Page 65 of A Nantucket Wedding

Jane was aware that she was slightly intoxicated—by the drinks and the food and the anything-is-possible atmosphere of the fresh, warm Nantucket night air. She decided to go with it.

“Tell me about your daughter,” she told Ethan.

He smiled. “My favorite subject. Canny is nine years old and precociously clever. She’s a beauty, like her mother, but more than that, she’s got a kind of self-possession, apoise,that amazes me. She speaks three languages—English, Spanish, and Portuguese, because Peru borders Brazil. And more than anything else in the world, she wants a baby brother or sister.”

“Will she get one?”

“Not from her mother. Esmeralda is obsessed with her country, working to create some reason and stability in the chaos of politics. From me, I don’t know. I take being a father and a husband seriously, but I also feel committed to my summer children’s program. I suppose it all depends on whether or not I meet a woman who wants children and could tolerate me.”

“Are you so terribly bad?” Jane asked.

“Not bad. Just eccentric.”

“I want children,” Jane said, then stopped. She had shocked herself by saying those words to this relative stranger. “Relative stranger,” she said, amused. “That’s what we are, relative strangers. See? Because of our parents, we’re going to be relatives, but really, we’re strangers.”

Ethan smiled. “I think I’ll order coffee for both of us.”

“Good idea.” Oh, Lord, Jane thought, Ethan thought she was drunk. And she was, a little bit. “But it’s true, I do want children. At least a child. I didn’t think I ever would, but over this past year I’ve started longing for one and Scott won’t hear about it. We agreed when we married we’d have no children, and he’s furious at me for changing my mind. My heart. Whatever, and I didn’t change it.Itchangedme.”

“So that’s why he’s in Wales and you’re here.”

“Yes.” Jane put one elbow on the table and propped her chin on her hand. “I don’t know how we’re going to resolve this. We’re both stubborn. And now we’re both angry.”

“Why doesn’t Scott want children?” Ethan asked.

“Because they’re a hindrance to the life we had thought we wanted. We both love to travel, and we work hard and like our work and we’re becoming kind of rich, which means a lot to both of us. Neither of us grew up wealthy. We weren’tpoor,but there were times when I could sense that money was a problem for my parents, and for heaven’s sake, my stepfather was a doctor! I think it was a drain on them, sending both of us to college. And Scott wasn’t…close…to his parents.” She wouldn’t say more than that about Scott’s childhood. She felt guilty enough just telling Ethan this much about her husband. “He had to pay his own way through school. He got some scholarships, but mostly he had to take out student loans, and I know he felt like he’d never, ever, be out of debt. But we are out of debt now, we’re very nicely in the black. Our circumstances have changed but Scott won’t see it.”

“That’s too bad,” Ethan said. “You would have beautiful children. And I’ll bet if you got him in bed and propositioned him just the right way, he’d do anything you want.”

Jane met Ethan’s eyes. “That’s the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Ethan said softly, “I want to kiss you.”

Whoa,Jane thought.Whiplash. One moment she was whining about Scott and Ethan was a sympathetic friend, and suddenly he was sweet-talking her and it was working. She wanted to crawl over the table and into his lap.

“I want to take you someplace,” Ethan said.

“You mean now?”

“Right now. It’s someplace private, where I can kiss you the way I want to.”

“Oh.” Jane sat back in her chair and hugged herself. “Are we drunk?”

“Maybe a little bit. Jane, you had only two cocktails. I don’t think your faculties are affected.”

“I don’t know,” Jane said thoughtfully. “I feel…different. You know, I’ve always been good. A good girl, a good sister, a good student, a good wife.”

“Let’s go find out what else you’re good at,” Ethan suggested, and signed the bill and took Jane’s hand and led her to her car.

He drove, which was a relief to Jane, because she felt, not drunk exactly, but not herself. In all the years of her marriage, she’d never so much as lightheartedly flirted with another man. But had she ever met a man like Ethan? He was gorgeous, and smart, and funny, andunpredictable. That was the pull, that he was unpredictable, and she felt, when she was with him, that she could be that way, too.

She leaned back in her seat and looked up at the stars. At some point, she reached over and put her hand on Ethan’s thigh. His quick intake of breath surprised her, and she felt a sense of power, a sense of herself as a sexually attractive woman, and that was delicious. She scarcely paid attention to the road as Ethan drove out of town and around the rotary and down the winding Polpis Road. They passed the Shipwreck & Lifesaving Museum, and several mega-mansions, and then Ethan turned right. He slowed down. They were on a rutted dirt road, with shrubs and bushes scratching at the sides of the car. No lights shone.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“On the moors. No one’s ever here, and I know a really private spot.”

In the moonlight, the landscape was slightly rolling and open and vast.

---