Diane Chamberlain - Kiss River

So strange, living with Lacey. It reminded him of when he was a kid, living with his mother. Feed the hungry, clothe the poor. Did you inherit that sort of thing? It was almost spooky. And she always had something to feed him. He could look in the pantry and see nothing. She could take that nothing and turn it into something delicious. She was taking care of him, and he was letting her. His little sister.

He heard voices in the hall outside his room. Lacey’s and the deeper voice, the voice of the woman who had been about to give him a blow job before Sasha had ruined it. He wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye this morning. It was a dream, Terri , he thought to himself. Out of my control .

He would wait awhile before getting up. Maybe Gina would be gone by then and he wouldn’t have to look at her long hair and dark eyes and faintly pointed chin across the table from him over his bowl of cold cereal.

Sasha, though, was not going to cooperate. He jumped from the bed and began whining at the door, which was colored green and blue from sunlight pouring through the stained-glass panel in the window. Sasha’s handsome brown eyes pleaded with his master. No choice now. Clay had to get up and let him out.

“Hold on just a minute, boy,” he said as he dressed. Sasha sat down by the door, eyeing him patiently, his tail thumping against the old wooden floor.

He made Sasha wait another minute while he used the bathroom and brushed his teeth, then he followed the dog downstairs.

The kitchen smelled of good coffee, homemade waffles and the yeasty aroma of rising bread. He could see the bowl of dough on the counter, covered with a dish towel. Lacey made whole wheat bread every other week, just as their mother had. Right now, she was seated at the table across from Gina, the steaming waffle iron next to her plate.

“Huckleberry waffles,” Lacey said, looking at him, and he knew she had been up early, picking the huckleberries from the bushes at the edge of the woods and kneading her bread dough.

Gina glanced up at him. “They’re delicious,” she said, reaching for the syrup with the slender ruby-ringed hand that had touched him in his sleep. She had the phone book open on the table next to her plate, her finger marking her place on one of the yellow pages. The portable phone rested next to the book, and her large, heavy camera hung around her neck.

He merely nodded at the women as he walked outside with Sasha. Standing on the porch, he breathed in the already hot morning air as the Lab ran off to the woods. Sasha reappeared, running across the sandy yard, then leaping up the porch steps with one wild jump before stopping short in front of the screen door. He sat down, as he’d been trained to do, turning his head to look at his master, waiting for him to enter the kitchen first. Sasha knew very well the pecking order in this house.

Lacey already had Sasha’s food in the bowl, and the dog dived into it with gusto.

Gina laughed. “I’ve never seen a dog eat like that,” she said.

“Do you have a dog?” Clay poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down across from her. He reached for the handle on the waffle iron and looked at his sister. “Is this ready yet?” he asked.

“Wait till the steam stops.” Lacey put a plate in front of him and sat down again herself.

“When I was a kid,” Gina said. “I don’t have one now. I work long hours, so it wouldn’t be fair.”

Clay opened the waffle iron and used his fork to extract the berry-marbled waffle from the grill. “What are you looking for in the phone book?” he asked.

“A room,” she said. “I tried a couple of places already, but no luck. I thought I’d try this place next.” She looked down at the book. “Suiter’s Inn.”

“No, not that one,” Clay said.

“Is that the one near Shorty’s Grill?” Lacey asked him, and he nodded. “It’s a bit seedy, Gina. You shouldn’t stay there.”

“I can’t pay a lot,” Gina said, her finger still on the page in the phone book. “I might have to settle for something a little less luxurious than the Ritz.”

“What area do you want to be in?” Clay asked.

Gina shrugged. “Near Kiss River, I guess. But anyplace on the northern part of the Outer Banks would do.”

“Maybe there’s a cottage available,” Clay said. “Maybe someone had to cancel their reservation at the last minute. That happens. Then you’d have something for a week or two. How long were you planning to stay?”

“No more than that,” she said.

“I’ll try Nola,” Lacey said, reaching across the table for the phone.

“Who’s Nola?” Gina asked.

“An old family friend,” Lacey said, dialing. “She’s also a Realtor and she’d be able to find out what’s available.”

Gina and Clay ate quietly while Lacey spoke with Nola. She pulled the phone book toward her to write a few notes in the margin of the page, but from the conversation, Clay could tell that the news was not good. Lacey hung up the phone and wrinkled her freckled nose at their guest.

“She could only find one cottage available,” she said, reading from her notes. “It’s soundside in Duck and it’s sixteen hundred dollars a week.”

Gina shook her head. “I can’t do it, then,” she said. “But if I can’t find something here, maybe there’d be a room available on the other side of that long bridge. That would be close enough, and—”

“Stay here,” Clay said, the words surprising him as they slipped out of his mouth. He didn’t need to look at Lacey to know she was astonished by the invitation, but he also knew she wouldn’t mind. She’d probably been thinking the same thing herself, but had been afraid to suggest it because of how he might react. “You can rent the room you’re in for a hundred a week,” he said.

“I … I …” Gina stammered. “That’s so nice of you.” She looked at Lacey. “Are you sure that’s all right with you? Do you two want to talk it over in private, or—”

“It’s great with me,” Lacey interrupted her.

“You have to charge more than that, though,” Gina said. “I’m not that broke. I can—”

“It’s a token amount,” Clay said. “We’ll put it into the keeper’s house conservation fund.” He was aware he was not acting rationally, but he hadn’t felt rational in a long, long time.

“Well, thanks,” Gina said. Her hand shook a bit as she lifted her glass of orange juice to her lips. She took a sip, then set it down again. “That’s a huge relief to me. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” Clay said. He extracted another waffle from the iron and offered it to Gina, but she shook her head again. He put it on his own plate, then poured more batter into the grill.

“Do you mind a check from my bank in Bellingham?” Gina asked. “Or I could get some money from an ATM and—”

“A check is fine,” Clay said.

Gina sat back from the table, finished with her breakfast but not with conversation. “I thought I would call your father today, and see if I could talk to him about raising the lens.” She looked at him, then Lacey. “It’s been ten years, right? Maybe he and the other people who objected to raising it ten years ago have mellowed about the idea by now.”

“You’re talking about our father,” Clay said with a halfhearted laugh. “Mellow, he ain’t.”

“You’re a fine one to talk,” Lacey said. “You’re exactly like him.”

He couldn’t argue with her. As much as Lacey looked like their mother, he resembled Alec O’Neill. So much so, that when one of the old-timers spotted him and Lacey together in the grocery store a few weeks ago, he’d thought they were Alec and Annie. It had taken them quite a while to convince him of the truth. And although Clay didn’t like to admit it, he was no more mellow than their father. He had both Alec’s wiry build and the bundled, hyper sort of energy that accompanied it.