His face might’ve been indecipherable, but his eyes were soft, the same way they were the other night at his cabin, after we’d rescued the foal. I fought the urge to run to him and put my hands on his face. Breathe in his jasmine scent and bare my soul—about the paperback, Esther and Doro, and the way it seemed like the island was messing with my head. But I couldn’t. I shouldn’t. Getting physical with this guy would just cloud things. I wrapped my arms around my torso, just in case my hands suddenly started acting independently of my brain.
I sighed. “So I guess we both have . . . extracurricular reasons for being here that we don’t want to discuss. But can you promise me one thing?”
“What?”
“Don’t hurt Doro. She doesn’t deserve that.”
He regarded me with a look I couldn’t quite identify. “I assure you, I don’t want to hurt Doro.” He hesitated. “Or you. That’s why I think we should just . . . play it smart. In terms of the way we”—he gestured between himself and me—“interact. I don’t think we should—”
Doro broke through the trees, wiping her forehead with a bandanna. She stuffed it in her back pocket and looked from me to Koa. “Who needs to play it smart?”
“Oh, hey, Doro,” Koa said in an unnaturally loud voice. “We were just talking.”
I grimaced. What a terrible liar.
“I was just out for a run,” I said. “And bumped into Koa.” I glanced at him. “I was telling Koa about my best friend. She got a divorce and wants to date again.”
“Ah.” Doro’s head swiveled from me to Koa. “Okay.”
The foal chose that moment to butt her bony head up under my arm, her ears swinging forward. I sprang away, but she click-clacked her hooves, lining them up with her body, and came at me again. When her oversize nose tried to snuffle under my shirt, Doro crowed.
“Will you look at that?” She put her hand out to stroke the foal. The horse danced away from her, circling around, and came at me again. I felt Doro’s eyes move from me to the foal and then back again. “She really likes you.”
Our eyes met.
Then a low, mechanical rumble reverberated through the woods. Doro craned her neck and peered through the thicket of trees. The foal skittered back to the rest of the herd, just as one of Ambletern’s Jeeps burst into view. Laila was at the wheel.
She fumbled with the clutch, and the Jeep skittered to a halt, then died. “Goddammit!” she chirped and hit the wheel with both hands.
We formed a half ring around the car, and she blinked out at us.
“There’s a guest, Doro,” she said. “Two of them. Captain Mike just dropped them at the dock.”
Doro pushed a couple of blonde strands behind her bandanna. “We’re closed to guests,” she said.
Laila nodded. “I told them that, but she . . . the woman insisted.”
Doro cut in. “I don’t care what she says, Laila. It’s my hotel, and I say it’s closed. Go back. Radio Mike. Tell him I’ll pay him for the extra fuel. And tell them I said the hotel is closed.”
Laila’s eyes slid to me, then back to Doro. Her voice lowered. “They came for her. For Meg. It’s her mother.”
KITTEN
—FROM CHAPTER 12
That night, when Fay checked on Kitten, she found the child standing in the middle of the room, every one of her windows flung open. She looked like a little marble statue, staring out into the dark.
Fay moved to the window that faced north, over the marsh. Looking down over the lawn, she saw the rectangles of plywood, the storm panels Herb had laid out on the grass, ready to be fitted to the windows. She pulled down the sash and drew the bolt and hurried Kitten to bed.
The next morning, rising before dawn, Fay saw that Herb Murphy had drilled every one of the panels to Kitten’s bedroom windows sometime in the night.
Ashley, Frances. Kitten. New York: Drake, Richards and Weems, 1976. Print.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Esther met us on the porch, her eyes starry, her face wreathed in smiles. She was wringing her hands maniacally.
“I see you’ve met my mother,” I said.
“I did,” she crowed. “And who would have thought it—me, Esther Tafton, meeting Frances Ashley? She said she’d sign a book for me, if I wanted.”
“How nice,” I said.
Doro flung open the heavy front door and strode into the shadowy foyer. Koa and I followed, Laila and Esther bringing up the rear. I tried to maintain my breathing. I was safe. These people wouldn’t let Frances come down here and destroy me. They were my friends.
When I saw her, I stopped. Let the familiar burning sensation rip through me. It was always the same, the first millisecond of laying my eyes on my mother felt like somebody had pressed defibrillator paddles against my chest, sent a slug of electricity through me. Pushing out my breath and wiping my brain.
I concentrated on staying vertical. The last thing I needed was another fainting spell. I had to be strong now. Fight.
On first inspection, Frances looked the same as always. Tall. On the too-thin side of svelte. Prettier and younger looking than most women her age. She wore an expensive emerald-green dress and stilettos. Crimson lipstick. Batwing sweep of eyeliner. Today, though, there was one significant difference about my mother’s appearance: her red hair, which was usually smoothed back in her impeccable signature chignon, tumbled over her shoulders instead, in an avalanche of messy waves. This made her look impossibly sexy, like she’d just been making out with her boyfriend in the backseat of his car. It was wholly disconcerting.
For some reason, it infuriated me.
And then another thing struck me. Her eyes were wide and bright with unshed tears. Which was not, on any level, normal. My mother never cried.
She was drifting along the walls, surveying the room. Occasionally, she would lower her hand to a picture frame or paperweight, then withdraw it before she actually made contact. It was like the room fascinated her—pulling her in and repelling her at the same.
One finger pressed her lips. They appeared to be trembling. She turned to us, her audience.
Here we go.
“It’s just like I remember,” she said in a tremulous whisper. The sun, leaking through a crack in the heavy curtains, bathed her in a weak, watery light. She was either genuinely moved or putting on a show for the crowd. I was inclined toward the latter, but either way, it was a hell of a thing to witness Frances Ashley welling up.
I glanced across the room. Beno?t, a skinny man in his midforties with a mop of dark curls and an overly tailored Italian suit, receded into the shadows beside a wing chair. Good. That’s where he belonged. In the background. He raised a hand and sent me what he probably considered a stepfatherly smile. I looked away.
Beside me, Doro planted her hands on her hips, and I felt a tidal wave of confidence wash over me. Next to Frances, she looked like some kind of bedraggled vagabond. Her shirt was dirty. Her work pants were cinched up with a cracked leather belt. My mother stopped at the gleaming bar and glanced across the room at her. I wondered, wildly, for a moment if the two of them would crouch and begin circling like a couple of cage fighters.