Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Alissa hurried down the hallway after her husband. “But, Dane, I’d love to come in to work today. I can dictate. I’ve been so bored just sitting in the house all day.”
He turned around and kissed her forehead. He was hurrying toward the front door with his messenger bag slung over his shoulder, ready to go to work. “I know, but I want you to recover. Your arm still hurts, doesn’t it?”
Alissa bit her lip. The truth was that yes, her arm hurt, but she still wanted to go back to the office. She was feeling antsy, and impatient to get out of the house.
“Not so much that I couldn’t go to work,” she wheedled. “Please?”
Because he was her boss as well as her husband, she felt like she couldn’t just insist on going in to work. Besides, he had her best interests at heart, and she knew that. As a team, they liked to make big decisions together.
He shook his head. “In the end, it’s your call,” he said. “But I’m asking you to please stay home and rest so you’re not straining yourself. I want you to heal as fast as possible. Besides, when you’re here, you and Mom can help each other out.”
Alissa sighed. He was right, but Johanna being there was part of the reason why she wanted to leave and go to work. They’d been getting along fine—both treating each other with polite respect—but things had been terribly awkward.
“Please?” he said, nuzzling her nose. “I’m worried about you.”
She sighed and smiled at him. “So protective,” she said adoringly. “Okay. I’ll stay here. Text me updates, please. Let me feel like I’m in on the action a little bit.”
He chuckled. “Will do. You text me updates too. I want to know how both of you are doing.”
“Okay.” She repressed a sigh. She had a feeling her updates were going to be along the lines of, “Well, we both ate some tuna fish sandwiches and now your mom is in the living room while I hide out in the den.”
He glanced at his watch. “Ah, shoot, I’d better go. You need anything before I leave?”
“Just your undying adoration,” she teased.
“You’ve got it.” He kissed her quickly and started toward the door, grinning. “I’ll see you tonight. Bye, Mom!” He shouted his last words loud enough for Johanna to hear, and she called a faint farewell from the living room.
The moment he was out of the house, Alissa sighed. She bit her lip, glancing behind her at the living room. She guessed that Johanna was probably reading, as she usually did in the mornings.
She didn’t want to disturb her mother-in-law, so she went back to the kitchen, where she got herself a second cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table near the window. It was a beautiful day, and through the open window she could smell the freshly mown lawn and hear the energetic chirps of birds.
She opened her laptop and started to dictate an article. She still felt restless and wanted to get some work done. It felt good to be productive, although the article was the kind that just about wrote itself, and she was soon finished with it and left with nothing else to do.
She sighed, wiggling the shoulder of her broken arm gently. She winced from the pain, but it felt good to move her stiff shoulder a little. She reflected that Dane had probably been right to ask her to stay home—after the little bit of work she’d done, she now felt weary and in pain and wanted to take a break.
A moment or two later, she heard thumps coming from behind her and she turned to see Johanna enter the kitchen on her crutches.
“Oh!” Johanna said, looking surprised to see Alissa there. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Not at all,” Alissa said, standing up quickly. “Is there something you need? I can always get it for you.”
“Well, I was going to get myself some more coffee,” said Johanna.
“I can get that for you,” Alissa replied, hurrying over. “It’s no trouble at all. You want cream and sugar?”
“Yes, please.”
“You go ahead and sit back down in the living room. I’ll bring it out to you in a little while.”
“Well, thank you. I appreciate it.”
“Of course.”
The moment her mother-in-law left the kitchen, Alissa winced over how awkward the conversation had been. But she reminded herself that they were both trying to be kind to each other, and that meant progress in their relationship, even if things felt clunky at the moment.
She made a cup of coffee for Johanna in a pink mug, since she’d once heard Johanna say that pink was her favorite color. She mixed in cream and what she considered to be a perfect amount of sugar, although she worried that Johanna might think it was too much—or too little.
She carried the mug out to Johanna and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” her mother-in-law said regally, and took a sip. “This is excellent. Almost perfect.”
Alissa grinned, pleased by the praise. “You’re welcome.” She started to leave the room, and Johanna said, “You’re going?”
“Oh—my coffee is in the kitchen. I was going to come back and sit in here with you, if that’s all right.”
“Oh certainly.” Johanna took another demure sip.
Alissa hurried back into the kitchen, wondering if she was going to regret her decision to sit with Johanna in the living room.
Well, there’s nothing else for it now, she thought. And she seemed like she didn’t want me to leave. Huh. I guess she’s feeling kind of lonely.
She picked up her coffee mug and noticed that her stomach was growling. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost time for lunch. She made a mental note to ask Johanna if she might want to order takeout later, since neither of them was really in a position to cook.
She went back into the living room and sat down tentatively on the couch next to Johanna, who had gone back to reading her book. Once Alissa had sat down, however, Johanna closed her book and looked up.
“Would you mind if I watched a little TV?” Alissa asked. “Working this morning tired me out more than I expected. I’d like to just relax for a bit.”
“That’s fine,” said Johanna, nodding and taking a sip of her coffee.
Alissa turned on one of her favorite programs, a reality TV show involving home repair. She snuggled down against the couch cushions, holding her coffee in one hand. She was entranced by the show for a few minutes, and it wasn’t until Johanna chuckled next to her that she realized that her mother-in-law was also captivated by it.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” Alissa said, grinning. “I started watching this when Dane and I had so many home repairs to do.”
Johanna nodded. “I didn’t expect it to have a storyline,” she admitted. “Now I’m on pins and needles, wondering if they’re going to get this house fixed up in time for the party.”
Alissa laughed. “Right? And now that I’ve done a lot of these same things to our house, I feel a lot more passionate about them, you know?”
“I can imagine! Have you ever used a drill? I always thought they would scare me—it looks like they shake so much.”
“I have, a couple of times. It’s not bad. You want to make sure you’re making a level indent, but it’s not too hard to handle. Like see there, how they’re putting up shelves? Dane and I did that, right over there.” She pointed to a corner of the living room, where three wooden shelves had been placed in the wall by the fireplace.
“Looks nice.” Johanna nodded approvingly.
Alissa smiled, and they went back to watching the episode. When it was over, she asked her mother-in-law if she wanted to watch another one, and Johanna immediately said yes.
It was halfway through the afternoon before they remembered to eat lunch. They got up together and went to the kitchen.
“I’d been thinking we could order takeout,” Alissa said, “but now I’m so hungry I don’t want to wait.”
“Mm, I agree,” said Johanna, looking over Alissa’s shoulder into the refrigerator. “What about a frozen pizza? I know I saw one in the freezer.”
Alissa’s jaw just about dropped as she turned to her mother-in-law in surprise. She couldn’t believe that the particular Johanna was suggesting a frozen pizza for lunch. “Yeah. We can do that.”
They worked together to get the pizza into the oven, and as they did, Johanna exclaimed, “Oh, drat, this stupid cast! It’s such a bother.”
“Tell me about it.” Alissa laughed, and for a moment, the two women shared a smile over their mutual predicament. “It’s like I temporarily lost an entire limb.”
“Yes.” Johanna nodded emphatically. “It makes everything so much more difficult.”
Alissa nodded back and smiled to herself as she realized that they’d just had a moment where they’d found common ground on something.
By the time Dane got home for dinner that night, Alissa and Johanna had spent most of their day watching the renovation show and were so invested in it that they were in the middle of chatting about it like old friends when he walked into the room.
“Right? I love that shade they’re using, it balances—oh hey, sweetheart!” Alissa stood up when she saw her husband standing in the doorway and hurried over to him.
He shot her a curious look as she reached him, as if to ask, “What happened with you two?”
She just grinned at him, feeling happy that she and Johanna had finally bonded over something. She’d tell him all about it later. But for now, it was enough for all of them to know that she and Johanna had finally found something to talk about.
Olivia knocked eagerly on the door of her aunt Marsha’s house, smiling quietly to herself. It was a beautiful afternoon, and now that she was done with classes for the day, she planned to spend some time relaxing and then running errands. Before she went into town, she wanted to stop at her aunt’s house and ask her if she needed anything from the shops. She could have just called her, but it was a nice excuse to see her in person.
Marsha opened the door and her face lit up in a grin when she saw Olivia. “Hello there! What’s the occasion?”
“I just thought I’d drop by for a second.” Olivia beamed at her aunt. “I wanted to ask you if you needed anything from the shops. I’ve got the night off, and I’m planning on doing some reading and relaxing in Tidal Wave Coffee before running a few errands in Blueberry Bay.”
“Oh, well, let me think. I should take a look at all my beading supplies—I might be getting low on some things. Thanks for offering, it’s sweet of you.”
“Well, of course.” Olivia smiled.
“Why don’t you come on in and we can munch on some cookies while we check out my craft room?” Marsha said. “I just made some this afternoon. Lemon lavender.”
“Ooh, amazing! I remember when you made those before. They’re incredible.”
Marsha smiled and they went into the kitchen together. Olivia breathed in the comfortable, cozy smells of the house—cedar and lavender and rose.
“Oh, I’ve missed this place,” she said, smiling as she leaned against the kitchen counter. She took a bite out of the cookie. “Mmm. Wow. This is amazing.”
“I’ve missed having you here too,” Marsha said, hugging Olivia from the side. “It’s been quiet around here without you.”
“Except when Willis is here.” Olivia grinned, and her aunt blushed.
“Yes, except when Willis is here. He does come over for dinner quite a bit—or if he can’t, I’ll go eat at The Crab. He lets me eat there for free.”
“Well, I should hope so.” Olivia laughed.
Marsha watched Olivia’s face with a curious twinkle in her eyes. Olivia didn’t quite know what to make of it, but then Marsha said, “Come on, let’s go check out the bead supplies.”
They went into Marsha’s cute, cozy, and immaculately organized craft room. While Marsha began to check the stocks of her bead drawers, she asked, “Have you been to Coastal Keepsakes yet?”
Olivia’s eyebrows rose. She wondered for a moment if that question was linked to the curious expression that her aunt had had in the kitchen. “No, not yet. But I think I’ll probably stop there tonight.”
Olivia felt as though she might be blushing a little, and she was glad that her aunt wasn’t looking at her at the moment.
“Oh, wonderful!” Marsha’s tone was light and cheerful as she continued to check her stocks. “I was thinking about asking Corey if he’d be interested in offering some of my handmade goods there. Do you think he would be?”
“Oh, I’m sure he would be. Your crafts are amazing, Aunt Marsha.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.” Marsha turned away from the beads, smiling. “That’s a sweet thing to say.”
“And it’s true.” Olivia winked.
“Well, thank you. Looks like I’m all good with beads, but let me pack up a few samples for you to show to Corey tonight.”
“Sounds good. I can bring him one of your cards too, so he has a link to your website.”
The two women continued to chat amiably as Marsha gathered some of her crafts into a tote bag—which was also one of her crafts, since it was a quilted bag that she had made herself out of yellow, blue, and green squares of floral fabrics.
“This is perfect, Aunt Marsha. I’ll bring these over to him right away.”
“What about your reading and relaxing in Tidal Wave Coffee?” Marsha asked, her smile a little sly.
“Oh—well, I mean, I don’t know how late his store is open.”
The two women hugged each other goodbye at the front door, and then Olivia climbed into her car, bearing the tote bag of crafts made by her aunt. As she started to drive toward Blueberry Bay, her mind spun.
Did she like Corey? Well, she definitely liked him as a person. But was it in a special, romantic kind of way? She felt an interest in him that she couldn’t deny. And he was handsome…
I’m excited for an excuse to see him again , she thought, biting her lip and smiling as she drove. But I think it’s like Aunt Marsha said—it’s not very often that new men move to Blueberry Bay, so I’m naturally a bit curious.
She spent the rest of her drive wondering about Corey. She felt as though she’d gotten a strong impression of his personality right away—he seemed kind, level-headed, and serious, with a good heart. Still, there was no way of knowing if her impression was accurate or not without talking to him more.
She reached Blueberry Bay and drove along the cozy streets until she found Coastal Keepsakes, a darling little shop right by the water. She parked her car on the street and got out, slinging the tote bag from her aunt over her shoulder.
She smiled as she gazed up at the shop. The sign was painted in blue and white, and it hung proudly next to the door. The shutters were painted in a matching blue, and through the windows of the store she could see display tables and shelves dotted with charming merchandise.
She felt a flutter of nervousness as she stepped into the shop. Corey was standing behind the counter, and the moment she stepped inside, he looked up.
“Hey!” he said, his eyebrows lifting. He smiled when he saw her, but she got the impression that he was also nervous. He seemed a little flustered. “Welcome to my store.”
“It looks great,” she told him sincerely, smiling warmly. “But I think you need some more items in it.”
“You do?” he said, looking around quickly as if her remark had made him uncertain. “I guess there are some bare patches, but—”
She shook her head, laughing. “I’m just teasing. The truth is that I’m here because my aunt, Marsha Dunlap, is wondering if you’d be interested in selling some of her crafts here. And, well—I mean, that’s not the only reason why I’m here.” She smiled, feeling as if she might be flushing a little, and he smiled back.
“I’d absolutely be interested in selling some of her work,” he said warmly. “I’ve seen it before, and it’s excellent.”
“Here are some samples, in case you wanted to refresh your memory.” Olivia approached the counter and started to unpack the bag that her aunt had sent along with her.
“Oh yeah, these are great,” he said, lifting up a beaded bracelet and holding it to the light. “Very professionally done.”
“And beautiful,” Olivia chimed in.
He laughed. “And beautiful.”
For a moment, they stood there smiling at each other, and then Olivia heard a shout.
“Miss Olivia!”
She turned and saw Haley racing across the room toward her. In the next instant, she was being crushed in a hug, which she happily returned.
“Hey, Haley! How are you?”
“I’m so excited you’re here! Come outside and see the apple bobbing station that Max and I made.”
“You did what?” Olivia cried, excited.
“We made an apple bobbing station,” Haley repeated, taking Olivia’s words literally. “Just like the one we had at Little Clams on our first day there.” She took Olivia’s hand and started tugging her toward the door.
“Hey, honey, Miss Olivia is here to talk about some items her aunt made,” Corey said gently. “She might not have time to go looking at the apple bobbing station.”
“Oh, I do have time,” Olivia assured them both warmly. “I’d love to take a look at it.”
Haley led her outside triumphantly, and she and Max proudly showed off their apple bobbing station. Olivia smiled at it, especially the apples that had teeth marks in them from some failed attempts at catching.
After praising the kids’ hard work, Olivia went back into the gift shop, smiling broadly.
“You’re wonderful with kids,” Corey told her. “Honestly. The amount of energy you have for them—you always look like you’re giving a hundred and ten percent but don’t run out of energy.”
“Thank you,” she said, warmed by the compliment. She looked closely at his face and the way his shoulders were drooping, and she could tell that he was exhausted. Her curiosity about him increased as she wondered how he’d managed everything that he’d just done—moved to a new town and opened an impressive new store, all with two rambunctious twins in tow?
“What do you think of the merchandise?” she asked, smiling. “Would you like to sell any of it here?”
He nodded. “I would. I’d like to buy all of it, actually.”
“Fantastic! Aunt Marsha will be thrilled.” She grinned.
After they’d discussed wholesale prices—since Corey said he was eager to continue buying from Marsha—and Olivia had pocketed his check, she found that she was reluctant to leave. Hoping to strike up a longer conversation with him, she leaned against the counter and asked how he was settling into Blueberry Bay.
“It’s been hectic, to be honest,” he said. “There’s been so much to be done that the kids and I haven’t done much around town.”
“Well, if you ever need anyone to show you around town, just let me know.” She smiled at him and found that her heart was beating faster. Was she asking him out? She knew she wasn’t technically, but all of a sudden there seemed to be a new kind of energy hovering between the two of them.
“I… I never really have much kid-free time,” he said apologetically, as if he was searching for the right words.
“You can bring them along!” Olivia blurted.
His eyebrows rose. She realized all at once that she’d sounded extremely eager and she felt a bit sheepish. She didn’t know why she had blurted the suggestion like that, but it was clear that she’d shocked Corey with it. The truth was that she adored his kids and would be happy to go around town with them anytime.
Did that make me look too eager? she wondered. He seems so surprised .
Corey didn’t seem to know what to say. He cleared his throat and moved back and forth on his feet. Feeling uncomfortable, Olivia changed the subject.
“There are some other people in town who make handmade items,” she said. “Most of them do it as more of a hobby, but I’m sure you could get more handmade merchandise for your store if you wanted.”
“Thank you, Olivia.” He smiled, although he still looked a little uncomfortable, as if his mind was whirring. “You’ve been very helpful.”
Was that a hint that he needed to get back to work and she should leave? Feeling unsure, she decided to excuse herself.
“Well, I’d better be going. Thanks again for buying my aunt Marsha’s crafts. Oh! Here’s her card, in case you want to buy more of her items from her website.” She reached into her pocket for the card and laid it on the counter.
“Oh, yeah, yeah. I could do that.” He looked down at the card, seeming slightly disappointed all of a sudden.
“Or I could bring some in again. I’m in this area all the time.”
Corey’s expression brightened. “Sure, if you want.”
For a moment, they smiled at each other, and then Olivia remembered that she’d just said she needed to leave.
“Well—I’ll see you around.”
He nodded. “See you around.”
She waved as she left the shop, her emotions buzzing. She didn’t know what to make of him—what had he been thinking during that conversation? Did he like her too? He’d seemed glad when she offered to come back.
She glanced back at the shop, repressing a grin. She could hear the sound of Haley and Max shouting and laughing in the small yard behind the store and her heart warmed. They were such amazing kids. She felt a sudden yearning to explore Blueberry Bay with Corey—especially if the twins were there as well.
She got back into her car with a sigh. He hadn’t accepted her offer, but he hadn’t actually turned her down either. She could hope that at some point, he’d ask her to show him around town. She smiled to herself, feeling sure that she’d be very ready to do so if he ever did.