Stranger on the Shore (Mirabelle Harbor, Book 4) (15 page)

Joy was passing around a plate of washed green and red grapes when Gil popped back in her shop, along with one of his friends. From what I gathered, this was the man who owned The Golden Gecko. I waved hello to both gentlemen but didn’t catch the new guy’s name because, just as Gil was introducing him, my cell phone rang. Worried it might be my daughter, I raced to answer it.

But it wasn’t Kathryn.

“Hey, there,” my sister said. “Lounging on the beach?”

“Oh, hi, Ellen. Um, no. I’m in St. Armand’s Circle.”

“The shopping district?” Ellen’s voice sounded incredulous.
“You?”

Comments like these from my sister never failed to make me bristle. True, I didn’t generally love shopping, but that was largely because I hadn’t had the disposable income to spend on frivolous things since before Kathryn had been born. Ellen always made it sound like I thought myself above the activity. “Yes,” I replied sharply. “Something wrong with that?”

“Don’t get all huffy with me. I just called to see how you are and...uh, to find out what you were doing.”

“Well, I’m fine. Mostly.” I told my sister briefly about Donny’s threat to try to get some of the money from the sale of the house.

“That’s bull,” Ellen reassured me. “He doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on, but I’ll call Chelle, who handled the papers originally, just to make sure. Don’t worry about that.”

“Thanks,” I murmured, and I felt drenched in gratitude, yet again, for what Ellen had done for me in the past and, in many ways, was still doing for me. I just wished talking with my sister wasn’t always such an emotional rollercoaster. One minute she irritated me, the next I was so appreciative of her generosity, and the next—

“You’re welcome,” Ellen said. “Hey, who are those people near you? They’re so loud.”

—she irritated me again.

“They’re...nice. They’re new friends,” I blurted, aware that I was missing a funny conversation with them and resenting being pulled away all the more when the whole group started laughing uproariously at something Gil said.

“Friends?” Ellen asked. “I hear
guy
voices. Who are these people? How did you meet them in St. Armand’s? Do you know anything about them?”

I bit my lip to keep from snapping at her. Then I lowered my voice to a hiss and said, “Yes, I know plenty. Stop treating me like I’m twelve.”

Ellen snorted. “Well, c’mon. It’s not like you have the best track record with men, Marianna. I’m just trying to make sure you don’t make any impulsive decisions, particularly with guys you don’t know.” She paused. “What are they talking about?”

They were talking about the Craft Festival tomorrow, but I wasn’t about to explain all of that—and my involvement with the B.E.A.D.S. project—to my nosy sister. “You know, I’m not sure, but I think I’ll go find out. Have a great weekend, Ellen. Thanks for checking in. I’ll call you in a few days.”

“Um...well...” she began. Then there was an awkward pause. “Yeah, sure. We’ll talk soon. Very soon.” It sounded like she was going to say something else, but she only added, “Just be careful, okay?”

“I will. I promise.”
Only fools rush in, right?
“Love you,” I told Ellen and then quickly hung up, relieved not to have to deal with my elder sibling’s rampant judgmentalism, constant critiques of my life choices and, as of late, aggravating paranoia. At least it was easier to put a swift end to these types of conversations on the phone than it was in person. Thank heaven for small mercies.

I tossed my cell phone into my purse and, quite happily, rejoined my new group of friends.

~*~

O
ver a thousand miles northeast and staring silently at her cell phone, Ellen clicked it off and set it on her kitchen counter.

“Love you, too, Sis,” she said to the empty room. “And, oh, by the way...I’ll see you on Sunday.”

It’s the Singer, Not the Song

O
n Saturday, the sun rose early and dawn lit the sky in shades of pink, saffron and peach. I knew the Craft Festival would have a gorgeous opening day. I also knew that the excitement coursing through my body was due less to the beauty of the conditions than it was to the delight I felt in having made such lovely new friends.

Speaking of which, Abby and Joy were already in the process of setting up the tent and tables when I arrived at the site.

“What can I do to help?” I asked.

“Hey, good morning!” Joy said, ever cheerful. “We’re just arranging the bracelets in loop patterns around the table.” She demonstrated. They looked like multiple sets of Olympic rings.

“Okay. I can work on that if you need to do something else.” I grabbed a handful of bracelets and began laying them out the way Joy had shown me. She, meanwhile, was able to turn her attention to the task of setting up the earrings she was selling in addition to the B.E.A.D.S. project items. “Everything all right with Lorelei?”

“Yeah,” Abby piped up. “She’ll be coming in just a few minutes.”

“And my brother’s already here.” Joy pointed in the direction of Castaways. “He’s just lugging out his crate of painted cards.”

No sooner had those words reached my ears when I caught sight of Gil, striding toward us with the confidence of a sun god. Or, at the very least, The King. Rays of light glinted off of his toned, bronzed body, giving off the effect of golden glow. Maybe the Florida sun did that to everybody, but it was especially noticeable in Gil’s case.

“Mornin’,” he said to me with one of his broad grins, setting down the crate on an empty spot on our second table.

“It’s a beautiful one,” I said, nodding at him. He appeared pleasant and friendly whenever I saw him but, during the day, especially early like this, there was something a bit less permeable about him. He was always watchful, but at night, under cover of darkness, he seemed to relax his guard somewhat. In the bright light of morning, his blue eyes squinted at the world with much more serious scrutiny, and I couldn’t help but feel that this was due to something more than just the glare of the sun.

I felt his gaze on me more than once during the time we spent setting up. To make him laugh, I picked up one of his packaged postcards. “Ooooh...dreadful,” I joked.

A blatant lie. The painted design was positively breathtaking.

He raised one dark eyebrow at me and the corners of his lips quirked upward.

“Oh, that’s right. I’d promised to say only nice things today,” I murmured. Then added, “You’re very talented, Gil. Don’t deny it.”

He laughed heartily and finally mumbled, “Thanks. Sweet of you to say.”

“It’s true.”

A few minutes later, Lorelei rushed into their tent. “Parking’s already filling up!” She dropped her tote bag and keys on a folding chair. “The first open space I found was down by that English pub.”

“The Thames Tavern?” Gil said. “That’s over a two-block walk.” He glanced at his watch. “The Festival doesn’t even open for another half hour. Bet we’ll be flooded with customers soon.”

“Did you get much of a chance to look around when you arrived?” Joy asked me.

I shook my head.

“Abby, why don’t you take Marianna around for a quick spin before things get too crazy here? She should have a sense of where the best vendors are in case she wants to do a little shopping later.”

“Or tasting,” Gil added. “Be sure to show her the—”

“Clam Pit!” everyone chorused.

I laughed. “Sounds popular.”

“Oh, honey, it’s the best,” Lorelei said. “They come up every year from Miami and we glom onto them while we can. Remind me to pick up a platter for the guys before I go home tonight.”

“Oooh, good idea!” Joy glanced meaningfully at Abby, and the latter nodded in agreement. “Maybe put in a couple of carryout orders for us?” Joy suggested. “We can swing by and get them at five.”

“For me, too, please,” Gil said. “Tell Samuel to make mine a double order.”

“Will do,” Abby replied.

“Oh!” Lorelei dug through her large tote until she’d unearthed two travel books on Colorado. “Could you drop these off for Nick?” she asked Abby. “I promised to give him these when he was at the shop yesterday.”

Abby took the books. “No problem.” Then she nudged me. “Hey, we’d better get going before they give us anything else to do.”

“Yeah, ladies, could you stop by the bank for me?” Gil teased.

“I have some dry cleaning to pick up,” Joy contributed.

“Uh-huh.” Lorelei nodded with faux seriousness. “And about dinner—”

“We’re outta here!” Abby said, dragging me out of the tent and into the sunshine, both of us giggling like teens.

“They’re funny and...really wonderful people,” I gushed. “How long have you known them all?”

Abby pondered this. “I met Joy first. At our condo complex. It’s been a little over a year now.” She laughed as if not quite believing how fast the time had flown. “Joy introduced me to Gil, of course. And to Lorelei. I work a few hours a week at The Beaded Periwinkle and part time at Floriday Vacations, too. So, it’s been nice.”

I studied her expression, and she seemed to be very sincere, but there was still that lurking sadness just behind her smile. Courtesy of Chandler Michaelsen, no doubt. If I didn’t know his family or have as much respect for them as I did, I probably would have hated the guy, sight unseen. As it was, I’d never met him, only his identical twin Chance, since Chandler had bolted out of Mirabelle Harbor about five years ago (dragging Abby with him), right around the time Olivia and I were getting acquainted.

I tried to formulate how to ask Abby the questions about her ex-boyfriend that I really wanted to know, but she’d turned her focus elsewhere, pointing out some of her favorite craft and food vendors among the sea of white tents. To my eye, it was part art fair, part tailgate party—with a very willing crowd of participants beginning to infiltrate the edges, ready to partake in both.

“There’s The Golden Gecko’s tent.” Abby made a beeline for it. “Yo, Nick! Got a present for you.”

The tall, blond guy, who’d been visiting Joy’s shop with Gil yesterday afternoon when Ellen had called, swiveled around and beamed at us. “Ladies! What ‘cha got for me? Some luv? Some sugah?” He tapped his left cheek and then his right one, motioning us forward expectantly. Abby snorted, but she kissed him on the left side of his face.

When in Rome...
I thought. I pecked him on the right cheek.

Nick stepped back, looking pleased. “That was a very nice gift.”

Abby plopped the books down on his front table, between an army of grinning lizards and amphibians. “Well, this is for you, too. Compliments of Lorelei.”

The sun-weathered, handsome man in his late-thirties examined the two Colorado travel guides with interest. “Awesomesauce,” he said with teen-like enthusiasm. “You give her a big smoocheroo for me. I’ll return them to her next month.”

“Will do,” Abby promised him. With a parting wave, she then dragged me out of his tent and around the Circle.

“I thought you were the go-to person for travel, aren’t you?” I asked.

“My travel agency specializes in Florida sites, but Lorelei is our Rocky Mountain expert. She’s from Tallahassee, but she went to college out in Denver and met her husband Jamison there. She lured him back here.”

I laughed. “Lucky for us.”

“Exactly. And Nick could use her help this summer, too, since he’s never been out West. He said he ‘planned’ a driving trip, but I think he employed that term rather loosely.” Abby rolled her eyes. “Other than looking at a map and deciding he loves the sound of the names Silver Springs, Bear Lake, and Estes Park, he knows nothing about the area, so Lorelei is just trying to keep him on some sort of beaten path so he doesn’t get too lost in the mountains. As you probably guessed, Nick’s a great guy, but he’s more adolescent than adult sometimes.”

“And...single? Someone you might want to go out with...maybe?”

She laughed and elbowed me. “Oh, c’mon. Not you, too? Nick’s very sweet, handsome, and fun, but he’s ten years older than me and in no way seems like the type to settle down.”

“And that’s what you’re looking for, right? A guy who’s ready to commit and settle down?”

“I’ve been looking for that for a long time, Marianna.”

I paused before saying softly, “A guy unlike Chandler Michaelsen, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I figured if you knew Olivia that you might also know about that whole situation with her brother-in-law.” She took a few deep breaths, pointed out a couple of tents with tasty treats en route to the Clam Pit, and finally said, “I’m nearing thirty, you know? I followed Chandler out here. We meandered our way around the United States and got to Sarasota after
eleven
cities in four and a half years.” She shrugged. “The usual routine was that we’d each get a quick job—fast-food chain or another service-industry slot—and a month-by-month rental agreement. Then try to fit in with the locals for however long his interest in the area lasted. Just when I’d start to get used to the new city, know my way around and maybe make a few friends, Chandler’s wanderlust would kick in. He’d get antsy, like somebody was tailing him or something. He was going to move on to city number twelve after only five months in Sarasota, but I’d met Joy and Lorelei and realized I’d had enough of being in transit. So he went on—to Atlanta this time—without me.”

“I’m so sorry, Abby.”

She bit her lip. “Thanks.”

I reached out and gave her shoulder a light squeeze. “Couldn’t have been easy to choose to stay.”

“It wasn’t. I loved him...and I think he loved me.” She shrugged. “But, when I’m being totally honest with myself, it didn’t take long after he’d left for me to recognize that we weren’t soul mates. We were too different, and we were both always trying to nudge the other one to change. I kept hoping that if we stayed as a couple for long enough we’d finally grow together, but we were on two very different paths. And, in the end, I realized if he wanted to settle down, it wasn’t with
me
. So, I’d been just killing time.”

I thought about this. Abby was a decade or so younger than I was, but we shared a common experience. Even though, technically, she’d been single during the years she’d been with Chandler, she’d been living in a dead-end relationship with him. Just as I’d been with Donny, despite our lengthy marriage. Both Abby and I had been waiting for somebody who’d really want to be a permanent fixture in our respective lives. But, sadly, neither of us had found “The One.” She hadn’t had any more luck with that than I’d had.