Small-Town Girl

by Jessica Keller

  “There are introverts and then there are hermits.” Evan held up both hands like a scale. “You, brother, lean much closer to the second category, I’m afraid. But that’s neither here nor there. What do you need?”

  Brice’s brother had always possessed an ability to read people. Or maybe it only worked where Brice was concerned, since he and Evan had been through so much together. Brothers couldn’t spend hours as children huddled under piles of clothes in their closet, praying their father’s rampage ended before he found them, without becoming close.

  Tell Evan about Dad’s voice mail? No. Not today.

  Brice shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I need advice.”

  “All right.” Evan hopped up so he was seated on top of the counter by the register. “Shoot.”

  “My business is in trouble.”

  Evan’s eyes grew wide. “What kind of trouble? Do you need money? I could—”

  Brice stopped Evan’s words by holding up his hands. “I didn’t come here to ask you for money. I hate admitting it, but I think I bit off more than I can chew. I’m not in serious trouble—at least not yet—but I could be soon if business keeps going in the direction it’s heading right now.”

  “Are you behind on bills?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Listen.” Evan slid back down so he was standing on the floor. He crossed the room so he was inches away from Brice and lowered his voice. “Don’t mess with Sesser. Whatever you do, promise me you won’t go into debt to that man. He will... Just don’t get in debt to him.”

  “Evan, I know what he did to you. I won’t—”

  “Promise me.” Evan growled the words through clenched teeth. A vein on his neck bulged.

  Brice dropped a hand onto his brother’s shoulder. “I won’t go into debt to the likes of him. You know I wouldn’t do that. I’d lose my house and move in with your hide before missing a payment to that man.”

  “Good.” Evan lifted his shoulders, making Brice’s hand fall, and strode away from him. “So, what—exactly—is going on?”

  “When I first started, shipments were good. But last winter was colder than normal and there was less of a demand. Last summer, since things seemed to be going well, I purchased more boats. And not just barges, all different kinds. If business had kept up like it had been, I would have been able to start socking away money. But it didn’t. Do you know how expensive upkeep on a boat is?”

  Evan shrugged and glanced around his furniture shop. “Costs a lot more than buying wood.”

  “And if those boats are just sitting in dock, taking a space that I have to pay for and not doing anything...they become a red line in my accounting books.”

  “You still use actual books? The sort with paper and pens?”

  “Stay on topic, will you?”

  “Sorry. Too many boats.”

  “Better.” Brice turned away from his brother and watched the people seated outside, on vacation, joking with one another. Had he ever taken a break or just gone away from home? Not other than college...and that could hardly have been considered a break. “I think I need to start selling off my boats and cut my fleet to just the two or three that are constantly in use. Then I’ll just pray that none of them break down.”

  Short term, the unused boats might be a problem, but they only masked what truly bothered him. Sesser Atwood was the real issue.

  What Brice wouldn’t give to get out from under that millionaire’s thumb. Everything the man touched turned bad. Made money, sure. But Atwood’s influence corrupted and did so absolutely. The man cared about success and compounding his money and nothing more. Paying rent to the man for space at the dock irked Brice more than he cared to admit, but other than moving, there’d been no other option when he first started his shipping company.

  And moving from Goose Harbor was out of the question. At least while his younger sister still lived at home with his unstable parents. Brice needed to stay nearby, be there for her and take the brunt of their parents’ emotional outbursts whenever he could. He’d done the same for his brothers as much as he could. Besides, Brice knew a thing or two about bullies. He would put up with Sesser’s antics for as long as Laura needed him to.

  Which left Brice with no other options. Sesser owned the moorings in Shadowbend, the next town over, as well as Goose Harbor. The property on the other side of town was a state preserve, so no docks there. He would have to go twenty miles up or down the lake in order to dock somewhere the tycoon didn’t own, and that put him too far from his little sister if there was an emergency.

  The problem was Sesser charged as many fees as he could think up. It didn’t matter if a ship was taking something away or dropping off goods—Sesser collected money for both. He was the kind of man who walked the line between legal and illegal business dealings but had enough powerful friends in the state that it didn’t matter if he sometimes tipped too far into the illegal.

  A sharp pain along the side of his face made Brice realize he was clenching his back molars together. He forced himself to relax with a deep breath. Hadn’t his doctor threatened him with surgery if he didn’t stop grinding his teeth and clenching his jaw all the time?

  Too many years spent swallowing words could do that to a man.

  Someday Brice would break free of Sesser Atwood and then he’d never deal with the man again. He’d watched Atwood destroy his father, scare his mother and steamroll his youngest brother’s one chance at happiness.

  Brice wasn’t about to let the old businessman ruin him too.

  “Selling the boats could work.” Evan braced his hands on the counter. “Or you could expand your business.”

  “That’s what got me into trouble in the first place.”

  “Not like you’re thinking. I mean find more work.”

  “Believe me, I’ve tried to secure every contract on Lake Michigan. I’ve done everything to—”

  “Sure, every shipping contract, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Think of something else to use the boats for.”

  “Like?”

  “Hey, just a simple woodworker here.” Evan held up his hands in mock surrender. “I can encourage you. Not actually come up with the ideas on the fly.”

  Brice had considered using his boats for fishing tours. But fishing tours were hours of commitment. And this wasn’t the Caribbean. The fish in Lake Michigan might be huge, but there wasn’t all that impressive an assortment to be found.

  “Fishing tours?” He tossed the words out to see what his brother would say.

  Evan tapped his chin, thinking for a second. “That has merit. Although you’d have to hire someone to give the tours, and that would cost money.”

  “I could do them. I know where the best fish—”

  “You are many things, but a friendly tour guide is not one of them.”

  “Maybe I’ll just sell the boats. Admit my losses and downsize.” He had a smattering of small vessels he’d picked up secondhand. They weren’t hauling boats, but he’d figured they’d be useful for something. So far, they’d been nothing but money pits. He’d sell them. Let them become someone else’s problems.

  Evan opened his cash register and removed the drawer of money. “That could work too, and there’s no shame in that plan, but will it ruin you to give yourself one week to brainstorm a few other possible solutions?”

  “A week’s not going to ruin me.”

  “Then go back to that cabin of yours and think.”

  At this time on a summer evening, the main part of downtown Goose Harbor was flooded with people, so much so that cars stopped driving down the roads because there were too many pedestrians to maneuver around. Besides, Brice had left his car by the docks. He’d exit out the back door of Evan’s business and cut across the beach. He needed to spend some time seeking out God’s gu
idance anyway. The less-congested evening beach would be the perfect place to go pray.

  * * *

  The short-lease condo that Kendall had found to rent when she first moved to town was located on the opposite end of Ring Beach from the main portion of town. Walking to her business meeting with Sesser and Claire had sounded like a great idea earlier, but now her feet ached. Heels weren’t built for cross-terrain travel.

  A girl from the foothills of Kentucky would need to ease into beach living slowly. Even if it was only a freshwater beach on Lake Michigan, having never been to the ocean, she found it the biggest, most impressive beach she’d ever seen.

  Which was one of the reasons why she’d chosen Goose Harbor as the perfect place to start her business. Sure, a place like Orlando or Los Angeles would have been ideal, but then again, they would have been far too pricey. Her savings wouldn’t have lasted long in one of those cities. Rent the first month or two would have drained her completely. Moreover, her little business would have been easy to overlook in a large city. She could have never marketed enough to get noticed somewhere big.

  After seeing the article in Midwestern Travel magazine about the quaint tourist town of Goose Harbor that swelled to four times its population for six months of the year, she knew she’d found her location. Her dream could finally become a reality. Discovering that Ring Beach was one of two freshwater beaches in the whole country that made it onto a list of best beaches in the world—well, that information sealed the deal.

  A place like Goose Harbor would draw lots of couples and people looking for romance. That was where Love on a Dime would step in and plan dates for them. Provide whole catalogs of choices for clueless men looking to impress their girlfriends or, better yet, plan their proposals. And when no one was in the market for a date, she’d offer event-planning services or book excursions for girls’ weekends. The process had become second nature after she’d worked as an event planner at the golf course near her hometown for the past eight years.

  She often wondered how many of the weddings she’d overseen ended in divorce. Fifty percent—that was the going rate nowadays, right? The number never ceased to shock her as well as solidify her desire not to marry. She’d been right to leave her serial dating habits back in Kentucky. Men complicated things. No, actually sometimes men were quite useful. Like when heavy boxes were involved.

  Love was the enemy more than anything. Love made a person foolish and far too trusting. Love was responsible for countless people getting taken advantage of. But not her. Thankfully she had always ended her relationships before they became too serious. Goose Harbor would be a baggage-free paradise for her.

  “Wait up.” A voice behind her made her stop.

  She turned around to find Brice Daniels a few feet away.

  “Oh, hey. It’s Brice, right?”

  “Yes.” A quick wince crossed his face before he masked it. Brice looked tired, or like he had something on his mind.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Just wondering why you’re so determined to cross this beach with those shoes on when the sand’s cooled down some by now.” He smiled, but the look didn’t reach those piercing, pale green eyes of his.

  “But the sun’s only just setting.” She turned toward the lake, pointing at the sun, but then stopped and grabbed Brice’s solid arm. There was no adequate way to describe the beauty of the sun going down over the lake, so instead Kendall gasped. “Sit and watch this with me.” She tugged on his sleeve.

  Brice didn’t argue. He dropped onto the sand and looped his arms over his knees. “It never gets old, does it?”

  Kendall sat right beside him and watched the orange and magenta light dance with the coming night across the lake’s surface. “I’ve never seen a sunset quite like this. It’s...it’s...too much for words.”

  “You should see it out on the lake.”

  “I can.” She thrust her hand out to indicate the water.

  “From a boat.”

  “When I find someone with a boat, I will.”

  “I own a whole fleet of them.”

  Shifting her gaze from the sunset to Brice, she caught him staring at her. “Would you take me sometime?”

  “Sure.” He shrugged.

  “Soon.”

  “Okay.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  Brice chuckled. “All right.”

  Wait. Had she just forced him to take her on a date? Wow. Her forward personality always seemed to get her into trouble. But she hoped it didn’t come across that way. No. She hadn’t...right? She couldn’t, because Kendall was not dating anymore. Goose Harbor was going to be a boyfriend-free zone.

  Kendall trailed her fingers through the sand. “If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I kind of forced that on you.”

  He looked over at her and they made eye contact. “I want to.” His voice was soft, almost a whisper. Brice’s pale green eyes were so intense her breath caught for a heartbeat. He kept speaking. “I have some smaller boats that I need to test out. I’m trying to decide what to do with them. One is nicer, and I’ve only taken it out once since I bought it. She could use a spin out on the lake.”

  “She?”

  “All boats are women. I thought that was common knowledge.”

  “I guess I don’t spend time with enough pirates to know these things about boats.”

  “You slay me.” He laid his hand on his heart. “Do you see an eye patch or a peg leg here?”

  “You’re right. Pirates certainly don’t use words like slay.”

  “Blame the books for how I talk.”

  “You’re a reader?” She wondered what types of books he read. Nonfiction books about fixing cars? Autobiographies about people who definitely weren’t pirates? Or did strong Brice Daniels curl up with a fictional mystery during his downtime? Her interest piqued, suddenly she wanted to know all about him.

  “Of course.” Brice’s voice broke through her thoughts. “What else is there to do when you’re out on the lake?”

  “Um, watch these amazing sunsets!” She slapped his arm but then left her hand there. “Brice, I was just hit with the most amazing idea. Care to hear me out?”

  “Sure.” Another one-word answer.

  “You don’t speak a ton, do you?”

  “That’s what you wanted to talk about?”

  “No, but I just thought that.”

  “Do you say everything you think right when you think it?”

  Kendall pursed her lips and rubbed her chin, pretending to think really hard for effect. It worked. Brice shook his head, a half grin on his face and his eyes twinkling with a shared joke.

  “Okay.” Kendall rolled her eyes. “Most of the time I say exactly what I’m thinking. Right when I think it.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Even with his boots on, he moved his feet back and forth in the sand as if he was digging in his toes. “I believe in thinking about things and not always saying them out loud. Words don’t always solve problems.”

  “But sometimes they do.”

  “Sometimes silence is better.”

  “I feel sorry for your girlfriend.” Kendall slapped her hand over her mouth. “Wow. Sorry. That didn’t come out like it sounded in my head.”

  Brice raised his eyebrows, but the lift at the edge of his lips told her he wasn’t mad.

  Kendall pinched the bridge of her nose. “All right, you win. Sometimes silence is better, like it would have been four seconds ago. Let’s silently sit here and watch the sunset. Then we can silently walk across the beach. Afterward, we can silently say goodbye to each other. Won’t that be fun?”

  “Why don’t you tell me your idea first? The one you had before getting off track.”

  �
�I will. But sorry about the girlfriend thing. I’m sure she’s happy and—”

  “I don’t have one, so no worries. No wives in the attic either.”

  “Jane Eyre reference. Nicely done.” She sent him a wink.

  Brice inched toward her. “Your idea?”

  Kendall scooted so she was facing him. “Sunset cruises.”

  “Yes...we’re doing one tomorrow.”

  “Not just tomorrow. What if we had a planned sunset cruise every single week?”

  His eyes grew wide. “You and me?”

  “Well, yes, we’d both be there, but I’m talking about hosting it as a tourist activity. Every Friday night— Scratch that.” Kendall gathered up her hair and bunched it at the nape of her neck to keep the wind from whipping it around. “I’m sure there are better things you want to do on your Friday nights than spend them with me. Any night of the week would work really, as long as it was the same night each week so people could count on it. We’d charge a set fee and host a sunset cruise out onto the lake.”

  Brice rocked a bit and leaned onto his elbows. He worked his jaw back and forth for a minute.

  She’d gone too far, hadn’t she? Presumed upon this poor man who was now trying to find the kindest words he could to let her down. She always did this, didn’t she? Plowing ahead before thinking things through had only ever gotten her in trouble. And it made her a risk that most men didn’t want to be around. Like dynamite. They never knew when the risk would be too great or her ideas lead to failures.

  This trait was probably what had driven her father to walk out on her and her mother when she was only six. Too much energy. Too many ideas. Too many failures.

  Brice still hadn’t spoken up. She needed to take him out of his misery. “I shouldn’t have spouted that out like that. You don’t know me, and I know nothing of your boating company. And the cruises probably wouldn’t work, so—”

  He finally sat up. “I think they will.”

  “You... Really?”

  “There are some smaller, fancier boats in my fleet. I bought them on a whim at an auction without knowing what I’d do with them. They could work really well for something like this.”