The Summer Wives: Epic page-turning romance perfect for the beach. Beatriz Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ my shoulders, on the back of my neck. I thought, If I turn, if I look at him looking at me, I’ll die.

      “Here, lie down,” he said. “You can see the stars real good from here.”

      So I settled myself back in the sand, rigid, arms straight against my sides. Wanting and not wanting to come into contact with Joseph’s shoulder, Joseph’s arm, bare above the elbow in his white T-shirt. From this small distance, I could smell his soap. He must have been getting ready for bed when he saw our signal. That would explain the toothpaste, the soap, the T-shirt. I should have felt overdressed in my blue tulle, but I didn’t. Maybe it was my stocking feet, crusted with sand, or the democratizing effect of moonlight and salt water.

      “How well do you know your constellations?” Joseph asked.

      “Pretty well.” I was surprised to hear that my voice had returned to its ordinary timbre, not quivering at all. “But you must be an expert.”

      “Why’s that?”

      “Aren’t sailors supposed to be experts on the stars?”

      “Not anymore. The old explorers were, I guess. Back before we had clocks and instruments, and you only had the sky to tell you where you were. Skies and lighthouses. The old days.” He made some movement with his hand, sliding it out from beneath his head to rub his brow. “Anyway, lobstermen fish by day, mostly.”

      “So what does that mean? Are you an astronomer, or not?”

      “The answer to that, Peaches, is yes. I can map the night sky pretty well.”

      “Peaches,” I said.

      “It’s your Island name. Don’t you like it?”

      “I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. It’s too new.”

      “Well, let me know what you decide.” He lifted his hand and pointed. “There’s Hercules. I’ve always liked him. Had to earn his place there in the sky. He wasn’t just born with it, like the others.”

      “Me too. Makes me feel safer, somehow, knowing he’s hanging there with his sword raised. Why don’t you have an Island nickname?”

      “Me? I don’t know. Nobody ever gave me one.”

      “Maybe nobody ever dared.”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      I turned on my side to face his profile. His nose was too big, his brow too ridged. His lips were full, though, which softened him a little. I wondered if the moonlight gilded my skin in the same way; whether his cheeks, if I were so unfathomably brave as to touch them, would feel as cool and smooth as they looked from here, a foot or two away. “That was something, this morning,” I said. “What you did. Diving into the water and saving Popeye. You might have been killed.”

      He didn’t turn toward me or anything. Just shrugged his shoulders a little, against the sand. “Popeye?” he said.

      “That’s what I called him, in my head. Watching you from the window. He had that shirt on, and he was chewing on a pipe—”

      “Wait a second.” He turned his head and squinted at me. “You saw his pipe?”

      “I—well—”

      “You were watching us with binoculars, weren’t you?”

      “Well—”

      “Miranda! For how long?”

      I rolled back to face the sky. “Just a minute or two. I was curious. Never saw anybody fishing for lobsters before.”

      “Aw, you’re blushing.”

      “No I’m not. Anyway, how could you tell if I was?”

      “I just can. I can feel your cheeks getting warm.”

      “No you can’t. Not from over there.”

      “Yes I can.”

      I made to rise, and he caught my hand, and for a second or two we didn’t move. The air grew heavy between us. His hand was calloused and hot, larger than I thought, so rough it seemed to scratch my skin. The hand of a lobsterman. I looked away, because I didn’t know what was happening, because I’d never held a boy’s hand before, certainly not a tough hand like that. The sea slapped against the rocks, the lighthouse beam swept above our heads. A fierce voice called out.

      “Joseph! What’s going on out there?”

      Joseph turned toward the sound, but he didn’t drop my hand. Instead his grip tightened, not uncomfortable, just snug. I looked, too, and saw a dark silhouette in the middle of a glowing rectangle, painted on the side of a squat, square building attached to the lighthouse.

      Joseph called back to this apparition. “Nothing much, Mama. Izzy rowed over with a friend.”

      She said something back, something I couldn’t understand, and Joseph replied in the same language, which I figured was Portuguese. Sounded a little like Spanish, but it went by too fast for me to pick out any words. The exchange ended with a noise of exasperation from the other side, the maternal kind of noise that means the same thing in any language, I guess, and the silhouette stepped forward from the doorway and became a woman, monochrome in the moonlight. She was small and sharp and graceful, and her dark hair was gathered in an old-fashioned bun at the nape of her neck. She made me think of a ballerina, only shorter. She was examining me, I knew. I felt the impact of her dislike like a blow. I shifted my feet and straightened my back, and when I realized Joseph still held my hand, I pulled it free and tucked my fingers deep into the folds of tulle that hung around my legs.

      She turned her head to Joseph and said something in Portuguese.

      He answered in English. “Don’t worry. I’ll row them back myself.”

      “You don’t need to do that,” I said. “I can row.”

      “Not on your life. That current’s a killer when the tide’s going out, and you’ll be rowing against it.” He bent over Isobel and shook her shoulder. “Izzy! Izzy, wake up!”

      She moved her head, groaned, and went still.

      “She’s drunk,” said Mrs. Vargas.

      Joseph didn’t reply to that. He didn’t even sigh, as he might have done, annoyed as he must have been. Just lifted Isobel in his arms and said to me, “Can you make it across the rocks all right?”

      “Sure I can.”

      He went ahead of me, carrying Isobel, and I followed his white T-shirt, phosphorescent as the ocean in the moonlight. My feet were steadier now. I wrapped my toes around the sharp, wet edges of the rocks and didn’t slip once. When we reached the dock, I held the boat steady while Joseph bore Isobel aboard. “You better hold her while I row,” he said, so I stepped inside and made my way to the bow seat and took Isobel’s slack body against mine.

      I don’t think we said a word, СКАЧАТЬ