“Our type and the rich snobs,” Aunt Jean snapped. “Like Gemma McWharter and her family. She treated you like dirt before, and she’ll do it again. You don’t deserve it.” She patted his shoulder. It was her version of a hug and he smiled at her.
A movement down the aisle caught his eye as he looked over at his aunt. Gemma stood there, her little dog in her arms, her face stricken. Clearly, she’d overheard.
* * *
GEMMA STARED AT ISAAC and his aunt. Our type and the rich snobs. Like Gemma McWharter and her family.
Was her family viewed that way still? Was she?
It wasn’t that far from the mark with her family, she had to admit. Money and status were everything to them. But she was different. Wasn’t she?
Reflexively, she hugged Fang closer. She’d thought Isaac liked her, thought he was going to kiss her, but if this was the way he felt...
“Gemma.” Isaac stood and approached her, his face compassionate. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She nodded. Best to pretend she hadn’t overheard. She didn’t want him to pity her.
“Aunt Jean, she’s...” He gestured behind him, where his aunt had disappeared. “She’s got some outdated views.”
He was trying to make her feel better. But that was because he was nice, not because he cared.
He reached out and rubbed the top of Fang’s head, the movement of his hand mesmerizing. “Can I help you find something?”
“Uh, yeah.” Why was she here again? She fumbled in her pocket. “I need three more screws like this, and a couple of boards sawed to size, if you do that.”
“We do that. Screws first.” He led her to the area filled with drawers of nails and screws. He held out his hand for her sample, and within seconds, had supplied the size she needed. “Three, you said?”
She nodded, feeling shy as a memory came back to her: shopping for a little project she’d done back home, she’d encountered a hardware store employee who couldn’t stop making jokes about screws, loudly, nudging her and making another male employee laugh.
Isaac wouldn’t do that, though.
He slid three screws into a tiny plastic bag, then beckoned her to the back of the store, where boards and two-by-fours sat near an old sawhorse. “What length do you need?”
She pulled out her phone, where she’d noted the measurements. “I’m making a hook row and teenagers always have a ton of clothes, so... I think six feet.”
He lined up the board she chose and sawed it, and she had the pleasure of watching his very nice muscles play underneath his olive green T-shirt. Fang struggled, and she put him down. “Now be good,” she ordered him. “Stay close to Mama.”
“That dog is a hazard.” Isaac’s aunt bustled over, not meeting Gemma’s eyes. “No dogs in the store.”
Fang looked directly at her as he lifted his leg.
“No, Fang, no!” Gemma swooped him up just in time. “I took you potty right before we came in. You know better.”
Fang looked at Aunt Jean and growled.
“I’ll ring you up while Isaac finishes cutting those. I suppose you’ll want them delivered, since your little sports car isn’t meant for hauling?”
Gemma lifted her chin. “Yes, please.” If Mrs. Decker thought she was a snob, she might as well play the part.
As she followed Isaac’s aunt to the front of the store, though, her shoulders slumped. Yes, she had to make this redo work. And she would.
But no, Pleasant Shores wasn’t going to be an uncomplicated safe haven for her. There was too much backstory, too much history. She didn’t fit.
No one but Bisky would love her here.
Her shoulders slumped as her thoughts spiraled. Would anywhere else be any different?
Mrs. Decker rang up her purchase, and Gemma paid with her card. Then, Mrs. Decker looked past her and out the front window of the shop. “Here it comes,” she said, her voice disgusted. “Roll out the red carpet. Summer people are starting to show up at all times of the year, more’s the pity.”
“Nice car,” Isaac commented from behind her. “And we need the summer people’s business, Aunt Jean. Paste on that smile.” He patted the older woman’s shoulder.
Gemma sighed. She herself was one of the summer people that Mrs. Decker was complaining about.
As she walked out the front door, Fang trotting beside her, the door of the expensive dark sedan opened.
When her brother emerged, Gemma’s stomach lurched. “Ron! What are you doing here?”
“I saw your note on Bisky’s door,” he said. “I’ve come to take you home.”
“Come to take me... No. Forget it.”
He nodded implacably and gestured toward the car. “Come on, now. Jeff is very upset. So’s Mom.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Are they, now? And why’s that?”
“You’ve never known where you fit in. We care about you. No one here does.” He put an arm around her—something Ron never did—and she had a flash of thinking that maybe he was sincere and wanted what was best for her. That maybe she did fit in better with her family than with the people in this town. People like Mrs. Decker, now glaring through the front window of the hardware store.
No one in this town cared about her the way her family did, difficult as they were.
“Maybe you’re right.” She sighed and glanced up at Ron’s face, seeking comfort.
She didn’t find it. Instead, he was smiling, a big, self-congratulatory smile.
It made her pause. Was she really that easy to persuade? “I’ll think about what you’ve said.” She stepped away from him. “I’m not sure what I want to do.”
“Of course you’re not,” he said impatiently. “You’re never sure.”
His tone brought back all the things she didn’t like about living with her family. She walked a few feet away.
It was as if the distance removed the spell he’d cast on her. She could leave Pleasant Shores, yes. She probably would. But she’d made a commitment to Bisky, and despite any issues with the people here, with Isaac, despite any reputation her family had, she needed to fulfill her obligation to her cousin.
She opened her mouth to say as much to her brother when he stepped forward and picked up Fang.
“Hey,” she said, “he doesn’t like it when—”
“I’ll just put him in the car,” Ron said smoothly, and walked it that direction.
She held on tight to the leash. “Wait a second! You can’t—”
“Come on.” He pulled on the dog.
Fang’s collar tightened and he yelped. The pull on his neck was hurting him. Gemma dropped the leash.
Ron strode faster toward the car.
Gemma’s heart turned over. Could Ron really be so awful as to... “Fang!” she cried. “Ron, give him to me this minute!”
But Ron tucked the dog under one arm and opened the car’s back door.
* * *
ISAAC STRODE TOWARD the exit of the store. He couldn’t let her jerk of a brother take her dog.
“Don’t involve yourself.” His aunt followed him, putting a restraining hand on his arm. “Nothing but heartache that way.”
He appreciated his aunt’s loyalty: she’d stood by his side, in so many ways, especially running the store and caring for his mom. But she wasn’t right about everything. He stopped and gave her shoulders a little squeeze. “Have to help,” he said, and marched out, reaching the big dark sedan’s back door just as Gemma’s brother—Ron, if he recalled correctly—was starting to close it. Inside, Fang whined pitifully.
Isaac shoved the man out of the way and looked across the car at Gemma. “Do you want Fang in here?”
“No!” She rushed around the car, reached in past Isaac and picked up the dog. She cuddled the quivering little creature close to her chest as she walked away from the car, th
en looked back at Isaac. “Thank you! My poor baby!”
Ron glared at Isaac. “Hands off my car.”
Isaac lifted his hands immediately and held them up. “Not interested in your car.”
Ron snorted. “Nicest car you’ll ever see, working at your mom’s hardware store. You locals.”
Mom can’t work here anymore. But he didn’t put words to the thought. That wasn’t of interest to Ron, nor to Gemma either, most likely.
And what Ron had said was true: he was a local, a small-town man tied to a family business. Gemma and her family were out of his league.
“Loser.” Ron’s lip curled.
It was what had happened before, years ago: Ron and his friend had made Isaac feel small, and he’d given up. But now, as he looked at Gemma, something reconfigured in his mind, like the pieces clicked together differently.
He looked at Ron’s sneering face. “I earn an honest wage and I help people.” Maybe it wasn’t what would impress this family, including Gemma, but it was who he was.
“That’s right.” Goody had come out of her shop and now stood beside him. “He keeps the store running, and we need a hardware store here in Pleasant Shores.”
“Wow, he keeps a small-town store running?” Ron’s snotty implication was clear.
“He gave up everything for his family,” Aunt Jean said from the other side of him. “He’s worth ten of you.”
Isaac stepped back and put an arm around each of the two older women. “Thanks,” he said, meaning it, although his feelings were mixed. Someday, it would be nice to impress a woman his own age.
Someone like Gemma. But he wasn’t going to wait around for her reaction. He gave Goody and Aunt Jean another quick shoulder squeeze, then turned and went back inside. He had a store to run.
* * *
“HE SAVED THE DAY, is what I heard!” Bisky lifted her glass of wine, and Gemma clinked her own against her cousin’s. “He’s your hero!”
Gemma shook her head. “He would have done the same for anyone. You should have seen how fast he got out of there.”
“What did Ron do then?” Bisky asked, frowning. She and Ron had never gotten along.
“He cussed me out and left.” Gemma shrugged. “Typical Ron. He doesn’t like it when he doesn’t get his way.” She ran a finger around the edge of her glass. “They look down on me, you know.”
“Who?”
“Isaac and his aunt,” she said, and told of the remark she’d overheard.
“Oh, Mrs. Decker...” Bisky waved a hand. “She’s a fixture in this town, and she’s great most of the time, but she does get a little negative about tourists. Outsiders, really. You’re not a tourist.”
“But I am an outsider.”
“You don’t have to be.” Bisky waved at the waiter and held up two fingers. “You know what, you should stay here.”
“I am staying. I promised you I’d get Sunny’s room remodel done, and I will.” Although how she was going to work with Isaac, she didn’t know.
Oh, he’d saved Fang, but that had been a general act of kindness. He’d left right away, without even responding to her thanks.
“That’s great, but I meant you should stay on permanently.”
Gemma looked out the window, where the bay shone like a silvery mirror. “Live here, you mean? Mom and Ron would never put up with it.”
“Your mom and Ron aren’t on your side. They never have been.”
“But they’re all I’ve got.” Even as she said the words, bleakness settled in on her.
“Gemma. Think back. They shipped you off here every summer because they didn’t want to deal with you, but you took what they did and made it a positive,” she said. “And we love you. I love you. Sunny and I are family, too.”
Gemma’s eyes filled. “Thank you. I love you guys, and I love Pleasant Shores.”
“It’s a wonderful town,” Bisky went on. “And I know, I think that because I live here, but everyone who gets to know the place falls in love with it. You could stay with me and Sunny until you got on your feet.” She grinned. “You’d have to redecorate her old bedroom, but that’s right up your alley.”
“How would I get on my feet, though? It’s not like I’m struggling, but I do need to earn a living, eventually. And I don’t have the skills for most of the tourist-related jobs...”
Bisky waved a hand. “You don’t want a tourist job. They last only six months of the year, so it’s an incredible scramble for most. No, you should start your decorating business here.”
“In Pleasant Shores? Who would pay me to decorate?”
“There are more and more wealthy people here, on the other side of the peninsula. You could drum up a good business, helping them decorate. They’re second homes for most, and they don’t have a lot of time to devote to them.”
The idea was actually intriguing. But Isaac... Could she live in the same town with him, see him often and know he scorned her? Could her heart take that?
She took a sip of wine and shook her head. “I just don’t think I can do it.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE REST OF THE WEEK, Isaac and Gemma managed to avoid each other. Which was good, Isaac thought as he approached Bisky’s house on the day Bisky’s daughter, Sunny, was supposed to come home.
Bisky had insisted that both he and Gemma be present for the big reveal. Which meant he’d see Gemma today, probably for the last time.
He ran his fingers through his hair, always unruly, and knocked on Bisky’s door.
Gemma answered, wearing red jeans and a white gauzy shirt, her hair loose around her shoulders. His mouth went dry.
Fang scampered out from the kitchen, barking madly, and she scooped him into her arms.
“Come on in,” she said, and she sounded awkward, as awkward as he felt.
He wished things could have been different, wished she could stick around, that she wasn’t from a family that had given her such high expectations.
He walked in. “Where’s Bisky?”
“She went to Sunny’s friend’s house to pick Sunny up. She should be right back.”
He cast about for something neutral to talk about. “Is everything ready?”
“For the big reveal? Yes, I think so.”
Fang strained in her arms, staring at Isaac, struggling toward him.
“Do you want to take him?” she asked. “He’s been touchy since the Ron thing.”
“Sure.” He felt fond of the dog by now, glad he’d been able to protect him from Gemma’s brother.
She held out the dog, and Isaac tucked him snugly against his chest. Surprisingly enough, the dog settled immediately.
“We’re home!” Bisky’s voice came, loud.
“Who are you yelling to?” Sunny sounded cranky. Uh-oh. From what he’d seen of family groups at the hardware store, there was no cranky like teen girl cranky.
“We have company,” Bisky said, ushering the girl in the door.
Sunny quickly concealed the irritated expression on her face, but not quickly enough that Isaac didn’t see it. Oh well. Sunny was a nice girl, but she’d just gotten back from a school trip. She probably wanted her mom to herself.
“We’ll be on our way soon, I promise, hon,” Gemma said, giving Sunny the briefest of hugs. “I’m all packed.”
She was packed? She was leaving?
She couldn’t leave. Something close to panic rose up in Isaac’s chest.
“So,” Bisky said, “we need to head up to the attic for just a minute. These two are taking a box with them, and I want to make sure it’s okay with you.”
It seemed like a fairly ridiculous excuse. Sure enough, Sunny balked. “Whatever it is, it’s fine,” she said, yawning. “I just want to take a nap.”
“Soon,” Bisky said firmly, and to her credit, Sunny didn’t protest anymore.
She just sighed and stood up.
They all trooped up the stairs. Sunny glanced into her bedroom and did a double take. “What did you do to my room?”
“I’ll explain in a minute. Up here, hon.” Bisky ushered Sunny to the stairs that led to the attic. Isaac and Gemma trailed behind.
Bisky stepped aside so Sunny could go first.
Sunny wasn’t paying a lot of attention, but when they got to the top, she stopped still, almost causing a pileup of people behind her.
“Mom? What did you do?” Sunny rushed to the window, then spun and looked at the bed, now covered with a pristine white spread and blue pillows. Gauzy curtains hung in the windows, and the carpet he’d put in looked nice, all newly vacuumed. No TV—Bisky had been adamant about that—but there was a low bookshelf holding schoolbooks and paperbacks.
“Just a little surprise,” Bisky said, smiling with what looked like satisfaction.
“But how could you...money’s so tight...” Sunny burst into tears and flung her arms around her mother. “I love it so much, Mom. Thank you.”
Bisky looked shiny-eyed, too, as she held her daughter. Isaac felt more rewarded by this job than he had in ages. It was great to make a family happy.
Deep inside, he longed for a child of his own, because moments like this were what it was all about. Doing things for each other, making each other happy.
He felt an arm snake around his waist and looked down to see Gemma smiling up at him. “Good stuff,” he said, and draped an arm over her shoulders.
She felt absolutely, perfectly right at his side.
Sunny was moving around the room now, looking into the bathroom, raving over the wall hangings.
And Bisky was laughing. “Don’t give me too much credit,” she said, gesturing toward Gemma and Isaac. “It’s these two who did all the work.”
Sunny came over then and hugged them both. “I can’t believe you did this for me,” she said. “I can’t even tell you how happy I am right now. I’m going to love having this privacy and space.”
Isaac saw Bisky’s happy expression slip, just for a moment. Maybe she hadn’t thought about it, but Sunny was going to spend a lot of time up here, away from her mother. It was right, and the nature of things, but it couldn’t be easy for a single mom of one.
Home to the Harbor--A Novel Page 29
