stunning views of the beach and offered the opportunity to watch the day draw to a close in spectacular shades of orange and red.
Rachel approached the hostess stand and spoke to the woman who was directing her wait and bussing staff with crisp instructions. “Hi, Mary.”
The woman looked around and her face lit up with astonishment. “Rachel Lansing. You darling girl. Come here and give me a hug.”
At first Rachel looked overwhelmed by the warm welcome, but adapted with enthusiasm.
“Max. This is Mary. She owns the Pelican’s Roost. I used to work here back in my high school days.”
“She was one of our most popular girls.”
“Yes,” Max murmured. “I’m sure she was.”
Mary lifted a disapproving eyebrow at his dry remark. “Not like that. She was a good waitress. Always smiling. Never got an order wrong and she could charm the crankiest customers. And we get a lot of those during season.”
“I wasn’t all that,” Rachel demurred. “Dad taught me the value of hard work, that’s all.”
“Yes,” Mary said with a sigh. “God rest his soul. So, where are you living these days? The last time you were here was five or six years ago, wasn’t it? You were living in Biloxi, I think.”
“I live in Houston now. I run my own business. Lansing Employment Agency.”
“And is this handsome fellow your husband?”
Color brightened Rachel’s cheeks as she shook her head. “He’s a client, actually. We were in Pensacola on business.”
To Max’s bemusement, he resented being described as Rachel’s client. But what did he expect, that she’d announce to the world that they were soon to be lovers? Or ex-lovers? Their relationship, past, present and future, was too complicated to be easily labeled.
“Do you want to sit inside or on the deck?” Mary gathered menus.
“Outside.” Rachel grabbed Max’s hand as the restaurant owner headed off and tugged to get him moving. “Is that okay with you?”
“Outside’s fine.”
He squeezed her hand and shook off his pensive mood. This weekend was supposed to be about two uncomplicated days of sex, conversation and laughter. No need to muck it up with a bunch of pesky emotions that would confuse things. Keep it light. Keep it casual.
“Everything looks good,” he said, scanning the menu with only half his attention. The rest was caught, spellbound, by the whimsical curve of her lips as she set her arm on the railing and peered at the water. “What do you recommend?”
“I’m having the raw oysters, followed by the pan-fried grouper.” She leaned forward and whispered, “Don’t tell Mary, but it’s not as good as my dad used to make.” Then, she resumed speaking in her regular tone. “And for dessert, peach cobbler because nobody makes cobbler like the Pelican’s Roost.”
“Sounds good.”
And it was. Thirty minutes later, Max set down his fork after cleaning up every last peach cobbler crumb and exhaled. “Everything was fantastic. Why didn’t we come here five years ago?”
“We had a hard time getting dressed and going anywhere,” she reminded him with a cagey grin.
That was true. They’d been insatiable. But looking back with a clearer head, he remembered it was Rachel who’d resisted his offers to investigate the local restaurants. The one time they had gone out for dinner, she’d directed him to a town fifteen miles farther along the coast. He realized now that she hadn’t wanted to explain being with a man not her husband.
Then it struck him that this was how Nathan’s mother must have felt. Always hidden away. Always coping with the fact that she was the dirty little secret in her lover’s closet. Max had spent most of his teenage years hating his father’s mistress, blaming her for the problems in his parents’ marriage. With twenty years of resentment propping up his perception, he was dismayed to feel a twinge of sympathy for the woman.
As he drove back to his house, Rachel’s nerves became more and more obvious. She half jumped out of her skin after he parked the car in the driveway and touched her arm.
“How about we take a walk on the beach?” he offered.
“But I thought …?” she began, obviously flabbergasted.
“That I was going to pounce on you the second we got back?” He wrapped his arm around her slim waist and pulled her snug against his side. He had no intention of telling her that his body was revved up to make love, but his emotions were playing sentimental tricks on him. “I thought you’d be more receptive after a sunset stroll.”
“How thoughtful of you to consider my romantic needs.” Beneath her dry tone he heard a throb of anxiety.
Max dropped a kiss on her head. “Just shut up and enjoy the moment.”
Her chuckle vibrated against his ribs, easing the tension. They shed their shoes by the beachside stairs that led to his deck and stepped onto the warm sand. Fine white grains slipped between his toes as they strolled along the beach. The moon had risen early and shone as a narrow, white crescent against the deepening blue of the eastern sky. Max estimated it was somewhere close to low tide because they were able to walk on the hard, packed sand near the water’s edge. The breeze was too light to push the waves onto the beach with any force.
“Thank you for bringing me here this weekend,” Rachel said. “I didn’t realize how much I missed the beach until now.”
“Why’d you move away?”
She paused so long before answering, Max began wondering if she’d heard his question.
“After Dad died we went to live with his sister in Biloxi.” She settled into her story like someone perched on the edge of a soft couch, too afraid to get comfortable. “Hailey wanted to stay and graduate with her friends, but I insisted we’d be better off if we were close to family.”
“So, you don’t have any family around here? What about your mother?”
“I barely remember her. She left when I was four and Hailey was two. Didn’t have much use for us. At least that’s what Daddy said.” She slipped into a drawl that sounded very much like the local accent.
That’s when he realized she’d stripped as much Alabama out of her accent as she could at some point since leaving here.
“And you never knew your grandparents?”
“I never knew anyone from Mom’s side of the family. Sometimes it felt as if Hailey and I had been left on Daddy’s doorstep.”
“What about your other grandparents?”
“We met them a few times. They lived in Iowa and came down to visit from time to time until my grandmother got Alzheimer’s and had to be put in a nursing home.”
This was more of her background than she’d shared before. Five years ago, she’d
