The Husband She Never Knew. Cynthia Thomason
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She left two dollars on the counter. “By the way, do you know which house belongs to Jamie Malone?”
Bobbi Lee snorted and jabbed her pencil into a tight wave over her ear. “There aren’t any houses out there,” she said. “But Jamie won’t be hard to find. He’s the only man that lives on the point.”
No houses? One lone resident? Vicki took a healthy swig of coffee.
“You do know a storm’s comin’?” Bobbi Lee said. “Pintail’s no place to be.”
Vicki picked up her purse and headed for the exit. “I won’t be there long,” she responded. “Thanks again.”
Bobbi Lee only nodded, but as Vicki went out the door, she distinctly heard the waitress say, “Now, why would that woman be lookin’ for a married man?”
Married? Jamie Malone was married? Bobbi Lee had said Jamie was the only man on Pintail Point. She hadn’t mentioned a woman at all. Vicki slid into the driver’s seat of her small rental car. She took a moment before starting the engine to think about this latest shocking information. What kind of trouble was she heading into with the only man who lived on Pintail Point? Was she meeting with a bigamist? Jamie must have married another woman because surely he didn’t still think of Vicki as his wife. Vicki definitely didn’t think of him as her husband. Would she face an irate woman who knew nothing of Jamie’s past? And why did the waitress proclaim Jamie’s marital status in a voice loud enough to ensure that she heard it? Was it a warning of some kind?
Vicki turned the key in the ignition, relieved to hear the steady hum of the engine. This little car would take her away from Pintail Point as reliably as it got her there.
“You’ve come this far, Vicki,” she said. “Just get it over with.” She pulled out of the parking space and headed in the direction of Sandy Ridge Road. In her rearview mirror she saw Bobbi Lee watching her departure from the open doorway of the Bayberry Cove Kettle.
ANY NOTION that the airline representative might have been wrong about the approaching storm vanished when Vicki left the town limits of Bayberry Cove and turned onto Sandy Ridge Road.
The two-lane paved road hugged the shore of Currituck Sound, and on a sunny day would have provided scenic glimpses of the protected waters between the North Carolina coast and the Outer Banks. But today the horizon was gray, leaving the far islands blanketed in charcoal shadows. White-capped waves crashed against the sea wall, spewing frothy streams of brackish water over the edge of the road.
Wind buffeted Vicki’s little car. She gripped the steering wheel to maintain a straight course. The marshes were eerily void of wildlife, and there wasn’t a boat in sight. Vicki imagined that on any other day, fishermen would be working these waters and cursing the many pleasure-boaters.
After three miles, she spotted the causeway Bobbi Lee had mentioned and turned off Sandy Ridge. Her tires crunched on the gravel surface of the one-lane spit of land bordered by sloping rock embankments. The causeway appeared to be about half a mile long, and at the end, through a thickening haze, Vicki detected a couple of low buildings set amongst a copse of trees.
This path was more treacherous than Sandy Ridge. Currituck Sound attacked the causeway from both sides, sending churning waves onto the road and leaving the driving surface riddled with puddles, gravel and seaweed.
In the distance, clouds swirled in ashen bands heavy with moisture. The weather was deteriorating quickly, Vicki realized, and she would be wise to leave the causeway as soon as possible. Once Jamie signed the papers, she could wait out the storm in a hotel near the Norfolk airport.
The buildings on the point of the causeway were more recognizable now. Vicki slowed her car under the wind-whipped branches of a tall pine. Bobbi Lee had been right. There were no houses on Pintail Point. There was, however, a large metal shed with a tin roof. And a houseboat.
Vicki parked next to a pickup truck with a light film of sand on its metallic-blue panels. She removed her briefcase from a zippered compartment in her garment bag and examined the point, which was no more than two acres.
She didn’t see anyone around the houseboat, a one-story structure with a sundeck occupying half the roof. The boat was painted forest green with tan trim around the windows and shake cedar shingles extending from the slightly peaked roof. Window boxes gave the compact place a whimsical look, almost like a mountain chalet.
Vicki closed her eyes and took a fortifying breath. A clear image of that other time she’d met Jamie Malone flooded her memory. She was even more anxious now than she’d been on the courthouse steps. On that day, however, she’d known what to expect. She and Jamie had followed the advice of a mutual friend who’d guided them through the marriage and green-card process. Now she had only herself to rely on. There was no intermediary to witness this odd reunion, except perhaps Jamie’s wife.
Vicki shivered. She buttoned her jacket, stuffed her car keys inside the pocket and wrapped a trembling hand around the door handle. “Just go,” she said to herself. “Find this man, get him to sign the papers, and you’ll be on your way in a few minutes.”
She opened the car door and stepped into a fierce wind that whipped her hair from its tortoiseshell clip and battered strands of it against her cheeks. For a moment she felt like the heroine of a gothic novel. All the elements were here. The wind, the threatening rain, the isolation of Pintail Point. And even worse, a man who was just as much a stranger to her today as he’d been thirteen years ago when she’d married him.
She approached the houseboat. “Mr. Malone?” she called, and realized her words had been swept up in a gust of wind. “Hello!” she hollered. “Mr. Malone, are you here?”
She heard a bang and a crack. She couldn’t identify the sound, but it was repeated twice more before someone shouted back, “Yes, I am, though if the wind gets any stronger up here, I might be blown to the mainland.”
Up here? Vicki held the hair out of her eyes and stared at the top of the houseboat from where the voice with the hint of an Irish accent had originated. A man appeared on the roof. He braced his feet apart against the force of the wind and looked down at her. “I can’t imagine what you’re doing on the point today, but as long as you’ve come, would you toss up a box of staples?”
Vicki followed the imaginary line from the tip of the man’s index finger to a red metal toolbox on top of a large wooden picnic table. She went to the edge of the table and grasped the latch of the toolbox. She’d just opened the lid when a loud snuffling sound came from the ground. A second later a heavy weight landed on the toe of her loafer. Vicki screamed, jumped away from the table and leaned over to see what had attacked her shoe.
A large, pointed dome of patchy gray fur poked out from underneath. A pair of small amber eyes on each side of a long, grizzled snout looked up at her with an expression of casual canine interest. “My God,” she gasped, “does he bite?”
The answer came from the top of the houseboat. “Beasley? Only the occasional gnat. And it had better be flying low.”
Vicki shifted her attention from the strange-looking dog to the man. He wiggled his finger with an edge of impatience, reminding her of his request. He obviously had no idea who she was.
Vicki hadn’t known what she would find on Pintail Point, but she’d half expected the past thirteen years would melt away and she’d recognize the ruddy face of the scruffy carpenter she’d married. The man giving her an expectant look from twelve feet above was Jamie Malone all right, but thirteen years had made a difference in him, as they no doubt had in her.
“The staples are in a red-and-white box,” he said. “I’m up here with a roll of plastic and a staple gun that’s just run out of staples. And a sky that tells me I’m running out of time.”
“Oh, right.” She rummaged through the toolbox and found the requested item.
Jamie approached the edge of the roof and bent slightly. “Just toss her up. I’ll catch it.”
The tail of a green flannel