Page 26 of Summer Light on Nantucket

“Ah, well,” he said, “that’s probably true. How do we raise children any other way?”

“I suppose you’re right. Miranda is almost seventeen. She thinks she’s discovered sex, which is nothing old people like me could have any idea about…” Blythe gazed down at her hands. She wore nowedding ring. She’d taken it off three years ago, wrapped it in tissue paper and bubble wrap, and carried it up to the attic to store in her grandmother’s old jewelry box.

Now she murmured, “Sex. Love.”

Aaden said, “What they don’t know is that you and I invented it.”

Blythe met his eyes and a shiver of memory passed through her. “I suppose it feels like that for every couple.”

“No,” Aaden said. “It doesn’t. What we had was unique.Isunique.”

Blythe glanced away. Aaden could say things like that because he was Irish, but she was hopelessly a New England colonial, probably with strands of Puritan in her DNA.

“Aaden—”

“Hel-lo-o!”

The front door slammed. Footsteps raced down the hall to the back door, and Bob’s sister, Kate, appeared, stepping out onto the porch with the enthusiasm of a showgirl jumping out of a cake.

“Oh!” Kate nearly elevated into the air in her pleasure at finding Blythe with a man. “I didn’t know if you were home but I saw your car in the drive and thought I’d take a chance.”

Blythe was so full of words she wanted to say, none of them pleasant, that she went completely numb.

Aaden rose and held out his hand. “Hello. I’m Aaden Sullivan. An old friend of Blythe’s.”

Kate studied him as she allowed her hand to be enfolded in Aaden’s. Kate was pretty, Blythe realized, with her brother’s dark coloring and her body tuned by years of exercise classes.

Blushing, Kate told Aaden, “I’m Kate Barnes. Her sister-in-law.”

“Ex-sister-in-law,” Blythe said.

Kate didn’t pay attention to Blythe. She seldom did.

“I need to borrow Blythe’s slow cooker.”

Blythe ducked her head to hide a smile.Slow cooker.The words recalled the languorous, measured way Aaden’s hands had slid over her body.

Kate took that moment to say, “Oh, you’re having lunch. Blythe makes the best lunches. She can make normal meals look expensive.”

Okay. That was enough of Kate’s insults veiled in compliments. “I’d invite you to join us, but I haven’t seen Aaden since high school and we have a lot to catch up on that would bore you terribly.”

“Oh, well, of course, I’ll come back another time. I know where you keep your slow cooker. I’ll get it on the way out.”

Kate walked reluctantly back to the door, ears perked like a hunting dog in case one of them said anything to her, and when they didn’t, she slowly left the porch and went into the kitchen.

Blythe and Aaden sat in amused silence as Kate banged and clanged pots around until she found the slow cooker and walked down the hall and out the front door.

“Sorry about that.” Blythe took a sip of wine, and then another. “She’s Bob’s sister. My ex-sister-in-law. I don’t hate her, but she’s always sneaking around, trying to catch me doing something awful, although I can’t imagine what that would be, with four children around.”

“She’s jealous,” Aaden said. “It’s obvious.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. She’s married to a perfectly nice husband, and she has two children in college.”

“You’re beautiful,” Aaden said.

“I’m older.” Blythe raised her eyes and allowed him to see her face, wrinkles and all. “I’ve had four children. I love them like crazy, but they’re exhausting.”

“How are your parents?”

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