Home to Seaview Key (A Seaview Key Novel) (26 page)

Her grandmother’s shoulders seemed to sag. “I need to sit down,” she
said flatly, clutching the railing tightly as she climbed the steps to the porch. She
sank into her favorite rocker as the sun slowly slid into the waters of the Gulf of
Mexico, leaving the sky painted with streaks of orange and gold.

“Gran, are you okay?”

“Just a little tired. You go on in, if you want. Get yourself settled.
I’ll just sit here for a while and enjoy the evening. Leave the dishes. I’ll do them
when I come inside. Won’t take any time at all.”

“But we haven’t even started the list of renovations you want to do,”
Hannah protested, feeling vaguely guilty for dampening her grandmother’s high
spirits.

“You said it yourself. Tomorrow’s soon enough.”

Oddly reluctant to go inside and leave her grandmother alone, Hannah
stood in the doorway for a few minutes.

As twilight fell and a breeze stirred, the streetlight on the corner
came on, illuminating the porch and yard. That was when Hannah noticed the tears
glistening on her grandmother’s cheeks.

* * *

“Mom, what on earth are you doing in Florida?” Kelsey demanded when she
called Hannah’s cell phone later that night and woke Hannah out of a sound sleep. “I
called your office earlier and your secretary told me you’d taken time off again to go
to Seaview. I’ve been trying to call all day, but you must have had your phone turned
off. When you didn’t return my calls, I got worried. Is Grandma Jenny okay?”

Hannah sat on the side of the bed, almost regretting that she’d
remembered to turn the phone back on before going to sleep. There had been five
increasingly impatient messages from her boss and three from Kelsey. For once, she’d
ignored them all, grateful that it was too late to call the office and deciding she
really didn’t want to discuss this situation with Kelsey just yet. Now she had no
choice.

“You mean besides her delusion that I’m going to give up my career and
move back here to run the inn?” she replied.

“Oh, boy,” Kelsey muttered. “Is she serious?”

“She spent an hour at dinner talking about how we need to spruce this
place up and get it open again in two weeks,” Hannah said. “I’d say she’s serious.”

“But you’re not going to do it, are you? You hate Seaview Key and the
inn.”

“Of course I’m not going to do it,” Hannah said emphatically, then
sighed. “Actually, I was thinking it might be a good idea to do a few renovations.”

“But why, if she’s not going to open the inn? You know she can’t manage
it alone.”

Hannah hesitated. “I know,” she said at last.

Kelsey sucked in a breath. “You want her to sell it, don’t you? Mom,
that will break her heart. You can’t do that to her.”

“What choice do I have?” Hannah asked defensively.

“None, I suppose,” Kelsey admitted, “but I hate this, Mom.”

“I know. So do I, but I can’t stay here. I just haven’t figured out how
I’m going to explain that to your great-grandmother. You know how she is once she gets
an idea into her head.”

“A lot like you,” Kelsey said.

“Yes, well, that is the problem, isn’t it?” she said wryly. Suddenly it
occurred to her that there had to be a crisis of some kind for Kelsey to be calling from
college in the middle of the week. “Enough about what’s going on here. I’ll figure out
something. Tell me what’s up with you.”

Kelsey hesitated. “Maybe this isn’t a good time. We can talk about it
when you’re back in New York after you get things straightened out down there.”

A sense of dread settled in the pit of Hannah’s stomach. “Isn’t a good
time for what?” she prodded.

“You’re sure you don’t want to wait and talk about this another time?”
Kelsey asked, sounding oddly hopeful.

“Now,” Hannah commanded.

“Okay, then. Remember how I told you at Christmas that school pretty
much sucks?”

“And I said you were just going through a rough patch,” Hannah
recalled.

“Well, it’s more than a rough patch, Mom. Don’t freak out, okay? I’ve
really thought about this and it’s what I need to do right now. I’ve decided to quit
college, come home to New York and get a job.”

Hannah’s grip on the cell phone tightened. “In your junior year?” she
said, her voice rising despite her best attempt to remain calm. “Are you crazy?”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” Kelsey said petulantly, sounding like
a spoiled child rather than the responsible young adult she normally was.

“No, I don’t understand. And unless you’ve got an explanation that
includes full-time employment several steps above flipping burgers, I’m not likely to
understand. We had a deal. If I went into debt to get you into Stanford, the school of
your dreams, you would stick it out and get your degree in graphic design, no matter
what. Remember that?”

“I remember,” Kelsey said meekly. “But, Mom—”

Hannah cut her off. “No, there is no
but,
Mom.
You got into Stanford. I’ve paid for three years at Stanford, and you
are finishing at Stanford. Period. You don’t get to back out of the deal now.”

“I can’t stay here.”

Years ago, after her divorce, Hannah had learned the value of being
stern and unyielding. Otherwise, even as a toddler, her strong-willed daughter would
have run roughshod over her. She called on that skill now.

“Of course, you can stay. If your courses are too hard, if that’s what
this is about, you can consider dropping one of them, but you’re not dropping out, and
that’s final.” She told herself all her daughter needed was a pep talk. She’d probably
gotten something below an A on a pop quiz and decided she was heading for failure. “Come
on, kiddo. You can do this. You’re smart. You’re more than halfway to getting your
bachelor’s degree. You just need to park your butt in the library and do whatever amount
of studying it takes to get out of there next year with a degree.”

“You don’t understand,” Kelsey said.

“Of course I do, sweetie. We all hit bumps in the road from time to
time. We can’t let them throw us off course.”

“Mom, this isn’t that kind of bump in the road. I’m pregnant,” Kelsey
blurted.

If Hannah hadn’t already been sitting down, she would have fainted dead
away and probably cracked open her skull when she hit the floor. Apparently things
could
get worse. And now she knew how.

Copyright © 2014 by Sherryl Woods