“I think that’s the idea. I have two more arrangements in the van.”
“For us?” Zach echoed again, clearly shocked by the outpouring of sentiment. “People really sent three guys a bunch of flowers? For real?”
“You’ll probably get even more,” Drea said, spinning on her heels to walk back to the vehicle she’d left parked at the curb.
“I’ll help you with those,” Zach offered.
“Good because I could use an extra pair of hands.” She went to the back door of the truck, swung it open. “This is from Hayden,” she said as she picked up the braided money tree and held it up. “For prosperity and for good luck. And this is from Lilly and Wally.”
Zach eyed the European garden basket with a Mylar balloon attached that said ‘congratulations’ in silver and purple. “I hope like hell we can keep all these plants alive.”
“Should I plan to make a house call?” Drea asked.
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea. Unless Ryder or Troy has a green thumb I don’t know anything about, the greenery is subject to neglect, especially with our busy schedules. Maybe I’ll talk Ryder into taking one home to Julianne.”
“So you’re okay now with Troy marrying Bree?”
Since Troy was his business partner and would soon become his brother-in-law, Zach had done his best to put things in perspective. But no matter how much time went by, he still couldn’t get used to the idea his kid sister would soon be married. To him, she still seemed like the little girl who used to bug him to take her wherever he went. Now, Bree was busy getting her own tour business up and going while at the same time, planning the wedding.
Zach blew out a breath. “Not really. This summer I was convinced the relationship was moving way too fast to suit me. They’re so young. I remember when I was twenty-two, I sure wasn’t thinking about settling down back then.”
“You aren’t that old. Besides, everyone’s different. It doesn’t take a whole lot to see that Troy is crazy about her and that she feels the same way about him.”
“I came around to that a couple of weeks ago. What can I do about it anyway? Don’t get me wrong, Troy’s a great guy. That goes a long way to how I feel. He makes her happy. I have to accept that.”
“Is that your main objection, the fact that they’re so young?”
“Yeah. My only objection really. But despite their ages, those two are go-getters—Troy with our boat business and Bree with the tours.”
“Has she decided what to call hers yet?”
“Tours by Bree. She’s keeping it simple. She’s already started taking B&B guests on hikes in the area so essentially she’s open and money’s already coming in.”
Drea stared at the man holding greenery in both hands. He had the sharpest eyes and cutest smile. But if she waited for Zach to get around to asking her out, she’d no doubt be waiting for another several years. So she garnered her courage and blurted out the invitation. “Would you like to go out sometime? Keep it simple. Maybe grab a burger at the Diner?”
“Really? Sure. Okay.” Zach turned to go back inside, carrying the flowers, got halfway to the dock and stopped. “I think I can do better than the Diner. How about dinner and a movie in Santa Cruz this Saturday night?”
“It’s a date.” With that, she closed the doors to the van and watched him disappear into the boatyard. And just like that she pumped a fist in the air. “Yessssss!”
It was only after she did a happy dance no one else could see that she climbed behind the wheel.
“So you’re going out with Drea? I thought you were interested in Izzy?” Troy asked from below the hull he was shaping.
Zach shook his head. “There’s something off with Isabella. I’m not sure what it is other than she’s a little too stuck up for my tastes. A couple of times I tried to have a conversation with her but she doesn’t seem to want to answer a direct question.”
“She does seem like something’s bothering her.”
“All I know is I did my damnedest to get a few details out of her and she closed off. I just didn’t get a good vibe that the two of us would ever click that way.”
“What about Drea?”
“What about her?”
“Do you get a vibe around her?” Troy said with a grin.
Ryder laughed. “Oh, I think our friend here gets more than a vibe.”
“Fuck you both,” Zach said in jest. “What do you say we get this keel shaped and the cutaway done by tonight.”
Chapter Four
At exactly three-fifteen, Thane waited outside school on the sidewalk for Jonah to appear among what seemed like a hundred other little heads. But he could spot his exuberant son in the midst of all the others. For one thing, he was tall for his age. For another, Jonah had a tendency to exude energy wherever he went. He’d have to rein some of that in around Isabella.
Thane waved at a couple of the other parents, talked to a few of the mothers, before Jonah ran up to him, threw his arms around his legs.
That never got old, thought Thane.
“Hey, Dad. Um, you know what happened at lunch?”
Leave it to Jonah. He was always good for a story about his day. “No, what?”
“Kelly Kendall threw up and it went all over Merilee’s shirt. And Kelly got sent home. And Merilee’s mom had to bring her clean clothes.”
“Sounds like you had an exciting day. What happened with your spelling test?”
“I got all ten words right. But I messed up on the word frog. I forgot to put in the R.”
“Then how did you get all of them right, Jonah?”
“Um, I missed one. Frog. F R O G.”
“That’s right. I guess we’ll have to work harder on the list over the weekend. Look, I need for you to be extra good while I take food over to a neighbor. I have to pick up a prescription for her too.”
“Why does he need food and medicine?”
“She. It’s a she. She hurt her head and missed lunch. We’re stopping by the Diner to pick her up some soup and a salad.”
“Yuck. Soup. I don’t want to eat any.”
“You don’t have to. I’ll pick you up something else.” He slid Jonah’s backpack off his shoulders, slipped it on his. “Brought your Legos to entertain you for a couple of hours. Do you promise to be really good while we’re at her house?”
“But I wanted to play games on the iPad.”
“The iPad is for backup. You love your Legos, remember?”
“Oh yeah, I do.”
“So right now just promise to be on your best behavior and we’re good to go. Can you do that for me?”
Jonah’s head finally bobbed up and down. He scrunched up his forehead like he was thinking really hard. “Is the food for Miss Donnelly? ’Cause I like her. Is it for Miss Dickinson? ’Cause I like her, too.”
“No. It’s for Miss Rialto? She lives up on the cliff and you haven’t met her yet.”
“The cliff with the lighthouse on it? Awesome. Can we go up to the top so I can look out over the ocean? Can we?”
“We’ll see. First, you have to promise to be on your best behavior because she’s not feeling as good as she could be. Her head hurts.”
“Okay. Did she fall?”
As Thane drove over to Main, he relayed the story to his son about how Isabella had hit her head on the pavement.
“That’s why we wear a helmet when we bike. Right, Dad?”
“Exactly right.”
The druggist, Ross Campbell, filled the meds while Max got their food order ready. By the time he and Jonah reached the keeper’s cottage, Thane looked over and saw that his son was bouncing in his seat. As soon as the front door opened and the boy spotted the woman waiting on the stoop, little Jonah blinked in surprise. “Is that her? Is that the bicycle lady? She’s pretty.”
“You have good taste, my man.” Thane helped his son out of his safety seat before Jonah bounded out of the car. Thane went around to the back and shot a look over at Isabella. She’d changed out of jea
ns and into a pair of yoga pants and a tee. She’d obviously taken a shower because her hair was still wet. But even with her olive complexion, Thane could tell she still looked pale from the exertion.
“Shouldn’t you be off your feet?” Thane asked as he removed the carton of groceries from the rear storage area.
Isabella ignored his concern. “What’s all this? You went shopping for food? You said soup. You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.”
“No trouble. We went in the Market to pick up fruit and Murphy said you didn’t get the stuff on your shopping list. Murph tried to remember what you had in your cart when you dropped like a rock. Because he couldn’t remember it all, we had to improvise.”
“You hit your head,” said a small voice as he rounded the front of the SUV.
“Well, hello. Yes, I did. And you must be Jonah. Hi, I’m Isabella. Or, if you want, you can call me Izzy.”
“If he gets to be your friend and call you Izzy then I should’ve let him pick up the tab for the groceries,” Thane called out.
“You can both call me Izzy, especially since you brought food, because I’m starving. How’s that?” Isabella countered, reminding herself she needed to answer to the nickname.
Father and son followed Izzy into the stone cottage, old-fashioned on the outside but open, spacious and modern once they stood in the middle of the room.
“Wow! Look at this place, Dad. It’s all clean and shiny.”
“Are you saying our place isn’t clean and shiny?” Thane wanted to know.
Izzy laughed. “I’m not really used to having company, other than an occasional visit from Logan and Kinsey. You guys make yourselves at home. From what Logan said the remodeling went really well.”
“Are you kidding? Not that long ago this cottage used to be a dump. It sat vacant for more than forty years, rundown, neglected. In high school we used to come up here to…” His voice trailed off as he realized Jonah was within earshot.
“To what?” Izzy asked with a grin splashed from ear to ear.
Thane waved her off.
“Maybe it was haunted back then,” Jonah suggested as he cautiously peered into the other room.
“Look out this way, Jonah. From this angle there’s a perfect view of the lighthouse next door,” Izzy said, distracting him from exploring such topics.
“Can I go up there, Dad? Can I? I want to go up and see the lighthouse at the top.”
“Not by yourself. Maybe after we eat,” Thane promised. “We have to put the groceries up first. Remember we bought gelato. Maybe you can get Izzy to show you where it goes before it melts. And Izzy should get off her feet.”
“Come on, follow me,” Izzy said as she led the way into the roomy kitchen. “Logan did a fantastic job in here, didn’t he?”
Thane took in the stainless steel appliances, hooded range, the wine bar and other modern accoutrements and stated, “I’ll say. I wonder if he could renovate our old dated model. Or put me in touch with the people who can.”
“Who’s doing the work on your pizza parlor?”
“Same crew that worked on the school—Ryder, Zach, and Troy. They’ve formed this remodeling company outside the boatyard they dubbed, Razor Team.”
“Because they’re lightning fast and work as a team?”
“Yep. They do fantastic work. Everyone’s lining up to put them to work. But I hesitate to throw more their way because those three are just crazy enough to take it on. They’re already swamped with so many jobs around town—my restaurant, River’s museum, and their own boatyard—the nonstop grind is bound to wear thin. The commercial appliances are due in tomorrow. You wait and see, they’ll have them installed by Sunday night. I don’t know when they sleep. They seem to work round the clock on automatic.”
“They can’t keep that up for long. Especially since two of them have weddings on the horizon. Troy and Ryder are tying the knot soon.”
“I heard about that. I think Julianne, or rather Miss Dickinson broke Jonah’s heart. I’m pretty sure he had a little crush on her when school started.”
“I did not!” Jonah protested while he helped empty the sacks. “I just like her is all. I think she’s pretty.”
“Like your new classmate, Heather Campbell?” Thane quipped.
“Heather likes to surf,” Jonah added.
“Always good to have activities in common,” Izzy said as she started to help put away the produce and fruit.
But Thane stopped her. “Sit down.” He pulled up a bar stool from the counter, patted the seat so she would sit.
“Do you have an opening date yet for your eatery yet?” she asked.
“Not yet. I haven’t even settled on a name for the place yet.”
“Right now, we like Full Sail Pizza,” Jonah piped up.
“That’s good. Original,” Isabella said.
“To be fair, we’ve also considered Schooner Pizza, Seaside Pizza, and Dockside, in keeping with the coastal theme,” Thane explained. “If only we could settle on a winner.”
“I like all those. You guys are creative. I’m curious. Why pizza?”
“Because it’s Jonah’s favorite food and there’s not one in town. You figure it out. It’s gotta be a win-win for more than just Jonah.”
“Will you deliver?”
“I always deliver.” Thane cracked with a wide grin at the exasperated look on her face. “And yeah, I knew what you meant. And the answer is I have no idea. Probably. I still have a ton of things on my to-do list, things to work out, like getting my liquor license nailed down and obviously deciding on a name so I can put up my sign.” Thane took out a container, then another. “I picked up some of Max’s soup for you.”
“On Friday the choice is clam chowder or…or…I forgot the other one,” Jonah said, scratching his head.
“Lobster bisque,” Thane offered.
“We got you both kinds even if they do smell kinda fishy,” Jonah added as he scrunched up his nose and climbed up on a bar stool beside Izzy at the island. “Where’d you hit your head?”
“At the back.”
“Dad says you have a headache.”
“A little bit, yes.”
Thane smiled. “Jonah?”
“What?”
“How about a little less chatter?”
“He’s fine,” Izzy said. “I don’t mind the questions.”
Thane shook his head. “Now you’ve done it. You’ve opened up that trap door to Jonah’s chatterbox persona. It’s bombs away, anything goes now. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.”
Jonah giggled. “Dad says that a lot. Sometimes I get in trouble for talking too much in school.”
“I thought you were encouraged to talk in school and participate.”
“Oh he participates all right. The problem is he participates when he’s supposed to be quiet and doing his work,” Thane pointed out. “Jonah has a hard time with quiet.”
“I like a man who can carry on a conversation,” Izzy stated. “You can talk to me anytime.”
“Really?” Jonah said, bouncing up and down on his stool. “We can be friends?”
“Sure.”
“Can I see the lighthouse now?”
“We eat first then I’ll take you on a tour of the lighthouse before we leave,” Thane promised.
“I’ll take some of that soup,” Izzy said. “Feel free to make yourself at home in the kitchen to fix Jonah whatever he wants.”
“I want ice cream.”
“Gelato later. Right now, you get Max’s mac and cheese instead.” With Izzy’s direction, Thane got down plates and silverware, set them out on the counter. After dumping the soup into a bowl for her, he piled the ready-made, gooey pasta onto a plate for Jonah, and fixed himself a mile-high ham and cheese sandwich.
They ate with banter going back and forth, until details revealed how bad Jonah yearned for a dog.
“I’ve been thinking about getting one myself,” Izzy confessed. “I went so far as to ask Logan, my landl
ord, if he had any objections to it.”
“What did he say?”
“That it was okay by him.”
“I want a black and white one,” Jonah admitted. “Tommy’s dog had puppies. The mom dog had a bunch of them.” The first grader sent his father a pleading look. “They need homes. Bad.”
“And a boy does need a dog,” Izzy declared with a grin. “Or so I’ve heard. It’s a classic for a reason.”
“See, Dad? Told ya. I need a dog.”
“You’d have to feed it, give it a bath, and take it for long walks. Just a bunch more stuff added to your other list of chores.”
“I’d do it.”
“You say that now…”
“What’s the list of chores?” Izzy wanted to know.
“You’re up, buddy. Go ahead, now’s the time to tell Izzy how hard I am on you.”
“I pick up my toys after I play with them. I take out the trash and dump it into the big can outside. I dust the furniture with old underpants.” The boy thought for a moment before adding with pride, “And I load the dishwasher after supper.”
“Uh, Jonah, that underpants thing you should probably keep to yourself. He uses the old ones, the ones he’s outgrown.”
Izzy chortled. “I see. I’m so glad you straightened that out for me. At the mention of ‘used underwear’ I went a whole other direction. But that list of chores sounds like a lot of hard labor. I think as soon as I’m a hundred percent we should check out Tommy Gates and see what kind of dog he has, see if he has any of those black and white ones to pick from, as a reward for both of us.”
“Tomorrow?” Jonah asked with hope.
“Thanks for encouraging him,” Thane grumbled and shook his head again, reluctant to give in. “A dog is a big responsibility. It isn’t like I don’t have enough to do already with the pizza place opening.” But he’d have to ask around. From what he remembered Tommy was Archer Gates’ kid, a man with a drinking problem. Or so went the rumor.
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