Sweet Kiss (8 page)

“How about an appetizer? Some shrimp?” the young waiter asked as he delivered her drink. “They’re on special today. Cajun, blackened or plain. Steamed or cold.”

Kate shook her head and handed him a twenty-dollar bill. While she waited for her change, she gazed out over the waters where the sun would slowly sink in two hours or less. Soon it would color the entire vegetation and all the rivers in the estuary a glowing pink. When they were little, Aunt Fay would take Tappe, Violet, and her to a nearby inlet where they fished, dug for clams, or just played in the shallow water. Around her, she smelled the familiar scent of Old Bay, and she remembered the many nights her aunt let them stay up late to steam shrimp.

A familiar smell wafting on the breeze wrenched her from her wandering thoughts. She sat upright, slid off the bench, and rounded the building where the Dumpster stood outside the kitchen door of the shack. She lifted the lid and found garbage bags smelling like they contained all kinds of decaying shells and fish parts. She went back to her table. When the waiter returned with her change, she asked, “If someone wanted to collect a garbage bag full of shrimp shells, could he…or she…steal a bag from your Dumpster?”

“Eeeuuww!” The waiter made a horrible face like he was gagging. “Why would anyone want to steal discarded shells?”

“But it’s possible?”

“I don’t think anyone, including the owners, would care if someone walked away with a stinky bag of shells or the whole Dumpster full of fish guts and rotting rubbish.”

Kate scrutinized the front corners of the building and cocked an eyebrow. “You have cameras on the premises?”

He shook his head. “Yeah, but to be honest, the one out back is broken. It’s funny you should mention it, but a gal stopped by a few days ago and asked about shrimp shells. She said she often wondered what we do with them.” He shook his head disbelievingly. “What do people think we do with them besides chuck them in the garbage?”

“Make seafood stock?” Kate pondered aloud.

“If we used all our shells, we’d have soup stock for the next century.”

“Good point.” She nodded.

“So what did this woman look like?”

The young man grinned. “I can’t remember much. She talked to the manager. But she acted like sort of an airhead and left singing a song about a postman.”

Seething, Kate sat back in her seat, waiting for Tappe as she thought up ways to toss Eva May Poole, uniform and all, into the nearest body of water. It was obvious the postmistress was infatuated with Tappe. If she discovered he wanted to buy Aunt Fay’s house, she would try to find a way to discourage Kate from hanging on to it. Kate had no doubt the scatterbrain deliberately dumped the shrimp in an effort to hurry the process along.

An hour and a half later, when Tappe didn’t show, Kate tried to call him with no success. Finally, humiliated by being stood up, she walked back to her Jeep and tried one more time. Fiercely wiping a tear threatening to run down her cheek, she remembered he rarely kept his phone on him when he worked on the dock or onboard a boat. She sat for only a minute before her misery and embarrassment turned to raw fury. She would bet dollars to her own coffee shop donuts Eva May was up to her old tricks and had somehow waylaid him. Throwing the Jeep into drive, she tore out of the parking lot and down to the marina. If Tappe was going to make a fool of her twice, at least he was going to face the consequences…and face her as well.

Chapter Seven

She found him sitting outside on an old webbed lawn chair on the dock, fresh from the shower, watching the same glorious sun she had been watching. It was slowly setting and hung suspended above the coastal waters like a giant orange balloon. Later, when it would drop on the horizon, long swirling rays of color would spill over the still water and vegetation to rival a Picasso painting. The faint smell of smoke from a beach fire rode on an air current rolling in from the ocean.

Tappe glanced up when he heard her approach. “Hi.” He smiled a warm wide smile. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“Obviously,” she said through gritted teeth.

“What’s wrong?” He rose and started toward her.

She held up a hand to ward him off. “I waited an hour and a half at the Shrimp Shack for you to come. Didn’t you get my message from Eva May?”

“What message?”

“To be there at four so we could go over plans about Children’s Day at the Valentine’s Day Festival? I thought we’d catch dinner afterwards.”

He shook his head. “The only thing Eva May gave me was a cup of coffee with too much milk and enough sugar to give three people a hyperglycemic attack. I had to slurp down a few mouthfuls just to rid myself of her.”

“How heroic! What about the two jars of jam?”

“What jam? Our jam? The jam we made?”

“Oh, for goodness sake.” Kate glared at him. “I’ve been taken for a fool by two people today!”

Tappe stared at her in confusion. “What are you talking about, Kate?”

“I gave Eva May strawberry jam to give to you and your parents.”

“And that’s what has you so worked up? Because Eva May made off with a couple jars of jam?”

“No, because Eva May deliberately neglected to tell you we were supposed to meet at four o’clock at the Shrimp Shack.”

“We’re talking about Eva May, here. The same dingbat who talks to her shoes. Jeez, Kate, do you really think she’s capable of remembering a message beyond a few seconds?”

“I’m sorry, but I have issues with that woman.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Don’t we all? Join the club.”

“I’m certain she was the one who spilled the bag of decaying shrimp shells on my aunt’s porch.”

“What would be the point?”

Kate placed her hands belligerently on her hips and glared at him. “You! She’s been chasing you since you arrived. She’s looking for a
husband
. I’m in her way. The
dingbat
thinks the sun rises and sets on your dear little head.”

“Well, at the moment, the sun is setting on both of our dear little heads,” he pointed out.

His humor only fueled her temper more. She sputtered, bristling with outrage, “Tappe, if you told her to jump off the dock with a shark circling, the twit would dive in head first!”

“Whoa, now.” The corner of his mouth formed into a devilish smirk. “One, I’d never do that to a poor shark, and two, Eva May can’t swim.” He threw his hand carelessly in the air. “I’ve never encouraged that woman. She’s like a piece of gum struck to my shoe. Everywhere I go she shows up. Be reasonable, Kate. I have
no
romantic interest in Eva May Poole.”

“Maybe you’d better tell
her
that.”

Tappe scraped a hand over his face and uttered a faint obscenity. “Maybe I better. First thing tomorrow, I’m stopping at the post office and I’ll make sure our loony post mistress receives the message.” He gestured to a lawn chair by the building. His voice softened. “Let’s get another chair, sit down, and talk this through. Please, Kate.”

“Yeah. Great idea. I think we should
talk
all right. Eva May isn’t the only issue!” Kate swept past him and stomped down the dock. She halted at a portion of the railing where boats moored on stringers stretched out to deeper waters. Gentle waves lapped against the pilings below her. The creaks and groans of the vessels and the squeaky scrape of their fender bumpers, usually a soothing sound, seemed more like a series of groans and complaints instead. She waited until he sauntered up and was in earshot. “The problem is you, Benedict Arnold. You. You who decided you’d team up with my sister to try to convince me to sell Aunt Fay’s house so
you
could buy it.” She didn’t try to hide the irritation and bitterness in her voice.

“Baloney! I did no such thing. I gave your sister money to help her get out of debt. I told her if she and you decided to sell, I’d like to be the first one to make an offer.”

“Why? Why give her money? Don’t you know Donald Meyers will only pop up out of the blue and she’ll hand it over to him?”

“I did it because your sister was out of sorts. She’s hurting. Can’t you see that? The woman needs professional help. I’m certain she’s hitting the bottle.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I came home to Little Heron Shores to settle down and be near my parents and those I know, love, and respect. Besides Mom and Dad, you and Violet are the only ones I know who are close to being called my family. Mom was an only child like me. Dad’s brother in Amsterdam never married. I have no cousins.” He paused, then admitted, “Money is no problem, Kate. When I decided to buy the marina with Dad, I sold my company and made a very tidy profit. Why not use it to help?”

Kate pursed her lips and hid her surprise, pondering what he had just revealed.

Tappe pressed on. “Listen, I hired a private investigator to look into this Donald Meyers guy and his background. Before he showed up here a few years ago, pulling all those stunts he’s infamous for, he lived in Wisconsin and was married to a woman from Mason. Even though he married your sister, he never divorced his first wife. Your sister is the injured party here. Bigamy is a crime in every state, and it’s a felony in Wisconsin. He’s been giving her grief. We can kick him from here back to the far shores of Lake Superior. He’ll wish he never heard of Little Heron Shores.”

“You mean she was never married?”

“No, not legally.”

“And he fleeced her of all her money?” She stared at him in astonishment. “Now what?”

“Now she’ll have to find a good lawyer and see what her options are.”

He leaned his forearms on the rail and fell silent, staring at the sun sinking lower and flaunting its colors. Streaks of vibrant pinks, purples and gold like a magical light show set the evening sky on fire and struck the backwaters coloring them as well. A flock of seven pelicans split the sky in two as they winged their way in a diagonal formation across the sky. Birds called out in more gentle melancholy sounds with night closing in, and somewhere farther away a seagull squawked.

“Listen,” he finally said in a lower voice, “if you want the house now, and you want to save your relationship with your sister, let me lend you fifty thousand to pay Violet off for her half of the house. She’ll need the money to chase down Donald and for legal counsel. You can repay me however and whenever you choose. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here on the coast.”

“But you want the house.”

“I want you to be happy, Kate.”

“But you
really
want the house.”

Grim faced, he glanced again at the beautiful display before them and fell quiet, refusing to argue.

“Say it,” she demanded, thumping her fist on the weathered rail. She refused to let him off so easily. “Admit it. You want the house!”

“Okay. Okay!” He stepped back from the rail, grabbed her shoulders, and spun her toward him. In a steely voice, he said, “I want the house. I want the blasted house. I want the blasted house, Kate, but only if I have you in it! I love you. I’ve loved you since we were six years old. I don’t give a rat’s backside where we live—above the marina, at your house, at your Aunt Fay’s, or in a treehouse.” He let out a long, audible breath and raised an eyebrow. “Now do you understand?”

Taken back by his bluntness, Kate’s eyes widened, her heartbeat skyrocketed, and her stomach did a double summersault. Her gaze met his and she grabbed him by the front of his shirt, staring into those hazel eyes she knew and loved. “Oh, you big dope, why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

“Because I didn’t know how you felt about me,” he admitted in a husky whisper.

She pulled him toward her, and this time she kissed him with a hunger that spoke of forgiveness, love, and pure pleasure. When they came up for a breath, she uttered through a merry gasp, “I love you, too, Tappe Vanderberg.”

It was all he needed. He swung her up in his arms, lifting her off her feet and twirling her around. “Then I’m the luckiest man in Little Heron Shores!” He grinned and held her tight. Their laughter blended and filled the air around them, floating out over the water.

When he set her down, he grabbed both her hands and said, “We’ve wasted too many years, Kate Clark. Why waste more? Will you marry me?”

Kate’s heart sang with delight. She beamed and a warm contented glow flowed through her. She stood on tiptoe to brush a kiss on the side of his jaw. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

But it wasn’t enough. He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her slowly and tenderly before pulling away and offering her an endearing secret smile she understood. Then, with a sense of urgency, he pulled her up the dock toward the marina and led her up the stairs to his small second-floor apartment. He turned only once to whisper in her ear.

“I think we need to take this celebration to a whole new level.”

A word about the author…

Judy Ann Davis began her career in writing as a copy and continuity writer for radio and television in Scranton, PA. She holds a degree in Journalism and Communications and has written for industry and education throughout her career.

Over a dozen of her short stories have appeared in various literary and small magazines, and anthologies, and have received numerous awards.

When Judy Ann is not behind a computer, you can find her looking for anything humorous to make her laugh or swinging a golf club where the chuckles are few.

She is a member of Pennwriters, Inc. and Romance Writers of America, and lives with her husband in Clearfield, PA.

Visit her on:

Her blog: www.judyanndavis.blogspot.com

The web: www.judyanndavis.com

Facebook: Judy Ann Davis Author

Twitter: @JudyAnnDavis4

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/judyanndavis44/

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/4353662.Judy_Ann_Davis

~*~

Other Judy Ann Davis titles

available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.