More than Neighbors

by Shannon Stacey

  People should pay less attention to how something looks and care more how it makes a person feel. This cottage makes me happy. I don’t have a lot. I lost my Thomas so many years ago, and then our Michael. I never got to hold my grandchild. It’s just me and Elinor, but we’re happy and this cottage is part of the reason why.

  Who cares if a home is painted pink instead of cream and the trim is turquoise instead of Colonial blue or whatever the town ordinance says it can be? It’s my home and if they don’t like it, they should stop driving by and slowing down to take pictures to send me with sternly worded letters.

  On the plus side, I have some lovely photos of my beautiful little cottage on the lake.

  Always look on the plus side. You’ll sleep better at night.

  Cam closed the journal and leaned his head back against the couch cushion with a sigh.

  Carolina Archambault—the grandmother he’d never known—had been quite a woman. The journals she’d bequeathed to him weren’t exactly of the “dear diary” kind. The entries read more like letters to somebody. Maybe just to the world at large. Or maybe to him. His gut told him they had the feel of a woman sharing her life with the grandson she knew was out there somewhere.

  He was supposed to be reviewing the many possible ways pending tax legislation could impact the company’s bottom line—or more accurately, reviewing the reports Accounting and Legal had generated, and then summarizing all the info into a few bullet points and a recommendation for his father. And he’d intended to do just that. He’d even opened his laptop before reaching for the journal he’d left next to it.

  He blamed the cottage in general. It wasn’t really the kind of place for corporate goings-on. But more specifically, it was the framed photo that hung across the room in his line of vision that kept distracting him.

  Michael Archambault.

  His biological father. Cam had already lost count of the number of times he’d looked at the picture, which had been the first thing that caught his eye the day he arrived.

  Cam looked like him. He had the man’s hair and eyes and mouth, and he could even see the similarities in their expression based on photos he’d seen of himself. The photo definitely answered the question “Why can’t you be more like your father?” which he’d heard countless times from his grandfather Calvin Anthony II before he’d passed away.

  Because Calvin Anthony Maguire III wasn’t his father. This man was, and Cam had been robbed of the opportunity to ever know him.

  Fur brushing his hand was the only warning he got before Elinor leaped to the back of the couch. Thanks to her size, the space she chose to curl up on included the top of his head, and he let her be.

  When had he become a guy who could spend a summer in a small, cluttered cottage and wear a cat like a hat?

  Trying to imagine his parents’ expressions if they could see him right now made him chuckle. Or his mother’s, anyway. Stone was his father’s only expression. Though his mother would definitely not be amused.

  Considering how angry they were right now, he wouldn’t be surprised. It was a quiet, simmering anger, of course. No yelling or swearing involved. But he knew his father well enough to read the displeasure between the lines of terse emails. Working remotely was feasible, of course—one could read reports and handle spreadsheets from anywhere—but his father didn’t like the appearance of him being away. The empty seat at the conference table was obviously getting under dear old Dad’s skin.

  Right now, in this moment, he didn’t care. With Elinor purring on top of his head and the faint sound of laughter from the little girl next door soothing his nerves, he was strangely content to relax in the strange new world.

  It was an adjustment, for sure. His first few nights in town, he’d stayed at the inn, and even in what passed for a downtown district in Blackberry Bay, the silence had been unnerving. He’d had to leave the television on in order to sleep.

  There had been a lot of adjustments in the first few days. Not only could he not have food delivered at ten o’clock at night if he got lost in work and forgot to eat, but he couldn’t have food delivered at noon. No delivery. No Uber Eats. No Uber at all.

  And then there was the cottage. Shabby inside, with very few modern touches. He’d had to order an overnight delivery of a Keurig and coffee pods. And there was barely room for his few belongings because Carolina had apparently never passed up a rummage sale. He’d try to focus on the bones of the cottage and it was solidly built, but everything inside it should have been replaced around the time he was born. And who installed a cat door next to a sliding glass door? The cottage was a chaos his orderly brain had trouble comprehending.

  There was also the fact people were a little more friendly, which was good. But they also weren’t shy about asking a lot of questions, which wasn’t as good. As far as he was aware, Carolina’s lawyer was the only person who knew the entire truth of his arrival in town. And Meredith, he supposed, though she didn’t know all the details. But he’d been to the market, a gas station and the hardware store, and at each stop, he’d been asked about staying in Carolina’s cottage. He’d dodged the questions the best he could, making it sound as though he was just a summer renter, but he knew this wasn’t the kind of place a secret would stay a secret very long. And since he’d made the decision to stay in Blackberry Bay and learn about the Archambault family rather than having somebody sell it off for him, he was eventually going to have to reach out to people who’d known Michael and Carolina.

  But for now, he was content to sit and relax. Truly relax, which went beyond just closing his laptop for the night. There was no tension at all in his body, and he felt as if he could happily sit there indefinitely without feeling the urge to get up and do something productive.

  Then the dog next door barked and it must have displeased Elinor, who reacted by extending her claws. She didn’t grip, but the very tips pricked at his skin and he wanted to pick her up, but he was afraid that if he tried to move her, she’d really grab hold of his scalp.

  Luckily, with her nap disturbed anyway, she decided to move on. As she made her way to the floor without drawing any of his blood, he gave her a stern look. “I think we’re going to need to establish some boundaries if we’re going to make it through the summer.”

  She just twitched her tail and walked away, leaving him to wonder what was going to happen if they did make it through the summer together. There was no way he could bring her back to the city with him. Even if he wanted an enormous black cat shedding all over everything he owned, which he didn’t, Elinor liked her freedom. He couldn’t imagine her being happy as an inside-only cat for the rest of her life, and that was what she would have to be.

  But he couldn’t just leave her at the shelter again. Elinor was proud and more than a little spoiled, and she couldn’t have been happy there. She’d even gone out of her way to show him gratitude when he brought her back to her home, in the form of headbutting him over and over for a solid hour. He assumed it was gratitude, at least. She might have been trying to shove him out the door, for all he knew about cats.

  When he caught himself considering whether or not he could rent the cottage out with the stipulation the tenant had to love and care for Elinor for the remainder of her days, Cam decided it was time to get off the couch and do something.

  The cardboard boxes he’d bought were still propped, flat and empty, against a wall, waiting to be filled. It was his intention to fill them with items that were obviously personal, and then bring in people to sort and pack the rest for sale or donation. But Carolina had accumulated so much stuff, he didn’t even know where to begin. And every time he picked up a trinket or photo, he’d wonder about it and find himself going back to her journals.

  He was going to need more than one summer at the rate he was going, but he still didn’t grab the packing tape and build a box to fill. Instead, he grabbed a bottle of lemonade and went ou
t onto the back deck to get some fresh air.

  His neighbors were sitting on the double swing on their dock, their heads together as they talked and laughed. But it was only a minute before Sophie looked up and spotted him.

  “Mr. Maguire!” She jumped up, causing her mother to reach out for her shirt in case she went right off the dock, and then she ran toward him. The little dog ran with her, and Cam held his breath, hoping they wouldn’t get tangled together and fall.

  For a second, he felt a pang of irritation. It was definitely going to be a long summer if he couldn’t even enjoy a drink on his own deck without a kid running over. But he couldn’t hold on to it. The little girl was adorable and a welcome interruption from his brooding.

  “Why is your cat named Elinor, Mr. Maguire?”

  He winced at the formal name because it reminded him of who he was and what he was supposed to be doing right now, which was keeping his eye on the company’s bottom line at all times. “I’m not sure, actually. My grandmother named her.”

  “Oh.” Sophie sighed and her disappointment was almost palpable. “It’s a funny name for a cat and my mom said you might know.”

  “Sorry, kiddo. But if I find out why, I’ll definitely tell you.”

  “Oscar, no!”

  The shout from Meredith made Cam realize he’d left his slider open when he stepped outside, and her little dog had taken that as invitation. He also didn’t seem to care that Meredith was telling him no.

  “He can’t hurt anything,” he reassured Meredith when she reached the deck, flushed and a little out of breath.

  “He can’t just go in people’s houses like that.”

  “Mr. Maguire left the door open,” Sophie argued, and he appreciated the way she came to her dog’s defense.

  “Should I go get him, or...”

  When Meredith let the words trail away, he realized she was asking him if she should go in or not, and he wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t really want them inside because he didn’t want to answer a ton of questions about all of Carolina’s things. But there was a good chance the dog wasn’t going to let a strange man pick him up.

  Before he could say anything, there was a single high-pitched yip and the small white ball of fluff streaked out the door and past them with Elinor hot on his heels. Oscar went straight down the stairs and back to his own yard without stopping, and Sophie ran after him.

  Elinor, however, stopped on the deck and rubbed against Cam’s leg a few times. Then, intruder driven off, she jumped onto the patio table and stretched out in the sun.

  “Sorry about that,” Meredith said, her mouth curving into a smile. “But I doubt he’s going to go in your house again anytime soon.”

  “I hope she didn’t hurt him,” Cam said. “She’s kind of a beast, and her claws are no joke.”

  “Sophie’s cuddling him now. She would be yelling if he had any blood on him, so I think Elinor just scared him. And let him know who’s boss in this neighborhood.”

  He was relieved, and also very conscious they were now alone on the deck. He could see Sophie and Oscar, but he was pretty sure she couldn’t hear them from where they were sitting in the grass. “I’ve been wanting to ask you something, but not in front of Sophie.”

  “Okay.” Anxiety tightened her lips, and he realized she was bracing for a personal question.

  “I was hoping maybe she could call me Cam.”

  “Oh. I...” She frowned and looked across the yard at her daughter. “It’s usually a hard-and-fast rule, but since you asked, it would be rude to force the issue, I guess.”

  He was going to have to give her some kind of an explanation, though he didn’t want to get too deeply into the why of things. “I’m working through some family issues right now, and hearing Mr. Maguire makes me think of my dad. We’re not in a great place and it kills my mood a bit.”

  “I’m sorry. That must be hard.” She looked at him for a long moment, as though she wanted to ask questions about the situation, but then her face softened and she smiled. “And yes, I suppose Sophie can call you Cam, since you prefer it. And we’re neighbors, after all.”

  “Do you want a lemonade or something?” he asked, because he’d had company manners drilled into him since he was practically an infant.

  “No, thank you. It looks like it’s going to rain soon, so I need to have Sophie put away any books or dog toys she took out and then get them inside.”

  “Maybe another time,” he said, and even as the words left his mouth, he had no idea where they came from. He wasn’t here to make friends, no matter how pretty they were. He had work to do and a cottage to declutter and prepare for market.

  And the look she gave him made it clear she was as surprised by the comment as he was. She frowned a little before giving him a friendly but distant smile. “Maybe. I apologize again for Oscar’s intrusion. And for Sophie’s, I guess. I’ll talk to her about respecting boundaries, but it’s harder without a fence, I think.”

  He laughed. “You seem very determined to put up a fence between us.”

  The smile faded. “Fences help everybody remember where they’re supposed to be. And you know what they say. Good fences make good neighbors.”

  Cam wasn’t sure if that message was as directed at him as she’d made it sound, but he’d do well to take it to heart. As she crossed the invisible boundary into her own yard, he turned around and went back inside, leaving Elinor to enjoy the last few minutes of sun before the rain hit.

  Chapter Four

  Meredith couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so hard. Her stomach hurt almost as much as her butt, though neither was as injured as her dignity.

  “Maybe you should sit in the swing on our dock,” Sophie said before dissolving into giggles again as Meredith glared at the hammock.

  “I can do this.”

  “I’m starting to wonder if the property insurance on this cottage covers neighbors falling out of my hammock.”

  The deep male voice behind her made Meredith whirl around, her cheeks hot, and she almost stumbled. Cam put out his hand to steady her, and the touch on her bare arm did nothing to cool the heat in her face.

  “I guess it’s been longer than I thought,” she admitted reluctantly. “I also didn’t think you were home.”

  “I wasn’t. And your fierce guard dog was too busy laughing at you to notice me, I guess.”

  “Elinor’s been sitting on the deck railing, watching. I’m pretty sure she laughed, too.”

  “Do you need some help?”

  She wasn’t sure how exactly he could help her, and she definitely couldn’t see any way he could help her into the hammock without touching her. The thought made her cheeks burn, so she turned away.

  “Thanks, but I think it’s time to quit for the day. My parents will be here soon and here I am with dirt under my nails and grass stains on my butt.”

  Then she cursed herself for saying that as she had to bend over to pick up the sandals she’d kicked off into the grass.

  “I tried to show her,” Sophie said, hopping into the hammock as if she’d been doing it her entire life. “But she’s not very good at it.”

  Oscar stood up so his front paws were on the edge of the hammock, and Sophie managed to hook him by whatever a dog’s armpits were called and haul him in without tipping them onto the ground.

  “You are, though,” he said. “I’m impressed.”

  “Showoff,” Meredith muttered, and Sophie giggled. “Now that Mr....Cam is home, we should give him his yard back, though.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said quickly, and she got the impression he really meant it.

  “See, Mom? Cam doesn’t mind. I told you.”

  “That’s very nice of him, but your grandparents will be here soon. We should clean up a little.”

  “They don’t care if I’m dirty,” So
phie shot back, folding her arms across her chest, and Meredith watched Cam press his lips together to keep from smiling because he was obviously smart enough to see a battle of wills was about to begin and he wanted no part of it.

  “Sophie Grace Price, do not make me tell you again.”

  She didn’t have to break out the dreaded middle name often, but when she did, it usually worked. Sophie sighed very dramatically and—after tucking Oscar against her chest—rolled out of the hammock. She landed neatly on her feet and set the dog in the grass.

  She definitely hadn’t gotten her hammock skills from her mother.

  “Grandma!” Sophie’s sudden exuberant shout seemed to echo across the bay, and Meredith turned to see her parents walking across her lawn. They must have heard them in the backyard and walked around the house.

  Oscar, of course, barked and ran in circles as first Sophie and then Meredith hugged them. Her mother gave her an extra squeeze, of course, because they talked on the phone regularly, but it had been a while since they’d seen each other.

  “You found yourself a beautiful spot,” her dad said, taking in the view. “I always did love this side of the bay, since it’s quiet.”

  “It used to be quiet, anyway,” Meredith said before trying to shush a very excited Oscar. When Sophie got excited, so did the dog, even if he wasn’t sure what was happening.

  Her mom gave her a questioning look and then tilted her head in Cam’s direction. Meredith realized she’d have to introduce him, since they were all currently standing in his yard.

  “Mom and Dad, this is our neighbor, Cam Maguire. Cam, these are my parents—Neal and Erin Lane.” She watched them shake hands, and then, before she could herd her family back onto her own property, her dad and Cam were deep in conversation about the lake and fishing.

  Or rather, her father was talking about the lake and fishing. Cam was mostly nodding along and throwing in the occasional comment, which made her wonder if he actually knew anything about the topic at hand.