Chapter Eleven #3
Then he sat on the couch, resting his head against the back, and closed his eyes to wait for Lucy to return while he replayed the situation over and over in his mind.
Two hours later, Nick found her sitting at the end of the small dock that extended into the water a little way down the shore from the cottage’s property line. Technically, it belonged to the neighbors, and it probably should have been used for bonfire kindling years ago.
Lucy’s knees were drawn up, with her heels resting on the edge of the dock and her arms wrapped around her legs.
Her chin rested on her knees, and she didn’t seem to mind the wind pulling wisps of her hair free from its bun as she stared over the open water.
And a thick blue cardigan he recognized as Helen’s was keeping her warm.
She wasn’t wearing his sweatshirt.
The dock swayed slightly as he walked down the length, trying to avoid the boards that looked most at risk for caving in under his weight. And he cringed as he gingerly sat down next to her, letting his legs dangle over the edge, afraid both of them were about to end up in the water.
“I’m sorry, Lucy.”
She didn’t look at him, or even move. “How could you keep something so big to yourself? How could you know I have a sister right across town and not tell me?”
“I didn’t know Taylor is your sister. What I knew was I’ve heard years of whispers and hints about Iris Macauley. And yes, I heard some whispers about Iris and Jack, but whispers and facts are two different things.”
“But you knew they were all talking about it again—talking about me—and you just let me go around Wayward Harbor and talk to people with no idea what they were saying as soon as I left the room.”
“I should have told you,” he said. “I absolutely should have told you, and I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“But why didn’t you? You can’t say it was because you were protecting the community from the woman just passing through because they were already all up in it. I was the only one in the dark.”
“When you came here, you were hiding. You were hiding from all the awful stuff people were saying about you, as anybody would. And it took you a little bit, but you came out from under the blankets. You were reclaiming yourself. You were enjoying Wayward Harbor and making friends, and I was afraid if you knew some of them were gossiping about you—about something so big—it wouldn’t feel safe to you anymore and you’d go back under the blankets. ”
After what felt to Nick like a lifetime of silence, Lucy let go of her legs and let them dangle off the edge next to his. Shoving her windblown hair out of her face, she turned to face him.
“I guess I can understand that,” she said softly.
“I’m still sorry. No matter why I did it, it was wrong.”
“I appreciate you saying that.” She sighed, looking back toward the horizon. “I made Gran cry.”
“You made her cry? Or did she happen to cry during a highly emotional conversation with her upset granddaughter?”
She smiled. “You know, you’re very kind under that grumpy exterior. Your brothers are lucky to have you.”
“You have me, too,” he said, and the words fell heavy between them, clunky and undefined. He didn’t know exactly how he meant them, and he was afraid of how she’d take them. “I’m almost as good a friend as I am a brother.”
Lucy gave him a weak smile, but those words didn’t feel right to him, either. Were they friends? Were they something else? If Miami wasn’t in her future, would he be a part of it?
“I’m just a woman passing through,” she reminded him.
“I didn’t mean that. You’re a lot more than that.”
“Not really. I am just passing through, even if it’s taking me a long time to actually do it.”
The thought of Lucy leaving Wayward Harbor made his stomach hurt, and it threatened to resurrect the fading headache, so he shoved it out of his mind. He definitely didn’t want to think about why that bothered him so much.
“What are you going to do?” he asked softly.
“I won’t be hiding under the blankets again.
I don’t know if I’m toughening up or if spring is finally doing its spring thing here, but I got too hot under there.
” She laughed. “As for having a sister… I don’t know how that works.
We’ll do a test to make sure, I guess. And then, I’d like to have a sister, I think. ”
“It’s good to have siblings. Even the ones I got stuck with.”
“I’m not sure how that works, considering everybody in Wayward Harbor will know, and Kim Perkins keeps trying to set me on fire with her eyeballs even before Taylor talked to me.”
“Let Taylor navigate her mother,” he suggested. “You just hold your head up and keep doing what you’ve been doing because you haven’t done a single thing wrong.”
She smiled then—a genuine one—and the knot in his chest loosened. “Do you think that pizza place would deliver a Hawaiian pizza?”
That was too far. “No. Lucy, I know I owe you, but I can’t do pineapple on a pizza.”
“It’s apology pizza. You kind of have to.”
“How about half pepperoni and half Hawaiian. And I’ll buy, including the delivery fee.”
“Okay. Assuming we both make it off this dock without it collapsing and drowning us, you’re forgiven.”