Once in a while Eve caught a glimpse of one of the few black people left on the island, descendants of the Gullah people who had been Hilton Head’s original owners, working in a yard or walking down a shaded back road. They didn’t return her waves, and who could blame them? To them she was just another of the mainlanders who’d invaded their island, bought them out, fenced them off and made them unwelcome in their own land.

They couldn’t know that Eve understood them. That she knew what it was that made them cling to their land so obstinately, in spite of pressure and hostility, skyrocketing taxes and offers of money beyond their wildest imaginings. She knew that, simply put, this was home. Their place of belonging.

She envied those people, and when she passed their homely little houses she sent up silent cheers of encouragement, and vowed that if ever she did find her own place she would hold on to it as tenaciously.

Sometimes she stopped at the edge of the marshes to watch the sun go down in a red blaze of glory, and alerted by distant honkings she would catch the breathtaking descent of geese as they settled into their night’s refuge. It was at times like that that she felt the familiar wave of longing that was almost like grief. Why? she would cry out in silent anguish and bewilderment. Why?

As always, she reminded herself that she was the luckiest of women. She had been privileged to see so much of the world, and so much that was wondrous and beautiful. But why was it that the more fascinating, awe-inspiring or poignantly lovely something was, the sadder it made her feel? Watching a glacier calve or finding a hermit crab in a tide pool, she would gasp first with the wonder of it, the bright, sharp stab of joy. And then, as she looked in vain for someone to share the joy and wonder with, feel instead the creeping ache of loneliness.

With Thanksgiving approaching, she felt more guilty than ever for feeling sad. As she had that day in the church garden in Savannah, the last day, it seemed to her now, of innocence, she thought of all her many blessings with a fervent, almost superstitious thankfulness. She was the luckiest of women. And if her place of belonging had thus far eluded her, and if beauty made her sad because she had no one to share it with, she could at least give thanks for the beauty. And she did-oh, she did.

She did wonder, sometimes, if there might be a connection between those two things-the search for her place, the longing for someone to share her soul’s secrets-but when she tried to pin down exactly what the connection was, it eluded her; it was like trying to remember the details of a dream. Though lately she’d had the feeling that she was coming closer to the answer, that it was hovering out there, just beyond her reach.

So intent was she on trying to grasp it, that she failed to notice the refrain that played constantly now in the background of her mind. Or perhaps she’d grown so accustomed to it that, like music in a shopping mall, she hardly heard it most of the time. Oh my God… it went. My God… it’s Jake… it’s Jake.


It was Thanksgiving Day. Dinner had been served and consumed, and in its aftermath, on her way back to the kitchen with her hands full of dirty plates, Mirabella nudged Summer in the ribs with her elbow. “He’s making himself right at home, isn’t he?” she muttered, sotto voce.

Summer looked lost for a moment, then, following the jerking movement of Mirabella’s head toward the living room, where an assortment of male bodies in varying degrees of somnolence and gastric distress were sprawled in front of the television set, said, “Oh, you mean…”

“Sonny. Our sister’s fiancé, Mr. Cheesy Las Vegas himself, making like one of ‘the guys.’ And did you notice the way he oiled himself through dinner, complimenting every mouthful and oozing charm from every pore? Just about ruined my appetite.”

“Oh, Bella.” Summer sighed. “Don’t be so judgmental. Maybe he really is nice. Did you ever think of that? He does seem genuinely crazy about Evie. Isn’t that what counts? It doesn’t really matter what we think.”

“It wouldn’t,” Mirabella huffed in a fierce undertone meant only for Summer, as the sisters unloaded their burdens into the already crowded sink, “if I thought for one moment she felt the same way about him. If I thought she was happy. ”

Summer cast a troubled glance over her shoulder at the bustling, noisy trio of Starrs-Jimmy Joe’s mother, Betty, his sister, Jess, and Granny Calhoun-discussing the disposition of heaps of leftovers on the kitchen table. She lowered her voice to a barely audible murmur. “You don’t think she’s happy?”

“Do you?”

“Well, I-”

“Did you see how thin she is?”

“Yes, but don’t you think it could just be…you know, the injury, the neck brace…”

Mirabella said derisively, “Oh yeah, right-if I couldn’t exercise, couldn’t do anything except lay around all day and eat, I’d certainly lose weight, wouldn’t you? No-something‘s not right. I can feel it. She does not look like a woman in love-at least not with…” Her voice trailed off as a new and appalling thought crossed her mind. She pushed it aside.

“She doesn’t have that… that glow,” she said to Summer, who was gazing distractedly through the window above the sink, watching the children romp and play in the piles of leaves on the lawn. Their shouts and laughter and the sound of crackling leaves made a staccato counterpoint to the mellower murmurs and chuckles of the three women behind them, and to the rush and roar of the football game and the occasional accent marks of exclamation from its audience in the living room next door. “When she’s around him, you know what I mean? She doesn’t look like you do when you’re anywhere near Riley, that’s for sure.”

Summer threw her a look, as a beautiful, rosy flush spread over her cheeks. “There,” said Mirabella, “that’s what I mean. The glow. Have you seen Evie glow?”

“You know, actually,” said Summer, “I haven’t seen Evie at all, for quite a while. Have you?”

Mirabella made a wry face. “And you won’t. It’s cleanup time. Eve always was a magician when it came to doing the disappearing act when there was work to be done, remember?”

Summer smiled. “That’s right. That always used to bug you so bad. Still-” she cast a futile look around her “-I wonder where in the world she is. She’s not in there with the guys. Do you suppose she could be upstairs with Charly, taking a nap?”

“Who? Your sister?” Jess, Jimmy Joe’s sister, had come to the sink with a load of serving platters in time to hear the last question. “She was in here just a little while ago, dishing up a plate.”

“Dishing up…?” Summer and Bella looked at each other.

“Yeah, you know-like she was fixin’ to carry it to somebody? Heaped it high. Covered it all up with aluminum foil… Oh-and she took along a couple bottles of Corona, too. Last I saw of her, she was headin’ across the lawn. I figured she was taking it out to the limo driver, or something.”

Summer’s eyes widened and a pleat of distress formed between her eyes. Mirabella could see that they shared the same thought-a mental image of their sister tiptoeing across the church garden in her wedding gown with a bottle of vino and two crystal glasses in her hands.


Eve stood contemplating the row of behemoths in the grassy field behind her sister’s house. When she’d come up with the brilliant idea for Jake to meet her in Jimmy Joe’s eighteen-wheeler, which she knew would be parked, as it always was when he was at home, in the field next to the house, it hadn’t occurred to her that there’d be more than one. Much less a whole fleet. Who knew that sweet brother-in-law of hers would make sure every last one of his drivers was home for the holiday? Because here, arrayed before her like a congregation of huge, curious beasts, were not one, but six tractor-trailer rigs, plus another two extra reefer trailers besides.

So, what next? Which one was the right one? Mirabella had once confided to Eve that Jimmy Joe didn’t always lock up his truck when it was parked in his own yard. Eve had passed that information on to Jake, who had assured her a locked door wouldn’t present a problem anyway. So, the bottom line was, he could be in any one of these royal-blue monsters. What was she supposed to do, go down the line trying every door? Carrying a couple of cold ones and a plateful of turkey and trimmings?

Oddly, Eve found the little problem almost comforting. It was an annoying inconvenience, a small obstacle to overcome. And there was something about the mental exercise that seemed to help calm her jitters and steady her rapidly beating heart. Even so, as she approached the trucks she noticed that her legs felt weak and her insides wired and shivery, as if she’d been plugged into a low-voltage electrical current.

Suddenly she saw the truck on the end of the row, the one farthest from the house, flash its headlights-once on and off, then once more. Her head went light with relief, and at the same time, confusingly, apprehension made a shivery star-burst in her belly. She moved quickly to the far truck and around to the passenger side, and was contemplating the step up to the cab, debating the best way to tackle it, when the door swung open and a hand reached down to her.

“Come on, give me that,” said a familiar masculine growl, and Eve’s heart gave a leap of pure, unadulterated joy.

“Which do you want?” she asked mildly, squinting up at him against the reflected glare of a late-afternoon sun. “The plate or the bottles?”

Jake grunted as he relieved her of both. “Hurry up-get in here. You want somebody to see us? What is this?” He was sniffing the foil-covered plate like a suspicious bloodhound.