Yes.
As words go, Cal really liked that one. He’d texted back to let her know dinner would be at his house at seven.
And it was seven-oh-five.
The back door opened, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. “Sea, are you almost ready?”
Mikel stood there, and Cal barely blinked at him. He was a nice kid, and Cal actually liked him. He came over to the house and watched movies, made Sierra laugh, and had helped her with her final computer project at the end of the year. Now that summer had arrived, Mikel and Sierra went to the beach with friends, and he’d just turned fifteen, so his father was teaching him how to drive.
As far as boys Cal would like his daughter hanging out with, Mikel was one of the better ones.
But he just wanted the doorbell to ring and Lisa to be standing on the porch.
“Not for a few minutes,” she said. “You can come in. My dad’s girlfriend isn’t here yet.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Cal said automatically.
“Okay, the woman he wants to be his girlfriend isn’t here yet.” She rolled her eyes at Cal, but he barely noticed. The collar on this shirt was too tight, and he reached up to touch the buttons there. The top two were already undone, and Sierra moved over in front of him.
She swatted his hands away from his neck. “Dad, the shirt is awesome.”
“I don’t like shirts like this,” he said.
“But you look great, and the idea is to look great tonight. Right?” She put both hands on his shoulders and looked right into his eyes. “Calm down. It’s Lisa.”
He nodded. “Right. Lisa.” He’d asked for Sierra’s input over the past week to help him put together a plan to get Lisa back. He’d told her, “I’m ready, Sea. I’m really ready, and I don’t really want to mingle like Mom said. I like Lisa—I really like Lisa—and I want to see if our relationship can turn into love.”
Sierra had hugged him, and then she’d started giving him all kinds of advice. What to wear. What to do. What to eat. What to say.
All of it felt stirred up into one big pot of soup inside his mind.
The doorbell rang, and he spun toward the front door.
“Go,” Sierra said, and Cal practically sprinted down the hall and into the safety of his bedroom. The plan was to have Sierra open the door. She’d been talking to Lisa over the course of the last six weeks, as Cal had discovered when he’d performed his routine checks of her phone. At first, he’d been angry. Then he’d realized that he couldn’t take Lisa away from Sierra, and he’d kept working on himself.
He heard feminine voices coming from the front of the house, and he counted to five, as per his daughter’s instructions. He pulled on the bottom of that blasted blue shirt, covered with tiny yellow pineapples, and headed down the hall.
Rounding the corner, he paused, because Lisa had pulled out all the stops. Her hair fell in beautiful waves over her shoulders, a blonde waterfall he wanted to run his fingers through. She wore something different than what she’d had on at Your Tidal Forever this morning, and he sure did like the little black dress, the blue ballet flats, and the way she smiled at him.
He returned the smile, still nervous but not so out of his head that he couldn’t walk toward her. He took her easily into his arms, and said, “Hey. It’s so great to see you. Thanks for coming.”
Stepping back, he cleared his throat. “My daughter made me wear this shirt.”
Lisa giggled and looked at Sierra, who was smiling at her with shining eyes.
“This is my boyfriend, Mikel,” she said, pulling the kid toward her. “I went to the prom with him too.”
“Oh, you’re the prom date.” Lisa scanned him from head to toe and looked at Sierra. “He’s cute, Sea.”
“Right?” The girls laughed, and then Sierra put her hand in Mikel’s and said, “We’re going, Dad.”
“Okay,” he said, almost absently. “Call me if you’re not going to be at Mikel’s.”
“Yep.”
“Be safe,” he said, just like he always did. “Love you.”
“Love you too.” The back door closed, and he was alone with Lisa, something he’d been dreaming about for a while.
He blinked and backed up a step. “Okay, so come sit over here. Sierra ordered our food for tonight, and she helped me get the table set and everything.”
“She’s a good girl,” Lisa said, and Cal could only agree.
“I had this whole speech memorized,” he said. “But I’ve sort of forgotten it.” He chuckled, the sound full of nerves. He pulled open the oven and removed the Hawaiian barbecue pork Sierra said was all the rage.
“Is that pork from Kiki’s?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “And if you’ll sit down, I’ll serve you up a plate.” He hurried to pull her chair out for her, and she looked up at him as she sat. Cal threw everything out the window and knelt down at her side.
“I missed you,” he said. “So much. And I’m ready, Lisa. When Jo was dying, she told me to get out there and meet someone else. Mingle.” He shook his head, his nerves releasing now that he was talking. “I’m not sure if you remember much about me, but I’m not a mingler.”
“No, I wouldn’t classify you that way,” she said with a smile.
“You changed my life when you came over to me and finished my drink at that party.” Cal could still see the situation clearly in his head, as if she’d just done it yesterday. “And I want to dance with you. I want to learn everything I can about you, and I want to see if we can hire someone at your firm to plan our wedding. I’ll build our altar—anything you want.”
He pulled back on his thoughts, because he’d gotten way too far ahead of himself. Lisa’s eyes glittered with tears, and Cal smiled at her.
“I don’t know if I’m in love with you,” he said. “But I want to find out.” There. That was the end of the speech. He gazed at her, waiting for her to say something.
She smiled, the movement shaky, and she leaned toward him. “I want to find out too.”
He took her face in both of his hands and kissed her, and Lisa kissed him right back. He felt alive in a way he hadn’t in so long, and he couldn’t wait to tell her about everything he’d been working on these past six weeks.
“Will you dance with me?” he whispered.
She nodded, and he straightened and took her into his arms. She fit right inside the circle of his arms, smelling of roses and oranges, and he pressed his cheek right against hers as he held her close.
True happiness flowed over him, and he closed his eyes and thought, Thank you, Jo, as he and Lisa danced to music only they could hear.
An hour later, he sat with Lisa on the couch, their dinner delicious, but now gone. “So I’ve been getting back to my roots,” he said. “Visiting my parents. Learning how to make fishing boats from my father. Attending grief meeting every week.”
“Wow,” she said. She’d been a very good listener as he detailed for her his efforts. “Cal, I didn’t mean—I feel a little guilty. Like you weren’t good enough for me before.”
“Don’t feel like that,” he said. “That’s not true at all. It wasn’t a self-confidence issue.”
She nodded and studied her hands. “Okay.”
“I loved my wife,” he said. “Very much. We had a lot of time together at the end, and I know she wanted me to move on. Still took me a long time, and I probably wouldn’t be where I am without you coming over and asking me to dance.”
He reached over and gently lifted her chin, so she’d look at him. “So thank you, Lisa.” He touched his lips to hers. “Now, do you want to go to a grief meeting with me? They’re every Monday at noon.”
“Oh,” she said, clearly surprised. “I don’t know. Do I need to—do people like me go?”
“Lots of different people go,” he said, smiling. “You don’t have to like, view a dead body or anything.” He grinned at her, so glad she was here, with him.
“Oh, well, I’ll have to check my sch
edule,” she said.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “While you’re at it, check and see if you have time to go parasailing tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“They do tours all the way until eight o’clock,” he said. “And Sierra’s been bugging me to go, and I thought we’d all like to go.”
Lisa searched his face, and he wasn’t sure what she was thinking. “I’ve always wanted to go parasailing on a date,” she said. “I’m in.”
Cal’s face split into a grin. “Tell me what time to book the tour.”
The following evening, Cal waited on the dock for Lisa. He, Sierra, Mikel had already been fitted for their harnesses, and the tour wasn’t set to go for another twenty minutes. She still had time to get there, but she was cutting it close.
And then he saw her, a high blonde ponytail on top of her head swinging as she hurried toward him. He lifted his hand, and she jogged a few steps. She looked happy and carefree in a pair of white sandals and a sundress that the breeze played with.
“Hey,” he said, his heart suddenly fuller than it had ever been. “You look great.” He hugged her and led her down the dock to the parasailing hut. “They just need to fit you for a harness. She’s here,” he said to the kid working the booth.
After she was ready, Cal put his hand on the small of her back as she climbed onto the boat. “Back here,” Sierra said, and Lisa went to her left to the two open seats at the back of the boat.
“I’m not so sure about this,” she said, eyeing the equipment on the back of the boat.
“Right?” Sierra said. “I literally just said the same thing to Mikel here.”
“I said they take people out on boats like this all the time,” the teenager said. “It’s going to be fine.”
Cal sat next to Lisa, a little nervous himself. But before he knew it, the boat’s engine roared to life and they started moving away from the dock. Cal loved being out on the open water, and he smiled as he tipped his head toward the sun and let the wind whip through his hair.
Lisa whooped too, and Cal was so glad he was here with her, experiencing this. Making new memories outside of the walls of his home, with a woman he really liked.
He lifted his arm around her, and she leaned into him as she pressed her sunhat onto her head so the wind wouldn’t steal it.
“All right,” the boat captain said several minutes later. “Who’s going first?” He looked between Cal and Sierra, and no one said anything.
“We are,” Lisa said, standing up and pulling her sundress over her head to reveal a black one-piece swimming suit. Cal’s mouth went dry, and it wasn’t because he was about to strap himself to a seat and fly behind a boat.
Or maybe it was partly because of that.
“Yeah,” he said, his heart pounding hard. “We are.” He stepped where the captain told him, strapped himself in, let the assistant check everything, and then he gave Sierra a thumbs-up. “This is going to be great,” he said, trying to assure himself as well as everyone else on the boat.
“Here we go,” the captain said, and Cal didn’t really have a chance to take a deep breath before the boat took off.
His yell matched Lisa’s scream as they sailed up and behind the boat. She laughed, and he did too, his stomach somewhere down at the bottom of his feet. And then…then, the most beautiful view of the ocean and the island of Getaway Bay spread before him.
“Wow,” he said, reaching over to take Lisa’s hand in his. “This is amazing.” Now that they were up and the line was out, it felt like he was floating, the clear, crisp ocean air rising up to meet him.
“So amazing,” Lisa confirmed.
Cal tore his eyes from the glorious view of blue water and tan sand and green trees and looked at Lisa. “Thanks for coming with me.”
“Thanks for inviting me.” She grinned at him, and the seat swooped, causing another shriek to come from her throat.
Cal started laughing, everything in him tingling, either from the sudden drop or the fact that he and Lisa were here together, parasailing.
He hoped it was the parasailing.
Chapter Twenty-One
A couple of weeks later, Lisa sat next to Cal, his hand gripped tightly in hers as a woman talked about the death of her son. She wept, and she wasn’t the only one. Lisa had sucked back her own tears a half-dozen times, and she didn’t even know any of these people.
Yet there was a sense of family here among them. Lisa had never spent a Monday as well as she had this one, and the meeting wasn’t even over yet.
No wonder Cal liked coming to these. They were full of good memories of dear people, and Lisa really liked thinking of them as still with their loved ones here on Earth.
When the meeting ended—Cal hadn’t said a word—they stood and started chatting with the Chief of Police of all people. Lisa liked Chief Gardner, and they’d chit-chatted a little bit about how his daughter was doing before the meeting.
“Oh, I see why you like coming to these,” Lisa said when she spied the platter of doughnuts on a nearby table.
“Yeah, the refreshments aren’t bad,” Cal said, selecting a chocolate frosted doughnut. “I haven’t eaten lunch yet, so this’ll probably make me sick.” He took a big bite anyway and looked over her shoulder. He nodded toward someone, and Lisa turned.
“Hey, so, uh.” The Chief shifted his feet and lifted his hat to put it on. “Do you know if Dierdre Bernard is seeing anyone?”
Surprise shot right to Lisa’s vocal cords. The Chief had his eye on Dierdre?
“No,” she blurted. “No, she sure isn’t.”
“Great, thank you.”
“We should set up a double date,” Lisa said, her mind racing down an exciting path right now.
Cal coughed, and the Chief actually barked the word, “No.”
“No double date?” She looked back and forth between the two men, almost giving herself whiplash.
“No setting up,” the Chief said. “I can get my own date when I’m ready.” He nodded to Lisa and then Cal before striding out of the room, sans doughnut.
“Wow, okay,” Lisa said, feeling giddy for her friend. “He and Dierdre.”
“He said they’d been out before,” he said. “Didn’t work out for some reason.” Cal finished his doughnut. “Do you have time for lunch?”
“Yeah, we’re meeting Riley and Evan, remember?”
“Oh, right.” Cal had obviously not remembered, but he smiled at her and laced his fingers through hers. “That bistro you girls love, right?”
“Right. And you’ll like it too. They have these Hawaiian spam rolls that have your name all over them.”
“Lead on,” he said, chuckling, and Lisa did just that.
“Thanks for inviting me to this,” she said. “I learned a lot.”
“Yeah,” Cal said with a sigh. “It’s not a bad way to spend a lunch hour.”
“Spending time with you is always a good time,” Lisa said, realizing too late how much she’d revealed.
Cal paused and looked at her, his feelings right there in his expression too. “I like spending time with you too, Lisa.” He bent down and kissed her, the sweetest kiss of her life. Lisa sighed into his touch, realizing that she could easily fall for this man in a matter of days.
In fact, she’d already started the slide in that direction.
Six months later:
“Wow,” Lisa said, gazing up at all the trees. Even in the winter, the rainforest was beautiful. “I can’t believe you have a place out here. It feels so remote.”
“We’ve been off the road for two minutes,” Cal said with a laugh. “And the beach is right behind us.”
Lisa didn’t look behind her. She was too entranced with the emerald green foliage, the brilliant blue sky, all of it. A house emerged from out of the branches, and Lisa pulled in a breath. “Is that it? It’s awesome.”
“It’s practically a hut,” Cal said, but Lisa knew he loved this place. He’d come a few times over the past six month
s without her, and she hadn’t pressed him to invite her. He would when he was ready. “Jo and I fell in love with it when we first saw it.”
“I can see why.” Lisa admired the bright blue exterior, with the bright white shutters. The porch spanned the whole front of it, and the rocking chairs looked like a great place to waste an afternoon with this man at her side. The front door was a pale yellow, and everything looked as charming as could be.
“There’s indoor plumbing,” he said. “And the boat is in the shed behind the house.”
“Kitchen?”
“Very small,” he said. “Everything about it is very small, Lise.”
She loved it when he used her nickname, and she basked in the love she felt for Cal. She’d told him she loved him; he’d said it back. They’d enjoyed the last six months together, and Lisa was looking forward to many more months of happiness with him.
No, he hadn’t asked her to marry him, and they hadn’t even really talked about marriage all that much. He had a now-fifteen-year-old, and she wasn’t sure if he wanted more children or not.
He pulled the truck to a stop and got out, waiting for her to join him. “So this place has two bedrooms and a bathroom. Jo and I would just come for a quick weekend away, and we brought Sierra a few times when she was little. The beach is a half a mile away, and we walk through the trees to get there.” He mounted the steps and looked at the rocking chairs to his right.
“I built those, and I’ll build you one so you have your own to sit in when we come.” He smiled and opened the front door.
Lisa’s heart felt like it might burst. “Do you carry the boat down to the beach every time you go fishing?”
“I dock it down there,” he said. “I nailed a spike into the sand, and nobody bothers it.”
“Not a lot of people out here.”
“There’s about a dozen huts like this one,” he said. “So no, not a lot. I know most of them, and they know my boat. We watch out for each other.”
Everything about this little house and the vacation community up here by Lightning Point sounded wonderful to Lisa.
The Carpenter's Bride Page 14
