“So,” he said, “do you want something to eat?”
She laughed. “Didn’t we just stuff ourselves?”
“Well, yes. I guess we did.” He looked down at his hands and busied himself by removing his gloves. Then he started shaking his foot, making the table shiver as if it were outside in the wind.
Without hesitation, Maddie reached across the table and put her hand on his. “Rex. Please tell me you’re not nervous about us being here alone.” Though the thought was kind of sweet, it also made her a bit sad.
He raised his eyes to hers and smiled. “It’s that obvious?”
She laughed. “You remind me of Jeff Carson at my eighth-grade dance.”
“Who?”
“Jeff Carson. He sat at the table next to me in the junior high school gym. Every time he looked at me, he wrung his hands. He never did ask me to dance.”
Rex sat back in his chair. “Can’t blame him. I hate dancing. I never did get the hang of it.”
“Maybe Jeff hated it, too. We’ll never know.”
The drinks arrived. Maddie took her hand off of Rex’s and wondered if he felt the same sense of loss she’d felt when he’d done that with her weeks earlier.
She tasted the wine; Rex lifted his tall mug of beer, but his eyes remained steady on her.
She wasn’t sure if that was the moment she knew she was in love with him, but it was the first time she was sure that she was right.
Later, as they walked back to the inn, Maddie looped her arm through his. The wind had quieted; the boats no doubt would be back up and running. Neither of them bothered to check. Instead, once in the room, they crawled under the bed covers together, warmed each other against the chill, and made love until dawn.
Grandma survived the night in Rex’s cabin. Before Maddie had called to say she was stranded on the Cape, she’d contacted Joe, who said he’d be happy to stay with his sister, whether “the ornery old girl liked it or not.”
After falling asleep at dawn, Rex and Maddie finally arrivedback on the island early the next afternoon. She couldn’t believe how happy she felt—not crazy, giggly, hyper-happy, but a mellow, happy-all-over contentment that radiated from her head to her toes.
And, this time, it hadn’t been too soon.
As an added dose of happiness, she was looking forward to spending the holidays with her family.
The next day, Joe picked Rafe up in Vineyard Haven and brought him to the cabin; Maddie’s father would arrive on the weekend. She wasn’t sure when to tell them about the bookshop, and if she should try to enlist their participation before she knew if the former bait shop could be hers for sure. For now, she only wanted to enjoy having all of them together.
After lunch, her heart filled with only good things, Maddie cleaned up the kitchen while Rafe and Joe set out in search of a tree. Then she helped Grandma into the car; they headed first for the airport storage place in Oak Bluffs to locate the tinsel and tree ornaments among Grandma’s stockpile; after that, and more important, they would move back into the cottage. Grandma would finally get to see the inside of her newly restored home. Hopefully, she would love it.
Of course she would! The place was too gorgeous not to. Still, Maddie placed her hand over her stomach to try and ward off what felt like a few thousand unwanted butterflies suddenly infringing on her peaceful mood. If Grandma hated the way the cottage looked, Maddie had no idea what she should do.
“When we get home we’ll decorate the whole house,” Grandma said, as if they hadn’t already discussed it. She admitted she’d “given up on the holidays” years earlier, which was why she’d boxed up her holiday spirit along with the decorations, and stowed all of it away. After all, she’d thought she’d lost everyone in her family except Joe, and her interest in celebrating anything had vanished.
Maddie understood that. When she’d been a little girl, Christmas seasons with her mother were magical. She remembered making pretty cookies with her, saving two for Santa, then filling snowmen-shaped covered tins for neighbors. She helped her mother wrap presents in shiny red foil paper, and she wore a green velvet dress with a white crocheted collar to the faculty family party at the college. After her mother died, the magic did, too.
But now, it was back—until they reached the storage unit.
Walking several paces ahead of Grandma, Maddie opened the door.
She stopped. And stared.
Orson was gone.
The classic 1950 F-1 Ford pickup had disappeared.
With it had gone Rafe’s surprise Christmas/graduation gift.
Maddie closed her eyes and felt her joy being snuffed out like a holiday candle.
