The Man She Left Behind (5 page)

Authors: Janice Carter

BOOK: The Man She Left Behind

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The absurdity of the suggestion left Leigh speechless for a moment. Then she replied, “Mr. Jensen has been looking after it for the past year and obviously he can’t anymore. There’s no point in renting it out because I’d still have to—”

“Come back. To check on it now and then.”

“Right. And New York is a long way from Ocracoke.”

An expression Leigh couldn’t read moved across his face. “Besides, there’s no reason to come back to Operacoke now that my folks are gone.”

A stain of red crept up Spencer’s neck. He took a long sip of coffee before saying, “There’s Sam. I know he’d love to have you stick around awhile.”

“Sam has his own family,” she said, realizing at once how lame and callous the remark sounded.

“Yeah, some family.”

The bitterness in the comment silenced her. She was tempted to pursue his lead, but suspected she’d end up on a path to the past she wasn’t yet ready to take. So she wadded up the paper napkin and tossed it onto the plate. “I should get back and shower and...stuff.”

The bleakness in his eyes held her to her chair. A strand of hair dangled across his tanned forehead. He obviously hadn’t shaved that morning, but thanks to his fair complexion he’d always been able to put off that daily task. The weather lines etching the corners of his blue eyes—cornflower blue, she used to call them—and the permanent groove between his thick reddish blond eyebrows did make him look older than his thirty-five years.

But he’ll never be an old-timer,
Leigh knew.
Not in spirit, anyway.

“I’ll drive you back,” he finally said, and headed for the cash register.

His walk was suddenly as familiar as the cutoffs she’d found in her bureau drawer last night. Leigh’s breath caught and she had to move, unable to sit and watch the replay of the past another second. She stood up and walked toward the screen door he was now holding open for her. Once inside the truck she thanked him for the breakfast.

“No problem.” He turned on the ignition and braced his right arm along the top of the passenger seat while he backed out onto the road. His fingertips brushed Leigh’s shoulder and for a moment their eyes connected.

Leigh gave a tentative smile.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, and returned his hand to the steering wheel.

Strange how something so trivial could resurrect so many memories, Leigh thought. She stared at his long tanned fingers, the blond hairs on each knuckle. They’d always been working hands, even when Spence was a teenager, and they still bore the callused skin from years of scaling fish, hauling nets and knotting lines. But the nails were trimmed and clean, a personal statement in defiance of work and weather.

Spence had come from a home quite different from the rest of the gang on Ocracoke. His father had been a fisherman like most of the men in the village then, but alcohol had lost him first his wife and then the stability of a home. Everyone in Silver Lake agreed that Spence McKay had more or less raised himself.

Leigh could still remember when Spencer’s fingers had first slipped through hers, the night of the Sadie Hawkins dance two years before graduation. They’d arrived at the dance separately. Leigh, who’d come with Jen after her friend had begged her to for days, and Spence, who’d been towed around by a girl in his class. His expression of utter boredom had spurred Leigh to take Jen’s dare and ask him for a dance. From the moment he’d halfheartedly taken her in his arms slow-dancing, Leigh Randall had determined to walk home that night with Spencer McKay.

“Something on your mind?”

Leigh glanced up.

Spence smiled. “You looked faraway.”

Leigh cleared her throat. “Yes, I was.”

“Thinking of New York?”

She shook her head. “Not faraway in miles. In years.”

“Ah. Well, I suppose coming home brings back a lot of memories.”

That’s an understatement.
“Yes,” she said in a voice as noncommittal as she could muster.

After he shifted into drive he glanced sideways at her. “I hope they haven’t all been bad ones.”

“Not all of them.”

Spence drummed his fingertips against the steering wheel and wished he could think of something clever to say. But he figured he’d already said more than he ought to have. He thought back to a few weeks ago when he’d first heard Leigh Randall was returning to Ocracoke. Seemed like a day hadn’t passed since that he wasn’t thinking about her. Remembering things—too
many
things—they’d done together, and later, how it had all ended up.

At that point his mind always shut down. Some things, he decided, should not be lived again but laid to rest forever. That was the philosophy he’d adopted long ago. Somewhere around the time he’d grown up—after Leigh left and then Jen. But every now and again his errant mind delved into the past like a wayward child, and memories flashed unbidden before him.

He’d first noticed how beautiful Leigh Randall was about the time she turned fourteen. He’d met up with her and Jen while walking in the marsh. Jen had been chasing Leigh with a cattail, waving it about as Leigh pranced through the marsh grass like a wild filly, her long black hair like polished ebony in the sunlight. From that day, until he’d taken her hand in his at the Sadie Hawkins dance, he’d waited patiently for her.

Sure, he reminded himself, there’d been other girls. A few in Ocracoke—summer girls—and others up in Hatteras. But he’d never let any of those relationships get in the way of that nugget of knowledge deep inside. That one day, when the timing was right, Leigh Randall would be his.

Now here he was on Ocracoke Island—the best place in the world—and once again driving in a pickup truck with the first woman he’d ever loved.
And she’s free and you’re free. Can it get any beiter?
he asked himself. His eyes shifted to the right, taking in the set line of Leigh’s profile. He sighed.
I hope so.

“Are those your binoculars?”

Leigh’s unexpected question threw him. “Hmm? Oh, yeah,” he said, following her pointing finger to the floor hump between them. “I was out bird-watching just before daybreak. Up in the salt marshes.”

“You? Bird-watching?”

“Is it that incredible?”

Leigh shook her head. “No, I...I guess not, I just never pegged you for a...”

“Nature boy?”

She laughed. “There’s something geeky about that phrase that definitely doesn’t apply to you.”

“Well,” he drawled, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“When did you take up bird-watching?”

“A few years ago.”

Leigh smiled at the brief reply. He’d always hated talking about himself. “A lot of things have happened since I left Ocracoke.”

“That’s for damn sure,” he said, then, “Guess we’re here.”

Leigh looked up, surprised to see the drive of Windswept Manor so soon. She’d forgotten how very small the island was. “Thanks for the coffee, Spence. It was... nice,” she said, searching for a neutral word.

“Yeah. Maybe we could do it again sometime.”

“Sure.” Her hand settled on the door handle.

“Or maybe I could go running with you—that is, if you want company.”

Leigh frowned. “Perhaps, though I’m not sure how long I’ll be here.”

He raised his shoulders as if to say, “Whatever,” and she stepped down from the truck. She was almost at the front door when he called out, “Good luck with the cleaning.”

Leigh waved and pushed open the screen door. She paused in the shadowy hallway, watching through the screen mesh as Spencer’s truck reversed and backed out onto the highway. Beads of sweat dripped down the side of her neck, and she realized she was breathing as if she’d run all the way home.

LEIGH FELT her welcome smile wobble a fraction. She hoped Sam hadn’t noticed, but was certain Jamie McKay, lurking behind him in the doorway, had.

Sam clutched his rolled-up Tilley hat, gesturing with it over his left shoulder. “I came by this afternoon to see if it was all right if young Jamie here came along, but you weren’t home.”

Thrown off by the unexpected addition to dinner, Leigh was at a loss for words. “I’m sorry. I decided to do some shopping in Hatteras and I didn’t get back until after four. But that’s fine, Sam, the more the merrier. As my dad used to say, ‘It just means another cup of water in the soup.’ In this case, another handful of pasta in the pot. Come in.”

Although she’d been looking at Sam, Leigh had been conscious all the while of Jamie’s fixed stare. She moved aside as the two stepped into the hall. Jamie slouched farther into his hooded sweatshirt, hands in his jeans pockets, gaze on the floor. Not a happy camper, Leigh decided.

“Y’see,” Sam was saying, “Spence got a call to be in Charlotte for an early meeting tomorrow and he thought he’d best head to the coast this afternoon. And, uh, well, the lad is staying with me overnight and I didn’t want—”

“Of course. Jamie’s as welcome here as you are, Sam,” Leigh said. “I just saw Spence this morning in the village. I hope his trip to Charlotte isn’t an emergency or something.”

She heard Jamie snort behind Sam, who quickly said, “Not at all. He knew the meeting was coming up but wasn’t sure of the date.”

“I coulda stayed home alone,” Jamie mumbled, “but no one trusts me.”

Sam’s face darkened. “Enough of that, my boy. You know the rules. And take that hood off your head—you’re inside now.”

Leigh’s anticipation of a quiet chatty evening with Sam began to fade. They stood looking at one another until she said, “Well, I thought we’d eat out on the deck. Come on through to the kitchen and pick up a drink.”

She led the way, listening to the soft squeak of rubber soles behind her. “I was just finishing up the salad.”

“Can we give you a hand?”

“Thanks, Sam, but I’m almost finished. Let me take your jacket and hat. A beer?”

“I’d never turn down a cold one.”

Leigh smiled at the exaggeration. In fact, he’d never been much of a drinker.

“Jamie? A Coke?” She turned to the boy, who’d moved farther into the kitchen. He was inspecting the old hand pump at the end of the counter, which contained the newer stainless-steel sinks.

“That pump used to connect to a cistern out back and was the only way we got drinking water when I was a little kid,” Leigh said.

Without turning around Jamie muttered, “Yeah,” and continued to move his fingers along the wooden handle and wrought-iron spout of the pump. Then he pushed his hood off his head and looked across the room at Leigh. For a moment she was lost in the memory of Jen Logan’s eyes.

Jamie was a different blond than his father, more platinum, like Jen. And he’d inherited his mother’s sea green eyes that could sometimes be as cold as Pamlico Sound in winter. Although he lacked the tall lankiness Spence had had in his own adolescence, Leigh could see that Jamie’s build would someday be as muscular as his father’s. All in all, he was more Logan than McKay. Anyway, she doubted she’d be around long enough to discover if his teenage rebellion paralleled his father’s.

“I’ll have that Coke,” Jamie said, staring at the floor again.

Leigh’s eyes met Sam’s across the room. The old man shrugged and headed out through the door to the deck.

When Leigh handed Jamie his drink, the boy said, “So do you use the cistern at all anymore? I can hardly imagine getting water from a pump instead of a tap. It musta been like the Stone Age here.”

Leigh tried not to laugh. “Compared to now, it was rough. But later the island installed the water tower—you must have seen it—and there’s a desalinization plant, too, to take the salt out. Before the water tower, there were times in the summer when water was rationed.”

“Rationed?” Jamie’s voice rose in disbelief. “Like it was in the Second World War?”

She smiled at his knowledge of modern history. “I’m sure there are times even now when water use is controlled,” she said, then turned to the island counter where the salad fixings were set out and continued her chopping. “I don’t suppose,” she went on when she realized Jamie was still standing behind her, “you’ve spent a lot of time in Ocracoke.”

“Nah. Me and Mom left here when I was three. I kinda remember some parts. I used to come visit Dad a bit for a couple years after we moved to the mainland, but then I stopped coming.”

“Why was that?”

“I don’t know.” A pause. “My parents weren’t talking to each other then. Mom had trouble getting work, so we moved around a lot.”

“That must’ve been hard on you.”

When he didn’t answer right away, Leigh was tempted to turn around and look at him, but restrained herself.

Finally he said, “Yeah, I didn’t like it very much. Hard to make friends.”

“Were you able to keep contact with your father during that time?”

Another pause. “Not much. He always sent birthday cards and presents, but sometimes I didn’t get them till months later. It wasn’t the same.”