Must Be Love: (Nicole and Ryan) (A Jetty Beach Romance Book 1) (5 page)

Nicole mouths
Please
, and bites that lower lip again.

Yep. I'm screwed.

"Sure," I hear my voice say. It’s a little bit like an out-of-body experience. "I'll help."

Nicole visibly relaxes, and reaches across the table to touch my hand. There’s that jolt of electricity again. Judging by the look in her eyes, she feels it too.

"Thank you," she says.

"This will be great!" Cheryl stands, her chair scraping across the floor. "Thank you both so much. I'll bring in my little box of festival goodies, and the two of you can get started."

I let out a breath and sit back in my chair. What did I just get myself into? More to the point, what did my mother just get me into? I need to have to have a little chat with her later.

Nevertheless, I can’t help grinning at Nicole. "I guess this calls for more coffee."

The Sunset Art Gallery has seen better days. I pull my car into the empty parking lot and gaze at the whitewashed building. It does have a beachy sort of charm, but the peeling paint on the siding and the faded trim speak of neglect. Howard Nelson opened the gallery during a time when Jetty Beach was nothing more than a tiny town with a handful of residents. Local lore claims that the first visitors to Jetty Beach came because of Howard's art gallery, and it ushered in a new era for the fledgling community. Despite the way locals tended to gripe about tourists, particularly their inability to drive, tourism is Jetty Beach's primary industry. Without the seasonal influx of visitors, the town would quickly fade away.

The sky is a dingy gray, threatening rain, and the wind whips at the tattered windsocks hanging on the eaves outside the gallery door. I’m early, so I check my phone while I wait in the car. No new emails. That is an absolute miracle. I spent half the previous day on the phone and the other half answering a never-ending stream of emails and texts from people in the office. That didn’t leave me any time to look at the box of paperwork Cheryl handed off to me. I still haven’t wrapped my head around what needs to be done to get the art festival off the ground. Hopefully Ryan has more ideas than I do.

Ryan. Just the thought of him makes my heart beat a little faster. Which is, of course, ridiculous. I came back to the beach to get myself together, not hook up with some guy. I roll my eyes. As if Ryan is just some guy. When he sat with me and listened to Cheryl Johnson drop the bombshell about the disarray of the upcoming festival, I could tell he wanted to bolt. He looked like a deer trying to escape a predator.

But he stayed. The relief I felt when he agreed to help was massive. I can’t believe they dropped this huge event in my lap. It isn’t like I’m sitting around doing nothing. I have a job, and a life. Well, I have a job at least. The life part is debatable.

Bing
. I really need to change my ringtone. I’m starting to hate that
bing
sound. It usually means something annoying to deal with. This one is simple enough, and I tap out a quick reply.
Yes, the guest list is in the file. I uploaded it two weeks ago.

Ryan pulls up next to me and we both step out into the wind. Cheryl gave me a key, so I dash to the front door and unlock it. We duck inside.

"The weather is definitely not on our side today," Ryan says. He’s wearing another perfectly fitting pair of jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt.

"No, it isn't," I say. "I haven't been to this event in years. Is it supposed to be outdoors?"

"Yeah, it starts here, and then there will be a line of canopies from here to the main plaza, all with artists displaying their work."

Lovely. One more wild card to account for in my plans: weather contingencies. I look around the gallery and wrinkle my nose.

"What's wrong?" Ryan asks.

"I didn't realize the gallery was so run down," I say. I flip a light switch, but it doesn’t help much. The place is clean; I have to give it that. Not a speck of dust. The paintings and sculpture on display are nice enough, but the light is too dim, the floor has seen better days, and there’s a large yellow spot on the ceiling where there was once a leak.

"It could use some restoration, but it's not so bad." Ryan's phone rings and he pulls it out of his back pocket and looks at the screen. "Sorry, one second. Hi, Mom."

I can hear his mother’s muffled voice on the other end. I wander farther into the gallery so it doesn’t seem like I’m eavesdropping. Who organized these displays? There’s a haphazard mix of styles, not in any order that I can see. A few pieces of traditional Native American art are right next to an oil painting of a sunset on the beach. There are pedestals displaying sculpture, but they don’t appear to be by the same artist, or even in the same style. A rack of postcards stands in the center of the room, right in the midst of everything.

"Yes, Mom," Ryan says. "I know. Okay, sure, I'll swing by later. No, it's no problem. Love you, too." He taps the screen and puts his phone back in his pocket. "Sorry."

"No, don't worry about it," I say. "How's your mom?"

"She's fine." He rubs the back of his neck. "She, um, she calls me a lot."

My mouth drops open a little and I swear my heart literally melts inside my chest. It isn’t what Ryan said, but how he said it. He has this sweet, almost apologetic smile, and his tone is so … protective.

"That's nice," I say. "She probably missed having you around. She must have been ecstatic when you moved back to the beach."

"You have no idea," he says. "I crashed at my parents’ house when I first got into town, and it took all of twenty-four hours for her to try to convince her neighbors to move so I could buy the house next door."

I laugh. I remember Mrs. Jacobsen as a sweet lady who talks a lot. I can just imagine her knocking on her neighbor's door, offering to have her son buy the place. "Something you probably found out about later," I say.

"Exactly."

"Sort of how we ended up here?" I say, gesturing to the gallery.

"Oh, you mean you didn't volunteer for this out of the goodness of your heart?"

I laugh again. "Not quite. My mom likes to volunteer me for things."

"You got voluntold too?" he asks.

"Yes!" Oh my god, he used my word. "She swears that isn't a word, but I'm pretty sure in the dictionary under voluntold, there's a picture of my mom with
that look
on her face."

"What, this one?" Ryan widens his eyes and plasters on an exaggerated smile. "But honey, this will be a great opportunity," he says in a high-pitched voice. "Besides, it means so much to the community."

I cover my mouth, laughing so hard my shoulders shake. "Were you in my kitchen the other day? Because that is my mom, spot on. Just add a little bit of barely concealed judgment and you've got it."

"I get that, too," he says and his smile fades a little.

I want to ask what he means, but the look on his face holds me back. "So what's it like, coming back here after … where did you live before?"

"L.A. Honestly, I left Jetty Beach thinking I'd never come back, except to visit my parents once in a while. This place seemed so small and backward." He shrugs again, the little line between his eyes standing out. Holy shit, that look is adorable. "Turns out city life wasn't what I thought it would be."

There’s something behind his eyes, a pain I can almost feel. It makes me want to press myself against him and soothe all his hurts, whatever they are.

"And you're happier here?" I say. I realize there’s too much skepticism in my voice because a flash of defensiveness crosses his face. Damn it, I didn’t mean to insult him. Again.

"A lot, actually," he says.

My phone rings. I think about ignoring it, but it
is
business hours and technically, I am supposed to be working. "Oh, crap. Sorry, it's my boss." I tap the screen to answer. "Hi Sandra."

"Nicole, where did you put the box of menus for the luncheon?" Sandra asks. She sounds annoyed.

"They're in the workroom, on the bottom shelf. Right next to the copier."

"Oh," she says. "Right. Here they are. Thanks."

She hangs up without saying goodbye.

I let out a heavy sigh.

"Work issues?" Ryan asks.

"Sort of," I say. "Nothing major."

"So you're, what, working remotely? How does that work?" he asks.

Not very well, as it turns out.
"Well, keeping up on emails and everything is easy enough. It wouldn't work long-term, but most of what I do, outside of an actual event day, is in the office. I spend the majority of my time coordinating with vendors and keeping track of details. I can do those things from anywhere."

"What exactly do you do?"

"We do event planning and PR stuff mostly," I say.

"Do you like your job?" he asks.

Such an innocent, reasonable question. Yet it sends a surge of fear worming its way through my belly. Of course I like my job. It makes me look properly successful. My new title will look fabulous on my resume. But I still don’t believe my own words when I say, "Yeah, I love my job. It's an amazing opportunity."

I’m not sure if Ryan believes me either.

"Why are we having the festival here, anyway?" I ask, wanting to change the subject. "This place is a mess. Maybe with some funding it could be nice again. But it's so dingy and sad. An art festival is supposed to be lively and full of energy."

"Sure, but it's tradition," Ryan says. "This is like, the hub of Jetty Beach's art scene."

"Art scene?" I say. "This is Jetty Beach, not some hip city with an artist's quarter."

"I know, it isn't much," he says. "But the locals love this place, and so do visitors. It's quirky."

I put my hands on my hips and look around again. I don’t know if
quirky
is the word I would use. Shabby, maybe? Definitely without the chic.

"No one is really running the gallery right now, so I think we can make a few changes," Ryan says. "We could move things around, maybe even put a fresh coat of paint on the walls. And I have some lighting that will help a lot. It's too dim in here, and so much of displaying a piece of art is getting the lighting right."

I’m still skeptical, but Ryan sounds like he knows what he’s doing. "All right, I suppose we can try to spruce the place up a bit."

"I have the lights up at my place," he says. "If you want to follow me out there, I could give them to you."

I blink in surprise. Strictly speaking, we don’t need the lights today. Ryan can bring them the next time he comes into town. But for reasons I cannot fathom, I find myself saying, "Sure, that sounds great," before I have a chance to even think.

He looks a little stunned himself. Is he surprised I said yes, or surprised he just asked me to come to his house? I follow him outside into the wind. The rain has slacked off a little, but my hair blows around my face. I get into my car and try to smooth it down, but it isn’t going to cooperate. I grab a clip from my purse, twist my hair a bit, and pin it up. Ryan glances over at me from the driver's seat of his car. I nod and give him a thumbs up.

Oh my god, Nicole, what was that? I'm so lame.

I follow him through the town entrance, to the highway that leads north. My heart beats a little too quickly and butterflies dance in my belly.

This is fine. Today wasn't a date, and he isn't inviting you up to his place. You're just going to pick up some lights.

I’m not sure if I want that to be true, or not.

The old church is set well away from the road, down a long gravel driveway. I can hear the waves crashing as soon as I open the car door. The building itself is weathered gray with white trim. A covered front porch leads to double doors in front, and the roof slopes to a high peak in the center. There’s no longer a cross or any sort of religious adornment on the outside. It hasn’t been used as a church since well before my lifetime. Yet it still retains its character, a quaintness that speaks of a simpler time.

Ryan gets out of his car and pauses, looking up at the old building. He clearly has an affection for the place—the half-smile on his face tells me that. The wind blows, chilling me to the bone. It’s cold this close to the beach. I wrap my cardigan tighter and follow Ryan to the front door.