sucker for people in need.”
He thought suddenly of Grace. He’d been a sucker, al right, seduced by her neediness. Was that why he’d beei drawn to her?
It had been the same with Glorianne. He remembered what his ex-wife had been like when he first met her, how unsure of herself she’d been, how desperate to find some one to lean on.
And then there was Daria, who didn’t seem to nee< anyone at all. He’d been so smitten by Grace’s beauty, s< seduced by her need for him, that he’d failed to see thi loving woman standing right in front of him.
“Cindy,” he said, abruptly standing up, anxious now t( get back to Kill Devil Hills. “I have a feeling you just di( me a big favor.”
Uaria came home from teaching her EMT class that night to find Rory waiting for her on the Sea Shanty steps.
“Isn’t it a beautiful night?” he asked as he got to his feet.
She hadn’t noticed. She’d gone through her class in a fog. Everyone had wanted to talk about the hurricane and the real-life drama that had played out on Andy’s pier, easily the most exciting rescue of the night. She’d tried to shift the discussion to the need for emergency readiness during the heart of a storm, but no one was interested.
Instead, they wanted to know how she’d gotten two people from beneath an overturned boat, with the sound rising and whirling around her feet. Supergirl, they thought, was back.
Now she looked up at the sky and saw that it was filled with stars.
“Come out to the beach with me,” Rory said. He was carrying a blanket.
“There’s a meteor shower tonight. We ican watch the sky.”
j Her heart was saying yes, her head, no.
“I don’t think fo, Rory,” she said. } “Come on,” he pleaded.
“Just for a while.”
Against her better judgment, she walked with him out [the dark beach and helped him spread the blanket on e sand. She lay next to him, and the instant her head uched the blanket, three stars sailed across the sky. “I told you it would be worth it,” he said.
How did he think she could simply lie there with r after what had happened the night before?
“How was your visit with Cindy?” she asked. “Interesting,” he said.
“She looks just like she did b;
in the old days. Even had on a bikini. “
“Did she shed any light on your story?”
“Oh, she has her theories, just like everyone else.”
“What are they?”
“She has kind of a crazy one,” he said.
“Don’t lau Her primary suspect is your cousin Ellen.”
Another white diamond, this one with a tail, shot acr the sky, but Daria barely registered its existence. She too stunned by what Rory had just said. “What makes think that?” she asked.
“Well, first of all, I got the sense that Cindy could stand Ellen, so this probably needs to be taken with a gr of salt. She said that Ellen once baby-sat for Cindy’s co ins, and she apparently hit one of the kids a few tiff. That made Cindy think that Ellen was capable of dump a baby on the beach. Seemed kind of a stretch to me.”
Daria shut her eyes. This was it. Time for the tn “Cindy’s very perceptive,” she said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean she’s right. Ellen is Shelly’s mother.”
Rory sat up abruptly, turning to look at her, and ;
could barely see his face in the darkness.
“Do you kn this for certain?” he asked.
“Have you known all along ” Shelly wasn’t the only thing I found on the beach t morning,” she admitted. ” I also found a pukka-shell ne lace that I knew belonged to Ellen. It was lying on beach right next to the baby. ”” My God, Daria. Did you ever tell anyone? ” he ask ” No one,” she said.
“I was horrified to realize t Ellen could have done such a thing, but she was fam and she was also one of the older kids. I wouldn’t dare say anything to anyone about her.” “Did you ever talk to Ellen herself about it? Does she know that you know?”
She turned her head to look at him.
“I’ve never said a word to anyone, until now. Ellen doesn’t have a clue that I know. It’s one of the reasons why I have such a hard time tolerating her. She’s always trying to tell me what to do with Shelly, and she makes me feel as though everything I’ve done with her has been wrong. But I don’t believe she really cares about Shelly; sometimes she’s even cruel to her. And she’s a rotten mother to her own two daughters, as far as I’m concerned.”
Rory stared out at the ocean, his arm resting on his knee, and she could only imagine how he felt about her having kept this from him.
Reaching up, she touched his shoulder.
