Secrets in Summer(40)
He was bowlegged. Why had she never noticed that before? His legs were thin, like a crane’s; his knees were knobby. In shorts, this usually elegant man looked ridiculous.
She had known that sometime this summer they were bound to meet, and she regretted that it was now, when she was wearing sandals and a not-too-racy high-necked sleeveless sundress. She never knew when she’d run into one of the library’s benefactors and she always wanted to make an appropriate impression. That did not mean, however, a sexy impression, and for a moment, she was sorry about that. She would have liked Boyz to be stabbed with desire and regret.
Maybe he was. “You look great,” Boyz said, after doing a rapid up and down eye scan of her body. “But what are you doing here?”
“I live here,” Darcy told him. “My grandmother died and left me her house.”
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“I’m the assistant children’s librarian at the Atheneum.”
“Well, hey, you always wanted to work in a library. I’m glad for you.”
They stared at each other in silence then, simply looking, caught in a bubble of time. Darcy assumed Boyz was assessing her as she was assessing him. Wondering if that person was truly the person she’d embraced and cried and laughed and argued with.
Boyz seemed like a stranger. Felt like a stranger to Darcy. They had married too quickly, swept along by a tide of infatuation with themselves, with being young, passionate, impetuous. Their divorce had been oddly tranquil. Darcy had signed a prenup, and she hadn’t wanted anything material. She had wished she could have kept Lena’s friendship, but the moment Boyz told his family about their plans to divorce, the Szwedas, even Lena, had dropped her as if she’d never mattered to them at all.
Behind Darcy, a woman snapped impatiently, “Excuse me, but I need to get to the sirloin.”
“Oh, sorry.” Darcy moved her cart so that it was next to Boyz’s. He might feel like a stranger to her, and he had been an unfaithful shit, but she knew she should tell him where she lived and what she could hear. “Actually, Boyz, it’s very strange, but my grandmother’s house is on Pine Street. Right behind the house you’re in for the summer.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Not kidding,” Darcy said. “I’ve lived here for three years.”
“Really.” Boyz broke into his great sparkling smile. “I wish I had known that. We’re considering opening a branch of our office here, so I rented a house for two months. I want to check the place out, see if it’s a good fit. You always talked about your grandmother’s house. Maybe I can come over for a drink sometime. You can, um, give me the scoop on the housing market.”
Darcy couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing. “Same old Boyz. Sorry, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t know much about real estate here, except that it’s expensive. But, Boyz, I want to tell you about something totally off the subject of real estate.”
“Oh, yeah?” Boyz leaned in closer to Darcy, fixing his blue gaze on her face.
Darcy took a step back. “I often sit on my patio next to the hedge between my yard and yours, and I can overhear what goes on in your yard.”
Boyz shrugged. “So?”
An older gentleman coughed. “You gonna be there all day? You’re blocking the aisle.”
“Sorry.” Once again, Darcy moved her cart. “Boyz, over in that corner, there’s a kind of small café. Let’s go there and talk a moment, okay?”
Boyz grinned. “I’ll go ‘talk’ with you anywhere.”
“Oh, get over yourself,” Darcy chided. “It’s not about you and me. It concerns Willow.”
Without waiting to see if he would follow, Darcy aimed her cart down a long aisle toward the café. Once there, she turned.
Boyz shoved his cart to one side and approached Darcy, his face wary.
“What about Willow?”
“Boyz, I think you should know what I heard through the hedge this week. Willow has a boyfriend, a boy named Logan Smith, an island boy. He’s eighteen years old and a troublemaker. He’s handsome and he’s charismatic, and I overheard him trying to get Willow to have sex with him the other night. In your backyard.”
Boyz frowned. He pulled out a chair at one of the small white café tables. “Sit down with me a moment, Darcy.”
She perched on the end of the chair.
He took a seat across from her. He still had the same tell, the sign that gave away a devious turn in his thoughts. He always patted the top of his chest, as if smoothing his tie, whether he wore a tie or not. “I hope you’re not still angry with me.”