by Toni Blake
“The sign out front, too, I bet,” Jack said.
And Polly smiled, clearly pleased. “Sure as shootin’. Sit anywhere that grabs ya. Nice view of the bay on that side,” she said pointing.
“Only the best for me,” Christy murmured under her breath, casting Jack a sly smile, and he had to work to hold in his laugh.
Despite the plethora of fish on the menu, they both ordered burgers. And Jack marveled aloud that he’d had no idea Coral Cove would be such a quirky place, and she laughed and said she hadn’t either, since she’d spent most of her previous time here in the newer, more commercialized area up the road except for days enjoyed on the beach itself.
“Thanks to me,” he said with a wink, “you get to see a whole new side to a place you thought you already knew.”
“And thanks to you,” she said, sounding more grateful than he expected, “I get to see my grandpa. Since I’m really not sure I could have afforded it without you.”
But Jack just shrugged. “You could have afforded the Happy Crab.”
Yet she gave a much more doubtful shrug in return. “Maybe, maybe not. But it’s a big help not to have to worry about that part, so thank you.”
It touched him—as so much about her had over the past day or so. And before that, too, if he was honest with himself. There was a reason he’d come on this trip, after all, and . . . aw hell, seemed useless at this point to deny that he’d started caring about her. But just keep that under control, pal, and everything will be fine.
They both looked up as an older man walked in the door wearing a fireman’s hat but otherwise dressed normally in a polo shirt and dark shorts. He crossed the restaurant toward the seafood buffet table, and a moment later, he called across the room to Polly, “This shrimp fresh? This shrimp doesn’t look fresh.”
“Of course it’s fresh,” she said, hands on her hips. “We wouldn’t put it out if it wasn’t.”
“Well, I’m not eating any of it,” he snapped back, then slid into a booth near the buffet, still in his fireman’s hat.
“Suit yourself,” Polly grumbled—then disappeared to return a moment later carrying two plates.
When she walked over and lowered them to Jack and Christy’s table, Jack glanced toward the fireman hat guy and said in a low voice to Polly, “Um, insane asylum escapee?”
“Nah, that’s just Abner,” she said with an easy shake of her head. She sounded completely relaxed about the guy despite the tense exchange Jack and Christy had just witnessed. “He likes hats. We humor him.”
Jack tipped his head back. “He comes in here often then?”
“Well, he kinda has to,” Polly replied. “He owns the place. And he’s my husband.”
Across the table from him, Christy tensed, clearly embarrassed, and her eyes went wide. “I’m so sorry we thought your husband was insane,” she said to the waitress in just slightly more than a whisper.
But Polly appeared unfazed as she waved a hand down through the air. “Not to worry—he’s pretty wacky sometimes. And damn picky about seafood for a man who chose to open a seafood restaurant. Fact is, though, when you love somebody, you just gotta accept ’em for who they are—flaws and all—and be happy you got ’em.”
And it was as they were exiting the restaurant twenty minutes later that Jack held the door for Christy, but looked back to find that she’d stopped to study the fisherman statue by the door. “Um . . . is it just me,” she asked, “or does he suddenly look familiar?”
So Jack looked, too—and then he smiled. “Damn, it’s Abner. She made him Abner. My God, I love this place.”
“I think I could, if I only knew how to begin.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Chapter 9
THE SUNNYMEADE Retirement and Healthcare Center sat on a wide swath of ground with views of the water in two directions. Palm trees dotted the well-kept lawn and a winding drive edged with bright pink azaleas and red hibiscus led to the wide sliding glass doors that welcomed visitors. As they approached the doors, Christy noticed picnic tables in shaded areas and some wicker seating under the wide awning to one side of the flat, sprawling building.
“I can see why he likes it here,” Jack said. A sweet evening sea breeze wafted past and the calls of seagulls echoed in the distance. “Getting old and being in a rest home isn’t my idea of fun, but if I ever have to be in one, I could see picking a place like this.”
Yet Christy couldn’t help feeling a little more skeptical about the whole concept, and a little sad. “You’re right—it’s nice. I guess it’s just . . . a hard idea for me to get used to. I’ve never seen him here—I’m not used to it. I’m used to him being my fun grandpa who carried me up the shore on his shoulders when I was little.”
“But you said he’s happy here, right?” he reminded her.
She nodded. Then tilted her head, remembering how true that was. And why she needed to help him stay here. “Actually, sometimes he sounds far happier here than I can really understand,” she admitted.
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t try to understand,” he advised her, “and instead just be glad.”
This time her nod felt more content. Sometimes it really did pay not to overthink things. “Good point. Now let’s go in—I’m excited to see him.”
Stopping at the front desk, she smiled at the slightly overweight thirty-something man sitting behind it in a pair of dark scrubs and said, “We’re here to see Charlie Knight. I’m his—”
“Granddaughter,” the man said with a big smile, his mannerisms quickly informing her he was gay. “We know all about it. He’s going to be thrilled you’re here. I’m Ron, by the way, and it’s so nice to meet you. We all love Charlie.” Then he pushed energetically to his feet, adding, “Follow me.”
As they walked down a hall that felt like a cross between a hospital and a hotel—bright and very sterile-feeling yet painted in pleasant shades—Ron said in a low, confiding way over his shoulder, “Visiting hours end soon, but you can stay late as long as you’re quiet. No one will mind—we just like to keep it down for the residents who go to sleep early.”
“Thank you,” Christy said in a hushed tone. “I appreciate that.”
Walking into her grandfather’s single-room dwelling felt surreal to her. Like the hallway, it was partly about comfort but also partly about care. A flat-screen TV hung on the wall above a small bookcase. Built-in shelving in one corner, near a comfy-looking easy chair and loveseat, held framed photos of her, her parents, her late grandma, and a framed black-and-white shot of her grandparents together when they were young, back in the early sixties. But a hospital bed and medical monitors reminded her that her grandpa couldn’t take care of himself anymore.
Though all that flew into the periphery of her thoughts when she spotted Grandpa Charlie seated in a wheelchair in one corner, a dinner tray in his lap. Oh God, he looked old—so much older than when she’d last seen him, at her parents’ funeral. She knew their tragic deaths had taken a terrible toll on him, too. And yet . . . his smile when he saw her lit up the room and filled her with a happiness so vibrant that it somehow caught her off guard.
“It’s so good to see you,” she blurted out. “I’m so glad I came!” Already she could feel that sense of family love—the sense of home that was about who you were with rather than where—all running intensely through her veins.
“My sweet grandbaby’s here at last,” he said with a happy laugh. “Come give your old grandpa a hug.”
Old. He was. More than she’d realized somehow—more than she’d let herself believe. Part of her wanted to cry, yet she shoved that aside and marveled at how bright his eyes remained as she crossed the room and bent down to wrap her arms around his shoulders. As he embraced her, she drank in a warmth that she’d missed. The beach was nice, but this was why she had come.
After they exchanged a few pleasantries about the drive down, Grandpa Charlie said, “Introduce me to your friend.”
She looked up to see that Jack had hung back near the door, clearly not wanting to interrupt their reunion. She’d already told her grandpa quite a bit about him, explaining he was a friend who’d offered to come with her to make sure she arrived safely, and who was paying for part of the stay. “This is Jack,” she said simply.
Jack stepped up, held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, sir.”
As her grandpa shook Jack’s hand, she could sense him quietly sizing Jack up. It reminded her that he’d always bragged he was a good judge of character, that he could tell quickly what he thought of someone, so now she stood watching his eyes, watching the exchange, wondering how he would assess this man she’d so quickly come to trust. “Hear you been helpin’ my girl here out with some stuff around her apartment that needed fixin’.”
Jack nodded. “Happy to do it.”
“What with her bein’ on her own, puts my mind at ease a little to know she’s got someone willin’ to help her out, look out for her some when she needs it.”
Jack cast Christy a quick glance she couldn’t quite read, then dropped his gaze back to Grandpa Charlie. “Anything she needs, sir, I’m here for her.” And Christy’s heart melted a little.
“You can ditch the ‘sir’ and call me Charlie, by the way,” he told Jack, and she knew that meant her grandfather had decided Jack was a good guy. And it struck her that no matter what happened—between her and Jack on this trip, with her financial situation and Grandpa Charlie’s living arrangements—how fortunate she was to have two such good men in her life. For a girl who sometimes felt she had very little, that alone felt like a lot.
From there, Jack and Christy sat down on the loveseat adjacent to the wheelchair and did a little catching up with her grandpa. She found out that John and Nancy Romo, old family friends from Destiny as well as parents to Christy’s friend Anna, had stopped by for a visit earlier. They’d moved from Destiny to Coral Cove years earlier, and it had been Christy’s grandparents who had first introduced the little seaside town to the Romos when they’d been looking to make a big life change.
That led Christy to tell her grandfather how she’d recently considered moving back home to Destiny, but that in the end it had just felt wrong to her—too confining. “Maybe it would have been the safe thing to do, but I was afraid if did that, life would never . . . happen to me. That it would just pass me by. And that someday I’d look back and wish I’d taken more chances and relied on myself more.”
It was only as she said all this that she became fully aware that she was, in effect, saying it to Jack, too. And she’d never told him anything about that. It seemed like a huge thing to have poured out to him, even if only by virtue of having told her grandfather—and yet it felt . . . okay. Somehow, rather than making her feel vulnerable in front of him, instead she sensed him thinking she was brave, and maybe even admiring that.
After the three of them chatted a while—covering topics like Christy’s job, her grandpa’s health, and Jack’s affinity for restoring and flipping houses—Grandpa Charlie asked her what she did for fun. “All work and no play’s not good, my girl,” he warned.
In response to the question, her mind first flashed on her kisses with Jack, and on making out with him in bed last night at the Colonial Inn. And then—searching her brain for something she could actually tell her grandpa—she thought of things like eating ice cream with Jack on his front porch, and of the unexpected simple pleasure of watching him work, being close to him as he repaired things for her, each act putting some small thing in her life back in order.
But all that seemed too complicated—and too telling, especially with Jack sitting right there—so she said, “I’ve gotten a lot more involved in reworking old jewelry. I even brought some that I made from the last of Grandma’s old pieces to show you.” And with that, she opened the yellow straw bag she was using as a summer purse on the trip and drew out a velvet drawstring sack she’d carried the pieces in just for this purpose.
Walking over to his wheelchair, she extracted two bracelets and a brooch she’d created just the week before and held them down so he could see. His eyes lit with recognition. “I remember these pearls,” he said, reaching out to touch one. “Paste, but they were all I could afford and she loved ’em. Got ’em for her one Christmas when your daddy was just a boy.”
His wistful smile made Christy’s heart swell. Even so, she felt compelled to say, “I hope you don’t mind that I changed them.”
He quickly reassured her with a shake of his head. “No, I’m not one to hold on to material things that way. That’s why I gave you the last of the jewelry when she passed. Thought it’d be better for you to . . . give it some new life the way you do.” Then he picked up the brooch, a thick conglomeration of transparent colored beads and pale pink pearls. “You make unique pieces, my dear, that’s for sure. I wish your grandma could see ’em.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I wish that, too. I really love doing it. It . . . relaxes me, I guess. Or inspires me. Or something.” She laughed softly, not quite sure how to explain the pleasure the jewelry brought her.
“It’s good to create,” Grandpa Charlie said. “I used to feel that way back in Destiny when I built barns with my father. Same principle, I guess, as if you’re buildin’ a sand castle on the beach—feelin’ just doesn’t go as deep then. But there’s a certain satisfaction in creatin’ somethin’ that wasn’t there before. It’s like you’re . . . changin’ the world in your own little way, I guess—addin’ to it.”
Christy nodded, letting his words resonate through her. “You’re right—that’s exactly it.” Then she looked to Jack. “Do you ever feel that way? When you’re restoring a house or repairing something for someone?”
She thought he looked unusually introspective before finally saying, “I know the feeling.”
Then she dared to share the idea she’d been considering—though now that she was actually here, it seemed a little scarier than it had back in Cincinnati. “I was thinking,” she began softly, shifting her gaze back to her grandfather, “of trying to sell some of my jewelry on the beach. At the Sunset Celebration.” She pursed her lips, feeling uncertain. “Do you think anyone there might buy any of my stuff?”
Her grandpa’s loving eyes widened in approval. “Now that’s a good idea,” he said. “And of course they would.” And now he was nodding—repeatedly. “Yep—I like that idea a lot. I like the spirit behind it. I like you takin’ somethin’ you love to do and puttin’ it out there in the world, my grandgirl.”
She hadn’t expected Grandpa Charlie to feel so strongly about her plan, but she found his enthusiasm unexpectedly feeding her own. “I’ve always wanted to try to sell it, but I haven’t had the time to figure out how. Or . . . well, maybe the confidence, either. Because . . . there’s no guarantee anyone will buy anything. And I guess . . . I guess . . .” It would be a huge blow to my ego if I tried to sell the work of my heart and no one thought it was any good.
She didn’t say that part because she realized that, again, she was putting her heart on her sleeve in front of Jack and that she probably shouldn’t. She trusted him, but she still didn’t know him that well. So he didn’t need to be informed of her every hope and dream and fear. At least not yet.
But it was as if Jack had read her thoughts anyway, because that’s when he chimed in to say, “You can’t go through life being afraid. It’s better to put yourself out there, go for what you want, take a risk—whether or not you get it—than to never go for it at all. You never go for it and you always have to wonder. And nobody should live that way.”
Christy met his gaze, and she realized that he was, in some sense, sharing something personal, too—with her, and also with Grandpa Charlie. Although she wanted to know mo
re. What did you go for, Jack? What risk did you take? And did you get what you wanted?
“Truer words were never spoken,” Grandpa Charlie replied. Then he looked up at Christy while pointing at Jack. “This one has a head on his shoulders. Listen to him, my girl—since I think he might be almost as smart as me.”
And they all laughed, and despite herself Christy was thankful to her grandfather for lightening what had suddenly begun to feel very serious and profound to her.
She still wondered what Jack might have gone for that required such a bold outlook—but rather than continue to ponder it, she instead decided to just take the advice she was being given. So she shoved aside old fears and doubts and, even if a little nervously, said, “Okay, tomorrow night, I’m setting up at the Sunset Celebration—and no matter what happens, it’s better than never being brave enough to try.”
And her grandpa reached up to squeeze her hand and give her one more smile. “That’s my girl,” he said. “That’s my sweet girl.”
CHARLIE watched his granddaughter and the young man she’d brought with her leave the room. Funny tension between those two—he couldn’t quite read it, but he was pretty sure there was more than met the eye there, that at least one of them had feelings for the other, or both of them did. But either way, he wasn’t sure it was all out in the open yet, and he suspected at least one of them was fighting it. Which made him a little sad inside.
Christy had already lost so much—love was one more thing he didn’t want to see her be afraid of. And yet . . . he understood the fear. People walked around acting strong all the time, but deep inside, most people had sensitivities, tender spots. Some more than others, but there wasn’t anyone who couldn’t get hurt by love.
