Authors: Karen White
His warm breath tickled her neck, and she sighed. “Oh, darling. It gets harder and harder each time you leave.”
“I know.” He kissed her behind her ear, sending delicious shivers over her skin. “When this war is over, things will be different, I promise.”
“But when? When will this all be over?” She pulled back to look into his amber eyes that always seemed to be backlit by a fire that burned inside.
“Soon,” he said, kissing her gently. “Soon.” He moved her to his side but kept his arm around her shoulders. Examining the piles of books and empty shelves, he asked, “What’s going on here?”
Maggie smiled guiltily. “I’m being totally selfish and placing all the new books that you’ve brought to me on the highest shelf, where nobody can see what’s up there. That way, I don’t have to share them.”
He raised an eyebrow but his smile gave him away. “How very bad of you, Margaret. But I can’t say that I wouldn’t do the same thing.” Leaning over, he kissed her again, longer this time until they both had to come up for air.
“Can I see you tonight?” he asked.
Maggie tried to push back her disappointment. “They’ve opened the fairgrounds for the summer, and Cat, Robert, and I promised to take Lulu after I closed the shop a little early.” She rested her forehead against his chest, smelling wool, aftershave, and salty air. It was as if Folly Beach had already claimed him, branding him with her saturating scent. “But I don’t want to leave you.”
He sighed deeply, his chest caving with the weight of it, and Maggie sighed, too, sure it was because he didn’t want to share her. Pulling her away from him, he held her by her upper arms. “Well, then, you can’t disappoint Lulu.”
“Why don’t you come, too? You know Robert and Cat, and Lulu would love to have you there, too. It’s not just for children. Adults and older kids love it, too—it’s a real Folly Beach icon. Everything shuts down after dark on account of the mandatory blackouts, but if we get there at four o’clock, we’ll still have a couple of hours to have fun.” She grabbed both of his hands and squeezed. “It’s something we don’t get a lot of anymore.” Rubbing her nose against his chin, she said, “And I think you need to have a little fun. You’ve been working too hard.”
His eyes seemed to shutter themselves, dimming the light that she’d seen when he looked at her. “Sure,” he said slowly. “I just need to get back to my lodging house to unpack and change, and I’ll meet you at your house at four. How does that sound?”
“That would be perfect. And I know the others won’t mind—especially Lulu. Did you bring a book for her, too?”
His lips turned up in a small smile that didn’t completely diminish his exhausted state. “Of course. I thought she might like Sherlock Holmes. I know she’s a bit young, but Lulu is mature for her age. Besides, Mr. Holmes is an Englishman, so nothing he does between the covers of a book can be too alarming.” He smiled and raised his eyebrows. “I also brought you a pound of sugar.”
Laying her head on his chest, she listened to his heartbeat beneath her ear. “You’re so good to us, Peter. I think I’d rather starve than not be with you.” She closed her eyes, shutting away her tears. “Remember that time on the beach when you told me to wait for you? I thought this was the time that you wouldn’t come back. But I waited, didn’t I? I didn’t even go into Charleston because I was afraid that you’d come back and not find me.”
He put his hands on the sides of her head and kissed her lightly on the lips. “And I came back, didn’t it? I’ll always come back for you.”
Their lips met again as Peter’s arms pulled her closer to him, and Maggie closed her eyes, wishing they were somewhere more private. The bell rang again as the door opened, and they broke apart quickly when Lulu rushed to the back of the store.
Lulu stopped abruptly when she saw that her sister wasn’t alone. “What are you doing here?” she asked. Then, after Maggie had given her a nudge on the arm, she said, “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Nowak.” Her gaze dropped to the floor, where the books he’d brought had fallen, and her face brightened.
Following her gaze, Peter knelt and scooped up the books. “Yes, of course. I had to bring books back for my two favorite girls.”
Lulu blushed as Peter placed the book in her hand. With excitement, she held it up for Maggie to see. “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”
Peter turned to Maggie. “There aren’t any Nancy Drew books out that she hasn’t already read.”
“You’re more than generous. Thank you.” Maggie sent a pointed look at Lulu.
“Thank you, Mr. Nowak.”
Maggie glanced at the clock on the wall, then gave Lulu a hard look. “And why aren’t you in school? You don’t get out for another two hours.”
Lulu’s impatience to leave and start reading was evident on her face and in the way she tapped the toe of her saddle shoe on the wood floor. “Cat was throwing up when I was getting ready to leave this morning and she asked me to stay home in case she needed me.”
Maggie chewed on her lower lip. “I hope it’s not the influenza.” Lulu moved a step closer to the door. “It’s not. She’s feeling much better. That’s why she sent me here. To make sure that you remembered you have to close the store early today so we can go on all the rides. Robert promised to take me up on the Ferris wheel two times.”
“Must have been something she ate, I guess. All right. Tell her I’ll be home around three thirty to change. And tell her that Peter’s back and he’ll be coming, too.”
Lulu was already skipping toward the door. “I’ll tell her,” she said, the last word cut off by the slamming of the door.
Maggie’s smiled dimmed when she turned back to Peter, whose face was even more drawn than before. She placed the palm of her hand against his cheek. “You look exhausted. Why don’t you go back to your room and take a nap and see if you feel better? You won’t hurt my feelings if you’re not up to going.”
He placed his hand against hers, then moved her palm to his lips for a soft kiss. “I am tired. I’m sure all I need is a little rest. I promise to be there at four.”
He kissed her again before retrieving his hat from the front counter, where he’d left it, and then he exited through the front door without glancing back.
When Maggie returned to the house, she found Lulu on the front porch with her nose stuck in her new book, taking advantage of the warmer spring temperatures. Maggie greeted her but Lulu didn’t respond or even acknowledge that she was aware of the world around her.
Smiling to herself, Maggie opened the door to find Martha putting her coat on in the front hall. She was frowning, which made Maggie begin to worry. “Is Cat feeling better? You don’t think it’s the influenza, do you?”
Martha shook her head as she tightened her lips. “It ain’t the influenza, so don’t be worrying yourself about that.” She stared hard at Maggie for a moment before moving past her to the door. “But whatever it is that’s ailing Miss Cat, I don’t think it’s something you can fix.” She shook her head, then pulled the door open. “I made some chicken soup and she ate a lot of that at lunch with some crackers, so she can’t be feeling too poorly. I put the rest in the icebox for later.”
“Thanks, Martha,” Maggie said as the older woman left, shutting the door hard behind her.
Maggie ran up the stairs, pausing briefly outside Cat’s closed door before knocking and opening it a crack. Cat lay on her side facing the window. It was closed, but the blackout shades were pulled up and the curtains open, allowing the sunlight to pour over the bed like a warm drink.
Softly, Maggie said, “Cat?”
Cat moved her head slightly and smiled. “I was just thinking about you.”
“You were?” Maggie approached the bed and sat down on the corner. She placed the back of her hand against Cat’s forehead, relieved to find it cool.
“Yeah. I was remembering when we were kids, before my mama died. Remember playing half rubber with all the neighborhood kids? None of the boys wanted to let you play because you weren’t very fast. But I let Donny Rowe kiss me so he’d let you play on our side. He was right, though: you weren’t very good. But I wouldn’t let him kick you off the team.”
Maggie smoothed Cat’s hair away from her forehead. “I never knew that. I thought Donny was just being nice.”
Cat turned back toward the window. “And I was remembering when your mama died, how your daddy and everyone was turning to you to take care of Lulu and everything else, but I could see you were torn up pretty much more than anybody else but nobody was letting you cry for your mama.”
Maggie swallowed, recalling those dark days and the sadness that never really went away. “And you took me to the beach and made me run in the water with my bare feet even though it was freezing, and I got the hem of my dress all wet. The black dye ran all down my legs, and it looked so funny that I wasn’t crying anymore.”
Cat smiled and looked up at her cousin. “There’s not a lot you can’t do, Margaret O’Shea. It took me a long time to find something you needed help with.”
Maggie smiled, too, relaxing in the warmth of the room and the old camaraderie between them that had somehow been allowed to pack its bags and move on. “What’s made you think about all of this now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just tired. But I just wanted to see if you remembered, that’s all.”
Cat moved over and patted the mattress next to her, and Maggie lay down just as they had when they were girls. She felt sad and happy all at once, remembering how things had been between them while growing up together, how things had been before Jim.
They lay there without speaking for a long time, and Maggie’s eyes were beginning to drift closed until without warning Cat hopped out of the bed. Maggie sat up, watching her cousin cross the room to the window.
“That damned window. It’s so damned hot and Martha couldn’t get it open.” She hopped up on the windowsill with her bare feet.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that, Cat.”
“Well, somebody’s going to have to. I’ve had so many people look at it to see if it can be fixed, and everybody tells me no. I guess they just want me to suffocate or something.” She lifted the latch and threw her body weight against the window.
“Please, Cat—don’t! You’re going to get hurt.”
“I know what I’m doing. And apparently I’m the only person in the world who knows how to do it.” Holding on to the latch, she threw her body against the window three times until it opened. Maggie jumped up and screamed as it looked like Cat was about to go through the open window, but Cat’s hand had found purchase on the sill, her other hand still clasped around the latch.
With a brilliant smile, Cat said, “Told you,” then gently hopped down onto the bedroom floor, brushing her palms against each other.
“You’re going to hurt yourself one day, and then I’m going to tell you that I told you so.” Despite her words, Maggie couldn’t help grinning at her cousin. They were practically sisters, with the bond that went beyond shared blood—a bond that was even stronger than a deathbed promise. Regardless of the past few years, Cat was the one who’d always made Maggie laugh. The only person who could make her take herself a little less seriously. She’d needed this reminder, and she made a mental promise to herself that she’d never forget it.
Maggie glanced at the small clock on the bedside table. “It’s almost four o’clock. Are you sure you’re feeling all right to go to the carnival tonight?”
“I feel fine. Must have been a touch of a stomach bug. I’ll stay away from the cotton candy—if they even have any with sugar being so scarce.”
“Great. I’m going to go change. Robert and Peter will be here at four.” She turned toward the door and opened it.
“Peter’s coming?”
Maggie turned around slowly, not recognizing the note in Cat’s voice. Facing her again, she replied, “Yes. He came to the store and I invited him. I didn’t think anybody would mind. Lulu was supposed to tell you.”
Cat smiled, putting Maggie at ease. “I guess she forgot. But I don’t mind if he’s coming. It’ll be good to see him again.”
Maggie smiled back, then left, closing the door behind her. Yet the entire time she spent getting dressed, a niggling worry dug under her skin like an unreachable bug bite—tiny and invisible, yet undeniably there.
Robert and Peter arrived promptly at four o’clock, and Maggie was ready to greet them. Cat kept them waiting for thirty minutes before descending the stairs, looking more stunning than usual and wearing a slim pencil skirt, alligator shoes with high heels and ankle straps, and a short fur jacket. Maggie recognized the shoes as new since they were alligator instead of leather, which had been designated for strictly military use. Cat had been evasive when Maggie asked where she’d got the money to buy them, and Maggie wasn’t all that sure she wanted to know. It was too warm for fur, but Maggie could tell that the temperature had nothing to do with Cat’s choice.
Maggie felt like a little girl in her cotton dress and cork-soled wedgies, and she realized to her horror that she was dressed a lot more like Lulu.
The men stood and Cat greeted Peter briefly before approaching Robert and taking both of his hands in hers. “Darling, I’m so glad you’re back. I’ve missed you.” Then she slid her hand into the crook of his elbow and smiled at Peter and Maggie. “Shall we go?”
Robert and Cat led the way while Peter and Maggie collected Lulu from the porch, linking hands with Lulu in the middle as they made their way to Center Street, with its assortment of bars and eateries. It was the first night of the carnival’s opening for the season, and the streets were already crowded with men in uniform and women in heels and pretty dresses heading for the pier to dance. Maggie looked at them with longing and Peter caught her expression.
“Tomorrow night I’ll take you dancing again, all right?”
“Oh, please, could we?”
“Whatever you want.”
She blushed, unable to respond. Lulu looked up at her and said, “You should ask him for a million dollars, Mags.” She giggled at her own joke, then let go of their hands and surged forward to chat with a few friends ahead of her on the street.
Maggie and Peter strolled close together, almost touching but not quite. The dirt street beneath her feet and the smell of the approaching ocean all disappeared, her world shrinking to only the space between his shoulder and hers. He turned to say something to her but stopped when Robert slowed and they caught up with him.