by Kay Correll
“I didn’t mean to. I just… well, I wish you’d give Dad a chance. And I should have told you about Ashley, I should have. I’m sorry.” She used that same he-couldn’t-say-no-to, pleading look with him.
He let out a long whoosh of air and raked his hands through his hair. He did want to strangle his little sister, but then he could tell she was overwhelmed. She looked tired and stressed. He would help because that’s what he always did, no matter what. It was always Whitney before Will as far as he was concerned.
“Whitney?”
Will froze at the sound of his father’s voice. A voice that haunted him, taunted him, mocked his dreams.
His father rolled into the room in a wheelchair.
“Dad, I would have helped you get into the chair.” Whitney rushed over to their father.
“You’re doing enough for me as it is. I can manage.”
His father looked up and saw him standing next to Whitney. Will locked eyes with the man for the first time in almost ten years.
“Son.” His father looked at Will cautiously.
“Warren.” He would not give the man the satisfaction of being called Dad.
“How have you been?”
“Just great. Perfect. Couldn’t be better.” Except for all of the surprises being hurled at him today.
“Whitney said she asked you to come. I didn’t think you would.”
“If I’d known you were going to be here, I wouldn’t.” How’s that for honesty?
“Don’t be like that, Willie.” Whitney rested her hand on her father’s shoulder.
Warren reached up and covered Whitney’s hand with his own. Will wanted to stride over there and rip the man’s hand away. He had no right, none at all, to be acting all fatherly with Whit.
“It’s okay.” His father intervened. “I deserve that. And more.”
Will remained silent.
“I know I can’t make it up to you. I wasn’t there for you. For either of you. I’m so very sorry. I’ve changed, though.”
“Heard it before, Warren.” Will didn’t buy it. It was all just words with his father. Broken promises. A roller-coaster ride of attempts to get sober, then back in the bottle with the drunken ugliness that accompanied it. Rinse and repeat.
His father looked up at Whitney. “I should go back to my own place. I’ll be fine.”
“No, you won’t. You need help while you get stronger.” Whitney turned to Will, her eyes flashing. “Quit being such a jerk.”
He had to escape, get out, regain his balance. “I’m going to go get something to eat.”
“I made dinner.”
He was not going to sit down at a dinner table like they were some kind of family. A family that included Warren.
“I’ll be back later.” Way later. When he was sure Warren was sound asleep.
Whitney sent him a look that told him exactly what she thought of him right now. But he didn’t care. He had to escape the fantasy family dinner Whitney was trying to inflict on him. Not that they were a family.
“Tomorrow we’ll go to your shop and I’ll look at your books. But as far as Warren goes, he’s not my problem.” Will spun on his heels and banged his way out of the cottage, letting the screen door slam behind him.
He probably was being a jerk, but he couldn’t stop himself.
Will drove aimlessly down the streets of Indigo Bay. He had no plan and nowhere to go really— except away from Whitney’s cottage. Her cottage where his father was staying. Her cottage where Ashley lived right next door. He was reasonably certain he hated her cute little cottage right now.
He pulled into a parking spot on Main Street and slid out of the car. He looked to the left, then the right, then back to the left.
He was trapped in a time warp of memories and reality, of being a kid in Indigo Bay, and being an adult back for a visit. A visit that wasn’t exactly turning out how he planned.
The welcoming sign of Sweet Caroline’s caught his attention, and he turned that direction. He had no clue if Caroline still ran the place, but at least it seemed like an oasis in the desert of the day he was having.
He tugged opened the door to the restaurant, and the familiar scents reached out and wrapped around him. The hint of cinnamon goodness from her sweet rolls, the fried food, the aroma of the best coffee Indigo Bay had to offer, all wrapped up in a welcoming package of good memories. Just about the only decent memories he had of the town. He looked around the place and saw it hadn’t changed, which suited him just fine. He didn’t need any more surprises today.
“Will Layton, you come over here.” Caroline came out from behind the counter and rushed up to him. She wrapped him in a comforting hug, then stepped back, a hand on each of his shoulders. “You look good, Will.”
“You look fabulous, as ever. Getting younger looking every day.” Will winked.
“Always were a sweet talker.” Caroline grinned. “What brings you to Indigo Bay?”
“Whitney called and said she needed help.”
“Oh, with your father? I heard he was laid up in an accident.”
How could he have forgotten the almost scary way everyone knew everyone else’s business in town? Though, to be honest, it wasn’t much different in his own town of Belle Island. “Well, the dad thing came as a bit of a shock to me.”
Caroline eyed him for a moment, then nodded. “I suspected as much.”
Caroline knew him so well. He’d worked at Sweet Caroline’s from the day he’d been old enough to hold down a job, to the day he left town, along with any other job he could get his hands on. Anything to provide for his sister when his father hit rock bottom again and again. Caroline probably had suspected some of the truth about their home situation, even though Will had worked diligently to hide their reality from the prying eyes of the town, and hoped it was the one secret the town would never learn. His father would disappear for days at a time, and Will worked hard to earn enough to put food on the table and take care of his sister, always wondering if Warren would actually show up again. The man eventually did return with an apology and a promise that it wouldn’t happen again.
Until it did.
Caroline had let Whitney sit at a table and do her homework while Will worked, so his sister wouldn’t have to be home alone. She often gave both of them their meals for the day. Caroline knew his father was a drinker, but Will had always hidden the detail that he also disappeared for days at a time. He’d always been afraid some social worker would come and take Whitney away.
Will stood and looked at the woman who had so influenced his life and helped him survive in those very hard days. Her welcoming hug soothed his jangled nerves, and the familiar atmosphere of Sweet Caroline’s allowed him finally to feel like he could breathe.
“I expect you’re starving.” Caroline smiled at him.
“Always.”
“Come take a seat and have dinner. It’s on the house.”
“Thanks.” Will slid into a chair in a corner table, out of the way, hoping to avoid seeing anyone else he knew.
Later Caroline brought him his meal and sat across from him, chatting and telling him things that had changed in the town. There was a new gazebo at the public beach area. A fancy clothing store had opened, along with a new bookstore.
“My son, Dallas, bought the Indigo Bay Cottages—you remember them—and runs them now. He seems very happy .” Caroline’s eyes shone when she talked of her son.
“That’s great.” Not that he’d know what it was like to live in the same town as family.
Caroline bounced on to another subject. “You know, Will, your sister is really overwhelmed right now. I can tell. She was in here yesterday for a quick bite to eat. She looked tired.”
“I know she is.” And he felt guilty about it, he did. But he did not want to deal with his father. Maybe Whit had been tricked into forgiving him, but Will wasn’t at that point. He might never be. But then, he had given up more than Whit had back then.
“Well, you m
ight want to cut her some slack. I know you have your differences with your father, but I think Whitney has made her peace with him. You should give her that. We all deal with our past in our own way.”
Caroline always had been the one to speak her mind and give advice. He simply wasn’t sure he was ready to take guidance from anyone right now, so he merely nodded.
Caroline stood. “Well, think about it anyway, and I’m always here if you need to talk.”
Will watched her walk away to wait on another customer and suddenly felt so very alone. He glanced at his watch. He had hours and hours to kill before it was safe to go back to Whit’s.
Chapter 3
Ashley padded around the cottage getting ready for work. She usually took her coffee out to the deck to watch the sunrise, but she was afraid she’d see Will. He was also an early-morning person. Or at least he used to be. Who knew what he was like now? But anyway, she wasn’t going to chance it. She wasn’t ready for another run-in with Will.
She’d been shocked to see him standing on Whitney’s deck last night. She was surprised Whitney hadn’t told her Will was coming, but then she hadn’t seen Whitney in days. The clinic had been ridiculously busy with a virus that seemed to be spreading its misery indiscriminately through the town.
Ashley had such conflicted feelings when it came to Will. He’d been her first love, probably only love. She’d dated some in college and med school, but mostly she’d stuck to the books to make sure her grades stayed high and she kept her scholarships. Even then, she’d graduated with a load of debt to pay off, more than she’d planned. She hated it when her carefully planned life took a detour.
Will, though, he always took detours with gusto. She’d never seen him plan a thing. She didn’t understand how a person could have no big goals in life. He just made snap decisions and went with them. He’d even dropped out of high school. That had been the last straw in their relationship. She couldn’t go out with a person who just wanted to wander through life. They were just too different.
She rinsed her mug and set it in the dishwasher. She looked around the room to make sure everything was picked up before she left. She liked everything to be in place, nice and neat when she came home from work. She straightened a stack of magazines she hadn’t found time to read yet—and the stack kept growing larger and larger. She’d get around to reading them soon, she was sure of it. She’d picked up home decorating magazines and health magazines. She’d even picked up a knitting magazine, because she’d always wanted to learn to knit. That would happen right after she found the time to read the magazines…
She left by the front door and decided to walk down the street to the clinic today. Will had been a beach walker and she didn’t want to run into him on the beach. Or anywhere. She let out an impatient huff of breath. Will was back in town and already she was changing her carefully laid out routine.
She took off at a brisk pace, wanting to get to work early and look through some charts before the day started. The early morning sun warmed her skin, and she plucked her sunglasses from atop her head and settled them on her face. It was going to be one of those perfect days in Indigo Bay.
Except for the fact that Will was staying right next door to her cottage.
Will had gotten up before dawn and slipped out of Whitney’s cottage. He’d left a note saying he’d meet her at her shop, Coastal Creations, at nine. He’d gone to the point to see the sunrise, then wandered around town, killing time. Tourists strolled along the streets in search of early morning coffee and breakfast. A young couple walked by, pushing a set of red-haired twins in a stroller. A trio of twenty-something girls—or would that be women—walked past him in short-shorts and tank tops, laughing in that way that good female friends have. He couldn’t help himself, he turned and gave them an appreciative look as they passed. One of them turned and looked back at him and grinned. He grinned in return and continued walking down the street.
Promptly at nine he pushed through the door to Whitney’s shop. His sister looked up from the counter. “There you are.”
“There I am,” he answered.
“You can’t avoid Dad forever.”
“Do you want help, or not? Because I can just hop back in my car and head back to Belle Island.” He knew his voice was short-tempered, but he couldn’t help it.
Whitney opened her mouth, then closed it. She then looked directly at him. “Okay, I won’t push it. But I do need your help here and I could also use your help with Dad.”
“Books, yes. Warren, no. Show me the books.”
Whitney led the way to a back office. It was crammed with stacks of folders, pictures of her jewelry pieces on the wall, and a long table where she sat and designed her work.
“Whit, this place is a mess.”
“I’m a creative. We thrive in chaos.”
“Well, you really should be flourishing here, then.” Will shook his head.
“Okay, it’s a bit out of control. When Shawna Jacobson came to town when she was shooting that movie nearby, she bought a jewelry set from me—the whole set, mind you, necklace, bracelet and earrings—she posted on her social media account about how much she loved it. The post went viral and I got so many orders. I hired workers to help me make the jewelry and keep up. My bookwork kind of took a back seat. The movie director came in and got some more pieces and used them in the movie. Well, it’s been crazy since then. Good crazy, but crazy.”
“That was more than a year ago.”
“Yes, and it did make a name for me and I’ve been doing really well since then. But I’m in over my head with all the bookwork stuff. Now I got a letter from the IRS about an audit.”
“How about hiring an accountant?” He eyed the stacks of pages.
“Two different ones. One left town and sold his business to this new guy. But he’s… probably even more overwhelmed than I am. I filed my taxes… but now the IRS wants to audit my books. You can help me, right?”
Will scrubbed a hand across his face and took a seat at the desk. “I can try. Let me look through these folders and you boot up your accounting software on the computer for me.”
“About that… I’m a bit behind on keeping up with my accounting.”
Will tilted his head. “How behind?”
“A bit.” Whitney blushed. “Okay, a lot. I told you I needed you.”
Will stared at the stack of papers spread across the desk. Whit had always been the artistic one, the free spirit, the… messy one. “Okay, you go do what you do best. Sell jewelry. I’ll start looking at all of this and see what I can do.”
“You’re my favorite brother.”
“Don’t you forget it.” Will picked up the closest pile of papers and started to sort through them.
Ashley looked at the clinic’s daily schedule. A busy day, but doable. Though somehow a doable day always became an impossibly busy day with emergencies filtering in along with the scheduled patients.
The morning had stayed mostly on schedule, kind of. She glanced at the chart in her hand. Mia Tanner, seven years old. Mother, Victoria Tanner. She knocked on the door of the exam room and entered. There stood her impeccably dressed, slender bodied, perfect-hair nemesis from her high school days. She hadn’t caught that Victoria Tanner would be Vicki Holloway Tanner.
Ashley pulled on her best doctor imitation to cover her surprise. “I didn’t realize—”
Vicki looked at Ashley for a long moment, sweeping her glance from Ashley’s messy braid to her practical standing-on-my-feet-all-day shoes. “Ashley.”
“Hello, Vicki.”
“I go by Victoria now. No one calls me Vicki.” Vicki-Victoria flipped her blonde hair behind her shoulder with a graceful flick of her perfectly manicured fingers. “I usually bring Mia into Charleston, but the doctor there couldn’t fit her in at any time that would work with my schedule. I decided to try the clinic here and see if you could figure out what’s wrong with her.”
Ashley turned to the young girl. “Hello, Mia. W
hat seems to be wrong?”
“I—”
“Her stomach hurts, no fever, a bit of the sniffles.” Vicki cut her daughter off before she could answer for herself.
“How long have you been feeling like this?” Ashley asked the girl.
Once again Vicki answered. “Two days. Long enough. I need her to get better. I have a busy weekend coming up with the Ashland Belle Society’s fundraiser this weekend.”
How inconvenient for Vicki’s daughter to pick this week to get sick… Vicki hadn’t changed a bit. It was still all about her.
“There’s a virus going around now. Same symptoms. But let me take a look at her.”
Ashley did a quick exam and decided the girl most likely had the same flu that half a dozen people had come in with today. “I could run some more tests, but I think the best thing to do would be to just let the virus run its course. If she gets worse or shows any other symptoms, of course call me or bring her back in.”
“I’m sorry I got sick, Mommy.” Mia’s eyes filled with tears.
“It’s not your fault, sweetie. Sometimes these viruses just get to you.” Ashley knelt in front of the girl. “It’s not something you did.”
Mia nodded and swiped a tear on her face.
“So, you’re not going to do anything for her? Give her anything?” Vicki’s eyes flashed in disbelief.
Ashley looked at Vicki. “An antibiotic isn’t going to help this.”
“So you’re doing nothing?” Vicki stood with a hand on one hip and a look of irritation plastered across her face. “Do you think she’ll be well by this weekend?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe. But she’ll probably still be tired from fighting it.”
“Just great.” Vicki turned, grabbed Mia’s hand, and opened the exam door. “I knew I should have taken the time to go into Charleston to a real doctor. This was a waste of my time. Come on, Mia.” Her voice carried out into the waiting room, and quite a few of the patients looked up to see who was causing such a commotion. Jerri Lynn sent Ashley a questioning look, but Ashley just shrugged.
