Reaching the tip of the island, she looped around and began her long trek back along Middle Street. She hadn’t realized how far she’d walked. She’d reached the northern end of Sullivan’s Island. Her throat was parched and her body ached; she was exhausted, sweaty, and had a long way to go before reaching Sea Breeze, clear on the other side of the island. Dora scolded herself for having left without water, but she’d not planned to go so far! But as there was no place to get any or buy any, she had no choice except to put one foot in front of the other and keep walking.
Sweat dripped from her face and was pooling along her neck and between her breasts, blotching her T-shirt. Her thirst became palpable, and she began to worry. You’re such an idiot for going so far on your first day. What if you have a real heart attack this time?
A car honked beside her and she nearly jumped from her skin. Blinking in the bright sunlight, Dora put her hand up over her eyes like a visor to see who it was waving her over. A shiny red pickup truck with big wheels and a shiny front grille was idling at the curb.
“Hello?” she called out in a questioning tone.
“Dora! Dora Muir, is that you?”
Dora didn’t recognize the man at the wheel, nor did she want anyone she might know to see her dressed like this and all sweaty. She waved and kept walking.
The truck followed.
“Dora!” the voice called again.
She didn’t stop.
“Hold on a minute. It’s me. Devlin.”
Devlin? Dora stopped again, then squinted toward the man in the truck. He was a barrel-chested man with shaggy, sunbleached hair and deeply tanned skin; he was wearing a pale blue polo shirt. He had the look of an islander. She couldn’t put a finger on exactly what it was that gave someone that look, but it was as deeply embedded as DNA.
“Devlin Cassell?” she called out. Earlier in the summer, Carson had told Dora she had run into Devlin.
The man in the truck grinned wide. “The one and only.”
That was a name that brought up memories that had been packed away in a pretty box labeled “old boyfriends” and tucked into the deep recesses of her brain. If Dora’s face hadn’t already been so flushed from overheating, Devlin would have seen her cheeks pinking. She’d heard he’d become a successful real estate agent, and that he was divorced. Dora wiped her brow. It was just her luck that she’d run into Devlin Cassell again after fifteen years when she was exhausted and soaking in her own sweat.
“Hey, Devlin,” she called out halfheartedly. “Nice to see you again.”
“Well, come on over here, girl,” Devlin called back, waving his arm in a come-hither gesture. “We don’t want to keep shouting.”
“I’m all sweaty,” she begged off.
“So what?”
“So, I don’t feel like stopping right now.” Nervousness made her dry mouth feel like a desert. She started to cough, and it was one of those hacking coughs that could go on forever.
“You okay?” Devlin called out.
She waved her hand dismissively, wishing either that he’d go away or the earth would just swallow her up.
Dev put the truck in park and rushed to her side with a bottle of water. He handed her the bottle and gently patted her back. She drank thirstily, and as the coughing fit subsided she took great heaving breaths, embarrassed to the core.
“Thanks,” she said between breaths. She was so hot, if she were alone she’d take the rest of the water and pour it over her head.
“Come on, sit a spell in my truck. It’s air-conditioned.”
She wanted to. Desperately. Dora looked from left to right, to see if anyone she knew might see her step into the car of a man who wasn’t her husband. Silly, of course, given that she didn’t really have a husband any longer. But old habits died hard.
“Sure, thanks,” she said. Dora followed Devlin to the truck, plucking at her T-shirt as she walked so it wouldn’t cling so tight.
Inside the truck it was blessedly cool. She almost wept with gratitude when he moved the fan to blow directly onto her.
Devlin leaned back against the door and grinned like a Cheshire cat as they studied each other. His eyes were shockingly pale blue against his dark tan and she remembered how, when they were teens, the girls all said he looked like Paul Newman. Well, she thought, swallowing another gulp of water from the bottle, she wasn’t the only one who had put on some weight since the good ol’ days. But Devlin wasn’t heavy as much as solid. He had filled out his girth and had the sheen of a man who loved the outdoors and his drink in equal measures.
“Dora Muir,” he said in a tone that implied he couldn’t believe he was seeing her again. “As I live and breathe.”
“Well, I’m barely breathing,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh.
“What are you doing running in the heat like that? It’s gotta be close to a hundred out there.”
He thought she was running? Dora let that one slide. “I didn’t know it was that hot. I, uh, might have gone a little too far.”
“Your face is as red as a beet. Let me drive you back to Sea Breeze.”
She could’ve kissed him. “That’d be nice,” she replied, wiping sweat from her brow in as demure a manner as she could manage. “Thank you.”
Devlin fired up the big engine. It purred to action.
“Nice truck,” she said. Then, remembering the dented, vintage gray Ford pickup he used to drive, she added, “Nicer than the one you used to drive.”
His grin spread across his face and he laughed. “You remember that old clunker?”
“Remember it? Some of my fondest memories were in that smelly ol’ truck.”
His eyes sparkled with mirth and memory, and she knew they were both remembering the heavy-petting sessions they’d had in the torn-up front seat of that truck when Dora was sixteen and Devlin seventeen. Over the course of one long, hot summer, Dora had rounded first, second, and third base with Devlin Cassell and, on one particularly steamy night, almost scored a home run.
“Yeah,” he said in a slow drawl as he shifted into gear. They took off down the road. “It near broke my heart when I had to let that truck go. Hung on to it long as I could.” He glanced her way. “It sure is good to see you again. You’re as pretty as ever.”
“Oh, get out of here,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I look terrible. I’m sweating like Pattie’s pig.”