A Shore Thing (11 page)

All signs of sleepiness had vanished. Amazing how a smack on the head could bring about a spate of unleashed giggling from a cabin full of ten- and eleven-year-old girls. I massaged my crown. “Actually, I didn’t mean it like that. I do believe wholeheartedly in listening to God.”
That a girl, skirt the issue.

Angel wasn’t buying it. “But do you hear him anymore?”

For the first moment since I arrived in the midst of this active cabin, all went quiet. They didn’t want my interpretation of Squid’s message, but my personal story. I had always advised counselors to be transparent with their campers, and yet I’d been too preoccupied to do that with mine.

Something in my brain fumbled. Should I be honest here, and tell Angel just how busy my life had become? Or will she recognize that for the cop-out it was?

“I’ll be honest with you girls. Yes, I’ve heard God before, but lately, not as much as I’d like to.”

“Really? You’ve heard him? Out loud?”

“Not really out loud—although I’m open to that, Angel—but I have heard him in here.” I placed a hand over my heart. “He has a way of letting me know when I’m on the right track.”

Angel snorted. “And when you’re about to crash into another train.” She rolled over on the floor with her own laughter.

Taylor’s voice took on a worried pitch. “What if we can’t figure it out? What if we go through this whole weekend and none of it makes any sense to us? What then?”

By now, I’d sat up, albeit in a crouched position. “Oh, Taylor, don’t worry. And I mean
don’t.
There’s a question in the Bible that goes something like, ‘Who by worrying can add a single hour to his life?’ I want you to have fun this weekend. Laugh a bunch, and eat a ton, and soak up the lessons. You
will
learn something new—I’ve no doubt about that. But you can’t force it, okay? Let God do what God’s gonna do.”

Angel screwed up her face. “‘Gonna?’ What kind of grammar is that?”

“Did you understand what I said?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then, my grammar did its job. Now, go to sleep. I love you all.”

For the second time that night, the cabin wound down with “goodnights” all around. Bare feet padded about as the girls climbed onto beds that needed oiling, their voices twittering their myriad thoughts in hushed tones.

Bailey’s voice floated above me. “Night, Callie.” It took several twisting squeaks for her and Angel to settle down, but by the time they did, so had everyone else.

In the dark I contemplated what I could do for June, and for our community, and even more pressing at the moment, for the young girls in my care over the next couple of days.

Chapter Eleven

“In my professional opinion, the Kitteridges are about to be financially devastated.” My brother Jim stared down his nose at me, the hard line of his bifocals as unyielding as the opinion he had just delivered.

Still, I wasn’t ready to give up. “Isn’t there due process or something?”

He slapped the pages onto his desk. “Sure, maybe if they had borrowed from a bank or a reputable mortgage company. But they didn’t do so, Callie. They took out a loan from a private lender—a sharp one.” He drummed his fingers on the stack. “I will say this, whoever advised them to sign off on this kind of loan ought to have his license revoked.”

I crossed my arms as I stood there in Jim’s office. After the weekend I’d had, it took all the strength I could rally to call on my ultra-important sibling this rather hazy Monday morning. Especially when I’d missed the family’s regular Sunday gathering. “What are their options?”

He grimaced. “If the balloon payment is not paid by the due date, the private party can file a lawsuit the next day. This contract allows for the lender to take possession in the event of nonpayment.” He sat in his high-backed chair, looking lawyerly and quite definite. “Theoretically, a default judgment could be entered within 45–60 days and they could be evicted.”

“It’s that ironclad?”

“Appears so.”

I uncrossed my arms and ran my fingers along the grain of Jim’s desk, my voice losing steam. “Is there anything they can do?”

“Yeah, they could sell the land bordering their house—the same property you seem to think you have a vested interest in—and that will provide them with enough to pay off their loan. Brilliant stipulation—wish I’d thought of it.”

“You can’t be serious. That lender took advantage of the Kitteridges and you know it.”

Jim shrugged. “Happens all the time. People shouldn’t sign agreements they do not understand.”

“And there’s nothing else that you, my smart attorney brother, can suggest for them to do?”

“Yeah, they could come up with the money within the next six weeks in order to be safe.” Jim threw both hands up and gave me his signature “See-it-my-way” expression. He did that whenever he had decided that a particular conversation was nearing its end. “Listen, Callie, you can’t help them on this one. They were foolish in signing this.”

I shook my head. “An old couple’s home is at stake, Jim. We have to come up with a way to help them.”

“Says who?” Jim let out an obvious sigh, the kind that told me that even if he could help, he wouldn’t. It wasn’t worth his time. “Callie, this is the same song and dance we’ve traded since you were a kid. Stop trying to save the world. It can’t be done.”

I crossed my arms again and cradled my elbows. “I’d like to think that it could.”

Jim stood. He leaned both fists on his desk until his body stretched across its surface, causing me to take a backward step. “I wasn’t going to be the bad guy and point this out, but weren’t you the one who came tearing into Sunday supper last week ready to take the Kitteridges down?”

“I was just stunned by what those goons had said and how they treated me.” I lowered my head until all I could see was the plush, ebony carpet at my feet. “I-I really hadn’t had a chance to think of the Kitteridges’ part in all of it at that point.”

“Even though, technically, it was their property you were so bent out of shape over.” He was bullying me. I could tell by the tone of his voice and I hated it. Why, after so many years, did I let him get away with that?

I lifted my head until our eyes met, which meant that I had to rise to my toes and crane my neck. “So what you’re saying is that this is too tough for you to handle.”

Now I’d done it. If skin could look warm, his had begun to sizzle. His silence roared through the office, taunting me to apologize. Instead I stood there. And waited.

His smile returned, the same patronizing smile I had seen as a child every time I asked to go along with him and his friends to a movie, or an ice cream. Even a trip to the grocery store would have been nice. Jim’s normal skin tone had returned, and he lowered himself into his wide-armed chair. “My suggestion to you is to save all your money from your camp job and hope it’s enough for a down payment.”

“Down payment?”

He tossed the stack of Kitteridge documents to the edge of his desk. “Yeah, for a nice ocean-view loft at Otter Bay.”

GAGE

GAGE PERCHED UPON A rock, his arms wrapped around his shins, one hand gripping his other wrist, as he stared into the far-reaching expanse of watery jade from the edge of Otter Bay. Moments like this, when the air and water kept reasonably still, reminded him of his childhood, a time when he’d run his dog Luke down a path through pine and scrub until they’d come to the edge of the lake. Lake Forever may have had a glorified name, but it was merely an oversized pond.

Still, he liked to go there and let Luke tear around wild while he rested on a rock and contemplated the ripples on the water. Much like he was doing now. Only this time the water reached farther than his eyes could see, and the ripples crested every once in awhile when the wind decided to blow.

The irony of his growing fondness for this spot, which was slated for development under his direction, was not lost on him. If only he had the resources to buy this plot himself, he would build something respectful and harmonious with the land—and then leave the rest wide open. For what, he didn’t know. Squirrels to skitter about? Otters to coast by without worry over debris dropping off high-rises built by overzealous developers hungry for the profit margin that came with density?

Or maybe . . . a family?

Not now. He couldn’t entertain such a proposition, because for one his sister and nephew depended on him for survival. Neither he nor they had planned on that fact, nor the more sobering reality of Suz’s husband—Jer’s father—landing in jail. He still couldn’t believe the guy had done what he’d done.

Gage blew out a sigh with force. Truthfully, though, his sister’s bad fortune had little, if any, effect on his immediate plans because Gage had not cared deeply for a woman in a long, long time. He glanced around. After being unceremoniously tossed from his last job, Gage could have settled anywhere. He had long since passed his exams and become registered in California. As a single guy with no one but himself to worry about, he had built up some savings and had determined to start his own company in a coastal community. So he landed here in Otter Bay. Who was he kidding? The lure of a mammoth-sized job awaiting him had everything to do with that. Still, he could not shake the sense that a larger force was at work.

A woman appeared before Gage, her shapely figure casting a shadow over him. “Praying?”

He blinked. After daring to wander back to this spot, Gage might have expected to hear Callie’s voice, but somehow he hadn’t, and now here she stood at the top of the rickety steps, glaring at him.

He shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe.”

The gritty look on her face faltered. “So how does that work exactly?”

“Prayer, you mean?”

“What I mean is I’m praying one way . . .” She glanced around before making eye contact with him again. “. . . and my guess is you’re praying the exact opposite.”

Gage chuckled and unfolded his legs, allowing his feet to land on the ground. He rested against the rock he’d been sitting on and kept her gaze. “He’s a big God, Callie. I’m sure he can handle it.”

It happened again. Something faltered in her expression. Did she have a problem with God? Or the fact that Gage was not the godless enemy she had made him out to be? Or maybe she spotted a speck of chive stuck to his teeth.

“We’re going to fight this all the way, you know.”

“I understand. Quite a gang you gathered together for the fight, by the way.” That wasn’t called for and he knew it, but such a pain she was! He couldn’t find it within himself to avoid frustrating her if only a little. He gripped the cold, rough surface of the rock beneath his fingers. What did she mean they were going to fight this all the way? How far did she think that pretty face would get her and the geriatric crew she’d recruited for her cause?

She stared at him as if stunned, and for the briefest instant, he felt another stab of remorse over his flippant comment. But then her eyes narrowed at him and if she had access to a kitchen drawer, he thought she might stab him on the spot. Such beauty, wasted on an angry woman.

Her intense stare bore into his. “First you carelessly make your presence known before all avenues for saving this property have been explored, and then you foolishly mock the people of this community.” She shook her head slowly, deliberately, as if he were a child. “You are making this easier for me than I had given you credit for.”

Ouch. He swallowed, trying not to show how bitter his pride tasted sliding down his throat. “Glad I could help.” His voice sounded weak and insincere, even to his own ears.

“How altruistic of you.”

“Okay, give.” Gage adjusted his body against the boulder before flashing two open palms in an attempt to end the stalemate. “I don’t care to fight with you, because as I’ve said before, I’m only here to do my job. Maybe if you’d give this thing a chance, you would see just how well the design for this project will complement your community.”

Callie’s laughter exploded in a wave of snorts, and Gage waited for her to blush and apologize for the unladylike outburst. She didn’t flinch. Instead she took a step, halted, and looked him up and down from his sneakers to the tousled-hair tip of his head, as if daring him to cross her. Her chest rose and fell. Had her animosity tired her? “You go on thinking that, Mr. Mitchell. Just go on thinking it.” She pushed past him, and as she did her face lingered uncomfortably close to his. “Enjoy the view.”

He fought the urge to seize her arm. “Wait. What did you mean when you said you were exploring avenues to save this property? My understanding is that it has already been sold and is ready to change hands. Pretty straightforward—unless you have knowledge to the contrary.” He paused, watchful. “Do you?”

She opened her mouth but it hung there, wordlessly. Her eyes flitted about as if unable to find a solid place to land. When she licked her lips, Gage looked away. He could hear the pattern of her breathing before she finally spoke. “Really, Mr. Mitchell, how silly do you think I am? Give away my strategy to the enemy?” He thought he heard her smirk. “Come on now and give a girl more credit than that.”

Chapter Twelve