Page 19 of Footprints in the Sand (Coleman #13)

Chapter Seventeen

A couple of days after the Fourth of July party at Roland and Estelle’s, Dimitra still felt like she was floating.

All these hours later, she could still feel Harry’s hand on her shoulder, his gentle whispers as he asked her if she needed another drink or something to eat.

She could still hear the Colemans doting on the puppy dog Cash, still hear how joyful they all were to welcome this strange man from South Carolina, a stranger she’d “picked up at the docks,” as he referred to it, as though he, like Cash, were just a stray dog who needed a home.

When the fireworks had exploded over the Nantucket Sound, Harry had held her from beyond and kissed her neck in a way that sent shock waves down her spine.

In the kitchen of Estelle’s place, Meghan had cornered her and asked, “What about William Cottrill? Oriana said you two had something going.”

What could Dimitra have said? That she didn’t believe true love should be something that involved money.

That she’d already had a marriage of money complications and wasn’t sure she wanted to drop herself into William Cottrill’s world of prestige and millions upon millions of dollars, of needing to impress people with all they had and all they could possibly own.

Besides, William Cottrill had made no grand suggestions about what they were to one another.

He was the type of person who wanted to “own” his artists, she thought.

If she wanted him to keep buying, she had to give him the illusion that buying her art meant buying her, sort of. But she could only take that so far.

Now, Dimitra was back in the studio, and, as the English expression went, she was cooking with gas, getting experimental with how her paint curled and wove across the canvas, how she used the flat knives against the softly-drying paint to destroy what she’d made and give it more texture.

Just today, Dimitra had been painting for nearly seven hours, forgetting to eat, to drink water.

She hadn’t even looked at her phone. Mostly what she saw when she picked it up was Eva’s social media work, messages coming in fast as ever, messages that Dimitra knew Eva would take care of when she could.

It was a relief to know Eva was halfway around the world, sleeping in Dimitra’s “new” bed, and managing the complications of her newly online life.

Dimitra wondered if she could ever do half as much for Eva.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

So surprised, Dimitra nearly leaped out of her skin, then hurried down the hall to open it.

On the stoop was Harry and Cash, golden and beautiful in the sunlight, both gazing at her as though they’d never seen anyone half as wonderful.

Dimitra suddenly couldn’t remember the last time Kostos had made her feel that way.

Early on in their marriage, maybe. Before the money problems had begun.

There had been so many money problems. So many fights.

“Harry!” she said. “I must look like a mess right now. I’m sorry.”

Harry palmed the back of his neck and smiled. “You look beautiful.”

Dimitra snorted and ushered him in. “I didn’t know you were coming by.”

“I called a few times,” Harry said. “And then I decided to just come over. It’s rude, isn’t it? I didn’t think this through.”

“It’s the Greek way,” Dimitra assured him. “I like the feeling that people can drop in on one another any time. I like this community-minded approach.”

Harry laughed nervously and followed her into the kitchen, where she poured them each glasses of chilled lemonade and filled a big bowl of ice water for Cash. It was piping-hot outside, and she guessed they got little relief on the sailboat.

When she turned to hand Harry a glass, she was filled with the memory of the night of the Fourth of July, when she’d toyed with spending the night with him on the sailboat but had, instead, slept over at Estelle and Roland’s place.

She hadn’t wanted to jump into things too quickly.

She’d seen how sorrowful he was at her “no” and had wanted to take away that confusion, that heartache.

But I’m a woman on my way out the door already , she’d wanted to say.

People were capable of hurting one another in all sorts of ways. She should know.

“I wanted to thank you for a beautiful Fourth of July,” Harry said, still looking nervous, shifting his weight.

Dimitra gestured for him to sit down. “It was so funny how it all happened,” she said nervously. “I was glad to have you there. I’m a little overwhelmed by Eva’s family. I’m sure she’s just as overwhelmed by mine.”

Harry laughed and sat down, crossing and uncrossing his legs.

Something is really wrong , Dimitra thought now. She steeled herself for whatever came next.

“I wanted to tell you something,” he said gently, rubbing his scratchy beard.

Here it comes. All the ways he’s already lied to me , Dimitra thought. Thank goodness she hadn’t given her heart to him yet. They hardly know each other. They don’t owe each other anything.

“Okay,” Dimitra said, waiting. “Shoot.”

“I have a daughter.” Immediately, Harry’s neck wilted, as though it couldn’t fully support his head.

Dimitra wet her lips and tried to guess what he meant by this. That he couldn’t commit to her because he had other obligations? She couldn’t commit either!

“That’s wonderful,” Dimitra said. “How old is she?”

“She’s fifteen. She’s, um. Well, she’s had many problems over the years. We weren’t sure what it was for a long time. It’s a form of autism that basically didn’t allow her to make friends or build a life, until now,” Harry said.

Dimitra’s heart cracked open. It’s impossible to ever know anyone , she thought. First impressions were usually wrong.

“Until now? That sounds promising?” Dimitra said.

Harry nodded. “She’s away at a camp for kids with autism, kids who are interested in art and writing and music and performing.

Surprisingly, she’s most interested in acting.

I mean, she hardly wanted to speak to anyone for her first eight years of life, and now she wants to get on a stage and memorize lines and pretend to be somebody else? It boggles my mind.”

Dimitra’s eyes filled with tears. This was a man who genuinely loved his daughter, a man who would do anything for her, who was pulling for her in every stage of life, no matter the complications. Dimitra reached out and touched his hand.

“It’s just that I see you as this really wild and free individual,” Harry went on, his eyes to the window.

“You can go wherever the wind takes you. You can move from Greece to Martha’s Vineyard to Timbuktu, if you want.

But my ‘free lifestyle’ really only lasts during the summertime, when I come here to unwind after months of hard parenting.

I’ll have to go back to South Carolina at the end of August to get Ginny ready to go back to school. ”

“Ginny,” Dimitra said, loving the sound of the girl’s name.

“Her mom and I have fifty-fifty custody,” he said.

“We split up about ten years ago, and our system has really worked for Ginny, I think. Well, she’s the type of person to tell us if it wasn’t working.

That’s the truth.” He laughed gently. “In any case, I wanted to tell you, you know, that I wasn’t this wild, free-spirited, vagabond guy. I’m really just pretending to be that.”

Dimitra raised her shoulders. “Aren’t we all just pretending? You don’t seem like you’ve pretended to be anything but yourself all your life,” she said.

Dimitra’s heart pounded. She was still touching his hand, so he adjusted so that he was holding hers instead.

“I’m sort of a sensitive guy,” Harry said finally.

“I don’t like that about myself. But after my wife left me, I fell into a depressive pit and really struggled to get my way out.

I threw myself into parenting and work and have had very, very few connections with women over the years.

And then one day, a beautiful Greek woman leaped into the water to save my dog. Was it fate?”

Dimitra laughed. “Greek mythology works in mysterious ways.”

Harry squeezed her hand and let it go. “Anyway. I needed to, um. Yeah. Clear the air. I needed to…”

But Harry didn’t have time to finish his thought. There was another knock downstairs.

Dimitra was initially stricken. William Cottrill had said he would be on the island soon and that he wanted to see what she’d been working on.

(Ironically, Dimitra had only been able to start painting again because of her wild and glittering feelings for Harry—not because of her feelings for that wealthy man back in Manhattan. But William never had to know that.)

“Are you expecting someone?” Harry asked.

“No? Maybe?” Dimitra wrung her hands and hurried over to the front door. Harry got up and stood behind her with his arms crossed. Did he want to frighten whoever it was away?

But when Dimitra opened the door, she was surprised to find a meek-looking, skinny kid of about twenty-eight, standing hunched on the stoop.

He looked underfed and as though he hadn’t slept in a while, but he was dressed in a way that might have gotten him into the country club, which was confusing.

“Hello?” Dimitra tried.

The man raised a shaking hand. “Hi. My name is Finn. I need to talk to you.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I think my girlfriend is in trouble, and I don’t know what to do.”