Safe Harbor by Antoinette Stockenberg Page A

and he felt an immediate surge of guilt. He hadn't been candid with Holly, and as far as he could see, that was never going to change.
    Hell. He couldn't just leave her waiting for him to show.
    Reluctantly he backtracked to the little Cape and tapped on the window of the back door before letting himself in. Holly was all smiles and setting the table. She had changed from tank top and shorts to a pale green, jumper-kind-of-sundress thing, and she looked, if possible, even more old fashioned than the image of her that he seemed to have been filed permanently in his mind.
    Only now she wore lipstick. And maybe a little ... her eyes looked bigger somehow, even more green than usual. It was a subtle and yet startling change. He smiled sheepishly and said, "You look nice."
    "Thank you. I've been known to try."
    "I didn't mean you didn't look nice before," he amended. "Just that you look—green must suit you." Suddenly he was feeling truly uncomfortable.
    She laughed and said, "I know what you meant, Sam. Now sit down and we can enjoy a delicious lunch. The avocado's ripe, the wine's breathing, and the crab salad is perfection itself—as perfect as yesterday's crab salad can be, anyway. You really lucked out. There are days when I have turkey hot dogs for lunch."
    He saw that she had se t the table with care. Lattice- patterned dishes shared space on a fancy white tablecloth with a vase of flowers, stemmed glasses, and a wicker basket filled with French bread. The salt and pepper shakers were silver. The atmosphere struck him as less struggling-folk-artist than lunch at the Ritz. Leisurely lunch at the Ritz.
    "This is really very nice," he said as he took the chair he was bid. "You went to a lot of trouble, Holly. The only thing is ... I have to catch a ferry."
    "A ferry! When?" she asked, setting a plate with a crab-stuffed avocado before him.
    Right after I wolf this down would have been the honest answer. He settled for saying, "I have a little while yet."
    "I see." She brought the bottle of wine over and filled his glass. "It's just that you never mentioned it."
    "True. I would have, if I'd known about it. Something just came up."
    "What could come up? Your cell phone's dead ."
    "True." The girl was quick. "It's more something that I remembered." Lies, more lies, more lies. What was it about her that made him want to cover his tracks so completely?
    "Well, it's a good thing you remembered," she said, stabbing the stuffed avocado hard with her fork. After a minute she looked up at him and said, "Remembered what, exactly?"
    Even he knew that she was crossing the bounds of good manners. He twitched an eyebrow in the politest possible reprimand. It was enough to send heat flooding into her cheeks.
    "Well, of course if you'd rather not say, I understand," she said as she concentrated on buttering a slice of bread. "That's absolutely your right." After a short, meditative chew, she lifted her chin. "Why would you rather not say?"
    "I thought it was my right," he answered lightly.
    She thought about it and apparently decided that it wasn't. Resting her fist ends on the table, she leaned forward and said, "Sam, can we stop playing games? This change of plans has something to do with Eden . If it has to do with Eden , then it has to do with me."
    "I'm not sure I see a connection," he ventured.
    "Then take off your blindfold! I've told you everything I know about her—and a lot of stuff I shouldn't have said about my parents besides. Whereas you've told me virtually nothing ," she said, her voice rising with emotion. "I don't even know who owns the damn engraving!"
    She was impassioned, and she had a point. With a grudging frown he handed her a cookie of information. "The engraving belongs to my parents."
    "Your parents! You said they were dead!"
    "My birth mother is, they tell me. Since no one has a clue who my biological father is, I like to think of him that way as well. But my adoptive parents are alive. Alive and ailing and poor