Mel’s eyes widened. “He told you that?”
“No. She did. Within a minute of meeting me.”
“Sounds like a peach.”
“But that’s the thing—we hit it off right away. Not sure why—maybe because she reminded me of Nana, rattling around in her big old house. So there was nothing she could do or say I hadn’t seen or heard before. I stood up to her, I guess. Wouldn’t take her guff.” She smiled, remembering. “Within a week, she was making faces when it was time for me to leave. Clay was her only child, and had never married, and I think she thought of me as the granddaughter she never had.”
Blythe forked in a bite of her lobster salad. “So you tamed the beast?”
April laughed. “Not hardly. Old gal was a pain in the butt until the day she died.” She sighed. “Six weeks after Clay did. I knew how to deal with her, is all. Clay was stunned.” She felt a smile warm her insides. “And very, very grateful.”
“So...?” Blythe gently prodded, buttering a homemade cheese biscuit.
April let her gaze drift outside, to the marina beyond the restaurant, the tethered boats gently bobbing in the slate blue water. “Clay and I would chat, when he was around. Mostly about his mother, at first. But then about other things. Movies, the news, whatever popped into our heads. And...it was nice. Not what I expected.”
She looked back at her cousins. “A few months in, he asked if I’d consider living there full-time. In my own suite. Sitting room, fireplace, jetted tub, the works. And with a very hefty salary hike, to boot. I’d’ve been an idiot to refuse. And once I moved in, he and I started spending more time together, when he wasn’t away on business. Didn’t take long before I realized he was one of the kindest men I’d ever met. Very fair. And funny, in his own way. Even though he was a lot older than I was. And I liked him. Quite a bit, actually.”
“Define ‘a lot.’”
“In his forties.”
Mel frowned. “And you weren’t dating guys your own age?”
“My own age? As in, their early twenties?”
Blythe snorted. “Good point.”
“I’d never dated much as it was. Even after we all stopped coming here for the summer. Besides, between school and working there wasn’t any time. And anyway, the Rosses kept me plenty busy.” She grinned. “They even took me to Europe with them. Ladies, I have seen Paris, and it is everything it’s cracked up to be.”
“And Clayton...” Mel said, munching a fried clam. “No girlfriends?”
“Helene said something about a fiancée years before, but I guess it never panned out. And he certainly never seemed...” She hesitated. “Interested.” In front of her, two sets of eyebrows raised, and April sighed. “Yeah. Although I never knew for sure if he was gay. And this is all hindsight, anyway. Also not my point.”
Her sandwich somehow finished, April wiped her fingers on her napkin, then tucked it under the rim of her plate. “Shortly after we got back, Daddy came down with some weird infection that nearly killed him. My parents had no insurance, and even though he pulled through, it was a long recuperation. And only Mama to take care of him. I nearly worried
myself
sick, wondering how we were going to pay the medical bills, if he’d have a relapse and we’d lose him altogether, about how hard this all was on Mama. But I couldn’t quit work to help her, since by then my income was all we had.”
“Oh, honey...” Mel reached across the table for her hand. “I had no idea things were that bad.”
“Nobody did. Mama didn’t want the family to know, because then it would get back to Nana and she couldn’t deal with the ‘I told you sos.’ About her marrying Daddy to begin with, I mean.”
Blythe sighed. “And she would have, too.”
“Yeah,” April said. “Anyway, I tried to keep it together when I was around the Rosses, not let on what we were going through, but that’s kind of hard to do when you’re living in someone’s house. Especially when your employer walks in on you when you’re crying your eyes out.”
“Oops,” Mel said, and April smiled.
“I blurted out the whole sad story. And Clay simply...listened. And within the day...” Her throat got so tight she could barely speak. “He’d settled all their bills, arranged for a monthly stipend for them while my father was recuperating, and a nurse’s aide to come in every day so Mama could get a break.”
“Holy cannoli,” Mel breathed. “That’s like...” She slammed her chin into her hand. “Wow.”
“I know. He said, after the miracle I’d worked with his mother, it was the least he could do. Then a month later he found out
he
was sick. But in his case, it was terminal. He told me, but he didn’t want his mother to know. Not yet. I didn’t think it was right, not telling her, but of course I said I wouldn’t.” She released a breath. “Less than a year, they’d given him. Poor man...he’d been knocked on his pins. He was quiet and reserved, but he took such a simple joy in life, in everything it had to offer, you know? Then he knocked
me
into next week by asking if I’d consider marrying him, saying how happy it would make Helene, especially since he knew how fond she was of me.”
Her eyes glanced off first Mel’s, then Blythe’s. “After everything he’d done for my parents—and me,” she said softly, “how could I say no?”
The waitress came over, asked if they wanted dessert. Blythe and April said no, they were good, but Mel ordered a piece of strawberry chiffon pie as big as her head. Which the waitress served with three forks.
Mel duly distributed the utensils, pushing the pie into the center of the table for easier access. No fool, she. “You didn’t even consider refusing?”
April took a tiny forkful of the airy dessert, letting the tart sweetness melt on her tongue before she said, “I was shocked, of course, but...no. I cared for them both too much. He also promised,” she said softly, “that I’d never have to worry about my parents’ finances again.”
Fork halfway to her mouth, Blythe frowned. “But you were married for nearly four years.”
“I know. His oncologist was incredulous. Especially since Clay refused any aggressive treatment. In fact for a while he was even well enough to do some more traveling.”
“And you never...?”
April swiped another tiny bite that blurred as her eyes swam with tears. “Even if he could have...that wasn’t what we had.”
“But was it what you wanted?”
“I suppose I didn’t let myself think about it.”
Blythe took the last bite of pie. Mel signaled for another piece. “But...four years...? Wow.”
A tight smile tugged at April’s mouth. “Oh, when Clay realized he apparently wasn’t leaving on the doctors’ schedule, he asked me if I wanted to reconsider our arrangement. Several times. With the understanding that he’d keep his end of the agreement. About my parents, I mean. But each time I told him no.”
“Because of everything he’d done for you?”
April thought about that for a moment. “I’m not going to say that wasn’t part of it. Aside from that, though, I’d also made a promise, of my own free will. And I’m not one to back out of something simply because it gets hard. Or inconvenient. But the real reason I stayed was because I loved him. Loved them both. They were very dear friends, and I wouldn’t have turned my back on either of them for the world. And what other people think about that...well, it’s really none of their concern, is it?”
She saw tears bunch in the corners of Mel’s eyes. “No. It sure as hell isn’t. Even so—” those eyes narrowed
“—Blythe and I aren’t ‘other people.’ And keeping secrets is for the birds. It’s kind of hard to get your back if you don’t let us see it. Am I right?” she said to Blythe, who muttered something that sounded like “Sure thing,” as the second piece of pie came.
They all picked up their forks again and dived in, munching for several seconds before Blythe said to April, “And you really, truly never found anyone before you met Clayton you wanted to get naked with?”
“Good Lord, Blythe,” Mel said, “give it a rest.”
“No, it’s okay.” April looked Blythe in the eye. “I was hardly the only twenty-one-year-old virgin out there.”
“One of the few. If not proud,” Blythe said, and Mel smacked her again.
April shrugged. “First off, that’s none of anybody’s business, either. Secondly, this chick does not cast her pearls before swine, thank you very much,” which led Mel to mumble something about wishing somebody had said that to her, back in the day. Although, Blythe then pointed out, at least Mel’s pearls-before-swine experience had resulted in the smartest, most awesome ten-year-old girl, ever, so it all worked out, before swinging her gaze back to April.
“Only now you’re twenty-six. And I take it Patrick’s not swine.”
April stuffed another bite of pie into her mouth. Thought about how he interacted with Lili. His crew. His lame attempt at scaring her. “No,” she said, very softly.
“Then what are you waiting for? Get out there and cast those pearls, girl!”
“Except you forget I have no idea how to go about that,” April said, right about the same time Mel poked Blythe again, this time nodding toward the restaurant’s entrance. Which April couldn’t see because she had her back to it.
“Tell me he just walked in.”
“Yep.” Mel thrust out her hand. “Rings off. Now. Before he spots us.”
“What? I can’t—”
“You can. And you will. Can’t cast the pearls while you’re still wearing the diamonds.” She waggled her fingers. “They’ll be perfectly safe, I promise. And you can have ’em back when...” Her eyes crinkled in thought. “When you score your first date.”
“With Patrick?”
“With anybody. His brother’s with him and he ain’t half bad, either.” She shrugged. “Options.”
“This is very true,” Blythe said. “They clearly breed them well, those Shaughnessys—”
“April!” Mel said under her breath.
“Now.”
“Okay, okay...” She twisted off the rings and handed them over, thinking,
There, done,
as April slipped them into a zippered compartment in her wallet, then her wallet back inside her purse.
Strange that anticipation should feel so much like panic. Especially when she heard voices coming closer, Patrick’s brother’s and the waitress’s, mostly. Luke was a notorious flirt, if the stories were to be believed. The kind of man known to make women go all fluttery and stupid. Then, as she rubbed where her rings had been, she heard Patrick’s rumbly voice, she shut her eyes, thinking,
Yeah. Like that
.
Then somebody kicked her under the table, making her yelp, forcing her to look up and smile at the Shaughnessy brothers, both dark-haired and blue-eyed, one grinning, one not. Only, in that instant, she saw the glower for what it was—or more to the point, what it wasn’t—and her heart melted.
Let the games begin,
she thought, and tossed out that first, all-important pearl.
* * *
Leave it to his dumbass brother to make a beeline for the cousins’ table. Or more to the point, to take Patrick’s muttered, “Not a good idea, bro,” as a challenge. So here he was, standing in front of April with his hands shoved in his pockets without a clue what to say.
Not that this was a huge issue with Luke around, who’d been chatting up girls since the sixth grade. Yeah, the nuns had had their hands full with that one, boy.
But while Luke and Mel and Blythe were yakking away—about what, Patrick had no idea, he couldn’t hear for the ringing in his ears—April fixed that soft, sweet gaze on him, smiling like they’d never had that last conversation. Like she hadn’t told him he was an idiot.
Like he hadn’t acted like one.
In the reflected light splashing through the window, her hair seemed redder, her eyes more turquoise. And although the cream-colored, fluffy sweater covered her from chin to wrists, it also clung to everything between. How she could look so hot and so innocent at the same time was beyond him, but it was a deadly combination, that was for damn sure.
The waitress brought them their check. Mel and Blythe scrapped over it like cats over a chicken bone, making Luke laugh and Patrick breathe a sigh of relief. A few minutes more, and they’d be gone.
“How’s it going?” April said over the din.
“Okay,” he said, making himself shrug. Avoiding her gaze.
“Business good?”
He squinted out the window at a sailboat in the open water beyond the marina, its white sails blinding against the blue sky. “Getting by.”
“And Lili?”
The check folder clamped in her hand, Blythe rose from the table and gathered her purse, flirting with his brother in that way women did when they didn’t mean it. And Luke was eating it up. Dumbass.
“Um...she’s great,” Patrick said, reluctantly returning his attention to April, who’d stood as well to wriggle into her blazer before hiking up her own purse onto her right shoulder.
With her left hand.
His gaze zinged to hers. Which she took captive with another one of those sweet smiles before following her cousins through the restaurant to the cashier. And never looking back.
“Y’all want to sit here?” Jeannie, the waitress, asked. “I can clean it up in a jiff.”
“Sure,” Luke said, sliding behind the table and inhaling deeply. “Smell that?”
Patrick hesitated, then sat across from him, scarred side to window, the seat still warm from April. “Besides the fried fish?” True to her word, the waitress cleaned off the table in a jiffy, laying down fresh paper napkins and cutlery, then menus. Superfluous though they were, since everybody in St. Mary’s knew the menu by heart from the time they could talk. Probably before.
Luke breathed deeply again, then let out his breath on a happy sigh. “No, numskull.
Women
. Sweetest smell in the world.”
Patrick shook his head. “You’re pathetic.”
“No,
you’re
pathetic,” Luke said, leaning back in the booth, his arm stretched across the back. “Give me one good reason why you haven’t asked April out.”
“And since when is my personal life any of your concern?”
Ignoring him, Luke sat forward again to tick off a list on his fingers. “She’s cute, she’s available and she’s interested. And don’t tell me she’s not.” Luke’s sharp gaze softened. “And she seems like a real doll.”