Obviously, she was a nymphomaniac.
The restaurant was packed with gorgeous summer people relishing their newly tanned skin and sunburned noses, their sense of sensual freedom here on this island that had not one single traffic light, and no skyscrapers or polluted air or subways, expressways, or toll booths. The hostess led them to a small table against the wall. From here, Darcy and Nash could have a conversation—if they shouted—but they’d expected it would be like this and it was exhilarating after months of isolation. Darcy ordered her favorite appetizer: mussels from P.E.I., with hunks of thick bread to soak up the broth. She had salmon for an entrée. Nash had the swordfish, and they split their food in half and shared. They talked about the paintings they’d seen; the artists and their always attention-grabbing personal lives; the problem finding parking in town, which never seemed to be solved; the new blockbuster movie.
And all the time, under the table, Darcy stroked his leg with her foot.
When they left the restaurant, it was twilight, the long lazy twilight of summer.
“Let’s walk down to the creeks,” Nash suggested.
“Good idea.”
They ambled along companionably down the street toward the harbor, where boats and yachts and dinghies bobbed gently in the evening breeze. They strolled past the Great Harbor Yacht Club and Sayle’s fish market, and came to the beach at the harbor’s end. You could wade here, where the water scrolled in to the salt marsh grasses, but it was too shallow for swimming. In the mornings, people practiced yoga on this beach. In the day, families kayaked into the inlets, spotting egrets and osprey and dozens of gulls. Now, at twilight, the beach was empty.
They sat side by side on the sand.
“It’s still warm from the sun,” Darcy said, scooping up a palmful of sand and letting it trickle through her fingers.
“Peaceful,” Nash murmured.
It was just plain nice, Darcy thought, sitting here with Nash.
Nash said quietly, “In March, when it was cold and the crew didn’t start work until eight or nine, I got up at six and came out here to walk. Or I went to Surfside. Sometimes the Jetties. I had the beach to myself. Okay, I shared it with the gulls and the herons and the cormorants.” He paused before saying, “It fills me up somehow. Just plain being there.”
His words took her breath away, not only because she did that, too, in winter, but because he had shared something private with her.
“Wow. You’re a nature geek like me.” Darcy gave him a sideways glance. He didn’t balk at “geek,” so she continued. “I do the same thing. Sometimes I drive out to the moors and walk on the dirt roads. No one else is around and you’re right, it fills me up.”
“What are the moors like in winter?” Nash asked. “I imagine it’s bleak.”
“True…” Darcy paused to collect her thoughts. “Everything’s gray and brittle, except for the occasional cluster of pine trees. When the sky is cloudy, the entire world is gray. It’s like walking on the moon. Usually the wind is up, whistling over the island. It makes the branches of the beach plum bushes rattle. I get kind of scared, or not scared exactly, but all shivery, not just from the cold. Then I spot a break in the brush, usually near one of the ponds, and, if I look closer, I’ll see a track into the bushes and a flattened area where the deer shelter. I think of the deer, foraging for berries, then curling up together, their warmth filling their space….”
“Will you take me there this winter? I’ve never walked on the moors.”
“Yeah,” Darcy said. “Yeah, sure, I’ll take you there.”
So he was assuming they’d still be together in the winter, she thought. She leaned against his sturdy, strong torso.
Nash put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. Together they gazed out at the lights twinkling from homes in Monomoy, the lights blazing from the wide windows of the yacht club, the boats rocking in the dark blue water, the flash of light from the Brant Point Lighthouse. Except for the cry of the gulls, it was quiet. As the sky darkened, Nash’s profile blended into the shadows, and then she could scarcely see him. It was the most natural thing in the world for her to turn her face up toward his, for his mouth to come down, warm and gentle, against hers.
“We should go,” Darcy said after a while.
They held hands as they walked over the sand toward town. Along Washington Street, the harbor deepened and dozens of boats bobbed on buoys or rested in slips on the town pier. The silence of the creeks slipped away from them. Music and laughter floated over the water toward them and more and more lights lit up the street. Her house was only a few blocks from the artists’ gallery, so they walked up Main Street toward Darcy’s, listening to the street musicians, gazing at the gorgeous shop windows, until they left the noise and the lights behind and turned onto her quiet lane. At the door, Nash pulled her against him and rested his forehead on hers.
“Want to come in?” Darcy asked.
“Better not. Early day tomorrow.” He gave her a crooked grin. “I mean it this time. Stand back, woman.”
Darcy laughed. “Call me?”
“Absolutely.” He kissed her, watched her turn her key in the lock and step inside her house, then headed down her walk toward his truck.
Darcy shut the front door, walked through her house, and went down the steps to her garden. She wanted to replay this evening in her thoughts. Something had changed between her and Nash. Something had deepened. He was trusting her more…and she was trusting him more, too.
She settled in her lounger and looked up at the sky. The lights were mostly out at the Brueckners’ house. No more music drifted from the Rushes’. It was completely dark, but not completely quiet. She let her thoughts drift down to the harbor and her conversation with Nash. He had been…
Something rustled in the bushes, and then, from the Szwedas’ yard came sounds of…sex? Darcy froze. On the other side of the hedge, in the corner of the yard, a tall maple towered, its sturdy branches extending over both yards. Its wide trunk and roots would make a good hideaway, a resting place. Or a lovemaking nest. But would Boyz and Autumn really have sex outside in the yard? Boyz had never been that fond of nature.
“No, Logan, stop. I’m not ready.”
Darcy’s breath caught in her throat. It had to be Willow.
“Come on, baby. You’re so beautiful.” Logan’s voice was like melted chocolate.
“I can’t. I have to go in. This grass itches my back. And everyone’s home.”