“Madison,” she called, heading for the kitchen door. “I’m going out for a while.”

“Tell Ty I said not to mess it up this time,” Madison called back.

*   *   *

At dawn, they sat in the Adirondack chairs, drinking coffee made in Ty’s grandmother’s battered aluminum percolator, watching the sunrise. A lone pair of fishermen stood ankle deep in the water, surf casting, but the beach was otherwise deserted.

“Nice morning,” Ellis said with a yawn, feeling completely at peace.

“Nicer night,” Ty said, putting down his coffee cup.

“Mmm, hmm,” Ellis said.

“Know what would be really, really nice?” Ty asked, pulling her to her feet.

“Again?” Ellis clutched the blue terry cloth bathrobe a little tighter.

“Oh. Well, maybe later. For now, I was thinking that I really, really need a shower,” Ty said. “And if I just had somebody to help wash my back…” He had the bathrobe belt nearly unknotted. He was a very fast worker, Ellis thought.

“I don’t know,” Ellis said uneasily. “Those guys out there…” She nodded towards the fishermen.

“They’ve pulled in two bluefish, just while we’ve been sitting out here,” Ty pointed out. “Those guys are in the zone. They’re oblivious to us.”

He was tugging her towards the wooden shower enclosure, pulling his own T-shirt over his head. He turned on the faucet, opened the door, and stepped out of his boxers. “Come on,” he grinned, pulling at her belt. “You’ll love it.” The bathrobe fell open, and she was just as naked as Ty.

“Oh well,” Ellis said. She let the robe fall to the deck and stepped into the shower.

“One minute,” Ty said, picking up the fallen robe. He put his hand in the pocket and brought out a foil-wrapped condom, holding it up for Ellis’s approval. “Be prepared,” he said solemnly.

Warm water sluiced down on her head. Ty had a bottle of baby shampoo. He squirted some into his hands and rubbed it into her hair, massaging her scalp expertly with long, tapered fingers. She took the bottle from him and returned the favor, running her fingers through his thick, soapy, sun-bleached hair.

They stood under the water, blinking and giggling. Ty took the shampoo bottle and traced a line of amber liquid from her shoulder to her right breast, and then her left. He put the bottle back on the little wooden shelf, and turned his attentions to Ellis. He worked the shampoo into a fine white foam, caressing her breasts, soaping her belly, slowly tracing a line in the soap lower, and lower, finally sliding into her.

They moved together, and Ellis forgot to be self-conscious, forgot to be inhibited, forgot all the rules. “Splinters,” she whispered at one point, as her soapy butt rubbed up against the rough-hewn cedar planks, but that too was quickly forgotten.

They were on their second lather, and the water was just beginning to get noticeably cooler, when Ellis heard footsteps on the wooden stairs.

“Ty!” she whispered.

“Hmm?” He was behind her, soaping her back.

“Somebody’s here.”

“Hmm?” He turned her around and nuzzled her neck.

“Hellooo!”

Ellis froze. She knew that voice.

“Shiiiit,” he whispered. He knew it too. All too well.

“Oh my God,” Ellis breathed. “Hide me.”

“Why?” he whispered back. “What do you care?”

“Ty?” her voice came closer. They could tell Kendra was almost at the top step.

“Do something,” Ellis pleaded. “I’ll die of embarrassment if she sees me like this.”

“Stay here,” Ty whispered. “I’ll get rid of her and be right back.”

Ellis looked down and realized that if Kendra got any closer she’d surely notice two sets of legs inside the wooden shower stall. She sat on the narrow wooden bench and drew her legs up to her knees.

Ty shut off the water, snatched up his boxers, and pulled them on. The next minute, he was wrapping the bathrobe around himself and stepping out, firmly pushing the shower door shut.

“Kendra,” Ellis heard him say. “What the hell do you want?”

Ellis looked down at the water streaming off her body. She shivered and saw the fine goose bumps prickling her bare skin. Hurry, she thought. Hurry!

44

“Tyyyy,” Kendra’s voice was shrill, teasing. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“You always manage to catch me at a bad time, Kendra,” Ty snapped. “It’s barely 7 A.M. What the hell do you want?”

“If you’d return my phone calls, you’d know what I want,” Kendra said, totally unfazed by Ty’s rudeness. “Ryan and I want to talk to you about buying Ebbtide.”

“Talk to the bank, not me,” Ty said. “It’s out of my hands, as you well know.”

“We could help each other,” Kendra said sweetly. “You need to get out of debt, and Ryan and I are looking for a beach house. A beach house with age and character, just like Ebbtide. But we’d like to just take a look around the place before we make an offer. I’m thinking it’s gonna need an awful lot of work, and we’d like to ballpark it before we get to auction.”

“Nothing doing,” Ty said flatly. “Go away.”

“You don’t have to give me attitude,” Kendra said. “I’m not the bad guy, you know.”

Ellis hugged her knees tightly to her chest. The sun hadn’t fully risen yet, and the morning air was still chilly. As chilly as Ty’s voice.

“Sure you are,” Ty said. “You and your asshole husband are a couple of vultures, circling around my house, looking to swoop in and snatch it away from me. And if you think I’m gonna actually help you do that, you’re dumber than I thought.”

“I’m dumb? I’m not the one who dropped out of law school and threw away a brilliant career as a lawyer. I’m not the one who walked away from a marriage the first time it hit a bump in the road, because my fragile little ego couldn’t take a dose of reality. And I’m certainly not the one who’s fixing to lose his house, and everything else, because I refused to face facts and cut a deal with somebody who could save my bacon.”

“You’ve got an interesting take on history, Kendra,” Ty drawled. “I wonder if ol’ Fuckface knows you regard him as ‘a bump in the road.’”

“Stop calling him that,” Kendra snapped.

“Stop showing up at my house, uninvited and unannounced. Stop calling me, and stop leaving me messages,” Ty said. “And now, get the hell off my property, before I call the cops.”

“I’ll go,” Kendra said, and Ellis heard her feet moving across the deck. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“But throwing me out doesn’t change anything, Ty,” she taunted. “Ryan and I will still be on the Dare County Courthouse steps on the fifteenth, and we’ll have our checkbook out. And there’s not a damned thing you can do to stop us. We’re gonna buy Ebbtide, Ty. And when we do, the first thing we’ll do is kick your white trash ass right to the curb.”

“Beat it,” Ty said. “Now.”

The footsteps were rapidly retreating. Evidently, Ty looked as menacing as he sounded. Ellis heard an engine roar to life, heard the accelerator being floored, and then, the eminently rewarding sound of Kendra’s tires, spinning ineffectively in the crushed shell driveway.

Ty chuckled. He walked over to the shower stall and poked his head inside.

Ellis was curled in a ball on the bench, her knees pressed to her chest. She managed to smile up at him through lips turned blue. “Y-y-you d-d-da m-m-man. Now, could I please have a t-t-towel?”

45

Ellis heard the thrum of the vacuum cleaner as soon as she opened the front door. Dorie was running it across the worn rug in the living room. She waved at Dorie, and walked into the kitchen to find Madison waxing the floors. Upstairs, Ellis found Julia flitting about among the bedrooms, her arms full of new linens, pillows, quilts, and throw rugs.

“What’s going on?” she asked, catching Julia coming out of her own room. “What’s all that stuff?”

Julia pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Getting the house styled up for its big moment. And this,” she said, pointing with her chin at the stack of linens in her arms, “is lots of stuff to girly up the bedrooms. Booker and I did a little shopping at HomeGoods last night. A lot of shopping, actually.”