Praise for the novels of
MARY ALICE MONROE

“Readers who enjoy such fine southern voices as Pat Conroy will add the talented Monroe to their list of favorites.”

—Booklist on Sweetgrass

“Skyward is a soaring, passionate story of loneliness and pain and the simple ability of love to heal and transcend both.”

—Anne Rivers Siddons

“Mary Alice Monroe is helping to redefine the beauty and magic of the Carolina Lowcountry. Every book she has written has felt like a homecoming to me.”

—Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides and Beach Music

“A devoted naturalist and native of South Carolina’s Low Country, Monroe is in her element when describing the wonders of nature and the ways people relate to it…. Hauntingly beautiful relationships between birds and people add texture to the story…. Monroe successfully combines elements of women’s fiction and romance in this lyrical tale.”

—Publishers Weekly on Skyward

“Mary Alice Monroe writes from her heart to the hearts of her readers. It is a quality of emotional honesty together with lyrical, descriptive passages that draw her audience to books like The Four Seasons.”

—Charleston Post & Courier

“Monroe writes with a crisp precision and narrative energy that will keep them turning the pages. Her talent for infusing her characters with warmth and vitality and her ability to spin a tale with emotional depth will earn her a broad spectrum of readers, particularly fans of Barbara Delinsky and Nora Roberts.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Four Seasons

“With novels like this one and The Book Club, Mary Alice Monroe continues to be one of the leaders of complex female relationship dramas that hit home to the audience.”

—Midwest Book Review on The Four Seasons

“The Book Club skillfully weaves the individual story threads into a warm, unified whole that will appeal to readers who enjoy multifaceted relationship novels with strong women protagonists.”

—Library Journal

“What price beauty? Mary Alice Monroe’s Girl in the Mirror reflects the shadows and shapes of a woman’s painful and illuminating journey of self-discovery, of choice, of loves.”

—Nora Roberts

“Monroe’s novel is a fascinating, emotion-filled narrative that’s not to be missed.”

—Booklist, starred review, on Skyward

New York Times bestselling author

Mary Alice Monroe
The Beach House

www.mirabooks.co.uk

This book is dedicated

to my fellow members of the

Isle of Palms/Sullivan’s Island Turtle Team:

Mary Pringle, Mary Ellen Rogers,

Beverly Ballow, Barb Bergwerf,

Nancy Hauser, Tee Johannes,

Marge Millman, Susan North,

Kathey O’Connor, Wanda Parker,

Grace and Glenn Rhodes, Sara Saylor

And to all Turtle Volunteers here and elsewhere

who walk the beaches every morning

to help our beloved loggerheads.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This is the first time I’ve written about two subjects dear to my heart: the loggerhead sea turtles and the Isle of Palms. I’d like to thank the following people for their help with this book that is special to me.

For sharing her knowledge, lending me books, videos and pamphlets, and for answering my countless questions not only about sea turtles but about a zillion other things that would take me too long to list, love and thanks to my dear friend and Turtle Team guru, Mary Pringle.

I am indebted to Charlotte and Ken Tarr for all their valuable help with important plot points and for their tireless and continuous support of me and my books.

Once again, thanks to Julie Beard for editing, wonderful critiques and for just listening.

For art and cover designs, story editing and helping me get to the heart of my heroines, thank you, Marguerite Martino.

A special thanks to Shane Ziegler of Barrier Island Eco Tours, Isle of Palms, for sharing his invaluable insights and vast knowledge about the Lowcountry, its wildlife and ecosystem. And the tours are fabulous!

Barb Bergwerf’s incredible photographs of so many aspects of our efforts with the loggerheads were inspiring to me as I wrote during the “off” season. Thank you!

I’m blessed with a brilliant editor who helps me bring out the best in my books. Thanks to Martha Keenan, a lovely lady in every way.

As always, I’m grateful to my agent, Karen Solem, for all her insightful comments and for knowing when I needed a smile and enthusiasm.

For filling in the gaps for me while I was madly writing, for loads of support and for just being great and treasured friends, sincere thanks to Cynthia Pearlman, Susan North, Carolyn Graf, Ann Nodtvedt, Buzzy Porter, Marge Irizarry, Dottie Ashley, Sally Marschner, Tim Brewerton, Therese Killeen, Lisa and Barry Hand, Terri Ehlinger, Amy Rowe, Elizabeth Carota, Stacy Harwood, Marsha Iafrat, Clay and Martha Cable, Danny and Lena Johnson, Angela Jones, David Tekler, Susan Shimmin, Tamar Myers, Nina Bruhns, Dave and the gang at the Isle of Palms post office, the people of Isle of Palms and, of course, the Turtle Team.

For tech support, big thanks to Jon D. McCandlish.

Special thanks to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Diversity Section. In particular, Sally Murphy, Meg Hoyle and Charles Tambiah for an education on loggerheads.

It was a treat for me to learn about the early days of being a “Turtle Lady” from one of the originals, Florence Johnson, and I am very grateful.

Thank you to the Isle of Palms Police Department and the Charleston County Red Cross for advising me on hurricane evacuation procedures.

Lastly, heartfelt love and thanks to my family. To Markus, for advice and long walks on the beach while I hammered out story points. To Claire, for trying to explain the finer points of my computer. To Gretta, for insights into the mind of an eighteen-year-old girl. Lastly, to Zack, whose smile brightens up each day.

CONSIDER THE TURTLE

Consider the turtle. Perchance you have worried, despaired of the world, meditated the end of life, and all things seem rushing to destruction; but nature has steadily and serenely advanced with the turtle’s pace. The young turtle spends its infancy within its shell. It gets experience and learns the way of the world through that wall. While it rests warily on the edge of its hole, rash schemes are undertaken by men and fail. French empires rise or fall, but the turtle is developed only so fast. What’s a summer? Time for a turtle’s egg to hatch. So is the turtle developed, fitted to endure, for he outlives twenty French dynasties. One turtle knows several Napoleons. They have no worries, have no cares, yet has not the great world existed for them as much as for you?

—Henry David Thoreau

Journal

August 28, 1856

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

loggerhead. 1. Latin: Caretta caretta. A tropical sea turtle with a hard shell and a large head.

2. a stupid fellow; blockhead.

3. at loggerheads; in disagreement; in a quarrel.

PROLOGUE

It was twilight and a brilliant red sun lazily made its hazy descent off the South Carolina coast. Lovie Rutledge stood alone on a small, rolling sand dune and watched as two young children with hair the same sandy color as the beach squealed and cavorted, playing the age-old game of tag with the sea. A shaky half smile lifted the corners of her mouth. The boy couldn’t have been more than four years of age yet he was aggressively charging the water, the stick in his hand pointing outward like a sword. Then, turning on his heel, he ran back up the beach, chased by a wave. Poor fellow was tagged more often than not. But the girl…Was she seven or eight? Now there was a skilled player. She danced on tiptoe, getting daringly close to the foamy wave, instinctively knowing the second to back away, taunting the water with her high laugh.

How like her own Cara, Lovie thought, recalling her youngest. Then, seeing a rogue wave wash over the boy, toppling him and leaving him sputtering with rage, she chuckled. And how like her son, Palmer. Not far away, the children’s young mother was bent at the waist busily gathering up the carelessly thrown buckets and spades into a canvas bag and shaking sand from towels, eager to pack up and go.

Stop what you’re doing and observe your children! Lovie wanted to say to the young mother. Quick, set aside your chores and turn your head. See how they laugh with such abandon? Only the very young can laugh like that. Look how they are giving you clues to who they are. Treasure these moments! Savor them. For they will disappear as quickly as the setting sun. And then, before you know it, you will be like me—an old woman, alone and willing to trade anything and everything for one soft evening such as this with her babies once again.

She wrapped her arms around herself and sighed. “Lovie, you do go on,” she told herself with a shake of her head. Of course she wouldn’t tell the young mother this. It would be rude, and of no use. The mother was harried, her mind filled with all she had yet to do. She wouldn’t understand Lovie’s warning until her own children were grown and gone. One day she would recall this very twilit evening and the sight of her children dancing on the shore and then…Yes, then she would wish she had stopped to hold their chubby hands and play tag along with them.

Lovie continued to watch the scene unfold in its predictable manner. The towels were shaken and folded, then stuffed into the bag, the children were called in from the water’s edge and, as the sky darkened, the mother led her tired soldiers in a ragtag formation over the dune and out of sight.

Silence reigned once again on the familiar stretch of beach. Another day was done. Along the water’s edge a sandpiper peeped as it skitted across the sand and foam line in its straight-legged manner. Behind Lovie, the tall grasses swayed in the evening breeze. She closed her eyes, acutely attuned to the night music. There would only be a few more quiet nights like this. It was mid-May and the tourist season would soon go into full swing on the South Carolina coast.

Soon, too, her beloved sea turtles would be arriving.

She peered out for a long while at the sea as the sky darkened around her. Somewhere out in the distant swells that rolled and dipped with the winds she sensed a loggerhead was biding her time. Waiting until some powerful instinct told her that the moment was right to venture ashore. Every summer for more years than she could recall Lovie had done whatever she could to help the loggerheads through the nesting season. This summer’s group of mothers might even include hatchlings she’d helped scramble to the sea twenty years earlier. She smiled at the thought.

Lovie walked to the water’s edge, right to where the sea stretched to her toes. When she was young—oh, so many years ago—she, too, used to giggle and run away in that timeless game of sea tag. As did her children and grandchildren. But she and the sea were old friends now and tonight she hadn’t come to play. Rather, she’d come to her old friend for solace. She stood motionless, feeling each swirl about her ankles as a caress, hearing the gentle roar of the surf as loving whispers. There, there…

Tears filled her eyes. Seeing the mother and her young children brought back images that were both joyous and heartbreaking. The years had flown by too swiftly, slipping away like sand through her fingers. She lifted her chin and wiped away the tear from her cheek. The vast blue ahead stretched out seemingly to infinity. This was no time for tears, she chided herself. She was old enough to know that life, like the sea, didn’t always play fair. Yet she’d always believed that if she played by the rules, if she persevered, one day she’d have time enough to…

To do what, she asked herself, shaken? She was still unclear as to what exactly was missing in her relationship with her children. Her daughter, especially. When they were young, Cara and Palmer had played together under her watchful eye on this very same stretch of beach. They’d been close then, had such good times together. But now her children were grown-up and she felt every inch of the distance between them, stretching further over the years.

She turned to walk up the beach toward three lots that remained vacant on this stretch of valuable real estate and climbed the small dune. Beyond the lots she could see her beach house perched on a distant dune like a tiny island, nearly obscured from view by a row of gangly oleanders. Its once vibrant yellow color was stripped by sunshine and leached into the gala of yellow primroses that grew wild over the dunes. All the angles, corners and quaint panes of glass of the cottage were dear to her. Primrose Cottage was more than a beach house. It was a touchstone. A place of sunshine and happiness, for her and for her children.

Lovie stood alone gazing toward the west. The day’s light extinguished and the night grew dark and silent save for the clicking of the swaying sea oats and the gentle lapping of waves along the shore. As ghosts of the past rose up to swirl in the hallucinatory colors of twilight, she sighed deeply, clasping her hands tight in front of her as one in prayer. She was nearly seventy years old. There was no time left for regret or misgivings, no time for dreams of what might have been. There were plans to be made. The beach house—and all the secrets it held—had to be placed in secure hands. Too much had been sacrificed for too many years to let the secrets slip out now. Too many reputations were at stake.

She had but one hope.

“Lord,” she prayed, her voice raspy in her tight throat. “I’m not here to complain. You know me better than that after all this time. But the Bible says You never close a door without opening a window. So I’m praying for You to open the window. You know how things are between Cara and me. It will probably take a miracle to make peace. But You’re famous for those, so I’m hopeful. Please, Lord, that’s all I’m asking for. Not more time. I’d go willingly if I knew things were settled here before I left.” She smiled ruefully. “I’m going whether it’s willingly or not—I know that, too.” Her smile fell as she grimaced in pain. “Please, Lord, answer this one small prayer. Not just for me, but for Cara. Help me play with my child once more before I die. Bring my Cara home.”

After living at sea for twenty years or more, the female loggerhead returns to the beach of her birth to nest. She travels hundreds of miles through the Atlantic, her three-hundred-pound, reddish-brown carapace filled with hundreds of fertile eggs.

CHAPTER ONE

C ara had begun this long journey home many times in her mind over the years, but always there was some project, some appointment, some emotional obstacle of her own construction that stopped her.

Road weary and life tired, Cara was traveling the path of least resistance as she headed south across the flat expanse of the old cotton country known as the coastal plains. It had been over twenty years since she’d driven this long stretch of South Carolina highway toward the sea. Growing up, she’d always considered it someplace to drive through on her way to somewhere else. Anywhere else.

She passed vanishing woodlands and acres of farmland for sale, huge, flat-roofed warehouses and sun-faded billboards heralding exits for boiled peanuts, tree-ripened peaches, stock car racing and fireworks. It was late May. Spring was already giving way to sizzling summer in the South. Elderberry bushes rambled along the roadsides, and beyond in the pinewoods, Cara knew the coral beans were aflame and swamp roses decorated the banks like some wild hothouse garden.

The thought that the sea turtles were returning home to nest sprang to mind. She laughed out loud at the irony.

If someone had told her a year ago that the following May she would be driving to Charleston for an extended visit with her mother, Cara would have tossed back her head and laughed in that throaty manner of hers. “Impossible,” she would have told them, the smile slipping from her face and a flash sparking in her eyes. First of all, her schedule would never have allowed it. Every minute of her day was double booked. At best, in an emergency, she might fly in for an overnight stop, as she had for her father’s funeral. Secondly, there was nowhere on earth she’d least want to visit than Charleston. And no person less than her mother. The current status of a polite truce had worked well for them both over the past years of her self-imposed exile.

But, as always, Mama’s timing was impeccable. Where else would one go but home when there was nowhere else to go?

Cara tightened her grip on the steering wheel. How could her orderly life have careened so far out of control? How did it happen that, after twenty-two years of living independently, after a successful career, after complete and utter self-sufficiency, she found herself back on this damnable stretch of road limping back home?

It was her mother’s letter that had lured her. The day before, Lovie had sent the customary flowers for Cara’s birthday. As Cara gingerly unwrapped the purple florist tissue, the heady scent of the gardenias permeated her apartment. Instantly, Cara was back in her mother’s walled garden in Charleston where an ancient magnolia spread its broad glossy leaves and the white, heavily scented flowers of the gardenias competed with the climbing jasmine. She’d opened the letter from her mother and read her familiar, feathery script.

,!

Happy Birthday Dear Caretta!

I never smell gardenias without thinking of you.

Things have been in a state of flux since your father’s death. Now it is time for me to, shall we say, put my house in order. Come home, Cara, just for a while. Not to the house on Tradd Street. Come to the beach house. We’ve always had the best times there, haven’t we?

Please don’t say that you are too busy or that you can’t get away. Remember how we used to say “Take charge of your birthday”? Can’t you grant yourself this one gift of time and spend a few days with your ancient mother? Please come home, Cara dear. Soon. Your father is gone and we need to sort through years of accumulation.

Love,

Mama

Perhaps it was the scent of the gardenias that prompted the sudden loneliness, or simply that someone had remembered her birthday. Or perhaps it was her desolation at having just lost her job. But for the first time since leaving her embrace at eighteen, Cara felt a sudden, desperate longing for her mother.

She wanted to go home. Home to the Lowcountry, where once she had been happy.

Cara crossed the Ashley and the Wando rivers, took a final turn off the highway, then sped over a new, graceful arch of roadway that connected the mainland to the small barrier island called Isle of Palms. The vista yawned open before her, revealing a breathtaking view of endless blue sky and watery, greening marsh stretched out as far as she could see. She felt her mind ease as she took in the wide-open space. The hustle and honking of the crowded roads felt a world behind her. Ahead, cutting a wide, blue path through the waving grasses, was the sparkling Intracoastal Waterway and parallel to it, the smaller Hamlin Creek lined with docks, one after another, most with a boat at moor. She reached the peak of the arch.

Suddenly, looming straight ahead, like a magnificent yet serene beast, lay the vast, glistening expanse of blue that was the Atlantic Ocean. It was a living thing, pulsating power beneath the quiescent surface. Her breath caught, her body shivered and in that soul-striking instant, Cara knew that saltwater still ran thick in her veins.

She was back on the Isle of Palms. Even the name was soft on the tongue and evoked images of waving palm trees and tranquil, sunny afternoons by the rolling surf. For a hundred years, the Isle of Palms was a place the folks of Charleston and Columbia escaped to when the summers got too beastly hot. They took the ferryboat over to camp in the pine and oak forests or dance at the pavilion to big-name bands. Years later, bridges and roads were built and each summer the island’s population swelled along with the heat. Growing up, Cara had spent summer after summer here with her mother and her older brother, Palmer. Her happiest memories were of the three of them living without paying mind to a clock, letting the sultry light of the Carolina sun dictate their days.

She’d heard that back in 1989 Hurricane Hugo had turned the island upside down. But she hadn’t imagined the extent that time could alter a landscape. This used to be a sleepy island town with a grocer, liquor and hardware store clustered together beside a small stretch of post-cardish, islandy restaurants. Ocean Boulevard was but a line of modest beach cottages across from a wide stretch of sand dunes that rolled lazily along the ocean.

So it was all the more shocking to see that the dunes she’d played on were gone, paved flat for a row of mansions that formed a wall of pastel-colored wood blocking the view of the sea and dwarfing the once oceanfront cottages across the street. These beautiful new post-Hugo houses stood even closer to the water’s edge, as though arrogantly daring the heavens to strike again. Cara could turn her head left, then right as she drove and see, in turn, an eerie picture of pre-and post-Hugo worlds.

Still, some things never changed, she thought as she spied a line of pelicans flying overhead looking like a squadron of bombardiers on patrol. She opened her window to the balmy island air and breathed deeply. Dusk was setting in, and with each moist breeze she felt a page of her history flutter back, recalling the days when she was young and pedaled this road on her bicycle, feeling the wind toss her hair like streamers behind her. She drove another two blocks south, scanning. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw it.

Primrose Cottage. As pale a yellow as the delicate evening primroses that surrounded it, the 1930s beach cottage sat back from the road perched on a small dune. In contrast to all the meticulously landscaped properties of the newer mansions, her mother’s house appeared as a wispy memory of the past glowing in the twilight among waves of tall grasses, brilliant pink phlox and yellow primroses for which it had been named. Although a bit wind worn, the old frame house with the low spreading roof and the wide, welcoming verandas seemed as indigenous here as the palmetto trees. It had been twenty years since she’d laid eyes on this house. So many years since embarking on the journey from little girl to middle-aged woman. Pulling up to the curb to stare, it occurred to her that while she’d been busy with her life in Chicago, oblivious to the goings-on of the island, this charming little house was here, patiently waiting for her.

She shifted into gear and slowly drove around the block to the back of the house, pulling into the winding gravel driveway, careful when the wheels dug past the thin layer of gravel to hit sand. She released a short laugh to see the old, shiny gold VW convertible parked beneath the porch. Mama was still driving The Gold Bug? That old ragtop was like a flag. Everyone knew if The Gold Bug was in the driveway, Olivia Rutledge was in residence and ready for visitors.

Coming to a stop, Cara could feel the miles still moving in her veins. She stared out the windshield at what had always been home and wondered if she was now a visitor at Primrose Cottage, too. Did blood alone earn her the right to call it home? Did hours of pulling weeds from the flower beds and boarding up windows against storms, or years of swinging on the front porch count for anything? She sighed and pulled up the parking brake. Probably not. Besides, she remembered how, in a fit of youthful passion, she’d made a point of shouting to her mother that she wanted nothing at all to do with her, her damn father or anything connected to them.

Yet the connection tugged, pulling her out from the stale confines of the car into the cool offshore breezes spiked with the heady scent of honeysuckle. She stood, one foot on the sand, the other perched on the car, feeling the undertow sweep her back, back from the shoreline of the world she’d left behind.

Her memories were crowding her now and she anxiously eyed the remaining feet to her mother’s door. She wanted to go in but years of anger rooted her to the spot. So she leaned against the car, formulating what she would say that could break the ice yet still allow her to keep a modicum of self-respect. She’d stay one week, she told herself, gathering courage. Maybe ten days. Any more than that and her mother would drive her crazy and they’d fall back into that pattern of bickering and harsh words followed by long, sulking silences. Oh, God, she thought, rubbing her forehead. Was it a mistake to come back at all?

All around her the sky darkened to dusky purples and blues and the birds called out their final warnings to go home. A dog howled somewhere in the distance. Then, from around the house, she heard the high melodic hum of a woman’s voice.

Cara moved to peek around the corner. Ambling up the sandy ocean path she saw a diminutive woman in a big, floppy straw hat, a long, faded denim skirt and bright-red Keds. Bits of the tune she was humming carried in the breeze, nothing recognizable. In one arm she lugged a red plastic bucket, a telltale sign of one of the island’s Turtle Ladies. Cara’s heart beat wildly but she remained silent, watching. From this distance she might have mistaken the woman for a young girl. She seemed utterly carefree and oblivious to anything save for the field of wildflowers she passed. She paused en route to stoop and snip a flower, then, resuming her hum, she continued up the path toward Primrose Cottage.

A million things that Cara had meant to say, a thousand postures she’d meant to strike, evaporated as quickly as sea foam once it hits the shore.

“Mama!” she called out.

Her mother stopped short and swung her head in her direction. Bright-blue eyes sparkled from under the broad rim of the hat and her mouth opened in a gasp of genuine pleasure. Dropping her bucket, she held out her arms in a joyous welcome.

“Caretta!”

Cara cringed at hearing the name she despised, but closed the distance quickly, following the age-old path of a child to her mother’s embrace. Taller by a head, she bent her knees and felt like she always did beside Olivia Rutledge—like a clambering bull next to a porcelain doll. Yet when her mother’s arms flung around her and squeezed tightly, Cara felt a sweeping flush of childlike pleasure.

“I’ve missed you,” her mother said softly against her cheek. “You’re home again. At last.”

Cara squeezed back but too many years of silence choked all words. She released her hold and, stepping back, it struck her like a fist’s blow how much her mother had changed. Olivia Rutledge had become an old woman. Beneath the cheery straw hat her skin was pale and seemed to hang from her prominent cheekbones. The brightness of her blue eyes had dimmed, and though always small and trim, she was now painfully thin.

How could it have happened so quickly, Cara wondered? Only eighteen months ago at her father’s funeral Olivia still retained that timeless quality to her beauty and grace. At sixty-nine she wasn’t young, of course, but Cara couldn’t think of her mother as old. She was one of those lucky women born with a girlish, slender body and a face that was as scrubbed fresh and naturally pretty as the wildflowers she adored. Her father used to say that he married Olivia because she was as sweet as she looked—and it was true. Everyone loved Olivia Rutledge, “Lovie” to those who knew her well. But her daughter knew the price that ready smile had cost her mother over the years.

“How are you?” Cara asked, searching her face. “Are you well?”

“Oh, I’m fine, fine,” she said, dismissing Cara’s tone of concern with a flip of her hand. “Nothing much one can do to stop the ruins of Rome. I’ve given up trying.” Her eyes brightened as she looked up at her daughter. “But look at you. Don’t you look wonderful!”

Cara looked down at her rumpled white shirt and dark jeans that pinched her waist. She’d woken before dawn that morning, splashed cold water on her face and dressed in a hurry, not taking the time for makeup and allowing her dark hair to hang in disarray to her shoulders.

“I do not. My clothes are a wreck and I smell of fast food.”

“You look wonderful to me. I can’t get over it. You’re here! I about fainted when you called to say you were coming. Thank the Lord.”

“Mama, the Lord had nothing to do with it. You wrote me a letter asking me to come and I came.”

“That’s what you think. I’m old enough to know better. Now let’s not argue,” she chided, linking arms, squeezing gently. “I’ve prayed that you’d come back home and now my prayers have been answered.” They began to walk slowly toward the house. Lovie turned her head to peer into Cara’s face. “Why do you look at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re in shock.”

“I don’t know. You seem different. So…happy.”

“Why, of course I’m happy! Why shouldn’t I be?”

Cara shrugged. “I dunno…I guess from your letter I expected you to be rather lonely. Maybe a little depressed. It hasn’t been that long since Daddy died.”

Lovie’s expression shifted and, as usual, Cara couldn’t read the emotion behind her smile.

“I didn’t mean for my letter to sound sad. Wistful, perhaps.”

“Do you miss him?”

She brought her hand to Cara’s cheek. “I miss you. Especially here. We had good times on the island, didn’t we?”

Cara nodded, touched by the emotion in her mother’s voice. “We did. You and me. And Palmer.” She refrained from adding her father’s name. He’d rarely come to the beach house, preferring to stay in the city or to travel. And though it was never discussed among them, it was quietly understood that the summers were all the better for the arrangement.

“Oh, yes,” Lovie said with a light chuckle. “And Palmer, too.”

“How is my wild and crazy brother?”

“Neither wild nor crazy. More’s the pity.”

Cara’s brows rose. “Well, that’s a bit out of character for you. I seem to remember you and Daddy holding tight the reins whenever Palmer rode the wild roads and waves of his youth. I’ll have to mull that one over—once I get over the shock of you criticizing the royal heir.”

Her mother only laughed. “How long can you stay?”

“A week.”

“Is that all? Cara, dear, you’re always so busy. Please stay a bit longer.”

Cara slowed down to consider. She really had no deadline and her mother seemed so anxious. It might be nice to relax a while. “Maybe I can take a bit more time. That’s what’s nice about driving. No ticket to ride.” She paused. “Is it all right to be open-ended?”

“It’s more than all right. It’s perfect.” She patted Cara’s arm, leading the way across the sand-strewn path into the house. “Come inside. You must be exhausted after your long trip. Are you hungry? I don’t have a meal ready but I’ll scrounge around and find something.”

“Don’t go to any trouble. I’ve done nothing but nibble in the car for fourteen hours.”

“What time did you leave Chicago?”

“Before five,” Cara replied, stifling a yawn.

“Why push yourself so hard, dear? You should have taken two days, maybe three, and stopped at a few places along the way. The mountains are so beautiful this time of year.”

“Yeah, well, you know me. Once I’m on the road I like to get where I’m going.”

“Yes, you do,” her mother replied with a teasing glint in her eye. “You always do.”

Looking at the house as she climbed the porch steps, Cara saw further signs of the house’s age. It was worse than she’d first suspected. The back porch was sagging, the border shrubs were a jungle of overgrowth, a shutter was missing and in spots the paint had peeled clear to the wood. “The old place looks like it could use some work.”

“This poor old house…It takes a lot of abuse from the weather. Always it’s nip and tuck, nip and tuck.”

“It’s a lot for you to do alone. Doesn’t Palmer help you keep things up?”

“Palmer? Well, he tries, but the main house keeps him pretty busy with its own list of chores. And then there’s the business. And his family.” Her brows knit and her lips tightened, a sign she was holding words back. “He has his own troubles. I get along well enough on my own. Oh, look at my primroses,” she exclaimed, pointing at a nearby clump. “Aren’t they beautiful this year?” She closed her eyes and sniffed. “Can you catch their lemony scent?”

Cara couldn’t decide if her mother had adroitly changed the subject or was just easily distracted. But she could feel the miles she’d driven that day weigh as heavily as the suitcase hanging from her arm and the last thing she wanted to do was stand in the enveloping darkness and smell the flowers.

“I’m bushed. I’d really love to drop this load and have something cold and wet and alcoholic, if you’ve got it.”

“How’s a gin and tonic sound?”

Cara almost purred.

They passed through the screened porch, cluttered with old rattan furniture, a mildewed canvas beach bag loaded with miscellaneous beach supplies and assorted rusted garden tools. Lovie paused, resting her hand against the wall as she slipped her feet from her sand-crusted running shoes. Cara noticed with a start that there was a small, pale space on her mother’s ring finger where a band of gold and a large, Tiffany-cut diamond had rested for forty-two years.

“Mama, where’s your wedding ring?”

Flustered, her mother looked down at her hand, then began swatting the sand from her skirt. “Oh, that big ol’ thing? I took it off after your father died. I only wore it to please him. I never much liked wearing it. It got in the way and was such a bother here at the beach. I expect I’ll leave it to Cooper to give to his bride someday.”

Cooper was Palmer’s young son, and true to form, her mother was doting on the only male to carry on the proud Rutledge name.

“Scrape your feet, hear? I’ll never get used to the amount of sand that gets tracked into the house.”

Cara obliged. “What were you doing on the beach so late?”

“Why, we’ve already had two turtle nests!”

Cara’s eyes glittered with both amusement and resignation. “I thought you looked for tracks in the morning.”

“We do. I just wanted to check that everything was in order. You know me. I’m always a little excited when the season starts.” Her face scrunched in distress. “I didn’t move this nest and I’m not sure if I shouldn’t have. Ordinarily I would have. It’s a bit low on the tideline.” She tsked and shook her head. “The Department of Natural Resources is quite strict these days and doesn’t want the nests moved unless it’s urgent. Oh, I don’t know….” she fretted. “If the tide comes in high, the nest could be ruined. Maybe I should have moved it.”

“Mama, you made your decision. It’s done. Let it lie.” In Cara’s job she made a thousand decisions a day and never understood how some people could waffle back and forth. But she knew it wasn’t just the indecision that annoyed her. It was the turtles. It was always the turtles. From May till October, every year for as far back as she could remember, her mother’s life had revolved around the loggerheads. And so, by default, had hers and Palmer’s.

“I know, you’re right. I can’t move them now anyway and I’m just fussing.” Her face clouded before she turned toward the door. “Come in. Let me make you that drink.”

One step and Cara was inside the house, floating back in time. Her mother’s was one of the few remaining original beach cottages on the island. It was all cramped and worn, but comfortable. Tongue-in-groove walls and heart pine floors warmed the small rooms that her mother kept immaculate. Lovie’s eye for comfort and charm was evident in the muted, worn, oriental rugs, the ivory-colored walls adorned with family photographs and paintings of the island done by local artists, many of them old friends. Mismatched, plump sofas and chairs clustered in spare but cozy arrangements before a large front window that provided a breathtaking view of the ocean beyond.

The family heirloom antiques were kept at the main house in Charleston, out of harm’s way from hurricanes, children and visitors in swimsuits. Only the “not-so-good” pieces were brought to the beach house. Cara’s friends had always wanted to come to her house to play because her mother never said, “Feet off!” “Careful!” or “Don’t touch!” Icy sweet tea was always in the fridge and sugar cookies in the pantry. Life here at the beach was so different than in the city. In so many ways.

She followed her mother single file through the front room down a narrow hall to the two bedrooms at the end—hers and Palmer’s. As she walked she felt the pressure of memories lurking in the musty walls and darkened corners.

“Your room is made up for you,” Lovie said, opening the bedroom door. A gust of ocean breeze whisked past them into the hall. “Do you want me to close the windows?”

“No, it’s fine. I like them open.” How like her mother not to use the air-conditioning, she thought, inhaling the moist, sweet-scented air that seemed to soften the bones. They stood facing each other.

“There are fresh towels in the bathroom,” Lovie said with a quick gesture.

“Okay.”

“Feel free to use the toiletries. There’s soap and shampoo. A spare toothbrush.”

“I’ve brought my own, but thanks.”

“The hot water’s slow in coming.”

“I remember.”

“Well then,” Lovie said, clasping her hands anxiously. There was a moment’s awkwardness, as though they were strangers. “I’ll just leave you to freshen up.”

“That’d be great.”

Her mother’s hand lingered on the bedroom door and there was such yearning in her face that Cara had to turn away from the bruising intensity.

“Take your time,” Lovie said, closing the door behind her.

The door clicked, and in the resulting privacy, Cara took a deep sigh of relief and dropped her suitcase. It landed with a thud. Round one went pretty well, she thought, considering the ruts they’d avoided. She was exhausted from the long drive and the tension of the duet with her mother brought a worrisome throbbing to her forehead. Rubbing the crick in her neck, she slowly surveyed her old room. Amazingly, it was exactly as she’d left it twenty years earlier. The old black iron double bed covered with a pink crazy quilt filled most of the floor space. Pink-and-white gingham curtains fluttered at the single window over her sturdy pine dresser with the rosy marble top. A narrow door beside the window opened to the screened front porch.

It was a girl’s room, comfy yet spare. Her posters of rock stars had been replaced by paintings of palm trees, but all her old books were still here. She ran her fingers over familiar titles that had carried her through the summers for years: Nancy Drew, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, The Hobbit, Wuthering Heights, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Words that had helped form a young girl’s mind. What books did she need to add to her shelf to help her through this next phase of her life?

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and stopped short, surprised at the reflection. It was a surreal moment, one fragmented by time. Back here in her old room, she half expected to see the skinny, stringy-haired child that had once stared at this mirror with tear-filled eyes. That poor, pitiful girl.

By Southern belle standards, Cara wasn’t considered the beauty her mother was. All Cara’s parts were too big. At five feet ten inches, she was too tall, her body too thin and her chest too flat. Her feet were enormous and her lips too full for her narrow face. And her coloring was all wrong. She used to curse God for His mistake of giving her her father’s tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed genes and Palmer their mother’s small-boned, blond-and-blue-eyed genes.

Lovie, however, adored her daughter’s dark looks and used to call Cara her Little Tern because of her dark, shining eyes and her glistening, black-crested cap. And sometimes, teasingly, she called her a Laughing Gull, another black-headed bird but with a loud, cackling call.

Cara leaned closer to the mirror and brought her hand up to smooth the flesh of her cheeks. All nicknames aside, the South of the sixties and seventies was not an easy place for a skinny, unattractive girl to grow up in. But this ugly duckling grew up to be a dark swan. Cara’s once-mocked gangling looks had matured into what colleagues now referred to as “strikingly attractive” and her previously scorned aggressive intelligence was described as “the appealing confidence of a successful career woman.”

Tonight, however, even those descriptions felt woefully out-of-date. She was neither a child nor a young woman. In her reflection she saw the new fragility of her skin, the fine lines at the eyes and corners of her mouth and the first strands of gray at the temple. She thought with chagrin that she was no longer striking nor successful. Rather, she appeared as tired and sagging as the old beach house.

I’ll just lie down for a minute, she told herself, turning away from the mirror and slipping from her clothes. She left them in a pile on the floor. Wearing only her undies and a T-shirt, she pulled back the covers and stretched out upon the soft mattress, yawning. Just long enough to rest my eyes.

The old linen was crisp, and ocean breezes, balmy and moist, whisked over her bare skin. Her mind slowly drifted and her eyelids grew heavy as she felt herself letting go, bit by bit. The life she’d led mere hours ago seemed as distant from her now as the city of Chicago. As her mind stilled, the quiet deepened further. Outside her window, she listened to the ocean’s steady, rhythmic motion, lulling her to sleep, like the gentle rocking of a mother’s arms.

Her mind floated as helplessly as a piece of driftwood through the turbulence of the past few days’ events that had sent her on this journey. It began on Tuesday morning when her office phone rang and she was invited, without warning, to Mr. David Alexander’s office. Dave was executive vice president of the chopping block. Everyone knew that an invitation to his office was the equivalent of an invitation for a long car ride in the Mafia.

Why didn’t they just shoot her, she’d wondered wildly as she rode the elevator to the thirtieth floor. She was a workaholic mainlining hours of work and she was about to be cut off from her supply. She’d lost a major account, but that happened in the advertising business. She had a great track record. Wasn’t she already hot on the trail of another account? As she walked through the halls she was aware of an unusual, tense silence in the spread of gray cubicles and cramped offices broken only by an occasional ring of the phone followed by a muffled sob. Empty file boxes lined the halls, and most frightening of all, armed guards stood by the elevators. She swallowed hard and walk stiff-leggedly through the maze of halls and rooms. The rumors were true, after all. Heads were rolling on a mass scale.

By the time she’d arrived in Mr. Alexander’s office, her body was moist with a fine sweat. She woodenly took a seat. Refused the offer of coffee or water. In the end, there were no surprises. He informed her in his thin, nasal voice that he was terribly sorry but as executive officer, she would bear the brunt of the loss of a major account. While listening to him drone on about the firm’s generous severance package, Cara crossed her legs, folded her hands neatly in her lap and looked out the plate glass window, numb with shock. When the humiliating session was over, she rose, politely thanked Mr. Alexander for his time, told him she would collect her personal things later, then left the building—accompanied by an armed guard.

She’d gone straight home to her cramped, one-bedroom condominium on the lake. The somewhat shabby space represented every penny she’d saved in the past twenty years. She’d bought it because it was near the water, the last vestige of homesickness after a long exile. Yet it wasn’t the safe haven one returned to when hurt by slings and arrows. It wasn’t a home that marked milestones or greeted family members. These walls held no memories of laughter or treasured moments. With its minimalist style, the cool colors of ice-blue and gray on the walls and upholstery, and the scarcity of personal items, there wasn’t a clue to her personality or interests. Her condo was merely where she went to sleep at night. It was a place to store her meaningless possessions, every bit as stark as a bank vault.

And it was all she had in the world.

It was chilling to wake up at forty years of age to find she had no friends, no interests and no investments in anything unconnected to her work. She had delayed too long, put such things on hold until she had time. She had defined herself by her job and now, suddenly, everything was gone and she was back once again in her mother’s house, in the bed she’d slept in as a child, every bit as uncertain at forty as she had been at eighteen.

Cara wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, feeling the kind of bitter cold that went straight to one’s marrow. The kind that felt very much like fear.

Sometime later, she wasn’t sure if she was dreaming or if she really felt her mother’s touch at her temple, smoothing back the soft hairs from her face, and a tender kiss placed on her forehead.

Female loggerheads return home to nest. Is it imprinting or genes that prompts this behavior? Smells or sounds? Perhaps magnetic fields? No one knows for sure.

CHAPTER TWO

The South Carolina moon can lull one to sleep with its silvery glow, but the coastal sun is as sharp and piercing as a bugle call. Cara pried open an eye to the glaring shine flowing in from the open window. It took a moment to place where she was and to register the contrast of blaring car horns to the relentless, cheery chirping of birds. The long drive, the lost job—it all came back in a blinding flash. Groaning, she plopped a pillow over her head just as the telephone began ringing down the hall.

When it became obvious no one was going to answer it, she threw the pillow off, tugged her T-shirt down over her panties, then scuttled like a sand crab down the narrow hall to where the cottage’s single phone rested on a wooden trestle table.

“Hello?” she answered with a froggy voice.

There was a pause. “Olivia?” The woman’s voice on the line was high with uncertainty.

“No, this isn’t Lovie,” she replied, stifling a yawn. “It’s her daughter.”

“Oh.” Another pause. “I didn’t know Lovie had a daughter.”

Cara rubbed her eyes and waited.

“May I speak to your mother?”

No one had asked her that question in over twenty years. Cara blinked sleepily while she gazed around the living room. The house was as quiet as a mouse.

“She’s not here.”

“But…I’ve found turtle tracks!”

Gauging by the panic in the voice, Cara figured the woman was one of her mother’s novice volunteers for the island’s Turtle Team. “Uh, great,” she replied. “Thanks. I’ll tell her when she comes back.”

“Wait! Don’t you want to know where they are? I’m at the 6th Avenue beach access. What should I do? Should I wait here?”

Cara sighed and woke up a little more. “Really, I don’t have the foggiest idea what to tell you to do and without coffee I couldn’t even venture a guess.”

From out on the porch she heard the footfall of someone trudging up the steps. Thanks heavens, the cavalry, she thought.

“Hold on,” she told the woman on the phone. “I think that must be her now.” Cara stretched the cord of the ancient black phone to peek around the corner. The front door swung open. Instead of her mother, however, she saw a young woman enter the house free-as-you-please. Her shaggy, blond hair cascaded over her eyes as she bent down, struggling with several plastic grocery bags. With a muffled grunt, she kicked the door shut with her heel.

The young woman was hardly threatening in appearance. Pregnant women usually weren’t. She wore a pastel, A-line floral dress that was very short and cheaply made of thin rayon that lifted higher in the front where the fabric strained against her belly. When the woman raised her head she shook her hair back and their eyes met.

Cara ducked her head back behind the corner, tugging down her T-shirt. In contrast, the woman didn’t seem the least astonished to find Cara in the house. Cara leaned against the hall wall listening as the mystery woman moved on into the kitchen without so much as a hello, opening and closing cabinets as though she owned the place.

“Excuse me,” Cara called out with authority. “But who are you?”

“Didn’t your mama tell you about me?” she called back. Her voice carried the drawl of a rural southern accent.

It flashed through Cara’s mind that she’d fallen asleep without a meal or so much as a good-night to her mother. They hadn’t had a chance to talk about schedules or visitors or a girl who might stop by in the morning. Cara assumed she was either a neighbor or someone hired to help with the shopping.

From the phone, a strident voice rose up. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?”

Cara called out to the woman in the kitchen. “I’ve got a frantic phone call here about a turtle. Do you know where my mother is?”

“I’ll take it.”

The voice drew nearer and in a moment the face was looming before her. Cara saw that it wasn’t a woman’s face at all, but a teenager’s. The girl had a sexy, baby-doll kind of face, all rounding cheeks and full, pouty lips. Her youth surprised Cara and her gaze dropped to the belly. Instantly the girl’s hand moved to rest on the rounding curve. Looking up again, Cara saw the girl’s pale-gray eyes turn icy. Lined as they were by dark kohl, the challenge she read in them gave her a hardened, tough-girl appearance that set Cara immediately on edge. With a slightly raised brow that was dangerously close to a smirk, the girl returned a cool glance at Cara’s outfit. For a second, no one spoke as they sized up one another.

The voice of the caller rose up between them. “Hello? Hello?”

The girl reached out her hand, palm up, and wiggled her fingers.

Cara narrowed her eyes and handed over the phone. The girl deliberately turned her back to Cara in a snub and began speaking to the woman on the phone, confirming the address and giving instructions with the confidence of someone who had done this many times before.

Why, the little punk, Cara thought to herself, affronted. Then fatigue got the best of her. “Whatever,” she muttered, turning and heading back down the hall. At least the girl, whoever she was, knew what to do with the pesty phone call. En route she noticed that the door to her brother’s old room was open. Peeking in, she caught a glimpse of the rumpled unmade bed and on top of it, a pink, frilly nightgown.

Cara’s heart fell as the mystery was solved. The girl was a houseguest, she realized. So much for plans of a private mother-child reunion. The cottage was barely large enough for the two of them, but with three, it would be crowded. There would be no escaping the recalcitrant teen-mother who appeared equally thrilled to see her. If she’d known there’d be guests…

Grabbing her pillow from the floor where it had landed, she tossed it back onto the bed, then slumped against the pillows. What was she expecting, anyway? Her mother had always put others in front of her—her brother, her father and the guests who always seemed to fill the Charleston house.

But the beach house had always been different. She’d hoped that here…

Cara’s mouth pinched and she thought herself a fool. She’d learned long before her teens to take care of herself and not to expect anything. In the piercing morning light her room no longer appeared as charming. The colors in her old quilt were sun-bleached and the paint had yellowed on the walls. Although a gentle breeze still fluttered the thread-bare curtains, without air-conditioning, the humidity would be brutal by midday. Cara began to regret her hasty decision to return home.

The beginning of a headache from too many days of stress and too little sleep nagged. Lying back, she punched her pillow a few times, then relinquished her troubled thoughts to a deep, brooding sleep.

Toy Sooner stood at the kitchen sink rinsing out the coffeepot, tapping her foot in agitation. She carefully spooned out six tablespoons of coffee grinds into the filter, then pushed the start button. She knew Lovie enjoyed a fresh cup of coffee when she returned from her turtle watch. Toy had gone to the Red and White to purchase a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. There wasn’t much she could afford to do to show Miss Lovie how grateful she was, and Lovie had said a hundred times or more that she didn’t expect any thanks. Things like that just made Toy want to thank her all the more.

Toy wasn’t used to people giving her something without expecting something in return. To live here with Miss Lovie was like a dream come true. This was the nicest place she’d ever lived and she had a room all her own, too. Best of all, there wasn’t any fighting or hollering at her all the time. She didn’t know before living with Miss Lovie that mealtime could be so nice, with a clean tablecloth and napkins and a knife, fork and a spoon—for every meal!

And they had meals regularly. Not an open can of soup in front of the TV or McDonald’s out of the bag, but real dinners with vegetables. Lovie talked to her, too, like she was someone worth talking to and listening to. Not just some worthless, ungrateful kid who was dumb enough to get her self pregnant, like her parents said. They’d stood at the door of the trailer and wouldn’t even let her in when she tried to come back home. “If you was grown up enough to up and move in with Darryl then you’re grown up enough to take care of his kid,” is what they told her. Now what kind of parents is that? They wouldn’t even help when she told them about Darryl hitting her. “You made your bed, now go lie in it.” That’s all they had to say. That and how she ought to go to church, too, and pray hard for the Lord’s forgiveness for being such a sinner.

But Lovie told her again and again that love was never a sin. Not loving, now that was the very worst kind of sin, she said. Miss Lovie was the saintliest person Toy had ever met, and if she said so, then Toy believed it. She always had a way of making Toy feel better about herself instead of making her feel like nothing…worse than nothing. Something to be discarded, which is what her own mother made her feel like.

That’s why it made her so mad to think that Miss Lovie’s own daughter didn’t appreciate how lucky she was to have someone like her for a mother. Just let Cara spend a day with my mother and see how she feels, Toy thought with resentment.

From the moment she heard that Caretta Rutledge was coming home, Toy knew it would be bad news for her. First of all, she heard from Miss Lovie that Cara was some big shot ad executive in Chicago. That figured. Toy knew the type. It wasn’t just that they grew up on the right side of Broad and went to the best schools. Or that they had nice clothes and fancy houses. It was like, deep inside, girls like Cara knew they were better. They didn’t have nothing to prove.

That’s how the rich stayed rich, she figured. It was like some club and they had some secret code that only they knew and that girls like her couldn’t ever clue into. As if she wanted to…She could tell just by the way Cara looked at her pregnant belly that it was a royal put-down. Toy had lots of experience with being looked down on, but it hurt feeling cheap in this house where she’d finally been so happy.

She wiped up the coffee grinds with a sponge. She loved that everything was just so in this house and she actually enjoyed keeping things clean. Growing up, everything was always a mess, with clothes and papers lying all over the place, the laundry never done. She couldn’t ever remember having folded towels in the linen closet or flowers on the table. Living here was like another world. Opening the cabinet, she still got a shiver of pleasure just seeing the neatly stacked sets of matching china.

She’d hate to leave. Lovie wanted Cara to stay the whole summer, but Toy didn’t think Cara could last that long. For Lovie’s sake, she didn’t want to screw things up between them. She didn’t know why, but this time with her daughter was real important to Miss Lovie and Toy would do just about anything for Lovie Rutledge.

The scent of fresh brewed coffee filled the kitchen. She’d just laid out the doughnuts on a pretty plate when she heard steps on the front porch. She quickly wiped the sugar from her hands and hurried to greet Lovie at the door.

“Hey, Miss Lovie!” she called out, grabbing the red bucket from her arm. “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to stay out there all morning.”

“It’s not that late, is it?” Lovie replied, pausing to catch her breath.

Toy’s brows gathered as she monitored Lovie’s level of exhaustion. “Why don’t you sit down for a spell? I’ll get you some water and a nice fresh cup of coffee.”

“My, that sounds nice,” Lovie replied breathlessly as she lowered herself into a chair at the small wood table just outside the kitchen.

With her eye trained on Lovie’s pale face, Toy brought a tray from the kitchen and set it before Lovie. “Did you find anything today?”

Lovie’s face immediately brightened. “Our third nest! Emmi and I probed and on only the third try the probe sunk right in. You should’ve seen Emmi’s face! One hundred and fifty-four eggs. Isn’t that wonderful? Unfortunately, the mother laid them directly in the middle of the beach access path. That big wide one on 17th Avenue.”

“That wasn’t too smart of her.”

“I’m sure the poor old girl had no idea it was a beach path. So we had to move the nest. The dunes are quite high between 16th and 17th Avenue so after Emmi and I checked around a bit, we found a nice place for the nest. All in all, a good day.”

“But a long one for you,” she amended with a serious look.

“Oh, I’m fine, really. A little out of breath, but not the least bit fagged out.”

“No pain?”

“None at all.”

“And you got that message from the volunteer about 6th Avenue?” she asked, bringing a small bowl filled with pills to Lovie.

“I did, thank you. Flo passed it on to me.” She looked down at the pills and wrinkled her nose.

“Come on, Miss Lovie, you know you got to. See? I bought you a doughnut to help with the swallowing. ‘A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,’ just like the song says. Now, come on, don’t put it off.”

Lovie grimaced as she faced the mound of pills but Toy remained at her side, arms resolutely crossed over her chest as she waited. She hated to play the heavy but the doctor hadn’t been fooling around when he’d taken Toy aside and told her it was her job to make sure that Lovie swallowed each and every one of the pills. She tried to keep the conversation about turtles going to take Lovie’s mind off the swallowing.

“So, did that call about 6th Avenue turn out to be a nest?”

After a noisy swallow Lovie set the glass down and shook her head. “A false crawl. She came up the beach quite far, then wandered around a bit before turning back. We searched carefully but didn’t find a nest. I suspect she’s the same mother who laid the eggs a little farther down on 17th. The tracks were similar.” She stared at the remaining pills with dejection.

“Come on, now, just a few more,” Toy prodded. She watched as Lovie took a deep breath, grabbed the two final pink pills, then swallowed them with a shiver of disgust.

“There, that’s done.”

“Horrid things. I don’t know why I still bother.”

“Don’t say that. You know why. We want you around for a long time.”

Lovie’s face softened and she looked at Toy with a sad expression. “At least for the summer.”

“Oh, much longer than that. I’m already shopping for your Christmas present. But, yeah, summer is best. You’ve been so happy since the turtles came.”

“And now, my own Caretta is back.”

Toy’s smile fell.

Lovie tilted her head and gazed at Toy speculatively. “You’ve met?”

The legs of the chair scraped the pine wood floors as Toy joined Lovie at the table. She sat in a clumsy flop, leaving room for her growing belly.

“Sort of. She answered that phone call about the tracks and I walked in from the store while she was talking. I think we kinda surprised each other.”

“She fell asleep early last night. I thought we’d all have a chance to meet after you came home from the movies. As it turned out, I didn’t have a chance to tell her about you.”

“I figured that. She looked at me like…Well, let’s just say she wasn’t glad to see me.”

“Cara can be quite formidable.”

Toy snorted. “I swear, Lovie, I can’t believe that she’s your daughter. I never seen two women cut from such different pieces of cloth.”

Lovie chuckled, then said ruefully, “I’m sure she’d agree with you.”

Toy twisted her mouth and began picking at her nail. “I was thinking. Maybe I should go someplace else, just for this week or so while she’s here. Give you two a little time alone.”

“Where would you go?”

“I guess I could go back to Darryl’s for a week.”

“That’s out of the question.”

Lovie’s sharp tone brought Toy’s gaze to her face. Lovie had straightened in the chair and her eyes were shining.

“It’d just be for a week. I know he wants me back.”

“We won’t even discuss the possibility of you returning to that man.”

“He loves me.”

They sat across from each other in a long silence. Lovie reached out and put her hand over Toy’s. “When I invited you to live here, I wanted you to feel that this was your home. I think we’ve managed quite nicely for ourselves here, don’t you?” When Toy nodded she continued. “So what made you think you’d be suddenly booted out when a guest arrived?”

“We’re not talking about some guest. Cara’s your daughter.”

“And you have become as a daughter to me, too.”

Toy lowered her head and fixed her gaze on the small hand over hers. It was a mother’s hand. Though the skin was pale, almost translucent, with blue veins protruding over bones as fragile as a sparrow’s, Toy saw in it so much love and strength she felt her eyes water with emotion.

Lovie said softly, “Tell me you’ll stay? That you’ll try to make this work?”

Toy nodded sharply, embarrassed for her tears.

Glancing at the clock Cara saw through bleary eyes that it was nearly noon. Her head felt groggy, as though she could sleep another twelve hours. But she couldn’t spend the entire day in bed, could she? The thought that yes, she could, was disquieting. Her mouth felt as if it were filled with cotton and a faint thrumming still pulsed in her skull. Swinging her legs off from the bed, she slipped into a pair of boxer shorts and padded down the hall toward the kitchen.

She felt out of place in her childhood summer home, as if she didn’t belong. The beach house even looked different. Her mother had gutted and redesigned the small rooms of the old cottage to create one main, airy room in the center of the house that opened up at the front and back to large, covered verandas. To the left of the house was a small hall that led to the two small children’s bedrooms and a shared bath. To the right was the master bedroom, bathroom and a tiny kitchen. The clunky old kitchen she remembered was a far cry from the sleek galley kitchen with modern appliances she stepped into now.

The only thing she recognized was the dish cabinet. Through the glass-fronted doors she saw the remainders of china sets that had been handed down through generations. Choosing a blue-and-white Meissen cup, she was comforted by something at once familiar on an out-of-sorts morning. The coffee was still blessedly hot in a thermos and someone had thoughtfully laid out a small plate of doughnuts.

Moving at a slow pace, she carried her cup and pastry to the screened porch and slumped into a large wooden rocking chair facing the ocean. Straight ahead, across the empty lot of low-humped dunes and wild, gnarled greenery, the ocean placidly rolled, distant and unwelcoming.

“Well, there you are!”

Jerking her head around, she spied her mother rounding the corner of the house. She looked sporty in khaki shorts, a sage T-shirt with a turtle emblazoned across the chest and a red baseball cap with the state’s palm tree and crescent moon logo on the front. Cara lazily returned a wave.

Lovie gripped the railing and began climbing the short flight of stairs with a labored tread. Her breath came heavy. Alarmed, Cara hustled down the stairs to take hold of her arm.

“Are you all right?”

“Signs of my age,” Lovie said ruefully. “Nothing more.”

“When was the last time you saw your doctor?”

“I’ll have you know Dr. Pittman and I are on the most intimate terms. When I sneeze, he calls to say ‘God bless you.’”

“Seriously, Mother. I don’t recall your ever being so out of breath.”

Lovie stopped on a step and turned her head to look at Cara askance. “Cara dear,” she said, a tone of reprimand in her voice, “you haven’t visited me in quite a long time. Your memory banks are not that recent. These days, I’m frequently out of breath.”

Chastened, Cara quietly followed her mother’s march up the stairs. When they reached the top, Lovie stepped away from Cara’s hold and took a deep breath.

“See? Nothing to worry about. I’m like a turtle, slow but sure. How are you?”

Cara noted the pearls of sweat along her mother’s upper lip but said no more about it. “I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to conk out on our first night, but the bed looked so inviting and with that soft breeze coming in through the window…I lay down for a moment just to rest my eyes and the next thing I knew it was morning.”

“Don’t give it another thought. I figured you must’ve been exhausted after your long drive and there’s plenty of time to catch up. You did exactly the right thing. Did you wake up feeling refreshed?”

“No, sadly not. I still feel draggy. I think I’m just slowing down from the rat race.”

“Island time. Many of my guests from the north seem to need a few days to unwind. Give yourself time. I know, why don’t you come on down to the beach tomorrow and join the Turtle Ladies? Walking in the fresh air and sun will do you good.”

“I used to love sunbathing but not anymore. I’ve read all about skin cancer and wrinkles. These days, I like to admire the sunshine from indoors, thank you very much. Besides, did you forget that I don’t want anything to do with the turtles?”

Lovie waved away the sentiment. “Come down for the company then. Do you remember Emmaline Baker? She’s joined us now and she’s just dying to see you.”

“Emmi’s here?” Cara conjured up an image of her dearest friend growing up.

“She still comes for the summers with her boys. She’s been asking about you.”

“I’d love to see her, too. But not today. Maybe later,” she hedged. The thought of chitchat was beyond her.

Lovie cast her a sidelong glance, then walked inside the screened porch. She slid into a rocker with characteristic grace. “Sit down, Cara. We can talk a bit.”

Cara followed her into the porch. Lovie removed her cap and fanned her face as she rocked. Watching her, Cara suppressed a shudder. Her mother’s hair, once thick and the color of spun gold, was now so thin and white that in the harsh light her scalp could be seen. Cara licked her lips, shaken. “Can I get you some water?”

“No, I’m just about to go in and fix lunch. You must be famished.”

“Don’t go to any trouble for me while I’m here,” she said, grabbing her mug and sitting beside her mother. “I never eat regular meals anyway. My body is used to the abuse.”

“You’re far too thin. And pale.”

She laughed. “I was just thinking the same about you!”

“Oh?” Lovie’s blue eyes widened. “Well, who cares about me? I’m an old woman. But you’re in your prime!” Her gaze eagerly traveled across Cara’s face to her disheveled, shoulder-length brown hair cut in a blunt style. She wore the same wrinkled T-shirt that she’d arrived in over baggy, blue men’s boxers that exposed long, thin legs crossed at the ankles. “You always do find the best hairdressers,” she said. “But you look tired. And stressed. Especially your eyes. They’re all puffy and a bit bloodshot.”

“Charming,” Cara muttered as she sipped her coffee. She moved her hand to apply pressure to her forehead where she could feel tension building up.

“Are you ill? There’s been so much early summer flu going around.”

“No. It’s just an annoying headache.”

“Ahhh…So you still get them?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Mmmm-hmm. See? It is the stress. When you were little you used to get them whenever you had a test, do you remember? Or when…” She stopped midsentence.

“When Daddy blew his top,” Cara finished for her.

Her mother smiled weakly and an awkward silence reigned.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you that you got a call while you were out.” Cara reached for her doughnut. “Some lady found tracks.”

“What time was that?”

“Hours ago. That girl inside took the call.”

“Oh, yes. That was the false crawl.” Then she asked pointedly, “That girl? I assume you mean Toy Sooner?”

Cara couldn’t keep her opinion from her face. “Toy? Is that her name?” She bit into the doughnut, sprinkling bits of glazed sugar down her chest. “We didn’t get that far,” she mumbled, chewing and brushing away the crumbs. “We snarled at each other like cats for a few minutes, then I left before any damage was done.” She reached for her coffee cup and took a quick sip. “Who is she, anyway? And isn’t she a bit young to be pregnant?”

Lovie studied her daughter’s face with the same expression she had worn when Cara was young and spoke with her mouth full. “Yes, she is young. Very young, poor dear. But these things happen, you know. Even in Charleston.”

Cara rolled her eyes and dabbed a napkin at her mouth. “Mother, I’m hardly shocked. I’m just curious what she’s doing here. Now, of all times.”

“During your visit, you mean?”

“Frankly, yes. It’s not like I come that often. What? Once every twenty years?” She bit into her doughnut and chewed. Swallowing hard she added with pique in her voice, “You led me to believe you wanted to spend some time with me. Fool that I was, I assumed you meant just us.”

“Cara, dear, let’s not start getting snippy. I did invite you to be here with me.”

“I see. So you invited this Toy person because…?”

“I didn’t invite her. She’s not a guest, Cara. She lives here. I couldn’t boot her out just because you were coming for a visit.”

“Lives here? Since when? The season’s only just begun.”

“Since I moved in last January. Toy came in March.”

“January? But you never come that early. Why would you leave your house to come stay out here in winter? Did you and Palmer have a fight?”

“No, Palmer and I did not have a fight. Why would you think that? But I couldn’t, or rather, I didn’t want to live alone at my age. So when I mentioned my situation to Flo she introduced me to Toy.” When Cara looked puzzled, Lovie asked, “You remember Florence Prescott from next door, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. The upbeat woman with a great shock of bright-red hair.”

“Yes, but the hair is white now. What you might not recall is that she worked for years as a social worker in Summerville. Flo spent the weekdays in an apartment there and fixed up the family’s old house on the island on weekends, vacations—whenever she could. Anyway, her mother grew quite frail and Flo finally decided it was time to retire and bring her mother home to live with her. Goodness, that must be ten years ago already. My, my, my, time flies so quickly. They’ve been such good friends. Lucky for me to have them next door.”

“Mother, what has this got to do with Toy?”

“I was getting to that. Flo still volunteers her time at the Women’s Shelter and one day while we were talking I told her about my wanting to live here on the island and how I should have a companion. She grew quite excited—you know how Flo gets—and told me about a young girl who would be perfect for the job.”

“You found her at the shelter?”

“You make it sound like she’s some dog I found at the pound,” Lovie scolded. “Yes, she was at the shelter, poor girl. That’s what it’s there for, thank the Lord. Women need a place to go to when they’re frightened for their well-being.”

“I know, I know. You’re preaching to the choir. I donate regularly to a shelter in Chicago.”

Her mother nodded in acknowledgement. “I’m not talking out of turn when I tell you Toy’s history. She and I discussed this and she agreed that it would be best for me to tell you. Toy found herself pregnant by her live-in boyfriend and she left him when he hit her.”

“Hit her?”

“Beat her, actually. The baby wasn’t hurt but Toy was frightened for it and left.”

“As well she should have. I give her high marks for that. But she’s so young to be living with a boyfriend and pregnant. What about her family?”

“Horrible people who wouldn’t take her back. They kicked her out, called her a tramp and other such cruel things you can only imagine then left her to fend for herself. Imagine, doing that to your own daughter.”

Cara could indeed imagine and felt a sudden sympathy for the girl. She knew how terrifying that scenario was. The city streets could be cold and mean to a young girl.

“How old can she be? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

“She’s almost eighteen, and precious. She looks quite young.”

A knot formed in Cara’s throat. “I left home at eighteen.”

Her mother startled. “Why, that was different, Cara. You chose to leave. Your father and I were against it, but you were always headstrong and so sure of yourself. Toy isn’t like that. She’s insecure, a mere child.”

Cara squeezed her eyes shut, feeling a sharp stab of hurt. She couldn’t look at the wide-eyed expression on her mother’s face nor believe she could say those words to her after what they’d put Cara through at the same age. How could Mama have forgotten that she, too, was kicked out of the house? Or had she merely preferred to forget?

“Toy had nowhere else to go,” Lovie tried to explain.

Nor did I when I left. Did you worry about me? “So you just took her in?” Cara asked, opening her eyes.

“It seemed the perfect solution. I wanted a companion and Toy needed a place to stay.”

“It’s your life,” she said, lifting her hands.

“You’re shutting me out again.”

“No,” she replied evenly, controlling her bubbling anger. “I’m not interfering. There’s a difference.”

A familiar, painful silence dragged between them during which Cara’s headache pounded and her mother gazed out at the sea.

“I’m certain if you give Toy a chance, you’ll like her. She might seem a little hard at first, but she’s rather like a turtle. Underneath her hard shell is a very sweet creature who needs to be protected and loved.” Lovie reached out to place her hand over Cara’s. “Won’t you at least try to be friendly with Toy? For my sake?”

Cara leaned wearily back in her chair and looked long at her mother. Her rage fizzled but the hurt lingered as her heart cried in a child’s voice, Why are you defending Toy and not me? Your own daughter? Cara couldn’t help the burn of jealousy that her mother was so fond of this strange girl. Over the years, she and her mother had remained polite yet nonintrusive. It was a long-distance relationship that had suited them both. And yet, seeing her mother sitting a foot away, that space between them suddenly felt so large and empty.

Cara slipped her hand away. “Okay, Mama, I’ll try.”

At last the loggerhead arrives in familiar waters. She waits in the swells near shore as a moon rises above the Atlantic. Her home is the sea, but instinct demands that she leave all she knows and face the unknown dangers of the beach to nest. Is it safe here, or should she swim farther on?

CHAPTER THREE

Cara’s headache blossomed into a full-blown migraine that sent her limping back to her bed. Lovie placed a cool cloth over her eyes and forehead and instructed Cara not to think, to just let her muscles relax. Cara nodded in compliance but knew that was like telling herself not to breathe. She had no job, no income and no plan for tomorrow. Her brain would be churning like mad for weeks to come. She shifted restlessly, then pulled the washcloth off her face. A rare hopelessness overwhelmed her, and bringing her hands up to cup her face, she let go of days of unshed tears.

Sometime later, her eyes were swollen and gritty and she felt that queer listlessness that comes when one is drained. Turning her head, she stared vacantly outside the window at an oleander swaying in the wind. Time had little meaning for her now. Clouds had moved in quickly from the mainland, changing the blue sky to gray. Outside her window she’d heard the low bellowing of a foghorn as a huge container ship navigated its way through the harbor and out to sea. She felt like one of those ships, caught in a fog as thick as pea soup, unable to see what lay ahead.

She had been only eighteen when she’d left Charleston for points north. She didn’t care where she went, as long as it wasn’t in the South. She’d had her fill of the unspoken but clearly understood expectations of a young woman, especially one from an old Charleston family. She would go to the college of their choice, find a husband and get married, then live somewhere in the South. Her whole life had been neatly mapped out for her.

But all along, she’d been studying maps of her own. She left home in a huff of tears and landed in Chicago. That soaring city on Lake Michigan suited her outspoken, rebellious ways more than the delicately mannered, cultured city of Charleston ever had. So she’d stayed, trading saltwater for fresh, her southern lilt for a midwestern twang, vowing to make a place in the world with her brains and wit, not her feminine charms.

She’d given it her all. During the day she worked as a secretary in an ad firm. At night, while roommates were having fun at bars finding mates, she went to school. To this day she was most proud of having earned a college degree by going to night school for seven long years. She went on to get a Master’s in business, all without a penny of support from her parents. That was her way. She believed if she worked harder than most were willing to, she’d win the race.

And she did, but the race was a marathon. It took her fifteen years to doggedly work her way up the ladder from receptionist to account director. She’d earned a full and busy life, filled with the small luxuries that she was proud to be able to afford for herself. She wasn’t wealthy, but she could splurge and go to the theater, drink good bottles of wine, dabble in investments and buy the appropriate suits and accessories required of a woman in her position.

And from time to time there were men…Never anything lasting, but then again, she never expected it to be. She’d been with Richard Selby for four years, longer than anyone before. He was a lawyer for the same ad firm, surefooted, witty and handsome in a corporate way. It was as close as she’d come to a serious relationship. She wondered if this was love? They didn’t speak the words—it was not their style—but she felt the understanding was there.

All in all, her life had been content.

And then, unthinkably, that life was over. She was fired and found she had no friends outside of work. She’d left town without so much as a goodbye to Richard and it didn’t seem to have made any difference. She still couldn’t get over that fact.

What frightened her most was that she’d had no control over what happened. She was a woman who liked control, who planned for all contingencies. But she hadn’t seen it coming. She’d worked and worked, moving along on her planned trajectory and bam! Now she felt numb. Drained of everything but fear. Wouldn’t they have a good laugh at work if they could see her now? The strong, tough Miss Rutledge curled up like a fetus in her mother’s house.

She brought the blanket high up under her chin, burying her face in the pillow. The down smelled of the sea. Holding it tighter, she looked again outside her window. A gust of air carrying the sweet scent of rain sent the roller shade rapping.

A rain shower would be nice, she thought drowsily, closing her eyes again.

She awoke later to the sound of knocking wood. Opening her eyes, she was surprised to find the room shadowy dark. In the hall, a light glowed. Her mother stood at the window, a small, trim figure in a thin summer sweater, an apron tied around her waist. Lovie was patting the window frame with the butt of her hand, trying to close the stubborn, swollen wood against the incoming storm. An angry wind billowed the screens and the first fat drops of rain streaked the glass. At last the window rumbled closed, leaving the room tight and secure.

“What time is it?” Cara asked in a croaky voice, rising up on her elbows. Pain pulsed in her head, sending her back to the pillows with a soft groan.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” her mother said, fastening the window lock and rolling the shade down. “My but that rain’s coming down like the Lord’s flood.” Turning to face Cara again, she studied her with a mother’s eyes. She stepped closer, hesitant. “How’s the headache?”

“Not as bad as this morning.”

“But still there?”

“Uh-huh,” she murmured. “How long have I slept? What time is it?” she repeated, licking dry lips.

“It’s almost four o’clock. It’s been drizzling on and off all day, just teasing us. But a good storm is rolling in now from the mainland. Thank heavens. We need the rain.” She reached out to stroke a lock of hair from Cara’s forehead, then rested her palm to test for fever. Her fingertips felt soothing and Cara’s lids drooped. “And you can use the sleep,” she added, removing her palm. “But first, do you think you can eat a little something? I’ve made you some soup.”

Cara smiled weakly but gratefully. “I thought I smelled something wonderful. And could I have a glass of water?”

“Of course. I’m on my way.”

Cara dragged herself up again, wincing at the relentless pulsing in her temples. But she could hold her eyes open in the dim light and the nausea had subsided. Outside her window the wind whistled. Thunder rolled so loud and close she could feel the vibrations, but it was fast moving. She knew this storm would soon move out to sea. She walked on wobbly legs to the bathroom to splash cool water on her face. When she returned, she found her mother already back in her bedroom with a tray filled with food and fresh flowers in a vase.

“Here we are! Some nice chicken gumbo, chunks of bread, ice water, and best of all, aspirin.”

Cara moved slowly, any sudden movement causing ricochets of pain in her head. She settled under the blankets and leaned back against the pile of pillows that her mother had plumped for her. “I feel like a patient in the hospital.”

“You’re just home, darling. Do you often have these headaches?”

“From time to time. They come if I work too late or sleep too long, that kind of thing. Chocolate does it, sometimes. Caffeine, on occasion. I’ve had more than the usual of all of the above recently.”

“Genetics, most likely,” her mother said with conclusion. She rested the tray on Cara’s lap. As she spread out the napkin, she continued. “Your grandmother Beulah had headaches so bad she used to retire to her room for days with the shutters drawn. We children were instructed to play out of doors and were under strict orders to tiptoe around the house in stocking feet so as not to clump loudly on the hardwood floors. The order went for house staff, too. I remember how we used to giggle at seeing a hole in one of their stockings.”

Cara savored the soup as the tastes exploded in her mouth. “Oh, God, I’d forgotten how good this was.”

Lovie’s chest expanded as she watched.

“If genetics win out,” Cara said as she dipped her spoon again, “then I reckon that hidden somewhere inside of me lies the knack for making gumbo like this. And greens…and barbeque sauce…and grits with tasso gravy.” She blew on another spoonful. “Though very deeply hidden,” she added with a twinkle in her eye before sliding the spoon in.

“Pshaw. That has nothing to do with genetics. That’s training, pure and simple. Since the day you were old enough to help me in the kitchen. I wouldn’t be worth my salt as a mother if I didn’t pass on the family recipes.”

Cara looked into her bowl.

“What’s wrong, honey? You seem troubled. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” She paused, realizing she’d sounded flippant. She hadn’t meant to. It was more a knee-jerk reaction to anyone probing into her personal life. Even her mother. Perhaps especially her mother. Taking a step to closing the gulf between them she added, “Not yet.”

Lovie unclasped her hands and made a move toward the door. “I’ll be here if you change your mind.”

“Mama,” Cara called out.

Lovie turned, her hand resting on the doorknob.

“Thank you. For the soup.”

“You don’t have to say thank you. I’m your mother. It’s my job. My pleasure.”

“I know, but thanks for…everything.”

Lovie wiped her hands on her apron and nodded, but her eyes sparkled with gratitude. “You eat up, hear? I’ll be back in a bit for the tray.”

Cara lay back on the pillows and sighed. These first steps could be exhausting.

The rainy weather persisted on and off throughout the Memorial Day weekend. Parades were canceled and picnics brought indoors. Lovie could well imagine the grumbles that rumbled in the hotels and rental houses on the island. As for herself, Lovie was glad for the rain. They needed it desperately. The tips of the palmettos were crisp brown. Besides, the cloudy, introspective skies were a nice change and propelled her to do more of the indoor chores that needed doing. Like her photo albums.

For years she’d intended to organize her collection of old family photos into albums but the free time never seemed to materialize. So, most of her photos ended up stashed in boxes, out of harm’s way but certainly not in any kind of order. Since moving to the beach house, however, she’d put the project high on her priority list and filled up more albums in the past four months than she had in the past forty years.

On this rainy afternoon, Lovie was so engrossed in sorting through the photographs that she didn’t hear the kitchen door open.

“Are you still digging through those moldy old photographs?” Florence Prescott asked as she walked into the cottage.

Lovie turned her head to smile at her dear friend and neighbor. “Still? Honey, I’ve more photos to sort through than I can get done in a lifetime. Or, at least my lifetime.”

Flo’s smile slipped and her brilliant blue eyes grew more serious. “Why? How are you feeling? Any change?”

“No, and I don’t expect any.”

“Well, don’t sound so glum about it. That’s good, I guess. Steady as she goes.”

Flo crossed the room and plopped down on the sofa beside Lovie. She was of average height and build but with a runner’s body—slim, wiry, darkly tanned and just beginning to give in to softness at sixty-five. Only her thick, snowy-white hair gave a clue that she wasn’t a woman half her age. When she spoke it was with the same focused, upbeat energy she used in running the local races.

“Well, then! How’s everything else around here? Seems pretty quiet. Where’s Toy?”

“She went to the market. Said she wanted to make something sweet for dessert. I’m not sure whether it’s to fatten me up or because her hormones are running wild.”

Flo laughed. “Probably a bit of both. You know, I still haven’t laid eyes on that renegade daughter of yours. Is she really here or are you just making that up?”

“Go on and take a peek in her room if you don’t believe me. But I wish you wouldn’t. She’s sleeping.”

“Again? All she does is sleep. Is she sick?”

“She has migraines. She spent the first several days just lying in the dark, poor thing. But I gave her plenty of my chicken gumbo and they’re pretty much gone now.”

“Chalk up another cure to home cooking. Then why is she still sleeping?”

“I’ve been wrestling with that question myself. It could be she’s just exhausted. She works so hard and she claims she’s burned out by the job. Do you know she travels to New York or Los Angeles several times a month? I had no idea. I couldn’t imagine living like that. Back and forth, back and forth, sometimes just for the day. It suits her, I suppose, but I’m much too much a homebody for that.” She pursed her lips and looked toward the closed bedroom door. She thought of the sadness she saw in her daughter’s eyes…or was it defeat?

“I get the feeling that something else is wrong. It’s like she’s sick inside but she won’t tell me what the problem is.”

“She’s our Caretta. I’d be more surprised if she did tell you.”

“Why do you say that?”

“How many years has she been gone? Twenty? In all those years how many times has she come to you for advice? Or just to visit and hang out and, I don’t know, go through those old pictures together?” Her eyes flashed. “I can’t think of a single time.”

Lovie turned back to the photographs, feeling the pain of the comment deeply. “She’s busy and has her own life.”

“I think it’s because it’s easier. You two fight a lot.”

“We do not.”

“Maybe not yelling or such. You’re much too polite for that,” she said with a nudge. “But there’s always been this unspoken argument between the two of you. I suppose it’s just your way. But if you ask me—and I know you aren’t asking but here’s my opinion anyway—the two of you could use one good ol’ knock-down-drag-out fight. Spit it all out.”

“What a suggestion!” Lovie replied, irked that her dearest friend couldn’t understand the situation at all. “You’ve known us for long enough to know better. Cara’s simply moved far away. It’s only natural that there be an emotional distance as well. Besides, Cara’s always been a loner and perfectly capable of taking care of herself.”

“Being able to take care of herself and being by herself are two separate things entirely.”

“What are you saying?” The notion struck her hard.

“Well, does she have a fella?”

“Who knows, though I’ve asked her enough times. She gets prickly when I so much as broach the subject. She mentioned a Richard Selby from her office who she’s been seeing for some time. My ears perk up whenever a man’s name is mentioned twice in her life. But it seems to me if he were the least bit special she would be on the phone with him. She hasn’t called a soul.” Lovie thought back to the empty-eyed expression she’d caught when Cara was staring out the window. “Do you think she’s lonely?”

“How should I know? It’s possible. I mean, she may be superwoman at work but she’s still a woman when she goes home at night.”

Lovie set the photos down in her lap, flustered. “But, I just told you. She lives a busy, full life. She’s always going someplace or doing something with someone. Cara loves the theater, you know. She’s seen all the latest shows.”

Flo’s blue eyes seemed to burn right through Lovie’s arguments. “You might know better than most how empty a busy life can be.”

Lovie’s breath caught and she couldn’t reply. It felt as though her world, which just a few moments ago seemed peaceful and orderly, was thrown off-kilter.

“I’m sorry,” Flo said. “You know me, I speak first and think later. You wouldn’t be the first one to toss a ripe tomato my way. Go right ahead.”

Lovie shook her head with a shaky smile. “It’s what I love most about you. But, I wonder if you might be right about Cara, after all.” She picked up a photograph from the pile on her lap. It showed a dark-haired Cara at about thirteen, all thin arms and legs. She was curled up like a cat in the branches of an enormous, twisted live oak tree, reading a book.

“Look at her,” Flo said with affection. “She was scowling even then.”

Lovie chuckled and ran a finger over the girl’s image. “I remember taking this one. That old tree was her favorite spot. She’d go up there to read or think, or just to be alone. Hiding out, most likely. She was a funny little thing. Always seemed to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders.”

“Pubescent girls often behave like that. They’re teetering at the edge of womanhood and are so damn moody.”

“Perhaps. We used to be very close when she was little but she became so distant. I could almost feel her hand pushing me away.”

“Again, that’s normal for a girl that age.”

“Be that as it may, it’s still painful for the mother to go through.” She sighed. “She’s still pushing me away. But that’s nothing compared to her father. She may have pushed me away but she raised her dukes to him. Went toe-to-toe with him at every chance. I was terrified for her. You know how his temper was. I daresay she enjoyed torturing him.”

“Yeah? Well, good for her.”

“Flo!”

“What? You know how I felt about Stratton. God rest his soul, though I hate to think where the old coot’s roasting now.”

Lovie frowned but let that pass without comment. The least response from her about Stratton would get Flo wound up like a top. She couldn’t stand the man and the feeling had been mutual. But that was all water under the bridge, as far as Lovie was concerned.

“I wanted to capture Cara in her tree and I’m glad I did,” she said, returning her attention to the photograph. “Hurricane Hugo took that oak away along with so many others. Such a pity,” she ended with a sigh and set the photo aside. “I’ll show this to her later. She’s bound to notice her tree is gone.”

“When you do, why don’t you ask her what else she remembers about that time? It’s a good way to open things up between you.”

“Oh, Flo, those days are long gone. Why stir up bad memories? This is the first time she’s come home just to visit me. I’d like to keep things cheery and positive. And who knows? You might be right and it was nothing more than teenage angst, anyway. Best to leave things lie.”

“There you go, tucking everything neatly away again.” She looked at her fingernails and said, “Speaking of which, have you talked to her about, well—” she raised her eyes “—you?”

“About me? Good heavens, no. She’s only just arrived.”

“She’s been here for days! I know you, Olivia Rutledge. You’ll keep mum and hold it all inside so as not to rock the boat.”

“No, I won’t. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment in a few days. I’ve waited this long to tell her, I can wait a few days more.”

“You will tell her?”

“Of course.”

Flo’s eyes bore into hers one more time, as though to gage whether or not to believe her. Apparently satisfied with whatever she saw in Lovie’s eyes, she sighed deeply, slapped her palms on her thighs and rose to a stand. “I have to go check on Miranda. She caught a slight cold but at her age everything’s a worry. Oh! I almost forgot the reason I came over. There was a stranding this morning over on Sullivan’s Island.”

“Was it a loggerhead?”

Flo nodded. “A juvenile. Poor thing. Its carapace was sliced up by a propeller. Probably in the harbor. That’s the sixth dead turtle that’s washed up this season. I hate it when the dead ones outnumber the nests. What with the shrimping season getting underway, we can expect to see a lot more.”

“I hope not. It’s early. Our girls are still out in the swells and they’re just getting started. Give them time. It might be a slow start, but it’s going to be a great season. Our best.” She looked at the photograph of Cara and smiled with the brightness of hope. “I can feel it.”

The loggerhead is named for its unusually large head. She has a powerful beaklike jaw and her eardrums are covered by skin. She has a keen sense of smell and an even keener instinct for survival—one that has kept the species alive since prehistoric times.

CHAPTER FOUR

After a week of moping about the house in her pajamas, Cara decided she’d had enough wallowing. Today she would start her visit over. She waited behind the closed door of her bedroom until she heard the front door close and the footsteps of Lovie and Toy departing from the cottage. It had been another in a series of wild mornings of the telephone ringing with reports from the turtle volunteers, followed by a bustle of motion as Toy and Lovie gathered their supplies into the red bucket and headed for The Gold Bug and whatever point along the beach that turtle tracks were found.

The coast was clear, as she and Palmer used to say when their father had left for work. She showered as best she could in the pitiful stream of water that escaped through a faucet with a chokehold of lime, but the French lavender soap her mother laid out went a long way to making her feel enormously better. There were large, thirsty towels and a lovely gardenia-scented lotion to complete her bath. Back in her room, she saw that her mother had unpacked her suitcase for her. Inside the dresser drawer she found a fresh sachet.

Cara smiled, shaking her head and murmuring, “Mama…”

Her mother had always picked up her messy room during her teens. True, the room was vacuumed, the dirty dishes and laundry removed, but Cara knew it was really her mother’s clever way of keeping tabs on her rebellious offspring. One day Cara planted a package of condoms in a brown paper bag far back in the drawer beneath her bras. Oh, how the fireworks exploded that afternoon when she came home from the beach! Lovie tried both to scold Cara and defend herself for rifling through her daughter’s drawers. Cara’s hand stilled on the dresser, remembering that her mother had never told her father about the contents of that paper bag.

Hanging in the cramped closet were her dressy slacks, silk blouses and one sexy black dress. Her closet back in Chicago was bulging with lovely tropical weight wool suits, silk blouses and scarves, and fine leather boots and shoes for a professional working in a city. But she had nothing for a casual day at the beach. Her life in Chicago had not been casual.

She settled on a chic mint-green silk outfit and a pair of very dressy, strappy leather sandals studded with rhinestones that looked great on Michigan Avenue. Looking in the long mirror tacked to the back of the door, she saw a tall, sleek, dark-haired woman dressed to the nines and terribly out of place on the laid-back island. Then, because she felt a need for bolstering, she added a touch of shadow and mascara and a spritz of scent. Her dark hair, still damp, was rolled into a twist and secured with a clip.

By the time she stepped into the living room, the fog had swept out to sea and sunshine poured in from the windows. Her spirits lifted at the prospect of a lovely day as she stood for a moment just inhaling great gulps of the fresh, salty air.

She took her growling stomach as a good sign and moved into the small kitchen, neat and sparkling in the sun. She helped herself to a quick breakfast, then began to prowl, glancing out the windows, peeking in all the rooms and running her fingers through magazines on the coffee table. Before long, she felt the old restlessness stirring. She wasn’t accustomed to so much time on her hands. She had no agenda. She was anxious to do something.

She rationalized that she’d needed a long, overdue vacation. But now it was time to regroup. She’d make a few calls and develop a game plan. Perhaps set up a couple of meetings. After all, she had contacts in the business, and a solid reputation to fall back on.

Except, she didn’t have her computer with her. Or her cell phone. How could she have been so dazed as to leave them in Chicago? She’d stormed out of the city, determined to disengage. But rather than feel freer, she felt totally cut off without access to her e-mail. She was addicted to the connection. Without it she felt jittery and antsy. Marooned on some deserted island.

While she paced, her wandering gaze caught sight of a cluster of photographs on the mantel that hadn’t been there before. Her mother must have just put them up. Her curiosity pricked, she walked closer to inspect.

She was drawn first to the photograph of herself, naturally enough. In a small silver frame she saw herself as a young teen curled up in a tree reading a book. She felt a ping somewhere deep inside and raised her eyes out the rear window to search for the old oak tree that had been a dear friend to her for many years. But it wasn’t in the yard. “Poor old tree,” she said softly, mourning its loss. A flood of memories coursed through her and, instinctively, she placed the photograph back on the mantel and moved on.

The largest was a silver-framed family photograph taken on the veranda of the Charleston house. A ruddy-faced Palmer in a navy blazer with shiny brass buttons sat with his arm around a slender, erect Julia in pale linen, every hair in place. Palmer had borne the butt of many jokes about how he’d married a gal just like mom, but Cara had never laughed. She’d always found that at the root of jokes there often lay a core of truth. On either side of them sat their children, Linnea and Cooper.

She picked up a flowery, porcelain-framed school photo of her niece to study. Linnea was a pretty girl, an interesting combination of her parents. Counting back, Cara figured her niece was nine years old now. She had Palmer’s warm smile and flirtatious grin that would someday wrap a boy around her little finger. But in everything else, she looked like her mother and grandmother: petite, with brilliant blue eyes, fine white-gold hair and porcelain skin. Ol’ Palmer would have his hands full keeping the boys from that one, she thought with a chuckle. And it would only be God’s good justice after the hell he’d raised growing up.

But Cooper was all Rutledge, from his strong jaw stuck out at a rebellious angle, to his broad forehead with the Rutledge hairline and the hint of what would someday become a proud, straight nose. He didn’t smile as much as grimace for the camera, as if to say, Do I have to? She tried to recall how old he was, ashamed that she didn’t know. It was a sad statement about her relationship with her brother. From the pudgy cheeks and the uncertain, wobbly smile, he looked to be no older than five. There was something in his eyes, however, a dark-brown like her own and her father’s, that drew her in. It was the vulnerability behind the bravado that she understood so well.

She placed the photograph slowly back onto its place on the mantel, feeling very distant from these children and sorry for it. She had no children of her own—not so much by choice as by circumstance—and they were her only niece and nephew. She’d sent them gifts at Christmas and for their birthdays, for which she promptly received polite but impersonal thank-you notes. Such was the extent of their relationship. She wondered if they would even recognize her if she passed them in the street?

Making a quick decision, she walked directly to the phone and dialed Palmer’s number at the family house. It was the same number she’d dialed since she was a child. It rang four times before a gruff voice answered.

“Palmer?” she asked, surprised to find him home in the morning. She’d expected to reach Julia.

There was a pause. “Mama?”

Cara laughed. “No, it’s me. Cara. How are you?”

“Cara? Well, for…This is a surprise! Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, fine. In fact, I’m in town.”

“No kidding? That’s great. How long you in for?”

“Not too long.”

“Business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure, actually.”

“Really?” He sounded genuinely surprised. He chuckled softly, a low, masculine rumbling sound unique to Southern men. “Well now, that’s a switch.”

“Don’t start in on me, Palmer,” she replied, laughing. “Actually, I’m out at the beach house. Mama asked me to come for a visit and I had a few days, so here I am.”

“Did she now?” He paused as though thinking that over. “So, did you meet her companion?”

By the way he said the word, she knew instantly that he disapproved of Toy Sooner. Cara sighed, remembering her promise to her mother. “I did. Briefly. She’s been keeping herself scarce and, frankly, I’ve been grounded with a migraine since I arrived. I couldn’t open my mouth except to groan. But I’m feeling much better now. Listen, Palmer, I saw photographs of Cooper and Linnea and I was amazed at how they’ve grown. Actually, I’m calling because I’d like to see y’all while I’m in town.” Palmer’s drawl was so infectious she couldn’t help the Lowcountry from creeping back into her own tone and words.

“Why sure, honey! We’d love that. Julia will cook up something real special. When can you come?”

She felt herself smiling. “When do you want me?”

“Well, here’s the thing. I’m fixing to leave for Charlotte this afternoon. I’ve got some business to tend to up there that’ll take up the week. I’m packing my suitcase right now. How about Saturday? You gonna be here that long? That’s a whole three days away….”

She let the tease ride. Looking out the window she saw a brilliant blue sky. She’d spent her first week groaning in bed with the shades drawn or moping—hardly a vacation. But more importantly, she hadn’t accomplished what she’d come here to do. And she wanted to see her niece and nephew.

“You can count on it, big brother.”

“Well, good,” he replied, and she could hear the pleasure in his drawl. “We’re all looking forward to it. And bring that runaway back home with you, hear? Tell her that her grandbabies miss her. Mama hasn’t been back here but a few times since she left. She’s like a hermit crab, hiding out in that tiny place. I worry about her.”

“Come out to the island, then. It’s not far.”

“Maybe now that summer’s here and the kids are out of school, we’ll do just that. We’ll come out for a good visit.”

“Mama’d like that.” Then, thinking of Toy, “But it’s a little crowded here now.”

“Hell, I don’t stay in the cottage anymore,” he said, shooing away the suggestion in his blustery voice that sounded so much like her father’s it was eerie. “I’ve got my own place on Sullivan’s Island. Over by the lighthouse. Problem is, it’s rented out so much in the summer we hardly ever get to come down to the water like we want to.”

Cara heard the pride in his voice and thought that business must be pretty good for him to buy a summerhouse on Sullivan’s. Last she’d heard, they were saving to buy a house downtown. Could be they liked living in Mother’s house well enough. Then Cara knew an unsettling feeling as a new thought took root.

“Why don’t y’all come around four o’clock,” he said. “We’ll take a spin on the boat, maybe go up the Intracoastal a ways and come around back to the harbor. I’ll bet you haven’t done that in a long time. We can have ourselves some drinks and watch the sun set like old times. We’ll do it proper.”

“Sounds great, Palmer,” she said, meaning it. “Is there anything I can bring?”

“Well now, since you asked. Remember that shack that sells shrimp over on Shem Creek? Clud’s?”

“No, but I can find it.”

“Now, how can you forget an operation like that? Sure you remember. They’ve got the freshest shrimp, sell it right off the boat. You have to turn off Coleman by the gas station and wind your way round the old neighborhood as far back as you can go. It’s way in there by the dock. If you can get me some of that shrimp, I’ll take care of the bill when I see you. About four pounds ought’a do it. I’d get it myself but I won’t be back from Charlotte until Friday and Julia and the kids are coming along to visit her mother. We’ll all be back on Friday, though. Think I’ll make us some Frogmore Stew.”

She wondered if Palmer remembered that it had been her favorite Lowcountry meal growing up and wanted to prepare it just for her. “I sure can’t say no to an offer like that.”

“Well then, that’s that. Say hello to Mama for me. I’ll see you soon.”

They signed off with the same familiarity as if they’d just talked yesterday. It was like that with family, she thought, staring at the old telephone with a grin on her face. They could be separated for years but in a few words an age-old connection was made that had nothing to do with telephone wires.

She placed the receiver back into its cradle but left her hand resting on it. The house was quiet. She was alone. In for a penny, in for a pound she decided and picked up the phone again. God, it was a clunky thing and it weighed a ton compared to her little cell phone. She dialed her home number and checked her messages.

There were the expected sympathy calls from colleagues, some of whom were also laid off, some of whom she wasn’t sure about. She wrote these numbers down. Richard had called many times, asking why she wasn’t answering her cell phone, each time sounding more worried and pleading that she call.

Richard. She missed him with a sudden urgency, conjuring up his strong features and dark-brown hair just beginning to show dashing strands of gray. They’d shared disasters and triumphs alike. Everyone at the agency knew about their relationship and even tacitly approved of it. After all, when they weren’t working together on a project at the office, they were talking about the project during their personal time together. In fact, they’d often laughed and declared that what they had was better than love.

She heard the panic in his messages and felt guilty for not trying to reach him sooner. She hadn’t even left him a message that she was leaving town. Headache or no, she should have tried to contact him. Was Richard as devastated at being fired? It was a shame that he’d had to leave for New York during the biggest crises of their careers, when they needed each other the most.

She looked at her watch. It was 10:15, an hour earlier in Chicago. He might still be asleep. She yearned to call him but decided to contact Adele Tillwell first. If she didn’t reach her early, she and the headhunter would begin a nagging session of lunchtime phone tag. She went to her room to collect her palm pilot, paper and a pen, then returned to the small wooden hall table and made a makeshift desk, cursing herself again for leaving her cell phone. Pulling up a chair, she dialed the number of the trusted contact at an employment agency she’d dealt with many times before, but always from the hiring side of the desk.

Fortunately, Adele was at her desk. After initial pleasantries, they got swiftly down to business. She talked at length with Adele about her current situation, not the least surprised that she already knew about her layoff. They made a few jokes, laughed a bit, shared a little gossip, then when the chitchat was completed they dove right into what was out there in the market, appraised her résumé and considered what her next move should be.

“I’ll do what I can but the hiring picture is grim,” Adele concluded. “Especially at your level. Thanks to your old alma mater, the streets are flooded with applicants.”

Cara felt panic take root. “But my reputation is solid. I’ve got an impressive list of credits.”

“Yes, you do. You’re a plum, no doubt about it. There’s something out there for you.”

She heard the uncertainty. “Go on….”

“It’s just a matter of waiting it out.”

Cara did a little mental arithmetic, trying to figure out how long she could survive without an income. The separation package was generous, but…“I can’t wait too long or I’ll lose my cushion. Not to mention my condo.”

“I can’t control these things, Cara. It could take months, at the very least.”

“God, I hate not being in control.”

Adele chuckled and Cara felt the tension easing. Adele was good at her job. “It’s not totally out of our control. What I can do is work hard for you. And I will, Cara. You’re now my favorite client. I owe you. You’ve done a lot for me in the past.”

“No, you don’t owe me anything, but thanks, Adele.”

“What you can do is follow up on your own contacts. By the way, is there anyone or anyplace in particular you’d like me to inquire?”

They chatted a few minutes longer about possible firms to pursue.

“Okay then,” Adele concluded. “Just fax me the list.”

“I can’t. I’m in the dark ages here. If you saw the phone I was talking on…”

“E-mail me then.”

“I don’t have a computer.”

“You don’t? Where the hell are you? Siberia?”

“No.” She chuckled. “My mother’s beach house. I left in such a fog I forgot everything that wasn’t attached. Look, it doesn’t matter. I won’t be here that long. I’ll get the list to you. There’s always the U. S. Mail.”

“This will be interesting. When are you coming back to Chicago?”

“Probably next week.”

“I’ll see what I can line up. Oh, I just had an idea. You can always call Richard Selby and see if he can pull a few strings for you.”

Richard? “Uh, fine. Thanks again. Goodbye.”

She slowly put down the receiver. For another minute she sat with her hand resting on the phone trying to make sense of Adele’s parting comment. Clearly the message was that Richard was in a strong position. Was it possible that he was not laid off from the agency after all? Her mind spinning with questions, she immediately dialed Richard’s home number. Ordinarily she wouldn’t expect him to be at home in the morning, but these were not ordinary times.

After the fifth ring, the answering machine clicked on. His voice answered, clear and upbeat, but she hung up without leaving a message. Her heart was pounding in her ears as she thought the impossible. Could he still be at the agency?

Damn. The last thing she wanted to do was call there. She cringed at the thought of the awkward condolences and embarrassing explanations. But it was unlike her to put anything off. She needed to know. Now. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the phone again and dialed Richard’s private number, even while wondering if the number was still valid.

“Good morning. Richard Selby’s office.”

Cara’s breath caught and she took a second to collect herself. “Hello, Trish. This is Cara Rutledge.”

“Well, hello! We’ve been wondering where you’ve been hiding!”

She felt the sting of that comment prickle her cheeks. “I wasn’t aware that I was hiding,” she replied with frost.

“Oh,” the secretary stumbled, her tone becoming more subdued. “It’s just that Mr. Selby tried calling you several times. He’s been worried about you.”

“Has he? There was no need. My mother called and I had to leave town immediately to see her. It was urgent family business.” She wanted the word out that there was an emergency she had to tend to rather than that Cara Rutledge was hiding under some bush.

“I hope she’s all right.”

“Everything is fine now, thank you.” She skipped a beat then said as casually as she could, “I take it that Mr. Selby is still with the agency?”

Trish laughed. It was a high trill sound ringing with astonishment. “Of course he is. In fact, he’s been promoted! Didn’t you know? Mr. Selby is now Vice President Senior Attorney.”

Cara’s heart beat faster as suspicion did its nasty job of creating doubt in her mind. It wasn’t hard to create a diabolical picture. Richard worked in legal. He knew the mass layoffs were coming. And yet, he was promoted. That could only mean he was on the inside track on this one. He had to have known that her name was on the list. And knowing, he had left town while the dirty work was done. He let her go to the chopping block with a blindfold on.

Why, the sneaky little coward, she thought, wringing the telephone cord in her fingers. And on her birthday…

“Miss Rutledge?”

“What wonderful news for him,” she replied in an even voice. “I imagine you must be very busy moving offices.”

“Oh, no, we’re done now. The announcement wasn’t made until this week but we’ve known for a while and had time to get things packed up. It’s just that, you know, Mr. Selby didn’t want to make it official until after the layoffs and all. Oh—” She paused, suddenly unsure, as though just remembering that Cara had been one of the unfortunate ones. “I’m sorry, Miss Rutledge. But, of course, you knew all this.” There was a nervous question in the statement.

“Of course,” Cara replied. She needed to get some air.

“He’s in a meeting now, but I know he wants to talk to you. Like I said, he’s been calling and calling. I’ll be sure to tell him you’re out of town. Is there a number where he can reach you?”

Cara paused, feeling his betrayal claw at her heart. “No,” she replied calmly. “I’ll be on the road. Please tell him I’ll call him later. At home,” she added before hanging up, preserving the illusion that they were still on intimate terms.

At the moment, that’s all it was. A hideous illusion. All the closeness, confidences, hours that they’d shared for four years were meaningless! She felt her fury rise up to howl in her chest. Her hand hovered over the phone as she fought the urge to call his home and leave a blistering message on that infernal machine.

She closed her hand in a fist and let it slide to rest at her side. It would be a cold day in hell before she called that bastard again. Even hurt and angry, she wasn’t so stupid that she’d leave a message like that recorded for him to play over to whoever with a chuckle and a drink. He’d be patted on the back for the narrow escape he made. Cara’s eyes squeezed at the pain. How could he have done this to her? She’d never known he could be so ruthless—at least not with her. No, they weren’t married, but she’d thought of them as a team. She recalled the many, happy occasions they’d spent together. There had been so many good memories, so many intimacies shared.

She sat on the hard-backed chair and stared out at the sea, overcome.

Then she laughed.

It started out as a short bark of laughter, a guffaw of disbelief blended with self-mockery then rolled into a choppy cadence of laughs. Oh, it was all too pathetic! This was the real top-aroo. What hellish astrological event brought all these catastrophes her way? She’d turned forty, lost her job and now her boyfriend had dumped her. If she had a dog, it would have been run over by a car. What was next?

Lord, she thought as her laughing ended, she had to get out of this house or she’d go mad. She rose quickly from the chair, eager to put distance between herself and the phone, the beach house, everything. Outside, the late morning sun was high and cast a glistening sheen across the ocean.

She grabbed one of her mother’s broad-rimmed straw hats from a basket by the door and lunged into the sunshine. Though she felt the power of a spring sun on her shoulders, she kept walking, making her way through a narrow path in the empty lots across the street. Such a broad expanse of unoccupied land was unusual on this valuable stretch of beach. Only a few beachfront lots were left on the entire island and here were three lopped together. Her mother was lucky to live across from them and keep her ocean view.

The path cut up a sandy incline and curved around a tall dune. Once again she was exhilarated at the sudden, surprising sight of the wide expanse of sparkling blue water. She heard the echoing roar punctuated by the cries of a gull. Far off in the mist, she caught the shadowy form of a cargo ship and, closer in, a line of pelicans coasted low over the waves. It was a marvel how she couldn’t think about her problems or solutions while staring out at the sea. It was as if she’d pushed a delete button in her brain and the monitor had cleared. The breeze greeted her with a caress, drawing her down from her perch on the dune to the wide arc of beach.

On this side of the island, far from the hotels and restaurants, there were fewer tourists. But farther ahead, groups of sunbathers stretched out on colorful beach towels or sat in the shade under cheery umbrellas anchored in the sand. She began walking toward them, fixing as her goal the long stretch of pier two miles up where she knew she could get a cool drink and rest. As she walked along in her dressy silk outfit, she caught the idle stares of young girls in bikinis and mothers who stood by as toddlers splashed in the warm tidal pools. When she passed a small triangle of space on a dune outlined by wooden stakes, orange tape and a bright plastic warning sign, she smiled. This was a loggerhead turtle nest and it was likely her mother had marked it.

Her shoulders were beginning to burn by the time she reached the pier and the small business section of the island called Front Beach. Young, hard-muscled teens played ferocious games of volleyball before a cheering crowd. Desperately thirsty, she walked up the wooden pathway that led to the Banana Cabana. Tables under red umbrellas were available but she was hot and sweaty and longed for the cool of an air-conditioned room. Stepping inside, she faced a blessed wall of cool and blinked in the dim light of the darkly paneled restaurant.

Cara took a small table beside the wall under a neon beer sign. She didn’t mind sitting alone. Her job had required lots of travel and she was accustomed to eating alone in a restaurant or biding her time at an airport bar. But on a business trip, her mind was focused on the job and her suit and briefcase made her invisible. Here, she idly stared at the walls and her dressy silk outfit screamed “Outsider!” in this easygoing crowd dressed in shorts, T-shirts and beach cover-ups.

A young waitress appeared and pulled out a pad and pencil. She already had a fabulous tan that she was eager to show off. Cara ordered a Diet Coke and a Cajun shrimp salad. It arrived quickly and she began mining through a salad the size of a small planet. As she jabbed her fork into the greens, she got the tingly sensation that someone was watching her. Quickly turning her head, she locked with a pair of eyes exactly the color of the cerulean sky she had left outside the dark room.

The spark of attraction shot straight down to her toes. He was sitting with his elbows on the bar and looking at her intently, his head turned over broad shoulders that stretched the faded blue fabric of his shirt. His thick hair was tawny colored and windblown, there was a stubble on his cheek and long lines cut through his deep tan at the corners of his eyes. He exuded a restrained power too ripe for a boy.

He sat at the bar with his three buddies, each of them a sterling example of a good ol’ boy pulling down a beer at a favorite pub. The bearded redhead to his right leaned over to mutter something close to his ear, followed by a short laugh and a quick glance her way. She saw the tall man’s glance slide from her face down to her shoes, then a slow, easy grin lifted the left corner of his mouth like he’d just caught the punch line of a private joke. He turned his head back to the baseball game on the TV over the bar, dismissing her.

Cara’s cheeks flamed. In her mind’s eye she could see that her strappy sandals with their sparkling rhinestones, which might have looked fabulous in the city, were a joke here.

“Check, please!” she called out, flagging her waitress. The girl came bouncing over, scribbling in her pad en route. Cara whipped her credit card out of her purse before the girl even arrived. The bill was soon settled and Cara hurried from the restaurant, walking swiftly past the bar without so much as a glance.

Outside the sun was blinding and stung her tender shoulders but Cara was mad now and not to be daunted. The anger felt good, the first real emotion she’d had in days. Even better, she now had a mission. Looking from left to right, she searched the lazy street. Her gaze passed over crazy murals on whitewashed buildings, ice cream and pizza parlors, a surf shop and a new, miniature chain hotel to zero in on a small boutique where a loud, raucous African parrot whistled and called. Cara smiled and made her choice, crossing the street.

“Good job,” she said to the parrot as she entered the shop.

The salesgirl, though young, looked Cara over with an experienced eye. From the way she scurried around from behind the counter, Cara knew she had Customer In Dire Need of Help written all over her.

“What can I do for you?” the girl asked in a cheery voice.

“I need a dressing room,” Cara replied, briskly walking through the narrow aisles of neatly folded clothes. She pulled out two pairs of shorts, four T-shirts, a thin stretchy sweat suit that would be perfect for nights on the beach, two swimsuits, a thin terry cloth cover-up, a long black flowing cotton dress decorated with red Hawaiian flowers and a blue tie-dyed beach towel that she couldn’t pass by. She went into the dressing room and emerged soon after in khaki shorts and a white T-shirt with the tags hanging out. The salesgirl laughed as she snipped the tags off and carefully folded the mint silk ensemble into a bag.

“Anything else?”

“Sandals,” Cara said emphatically, looking down at the now despised ones on her feet. “I need comfortable sandals that I can walk along the beach in and not worry if they get wet. I plan to do a lot of walking.”

“You should get these,” the girl replied, lifting her own foot.

Cara looked at the clunky, wide-strapped sandals with thick rubber soles and thought they were nothing she’d have picked out on her own.

“Size nine,” she replied, slipping off the rhinestone sandals and tossing them in the trash bin.

“How about this?” the salesgirl asked with a wry smile, holding up a purple Koozie with the Isle of Palms logo. Cara laughed and shook her head, but when she saw a navy baseball cap with the South Carolina palm and crescent moon logo, she bought that, too. Placing it on her head, she handed over the straw hat to add to the burgeoning bag. Leaving the shop, she caught a glimpse of herself in a long mirror. Her neck and arms were sunburned and her long thin legs looked as pale as the underbelly of a fish.

“I scream tourist,” Cara said, but laughed, pleased to see the same jaunty look she’d admired in her mother.

“Now you fit right in.”

Though the mother loggerhead is tired and hungry, her work is just beginning. She will nest an average of four times during this season, resting two weeks between each nest.

CHAPTER FIVE

Lovie sat slump shouldered on the hard examining table while her shaky fingers buttoned up her blouse. These radiation therapy sessions leached the energy right out of her. If only it was as efficient with the cancer, she thought. But cancer wasn’t about if onlys. Cancer was about what was, and the plain fact was, the radiation wasn’t doing much. She’d only continued this long in hopes of prolonging her life by a few months. After such a full, active life, Lovie didn’t want to spend her last days as an invalid.

Her hands stilled on her blouse as she considered again whether or not now was the time to tell her children about the cancer. When the tumor was discovered last December she’d felt shocked. Numb with fear. The tumor was already large and inoperable and the prognosis was dim. She had weighed the decision carefully, then drawn on years of experience in keeping unpleasantness from her children. So she’d kept her illness private.

Besides, Palmer would have made such a fuss. He was very attached to her and there would have been lots of his useless hand-wringing and wild declarations on how he was going to call in the experts and holler that she’d get the best damn treatment possible. Then Julia would have been pressed upon to be her primary caregiver and Lovie knew that her daughter-in-law wasn’t up to the task. She was a good girl, but she would fret and worry and generally fall apart at the seams, more about how the illness was affecting her own schedule and life rather than Lovie’s. The resulting chaos would have been too disruptive to the children. Not to mention, Palmer never would have allowed her to leave the house in Charleston and come out to the beach house to live if he knew.

And Cara…Lovie finished the row of buttons, then let her hands fall to her lap. She didn’t know how her daughter would have reacted to the news. She might have taken time from work, flown in and demanded to take charge of the medical treatment in her efficient manner. Or she might simply have sent flowers.

Oh, she’d heard stories from other cancer patients. Heartbreaking tales of children who didn’t visit their sick parents, of old friends who didn’t even pick up the phone to chat, of brothers and sisters who pretended the cancer wasn’t real or that, if ignored, it would simply go away. Did they think cancer was contagious? Were they so self-absorbed that they didn’t want the inconvenience of sickness to interrupt their lives? Or were they so afraid of the very idea of death that they preferred to look the other way? It was no wonder so many of the terminally ill felt so alone.

Lovie shivered on the examining table, staring blankly at the green-tiled walls. The chill of the room went straight through her thin skin to her bones. She was so very tired, she felt like weeping, and the radiation always made her stomach queasy. All she wanted was to go home to her beach house, sit in her favorite rocker on the windward porch and listen to the comforting murmur of the sea.

A brisk knock on the door brought her head up in time to see the door swing open and Dr. Pittman walk in, his long white coat billowing behind him. He always seemed to be in a hurry and when he spoke he shot out the words to get to the point as quickly as humanly possible. She found it unnerving and attributed it to him being both so smart his mouth couldn’t keep up with his brain and to him being from somewhere in the North, Harvard or Yale or some such place. He was said to be the best, but nonetheless Lovie thought he seemed very young to have so many degrees.

“Good morning, Mrs. Rutledge,” he boomed, his eyes still on the chart.

Lovie murmured a polite response and gathered her blouse closer around her neck.

Toy followed quietly, her eyes wide with anxiety. Bless her heart, Lovie thought. That child had been through the mill these past months, driving her to the therapy and endless doctor’s appointments, waiting for hours at a time, all without a whisper of complaint. Providing transportation was important, but it was the least of Toy’s caregiving efforts. She did most of the shopping, did all the housekeeping chores and even went to church with Lovie on Sundays. Most of all, Toy talked to her. When they came home from the therapy and Lovie felt more dead than alive, it was a simple pleasure to just sit back and listen to her upbeat prattle, so full of life, about whatever flitted through her young mind.

Lovie didn’t know what she would have done without the girl. Toy Sooner was more than a companion. She was a godsend.

Lovie reached out her hand to the girl and Toy hurried forward to grasp it, squeezing it with encouragement and relief. Her face, however, was pale with fatigue, revealing a smattering of freckles across her nose. She didn’t look old enough to be having a child.

“The Lord said to care for the sick,” she said, patting Toy’s slightly callused hand. “But you’ve taken it to the nth degree today.”

“Hey, no problem,” she replied, brushing away the concern with a flip of her hand.

“You’ll get your reward in Heaven,” she said, smiling. Then, more seriously, “I had no idea it would take so long.”

“I was just sitting out there watching TV and reading. By the way, Doctor, the hospital could sure use some new magazines. The latest one is four months old. It’s, like, really sad.”

The doctor absently nodded as he read Lovie’s chart.

“Are you tired?” Toy asked, looking closer at her face. “You look real tired. We might could stop for a milkshake or something on the way home?”

“Not for me. My stomach is still doing flip-flops. We can stop for you, though. It’d be good for the baby.”

“I’d like to see you eat more,” the doctor added to Lovie. “You’re still losing weight.”

“I’ll try,” Lovie replied in a lackluster tone, more to make the doctor happy. Privately, she couldn’t see much point in it. She was going to die anyway. But she didn’t express this so as not to alarm Toy. The girl seemed intent on keeping Lovie alive forever.

“Is there anything bothering you lately?” the doctor asked, looking up from the chart to skewer her with his dark eyes. “Any pain?”

Oh, yes, there was a great deal bothering her, Lovie thought. But the doctor knew he couldn’t cure her and seemed to have lost interest in her case, eager to finish the chart and file it.

“I’m handling the pain very nicely with the pills you gave me, thank you.”

“You’ll call me if at any time the pills don’t cover it anymore, okay?” He glanced at Toy for confirmation. She nodded dutifully. He closed the chart and rested his hand on it, shaking his thinning head of hair. “Well, that’s it then. I have to say I’m not happy that you’ve canceled the treatment, Mrs. Rutledge. I’d rather you continued on through the summer.”

Lovie closed her eyes and sighed.

“You stopped the treatment?” Toy asked, her eyes round with alarm.

“Yes, dear,” she replied, then faced the doctor. “If I continue throughout the summer, as you recommend, will I be cured?”

“No,” he replied cautiously. “Radiation was never the cure. But we discussed that, Mrs. Rutledge. Right?” He seemed unsettled that she should think otherwise.

“We did,” she replied firmly. “I understand that completely. And I also understand that I’m not expected to last much beyond the summer, if that. Right?”

He had the grace to smile.

She felt Toy squeeze her hand, nervously.

“So tell me, Doctor, if you had one summer left of your life, would you spend it in radiation therapy?”

“I might. If it took me into fall.”

Lovie shrugged slightly. “Summer’s enough for me. If it’s a good summer.”

“But Miss Lovie, you don’t know!” Toy was revving up and Lovie knew she could go on for a long time if not checked. “You can beat this!”

“Hush now, dear. I’ve made up my mind.” Then more softly, “Time is too precious for wishful thinking. I want to enjoy every minute the Good Lord gives me. And I can’t do that if I’m sick and exhausted. Why would I want to spend what little time I have left just waiting for death? Not when there’s still life in me. I’m firm, Doctor. No more radiation.”

Toy was silenced and her eyes filled.

The doctor nodded in understanding. “Very well,” he replied, pulling a prescription pad out from the pocket of his long white jacket. “Though our time here at the hospital is finished, Mrs. Rutledge, I do want to keep up with your progress. And, of course, I’ll be in touch with your regular doctor should there be any change. But there are immediate concerns you’ll have to discuss with your family about your care. We don’t know the time frame of the cancer spreading. Hopefully, this last series of treatments will keep it at bay for a while. The time will come when you will need more assistance than Miss Sooner is able to provide. You’ll need to gather a support system. Or you may want to consider moving into nursing care.”

“No! Miss Lovie won’t need to go nowhere. I’ll stay with her,” Toy said quickly.

Dr. Pittman looked at her with sympathy. “When is your baby due, Miss Sooner?”

“September.”

“You understand that is the same time Mrs. Rutledge might need the most help? Caregiving can become extremely demanding. How can you manage all of her pressing needs plus take on the additional burdens and worries of a new baby?”

Lovie answered. “I have grown children, and as you said, there are organizations I can call. I don’t want to go to a home.”

“I’m writing out a phone number of a social worker who is trained to help the family make this decision. There are many considerations, of course. You may want to discuss it with your clergyman as well.” He handed Lovie the paper. “I wish there was more that I could do for you. Best of luck to you. Keep in touch.”

After he left, Lovie slumped her shoulders with relief. She was done with doctors, at least for the summer.

“I wish you’d have told me you were planning on quitting the therapy.” Toy’s tone was reproachful.

“I’ve only just decided.”

“You’ll have to tell Cara now. About being sick, I mean.”

“No. And I forbid you to tell her, hear?”

“But…”

“Toy, let me be clear. I don’t want Cara to know. Not yet.”

“I don’t know why you’re protecting her,” she said with a flare of temper. “She’s supposed to be such a high-powered lady, right? Then she can handle it.”

“I’m not doing this to protect her. It’s because she is a high-powered lady, as you put it. If I tell her now, all we’ll talk about is the treatment. Besides, she doesn’t seem herself. I’ve more important things I want to discuss with her, and not very much time. If it gets too bad, then yes, I’ll tell her. But I’ll know when the time is right. You’ll have to trust me. And promise me that you won’t tell her.”

“Okay, I promise,” she agreed reluctantly. “But I don’t think it’s right. If it was me, I’d want to know. You should tell her.”

“Oh? Have you told your mother when the baby is due?”

“That’s different,” she replied quickly.

“Is it? Or are you afraid that she won’t care one way or the other? Toy, honey, I know what that is like. Maybe I’m afraid, too.” She smiled reassuringly and put her hand on Toy’s. “We can only do what we can live with.”

Toy nodded, chewing her lip.

“Now I’m dog tired and want to go home to my beach house. Let’s not fret about this any more today. After all, we both have the summer to think about it. And what a summer. Cara is home again! Your little hatchling is coming soon, too! There’s so much good happening. What do you say? Let’s make it a summer to remember.”

The ladies of Primrose Cottage rallied around Palmer’s invitation with an excitement that surprised them all. It had roused them from the lethargy that had hovered in the house. Part of the fun of the day was changing from the usual casual beach attire to something a bit dressy. When Cara stepped into the living room, Lovie stopped tying the rosy silk scarf over her linen dress to stare at her.

“Aren’t you going to dress for dinner?”

Cara looked at her new navy sweatpants with the white racing stripe down the sides. She thought it looked rather smart. “I thought I’d wear this.”

Lovie didn’t speak for a moment. “For dinner?”

“Mama, we’re going boating.”

“You look like you’re going to the gym! You can look so smart and you have all those pretty clothes. Why not wear something with a little color? High heels and a smidgen of lipstick go a long way to making a woman feel good about herself. Southern women know this.”

Cara took a deep breath. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve spent the last twenty years in Chicago.”

“Caretta Rutledge, you were born a Southern woman and don’t you ever forget it. When you left Charleston, you may have put miles between yourself and your family, lost your accent and gained a couple of degrees and titles, but where does that leave you? Where are you from? Darlin’, you can’t travel enough miles or live enough years to ever lose your heritage. You carry that with you in your blood.”

“I see. Now I’m in for the steel magnolia lecture?”

A sparkle of hard-won wisdom flickered in Lovie’s eyes. “I worry about you, Caretta. You are a strong woman, true enough. But strength without flexibility makes one hard. Come September, when those fierce winds blow in from the sea, those hardwoods crack, splinter and fall. But the pliant palms are resilient and they bend with the wind. This is the secret of a Southern woman. Strength, resilience and beauty. We are never hard.”

Cara closed her eyes and counted to ten. “If I dress for dinner, will you leave me alone?”

Lovie smiled sweetly and adjusted her scarf. “Why, only dress if you want to, dear.”

Cara changed into her new long, cotton Hawaiian print dress and allowed her dark hair to fall down to her shoulders like a glossy mane. Gold hoops at the ears and brightly colored bangles at her wrist were her only jewelry, and to please her mother, she colored her lips with a glossy red.

“You look positively exotic,” Lovie said with an approving nod when she emerged a second time from her room.

Cara had to admit to herself that she felt deliciously at ease in the loose, flowing dress and more in sync with the island mood.

Toy dressed in a long black skirt and a flowing black jersey top that strained across her middle. She was morosely silent and retiring, reminding Cara of a Japanese puppet master cloaked in black, unnoticed on the stage. Toy was nervous about going to the formal house for dinner and gave a dozen excuses why she should stay behind. But Lovie had been firm that Toy was to join them or she wouldn’t go herself. When Cara tried to object, she was on the receiving end of a stern glance that told her Lovie was well aware of Palmer’s feelings for her companion and she didn’t care a single whit. Remembering her promise, she bit her tongue, then left a friendly message on Palmer’s answering machine to set the table for one more.

The weather did its best to lift spirits for the outing. Beautiful skies, low humidity and a soft, friendly breeze sent the three women on their way to Charleston. Being a balmy Saturday afternoon, no one was surprised to find the Ben Sawyer Bridge open for a long parade of weekend boat traffic. They took their place in the line of waiting cars and enjoyed the beat of oldies but goodies music pouring out of the open windows of the car ahead.

“Hey, that song is about your name,” Toy pointed out from the back seat. “Hear? Caretta, Caretta,” she sang along.

“That’s ‘Corrina, Corrina,’” Cara replied dryly. “Which would have been infinitely more cool than being named after a species of turtle.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know. It’s an old song. Before my time,” Toy teased, flopping back against the cushions.

“It was before my time, too,” Cara muttered, trying not to laugh.

“You should be pleased and proud to be named after the noble loggerheads,” her mother said.

“I’m only pleased that you didn’t give me the full Latin name Caretta Caretta.”

“I wanted to but your father wouldn’t let me. Don’t laugh. I’m serious!”

“Then your middle name would have been Caretta, too?” Toy’s laughter pealed like bells and Cara shook her head, resigned to the fact that, from that moment on, Toy would call her Caretta Caretta just to tease.

Cara beat the tempo with her fingers on the steering wheel, thinking how easy the mood was between them now where just a few days ago it had been so tense. She and Toy had kept a polite but deliberate distance from one another, rather like two pugilists sizing each other up before the bell. As each day passed, however, Cara couldn’t help but notice how much work the young girl did around the house and her respect grew.

She turned her head to listen in on the rapid-fire conversation between Toy and her mother, who had turned around to face the back seat. Something about a marinade using sesame oil and garlic. The affection between them was obvious. Whenever those two were together they chatted away like magpies. Cara watched from behind her dark sunglasses with a twinge of jealousy. She never could be like that with her mother. Though they were trying hard, there was this deep current running between them that was too strong for idle talk and laughter.

The Ben Sawyer Bridge took its sweet time to close again but eventually they were off, over the river and across the wetlands to Mount Pleasant.

“We’ve got to stop for shrimp on the way,” she remembered, her eyes on the lookout for the turn off Coleman Boulevard. “Do you have any idea where this shrimp joint is?”

Her mother laughed lightly beside her. “It’s off Shem Creek. Just turn left at the next corner. I can’t believe you don’t remember all the times your father brought you there.”

“Selective memory,” she quipped, then turned off the main road. Moments later, Cara was lost in a winding maze of narrow roads in an old neighborhood with enormous oaks dripping with moss and charming smaller houses. She stayed to the right as Palmer had instructed, passed a row of enormous new houses on the creek, then went straight to a dead end with an old wood sign that read: Clud’s Shrimp Bait and Accoutrement.

It was a long name for nothing more than a small wood shack beside a few shrimp boats docked in the rear. Several burly men hauled shrimp from a large trawler, shouting to each other and laughing, seemingly oblivious to the three women in high heels and sun dresses as they stood at a plywood counter.

Cara walked around to the rear to drum up some service. It was a shining afternoon and everywhere she looked it was like a post card depicting an old Charleston industry. She could smell the pungent blend of shrimp, salt and sea in the air, and hear the water lapping, the boat thumping against the dock and the raucous call of gulls. She walked closer for a better view of the long, centipedelike riggings. Perched on the side of the trawler, like a model for a Wyeth illustration, stood a broad-backed shrimper in stained jeans, a red T-shirt and heavy, paint-splattered, sun-bleached boots. There was stubble on his tanned, weathered face and his brown hair fell along his brow as he bent over the nets. She was about to turn away when he swung his head around toward her.

Damn, it was the man from the bar. She knew he caught sight of her, too, because after a second his eyes crinkled in recognition and he smiled.

It was a rogue’s smile, full of tease, and she turned away sharply, the mocking laugh of the seagulls in her ears. “Of all the luck,” she muttered as she turned on her heel and headed back to the shack. Her mother and Toy were already collecting the shrimp.

“All set here?” she said, anxious to leave, pulling out her wallet.

“Your credit card is no good here,” her mother chided.

Cara pulled out some bills and laid them on the table, but her mother, with agonizing deliberation, counted out the coins from her purse to give the exact change. Cara cast a nervous glance out back. From the corner of her eye she saw the man on the boat heave himself over the side and deliberately make his way toward the ramp.

She reached into her purse to pull out another dollar. “Keep the change.” Then, linking arms with her mother, she led a hasty retreat with Toy bringing up the rear.

“I don’t see what the big hurry was all about,” her mother exclaimed, doing up her seat belt as Cara spun gravel and veered out of the parking lot.

“We don’t want to keep Palmer waiting.”

“Waiting? For heaven’s sake! It just isn’t polite to arrive right on the dot. Now you slow down a bit, Cara, and show your manners!”

Palmer Rutledge stood at the helm of his Boston Whaler, one hand firmly on the wheel of his powerboat and another wrapped around a beer as he grandly gestured, pointing out the new, expensive houses as they made their way up and down the Intracoastal Waterway. Lovie and Toy sat together on plush cushions under a canopy. Cara chose to sit at the rear in the sun. It was a lovely, sunny, splashy trip and Palmer was pulling out all the stops. Cara leaned far back on the padded deck chair, hung on to her cap and acknowledged his comments with a smiling nod.

More houses and docks bordered the winding waterway than she remembered and many more boats were cruising. When she was young, she and her friends could jump from the dock and swim across the waterway to a small hammock of land where they could stand for a bit to catch their breath before they swam back. To try that today would be as dangerous as crawling on all fours across a two-lane highway. The wakes of boats rocked them as they sped by, but it was all in good sport with lots of waves and smiles.

As beautiful as the houses and marshes were, she far more enjoyed just sitting back and enjoying the vision of her brother in his own element. Palmer was a Lowcountry boy through and through, in love with every square inch of land and every drop of water that made up this special place on God’s earth.

He’d been a restless boy. Mama had called him Palmer the Panther because of the way he prowled with a hungry look in his eyes. But he was older now and Cara thought the paunch over the rim of his Tommy Bahama trunks and the extra roundness to his cheeks attested to a certain degree of satisfaction with his life—and his penchant for biscuits and barbeque.

“Auntie Caretta, do you want some soda?”

Cara turned her head to see a prim Linnea standing wide legged before her, trying desperately to maintain her balance while serving a cold Coke in a Koozie in a ladylike fashion.

“Why, thank you, darling,” she replied, taking the soda. “You are the sweetest, most adorable hostess I’ve ever seen. And you’re doing a wonderful job. Palmer, do you see how wonderful your daughter is? Not spilling a drop? She’s like a ballerina with all this bouncing around.”

“More like a drunken sailor,” he called back.

“Daddy!”

“Only kidding, sweetheart. You know I think you’re the best.”

“My mama told me I was the hostess,” she told Cara earnestly. “Since she’s back at the house fixing dinner. Do you want anything else?”

“Just a kiss.”

The little girl obliged, leaning far over to give a bumpy kiss on her cheek, then she was back on duty. “Grandmama Lovie, do you want something cold?”

Linnea moved across the boat, holding tight to seat backs, knees, anything she could grab to keep from tumbling over as the boat sped along. The child was trying so very hard to do her job right.

Cooper was only interested in driving the boat. His small but stout frame stood rigidly near his father, his round dark eyes trained on the gears and every move Palmer made at the wheel. Sadly, Palmer was too busy shouting out his comments to the adults over the roar of the engine to pay the boy mind.

“Daddy, can I hold the wheel? Please?” he asked for the tenth time.

“Cooper, go on over to your grandmother for a spell,” Palmer shouted, shooing the boy away.

Cooper’s face fell to a scowl but he obliged, moving stiff-leggedly to sit in the shade of the awning beside Toy and Lovie. Cara watched the boy as he squirmed in his seat for a few minutes, then chuckled to herself when she saw him sneak his way back to the wheel again to stare at his father, his brown eyes pleading. It was both funny and sad for Cara to watch, remembering how Palmer used to be the same way with their father, and how Daddy, too, had shooed his son away.

Palmer, Palmer, she thought to herself. Careful what you’re doing.

The red sun was sinking into the horizon as they headed back to Charleston and the waters took on a marvelous, glassy pink hue. The powerful engine churned as they cut through the choppy waters of the harbor.

“Look, Aunt Cara. There’s Fort Sumter!” Linnea exclaimed, pointing to a small island in the middle of the entrance to Charleston Harbor from the Atlantic.

Cara smiled and nodded, having seen the historical spot a million times in the past.

Linnea moved closer in an attempt to strike up a conversation with her. “Aunt Cara, did you know the first shot of the War Between the States was fired at that fort?”

Cara opened her mouth but was too surprised to find the words to reply.

Palmer let loose a loud belly laugh and shouted, “She thinks you’re a Yankee! That’ll teach you to live up north so long.”

Lovie only smiled and nodded her head as if to say, I told you so.

“Honey pie,” Palmer said between laughs, “if your Aunt Cara’s a Yankee, then so am I.”

Linnea looked at her father with confusion. “But Daddy, she lives in Chicago.”

“All too true, darling. But she was born and raised right here in Charleston. Just like you.”

Linnea turned to look at Cara again, the wonder in her limpid blue eyes mixed with speculation as to whether Cara was to be scorned or pitied for having lost her mind and leaving the Lowcountry.

Cara knew that she’d become something of an oddity in the family, the exile who lived somewhere cold and unfamiliar to warm-blooded southerners. Someone who only came to visit when duty called, wearing clothes that were different, and preferred to stay in a hotel than with the family. She felt the distance most acutely with these children who studied her now with measured glances.

“Don’t you worry, honey,” Cara assured her niece with a wry smile. “It’s not your fault for not knowing. I left long before the Civil War.” She exaggerated the phrase that marked her as a Yankee, just to tweak her brother.

“You just keep dating yourself, sister mine,” he drawled, not missing a beat. And though she couldn’t see his eyes behind his black sunglasses, she knew they were sparkling. “But I’ll always be your older brother, our mother’s darling and superior in every way.”

Cara took the ribbing in her stride, knowing full well that this was only the appetizer portion of what was yet to come. It was his way to make light of painful subjects—and it worked. Linnea warmed up to her once the family ties were straightened out. She took a seat next to Cara as much out of curiosity as affection. Cara felt the line of her slim body bump against hers as they headed straight for the tip of the Charleston peninsula and felt a surge of affection for her young niece. It was a new experience for her and she smiled warmly, gratified when Linnea smiled back.

Everyone in the boat quieted as they drew near to the city. Cara lifted her chin and felt a stirring of pride at seeing the cluster of historical homes along the Battery that gave the city its distinction. They loomed over the high stone embankment as pretty and desirable as a line of well-bred beauties leaning over an iron balustrade. No matter how many times one saw the view, stranger and local alike never got over the thrill of viewing the city in the same manner that travelers approaching by sea had seen the city for hundreds of years. Charleston showed herself off best from the water, she thought, still smiling.

The big motor slowed and the propellers churned the waters as the boat eased into the Charleston marina. The smell of gasoline mingled with saltwater. Cara’s stomach tightened as the boat rocked.

“We’re almost home,” Linnea said. Then, pointing toward the shore, she added with a child’s boast, “Our house is right back in there.”

Cara lifted her chin to look beyond the tall masts to Bay Street and the familiar row of stately homes. Home? She drew in a long breath while her thoughts traveled the few blocks farther back in that cluster of brick, wood and iron to the house that she had grown up in. She looked to her mother and was surprised to see Lovie’s gaze upon her, a small, knowing half smile upon her lips.

Under the cloak of night the loggerhead comes ashore. She slowly drags her body in a tanklike crawl to a dry site high on the beach. Only the female loggerhead comes ashore to nest. Once the male hatchling swims into the sea, he almost never will set flipper on beach again.

CHAPTER SIX

Her mother’s house was a handsome Greek Revival located on one of the narrow, palmetto and oak shaded side streets “South of Broad,” that golden perimeter of blocks where affluence still reigned in splendor. Charming was the word most people used to describe the distinctive architecture of the historical, pastel houses, churches and gardens with their elaborate grillwork. Olivia and Stratton Rutledge had purchased the house in the early 1960s soon after Cara’s birth for a fraction of its current worth and it was the only house Cara had ever lived in growing up. Her mother had fallen in love at first sight with the grace and charm of the rather dilapidated house. Owning it had been an adventure. Lovie had found countless artifacts in the yard as they dug the earth for the pool, and over the years she’d painstakingly brought the mansion, with its gracious three-story piazza, back to its former glory. It was Lovie’s glory that every fall for years the house was included in the Preservation Society’s annual house-and-garden tour.

Sitting at the curb looking at her childhood home surrounded by majestic oaks, Cara knew that a beautiful house was not always a happy one. She got out of the car, stepping into the mist drifting in from the harbor. She closed the door and quietly walked along the crooked sidewalk toward the front gate. Even as she moved forward she felt as she always did the urge to spin on her heel and run. Inside this grand house there were memories she preferred not to revisit. Nothing morbid or incestuous, nothing that would make scandalous headlines. Theirs was a more quiet and insidious kind of trauma. Palmer and she had suffered a long series of insults and sad incidents that curled thick and musty around her like the fog on this gunmetal-gray night.

Her chest constricted and she took a deep breath as she stood at the front door beside her mother and Toy, waiting for someone to answer their bell. Inside the house she heard the sound of children’s high-pitched laughter and a pounding of feet on the stairs. A moment later, Julia swung open the wide front door to welcome them each in a warm embrace.

“You’re here! We thought y’all got lost. How long does it take to get here from the dock?”

“I just wanted to drive around the old neighborhood,” Cara explained.

“Well, come on in and welcome. The children are like jumping beans.” Julia was tiny and slender in her lovely floral summer dress that matched exactly her pale-blue eyes. Cara hadn’t seen her in years and thought her sister-in-law had traded her youthful perkiness for a mature elegance that flattered her. Yet behind Julia’s bright smile she spotted a new hardness, especially around the eyes where fine lines accentuated the strain. She’d cut her long blond hair to a sporty, cropped look that exposed the large topaz-and-diamond earrings at her ears. Her makeup was expertly applied. Cara knew that if she ran into her sister-in-law at the grocery store she would look as well turned out.

It seemed to her that Julia was a bit presumptuous in welcoming Lovie as a guest in her own home, but she reasoned that it was only natural for a Southern woman to do anything she could to make everyone feel welcome. In contrast, Toy was being mulish, shuffling her feet and barely muttering a halfhearted hello. Cara knew her well enough now to know that this was a mask for her insecurities.

Julia did not take offense. Laughing at something Lovie said, she guided them all through the foyer to the veranda. Cara stayed indoors to wander. The house had the look and feel of one of Charleston’s grand historic houses with high ceilings, heavy amounts of wood trim, elaborate fireplaces and glossy heart pine flooring. Yet she found a difference now that was not so much in a change of furnishings as in mood. The stuffy wallpaper she remembered had been replaced by bright and cheerful colors: raspberry red in the dining room, sage green in the front sitting room, cool teal in the study. The heavy brocades and velvets on the windows were now gorgeous silk that seemed to float from the ten-foot ceilings to the floor. The brilliant colors drew attention to the antiques that had been in Cara’s family for generations.

“You look like you expect to see a ghost to materialize,” Palmer said, bringing her a gin and tonic. He’d changed from his boating clothes to trousers and a silk polo shirt.

Cara turned her head and broke into a wide grin at seeing him. She gratefully accepted the drink. “You mean Daddy?”

Palmer’s gaze went to the large painted portrait of Stratton Rutledge prominent over the staircase landing. “He’s still here, floating around. I never could escape the son of a bitch.”

“You could have.”

Palmer shook his head and forced a laugh, but his eyes appeared haunted. “I run the company now. I live in his house. I carry the name. Hey, what can I say? I gave up running from my destiny.”

She looked her brother in the eye. “We each make our destiny.”

“If you believe that, darlin’, I’ve got some swamp land I’d love to sell you.” He raised his glass for a drink of his bourbon but his eyes gleamed over his drink. Again, she felt the age-old connection they’d shared as children. “It sure is good to see you again,” he said. “You’re as beautiful as ever.” He skipped a beat. “And as tall.”

At five foot ten, Cara could almost look her brother in the eye. Growing up it had been a sore point between them that, though younger, she was taller than him. Then he hit a delayed growth spurt and beat her, but only by an inch.

“I’ve still got you beat,” he added.

“It looks like you’ve beat me in the girth department, too.”

He patted his belly with jovial pride. “Yes ma’am, marriage does that to a man. Not that you’d know about that.”

Cara remained unfazed. “I’ve managed to escape so far.”

“Woman, where’d you get all those crazy ideas? Not in the South, that’s for sure and certain. If you’d stayed here you’d have a strapping husband and a whole slew of babies running around right this minute. Oh, no, look out. Her back is up.”

“If you only knew the third degree I was getting from Mama. I’m worn out.”

He chuckled in understanding and swirled his drink. “So, how long are you staying this time?”

“Don’t know, exactly. Mama wants me to stay longer but, to be honest, I’m getting a little antsy already. There’s nothing for me to do here.”

“Cara, Cara,” he said shaking his head. “You just can’t wait to leave this paradise and get back to that cold city. I’ll never understand you.” He inclined his head in interest. “You said Mama wrote you a letter?”

She nodded and took a sip of her drink, turning more serious. “That’s right. Our usual status of a polite truce has worked well enough for us both over the years, but I sense things have changed for her since Daddy died. I like to think she’s missed me. More likely she just wants me to help sort through all the stuff now that he’s gone.”

Palmer’s face sharpened, barely perceptibly, but enough that she knew she’d hit a tender spot.

“What kind of sorting?”

“Again, I don’t know. I imagine all the clutter stored up in the attic, and dividing things up from this house now that she’s living at the beach house. I suppose she wants to sell this house. Hasn’t she talked to you about this?”

His face clouded and he studied her with a question in his eyes that she couldn’t make out. “No,” he replied slowly. “No, she hasn’t.”

“I believe she—”

“So how do you like the place?” he asked, interrupting her and extending his arm toward the living room.

Cara was taken aback by the abrupt change of subject but she went along with it, concluding that Palmer was upset that he’d not been consulted.

“The place looks quite different,” she replied, following him into the sunroom. “It looks much, I don’t know…younger. Cheerful, even. The decorator was brilliant.”

He beamed. “Julia gets all the credit and it’d be real nice if you said something to her about it. She slaved over every detail. And I don’t mind telling you I thought I’d go cross-eyed looking at all the fabric swatches she brought home for curtains or bedspreads or cushions—you name it. And the fringe! You never saw so damn much fringe in all your life.”

“I’ll tell her. She did a marvelous job.” Then looking at her drink she asked, “And Mama didn’t mind the changes?”

He looked at her queerly. “Mind? Hell no, why should she mind?”

“I don’t know. She lived in the house for so long….”

“No, no, she loves it,” he said with boisterous confidence. “And Julia loves fixing it up. And I don’t care one way or the other, so everybody’s happy. But I don’t figure this traditional stuff is your style. You prefer that modern, spare look, I hear.”

Cara’s gaze swept the gracious rooms and she wondered if that was still true. “Perhaps,” she replied, then caught his eye and smiled wickedly. “But it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”

“Well, you haven’t changed your mind about Frogmore Stew, I hope. Man, oh, man—I’ve a big pot out back with your name on it. Should just about be ready. Julia!” he called out.

She poked her head around the corner. “Yes, honey?”

“Get my sister something to nibble on while I tend to the stew. I’ll be ready to serve in a few minutes.” He turned to face Cara with a wink. “Made it special for you.”

Cara felt a flush of pleasure that he’d remembered it was her favorite after all and went to join Julia in the kitchen to help serve the feast.

They sat together in the raspberry-colored dining room while tall white candles glimmered around them and the ornate crystal chandelier glowed like the moon above. They spoke of old times. Or, for the most part, Palmer talked and she sat back and listened to him at the head of the long, mahogany table as he recounted funny tales and anecdotes of the happier moments they’d shared, both in the city house and at the beach. He had acquired their father’s gift of storytelling. It was a skill with words taught to young Southern boys that improved with age. But only a few inherited the real talent for drawing out choice details, for turning the colorful phrase and for nailing a characterization with such precision that the listener could see the person as readily as if he or she were standing before them in the flesh. The listeners leaned forward as Palmer brought to life old memories. He seemed to relive them as he spoke and brought Cara and Lovie to the past along with him. They each punctuated the telling with comments of their own.

Initially, Toy had tried to act bored but she, too, got sucked in. Cara caught glimpses of her sitting wide-eyed as she and the children gobbled up the stories as quickly as the steaming shrimp, sausage and corn. At times Palmer had them laughing so hard the children had to cover their mouths to keep the food in. Even Toy relaxed enough to crack a smile and let a laugh escape.

As the evening drew late, however, and more wine consumed, Palmer’s cheeks became flushed and his colorful, silken stories became fringed with bitterness. He touched on the darker side of their jangled-up histories and an uncomfortable tension crept over them. When he pushed back his chair to stand, the sigh of relief from the women was almost audible.

“I think we should open up another bottle, don’t you?” Palmer asked in a long drawl, lifting the empty bottles of wine from the table. “Y’all wait here and I’ll be right back.”

As soon as he left the room, Lovie shot a loaded glance at Julia.

She immediately rose. “Come along, children. Hurry up and kiss your grandmama and Aunt Cara good-night. Quick like bunnies!”

There was a bustle of smooches and tender declarations of love and then Julia excused herself to put her babies to bed.

Toy took the cue. “I’m really tired, Miss Lovie. Would y’all mind if I stretch out on the couch a bit and put my feet up?”

Lovie appeared relieved. “Yes, that’s a good idea. Watch a little TV if you like. But don’t get too comfy. We’ll be leaving presently.”

Soon after Toy left, Palmer returned to the room dusting off another bottle of wine.

“Son, I think it’s time to call it a night,” Lovie said, placing her napkin on the table. “It’s been a marvelous day. I can’t thank you enough.”

Palmer stopped dead in his tracks. “No, no, don’t go,” he replied, a petulant pleading in his voice. He brought the bottle to the table and began to uncork it. “It’s the shank of the evening and we never see you anymore, Mama.” Then, as though he just noticed, he looked around and said, “Where did the children go?”

“Julia put them to bed,” Lovie replied.

He scowled and his eyes flashed with anger. “Now why did that fool woman hurry them off?” He took a step and craned his neck toward the staircase. “Julia!” he bellowed.

Cara stared at her brother with shock.

“Yes?” They heard her voice from upstairs, sounding a tad too cheerful.

“What the hell are you doing up there?” he called back.

“I’m putting the babies to bed. It’s late.”

“Hush now, Palmer,” Lovie said in an easy, calming voice. “You sound like a fishmonger shouting across the room like that. Let her put those darlings to bed.”

“They can go to bed any ol’ time. I want them to spend more time with you.”

Cara stiffened at the ugly and too familiar sight of a man turned belligerent from too much wine.

“They’ve had a full day and the awnings were dropping over those precious eyes. They’re young and need to go to bed. And I’m old and need to go to bed as well. Besides, I’m only a short drive away. You can bring my grandbabies to visit any time you wish.”

Palmer wagged his head, frowning. “It’s not the same with you gone. They need their grandmother’s influence. Julia’s a fine girl and all, but let’s face it, she doesn’t have your breeding.”

Cara eyed him sharply for shaming his wife in front of his mother and sister.

“Why’d you leave us, anyway?” he droned on. “This will always be your home as much as mine.”

“How grand of you to say so,” Cara said testily.

“Well, it is!” he replied in strong defense. “I never wanted Mama to leave.” He poured more wine into Cara’s glass, spilling a few drops. Then almost in a pout he added, “She insisted.”

“That’s true,” Lovie replied in a cajoling tone while placing her hand over her glass. “I know you wanted me to stay and I’m touched, but honestly, I couldn’t be happier than right where I am. I’ve always loved my little beach house.”

“You always loved this house,” Palmer replied, filling his own glass.

Cara and Lovie exchanged a worried glance.

“But since you brought it up,” he said, sitting down and getting comfortable, “let’s talk about this sensibly.” He repositioned himself in his chair and placed his elbows squarely on the table. Raising his eyes to Lovie’s he said in a congenial tone, “Okay, here it is, plain and simple. Mama, I want you to come back here to live with us. I don’t like you so far out there on the island. I want you right here where I can keep an eye on you.”

“I’m quite content where I am.”

“In that ol’ place? First off, that place is a firetrap. It’s barely standing. Hell, one good wind will take that cottage straight off from its foundation.”

“That little cottage has withstood more hurricanes than I can count,” Lovie replied in ringing defense.

Palmer put up his hand. “Maintenance is just one thing. Hiring this girl when you could be living here with us is another. But those are small potatoes compared to the whopping hit we took from the recent tax assessment. The value of that little piece of land has skyrocketed in the past few years.” His eyes gleamed and he leaned forward on his elbows with import. “That worthless little cottage sits on prime ocean real estate. There’s not much of that left on the island anymore, and you know that’s true. The new tax bill made my blood pressure shoot sky-high.”

Lovie seemed agitated and she leaned toward her son. “But Palmer, didn’t you apply for the tax cap? I told you to do that for me last December when I moved out there.”

“I did, but it was still a sizable increase. Your money is largely invested, Mama, and with the stock market the way it is your cash flow is severely limited. It just doesn’t make sense to hold on to that place any longer.”

“I don’t need much.”

“That’s not the point, Mama. Now, don’t you get up on your high horse. Hear me out. I did my own investigating and I know for a fact that no matter how sorry a shape that cottage is in, it’s worth at least seven, maybe eight hundred thousand. Maybe even more. See, the thing is, there’s those three choice lots sitting across from you. Two of them were gifted to the Coastal Conservancy as open parkland forever.”

Cara’s brows rose. She didn’t know that. If so, that would add a great deal to the value of her mother’s site.

“Now the way I see it,” Palmer continued, “if I can buy that third lot that’s right smack in front of your place, then between them we’d have two prime lots. I could build two houses on spec, situating one on the ocean in such a way as to guarantee ocean views from the other. The land would be priceless then. Worth millions.”

“The land is already priceless to me,” Lovie said in a quiet voice.

“Why, sure, Mama, I know you love it. But we should strike while the iron’s hot. We need to buy that land before someone else does.”

“Do you know who owns the third lot?” Cara asked.

Palmer shook his head. “No, but I’ve got my people on it. It’s only a matter of time till I find out.”

“So, I gather you want me to sell now?” Lovie asked.

There was something about her mother’s tone that alerted Cara, an iron strength hidden in the question. She glanced at Lovie’s face. It was solemn and pale. Palmer’s face, in contrast, was beet red and his eyes were alive with the look of a bloodhound on the scent.

“I think we should talk about it. See what our options are.”

Lovie turned to face Cara. “Do you want me to sell?”

Cara didn’t expect the question. “It’s not up to me.”

“Why are you asking her?” Palmer interjected with heat.

Cara bristled. “As a member of the family, I have a right to at least an opinion.”

“A right? Hell, after twenty years’ absence you feel you still have a right?”

“Cara,” her mother said and her tone drew Cara’s attention back. “Do you want me to sell?”

Cara pursed her lips, considering. One of her strengths in business was her ability to remove herself from an equation and think objectively. When she replied, her voice was calm and decisive. “If what Palmer says is true and those two lots are deeded as a park, then your land is like gold in the bank. It’s safe. And money isn’t the issue, or it shouldn’t be.” She looked at Palmer. “If I recollect, Mama is invested in blue-chip stocks. If they go under, the country goes under. So,” she concluded, turning again to her mother, “as far as I’m concerned, you should do what makes you happy, Mama. It’s your land. Your life. Enjoy it.”

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