were as close as family.” He saw her expression change. “You don’t believe friends can be like family?”
“Oh, yes.” There was a faraway look in her eyes. “I do believe that. Sometimes they can be better than family.”
So, her own family had let her down.
He filed that fact away. “Over the years their meetings changed. When they had young children, it was a toddler group, a way of getting out of the house and breaking up the Maine winter. When the children were older, they turned it into a hiking club for a short time, and there was one summer when they took up kayaking. In the winter there was yoga, art—that was when the episode of the nude life drawing happened—and right now it’s a book group.” After he’d left home he’d stopped reading for a while. He put it down to all the times he’d read Green Eggs and Ham to Rachel.
“Where do they meet?”
“They used to meet in each other’s houses, but now that’s too much work for one person to cope with, so I let them use one of our function rooms, and provide the food.”
“You own this place?” Curious, she glanced around. “It’s busy. You’re obviously doing something right.”
“Took a lot of effort to design something that satisfied everyone. We needed it to work for the community.” And he’d needed it to work for him. “The buildings and the marina were already here, but we made improvements, increased the number of member moorings and guest moorings, offered boat maintenance and a valet service. The first thing I did was employ a club manager. We had this huge building that was basically unused, so I converted it into apartments and kept the top one for myself. Then we developed this place and called the whole thing the Ocean Club. I worked on the principle that people who have just spent time at sea are happy to crash at the first decent place they find. We’re full most nights in the summer.”
“You’ve lived here all your life?”
“No. Like most people, I moved away, just to check there wasn’t anything better out there.”
“And was there?”
He thought about what he’d seen. The life he’d led. His shoulder throbbed, and he forced himself to relax because tension made it worse. “It was different. I grew up on this island. My grandfather was a lobsterman. My father took a different route. He spent time in the merchant marine and then joined the crew of the schooner Alice Rose, sailing around the coast.”
“I don’t know anything about boats.”
Ryan wondered once again what she was doing on this island, where sailing was the main preoccupation. “That’s a schooner.” He pointed, and she turned her head reluctantly, leaving him with the feeling that if she could have found somewhere else to look she would have done so. “See the two masts? Some have more, but two is common. They have shallower drafts, perfect for coastal waters, and the way they’re rigged makes them easier to handle in the changing winds along the coast, so they need a smaller crew.”
Lizzy craned her neck. “It looks like a pirate ship.”
Remembering Rachel saying the same, Ryan smiled. “My father became captain. He taught seamanship and navigation and then decided the teamwork needed to sail the Alice Rose should be transferable to the corporate world, so he persuaded a few of the big companies in Boston to send their executives up here. The rest of the time he offered coastal cruises to tourists and twice a year he ran bird-watching trips around the islands. He believed that the best way to see the sea, the islands and the wildlife was from the deck of the Alice Rose.”
Lizzy put down her empty glass. She had a ring of chocolate milk around her lips, and the breeze had whipped color into her cheeks. “Was he a pirate?”
“No. The opposite. He was a pioneer of sustainable ecotourism, which basically means he loved nature and tried to make sure that everything he did helped the island. He donated part of his profits to local conservation projects, particularly the protection of the puffins.”
“What’s a puffin?”
“It’s a seabird. They used to nest on these islands a long time ago. Conservation experts have been finding ways to bring them back.”
“This is their home? That’s why it’s called Puffin Island?”
“Yes, although now the puffin colony is on Puffin Rock.” He pointed to the small uninhabited island just visible in the distance. “They lay one egg a year, and young puffins usually return to breed on the same island where they hatched.”
“That’s fascinating.” Emily glanced at him, curious, and he noticed the dark flecks in her green eyes. The dark smudges under those eyes told him that whatever her trouble was, it was keeping her awake. Presumably it was also affecting her appetite given that all she’d ordered was coffee.
“I guess they have a sort of homing instinct.” He’d done the same, hadn’t he? In the end he’d dragged himself back here, to the place where he’d been born.
Lizzy’s eyes were huge. “Can we see them?”
“You can take a boat trip. Humans can’t get too close because otherwise they scare the puffins. Where is home to you?”
“New York.” It was Emily who spoke, and he noticed she glanced at Lizzy and gave a brief shake of her head. He wondered what the child would have said without that warning glance to silence her.
Without looking at him, Emily reached for a napkin and carefully wiped the milk from Lizzy’s mouth. It was a natural response, something he’d done himself when his sister was very young, but something about the way she did it made him think it was new to her.
“You said you met Brittany at college. What were you studying?”
“Applied math and economics. We had rooms next door to each other.”
“You, Brittany and—” he searched for the name “—Skylar.”
“You know Sky?”
“No. But I’ve heard Brittany talk about her.
“So did Brit fill her room with skulls and old coins she’d dug up from the ground?”
Her brief smile was cut off by the sudden burst of loud laughter from a group behind them. She turned her head quickly, and her gaze was caught by something. A glance became a stare, and whatever it was that had drawn her attention unsettled her because her face lost color. Her smile gone, she fumbled blindly for her bag and stood up. “We should go. Thank you for the drink.”
Ryan rose, too, and caught her arm. “Why the rush?” Standing this close, he caught the scent of her hair, saw the unusual blend of colors up close and acknowledged that his interest in her stemmed from something deeper than the desire to keep a promise made to a friend.
There was a cool breeze, but all he could feel was heat, and the strength of the attraction almost rocked him off his feet.
Her mouth was right there, and he knew if it hadn’t been for Lizzy he would have kissed her. Maybe she would have slapped his face, but he would have been willing to take that chance.
The few relationships he’d had since his return
