“Yeah, but we grew up in a different world. Our parents were lucky to see us for meals, and they wouldn’t have seen us then, either, if we weren’t starving. We lived on the beach during the summer.”
They shared a smile at their memories. She recalled the golden afternoons, taking a break from her adventures with the Kavanaugh children and to return to Sycamore Avenue for dinner, her mother
humming while she cooked, her father on the back terrace reading the newspaper from cover to cover or ineffectively trying to make his creeping hydrangeas bloom. Mari and Ryan would bolt their meals and dash outside again to play freeze tag or Red Rover with the Kavanaughs until one of their parents’ voices rang out in the night, ending their summertime bliss until the next morning when it would resume again with the fresh promise of a new day.
“Looks like you’ve been working hard,” Marc said, nodding at the wood cleaner and mounds of dust cloths on the counter.
“I’m trying to get the house in shape to be sold.”
“Seems sad, thinking about someone else living here. I have a lot of memories about this old house.”
“Yeah,” she whispered, studying his strong profile as he glanced around the room.
A half hour later, the children sat cross-legged on the front porch while they played Operation. The batteries in the toy had long since petered out, but Brendan and Jenny didn’t seem to mind. Each just watched with a tight focus as the other removed the little plastic bones from the tiny holes in the patient and called foul when they believed the surgical instrument had touched the edges of the wound.
Much to Mari’s amazement, Brendan had discovered a closet in the basement filled with old board games, mementos and photos and even a few of Mari’s and Ryan’s yearbooks. She hadn’t been the one to clear out the Dearborn family home years ago; Ryan had seen to that. Most of the furniture had been sold at an auction after their parents’ deaths, although she and Ryan had kept some pieces from both homes. Ryan must have brought some of their belongings from Dearborn to Harbor Town years back. It made her a little melancholy to think of her brother carefully storing away those remnants of their childhood.
“Who did Colleen marry?” Mari asked Marc, who sat next to her on the porch swing.
“Darin Sinclair.”
Noticing his hushed tone, Mari glanced over at him.
“Colleen met him while they were both at Michigan State. Darin was an Army ranger. He was killed in Afghanistan almost two years ago.”
Mari’s gaze zoomed over to Brendan and Jenny, their blond heads bent over the board game, speaking to each other in low tones. Suddenly Colleen’s children’s adult manners made perfect sense. They’d lost their father so young….
Maybe Marc noticed her shocked expression, because he grabbed one of her hands in both of his. He rubbed her wrist with a warm, slightly calloused palm. She shivered.
“I’m sorry I mentioned it,” he said. “I understand Ryan is stationed in Afghanistan. He’s in the Air Force, isn’t he?”
Mari blinked. “Yes. Ryan’s a Captain…a pilot. He’s stationed in Kabul. He’ll be coming home to San Francisco in two weeks. I’m counting the days.” She put her other hand on top of his, accepting the comfort he offered her without conscious thought. Tears smarting in her eye, she glanced up at him. “I wasn’t thinking about Ryan just now, though. I was thinking… It seems so unfair, after everything Colleen went through as a kid, to have to endure more as an adult.”
His expression turned grim. The next thing she knew, his arm was around her, and her head was on his shoulder. The porch swing squeaked as they swayed. Mari watched Brendan and Jenny play while Marc stroked her upper arm, and she breathed in his scent.
“Do you know what I think, Mari?” he asked after a moment. “I think you’ve had enough of cleaning house and being sad. I think you and I need to go to the beach.”
She lifted her head and looked at him. He wore a small smile, and his expression carried just the hint of a playful dare.
“I shouldn’t,” she whispered. “I have so much to do.”
“Like what?”
Mari hesitated. It would have been a good moment to broach the topic of The Family Center. His mood was so light, though, so warm. She found herself wanting to avoid the weighty subject.
Or perhaps she was just a coward, and was avoiding having him misunderstand her intentions…judge her.
She waved lamely toward the house. “I have cleaning to do.”
“There are better things to do on a gorgeous day like today than dust, Mari.”
She gave a bark of laughter. Confronted with Marc’s wry challenge, she couldn’t seem to help it. It was so strange to feel this swelling surge of life, like sap rising in an old tree. She’d grown so used to being careful to maintain her control, of walling off the impulsive side of her nature that she only knew existed because of the man who sat next to her.
“I don’t have a swimsuit,” she said, her gaze locked on his well-shaped mouth.
“Colleen and Deidre left a dozen suits over the years. I saw them behind the towels in the linen closet. Come on,” he said. “There are still some good times to be had in Harbor Town. The only thing that’s required is that you let them happen.”
She had a hundred other things to do besides idle away the day on the beach with Marc. Still, part of her clung to the promise in his blue eyes.