Safe Harbor Read Online Free PDF

shoulders, and she wrapped her arms around his
waist. Their lips met in a kiss.
    After a prolonged minute, the porch light
flickered off and on. Diana and the guy sprang apart. “My mother,”
Kip murmured. “The guardian of virtue.”
    “What’s she going to do when Diana goes off to
college?”
    “Pray a lot.” He and Shelley watched as Diana
squeezed the guy’s hand in farewell and backed slowly up the stairs
to the veranda, gazing dreamily at him as he climbed onto the moped
and revved the motor. Not until he had vanished beyond the stone
wall did she turn and enter the house.
    “Have you met him?” Shelley asked.
    “Who, Romeo?” Kip turned from the window and
settled back onto the floor. Shelley sat as well, the tight
quarters forcing her into the curve of Kip’s arm. “Not really. My
mom invited him over for a barbecue Saturday evening, so she and my
dad can check him out. My dad’s going to be coming down with my
grandmother, my Uncle Ned and Aunt Martha and their kids, so the
guy will be just one face among many. Hey,” he said brightly,
pulling back to look at her. “Maybe you and your mother can come,
too.”
    Shelley shook her head. “To a Stroud family
gathering? We wouldn’t fit in.”
    “Of course you would. It’s going to be a mob
scene. And if your father isn’t coming to the island, what are you
and your mother going to do all weekend, sit around and mope?
Wouldn’t you rather come to our house and eat some charred meat and
soggy pickles? It’ll be a good time.”
    “I don’t know,” Shelley hedged, although it did
sound like a lot of fun. Much more fun than watching TV with her
mother in their stuffy little cottage and wondering what Shelley’s
father was up to back in Connecticut.
    “You’d get to meet Romeo,” Kip pointed
out.
    Shelley was tempted. “Don’t you think you ought
to ask your mother first?”
    “You know she’ll say it’s a great
idea.”
    Of course she would. Kip’s mother wasn’t the
sort to get hung up on two guests more or less at a barbecue.
“Well...if it’s okay with my mother, then, sure, we’ll
come.”
    “Good.” He gave her an affectionate hug, then
hauled himself to his feet. “How about let’s go get some lemonade
and bother Diana?”
    “Okay,” Shelley agreed as Kip grabbed her hand
and hoisted her off the floor. Once again he had made her feel
better. As they descended the ladder into the house, she could
almost forget about the problems that had sent her crying into his
arms.
    ***
    “DO I LOOK ALL RIGHT?” Shelley’s mother
asked.
    Shelley turned from the mirror, where she’d
been trying futilely to do something interesting with her
exceptionally uninteresting hair. Her mother had on white jeans and
an oversized blue silk blouse that gathered in a knot at one hip.
From her ears dangled large gold hoops; her wrists were circled by
gold bangles.
    “You look very classy,” Shelley said, meaning
it. She didn’t add that the Strouds had too much class to worry
about looking classy.
    Shelley’s mother had met Kip’s parents on a few
occasions, and they’d exchanged small talk on the usual
subjects—the names of house painters, the outrageous cost of
electricity on the island, the most recent incident of vandalism at
the lighthouse up at Sandy Point. They’d never actually socialized
in a big way, though. When Shelley’s father was on the island the
Ballards did family-type things: going out to dinner at the
National Hotel, picnicking at Mohegan Bluffs or just hanging out at
the house, being together. And when Shelley’s father wasn’t on the
island, her mother felt peculiar about venturing out in public
without him. “I’m a married woman,” her mother would claim. “I’m
not used to traveling solo.”
    After much
urging from Shelley, however, her mother had decided to attend a
party without a proper escort. Three
cheers for independence , Shelley had
muttered under her breath when her mother finally accepted