The Hideaway

When we finished our chicken, Crawford ran back up to the house to see if Bert had left any pie on the counter. He returned a few minutes later with half a cheesecake on a silver pie plate. “It’s not chocolate, but it’ll do.”

While we finished the cheesecake, I told him about Clark and the Coke can incident in the backyard and the short period in middle school when I wanted to be a rock-and-roll singer.

“You can sing?” he asked.

“Not a bit. I just thought Eddie Vedder was sexy. I figured if I wanted to snag a guy like that, I needed to sing in a band.”

“Did you wear plaid and stop washing your hair?”

I laughed. “Well, I didn’t go that far. I had too much polite Southern girl in me to go full-grunge. Plaid didn’t look good on me anyway.”

“While you were singing to Pearl Jam, I was the biggest Garth Brooks fan in Tennessee.”

“No!” I laughed.

“Oh yes. I was proud of my ‘Thunder Rolls’ concert shirt. I wore it until it fell apart and my mom threw it away.”

“Probably best that we didn’t meet back then.”

“We would have been oil and water.” He sat back in his seat and propped his long legs on the railing at the edge of the dock.

“So you have a hidden love for Garth Brooks and your business partners include a slobbery dog and a fisherman.”

“And a bad fisherman at that.”

“Tell me something else,” I said. “You mentioned that Charlie took over for you at work for a little while. What happened back then?”

I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to know.

He sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. I worried I’d pressed too much, but when he turned to look at me, his face was calm.

“My dad died, for one. He’d been sick for a while, so it wasn’t a surprise, although that didn’t make it much easier. Soon after, my girlfriend left me. That one was a surprise. We’d been serious, but she found some other guy—actually found him before she left me. Those two events back-to-back were hard to handle. Charlie stepped in while I pulled myself back together.”

He balled up his napkin and pushed it down into the neck of his empty beer bottle. “That was two years ago, and I haven’t dated anyone since. I’ve kept myself busy with clients and making some furniture here and there. Things have been good. But the day you came into my office, you sort of kicked things into gear for me. I couldn’t get you off my mind. I realized I hadn’t thought about that old girlfriend in ages, and the old wound doesn’t hurt anymore.” He let out a small laugh. “Something about you makes me want to spill my secrets.” He leaned back in his chair and turned to me. “What about you though?”

“Me?”

“Look at you. You must have a trail of broken hearts in your wake.”

“Nah. I’m too busy to break hearts.”

“Sure,” he said.

“I’m at the shop all day and usually don’t leave until at least eight. If I have a client appointment at the end of the day, that pushes me getting home even later.” I wasn’t giving the best impression of myself: a workaholic with no time for anything but battered furniture and wealthy patrons. Crawford owned his own business too, so I couldn’t use that as an excuse.

“What about now? Am I taking you away from anyone?”

I shook my head. Mitch and all his inconsistencies and indifference didn’t count next to Crawford, the first man who’d made me feel anything in so long.

“I would have figured you’d have all the single men in New Orleans lined up at your door.”

“Allyn would love that. If it were up to him, I’d go on dates every night of the week. But the last thing I want to do at the end of a long day is go to some noisy bar for a first date with someone I’ll probably never see again.”

“Good thing this isn’t some noisy first date,” he said.

“Yes, very good thing.” I leaned over and rested my cheek against his shoulder. I breathed in. The scent of the water was always the same. I imagined Mags and William on this same dock, planning for a future that never came to be.

“You know, you’re different from the girl who walked into our office and wiped dog slobber off her fancy clothes.”

I picked at a string on my cutoffs and shrugged.

“Now look at you. You’re covered in dust and dirt, and you have fried chicken grease on your fingers.”

I looked down at my hands, my last manicure a distant memory. “I bet Mags would be proud.”

Crawford was right. I was a different person here. I liked having bare feet most of the time. I didn’t mind wearing clothes I’d picked up from the five-and-ten store in town. I had no use for my suitcase of silk tops and skinny pants, and I hadn’t pulled out my flat iron in weeks. I missed the shop and Allyn, but I was getting used to being back in Sweet Bay.

When we thought we saw a dolphin fin cut through the water, we moved to the end of the dock and sat on the edge to get a closer look. The wooden boards were still warm from the day’s heat. After a moment, I looked over at the man sitting next to me. Moonlight trickled across the water and grazed his cheek. His shoulder rubbed against mine as we dangled our legs over the edge of the dock. When I arrived in Sweet Bay, I was counting the minutes until I could leave. Now, the leaving part wouldn’t be so easy. We’d both avoided talking about what would happen when the house was complete and I had to get back to my real life in New Orleans. Maybe now it was time.

“As fast as your workers are going, the house will be finished soon,” I said.

“And . . .” He waited for me to continue.

“If we try to pursue this, we’ll be stuck with a long-distance thing we haven’t even figured out and too many hours spent on I-10 wading through coastal Mississippi.” I hated the words even as they left my mouth.

Crawford raised his eyebrows and pushed my hair back from my face.

I looked down. “I could just save you the trouble now.”

“Trouble of what?”

“Of leaving later. Of finding out that the driving back and forth isn’t worth it. That I’m too busy, too remote, too attached to my work.” I’d heard all the lines before.

“That won’t happen.”

“Why not?”

He took my chin and turned my face toward him. “It won’t happen because you won’t be too busy. Not for this. And I won’t be either. If making the drive is the way I get to see you, I’ll do it. I spend a lot of time in the truck anyway. Might as well make it worth my while. And as for pursuing this ‘thing,’ we’ve passed the point of choosing not to pursue it, don’t you think?”

I nodded and he kissed me. It was soft but urgent, all traces of hesitation gone.

“I thought I’d be in and out of Sweet Bay in a week. And now here you are. And the house, and Mags . . . I thought I was done with this place.”

“Mags and I were conspiring all along. We wanted to mess up your plans so you’d come back where you belong.” He kissed me again. “We’ll figure it out,” he whispered.

We stayed on the dock long after the last lights had gone off inside The Hideaway and on down the bay. We finally picked up the remains of our picnic and walked around the house to his truck parked in the driveway.

“I would’ve made time for you,” I said, pushing that heavy door in my heart open even farther. “If I’d met you in New Orleans, I mean. Even if you’d stumbled into Bits and Pieces on a day with clients swarming all over the place and deadlines staring me in the face, I wouldn’t have been able to say no to you.”