The Boathouse (A Pelican Pointe Novel Book 14)

by Vickie McKeehan

  “You got it.”

  He took a long, slow hit of the caffeine, breathing in the aroma. Taking a minute to focus, he glanced around the restaurant. For a Sunday morning, there wasn’t much of a crowd. A few tables filled with early risers ordering the special of the day—waffles topped with fruit and whipped cream with a side order of bacon.

  A toddler in the corner kept tossing his food over the side of the high chair, making a mess with crackers. The chore of cleaning that up would likely fall to Bodie when the family left.

  At another table, the postmistress, Cora Bigelow, treated herself to a stack of apple pancakes with her breakfast companion Barton Pearson who had opted for the pecan version.

  Two elderly women sat at the corner booth dressed for church drinking hot tea with their buttered toast and jam.

  Tucker thought of his mom and wished he could talk to her about his dad. He’d tried calling his father’s phone, but no one had picked up.

  “What happened with the break-in last night?” Bodie asked, tipping a coffee pot over his cup for a refill. The question derailed his train of thought.

  “Turns out it was just a kid out on a Saturday night looking for kicks. He didn’t take anything.”

  “That’s good. Where were you just now? How many miles away?”

  “Don’t ask. Okay…possibly all the way to Florida.” He told her about calling his dad and not getting an answer.

  “You could call the police down there to do a welfare check.”

  “I should. That would teach him to answer the phone when it rings.”

  Max dinged the bell and called out an order number.

  Bodie smiled at him. “That’s your omelet. Be right back.”

  He watched her walk away, stared at the sway of her hips, the way she filled out that ridiculous pink uniform to perfection. And decided to stop daydreaming about the possibilities like a schoolboy with a crush.

  When Bodie set down the plate, the omelet took up the entire platter. He caught the aromatic blend of onions, green peppers, and ham in Max’s fluffy concoction that usually came with a side of toast and hash browns.

  “I forgot about the huge portions.”

  “If you clean your plate, you get a prize,” Bodie cracked.

  “This is enough for two people.”

  “I know. Max never skimps on the ingredients. You can always take home what’s left and heat it for lunch. That’s what I do. I bet you have a microwave at the store. That works, too. The meals I eat here make my food budget stretch further.”

  Here was a woman who’d bought a rather expensive plant for a friend the night before and yet thought up ways to save on her grocery bill. It gave him a brilliant idea. “I’ll do that. Any chance we could have dinner tonight?”

  “Sure. I’d like that. Eat your breakfast before it gets cold, though.” When another couple walked in and took a seat, Bodie put a hand on Tucker’s shoulder, gave it a little squeeze. “Gotta go. Duty calls.”

  The perk for Tucker was the way she handled herself. Strong female, he decided as he picked up his fork and dug in. The eggs were a mouth-watering delight cooked to perfection. He savored every bite as he planned out his morning, going over in his head the dreaded interaction with Kris Mallick and the nephew. After mulling it over, he decided what he needed to say, point by point.

  By the time he sought out the Mallick address on Dune Point, a small, narrow lane on the opposite end of town in the shadow of the lighthouse, he’d prepared his little speech. The stop turned out to be as awkward as Tucker had known it would be.

  The powder-blue cottage with the eggshell trim didn’t look like the home of a bully. The flower beds on either side of the slab porch popped with the color purple—chunky irises mingled with vining morning glories covering the ground. Hummingbirds zipped around the columbine and flew off when Tucker approached. But he noticed the lawn had been mowed and edged within the last week, and the hedges cut back. He could still smell fresh-cut grass lingering in the air.

  He rang the doorbell and waited, hoping the uncle answered. He was in luck when a sandy-haired man with a slight stubble on his face opened the door.

  Tucker introduced himself before getting right to it, explaining why he’d interrupted the man’s Sunday morning. “Last night, an eyewitness spotted your nephew attempting to break into my hardware store.”

  He handed Mr. Mallick a bill for the repair job. “I put up plywood for now, but the door will need replacing. I figure fifty bucks should cover another one, which I happen to have on hand. It would cost a lot more if I had to order a brand new one, though.”

  Kris Mallick stared at the piece of paper and bellowed out into the rest of the house. “Oliver, get in here! Now!”

  The two men waited until a gangly teenager, almost as tall as his uncle, appeared in the doorway. With a scraggly black mop of hair and a disinterested look about him, the sullen Oliver slumped against the wall.

  “Please tell me you aren’t responsible for this. Just once, tell me you didn’t do it.”

  Without a word, Oliver lifted a nonchalant shoulder in response.

  “That’s not good enough. I want an answer,” Kris demanded. “I want you to act like a man, look me in the eye, and take responsibility for what you’ve done.”

  “I got bored. So what? You were out with your girlfriend until two in the morning.”

  “That’s my business,” Kris snapped. He shoved the bill into Oliver’s chest. “I get one night off a week, and I go out. Sue me. You’re fourteen years old. But this…now you’re acting like a spoiled brat who needs a babysitter twenty-four-seven because you can’t be left alone without doing shit like this. Well, here’s a newsflash, Oliver. I’m done. I’m not paying for this. Not this time. You are.”

  “Me? I don’t have any money. That’s why I tried to get into the stupid hardware store in the first place. I thought there might be some cash—”

  “Yeah?” Kris barked. “Well, get a job like everybody else. Do what other kids your age do. Cut grass. Do yard work. Babysit. Although God knows who would want you around their kids. Because no one trusts you, Oliver. No one. Now I can’t either. That’s the truth of it. But since you owe this man fifty dollars, you’d better come up with a way to pay him back because I’m not forking over any more cash to fix your life because you’re bored. Got it?”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Oliver fired back, his dark brown eyes blazing with anger.

  Tucker cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you two alone to hash this out. The store is open seven days a week. Drop the money by anytime during store hours.” Before backing off the porch, though, he leveled a steady finger toward the teenager. “But you try anything like storming the back door with your foot again, and I’ll contact the police. Next time I’ll press charges.”

  “I’m so scared,” Oliver said with a snicker.

  Kris glowered at his nephew. “I don’t even know you anymore. You should be afraid. Ending up in juvie is no laughing matter.” He pivoted back to Tucker. “I’m sorry about this. I’ve tried everything I know to make him understand that this kind of behavior is getting him nowhere. But he gets in trouble at school, gets sent home, usually the drill is expelled for three days, and then the pattern just keeps getting worse.”

  “I just want him to pay for the damage,” Tucker declared. “I can do the work myself. But I want him to keep away from my store. It occurred to me on the way over here this morning that it must’ve been your nephew who egged the front window last week just before school let out for the summer.”

  Kris glared at Oliver. “Was that you?”

  “It was a joke. Jeez, lighten up.”

  “Some joke. I spent all morning cleaning that mess up,” Tucker stated. “Not to mention the eggs stuck to everything, including the sidewalk. Connie Grant almost slipped in that gooey mess and wrenched her back out. As funny as stuff like that is to you, to the rest of us, the adults in the room, it’s downright stupid. Not everythin
g is about you.”

  “Okay, okay. I get it. You’re mad. But I don’t have fifty bucks.”

  Kris sucked in an angry breath. “That’s okay. I’ll see to it that he gets a job and pays you back.” He thumped Oliver on the back of his head. “No more of this letting your behavior slide and hope you grow out of it. That ends today.”

  Kris held out his hand to Tucker. “I’m sorry you had to spend your morning like this.”

  “No problem. But the apology should come from him. A fourteen-year-old should know better.”

  Kris gave Oliver a little shove toward the door. “You have something to say to Mr. Ferguson?”

  “Sorry,” Oliver whispered under his breath.

  Tucker held a hand to his ear. “What was that? I didn’t quite hear you.”

  In a louder voice, Oliver choked out the words. “I’m. Sorry. Okay?”

  “Fine. I’ll give you six weeks to cough up the fifty dollars,” Tucker explained. “That’s the end of July. If at that time you fail to pay for the door, I’ll go to Brent Cody with the eyewitness statement and file a formal complaint. Are we clear?” The kid didn’t need to know that the only witness didn’t exist in human form.

  “Yeah. We’re clear,” Oliver forced himself to spit out.

  “Great. Fifty bucks by July 31st,” Tucker reiterated and held out his hand to the kid.

  Oliver shook on it.

  With that taken care of, Tucker got back in his truck and moved on to his second errand.

  Knowing Bodie’s schedule at the garden center helped. It meant he could pick up what he wanted there before opening the hardware store. He didn’t usually do much business on Sunday anyway. But when he swung the Dodge Ram onto Landings Bay, he could tell the parking lot at The Plant Habitat was starting to fill up with customers.

  The family-owned garden center took up a good portion of the entire block. They had the space to offer houseplants, a nice selection of ornamentals along with deciduous trees native to California like black walnut and sugar pine.

  Today, people browsed through the outdoor section under a canopy of large tropicals like the bird of paradise. Their distinctive orange flowers always seemed to attract a crowd, more so than the banana trees or the Areca palms swaying in the breeze.

  Tucker cut the engine on the truck and got out, heading straight into the greenhouse where he knew the mini monsteras had been the night before.

  He was dismayed to see the flirty Shiloh greet him at the doorway. And she wasted no time amping up the wattage. “Hey, how come you guys took off last night? I wanted a dance. Remember, I told you?”

  Not wanting to interact with her for long, he brushed past in a hurry. “Ah, well, I got a call and had to leave. Sorry.”

  When he stopped to look around, Shiloh caught up with him, elbowing him playfully in the ribs. “I bet you guys wanted to be alone. Am I right? I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before. I didn’t know you were a plant lover.”

  “I was hoping to pick up one of those mini monsteras for a friend.”

  “You and half the town. We had a run on those as soon as we opened this morning. Blame Bodie for that. She’s the one who got everybody all stirred up. But I think we might have five or so left.” She looped an arm through his. “Let’s go check and see what’s in stock.”

  Tucker let himself be led further into the greenhouse by the chatty Shiloh, who talked nonstop about her evening out. “So, Geniece is your best friend?”

  “She is. We do everything together. Except she gets to work at the pub. She’s so lucky to have a cool job like that. I applied there, but the owner won’t hire me until I’m twenty-one. I have months to go before that happens.”

  “You mean a year?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “You’d give up working here to waitress?”

  “In a heartbeat. Working with plants is just too boring. Nothing cool ever happens here. And I have to listen to these customers drone on and on about wanting to know the right stuff to buy to make the plants…you know…grow.” She stopped short in front of a display filled with lush greenery.

  Tucker stared at the offerings trying to remember if this was the right one. “I don’t know. The one Bodie picked out looked different from these.”

  “Oh. That’s right, you wanted the kind of plant Ellie got. Sorry. Those are over here.” She led him to another table on another aisle where the mini monsteras sat clumped together.

  It irritated Tucker to see there were more than five remaining. “Thanks. I can take it from here.”

  “Are you sure? I can be your cashier whenever you’re ready.”

  “No. It’s okay. I think I want to browse some more.” He didn’t really want that, but he needed some space. He made his selection, wandered around carrying the plant, and then spotted Caleb adjusting the grow lights in a smaller section where seeds were beginning to sprout.

  Caleb looked up and grinned. “I saw you talking to our resident plant expert.”

  “I hope you’re joking. She’s a nice kid, but jeez…”

  “I know. Her grandfather is one of our oldest and dearest friends. She was taking care of him after his surgery until he was well enough to go back to Cutter Mountain. She opted to stay in town. But keeping Shiloh around is somewhat of a test for all of us. You gotta have nerves of steel or break.”

  “The grandfather must be some friend to ask you to hire her.”

  “He didn’t ask. Landon offered. But I would’ve done the same thing. Tahoe Jones is like the grandfather I never had. He taught me how to fish, to love the land, got me into nature. We go way back. When Shiloh wanted to hang around here instead of going back to her little town, we couldn’t say no.”

  “I see. Well, she’s not that bad. But does she flirt with every man she meets?”

  “Pretty much. Shelby says it’s her age, her immaturity, and the fact that she comes from this tiny wide spot in the road with a lot of old folks in it. But whatever the reason, it becomes an annoying day in and day out problem. Believe it or not, we’ve asked her to tone it down.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. She was way worse a couple of months back. The thing that bothers me is her unwillingness to learn the plants and the flowers. I don’t think she likes working here very much.”

  “Which is why you’re a saint,” Tucker joked, glancing at his watch. “I need to check out and then get to the store. If only I had this kind of crowd waiting for me at my place.”

  “Give it time. Nick and Logan have spread the word that you’re not your dad. But there’s only so much they can do. The customer service issues are still up to you. The garden center is back to supporting you. And there’s the half a dozen other businesses willing to give you a second chance. That’s a big deal.”

  “Yeah. I know. I appreciate it. But trying to steer the ship in the right direction takes patience. Some days, I’m just plain fed up with trying to keep things afloat.”

  “At least you’ve pulled ahead. That’s an improvement. Any idea why your dad took off to Florida the way he did and left you holding the bag? For a while, we all wondered what was going on. And then you showed up to pick up the pieces.”

  “Who knows? It still keeps me awake at night. I gotta run. Are you still planning to be at the boathouse tomorrow when the engineers show up?”

  “I’ll be there. How about you?”

  “Probably not. I need to work on payroll and balance the books for May. Anyway, see ya later.”

  He looked around for Shiloh and didn’t see her anywhere. But when he spotted Shelby working the main register, he headed that way, relieved that he could pay for Bodie’s plant without feeling like he was in a singles bar.

  As he made the left turn onto Crescent Street toward the store, he wondered if he had pulled ahead. Was he making headway at all with the people? He couldn’t say for sure that he’d turned a corner. Yes, things were looking better. But he still needed to see more customers. For now, all h
e knew for certain was that his dad had dealt him a crappy hand.

  He pulled into the alley at the back and parked close to the lumberyard. It occurred to him that leaving the plant in the hot truck might be bad for it. He didn’t want it to wilt before he could surprise Bodie with it.

  Gathering the bulky pot in his arms, he made his way to the back door and clumsily let himself inside, flipping the lights on as he got ready for business. He slid the mini monstera onto the main counter near the window to get some light, unlocked the front door, and turned the open sign around.

  But there was another chore he needed to get done first.

  He retraced his steps and went out to the lumberyard. Hunting down a replacement door wasn’t that easy. This time he wanted a solid core, one made of steel at least two inches thick and something that wouldn’t cave in with a couple of kicks from a wayward teenager. He found what he was looking for tucked away in a corner behind the newer, cheaper doors made with composites.

  He carried the metal door back across the parking lot and grabbed his tool bag from his office. He began to remove the old door off its hinges and started measuring and drilling new holes to add a deadbolt to the locks.

  After getting the shiny steel door installed, it was almost noon before he saw his first customer, an elderly couple who lived next door to him as a kid. He’d known the pair his entire life.

  “How’s it going, Mr. Gaylord, Mrs. Gaylord? What can I help you with today?”

  “Sink’s backed up again,” seventy-five-year-old Arthur announced. The man walked with a cane but could still get around well enough. “Garbage disposal bit the dust last night. Quit right in the middle of Astor stuffing her leftover cauliflower down into it.” He made a face and shook his head. “Even the disposal didn’t want to deal with that stuff.”

  “Oh, hush up,” Astor chided. “You know you love my cauliflower casserole. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

  To defeat the good-natured squabbling, Tucker broke in, “I love your casseroles. And the good news is I already know the model number because Arthur has been in many times before to get parts for it. Are you ready to replace it this time? Because I have it in stock and ready to go.”