The Sweetest Summer: A Bayberry Island Novel (10 page)

Evelyn blinked. “Uh, no. Good-bye.”

“Wait!” Hillary put her gym shoe in the crack of the door. “Is the boy all right?”

That was it. Evelyn stomped on the reporter’s shoe with her own bare foot, pressing down hard until the girl retreated from the threshold. “Good night.” She shut, chained, and dead-bolted the door.

Even after all that, a small, white business card got shoved under the door.
People!

Evelyn twisted around to check on Christina, relieved to see she was still asleep and breathing peacefully. She decided that while she was up she might as well call Hal, so she grabbed her cell phone and headed toward the bathroom.

There was another knock at the door, this time much softer. Evelyn was completely pissed off at that point and her mind was spinning . . .
Sure! Come on in! I’m a wanted kidnapper! Since the news coverage hasn’t gotten me arrested yet, let’s put my frickin’ picture on the front page of your newspaper and see what happens!

Evelyn opened the door while keeping the chain in place. She stuck only her lips through the crack. “If you do not stop harassing me, I will call the police.”

Someone with a deep voice cleared his throat. “It’s always nice to be needed.”

Evelyn’s spine stiffened. Her heart began to slam behind her ribs. It was him. Un-bee-
leeve
-able! Now what was she going to do?

“I . . . I’m sorry, Chief Flynn. Chris is asleep and I’m not dressed.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“For you to come out here and sit on the bench with me. We need to talk.”

Evelyn let her forehead drop to the motel wall. So what now? This could be a trap. In the hours since the parade, Clancy could have figured out who she was, contacted the FBI, and flown in a SWAT team. There might be a dozen specially trained officers with automatic weapons just outside the door. Christina could be whisked away to Richard Wahlman while Evelyn was being thrown
to the ground and handcuffed. And she wouldn’t be able to stop any of it. She wouldn’t even get a chance to say good-bye.

Evelyn raised her head from the wall. On the other hand, maybe Clancy Flynn simply wanted to talk to her.

“It’s pretty late. I really shouldn’t. Chris will be—”

“He’ll be fine. We’ll be right outside.”

She slowly moved her eyes so she could see out the crack in the door. Clancy had his head tipped to the side, his hands in his pockets. He seemed pretty mellow for someone coordinating a SWAT raid. Suddenly, he raised his eyes and locked his gaze with hers.

“Come on out. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

*   *   *

Richard was one of the anointed few, and if he ever needed to be reminded of that, all he had to do was look out his office window. For the last two terms, he’d been situated on the second floor of the Rayburn Building, where the view, especially on a night like this one, was nothing short of intoxicating.

He could see the Capitol dome, the thirty-six windows of the rotunda shedding golden light into the darkness. He enjoyed the vast geometric display of the District of Columbia spread out at his feet, as if it had been designed for his pleasure alone. Sometimes, just the view from up here could give him a hard-on.

Not tonight.

He reached for the cut glass decanter and poured two fingers of cognac. In the darkness, he sipped slowly, appreciating the rich combination of flavors—caramel, grape, and ancient oak. His cardiologist would bitch-slap him if he knew he was drinking, but then again, tonight wasn’t about his cardiologist. Or his furious wife, or his terrible mistakes, or his position as one of the anointed. Tonight, he was just a man alone, having a heart-to-bypassed-heart with himself.

Though Congress would be back in session in just two weeks, no one was working late that night, not even his
most overachieving legislative assistants. Members of his staff were at home with their families or significant others, sweating and worrying. The faint odor of scandal had already begun to cling to the draperies around here. Richard’s media relations guy said rumors were all over town that Tamara was leaving him. His constituent services director asked if it was true that he missed two meetings because of health complications. Richard knew how it worked—as the congressman goes, so goes the staff. On the Hill, the concept of “job security” was an oxymoron.

He took another delicious sip, savoring the pleasure to be had in his only noncompliant behavior since surgery. The wood-paneled walls and thick carpet absorbed the heavy silence. Darkness hid him. The room felt lifeless, the perfect setting for a man on the edge. This was it. It was time to make a decision.

When he said his daughter was more important than his career or marriage, was that the truth? Was he really willing to pay the price for such a choice? He couldn’t afford to stew about it any longer—yet another day of bulletins, evidence review, and interviews of potential eyewitnesses had gone by and the FBI still had jack. The girl had been missing for more than two days now, and the special agent in charge informed him that they were now fifty percent less likely to ever find Christina.

Richard jolted at the sound of a single rap on his door. “Who the hell is it?”

“It’s me.”

Of course it was M.J. The woman didn’t even have a cat to feed. Or a plant to water.

“Come on in.” The door cracked, spilling hallway light across the royal blue plush carpet.

“Drinking in the dark, Congressman?”

“Yeah. Care to join me?”

She shrugged. “Why not?”

As was customary, M.J. took a seat in one of the overstuffed armchairs cozied up to his eighteenth-century
cherry desk, turning on his desk lamp. She accepted the drink and raised her glass. “To eighteen great years.”

Richard swallowed another mouthful and smiled at her, puzzled. “You have something to say, I take it.”

“Not at the moment, but I’m trying to plan for my future. I thought I’d better get a bead on what was going on in your head.”

“Ahh.”

“Tamara’s leaving you, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

M.J. swished the cognac around in her mouth, pondering the information. “Do you have a strategy in mind?”

Richard’s laughter continued for several seconds before it faded into a drawn-out sigh. “Sure. My strategy is to sign and date whatever the fuck her lawyers put in front of me.”

That managed to get a chuckle out of M.J. “Will she wait until after the reelection to file?”

Richard set the glass on his desk. He looked in her eyes, knowing he had to be straight with her about this. “Tamara will wait until after the reelection. But there’s another matter that I’m afraid may not be able to wait.”

M.J.’s entire demeanor changed in an instant. One moment she was plotting political strategy and the next she sat, her face blank and frozen. But her empty stare soon turned to an expression of horror. As usual, M.J. had already made the cognitive leap. She’d been working for Richard so long that she knew how his brain worked. And in this particular situation, he could see that she was already grasping for how to convince him to change his mind.

“She’s been gone more than forty-eight hours now, M.J.”

“No, Richard. You can’t. Absolutely not. Not before the reelection.”

“That’s well over two months away. They’ll be living in Bora Bora by then.”

M.J.’s ears turned red. She was more pissed than Richard had ever seen her.

“Please try to understand. Right now, Christina’s case is simply a custody-related abduction out of a tiny town in Maine. It is not particularly news. But the minute I go public and reveal she’s my child, the precious four-year-old daughter I never knew I had—”

“Your career is over?”

He ignored her snarky interruption. “When I go public, the faces of Evelyn and Christina McGuinness get plastered all over the Web and featured on every damn TV news channel in the nation. And,
bam
, we find her.”

“This is pure insanity.”

“Be realistic.” Richard rose from his leather chair and made his way to the tall windows. He rattled a bit of loose change in his trouser pockets, watching his partial reflection in the glass. He looked a bit like a ghost. How perfect. “We both know the truth will ooze out before the election, one way or another. Charlie McGuinness is angry enough to serve up my head on a platter.”

“I can handle Charlie McGuinness.”

“And if it’s not him, it could be any number of people who have knowledge about my paternity. Perhaps a court employee or even an agent assigned to the case who happens to loathe my politics. You know how nasty this life is. One anonymous tip is all it would take to cause a crap avalanche.”

“You simply can’t do it.”

“If it’s all going to fall apart anyway, I should go public sooner rather than later, proactively cut through the scandal and take responsibility. At least that way my confession might help find Christina. Some good might come out of this whole mess.”

“This is political suicide.”

He turned from the windows in time to see M.J. stand. The woman was irate.

“It’s within reach, Richard. We can almost touch it.” M.J. was trying so hard to keep it together that her voice
cracked. “You said if I came to Washington with you I would have a desk in the West Wing one day. And now we’re closer than we’ve ever been. You’re on the short list for VP in two years. This is the promise you gave me. Why would you blow it all to hell and back now?”

“I know the timing isn’t good.”

M.J. produced a foul-tempered cackle. For the first time in their partnership, she reminded him of Tamara. He shuddered.

“I’ve sacrificed my life for you. Every day and week and month of the last eighteen years I gave to you. Why? Because you made me a promise. How stupid I was! I actually believed you!”

“I never intended for this to happen.”

“You are making a huge mistake. You will regret it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not as sorry as you will be, and very soon.”

“M.J., please.”

“You’ll have my resignation by the end of the week.”

Eighteen years ago . . .

“S
o, do you believe in the mermaid?”

Evie asked that as she brushed a wind chime with her long fingers, smiling when it released a random series of dings, tinkles, and hollow notes. Clancy knew it was one of a million like it hanging from display racks in Island Day vendor tents up and down Main Street, but to Evie it was exotic.

They’d spent the day together and he’d actually had fun, even though he’d been through fourteen of these events in his life. And that was one of the reasons—everything was an adventure for Evie. She asked questions. She oohed and awed over stuff that surprised her. Since Evie was seeing everything for the first time, it made everything a lot less boring than usual for Clancy.

“Ooh! I think this one is really pretty, do you?”

Clancy checked it out. The chime was made of blown glass shaped like mermaids and dolphins and decorated with shiny abalone beads, pieces of sea glass, and tiny shells. “Sure. It’s nice. But I was busy staring at something much prettier.”

Evelyn smiled shyly, but didn’t make eye contact with him. In the two days he’d been hanging out with her, he
decided she wasn’t like most of the tourist girls he’d met. She didn’t talk about Madonna or her tan lines or that she cried when New Kids on the Block broke up. Evie was a Red Sox fan. She played soccer, ran track, and rode horses. She wanted to be a doctor when she grew up and was a fan of
Star Trek: The Next Generation
. But while all this awesome stuff was going on with her, she was still one hundred percent girl. She smelled like sea air and wildflowers after it rained. Her skin was soft. She was curvy where curves were nice and flat where flat was fine. And she was nice to people. When Clancy bought her a funnel cake a while ago, Evie thanked him and then thanked the food truck dude who handed it to her.

But the best thing about Evie had to be that she had no idea how beautiful and great she really was. She wasn’t stuck on herself. He wasn’t sure how she’d managed to live so long without her head swelling up. He wondered if maybe all the guys in Maine were blind dweebs. But Clancy was happy Evie was so . . . cool.

“I bet you see a thousand wind chimes like this one every summer, don’t you?”

“Nah.”

“No?”

Clancy shook his head. “More like a million.”

Each time Evie laughed the way she just did, some kind of electrical storm went off inside him. His blood was filled with hot sparks that went zooming around all over his body, and he got light-headed. Yeah, he’d asked the mermaid for his first piece of ass, but as stupid as he sounded to himself inside his head right at that moment, he had to admit that this was even better—Evie was so much more than that.

She slipped her hand inside his and they continued their slow, romantic tour of Island Day. He felt kind of guilty about it, but all he could think about was kissing her. She had such pretty and soft lips. They looked like they’d be real delicate to the touch, like a ripe nectarine or something. He wondered what she tasted like, or how
it would feel to hold all of her against him, standing up or sitting down or, God, what would it feel like to lie down with her? He thought he might pass out.

“Yo.”

Great. It was Mickey Flaherty and Chip was with him. Why Chip hung out with a dude who called him names and made fun of him he would never understand. But then again, Clancy had ditched his best friend for the last couple days to be with Evie, so what else was he supposed to do?

Clancy didn’t let Evie take her hand away. He gave it a soft squeeze to let her know that he didn’t care who saw. She felt her fingers relax and weave together with his.

“These are my homies. You met Mickey at the point. This is my best friend, Chip.”

“Hey, Chip.” She offered him her hand. “Nice to meet you.” Then, Evie looked at Mickey but looked away without saying anything. Clancy just saw Evie be not so nice to somebody, and she’d picked Flaherty. It made him laugh.

“Why don’t you come with us?” Mickey gave Clancy a look that was definitely a challenge. He was telling him that if he didn’t choose his friends over this tourist girl, then it wouldn’t be cool.

“Nah. I’m good. We’re gonna hang here.”

Mickey put an unlit cigarette between his lips and rummaged around in his jeans pocket for his Bic lighter. When he lit up, Evie coughed. “Well, excuuuuuse me,” he said, the Marlboro hanging between his lips. “We’re out.”

Chip lingered a moment after Mickey walked away.

“It was really nice to meet you,” he said to Evie. “I heard Clancy saved you from the rocks.”

“He did.” Evie made an effort to stop from smiling but couldn’t do it. “You know, in the Kung Fu tradition, if you save someone’s life you are responsible for their safety and happiness forever.”

Chip’s mouth fell open. “I saw that episode!”

“Chipster!” Mickey yelled for him to hurry up.

“I gotta go. But, yeah. Awesome. Have fun today.” Poor guy looked a little dazed.

“Catch you later, Chip,” Clancy said.

Evie said she needed to find a ladies’ room, so they agreed to meet up at the seafood taco stand when she was done. Clancy used the opportunity to run back to the wind chime tent and buy the one she liked. His plan was to give it to her before she left on Friday.

She was leaving.

Clancy paid the woman and while she wrapped it in tissue paper so it wouldn’t break, that’s all Clancy could think about. Evie would be leaving at the end of the Mermaid Festival. That was five days away. Could that be right? He had only five more days with her. . . .

She met him as planned and insisted their next stop be the Fountain Square, which, of course, was the last place in the universe Clancy wanted to be. He was still creeped out every time he thought about that psycho whisper he heard. But what kind of personal tour guide would he be if he refused to show Evie the statue, the reason for all this festival week crap?

Honestly, there was no one on Earth he would do this for except Evie. And she’d never even know.

People were packed around the fountain shoulder to shoulder. If his dad was here—and he was glad he wasn’t—he would have called it a real hoobanger. To Clancy, it was just a real pain in the ass.

Evie waited her turn and then pressed in so that she could read the plaque. Clancy stood right next to her, but it took everything in him not to run. He kept his eyes away from the mermaid. “Oh, wow! So Rutherford Flynn’s fishing fleet was saved by a mermaid—is he an ancestor of yours?”

“Uh, yeah. My dad’s great-grandfather or something like that.” Clancy looked around to make sure no one he knew saw him there, since only dorky tourists and New
Age woo-woos hung out at the mermaid fountain. God, this was embarrassing.

Evie began mumbling out loud as she read. “So Rutherford tries to swim back into the storm to thank the mermaid, and almost dies. Holy crap. An innkeeper’s daughter named Serena nurses him back to health and he wakes up and thinks she’s the mermaid! Ha! Awesome!” Evie turned to him and must have detected his impatience. “We can go if you want.”

“No.” Clancy put his arm around her shoulders. “We’ll stay as long as you like.”

Evie got this look on her face he’d never seen before. Like she might cry or something. Then she kissed him on his cheek. It was quick but he’d been right—her lips were silky and warm and his skin was on fire where she kissed him.

“Thank you, Clancy. You are so nice to me.”

At that moment, he would have done anything,
anything in the world
for that girl.

“So do you believe in the mermaid? You never said.”

Anything but talk about that.
“Uh, well, sort of, maybe, but not really. I mean, not literally. But it’s cool. Sort of.”

Evie went back to skimming over the history. “So they marry, he gets rich with a fishery company and he builds this fountain in Serena’s honor. Oh! After fifteen years of marriage he still thinks she’s the mermaid! That’s wild!”

“Yeah. Wild.”

“So, okay, here comes the legend part. People start believing that if you take the mermaid’s hand and kiss it, asking for true love with an open heart, she will grant you your wish. But . . .” Evie quickly turned to look at Clancy and found his face right up near hers. He was busted.

“Oh.” Evie got red in the face and returned her attention to the plaque. “So, you’re not supposed to ask her to send you true love if you have someone specific in mind,
someone you already know, and if you do . . . jeesh, that’s harsh. ‘Happiness will elude you,’ it says.”

“Let’s walk over here and see her up close.”

Clancy held Evie’s hand and pushed through to the front of the crowd. The two of them stood just off to the mermaid’s side. Her gaze was focused directly over them, out to the sea. Evie raised her chin and looked straight up. Clancy couldn’t help it. He must have been swept away or something, because he looked up, too, just so his eyes could see what Evie was seeing. Mist from the fountain rained over their hair and clothes. They didn’t say anything for a minute or two. Then Evie whispered.

“She’s so incredibly beautiful.” Her mouth parted slightly and her eyes were as big as sea scallops. “Very strong. Powerful, but, I don’t know. It’s hard to describe.”

“She’s strong but she’s all girl.”

Evie swung her head around and stared at him. Where the hell had that stupid comment come from? He was such a loser.

“Exactly.”

Nope, he was a frickin’ genius.

Whoa. Just then, the hot sparks were going completely nutso inside him. All he wanted to do was get out of this crowd of socks-and-sandals-wearing dads and get Evie alone. But, since he was trying to be a gentleman and all, he had to give her the opportunity to do what all the tourists did on Bayberry Island.

“Do you want to kiss her hand and ask for your true love or something?”

Evie shook her head back and forth slowly. “Nuh-uh.” Her lips curled up into a small smile. “If I did that, happiness would elude me.”

Without thinking, Clancy grabbed her hand and, like a tight end clearing the path for a running back, he led her through the socks-and-sandaled mob to safety. He knew exactly where he was going, though he could hardly admit it to himself.

Of course he’d always wondered what it would be like to kiss a girl. He’d thought about it a lot. But whenever he pictured it in his mind the big event took place on the beach, or on the boardwalk, or in her bedroom, or under the parade reviewing stand or anywhere, really—except where he was headed at the moment.

Clancy rounded a row of bayberry bushes, and immediately plopped down on the perfectly mowed grass. He knew it was perfect because he’d mowed it. And then he guided Evie onto his lap.

“I have to kiss you.”

“I think I have to kiss you, too.”

“I’ve never kissed a girl before.”

“Neither have I.” They both laughed. “A boy, I mean.”

This was going to be everything,
everything
he ever wanted his first kiss to be. She angled her head and Clancy pulled her close, then pressed his lips to hers. Oh, God, Evie smelled like Coppertone and roses and the bayberries that kept them hidden from the crowds. She was like nothing he’d ever experienced—warm and soft and fleshy in places only girls were fleshy. Her lips were wet and smooth.

But the kiss ended.

They looked at each other. Neither said anything, but it was clear she’d liked it as much as he had. Oh, yes, God, she wrapped her arms around his neck. He put his hands in her long brown hair. And together, they melted.

Though Clancy reminded himself that he really had no idea what he was doing, it didn’t seem to matter. He just let go, and somehow they figured it out together—the breathing, the moving, and even a little bit of tongue. It didn’t last as long as he might have liked, but Clancy hoped this was just a warm-up for things to come.

All of a sudden, Evie frowned and reached toward the underside of her thigh. “What is that poking into me?”

Oh God, this was a nightmare. She’d just felt him get hard! He wanted to die. And then he felt her hand patting the large side pocket of his cargo shorts. Oh,
thank baby Jesus it was the wind chime instead of his pecker!

Yes, Clancy intended to give the gift to her at the end of the week, but did it really matter when she got it? He only wanted to make her happy. So he fished it out and handed it to her, hoping to hell it wasn’t broken.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she peeled open layers of white tissue. Evie pinched the small ring at the very top between her thumb and forefinger and pulled. It unfolded, perfect, unbroken, and already singing all its notes. Tears plopped onto her cheeks.

“Thank you, Clancy. This is the nicest thing a boy has ever done for me.”

“I . . . you’re very welcome. I like you, you know? I mean I
really, really like you
.”

She nodded, sniffing. “I know. I really, really like you, too. So now what do we do?”

“I’m not sure, but we can kiss some more while we try to decide.”