Chapter 5
Maddie knew that, sooner or later, she’d see Rex again. After all, he was their temporary landlord of sorts. What she hadn’t anticipated was that when she and Grandma returned from their outing, his pickup would be parked at the cabin. The sight of it alone made her palms sweat.
“I would have told you Rex would be here if you’d answered your phone this morning,” Grandma said when Maddie stopped the car.
“He called right after you and Rafe left. He said that since the tourists have fled, he has leftover scallops that need cooking. He wants to make us a casserole in a white wine cream sauce. I told him to bring it on!” Grandma hated leaving messages; if she absolutely needed to, she kept them short, though not typically sweet: “Where in blazes are you, Madelyn?” was an example.
As soon as Maddie turned off the ignition, Grandma bolted from the car and trotted up to the cabin at her maximum speed, which wasn’t fast but showed enthusiasm.
Trying to gather an ounce of confidence, Maddie remained glued to the frayed fabric of the seat of her car. She knew she’d be fine. After all, she was in charge of her own life, her own happiness.
This morning simply had been a harmless misstep.
She would put up her guard and be fine. After all, she was a confident, career-minded woman, though her colleagues and friends back in Green Hills would question that if they saw her right now.
Especially if they saw the haphazard creases in the skirt she’d worn earlier, thanks to her having yanked it off and tossed it onto the floor, not caring that it landed in a heap.
An act of passion, if ever there was one.
She took a deep breath for what could have been the hundredth time that day, and marched into the cabin as if it was hers, not his.
“Hey,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Grandma paid no attention; instead, she was busy twittering around the tiny kitchen like a child who’d consumed too much sugar, pulling plates from the cabinet and silverware from the drawer, despite that they’d finished lunch less than two hours earlier.
“Sorry to let myself in,” he said, as he focused on scrubbing the pan he must have sautéed the scallops in because hints of garlic and butter scented the air. “But I don’t have much time ’til I have to get back and start prepping for the dinner crowd, slim though it will be.”
Maddie remained standing, her gaze fixed on his muscular back that looked even more muscular thanks to the black T-shirt he had on.
“No problem,” she finally said, recalling that at some point in recent days, he’d mentioned that despite the drop in tourism, the Lord James would open daily until Christmas Eve, then shut down until Valentine’s Day.
He said he liked to use those weeks for deep cleaning the restaurant and taking care of whatever fixing and freshening up was needed.
She blinked and looked at her bustling grandmother.
“So I guess it will be the two of us tonight, Grandma. And I’m afraid I won’t be hungry for quite a while. ”
Grandma frowned, then nodded. “Right. Then I’ll go take my nap.” She abruptly stopped futzing, thanked Rex for the scallops, then vanished into the front bedroom, leaving the plates and the silver on the table, slightly askew.
So, Rex and Maddie were suddenly alone, standing in silence, not exactly a postcoital kind, what with Maddie still in her jacket, and Rex with his hands in suds.
He spoke first. “You okay?”
She shrugged as if he could see her, as if his back wasn’t still toward her. “Sure.”
His head moved up and down in a semblance of a nod. “Good.” He turned on the faucet and rinsed out the pan.
Maddie knew the uncomfortable silence was absurd. Especially since they were two reasonably intelligent, middle-aged adults who, mere hours earlier, had not been awkward together even though they had been naked.
“Rex.”
“Maddie.”
They spoke each other’s names simultaneously.
Maddie laughed. Then Rex did, too. He turned off the water, and Maddie took off her jacket.
Then they faced each other, the only things between them the small table, the counter, and a whole bunch of jumbled feelings, at least on her part, and maybe on his, too.
“I was worried about you,” he said softly, so Grandma wouldn’t hear.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “Sorry I dashed out like I did. I guess I was startled.”
“By me?” He dried his hands and walked around the counter and the table so they were closer.
She laughed again. “No! I was startled by me! I was totally out of my realm. I’m only a girl from the hills.”
His cinnamon eyes sparkled like sugar on a ginger cookie. He smiled a crooked smile.
She wished he hadn’t done that; it caused a ribbon of warmth to swell inside her.
“I told you,” he added, “it’s not an everyday thing for me, either. But neither of us seemed to have wanted to be somewhere else, doing something else. And it wasn’t like it was planned.”
Of course it hadn’t been planned, she wanted to say. He hadn’t even known she’d show up at his door. She moved to the opposite side of the living room, in case Grandma had her oyster-shaped ear pressed to the door.
He followed her. “I kind of thought that you liked … it.”
“I did. It was nice. But it’s not a good time for me, Rex. I’m not looking for a relationship. My life is beginning to start over—so I don’t think it’s fair to either of us for me to get involved right now.” She sounded like a damn textbook therapist. Or the confident woman she pretended to be.
“I get it,” he said. “Can we at least be friends?” The sparkle in his eyes faded a little.
“We are friends, Rex. I don’t know what Grandma and I would do without you.”
He gestured toward the oven. “For starters, you might not be having scallops tonight.”
She laughed a faint laugh. “See? We are definitely friends.”
“Good friends?” The half smile widened. “Because I’d like that, Maddie.”
She knew what he meant. She could not say no. But she could not say yes. “Maybe in time?”
“It’s a deal.” He glanced at his watch. “But right now, it really is time for me to earn a living.” He grabbed his plaid flannel shirt from the back of the sofa, started to button it, then stopped.
“Wait. Before we got distracted this morning, you said you wanted to ask me something. Was it important? Or can it wait?”
She pressed her lips together, then shook her head.
“It was nothing major. I figured it out after I … left.” Her words sounded awkward.
Maybe he hadn’t noticed. But as much as Maddie knew it was too soon for a relationship, she was grateful she was still levelheaded enough to make her own decisions.
If the aftermath of her morning with Rex had taught her that, it had been worth a few awkward moments.
“Arnie’s Bait and Tackle is closing,” Maddie told Grandma.
It was long past dark. They were wrapped in toasty shawls, sitting on the front porch of the cabin, an LED lantern on the end table between them.
“How’d you hear that?”
“Last night at the potluck. Two men were talking about it. I didn’t ask their names.”
Grandma snickered. “Old men, I suppose. When it comes to gossip, they’re worse than old ladies.”
“They said something about Arnie leaving the island to live with his nephew in New Hampshire.”
“Yup, that’s what’s floatin’ around. I heard it from Lisa when she stopped by to say hello this morning.”
Lisa was Grandma’s petite, thirtyish neighbor, who had a penchant for wearing jumpers no matter the season, and tying back her long hair in a bandanna.
She lived halfway down the short hill from the front of the cottage along with her husband, a fisherman, and their two young kids; she worked at the Chilmark Town Hall, where she heard almost everything that went on up-island and with whom.
Luckily for Maddie, Edgartown was far enough away that the young woman might not have heard the latest about Maddie and Rex. Not yet, anyway.
Then Grandma chuckled. “You know you’ve lived here too long when things like bait and tackle start a conversation.”
Returning the chuckle, Maddie asked, “I suppose you’ve known Arnie a long time.”
“Long enough.”
“You’re not sorry to see him go?”
“Don’t care one way or t’other. I suppose his customers will miss him. Unless another bait shop takes its place.”
Maddie carefully formed her question. “What if the closing is a chance for me?”
Pausing only a beat, Grandma laughed. “You want to run a bait shop?”
This wasn’t starting off as Maddie had hoped.
“No. I’m thinking about turning it into a bookshop.
Not as big as the ones down-island, but something to serve up-island residents and seasonal people, too.
I’m thinking I could also sell your baskets and serve your herbal teas along with a few tasty treats. ”
Grandma raised a curious eyebrow. “You came up with all that since last night?”
“I did. I think the idea gelled after you said you want to fix up Orson for Rafe … He’ll be so excited, Grandma.
He really wants to live here. As much as I hope he still goes to graduate school, he has time for that.
For now it might be nice to have a project we can all have fun with.
And a good way for me to get to know the island better. ”
“In that case, our young man had better learn how to make my baskets fast. My days for doing that are numbered, especially if it requires speed. I used to be a racehorse. Now I’m more like a tortoise.” She chuckled again.
“I’m sure we can make it work, Grandma. Hey, if we have them to sell, we’ll sell them. And if we don’t, we can ask people to check back.”
“Okay. But you want a bookshop? Aren’t you a teacher?”