“To earn his affection,” Piper supplied gently at the same time that Anders spat out: “To completely rub his face in it.” He paused, letting some of his knee-jerk, decades-old anger dissipate. “And yeah, probably to prove I’m lovable or something. I’m sure that’s what a therapist would say.”
After a few beats, Piper said, “I get that. My dad was married when I was born. Not to my mom.”
“Oof.”
“Speaking of clichés, she was a graduate research assistant and he was her professor at a university in Kentucky. That’s where we lived before here.” And Anders found once again, he couldn’t picture Piper anywhere but Frick Island.
They both maneuvered their bikes to the right, rounding a corner and then slowing as the bed-and-breakfast came into view.
Piper lowered her voice to a near whisper. “His wife wasn’t . . . thrilled, needless to say. But she came around, and I got to spend time at their house some. But I always felt like the fifth wheel. An outsider. Then we moved here. Now he sends cards for birthdays and Christmas, when he remembers.”
“Wow. I think you might have me beat,” he said, quieting his voice, too. They slowed their bikes, and then both dismounted, walking them the rest of the way to the bike rack at the front of the house.
“In the deadbeat-dad department?” Piper whispered back. “Let’s call it a tie.”
After racking the bikes as quietly as they could, they both stood with their backs to the house looking out at the water, as if neither one was ready to go inside. “You know,” Anders said, “it’s amazing we’re not both strippers.”
Piper’s eyes rounded at Anders and then laughter burst out of her. She quickly clamped her hand over her mouth to trap the noise, but it didn’t hide her wide smile. Anders grinned back at her, and then found—just like on the beach—he couldn’t look away. He was transfixed, glued to her face as though he were seeing it all over again for the first time. Piper dropped her hand and let her mouth relax into an easy smile as Anders’s gaze traveled down the slight slope of her broad, sturdy nose, and then to her lips, which even in the moonlight shone shell pink and ripe as a summer peach. He swallowed, trying to ignore the palpable heartbeat in his chest, the adrenaline pulsing through his veins, the all-consuming sudden urge he had to close the gap between them. He lifted his eyes back to hers, searching. She was no longer smiling, but she wasn’t unhappy; it was more like she was considering. Waiting. As caught off guard as he was by the moment. And, in retrospect, that was what caused Anders to do a very un-Anders-like thing: He took a chance—though it wasn’t driven by choice as much as an inner compulsion. Heart pounding, he slowly tilted his head forward.
“Relationships are complicated,” Piper said suddenly, tearing her eyes away from his, turning her head toward the ocean. The spell broken, Anders froze. “Tom has a complicated relationship with his dad, too. Had, anyway. His dad passed a few years ago. When he was eighteen. Did I tell you that? I can’t remember.”
Tom.
Right.
He straightened his spine and cleared his throat. “Oh. I don’t think I knew that. That’s awful, I’m sorry.”
Piper kept talking at a clip about Tom’s dad—how Tom cared about what he thought more than anyone in the world, that was why he became a waterman—but Anders was only halfway listening. The other half was busy berating himself for being so stupid. Piper was married! Or at least, she thought she was married. And he . . . ugh. Heat crawled up his neck, as he replayed the moment. He was suddenly glad for the cover of darkness. That Piper couldn’t see his embarrassment. Or his disappointment.
Or the dawning realization that perhaps there was another reason he wanted Piper to accept the fact that Tom was no longer here.
Chapter 23
It was just after 2:00 a.m. when Pearl, perched in the Victorian chair in her fleece robe and slippers, watched Anders creep past her in the dark living room and tentatively place his foot on the bottom stair.
“You need to be careful there,” she said.
Anders gasped sharply and clutched his chest, his eyes wild and groping in the direction her voice came from. “Oh my god, Mrs. Olecki. You scared me.”
She kept her piercing gaze on his and pursed her lips. “I don’t think Piper’s ready for . . . whatever’s going on between the two of you.”
Anders chuckled nervously and then lied: “What do you mean? We’re just . . . friends.” Pearl could tell he was lying because he was a terrible liar.
“Mm-hmm.”
Anders sighed and Pearl saw the distress cross his face like a cloud. “What else could we be? She thinks she’s still married.”
Pearl paused and then clucked her tongue. “Yes, well, that girl’s always had a very vivid imagination.”
Anders rounded on her. “Imagination? Is that all you think this is?”
“Keep your voice down,” Pearl admonished him.
He lowered his voice and pressed on. “You really don’t think it’s more serious than that? Is that why no one is helping her?”
Pearl set her lips in a tight line. She was no two-bit gossip and she’d already said too much.
Anders took a step forward, the desperation written all over his face. “Mrs. Olecki, please. You have to tell me. Why is everybody going along with it?”
Pearl sighed. Clearly the boy was smitten, just as she feared. And she supposed he’d spent enough time out here—and with Piper—that he did deserve to have his questions answered. But how could she explain? Especially when she didn’t fully understand it herself. “Come sit,” she said, resigned. Anders looked at her a beat and then crossed the
