Pickleballers

Chapter Ten

Ten

Ethan shifted his truck into reverse and pulled onto the country road. A dark curtain of trees arched over the right side of the road and balanced the bright morning sun, which twinkled on the bay. Wind in her hair and sun on her face, Meg hung her head out the open window. It felt amazing to be riding along a deserted road and she smiled to herself, remembering the last time she was in a car with Ethan. Every nerve ending stirred with anticipation. His fingers, and those nails, were only inches away from her thigh. When Vance left, she had worried she would never feel the pleasant tingle of infatuation again. But here she was, tingling.

She gaped at the sea of pines. Along the winding shoreline, western hemlock and Douglas firs towered overhead and she stretched her neck to peer at the top of a particular Goliath. “Do you see that one? Gosh. It’s huge.”

“That’s what she said,” they said in unison. He turned to give her a wry grin.

Ethan spoke over the sound of the wind. “Did you know you can do a Bainbridge tree tour?”

“I did not know that.”

“If you look to the left once we go past this turn”—he pointed toward Eagle Harbor—“you’ll see a seven-stemmed red cedar. It’s a historic tree. It’s right by the dock where Bainbridge’s Japanese Americans were forced off the island to detention camps during the war. That’s where we’re headed.”

Meg recalled the photos of the evacuation under the table glass at the Outlook Inn. The island was such a place of beauty, but even a paradise like Bainbridge could have a painful past. It seemed a curious place for a first real date, but Meg was willing to roll with it.

“This is it.” Ethan pulled onto a side road and turned into a parking lot. “I like to come here when I want to do some thinking. Might be good for you to look around. For your painting.” Meg smiled into her lap while Ethan dashed around to her side and popped open her door. It wasn’t like she was incapable of opening a door for herself, but on him, the gesture was sweet.

Meg took in the forested landscape that bordered the waterfront. A shaded wooden boardwalk threaded a path through the trees. She followed him, curious, down the slope. To her right, a hillside covered in mossy rocks dropped off toward the marina. On the other side, the woods were thick with pine trees. Meg savored the vista and took in the layered aroma of the evergreens.

Ahead, a curved wooden wall, more art than structure, bordered the walkway. When she caught up to Ethan, she noticed a jigsaw of plaques fixed to the wall. Rows of tiles etched with names and ages. Isosaboru Katayama, 61 . Keiko Kino, 6 . Tile after tile.

Meg read the display description about the 1942 Civilian Exclusion Order, created, ostensibly, to prevent US residents of Japanese descent from spying for the enemy. From this departure point, 227 Bainbridge men, women, and children became the first group of Japanese Americans in the nation to be evicted from their homes and sent to prison camps in Idaho. Meg’s gaze traveled along the nameplates. Someone had strung rainbows of paper cranes along the walls in tribute to those innocents. Glancing down at her arm, Meg noticed goose bumps pocking her skin.

She and Ethan continued to the next section, pausing to study a wood carving of a teenage girl peeking from behind real barbed wire. Beside Meg, Ethan asked, “So, how are you going to decide what to paint on that fence?” He wasn’t just making conversation. His question was sincere.

Turning her attention back to the memorial, she studied the carved image before her. The young woman clutched her schoolbooks to her chest. A prison watchtower loomed behind her. If only she could create something of value: a work that would leave people wondering, questioning. Something like the effect she felt standing here, staring into the wooden woman’s eyes.

Meg pressed her lips together. She inhaled and lifted her shoulders. She let them drop.

“It’ll come,” he assured her. “Inspiration. She’s an elusive muse, right?” Pretty poetic for an environmental consultant. And the way the sunlight landed on his profile…Gee whiz, he was something else.

They meandered along the nature trail section of the commemorative park and stopped at the viewpoint overlooking the ferry landing. Her gaze traveled back toward the exhibit, noting how unobtrusively the designer blended the art with the landscape. Taking a walk had given her some insight into her art after all.

Ethan rested his elbows on the railing and clasped his hands together. Before them, the trees in Pritchard Park leaned over the gray, flat water in Eagle Harbor.

“Did you grow up here?” she asked.

“Not too far. On the peninsula.” He waved toward the mountain range, bumping her with his forearm. Reacting instinctively, his fingertips touched her back as if to steady her. She felt the heat of his fingers through her T-shirt, spreading from the dot on her spine where he made contact. Too quickly, he took his hand away when a flash of movement came to life in the flats below, and Meg gasped at the awesome sight of a great blue heron taking flight. Her heart clenched with the tight reminiscence she always felt when she spotted a heron. They had been her father’s favorite.

“Whoa!” she exclaimed. “Do you see that?” With a wingspan wider than she was tall, the stately bird swooped low over the water, flying with the aerodynamics of a perfect paper airplane.

“Wow!” Ethan laughed. “That was something.” He showed her the shot he’d captured on his phone. “I’m in a birding chat.” His embarrassed grin was adorable. “We’ve had a lot of herons, but that one was a beaut.”

As they strolled on the boardwalk back to the parking lot, she kept sneaking peeks at him, this grown man full of childlike wonder. Still, somewhere in the back of her head, a warning pinged. Beware, Meg. This is a man whom your pickleballing community would gladly toss into the bay. Proceed with caution. And yet—wasn’t restoring the wetlands a cause she would normally get behind without a blink? And here was a guy who had made a career out of standing up for his beliefs. That was a good thing, right? And his arms were so tan and fit. Okay, that was superficial, but she had to be honest with herself.

On the drive back to the Outlook Inn, she watched his face as he concentrated on the road. There was something sexy about the set of his jawline, the stillness of his focus. She couldn’t stop her mind from drifting. Meg pictured that same look of concentration on his face, imagining her body moving beneath his. The pleasure of the image seeped down her chest, and into the curve of her hips. Ethan’s hand was on the gearshift. She stared at his long fingers, those short, manicured nails, and daydreamed about his touch, about how those fingers would feel, trembling against her thigh, scraping her ribs, grazing her throat.

“Can you pass me my sunglasses?” He nodded at the console. Caught in her steamy reverie, she startled. Only half-recovered, she dug them out of the cup holder and, butterfingers, dumped them in his lap.

“Oh!” Without thinking, she groped for the lenses, rescuing them from his crotch before handing them to him. She grimaced. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said while his eyes remained focused through the windshield. “Other than a brief fling with some wanton woman I met on the ferry, that was more action than I’ve had in a long time.”

She felt the blush build from behind her ears. He focused on the road, but she watched the slow lift of his lip.

Whatever this might turn into, it felt too soon to bring up Vance, but she wondered if his action-less comment had something to do with his own complications. It comforted her to think that maybe he, too, knew what it felt like to try to move past the exes to get to the wise.

At the Outlook, he leapt from the driver’s seat. “I’ll walk you in,” he said, and Meg’s pulse quickened with anticipation. He followed her up the path and through the gate of the unpainted fence.

Halfway up the porch stairs, he paused. “You know, I really enjoyed this,” he said. “The painting. Visiting the memorial. It was nice hanging out with you.”

“Yeah. Me, too. Oh, hey.” She managed to come across as fittingly casual. “Would you want to…I don’t know. Get a cup of coffee or something later today? Or tomorrow?”

“Sure.” When he grinned, a tangible force passed between them like a current. “Oh, no. Wait. Actually—” Make that an electric shock. “I can’t. Maybe this weekend. If you’re around.”

Her cheeks hurt. Her smile dimmed with the recognition of the brush-off. “Okay. Well. You know where I’m staying,” Meg said as brightly as she could.

What a fool she was. She had let her imagination run away with the circus. Another ten minutes, and her imagination would be dressed in spangles and swinging from the high trapeze. Anyhow, she reasoned, it was best this way. How would she ever have explained to her team that she was cavorting with the enemy? Or was it consorting? Certainly, the former would be more fun.

And his features had taken a turn toward the serious. “Listen. About your courts. I know it’s not ideal for the pickleball players, but I am hoping I can get the Lakeview league on board with us.” Her brain twinged in warning. “This wetland restoration…it has the potential to positively impact the whole region.”

Ah. The wildlife project. All day, she had been falling for him, while he had been working an angle. A lump of embarrassment clogged her throat.

“Imagine going to a school where blue herons swoop past your lunch table. And just think of the message you’ll be sending the students. That you value the future of the planet. Their future.”

“Sure. The students,” she parroted lamely.

“If you can talk with your community, things will go a lot more smoothly. Know what I mean?”

She nodded, masking her hurt. So this was what his attentions today had been about. Not because he was attracted to her, but that he saw her as the key to placating the Lakeview league. Meg nodded, her neck going about the mechanics of agreeing while her mind knew she would do nothing. First, Annie had asked her to intervene with Ethan on the players’ behalf, and now Ethan was coaxing her to act as go-between. Why did people keep asking her to get mixed up in this conflict? Would they ask a jellyfish to do a handstand? No! That would be illogical. Didn’t these people realize she was equally invertebrate?

“Really glad to see you again,” he said, leaning toward her. Could she have been wrong again? Had he, too, felt the undeniability of their attraction? Reacting to his nearness, her lips parted without asking her brain’s permission.

Then he squeezed her shoulder.

Not that. The shoulder squeeze was five fingers into the friend zone. Worse. His shoulder squeeze meant Thanks for agreeing to do an unpleasant favor, and have a nice life .

Meg blinked. Forcing a smile to hide her disappointment, she said, “Glad to see you, too. And good luck with everything.” She clenched her teeth to keep the smile in place until he descended the stairs, and then, willing herself to keep the self-berating at a minimum until she hit the room, she turned toward the Outlook’s front door.

“Oh! Wait,” she heard him say. She spun to find him holding his car keys in his hand. Perplexed, he searched his jeans pockets.

“Did you forget something?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

Ethan marched up the steps and stopped very, very near to her. In her chest, her heartbeat shuddered like a snare drum. He had that same look on his face as when he concentrated on the winding road. That intensity. He swallowed and steadied himself.

When his face bent to hers, her face mirrored his movement. His fingers skimmed the back of her neck before raking gently into her hair. And then his lips grazed hers in a whisper of a kiss.

If it was a delusion, she hoped she would not come to her senses. She sank into the sensation. For an infinite instant they remained, her heels lifting off the landing, the gentle press of his hand on the back of her scalp. His hand and his lips. His lips and his hand. His touch flooded her until, with slow regret, he pulled away. She remained planted, frozen in the sensation of his smooth lips on hers.

“Yep. That was it.” He tossed his keys in the air, caught them, and skipped down the stairs. “See ya soon, Meg Bloomberg.”