She broke into a huge smile. “Oh, Finn, you did it!” She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him, her heart expanding with so much pride she feared it might burst.
His eyes sparkled. “Well? Do you like it?”
“Iloveit. It’s like stepping into a dream.”
She slipped her hand in his as he began the tour. One wall had bins overflowing with skeins of string and scraps of fabric to make tail streamers. Inexpensive kites made of cotton fabric were stacked in the corner, yet the silk kites had the most artistry. While the shop wasn’t large, it contained everything they had once talked about including in a kite shop.
She touched the delicate silk of an orange and scarlet kite, shot through with threads of golden yellow. It was made in the shape of a maple leaf.
“Those are one of my bestselling designs,” Finn said. “Sometimes a bunch of people will fly them together, and it looks like a cascade of giant autumn leaves floating through the sky.”
She moved deeper into the shop and spotted another important part of the dream: a worktable where she and Finn could make kites and chat with customers. Except now the worktable was staffed by a skinny young man, who was busy stitching diagonal silk panels to the end of a kite.
“Delia, this is Clyde Sommers. He’s been running the shop since the day I went away to France.”
“And making kites too,” Delia said, glancing at a stack of kitepatterns. Clyde was making more maple-leaf kites, and she took up a nearby stool to watch him work.
Regret mingled with nostalgia and welled up inside her. If she had been a braver, more forgiving person, she could have been a part of this. Instead, she walked away from Finn and took a safe job in an office. It was a good life but a predictable one ... and not the life she’d always dreamed of. And this beautiful shop had awakened a bittersweet ache.
Finn watched Delia as she experienced his kite shop for the first time, trying to judge her reaction. Did a part of her still dream about owning a kite shop or had that all been smothered out with her infatuation with the old guy? Her eagerness to listen to Clyde’s explanation of how he joined the maple leaves into a kite train was a positive sign.
Yet Finn wanted more than a positive sign. He wanted Delia to say she loved the store and wanted to be a part of it. He wanted to show her his home above the store. It was a nice apartment even though it had only a large front room and two tiny bedrooms. The living area overlooked the main street, and the kitchen was nothing more than a sink, an icebox, and a stove pressed up against the parlor wall. It was an ordinary place, except for the spectacular view of the ocean from the back windows.
Clyde had made a pot of coffee earlier, so the whole shop smelled good. Delia had already finished her first cup, and he brought the carafe over for a refill.
Delia flashed him a smile as he filled her mug. “Do you keep the shop open all year?” she asked as she cupped the mug, sighing as the heat warmed her icy hands.
“I keep it open for the locals during the winter while also working to build up the kite supply. When the tourists arrive, it’s hard to keep up with the demand.”
Delia reached up to touch a scarlet panel on the tail of a Chinese dragon. “I would give my eyeteeth to fly this dragon kite.”
Finn flashed her a smile. “Keep your teeth. I’ll let you fly it for free.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.” The sleet had stopped, but it was still breezy. It had been more than ten years since they’d flown a kite together. Would it be possible to recapture the magic? He reached up to detach the dragon kite from the hook in the ceiling.
Delia shrugged back into her coat and, to his delight, wrapped his white silk scarf back around her neck. He liked the look of it on her. Anyone who knew what that scarf meant to him would see it as a sign that he wanted her for keeps.
The beach behind the shop was perfect for flying kites. Everywhere on the cape had good wind, but Finn and some of the locals had cleared the rocks from this stretch of beach so that kite flyers could run with abandon.
The sand churned beneath his feet as they trudged closer to the water. Gray clouds hung low in the sky, and the distant call of a lone sea gull sounded morose.
“I know it doesn’t look like much now, but in the summer this place is wonderful,” he said. “That’s the thing about life. There are bleak, barren seasons, but then the sun comes out and the world shifts. The days lengthen, and the sunsets are amazing. I wish I could show you this place in June.”
“Stop,” Delia said. “I already love it.”
“Do you? Because you’re the person I always wished was with me on those long summer nights. I never stopped hoping that someday you and I could live here together. Raise kids here.” He turned to point to the back of his shop. “You see those windows on the second floor? That’s where I live. It’s big enough for the two of us. I don’t know if it’s too late for us.”
The wind tousled her hair as she hugged herself. Delia always struggled with change, and moving out here would be unlike hernormal, dependable life in New York City. The roar of the ocean and hiss of waves rushing ashore made it hard to hear, but finally she spoke.
“It’s a big step,” she said. “I need a little more time to be sure.”
“I can give you time,” he said. Her answer wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear, but it was good enough for now.
He handed her the kite, and the wind practically tugged it from her hands, sending it toward the sky. The multicolored dragon twisted and curled above them, its tail thrashing in the stiff breeze. He’d forgotten the beauty of Delia’s laughter as it carried on the wind.
He held her the entire train ride back to Camp Mills. It had been a perfect day. They’d endured miserable weather, bad food, frozen feet and noses, and had gained only a piddly donation, but it didn’t matter. It was the gift of being with Delia that had made it perfect.
