“What did you say?”

Taylor shook his head. “I told him he didn’t know what he was talking about.”

“Well . . .” She hesitated. “Does he?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why is it bothering you?”

“Because,” he said, “it just pisses me off that he’d think I might. He doesn’t know anything about you, or us. And he doesn’t know how I feel, that’s for damn sure.”

She squinted up at him, caught in the dying rays of the sun. “How do you feel?”

He reached for her hand.

“Don’t you know?” he said. “Haven’t I made it obvious yet?”

Chapter 21

Summer rose in full fury in mid-July, the temperature creeping past the century mark, then finally it began to cool. Toward the end of the month Hurricane Belle threatened the coast of North Carolina near Cape Hatteras before turning out to sea; in early August Hurricane Delilah did the same. Mid-August brought drought conditions; by late August crops were withering in the heat.

September opened with an unseasonal cold front, something that hadn’t happened in twenty years. Jeans were pulled from the bottoms of drawers, light jackets were donned in the early evening hours. A week later another heat wave arrived and the jeans were put away, hopefully for the next couple of months.

Throughout the summer, however, the relationship between Taylor and Denise remained constant. Settled into a routine, they spent most afternoons together-to escape the heat, Taylor’s crew started early in the morning and would finish by two o’clock-and Taylor continued to shuttle Denise to and from her job at the diner, whenever he could. Occasionally they ate dinner at Judy’s house; sometimes Judy came by to baby-sit Kyle again, so they could have some time alone.

During those three months, Denise came to enjoy Edenton more and more. Taylor, of course, kept her busy as her guide, exploring the sights around town, going out in the boat, and heading to the beach. In time Denise came to see Edenton for what it was, a place that operated on its own slow schedule, a culture tied to raising kids and spending Sundays in church, to working the waters and tilling the fertile soil; a place where home still meant something. Denise caught herself gazing as he stood in her kitchen, holding his coffee cup, wondering idly whether he would look the same way to her in the distant future, when his hair had turned to gray.

She looked forward to everything they did; on a warm night toward the end of July, he took her up to Elizabeth City and they went dancing, another first in too many years. He moved her around the floor with surprising grace, waltzing and two-stepping to the drumming bass of a local country band. Women, she couldn’t help but notice, were naturally drawn to him, and occasionally one would smile at him from across the floor and Denise would feel a quick hot pang of jealousy, even though Taylor never seemed to notice. Instead his arm never left her lower back, and he looked at her that night as if she were the only person in the world. Later, while eating cheese sandwiches in bed, Taylor pulled her close as a thunderstorm raged outside the bedroom window. “This,” he confided, “is as good as it gets.”

Kyle, too, blossomed under his attention. Gaining confidence in his speech, he began to talk more frequently, though much of it didn’t make sense. He’d also stopped whispering when running more than a few words together. By late summer he’d learned to hit the ball off the tee consistently, and his ability to throw the ball had improved dramatically. Taylor set up makeshift bases in the front yard, and though he did his best to teach Kyle the rules of the game, it wasn’t something Kyle was interested in at all. He just wanted to have fun.

But as idyllic as everything seemed, there were moments in which Denise sensed an undercurrent of restlessness in Taylor she couldn’t exactly pin down. As he had during their first night together, Taylor would sometimes get that unreadable, almost distant look after they made love. He would hold her and caress her as usual, but she could sense something in him that made her vaguely uncomfortable, something dark and unknowable that made him seem older and more tired than Denise had ever felt. It scared her sometimes, although when daylight came she often berated herself for letting her imagination run away with her.

Toward the end of August Taylor left town to help fight a major fire in the Croatan forest for three days, a dangerous situation made more deadly by the searing August heat. Denise found it difficult to sleep while he was gone. Worrying about him, she called Judy and they spent an hour talking on the phone. Denise followed the coverage of the fire in the newspaper and on television, searching in vain for any glimpse of Taylor. When Taylor finally returned to Edenton, he drove straight to her house. With Ray’s permission, she took the evening off, but Taylor was exhausted and fell asleep on the couch soon after the sun had gone down. She covered him with a blanket, thinking he’d sleep until the morning, but in the middle of the night he crept into her room. Again, he had the shakes, but this time they didn’t stop for hours. Taylor refused to talk about what had happened, and Denise held him in her arms, concerned, until he was finally able to nod off again. Even in his sleep his demons gave him no relief. Twisting and turning, he called out in his sleep, his words incomprehensible, except for the fear she heard in them.

The next morning, sheepish, he apologized. But he offered nothing by way of explanation. He didn’t have to. Somehow she knew it wasn’t simply memories of the fire that were eating him up; it was something else, naked and dark, bubbling to the surface.

Her mother had once told her that there were men who kept secrets bottled up inside and that it spelled trouble for the women who loved them. Denise instinctively knew the truth of her mother’s statement, yet it was hard to reconcile her words with the love she felt for Taylor McAden. She loved the way he smelled; she loved the rough texture of his hands upon her and the wrinkles around his eyes whenever he laughed. She loved the way he stared at her as she got off work, leaning against the truck in the parking lot, one leg crossed over the other. She loved everything about him.

Sometimes she also found herself dreaming of someday walking down the aisle with him. She could deny it, she could ignore it, she could tell herself that neither of them was ready yet. And maybe the last part of that was true. They hadn’t been together very long, and if he asked her tomorrow, she liked to think that she would have the wisdom to say exactly that. Yet . . . she wouldn’t say those words, she admitted to herself in her most brutally candid moments. She would say Yes . . . yes . . . yes.

In her daydreams, she could only hope that Taylor felt the same.

“You seem nervous,” Taylor commented, studying Denise’s reflection in the mirror. He was standing behind her in the bathroom as she put the finishing touches on her makeup.

“I am nervous.”

“But it’s only Mitch and Melissa. There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

Holding up two different earrings, one to each ear, she debated between the gold hoop and the simple stud.

“For you, maybe. You already know them. I only met them one time, three months ago, and we didn’t talk all that long. What if I make a bad impression?”

“Don’t worry.” Taylor gave her arm a squeeze. “You won’t.”

“But what if I do?”

“They won’t care. You’ll see.”

She put the hoops aside, choosing the studs. She slipped one into each ear.

“Well, it wouldn’t be so nerve-racking if you’d taken me to meet them sooner, you know. You’ve waited an awful long time to start bringing me to meet your friends.”