She needed the distraction. Badly. If she stopped moving or took her mind off her work even for a minute, she’d think about Declan, and she was determined not to think about Declan. She’d had one text from him, later the same day he left, letting her know he’d arrived in Miami safely, but her plan to put him out of mind, to quit him cold turkey, was not working.
She had to stay busy or she’d miss him so badly, it would hurt. She had to work until she was so tired each day that she fell asleep the second her head hit the pillow or else she’d lie there, staring at the ceiling. But Declan was even haunting her dreams, which meant she was always tired and grumpy and on edge. Even Charlotte had called her on it—kindly, and couched in concern and love, but still . . .
She was in bad shape, but the only way out was through.
She recruited Adam and Eli to go get the tables out of the storage closet and drag them into the Fellowship Hall, where Jamie and Aunt Mary were organizing the presents for the Toys for Tots pickup.
Helena came in, carrying a still-sniffling Star, who seemed to be nodding off against her shoulder. “Need some help?”
“I left the tablecloths in the nursery. Could you get them?”
“Will do. I can drop this one off for a nap while I’m in there.”
Jamie waited until Helena walked away to come over. “She better be careful walking around with a baby on her hip. Aunt Mary will get all kinds of ideas.”
“My mother already has all kinds of ideas. Trust me on that,” Ryan said, joining them. He held a clipboard. “Do you know where your mother is?”
“If she’s not in the sanctuary, no.”
Jamie looked around and shrugged unhelpfully.
“I need a copy of the script so Joe and Graham can mark the lighting cues. They don’t want to screw it up their first year on the job.”
“You’re going to trust them to do that?” Shelby asked.
“I’m just glad I’m not going to have to do it. But no one seems to have an extra script.”
“I have one,” Shelby said. “I left it with the box of programs—which are still in my Jeep. I’ll get my keys.”
“Where do you want these, Shelby?” Eli gave an overdramatic groan as he set down another table.
“Anywhere for right now. I’ve got to go get something for Ryan.”
She’d gone only about two steps when she heard, “Typical Shelby. Taking off in the middle, leaving us to finish up,” followed by laughter.
It was an average, even expected, offhand remark and not even said with much snark, but it was the last freaking straw. She didn’t even care which one of them actually said it. “Oh, shut up,” she snapped, whirling around. “Just. Shut. Up. I’m sick of it, and I’m sure as hell sick of y’all.”
Amazingly, all four of them did as she said, staring at her in varying stages of surprise. While everyone outside of their immediate circle continued on unaware, it felt very still and quiet where she was. “I’m not an idiot, and I’m not a child. I’m certainly not the dipshit you all seem to think I am.” Her mother would kill her for cussing in church, but she’d worry about that later. “Maybe I was, but I was also younger, and people do stupid shit when they’re young.”
Jamie opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but she held up a hand. “Just hush. You caused the entire school to be evacuated because you were dicking around in chemistry and nearly poisoned your entire class. You”—she turned to Eli—“set a doghouse on fire, nearly burning down Granddad’s shed in the process, just so you could practice putting it out with a garden hose. Ryan managed to drive a parade float into the damn bay. Don’t even talk to me about my dumbass stuff when you’ve all got your own. At least I can say I was unmedicated at the time. What’s your excuse?”
“Shelby . . .” Adam put his hand on her arm.
She shrugged it off and turned on him. “Halloween, 2008. Do I need to say more?”
Adam’s lips thinned. “Actually, I’ll pay you not to.”
“It’s not like the dog was actually in the doghouse at the time,” Eli muttered.
“I’m not even sure how I got pulled into this,” Ryan added.
Jamie gave her a look. “Jeez, Shel, we’re just teasing you.”
“I said shut up. I’m an adult, and I expect y’all to treat me as such. And until you can, I’ll thank you to keep your goddamned mouths shut.”
They were gaping at her like a school of fish, but she just turned on her heel and strode away, the anger buoying her all the way into the church’s kitchen, where she leaned against the sink and took deep breaths.
“Nice shootin’, Tex. Four bull’s-eyes, and you didn’t even need to reload.” Shelby looked up to see Helena in the doorway, a big grin on her face.
Helena was still holding the tablecloths she’d been sent to get. She could only wonder who else had heard her explosion. “Yeah, well, maybe I . . .”
“Oh, honey, don’t backtrack now. They’re out there right now arguing about who’s been the bigger asshole and why. I had to leave before I laughed in their faces, but I think you made your point.”
“Ah, it’s a Christmas miracle, then.”
“And it’s about damn time.” She came to lean next to Shelby and patted her on the back. “Are you okay?”
She was angry. She was frustrated. She was a little ashamed of losing her temper like that, and upset that it had taken her so long to do so.
But she felt great.
* * *
Declan spent New Year’s Eve at the beach, even though it was sort of drizzly. It was the principle of the thing. He had to get out of his apartment and office and breathe fresh air before he lost his mind. Not quite the “epic” New Year’s celebration he’d been promised, but it capped off a really strange year in an oddly fitting way.
And now that it was a new year, he should probably start it off right. He wasn’t the type of person who did the whole resolutions thing, but he was in a new place, with a new job, and it seemed important and also fitting to start the year off properly.
Which included finally unpacking so he wasn’t still living like a college nomad.
He hung pictures on the walls, put books on the bookshelves and organized them, and rearranged the furniture.
By that evening, he had only two boxes left. They’d been the least important, just the odds and ends he’d collected over the fall, but they made him smile as he took them out of the boxes: a couple of new books he’d found in a bookstore in Mobile, some artsy tchotchkes he’d found in New Orleans that he’d liked, his water safety certificate that Shelby had framed for him in a tacky “Good Times in Magnolia Beach” picture frame as a joke.
That day on the boat seemed a long time ago. Shelby had been so earnest in teaching him enough so she’d feel comfortable with him living on the Lady Jane. He remembered her stretching out on the seat, enjoying the sunshine and telling him—with just a hint of exasperation—that “This is what you do on a boat. You relax.” She’d said something about finding his Zen. It had been a new idea for him because Suzanne had been very into finding the Zen, too, only she’d made it sound a lot more complicated . . .
Damn, that had been the last time he’d actually talked to Suzanne. It was certainly the last day he’d thought about her for longer than a second or two, and he hadn’t thought of her at all in the last month. He didn’t feel bad about that, though. She’d been the one saying how he couldn’t be happy, implied that he was some kind of failure for leaving Chicago.
How wrong she was.
Well, mostly wrong. He certainly didn’t regret leaving Chicago, and even if he wasn’t completely thrilled with Miami just yet, he was still settling in.
Shaking his head to clear it, he went back into the box. There was the T-shirt he’d been looking for and the extra power cord to his phone. He obviously hadn’t been paying much
attention while packing . . .
As if to prove that exact thought, tucked in the bottom of the box was a small, brightly wrapped box with a bow and a “Merry Christmas” gift tag signed only with an oddly shaped S.
He sat back hard. It was an unexpected gift, but even more unexpected was the wave of longing that crashed into him at just the sight of Shelby’s handwriting. He tried not to think about her, really he did, and when he did think about her, he tried to distance himself from it, either by thinking about the marina or Magnolia Beach as a whole. That way he could miss her in the same way he missed Magnolia Beach—with fond nostalgia, as a pleasant interlude in his life. Nothing more.
It wasn’t working.
There was no note attached to the gift; not that he expected one and not that it needed one. It was a gift, pure and simple. Shelby wouldn’t attach strings to it, and though he felt bad now that he hadn’t given her anything for Christmas—he hadn’t been planning that far ahead in November—he doubted her feelings were hurt or that she’d even expected one.
If she had, she wouldn’t have stuffed this in a box without comment.
Shelby loved Christmas, that much he knew, and she wanted him to have a Christmas present. Simple and honest. Quintessentially Shelby. Christmas itself had been just a day off for him. He hadn’t put up a tree or anything, and being new in town, he didn’t have a place to go. Oh, he’d had invites from coworkers, but he hadn’t accepted any of them—spending the holiday with strangers somehow seemed worse than spending the holiday alone.
His sister had sent him a sweater that didn’t fit and wasn’t appropriate for Miami’s balmy weather, and he’d exchanged e-cards with some friends back in Chicago. While he’d never been fully comfortable with the excesses of Suzanne’s holiday celebrations, he wasn’t unaware of the pitiful nature of this one.
But he hadn’t been bothered by it—at least not much—until now, holding Shelby’s package in his hands. Having witnessed Thanksgiving with the Tanners, he had to wonder what Christmas would be like . . .
Pulling off the paper, he found a CD—the semiprofessional kind, a step above one burned on a computer but not mainstream, mass-produced either. It was Chapman James, the folksy-rock band that played at the Bait Box occasionally. Now suddenly nostalgic, he popped it into his laptop and hit Play.
Who’d have thought that a born-and-bred Midwest city boy would ever miss a tiny little place like Magnolia Beach, Alabama? Closing his eyes, he settled back against the couch cushions and let his mind drift.
Magnolia Beach didn’t have Miami’s mix of culture and history, but it had its own unique kind, nonetheless. He’d gotten used to it. Six months ago, he’d have dismissed a small town as boring just out of hand, but now he couldn’t. He could see the appeal.
Of course, a lot of that appeal was probably Shelby. He couldn’t really separate the two. Magnolia Beach was her home. It was where she wanted to be, and she wasn’t interested in hearing why someplace else might be better. She was happy right where she was.
That knowledge, plus her clear-eyed understanding of—and even enthusiasm for—his temporary state, had, in retrospect, been a great blessing. Otherwise, he might have made an ass of himself, trying to convince her to stay in touch, come for a visit, or even move with him.
That wouldn’t have gone over well. He sighed.
Shelby’s roots ran deep in Magnolia Beach. And while she’d never said it, he knew that her dyslexia was one of the reasons she felt she belonged there. She’d spent her whole life creating coping strategies in that place—she wasn’t about to set off for strange new lands that lacked the people and places and situations she could handle easily and comfortably.
But that aside, Shelby really did belong there. She was a piece of the place, and it was a piece of her, kind of a symbiotic relationship. It was part of what made her special, part of what he loved about her.
That was why he couldn’t have her. He couldn’t ask her to give that up.
At that point, a bright light finally went off: Shelby was honest to a fault, and that would give her a solid sense of fair play. She wouldn’t ask him to do anything she wasn’t willing to do herself. Since she would never give up her home, her dreams, or her happiness, she would never ask anyone else to do it, either.
Even if she wanted him to. He couldn’t take the fact that she hadn’t asked him to stay as any kind of statement of how she felt about him. That made him feel a little better.
She’d mentioned the drifters that came through Magnolia Beach, wondering if they were looking for a place that felt like home. He remembered now the odd tone of her voice—a mix of surety of her place and sadness for those who didn’t have that.
And she’d asked him what he was looking for . . .
The band’s cover of a John Prine classic ended, and he recognized the opening notes of the song he’d danced to with Shelby. The praise of Alabama’s geographic diversity no longer seemed silly, and he found himself wishing for bay breezes and white sands. It was a pretty song, and he could remember the way Shelby fit perfectly against him, swaying gently in that moment.
Too late, though, he remembered the chorus, and it slammed into him before he could hit Pause.
Oh my love, you hold heaven in your hand,
My heart’s down in Dixie, but my soul’s in Alabama.
That’s what that constant echoing emptiness in his chest was.
Hell, even Suzanne, who was not exactly known for her keen insight, had seen it. She’d told him point blank that he didn’t know what he was looking for. That he didn’t know what would make him happy.
And he’d been too focused on what he thought would make him happy to recognize happiness when it had dropped into his lap.
After all this time, he’d finally felt like he’d found “home.”
And it was Shelby.
* * *
Shelby finished her speech and waited for Ryan to say something. He’d been a bit hesitant and amused at the beginning—she’d made an official appointment with Mayor Tanner through his secretary, trying to guarantee both his undivided attention and his serious consideration of what she was going to say.
It was a sly trick, she knew that, but an appointment on his schedule at least brought him into this meeting with the understanding this wasn’t just some easily brushed aside cousin crap. Granted, having the mayor in her corner would help, regardless of his kinship, but more importantly, she needed her cousin on her side. Her forward-thinking town mayor and general contractor cousin. An ally that covered multiple bases.
If she could get him on her side. She’d spent two weeks pulling together the information and putting together—with some help from a very excited Charlotte—a presentation complete enough to win pretty much anyone over. Her fit in the Fellowship Hall had made Christmas a little uncomfortable, but it had given her the final kick and confidence to just do it, and she’d made the appointment to meet with Mayor Tanner as soon as the office reopened after the holidays. As far as she could tell, she was Ryan’s first official appointment of the year. She wanted that to be portentous.
She needed to do this—and not just for the obvious reason of “it needs to be done.” She needed something to consume her focus and give her something to do other than mope.
Because she certainly wasn’t getting over Declan. Hell, she almost felt like she was getting worse, sliding deeper into the misery.
So now was an excellent time to try.
“I assume you have a plan to finance this?” Ryan asked. He’d been polite and attentive during her speech, and this was the first comment he’d made.
She nodded. It required a loan and possibly her firstborn child, but the money was there. “It’s explained on slides seven and eight.”
Ryan glanced over the presentation she’d printed out, then leaned back in his chair. “Seems like a good idea to me.”
Shelby felt her jaw drop.
“Your budget needs to be redone, though. These estimates here”—he grabbed a highlighter and marked them—“are a little high. This is Magnolia Beach, not Miami Beach,” he scolded. “And if you hire me to do these jobs”—he grabbed a different pen and circled a few things—“I can give you a good deal on labor that will save you some money. I’ll write up a bid for you tonight, so you’ll have better numbers to pitch to the bean counter.”
She was still trying to get her mouth closed. “Really? You are on board for this?”
Ryan raised an eyebrow. “As mayor—which is why I assume we’re having this conversation here—of course I am. The marina is important to the overall economy and health of the town. Improvements to the property will benefit everyone.”
“And as my cousin?” she asked carefully.
“It’s going to tie up a lot of money and put the marina back in debt for a while, but that’s just the cost of doing business. No one is going to starve or anything because of it, and the place could really use a face-lift. It’s a smart idea, and your plan seems solid.”
It was a good thing she was sitting down. “So you really do support me—it,” she corrected.
Ryan frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean, Shelby.”
“You don’t think it’s crazy or that I don’t know what I’m doing?”
Ryan blinked. “No and no. Why?”
“Because I’ve brought stuff like this up before and everyone just blows me off like it’s crazy talk.”
“It’s one thing to throw out ideas. Anyone can have an idea. But an idea with a plan and a budget and a fourteen-slide PowerPoint presentation can’t be considered just crazy talk.”
“And you don’t think I’ll flake on it? Screw it up somehow?”
More Than Anything Page 24
