Enright Family Collection (15 page)

India suppressed a laugh, as Corri’s expression was so serious. “No. How?”

“You make your arms and your hands all white with flour and the doughy stuff won’t stick to your skin.” Corri coated her arms with imaginary flour, then added proudly, “And I know how to punch down bread dough when it’s rising too.”

All the things Aunt August had taught me when I was a little girl
, India mused, wondering if Corri would develop more proficiency in her domestic skills than India had.

“Well, it sounds as if you are learning very important things.”

“I am. And Nick said he’d teach me how to kick a soccer ball.” Corri stabbed at a circle of catsup on her plate with a fry.

“He did?”

“Yup. So I can play with the Girls Club again.”

“You’re only six.”

“Last year I played when I was five.” Corri got quiet all of a sudden. “Ry took me. And Nick said if I wanted to go again this year he would take me.”

“Do you think maybe you should go with Ollie and Darla?” India frowned. Funny, Nick had not mentioned that he had joined in the group effort to raise Corri.

“All the parents pitch in to do stuff for the team. Nick thought that maybe Aunt August wouldn’t want to, since practice is on her card night, so he said he would.”

“That was very nice of Nick.” India felt the lump returning to her throat. It seemed that everyone was taking an active part in Corri’s day-to-day, except for her. “Corri, you know that if I was here all the time, that I would take you to soccer? That I would do more things with you?”

“Now
I know. I wasn’t so sure until this time when you came home. But I am now.”

“I just wish there was some way for me to spend more time with you. Right now I am committed to following through with something I started months ago.” She thought of Alberto Minchot, awaiting trial behind the steel bars of Paloma’s finest accommodations.

“But if I needed you, you would come, wouldn’t you? If I really did?” Corri’s eyes were wide and guileless.

“Absolutely.” India responded without hesitation, knowing it was as true as anything she had ever known.

“And when you’re all done, doing important stuff, will you always come back to Devlin’s Light?”

“Yes.”

“Then I guess it’s okay.” Corri shrugged and went back to the cabin she was building out of leftover fries.

India pondered the situation. Aunt August had been a fine
mother substitute for her and for Ry. She was, India knew, a woman whose heart had no boundaries, who dished out love with the same generosity of spirit as she dished out cherry cobbler at the church suppers. August was a wise disciplinarian, a wonderfully pleasant companion, and she possessed a sharp sense of both humor and fair play.

But it seemed as if Corri had twice lost out on having a real mom, the first time when Maris died, the second time when Ry died and Corri’s hopes of being able to share Ollie’s mom vanished. Now she looked to India to fill the empty spot all the leavings had left in her little heart. Afraid to ask for too much, Corri tried to be content with whatever India saw fit to give of herself. In her heart, Indy knew it hadn’t been near enough. In the coming months, she would, one way or another, find a way to change the glass from half empty to full.

Chapter 9

The stones crunching rudely under the tires of India’s car as it wound up the narrow lane from the main road to Nick’s cabin disturbed the nocturnal marsh in the same manner in which the crackling of paper would disturb the silence of a chapel. She hadn’t remembered the road being this long or this dark. Rolling down the window to let in the sounds of the night, she crept along, careful to keep the car straight on the road—if this carpet of stones could be called a road—and off the soft shoulders from which a slide into the ooze of the tidal marsh was just a poorly calculated turn of the wheel away on either side. She approached a small wooden bridge that stretched across a meandering stream, braking to avoid taking it too quickly and perhaps missing a turn up ahead and finding herself in need of a tow out of the thick black goo that lined the bottom of the swamp.

It was still warm enough that a few mosquitoes, that scourge of the New Jersey coast, made their presence heard. And felt. India slapped at an overly eager specimen that had seemingly bitten her arm immediately upon its landing there. With her index finger she flicked its crushed corpse through the open window as she reached the end of the lane. Parking behind Nick’s white Pathfinder, she cut the engine and stepped into the light cast by the sensor-activated spot
mounted on the back of the cabin, which served to illumine the entire flat parking area.

From the stand of pine that formed a border between the lane and the woods just to the left of her car she heard a rustling sound. Raccoons, most likely, she thought, or perhaps foxes. Off in the distance, the shrill high scream of something, caught in the talons of an owl or perhaps a night heron, protested its plight. The sound rang up her spine like a bell struck too hard. It jarred her nerves and sent her just a little more quickly on her way toward the deck, which wrapped around to the front of the house to face the bay.

“Nick,” India called from the doorway.

“Come on in,” he called back, and she pushed open the screen door to the small porch at the end of the deck. The interior door was open, awaiting her arrival.

“Something smells outlandishly good,” she told him as she walked into the great room and dropped her sweater on the back of the sofa.

“India Devlin, you of all people should immediately recognize the aroma.”

“Hmmmm.” She closed her eyes and sniffed the air with purpose, then groaned with pleasure as she identified the scent. “Aunt August’s deep-dish apple pie.” She whispered the words as if in awe.

“Damn, you’re good,” he told her. “Only took you one sniff.”

“When did she bake this?”

“I am truly crushed to the bone!” He laughed. “August’s recipe. My pie.”

“You baked that?” She peered down at the perfect crust, golden and flaky, which hid the tender slices of apples lightly tossed with raisins, sugar and cinnamon.

“With my own two hands.” He grinned.

“Nick, is there anything you can’t do?”

“Sure. Lots of things.” He turned his back and proceeded to fill the glass coffeepot with water, giving India an opportunity to take a long hard look at the flip side.

Never had a pair of Lee Five Button jeans looked so good.

“How ’bout you?” He turned suddenly, catching her in the act of staring at his posterior.

“How ’bout me what?” She blinked innocently, all the while reddening at having been caught giving him the same once-over he had earlier in the day given her.

“I’d have thought you would have all of August’s recipes down pat.” He was grinning, clearly enjoying her discomfort.

“I have them all written down”—she leaned on the counter, giving her an excuse to look out the window toward the bay—“but I’m afraid I haven’t cooked in weeks. Months, maybe.”

“You’re kidding, right?” He poured the water into the top of the coffee maker.

“Nope.”

“What do you eat?”

“Whatever I can whenever I can,” she told him truthfully.

“That’s one hell of a schedule you have, lady.” From the small dishwasher he removed the same red mugs they had used earlier in the day and set them on the counter.

“Somehow it only seems really horrendous when I get away for a few days and look at it from a distance.”

“And how often is it that you get away for a few days?”

“Not very,” she admitted.

“Where’d you go on your last vacation?” he asked.

“Here,” she replied. “Devlin’s Light.”

“Now India, you know what they say about all work and no play…” He leaned over, close to her, and for a split second she thought he was going to kiss her. When he did not, she felt a pang of disappointment she had not anticipated.

“What about you?” She tried to turn the tables. “I’d say it would appear that you work a lot.”

“All the time. Every day.” He nodded. “And I love every second of it.”

“I love what I do too.” She wished she did not sound so defensive, so insistent.

“I take time off. I take several breaks a day, as a matter of fact. How ’bout you, Indy? How often do you get a break?”

“During the day? Are you nuts?” She frowned at the thought of it.

“That’s what I thought. Don’t you ever want to just lean back and put your feet up for a few minutes?”

“Nick, I don’t have quite the view that you do.” She gestured toward the deck.

“More’s the pity. It’s wonderful. Come on out for a minute and we’ll take a break right now.”

She laughed and followed him onto the deck, to stand next to him at the railing, where they both leaned their elbows at precisely the same time.

“See? It’s instinctive,” he told her. “You approach the rail, you lean the elbows and you take it all in.”

Leaning her head back slightly, India inhaled the warm tidal breath of the night, thick and salty and familiar.

“I miss it,” she admitted, her eyes still closed as she luxuriated in the sea air.

“What keeps you away?”

“My work.”

“You know you’d be able to get a job anywhere.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged and looked out across the dark water.

“No
maybe.
Want to tell me what keeps you from coming back to Devlin’s Light to stay? Or is that a secret you’re not ready to share.”

“Why would you think that I don’t want to come back?” She stared straight ahead, uncomfortable with the question. And its answer.

“Well, your family is here… your home. And from all appearances, you love it here…” His voice trailed away slightly.

“I do. More than any place,” she said softly, still not looking at him, knowing if she met his eyes she might want to tell him what he wanted to know, but not yet ready to share that part of herself.

“And yet you seem to put as much distance between yourself and your home as you can.”

India looped her fingers together and hung them over the railing, looking out to the bay but not at Nick.

“Something tells me there’s no simple answer. Maybe someday you’ll want to talk about it. Right now,” he said, pointing overhead, “there’s a serious moon on the rise.”

Silently she thanked him for not pushing her into speaking of something she did not want to speak of, something that would sully the night and take the focus from finding
clues to Ry’s death and place it instead upon her, on her past, on her nightmares.

A flock of geese landed noisily, feet first, somewhere across the bay, their loud honks drifting across the water as if to scold the lead bird for not having stopped sooner.

“How ’bout we get our coffee and make ourselves comfortable and we can compare notes?”

“Sounds good.” She started to follow him through the door.

“Just stay and relax for a minute,” he told her. “I’ll bring everything out.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

India welcomed the few minutes alone on the deck, a few minutes to listen to the night sounds of the bay, to watch for the faint splashes as fish here and there poked through the plane of the water, to rest in the stillness of the marsh. The bay at night had always offered a peace to her she had not found anywhere else.

Nick returned with a tray upon which sat two mugs of steaming coffee, a carton of half and half bearing the logo of a nearby convenience store, two plates, two forks, a knife and the entire apple pie. “You planning on eating all that?” She laughed, pointing at the pie.

“Very possibly. When was the last time you ate only one piece of August Devlin’s apple pie? Even if August herself didn’t bake it, there’s nothing else that even comes close, in my book.”

“Good point.” She grinned and sat in one of the deck chairs.

“Help yourself to coffee,” he told her, “and I’ll tend to the pie.”

She giggled as he cut two large wedges from the pie and slid them onto the plates, then handed one to India, telling her, “It’s just perfect, still warm.”

“It smells too wonderful,” she noted, her mouth watering at the very thought of it. “It is perfect,” she told him as she took the first impatient bite. “Wonderful. Heaven.”

“Agreed.” He nodded as he too succumbed to the lure of the fragrance that surrounded them momentarily, before a soft land breeze began to drift the aroma toward the bay.
“Eat fast,” he joked, “or we’ll have every raccoon within sniffing distance prowling up here for his share.”

“Corri tells me that you’re taking her to soccer on Tuesday nights.”

“Well, it’s August’s card night, you know.” He shrugged it off with a grin.

“You don’t have to.”

“Hey, Indy, it’s no big deal. Corri wants to play. Ry took her last year and she loved it. I just wanted there to be one less thing in her life that she had to do without because someone else was gone from her life.” He put his plate down to pour cream into the coffee.

“It’s very nice of you to do that.”

“I am a very nice guy. Thank you for noticing. And besides, it’s fun to watch her.”

“I meant it’s nice of you to care that she wants to play.”

“Well, I guess I’m just passing it on.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, you know, that old expression that if someone does something nice for you, the best way of thanking them is to help someone else in return.” Nick leaned back and crossed a denimed leg, resting his now-empty pie plate on his knee. “When I was about eleven, I wanted to play baseball in the worst way. But the league rules required that one parent volunteer to coach. My dad was gone. And Mom was out of the question—you could fill the head of a pin with Mom’s knowledge of baseball and have enough room left over for the Bill of Rights. Plus she was working during the day and trying to write at night and keep up with my sisters. She didn’t have three nights each week to spare.”

“So who stepped in?” she asked.

“Mr. Hamilton. Lived across the street from us. Retired gent. Signed me up and took me to every practice. Cheered me on at every game.”

“Where’s he now?”

“Long gone,” Nick told her softly, “but I’ll never forget all he gave me. All he taught me. When my mom or I would thank him, he’d just smile and say, ’Nick, you just remember to pass it on one day.’ I’m grateful for the opportunity to do just that.”