Surfside Sisters(67)

    “Marry him!” Norah ordered. “Marry him and make him buy a house on the island!”

Keely laughed. “I’ll have to wait for him to ask me first.”

Later that evening, as she showered off the sand and shampooed her hair and checked out the healthy glow on her cheeks from the sun, Keely couldn’t help laughing, and she didn’t know why. She was, quite simply, happy.



* * *



—

Sebastian arrived the next day in his ancient, rattling, but beloved Jeep, the one he’d bought with his own money in high school. He wore board shorts and a T-shirt. Keely wore capris and a T-shirt, too, one of the three thousand tees she’d tried on that morning to find the most attractive one that also seemed less flirtatious. All of which was a lot to ask from a T-shirt.

He didn’t just honk his horn, but came to the door and knocked. Keely was waiting. She called, “Goodbye, Mom!” and squeezed outside before Sebastian could get a look at her mother ensconced in her recliner in front of the TV.

    “Hey,” Sebastian said, and kissed Keely’s cheek.

“Hey.” As they walked to the Jeep, she said, “So now will you tell me what we’re doing today?”

“Nope. But I guarantee you’ll love it.”

He drove from Keely’s house, away from town and down the road to Madaket.

“Hmm,” Keely said. “I don’t think you have a boat moored out there.”

“Nope.”

“You’re driving us to Take It or Leave It to treasure hunt.”

“Uh-uh. That will be our next date.”

After that remark, Keely didn’t speak, because she couldn’t get her breath. Sebastian thought there would be another date? She sneaked a sideways look at him. Yup, as gorgeous as always. Maybe even more so, now that an early tan set off his blue eyes and blond hair. Had his legs always been so long or was it simply that she hadn’t seen him in board shorts for a while?

He turned off onto Crooked Lane, a short, winding street leading to Cliff Road.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Keely said.

He made a left turn and pulled into the parking lot of the animal hospital.

“You’re going to have a chip put in my neck so you can find me whenever you want me,” Keely joked.

Sebastian looked her right in the eye and grinned. “Nope, but that’s not a bad idea.”

Once again, she was breathless.

“I volunteer several days a week at Safe Harbor, the shelter for animals waiting for adoption. Remember Fido? He went to dog heaven a few years ago. I can’t keep a dog in my apartment. But the shelter always has several animals waiting here. I come out to take the dogs for a walk, to spend some human time with them. It makes them happy, and it makes me happy. I thought you’d enjoy it, too.”

“I do like dogs…”

    “Come on,” Sebastian said. “Wait till you meet the gang.”

They went around the side of the building. There, in large, clean, wire pens were four dogs of various sizes and breeds.

Sebastian led Keely into the office, which was filled with smaller cages, each one home to a cat.

“Sebastian!” Nadine, the manager, jumped up and hugged Sebastian. “Hooray, you’re here. The beasts are so ready.”

“Nadine, I’ve brought a friend to help. You remember Keely Green from school.”

“Sure do.” Nadine folded Keely in her arms, then held her away, studying her. “Okay, you’ll get Missy. She’s the quietest of them all. Sebastian, you can take whoever you want. But remember, both of you, when you’ve got them outside on leashes, they have to obey you. You can’t let them run off like they want to do.”

“But we can run with them, right?” Sebastian asked.

“Right. And don’t forget these.” She handed them each a plastic bag. “For picking up doggie doo,” Nadine told Keely.

So Keely spent most of her afternoon on one end of a green leash with a small mixed-breed female dog who preferred sitting in Keely’s lap and being petted to running alongside Sebastian and his leaping, twisting, barking, hyperactive hound. Keely did get Missy to take a nice long walk, and at one point in the afternoon, she leaned against a tree with Missy licking her face and watched Sebastian on the ground, wrestling with a deliriously happy rottweiler/who-knew-what mix named Mike Tyson.

“Who’s a pretty girl?” Keely asked the small furry creature as she scratched Missy’s pink belly while Missy lay with her eyes closed in ecstasy. Missy really was pretty, with curly white hair and a black button nose. Keely envisioned buying her a pink collar with rhinestones and giving her to her mother. That would get Eloise out of the house!

In the distance, two other volunteers romped with two other dogs, a greyhound and a black Lab.

“They’re not as pretty as you,” Keely whispered in Missy’s ear. Missy wagged her tail in agreement.

    When the time came to return the dogs to their kennels, Missy turned in the doorway and shot Keely a beseeching look.

“She likes you,” Nadine said. “She hasn’t liked anyone the way she likes you.”

“I can’t,” Keely said, backing away. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be on the island, and I don’t have room for a dog in my apartment in the city.”