“It will feel warm and wonderful once you’re in,” Shelly said.

For the first time, Rory understood, and maybe even shared, some of Daria’s concern for her sister. Shelly was open to everyone, friend and stranger alike, and that could indeed leave her vulnerable to being taken advantage of.

“Did you hurt your leg?” Shelly asked when they started walking again.

“I hurt my knee a long time ago, when I played football,” he said.

“Is it very painful?”

“Not too much,” he said.

“It’s a chronic pain, so I’m used to it.”

“What does chronic mean?”

“It means ongoing. Not like banging your toe into a table leg. That’s a bad pain, but it’s over in a few minutes, usually. Chronic means it goes on and on.”

“Yuck,” Shelly said, and he laughed.

Shelly reached down to pick up a shell. She examined it, then dropped it on the beach again.

“I have a secret friend,” she said abruptly.

“Who might that be?” he asked.

“I’ll never tell,” she teased. Her gaze was still riveted on the sand in front of her.

“Daria’s been pretty sad lately,” she said in another rapid change of topic. The way she flitted from subject to subject with no thought of censoring herself reminded him of Polly.

“She has?” he asked.

“Why is that?” “Because Pete—he was her fiance—broke off their engagement.”

“Oh.”

“I never liked him very much,” Shelly said.

“He was one of those he-man types, you know what I mean?”

Rory laughed.

“I think so. You mean, sort of macho?” “Right. He even had tattoos on his arms, one of a sea horse.” She wrinkled her nose.

“But Daria loved him, and she was really, really upset when he said he wouldn’t marry her. They’d gone out together for six years. He moved away to Raleigh.”

“Do you know why they broke up?” He felt a little uncomfortable, as though this might be information Daria would not want him to know.

“Daria would never tell me,” she said.

“She said it was personal, so I figure it must have something to do with sex.”

Rory laughed again.

“There are personal issues that don’t have anything to do with sex,” he said.

Shelly looked at him coyly.

“Daria likes you,” she said.

“Well, I like Daria, too.” He hoped Shelly was not implying that there might be a romantic relationship between Daria and himself.

“She was a good friend when we were little kids,” he said.

“I’d like us to be good friends again.”

“You know what, Rory?” Shelly said. She raised her gaze from the beach to look at him.

“What?”

“I have chronic pain, too.”

“You do? Where?”

“No one knows about it,” she said.

“Can you tell me about it?” He felt some alarm. Was she ill?

“Only if you promise not to tell Daria or Chloe. It would upset them to know.”

“I promise,” he said.

“Well, it’s not an arm or a leg that hurts,” she said.

“It’s actually all of me. My body and my head and my heart. They all hurt from not knowing who my real mother

Rory looked at her, at those beautiful brown eyes, filled with hope and sadness, and this time he did put his arm around her and gave her a hug. He truly had her permission now.

1 he heat in the car was almost intolerable. The day was not all that warm, and Grace had the windows open, but after sitting in the parked car for nearly two hours, she was beginning to wilt. She’d parked the car at the end of the cul-de-sac, close to the beach road and just two lots away from the cottage she’d learned belonged to Rory Taylor.

She’d driven past the cottage before parking and saw the sign:

Poll-Rory. Who or what did the “Poll” stand for? she wondered.

She was nervous. She’d been nervous since leaving her tiny apartment in Rodanthe that morning. It had taken her half an hour to drive from Rodanthe to Kill Devil Hills, yet it had seemed an eternity. She knew she was doing something crazy; she almost felt as if she was doing some thing illegal. Grace just isn’t herself.

Suddenly, the front door to Rory Taylor’s cottage opened, and her heart kicked into high gear, skipping a beat or two, alarming her. Had she taken her medication that morning? She couldn’t remember, and now there was no time to worry about it. The man emerging from the front door was almost certainly Rory Taylor. She knew what he looked like;

everyone did. He was carrying a beach chair, and she grimaced as he headed toward the beach. Damn. She’d been hoping he would get in his car and drive out of the cul-de-sac so that she could follow him.

She’d pictured him driving to the nearest grocery store, where she could “accidentally” bump into him in one of the aisles. But things were not going her way. Nevertheless, she’d prepared for this possibility as well. She wasn’t supposed to be in the sun, but what did a rash or a sunburn matter at this point?

Grabbing the beach blanket from the back seat, she got out of her car.

Rory had just finished the first chapter of the paperback he was reading, when a woman spread her blanket on the sand near his chair.

He tried to keep his attention on his book, but he couldn’t help staring at her, and he hoped his dark glasses would prevent her from noticing. The woman was very attractive, tall and slender, with light brown hair that reflected the sunlight. Her one-piece, high-necked navy blue bathing suit made her shoulders look sexy. She was very pale, though, as if she hadn’t spent much time on the beach so far this summer. She lay facedown on her blanket, took off her sunglasses and closed her eyes.

She’s going to burn to a crisp, he thought.

It was a weekday, and the beach was strewn with sunbathers, but not really crowded. He could see Zack sitting close to the water, sharing a blanket with a few other kids his age. Zack already had the sort of tan it took most people a summer to acquire, and his hair was several shades lighter than it had been when they’d first arrived. Had Rory tanned that quickly, looked that good when he was Zack’s age? If he had, he’d never known it.

He returned his attention to his book and was in the middle of chapter three when the woman lying near him suddenly let out a yelp and jumped up from her blanket.

Startled, Rory looked up at her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

The woman laughed, her cheeks coloring.

“I think something bit me,” she said, brushing her hand over her arm.

“Probably just a horsefly.”

She had deep bangs that framed her face and accentuated her chiseled features, and she was older than he had first guessed. Late thirties, or maybe even early forties.

“Oh, yeah, there are a few of them around,” he said, although to be honest, he hadn’t seen any yet this summer.

The woman suddenly stood perfectly still, staring at him, and he knew that he’d been recognized.

“You’re Rory Taylor!” she said.

“Guilty.” He rested his book facedown in the sand, glad to have an entree to talk with her.

“And you’re…?”

“Grace Martin,” she said. She sat down again, brushing her hand over the invisible bite on her arm as she smiled at him. She had one of those wide, straight smiles that was impossible to observe without smiling back.

“I live down in Rodanthe,” she said, lifting her sunglasses from the blanket and slipping them on.

“I was visiting a friend up here in Kill Devil Hills, and the day was so beautiful that I decided to relax on the beach awhile before heading back.” Her hands were still shaking from her run-in with the fly, and even her voice sounded a bit tremulous, but the flush remaining in her cheeks made her looked very pretty. Her sunglasses were see-through blue, and he could still make out her brown eyes behind them. There was something needy about her, and he felt an unexpected desire to comfort her by taking one of those pale hands in his own.

“What’s the beach like in Rodanthe?” he asked, although he didn’t particularly care about the answer. He just wanted to keep her talking.

“Oh, about the same as this. Not as many people, though.”

“Must be nice,” he said.

“So, why are you here?” she asked.

“We don’t usually get movie stars in the Outer Banks.”

He laughed.

“I’ve never been in a movie,” he said.

People made that mistake all the time.

“But to answer your question, my family has had a cottage here ever since I was a kid, right behind us on that cul-de-sac.” He pointed behind him.

“I haven’t been back to it in a long time, but recently I’ve been thinking about an incident that happened here many years ago that might make a good episode on the show I produce.”

“True Life Stories,” she said.

“Right.”

“What is the incident?” She cocked her head, and he wondered if she was coquettish or merely curious.

“Well, a long time ago, a newborn baby was found on this beach,” he said, “right about where we’re sitting. A little closer down to the water.” Right where Zack was sitting, actually, he realized.

Grace leaned forward, eyes wide behind the glasses.

“You’re kidding?”

she said.

“How long ago?”

It was genuine curiosity, he thought now, and it was gratifying. He’d wondered if the story would capture the interest of the general public.

“Over twenty years ago,” he said.

“I was fourteen the summer it happened. My neighbor, a little girl who lived across the street from our cottage, found the baby early one morning.”

“Who’d left it there?” Grace asked.

“No one knew,” he said.

“They never found out. So I thought, even after all this time, it would be interesting to try to find out who that might have been. Who did it, what prompted her to do it, how has she lived with herself since then. That sort of thing. And I thought that her answers might lend some insight into the reasons for the rash of abandoned newborns we’re seeing these days.” “It must have been terrible for the little girl who found the baby,” Grace said.