That Summer Place: Island Time / Old Things / Private Paradise

She plopped back down in the mud with a splat, and her daughters laughed.

“Sorry,” he said through a slightly tight jaw.

She looked up at him with a stunned expression.

He shrugged. “My hand slipped.” He stuck out his hand again.

“No, thanks. I can get up on my own.” She stood then with her back to him so he couldn’t see her face.

She thought he was a handyman. And from her voice he could tell she was disappointed.

He shouldn’t have let go of her. It was vindictive.

He looked away quickly because he thought he might smile. He took a deep breath, shoved his hands into his pockets, and with a straight face he turned back around.

The older girl was looking at him suspiciously. He waited a moment, then gave her the same speculative look she was giving him.

She stared at him longer than most. He wasn’t certain how to gauge that—as teenaged stubbornness or an innate strength of character he should respect.

She finally looked down and began to fiddle with her hand.

“These are my daughters. Dana and Aly.”

He nodded to them. Daughters meant there was a father. A husband. He glanced at her hand. No ring.

The rain changed meter and began to pound down in sheets. They all looked up for a second, then Catherine touched his shoulder. “Come on to the house!”

She half-ran, half-trudged toward the house with the girls running ahead of her.

At the crooked porch, she pried off her wet tennis shoes by stepping on her heel with one foot, then did the same with the other foot. Her daughters pulled off their shoes and rushed inside, while he sat on an old bench and pulled off his mud boots.

Catherine waited for him, watching him until he stood and she had to look up. She opened the old screen door, which creaked on its hinges the way it used to.

“Come on in,” she said in a rushed voice that was breathy and still too sexy for her own good.

He felt a little numb as he followed her inside and stood there while she took his wet jacket and hung it on a hook. They went into the big old living room where a red and yellow glow from an old lava lamp made the room seem warmer.

No husband on the sofa. No man’s jacket on the hook or boots on the porch. No man.

She walked a few feet into the room and stopped so suddenly it was as if she had hit an invisible wall.

He followed her gaze to the sofa where empty soda cans and boxes and ice cream cartons littered the sofa and floor. A low table was covered with a jigsaw puzzle.

She mumbled something that sounded like a swear word, then rushed over and began to scoop together the mess.

“Girls, help me here.” She jammed soda cans under her arms and he tried not to laugh.

“Don’t mess up the puzzle, Mom,” the youngest girl said as she bent down and picked up a spoon that had fallen on the rug next to a big gray cat that was sound asleep.

From the way Catherine darted all over the place snatching up empty food containers, he could see she was embarrassed.

Both girls stood there in front of him, soaking wet and staring at him as if they expected him to do something strange, like split and multiply.

He should just leave. Take his tool belt and go back to his cabin and forget Catherine was ever here.

Instead he squatted down and gave the cat a stroke on his back. “Hey, fella.”

“He likes you.”

Michael looked up at the kid called Aly and nodded. “You sound surprised.”

“He doesn’t usually let strangers touch him. His name is Harold.”

Harold rolled over on his side and began to purr loudly.

“What would you like to drink?” Catherine called out from the kitchen where she was stuffing trash into a bag under the sink. “I don’t have beer, but I have soft drinks and plenty of coffee.”

Michael sat down on the sofa and flinched. He reached behind him and pulled out an empty aluminum can.

Cream soda.

The youngest girl giggled and took it from him. He gave her a quick wink and said to Catherine, “Coffee’s fine.”

Catherine looked at her daughters and said, “Go upstairs and change out of those wet clothes, girls. I’m not sure which one of you is the muddiest.”

Dana gave him a look as if she were weighing whether he could be trusted to be left alone with her mom.

Aly jabbed her with an elbow. “Come on.”

They went upstairs together arguing over who looked the worst.

At the top of the landing Aly stuck her head out over the stair rail and looked down just as Catherine came out of the kitchen with a tray.

“We’re both wrong, Dana.”

Catherine stopped in front of the coffee table and looked up at her daughter, who was grinning down at her.

“Mother’s the muddiest!” she said, then disappeared after her sister.

He watched Catherine’s face as she looked down at herself for the first time. He could read her expression perfectly.

Again his first thought was that he should be a gentleman and leave. Instead he stood and took the tray from her. “Go get into some dry clothes.”

She nodded and muddy hair fell into her face and stuck to her lips. She looked at him rather helplessly, then raised her chin as if she wasn’t soaked and covered in mud and she walked toward the back bedroom.

Catherine Wardwell and her stubborn pride; it was still there after all these years.

He watched her, because she was Catherine and because he didn’t want to look away, even though he knew it would make her feel less conspicuous.