Sherryl Woods - Sand Castle Bay

Gabi grinned. “It isn’t nice to gloat,” she chided.

“Well, it makes me smile. It’s what Dad deserves for not hiring you himself. I know that’s what you really wanted.”

Gabi sighed. “It would have been a disaster. I can see that now. He was right to say no.”

“I’ll give you that,” Emily said. “I’m glad you can finally see it, too. You’d have been miserable having a boss who withholds praise or is too distracted to even notice you’re alive until you make a mistake.”

Gabi frowned. For a minute Emily thought she might jump in and try to defend their father, but instead she let it go. That alone hinted at her disillusioned acceptance of their father’s flaws.

“How’d you and Samantha get along on the ride over?” Gabi asked, deliberately changing the subject.

“Fine,” Emily insisted, a defensive note immediately creeping into her voice. “Why?”

“Because she always seems to get on your last nerve without even trying.”

“Not this time,” Emily swore, “though she does seem to have some crazy idea about me and Boone.”

Gabi laughed. “Sweetie, we all have crazy ideas about you and Boone, even you if you’re being honest with yourself. Tell me you did not just about swoon when you laid eyes on him for the first time today?”

Though she’d have denied it had Samantha asked, with Gabi she admitted the truth. “Maybe just a little swoon,” she said. “I told him there couldn’t be any craziness between us, though.”

“Did you now?” Gabi said, clearly amused. “And why did you find it necessary to say such a thing?”

“Because there was a moment out there on the deck, just a moment, when there seemed to be something sizzling between us the way it used to.”

“And you’re totally opposed to any sizzle?”

“Totally,” she declared very firmly, as much for her own sake as to prove anything to her sister.

Gabi looked disbelieving just as Samantha had earlier. “Oh, honey, you are in a heap of trouble if you believe that.”

“I can’t want anything to happen between me and Boone,” Emily insisted.

“Saying it won’t make it so. Feelings as strong as what you two once shared don’t vanish just because time has passed or because they’re inconvenient.”

“But we moved on,” Emily protested. “Both of us.”

“And now you have another chance. Seems to me what would be really crazy is not taking advantage of that.”

Emily started to utter another more vehement protest, but Gabi cut her off.

“I’m just saying it’s something you should consider before you get all stubborn and dig in your heels. Boone’s an incredible man.”

Not even Emily was fool enough to try to deny that. “But he’s an incredible man who lives in North Carolina.”

“Gee, last time I checked we had phone lines, airports and even Wi-Fi,” Gabi said. “And from everything I hear, you have an established reputation in your field that might even follow you all the way to this mid-Atlantic wilderness outpost.”

Emily laughed. “Okay, point taken.”

But that didn’t mean she was going to open her heart...or risk breaking Boone’s for a second time.

* * *

Boone left the Castle women working inside the restaurant, while he got started cleaning up the parking lot. After his exchange with Emily earlier, he needed to work off some steam without her in his face. The physical labor of picking up boards and cutting up tree limbs, loading them into the bed of his truck, was exactly what he needed. And when Jerry’s teenage neighbor showed up, he put Andrew to work at the task, too.

They’d been at it for a couple of hours and had made two trips to the dump when Cora Jane came into the parking lot with bottled water and a thick tuna salad sandwich on toasted rye, just the way he liked it.

“The others are taking a break out on the deck,” she told him. “I’ve coaxed Andrew up there, too, but something told me you might not be interested in joining us.”

“No, this is good,” he said, grateful for her perceptiveness.

“You and Emily settle anything this morning?”

“We talked,” he said, taking a long sip of the cold water.

“And?”

“Cora Jane, it might be best if you stayed out of the middle of this,” he suggested gently.

“Your opinion,” she retorted. “It’s not in my genes to sit on the sidelines and watch two people I love being miserable.”

He laughed at that. “Emily doesn’t look all that miserable to me. She’s a confident, successful businesswoman.”

“With no personal life to speak of,” Cora Jane assured him. “I could say exactly the same about you.”

“Have we not had this conversation more times than I can count?” he asked with good-natured exasperation. “I have exactly the amount of social life I’m interested in having.”

“Your focus is on B.J., yada-yada-yada,” she confirmed sarcastically.

“Well, it’s true. B.J. is my top priority. And I don’t think getting involved with your granddaughter, only to have her take off again, is in my son’s best interests, or mine, for that matter. I can only imagine what Jenny’s parents would have to say. They’d find a way to drag me into court and sue for custody of B.J. faster than you can say disaster. I won’t put any of us through that, especially not my son.”

She gave him a disgusted look. “Stubborn fool.”

“I’ve been called worse,” he said, not the least bit offended.

“Well, we’re not done yet,” she told him before heading back inside.

Boone watched her go and heaved a sigh. Heaven help him! Once Cora Jane got an idea in her head, there was no reasoning with her. He wondered if there was any way on God’s green earth to get her to focus her attention on somebody else’s love life. Sadly, he doubted it.

* * *

“Grandmother, I swear if you don’t sit down in one of these booths and put your feet up, I’m going to have Boone carry you out to his truck and take you home,” Emily declared, standing before Cora Jane who looked as if she was about to collapse.

Her grandmother’s eyes flashed. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me,” Emily said, staring her down.

“I think she might, Grandmother,” Gabi said more gently. “If you really want to get this place open tomorrow, you can’t wear yourself out today.”

Cora Jane looked around the restaurant in frustration. “I think we’re fighting a losing battle, girls. There’s no way I can open tomorrow, no matter how badly I might want to. I suppose I might as well admit that and sit down, at least for a minute.”

“Thank you,” Emily said. “If you sit for ten minutes, so can the rest of us. Anybody besides me want something to drink?”

“Sweet tea,” Cora Jane said at once.

“I’ll have the same,” Gabi said. Emily echoed her response.

“I’ll get it,” Samantha offered.

She came back from the kitchen with four tall glasses of sweet tea, along with a pitcher filled to the brim, as well.

She sighed as she slid into the booth next to Gabi.

“I’m not afraid to admit it,” Samantha said with a groan. “I’m beat.”

“And I’ve discovered muscles I had no idea I had,” Gabi said. “I’m sore everywhere.”

“We’ve been at this since late morning,” Emily reminded them. “And it’s now going on seven. I vote we call it a day.” She said that last part as if it were actually a democracy, though they all knew Cora Jane had the last word.

As expected, her grandmother started to protest, but Gabi cut her off. “You wouldn’t even let me stop at the house this morning. We have no idea what we’ll find there. We need to go home while it’s still daylight. My vote’s with Emily.”