Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 4

 Chapter Four

Lake’s Jeep in the driveway let me know he was home when I finally rode the old bike back toward his house late that afternoon. The sun had just begun to sink behind the thick clouds and the wind grew colder. I buried my chin into the neck of my jacket for warmth.

Lake wasn’t alone. When I walked through the squeaking front door, I found him at the long table in front of the windows, sitting on an old wooden stool. Next to him, a teenaged boy perched on a second stool. They looked at me over their shoulders at the sound of the door opening.

“There you are,” Lake said, giving me a nervous smile. “Did you have fun exploring the island?”

I shrugged. “Not much to see.”

“More shops are open during the summer,” the boy told me.

Lake gestured toward him. “This is Dylan Waverly. He lives two houses down and helps me out with my work sometimes. Dylan, this is Mara.”

He didn’t say “my daughter Mara,” only “Mara,” as if that was all I was to him. A stranger living in his house for a couple of years.

Dylan stood to shake my hand, giving me a wide, warm smile. He was several inches taller than me, with a long, narrow body. His silky blonde hair fell to his shoulders and his bronzed skin didn’t show any evidence of tan lines from sunglasses or shirt collars. His accent sounded like Lake’s, a little Scottish or Irish or something I couldn’t quite place.

But his eyes captivated me. Almost hidden by the long bangs that fell over his forehead were two wide blue eyes, the color so light that they appeared almost silvery white, as if he didn’t have an eye color at all.

“So,” I said, to find something to distract me from staring at Dylan’s eyes any longer, “what’s with all the shells?”

Dylan retrieved a canvas sack from the floor and dumped out a pile of shells, dried starfish, and pieces of sand dollars mixed with a lot of sand.

“Sometimes we sell beach things to the tourists.” He picked up a big shell. “Like this conch shell. We scrub it a bit and then polish it up. And these are always big hits.” He pointed toward two dried starfish.

I made a face. “People really want to buy dead animals?”

“Woodsers do,” Dylan said.

“Why does everyone keep using that word?” I asked.

Lake gave me a funny look. “What do you mean?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“It means you’re from the mainland,” Dylan explained. “It’s not always meant as an insult, but sometimes, from certain people, it is.”

Dylan’s gaze kept drifting back to me, his eyes studying me intently. The shadowy light in the room made his face appear soft and warm in the glow of the lamp on the edge of the table. He looked at me in a way that seemed familiar, as if he’d known me all my life and had waited for me to return. I shifted slightly from one foot to the other, trying to avoid his gaze, but finding my eyes moving back to him every time I looked away.

The ringing of Lake’s cell phone startled me. He pulled the phone from his pocket and checked the caller ID. “It’s one of my clients,” he said. “I’m making a water scene for her. Be right back, I have to take this.”

He slipped from the stool and disappeared through the door leading to his bedroom, the phone pressed to his ear.

Leaving me alone with Dylan and his hypnotic stare.