by Toni Blake
Just then, Lou Burgess, the short, stout man who owned the Skipper’s Wheel, walked up to ask Zack about his health and how he was doing since losing Dahlia. That was the one thing he hated about being back outside—but he put up with it because people meant well. Once the pleasantries were over, though, Lou reached up a hand to Zack’s shoulder. “I’m not a man to beat around the bush, Zack, so I’ll keep it plain. I’m wondering what your plans are for the café. And if you’d be interested in selling it.”
Zack’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t seen that coming. He still hadn’t gotten around to looking at Dahlia’s papers—legal documents sounded like work, like hoops to jump through and stuff to figure out. And there were other reasons he hadn’t dug into them, as well. When it came to Dahlia’s cottage—well, he liked living with Suzanne. Dahlia’s place was a lot farther walk to pretty much anywhere for a guy with walking issues, plus Suzanne’s was right around the corner from Petal Pushers and the café—so it made sense, even if he decided to hold on to the business. And the restaurant? Dahlia had made it a local favorite, and he hated to think of it becoming something else. And it would make him feel connected to her to keep it going.
But on the other hand—suddenly here was Lou, feeling like an easy answer to a big question that had been hanging in the air for too long. Even so, after a moment, he finally mumbled an awkward, “I don’t really know, Lou.”
Lou, a decent guy, held up his hands as if backing off and said, “Listen, I don’t want to push you to do anything you don’t want to. But it’s a good fit for me—near the Skipper’s Wheel—and I’d give you a fair price for it. I loved Dahlia and loved her place. I’d run it the same, and I’d keep the name, to honor her. She had a good thing going and I’d just be picking up where she left off.”
Zack tried to wrap his head around the offer. His mind whirled with the idea of moving forward, of the place being the same without his having to take on the burden, of having a solid nest egg of money to fall back on—something he’d never had before. And damn, if he could fish again...why wouldn’t he? It sounded easy—and inviting—in comparison. Who wanted to start over doing something they knew nothing about at his age?
But it was still a lot to take in when he’d least expected it. So even as his heart beat a little faster at the prospect, he finally said, “I’ll think about it and get back to you.”
* * *
ON A DAY too cold for it, Suzanne and Meg sat on the front porch of the Summerbrook Inn, drinking hot tea, refusing to be driven back inside. The South Point Lighthouse glistened in the sun, and diamonds danced on the rippling surface of the water around it.
What remained of the snow lay in clumps and patches that got smaller each day, and even though spring came later this far north than in most of the US, the green stems of daffodils pushed up through the soil, and Meg claimed she’d seen a few wild crocuses blooming near the shoreline. Meg had started her spring-cleaning in preparation for the coming tourist season and Suzanne had been working at Petal Pushers a few hours each day as fresh annuals began arriving from the mainland, along with potted shrubberies and trees. The long winter had truly ended and the island was coming back to life.
“Did you mail the letter to Mr. Desjardins?” Meg asked Suzanne.
She nodded sadly. The debonair man had responded to her email sounding heartbroken, and then she’d had to ask for his address when that letter had surfaced last week.
“Did you read it first?” Meg asked.
This time Suzanne shook her head, admitting, “Part of me wanted to, but it was meant to be private, between Dahlia and him, and I also feared it might make me too sad.”
“Good point.”
Just then, Allie and Lila went cruising by on pastel-colored bicycles, Lila yelling, “Hi, you two!”
In the opposite direction came a jogger, also waving hello. “Meg! Suzanne!” he called.
“Is that Cooper Cross?” Suzanne asked Meg.
“Oh my gosh, yes. Hi, Cooper! Welcome back!”
Meg had always said that when you first saw Cooper Cross, a seasonal resident, out for his daily run, you knew summer was right around the corner.
“It’s nice to be out and about again,” Suzanne said, feeling she spoke for all of them.
“Zack’s really been getting around on that walker,” Meg remarked. “Seth and I can’t get over it, especially as grim as things sounded a few months ago.”
A fresh sense of joy flowed through Suzanne’s heart. Because Meg was normal Meg again—and caring about Zack because he was Suzanne’s boyfriend, not because he’d once been hers. She could hear in her voice that things were truly different.
“He continues to amaze me,” Suzanne replied, meeting Meg’s gaze briefly but then panning out to the water. In case Meg saw more than amazement in her eyes.
Too late. “What’s wrong? What don’t I know?”
Suzanne bit her lip. Part of her didn’t want to tell Meg. It felt like...failure. She’d been so certain that her love had changed Zack, or the winter had, but that regardless of where the credit lay, he’d been transformed. And now she wasn’t so sure.
But she was going to tell her anyway. Because she needed her friend’s ear, her friend’s support. She needed things to be as open between them as they’d been last year at this time. “The doctor told him he might eventually be able to work his boat again.”
She didn’t have to say more for Meg to get the full impact—her jaw dropped as their gazes met. And she said quietly, “That’s incredible and awful at the same time.”
Suzanne just nodded.
Uncertainly, Meg added, “What about the café? I thought he was considering keeping it, managing it.”
Suzanne sighed. “He was. And maybe he still is.” She stopped, shook her head. “I haven’t had the heart to ask him lately. Not since the doctor dangled the fishing life in front of him again. Partly because I’m afraid of how he might answer. And partly because...” She looked into Meg’s understanding eyes. “It’s been such a cold, hard winter. I just want it to be a little easier for a while.”
“Of course,” Meg said.
So Suzanne went on. “Right now, things are good. He’s happy to be back outside, happy to be moving again, and I’m thrilled he can get around. We enjoy each other’s company, and even as we’re mourning Dahlia, we find things to smile and laugh about. And he’s loving. He’s sweet and caring and considerate.” She hoped she wasn’t saying too much—but she wanted to be real with Meg and wanted it to be okay. “And he doesn’t say anything about leaving. But he was so happy when the doctor told him he might be able to fish again that I know...if he gets that chance, he will. And there are so many reasons that’ll break my heart.”
Meg could have said something deflating in the I-told-you-so or he’ll-never-change vein. She could have put Suzanne on the spot by asking what she’d do if he left her six months a year—which she’d found untenable when he’d abandoned Meg that way. But in reply, Meg simply reached out between their chairs and took Suzanne’s hand in hers. It was exactly what Suzanne needed in that moment—she finally, really had her friend back. And God knew she needed her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ZACK SAT ON a bench looking across Harbor Street at the café. Despite not being open for business as it normally would by May, Suzanne knelt in the dirt in blue jeans out front, planting his aunt’s trademark dahlias in bright colors.
He wanted to honor Dahlia’s memory however he could. And he had ideas he hadn’t shared with anyone yet—but that he hoped might take shape soon.
And part of him wanted running this café to be a piece of it—but behind the café lay the water, the water that had given him a life, a living. If he got the chance to return to it, he didn’t think he could pass that up. It wasn’t that lucrative a career—meager at best. But it was a life he’d always loved. And he doubted he could play m
aster to both and do either well.
He’d been struggling with that, but then along had come Lou Burgess. And the more he thought about Lou’s offer, the more it seemed like...guidance.
Suzanne stood up, brushing dirt from her jeans. The sun had been out when she’d started the task, but now clouds rolled in, turning the air colder. Smiling, she called, “All done.”
“Looks great,” he said.
Rather than pick up her tools and the empty flower flats, she crossed the street and plopped down next to him. “I’m pooped.”
“Sorry I can’t help with stuff like this. Yet anyway. But one day soon, I will.”
She tilted her head, giving him a small grin. “I look forward to that. Not so much because I need the help, but because I’ll like you being able to give it.” Then she peered back across the street at the empty building, painted a powdery blue to which Dahlia had always given the more complicated name of periwinkle. “People keep asking if the café is going to reopen.”
He didn’t know what Suzanne would think of his decision. He didn’t want her to be disappointed in him—but she loved him, so he had to believe she’d want him to follow his heart. “Actually, Lou Burgess approached me about buying it. And I haven’t answered him yet, but...it wouldn’t make much sense for me to run the café if I’m eventually gonna start fishing again.”
Inside, Suzanne bristled. So here it finally came, the talk she’d dreaded. “So you’re planning to do that.”
“Eventually, yeah. Of course,” he said.
Which she knew. So why was she acting like she didn’t? It had been inevitable. “I thought you wanted to run the café,” she said anyway.
Next to her on the bench under suddenly white, overcast skies, he looked her in the eye. “I don’t know if I can, Suz. But I know I can fish—I know how to make a living at that.”
“Not a very good one,” she said, too snidely. Fishing the Great Lakes these days wasn’t making anyone rich—environmental changes had made it a tough way to make a living.
“But I still know how,” he pointed out. “And it makes me happy.”
Happy. There were so many ways to define that word. Apparently Dahlia had thought it would make her happy to leave all her husbands and in the end she wished she hadn’t. Maybe we didn’t always know what made us happy. And maybe she should come at this from a more constructive angle—but frustration burned in her. Frustration with an old version of Zack she feared still lurked inside him, like an infection that hadn’t been completely healed. “Because it’s running away from your problems,” she stated bluntly. “You told me that.”
“Damn it, Suzanne,” he said, reacting harshly for the first time. “I thought you of all people would understand. You know what I’ve been through. You know the life I built for myself on that boat means something to me. I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“I am happy for you—happy that you’re recovering so well. Because I love you and want you to have a full life. But what about me, Zack? What about what I want?” That had been one of her criticisms of the old Zack—selfishness. He didn’t mean to hurt or neglect anyone—but he always put himself first.
“I love you, too, Suzanne,” he said. “And I’m committed to you. It’s not like I’m leaving and never coming back.”
Okay, yes, he’d committed—which he’d never done with Meg. Yet, at the moment, his words gouged a deep chasm in her heart. “How do you know?” she snapped.
“What?” He shook his head, clearly confused.
“How do you know you’re coming back? Boats sink, storms come—there are no guarantees.”
At this, he just cocked his head. “By that logic, there are no guarantees in life anyway. Dahlia showed us that. But I promise if I leave, I’ll be back. Every time.”
“That’s what Cal told me, too.”
She saw her past register in his eyes. It left him speechless.
But not her. “I’ve been living for six years with the memory of a man who didn’t come home when he was supposed to, who never came home. You don’t know what it’s like to find out someone died, without you, and that you didn’t even get to say goodbye.” Her eyes ached as tears threatened. “You have no idea how grateful I am that Dahlia changed her mind and called us to her bedside. Because at least we got to say goodbye.”
He blew out a shaky breath—then tried to defuse the situation. “Suz, this might not even happen—we don’t know. So why are we arguing about it? That’s the last thing I wanted.”
Yeah, well, too late, buddy. “If you think it might not happen, then why are you selling the café?” When that also silenced him, she went on. “I’ll tell you why. You’re not a guy who wants to just sit around doing nothing. Other than moping over Meg last fall, you stay busy, even when you’re in port. You find things to fix or build, for Dahlia or Meg. So if you’re selling a business that would keep you busy, it’s because you’re counting on getting back on that boat. And that you’re going to do it whether I want you to or not, like I’m not even part of the equation. And, Zack, I’m not sure I can just sit around waiting for that to happen.”
She couldn’t quite believe her own words, but it was true. She wouldn’t be Meg, who’d waited and waited for him to put her first. She wouldn’t wait around for him to drown or God knows what else. And she wouldn’t bide her time the way she had the last few weeks, hoping it wouldn’t happen only to have him announce one day that he was setting off on the Emily Ann.
He just gaped at her, clearly as stunned as she was. He narrowed his gaze, looking hurt, defiant, like she was the one causing the problem here. He’d always made it Meg’s problem, too. “So you’re going to ignore Dahlia’s advice? Throw away love just because it isn’t exactly what you want?”
“Maybe you’re the one throwing it away,” she said. “If you can’t put love first, is it...really even love at all?”
“Of course it is,” he insisted.
“You’ll never really stop running, will you?” Maybe it seemed backward or ironic to accuse a man who could barely walk of running, but there it was. “You were happy to stay here with me when you thought you had no other choice, but the second you find out you might be able to leave, you’re ready. Running will always be the easier move for you.”
She’d said all she had to, her heart was imploding, and she wanted to take their drama off the streets of Summer Island. It was spring, people were out, and she had no idea if anyone had tuned in to their fight, but she was just getting past her mortification over the Knitting Nook incident back in winter and she didn’t want to keep looking like the island crazy person who argued in public all the time. So she stood up, crossed the street to gather her things, and marched away, praying she wouldn’t run into anyone who wanted to chat or even say hello. So far she wasn’t crying and hoped to keep it that way.
As she trudged around Petal Pushers to the back, her anger crumbled into a softer sort of despair. Behind the building, she sank down at a wooden picnic table she and Meg repainted a fun, bright color every spring—currently lavender. Last year Seth had helped, and Beck Grainger had wanted to as well, but she’d pushed him away. Zack Sheppard had been the last man on her mind. Life’s unpredictability was one of her least favorite things about it.
And now that she was more sad than mad, she thought of Zack’s past, the reason he ran, the reason he would always run. It was a reason only she knew, a reason he’d trusted only her with. He had no one else in the world now but her. No wonder he’d expected her to understand.
Should she be his new Dahlia, handing out that unconditional love to him? What was unconditional love? Did you stick around, continue doling it out even when it hurt? It suddenly seemed a more nebulous thing than she’d realized.
This was the kind of moment when, in a more perfect world, she’d go sit by Dahlia’s grave and seek counsel from above. But there was no grave,
and they didn’t even have her ashes back yet. So she simply looked up at the white sky, wishing she could somehow find Dahlia there looking back—and pretended she did anyway. What should I do, Dahlia, about that stubborn nephew of yours? I thought he’d really changed, mellowed. But now I think maybe he simply can’t, that it’s just in his blood to run away from life and love and everything that could possibly make him feel tied down.
Dahlia didn’t answer her. Exactly. Except...words did enter her mind. In Dahlia’s voice. Do what you have to do, my girl. And he’ll do what he has to, as well. All any of us can do is what we believe is best for us—the trick is in finding out whether we were right or wrong.
So maybe that was an answer. After all, what was she expecting—a phone call? A video chat from heaven?
She looked around this little corner of Summer Island that she’d made her own. She’d made Petal Pushers, her cottage, this island—her home. And she’d found so much here. Dear, loving friends—though one of them was gone now. And...love. Unexpected love...that was pulling her into a place irresistibly soft and warm and safe—until you were left alone there and trapped in it by yourself.
How much could she lose on Summer Island before it stopped feeling like home?
* * *
WHEN ZACK GOT home that night, Suzanne was distant. It pissed him off. He’d done nothing wrong here. Women. In his experience, they just couldn’t be happy for long. They created problems out of nothing; they blew things out of proportion.
He’d thought Suzanne was different.
“Want to watch a movie?” he asked after a dinner she’d pretty much tossed on the table like it was garbage.
“No. I’m going to read in the bedroom, then go to sleep.”
That was new. It wasn’t that they spent every second of every night together—but mostly, they did. Her response begged the question, “Um, should I still come in and sleep with you?” Once he’d started using the walker, they’d moved into Suzanne’s bedroom and turned her couch back into a couch again.
