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  Blake added, “I’ve taken to kiting.”

  Carson’s mind did a U-turn. “As in kiteboarding?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I like it better. I go out whenever I get a free moment and some good wind.”

  Carson looked at his long, lanky body, seeing him in a new light. He wasn’t muscle-bound, which was never a look she found sexy. But in his dark brown T-shirt she could see that his muscles were hard and sinewy, typical for swimmers. Who knew? she thought with renewed interest. Mr. Predictable wasn’t so predictable after all.

  Condensation dripped from the iced tea pitcher down her arm. It was getting heavier by the minute. She boldly put the pitcher down, then dried her hands on her apron.

  “I’ve always wanted to learn to kiteboard,” she said, warming to the topic. “But I don’t see a lot of girls out there doing it. I know they do, of course, but it looks like it takes a lot of upper-body strength to handle the kite.”

  “Not especially. The arms are used for control of the kite, but you’re connected to the kite by a line that’s attached to a harness you wear like a belt. There’s a lot of core strength involved. A lot of girls are giving it a try. If you surf, you shouldn’t have any trouble.” He paused, then said, “I could give you a lesson . . .”

  There it was. The invitation, as she’d expected. And yet, not at all what she’d expected. Going to the beach to learn how to kiteboard wouldn’t really be a date—no drinks, no candles, no awkward small talk. It was a lesson, outdoors, in the daylight. If she didn’t like him, they’d say good-bye and that would be it.

  She smiled. “That’d be great. Where do you kite?”

  “Around Station Twenty-Eight.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen the kites out there. Okay, maybe I can—”

  Her response was interrupted by someone shouting out her name.

  “Caaaaaaarson Muir! Is that really you?”

  She turned her head and followed the voice to the door to see a broad-shouldered, deeply tanned man with shaggy blond hair and wearing a raggedy blue polo shirt and khaki shorts. He held out his arms and stampeded her way to lift her clear off the ground.

  “Damn, it really is you!” he exclaimed as he set her down, grinning from ear to ear.

  Carson pushed her hair from her face, laughing, flustered by both the welcome and his staggeringly beautiful blue eyes.

  “Hey, Dev!” she replied breathlessly. “Well, aren’t you a blast from the past!”

  Devlin Cassell had been a summer crush when she was in her teens. He had dated Dora for a summer, but there had been one hot and heavy kissing session between them on the beach one lazy summer evening after Dora had left for college and that’s where it had ended.

  “When did you get back?” he asked her, his eyes devouring her.

  “A few weeks ago.”

  “You staying with Mamaw?”

  “No, I’m renting a villa at Wild Dunes.”

  His eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Would I be working here if I was? Of course I’m at Mamaw’s.”

  “Good ol’ Mamaw. There’s no one like her. How is she? What’s she up to? She still hosting those big parties?”

  “No big soirées these days. But the family’s celebrating her birthday this weekend. She’s eighty years old.”

  “No kidding.” Devlin shook his head as though in disbelief. “I’ll bet she doesn’t look a day over sixty.”

  Carson laughed. “Mamaw always said you could charm the skin off a snake.”

  He laughed at that, murmuring, “Yep, that sounds about right.”

  She enjoyed the cadence of a Southern man’s chatter and realized how much she’d missed it.

  “You remember Brady and Zack?” Devlin asked, stepping back and extending his arm toward his two friends, both of similar age and attire. They’d removed their baseball caps, revealing sunburned faces and salt-dried hair. She didn’t know the men but smiled, lifting her hand in a casual wave. “Come on, pretty girl, walk with me,” Devlin said, putting his hand on the small of her back and guiding her to the bar. “I’m so dry my throat feels like a desert.”

  He smelled like he’d been drinking for hours.

  “I’m working,” she told him.

  “And I’m a paying customer.” Devlin reached the bar and slid onto a bar stool. “How’re you doing, Brian?” he called out. “Got a Guinness for me?”

  “With your name on it,” Brian replied. Devlin was a regular and welcome in the pub.

  “And one for the lady.”

  The other two men called out their beer orders and slid onto nearby stools. Carson caught Brian’s eye and lifted her brows in a nonverbal request for permission to speak to her friend. Brian discreetly nodded, then turned to work the tap.

  “So, Carson,” Devlin said, turning his head and searching Carson’s face. “You are still the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. How long are you here for?”

  Carson shrugged and sidestepped the compliment. “I don’t know. Till it’s time to leave, I suppose.”

  “No man waitin’ on you? No ring on the finger?”

  Carson shook her head. “God forbid,” she replied, then realized she’d offered the same answer as Blake Legare.

  Devlin’s eyes gleamed. “I always thought you were one fish no one was going to catch.”

  “What about you?”

  Devlin screwed up his face. “Caught and set free. Divorced last year.”

  Brian delivered the beers to the men and moved on, though she knew he wouldn’t miss a word.

  “Yeah, it was tough,” Devlin admitted, then took a long sip. “But I got my Leigh Ann out of the deal, so I guess it was worth it.”

  “You have a child, too? I’m having a hard enough time picturing you married, much less a father.”

  He shook his head ruefully. “So did my wife, apparently. In all fairness, it was my fault. I screwed up.” His face fell and he picked up his glass for a long drink.

  So he cheated, she figured. Too bad, but not entirely a surprise. Devlin wasn’t a playboy, but he was a perpetual boy who liked to play. When they’d been young, he’d been popular with everyone. He was the guy with the available boat, the surfboard to share, the cold beer—the guy who always knew which beach house on Capers Island would be empty for the weekend. Most of her friends from that time still lived in the area but had settled down into jobs, marriage, children. Even Devlin had given it a shot.

  She’d heard that Devlin was an extremely successful real estate maven on the islands. But seeing him here at midday, obviously just back from a fishing trip with his buddies, confirmed her suspicion that as a husband and father, he clearly hadn’t been able to set aside his toys and freedom in order to step up and be responsible.

  It was, she supposed, predictable.

  At the word, she glanced back at Blake’s table. Her heart sank to see it was empty. She stepped away from Devlin to walk to the table. There was no message scribbled on a piece of paper, no card with a phone number. Only a twenty-dollar bill that lay tucked under his plate.

  Carson reached down to collect the money. It was a generous tip, but she still couldn’t help but feel shortchanged.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Harper’s first good news of the day came when the pilot announced that they’d caught a tailwind and that they’d made the trip from New York to Charleston ahead of schedule. But as she put away her iPad, she suddenly wished for that extra twenty minutes to wrap up her work.

  She turned and looked out the window of the Delta jet as it broke through the clouds and began its approach to the Charleston airport. The descent sparked mixed emotions. From her vantage point, she could see the signature landscape of the lowcountry stretched out along the Atlantic Ocean. Long, winding creeks snaked their way through thousands of acres of green wetlands, looking like they’d come straight from a Mary Edna Fraser batik. It was a seductive landscape, undulating and lush. Even sensuous. It was no wonder the lowcountry was home to so many acclaimed authors,
she thought to herself. The landscape was an inspiration.

  Unfortunately, her father had never joined their ranks. Poor Daddy, she thought. Despite his dreams, he’d lacked both the discipline and the talent. Harper felt neither love nor scorn for her biological father. She’d hardly known him. Her mother had never discussed him or acknowledged their marriage, other than to give his daughter his name, and hyphenated at that. There wasn’t one photograph of him in their apartment. When Harper was old enough to ask questions, Georgiana told her only child that she’d married Parker Muir for his charm, wit, and potential. She’d divorced him because she’d discovered she’d been wrong. With an editor’s cruel succinctness, she summed it up: “Parker Muir could talk about writing better than he could write.”

  The only meeting Harper had had with her father had been at Dora’s wedding. He might still have been handsome if he hadn’t been so thin, his face marred by an alcoholic sheen. She shuddered and clutched the armrests, a last vestige of her childhood fear of flying. One gentle bump, and the plane landed smoothly on the runway. Immediately she grabbed her phone and tapped her foot as it powered up. The two-hour plane ride was an eternity to be unplugged.

  Before leaving the airport she slipped into the ladies’ room to take stock of her appearance in the mirror. She wanted to make a strong impression on Mamaw and her half sisters, showing them that though she was the youngest of the group, she was no longer the baby. She was an adult: successful and worldly.

  Her hair hung like a sheath of tangerine silk, grazing her shoulders. Her large blue eyes stared back at her like a cat’s, with slick black eyeliner and thick, dark lashes. She’d had her pale ones dyed. Before she left, she powdered her skin, covering the faint freckles that peppered her cheeks and nose.

  Harper brushed away lint from the tailored black cotton jacket and gave the hem a firm tug to smooth it where it just met her slender hips. She had to look perfect when she arrived, mature and confident. She wore tight black jeans and sexy, black, strappy high heels. They killed her feet, but they looked great. At five feet two inches, she didn’t want to be dwarfed by her sisters and Mamaw.

  Harper would be like her mother, she decided. She needed to make an entrance.

  She slipped her black designer bag over her shoulder and, with a final satisfied smile at her appearance, she muttered, “Nobody puts baby in the corner.” Then she gripped her roller bag and began walking toward the taxicabs in mincing steps.

  When Carson pulled into the driveway, she was surprised to see her usual spot in front of the garage taken by a Lexus SUV. Squeezing out of the car, she pulled her gear from the passenger seat, then let her gaze linger on the SUV. Unlike her dented and rusting blue Volvo, the silver Lexus with the South Carolina plates didn’t have a scratch; even the black leather interior was pristine. A children’s puzzle book was in the backseat, along with a red sweatshirt. It could only mean that her half sister Dora had arrived from Summerville.

  Carson sighed, annoyed. Why was she here today? Dora wasn’t expected until the weekend. It wasn’t that she wasn’t glad to see Dora, but she wasn’t feeling very social. And maybe it was selfish, but she wanted a few more days with Mamaw all to herself.

  She lugged her paddleboard from the rooftop and stored it in the garage. The scent of moss and mildew made her nose tingle. Carson followed the stone path around the thick hydrangeas to the back porch, where an outdoor shower was hidden behind an enormous, blooming gardenia. Opening the door, she sidestepped the spiderwebs in the corner and the weeds poking up through the stones and turned on the faucet. The shower only offered cold water, but on the island in the summer, the water was always lukewarm. She slipped from her beach cover-up and showered in her suit, inhaling the sweet scents of lavender soap and gardenias as she felt the tension slide from her body. After she dried off, Carson loosely braided her dripping long hair, grabbed her towel and her patchwork bag, then made her way up across the porch to the back door.

  There was a time when she would have dashed across the yard and burst through the door to greet her sisters. There would’ve been squeals and giggles and a rapid sharing of all news of the preceding year. They would speak so fast it was more a rattling off of headlines, details to be filled in later.

  So it was rather a sad state of affairs that today, instead of rushing, she slowed her steps, delaying the inevitable. When Dora had turned seventeen she’d stopped coming to Mamaw’s house for long stays and instead only visited on the occasional summer weekend with a friend in tow. Even after all these years Carson still remembered the hurt and pain of being the odd man out as the older girls whispered and giggled together.

  She remembered Dora’s wedding to Calhoun Tupper. For her half sister she’d worn an embarrassingly froufrou petal-pink bridesmaid gown with matching dyed shoes. It was an elaborate, high-society affair, the wedding Dora had always dreamed of. It would have been Carson’s nightmare. But Dora was a beautiful bride in a froth of white. Even if Carson cringed to think of poor Dora going home with that bore of a husband.

  She kicked a pebble, wondering how the distance between them had grown so great. At best, they had little left to say to one another. At worst, each looked askance at the other’s life.

  Carson pushed open the back door and stepped into the kitchen. Even with the air-conditioning, the room was steamy. Mamaw used to think air-conditioning an island house was not only ridiculous but an appalling waste of money. Carson and the girls would open the windows wide and sleep on the porch under mosquito nets. When Mamaw reached menopause, however, the hot, humid weather became so unbearable she caved under pressure and installed central air-conditioning during the renovations. Still, Mamaw couldn’t abide a cold house and kept it only cool enough not to perspire. When Lucille cooked in the summer, the system couldn’t keep up.

  Lucille stood at the stove, one hand on her hip and the other stirring a large bubbling pot. Her back had grown as crooked as a politician. Another woman with a substantial girth stood beside the wooden kitchen table, and it took a moment for Carson to realize that it was Dora. She was so much heavier than when Carson had last seen her, and so washed out. Her thin blond hair, once always so neatly coiffed, was slipping sloppily from a black elastic. Drops of perspiration formed on her neck and forehead. And who picked out that navy polka-dot dress? Carson wondered. It made her look older than Mamaw, who’d never have been caught in a garment like that.

  Dora was fanning herself with a napkin and speaking with intensity to Lucille. She glanced up when Carson entered; her fanning stopped and her eyes widened slightly with recognition.

  “Carson!”

  “Hey, Dora,” she called back with forced cheer, closing the door behind her to salvage whatever air-conditioning competed with the steam. “You’re here!” She moved toward her sister and leaned far forward to deliver a kiss. Dora’s cheek was moist from sweat. “It’s great to see you again.”

  “It’s been too long.” Then Dora’s smile froze as her gaze swept Carson in her bikini. “Well, don’t you look cool.”

  Carson felt the abrupt chill stiffen her spine. She suddenly felt like she was buck naked. “I went to the ocean. You should take a dip tomorrow. It’s going to be a hot one.”

  Dora heaved a dramatically heavy sigh. “Maybe . . . I’m a mother. I don’t have the free time you do. I guess you’re accustomed to swimming and going to the beach whenever you want to.” She smirked. “The lifestyle of the rich and famous, right?”

  Carson looked at her askance. “I’m neither rich nor famous, but I do like to swim.”

  Dora smoothed a hair off her face. “Why, aren’t you the early bird, already here in time for a swim. When did you arrive?”

  “A while ago,” Carson answered evasively, leaning over to set her bag and towel on the floor. She stepped close to Lucille, who was stirring gumbo on the enormous Viking stove, to kiss her cheek. “Smells good.”

  Lucille smiled broadly with pleasure.

  “Oh?” Dora aske
d. “When?”

  Carson turned to face her. “At the beginning of the month.”

  “You’ve been here for three weeks already?” Dora said, surprise mingling with a hint of disapproval. “Why didn’t you call?”

  “I had a lot to do when I landed and you know how fast time flies once you get here. Besides, I knew you were coming for the party and that I’d see you then. And here you are!” She looked squarely into her sister’s eyes and smiled even brighter, determined to be upbeat and ignore Dora’s increasingly rapid fanning.

  Carson prowled the kitchen table, checking out the hot sauce, the spices, the bits of sausage and shrimp. She spied a plate of cut okra and reached for it.

  “You leave my okra alone,” Lucille called out from the stove.

  Carson withdrew her hand guiltily. “I swear, you’ve got eyes in the back of your head.”

  “I need that okra for my gumbo. If you’re hungry, take some of the crackers and cheese I laid out for you.” She jerked a shoulder toward the sideboard. “Lawd, child, I can’t make a meal without you raiding my supplies. It’s always been like that.” She stopped and turned abruptly, frowning and shaking her spoon at Carson. “I opened the pantry today expecting to find a nice fig cookie to eat with my coffee and all that was left was a bunch of crumbs!”

  “I was so hungry last night . . .” Carson replied, embarrassed.

  “You ate the whole bag!”

  Carson laughed sheepishly. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll replace it.”

  “Don’t bother,” Lucille replied, mollified, as she returned to the stove. “Just next time, mind there are other people in this house who might want some.” Lucille shook her head, mumbling. “I can’t understand how you can eat like a man and still look like that.” She pointed her spoon toward Carson’s body.

  Carson just laughed but glancing over, she saw Dora’s eyes narrow as she looked at Carson’s taut, flat stomach, so flagrantly displayed in the kitchen. Carson sighed inwardly. She often received jealous looks like this, from thin and heavy women alike, especially when they watched her eating hamburgers or indulging in sweets. Envy burned in their eyes, as though they were cursing God that she could eat like that when they dieted every day and still couldn’t lose weight. Carson couldn’t stop and tell each one of them that it might have been the only food she’d eaten that day, or that she’d just run six miles or surfed in chilly ocean water for the past two hours.