Saving Gracie

by Kristen Ethridge

  Gracie craned her neck around the edge of the hood and looked at the clamp on one pole of the battery. She nodded.

  “It’s supposed to be on tight to give a good connection, but for some reason, your screw is rusted out and now it’s loose. All the salt air down here is hard on car parts. You’ll need a new screw.”

  “Can I make it home?”

  “Afraid not. Your battery isn’t making the connection. It’s a pretty easy fix, though. I’m sure I’ve got a part at my place that will work.”

  “Oh, well...that’s okay. I’m sure someone will be out soon who can take me home.” Gracie did not want to owe Jake Peoples anything. Not even one measly piece of metal.

  “Gracie, everyone just sat down to dinner. Port Provident isn’t that big—I live about ten minutes from here.” He pointed east, in the direction of the island’s largest collection of historic homes. “We can have your car fixed before everyone finishes eating. There’s no sense in interrupting everyone’s dinner or making you wait any longer.”

  His tone didn’t surprise Gracie. She’d heard it before. The businessman with all the answers.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t argue with him. Unlike his insistence on closing her school, this time, his plan made sense. If he could fix the problem quickly, there wasn’t any need to disrupt her family and friends while they ate.

  The issue of being beholden to Jake, though, felt like an itch in an unreachable place. It bothered her. But there wasn’t really anything she could do about it right now.

  “Okay. Thanks for the offer.” One little round half inch of metal couldn’t cost that much in obligation, anyway. She picked up her things off the front seat of the car and followed him down the sidewalk.

  * * *

  Jake jogged in front of Gracie, reaching out to open the passenger door. His small act of chivalry surprised her. Except for her father, she couldn’t remember a man opening a car door for her.

  “Okay, we should have you fixed up in no time.” Jake angled the steering wheel ever so slightly to the left, pulling onto the street.

  “Thanks again. You really didn’t have to do this.”

  “Gracie, my nana would never forgive me if I’d left a lady stranded in a parking lot with a broken-down car.” He flashed a quick grin.

  “Your nana?” She knew Jake led a family business, but for some silly reason never thought of him as having a family.

  “My father’s mother. Her favorite author is Emily Post.”

  Gracie laughed. “I love to read, but even I wouldn’t take an etiquette book down to the beach.”

  “Nana would. And when she’d finished refreshing her memory on proper knife and fork placement, she’d take out monogrammed notecards and a fountain pen to catch up on correspondence.”

  “She sounds very proper.”

  “Oh, yes. Her family’s been a fixture here in Port Provident since before the Great Storm of 1910.” Jake guided the car onto Gulfview Boulevard. “But most people love her because she has a heart as vast as that water over there.”

  “Sounds like she’d be a good grandmother. I miss my abuela.”

  “That’s Spanish for ‘grandmother,’ right?”

  Gracie nodded. “It is.”

  “So, where is your grandmother?”

  “In Mexico. She doesn’t like to travel, so we have to go see her. And it’s always been hard for my parents to get time off from running their restaurant.”

  “I know how that feels. I didn’t see Nana much during my years in Austin.” His eyes fixed on the red light ahead. “Of course, most of that was my own doing.”

  His last words trailed off and he changed the subject.

  “Look at the clouds over the water. The sky looks like it’s on fire.” The setting sun turned the clouds a faint purple, set off by a backdrop of flaming orange.

  “God paints a pretty picture, doesn’t He?” Gracie joined in the admiration.

  Jake didn’t answer. Silence fell between them, like a thousand down feathers filling all the spaces in the small cabin of the car. First it tickled gently, fluffily, but then the sharper edges reached out and poked her, making the presence of the quiet too obvious for comfort.

  Gracie rubbed the cotton folds of her skirt together, then hesitated, not wanting to squirm too obviously.

  “Do you have to be anywhere right now?” Jake asked.

  “Well, I thought we were going to your house to get the part.” Wasn’t he going to help her with the car repair?

  “We still are.” His blade-sharp tone cut through her questioning mind. “Do you have time to take a walk on the beach?”

  In the short time since Jake had walked into Gracie’s life, she’d seen many sides of him. Authoritative. Impatient. Driven.

  Never impulsive.

  Without waiting for her answer, he pulled the car into a parking spot close to the water’s edge, demonstrating a trait Gracie did recognize: decisiveness.

  She couldn’t figure this out. “Why, Jake?”

  He shut off the ignition, then rested his fingers on the door handle. “You said it yourself, Gracie. God painted a pretty picture tonight on the horizon. And Pastor Ruiz talked about walking earlier.”

  “He used a metaphor. I don’t think he really meant for you to take up a new fitness routine.”

  Jake opened the door and stepped out quickly to avoid the passing traffic on Gulfview Boulevard. He came around to Gracie’s door and reached his hand inside, beckoning her to join him. “I’m not, Gracie. Something the pastor said spoke to me tonight, and I wanted to take his advice.”

  His hand lingered inside the car, waiting for Gracie’s action.

  Just over Jake’s shoulder, she could see a seagull cruising effortlessly on the breeze. Did the seagulls question why they soared? Or did they just trust that the wind would carry them?

  Could she trust Jake’s invitation? Or was it just another calculated move in their game of real estate chess?

  The words in her mind muddled together instead of forming a quick prayer as she’d wanted. She could only hope God knew what lay in her heart at this moment. And then, as she felt the breeze dance through her hair, an answer came in the form of another carefree bird riding above the waves in front of her.

  Like the seagull, she needed to trust.

  She lifted her hand and laid it cautiously in Jake’s palm.

  He squeezed and tugged back, helping pull her out of the car. His fingertips felt warm as they brushed the center of her wrist, causing the blood in her veins to tingle with awareness. Tonight, she and Jake weren’t at her school or her church. She couldn’t bolster her confidence with familiar surroundings or faces.

  A hermit crab without a shell could not have felt any more defenseless.

  They walked down a few concrete stairs, then stepped onto the unstable surface of the beach. Her feet pushed small dents in the sand.

  “You said you liked something Pastor Ruiz talked about?” She needed to know why Jake had changed their plans. She needed to wrap reason and order around her shoulders. Standing without her light sweater made Gracie cold in spite of the early summer evening.

  “He made me realize I didn’t handle myself professionally last night.” They walked along the edge of the shoreline, where the waves languidly pulled to a stop just inches from their toes. “I won’t lie, Gracie. This condo project has to get done. A lot rides on it. But I came to your school last night with no intention of getting anywhere near your shoes, much less walking in them.”

  “But if you still say the condo project has to get done your way, why do you care about my shoes tonight? Nothing’s changed, Jake.”

  “I don’t know, Gracie. I do know you care about your students. I know they care about you.” He stopped and faced her. “But I run a compa
ny whose board of directors will not confirm me as CEO if I can’t pull this deal off. I suppose I just want you to know it’s not personal.”

  She’d never looked squarely into his eyes before. They were a shade of green she hadn’t seen since leaving Mexico’s Yucatán coast as a child. “Maybe it’s not personal to you, but it is to me. You want to demolish my home and my business for a swimming pool. You’re trying to sink my life’s mission.”

  The salt in the air smelled like tears. Even the sky reflected how hopeless Gracie felt about the situation.

  “Surely you can move the business somewhere else, Gracie.”

  “Jake, I can’t. The economy might be tough in other places, but this is a resort town. The price of real estate hasn’t declined. I can’t afford to rent another building and an apartment on top of that. I’m a one-woman show. The connection fees and deposits alone for a new location would wipe out what little savings I have.” Admitting her precarious financial situation cost her a big chunk of pride. “You come from a wealthy family. You’ve never struggled to pay the bills.”

  He gave a short laugh. Gracie felt more pride tear away, like a bandage ripping off delicate skin. She hadn’t expected to hear him dismiss her in return for her honesty. She turned her head toward the surf. If a tear slipped out, she couldn’t let Jake see.

  “Gracie, look here.” He placed a gentle finger on her chin and pressed her to look at him straight on. The touch sent her blood rushing through her veins again.

  “I’m laughing at the irony. You and I have more in common than you realize. I told you the board of directors doesn’t want me in charge of my own family’s company, but I didn’t tell you why. My whole life, my father told anyone who would listen that I wasn’t living up to the family name. I spent the last five years in Austin as an attorney with my own firm. I misjudged a client. I put everything I had into her case. In the end, the only courtroom I saw was personal bankruptcy court, where I confirmed every ugly word my father ever used against me.”

  His hands brushed the top of her arms, reminding her of earlier in the school parking lot when he’d rejected her mentorship idea. “Gracie, I’ve missed paying so many bills, there are judgments against me. And no company wants a bankrupt dreamer as a CEO. I have to prove to the board that there’s more to me than the rumors they’ve heard.”

  Surely the roaring of the waves had distorted Jake’s words. He had to be the spoiled rich kid she’d assumed he was. She couldn’t fathom a member of the Peoples family in a situation as desperate as her own.

  The color in Jake’s eyes deepened. Simultaneously, with a single step, he closed the distance between them.

  As the wind kicked a small gust up around them, Gracie didn’t take a step back. She could feel something inside her being carried like foam rising at the top of a wave.

  One arm rose tentatively on a crest of emotion to gently rest on Jake’s shoulder. Her fingers fluttered through the soft strands of hair covering the upper part of his neck. She knew what shouldn’t happen next but, like the waves behind her, didn’t know how to stop it.

  Jake’s green eyes connected boldly with her own, looking for something. And then he moved his feet back to where they’d stood moments before. Gracie slid her arm away.

  The waves in the distance continued their swells and rolls as Gracie’s emotions came crashing back to the sand.

  She felt betrayed by her own impulsiveness. She couldn’t believe she was making the same mistakes again—thinking with her heart, not with her head. Hadn’t she learned anything from her time with David?

  She had to remember that the same Jake Peoples who had mesmerized her just moments ago could steal her dreams and her future with just one vote from his friends on City Council.

  She could not allow him to steal her heart.

  Chapter Five

  Jake tried to use the soft sand beneath his feet to explain feeling off balance. It couldn’t be that walking near Gracie Garcia rocked his world.

  Jake couldn’t let the moment pass without saying something. But what? What sense could he make of the unexpected, wordless moment that clearly lay on them both with an undeniable weight? He couldn’t just ignore it, much as he wanted to play it cool.

  Before he could match words with his racing emotions, Gracie spoke.

  “We should probably go. My car needs to be fixed before everyone comes out and sees me with you. People are beginning to ask questions about the closing of the school, and after you showed up tonight...” She paused, looking out at the waves. “Well, I just don’t want to have to answer everyone’s questions.”

  Like a surfboard standing in the sand, a wall went up between the two of them. He immediately sensed the barrier’s instant appearance.

  Many dates in Jake’s youth ended on this very stretch of beach. Most of them finished with a kiss. But all that sloppy teenage ardor couldn’t compare to the surge of adrenaline that filled him when Gracie stood near. In the past, he could always tell when the feelings were mutual.

  Now, though, Jake couldn’t read Gracie. He knew he hadn’t imagined her arms around his neck. He couldn’t possibly have made up the tingle at the top of his spine when she threaded her narrow fingers through his hair.

  Maybe he’d just made more out of the events because he hadn’t been here in so long. Maybe he really wasn’t the family businessman who could accurately assess a situation and react accordingly. Maybe he remained the lawyer from Austin who got caught up in what he wanted to see instead of what was actually there.

  Without a word, he turned toward the car.

  The corner lot holding the Victorian house in which Jake’s grandmother lived sprawled across half a city block. As they pulled through the back gate near the refurbished carriage house Jake rented from Nana, he noticed Gracie’s head turn slightly.

  Was she wondering how many of the modest homes from the neighborhood surrounding Gracie’s church would fit within Nana’s ornate wrought-iron fence? Jake had never thought about Nana’s estate in those terms before, but now he couldn’t help it.

  Gracie didn’t let out so much as one syllable to help Jake understand her thoughts. In fact, she hadn’t uttered a single word since she’d asked Jake to leave the beach. Thankfully, the drive didn’t last long. Each passing minute stuffed more awkward silence into the car, pressing around them until he noticed that there remained very little room to even breathe.

  “I’ll be right back.” He couldn’t get out of the car fast enough, but then slowed his gait in order to give himself the maximum amount of time away from the uncomfortable quiet.

  The workshop adjacent to the garage opened with the same key that had been under the mat for years. Jake went straight to the upright toolbox in the back corner and pulled out a narrow red drawer on the third row, then rummaged through a small plastic box. Pulling the rusted screw out of his pocket, Jake compared it to a new one to make sure it matched. Satisfied, he pushed the drawer back in, walked over to the door and locked up.

  The whole trip to the workshop couldn’t have lasted more than two minutes. Jake wished it could have eaten more time off the clock. In fact, he wished he could have turned the clock all the way back to their earlier drive down Gulfview Boulevard, before he decided to take the detour to the beach.

  That’s what he got for listening to all that church nonsense. Feeling moved to walk in Gracie’s shoes had gotten him nothing but the verbal equivalent of a blister. God probably thought it was funny that Jake got Pastor Ruiz’s message so wrong.

  Jake would not give God, Gracie Garcia or anyone else the ammunition to point out his mistakes again. No more church, no more benefits of the doubt. Only a few days remained until he would prove he could be the CEO Peoples Property Group needed. No mistakes from his time in Austin, no more mistakes in his time with Gracie. No more mistakes, period.

&nbs
p; His future depended on leading Peoples Property Group. Not on a teacher in Port Provident today—or one from Jerusalem two thousand years ago.

  * * *

  Tossing and turning all night left Gracie’s back sore and her head with a dull pain just over her right temple. She’d never before experienced a nonkiss that made her lose sleep.

  She’d never before dreamed about a man who wanted to steal her life’s dreams.

  She lost track of the number of times she’d awakened last night. Nothing helped. Not even counting sheep. All she’d wanted to count was the number of beats her heart skipped when Jake’s hands had brushed her arms.

  Even now, hours after waking, every time her thoughts wandered to last night’s walk on the beach, Gracie lost the battle. But this month’s budget and bill paying called, and conquering the pile of papers covering the left side of her desk would take focus, not flights of fancy.

  Gracie pulled out a pen and a book of stamps and set them alongside her computer keyboard, then opened her small business accounting software.

  Before she could start, she heard a knock at the office door.

  “Come in,” Gracie said, distracted once again from the task at hand.

  “Holá, hermana!” Gloria’s voice blew a beam of sunshine into the room. “It’s a beautiful day outside. Why are you sitting in the middle of a sea of paperwork? You should be dipping your toes in the water instead.”

  Dressed in a floppy turquoise straw hat, a light cotton blouse and shorts, and a pair of matching rhinestone-bedecked flip-flops, Gloria looked ready for the beach.

  “Because I didn’t build my business by slacking off. I may only be treading water right now, but if I stop, everything I’ve worked for will drown.”

  “Gracie, don’t you think you’re being overly dramatic?”

  If her sister only knew about that turn of events at the beach last night.