Kitabı oku: «Random Acts Of Fashion», sayfa 2
On the other end of the phone line, her mother laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic, Gilly. That last one doesn’t exactly sound like an act of destruction.”
Gillian finished licking the frosting off her finger before answering, “That last one could prove very destructive to my waistline.”
“You worry too much about your weight, Gilly.”
Gillian sighed and swirled her finger into the frosting again. She had long resigned herself to the fact that her girl-hood dream of being a model would never come true. She was too short—by model standards, anyway. Five foot four. And both her bottom and her top were far too curvy to ever strut her stuff on the runway. But she had certain standards to maintain. “When you’re a housewife in New Jersey, Mother, a couple of pounds isn’t going to make a difference. Like the PTA is going to care? But in the fashion industry—”
“In the fashion industry there should be someone who designs for women with fannies and breasts, Gilly. I bet there are a lot of women with fannies and breasts in Timber Bay who would be willing to buy—”
“Mother, if you say cute little housedresses or caftans I swear I will scream.”
Bonnie Caine laughed. “I doubt even the women in Timber Bay still wear housedresses, Gilly. I just think that instead of starving yourself so you can wear what you design, you should design stuff for women who eat more than fruit and carrot sticks.”
Gillian looked longingly at the cinnamon bun as her finger hovered above what was left of its thick white frosting. If this kept up, the poor thing was going to be naked come morning.
“Mother, my mission is to influence the fashion sense of women who think Chanel is something you get on your television set. How can I possibly do that if I become one of them?”
“My darling daughter,” her mother said in a dryly amused tone, “I don’t think there is any danger of that ever happening.”
Gillian decided not to rise to the bait of her mother’s teasing. “How’s Binky?” she asked instead.
Her mother filled her in on the health and welfare of Binky, the family’s twelve-year-old golden retriever, and then on her brothers—all four of them. Then her father butted in on the basement extension and told her, yet again, how he was glad that Ryan was finally out of her life but how he still wished she would have dragged that SOB into court and taken him for everything he had. After he filled her in on the latest skirmish at the boilermakers’ union, everyone said goodbye.
As soon as Gillian hung up the phone she felt a stab of homesickness. Yet when she’d gone back to the little blue-collar New Jersey town where she’d grown up after being jilted and swindled, she’d felt less like she belonged there than ever before. She no longer belonged in Manhattan, either. But Timber Bay?
She wandered over to the window in Aunt Clemintine’s living room and looked down onto Sheridan Road. It was late afternoon and the setting sun had streaked the clouds with pink and gold. The Road was bustling with people heading home for the day. Across the street at Sweet Buns, Molly was turning the sign hanging in the door around to read Closed—probably getting ready to go upstairs with little Chloe for the evening.
“Chloe,” Gillian groaned out loud. Mud pies! Served all over the outfit that was supposed to be the centerpiece of her Pastel-Metallic collection. The duster was salvageable. But the pants were a mess. Which meant that Gillian had better get back to work.
As soon as she ran down the stairs and through the door that led to the workroom behind the shop, she felt at home. As much of a misfit as she’d been as a kid, she’d always felt completely comfortable in the back room of her aunt’s dress shop. Aunt Clemintine had taught her all she knew about garment construction. They’d spent wonderful, happy hours together, making clothes for Gillian and her doll. Her family was blue collar and money hadn’t exactly been growing on trees, but Gillian, thanks to Aunt Clemintine, had dressed like a million bucks.
But it wasn’t only the clothes, it was the attention that made her love to visit Aunt Clemintine so much. Back at home, she was the middle child, crowded on both sides by two younger and two older brothers. So around their house it was jock central. Her parents were loving and wonderful, but a little girl who didn’t like sports pretty much got overlooked and out-voiced. Aunt Clemintine, a childless spinster, gave Gillian a place to be safe while she discovered who she was and what she wanted to be. And what she wanted to be was as different as she could possibly be from anything like home.
Unfortunately, as Gillian grew older, Aunt Clemintine and the dress shop got lumped in with everything that Gillian wanted to leave behind. When Aunt Clemintine had died a few years ago and left Gillian the shop, Gillian was touched. But she could just never see herself claiming her inheritance and taking up residence in Timber Bay.
Now she didn’t know how she could have stayed away as long as she had.
The workroom welcomed her warmly, just as it always did. The little puffy calico pincushions scattered about the workspaces. The smell of new cloth, not yet handled or wrinkled. She ran her hand over a bolt of ivory silk and closed her eyes at the feel of it. By the time she opened them, she was smiling again.
The workroom was exactly where she needed to be right now. And not just because she still had clothing to finish before the opening, but because hitting the streets of Timber Bay for the first time hadn’t turned out as she’d hoped and talking to her mother and father had left her a little lonely.
“Come here, you gorgeous piece of goods, you,” she purred to the bolt of silk as she picked it up. “I think tonight is your night to become Cinderella.”
Several hours later, the ivory silk was sliding over her head and floating down her body. Gillian ran out to the dark shop, switched on the light, then closed her eyes as she made her way to the triple mirror near the dressing room, her arms out straight, palms extended. She’d played this scene over and over again as a little girl. She used to be able to find that mirror walking blind. Her outstretched palms hit the cool glass and she smiled. She’d gone right to it.
When she opened her eyes, she was still smiling. The dress looked spectacular. The front neckline draped low enough to show just a hint of décolletage. The back dipped even lower—nearly to her waist—and ended in a flirty bow. The bodice was fitted and the calf-length skirt was full and fluttery. Grace Kelly meets the twenty-first century. Exactly the effect she had been going for.
Gillian stood on tiptoes to try to envision how the skirt would fall if she was wearing high heels, then remembered that she’d brought down a pair of silver strappy sandals the night before. She scampered around the shop till she found them in a corner, then went back to the mirror.
Perfect.
“You are going to look so terrific in the window,” she told the dress. “With that vintage faux pearl jewelry. And maybe a soft pink wool stole to go with the neon sign. Or a cloak. Pink cashmere.”
She pursed her lips wryly and shook her head at her reflection. Talk about dreaming big.
“Well, pink something,” she told herself, refusing to let the price of cashmere ruin the moment. Pink like the Glad Rags logo and sign.
And that reminded her. She hadn’t yet seen the new sign after dark. Gillian threaded her way through unpacked cartons, naked mannequins and hatless hat stands, to the front door. She unlocked it and went outside.
There it was, glowing across the display window in lovely pink neon. Glad Rags. The sight of it put a huge grin on her face and made her twirl around in delight. Quickly, she looked around to make sure there were no witnesses to her less-than-sophisticated display of girlish goofiness.
Not a soul in sight. Different from Manhattan as silk from corduroy. Yet she felt hopeful for the first time in months. Gillian was nearly giddy as she ran across the street to see what the sign looked like from farther away. Maybe it was the air. It was crisp and pure with a tang of water in the wind. The hotel blocked the bay from sight, but she could still hear the waves faintly. Still feel the presence of it on her skin. She started back across the street but paused midway to look up at the sky. So many stars. Even when she was a kid in New Jersey, there hadn’t been so many stars in the sky. She picked out the brightest one and closed her eyes.
“I wish,” she whispered….
That’s when she heard the noise—quickly followed by the feel of the ground beneath her feet shifting jerkily.
And the next thing she knew, she was flying through the air.
She put out her arm to break her fall and felt the jar of the impact all the way up to her shoulder. She grimaced as her palm scraped against the concrete. For a minute, everything went out of focus and then her sight cleared and she saw the dark bulk of a man emerging from the concrete.
“I promised to make you a Cinderella,” she murmured to the silk that seemed to have turned into a cloud around her. “But that doesn’t look at all like Prince Charming.”
He looked more like some sort of beast who made his home in the bowels of the earth. He kept rising and rising and rising, and it was making Gillian dizzy as hell to have to look up so high. Or was it the pain that suddenly shot through her arm when she tried to move? Either way, Gillian did something she’d never done before.
She fainted.
2
ABOVE THE NOISE of the manhole cover clattering to the street, Lukas heard another sound. High-pitched. Like a woman’s squeal.
“Did you hear that?” he asked the big orange tabby cat that was tucked under his arm. The cat flattened its ears and growled. Lukas let go of it and it shot off into the darkness. He hoisted himself out of the manhole and looked around.
The night was clear and crisp, the sky thick with stars. He turned slowly around, trying to remember what he’d learned as a kid about astronomy. All he remembered was that nothing looked like it was supposed to. The names made no sense to him at all. Except maybe the Big Dipper. He could always find that. Tonight it seemed full of stardust.
“You’re getting fanciful, Lukas. You better watch that,” he muttered to himself as he dragged the manhole cover back into place. He straightened up and that’s when he saw it. Something lying in the street. Something as bright and shimmery as a heap of stardust fallen from the sky.
When the heap of stardust moaned and shifted slightly Lukas went closer and found himself looking down at the body of Gillian Caine.
He sucked in his breath, then hunkered down next to her. “Gillian,” he said softly, touching her on the shoulder. She didn’t move. He found the pulse in her neck with his fingers. Oh man, was she soft. And her heart felt like it was beating pretty good, too. She moaned again and he snatched his fingers back. Her eyes stayed closed so he touched her hair for no good reason at all except that, there, just outside of the circle of light from a street lamp, it looked like it was shot with silver. She moaned again and her lashes fluttered.
“Gillian?” he repeated.
She smiled a little this time. A small, sweet smile. In fact, the princess looked altogether sweeter when she was passed out cold than she had when he’d seen her that afternoon.
She was wearing a pale dress made of something silky. It floated around her, settling in the swells and hollows of her body, and fluttered out around the curves of her calves. Her shoes were worthy of a princess, too. Glittery silver with tiny straps and skinny heels that were made out of something as transparent as glass.
“Gillian?” Still no response. He frowned. Shouldn’t she be coming to by now? He looked around the street. All the buildings were dark. Even the windows above Sweet Buns where his sister lived were dark. Molly must have already gone to bed. Timber Bay Memorial was only a mile or so down Ludington Avenue. Lukas figured he could get Gillian to the hospital himself in less time than it would take him to rouse Molly, use her phone, then wait for an ambulance to come.
Carefully he started to gather Gillian up in his arms. She felt so small. A wounded helpless creature. As he started to lift her, his nose brushed her neck. The scent of her shot through him like a craving. The urge was strong to bury his face in the soft crook of her neck. Just for a moment, he told himself.
“Who are you and why are you sniffing my neck?”
Lukas pulled his head back quick enough to give himself whiplash. He knew his face must be flaming.
“Lukas McCoy,” Gillian mumbled fuzzily. “I should have known.” She looked around, still obviously in a daze. “What am I doing in the middle of the road?”
Before he could answer, she started to get up and moaned loudly.
“Ohh—my arm. What happened?”
“Near as I can tell, you must have been standing on that manhole cover over there when I—”
Gillian gasped. “Now I remember! You were that beast who came up out of the concrete and sent me sailing into the air, aren’t you? What is it with you McCoys, anyway?”
“What does that mean?”
She shook her head. “Oh, never mind. Just help me up.”
Lukas helped her struggle to her feet.
“What were you doing, anyway?” she asked. “Lying in wait, hoping to get a second chance after your earlier attempt at crippling me failed?”
“Hey—that was an accident,” Lukas said a little bluntly—more bluntly than he should have. The bright idea of Gillian Caine being wounded and helpless was definitely losing its shine.
“Tell that to the thousand-dollar pair of boots you ruined. And I suppose this was an accident, too. Just you crawling out of the sewer after a day of Dungeons and Dragons?”
“I was down in the tunnel of love to—”
Gillian shot him a sharp look with those huge gray eyes. “The tunnel of what?” she asked him, scrunching up her nose. “Did you say the tunnel of love?”
Lukas hadn’t meant to say that. He felt foolish enough for knocking her flying and the knowledge that he’d wrecked a thousand bucks’ worth of leather wasn’t sitting too well, either. He didn’t relish the idea of trying to explain the legend of Timber Bay’s tunnel of love to the princess when she was acting more like the wicked queen. “Look, maybe we better see about getting you to a doctor,” he said as he took her gently by the other arm.
“I don’t need a doctor,” she said, pulling away from him and jostling her wounded arm in the process. “Ow!” She grimaced. “Okay, maybe I do need a doctor.”
“My truck is right across the street. I’ll take you.” Lukas didn’t know much about body language, but Gillian made it clear she didn’t want his help getting across the street. It was kind of amazing, really, he thought as he followed her to the truck, that she could walk like she did on a pair of heels like that after she’d just been out cold. She made it look as if balancing on three inches of acrylic was the most natural thing in the world.
He opened the door for her and tried to help her in, bumping her shoulder in the process.
“Ow!” she said again, as she shot an angry wounded look at him with those big gray eyes.
“Sorry,” he said as he dipped his head. “I guess I can be kind of a bull in a drugstore.”
“China shop,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Bull in a china shop. You said drugstore.”
“Oh—that’s because when I was twelve I was kind of big for my age and there was this sort of pyramid of perfume bottles stacked up on the counter at Ludington Drugs and one day I went charging right into them, breaking every last one. The whole town square smelled like lavender water for a week. Ever since then—” He gulped, wishing he’d stayed tongue-tied. She was looking at him like he’d gone around the bend. Which he must have because here he was standing in front of the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and rattling on about his damn clumsiness after he’d just given her a demonstration of it by busting up her arm.
“Look,” she said. “I’m sure this folksy charm works on all the local girls, but I’ve got the disadvantage here of being in pain. Let’s save your life story for after I’m medicated, okay?”
Lukas clamped his mouth shut and managed to help her up into the truck and shut the door without jostling her again. When he went around to the other side and got in, the cab was already full of the scent of her skin. It tied his tongue up all over again. Good thing, too. Otherwise, the big-city princess might have managed to bite it the rest of the way off.
GILLIAN FUMED as the truck turned onto Ludington Avenue. Her arm was killing her and the big lug wasn’t even going to bother saying he was sorry. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Make that big adorable lug. That tousled hair the color of pale honey that fell over his fore-head in loose curls. That snub nose and small, sensual mouth. On another man it all might have looked wimpy. But on top of that big body, it just made him look like a small-town Tarzan. No—make that lumberjack. He worked with wood. She knew that much. She could smell it on him and there was sawdust on the plaid shirt he wore tucked into jeans that hugged his massive thighs and made his—
Gillian blinked. What in the name of Vogue magazine was she thinking? Well, she was thinking about what big, hard-looking thighs he had and about what they might feel like if she just reached out and…
This time she blinked and bit her lip at the same time. She deliberately jarred her arm just so she could feel the pain and remember that she had no business whatsoever ogling Paul Bunyan’s thighs.
“Are you all right?” he asked when she gasped in pain.
“No, I am not all right. Thanks to you,” she added testily, reminding herself that he still hadn’t said he was sorry for what he’d done. “I just hope you’ve got your checkbook with you.”
He glanced her way. “My checkbook?”
“This,” she indicated her arm, “is all your fault and you’re paying for the emergency room.”
“Of course I’ll pay. And I’ll give you the money for those overpriced boots, too. But no way am I taking the complete blame this time.”
“Um—reality check. You are completely to blame.”
“You were the one standing out in the middle of the street. They teach you to do that out there in New York City? Cause we don’t teach kids in Timber Bay to stand out in the street much.”
“It’s the middle of the night. Who knew it wouldn’t be safe to cross the street?”
“You weren’t crossing, you were standing.”
“I mean—” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken “—who knew that a giant prowled under the streets of Timber Bay at night and that there was always the danger of him just breaking through the damn concrete whenever he felt like it—no matter who was standing there?”
As far as Lukas was concerned, she was being totally unreasonable. “You were standing on a manhole. I’m a man. You gotta expect these things sometimes.”
“That is totally insane. I was safer in the streets of New York than I am here. First you throw a pile of wood at me—”
“That was an accident!”
“Then your niece ruins a few hundred dollars’ worth of cosmic gray metallic satin—”
“Chloe? Chloe ruined that silver thing you were wearing?”
“Cosmic gray,” she repeated through clenched jaws. “And yes. She ruined it when she decided to serve me mud pies.”
“Hey, Chloe is a sweet kid but she’s not even a year-and-a-half old yet.”
“So what’s your excuse?”
“Listen, princess, I said I was sorry—”
“What did you call me?”
“Princess.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Ha. Did I strike a nerve, princess?”
“I told you not to call me that. And no, you did not.”
“No, I did not what?”
“You did not say you were sorry. Not even once.”
Hadn’t he? Lukas ran over the past minutes in his mind. He must have said he was sorry. But as he pulled into the hospital parking lot and drove around back to the emergency entrance, he honestly could not remember apologizing.
He parked, got out of the truck, and went around to the passenger side to open the door for Gillian. He helped her out as carefully as possible. He could see it cost her some to let him. He had the feeling that at this point she’d rather kick him in the shins with her silver slipper than take his arm.
As soon as the electronic doors swooshed open and let them inside the hospital, Gillian was swept away. He paced while he waited for her to fill out forms and answer questions. He thought he’d get to talk to her when she was sent to the waiting area, but she’d no sooner sat down than a nurse came out and got her. Slow night, apparently, in the E.R. Lukas had never wished for other people to have bad fortune in order that he might get something he wanted, but he sure could have used a little laceration, or a broken toe maybe, so he’d have enough time to apologize to Gillian. Because she’d been right about that, at least. He hadn’t apologized.
What was the matter with him? Lukas never, ever argued with women. Oh, he and his sister Molly tussled like all brothers and sisters, but as far as other women went, Lukas was pretty easygoing. So what had gotten into him tonight? Gillian could have a broken arm and it was all because of him. He remembered how her face had grimaced in pain, and felt ashamed for arguing with her when she was hurt. His mom would skin him alive if she knew.
As he always did when he was bothered by something, Lukas pulled out the piece of wood he kept in one pocket and the knife he kept in the other and sat down in the waiting room to whittle. He knew from the night Chloe was born that the hospital staff wasn’t crazy about having shavings all over the waiting-room floor so he mostly just worked on smoothing out the lines of the chess piece he was carving. When he heard the click of high heels on tile, he looked up to see Gillian coming down the short corridor between the treatment cubicles and the waiting room. Her left arm was in a sling. Oh, man. His heart swelled when he saw it. It must be serious. And it was his fault. And he hadn’t even said he was sorry.
He got up and started toward her. “I—” he began.
“You,” she said, sticking out her good arm, palm up like a traffic cop, “don’t come one step closer.”
She sailed past him and was nearly to the exit doors before he got his wits about him.
“Wait! What did the doctor say?”
She turned around. “It’s sprained, McCoy, that’s what he says. My arm is sprained. I have to keep it in this—this sling. And he says it’ll be a couple of weeks before I can fully use it again. A couple of weeks, McCoy. I don’t have a couple of weeks. I’ve got a boutique to get ready to open. Now how do you suppose I’m going to be able to do that with only one arm?”
She started for the door again. He couldn’t let her get away without apologizing.
“But—wait! I’ll drive you home. I want to—”
“I called a cab. There is no way I’m getting that close to you—or any other member of your family—ever again,” she called over her shoulder just as the doors slid closed.
Lukas ran to catch up to her, but by the time the doors opened again and he hurried outside, the cab was already pulling away.
“OW!” Gillian exclaimed when she stuck herself in the hand with a seam ripper for the fourth time. “This is impossible,” she grumbled, throwing down the cosmic gray satin pants. She’d been hoping that she could salvage the pants because there was just enough of the fabric left to replace the front where Chloe had served her the mud pies, but with one arm in a sling, the seams had ended up looking like the sewing machine needle was going for Olympic gold in the slalom race. She’d assumed that it would be easier to rip out a seam than sew one. But despite the fact that she was right-handed and it was her left arm in the sling, it was still remarkably hard to do anything one-handed.
Gillian finally gave up on the pants and started to unpack the ready-to-wear lingerie she’d ordered. Some of the items needed steaming. She was able to do this pretty well with one hand, but it did nothing to lighten her mood. The silky slips, the gossamer gowns and robes, the lacy bra and panty sets, just made her more aware of the fact that there was going to be more lingerie in the shop than there was going to be Glad Rags by Gillian. She could have wept with frustration. Glad Rags was supposed to showcase her own designs, not those of already established lingerie designers who didn’t even need the measly sales they’d get in Timber Bay, anyway.
After what Ryan had done to her, Gillian had only been able to put one foot in front of the other by chanting living well is the best revenge like a mantra every time the blues threatened. For weeks she’d sustained herself on the image of women flocking to the door of Glad Rags as soon as she unlocked it on the opening day of the Harvest Festival and Sale. She had even done the heretofore unheard-of and toned down her styles for Midwestern tastes. But that hadn’t been sacrifice enough to appease the gods of failure because now her dreams of success—her meager dreams of revenge—were disappearing faster than tickets to a hit Broadway musical. And all because of Lukas McCoy.
A stream of too-hot mist hissed out of the steamer, nearly hot enough to melt the fine lace edging on the camisole she was working on. “Easy, Gilly,” she said, “it’s Lukas McCoy you want to melt, not this exquisite lace.”
Abruptly, she stopped moving the steamer up and down. Had she said melt? Nonsense. Gillian started steaming again. Stopped again. Had she? Well, if she had, she told herself, what she’d meant to say was fry. No, that was the electric chair. Burn? Hmm. Well, certainly not melt. Melting implied all sorts of gooey feelings. And she wasn’t feeling gooey at all towards McCoy. She had no intention of getting all gooey over any man ever again.
Nor did she have any intention of steaming one more garment that she hadn’t designed herself.
Not today, anyway.
Gillian went upstairs to Aunt Clemintine’s apartment to make a pot of coffee. As soon as the aroma drifted up from the coffeemaker, she wished she had one of Molly’s cinnamon buns. Sweet Buns was just across the street. She could hop over there, get a bun, and come back before the coffee was even done brewing. But Molly was a McCoy. And it wasn’t safe for her to go near a McCoy.
She took a cup of coffee into the living room and prepared to chill out by doing some channel surfing. Aunt Clemintine’s taste had run to overstuffed chintz, Italian porcelain flower arrangements, and numerous other girly bric-a-brac that Gillian had loved when she was a little girl. It was so feminine compared to her parents’ house which had been overrun with boy stuff and decorated chiefly with anything that wouldn’t break easily or show dirt.
Gillian opened the doors to the antique armoire that contained a little television set, then got comfortable on the overstuffed sofa. But when she reached for the remote control, it wasn’t on the coffee table. Or the end table. It wasn’t anywhere. It took her five minutes of searching before she realized that the only innovation Aunt Clemintine had embraced after 1952 had been polyester fabric. Her TV didn’t have a remote. It didn’t even have color. Gillian ended up sitting crossed-legged on the floor close enough to the set to reach out and change the channels manually.
The soaps were no fun in black-and-white because you couldn’t really enjoy the clothes. She stopped at a courtroom show—one of those half-hour things where a smart-aleck judge badgered and humiliated the stuffing out of either the defendant or the plaintiff—or sometimes both. Not Gillian’s idea of happy viewing. She reached out to change the channel when something the female plaintiff said caught her attention.
“It’s his fault, Your Honor, how was I supposed to deliver pizzas after he wrecked my car? I got no earnings—he should be made to pay.”
The judge, a feisty-looking middle-aged woman, asked some questions, listened to the answers, and then lashed into the male defendant like her tongue was a cat-o-nine-tails. The defendant tried to defend himself. The judge shut him up. By the time she threw the book at him and made him pay damages and lost wages, Gillian was up on her feet cheering.
“Damn, that felt good,” she said, nearly out of breath with sisters unite blood lust. And then it hit her.
Maybe she should sue Lukas McCoy.
She started to pace the small living room.
Could she?
Should she?
Would she?
Gillian could feel her adrenaline pumping at the thought of having her day in court. Oh, she really wasn’t out for blood. She didn’t want to ruin McCoy or anything. She just wanted enough money to be able to afford to hire someone to be her left arm until it healed. She’d been too big a wimp to do anything about what Ryan had done to her. But that didn’t mean she had to go on being a wimp, did it? She didn’t want to continue allowing men to screw up her life and livelihood, did she?
“Absolutely not!”
She marched over to Aunt Clemintine’s little phone stand and picked up the Timber Bay phone book. “I’ve got more numbers than this in my Rolodex,” she muttered as she flipped through the slim volume until she found the yellow pages. All eight of them. She located the listing for lawyers and picked up the phone.
LUKAS WAS SITTING on the railing that surrounded the marble terrace at the back of the Sheridan Hotel. It was one of those perfect late September days when the leaves on the trees had started to turn but hadn’t yet started to fall. They rustled in the wind off the bay—a last gasp of energy before the colder winds of October put them to rest on the ground. Climbing roses that had been allowed to go wild were still blooming and there were clusters of deep-gold mums, some of them almost as big as shrubs, bordering the low wall that ran down to the water. He could hear the rhythmic lap of the waves against the ramshackle pier.
