The House on Mermaid Point

Chapter Thirty-five

She awoke to the sound of something hitting her window. She curled into a tighter ball and pulled the pillow over her ears to try to block the sound.

“Maddie?”

She yawned, kept her eyes tightly shut. She had pretty much decided not to ever get up again.

“Hey!” Heavy footsteps sounded on the deck of the houseboat. There was a brisk knock on the outer cabin door. More footsteps.

She flopped over but didn’t open her eyes.

“You’re not still sleeping?” William Hightower’s voice was laced with amusement and feigned horror. “If you don’t get up you’re going to miss the entire holiday.”

She peeled one eye open and saw him filling the doorway, all good humor and spirits and sun-bronzed skin. “What time is it?”

“Time for a soak in the hot tub; it’ll make your arm muscles feel better. And we can see the fireworks all the way up and down U.S. 1 from there.”

She sat up, clutching her pillow against her chest. She had a vague sense of her hair sticking up in multiple directions and could practically feel the imprint of the pillow on her cheek. “Just gimme another hour and I’ll be right with you.”

“Nope.” He pulled the pillow out of her hands. “Come on! You’ll miss the fireworks. I’ve got food and drink ready.”

Both eyes were open now. She saw that he wore only bathing trunks and a smile.

“Just put on a suit. If you’re not there in five minutes I’ll come back and carry you.”

“Fine.” After he left she put on her suit and slipped a long shirt over it. When she got there he was already in the hot tub. A tray with glasses, an open bottle of white wine, and an assortment of paper plates sat near the edge. Her heart stilled at the sight of the bottle and she pulled off her shirt without a second thought and climbed into the tub.

“No alcohol on the island.” It was the first thing she said. “You shouldn’t—”

“I’m not drinking. You are.”

“But—”

“It’s okay, Maddie. Would you feel better if I put it in a Coke can?”

So much for their attempts at camouflage.

“If I can’t keep from drinking every time someone else around me does, then I guess I need to head back to rehab.” He put the wineglass in her hand. “It’s okay. I’m not tempted.” He gave her the crooked smile that made her heart beat faster. “At least not by the wine.”

She took a sip and felt the cool crispness slip down her throat. She tried not to look like she was enjoying it.

“It’s okay, really. I’ll let you know if I have an overpowering urge to wrestle the glass out of your hand and mainline the Chardonnay.”

“All right.” She raised the glass back to her lips. “Today, at least, you seem to be the boss.”

“Good. Then eat up.” He moved the plate of crackers topped with cheese and slices of cold meats toward her. “There’s a frozen pizza if we want it later. I thought you might not appreciate fish tonight.”

“Too true. And I have a steak in the houseboat refrigerator.” She set the wineglass aside and knew that the last thing on her mind was food. Between the jets stirring the warm water around their bare skin, the wine, and William’s proximity she felt simultaneously relaxed and seriously on edge. She leaned her head against the back of the hot tub and let her legs float out in front of her.

They fell silent as they watched the bright yellow sun, lit from within, glowing in the center of a reddening sky.

“So, Madeline Singer, I’ve been wondering. How does a nice woman like you end up on reality television renovating a house for a not-so-nice person like me?”

“Short version or long?”

“I’ve got all night.” He said this simply, but the promise in the words shot goose bumps across her skin.

She told him pretty much everything from Steve’s confession that they’d lost their savings and his job to Malcolm Dyer’s Ponzi scheme to how odd it felt to be single after more than a quarter century with someone. She checked his face occasionally, prepared to stop the moment he began to look bored, but that never happened. He asked questions about Kyra and Andrew and listened intently when she tried to explain how closely linked her fear and excitement over the future were. The sun had sunk out of sight, leaving only a dusty red sky, by the time she finished. She’d consumed almost half the bottle of wine; her body and her mind floated gently. She began to have more sympathy for Kyra’s struggle to resist a handsome celebrity.

William leaned over and brushed her lips with his, a soft exploratory kiss that thrilled and warmed her. “You’re a surprising woman, Madeline Singer.”

She sighed against his lips. “Only because you’ve never spent more than five minutes anywhere near a suburban housewife.”

“My loss.” He kissed her again, more thoroughly this time. She knew she should put some distance between them, but her body seemed to be developing a mind of its own.

“Is it my turn?” she asked when she’d convinced her lips to let go of his. “To ask a question, I mean?”

“It’s your turn for whatever you want, Maddie.” His dark eyes plumbed hers and she wondered what he saw there.

“Tell me why you don’t make music or even listen to it anymore.”

His eyes flared with surprise. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

“I’m trying to learn to be direct.”

He laughed softly, shook his head. His discomfort was apparent. “Short version or long?”

“Up to you,” she said. “But I’ve got all night.”

She watched him absorb this. Watched him run a hand through his hair in a gesture she was beginning to recognize.

“When I was growing up we were poor and my parents were drunk most of the time. It was all I knew. But sometimes, when I was listening to music, I didn’t even notice. I loved R and B, soul, jazz, gospel, country. Didn’t matter. My most prized possession was a transistor radio I got at Goodwill. When I was twelve I saved up every penny I could get my hands on and bought this banged-up old guitar. And I taught myself to play it.”

She recognized scraps of this from the interviews and articles she’d inhaled as a teen, but she’d never imagined the raw hurt in his voice that she heard now. “For a long time the music filled me up, lifted me. Hell, it yanked me and Tommy right out of there.” He smiled sadly. “It was always in my head. And the words? They just came. Like a gift from God that I was too stupid and full of myself to ever question.”

He drew a deep breath and even though he was looking right at her, she knew it wasn’t her he was seeing. “Then I lost my brother. And Susannah. And James, our drummer, who was like a second brother. It’s hard to stand up to the kind of excess we heaped on ourselves.”

She held her breath, not wanting to interrupt the words that poured out of him. She wanted to comfort him, give him something that would take away at least some of the pain, but she just held still and listened. “And then one day when I was thinking the gift was mine no matter how badly I abused it, it was gone. And I knew it was taken away because I hadn’t lived up to it. I hadn’t respected it. I didn’t deserve it.”

She didn’t know what to say.

“I have swallowed, inhaled, and shot up every numbing agent I could think of. I’ve tried to blot out the absence every way possible, but it’s like this big yawning emptiness inside me. As if somebody reached inside my skin and ripped me open and everything important seeped right out of me.” He reached a hand out to trace her cheek with his fingers. “It’s even harder now that I’m sober. Because every beautiful thing I listen to reminds me of what I frittered away.”

She reached for him then, wrapped her arms around him, pressed herself against him. His hands cupped her bottom and he lifted her up so that her legs wrapped weightless around him. “It’s not gone. The words are yours; they came from your heart, not some mysterious place in the universe.” She didn’t know where the assurances came from, but she had no doubt they were true. “You have to stop punishing yourself. You have to believe. You—”

He kissed her deeply, cutting off her words, though she had no idea if that was his intent or if he felt what coursed between them as powerfully as she did. His flesh was hard and slippery against hers. His arms strong as he turned and pressed her up against the side of the hot tub. “Open your eyes, Maddie. I need to be sure you understand and that you want what’s about to happen.”

She looked him straight in the eye and nodded as he slipped the straps of her bathing suit off her shoulders and lowered his mouth to her breasts. “I do.” She said this as clearly as she could while holding on against the sensations that spiraled through her. “I want you. I want you right now.”

Then she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the moment, promising herself that no matter what happened next she would not regret this.