Be My Love (A Walker Island Romance Book 1) (4 page)

“In 1951, the Petersons and the Walkers were very close. The families had been friends since the founding of the island, but by the early fifties that friendship had blossomed into something more for Poppy Peterson and William Walker II. Not only were they in love, but their marriage would also join together the two biggest businesses on the island, mussel farming for the Petersons and berry growing for the Walkers.”

He reached out for her arm to help her step around a tourist who was taking a photograph of the docks. Just at the moment they made contact, he stopped speaking and what she saw in his dark eyes as he looked through the camera to her stole her breath.

Quickly drawing his hand back, he continued, saying, “The whole island was looking forward to the big wedding, and from what I’ve read, everyone believed the two of them were a really great couple. It was simply a bonus that their marriage would create a business merger that would be good for the local economy. Unfortunately, that was when your grandfather ruined everything by breaking off the engagement.”

Through her lens, Hanna could see the flash of anger in Joel’s eyes.

“He had met your grandmother in Seattle. And, somehow, she had managed to convince him that his feelings for Poppy, and everything else that had been arranged between the two families and their businesses, didn’t matter. She not only persuaded him to marry her instead, but she also persuaded him to walk away from the berry business and to sell it for easy money.”

By this point in Joel’s version of the story, Hanna found that she was having to hold back her own spark of anger. He was being
so
unfair, believing that everything had been her grandmother’s fault. But how could he know that if he’d never actually spoken to Ava about any of it? And, worse still, how could anyone ever find out the truth if her grandmother’s promise precluded her from officially setting the record straight?

“My great aunt Poppy was so shamed by what the Walkers had done to her,” Joel said in a low voice that rumbled with emotion, “that she purposely took a boat out without a crew in bad weather. My family has never been the same since.”

Hanna instinctively turned off her camera. Both she and Joel were upset now, and it no longer felt right to keep filming.

“So there it is.” His voice was clipped now, and hard. “That’s what happened. Making a documentary won’t change those facts. And it certainly won’t change what William II and Ava did to my family.”

“But what if you’re not completely right about what happened or why it happened? And what about everything you left out? Because you certainly didn’t mention that Grams loved Grandpa while he was alive. I saw how much they cared about one another when I was little. To go against his family’s wishes like that, they must have loved each other a great deal.”

Joel shook his head as if love didn’t change anything. “What about how they sold the berry business? Do you think that was about love or about money?”

“Grandpa used that money to invest in building and staffing the local school, which he was always very passionate about, just like my father and sister,” Hanna pointed out. “And do we know whether he gave your family a chance to buy the business or not? Do we know for sure how everyone reacted? Plus, didn’t he make sure that the new owners of the company would hire locals first for berry season so that the island jobs wouldn’t disappear?”

“Just like I thought, you’re trying to twist things around.”

“No, I’m simply asking questions. Questions I need the archives to answer, Joel.” When he got that look on his face that told her he was going to refuse her request again, like any good sailor would have, she quickly changed tack. “I’m doing an interview with Milton Forsythe tomorrow morning.”

“At the marine conservation offices?”

Hanna nodded. “Mr. Forsythe doesn’t have much firsthand knowledge of the feud, but his father was a go-between for both of our families during all this. I’d like you to come with me.”

“You would?” Surprise shifted to suspicion as he asked, “Why?”

“I really want access to those archives, Joel. And the only way I’m going to get that is if I can prove to you that you can trust me.”

“You think going along with you to see Milton will do that?”

“I hope it will,” Hanna said. “Come along with me to see him. See that I’m not putting words into his mouth. And that I’m being fair. If you’re happy then, though, I expect to be given access to the archives.”

Joel seemed thoughtful. “And if I’m not?”

“Then you obviously aren’t going to change your mind, and I’ll have to think of some other way to get the answers I need.”

“So you won’t make me a promise to leave the past alone?”

“When something is important to me, I can’t just forget all about it. This documentary is happening. The only question is whether it happens with or without you.”

For a moment, she thought she might have gone too far. Joel certainly looked like he might say
without
, which definitely wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear.

But, thankfully, Joel finally said, “All right. I’ll go with you to see Milton.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Milton’s place was practically a museum in its own right, filled with relics of decades in the whale watching business. Everything from a collection of shots of dorsal fins to a battered life preserver taken from a now-decommissioned boat. His living room had one of the better views on the island, too, looking out over a sandy nook to the water.

 “When you can see the ocean every morning,” he told them as they admired his view, “and the whales are right outside your window, it makes you feel like you’re an integral part of it all. Just like your two families and the island.”

 While Hanna was glad that Joel had come to the interview with her as he’d promised, since he obviously didn’t like the idea of her documentary, she’d been concerned that he might get in the way of the questions she needed to ask. Fortunately, though, so far Joel had simply greeted Milton warmly, asked him a couple of questions about the marine conservation boats, then let Hanna set up her camera and begin to ask questions without interruptions.

 If anything, as the interview proceeded, Milton was the one making things a little tricky. Not deliberately, of course. It was just that keeping him focused on the events of 1951 meant continually drawing him away from all the stories he had of whale beach rescues and diving and the latest research from the scientists working with the local universities.

 “Most of the researchers are all right,” he said, sipping his coffee. Hanna had tasted hers, then politely put it to one side. Milton was obviously better with whales than coffee. “But you always get a few who think that because they’ve got a PhD, they know more than those of us who have been here on the island working with the sea for our entire lives.”

 “What about the Peterson–Walker wedding, Milton?” Hanna asked, gently steering things back on course. “Could you share some of your memories of that time with us?”

 “I was just a little boy, but I can remember the preparations taking place all over the island. Everyone wanted to be a part of the wedding and the party that was planned for after, of course, but it wasn’t all just about the big events. People on the island were genuinely happy for your families. The union seemed to make so much sense.” He paused, looking back and forth between Hanna and Joel, ignoring the camera completely. “Although, now that I think about it, I’ll bet this is one of the first times that a Peterson and a Walker have been under the same roof since then.”

 “We were at school together,” Hanna pointed out.

 “And there’s the moment when Hanna
came barging into my office yesterday,” Joel added.

Milton waved their comments away. “Oh, those don’t count. What I’m saying is that this has got to be the first time in more than six decades that members of your families have
willingly
been in the same room. I’ll admit to being very surprised when Hanna let me know you would both be here today. Ever since Poppy’s suicide, your two families have never been able to see eye to eye about anything, have they?”

An image of Joel’s great aunt Poppy sailing off, despondent, into the ocean as a young woman leapt into Hanna’s thoughts. But there were still so many things she didn’t know that it was little more than a hazy image. For one, she didn’t even have a good idea of what Poppy looked like. But before she could find out what she needed to know, she needed to make sure Joel would be okay with her questions.

“I’d like to ask Milton about Poppy, Joel. But only if you’re okay with me doing so.”

He seemed surprised by her question. And maybe even a little pleased that she’d thought to ask. “That’s fine,” he assured her.

The thing was, Hanna wasn’t sure whether she believed him. Not when she’d seen for herself just how important the Peterson family history was to Joel, with Poppy’s apparent suicide the most sensitive area of all.

This was her chance to—finally—get some answers. And yet, because she didn’t want to hurt Joel, she found herself more than a little reluctant to ask, “Can you tell us what you remember about Poppy, Milton?”

“She disappeared a week after the wedding between William Walker II and Ava, and it was all anyone could talk about. Not only how both families were dealing with losing her, but also because everyone on the island was worried about losing their jobs.”

Hanna tried to put herself in the shoes of the islanders in the early 1950s. A good filmmaker needed empathy; only, what was empathy but guesswork? Could she really ever know what it would have been like to have her livelihood caught between two families who had controlled most of the jobs on the island?

“There were all kinds of rumors flying around, too,” Milton added.

“What rumors?”

From the uncomfortable look on Milton’s face before he replied, she knew she probably wouldn’t want to hear more. But that wasn’t how documentary making worked. She had to film all of it, even if some of the things she learned were painful.

“As I said before, some of the rumors were about your family’s berry business, of course,” Milton explained. “Everyone thought your grandfather would sell, Hanna, but no one knew then what kind of deal he’d make, and the fear of that was worse than the reality of it, I suspect. Maybe that’s why—”

When he stopped speaking she prompted him to continue. “You don’t have to be worried about anything you say. It won’t hurt my feelings, I promise.”

“Well,” he finally continued, “they said so many cruel things about Ava.”

Her heart was thudding in her chest as Joel said, “Hanna, I know you want to make this documentary, but maybe this isn’t something you need to know.”

But she knew precisely how great her grandmother was. Which meant that anything cruel would have been a lie.

And how could she fight a lie if she didn’t know which ones had been told?

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she asked, “What kinds of things did they say?”

Milton looked deeply uncomfortable as he told her, “Well, you know that she used to dance in a gentlemen’s club, which is very different from the clubs that dancers perform in nowadays. Much more respectable, elegant sometimes, even. And yet, back then you can imagine the things people said about Ava when they all believed that she’d not only stolen away the Walkers’ heir, but also thought she was the one forcing him to sell the business.”

Hanna winced. It must have been so hard for her grandmother to know people were whispering about her behind her back. And yet, when Hanna had announced that she was going to make this documentary, Ava had been selfless enough to tell Hanna to follow the story, despite knowing it would likely bring back all the whispers and the horrible assumptions again. Guilt twinged in Hanna’s chest. She was going to give her grandmother the biggest hug in the world tonight.

“What about Poppy?” Hanna asked. “What were people saying about her? How did they feel about her sudden disappearance?”

Milton sat with his hands wrapped around the warmth of his coffee mug while he thought about his answer. “Most of them couldn’t understand why a man like your grandfather would want to give up on a chance to marry Poppy for…”

“For a dancer he’d only just met?” Hanna supplied when Milton didn’t finish that thought.

He nodded apologetically. “You know I adore your grandmother, but I’m afraid that was exactly what people thought. Plus, I think everyone felt terribly sorry for Poppy. They thought being jilted by her fiancé would follow her through life like a stain on her permanent record. My father actually quit working as an advisor for the families because he didn’t want to be caught up in the middle of it all.”

Hanna could sense that Milton was about to go off on another tangent. She would want to interview him about his father’s role later, but not when he was talking about something that was far too important to step away from.

“When you say that being jilted by my grandfather would ‘follow her through life’, are you saying that Poppy felt ashamed? Cheated? Or something else perhaps?”

Again, Milton took his time thinking about her questions before he answered. “Honestly, I think everyone felt those things on her behalf, if that makes sense? I was just a kid, but I remember how people were talking about the fact that a jilted bride should be more upset by it all.”

“More upset? I thought she committed suicide?”

“I know that’s what happened,” he said with a regretful glance towards Joel, “but even now, I can’t look back without it seeming
wrong
. Because despite your grandfather leaving her for your grandmother, Poppy looked happy to me.”

“Are you sure?” Hanna had to ask him. “After what had happened, she had plenty of reasons to be upset.”

“I know,” Milton said, “but I also know what I saw. All the
other
Petersons were upset. Some of them were furious about the deal with the Walkers being off, and some of them were furious at William for breaking off his engagement with Poppy, but Poppy herself didn’t seem to be angry or upset at all. In fact, the morning William and Ava got married, I saw her down in the soda shop, buying candy. She bought me an extra gum drop.”