On Love's Gentle Shore

by Liz Johnson

  And RJ stood for Russell Jacobs.

  Justin couldn’t make his tongue work. He couldn’t figure out how to say what he wanted to. Mostly because he had no idea what he wanted to say. His legs were lead, his arms frozen.

  He could barely blink, his mouth opening and closing quickly. But no sound came out.

  “You’ve got a great sound. Really unique.” Russell pushed the card between Justin’s fingers. “Call me next time you have a show. I’d love to hear you play again.”

  Oh man. This had been an audition, and he’d had no idea.

  He swallowed the lump in his throat, and his whole tongue almost went with it. “Thank you. I-I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  “Russell!” A voice from clear across the room broke the spell that had kept Justin firmly rooted. They all looked in the direction from which it had come to find Caden waving wildly at them. “Can you come here for a second?”

  After a quick shake of Justin’s hand, a squeeze of Natalie’s arm, and a kiss on her cheek, Russell strolled toward the far side of the room.

  Suddenly the words that had eluded Justin before gushed out. “Well, isn’t that something. Where did you meet a music producer and label owner?”

  Defiance flashed in her eyes, like maybe she thought he didn’t consider her worthy of the head of RJ Music. “You think I owe you my story after you played that song?” Her voice remained low, but still she shot a glance around their corner of the room to make sure they weren’t the subject of anyone’s attention. “I can’t believe you.”

  “Me?” He threw his hands up in a vain attempt to ward off her verbal attack, his word escaping through clenched teeth.

  “You could have warned me.” The tip of her nose began to turn pink, and if he had to guess, he’d say that below the fierce red waves of her hair, her ears were doing the same thing.

  “Warned you of what? That I wrote a song that’s pretty popular on the island and I wasn’t planning on playing it tonight anyway?”

  “Well … y-yes.” She waved away his argument and her weak response with a flick of her wrist. “I mean, you could have at least told me you wrote a song about me.”

  “Well, maybe if you’d warned me that you were coming back to the island, I would have.”

  She flinched at his words, and he wanted to take them back. He wanted to apologize but couldn’t. Once the words began, there seemed to be no stopping them.

  “When else could I have done that? When you didn’t meet me at the lighthouse? Or when you never called?” Low and humorless, his laugh rattled deep in his chest. “Besides, who said it’s about you?”

  “Who—” Aside from the slow up-and-down movement of her eyelashes, she stood perfectly still, her mouth open and silent.

  “Anyway, you never answered my question. Where did you meet a music producer like Russell Jacobs?”

  Instantly thawed, she swung her hair over her shoulder while keeping her glare locked on him. “At my job.”

  “You work for him?” He couldn’t keep the shock out of his tone. Not that he was trying.

  “No. I work at a hotel where he was attending an event.”

  “Where?”

  “The Heritage Hotel.” She paused like she might be done, but a light flashed in her eyes just before she offered a simmering smile. “In Nashville.”

  That hit him like a hammer against a nail, sinking deep into his chest, letting the air escape his lungs. “Nashville? You moved to Nashville?”

  She crossed her arms, a wall between them. “You act like you didn’t know.”

  “I didn’t.”

  The color that had pinked her cheeks suddenly drained away, her hands falling to her sides. “I can’t believe no one told you.”

  Nope. No one had told him that she had landed in Music City. That she’d found an in with the music crowd. That she was engaged to a man who could make Justin’s dreams come true.

  7

  Was it possible that the barn looked even worse in the shadows?

  On this overcast morning, Natalie had agreed to accompany Marie to the barn to try out several wood stains to freshen up the interior walls and beams. But now, as she spun around in the entrance of the cavernous room, it was so much worse than she remembered. Despite overcast skies that kept the corners dim, she could see enough of the splintered walls and dusty corners to think she might have made a mistake.

  The sunlight that had cast a halo through the cracks in the roof on their last visit was gone, which made the room feel like a drooping felt hat. Not even the new crossbeams that Seth and Justin had installed the day before could perk it up. Seth had promised that he’d have the hole in the wall fixed within a week, but an urgent meeting in Charlottetown had sent him out of town for at least a day or two.

  Marie slid her hand along the wall as Natalie shook her head. “I think I was wrong.”

  With a flick of her wrist, Marie set off a dull yellow glow from the fluorescent lights above. It covered the room with a sickly blanket, and Natalie blinked to adjust her eyes to it.

  “It’s not so bad,” Marie said.

  Natalie put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes.

  “All right. It’s not great. But we can make it work.” Marie gave her a hopeful smile. “We’ll bring in so many white twinkle lights that it’ll look like the wedding of your childhood dreams.”

  Natalie cringed but tried to nod her affirmation. She hadn’t had much in the way of childhood dreams.

  But Marie didn’t know that.

  “If you say so.”

  “You’re not convinced, are you?” Marie didn’t wait for a response. “We can get there. I know we can. Once we stain the inside walls a rich red, the whole room will feel completely different. Then when we set up the tables, it’ll have some structure. And I was thinking we could borrow some antiques from Aretha’s for the centerpieces. Things that are implicitly island. Maybe a lantern or miniature lobster traps.”

  Okay, sure, she hadn’t spent much time in her early years thinking about her future wedding, but she most certainly hadn’t planned on decorating with wooden traps that had flat, netted bottoms. They were for fishing, for work. Her dad had built his fair share over the years and worked on and off on a lobster fishing boat out of Tignish. When he could hold down a job.

  “Aren’t they kind of … touristy?”

  Marie nodded slowly, rubbing her chin. “Could be. But they’re also a key piece of island life.”

  She made a good point.

  Natalie stepped into a pool of yellow light and tried to picture the image Marie had painted. It could be beautiful. Or it could be a flop.

  But backing out of having the wedding here would be the biggest flop of all. Nothing would set tongues wagging like Natalie announcing another change in location. The whole town would speculate about why she didn’t want to celebrate her marriage on Kane family land. And it would just serve as a reminder that Stella Burke had snatched the community center away at the very last minute.

  Natalie wasn’t sure if the rest of the town needed a reminder of why the Burkes hated the O’Ryans, but the memory was as fresh as an apple on a tree to her.

  Plus, if she backed out now, she’d have to explain to Russell why she wanted a move. And the less she had to articulate about any connection to her childhood, the better.

  They had to make this work.

  Marie flipped the wall switch again. “I promise we won’t ever turn these lights on again.”

  “Deal.”

  Marie smiled broadly, pressing one hand to the small of her back and adjusting her grip on a paint can in the other. “Let’s see what we can make of these walls.” She set down her load, stepped outside, and returned with arms full of three pints of wood stain. A cracked wooden door had been laid across two sawhorses in a makeshift table, and Marie set her bounty on it. After pulling a screwdriver from her pocket, she popped the lid off one of the stains. Her face pinched, and she suddenly stepped back, nearly bumping into Nata
lie.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Sure. It’s just … strong.”

  Natalie agreed with a nod and a wrinkled nose, but she wasn’t put off enough to keep from leaning over the open container. The stain was a rich red, like the cherrywood of the buffet in the Red Door’s dining room. It might smell like burned rubber, but the color made her think about the cupcakes Caden had set on the antique the afternoon before, and she couldn’t hold back a smile.

  “Shall we?” Marie held up a paintbrush and pointed to the adjacent wall. “I’m thinking a three-foot patch should be enough to give us a good feel for how it will cover the wood.”

  “All right.” She took the brush and dipped it in the can while Marie pried off another lid.

  Halfway through her first brushstroke, a clatter at the open door made her jump. She gasped and dropped her paintbrush. Bending to catch it, she managed to wrap her fingers around the wrong end just as the bristles met her leg, and she bit into her tongue.

  Looking up from the mess all over her pants, Natalie squinted toward the entrance, where the sun had fought off the clouds and now illuminated a broad set of shoulders.

  And that ridiculous ponytail.

  She scowled down at her palms, red with varnish, then up at Justin. Why did he insist on showing up at the worst possible moments? So what if it was his barn? He’d told Marie to pick out the colors, and that’s what they were doing.

  His face was in the shadow, but she’d bet a clean pair of pants that he was scowling too.

  “Natalie, are you okay?” Marie hurried over to check on her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Justin stoop over to pick up the armload of lumber he’d dropped in the doorway.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. He’d wiped all emotion from his voice, certainly a concession to Marie’s presence, even if the weight of his gaze swept over her.

  “I’m fine.” Natalie gave Marie a firm nod to let her know no harm had been done. Pants and hands could be washed.

  Justin shrugged one of those big shoulders, stretching his plaid flannel shirt. “Sorry anyway. I didn’t expect company today. Didn’t see your car outside.”

  “We parked in the back so we could scout some locations for the photographer.”

  Natalie didn’t bother to add to the explanation, instead wiping her hands onto a clean patch of her once gray slacks. The residue on her fingers was still sticky, but she moved back to the task of painting her patch.

  And ignoring Justin’s presence.

  And his gaze.

  And especially the way her mind wanted to revisit the flex of the muscles in his forearms under the weight of the lumber.

  She slapped another stroke of red down her wall, harder and louder than necessary.

  Marie shot her a curious stare, but Natalie wasn’t about to acknowledge it. Not with Justin only a few meters away, measuring a rotted section of wood for replacement. After setting his load onto the cement floor, he tucked a pencil behind his ear as he stretched a neon yellow tape between studs. Then he squatted in front of the wood on the floor, running the measure over it too. He marked it with the pencil before resting his elbows on his knees.

  “Pretty convenient that Seth had to go to Charlottetown.” The teasing tone that laced his words made Natalie’s skin tingle, its familiarity both welcome and abhorred. Even if he wasn’t speaking strictly to her.

  Marie’s cheeks turned pink as she formed a hard right angle on her patch. “I’m sorry.” She offered a thoughtful frown, genuine concern in her eyes. “I know he wanted to help out more, but he had to meet with our lawyer.”

  Justin nodded, the grim line of his lips saying he understood. But Natalie wasn’t privy to whatever reasoning Seth had for abandoning ship after only a few days of work. Despite the nudge of curiosity that poked at her middle, she didn’t ask.

  She never asked.

  “So, have you thought about adding to your guest list?” Marie’s tone had lightened from a moment before, her eyes bright and expectant.

  Natalie nearly dropped her brush again, hanging on to it only by sticky fingers. She coughed and shook her head at Marie. “Guest list? It’s all set.”

  “But the barn has room for at least fifty more guests than the community center. We could easily accommodate two hundred in here.”

  Natalie nodded, but a little twist in her stomach suggested that she probably wasn’t going to like the direction of this conversation.

  At least Justin seemed preoccupied with his tape measure and tools.

  “I just assumed that you had limited your guest list because of limited space. Besides, I noticed that your list for place cards doesn’t have your family on it. I’ll be happy to add your parents.”

  She couldn’t tell if it was she or Justin who gasped, but the air in the barn suddenly sizzled. Justin had put down his pencil in favor of watching her.

  Natalie licked her lips and blinked at the other woman, whose back was turned.

  When she spun to load up her brush, Marie paused. Her hand froze, the bristles only halfway into the paint. She tilted her head, her eyebrows bunched, and she seemed to put some of the pieces together. “I just assumed they’d be here. Are they … ?”

  Dead?

  The question was everything but spoken. Natalie wished she knew for sure. Either way.

  Her mom was definitely gone. Liver disease and a hard life. She’d received word from Aretha that Connie O’Ryan had been buried in a cemetery outside Souris on the east side of the island.

  But her dad was a little more of a mystery. To the best of her knowledge he’d disappeared shortly after she had. And for ten years that had been enough.

  But now …

  She caught Justin’s gaze and found a challenge there, his blue eyes bright and clear. More than anyone else on the planet, he understood. After all, he’d been the one she’d run to. When the screaming had been too loud, the bruises too fresh, her home too much, she’d run to him—to their spot.

  Then he’d protected her.

  Now the look in his eyes dared her to lie, to stretch the truth even a millimeter. Because he would call her on it.

  With the loss of an ally in a war she didn’t even know she was fighting, she sighed and looked down at her stained hands. She couldn’t confirm where her dad was, but she sure wasn’t going to save him a place at the head table.

  “Um … my mom died about ten years ago. And my dad? W-w-we shouldn’t expect him.”

  She nearly bit her tongue off. Where had that stutter come from?

  In a flash she was back in second grade, being teased by the boys in her class when she tried to read out loud. She stumbled over her words at least every other line, her tongue having to fight for each syllable. Her shoulders had shaken under her too-big hand-me-down sweater, and tears had streamed silently down her cheeks when the teacher told her to sit down.

  But she couldn’t remember that moment without also recalling Justin on the playground, his nose bloody and his shirt covered in mud as he wrestled her tormentors to the ground and made them apologize.

  She’d fought her stutter for years and had finally beat it in high school. At least she’d figured out how to deal with it so it didn’t bother her in everyday life.

  But this …

  Her stomach clenched. This was a reminder of both her past and everything she’d worked so hard to leave behind.

  Marie shot her a gentle smile that seemed to say she understood. Natalie refused to look anywhere within a mile of Justin. She did not need any more memories of him popping into her mind. Or another challenge to reveal the whole truth.

  “I’m sorry about your mom.”

  Strangely, Natalie had been too when she found out. Her therapist had tried to get her to explain why her mother’s passing had affected her so, but she couldn’t name it then or now. It wasn’t a deep ache or significant loss. It was the strange hole that came from knowing someone who had been there simply wasn’t anymore.

&
nbsp; “Thanks,” Natalie said, her voice low and eyes straight ahead.

  “No problem about your dad.” Marie looked back at the square she’d just painted, then at the one Natalie was still working on. “What about others from town? Aretha said you had a lot of friends in town. Should we add some of them?”

  “Like who?” She bit her tongue hard, hating the sarcasm in her voice. Hating it even more when Justin grunted. It was subtle enough that Marie might have missed it, but Natalie knew her words were a sharp smack to him.

  Yes, Justin had been her friend, but she couldn’t very well invite him.

  Not after he’d played that stupid song in front of half the town. Even if the lyrics and haunting melody happened to run through her mind as she lay in bed praying for the sweet escape of sleep.

  The song was explicitly clear. She’d hurt him. But she hadn’t meant to. She hadn’t wanted to.

  And besides, he’d hurt her.

  She pulled out her list of grievances against him like a worn shield. But somehow it didn’t feel as complete today, as though someone had poked a sword through it.

  Anyway, he’d been wrong. She had said good-bye. Maybe not in person. Definitely not conventionally. But she’d made a stop before leaving town to tell him she hoped to see him soon. And she’d made sure he knew where to find her, even if no one else had told him.

  The solid thwack of a hammer against a nail shook her free of her musings, and Justin hit the wood a few more times than might have been necessary.

  “What about Aretha and Jack? Or Caden?” Marie turned to the table still holding the paint cans and jammed a screwdriver beneath the lid of a closed container. “Oh, what am I thinking? Of course Caden will be there. She’ll be Adam’s date.”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the Burkes? Bethany must have been in school with you.”

  Justin snorted and mumbled something under his breath that sounded a whole lot like, “When fish quit swimming.”

  She actually smiled. He knew how it had been between their families.

  Well, some of it anyway.

  Marie shot a squinting glance in his direction but refused to be deterred. “What about Mama Kane?”