And besides, she’d basically sabotaged her plan of the kind of reunion that would have him regretting his actions years ago by being found in a staircase. “Sure. You too,” she mumbled.
He waved as he climbed into his truck, and Sarah tested the strength of the deck railing before leaning against it. Several planks of the worn, weather-beaten wood had needed to be replaced years ago. In fact, the entire wraparound deck should have had a full teardown and rebuild. She had spent almost three days at the B&B, and everywhere she looked, something needed fixing or replacing. She didn’t need a contractor to explain to her the extent of the repairs needed to rehab the entire inn, and she wouldn’t even think about how much it might cost.
Selling it in its current state and leaving its fate to the new owner was the logical thing to do.
The sound of waves lapping against the shore and the familiar salty ocean-scented air did nothing to settle the uneasiness in her chest as the truck’s taillights disappeared from sight.
“Why me, Grandma?”
A question she’d never have answered.
Chapter Two
Sarah Lewis had inherited the inn.
Wes wouldn’t have bet his truck on that one. The friend he remembered from high school was book-smart bordering on genius, but she wasn’t exactly comfortable in social situations. The year they’d graduated, she’d won the award for Most Klutzy and, while those old awards seemed rather cruel in hindsight, it appeared she might still be in the running for it at their ten-year reunion.
Stuck in a staircase. He chuckled.
He’d always found her awkwardness endearing. And it had helped him not feel so intimidated by her when he was forced to endure the embarrassment of needing her tutoring to graduate.
Her grandmother must have had her reasons for choosing the one grandchild least capable of running an inn, but Wes wasn’t so sure the old lady had chosen correctly if she hadn’t wanted the place torn down.
Sarah had looked ready to drive the bulldozer herself.
Watching the inn deteriorate and then sit abandoned when Dove moved into a retirement facility had been heartbreaking. The B&B was located on the most easterly coast of Blue Moon Bay. Breathtaking views of the ocean at sunrise and sunset made it the perfect tourist destination for travelers looking for some R&R. The mild surf in that area of the beach was ideal for swimming and sunbathing, and a small alcove made it feel private and remote. There was even a shallow area for young kids to play without their parents needing to worry about a strong current or undertow.
Jagged cliffs in the distance gave a magnificent backdrop over the sandy shores, and the acres of green grass and lush vegetation surrounding the property required a lot less maintenance than the building itself. With the right renovations, Sarah could easily flip the place for a better price and the inn could live on.
If he had the money to buy it himself, he’d readily take it off her hands. Five years ago, when Dove had closed the inn, he’d been about to make an offer. Then Kelly had gotten sick, and things had changed so fast.
Before his wife’s fight with cancer, their lives had finally been headed in the right direction—after a few slight detours, including a failed pro football career. At least he’d made enough from his three seasons playing for the Rams to start his own construction business. Plan B wasn’t the dream, but buying his first property—a run-down vacation rental to fix up and flip—had been surprisingly easier than he’d thought, and it’d paid off.
That first successful venture had renewed his confidence in himself after the crushing setback. The success of the company also made it possible for Kelly to stay at home to raise Marissa, and they’d been talking about adding to their happy little family.
Then Kelly got sick.
Between the medical bills and paying for someone to look after the house and Marissa, the expenses increased while his ability to earn decreased as he spent more and more time with Kelly at the hospital. He’d missed opportunities, and his company’s reputation had taken a hit. He’d struggled the last five years trying to pay off those bills and get back the clients he lost when he was unavailable. Marissa was now nine, and being both mom and dad was challenging. He had her future to think about as well, so he had to find a way to turn things around and soon.
Pulling into his driveway, he climbed out of his truck and headed inside through the kitchen door. He stepped over boxes and sucked in his body as he wiggled past the small desk in the corner of the already cramped kitchen. His assistant/aunt Carmen was on the phone, and she glanced up in time to catch her coffee cup from spilling as his hip hit the desk.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
This definitely was not ideal working conditions. He desperately missed having an office. Moving them into his kitchen was supposed to have been temporary when he’d lost the lease on his office space, but it was going on three years now, and there were no concrete plans to move out of his home anytime soon.
“I’ll schedule you in for a quote next week,” Carmen said, rummaging through the papers on her messy desk to find a pen.
Next week? What was wrong with this week? Tomorrow, even. He grabbed a piece of paper on her desk and wrote: Why next week?
Had a new job miraculously popped up that would keep him booked until then?
She took the pen and wrote back: The illusion of being busy.
More like a delusion, if anyone in town believed that.
If he was busy, he wouldn’t be coaching every Little League team in town and teaching surfing lessons during the summer months to camp kids. There were tons of small jobs around town—deck repairs, painting, roofing…but he couldn’t bring himself to charge his friends and neighbors enough to be profitable after cost of supplies and paying his crew.
He was great at construction work. Not so great at the business side of things. Everyone in town still treated him like the local football star he used to be, and maybe he wanted to preserve that image somehow. Still feel that rush of being the guy everyone could depend on…if in a different way.
“Great. Looks like he has an opening on Tuesday at nine a.m.,” Carmen said. She disconnected the call and turned to him. “How’d it go at Mrs. Miller’s?” She stood to write next Tuesday’s job on the whiteboard behind the desk.
She’d sent him to pick up a check from the eighty-year-old widow for the work he’d done on her fence the week before. “Let’s just say her payment was delicious.” He’d eaten six of the chocolate zucchini muffins already that day.
Carmen wagged the dry-erase marker at him. “Stop letting them pay you with baked goods. Baked goods, homemade knit scarfs, signed author copies of their self-pubbed books, these things don’t pay bills.”
“I know, I know,” he said, running a hand through his hair and over his face. He reached for the coffeepot and poured the lukewarm liquid into his cup that was still sitting on the counter since that morning.
All the breakfast dishes were still sitting there, too. Marissa was supposed to have filled the dishwasher. He sighed. She didn’t do it to disobey him; she was just absentminded. No doubt she’d forgotten about her chore the moment he left the house.
Carmen took his mug from him and put it in the microwave. She struggled with the door that was refusing to shut lately and hit the Reheat button.
“Mrs. Miller was good for gossip, though,” he said, knowing she’d appreciate that, at least. Small towns thrived on their gossip for excitement, and Blue Moon Bay was no exception.
Sure enough, his aunt raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
“Turns out, Sarah Lewis inherited Dove’s Nest.”
Carmen looked confused. “Good heavens, what was Dove thinking? What on earth could that girl do with it?”
“Says she’s thinking of selling it in its current state.”
“That’s a horrible idea. Whoever buys it will just tear it dow
n.” His aunt retrieved the cup and handed it to him.
“That’s what I said.” He took a sip of the bitter liquid and grimaced.
Carmen nodded slowly. “Do you think you can talk her into renovating?”
Obviously, she was thinking about the possibility of a decent project and payday for his company, as well as preserving the inn that used to mean a lot to the community and Blue Moon Bay’s tourism.
“I’m going to try,” he said, kissing her forehead. Though he wasn’t sure how successful he’d be. Sarah hadn’t exactly been thrilled to see him. She’d actually seemed a little standoffish, and the way she’d practically batted his hands away from her body once she was on safe ground had warned him not to go in for a “long time, no see” hug from his former tutor and friend.
But maybe it was the circumstances that had her on edge.
“Where’s Marissa?”
Carmen raised an eyebrow above her oversize glasses—the same pair she’d worn since Wes was a kid, only now they were suddenly stylish again. “Where do you think?”
Her bedroom. Sitting in front of her computer screen. “Has she been outside at all today?”
“Only when she thought the mail carrier was delivering her new chemistry kit.”
Wes left the kitchen and headed down the hall to his daughter’s bedroom. On the door was her Do Not Enter—Science Experiments in Progress sign.
He knocked anyway. “Marissa.”
“Come in!”
He entered the messy room and forced a calming breath. The dishwasher, the bedroom…she was ignoring every task on her summer daily chore list.
“Hey, Dad,” she said quickly before turning her attention back to the computer screen where she was typing a bunch of code he would never know how to read.
He opened the closed window blinds, and sunlight cast across the screen. She squinted and held up a hand as though he had blinded her. “Ah, my eyeballs!”
“It’s called sunlight, and let me introduce you to fresh air,” he said, opening the window. A faint smell lingered, and he’d bet there was food or a wet swimsuit left in a backpack somewhere.
She shot him a look only a nine-year-old going on forty could deliver. “The UV rating today is an eight. Do you know how dangerous that is?”
“So is vitamin D deficiency. Wear sunscreen and a hat,” he said, tossing her a baseball cap that said STEM on it. “Come on, you have to get ready for soccer.”
“Can I just finish this code?” She folded her hands in a pleading motion, and he almost caved. Being a single dad, he was always struggling to find that balance between being a parent and allowing her independence. The first year after Kelly died had been the hardest. He found himself giving in to everything and anything Marissa wanted to compensate for her tragic loss, but he quickly realized that setting boundaries was in the little girl’s best interests. Or at least that was what all the parenting books Carmen kept giving him said.
“No.”
“Dad! It’s important.”
“So is movement and fun and seeing friends.”
“I hate soccer,” she said with a pout, but she reached under a pile of clothing—dirty or clean or a mix of both, he wasn’t sure—and retrieved her soccer cleats.
“It’s more fun when you actually try.”
Connecting with her had never been this difficult before. It didn’t seem that long ago when they had picnics in the backyard with her dolls or when pushing her on the swing was met with squeals of delight as she swung higher. Now she was into science and math and all this computer stuff he just did not get. He’d wrongfully assumed he’d have at least a few more easy years before Marissa’s teenage hormones made things challenging. After all, what did he know about teenage girls? If every discussion now was a challenge or a negotiation, what would it be like when he had an actual teenager to deal with?
She sulked as she tied the laces of her cleats and he flicked through the pile of clothes for her soccer jersey. Number 7. His old number when he’d played professionally. Now he wore whatever number the beer leagues gave out.
“Hey, um…did you give that camp any more thought?” she asked, trying to sound casual, but he heard the eagerness in her voice.
Marissa had been asking about the STEM summer camp since first learning about the science and technology program during spring break, when the school had hosted a free week-long session.
But that had been different. This two-week sleepaway camp cost $1,500 and was three hours away: $1,000 more and not local like the Girl Guides camp she would be attending in Blue Moon Bay next month.
He hesitated, looking at her hopeful face. “Still thinking about it.” Wes wasn’t at all comfortable with letting his nine-year-old go that far away from home that summer but right now he did not have the heart to break hers with the truth.
Chapter Three
Googling “wood rot” and seeing the photos of termites was all it took to have Sarah reconsidering her free accommodations at Dove’s Nest. The wood tunnels around the baseboards in the downstairs main bathroom looked like the perfect home for these insects, and they weren’t exactly the guests she wanted to share a B&B with. Sitting on the deck, she was about to call the local five-star hotel’s reservations desk when a car turned into the circular driveway.
She smiled for the first time that day, seeing her best friends, Jessica and Whitney, climbing out of Whitney’s banana-yellow Miata convertible. Whitney had bought the car a month ago, and it was perfect for the spirited, upbeat woman. No one would dare mention that it lacked a back seat for all the kids Whitney’s fiancé, Trent, insisted they wanted.
Sarah put her phone back in her pocket and met them at the top of the deck stairs. “I thought I wouldn’t see you guys until tomorrow,” she said, hugging them both at the same time. They had wanted to give her time with her family while they were still in town for her grandmother’s funeral, but seeing them now brought a rush of tears. Growing up, Jessica and Whitney had been more than friends; they were her sisters by heart. It was tough the last few days being in town and not seeing them, but they were here now, and she wasn’t sure if the tears were joy at seeing them or at finally being able to let go and grieve her grandmother. Maybe both.
“We couldn’t wait any longer,” Whitney said.
“And when we got your text that you’d inherited Dove’s Nest, we wanted to make sure you didn’t walk straight into the ocean,” Jessica said.
She didn’t admit that for a heartbeat or two, she had contemplated doing just that. “It’s tempting,” she said. “What’s with the bowling shirt?” Jessica’s shirt was white with bold red sleeves and a single red stripe down the front, with an embroidered logo on the left-hand side that read Bay’s Singles.
“She joined a coed league,” Whitney said, the eye roll implied in her tone. “As if dart club and competitive ax throwing weren’t extracurricular activity enough.”
Jessica shot her a look. “It was supposed to be a singles team, but apparently, ‘single’ just meant ‘not married.’ So now I’m stuck carrying an awful team with two actively not single couples and Bert Elliott.”
“The hardware store guy?” Bert had worked the paint counter for years. “Isn’t he married?”
“Recently separated. Again, not exactly single,” Jessica said as Sarah led the way to the outdoor seating on the side of the house. She wasn’t sure if the deck could hold all three of them without another hole-in-the-floor fiasco. The sun was getting low in the sky and the furniture on the patio was positioned around a stone fire pit. Despite needing a fresh coat of paint, the Adirondack chairs were in surprisingly good shape. Given what she had seen so far of the rest of the furniture in the B&B, the patio seemed the best option for a visit with her besties.
“You’d date a sixty-two-year-old man if he was?” Whitney asked Jessica, hanging her purse over the back of a chai
r and removing her gray suit jacket.
“Hey, Bert is a sweetheart, and he always makes sure I have a cold bottled water at each game. That’s about the most attention I’ve had from a man in a long time.”
“That’s just desperation talking.” Whitney rolled the sleeves of her silk blouse and undid the top button. Her golden, sun-kissed skin was enviable.
“Hey, if I date Bert, I could get Sarah a discount on paint,” Jessica said.
Sarah laughed. “Who said I was doing any painting? A sledgehammer might be useful, though.”
The familiar banter helped remind her of how much she’d really missed them. They kept in touch with weekly FaceTime chats, but when they were together like this, she realized how that barely seemed enough. They had all gone to school together since kindergarten, but they really became friends in the fifth grade when Jessica had started a “single child club.” The three of them had bonded over their joint disappointment that their parents hadn’t given them the courtesy of a sibling.
Jessica and Whitney still lived in Blue Moon Bay and saw each other frequently. Sarah struggled with feeling like the third wheel or the one left out, but she had her busy job in the city as a consolation. Her friends understood her lack of availability.
“Wineglasses?” Jessica asked, taking a bottle of red from her oversize purse, followed by a box of cream-filled pastries from her bakery, Delicious Delicacies.
Sarah’s mouth watered, and she wasn’t sure which she craved more—the alcohol or the carbs. “I’ll see what we have. Save me something covered in chocolate,” she said, hurrying inside. She grabbed three of the largest glasses she could find, washed them quickly, and carried them outside.
Whitney had the bottle open already. “So, how bad is it?” she asked as she poured.
Should she mention her near-death experience? Probably best to keep the embarrassing story to herself. Her friends already had plenty of adventure stories with her as the leading role of klutz. She had spent years trying to rewrite that narrative, plus they would worry about her. Best to keep that story for another time.
A Lot Like Love Page 2
