Page 31 of Hush (The Seaside Saga #25)

IT’S WELL BEFORE SUNRISE.

Saturday morning, Shane figures he might as well get back into his lobstering schedule. So he’s up and at ’em ridiculously early like he’ll be next week. Then, he’ll be up and heading out to the dock, to the lobster boat. To the crew. To work.

To his actual, real, permanent workaday life.

But not yet.

After showering and throwing on jeans, a tee, loose flannel and boots, he heads to the cottage kitchen. There, he flicks on the light over the sink. Gets a filter for the coffee maker. Spoons in coffee grounds. Runs the tap. Fills the reservoir. Gets the coffee maker percolating.

And starts his exodus.

While the coffee’s brewing, he stacks his packed-and-taped boxes out on the back porch. The sky’s still dark this early. The sun’s not even close to being up .

But Lord knows, he’s been up half the night.

There was little sleep to be had—not with the way his mind would not, could not, staunchly refused to just shut up.

Hell, after Jason dropped him off after dinner yesterday, Shane probably should’ve just packed up and driven to Maine. Taken his mind for a long overnight ride. There’d have been no traffic. He’d have made good time.

Instead, one box after another, he’s now up and down the back porch steps and loading cartons in his truck bed.

Several trips happen—back and forth. Boxes of clothes.

Of paper products. Of towels. Once all the packed boxes are secured in the truck, he stops on the back porch again.

All that’s left to do is unstring the orange harvest lights he’d hung there.

First, he flicks them on to better see them in the dark.

Then he starts—unhooking and slowly looping them up.

Until there’s a certain noise in this dark, predawn hour.

An unmistakable, familiar, turning-wheel noise that has Shane stop and look.

It’s Celia. She’s wearing the black denim jacket he’d given her. It’s open over a fitted white tee beneath her brown ombré sweater vest, straight jeans and hiking boots. She’s also carefully pushing Aria’s stroller down the boardwalk-planked walkway.

Shane crosses his arms and leans against the far post on the back porch. Celia doesn’t even see him in the shadows. So in a quiet, measured tone, he speaks to her. “What the hell are you doing?” he asks with a smile in his voice.

Celia jumps with a hand to her heart. “Shane! You scared me. ”

He laughs, crosses the porch and descends the seven painted steps. “Let me help you,” he tells her, then lifts Aria’s stroller and carries it up to the back porch. “Hey there, little one,” he says to the sleepy baby all tucked in beneath a warm blanket.

“Oh, heck.” Celia follows behind him. “I didn’t want to make a big to-do. Make a big goodbye out of this.”

When Shane turns then, she’s pulling a folded piece of paper from her pocket. He quietly watches as she meets his eye now.

“I was just going to leave my note for you—nice and cool. Just slip it under your screen door and discreetly leave.” Her hand clutches that folded paper.

“Give it to me instead.” He holds out an open hand.

Celia obliges. Quickly. She drops the paper in his palm, then grabs the stroller and spins around to leave.

“Whoa, whoa,” Shane quietly says, reaching for her arm. “You think you’re going to get out of here that easy?” He pulls her closer.

Celia shrugs. “I was going to try.” She nods to that note he still holds. “Please open that later.”

“Not a chance.” He starts unfolding the paper. Pauses. And looks at her.

“ Fine . Go ahead,” Celia gives in.

So he fully opens the note and squints at the message right there beneath the glow of now-half-strung orange harvest lights. Whispers what Celia wrote, too. “Don’t forget about me.”

When he looks up from the note, her smile is sad.

“Come here, baby,” he tenderly says, taking her into his arms and hugging her.

Her body is close against him; his fingers touch her hair, her shoulders.

After a moment, he steps back and opens the squeaking screen door to his kitchen.

“You and Aria need to get out of the morning damp.”

“I can only stay a few minutes,” Celia tells him as she wheels Aria’s stroller inside.

“I know.” He holds the door until she’s through it with the baby. Then he pulls out a chair at the kitchen table for her. “Remember the first time you were here? When I called for you to come in out of the pouring rain?”

“I do. It was August. The skies opened up when I was walking this one,” she says, nodding to the baby. After arranging Aria’s stroller beside her, Celia sits on the old wooden chair Shane still holds out for her. “You invited me in—and invited me into your whole life after that.”

Then? Nothing. They don’t talk.

There’s just Shane getting two faded, mismatched mugs from the tall aqua-painted cabinet.

Just Shane bringing the mugs to the counter.

Shane reaching for a few napkins from a dusty basket on a nearby rickety cart.

Shane glancing over his shoulder from the coffeepot. There’s only the one light on above the sink. That light throws the softest glow on the old kitchen, on the ceiling covered in unfinished, narrow planks of wood.

On Celia sitting there at the table.

Shane turns back to the counter and pours coffee into the two mugs. “I’m really glad you came by,” he quietly says.

** *

After Celia leaves with the baby, her earlier words echo in his mind.

I can only stay a few minutes.

Which is what she did. She sipped her coffee as that second hand ticked around his wristwatch. It couldn’t have swept around more than ten times.

And then she was gone.

Celia and Aria, gone out into the twilight. There was only the slightest band of palest sunshine at the horizon. That light faded the black sky to a deep blue. Everything beneath it was only a dark silhouette—including Celia pushing Aria’s stroller on the sandy beach road as she headed back home.

Can only stay a few minutes.

Can only stay a few minutes.

A few minutes.

Shit, the best times of his summer happened in only a few minutes.

A few minutes of jamming on his harmonica with Celia at The Sand Bar.

A few minutes here and there of seeing his old mentor, Noah.

A few minutes of a fraught reconciliation between himself and Kyle on Shane’s back porch. Of Shane telling Kyle the snapped towline story.

A few minutes of putting Kyle in the direct line of a jellyfish.

A few minutes of Friday night fishing with the guys on the rocks.

A few minutes at a campground with the gang.

Of reeling in a fake rubber snake that got Kyle screaming .

A few minutes of taking in the whole visual of Jason and Neil’s crash site on the turnpike.

A few minutes of making amends with his old friend Jason.

A few minutes of talking with Celia’s mother, Heather—for the understanding it gave him.

The minutes he spent just sitting on the back porch at his rented little beach bungalow.

Looking out at Long Island Sound.

The minutes of clarity.

The minutes of ice-cream punches on his Scoop Shop Free Card.

All the minutes with Celia: the stolen touches; the checkers game; minutes in a bowling alley; in each other’s cottages, beds, lives.

The minutes he fell in love with her.

***

Well, here’s the last of them.

The last of his few minutes at Stony Point—putting on his heavy zip sweatshirt and loading his packed duffel and coiled harvest lights in the passenger seat of his pickup truck.

Supposedly, he’ll be back once more to film with Jason.

Until then, Shane locks the front door of the cottage.

Joggles the knob to be sure. When that’s done, he tucks the cottage keys inside an old fishing buoy hanging from the railing—just like the cottage checklist requests.

When he’s here for the last time next weekend, he knows where to find that key.

Standing there as the sun just crests the horizon, he looks at the driftwood sign strung with twine beside the front door. Silently, he reads the cottage name painted on it.

This Will Do .

He nods and turns away, whispering, “Sure did.”

***

The moments then? They fly.

Shane doesn’t allow himself to linger as he drives away.

As he passes the eastern horizon out over Back Bay.

As the horizon glimmers red, the sky now fading from orange to a pale blue, all above the gray-blue water.

He doesn’t let himself take in the sight of shingled beach cottages, of life stirring in some as the morning begins.

He just drives.

All he allows himself is this. One sentence as he steers his pickup over the winding roads and heads, finally, beneath the arched stone trestle. The brown stones are damp with morning mist. He tips his newsboy cap as he utters the words. “The trestle giveth … and the trestle taketh away.”

When he emerges on the other side, he turns onto Shore Road and heads toward the highway north. The street is quiet. Most businesses haven’t yet opened for the day. It’ll be a busy weekend, for sure. A beautiful October weekend on the Connecticut shore.

One he’ll miss now.

Instead, the beach roads diminish behind him. Stony Point gets farther and farther away with each passing mile—the crescent-moon-shaped beach; the boardwalk stretching across it; the cottages grand and run-down; the whispering dune grasses; the sweet salt air.

All of it fades. He even cracks his window for a last breath of that briny air.

Until he sees the Maritime Market Shopping Plaza and is jolted to reality.

“ Damn it . The pictures,” Shane says, hitting his blinker at the last minute and swerving into the plaza.

Because Seacrest Pharmacy is there, too. Days ago, he’d received their automated text message that his pictures from Neil’s old roll of film were ready.

And the store happens to just be opening up.

***

Minutes later, Shane’s trotting out of the store and hopping into his truck again. Sitting in the driver’s seat, he joggles the sealed envelope of developed photographs.

Now here’s a temptation if he’s ever had one—right in his hands.

Wouldn’t he love to look at the pictures that Neil took. Wouldn’t he love to figure the stories they hold. Love to just take a gander.

But he won’t.

And shit, he missed his chance with Jason at dinner yesterday. If Shane had the photos then, they would’ve looked at them in the restaurant.

Alas, he’s had too much on his mind to even give Neil’s pictures a thought—until now.

And Jason should see them first.

So Shane leans over the front seat. Into the glove box they go.

As he exits the shopping plaza then, he figures he’ll give those photos to Jason next weekend.

The highway entrance ramp is up ahead. When Shane turns onto it, he thinks of how Barlow’s got him locked down for one more trip to Stony Point.

One more weekend.

So until then …

Driving on the interstate now, Shane picks up speed. He checks the left lane in his side mirror and merges with the fast-moving morning traffic.