by Hope Ramsay
So she turned her back on him, stalked through the great room to the kitchen, where she picked up the big-ass wrench and went to work fixing the sink.
Unfortunately, the damn nut refused to budge no matter how many times she hammered it with the damn tool.
* * *
What the hell had just happened? Topher stood there, perplexed, as his architect ran from the porch and his grasp on the past took a monumental shift.
Holy crap. She hadn’t been pregnant? She hadn’t been sent away to one of those places for girls in trouble?
Then what the hell had happened?
He limped his way across the living room, heading in the direction she’d gone, embarrassment, confusion and…an overwhelming desire to make things right consuming him.
That desire surprised him. It was not merely altruistic. He was smart and realistic enough to know when a woman was starting to get under his skin.
He found Jessica in the kitchen, a big room with 1950s-style paint-splatter linoleum. The cabinets were solid cherry but in desperate need of refinishing, the appliances were definitely from the 1970s, and everything about it screamed antique.
But he loved it at first sight. He could almost imagine the members of her family gathering here to celebrate the Fourth of July on one of South Carolina’s hot, humid days.
She was down on the floor, her head poked under the sink, muttering. He might have caught a whispered “damn.”
“Can I help?” he asked.
She made a noise that conveyed a mountain of repressed fury.
“So it’s not going well?” he asked.
“I’m kind of ticked off right at the moment, so—”
“Kind of?”
She pulled her head out from under the sink and gave him an adorable glare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, as my old Granddad used to say, you look madder than a mule chewing on bumblebees.”
Her mouth twitched. “PopPop used to say that. I used to think it was dumb.”
“Yeah, it is. But it’s kind of descriptive too.”
She nodded, her expression softening.
“Look, obviously I made a big mistake. I’m sorry. Can we talk about this?” He stepped to the edge of the counter and looked down at her.
“About what? The baby I never had or this stupid nut that won’t come off?”
“Well, maybe we could start with the nut and work from there.”
“Who are you? What happened to the rude, obnoxious guy who took me out to the island a few days ago?”
For some reason that made him smile. He really liked honest and independent Jessica.
He shrugged. “He’s feeling a little contrite at the moment. Let me help, okay?”
“You know,” she said in a voice laced with annoyance, “you aren’t the sort of guy I would associate with DIY projects. You’re more of the whip-out-your-cell-phone-and-call-the-plumber type.”
He tried not to smile. “You might be surprised at my DIY skills. A man contemplating a life on a deserted island doesn’t have the luxury of whipping out his cell phone and calling the plumber.”
She gave him a slightly less pissed-off stare. “I’m fine, really,” she said, breaking eye contact.
She wasn’t being honest now. And he liked her when she was speaking nothing but the truth. So maybe he should just call her on it.
“I know what you’re thinking…that if you let someone help you, it diminishes you in some way. But honestly, if you just need help getting a nut loose, I might be of assistance. I promise not to help in any other way.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, and that little tell made something ease inside him.
“Okay,” she said, one eyebrow arching. “You can help. It will be part of your penance.”
“Penance?” he asked.
“Yeah, for starting a bunch of rumors about me.”
“Whoa. Wait a sec. I may have repeated some gossip about you, but I never started any.”
“No? You didn’t tell anyone that you’d seen me in Colton’s car that time? I remember that summer when I worked at the yacht club. You cornered me one day and made a point of telling me that Colton was bad for me.”
“Because he was. It was only the truth.”
“No. You’ve got that exactly backward. I messed things up for him.”
“How?”
“All I ever wanted to do was to befriend him. Because, you know, he was a kid who needed a friend. And I was stupid enough to think that my kindness would help him.” Her voice shook.
“He was out of—”
“No,” she interrupted. “He got the book thrown at him because I crossed the color line. Everything else was made-up.”
That stopped him because it sounded exactly like the truth. The very ugly truth.
“Okay. I won’t argue with you about that. And I apologize for not seeing through the BS before this moment. But why did your family send you away?”
“They sent me to a boarding school, but it wasn’t someplace where girls have babies, okay? I can’t believe that’s what you thought.”
“I swear I never told a soul about the night I saw you in Colton’s car.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “But you and Colton hung out all the time. You were seen by a lot of people.”
“That’s probably true.”
“I still don’t get it. Why did they send you away?”
She exhaled and closed her eyes. “They were concerned about my reputation,” she said.
“Oh.” He had no other words for the irony of her situation.
“So, anyway, you’re forgiven,” she said, waving her hand in dismissal.
Her words were a sham. She hadn’t forgiven him. She just wanted to move the conversation on to a safe topic. And suddenly, he truly wanted to earn her forgiveness. Even if he hadn’t started a rumor. There were things he could have done differently. He could have stopped the locker room talk. He could have refused to repeat the things people had said about her.
So he was surely guilty of something, just maybe not what she’d accused him of.
“How can I help?” he asked, the question double-edged. He’d gladly help her with her plumbing, but he wanted to help her with so much more.
She picked up a big pair of plumber’s pliers that were a few sizes too big for her hands. “I’ve got this wrench, but I—”
“It’s not a wrench,” he said.
She frowned and stared daggers at him. Whoa, maybe he should avoid mansplaining stuff to her. “Well, whatever it is, I can’t get the nut off with it.”
Because she could never grip the nut well enough with tiny hands like that.
“You have a toolbox?” he asked, bracing to have her take his head off for asking.
She nodded toward an old-fashioned metal box beside the sink. He squatted down, a motion that caused excruciating pain in his knee. He rooted around for a moment and came up with a sizable plumber’s wrench. “Try this,” he said, using the edge of the kitchen counter to pull himself back upright.
She took the tool, her slender wrist almost buckling under the heavy weight. She gave him a sober look as she turned the small wheel, opening its jaws.
She poked her head under the cabinet again and snugged the wrench around the nut. And then, with an adorable grunt, she applied pressure.
Lo and behold, the nut loosened.
“Hooray,” she said in a rising voice that somehow brought joy to Topher’s heart. “I got it free.”
“Glad I could be of assistance,” he said. Maybe this was a good time to escape. Tomorrow he’d call her and make an appointment, the way he should have done from the start. “Sorry I came to the wrong address. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.” He headed toward the door.
“Wait,” she said to his back.
He turned as she popped up from under the sink, her cheeks flushed. She was so cute he wanted to stay awhile and bask in the glow of her beauty.
&nbs
p; “Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
“Why don’t you come by the office tomorrow, and we can get back on track with the house. I think I have a better idea of what you want now.”
Well, that was reassuring because he still wasn’t entirely sure. But he loved the idea of spending time with her. “Okay. I just need to know where the office is located.”
Her cheeks got a little redder as she crossed the room to an old-fashioned table below an even older wall phone. She pulled a pen out of a cup and found a piece of notepaper.
“I’m sorry I don’t have up-to-date cards. I’ve been so busy obsessing about one of my projects that I’ve let a lot of basic marketing stuff slide.”
When she finished writing, she crossed the kitchen and handed him the scrap of paper, their fingers brushing in the exchange. That tiny touch set off a cascade of reaction that left him gut punched.
“Um…” She hesitated, her gaze drifting down to his Vans and then back up, locking with his one eye. “Be sure to bring your cane because it’s a second-story office, above Daffy Down Dilly. So there’s a pretty steep staircase.”
And right then he saw his opening. But did he dare take it? He’d have to get way out of his comfort zone.
Yes, he would. Because he needed to undo the damage his thoughtless remarks had caused. Hell, he was such a liar. He’d do anything to win her approval. To become her friend. To get into her good graces.
“Um. I have a suggestion. Maybe instead of a meeting at your office, we could have dinner.”
“Well…” She probably didn’t want to dine with him for so many reasons.
“If we dined at Rafferty’s, I could avoid the stairs,” he said, working the pity angle even though he hated every minute of it.
She hesitated for a long, uncertain moment before she finally nodded. “Okay, I guess that’s reasonable. Let’s say six o’clock?”
“I’ll see you then.” But only after he’d left her house did he fully realize the magnitude of what he’d done. He’d just agreed to have dinner at a public restaurant where he’d be stared at.
Chapter Ten
Ashley sat at the weekly meeting of the Jonquil Island Heritage Day Committee drumming her fingers on the tabletop, her mind consumed with Topher and his plans for Lookout Island, and not the upcoming annual commemoration of the hurricane of 1713.
Her attempt to dissuade Jessica Blackwood from continuing with the project had failed. Appealing to the woman’s better angles had been a long shot. After all, Topher could afford to pay her a sizable fee. Unfortunately, Topher had enough money to buy just about anything he wanted. Including a loyal architect.
But not everyone was for sale. She just needed to find the right person to stand in his way. But who that person or entity might be was a mystery.
She stared down at the legal pad sitting in front of Reverend St. Pierre, who sat beside her at the table in the large conference room at City Hall. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention, either, as Councilmember Bauman droned on about the Heritage Day celebration coming up in mid-September. The preacher was doodling, and she found herself studying his strong, competent left hand as it created intricate Irish designs.
Awareness of Micah St. Pierre as a man, not a minister, suddenly seized her. The thought was inappropriate in the extreme and probably would never have happened if she’d been focused on the meeting and not her current problems.
But then again, she was also not entirely dead. So this fluttery feeling in her chest had to be a sign of something. Maybe, after three years of grieving, she was starting to come out of her funk. It would be easy to believe that, except that just the other day she’d been sorting stuff up in the attic and she’d come across the box filled with Adam’s dress uniforms. She’d spent the rest of the day in tears.
“Okay, so everyone knows what they’re responsible for in the next week?” Harry said, jolting Ashley back to the meeting’s proceedings. Everyone around the table looked up and nodded.
“Okay. See everyone next Wednesday.”
People jumped out of their chairs and made separate beelines to the door of the main meeting room at City Hall.
Okay, here it was, her chance to gain a little information. She pushed up from the table and headed right toward Harry.
“Hey,” she said, coming up to him as he was stuffing papers into a battered briefcase. “You got a minute?”
Harry, who was probably pushing eighty, had a head of white hair and a bushy mustache that had been all the style in the 1970s. He looked down at her from behind his wire-rimmed bifocals. “I’ve got just a minute. The Braves are playing the Nationals, and I want to catch the end of the game.”
“Um, well, I was—” She bit off her words as Micah came up behind her. Wow, the man gave off a lot of body heat.
“Yes?” Harry asked, his bushy eyebrows rising a fraction.
“I was just curious. If I wanted to make it difficult for someone to build a house out on Lookout Island, what would I have to do?”
Micah cleared his throat, and heat climbed up Ashley’s cheeks. Was the Rev judging her? Well, so what. She had Topher’s best interests at heart.
Harry stroked his mustache for a moment as he thought. “Well, it seems to me that it would be damn—um, sorry, Rev—darned hard to build a house out on that island no matter what.”
“I know,” Ashley said. “But if I wanted to make sure it couldn’t happen?”
Harry continued to stroke his mustache while Ashley resisted the urge to turn around and glare at her spiritual adviser.
“I suppose you could rile up the lighthouse folks,” Harry said.
“The lighthouse folks?”
“There’s a group working to save the Morris Island lighthouse. They’ve been quite successful in raising money and getting the property transferred to state ownership and control. I’m not sure they’re interested in saving any other lights, but I think the Lookout Island lighthouse may be the only other South Carolina lighthouse in private hands. You could appeal to them or maybe organize a similar group here.”
“But could a group like that force the sale of private property?” Ashley asked.
“Forcing a sale wouldn’t be impossible. But it might be difficult. I think the family who owns the Morris Island light was happy to turn the land over to the state.”
“Okay. If I didn’t want to go that route, what other options might be available?”
Micah cleared his throat a second time. She could almost feel his disapproval like a looming shadow behind her.
“Well, any building would have to meet codes. And I imagine there would be some issues building out there with wastewater and electricity.”
“Uh-huh.” Unfortunately, Ashley had a feeling Jessica Blackwood knew precisely how to meet those building codes.
“Of course,” Harry said, buckling his briefcase, “if you really want to stall development in this town, you call Peggy Fiedler of the Moonlight Bay Conservation Society. She’s a thorn in my side. You know, she’s even opposed to the renovations we’re trying to finance for the historic homes north of town. You’d think a conservation society would want to conserve history by restoring some of the old freeman houses. But since we’re talking about inviting history tourists to rent those houses, Peggy is dead set against it. I swear, that woman would rather see all those old houses fall down and the land go back to its pristine state.”
Harry hefted his briefcase off the table and looked down at Ashley through his glasses. “But it might be nice to see the old light restored. You thinking about forming a committee to do something like that?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“Well, more power to you. Now I gotta run.” Harry hurried from the room, and Ashley turned to follow only to find Micah blocking her way.
“What are you up to?” he asked, pinning her with a probing stare.
People could say what they wanted about the Rev. About how his sermons were ligh
t on sin and heavy on Christ’s message of love. But there were times when he seemed to be able to stare through her skin into her innermost thoughts—the ones she didn’t wish to share with anyone. The ones she probably needed forgiveness for.
But this time she had nothing but pure motives. She raised her chin. “You know good and well what happened to Topher yesterday. But he insists on building a house out where no one could rescue him if he got into trouble. I don’t object to the house. I object to his running away and putting his life in danger.”
“The ends don’t justify the means, Ashley. You know that.”
Leave it to the Rev to make her feel guilty.
“I know it’s not exactly playing fair with him. But the family’s desperate to pull him back from the brink. We’re all afraid that if he’s left alone, he might do something…” Her voice trailed off, unable to actually say the words.
“Do you think he’s suicidal?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. He’s clearly depressed. But even if he wasn’t depressed, he could still die falling down the lighthouse stairs. And who would be there to even know about it? When I think about that happening, I know I have to stop him.”
“By riling up the Moonlight Bay Conservation Society?”
“If that’s what it takes.” She stepped around him and headed toward the door, expecting Micah to say something to her back. His silence was more damning than words could ever be. Guilt made her stop and look over her shoulder.
Did she really need his approval that much?
“You know, instead of judging me, you could try to help. You were a navy chaplain. You had to deal with injured sailors, didn’t you? Maybe you could talk to Topher.”
He nodded, his shoulders relaxing a bit. “Okay.”
“Thank you,” she said, turning away, escaping from his too-intense gaze.
* * *
Jessica arrived at her office early on Thursday morning, feeling good about her plumbing, confused about her client, and furious about the things he’d said to her yesterday afternoon.
He clearly hadn’t made up the rumor about her and Colton’s love child. He’d heard it from more than one source. If the story was that widespread, surely Aunt Donna had heard it too. Why hadn’t anyone said a word about it?
