Page 14 of Hush (The Seaside Saga #25)

THE JIG IS UP.

Shane told Jason and Maris that he’d drive Celia home. And the whole way back to Stony Point, he can’t get those words out of his thoughts.

Not while Celia settles in the passenger seat; not while he pulls out of The Sand Bar’s parking lot; not while cruising the dark, winding roads; not while he approaches the stone train trestle.

The jig is up.

Hell, all his jigs are up.

The Barlow stairway that gave him a reason for being here.

His short-term cottage rental giving him a place to rest his head at Stony Point.

His bout of unemployment from lobstering.

“With the stairs done,” Shane quietly says to Celia now, “there’s just no reason to put off the captain. ”

“And you absolutely won’t, Shane. You’ve got to be there.”

“Roger that. Captain’s expecting me.”

“And I knew this was coming,” Celia’s voice reaches him in the dark truck cab. With every streetlight they pass, a dull flash of light cuts through the truck. “But I tried to pretend it wasn’t,” she admits then.

“Me, too.” Shane turns off Shore Road and veers beneath the stone train trestle.

“I’ll be leaving first thing Saturday morning.

So do know that until then?” he goes on at the stop sign, then slowly drives the gritty beach roads.

“I’m going to grab any possible minutes, seconds, moments with you that I can—even in an annoying way.

Right until I’m out the door and leaving beneath that trestle again.

” As he says it, he glances in the rearview mirror toward that blessed trestle that giveth—oh, yes it does—and is about to taketh away.

Celia says nothing as they pass dark cottages huddled side by side against the October night. Shane only feels her touch when she reaches over and briefly squeezes his arm.

And when he pulls up alongside the little shingled guest cottage with pale lamplight glowing in a few windows, he feels something more. Melancholy—if he had to name it. He thinks of Celia babyproofing her cottage earlier today. Of Celia living her daily life—not a substitute life.

Maybe, hell maybe he wanted to sit right with her at that dance recital tonight.

Maybe he wanted to be a visible part of her days.

Not the part that kisses her goodnight, then lets her off in the darkness to run inside to her home.

Her baby. To relieve the babysitter and settle in alone with a cup of tea .

Shane watches Celia Gray’s silhouette cross the lawn.

The sight is almost ethereal as she’s in and out of shadows until unlocking the front door, swinging it open to lightness, then closing the door against the night.

How long can the jig be kept up?

***

Maybe Elsa likes this better.

Better than the crowded, noisy community center auditorium.

Better than the din of The Sand Bar, too.

Yes. Here, it’s better.

Better behind the closed accordion door separating the office from Cliff’s living quarters in the Stony Point Beach Association trailer.

Here, a Dean Martin album spins on the record player—not on a commercial PA system.

Here, there’s a crackling hiss of needle on vinyl.

Here, Mambo Italiano plays quietly as Cliff shows Elsa some of his dance steps.

Cliff had cleared a spot near his four-panel room divider. The panels are made of embossed metal tiles the color of the pale sea. Those tiles shimmer in the trailer’s dull illumination. Tonight, that light comes from a lamp on the end table beside Cliff’s brown-suede futon.

While the song plays on, as Dino croons about going nowhere if you’re going to be a square, Cliff places a hand on his belt buckle and swivels around in a circle, with Elsa matching his dancing—move for move.

When Cliff tips his head at her and holds his cowboy hat in place, she reaches up and nudges it to a saucy angle.

And runs her fingers across his scruffy jaw while his blue eyes watch her.

“I like that cowboy-hat attitude, Cliff,” Elsa says while side-stepping in her midi-length gray denim dress and shimmying her extended fingers. She gives her booted feet a little stomp, too. “How do you channel that dancing?”

“Onstage,” Cliff explains, looping an arm around Elsa’s waist as they step right two-three-four, “you have to be very egotistical.” He takes her in his arms then—as though to waltz—not to do a slow two-step together.

But that’s what they do— quick one-two, slower three-four.

“Onstage,” Cliff goes on, his voice dropping, “it’s all a show. ”

Elsa does her own two-step, this time two-stepping closer to Cliff. “And offstage?” she softly asks.

“No ego at all.” With one arm around her waist, and their other hands linked, Cliff two-steps Elsa backward. Two quick, two even slower. Their booted feet barely move now. “There’s no show here,” he assures her. “It’s all very real.” He bends then and kisses Elsa.

And oh, Elsa feels it. The very real, no-show kiss. One that goes on for a few more slow, slow two-steps in the dimly lit trailer. One that has Cliff’s hand rise from her waist and cradle her neck, pulling her even closer.

Closer beside that four-panel room divider beside a certain plush, brown futon.

Elsa smiles into that kiss, getting Cliff to pull back. “You know something? I fell a little harder for you tonight, Mr. Raines,” she whispers as the record player spins and Dean Martin sings about not knowing what’s cooking unless you mambo Italiano.

So Elsa does. She doesn’t tarantella. She doesn’t rumba .

Because, oh she knows what’s cooking, all right. Namely, some honest-to-goodness il fare l’amore .

“I fell a little… head over boots tonight,” she goes on, mamboing back two more steps while unbuttoning the top buttons of a long row of buttons down the front of her fitted denim dress—stopping only when she and Cliff tumble together right down, deliciously down, onto that futon mattress.

Oh yes, Elsa does something else, too. She relinquishes every remaining button to Cliff’s fingers now as they sink deeper onto that plush, suede futon in the tin trailer set back off the sandy beach road.

***

An hour later, Cliff knows one thing.

He’s really missed Elsa. Really, really missed her. Beneath a warm, fringed throw on his futon, she lies in the crook of his arm. His fingers toy with her honey-streaked, now-tangled-up brown hair. Hell, he didn’t know if she’d ever be in his life like this again.

Like the old days.

Funny how he found his groove in so many ways tonight. He looks over at her dozing under that fringed throw beside him. She’s relaxed. At ease.

Finally.

Her button-down gray denim dress hangs from an upper corner of the room divider. His flannel shirt and jeans are here… he glances around… there.

Her ankle boots, his cowboy boots? Hell, who knows where they got tossed.

Gently tugging his arm from beneath Elsa, Cliff half sits up on the futon now. Straightens the throw. Then? He reaches for the cowboy hat beside two empty wineglasses on his end table.

“ This is what you can do when you have a cowboy hat, too,” he says, watching as she opens her eyes, touches his unshaven face.

He takes that light brown hat, places it on her gorgeous head at a seriously jaunty angle, and first?

First he’s taken with her beauty. That tousled hair.

Those dark eyes in the dimly lit trailer.

Then he tips up that hat, leans close and kisses her again.

Then once more—moving atop her as she doesn’t stop that kiss, actually.

Instead, she pulls the hat lower to hide her identity and lets all Italiano heaven break loose.

***

Later that night, Jason walks the hard-packed sand.

A cool breeze lifts off the water. He feels it touch his face, lift locks of his hair.

A heavy three-quarter moon casts pale illumination on the beach, the rippling salt water.

Up ahead, Maddy runs a few circles before veering off to the rocky ledge.

The dog was cooped up all day while he and Maris were shopping at the outlets, then off to Cliff’s recital, then The Sand Bar.

Now, the German shepherd barks into the wind.

Nips at some seaweed. She’s getting the kinks out, much the way Jason is.

It’s pretty late, but he keeps walking. The packed sand on the high tide line feels good beneath his tired gait. Small waves splash ashore, over and over.

Jay , he hears in their hissing retreat.

But Jason says nothing. He slightly tips his head and listens carefully, though. Breathes the night’s salt air. Closes his eyes with a deep inhale of the pungent intoxicant. His booted feet move along the hard sand; he hikes his black zip sweatshirt up around his neck.

Hey, Jay , he hears again. Or those waves whisper close.

He can’t be sure. But it’s funny, too. Because those words he maybe heard, maybe didn’t?

Jay. Hey, Jay. They were the last words Neil ever said to him.

The two of them were on the Harley. Neil, pointing to the handlebar mirror, was warning him about what was coming up behind them.

Jason looks over his shoulder and glances down the length of the beach. Lights shine from a few cottages on the hill. But the boardwalk is dark; the timer lights have shut off.

“Haven’t heard you for a while, bro,” Jason quietly says into the night.

He stops, too. Right at the lazy breaking waves.

That swath of pale light falling from the moon barely streaks the dark, whispering water.

Jason sees the big rock not too far out.

Tiny lights shine beyond—boats in the shipping lanes, he supposes.

But all else past the moon is dark—the dark sky dropping to the dark water all the way to the horizon.

The blackness far out there is vast tonight.

He turns and starts walking back. Whistles to the dog, too. Maddy runs to him from the rocky ledge out past the Fenwick cottage. She lopes across the sand to catch up. Her collar tags jangle. Her paws splash in and out of the shallows.

I’m always here, brother , Neil’s scant voice sounds. Whenever you need me.

Jason looks out at that big pale moon. At pinpricks of starlight around it. He vaguely salutes, too, before crossing the beach and picking up the footpath home.