Before We Were Yours(61)

“I should go.” As if on cue, the cellphone in my pocket vibrates, the real world breaking in. My chair squeals as I push back. The sound seems to stop Trent unexpectedly. Was he really thinking of letting me into the workshop tonight? Or was he thinking of something…more intimate?

I ignore the phone and thank him for giving me the envelope, then add, “Maybe we could meet tomorrow?” In the bright, clear light of day. “Look at whatever else is left?” I’m taking a risk either way I play this. By tomorrow, Trent may have rethought everything. But here, tonight, there are risks of a different kind. “I’ve imposed on you way too long. It was incredibly rude of me to call this late. I’m sorry…I’ve just been so…desperate to figure things out.”

He stifles a yawn, blinks, and forces his eyelids upward. “It’s not a problem. I’m a night owl.”

“I can tell,” I joke, and a laugh escapes him.

“Tomorrow.” He speaks the word like a promise. “It’ll have to be after work. I’ve got a full day. I’ll see if Aunt Lou can keep Jonah a couple extra hours.”

The commitment is a relief. I just hope he feels the same way after he thinks about this. “I’ll see you in the evening then. Just let me know what time. Oh, and don’t leave Jonah at his aunt’s on my account. I have triplet two-year-old nephews. I love little boys.” Gathering Grandma Judy’s papers and my flashlight, I take a step toward the door, then stop, looking for a pencil and something to write on. “I should give you my phone number.”

“I have it.” He pulls a face. “On my cellphone about…two hundred times.”

That should be embarrassing, but instead we laugh together. He turns toward the hallway. “Let me put Jonah down, and I’ll walk you out to the beach and watch you till you get home.”

My head says no, but I have to force myself to form the words. “It’s okay. I know the way.” Outside the window, the night is alive with moonglow, the water glistening through the palms around the cottage’s backyard. Confederate rose and jasmine stir in the sea breeze. It’s a perfect combination. The kind only the Lowcountry can create.

He casts a look my way. “It is the middle of the night. Let me be a gentleman about it at least.”

I wait while he puts Jonah to bed; then we cross the back porch together and descend the steps. The breeze off the water catches my hair, swirling it into the air, skimming my skin and slipping down my T-shirt. At the bottom of the stairs, I glance at the small slave cabin, study the old wood-paned windows, six of them, that run all the way across the front porch. Are answers hiding behind the salt-hazed glass?

“It dates from around 1850.” Trent seems to be fishing for conversation. Maybe we both feel the awkward pressure of a setting that begs for something more than casual chatter. “Granddad moved it here himself when he purchased the property. He originally used it as an office. This tract was his first real estate deal. He bought the acreage adjacent to the Myers cottage and divided it for this house and the two between.”

Another connection between Trent Turner, Sr., and my grandmother. Obviously, they knew each other a long time. Did she enlist him to help her look for someone because she knew he dabbled in such things? Or did his dabbling lead him to my grandmother? Did she suggest that he buy the property next to the cottage? Is the current Trent Turner really as much in the dark about these family connections as I am? Has one generation lived intricately intertwined lives that were, for whatever reason, hidden from the next?

The questions tie my brain in knots as we stop at the beach path, where sea oats glisten like strings of spun glass in the moonlight. “Nice night,” he says.

“Yes, it is.”

“Watch out. Tide’s coming up. You’ll get your feet wet.” He nods toward the sea, and I can’t help but look. A trail of glistening waves leads to the moon, and a starry carpet glows impossibly bright overhead. How long since I’ve just sat in the dark and enjoyed a night like this? Suddenly, I’m so very hungry for it. I’m hungry for water and sky and days that aren’t divided by the tiny squares in an appointment book.

Did my grandmother feel this way? Was that the reason she came here so often?

“Thanks again…for letting me interrupt your evening.” I take a backward step from grass to sand. Something scuttles past my foot, and I squeal.

“Better turn on the flashlight.”

The last thing I see before surrounding myself with a sphere of artificial illumination is Trent grinning at me.

I turn and walk away, knowing he is watching.

My phone buzzes again, and when I pull it from my pocket, it’s like a gateway to another world. I’m quick to step through. I need something familiar and safe to focus on after that strange moment on the beach with Trent.

But Abby? From the office in Baltimore? Why would she be calling me in the wee hours of the morning?

When I answer, she’s breathless. “Avery, there you are. Is everything all right? I got this crazy email from you a while ago.”

I laugh. “Oh, Abby, I’m sorry. I meant to send that to myself.”

“You have to tell yourself where you’re going now? That’s what the posh life in South Carolina has done to you?” Abby is a no-nonsense D.C. girl, an achiever who pulled herself up from public housing to a law degree. She’s also a fabulous federal prosecutor. I miss having lunch with her and putting our heads together about ongoing cases.