Something to Treasure

by Virginia McCullough

  “Dawn?”

  She glanced up. “Sorry. My thoughts are racing. I take everything you said seriously. And I want to be friends, too.” She paused before adding, “But I don’t like hearing you run yourself down. You’re not perfect. Big deal.”

  She smiled and slung her bag over her shoulder. “But I really do have to go.”

  “We’re good?”

  With a quick laugh, she said, “We’re good.”

  She left and didn’t look back.

  Chapter Twelve

  JERROD SPOTTED CARRIE skipping across the parking lot, with Melody following behind. She had the hood of her jacket pulled up over her head and tied to keep it in place. The rain was only a warm, gentle drizzle, but if the forecast was correct, they were in for a third straight day of rain. That meant cancelling a tour and rescheduling two diving excursions. No business dependent on tourists welcomed rain on the weekend. His was no different.

  Jerrod was on the way to meet Dawn at the chamber of commerce building a few blocks away. He hadn’t expected to run into his Carrie out that Saturday morning.

  “Hi, Daddy,” she said. “Are you going somewhere?”

  “Well, sweetie, I have a meeting with some people Dawn wants me to talk to.”

  “Can I come?”

  “Not this time, honey.” When Carrie’s mouth turned down it felt like an indictment. “It wouldn’t be any fun for you. Just grown-ups discussing stuff.”

  “I still want to go.” She sounded whiny. Notable in itself. She almost never showed that kind of pique.

  “Here’s the thing. This is something I need to do, and I can’t take you along. But I’ll be back in time for dinner.” He glanced at Melody, who was standing quietly a few steps back while he handled the situation. “I’ll make your favorite spaghetti and we’ll share it together, just you and me. We’ll give Melody a night off. How about that?”

  “I want Melody to be there, too.”

  Jerrod let out a quick laugh and looked at Melody, who nodded. “Okay, I’ll fix dinner for you and Melody.”

  “Promise you’ll be back? Promise?”

  “Absolutely.” Curling his fingers into a loose fist, he held out his hand for a quick fist bump to mark his promise. Carrie started that little ritual. She’d picked it up at school and it was her favorite thing. When he touched his big hand to hers, he sealed his own resolve to get home on time. “But if I’m going to be on time for dinner later, I better get moving.”

  “Okay.” She ran a few steps toward the office door. “I want to see Wyatt and Rob. And Gordon.”

  “I’m sorry, honey, but he’s not here today. He’s with his dad for the weekend.”

  “But I wanted to see him.” The whiny voice was back.

  “Sorry, sweetie, not today.” He missed Gordon when he wasn’t hanging around the office. Just like he missed Dawn when he didn’t see her.

  With an unhappy expression, Carrie disappeared inside the office. He asked Melody why she’d brought Carrie to the dock. They usually didn’t stop by randomly.

  “She wanted to come down to see you. I told her you were probably busy. I actually thought you might be gone already,” Melody responded, her voice slightly exasperated. “Then she would have had her visit with Rob and Wyatt and we’d have gone home. I called Heidi’s mom to see if she’d bring her over this afternoon, but they’re going to some kind of family thing.”

  “Is it all this rain?” he asked. “Is that why she’s restless?”

  “I suppose.” Melody folded her arms over her chest. She looked away for a second before answering him. “I’m not sure what’s going on with her today, but she’s seemed out of sorts for a few days. She’s been talking a lot about school. A bunch of the kids at her preschool are starting kindergarten at the Lincoln School a couple of blocks from the house.”

  “I know the one you mean.”

  “Carrie asked me a couple of times if she’ll be going there with Heidi,” Melody said, “but I’ve been noncommittal and have tried to change the subject.”

  “You don’t know what to tell her,” Jerrod said. “How could you? I haven’t finalized the plan yet.” That was a hedge. He’d made up his mind to leave Two Moon Bay in the fall, so why couldn’t he just say so? But every time he started to let the others in on his decision, something held him back. He wasn’t being fair to Carrie, but this was no way to treat Melody, either. Or Wyatt and Rob. This freewheeling life of the last couple of years was probably reaching its expiration date.

  “This is my fault.” He looked up to the sky for no particular reason other than the change in the rain. It was coming down harder now. “You need to get out of this rain, and I need to go. But tell me this. Are you okay either way? If we stay here or if we go back to Florida?”

  She hesitated, but not for long. “I’m fine with both places. You know I love Carrie and I don’t have other plans right now. But I’d like to know if we’re packing up in a few weeks. It feels unsettled,” she said, her tone pointed. “If it’s like that for me, the uncertainty probably affects Carrie, too.”

  “You’re right. I need to make a decision.”

  “Okay, then, we’ll see you later.” She narrowed her eyes as if warning him. “Don’t forget about that spaghetti.”

  “I won’t. You can count on that.” Fixing an easy dinner was all well and good, but it wasn’t hiding his apparent indecision as well as he thought. Normally, he’d have walked to the chamber meeting, but it was raining too hard. When he got to the building, he pulled the van into a parking place next to Dawn. She quickly left her car and climbed into his passenger seat.

  “Good morning,” Dawn said in her usual cheerful way.

  He grunted. “I guess.”

  “What? You don’t like this weather?”

  “Now you’re just baiting me,” he said with a cynical laugh.

  “Oops. I’m sorry. You really are in a bad mood. I was just joking around.”

  The rain hit the windshield and the roof, rapidly turning into a heavy downpour.

  “Don’t apologize,” he said. “I’m in the midst of mishandling my life once again. Well, really, it’s Carrie’s life I’m talking about.”

  “What brought that on?”

  “It seems like I only drove my van into town with Carrie a couple of weeks ago. I’ve barely settled into the house. The business is just getting off the ground.” He was going somewhere with the conversation. Or maybe he was only rambling and wouldn’t come to any conclusion. “Now Carrie’s friends at preschool are all excited about starting kindergarten.”

  “And you don’t know if you should enroll her? Is that it?”

  “In part. Sure.” He stared out the window at the rain-blurred cedars that formed a fence between the chamber building and the Victorian B and B next door. It was so hard to picture himself packing up and heading to Key West for an entire winter season.

  “Carrie has friends in her preschool, so she probably expects to go off to kindergarten with them,” Dawn said.

  “That’s what’s weighing on me.” He thought back to the darkest days after he’d left Bali to come back to Key West with Carrie and the crew. Would he ever stop regretting his inability to come out of the shadows and take care of Carrie himself? An old friend had sent Melody to him. She’d opened her arms—and her heart—to his child.

  Lately, he’d begun questioning some of the assumptions that had dominated his thoughts and influenced his actions. Why did he continue to cling to the idea he was too wounded to be a father again? Too flawed to deserve a real life? Even thinking in those terms was beginning to sound hollow, even to him.

  “Without fully realizing it, Melody pushed me to begin acting like a real father again. Now she’d like some answers about her future. Imagine that?”

  Dawn kept her eyes on the windshield, but smiled when she sai
d, “Gordon gets a big kick out of Carrie when he sees her around the office and the dock.”

  “She was very disappointed when I told her he wasn’t in the office today.”

  Dawn sighed. “That makes two kids. Gordon wasn’t particularly happy when his dad picked him up last night.”

  “No? Why?”

  “He’s only been helping you in the office for a few days, but he likes being around you and Wyatt and Rob. I think he feels grown-up when he’s working with Wyatt to update the website or the blog. This weekend arrived like an interruption.”

  “I’m glad he doesn’t feel exploited,” Jerrod said, pleased. “If you can keep a secret, Gordon is a little...uh, awestruck by Wyatt. He seems sort of tongue-tied around her.”

  “He talks about her a lot. She’s very cool.” Dawn laughed. “Especially her name. He thinks she’s pretty, too, but is shy about saying so. Instead, he goes on about how brilliant she is. That’s his new word, brilliant.”

  “Wyatt is fond of him. She treats him like one of our company family now.” That was a stupid thing to say, but he couldn’t suck the words back in his mouth. Gordon wasn’t part of their vagabond crew. He’d be left behind when Jerrod packed up and took off.

  His thoughts turned to the meeting a few minutes ahead. An active chamber of commerce, Dawn said they were laser-beam focused on the future. How ironic. It was struggling with thoughts about the future that left him jumpy and tense.

  “Do you have questions about the meeting?” Dawn asked. “I believe they’re expecting about a dozen people.”

  “Not really. But I do wonder if it makes much sense for me to be in a meeting like this.” He heard frustration in his tone. What did he have to offer the Two Moon Bay Chamber of Commerce, anyway? He wasn’t even feeling very sociable. “Maybe it would have been better to wait until next spring. Here it is August and there’s not much left of the season.” Now he was acting as if leaving was a sure thing. He confused himself.

  Dawn fell silent and turned away, but not for long. Her jaw rigid, she tightened her grip on her handbag. Tension built in what now seemed like an awfully small space.

  “Look, Jerrod, let’s clarify something. When I set this up, I told you the chamber was looking for local business owners interested in future development in town and the county.” She peered intently into his face. “It’s a task force meant to generate ideas to help the chamber plan for the next ten or twenty years.”

  “I am interested,” he protested, immediately regretting his attempt to defend himself, but resenting her implication that he didn’t understand what this group was about.

  “But the series of weekly meetings starts in the fall,” she said. “When I first talked to you about this, you assured me you were staying through October and would be back next spring—May first. The seasonal businesses like yours are included in this project because they’re essential to Two Moon Bay.”

  She relaxed her jaw and exhaled. “If you’re not going to be here then, please tell me. I convinced the organizers to include you because everyone wants the outdoor businesses represented.”

  “That’s smart, too,” Jerrod said. “I get it.”

  “You’re a big picture kind of person with a concern for what makes the area special in the first place.” Impatience still colored her tone. “I sold you to them because you have a grasp of the past. Let’s just say I was a pretty strong advocate for including you.”

  “I know.”

  Glancing at the clock on the dash, he also knew he was cutting it close on time. It was unfair to Dawn all around. She took commitments seriously.

  “What do you want to do?” she asked with a scoff. “Short-term, I mean.”

  He almost winced against the unmistakable edge in her voice. But she’d put her reputation on the line over this chamber task force.

  “I’ll stay at least until early November.” He’d enroll Carrie in school, which would make her happy. If he ended up moving everybody to Key West, she’d adjust to a new school. But maybe he’d end up staying after all. He had an idea or two about what he wanted to do in the off season, but he wasn’t ready to talk about it. “And yes, I intend to be back in the spring.”

  She put her hand on the door handle. “Okay, then, no ambivalence?”

  “I didn’t say that,” he said dryly. “Ambivalence lives in every cell in my body, but I’m making a decision. I need to talk to Melody and the rental agency for the two houses. I’ll work out arrangements for Wyatt and Rob to go back to Key West a few weeks ahead of me.”

  Dawn smiled but shook her head, almost in disbelief. “I have to say I’m relieved. I didn’t relish the idea of showing up only to pull you out of the group.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been going back and forth in my head, stay, leave, stay, leave. Put Carrie in school. No, wait until we’re in Florida. Give notice on the houses. No, wait.”

  “You could have fooled me,” Dawn said. “You seem to be going along fine day by day. You—and your crew—seem happy here. You fit in.”

  If he said what was on the tip of his tongue, he’d be sending the wrong message—again. But on some days he chalked up all the good things that had happened to him because of Dawn. If he was managing, it was because of her.

  * * *

  WHEN THE TWO-HOUR meeting ended, Dawn had begun to wish she was a member of the task force. She’d been born in the area, so she had as much at stake as anyone sitting around the long conference table. And that included Jerrod. Despite her reassuring words about appearing happy, she was right to call out his indecision about his plans, immediate and future. But once in the meeting, she understood why his audiences took to him.

  “You endeared yourself to your colleagues in that meeting,” she said, standing in the shade of the building. The rain had stopped for the moment, but the air was muggy.

  “I’m glad you were there.”

  “Not that you needed me. But it was understood I’d sit in on the meeting,” she said. “They might need me this winter to help explain the task force to the public.”

  “So much for the sidewalk sale being the end of your volunteer work for the year.”

  She laughed. “I was only kidding myself. This happens all the time. I’m sure you understand why this task force is important to me.”

  “I do. I feel a lot better having made a decision for the next few months.”

  Reminding herself it was none of her business, she kept quiet. She’d been putting effort into pushing Jerrod out of her mind except when the issue was relevant to his business.

  “Let’s get some lunch,” Jerrod said. “If you have time?”

  “Sure. Let me think of a place you haven’t been yet.” There were so many good places to choose from.

  “I’ve been meaning to go to the Half Moon Café.”

  “You still haven’t tried out one of our best all-around lunch and dinner spots?” she asked, surprised he hadn’t been there with Rob and Wyatt. But maybe he didn’t socialize with them after working together all day. “Then that’s where we’ll go.” She couldn’t resist adding, “You still have a lot to see in the next couple of months.”

  “I know you’re teasing,” he said. “but I don’t have to see everything this year. I’ll be back in the spring.”

  Maybe, maybe not. When it came to Jerrod, she’d become a skeptic.

  They left their cars and walked down Bay Street, chatting about the meeting and the naturalist, Morton Price. Along with his wife, Morton ran a not-for-profit center that offered programs to local schools.

  “Morton has turned so many of our kids into conservationists,” Dawn said. In his eighties now, Morton had singled Jerrod out as the kind of leader the task force needed to preserve the character of Two Moon Bay. Unlike some folks, he didn’t care that Jerrod wasn’t born there.

  Dawn knew the head of the tourist info
rmation center, and a resort owner, and the principal of the high school, who had a role, too. “So many stakeholders in a project like this.”

  “I’m glad they see this task force as the beginning, not the end,” Jerrod said.

  If nothing else, Jerrod had her thinking more deeply about the place she called home. Even Gordon was becoming more attuned to the world he lived in, no longer taking the lake for granted. Diving with Jerrod—and working for him—had made becoming a marine biologist seem even more exciting, and way cool. Pretty much everything her son liked fell under the umbrella of either cool—or now, brilliant—including Jerrod and his crew.

  With a laugh in her voice, she said, “Have you noticed my son’s limited vocabulary? How everything is way cool?”

  “It’s his favorite phrase,” Jerrod responded. “It’s my dad’s favorite phrase, too.”

  “My mom’s, too. That’s why I thought it would have been retired...replaced. But no end in sight.”

  “I suppose Carrie will pick it up soon.” He laughed, but said, “I don’t know why I find this so funny.”

  “Me, neither, but I do.”

  They were still bantering back and forth about it when they went inside the café.

  “I’m glad to be indoors,” Jerrod said. “I’d just as soon not run into Carrie and Melody. I promised I’d make her and Melody my favorite spaghetti for dinner, but I’m happy to have an adult lunch.”

  “Me, too.”

  From the looks of things, the lunch crowd was thinning. At her request, the hostess seated them at a booth in the back. A nice quiet spot, Dawn thought. The little jump in her stomach was like a warning flag. She shouldn’t be happy about sitting in nice, quiet spots with Jerrod.

  Jerrod scanned the room, his expression amused.

  Dawn thought the Half Moon Café used the theme of the town’s name in a tasteful, fun way. In addition to wooden beams and trim, wainscoting covered the lower sections of the walls, so the flocked wallpaper with its silver moons and stars didn’t overwhelm the space. The theme carried through the menu and the great food kept bringing the crowds back.