"Okay, Mommy," Megan said with a blooming smile.
"I'm taking pictures," Jimmy declared, dropping his bag to the beach and pulling out his camera. "You all go ahead."
"I thought you didn't want to miss out on this experience," Tessa said to him.
"I won't miss out. I'll be watching you. Tessa, you little beachcomber you."
Tessa made a face at him, and he snapped her picture.
"Stop that."
"Blackmail, baby. Tessa MacGuire with her hair blowing in the wind and nowhere near her usual amount of makeup. I can see the tabloids getting into a bidding war."
Alli grinned. She liked Jimmy Duggan more by the minute. Why couldn't Tessa see that Jimmy fit into her life so much better than Sam did?#p#分页标题#e#
Picking up her bag, Alli walked toward the rocks and pools uncovered by the vanishing tide. Megan moved along next to her, with Sam and Tessa veering off to the right. As they climbed around the rocks, they began to see signs of life in the pools, starfish and baby crabs, sea anemones and all sorts of tiny creatures.
A kaleidoscope of colors, a banquet of smells, and the constant hum of the ocean in the distance combined with the clicking of Jimmy's camera provided a rhythm for their oyster hunt. This particular tidal flat was open and wild, barely managed by one of the old oyster companies, who had made it known that the locals were welcome to hunt to their hearts' content.
The oysters just lay there, closed up tight in their shells, waiting for the water to come back to cover them, nourish them for another day. But these oysters were going to be shucked and probed for that one elusive pearl that would finish her grandmother's necklace.
"I think we're going to get lucky today," Megan said as she stuck her small hand into the mud and scooped out an oyster. "Look, I got one."
"You'll get more than one before long," Alli promised.
"I can't wait to show Grams a pearl," Megan continued. "Maybe she'll let me wear the necklace when we get it all fixed up and she comes home from the hospital."
"I'm sure she'll let you try it on."
"When is Grams coming home?"
"Soon, I hope."
"What are we going to do with all the oysters after we open them up?" Megan asked.
"Good question," Sam said, startling Alli by his nearness. "I'm not sure I can take any more raw oysters on the half shell, or that it would be advisable for any of us to do so."
She saw the gleam in his eye and remembered their leaping libidos from the last time they'd gone oyster hunting.
"Stew," she said abruptly. "We'll make oyster stew at Grams's house in her big black pot. And what we don't eat, we'll give away to the neighbors like we used to do."
"Tessa," Sam called. "Alli says we're making oyster stew at Phoebe's house tonight."
Tessa looked up in surprise. "Why? Why can't you make it at your house?"
"Because we always did it at Grams's house," Alli explained, although she was irritated that Sam had felt the need to bring Tessa into it at all. She belonged at her grandmother's house as much as Tessa did, if not more.
"I still don't see—" Tessa began.
"You don't have to see," Alli cut in. "That's where we're doing it. Her kitchen is bigger. The table is longer. And besides, we almost always found the pearl sitting around Grams's kitchen table."
"Fine," Tessa said with a sigh. "Let's just get this over with." She wrinkled up her nose as she bent over and scooped several oysters into her bag. "I can't believe I'm doing this. I never thought coming home would include wading in the tide pools. I can feel the water seeping through my rubber boots."
"You'll live," Alli said crisply.
Tessa shot her a dark look. "Of course I will. Did I say I wouldn't?"
"Are you guys fighting?" Megan asked curiously.
"No," Alli said quickly. "We're just talking like sisters do."
"Sounded like fighting to me," Megan muttered.
"Me, too," Sam said, taking his daughter's hand. "Why don't we go look over there? I think I see a better spot."
Alli bit down on her lip as Sam and Megan wandered away. She hadn't meant to snap, to start anything. Why couldn't she just stop putting her foot in her mouth?#p#分页标题#e#
Two hours later, their bags full, they began the hike back to the car. Tessa handed Jimmy her bag to carry. "It's the least you can do," she told him.
"Anything for you, princess," he said, swinging the sack over one shoulder, the camera bag on the other.
"Thus speaks the man who wouldn't get his feet wet or his hands dirty."