A Tender Touch. Lenora Worth

her?” Eloise asked, the pride and hope in her silver eyes making Clay cringe.

      “No, Mother. I told you, she’s Samson’s doctor.”

      The big dog heard his name and came trotting into the kitchen, whimpering a greeting.

      “Yes, he’s talking about you, fellow,” Eloise said, smiling down at the waiting dog. “I can’t pet you right now, Samson. My hands are covered in peach juice.”

      Samson’s big brown eyes widened, then he circled the long butcher-block work space and found a worn spot on the hardwood floors.

      “Good boy,” Clay said, watching the dog. Samson’s eyes held a trust and loyalty that still amazed Clay. He wished humans could be so trusting.

      “You know, Samson is Josiah’s first name,” Eloise said, that burning hope still in her eyes. “Or is it his second name? Anyway, we call him Josiah. He lives out in the marsh—you met him at the wedding. You’ll probably get to know him when Stone and Tara return from Europe. Your brother expects you to help him out in that swamp.”

      “That swamp is going to be their front yard,” Neda reminded Eloise with a chuckle. “I still can’t picture sophisticated Tara living out in the marshes.”

      “Tara is tougher than she looks,” Eloise replied as she finished the last peach, then began layering the slices into a long glass baking dish. “And so is our Freddie, I believe. Now, Clay, tell me more about her.”

      “I don’t know a whole lot,” Clay admitted, silently laughing at the way his mother had turned the conversation back to Freddie Hayes. “She’s been here a few weeks. She’s living in a small cottage down by the boardwalk, not far from the animal clinic, and…she sure is prettier than old Doc Bates.”

      “You can say that again,” Cy called from the stove. He was a big man with a precision crew cut. He’d been a cook in the navy and now he cooked for Eloise.

      “I heard that,” Neda said as she passed by with flour and sugar for the cobbler, her eyes twinkling. “But you’re right. Fredrica is a pretty woman.” She gave Clay a meaningful look.

      “Is everyone on the island determined to get Freddie and me together?” Clay asked.

      “Pretty much,” Eloise said without a trace of guilt or coyness. “You’d make a perfect match.”

      “I don’t even know the woman that well,” Clay countered, his easygoing nature being sorely tested.

      “You have lots of free time to get to know her,” Eloise pointed out. “And didn’t you say you’d be working with her anyway, doing Samson’s therapy?”

      “Twice a week,” Clay replied, already looking forward to that, although he would never admit it to his mother. “We’re going to do water exercises in Stone’s pool and out in the ocean. And we might drive into Savannah for some hydrotherapy in the whirlpool at this big veterinarian center Freddie suggested.”

      “You mean, you and Freddie would both take Samson?”

      “Maybe,” Clay replied to his mother’s question. “If she’ll go with us.”

      “Ask her.”

      Clay let out a long breath. “Mother!”

      “Okay, okay, I’ll hush. But I was right about Ana and Tara. They’re both married to your brothers now.”

      “Yes, I happen to have noticed that, since I attended both weddings.”

      “Well—”

      Clay sank back in his chair, rolling his eyes. Rock and Stone had warned him. “Mother.”

      “Not another word,” Eloise said, her spangled earrings shimmering as she helped Neda finish the crust for the cobbler. “Dinner will be about another half hour, Clay. You could take Samson for a walk on the beach if you want.”

      “Good idea,” Clay said, glad to be out from under her overbearing, well-meaning analysis of his sorry love life. “C’mon, Samson,” he called. The dog was immediately alert and jumped up. Clay noticed Samson wasn’t as fast as he once was, but he had improved since the injury. That was something to be thankful for. “We’ll be back around six.”

      “Everything should be ready by then,” Eloise said. Then she came around the counter to touch Clay’s face. “It’s so good to have you home.”

      Clay liked his mother’s hands. They were creative and graceful, just like her. He’d always tried so hard to please his mother, after they’d lost their father. He’d wanted to make her smile again. He’d failed miserably. But he remembered those hands, late at night, moving over his face when she thought he was asleep. He remembered her tender touch, even if he couldn’t remember her acting like a normal mother. Unlike Rock and Stone, Clay held no resentment toward his artistic mother. Maybe because he’d been too young to see the obvious, or maybe because he was so young at the time, he saw what his older brothers never had. His mother had lived for their father, and then she had lived for her work. Rock and Stone had resented her for that. They’d always thought their mother had neglected them.

      But Clay knew better. He knew his mother loved her three sons, even if she didn’t go about showing it in the usual ways. He had always felt it in her touch. So tender, so loving.

      He took her hand now and kissed it, noticing that it was veined and aged, but still soft and tender. “It’s good to be home.”

      He turned to head up the long central hallway of the rambling Victorian beach house, Samson trotting eagerly behind him.

      “Clay?”

      He pivoted to see Eloise standing silhouetted at the end of the hall, her flowing skirts making her look as if she was from another time.

      “Yes?”

      “When are you going to tell me, Son?”

      “Tell you what?”

      “About that night, about how you got hurt that same night Samson was injured.”

      Clay stiffened. “There’s nothing to tell. I’m over it now, Mother. I’m fine.”

      “I wonder,” she said, one hand braced on the doorway into the kitchen.

      “Don’t,” Clay said. Then he motioned to Samson. Together, they hurried out the front door and down the sloping yard to the dunes and the sea beyond.

      As Clay followed the dog that had saved his life, he closed his eyes to the pain of his memories. He didn’t want to talk about that night. And he didn’t want to think about being a cop right now.

      Chapter Four

      She didn’t want to think about cops right now. Gary Hayes was dead. He’d died a violent death, a death that still haunted Freddie each time she remembered his father coming to her door to tell her that Gary wouldn’t be home that night. But then, Gary had lived a violent life, and he hadn’t come home a lot of nights. But she never would have believed it could end that way, with him dying in a shoot-out with a gang of drug dealers. Gary had always seemed so strong, so sure of himself.

      I’m away from that now. Away from that life.

      Freddie closed her eyes and felt the rush of the ocean’s balmy winds moving over her with a soothing touch, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore an endless reminder of why she’d come to Sunset Island. It was almost as if the waves were telling her to “be still, be still.”

      Freddie took a long breath and did just that. Then she opened her eyes and watched as her beautiful son built a sand castle near the waves. Ryan looked so much like his father with his dark hair and olive skin, his big blue eyes so trusting, so loving. That was the difference though; that was where the similarities ended. Gary’s eyes had always held a kind of cynical arrogance, as if the world owed him a favor. Her son’s eyes held a mixture of hope and wonder