Meet Me at the Beach (Seashell Bay)

by V. K. Sykes

  “Yeah, they want a dock for a car ferry, built and paid for by the town. Mr. Dunnagan, the company’s liaison, said the island has to get into the twenty-first century if it’s going to attract new homeowners and resort guests. We need a car ferry to bring new people and business to the island.”

  “Well, good luck with that,” Aiden said.

  Seashell Bay residents had beaten back more than one proposal for a car ferry service, believing it would draw too many tourists and day-trippers and ruin the island’s sleepy, old-fashioned way of life. Only one neighboring island had a car ferry, and it had a much bigger year-round population and residents who commuted to work on the mainland. For Seashell Bay folk, the only way to get a car or any other vehicle larger than a golf cart over to the island was to hire a company to transport it by barge.

  “Things are changing,” Bram said. “Lobster prices have sucked for a while, and the cost of fuel and bait is always going up. Some folks are thinking it’s time to get some development onto the island to bring some more bucks into town.” His brother cut him a sideways glance. “We sure as hell could use more money around here, man.”

  Aiden frowned, hoping his brother wasn’t talking about him. Ever since he signed his first pro ball contract, he’d been sending money home to his family. And it wasn’t like he was some superstar with a fat salary. Sure, he made a good living, but he’d been careful to save and invest as much as he could. He knew his days of making real money were limited, and Bram knew it too.

  He chewed his thoughts in silence for a few minutes as his brother drove them to his cottage—mostly built with Aiden’s money—on the south shore of the island. Bram took the longer route that wound up and down the rocky coast, affording spectacular views of the Atlantic whenever the dense woods opened up. At this time of year, the island’s roses were in full bloom, both in the wild and in the garden plots that surrounded so many homes. Their heavy scent wafted through the open windows of the truck, carried on the soft breeze of the fading summer afternoon.

  “A decision on a new dock has to go to a town referendum, right?” Aiden said. “And the land deal can’t happen unless people vote yes?”

  Bram turned into the narrow lane that led to his cottage overlooking the bluffs. “Right. That’s all in the works, but Dad says we need to hammer things out among the three of us beforehand. And since you had some free time anyway…”

  Aiden waved an impatient hand. “Yeah, I got it. And I’ll think about it.”

  “Okay, but Dad—”

  “I said I’d think about it,” Aiden repeated firmly. He’d be damned if his father or anyone else was going to force his hand.

  Bram cast him a wary look before returning his attention to the rocky lane.

  Aiden was glad for the silence. Truthfully, he didn’t know what he wanted to do with the land his mother had left him. He’d never thought it would be worth much, but now it looked like it was. It should be easy to make the decision. He should say yes and hope that the car ferry vote went through so he could walk away from Seashell Bay once and for all, knowing that his brother and father were set for life.

  But it wasn’t easy. Aiden had loved his mother more than anyone. He’d respected her strength and decency, and he’d watched in sorrow and anger as his father gradually bled the joy out of her. At the end, all Rebecca Flynn had to love was her boys and the island and the land that had been in her family for generations. She’d never given up on the dream that someday her sons would build their own homes in Seashell Bay and raise their families there, loving it as much as she did.

  Aiden would never do that, but he wasn’t yet ready to turn his back on his mother’s dream. The fact that the sale was something his father wanted, in defiance of his wife’s last wishes, added to his reluctance.

  The truck bottomed out through a final series of brutal ruts, and then the lane opened into a grassy clearing dotted with wildflowers. Massive evergreens rimmed the perimeter, reaching feathered branches to the sky. At the far end of the clearing, Bram’s cottage perched on a cliff with the beach fifty feet below. It was built in the style of a log cabin, rustic and appealing despite its owner’s obvious neglect.

  Bram killed the engine at the side of the cottage. Aiden got out and trudged in his brother’s wake, climbing the few steps onto the narrow deck that ringed the cottage on three sides. Rounding the corner, he stopped in his tracks at the sight of the gray-haired, grim-looking man in one of the old rocking chairs by the front door.

  “Hey, Dad,” he said. “Nice of you to come over to say hello.”

  Sean Flynn hauled himself out of the chair, narrowing his gaze on his eldest son. Then he flicked his attention to Bram.

  “So?” He barked the word out in a voice roughened by years of cigarettes and cheap whiskey.

  Glancing uneasily between the two of them, Bram shifted his feet like the scrawny kid he’d been so many years ago. “Aiden wants a little more time to think about it, Dad.”

  Their father let out a foul curse and stomped into the cottage, slamming the screen door behind him. Bram gave Aiden an apologetic grimace then trailed in after their father. A moment later, Aiden could hear ice cubes rattle and a drink being poured.

  Sighing, he took a long look at the serene ocean view before going inside.

  Yeah, dude. Welcome home.

  Chapter 2

  As his crew hauled a half-empty lobster barrel onto the bait smack’s floating platform, Billy Paine gave Lily one of his trademark roguish grins.

  Roguish wasn’t a word Lily would ever use, but Billy had said it one night at the Lobster Pot, bragging about his success with the ladies. The annoying thing about Billy was that he did have a fair amount of success in servicing not just the lobster boats of these islands but the women too. Lily had never been able to figure it out. While he was good looking in a vaguely dangerous, offbeat kind of way, his prehistoric view of women left her cold.

  “Sure I can’t interest you in dinner and drinks in Portland tonight, Lil?” Billy called over. “Aren’t you tired of hanging out with the losers at the Pot?”

  As Lily turned to answer, she winced at the twinge of pain in her lower back. She still had a lot of heavy cleanup work ahead of her when she got back to her mooring, and her back was already protesting. If she didn’t find a new sternman soon, she could really trash it—or worse yet, have a bad accident. Fishing alone wasn’t a great idea, but what choice did she have now that her idiot crewman, Johnny Leblanc, had jumped bail after his third DUI and disappeared?

  “Billy, when have I ever said yes to your repeated and very lame attempts to ask me out on a date?”

  “Can’t blame me for trying, Lil. You’re one hot piece of—”

  “Don’t say it,” she interrupted, holding up a gloved hand.

  Billy laughed as he deftly tossed her one of the lines anchoring Miss Annie to the floating platform. His bait smack was based out of Portland and owned by one of the big co-ops that supplied the lobster boats with fresh bait in the morning and bought their catch at the end of the day. Lily had known Billy for years. Despite his annoying banter, he was a competent and honest seaman. That was why she put up with his crap instead of dumping a bucket of slimy seawater over his head.

  “All kidding aside, Lil,” Billy said, “you look pretty beat. Still no luck finding a new sternman?”

  She shook her head. “All the guys with any experience are already working.”

  Billy rested one rubber-booted foot on his gunwale, a frown pulling his dark brows together. “Try harder, Lil. What’ll happen if you’re out there alone and a trapline catches your foot? I’d hate to think of you as fish food.”

  She flashed him a tired smile. One of the great things about life on the water was that even obnoxious guys like Billy had your back. Good fishermen never took the job lightly or underestimated the danger, and they always looked out for each other. Coming from a long line of lobstermen, Lily knew that better than anyone.

  Lily pu
lled her Droid out of her jeans pocket. “I always have my trusty cell phone close at hand.”

  Billy shook his head impatiently. “If you get your hand or foot caught in a line, you know it’ll drag you straight to the bottom. And last I heard, cell phones don’t work underwater.”

  “Of course I know it’s dangerous, Billy,” she said with frustration. “But I have to do it. You know how much bait and fuel cost now. I can’t afford to lose any time on the water—if I do, I won’t make the payments on my boat.” After all, without a sternman’s help, there were only so many traps she could haul in a day before exhaustion did her in.

  Billy shot her a worried frown as he stepped away from Miss Annie. But when he opened his mouth to argue, Lily held up a hand. “I’ll keep looking, Billy. I promise.”

  “See that you do. Oh, and if you get tired of the yahoos at the Pot, you know where to find me.” He gave her a comic book leer over his shoulder as he strode across the floating platform.

  “In your dreams, dude,” Lily called back, trying not laugh. Hell would freeze over before she dated Billy Paine.

  Not that there was much dating material on the island. Most of the single guys she knew were nonstarters because she’d grown up with them. Obviously, she’d dated some over the years, but none had panned out. There was no mystery, no spark, no excitement. Just the decent guys she’d known forever. Familiar, safe, and as boring as a pair of old slippers.

  Except for Aiden Flynn.

  Lily clamped down on that thought, but her hand actually shook on the wheel as she eased Miss Annie away from the platform. Aiden freaking Flynn, a delicious blast from the past. When she recognized him staring at her from the ferry’s upper deck, she’d almost fallen overboard. Their gazes had locked for only a few seconds, but it had been long enough to bring up a rush of memories she’d worked hard to forget. But dammit, one searing look from him had been enough to get her nerves dancing like dragonflies over the water.

  Only the rocking of her boat in the ferry’s swell and her uncharacteristic loss of balance had kicked her back to her senses. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon trying not to think about that wild night all those years ago, when they’d gone just shy of the point of no return. And after she’d managed to wrestle those distracting memories under control—barely—she started to worry about the reason he was returning home. Aiden avoided Seashell Bay like it was Devil’s Island. Lily knew why, so she’d never blamed him. If her dad had been anything like Sean Flynn, she’d have bolted long ago too.

  So Aiden’s return could only mean one thing—the Flynns weren’t just thinking about selling their land, they were actually going to do it.

  Over my dead body.

  Grimly, she guided her boat through the narrow channel that separated Seashell Bay Island from neighboring Long Island. There had been rumors, of course, ever since those damn developers had shown up, sniffing around the south shore properties. Then some of the newer residents, as well as a few business owners and some folks worried about their jobs and livelihoods, had started a push to resurrect the car ferry issue, vocal enough to prompt the town selectmen to schedule a vote on funding a new dock.

  With Aiden back in town, things would go from merely anxiety provoking to truly problematic. If the car ferry won approval and the developers moved in, Seashell Bay would never be the same. The quiet, close-knit community would be smothered by a wave of affluent mainlanders who wouldn’t give a damn about the island’s heritage or the unique Seashell Bay way of life. They’d tear up blooming meadows and virgin timber and build monster houses and ugly condos on the craggy bluffs overlooking the ocean, destroying the rural beauty that made the island unique.

  Picturing that future made her gut churn.

  Lily steered up to her mooring off Foley Point and tied up. She still had at least an hour’s work cleaning the boat and stowing gear, and she was already both exhausted and ravenous. She hadn’t had a bite to eat for hours, which no doubt helped account for her rotten mood.

  She heard a cheerful hail and turned to see her grandfather motoring out in his skiff. Preston Doyle had once been one of the best fishermen on the bay and still liked to keep his hand in when he could, even though he was eighty-six. He’d often come down to help her with the cleanup, and for that, Lily was profoundly grateful. Her father used to help her, but his arthritis made it hard for him to do much physical work these days.

  “Ahoy, Sweet Pea,” Gramps said as she threw him a rope. “Catch any bugs?” To most islanders, lobsters were bugs whenever the catch was poor.

  Lily tied her end of the rope to a cleat. “About enough to pay for bait and fuel for the day and maybe buy a loaf of bread.”

  “Well, when you’re fishing lobster, any day you can make more than a penny in profit is a good day, I always say.”

  Lily smiled. Her gramps had a million sayings, stowed up over years of working in the merchant marine and then hauling traps in these very waters. Preston was the wisest, kindest man she knew, and she thanked God every day that he was her grandfather.

  He climbed aboard with surprising agility for a man his age, and they worked easily together to hose out the boat and stow gear. They mostly just listened to the sounds of the day—the gentle slap of water against the side of the boat and the calls of the sea birds wheeling overhead. Thanks to Gramps, she was finishing early enough to have some time to hit the island’s general store before heading home. For once, she might even have time to cook herself a decent meal before the start of the weekly Darts Night at the Pot.

  Lily helped her grandfather back into his skiff and then followed him to the town dock in her seventeen-footer.

  “I saw that no-good Flynn boy get off the three o’clock boat,” Gramps said, as they tied up next to each other at one of the landing’s floating docks. He said no-good Flynn boy in the same tone of voice he would use for commenting on the price of milk. Her grandfather no longer wasted energy on the feud between the Flynn and Doyle families, although he would forever loathe Sean Flynn. It had become habit more than anything else to refer to the Flynns in disparaging terms, and no one truly took it all that seriously—except for her hardheaded father and Sean.

  Still, Lily’s heart skipped a beat at the very mention of Aiden. For some reason, she didn’t want to admit that she’d already seen him. “Bram? Nothing special about that.”

  Gramps snorted. “You don’t fool me, missy. You know exactly which Flynn I’m talking about.”

  She cut him an exasperated glance. “Okay, you saw Aiden Flynn get off the boat.”

  He shook his head in disgust. “That no-good Bram met him. I expect their father couldn’t be bothered to rouse himself to meet his own son.”

  Gramps had always had a soft spot for Aiden, though he would never admit it. When Aiden played high school baseball in Portland, Gramps had made a point of going to many of the games. Unlike Aiden’s own father.

  “No surprise there.” She followed her grandfather up the ramp to the parking lot. “Want a ride home? I have to stop at the store first.”

  “That’d be nice,” he said as he climbed into her red Jeep. “Don’t get to spend nearly enough time with my favorite girl.”

  “I thought Grandma was your favorite girl,” she teased. “Better not let her hear you say that.”

  “Your grandma is so busy these days she barely notices I’m still on the right side of the dirt. Now that she’s taking those yoga classes at the Rec Center, she’s home even less. And forget about cooking dinner. If I didn’t do it, I swear we’d both starve to death.”

  Lily laughed as she started the ancient but reliable Jeep. Despite his grumblings, she heard the pride in her grandfather’s voice. Grandma Doyle was a dynamo, looking and acting years younger than eighty-three. She was devoted to her family but had always made it known that she had her own life and had no intention of “drudging away like a house slave.” She was an accomplished gardener and potter and an avid devotee of whatever current exercise rag
e hit the island. This month it was hot yoga, of all things.

  “But you like to cook, so what’s the problem, Gramps?”

  “That’s beside the point, young lady. Cooking is supposed to be a woman’s job, just like it’s a man’s job to catch the bugs.”

  She knew he was yanking her chain. Gramps had always supported her dream, even loaning her money to help with the down payment on her boat. “If that’s the case, then why did you help me buy Miss Annie?”

  “Couldn’t stop you. You’re a girl, but you’re a Doyle through and through. What else could make you happy but fishing?”

  Lily shifted into a lower gear as the Jeep rumbled up the hill onto Island Road. “You got that right, Gramps.”

  “Lily, you know what it means that Aiden’s come back, don’t you?” he asked.

  She sighed, absently waving to Peggy Fogg, who was riding her bike to her shift at the Lobster Pot. Although most everyone on the island sported shorts or jeans with sneakers in the summer, Peggy insisted on wearing a starched, old-fashioned waitress uniform to work. It was endearing in a throwback kind of way. “Yes. It means the Flynns are trying to move ahead with their plans to sell their land to the developers.”

  Gramps scowled. “I expected it from Sean and Bram, but I had higher hopes for Aiden. That boy has a powerful load of resentment stored up toward Seashell Bay. But he’s his mother’s son for all that, and Rebecca would never have wanted him to sell her inheritance.”

  “We don’t know whether Aiden’s agreed to sell. And if he refuses, I bet the whole thing will be dead in its tracks.”

  Her grandfather’s faded blue eyes gave her a shrewd inspection. “So I guess the first thing we have to do is find out where the boy stands. Got any ideas how to do that?”

  Lily stared grimly ahead as they came around a bend in the road that afforded a spectacular view of the bay, with its bobbing lobster boats and a yellow-and-black-hulled ferry steaming in from Diamond Cove.

  “I’m working on it, Gramps,” she finally said.