Whisper Beach (32 page)

“And get a load of Dana,” Suze asked. “Who knew she had drill-sergeant skills?”

“Just one surprise after another.”

“Huh,” Suze agreed. “Now what? You've got this look on your face.”

“I do? It must be my oh-yeah-this-is-going-to-work face.”

“You had doubts?” Suze eyes opened in mock astonishment.

“No.”

Cubby saw Van and hurried over. “Dorie said you were going to change the tables around anyway, so I figured we might as well give the place a major cleaning.”

“The mark of a good manager,” Van said.

“We put all the condiments and stuff over on the counter. Dorie said you wanted them out of sight.”

“Yes, and I found several ideas on the Internet last night. Take a look at these.” She pushed the stack of menus over and put her bags on the only uncluttered square foot of counter space on the hostess station. Pulled out her iPad. “We can do this several ways.” She showed him several screen shots. “But until Dorie gives the go-ahead for ordering, I say—”

“While you're doing that, what do you want me to do?” Suze asked.

“For starters, I wish you'd go out and burn those menus. Or
at least round them up and come up with an idea for menus that doesn't involve specials in little plastic compartments. Then see if we can get them printed by the weekend. If not, make sure they get cleaned up, no more stickiness, and we'll do the redesigning during happy hour.”

Van gathered up the pile of plastic menus and thrust them at Suze. “Then I'll come up with a few good men with some boxes and have them get the rest of this stuff out of here.”

“That would be us,” said a familiar voice behind her.

Joe and Jerry stood shoulder to shoulder, loaded up with broken-down boxes, tape, buckets, and a few other things that weren't recognizable.

“What are you two doing here?” Van asked.

Suze just stood there with her mouth open.

“Earning brownie points,” Jerry said, looking at Suze. “I hope. Where do you want these?”

Suze closed her mouth and said, “I'll show you.” He shrugged and followed Suze over to the counter.

“And what about you?” Van asked Joe.

“My mother made me come.”

Van laughed. “No, really.”

“Really. She said it was about time I stopped sitting around waiting for something to happen and come see if you needed help. You don't want to know what Granddad said.”

“I'm sure I don't.”

“So what are the chances of me earning some brownie points, too?”

“Pretty good,” Van said. “Pretty good.”

It was a long day, but they didn't stop until the dining room had a new configuration, the kitchen had been cleaned until it
sparkled, well, almost, and the workstations were organized so that people weren't constantly running into one another as they moved from one job to the next.

Van had set up a new traffic pattern and spent half an hour practicing with the waitstaff and busers.

“A couple more days of practice and they should be ready for the restaurant to open on Friday evening,” she told Dorie.

“And hopefully, they'll be able to keep the part-timers on track. Lord, I'm tired. I don't suppose you girls will be around tonight to order takeout?” She shot a look over to where Suze was talking to Joe and Jerry.

“Oh, I think we might convince two guys to join us.”

O
WEN WAS SCRUBBING AN OLD FISHING BOAT WHEN
J
OE
walked bleary-eyed to the door the next morning.

He'd stayed up late talking to Van, and if he hadn't been living at the marina, he would have taken her home. Or would have tried anyway. Except he didn't exactly have a home to take her to even if she wanted to go. He couldn't very well take her to the farm, not for the reasons he wanted.

And he'd given his own house away. For a crazy moment he thought of her old house but immediately nixed that idea. Was he crazy? Maybe a little bit.

“Hey, Joe, you gonna stand there all day?” Owen was already drenched and wearing a few suds.

He seemed so happy, Joe hated to break it to him that his job was coming to an end.

“Turn off that hose and come over here for a sec.”

Owen's face fell. And he slowly went over to turn off the water, even more slowly walked toward Joe.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No. You've done great.” Joe felt for the kid, wondering how often he got into trouble.

“Just wanted to know if you've had breakfast.”

Owen broke into a smile. “Yeah, we had scrambled eggs and toast and orange juice.”

And Joe bet Owen paid for it with the twenty bucks a day Joe had been giving him.

“Listen. I'm moving back to the farm today.”

Owen just looked at him.

“I've just been staying here helping out the owner. He's been sick.”

Owen still just stood there.

“He's been in the hospital.”

“Then who's gonna take care of the marina?”

“Well, most of the boats will go into dry dock when the weather changes.”

“What about the others?”

Disbelief had turned to a kind of belligerence, or maybe just panic. Joe began to feel a little guilty about setting Owen up with cash, then snatching it away. He should have explained up front that it was a temporary job. He would have done that with any worker he hired at the vineyard. But he hadn't really expected Owen to keep coming back. And now he realized he'd inadvertently set the kid up for a fall.

“How old are you, Owen?”

“Twelve . . . almost.”

“You'll be going to school next week.”

“I'd rather go to work.”

Joe smiled. “Yeah, twenty bucks feels like a lot of money right
now. But if you stay in school, you'll make a lot more than that when you graduate.”

“Don't like school so much.”

“I know. I didn't like it so much either. But I went and finished and went to college.”

“And now you own a farm?”

Yeah, he did.

“You got cows and chickens and things?”

“Used to. Now I grow grapes.”

“Huh. That's a weird thing to grow.”

“It used to be a dairy farm.”

“You had cows that made milk and stuff?”

Joe nodded.

“Bet you could have milk anytime you wanted.”

“Pretty much.”

“Then why did you stop having cows?”

“Long story.”

“Now you make grape juice?”

“Sort of.”

“You need help on that farm?”

“It's kind of far from here.”

“I got a bike.”

This was a lot harder than Joe thought it would be. How did you tell a kid no without disappointing him? It wasn't something that he'd ever thought about. No, that wasn't entirely true. He'd seen Brett say no to his kids. It looked easy. But this wasn't easy.

“It's a little too far to ride a bike to.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“But I was thinking that maybe Grandy could use you a couple of days a week after school. If you're into that. I'd have to ask him.”
Grandy probably could use the help and if he couldn't pay the kid much, well, Joe could subsidize the salary for a little longer.

“Is Grandy nice?”

“Yep.”

“Then I guess it would be all right, but—”

“But what?”

“I don't want you to go.”

Joe had meant to go over to the Crab and help out again today. Mainly because he wanted to see more of Van, but he also felt a responsibility to Owen. He should have explained right up front that it would only be for a few days.

If he was surprised to see Owen the first day, Joe had been doubly surprised when the boy had come two days in a row. But it was more than that. He actually enjoyed the kid's company.

He'd always thought he'd have a bunch of kids, several sons, like his dad and granddad did. To work side by side to build something together. But maybe his mother was right. There were a lot of kids who needed homes.

Would he feel more deeply about a kid who was his blood than he would about a chosen kid? God, he didn't know. And was it really that important? Why was he thirty-three and unmarried if he wanted kids so much? Why hadn't he just settled on a good woman who would be a good mother?

Joe was beginning to think he knew. Had known all along. His granddad had told him in no uncertain terms when Van had left all those years ago. “You're lucky if you find the right woman to spend this life with. Don't expect to find another one.”

Granddad had been pretty mad that Joe had screwed up with Van. His whole family loved her.

“Joe, you mad?”

“What? No? Just thinking.”

“About your vineyard?”

“No, about my girlfriend.”

“Did that other one mess up things for you?”

“No. She tried.” But only halfheartedly, Joe realized. “But it didn't work.”

“Are you going to marry her?”

“Well, that's what I was thinking about.” He could slip back into the life he'd been living until a week ago. He was happy with it. It was a good life. Or he could take the chance of getting to know Van better.

And still he couldn't make the leap. He was afraid he might not bounce back if things fell apart again.

He needed to see her, talk to her, just to make sure it was real. But here was Owen, long-faced, disappointed, and maybe just a little scared. He'd said he lived with his mother and sisters. No talk of a father. And Joe knew he couldn't just walk away. Not at this moment.

“So, Owen, do you know how to swim?”

V
AN SAT STARING
at her phone as her coffee grew cold. She wanted to see how Gigi was, but she didn't want to take the chance of Amelia answering. Amelia would blame Van for Gigi's sudden breakdown.

And for once Van wasn't willing to take responsibility. It had not been her fault. All this time Gigi had let Van think that Dana had seduced Joe away. When it had been Gigi doing the seducing.

And after all this time, Van might have been able to dismiss
her betrayal and get on with things if Gigi hadn't sabotaged Suze and Dana. It made Van angry all over again.

Gigi had manipulated them all to keep her secret nonliaison with Joe secret—and for what?

Still, she was Van's cousin. And Van did share in her unhappiness; even after all the nonsense, she still cared about her cousin.

She picked up her phone, and hoping Amelia wasn't home, she made the call.

Nate answered. “I'm glad you called. I wanted to tell you that we took Gigi to the clinic last night. She's seeing a doctor. She knows she caused a lot of trouble and she's sorry, but she doesn't want to see you, Van. Not yet.”

Van was ashamed of how relieved she felt. She wouldn't know what to say. Gigi would apologize and start crying—Van knew the drill.

“I understand. It's better if she just concentrates on getting better, and I think that will be easier without me in the equation.”

“But I want to apologize to you. I had no idea.”

“Nate, don't apologize. It isn't your fault.” It wasn't anyone's fault, or maybe it was all their faults that Gigi had come to this. But it was time for Gigi to take responsibility for her life. And she could only do that herself.

“Are you planning to stay for a while?”

“I leave on Saturday, so I might not see you before I go.” Van took a breath, made a decision. “But I'll stay in touch.”

“Good. Good. I'd like that.”

Van hung up, waiting to feel relief or a sense of loss. Relief won out.

Van thought she had taken responsibility for her choices in life a long time ago. And to a certain extent she had. But coming back had unraveled the mesh that held that belief together.

She'd been wrong or only partially right about more than she cared to admit. Over the years she had built a rational system that worked. And it might have stayed in place if she'd just stayed away.

But she hadn't. And she couldn't even credit Clay Daly's funeral or her drive down the Garden State Parkway. She'd known for quite a while that she'd reached as far as she could go without cutting the invisible bands that held her.

Only she'd been wrong about that, too. Those bands once cut didn't set her free at all. Not in the sense of floating away to a happy future.

They had allowed her to float back down to earth and be comfortable there. To accept her place there.

All but one. One tie still threatened to drag her down, hold her back. And she was going to face that final Gordian knot this morning. At least she would try.

J
OE MANEUVERED THE
marina hire cruiser,
Shore Baby,
out of the river and onto open water. He hadn't had a hire in a week, and the
Baby
would be going into dry dock since Grandy wouldn't be able to take it out by himself for a while.

So Joe was taking a final spin. And he was taking Owen for an inaugural boat ride. The kid lived on the river, within walking distance of the shore, and he'd never been in a boat.

He said he could swim, but Joe wasn't taking any chances. He handed him an orange life vest.

Owen looked skeptical, but Joe tightened it around him.

“How come you don't have to wear one?”

Instead of explaining marine laws, Joe put on one, too, which earned him a big grin. And made him feel a little sad.

“Ready?” he asked.

Owen nodded, grinned back at him, but the grin turned to surprise when Joe fired up the motor and eased the boat away from the moorings. And when Joe pushed the shift lever forward and the boat reared up as it took off, Owen clutched the straps of Joe's preserver and held on for dear life.

Joe smiled, put his arm around the boy and pulled him in front of him while he steered.

“Look straight ahead; there's the ocean.” Joe leaned over and pointed to the opening between the two retaining seawalls.

Owen leaned back against him. “Are we going out there?”

“Want to?”

Owen looked back at him, frowning. Then nodded.

“Okay, here we go.” Joe opened the throttle, and they shot past the Blue Crab, past Whisper Beach, and into the open sea.

When they were clear of the shore, Joe swung the boat toward the south. The water was pretty calm, so he had time to think about what was going on in his life.

He looked down at Owen, whose long hair was snapping around in the wind as he tried to see everything on the shore and out to sea.

Joe slowed down. “You want to steer?”

A big nod. Owen smiled up at him. And Joe was hit by such a strong longing that it staggered him. His mother asked him how important having kids was. It meant a lot. If Joe had any questions before, Owen's smile had clinched it.

He wanted kids. There it was. He wanted a large family. Like the one he grew up in. He wanted his own kids, but could he be content with someone else's?