On Sunset Beach

Chapter 14

HAD it been physically possible, Ford would have kicked himself in the ass all the way back to Grace’s office at the inn. Showing up at an interview with nothing to write on—or with—was about as dumb as showing up at a kayak race without a paddle. What the hell had he been thinking?

Apparently, he hadn’t been thinking at all.

There was more to this reporting thing than he’d thought there’d be. He’d gone to the carriage house expecting—well, he wasn’t sure what or who he’d been expecting, only that it would be a bit of a dry exercise, not very interesting but necessary, and no more difficult than remembering a few details, a quote or two, and finishing up with a little yada yada yada. All of which had proved to be wishful thinking on his part.

Ford searched his pockets for the blurb Carly had written for him to use. He unfolded the paper and read it over several times. Her handwriting was much like the woman herself, he decided, clear and straightforward, as easy to read as she was to talk to, as easy as she was to look at. He looked at his own scrawled notes. What, he wondered, did his half print, half script say about him?

Probably that he was easily distracted by a pretty face and a gentle laugh.

Carly was definitely a distraction. The pretty face aside, she made him not only smile, but laugh out loud. And she was passionate about her work. Ford had a weakness for women who were passionate about what they did.

Anna, again, he thought.

But why look for trouble? Carly didn’t strike him as the short-term type. The last thing he wanted was a reason to stick around St. Dennis, which seemed to hold few prospects beyond the Gazette and the inn, neither of which he saw in his future. Besides, as much as he admired passion in others, he was a man who was passionate about what he did in his own life, wasn’t he, and he just didn’t see any reason for passion when it came to running an old inn or writing for a small-town newspaper.

He opened the laptop he’d picked up at the Gazette office on his way back from the carriage house, and typed up his notes. Where to begin, he wondered once he had all his thoughts—and Carly’s notes—on one page. He read and reread until a suitable starting point occurred to him, and he began to write. He incorporated everything they’d talked about that morning, but once he’d started to proofread the article, he found his mind beginning to wander again, this time to the photos on the wall at Blossoms.

There were scenes from his childhood that he remembered, like the way the park had looked before the baseball diamond had been built the year he turned nine, and the old wooden boardwalk that ran from the parking lot at the end of Kelly’s Point Road all the way to Captain Walt’s. The original boardwalk had been installed by Walt himself, when his wife, Rexana, had complained that, in rain or snow, she couldn’t walk to their own restaurant without ruining her shoes. There’d been no marina then, only a very long dock that stretched out into the Bay. One Scoop or Two was still an old crabber’s shack back then, and had belonged to Steffie Wyler’s uncle Fritz, who had been, in fact, an old crabber.

There was a picture of the old lighthouse that had once stood a stone’s throw from Ellie’s house. It had been taken down by a storm sometime in the 1940s, so Ford had never really seen it. For a long time, he’d thought it was just local legend, though as a kid he had played on the stone base that remained on the beach not far from the end of Bay View Road.

And there’d been that photo of his parents on their wedding day. The unexpected sight of the two of them looking so young and happy, captured on that day when their life together was just beginning and held so much promise, had caught him off guard and brought a lump to his throat. The simple truth was that Ford missed his father every day he’d been gone. He’d known that his father was sick, but as a fourteen-year-old boy, Ford hadn’t had a true appreciation for what that really meant. Thinking back to all the opportunities he’d had to spend time with his dad when he was sick—opportunities he’d missed—made him wish that life came with a reset button. He’d do over the entire year he was fourteen, and maybe a few after that as well.

He couldn’t remember a time when his parents had been angry with each other. Oh, little disagreements, sure. That was part of life. But real arguments … not really. They had been happy together—his mother had reminded them so many times that Ford knew it was the truth. It was so wrong on so many levels that his father had died. He should still be here with Grace, the two of them living each day together. He should have been there for Ford, who’d been so lost without him. For Lucy, who’d seemed so full of conflict. For Dan, who’d had to grow up too fast, who’d had to take over the inn before he’d even graduated from college. He should have been there for Grace, who’d never stopped loving the man who’d won her heart when she was just a girl.

But that was life, right? Bad things happen and there was nothing you could do about it. There were no happy endings. Everyone dies in the end. No one gets out alive, and all that.

The ringing of his phone brought Ford back from his dark musings.

“Ford, it’s Carly. I’m back at the Enright property and I have the key, if you have time to come back over for pictures of the house.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He hung up, saved his work on the laptop, and grabbed the camera. He was halfway out the door when he stopped, returned to the desk, and picked up the notebook. He tucked it into his back pocket, along with a pen he found in the top desk drawer, turned off the light, and closed the door behind him.

“There’s the grand stairwell. You might want to take a few pictures of it.” Carly pointed straight ahead from inside the front door of what had been the Enright family home for more than a hundred years.

“Why don’t you stand there on the bottom step.” Ford held the camera in his right hand.

“I look like a bag lady.” She glared at him. “I’ve just spent the last two hours lugging stuff around in a house that has no air-conditioning.” She pulled at the front of her T-shirt. “Dirty and sweaty. Not quite the image I want to project to St. Dennis.”

“I thought you were just having furniture delivered.”

“I did. But after they got the bedroom furniture in, I decided I didn’t like where they put it, so I had to move everything.” She stood with her hands on her hips, looking more tired than bedraggled.

“You could have called, you know. I would have helped you.” Ford lined up a shot and took it.

“I’ll remember that if I decide to rearrange things again.”

“The house has no air-conditioning?”

“It does, but apparently something happened to the main switch, or whatever it is that makes cool air. I called Cam and he’s looking at it right now.”

“Might be the compressor.” Ford took one more shot of the stairwell, then several of the wall at the landing.

“That’s good.” Carly pointed to the shadows on the wall where paintings, now gone, had once hanged. “You see the marks on the wall where Mr. Enright’s paintings were removed, and the local artists can all imagine their work hanging in the space.”

“Good caption,” Ford agreed. “ ‘Picture your work here.’ ”

“I like it.” She nodded. “I don’t know if the second floor is being made available or not, but let’s look at this big front room. I think Mr. Enright used it as a living room or sitting room.”

She moved across the hall and turned on the overhead light.

“Lots of wall space in here.” She folded her arms across her chest and wandered around the room. “Very nice. Yes, I think we can easily sell this as the place you’d most want to see your work displayed.”

“ ‘Here’s your chance to see your work hanging in a historic mansion.’ ”

“You’re good at this.” Carly smiled.

“I’m a quick study.” He returned the smile. “Maybe I’ll toss in a little local history, you know, about the house and the original owners, and how the Enrights came to own it.”

“How did they come to own it?”

“Bought it from the widow of a Confederate officer who died at Gettysburg. I think I remember hearing something about this place being a stop on the Underground Railroad.”

“That would make sense, with the river running right along the back of the property.”

“And I could add something about how the idea for the gallery grew out of Curtis’s desire to have an art center in town.”

“You really are a quick study.”

“Well, that, and my mom did mention that that’s what started the ball rolling.”

“You can say that I’m looking forward to seeing works of our local living artists hanging here in this grand hallway. We need to play up that angle. I think people will relate more to the house than to the carriage house, because so many of them knew the family that lived here. And I think we should put my email address in the article, tell people if they’d like to have their works considered for exhibit to contact me and we’ll make arrangements for me to look at their paintings.”

“You’ll get all kinds of crazies wanting to show you their etchings, you know.” A half smile played on his lips, and it was all she could do to look away from that sexy mouth.

“What’s that old saying about kissing a lot of frogs before you find a prince?” She laughed. “I don’t mind looking at amateur works because there’s always the possibility that I’ll discover something wonderful.”

“And if all you find are a bunch of frogs?”

“That’s okay, too. I’m expecting most of it to be bad. But even bad artists like to show off their stuff, and you can almost always find something positive to say.” She held up her hand and began to count off. “You can say, ‘Oh, I love the way you use color.’ Or, ‘That’s an interesting perspective.’ Or, ‘How original. I wouldn’t have thought to have painted the sky brown.’ ”

“Are you always this positive?”

“Sure.”

“Why?” he asked bluntly.

“Why not? Life is too short. Why surround yourself with negative energy when you can be positive?”

“When life gives you lemons, and all that.”

“Exactly. I mean, what’s the alternative? Suck on the lemons?”

Ford frowned. “You sound like my mother.”

“Your mother is a very wise and sensitive woman, a positive force in her own right. I’m surprised that you’re not more like her.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been my experience that if shit is going to happen, it’s going to happen, good vibes or not.”

“You’re very cynical, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“Just logical. You can’t control whether good things or bad things happen just because you think good thoughts.” He paused. “I remember there was some kids’ book where one of the characters told the others to think good thoughts …”

“Peter Pan.” Carly nodded. “When he was teaching the Darling children to fly.”

“Right. And we all know what happened to them, don’t we? Caught by pirates and tied up. Made to walk the plank.”

Carly laughed, turned off the lights, and gestured toward the front door. “I think you have all the pictures you need.”

“I do.” He followed her outside and waited while she locked the door. “Oh, before I forget …” He removed a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “Here’s the name and phone number of the security guy I was telling you about. He’s expecting your call.”

“Thanks. I’ll definitely get in touch with him. I really haven’t liked any of the proposals I’ve seen so far.”

“Let me know before you call him, and I’ll give him a heads-up.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“How ’bout I drop off a copy of the article before it goes to the printer? You know, in case you want to add something, or change something.”

“That would be great. Either way, just give me a call. By the way, how’s Grace doing? Is she home yet?”

“She’s doing great. They’re springing her tomorrow.”

“Please tell her I’ve been thinking about her and I’ll stop over one day after she gets settled.”

“I’ll do that.” He slid his phone back into his pocket. “So where’s home this week?”

“The house I’m renting is on Hudson Street. Right around the corner from Cherry. It’s a really cute place, but it’s going to take me a few days to settle in.”

“Hey, if you need help with anything, just let me know.”

“I might take you up on that. Thanks.” Carly opened the driver’s-side door of her car.

“So I’ll give you a call when the article is finished.” Ford closed the door for her after she’d slid in behind the wheel.

“Great. I’ll talk to you then.”

Carly started the engine, waited for Ford to back out of the driveway. He hit his horn one time as he drove away, and she waved in return. She drove straight across Old St. Mary’s Church onto Hudson, where she made a left turn. A few blocks down, she pulled into her driveway and sat in the car for a moment, studying the little house that so quickly and unexpectedly had become her home. Smiling, she went inside and dropped her bag on the dining room table on her way to the kitchen. She opened and closed the cabinet doors, then the drawers. It was all so woefully empty, especially for someone who loved to cook. Her kitchen at home was well stocked with just about everything she could ever need, and there was no point in replacing everything here, but there were staples that she just had to have. Driving back to Connecticut to pick up some household things was out of the question. She didn’t have a few days to waste. She made a list of her absolute necessities, then weighed the pros and cons of running out to find a store nearby that carried everything she wanted, or ordering online.

Online, with overnight delivery, won out. She could pick up some takeout for dinner and have a simple breakfast in the morning, and by this time tomorrow night, all of her purchases would have arrived. Satisfied with her decision, she opened her laptop and began to order her must-haves. When she finished, she drove into town and picked up dinner from the Thai restaurant on Charles Street, then went back to her house to eat and finish unpacking her clothes. A summer storm was brewing and the temperature was beginning to drop, so she opened all the windows to let out the warm air of the day and turned on the ceiling fans in the bedroom and the living room.

By ten P.M., she was exhausted, but the only thing left on her to-do list was to grab a quick shower before she fell into her new bed in her new bedroom. She stretched her legs and sighed, listening to the drum of raindrops on the roof, so pleased to have accomplished so much in so short a time. She was well on her way to falling asleep when it occurred to her that Ford could have offered to email his article to her instead of bringing it over himself. Smiling into her pillow at the thought of seeing him again so soon, she turned over and went to sleep.