said, “Congratulations, Bella. It really is a splendid review.”

“He certainly liked
your
work,” Dennis said heartily.

“Yes, he did. And I’m so grateful to Bella for showing it.” Natalie waved at the three of them gathered around the table and let herself out the sliding glass door.

“What shall we have for dinner?” Dennis asked. Now that Bella worked at her shop all day, he and Louise were sharing cooking tasks.

“I made a potato salad earlier,” Louise told him. “Is there enough cold roast chicken left over?”

Bella spent a moment gazing fondly at her parents, then excused herself. “I think I’ll go for a walk.”

“Oh, darling, it’s so hot out.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s cooled down from earlier today.”

Before they could object, Bella hurried down the hall and out the front door.

She clipped along down the slate sidewalk bordered with her mother’s flowers, then turned left, toward the main road. Toward
rural
Route 202. She didn’t want to walk the route around the lake. Too many people knew her and might come out to chat with her
about the newspaper review, and right now Bella wanted to be alone with her churning thoughts.

The verges of the two-lane road were narrow and thick with grass twined with Queen Anne’s lace. A forest, cool and dim, stretched endlessly on either side. In the silence, her mind calmed, and the disturbing revelations of the day settled down, shrinking in significance.

Slade and Morgan. How could she be surprised?

The review of Bella’s. Natalie must be thrilled.

Aaron. San Francisco.

Her shop. She had wanted to create a place to inspire people to fill their homes with beauty, and perhaps she had achieved a tiny portion of that goal, although a grand opening and one day did not prove anything, really. The review would bring people in. The reviewer had said that the customers were
appreciative
, so that was good. And it was no small achievement to have introduced Natalie’s art to this part of the world. It helped Bella believe that she had a good eye for art as well as for furniture.

Aaron hadn’t yet taken the San Francisco job. If he did take it, he wouldn’t start until September. She had a few more weeks to see how her shop went, to test her creative judgment, before she made a decision about staying or moving. Her talent in life was beginning to come clear to her, like a ship arriving through the parting mist. She loved Aaron. She was infatuated with Slade.

But most of all, she cherished the spark of possibility burning inside her at the thought of what she, Bella, could do with her life.

Morgan was a time bomb waiting to explode.

After she sweetly, sanely, tucked Petey in bed, she stormed around the house beating pillows back into plumpness, folding laundry, doing anything she could to use up some of the manic anger whirling inside her like a tornado building up from a small funnel into a roaring twister.

Josh had told Natalie he was writing a novel.
What else had Josh shared with Natalie?

At ten o’clock, she heard Josh come in. She waited for him to climb the steps and peek in at Petey as he usually did. Then he walked into their bedroom.

Morgan was in a nightgown, pretending to read.

“Hey,” Josh said.

She intended to be cool about it all, but the sight of him broke her open.

“Oh, Josh.”

“What?” Puzzled but wary, Josh perched on the end of the bed.

“Natalie told me.”

Josh drew back just slightly, as if she’d punched him. “She told you I’m writing a novel.”

Morgan crossed her arms over her chest, partly to calm her shaking. “How could you?”

Josh nodded. “I knew you’d be angry about this. You think I already spend too much time away from home—”

“Wait. You think I’m upset because you’re writing a novel?”

Josh almost smiled. “Well, look at you. I’d say you’re upset.”

“Of course I am—because you didn’t tell me, you told
Natalie
!” Morgan couldn’t tolerate one more second of his typically male incomprehension. “What kind of husband are you, to share such an intimate,
enormous
secret with another woman? Are you sleeping with Natalie?”

Exasperated, Josh groaned, “Oh, for God’s sake, Morgan. Of course I’m not sleeping with Natalie. Don’t be fantastical.”

“Oh, okay. I won’t ‘be fantastical.’ ” The full blackness of wrath settled on her. “So you’re not sleeping with Natalie, but you’re sharing with her the secret you would share with your wife, if you were truly married.”

“What?” Josh ran his hands through his hair. “Now you’re just getting overwrought. What does that even mean, ‘truly married’?”

Morgan said through clenched teeth, “It means faithful. It means choosing each other over everyone else. It means being
true
to each other in every way.”

“Oh, babe.” Josh tried to put his arms around her. “Morgan. Come on. I
am
true to you in every way.”

She wrenched herself away from his attempted embrace. “You told
Natalie
you’re writing a novel, and you didn’t tell
me
!”

He hung his head. “Okay. I get it. Look, I’m sorry. I apologize, all right? But, listen, it just happened. It just came out. It was when Natalie was babysitting Petey after the painting party you guys had—”

“The one you didn’t come to.”

“Okay,
fine
. Guilty as charged.” Her words had snapped something in Josh. He walked away from the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “Don’t you see, Morgan? I can’t do anything right by you anymore. You’re always pissed off because I’m always working. I knew you’d go
ballistic
when you found out I’m also trying to write a novel in my spare time—spare time, hell, as if I have any.”

“Oh, I see!” Morgan stood up, too, facing her husband. “So it’s
my
fault you conspired with Natalie.”

“Oh man, give me a break, I didn’t
conspire
—don’t be so dramatic.”

“Dramatic!” Morgan could hear how shrill her voice was. She paced around the room, trying to cool herself down, trying to get to the heart of the matter. “Josh,” she said, quiet now, as if she were calm, “why didn’t you tell me you’re writing a novel?”

“Because of
this
!” His voice broke. The firestorm of her anger had crossed over to ignite his own anger, injury, and fear. “Because I knew you would give me holy hell about it. Damn it, Morgan, I work eighteen hours a day. I suck up to Ronald Ruoff every day,
every day
, ‘yes, sir; of course, sir; you’re right, sir; I’m sorry, sir; I’ll get right on that, sir.’ I take wealthy prospective investors out to lunch and pretend I’m something I’m not, and if you don’t think that makes me feel like a nasty little lizard, think again.”

“I thought you believed in Bio-Green,” Morgan said.

“I do. Of course I do. I wouldn’t work for them if I didn’t, I’m not that much of a tool. I do believe in Bio-Green and their goals, but that doesn’t mean it helps me believe in
me
. I’m thirty-five. I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life. But I also love you and Petey. I’m trying my damnedest to provide for both of you, to be sure Petey and any other children we have get a good college education. I try to spend some time with Petey, I try to be here part of the weekend to take him out on the lake. Jesus, Morgan, I break my neck getting back here. But it’s not good enough for you.”