Page 21 of Waves of Time

“Good luck today,” Aria said.

“And you,” Hilary said.

“I don’t need luck to serve tourist families platters of crab,” Aria insisted.

“And I don’t need luck on a normal interior design consultation,” Hilary said.

“Right. Normal,” Aria teased.

“Oh, Aria. I love you, my difficult daughter,” Hilary joked as she grabbed her keys and rushed out the door. In her convertible, she flipped through the radio stations before she connected her phone to the Bluetooth to play “Call Me” by Blondie, which was one of her official “pump up” songs. It got her blood going.

Since Hilary had met Frank Wilmington at the beginning of the month, Hilary had done all she could to study him and come up pretty blank. Frank seemed to have someone in charge of his online image, which was a good thing, professionally, but left Hilary frustrated with a lack of information. He worked in business of some kind, in trading, maybe, and owned a few restaurants in New York, Rome, and Paris. His ex-wife was nowhere to be found on the internet, not even her name. He seemed to have no children, although Hilary couldn’t be sure of that.

The fact that he’d all-but insisted on taking her to dinner after this interior design “consultation” chilled her to the bone. Over and over again on the drive, she told herself this was just a business meeting, that Frank was just another client. But her gut told her something else. At a stoplight, she pulled the mirror down to check on her makeup again, and the reflection in the mirror filled her eyes with those damned white spots again.

“No!” Hilary rasped to herself, as though she could scold her eyes into behaving. She closed them for a long time, her thoughts racing, until the car behind her blared its horn. The stoplight had changed. It was time to go.

By the time Hilary reached Frank’s home near Siasconset, the white spots had receded, but her fear had increased. She’d begun to think that maybe, just maybe, there was something seriously wrong with her vision, something that a doctor needed to fix. On the other hand, she didn’t have time to have something wrong with her! She had a zillion clients to take care of. She had a family. She had flights across the continent.

And now, maybe, she had a handsome man to date.

“Pull it together, Hilary,” she told herself as she stepped out of the driver’s side, took a deep breath, and strode toward the wrap-around porch of the beautiful Victorian home. Just as she stepped toward the door, it opened, and Frank Wilmington stood in all his glory— in just a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans, a contrast to the immaculate suits he was featured in online.

“Hilary Coleman,” Frank said, wearing that marvelous smile. “Welcome to my home.”

Hilary wasn’t sure where to put her hands, so she stuck one of them out to shake his.

“We don’t need business pleasantries,” Frank said, although he shook her hand back. “Come in. I just made fresh lemonade. Would you like to try it?”

Because Frank had only just purchased the property, it really did need a lot of work. The previous owners had left it empty for several years, and there were rooms that had been taken over by the wind and the rain and the salty air. Most of the bones of the house were solid and strong, however, and as she breezed through the first few rooms on her way to the back porch for that lemonade, she began to visualize how she would fix up the space.

“I can see your brain working overtime,” Frank said as he poured her a glass of lemonade.

“I can’t help it,” Hilary said. “The minute I see a space as exciting as this, my mind runs away.”

“That’s a beautiful gift,” Frank said.

“Does your brain ever do that?” Hilary asked, surprising herself.

Frank thought for a moment. “I suppose sometimes, when it comes to business opportunities, I find myself thinking outside the box.” He laughed then and added, “That must sound so lame to you, as you’re an artist and I’m just a businessman. But it’s true.”

“I’m a businesswoman, as well,” Hilary reminded him. “I like to think I have both sides of the brain.”

“What a blessing,” Frank said, raising his lemonade to clink with hers.

Out on the back porch, they gazed across the glittering ocean and chatted gently about Hilary’s recent trip to San Francisco, about Rodrick, and about Frank’s recent divorce, which he said had been “not exactly amicable, but nothing that will knock him down for good.”

“And you?” Frank asked.

“I never married,” Hilary told him.

“And your daughter’s father? Who is he?”

“A college fling,” Hilary explained, her stomach bubbling. Truthfully, calling her love for Marc just a “fling” wasn’t correct in the slightest, but it served the situation at the moment.

“Is he still in her life?”

“He lives in San Francisco,” Hilary explained.