“So you haven’t been avoiding me?” Steve looked pleased.
“No, I’ve been busy.” The shop had been cleaned from top to bottom, the books were now arranged by subject matter, and there was even a little kids’ table and chair set for the younger customers. The antique hand-knotted wool rug that was burned and singed beyond redemption had been given a proper burial in the Dumpster out back. There was still a hint of smoke in the shop, but at least she could now breathe.
By the number of customers coming in and out all day long, they had appreciated the changes too. Gordon was even complaining about having to work twice as hard now, but there had been a gleam in his eye when he had said it.
“Hold whatever thought you have that’s making you smile like that.” Steve flashed her a quick smile and then pulled the portable microphone out of his windbreaker. He used his binoculars for a moment and grinned.
Steve turned on the mike. “Ladies and gentlemen”—the other passengers quieted down—“if you all would look off the port side of the boat, which is the left side”—Steve waved his arm to the sea—“we are about to pass Sammy, a harbor seal.”
Juliet stared off into the calm sea. She didn’t see a seal.
“He’s a little hard to see just yet, but I wanted to give everyone ample time to find a good spot if they wanted to see him.” Steve pressed in closer to her as a bunch of tourists flocked to the front of the boat. “We named him Sammy, because we’re not sure if he’s a Sam or a Samantha.”
Steve waved to his uncle in the wheelhouse, and there was a noticeable slowing of the boat. “Sammy likes to hang out in this part of the sea and can be spotted on most of our tours. The engines catch his attention, and he likes to stick his head out to investigate.”
Steve looked over his shoulder at the water. “The little bump in the calm water is his head, which you’ll see better as we pass.”
Juliet smiled as the bump indeed turned into a seal’s head. Sammy was gray with a few black markings and big black shiny eyes. The other tourists on the boat waved, yelled, and took a hundred photos. Sammy stared back with a total lack of interest.
Steve leaned in close. “What do you think he’s thinking?”
“That we’re the ones putting on the show, not him.”
Steve laughed. “Right you are.”
Steve turned the mike back on as Sammy was left behind and the engines once again screamed and billowed the occasional cloud of smoke. “As I said before we started, it takes awhile before we make it out to the whale feeding grounds. They are about twenty-five miles offshore. We have about another forty minutes before we reach them. Keep your eyes out for whales, even though they only rarely come in this close, but they have been known to in the past. If you have any questions, please come find me and I’ll be more than happy to answer them.”
“Impressive. How many times a day do you do this?”
“Two to three times a day, every day, seven days a week.” Steve gave her a long look. “The schedule is hell on my social life.”
“I can imagine.” What would she know about having a social life? She didn’t have one unless one counted parent-teacher conferences as a social event.
Steve looked as though he wanted to ask her another question, but they became surrounded by a group of giggling ten-year-old girls and a harried, green-looking mother. As Steve patiently started to answer their hundred and one questions, Juliet slid to her left and away from the group. It wouldn’t be fair to the other passengers if she hogged all of Steve’s time.
Thirty-five minutes later, the boat suddenly slowed down. Hurricane-force winds stopped blowing her hair and the windbreaker felt funny not being plastered to her chest. She could finally breathe normally and relax her death grip on the railing.
She heard Steve’s voice come over the speaker. “We have reached the feeding grounds. This is where everyone has to help and be my eyes. I need you all to search the water for anything unusual. Sometimes you can actually see the blow, which is the water vapor being exhaled through the whales’ blowholes. The whales we usually spot along here only need to breathe anywhere from five to fifteen minutes, but they can hold their breath for up to forty minutes. Sometimes they surface so fast you will see only the fin, and other times you might see their flukes, which are their tail fins, come out of the water. So you need to be quick and ready with the cameras.”
Juliet chuckled as she scanned the calm sea. Some tourist she’d make. She hadn’t brought a camera.
Someone shouted on the port side of the boat, and everyone ran toward that side. She stayed where she was and gripped the railing as the boat shifted its balance. Steve’s voice crackled over the loudspeakers. “Easy, it’s nothing. No whale yet.”
A man by the front of the boat shouted. Twenty-five passengers stampeded toward the front as the boat slowly moved through the water.
Juliet stood by the back of the boat, casually scanning the water and enjoying the sun on her face, now that it was thawing out. She unzipped her jacket and thought about taking it off. There were seven false alarms before an actual sighting was made, far off the port side.
The boat turned in that direction as Steve, who had binoculars trained on that area, began to speak. “It’s a fin whale, and a pretty big one at that.” Steve looked up at Lawrence and pointed in the direction he wanted the boat to go. “He didn’t dive deep, so he’ll probably be up for air in about seven minutes or so.”
Juliet joined the crowd on the port side of the boat. If they hadn’t capsized yet, she didn’t think her weight would tip them over the edge. Everyone grew quiet and waited.
It took eleven minutes for the fin whale to make his reappearance, but by the oohs, ahs, and the clicking of the cameras it had been worth the wait. She stood there in awe as the long, dark whale barely broke the water with his head. He arched his back and she had a clear view of his ridiculously little fin, considering his size, and part of his tail as he went back under. The amazing part was, he had been about forty feet away from the boat, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he had been bigger than the boat.
“There he goes, folks. I estimate him to be about seventy-five feet long. Fin whales can get to about eighty feet in length. He’s a baleen whale, which means he doesn’t have teeth. He has hundreds of thin plates in his mouth, which are called baleen, that he uses to screen his food. He can be found in all the oceans, not just off the coast of Maine.”
“What does he eat?” asked one of the girls, who thankfully no longer was giggling and annoying everyone on board.
“Mainly plankton, which are drifting masses of tiny animals and plants, but a fin whale also eats anchovies, herring, and other small fish.”
“Do they eat people?” asked a little boy around eight. The boy looked hopeful.
“No,” said Steve, chuckling. He glanced up from the crowd of kids surrounding him, half a boat length away, and smiled right at Juliet.
She felt that smile clear to her knees.
Steve’s hair once again was pulled back in a ponytail, and he was wearing the same windbreaker he had the other morning in the shop. When she had walked down the gangplank to get onto the boat, he had been there collecting tickets, but his back had been toward her. He hadn’t seen her until he turned to take her ticket. First surprise, then joy as he recognized her had been in his golden, light brown eyes. There had been no way for him to fake that look. Steven Blake had been very happy to see her.
Juliet felt her heart give a little jolt of awareness as she slowly smiled back. She had no idea where this was going because she had to head back to Boston in another week. She had a third-grade classroom to pull together and report in to her mother. Victoria Carlyle wanted a complete report on Gordon Hanley. Their nightly phone calls no longer were satisfying her mother.
Chapter Eleven
Matt felt funny driving Sierra’s rental SUV everywhere, but there was no help for it. Austin needed the safety seat, and there was no way the bulky seat and two adults coul
d fit in his pickup truck. He glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled at Austin. “You doing okay back there, buddy?”
Austin grinned. “Super-duper.”
He chuckled. Austin had picked up that particular saying from Tyler. “We’re almost there.” He was taking Austin to his place while Sierra, Norah, and Norah’s mom headed into Bangor to firm up some orders for the wedding and do some shopping. Austin would have been bored out of his mind, so Matthew volunteered to show him his shop and where he lived. It was one and the same.
He rented the old garage with an apartment above it for two reasons. One, it had everything he needed, even though he had outgrown the shop space three years ago. Two, and more important, it was cheap. He had better use for his money than paying rent. He had a dream to buy. Lately, it looked as though that dream would never be fulfilled, but he hadn’t given up total hope. His brothers didn’t call him the dreamer of the family for nothing.
Millicent Wyndham knew how important the lighthouse was to him. Hadn’t she given him the heads-up about the hotel chain sniffing around looking to buy the property? Millicent had been truthful and up-front with him. At seventy-four, she claimed she wasn’t getting any younger. Considering the steel trap of a mind that she still possessed, he had his doubts. Millicent would probably outlive them all. Since she had no heirs to leave her belongings to, she was looking for ways to help the town.
Millicent had married Jefferson Wyndham when she was eighteen. Jefferson was the son and only heir of the Wyndham fortune. The Wyndhams had made their money and had employed most of the town building ships at a time when wooden ships had ruled the seas. The Wyndhams’ legacy was Misty Harbor, and Millicent was carrying on that tradition.
Millicent would make sure her “baby” was taken care of into the future, no matter whom it hurt or how many toes she had to step on. If Millicent thought it would be in the town’s best interest to have a major hotel built next to the lighthouse, he would wager everything he had in the bank that the hotel would be built. Money mattered to the feisty old matriarch—she wasn’t stupid by any stretch of the imagination—but the town’s welfare mattered more.
Matt considered himself a reasonable man, one who could look at both sides of an argument. The major hotel would generate more tourists, which in turn would generate more money being spent in town. Businesses would prosper. The town would prosper. The hundred-room hotel also would bring a lot of jobs to the locals. Businesses would pop up all over the place to cater to the guests. It seemed like a win-win situation.
Until he thought about the history.
Misty Harbor was founded on fishing, lumber, and eventually one of the largest shipbuilding operations on the East Coast. There was a lot of history in the town. The lighthouse was packed full of history—important history to him and every other resident in town. His family had Carrie’s Hill. Edna and Bill McCain had gotten married in front of the lighthouse wearing flowers in their hair and no shoes back in the late sixties. He could name at least four kids who had been conceived while their parents played in the tall grass under the summer moon.
All to be bulldozed for the sake of what some called progress. It was enough to break a man’s heart.
“Are we there yet?” asked Austin as he playfully kicked the back of the driver’s seat.
Matt wondered if he had picked up that bad habit off of Tyler or he had been doing it before now. “This is my street.” The road they were on was close to Sunset Cove but had none of the views. From his second-floor apartment he had a wonderful view of trees. Valley Road was just as its name claimed, in a valley. It was the main reason rent was so cheap. Who wanted to live on the coast of Maine and see nothing?
“See the big white building up ahead? That’s it.” It didn’t even look like a house. It looked like a big white square with two huge metal garage doors and wooden steps going up the side of the building. Thankfully his one-bedroom apartment had a more welcoming appearance—once guests were inside.
Austin looked out the window as Matt pulled into the parking lot. “Where’s your house?”
“Upstairs.” Matt shut off the SUV and opened his door. At least in the valley you could still smell the sea. He opened Austin’s door and released the boy from his seat.
Austin stood in the parking lot frowning at the building.
“What do you want to see first, the apartment or where I keep all my tools?” If he understood little boys as much as he thought he did, he knew which Austin would pick.
“Tools.” Austin continued to frown at the building, unsure where the door was located.
Bingo! “Follow me, and I’ll show you the side entrance.”
Austin followed him around the side of the building. Instead of going up the stairs to the apartment, Matt unlocked a door behind the steps.
He reached in, hit the light switch, then pressed the automatic garage-door openers that raised both metal doors. Without any air circulating, the shop tended to get warm.
Austin’s eyes grew wide as a cooling breeze and light flooded the shop. “Wow!”
There was nothing wrong with the boy’s Y chromosome. “I say that exact same thing some days.” He loved his shop, even though it was more than a bit crowded. It was a woodworker’s paradise and the envy of all his brothers. He spared no expense when it came to his tools.
“Please don’t touch anything, and I’ll give you a tour.” He wasn’t afraid Austin would damage anything, he was more worried about him getting hurt or cut on something sharp. Sierra would have his head on a platter if something happened to her son on his watch.
Austin stepped into the shop. “Do you make things?”
“Sure do. That’s what all these tools do.” He stepped over to the table saw. “This cuts big pieces of wood”—he pointed to a nearby chop saw—“and that one cuts little pieces.”
“Do you make houses?” Austin’s little head was bobbing and moving all around. He didn’t seem to know what to look at first. “What’s that?” he pointed to a piece of equipment that took up nearly an entire wall.
“It’s a lathe. It cuts wood by turning it.” Matt reached for one of the porch posts he was making for Paul’s house in his spare time. Since Ned and Norah had announced their wedding date, he hadn’t had five minutes of spare time. In fact, Sunday night he had been up till one in the morning cutting all the fancy ends to the pieces of the arbor. Thankfully, he didn’t have neighbors too close by.
“See how the wood goes in and out? It’s not just straight.”
Austin’s little fingers followed the curves the lathe had cut into the solid piece of wood. “Super-duper.”
“Yes, it is, and no, I don’t build houses.”
“Hotels?”
“No, I don’t build them either,” he said, chuckling.
“Cars?”
“No, they’re not made from wood.”
“Airplanes?” Austin’s forehead had a crease in it from thinking so hard.
“No, they aren’t made from wood either.” He was trying to think what he had made that would impress a four-year-old. “I made a toy box for Tyler, and a dollhouse for Morgan.”
“What did you make for Hunter?”
“A sailboat sandbox, and before you ask, I haven’t made anything for baby Amanda yet, because her parents haven’t told me what they would like for her. She’s still too little to play.”
“Oh.” Austin continued to eye every piece of equipment in the shop. “What’s this?”
“It’s a plane, and no, it doesn’t fly. It’s for smoothing a wood surface.” He had an entire shelf neatly lined with antique planes that he used in his work. They were his pride and joy, along with a case of hand-carving tools from the nineteenth century. The plane Austin was looking at was a new one.
Matt followed Austin around and automatically answered his hundred and one questions before saying, “I have an idea.” Anything had to be better than explaining for the fifth time why there was sawdust all over the floor. “Sinc
e your mom is going to be a while yet, how about you and I make something.” The ladies had gone shopping, and he figured the mall closed by ten, so they’d be lucky to see Sierra by eleven.
“What? A sandbox?”
“No, that’s too big for you to carry home.” Besides, he wasn’t even sure where Austin’s home was. He glanced around the shop and prayed for inspiration. What could they make that would be easy, quick, and small enough for Austin to manage? Since a brilliant idea didn’t whack him in the head, he went with an old standby. Thankfully, Austin was young enough not to know it was an old standby. “We can build a birdhouse.”
“A birdhouse?” Austin looked unsure.
“Sure. You hang it from a tree and put bird food in it. That way you get to see all kinds of birds.” He walked over to a huge bin filled with little pieces of scrap wood. “If we make it quick enough, I have some extra paint just sitting around. I think you’re old enough to give it a coat or two of paint.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Matt held up a piece of wood about twelve inches by ten inches. “Come on.” Matt showed him the wood. “We need a couple more pieces of wood about this size. Think you can help me find some in this mess?”
“Yeah.” Austin dug into the wood bin without being asked twice.
“Easy there. You don’t want to get a splinter.” He helped Austin select a few more pieces of wood and then they carried them over to his work table.
“First thing we need is a plan.” Matt laid out the pieces of wood, picked up Austin, and sat him on a stool.
Austin looked at the wood and nodded. In a serious tone, he said, “We need a plan.”
Matt bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “I’ll do all the cutting, but you have to sand and hammer in the nails.”
Austin smiled. “I know how to play in sand.”
This time he couldn’t contain his laughter. “It’s sandpaper, not sand.” He reached up on the pegboard and pulled down two pairs of safety goggles. He tightened the elastic band on the small pair and slid them onto Austin. “Safety first.”
A Misty Harbor Wedding Page 17
