“We all have problems,” Star had said. “You’re only sticking up for him because you’re kind of an outcast, too.”
Had he been? Bree didn’t remember it that way. From the beginning, David had fascinated them. He was charming, charismatic, good-looking. Raised in poverty in Gary, Indiana, he was attending the University of Michigan on a full scholarship. At twenty, he was the same age as her oldest brother, but David was more worldly. Although she couldn’t remember any of them saying it out loud, they all thought it was cool to hang out with a black kid. Beyond that, there wasn’t one of them who didn’t believe David was destined for great things.
Mike gestured toward her cigarette. “Those coffin nails’ll kill you. You should give that up.”
He was still uncool, but in a different way. The crooked teeth, acne, and extra pounds might be long gone, but he still tried too hard. The scraggly, dirty blond hair of his teenage years had been tamed by an expensive cut, then overtreated with grooming products. His cheap summer wardrobe of ill-fitting shorts and T-shirts had given way to white slacks, a high-end polo shirt, and a belt with a Prada logo, all of it too ostentatious for casual island living, although not as objectionable as his heavy gold-link bracelet and college class ring.
Her cigarette burned close to her fingers. “What’s this about?”
“Toby’s run into some trouble with the new folks next door.”
She tapped the bottom of the filter with her thumb and said nothing.
He jingled the coins in his pocket. “No one seems to have told the new owner that Myra passed, so he thinks she’s still taking care of the place. But turns out Toby’s been doing the job ever since Myra got sick. I didn’t know about it till just now, or I’d have put a stop to it.”
The cigarette burned her fingers. She dropped it and stubbed out the butt with the toe of her sandal. A twelve-year-old trying to do an adult’s job. She should have paid more attention to his disappearances. Something else to make her feel incompetent. “I’ll talk to him.”
She turned away to go into the house.
“Bree, we were kids,” he said from behind her. “Don’t tell me you’re still holding a grudge.”
She kept moving.
“I tried to apologize,” he said. “Did you get my letter?”
She was good at walking away from her own anger. She’d spent ten years doing exactly that. Ten years pretending she didn’t know Scott was a serial cheater. Ten years avoiding a confrontation that would end her marriage. And look where it had gotten her. Exactly nowhere.
She whipped around. “Do you still spy on people, Mike? Are you still the same sneaky rat now that you were then?”
“I had a crush on you,” he said, as if that justified everything. “The older woman.”
“I thought if the two of you broke up, I’d have a chance.”
“Never in a million years.”
Once again, he dug his hands in his pockets. “I was seventeen, Bree. I can’t change the past. What I did was wrong, and all I can do now is say I’m sorry.”
She and David hadn’t suspected Mike was spying on them that night when they hid in the dunes and made love. Mike had gone to her mother the next day, and Bree had been sent off the island that same afternoon into exile at her horrible Aunt Rebecca’s in Battle Creek. Bree had never come back to the island, not until three weeks ago when she’d gotten word that Myra had died and left Bree responsible for her grandson.
Mike pulled his hands from his pockets. “Let me help you with Toby.”
“I don’t need your help. Leave us alone.”
He rubbed his gold bracelet with his thumb. “I care about the kid.”
“I’m sure it’s good for your image in the community to pretend to watch out for poor orphans.”
He didn’t display even a flicker of shame. “I knew you wouldn’t roll out the welcome mat for me, but I thought maybe we could work together on this.”
“You thought wrong.”
He gazed around at the weedy yard and small honey house with its peeling white paint and sagging tin roof. A gust of wind stirred the leaves but didn’t disturb his expensive haircut. “You won’t get much for this place if you try to sell it. There’s no water view, no beach access, and the cottage needs work.”
He wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t already figured out. Unlucky in love and in real estate-that was her. The bank had foreclosed on the five-million-dollar house she and Scott had bought in Bloomfield Hills. The last she’d heard, they’d listed it for one-point-three million and still couldn’t move it.
Mike wandered toward Myra’s abandoned garden where young tomato plants were struggling to survive the weeds. “If you take Toby off the island, you’ll destroy the only security he has.”
“You don’t really think I’m staying here?” She said it as if she had a dozen other options when, in reality, she had none.
He still managed to look innocent as he drove in the knife. “I heard you didn’t get much in your divorce settlement.”
She hadn’t gotten anything. No help from her family, either. Her brothers had their own financial problems, and even if they hadn’t, she couldn’t have asked them for money, not when she’d turned a deaf ear to their warnings about Scott. As for her inheritance… That had been gone within a year of her mother’s death.
“Here, you have a house,” he said. “Myra kept Toby too close, so he didn’t have many friends, but his roots are here, and there’ve been enough changes in his life. I think David would want you to stay.”
She couldn’t stand hearing him speak David’s name, not even after all these years. “Don’t ever come here again.” She turned on her heel and left him standing alone in the yard.
Toby was sitting at the small drop-leaf table in the kitchen, eating another bowl of cereal. The kitchen, along with the rest of the cottage, had been redone in the days of pickled oak cabinetry and butcher-block countertops. A pair of open shelves held Myra’s collection of honey pots and ceramic bees. Through the window over the sink, she watched Mike survey the yard as if he were appraising the property. Finally he walked away.
David had written her one letter.
She’d been devastated. Her sole comfort had come from her phone conversations with Star. Myra’s daughter was her best friend, the only person who understood how much she loved David, how much more he was to her than a summer romance.
Six weeks after Bree left, Star got pregnant with David’s baby, and David dropped out of school to marry her. Bree had never spoken to either of them again.
Toby picked up his cereal bowl and slurped the remaining milk. He set the bowl on the table. “Gram told me you were rich. I bet you lied to her.”
“I was rich.” Bree gazed out the window. “Now I’m not.”
“Why?”
“Because I relied on a man to support me instead of figuring out how to rely on myself.”
“I knew you didn’t have any money.” It was an accusation, another reminder of how much he hated her. Not that she was too crazy about him, either. “When are you gonna leave?” he said.
It wasn’t the first time he’d asked the question, and she wished she had an answer. “I don’t know.”
He shoved back his chair. “You can’t keep sitting around here not doing nothing.”
He was right, and she needed to show him she had a plan. Something. Anything.
“I don’t intend to.” She turned away from the window. “I’m going to sell Myra’s honey.”
LUCY HAD NO INTENTION OF joining Panda for a chummy pizza dinner. Instead she put on her sneakers and headed outside. She hated to run, but she hated feeling like a slug even more, and she needed to work off her emotions from this miserable day.
From Goose Cove Lane, she turned out onto the highway. Eventually she passed an abandoned farm stand. Behind it, she glimpsed a small blue cottage. She heard another runner coming up behind her and didn’t have to look back to know who it was. “You’re not on the family payroll anymore,” she said as he reached her side.
“Force of habit.”
“I don’t like running, and I especially don’t like running with you.”
