Two from the Heart(24)

When the breeze picked up and whipped my hair into my face, I remembered the gusty morning of Hurricane Claire. Strangely, it felt like a lifetime ago. As I stood there, rooted in the sand, my feet grew numb with cold, and eventually I began to cry. I told myself this was a good place to do it: once my warm, salty tears fell into the cold, salty ocean, no one would be able to tell them apart.

Then through bleary eyes I saw someone coming toward me on the sand—a tall figure, walking quickly and waving.

I squinted in the bright sunshine.

It was Julian.





Chapter 27


HE WAS wearing a dark suit and Italian loafers; he looked handsome and utterly out of place on the windswept beach.

“Julian?” I asked, incredulous—as if it could possibly be someone else.

“You’d said you might come out here today,” he explained. “And when you didn’t answer my texts.…” His voice trailed off.

I sniffled and tried to wipe my eyes discreetly. I hoped it wasn’t obvious that I’d been crying. “But why are you here?”

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since yesterday,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say to that. “But what—”

“Say you’ll spend the afternoon with me,” he interrupted.

I turned toward the water again. As the wave receded it seemed as if the ocean were pulling away from me. Why on earth would I say no? “All right,” I said. “Of course.”

“Can we walk?” he asked.

He was gazing at my bare feet; he seemed to have a hard time meeting my eyes. Yesterday he’d been so cool and charming, but today he seemed skittish. Nervous.

We walked along the beach in silence for a little while. Then, because someone had to say something, I asked, “How was your meeting yesterday?”

Julian sighed. “Well, that particular client wants to leave his body to science and his money to his pet llama, if you can believe it,” he said. “When I suggested that there were more deserving beneficiaries—for the money, anyway; science can have the old codger if it wants him—he smirked at me. I loathe smirking and anyone who does it. I can’t even stand the word itself.” He shook his head. “Wait, why am I going on like this?

“I asked,” I said, following him as he veered off the beach and onto a narrow path that wound between high, grassy dunes.

“I think he’s just pulling my leg, honestly, and he’s got so much money that it doesn’t matter if he’s paying me three hundred an hour to do it.”

“Maybe he’s lonely,” I suggested.

“Then he could play golf, or join the Elks. I have better ways to spend my time.” Julian swiped at a clump of beach grass, and then he smiled to himself. “Like taking a walk with Anne McWilliams, formerly of Andover, Massachusetts.”

“Thank you, I’m flattered,” I said, laughing. “Even if a grouchy old weirdo doesn’t offer much in the way of competition.”

We turned a corner, and the path narrowed even more before stopping at the far end of the dunes. But we weren’t at the parking lot now, which I’d expected. Instead, we were standing at the edge of a manicured green lawn, dotted with clusters of Adirondack chairs. A hundred yards away stood a small, quaint seaside inn.

Our conversation, which had barely begun, stopped immediately. I suddenly understood why Julian had come to find me.

He finally looked me in the eyes, and I looked back at him. I knew what he’d hoped would happen next.

And almost imperceptibly, I nodded.





Chapter 28


WE WALKED into the lobby, where Julian paid for a room. We didn’t say anything until we were standing in the middle of a suite with yellow wallpaper and French doors that opened onto a tiny patio. My cheeks felt hot—whether from sun or self-consciousness, I wasn’t sure.

“The obligatory bottle of Napa Chardonnay,” Julian said, lifting a bottle from its bucket of ice. “A glass?”

I took it with slightly trembling hands and set it down without taking a sip. I noticed he did the same.

Then we smiled at each other, not quite certain how to begin.

“May I kiss you?” Julian asked softly.

It was so romantic—so silly—that he asked. That was why we were here. But he’d always been a gentleman, even at seventeen.

I nodded and moved toward him. Taking a deep breath, I slid my hands around his waist and tilted my face up toward his. He hesitated for a single instant, and then he leaned down. His kiss was so tender that I thought I might cry again.

It had been such a long time.

Our mouths quickly grew hungry. I took his bottom lip between my teeth because he used to like it when I did that. He slipped off my shirt and then my bra. His hands, his devouring kisses, were everywhere. I felt like every nerve was singing.

“Let me look at you,” he whispered.

I lay down on the bed and let him take me in. I knew that I’d changed, that I wasn’t the radiant, blossoming thing I’d been the last time we saw each other, but I didn’t care; right here, right now, I loved my body more than I ever did when I was young. Julian wasn’t the skinny poet boy he’d been, either; his chest was broad and tanned and no longer hairless. I reached out and pulled him to me, skin to skin.