Savannah Breeze (38 page)

On Monday
it felt so good to be home that I didn't even mind the kinds of mundane business chores that used to bore me to tears. Today, I was sorting through a cigar box full of old costume jewelry I'd bought as part of a lot at an auction the week before I left for Florida.

Most of the stuff was worthless, cheap plastic pop beads, hopeless tangles of inexpensive gold-and silver-colored chains, the kind of stuff most of our moms had in the bottom of their jewelry boxes. But I'd bought the box because I'd spotted a signed Miriam Haskell sunburst brooch in among the detritus, and now it was time to dump out the box and pick through the pieces one by one, looking for anything else saleable.

I was examining a flashy pair of rhinestone drop earrings with sterling-silver settings and Austrian crystal stones with my jeweler's loupe, looking for what I hoped would be the Eisenberg hallmark, when the phone rang. It was Daniel.

“Hey,” he said breathlessly. “Can you meet me at the restaurant?”

“Which restaurant?” I asked. After all, Guale had been closed for weeks now, and he'd subbed at half a dozen other places since then.

“Guale,” he said. “Meet me around back. Come now, okay?”

I picked up my pocketbook and the keys to the truck and headed for the door. Jethro, who'd been asleep on the floor under my worktable, suddenly came to life and bounded right behind me.

“All right,” I told him. “But you have to stay in the truck. They have very strict rules against dogs in restaurants.”

He didn't seem to mind, and when I opened the passenger-side door of my old turquoise pickup, he jumped up into his usual seat.

In five minutes, I was pulling into the lane that ran behind Guale, which was on Congress Street, in the heart of the old city market district.

As I rolled to a stop behind the restaurant, Daniel was just walking out the back door. He was wearing my favorite pair of tight black jeans, a faded black T-shirt, and beat-up Converse Chuck Taylor's.

I hopped out of the truck. Jethro stayed in his seat, content to hang his head out the open window.

“Hey,” I said, greeting Daniel with a kiss. “What's the big deal that I had to drop what I was doing to run over here in the middle of the day?”

He reached in the pocket of his jeans and held up a key.

“We're celebrating,” he said, his eyes dancing. “We're reopening Guale. And BeBe is bringing me in as a full partner.”

“Really? That's wonderful.”

“As soon as we're up and running and making a profit again, I'll start payments to buy BeBe out completely. Guale will be all mine.”

“Daniel!” I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Oh, baby, that's so great. I can't believe it. But what made BeBe decide to sell out? She didn't say anything about that to me when we talked last night.”

He was unlocking the fire door to the restaurant. “I got the feeling she just decided this morning. She called and asked me to meet her over here. And when I got here, she was standing in the entryway, looking around, as if she didn't recognize the place. She just said her heart wasn't in it anymore. The only provision she made on our deal is that I have to hire some chick y'all met down in Lauderdale.”

“That would be Emma,” I said. “She's a wonderful cook, and she'll be a great addition in the kitchen.”

“We'll see,” he said, sounding like the temperamental genius he liked people to think he was.

“What about BeBe?” I wondered. “What'll she do if she's not running this restaurant? Guale has been practically her whole life.”

“She didn't say and I didn't ask,” Daniel said.

“Just like a man.”

He held the back door open and motioned me inside with a grand sweep of his arms.

“Entrez!”
he said.

The kitchen was dark and chilly and eerily quiet. And for the first time in years, there were no delicious smells wafting from the range or the ovens. In fact, the only smell was the faint scent of Lysol.

I followed Daniel through the dark kitchen, and I jumped and had to suppress a scream when he turned suddenly and swept me into his arms.

“You're mine, Eloise Foley,” he said, his voice husky. “Guale is mine, and you're mine. And we are here to celebrate this momentous occasion.”

“Champagne?” I asked.

“Later,” he said, taking my hand and leading me out of the kitchen. “Right now, I thought we'd check out that big leather banquette in the private dining room.”

After I left
James Foley's office, I decided to drop by the home to see my grandparents. I met Granddad at the door as he was bringing in the last sack of groceries from his trip to the store.

Grandmama was unloading the sacks and already finding fault with their contents.

“Spencer Loudermilk,” she exclaimed, holding up a bottle of cherry red dish soap. “What is this vile liquid supposed to be?”

“Detergent,” he said, busying himself with the
TV Guide
. I wondered idly why he bothered with it, since he had every listing memorized by heart.

“Well, it's not like any kind of detergent I ever saw,” she said. “You know I always use Palmolive verdant spring.”

“This kind was buy one-get one,” Granddad said, snapping on the television with the remote control and settling back in his chair.

“Well, yippee-doo,” Grandmama said. “Now I got two bottles of gunk I don't intend to ever use.”

She went to the pantry, got a bottle of Diet Dr Pepper, and poured one over a glass of ice for me. “I have to buy this myself,” she explained. “Your grandfather keeps bringing home that generic mess. Tastes like battery acid.”

She motioned for me to sit down at the kitchen table, and I did as she suggested. “Now, what's this talk about a new fella in your life? Your grandfather said you seem pretty smitten with this man.”

I sighed. “I was. But I don't think it's going to work out with Harry.”

“Harry. That's a good, strong name. You don't hear that name too often anymore,” she said. “I like it.”

“You'd like him too, I think. Come to think of it, this is the first Harry I've ever dated,” I told her. “Well, I don't guess we ever really did date. Except for once, down in Fort Lauderdale, he took me out to dinner.”

She went on unloading groceries, putting the canned goods in the cupboard and the milk and eggs in the refrigerator. “What makes you think it's not going to work out with this Harry person?”

“He told me so. Yesterday. And after he told me it wasn't going to work out, he started packing up his stuff. He's leaving me. And the Breeze Inn.”

She clucked disapprovingly. “That's a shame. How do you feel about it?”

“Mad. Hurt. Confused. I finally get this mess of a life of mine halfway straightened around. I finally find a man I like—and respect. And he dumps me.”

“Did he say he doesn't like you anymore?” she asked.

“No. He says he's crazy about me. But he says we don't want the same things in life.”

“That's just plain ridiculous,” Grandmama declared, shaking her head. “And just like a man to make up some kind of hogwash excuse for running away. Honey, if you leave it up to this man, the two of you never will get married.”

“Married!” I yelped. “Who said anything about getting married? I've been down the aisle three times already. And it never works out.”

“But you're allowed a mulligan,” Granddad said, strolling into the kitchen. He opened the cookie jar, reached in, and grabbed a handful of cookies.

“Put those back,” Grandmama said, slapping the back of his hand.
“I'm not studying carrying you to the doctor after you make yourself sick eating cookies.”

With a sheepish expression, he dropped the cookies back into the jar.

“And I saw that Kit Kat wrapper in the bottom of the grocery sack,” she went on. “Don't think you're fooling me, Spencer Loudermilk.”

She shook her head again and folded the empty plastic sacks into neat bundles that she stashed in a cloth bag she kept on the back of the kitchen door for that purpose.

“Enough messing around,” she said finally. “Do you love this man?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And you say he loves you?”

“So he claims.”

“Then you need to get married,” she said. “You're not getting any younger, you know. If you wait too much longer, those ovaries of yours will be all shriveled up, like Raisinettes.”

“I'm not that old,” I protested.

“You're nearly forty,” she said. “I was nineteen when I had your father. And your mother was twenty-seven when she had you.”

“I'm only thirty-five.”

“And how old is this Harry person?”

“He won't tell me,” I admitted. “But I know he's older than me. Anyway, who says I want children?”

“I do,” she snapped. “We need a new baby in this family. And heaven knows, your brothers' wives aren't about to have any more. Which is probably a blessing.”

“You are too much,” I told her. “Trying to turn me into a broody hen just so you can play with a baby.”

Grandmama slammed the cabinet door shut. “That's enough,” she said. “I'm not going to sit around here listening to your sniffing and
moaning about your love life. Now, if you love this fella, you go on out there to that motel of yours and tell him so.”

She flounced into the living room and snatched the remote control out of Granddad's grasp.

“Go on,” she said, shooing me out the door. “My stories are fixing to come on. That's enough soap opera for me.”

The neon
VACANCY
sign
was lit up when I pulled into the parking lot at the Breeze, which was appropriate, I thought, seeing Harry's Vista Cruiser, the tailgate down, backed up in front of the office door.

He was a weasel, I told myself, waiting until I was gone to clear out his stuff. Grandmama was wrong about us. It would never work out, but I didn't intend to allow him to leave without letting him know what he was missing out on.

“Damnit, Harry,” I announced, barging into the office. I stalked over to the bedroom area, where I found his suitcase standing by the door. Jeeves sat up on the sofa and barked a happy greeting to me, but his master wasn't around.

“What now?” His voice, muffled, came from the utility room.

I went in, expecting to find him loading boxes with his fishing gear.

Instead, I found him sitting cross-legged on the floor, with what looked like the disemboweled guts of the washing machine spread out around him.

“I thought you were going,” I said.

“I thought so too,” he said, sorting through a pile of widgets on the floor.

“Why didn't you?”

He sighed and looked up. “Give me a hand, will you?”

I put out my hand and hauled him to his feet. But he didn't let go of my hand once he was standing.

“The damned washing machine is messed up again,” he said, gesturing toward a mound of sopping-wet laundry on the floor beside it. “It chewed up a whole load of towels.”

He held up a shredded white towel for my inspection, and the scent of Clorox almost knocked me down.

“You put in too much bleach again,” I said. “It's not the machine that's screwed up. It's you.”

“That's what Tricia said,” he answered, wiping his hands on the seat of his jeans.

“Tricia? Since when have you started listening to what your ex-wife has to say?”

He winced at the word “ex-wife.” “She can't be wrong all the time. It's statistically impossible.”

“What exactly brought on this new level of understanding?” I asked.

“I went over to the marina yesterday, to move the boat. And I ran into her. She was asking all kinds of questions about you. Like, if we were only friends, why were you shelling out $32,500 to buy back my boat for me?”

“What did you tell her?”

“That it was a loan. I told her I intend to pay you back. That's when she let me have it.” He shook his head. “Man, that woman cusses like a sailor.”

“I'm sure your tender sensibilities were shattered,” I said.

He grinned, then touched the watch hanging from my wrist. “What's this?”

I took it off and showed it to him. “It's my daddy's. Reddy was wearing it when they arrested him. The cops took it off him, and that lawyer down in Florida, the one who works for Sandra Findley, overnighted it to James. I just got it back this morning.”

He turned it over and looked at the inscription, then handed it back.

“Pretty nice.”

I took a deep breath. “I'd like you to have it, Harry.”

“Me? No. Like you said about that painting of your aunt. It's a family heirloom. I couldn't.”

I took it and slid it onto his wrist and snapped the catch.

“It's a gift,” I said lightly. “Not a loan. To thank you…for everything.”

“You bought my boat back,” he said. “We're even. Only, not really. I still owe you.”

“I'm not talking about the money,” I told him, fighting back unexpected tears. “You taught me what's important. When I met you, I thought I'd lost everything. In a way, I had. But I'm not talking about material things. I'm talking about trust. When I came out here to the Breeze, I had to trust you. I didn't have any choice. As it turns out, I got lucky.”

“No,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders. “I'm the lucky one. I got a second chance. According to Tricia, I don't deserve it. She says I'm a stubborn, pigheaded, emotional retard. She can't figure out what you see in me.”

“Well,” I said, taking one of his hands and kissing it, grease and all. “You're a man of infinite possibilities. And you're pretty good with your hands too.”

“Not to brag or anything,” he said, “but I've been told I'm the best damn charter captain on the coast. You'd never want for fish…if we, you know, stuck together.”

I took a step backward.

“Harry Sorrentino,” I said, eyes blazing. “Is that your idea of a proposal? Because if it is—”

He pulled me to him roughly, but kissed me with a tenderness that took my breath away.

When he was done, he didn't let me go.

“Just now, I literally don't have a pot to pee in. Well, I do have a thirty-five-horsepower Evinrude, and a half interest in a sixteen-foot johnboat, and a lot of expensive fishing equipment. But, you know
I'm a hard worker. I don't know anything about the restaurant business, but I'd be willing to learn. And to help out when the charter business is slow.”

“I'm selling Guale to Daniel,” I said. “But there's this old motel out here at Tybee that I've got my eye on…”

He raised an eyebrow. “What about your town house? And your old life?”

I took a deep breath. “Turns out not everything in my old life was worth keeping. I'm buying back the town house. For sentimental reasons, I guess you'd say. I think I could make a new life out here. Fixing up the Breeze. Maybe opening a new restaurant out here, buying more property on Tybee.”

“It could be a great investment,” Harry said.

“And a great place to raise children,” I added.

“Children?”

From the doorway, Jeeves gave a concerned “YIP!”

“Eventually. My grandmother seems to think I owe her some. And she points out that I'm not getting any younger, and I have to admit she's probably right.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “All right.”

“That is,” I said, “if you're not too old to have children.”

I cocked my head and gave him the once-over, still liking what I saw. “Just how old are you, Harry Sorrentino?”

He picked me up in his arms then, and carried me out of the utility room and into the office. He set me down for a moment while he went to the office door and locked it. And clicked the dead bolt.

“One more thing,” I told him. I went over to the desk and flipped a switch. Outside, I could hear the faint buzz of the
NO
being added to
VACANCY
.

“Now then,” I said. “What was that you were saying about equipment?”