“I don’t know if you’re back yet—I assume you evacuated. But I’m around, if you still want to get together. You don’t need to call. Just show up when you can. I’ll be here all day, mopping up.”

He’d forgotten his appointment with Cindy, but he was pleased by the reminder and the fact that she was able to meet.

Just as he clicked off the answering machine, the phone rang. He picked up the receiver.

“Rory?”

“Grace,” he said.

“I’m sorry if you went to the motel and I wasn’t there. We ended up not evacuating.” “I wondered what happened,” Grace said. “I was just hoping all of you were all right.”

“We’re fine,” he said.

“It seemed like a horrendous storm when it was over our heads, but at least here on the cul-de-sac, it didn’t do too much damage. Are you in Rodanthe? How is it down there?”

“Some of the cottages close to the water really took a beating,” Grace said.

“But our… my house is fine. So, why didn’t you leave?”

“It’s a long story.” It seemed as though all that had occurred the night before had taken days to transpire, not mere hours.

“Shelly was afraid to leave the Outer Banks,” he said.

“So when it came time to evacuate, we couldn’t find her.”

“Oh my God,” Grace said.

“Where was she? Is she okay?”

“We searched everywhere, looking in abandoned cottages and all over the beach. We finally had to give up. Daria was really upset.”

“I can imagine.”

“The power went out and the phones weren’t working.” He remembered listening to Chloe’s confessions in the darkness. He would skip over that part.

“Then Daria’s coworker, Andy, suddenly showed up to tell us that his neighbor’s boat had flipped up on the pier, and a woman and little boy were trapped beneath it. So, Daria and I went over there to help.” The image of Daria throwing herself beneath the boat to save the child was still fresh in his mind.

“And that’s where Shelly was.

It turns out she and Andy have been involved for a while. “

Grace was silent for a minute, probably trying to absorb all he had just said.

“Involved?” she asked.

“You mean, dating?”

“I don’t know if dating is the right word,” Rory said.

“But they’ve obviously been more than friends. We didn’t get to talk about it much because things were too crazy over there, trying to extract the people from under the boat and getting them to the trauma center.”

“Are they all right?” she asked.

“They were, last I heard,” Rory said.

“Rory… could we get together tomorrow? Up there?”

For the first time, he didn’t feel enthusiastic about seeing her. His mind was still on Daria. He winced when he remembered her telling him she was in love with him. Those words had taken him by surprise, and he’d felt guilty, as though he’d used her by making love to her. He’d thought Daria was the type of woman who could not be used, who would never do something she did not have completely under her control. She seemed invulnerable—so independent and strong and self-sufficient—that he hadn’t seen the need in her for anyone, much less for him. His body had responded with instant arousal when she’d kissed him, and he had not considered stopping himself. He’d treated it almost like one more activity with his old friend, like crabbing or fishing. He hadn’t realized that, for her, it meant much more than that. He shouldn’t have let it happen. Yet, it had been so damned good. And he knew he would rather spend tomorrow afternoon pulling crabs out of the bay with Daria than spending time with Grace.

“Why don’t we talk again tomorrow,” he said.

“See how our schedules pan out.”

She hesitated once more.

“All right,” she said.

“But I [eally would like to come up there.”

“We’ll talk then,” he said.

“And I’m sorry again about landing you up at the motel.”

He hung up the phone, and stared at the receiver for a minute before getting up and walking to the front door. There was one more woman he needed to apologize to this afternoon.

Chloe was on the front steps of the Sea Shanty, sweeping away the eelgrass that the storm had brought to their door.

“Looks like you lost some screens,” he said.

Chloe barely glanced at him.

“Yes,” she said.

“But that’s about the worst damage that was done, fortunately. To the cottage, anyway.” She darted her eyes in his direction again, and he had the feeling she knew what had happened between him and Daria the night before. Maybe, though, it was just his imagination—or his guilt—at work. Maybe she was simply alluding to the trauma suffered by Andy’s neighbors. Or more probably, to the embarrassment she herself had suffered when she’d admitted to him and Daria about her affair with Sean Macy.

“Is Daria in?” he asked.

“She’s up in her room,” Chloe said.

“Would it be all right if I went up?”

“Why not?” Chloe said.

“I guess there’s not much mystery left between the two of you, huh?”

Ouch.

“Chloe…” he began, not sure what more he could say.

Chloe sighed and leaned on the broom.

“Don’t listen to me, Rory,” she said.

“It’s just that my sisters are getting jerked around right now, and it’s upsetting me.”

“I’m not jerking Daria around,” he said. “What would you call it?” she asked. “In spite of the fact that you’re involved with someone else, you have sex with a woman who loves you dearly, who would do anything for you. I’m not excusing Daria’s behavior, but at least her motivation was noble. She did it because she’s crazy about you.”

He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing, just walked past her into the cottage and up the stairs.

The door to Daria’s room was open. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, architect’s drawings spread out in front of her. He knocked on the open door, and she looked up.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“I thought I’d come see how you’re doing,” he said.

She bit her lip and lowered her eyes to the drawings, pushing them around with the tips of her fingers. He walked across the room and sat down on the edge of the bed, rescuing her hand from its futile wandering across the drawings and holding it on his knee.

“I’m sorry, Daria,” he said.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said.

“I started it. I shouldn’t have done that if I wasn’t prepared to accept the consequences.”

“You know I care about you, don’t you?” he asked.

She uttered a small laugh, and he knew his words sounded pale, meaningless and, he feared, patronizing.

“I didn’t know how you felt,” he said.

“And … it caught me off guard when you told me.” There was more he wanted to say. He wanted to tell her he needed time to sort out his feelings for her, to figure out why, if she were to kiss him at that moment, he would do it all over again. But he knew it wouldn’t be fair to say that to her right now.

It would only ease his burden and add to hers.

She looked at him squarely.

“Shelly’s pregnant,” she said. And then she began to cry, drawing her knees up to her chest and burying her head against them.

“Oh, no.” He wanted to pull her into his arms to comfort her, but remembered that was how things had gotten out of control the night before. Instead, he held her ham tighter.

“What is she going to do?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“She wants to marry Andy and have the baby.

I just can’t see it. “

“How… pregnant is she?” He thought of Shelly’s slim figure.

“She must not be very far along.”

“Only a matter of weeks,” she said.

“So there’s time to ” “Yes.” She sighed, as though tired of the discussion.

“There’s time.”

He hesitated.

“Look,” he said.

“I’m on my way up to Corolla to see Cindy Trump. Why don’t you come with me?”

She shook her head. Tears still streamed down he cheeks, and he reached up to smooth them away with thi back of his fingers before standing up.

“I’ll see you later,” he said.

“Take care.”

The beach road was littered with shingles and shutter;

and the branches of small trees. Water pooled in spots, and traffic was thick with people returning to their homes and vacations. The landscape of Corolla was washed clean, its huge houses sprawling from the road to the sea. These were true houses up here, not cottages.

Many of then. could be considered near-mansions.

He followed the directions Cindy had left on his machine and found her house on, of all things, a cul-de-sac He parked in the driveway, and had to skirt an uprootec tree as he walked to her front door.

Before he had a chance to knock, the door was opened, and there stood Cindy Trump in an orange bikini, looking very much as she hac twenty years ago.

“Rory!” She stepped back to let him in and gave hirr a hug. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “You look even bet lei than you do on TV.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“And you haven’t changed a bit.” The trite words were the truth. Of all the people he’d met from the cul-de-sac that summer, Cindy had changed the least. She was tan, slender, blond and still did a bikini justice. She reminded him of some of the women he knew in Hollywood, and wondered if she’d paid a visit or two to a plastic surgeon or if she’d just been lucky with her genes.

She led him out to the stone patio behind her house and handed him a glass of iced tea.

“Sorry about the noise,” she said, pointing to the house in the lot behind her, where workers were repairing storm damage on the roof.

“It’s usually very quiet here.”

Rory looked at the house under repair and was reminded of the day he saw Daria working on the roof. All of these workers were men, but in his mind’s eye, he was seeing Daria up there, and he felt that same rush of desire that had gotten him into trouble the night before.

“Did you evacuate?” he asked as they sat down at a glass-topped table.

“No,” she said.

“We’re back so far from the beach, and nothing’s going to blow this house away.”

He was glad she didn’t ask him if he had left the Outer Banks. He didn’t feel like recounting last night’s events yet again.

Cindy was a chatterbox. She told him about her husband, who sold real estate, and her two boys, who were just entering their teens. They commiserated for a few minutes about teenage boys, while Rory explored her face for hints of Shelly. There were none. The blond hair, he had to admit, was about it.

He explained the reason for his visit: he was researching Shelly’s past, trying to uncover her parentage.

“So,” he said, “who do you think Shelly’s mother might have been?”

Cindy laughed, crossing one long brown leg over thi other.

“Why, me, of course,” she said.

“Isn’t that wha everyone thought?”

He smiled. “Well, you were the right age and your cottage was nearest to where she was found,” he said, as i those were the only reasons she’d been under suspicion.

“You’re being very kind, Rory,” she said.

“Cind^ Tramp. Wasn’t that what the kids called me?”

“Perhaps some of them,” he said diplomatically, but h< could tell from Cindy’s smile that her skin was quite thick “Well, I can assure you that I was not Shelly Cato’i mother. I have to admit, though, it was probably pure lucl that it wasn’t me. I look back now and shudder over the kind of girl I was. I’m glad my kids are boys instead o girls. I would lock the girls up.”

“I’m tempted to lock Zack up myself, sometimes,” h< said.

“It was probably just a tourist, Rory,” she said.

“That’:

why the police never came up with a suspect. Al though. ” She wrinkled her nose, looking out toward th ocean.” Although? ” he prompted her.

“I’ve always had a nagging suspicion,” she said. ” really hesitate to say this. I hate to speak ill of anothe woman. I know how it feels.”

Rory leaned forward, thinking that Cindy had truly no changed: she was still a tease.

“You can’t tell me that much and not tell me what you’re talking about,” he said “I always thought it was Ellen,” she said.

“You’re member Ellen? The Catos’ niece?”

He nodded.

“Well, I don’t know how well you remember her, bu she was pretty loose with the boys.” Cindy shrugged “Not as loose as me, I admit, but still… She could of nasty. Do you remember that?”

He remembered it very well. He’d been exposed to it only a few weeks ago.

“There was something mean about her. One time, my aunt and uncle were visiting us. They had two little kids, my cousins, and my brother and I were going somewhere, so they hired Ellen to babysit for them.